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class1akids · 8 months

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Do you think the Todoroki Family or more specifically the Shouto/Dabi plot is done. I mean Dabi was still wishing for everyone to die, so he still has not acknowledge the change in the family or why they changed being Shouto. I still feel extremely underwhelmed by the ending that we had with the Todoroki family simply because of Dabi’s words prior to passing out. I mean I also feel underwhelmed because of the lack of love or remorse shown to Shouto. But I felt like asking since I just don’t know how I feel yet with the Todoroki family plot.

For the Todoroki family, I think it's mostly done. The ending - as difficult to process - is them finally talking as a family, Touya airing his negative feelings and the rest of the family listening to him. While until then, the only person who listened to him was Shouto (the person he didn't want).

But also asking this question and just never giving a follow-up would be pretty bad form:

There are two specific story-beats that are missing in my opinion, and which I hope we will get back to before the epilogue:

Endeavor taking responsibility as father and telling Shouto that it's not his burden to bear anymore:

I feel like it's difficult to deny that Shouto carried the family burden all the way through the PLF war and the final arc, while Endeavor once again got to play hero. So far, everything Endeavor did in the final arc was "as a hero", while Shouto was left with picking up the pieces. To me, neither Shouto's, nor Endeavor's arc will feel complete until Endeavor chooses to assume the role of the parent and free Shouto of having to be the pillar of the family, so he can fulfil his "become who you want to be" role.

2. As for Shouto and Touya, it is really strange that after everything Shouto has done (and seeing how Toga acknowledged Uraraka), Touya just fully ignored Shouto.

Now I don't really expect Touya to be all sweet like Toga was, but I do expect him to give some kind of catharsis / closure to Shouto - something that tells him that all he's done wasn't pointless.

Now how this plays out, I don't know - maybe it will be just a throwaway line in the epilogue. But personally, I hope that it will come back to Phosphor - because for them, everything is about quirk and ultimate moves. When Touya copied Phosphor, I said that it would make sense to me if after all the running around it would lead to Shouto getting a power-up out of it - the family's power culminating in some way inside him.

I also feel like that unlike Toga who did some kind of act of atonement on live TV, Touya so far didn't get to do anything like that. Nor did we have a Todoroki family combo move in the entire story. Endeavor had combo with Bakugou(!), but never with Shouto. So that's really weird to me, and another option I could see going forward.

There are other little bits and pieces - mainly how Shouto NEVER got a hug from anyone in his family (in a non-murderous way) or even just a word of thanks. Also, how Gunga finished on such a chopped up, depressing way for Hawks, Toga, the other kids, etc. which makes me think that we will get back to them eventually.

For Shouto himself, I also feel like there should be more, and there are little crumbs I'm holding onto, hoping that I'm reading it right.

But I've been wrong before (I was so convinced we had a build up for Shouto finding out the truth about OFA before everyone - well, I'm actually convinced it was a chopped storyline, but whatever), my confidence in Horikoshi's writing is at an all-time low, and I have developed trust issues, because ever since the Dabi reveal, Horikoshi noticably has been cutting Todoroki-family content short and I don't know if he ever had a clear vision on how he could land it beyond that point.

It feels like he doesn't want to make it grim-dark (Dabi die remorseless), but maybe he's also feeling like a change of heart like Toga's is not realistic for Dabi, so we also don't have a happy vision. So I don't exclude he will take a cop-out of some sort. It just hurts because he tied Shouto's arc to Dabi's, and it feels like Shouto can't get an uplifting victory unless he figure something out with Dabi (or if we get Endeavor step up as father and let Shouto go so he can be with his friends for the end).

#c1a asks #todoroki shouto #todoroki touya #dabi #endeavor #bnha meta #todoroki family ending

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jadelotusflower · 3 years

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June 2021 Roundup

It's been a month of highs and lows. Every year my city holds a cabaret festival, and I've seen some truly amazing acts over the years - including Lea Salonga, Kristin Chenoweth, and Indina Menzel. This year's Artistic Director was the great Alan Cumming, and although due to covid he didn't quite get to curate the program he wanted to, the opening night Gala was still a highlight, as was Alan's DJ set at the pop-up Club Cumming afterwards, where there was much singing at the top of my lungs and dancing to pop anthems and theatre tunes. At one point Alan, dressed in a onesie and perched on the shoulders of a man wearing only sparkly short shorts, was carried around the dance floor while Circle of Life blared. Reader, I was delighted.

I was also able to see his solo show Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, which was hilarious and damn, he can sing!

As for the low, I was meant to fly to Sydney for the weekend to see Hamilton, a trip I have been looking forward to for almost a year, but had to be cancelled because of a covid outbreak and border closures. The tickets have been rescheduled, but I'm still kind of bummed about it (while completely appreciating the need for covid safety, especially when our vaccine rollout has been completely botched by our incompetent, corrupt federal government)

Anyway.

Reading

The Hundred and One Dalmations (Dodie Smith) - With all the bewilderment over Disney's Cruella, I decided to revisit the original novel which I first read as a kid. It's funny, I had very vivid memories of this book, or rather thought I did, particularly the scene where Roger and Anita have dinner at Cruella's house that fixed in my young mind as utterly disturbing with all this devil imagery and the implication Cruella was literally some kind of demon, which must have been either a) my overactive imagination or b) an illustration, because it's not as clear as I thought it was. The strangeness is there (food with too much pepper, Cruella's inability to keep warm, the walls painted blood red) but not the explicit demon imagery I had remembered. There is a part later in the book recounting the history of Hell Hall and the rumors of Cruella's ancestor streaking out of the place conjuring blue lightening, but clearly child me was reading far more into the book than was on the page.

But I still wish they'd gone with this version of Cruella's backstory, because to me an aristocratic, ink-drinking, heat-obsessed, possibly-demon spawn, high camp villain is more interesting and rings far more true than plucky punk against the establishment.

Smith clearly had Facts About Dalmations to share, and she does really craft a wonderful animal-based story that the Disney animated film is largely faithful to. Key differences include: Roger's occupation (he doesn't have to pay tax because he wiped out government debt somehow?!?), Pongo's mate and the puppy's mother is called Missis, Perdita is another dalmation who acts as a kind of doggie wet nurse, Roger and Anita both have Nannies who come to live with them (Nanny Butler and Nanny Cook), Cruella is married to a furrier (who changed his last name to de Vil). Also odd, on her first description Cruella is described as having "dark skin" but later in the novel her "white face" is mentioned, so I'm chalking it up to 50's descriptors not having the same meanings they do today.

The Duke and I (Julia Quinn) - After being just whelmed by the tv series, I wasn't really planning on reading the books, but I saw this on the top picks shelf at the library and damn, the top picks shelf is irresistible. This is very much Daphne's book (and I had known each in the series dealt with the different sibling) so many of the characters and much of the plot of the show is absent, as are some of the more baffling elements of the show like the Diamond of the First Water nonsense, which I always thought was a strange character choice in that it stacks the deck for Daphne when her character arc is better served as somewhat of an underdog (in her third season, the kind of girl who is liked but not adored), and the Prince subplot which was always far too OTT even for soapy regency romance.

It's a breezy, fun read (that scene excepted), even if the misunderstandings are contrived and I'm never going to take "I'll never have kids because I hate my dad" as a credible romantic obstacle deserving of so much angst.

Faeries (Brian Froud and Alan Lee) - A lovingly detailed and illustrated compendium of Faerie and its inhabitants, drawing from a range of European (but primarily Celtic) folklore and mythology. Froud was a conceptual designer on The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth, and the link is clear in the art as well as the focus on faeries as mysterious but oftimes sinister beings, where human encounters with them rarely end well. Lee has illustrated several publications of Tolkien's novels, and was a lead concept artists for Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings and Hobbit trilogies, and there is a touch of Middle Earth here as well, or rather the common inspiration of the old world. A useful resource for my novel!

Watching

The Handmaid's Tale (season 4, episodes 4-8) SPOILERS - So when I last wrote about this show in the Roundup, I was complaining it wasn't going anywhere. Well, I'm happy to be wrong because they finally changed things up with June finally escaping to Canada. That part of the plot following the survivors and their trauma has always been far more compelling than Gilead, and so it was a welcome development even if I side-eye some of the choices (none of these characters is seeing an actual licensed therapist why?).

This show has always been difficult to watch given the subject matter, and that has not changed after the shift in power dynamics. I will give the show credit for showing a broad range of trauma responses, from Moira wanting to move on and not let it consume her, to June, a ball of rage and revenge on a downward spiral, to Emily, trying to follow Moira's path but being drawn to June's, to Luke, trying his best but utterly unequipped to deal with what is happening.

But it is very hard to watch June go down this path - raping her husband (I concede the show perhaps didn't intend for it to be rape, but that's what is on screen and framing it as just "taking away Luke's agency" doesn't change that), wishing death on Serena's unborn child, and orchestrating Fred's brutal murder by particulation, then holding her own daughter still covered in his blood and it getting smeared on Nicole's face (an unsubtle metaphor in a series full of unsubtle metaphors).

There are interesting questions being asked of the viewer, and the show (perhaps rightly) not giving any answers. I can certainly appreciate the catharsis of Fred getting what he deserves even if I personally find the manner of it horrifying, but where is the line between justice and revenge, is revenge the only option when justice is denied, when does a trauma release become cyclical violence/abuse - the show is, for now, letting the viewer decide.

Soul (dir. Pete Docter and Kemp Powers) - In a world full of remakes/reboots/sequels, Pixar is perhaps the lone segment under the Disney umbrella committed to original content. However, there does seem to be a Pixar formula at work directed to precision tugging the heart strings, and some of the film feels like well-trod ground. On the other hand, it's hard to criticise the risk of centering a kids film around the existential crisis of a middle aged man, even with the requisite cutesy elements (and of course, the uncomfortable pattern of yet another film where the black lead character spends a great deal of the runtime in non-human form - herein, an amorphous blob or a cat). But the animation is stunning, it successfully did tug my heart strings, and the design of the Great Before and the Jerrys is original and fun.

RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under - Drag Race is somewhat of a guilty pleasure for me, since I generally don't watch reality shows, and this is something I really enjoy even if I'm not invested in the fandom (which like many fandoms can be very yikes). This year it was time for the Australian/New Zealand (Aotearoa) queens to show their stuff, although it's been met with mixed reactions. Covid restrictions didn't allow for guest judges, relegating them to mere cameos via video calls, and its clear that Ru and Michelle really don't quite get all the cultural nuances - Aussie judge Rhys Nicholson was however always delightful. But it wouldn't be Australia without a racism scandal, with the great disappointment of the two queens of colour eliminated first, and one queen having done blackface in the recent past yet making it all the way to the top four.

In the end, the only viable and deserving winner was last Kiwi standing Kita Mean, and it was pure joy to see her get crowned. I do hope they fix the bugs and indeed do another season to better showcase AU/NZ talent.

Writing

A far more productive month - to try and get out of my writing funk I had a goal to try and write every day, even if it was only 100 words. While I didn't quite achieve a consecutive month, I did get a pretty good average, at least got something posted and two others nearly there.

The Lady of the Lake - 2441 words, Chapter 4 posted.

Against the Dying of the Light - 2745 words

Turn Your Face to the Sun - 1752 words.

Here I Go Again - 1144 words

Total words this month: 8082

Total words this year: 35,551

#personal #long post #roundup #june roundup #reading watching writing #here's to the second half of the year #I really want to get to at least 100k written #so we'll see

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sorrowful-prince-pelleas · 5 years

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Honestly, now that I’ve started thinking about it Greil’s death vs Jeralt’s death is night and day in terms of presentation and it’s such a shame. I find that while Greil’s death wasn’t perfect, it did a lot very, very well and worked in many ways, while a lot of the changes that Jeralt’s death had made that scene feel lacking.

Reactions of other characters

In the case of Greil, every single character in the mercenary group has their own distinct reaction, which really shows that every single one of them had their own unique relationship with him. Shinon straight up leaves, Titania tries to put up a strong front but you later find her crying at night, Soren is worried for his place in the guild, etc. Even characters that didn’t know him well, such as Rolf or Boyd, have their own opinions on the matter - Rolf occupies himself by comforting Mist, and Boyd, while unsure of Ike’s role as leader, chooses to trust in him. This lets the grief be a lot stronger for the players, as we get to see the impact Greil and therefore his death had on everyone, and makes his death a legitimate turning point.

With Jeralt we only get generic “so sorry for your loss” quotes from the majority of the characters which, while making sense, makes his death a lot less tragic - Byleth is a blank slate, and unless you as the player particularly liked him, it’s super unemotional. His death doesn’t change the status quo for anyone, you don’t lose playable characters, nor do you gain them, etc.

Child’s reaction

Obviously Ike, owing to him being a fully-developed character, has a stronger emotional reaction to his father’s death. The scene where he drags his father’s dying body towards the fort trying to save him hits like a punch to the face, as does the next scene where he and Mist sit in front of Greil’s grave and discuss what to do next - it’s a lot more potent than being told about his grief. Furthermore, Greil’s death changes a great deal for Ike - he accepts the responsibilities of being the leader of the Greil Mercenaries, he decides to avenge his father, and he chooses to continue with the job of returning Elincia. There’s a clear moment of character growth, which makes Greil’s death legitimately compelling.

With Byleth, a lot of the sadness comes from what we’re told - that this is their first time showing emotion, characters saying they’re sad and the music being melancholic. While that’s nice, Jeralt’s death has no real effect on their personality - they’ve shown emotions before in-story and in support, they don’t undergo a personality change, they don’t gain any new goals. The month after, everything resumes and you can choose to ignore that Jeralt is dead except for a couple of moments of dialogue.

Mysteries left behind

Both Jeralt and Greil leave behind a great deal of mystery, but the framing of Greil’s death and the mysteries he leaves behind make a lot more sense.

In Jeralt’s case, he dangles the mysteries in front of Byleth for months before the actual death - was there really never any time? Furthermore, the mysteries are directly relevant to Byleth and their life and not sharing them with his adult child is kind of iffy.

With Greil, it’s rather different. Firstly, he legitimately doesn’t have time - less than a day passes between him first seeing the Black Knight and the battle itself, and even though he does see Ike before the battle, he doesn’t have the time to speak with him properly and sends him back. Then, as Greil is dying, he tries to warn Ike, but runs out of time, which is more than Jeralt did. Finally, a lot of Greil’s hidden secrets are related to Greil’s own identity, or to things he couldn’t speak about - the Fire Emblem, for instance, which is a lot less strange.

Preventability

This is a short point but like, Greil had no hope of winning and there was nothing anyone could’ve done to actually prevent it - Caineghis was a day late, none of the Greil mercenaries stood a chance and Greil himself had destroyed any chance he had of winning years ago by handicapping himself.

With Jeralt, instead of using their sword to try to prevent Kronya, Byleth could’ve yelled, or warned her dad, or have done any number of things to stop the events that would occur.

This makes Jeralt’s death look comparatively unsatisfying.

Catharsis

Both Zelgius and Kronya are not the main villains - they’re at most mini bosses on the character’s paths to the real villain - Edelgard/Rhea/Ashera/Ashnard. However, once again, there’s a contrast. Even amongst minibosses, Zelgius is set up as an intimidating, shadowy force - he’s incredibly powerful, has supernatural abilities like warping, and as shown in “Blood Runs Red”, absolutely terrifying to face off against. This makes Greil’s death seem less cheap - he might’ve not died to a main villain, but he died to someone actually worthwhile. When finally defeating Zelgius in RD, it’s cathartic and feels like an actual victory earned - like Ike has come full circle and become what he always wanted to be.

Kronya is incredibly irrelevant - that same chapter she commits her murder, she’s offed by one of her own allies. That doesn’t give the closure that Zelgius’s death gives, which would be fine if there was something done with that utter lack of closure - but there isn’t. There’s nothing that comes from Byleth’s inability to get revenge - no character growth, no desire for peace, no wish to learn more about TWS, no themes that are brought up. Because of that, instead of feeling like a fair resolution to a character arc, it feels like a way to write off Jeralt to create more mystery about Byleth’s origins and Rhea, which makes it ultimately unsatisfying.

#fire emblem three houses #fire emblem radiant dawn #fire emblem path of radiance #greil fire emblem #ike fire emblem #byleth fire emblem #jeralt fire emblem #miss posts

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svynakee · 4 years

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castlevania s3 thoughts

Well more like complaints. Although I do find it worth watching; maybe after S4 comes out, though. Because S3 is really just a fancy teaser for S4.

I really don’t like how Castlevania S3 felt like a waste of time (except for 30% which was very good). I mean yeah I watch shows to waste time in general but hear me out.

By the end of S3, it feels like nothing happened. The status quo is kept. There’s a lot of setup with a tenuous promise of S4 payoff. There might be growth, but really, everything feels more like the catalyst for growth to happen later. It’s like following your GPS and it says “You’ve arrived at your destination :)” but you find yourself at some dusty crossroads and there isn’t even a petrol station in sight.

That’s basically all I can say without spoilers. I have a lot more to say with spoilers. So-

If Castlevania S3 was divided into 4 basically unrelated stories (Styria, Lindenfeld, Isaac’s travels, Alucard’s castle), at least half of them ended up saying/contributing nothing to the overarching plot, setting and characterisation. It felt like an extended trailer. Action, twists, your favs making an appearance…then goodbye, screen fades to black, see you next season.

TLDR version: get rid of Isaac’s entire arc, develop Sumi and Taka or get rid of them, Lindenfeld sorely needed more focus, no need to change Styria but more Styria would be nice.

Compare to S1, which was also mostly setup for the plot resolution in S2. It didn’t feel like a waste of time. Why? Because of the threat of Dracula? I don’t think so. It’s because when we first meet Trevor, we’re presented with a very solid image of who he is. He’s alone, he’s purposeless, he doesn’t want to take up his family legacy. 3 episodes later and he’s got two “friends” and a clear goal to pursue. And he’s no longer a nameless drifter – he’s the last living Belmont, vampire hunter, returning to his ancestral home so he may arm himself to face Dracula.

Alucard

Alucard’s story was the worst offender in my opinion. We start with Alucard being alone and sad in his empty castle. We end with Alucard being alone and sad in his empty castle. While this could be an interesting start of darkness for the dhampir, the fact that we don’t really see the results make it an overall unsatisfying season. Suki and Taka contributed nothing. We learned almost nothing about them. Their motivations were frankly generic – they want to fight vampires? Well we already know people who do that. Their obsession with the castle’s engine? Goes nowhere. Their friendship with Alucard? Shallow, not really built on mutual points of interest. Then they die.

The truth is, Sumi and Taka were dealt a bad card to begin with – Alucard, to be exact. Because a ranged and close quarters fighter duo of vampire hunters has direct competition with the previous season’s S&T, Sypha and Trevor. Instead of giving them the time and development needed to grow apart, they seemed more like plot devices to get Alucard to where he needs to be in S4. Or just to prove he’s lonely and gullible. And a bottom.

I feel like there’s a lot of potential in this storyline. Perhaps Taka and Suki’s interest in the castle is more nefarious; maybe they were part of a bigger group. Their betrayal of Alucard could cause him to reconsider his father’s stance on humanity. As a stepping stone, I have no complaints about this storyline. But that’s because there’s nothing to say. Its impact all depends on S4 and S4 isn’t out yet. So, the entire thing just feels frustrating, a pointless distraction from the other storylines.

Isaac

Isaac should not have gotten as much screen time as he did, unless they actually did something useful with him. As much as I love his character (Casually putting Godbrand down? Instant fav.) his presence in S3 feels like pointless pandering. Because he spent all that time doing nothing.

We know who Isaac is, because of S2. We know what his motivations are: return to/avenge Dracula. We know his general worldview, the thing that makes him what he is – he has a low opinion of humanity, is highly disciplined and loyal to Dracula. And the thing is, NONE of these things change in S3. Instead we’re treated to Isaac repeatedly almost thinking humans are okay, then getting proven wrong when he tries to give them a chance, then killing everyone.

This is would serve a purpose if: Isaac was seen as ambivalent towards humanity or conflicted about condemning them in S1 (more like Hector, perhaps). Isaac was more like original Isaac, an unhinged sadist and being saved by Dracula starts him on a path to redemption which is repeatedly denied.

But no. Isaac is always shown to be calm, disciplined and set in his views. Having him go through this completely unchanged makes his character ‘arc’ a waste of time.

The problem is Isaac’s storyline also feels unnecessary plot-wise. Isaac finds humans disgusting and his power is to be a monster spawn point. The fact is, if Isaac shows up one day with a monster army and wants to kill humans, we don’t need an explanation for it. Isaac himself is the explanation. The only thing that needs resolving is ‘how did he get from the desert to bother the heroes’ and that can be solved by “I took a boat” or “I found a transportation mirror” or even “I used a night creature to carry me”. He can just tell us. It can be a shot of him travelling. Or a cheesy montage set to rock music I don’t care.

So the fact that character-wise Isaac is just going through a series of resets is made even more tedious when you realise that plot-wise he’s also been completely useless.

His big fight was fun, but it lacked emotional impact. The wizard wasn’t opposed to Isaac, either in terms of good/evil or ideologically. There was no catharsis to the wizard dying because we never knew those townspeople. Who got turned into night creatures anyway. By Isaac.

Belnades and Belmont (the dancing bear)

The Lindenfeld plot I would say has all the elements of an excellent story but needed more time. More focus. I hated S3’s style of constantly jumping between the four storylines, especially when one of them involved Isaac going through a banal cycle on another continent and the other had the Discount Belmont and Belnades.

In my opinion, Lindenfeld only suffered because there wasn’t enough focus to really build up the almost Lovecraft-esque mystery for Trevor and Sypha to investigate. Germain barely interacted with them, we only got his story via infodumping and a bad dream. Their relationship with the Judge didn’t feel deep enough that his ‘betrayal’ had impact (besides, it was bundled up with Alucard and Hector’s betrayals so there’s a bit of overexposure apathy). And it’s hard to be sympathetic towards townspeople when, for most of the series, townspeople are shit. Townspeople blamed Belmont for Dracula’s horde. Townspeople tattled on Lisa. Townspeople antagonise Isaac. Showing us 1 family eating dinner isn’t going to change that.

There was something of a start to an emotional arc where Trevor questions Sypha’s naiveté, his future with her, etc. which would have been stronger if it wasn’t just the start of an arc. Leaving them horrified at the truth of the Judge, the destruction of the town and their inability to prevent disaster is absolutely fine. But when it’s also paired with Isaac’s Are Humans Bad Merry-go-Round and Forever Alone Alucard, yet another “to be continued” ending instead of closure was frustrating.

Hector but not really

Hector, similar to Isaac and Alucard, starts and ends in the same place. I have no complaints about the Styria storyline though because Hector isn’t the character carrying this subplot. Lenore is.

Lenore starts out with a clear goal and obstacle to that goal. The other vampire sisters seem unconvinced that she can solve it, or that any of them can. Lenore succeeds despite these odds, proving her own strength, cunning and patience. She also shows how her way, the diplomat’s way, has the same value as Carmilla’s schemes, Striga’s military knowledge and Morana’s talent for governance. She has an arc. Sure, it’s a villain arc, but villains need them. S2 had Carmilla working against Dracula, putting her forces into place, manipulating the war council, stealing Hector to her side. S3 has Lenore.

Meanwhile, the Styria subplot also sets up the new villains for the heroes to face – cunning Carmilla, strong Striga, strategic Morana and manipulative Lenore. Along with Hector the army spawn point. We have the new location, Styria. We see the dynamic and power hierarchies of the new villains. We learn about their overarching goal and how they mean to achieve it. Lots of setup, even more than the other storylines, but it has a satisfying arc within it that means it gives closure.

If S3 was freed from Static Isaac and Sumi/Taka (who have expiry dates and arrived half stale), the Styria storyline could benefit from the extra time. Better establish the dynamic between the four sisters (as opposed to Striga-Morana, Lenore-Hector and then a little bit of Carmilla). Give Hector more time to show his emotions; his despair, his loneliness, his genuine desire to have a friend despite his better judgement.

Final thoughts and Season Finales

Overall, the strongest parts of S3 are bogged down by subplots that really didn’t deserve so much screen time. I question the editing style of constantly jumping between the storylines; it comes at the cost of emotional investment into each one. The finale is especially strange to me. Two fights and two sex scenes that clashed, broke tension and made it tough to respond emotionally. Isaac’s fight should’ve happened earlier, a mid-season spectacle that really doesn’t have emotional impact. Lenore’s manipulation and betrayal could have been a second-to-last episode thing. The heroes naturally deserve the prime spot of season finale; the disastrous end of that fight also sets up the gloomy tone of the ending.

Sumi and Taka can die whenever, however. I literally could not care less whether they tried to kill Alucard after sex or over dinner. I barely care about their reason for attempted murder. I don’t know what part they play in the grand scheme of things and I am not invested in them as individuals.

If the entire point of the arc was to prove that Alucard was a bottom, just have him absent the entire season and add a post-credits scene of him using a dildo. Then he accidentally smashes it with his vampire strength and cries on the floor.

#castlevania #netflix castlevania #castlevania s3

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hellyeahomeland · 5 years

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Me again with more Carrie and Saul. can you elaborate on how it’s different between them? You say it’s evolved but I don’t see how. Things have happened to Carrie especially, but I don’t really see how their relationship has changed at its core. Maybe Saul treats her more like an adult but even that’s debatable imo. I don’t mean to be argumentative for argument’s sake but... (continued...)

Cont… can you give concrete examples of how the development has played out on screen so I can understand it & hopefully S8 better. Specific scenes and what how they weren’t just individual scenes but changed the relationship going forward. Much appreciated! Oh and one more thing re: Saul and Carrie, sorry I forgot. Can you also venture a guess what it means in practice? What do you think will happen between them that will feel like closure or catharsis or something that’s expected of a show’s final season and perhaps finale as well?

Note #1: this became a lot longer than I expected (sorry, you asked!). Beyond what I’ve written, I challenge you to go back and watch these individual scenes. I’ve chosen ones from each season to illustrate the full arc of their relationship. Observe the differences in Claire and Mandy’s body language, in their facial expressions, in their discomfort, in the shared trauma of what’s come before. It’s deliberate writing and deliberate acting. Shorter version of this post is here, from April 2018.

Note #2: I chose almost exclusively scenes of conflict to represent the evolution of their relationship because I believe that conflict drives change.

PROLOGUE:

To understand the Carrie and Saul relationship, we’ve got to understand what their relationship was before we met them. From what we know, Saul recruited Carrie, straight out of college. He saw in her something special and unique, something that didn’t come around every other day. She was gifted but she was also alone. She had no partner. She was socially isolated from her family and from the world (he didn’t yet know of her mental illness). This was an advantage of sorts. It meant she could give herself more and more to the work, same as he did. Remember this is his Achilles’ heel: whenever they call, he picks up. He doesn’t know how not to. It destroyed his marriage. But he molds her in his image. He teaches her, he raises her, the way a father would his daughter. He brings her up. Their relationship melds the boundaries of teacher/student, boss/employee, mentor/mentee, and father/daughter. It’s personal, and it’s deeply intimate.

This is what we are given before the pilot and it’s what we’ve grappled with for nearly eight years: his attempts to harness her gifts–often to her detriment–and her simultaneous resentment of him for it and unwavering yearning for his approval.

Key Scenes in the Carrie and Saul Canon:

#1: “What happened to the Saul Berenson that trekked the Karakoram?”: Much of the season one conflict between Carrie and Saul comes from her three thousand miles an hour suspicion of Brody and him being like “whoa slow down pls.” He is the first person she tells of these suspicions and he essentially shoots her down, causing her to go rogue. It’s here where the lines become blurred between boss/protege and father/daughter, because the way in which he chastises and punishes her feels awfully familial.

So when Carrie finally reaches a breaking point in “Blind Spot” (the original Carrie Mathison Appreciation Episode), we feel that as though a family is breaking up. It doesn’t matter that she comes crawling back to him, just an episode later, remorseful.

Carrie underlines just how much Saul has changed: in her words, from the man who “did three months in a Malaysian prison” (HELLO???? repeat: he raised her in his image) to a pussy. We understand that Carrie and Saul are both outsiders in the CIA. We understand that Saul is still grappling with his former employee David Estes bring promoted over him. While Carrie truly seems to not give a fuck, Saul keeps in line. He says “yes, sir.” He advises caution. None of these are inherently bad qualities but in this scene we come to understand that what drew Carrie to Saul was not his caution, his yin to her yang, but his daring and bravery and “FUCK THE CIA” mentality (there’s a reason why that line is in this episode too).

#2: “You don’t know a goddamned thing”: This scene is now famous for lines like “you’re the smartest and dumbest fucking person I’ve ever known” (he’s not wrong) but this scene is actually one of the more important ones ever on this show, and I still maintain that t“The Choice” is the mos important ever Homeland episode. As to why this scene itself is significant in their relationship, I’ll allow Jacob Clifton to explain:

Saul is one thing only, and his love for Carrie comes out of the idea that they are the same. And he’s right. But because she’s giving up herself to something he can’t, it looks like they are not the same. It looks ugly to him. He fights it like an addict fights recovery, striking blindly at her softest places because can’t stand the change in vector: Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.

I bolded that last sentence because it’s almost shockingly predictive of future seasons. We can hem and haw all we want about Saul’s relative rightness about Carrie leaving the CIA for Brody being a terrible decision, but the truth is that he would have done it regardless of who Brody was. He would have done it if she’d left with Quinn, with Jonas, with Otto, with Estes, with anyone, or all by herself. I don’t actually believe that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I just think he doesn’t care. I think he sees her gifts, her “saving the world” (to be totally Mandy Patinkin about it) as a more profound and upright calling than, for example: having a family, being a mother, having an integrated and whole personal life… the list goes on.

But the moment when Carrie tells him she doesn’t want to end up alone her whole life, like him, is probably the first great fissure in what was until then a generally even relationship. It establishes her desire for… something beyond everything he’d ever shown her (she literally turns down the greatest career opportunity ever for THE DUDE IN THE SUICIDE VEST… and like, did we ever consider that wasn’t really about Carrie loving Brody so much but more about how much she really didn’t fucking want to be Saul????). She threatens his control and he strikes her at the knees.

#3: Literally all of season three: It’s difficult to choose a single scene in season three to encapsulate just how much Carrie and Saul’s relationship this season was changed but let’s just discuss the overall arc:

Saul and Carrie come up with a plan to lure out Javadi (i.e., Iran) since they know he’s partially responsible for the Langley bombing. In their shared plan, Carrie will pretend to be crazy in front of the Senate and the press so that she seems vulnerable to the influence of a foreign power. Coolness.

Except Saul changes the plan in the middle and:

Publicly blames the Langley bombing on Carrie

Outs Carrie’s sexual relationship with Brody on national television

Has Carrie committed to a mental institution for four weeks with little to no contact with the outside world

Sics Dar fucking Adal on her when she gets out of the mental institution in order to maintain the cover

The scene at the end of “Game On” where Carrie comes to Saul’s house and tells him the plan has worked is devastating to watch. I don’t think it was entirely clear at the time just how much Saul’s plan had strayed from their shared vision until Carrie tells him, through tears, “you should have gotten me out of there, Saul. You shouldn’t have left me in there.” He doesn’t say anything in response. When she tells him it’s too hard, she can’t keep going, he offers her some tea. It would be funny if it weren’t so fucking sad.

Again:

Her madness is only acceptable as long as it’s useful; her self-abnegation is only positive so long as he can understand it.

Season three was all about that: about the lengths Saul would go with Carrie’s own illness, and how far along she’d left herself go too. Javadi literally makes a speech about it.

Now, Carrie wasn’t forced to do any of this (well, except the mental institution, that was extremely forced). We see at times how desperately she craves his attention and approval: in “Tower of David,” when she pleads with her therapist to give a good report back to Saul; in “The Yoga Play,” where he berates her for getting involved in Brody Family Drama and tells her she’s ruined everything and ARE YOU HAPPY ABOUT THAT NOW CARRIE (god, the father/daughter vibes in that one are nauseating); in “Still Positive” when she calls him, triumphant, after having arranged the meeting with Javadi and he’s like “oh yeah by the way we lost you for a few hours there.”

(This doesn’t fit into the above theme but the scene at the end of “One Last Thing” when Carrie tells him in order for any of this shit to work they have to trust each other is one of the most interesting and important scenes of the whole season, simply because it implies one easy truth: they don’t trust each other. And what a change that is from earlier seasons.)

And yet, he needed her for it all to work. Saul may have been the mastermind of the entire clusterfuck of season three (better on rewatch than you would think!), but without Carrie literally every step of the way, it would have gone up in flames. She lured Javadi to America with her 95%-based-in-reality mania. She convinced Brody to go to Iran knowing it would almost certainly end in his death. And then she went straight along to Tehran knowing she’d probably have to witness it all.

The end of season three is super interesting in their relationship because I believe in my gut and in my soul that Carrie still resents Saul for convincing her to convince Brody to go kill himself. I really believe this. Again, she wasn’t forced. She did this of her own volition. But he planted the seed in her head, and I think some part of Carrie–likely equal parts rational and irrational–blames him for it, even as she mostly blames herself.

I won’t even mention Saul’s complete un-acknowledgement of Carrie being nine months pregnant in the last half of “The Star” but Saul basically ignoring Carrie’s child for four years is more significant than we give it credit for.

#4: “Escape or die. I promise.” The season four relationship between Carrie and Saul is interesting because it upends their previous dynamic. Carrie and Saul were always outsiders in the agency, but now he’s actually on the outside and she’s ascended, more an insider than ever. Also, I know part of it was grief, and again this is not an absolution, but where else do we think Carrie learned her casual disregard for human life? I’m just saying, season four came after season three.

So anyway, when Carrie promises to Saul that he’ll kill him before letting him be re-captured by the Taliban, we almost sort of believe her. She nearly killed him once before (wanna know the quickest way to get me from 0 to 1500 words on this show? mention the end of “From A to B and Back Again.” but actually don’t please).

The middle episodes of season four–Carrie nearly killing Saul, reneging on her promise to kill him, and then tearfully saving him from himself–are extremely moving. And they cement the arc of that entire season, of Carrie ascending where Saul had fallen. “The student becomes the master” (or the Drone Queen, rather) and all that jazz. Her journey to save her soul coincided with her journey to save him. Is that coincidental? Saul stopped being Carrie’s moral compass around the time he lied to her and had her committed. But just as Carrie is finding her way amid the chaos and fog of war, Saul is making backdoor deals with Dar fucking Adal to turn a blind eye to Haqqani’s reign of terror so that he could go and be the CIA director again.

Saul preached idealism and goodness and morality in an increasingly terrorized, dangerous, chaotic world. He raised her in that image. She strayed, but was finding her way back to it. In those final moments of season four, that betrayal is complete. She detaches from him. And their relationship is forever altered.

#5: “There’s a line between us that you drew. Forget that. There’s a fucking wall.” Oh, season five. This is getting really long so I’ll try to be succinct: Carrie and Saul’s relationship in season five is about her being in mortal danger and him being like “lol good luck….. NOT.” Ok, it’s only like that for an episode.

How do they come back from the damage done at the end of season four? I think the answer is that they didn’t. They’re not healed from it. Parts of Carrie don’t trust Saul, and parts of Saul don’t trust Carrie. There are the surface elements of course: Carrie went and found a cool life in Berlin, riding bikes and wearing balloon hats and such, working for a man whose ideals often stood in direct counter to the CIA’s. In effect, she basically went and did the opposite of everything Saul had ever done. That this all comes in a time of real upheaval in Saul’s personal life (Mira divorced him, he’s literally fucking a Russian mole) only makes his ego more volatile.

And then we have The Landstuhl Conundrum. I’m calling it this because it doesn’t yet have a name but I’m referring to the moment when the doctors say that they can’t wake Quinn from a coma, because if they do he will probably die or have irreversible brain damage. But Carrie and Saul believe he has valuable information about a terror cell that he’d eagerly share after coming out of said coma. Honestly!!! This show is extremely ridiculous sometimes.

Anyway Saul is like “what would you want me to do if it were you lying there,” implying DUH she’d have him wake her. She says she can’t speak for Quinn. Well apparently she can, because she wakes him. Cue the irreversible brain damage, the almost-death.

Later Saul comes to see her and Quinn at the hospital and asks how he is. “Not great,” she replies tersely. He tells her he didn’t come here to fight with her.

Resentment City: Population of 1. I’ve actually beat this drum for a few years, but I still think that Carrie harbors resentment toward Saul for coercing her into waking Quinn. First Brody, then Quinn. This isn’t meant to absolve Carrie of blame. She convinced Brody to go to Tehran because she believed in that mission. She woke Quinn because she believed in that mission. But I do think that Saul gave her a nudge and I’m not 100% convinced that without his influence she’d have made the same choices. When we talk about Saul teaching Carrie, about him mentoring her… and then we talk about Carrie having no regard for human life, of choosing mission over man, time after time… how much of that is her nature and how much is him nurturing her toward that outcome?

#6: “Maybe I don’t like the idea of you worrying about me.” Season six is spectacularly dull on many fronts, and the Carrie/Saul relationship is not the centerpiece. The evolution of their relationship after Berlin has taken the shape of something like season three. Saul needs Carrie’s help, she’s in no position to give it, he coaxes her with some terrifying outcome If She Won’t, then she agrees, and things still Turn Out Shitty For Her.

Ultimately I think this season highlights that whatever difficulties they now have working with each other, whatever trust issues they both still harbor, at the end of the day it is ALWAYS Carrie and Saul Versus the World. That’s always what this story has been (though this is extremely different from their relationship being the same as it’s always been), and it’s what the show comes back to after Quinn’s death.

He still cares about her. She tells him not to, he’s not her fucking father. This is one of the great complexities of their relationship: Saul often does coddle her the way a father would a daughter, but he’s a firm believer in tough love and all the forms that can take.

Again, I don’t think that Saul wants Carrie to be miserable. I also don’t think he wants her to happy. Her personal fulfillment and well-being is just entirely secondary to her role in his own mission of Whatever The Fuck. I mean I guess his mission is for the world to be more peaceful and better but like… y’know how Thanos thinks that killing half the universe’s population will help with the suffering caused by overpopulation? I’m not saying Saul is Thanos. But they’re both deranged males! (Also, if y’all don’t think Saul would Gamora Carrie right up outta this dimension if it meant fulfilling his life’s mission then please let me sell you this Homeland lamp!) (But honestly, I’m not saying Saul is as bad as Thanos.) (Do not send in asks about this.)

#7: “You’ve given me a hard time these last few years.” Season seven takes the post-Berlin foundation that season six built and adds some new interesting layers that are like a weird inversion/combo of seasons four and five. Carrie’s more on the outside than she’s ever been and now Saul’s the one who’s gone to work for the enemy.

Still, no matter whatever shit has gone down between them, it’s still Carrie and Saul Versus the World. The show highlights some key ideas in the last three episodes. First, it fully acknowledges that whenever Saul comes calling, Carrie will always answer. Remember how he said this was his Achilles’ heel? Remember how in that same episode Carrie said she was going to be alone her whole life? Remember how Saul raised Carrie in his image? These callbacks are not evidence of stagnation of their relationship; they’re references to its elemental core.

Second, the show finally has Carrie acknowledge the… um… storm of shit Saul has put her through while also fully copping to the extreme codependence of their entire relationship:

I’ve not come all this way in that fucking plane and in my life to fail in that mission when I know I can succeed. You’ve given me a hard time the past few years. I’m in, I’m out, I’m all over the place. I am not all over the place now. I’m here and I’m all in, and I need you to say yes.

She pledges her devotion to the mission (above all else). She acknowledges Saul’s hot-and-cold nature with her. And then she says SHE STILL NEEDS HIS APPROVAL because–say it with me–they are in an extremely! toxic! relationship!

In a nutshell, the evolution of the discord in Carrie and Saul’s relationship started with him putting her life at risk in service of the mission. And now we’re at a point where she fully fucking volunteers for the task! In my heart of hearts I think a non-zero part of Carrie is doing it so he will love her more. Did I mention they are in a codependent relationship?

So where do we go from here?

If you are still reading, congratulations! That’ll teach you to ask me a question about Carrie and Saul! Actually, about five questions were asked. The last–what will happen in season eight that will feel at all like a catharsis–is not one that I’ve actually thought that much about.

I think I’ve made a case for Carrie and Saul’s relationship being the soul of this show–its mangled, twisted soul. The truth is their relationship is toxic. They are both their best and worst selves with each other. Like family, they know what buttons to push, and where to strike to make it hurt the most.

What catharsis looks like in this relationship depends a lot on how you see this relationship. For example, it would be cathartic for me for Saul to die, but that will almost certainly not happen. It would be cathartic for Carrie to strike out on her own–finally–and attempt some type of fulfillment. Also very unlikely.

If I had to guess about what the end of this story will look like for them, it’s probably with Carrie dead. Probably on a mission Saul convinced her to believe in.

Saul’s been alone his entire life. He will never be less alone because Carrie is alive. I guess that’s the prison he has to live in. And then maybe she’ll finally be free of hers.

EPILOGUE:

The above is a reading of their relationship that is quite sympathetic to Carrie, obviously, and quite unsympathetic to Saul, also obviously. You will probably disagree. Gail has written very interesting stuff on how the dynamic of the Carrie/Saul relationship is most like handler/asset. I think that is a very astute perspective and there are definitely aspects of it but I think the relationship more resembles the trope of found family: she is the daughter he never had and he is the stable father she never had, and they will both ruin each other. Fin!

#Anonymous #ask #hyh ask #by: sara #carrie and saul #homeland meta #long ass post

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