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butterflydm · 2 years

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mat and tuon (amol spoilers)

Since I’m about to go into The Book That Introduces Tuon, I kinda wanna set out why I (when first reading the series) could never enjoy Mat & Tuon as a pairing and also set up some things that I’m going to try to look out for to see if maybe I see anything more appealing in it as a romance this time around (and, of course, this is all imo and not me trying to tell other people not to ship them, etc).

And, of course, this reread has transformed other aspects of my feelings about the series, so I will... keep everyone updated as I go and let y’all know if my feelings about this change too, lol.

Though I’m putting this in my reread tag because it applies to how I’m approaching my reread, this does have spoilers all the way through the final book, A Memory of Light. And I’m talking about the Seanchan culture, which is built on slavery, so content warnings for that as well.

The thing is, the actual basic trope set-up of Mat & Tuon is not something that I have any issues with -- there are three main tropes that they use: princess & rogue; hero & villain; enemies-to-lovers. Princess and rogue is a classic tropes, seen in such ships as Leia & Han or Jasmine & Aladdin. She sees the true worth of the man behind whatever mask it is that he’s put up, and he brings adventure and affection into her (romantically lonely) life. Rapunzel and Eugene from the Tangled movie also fits into this general shape. Enemies to lovers is also a classic trope, too many examples to list. Hero & Villain (aka ‘dating Catwoman’) is also a pretty classic trope that can be done well if effort is put into showing why these two people are on opposite sides but still drawn to each other.

It’s just that Jordan did it all in the laziest possible way. Which, in fairness, is common with Jordan’s take on romantic tropes. All three of these tropes require a delicate hand willing to do a slow burn so that the audience believes that the characters genuinely have emotionally reached new places with each other. And Jordan doesn’t... bother doing that. He doesn’t even really make an attempt. Instead, he basically just overrides it all with a fourth trope that is a favorite of his in the books: the fated romance. Because Destiny Says So, he has Mat inexplicably decide to take Tuon with him and inexplicably decide to start courting her, without ever emotionally justifying these decisions for Mat’s character, despite having set him up as someone who wanted to run away from his arranged marriage.

While Tuon does ‘see Mat with new eyes’ at the end of KoD (sort of), from what I remember this doesn’t seem to impact her worldview at all; she just goes placidly along with the way her empire works to the very end of the book series. She doesn’t grow as a person as a result of realizing that someone she misjudged was more than he appeared to be or ever become more than the slaver that we were introduced to in Winter’s Heart, because Jordan never lets Mat genuinely challenge her (from what I remember, people mostly don’t ever challenge Tuon... maybe because if they did, it would be too obvious how paper-thin her arguments are).

And, of course, most of the time, the villain in a hero-villain romance isn’t a slaver. Usually, they’re well, like Catwoman -- sure, she breaks the law but she’s not out there to deliberately hurt innocent people.

Mat’s initial introduction to Tuon is as ‘Tylin’s Toy’, which is to say, essentially as a piece of property that she finds intriguing (she attempts to buy him from Tylin the first time she meets him). She even thinks of him as ‘Toy’ for quite a while (though I don’t recall how long exactly and whether or not he ever gets to be ‘Mat’ before she takes his name away again and replaces it with a new one - and yes, I know she sees the new name as an honor, but I’m pretty sure Tylin also saw making Mat her pretty as an honor - the Tylin-Tuon similarities are also one of the things that make me dislike the relationship).

The fact that she persistently continues to call him ‘Toy’ is honestly something I find genuinely disgusting because she is a slaver, because she does view people as objects. So it can never be a ‘cute’ nickname with ‘sexual tension’ for me because a. the reason she calls him that is because his rapist treated him like a toy; b. she literally tried to buy him the first time they met; c. I believe that he repeatedly asks her to call him by his own name and she refuses.

And my final big thing is that Tuon’s sticking point in A Memory of Light, the issue that she WILL NOT back down from even when a ta’veren is trying his best to work his influence on her, is that she refuses to release any of her enslaved channeling women. She would literally rather let the Dark One take over the world than give up a single one of her new damane. Rand has to agree to let her keep all the women that she and her empire have kidnapped, tortured, and enslaved in the Westlands, before she will agree to help save the world. Nothing matters more to Tuon than keeping her slaves! And this is in the final book! As you can tell, it really bothers me!

This is basically the thing that makes me go 'well, I guess literally the only possible way to improve the Seanchan Empire is to depose or assassinate Tuon, because she's made her position on reform very clear'.

Overall, it is very difficult for me to look at Mat & Tuon as anything except Tuon doing her best to ‘break’ her husband to the leash (which was something Egwene Dreamed about back in book 4; a Seanchan woman leashing Mat) and make him accept his place as her property, while Mat tries to hold onto his sense of personal identity in the face of both Tuon and the Pattern itself trying to turn him into nothing but a tool. And I do not personally find any of that either romantic or Romantic. Instead, I find it really heartbreaking for Mat.

Things I will be keeping an eye out for during my reread:

1. Any signs that Tuon is capable of changing her worldview of viewing people as essentially proto-property, with their personhood as a status that can be revoked at any time. From what I remember, she flirts with the idea from time to time, but always comes down on the side of not allowing her worldview to budge an inch.

2. Any signs that she sees Mat as more than property (and sleeping with him does not count for this. Tuon condemning other people for sleeping with ‘their property’ does not mean she is not capable of justifying it for herself; we see her be a hypocrite about the sul’dam issue as well) -- I am uncertain if/when this ever happens for her. We know that she saw him as property when she first met him. Does she ever see him as a person or does she just see him as more useful property?

Things that I’m hoping that I won’t see:

1. Any signs that Mat is starting to share Tuon’s view of people as proto-property. Really hoping that I won’t see this. Honestly, one of the things that I dislike the most about both Mat and Perrin’s romances is how it feels like it damages them as characters (and the same for what the Rand x Min romance does to Min as a character). Their romances actively make them worse people. Perrin’s romance with Faile turns him into an obsessive, petty, frustrating person who shirks his responsibilities (he eventually gets... better-ish? after like ten or twelve books). Mat’s ‘romance’ with Tuon... makes him willing to use slaves, among other things. I do think that he does still tries to remember that they’re people, but he is willing to own and use damane during AMOL, if I remember correctly which...ugh.

Ugh, I have to admit, I am really dreading getting into the ‘How I Fell in Love (?) With a Slaver’ aspect of Mat’s storyline in the upcoming books. Perrin and Faile’s storyline starts out pretty terribly and they have horrible communication issues, but I do believe that they both at least see each other as human beings who are worth being treated as equals, even if they fail on the application sometimes. I do not get that vibe from Tuon and her relationship with Mat.

But of course, all my issues with Mat and Tuon also tie into my feelings that the Seanchan as a whole are narratively unsatisfying. We end up with a lot of build-up for them, and zero payoff. They were introduced in book two (empire-shaking secret included!) and there’s still no payoff by the end of book fourteen. Thirteen books of build-up and then no payoff!

Obviously, they don’t need to solve the Problem of the Seanchan but we could have gotten a Hope Spot of some kind (...and if Tuon being pregnant and ‘jokingly’ telling Mat that this means she can kill him now was supposed to be our Hope Spot, it very much fell flat with me).

We’re told multiple times that the secret of the sul’dam being channeling learners will rock the empire to its foundations but because this story wasn’t about that, because it was supposed to happen in The Next Story, instead it all ends in an unsatisfying whiffle as Tuon basically (and hypocritically) just goes, “nah, I don’t care, I’m gonna keep enslaving the people just like me (while denying that they’re people like me)”. The issue that was supposed to change the empire is dismissed as meaningless. All of the amazing set up that Egeanin’s character gave us goes nowhere in terms of cultural transformation and upheaval, which makes the entire Seanchan presence in the storyline feel pointless.

(the Seanchan ending is also frustrating because it feels like it undermines one of the main messages of the book series, that free will matters and is worth fighting for, so there’s that too; everyone giving slaver empress Tuon a free pass really feels like it undermines Rand’s ‘win’ against the Dark One and his realization about the importance of free will because, as Empress of Seanchan, Tuon is now the main symbol of stripping people of their free will and will be doing basically the Shadow’s work into the Fourth Age, as Seanchan culture already mimics the Shadow so closely in so many ways, as I’ve talked about before as I’ve gone through this reread: breaking people into desperately eager slavery, mindtraps vs a’dam, ‘lessers’ groveling to the Chosen/Blood above them, ravens and moons as their main symbolism)

And that’s essentially the issue with Mat & Tuon as well. Perhaps she was going to have character growth at some point, but if so, it all got punted off to the outriggers that never happened, and so we ended up with a terrible person who is allowed to treat one of the main protagonists poorly and get rewarded for it with his loyalty, who actively turns down every opportunity that she’s given to be a slightly better person, who gets to be one of the few people bodyguarded during the apocalypse, and who gets to dance off into the sunset with a bunch of slaves that she will get to abuse for years into the future.

Also, because Tuon never follows through on any character growth, it ultimately feels like her relationship with Mat was a waste of narrative space that could have gone to something that actually had a point, and a waste of all the (incredibly over the top) suffering that the books put Mat through to get him to a place where it would be even remotely believable that he would stay anywhere near Tuon long enough to ‘fall in love’ with her (ie everything with Tylin and Ebou Dar) or grimly accept his future with her or whatever it really is that happened.

Tuon could have believably made that same bargain with Rand even if she’d never met Mat, because she bends so little on the issue that matters most to her (keeping her slaves) that the Mat/Tuon relationship feels like it could be snipped out entirely and Tuon would have the same emotional ending point that she did with the relationship existing. All you would need is someone to rescue her from Semirhage, and then make the exact same crappy deal due to her ‘gratitude’ over the save. No autonomy-destroying romance required. But as it is, so much of her in-book storyline just feels like a waste of time because it doesn’t go anywhere.

All the way up until AMOL, I could say “okay, she has time to actually have payoff as a character; the relationship has time; the culture has time” and then the story was over and it felt like Tuon basically just jogged in place for five books, except now she’s pregnant.

From what I remember, Winter’s Heart is the best we'll ever get with Tuon, because she starts off as a horrible person but one who has flashes of almost-empathy. She had so much potential to be a great character and have an actual character arc because she is young and had a shitty formative childhood, etc. And then her potential just gets squandered over the remaining books as she actively chooses to stay the worst version of herself and gets rewarded for it by the narrative.

So, yeah. That about sums up my issues. It all feels like so much wasted potential and I’m frustrated by it.

And now I’ll find out if rereading Winter’s Heart and the following books changes my mind on any of this! Maybe I will have a mat x tuon epiphany akin to my cauthor epiphany. You never know.

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sailorgundam308 · 5 months

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Maybe I should shut my mouth already, but this is my little space to vent and digress with stuff I need to keep bottled up elsewhere.

BG3 brought me back to fandom spaces after more than a decade and, while I know this could be just a generation gap thing, there are stuff I keep reading about or that sms throws at me randomly that is pretty annoying and even disheartening. Lots of younger/new people are engaging with the Forgotten Realms lore for the first time and it’s awesome. But I forgot how impassioned and intolerant fierce parts of fandoms can be.

It rubs me the wrong way how people in general tend to simplify things in order to either justify themselves or feel secure in regards to the world - which is a terrifyingly complex, irrational and nuanced thing we have absolutely no control over. Over the years I’ve surrounded myself with people that are fine with not knowing everything, not understanding all that’s going on, and who are okay with admitting there are things we’ll never grasp, points of view we’ll never have the authority to speak from. But the internet isn’t my bubble.

In regards to BG3 fandom - but I’d risk this is valid for a lot of places in and outside fandoms - there’s a lot of simplifying, flattening and denial of other experiences. The diehard straight folks at BG3 Reddit freak out because characters are pan, BG3 steam incels freak out because the women are “ugly”, BG3 tumblr users freak out (ironically) also because characters are pan, but in reverse. It’s a bit too much, especially when a lot of the fuel for divide is our own headcanons (which, let’s remind ourselves, can’t be wrong or right cause they exist for our personal entertainment and fantasy). Not to mention the game canon itself purposefully leaves a lot to be inputted by the player so we can head-customize our experiences. It’s the magic of rpg.

Still, there are these heated discussions that I can’t help but see stemming from simplification and labeling of things. This is shit that imo should not be happening still. I’ve mentioned here before how I dislike that people bat an eye on a character and, for example, decide what sexual orientation they should have. Generalizing, Shadowheart is straight because she is pretty and petite. Karlach is a lesbian because she is muscular and curses. Astarion is gay because he is slender and flamboyant - and so on. Mind you, they could very well be - but that is not the point. The point is passing judgement onto people based off appearance or demeanor alone.

Outside BG3 this reads as our daily encounters with ideas like: fat people are lazy, immigrants are uneducated (or less educated), hot girls are dumb, being slender is a desirable feminine trait, being muscular is a desirable masculine trait, poc are poor(er). Do some of these prove to be true on a case by case basis? Yes. Do some of these prove to be false on a case by case basis? Also yes. The fact is that some of these ideas are entrenched into the way people view the world. And that includes me and you. Even if you and I personally don’t do this, it doesn’t change the fact that a vast majority of people still do - and many of them unknowingly.

So when a niche community divides itself further to pass judgement onto fictional aspects of a game that is intentionally left so open to interpretation, to the point it creates feuds, it’s quite disheartening. It’s can’t be helped, perhaps, but it just plain sucks.

What specifically prompted me to write this, despite it being a ongoing feeling for a while, was the discussion around Halsin’s status of survivor/his backstory. And, again, there is a bias there that some people might not even realize. Astarion is the ideal victim in this regard, because he is the portrayal of fragility and attractiveness mixed in the right measure so his trauma can elicit sympathy and a sense of protection in many of us. Whereas Halsin isn’t necessarily the face of a traumatic experience for many. Not only physically (buff guy gets attacked?), but these two relate their experiences to us players differently, and act differently towards their trauma. It made me think again of the flattening of characters. This one can be a victim because “look at his face”. But this one? Not so much. It comes across as dismissing the “non-ideal” impersonation of that type of trauma.

Risking some oversharing, it’s the type of attitude that is putting me off from and isolating me within certain fan spaces - because my personal experiences are not quintessential “enough” for some, and my interpretations aren’t either. I’m in the lgbtqia spectrum but I’m not quite the “right kind of queer” (or, as some put it, fake queer, which is hilarious if nothing else). At least, my interpretation and depiction of queerness and gender within my favorite characters is not the one that is welcome in the spaces I tried to reach out to.

Far from me from claiming the epitome of trauma, but I’ve had my fair share. And I assume a lot of people have, too. So a little empathy or sympathy goes a long way, in reminding us our views (on headcanons) do not mean others’ are invalid.

How nice would it be that, instead of blurting out our first impressions because they are ‘easy’, we’d take a minute to just check if we’re saying what we’re saying out of an over simplistic view of things? Or, better yet, sometimes we don’t need to get out of our way to invalidate someone else’s experience. It’s mostly headcanon after all. Unless an idiot is going ‘round shouting nazi, racist, xenophobic, homophobic or misogynistic shit, there’s usually a way to turn around and leave them be (otherwise, fuck em up please and thank you.)

#blablabla

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bthump · 3 years

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thank you so much for you posts on guts assaulting casca bc quite frankly... the way the fandom frames it rather lead me to overlook it and have an uncomplicated relationship with him, all the while hating what griffith did during the eclipse. (in your opinion, what makes the fandom like this?)

Thank you for sending this, I'm really happy my posts inspired you to rethink your initial takeaway from Berserk and the fandom! lol I hope that didn't ruin the experience for you or make you dislike a character you used to love or anything though, imo the way both the Eclipse and Guts assaulting Casca are written reflects more on the writing than on Guts or Griffith as characters.

Man though there are so many reasons for this imo.

I mean for starters, there's the fact that certain takes kind of have a chokehold on fandom, like the classic "Griffith was an evil unfeeling sociopath all along and here's a nonsensical explanation for every single one of his actions that seems to demonstrate otherwise" lol. I avoid the rest of fandom as much as I can and I still see a lot of instances where someone will, say, go to the Berserk reddit or Skull Knight like, "hey I don't understand xyz moment, if Griffith doesn't care why did this happen?" and get the rote "because he's a control freak who couldn't stand seeing his friends living their own lives" answer, or whatever lol. These fans shut down discussion as often as they can and most fans just accept those answers because they don't care enough to think about it themselves, or they don't have the tools to analyse the story and come to their own conclusions because critical thinking is a learned skill that many people were never really taught.

So along with Griffith being evil all along, you have fans who might be like, "hey, it's kinda fucked up that Guts tried to rape Casca right, maybe I don't want them to get together," and get responses like "no you see he was possessed at the time, it's not his fault it was the beast of darkness who is a random evil malicious entity and not a symbolic representation of Guts' dark side at all."

As for why fans are so eager to come up with these explanations and believe them, I mean to be fair for a lot of people it's just easier to enjoy a story if the protagonist is likeable and sympathetic and not an attempted rapist lol. I can understand the urge to downplay Guts' actions there or find an alternative explanation for them, because to do otherwise would reduce their enjoyment of the story. I think this urge can be very bad when it leads to people using actual rape apologist rhetoric, like "Guts stopped before he got his dick in so it's not that bad and he should be forgiven" or whatever, but when it leads to arguing that he was actually possessed then it's like... whatever lol. You're wrong, you're misunderstanding the story entirely, but at least you're happy I guess, good for you. (yk assuming they're not being an asshole to other fans who disagree, which lbr is a pretty unlikely assumption in this fandom, but you know what I mean.)

That said there are a lot of terrible Berserk fans out there who make it pretty obvious that their bad takes are rooted in offensive misogynist and homophobic beliefs. I mean a common nickname for Griffith in this fandom involves a homophobic slur, so that should tell you the kind of people I'm talking about here. Those are the ones who I very much think hate Griffith from the start because he's got serious gay vibes, and go out of their way to find reasons to justify their hate and ignore every nuance in his character arc, while excusing Guts at every possible turn because he's the manly "hetero" protagonist they wanna be.

And yk, there are just a lot of people in general who don't like moral greys, who don't like nuance in fiction, and who want to flatten as much as they can to "good" or "bad." So Guts is "good" and therefore every bad thing he does has to be explained away and ignored. Griffith is "bad" so every good thing he does also has to be explained away and ignored.

BUT to be fair and well-rounded here, it's not all the fault of fandom. The story itself makes it easy to do this. I mean the eclipse rape was 2 chapters long, it took away Casca as a character for 20 years, it made the protagonist very angry, it was commiteed by a demon who has pointedly shown no remorse, and it was basically used as motivation for a whole revenge plot.

Conversely Guts assaulting Casca was a few pages, most of which was shown in symbolic imagery in Guts' head, Guts feels bad about it, and - and this is something I absolutely hate about Berserk lol - it's had zero negative consequences, at least so far, and several positive results. It's the inciting incident for Guts realizing he needs a babysitter and has to work on being less shitty, and Casca was already afraid of him so that didn't even change for the worse. Guts sexually assaulting Casca literally had a positive impact on the narrative. This makes it a lot easier to downplay how utterly shitty it was, and this is a major problem with the story.

And like the story itself doesn't condemn Guts for the assault very harshly despite being very clear about Guts being the one responsible. This is another thing that can create cognitive dissonance for fans and require explaining away - the attempted rape was a Bad Thing but since the story itself kind of downplays it that must mean that Guts isn't actually at fault, because if he was surely it would be a whole big thing, and not one scene that has never been brought up again.

So yeah, idk, basically I think there are a bunch of reasons for the fanbase's reactions to Guts and Griffith sexually assaulting Casca, and some of them are understandable and some of them are shitty. Thanks for the ask!

#ask #b #anonymous #a #theme: critique #theme: misogyny #scene: eclipse rape #scene: beast assault #theme: fandom

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Is there a direction that CRWBY could go to make u say "fuck it, I'm done"? I'm still watching for fanfiction purposes and bc I'm in to deep to quit without feeling like i wasted my time, but if Cinder is redeemed, like full-on redeemed without her death (that's the only justifiable redemption for her imo), I'll likely tap out if it's not the end of the series.

Honestly, at this point probably not. If I've stuck around for plotlines I thoroughly disagreed with (Ozpin), the destruction of characters I enjoyed (Ironwood), while simultaneously redeeming others I have no interest in (Hazel), and including aspects that I found to be straight up offensive (Penny)... RWBY has already hit all the "Fuck it, I'm done" possibilities for me, generally speaking. It's more likely that rather than doing something specific that turns me off, RWBY may just wear me down over time. I'm still interested in watching it despite the problems now, but after two, three, even four more years of potential problems? Who can say.

I'd like to briefly comment on that "I'm in too deep to quit without feeling like I wasted my time" aspect though, simply because I'm seeing it pop up more and more. Fans, specifically fans who have expressed varying amounts of criticism, say something to that effect of not wanting to drop RWBY when they've already put in years of emotional investment, to which others, usually fans still greatly enjoying RWBY, respond, "That's just the sunk cost fallacy. At this point you're being illogical for not dropping it."

For any who may not be aware, the sunk cost fallacy is the tendency to avoid cutting one's losses once you've already invested something in an endeavor: time, money, emotion, etc. The argument is to avoid such biased thinking because you can't get that investment back and all you're doing is prolonging a lack of enjoyment. An easy example would be a movie you payed for. You realize twenty minutes in that you hate this film, but you can't get your ticket money back. Many people would employ the sunk cost fallacy by claiming they need to stick around because otherwise that money is "wasted." The counter argument is that the money is wasted either way, so better to leave the theater and spend that hour and forty minutes doing something you like. That's becoming the latest argument trend in the RWBY fandom: it doesn't matter how many years you spent investing in this show, they're lost, you clearly hate it now, so just drop it already. To do otherwise is philosophically foolish.

However, I've personally always found the sunk cost fallacy to be a weird thing to apply to media. Not because countering it is entirely without merit — we all should practice dropping things if we want to: books, movies, podcasts, whatever — but rather because there's so much to be gained from media outside of enjoying 100% of the time. For me, finishing things is a kind of enjoyment. I'm rather bad at it (lol), but that doesn't erase the fact that I have an intellectual itch to complete any series I fell in love with, particularly when I loved it for 3+ years. Managing that provides a different kind of enjoyment from the enjoyment of being totally happy with the show's writing, but it's an enjoyment nonetheless. If I'm critical of something, I like being able to say honestly that I completed it so that can't be used as a catch-all dismissal for why any arguments I make are unfounded. I enjoy seeing what missteps a show goes through so that I can try to avoid them in my own writing and, hopefully, I enjoy watching the show come back from them. I like keeping up with a community that I'm a part of, one where I chat with both friends and strangers specifically about RWBY. If I were to drop it, I'd also be dropping the connection I have with a lot of people. I likewise enjoy keeping up with the show for the creativity potential — "for fanfiction purposes," as you say, anon. I may not like how the show handled the Hound, but I like the Hound as a concept and now, having watched Volume 8, I can play with that idea in my own way. And none of this even touches on the enjoyment of details throughout an episode (or season) that I think is otherwise failing: a particularly cool idea, a nicely delivered exchange, animation that I find to be beautiful, spending time with characters whose original concepts I still enjoy, etc.

The critical side of the fandom has discussed extensively the non-critical side's tendency to view RWBY as perfect. It's not that many fans disagree on what problems RWBY has, but rather it's refusing to admit that there are any problems. This new desire to bring up the sunk cost fallacy feels like it's built on that, the idea that if you're not enjoying all of RWBY all the time then you need to cut it out of your life completely. There is no middle ground. You either adore it without reservation or you drop it and, as is so often said, leave the "real" fans alone. Stop ruining the community and all that because the expectation is that the community is allowed to be composed of praise and praise only. It's a familiar argument wrapped up in a very disingenuous sense of concern. When one fan insists that another should drop RWBY because they're just hurting themselves, they're acting like they really care about the others' well being when, in reality, they just want them gone. It's a trend that I'm coming to dislike because it tries to paint the fan as the logical, level-headed one who is only trying to get the critic to drop RWBY out of a sense of logical inevitability and, sometimes, even concern for this stranger's mental health... because there's definitely no other motivation there.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying, "Me too, anon." As of right now, I still feel like I'm in too deep to just drop RWBY. I'd rather see it through, for a number of different reasons, and all the "it's illogical/unhealthy to keep watching" arguments aren't going to dissuade me from that.

#rwde #rwby #mymetas

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c-aureus · 3 years

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How I think Hyrule would respond to Zelda's return, after the end of BotW.

Wall of text incoming.

TL;DR: I think they'd be very cruel.

Please remember that these are all only my interpretations and opinions, and should be treated as such.

A while ago, I made a post saying that I do not believe that Zelda or Link should be in any way 'happy' after the end of BotW. Imo, they've both lost too much for that, and I worry that the sequel will not give this grief or loss the focus it deserves.

Now, I plan to expand on that, by explaining my interpretation for how i believe Hyrule would respond to her after her return, which would only further compound their misery.

Now, I'd like to preface this by saying that I actually like BotW Zelda as a character a lot, and that I'm very sympathetic to her.

However... well.

The consequences of her failure are simply too big to ignore imo.

Firstly, as a general overview: Zelda was the ONLY person capable of stopping Ganon. Without her Divine sealing power, there was simply no way for Hyrule to survive Ganon's assault, no matter the preparations, or skill of the warriors. The best example of this is the Champions and Divine Beasts. They were all the best of the absolute best, and yet none of them were able to survive Ganon's assault, simply because they were not Divinely favoured to succeed, the way that Link and Zelda were. Even despite their incredible skill, prowess and dedication. There are other examples too, notably the fall of Hyrule's military outposts, and the annihilation of central Hyrule's civilisation and infrastructure.

To put it simply, with Zelda's power, they won. Without it, all of the preparations were for naught, and everyone would die. Zelda herself even says as much in a cutscene in AoC.

(Also, as a side note, in all of those levels in AoC where you relieve the Akkala Fortress, Great Plateau, and Hateno fort, remember that in BotW, they all fell, and the soldiers would have been slaughtered.)

So, in light of that...

The fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was already too late means that I don't believe that the shattered remnants of Hyrule's civilisation would be kind or sympathetic to her.

Link and Zelda were literally born by divine influence to protect Hyrule from Ganon. And, well...

Again, my point comes down to the fact that Zelda only unlocked her power after it was too late for the Champions, Link, and thousands of other Hyruleans who had either already been killed, or who would later die in the aftermath.

Now, again, I'm HIGHLY sympathetic to Zelda here. Indeed, she had lived her entire life with this Sword of Damocles hanging over her.

However. The sword fell.

And, crucially, Zelda avoided it, whilst it went on to kill literally thousands of others. They all died for Zelda's failure, whilst she herself survived.

Furthermore, those 'lucky' ones who did survive had to live in BotW Hyrule, which, if I'm being honest, is an absolute wasteland. So, so much was lost in the Calamity, the land was overrun by monsters, and even the tiny remaining pockets of civilisation suffer. I could go on for hours about how infrastructure, agriculture and trade were all annihilated, but I'll try to refrain for brevity's sake.

The long and short of it is that Hyrule is fucked.

I think my worry about this comes from BotW's post credit scene where Zelda tells Link that she thinks that if everyone works together, they can rebuild, and make Hyrule better than it was before.

And, this line really annoyed me. Because, quite simply, Hyrule has simply lost too much to rebuild. Infrastructure, agriculture, trade, population... Hyrule would be reeling for generations after Link and Zelda's death. To expect any kind of quick recovery is just... foolish beyond words.

(Another side note: I'm extremely grateful to AoC showing just how developed Hyrule is pre-Calamity. It helps give scale and scope to the devastation in BotW even more.)

So, Zelda's naive optimism here annoyed me. However, far more than that, there is another issue that this overlooks:

Namely, I cannot fathom why anyone in Hyrule would want to follow her, or would accept her as their sovereign.

Now, this is going to get extremely cruel to Zelda, and that saddens me, because I like her. This is just what I think the realistic response would be to her, given the circumstances, because people are cruel and like easy targets of blame. There are many examples of this kind of blaming behaviour in history, if anyone wants to look, lol. So apologies in advance:

BotW tells us through the memories that Zelda's reputation is AWFUL Pre-Calamity. Rhoam says that the people call her 'Heir to a Kingdom of Nothing' etc.

Now, perhaps poor parenting aside, this gives more context. Do you really believe that the 'lucky' few survivors of Central Hyrule would be kind, given that Zelda fulfilled their terrible expectations in the WORST possible manner?

No. I believe that that generation, which already disliked her, would spend the rest of their lives cursing her failure, and the death and destruction that came as a consequence. And, they would pass that down to their children and grandchildren.

This comes to another point: Zelda is (for the most part) out of living memory. The only thing Hyrule knows of her is her failure to prevent the land from being devastated. Furthermore, the 4 tribes of Hyrule might even have a decent cause to blame her for the deaths of the Champions.

(Cause and effect are tricky, but well... people are irrational. Maybe if Zelda had unlocked her power straight away, the Champions still would have died. However, perhaps they could have held on long enough for Link and Zelda to force Ganon to recall his Blights to protect himself, as he does in BotW if you attack him without liberating the Divine Beasts. Who is to say? The point is, people get hung up on these kind of 'what ifs', as I am doing right now, lol.)

I'd like to make a special mention of the Zora here, who not only have Zelda (and all of her failures and inadequacies) in living memory, but are also xenophobic towards Hylians.

We see how they blame Link in BotW, after all. I think that they would feel similarly to Zelda, who is 'technically' more deserving of blame.

From a Zora-centric perspective, Zelda may as well have stolen Mipha from them, to make her take the fall for Zelda's failures. She literally set Mipha up to die, she sacrificed Mipha on the altar of her own survival, etc.

To elaborate: Princess Zelda personally requested Mipha, the beloved Crown Princess of the Zora, to become Champion. Despite Dorephan's hesitance, he allows it. Then, Zelda fails her, and Mipha dies in the Calamity that Zelda failed to prevent, but also that Zelda manages to survive.

Like... as harsh, cruel, and unfair as this is to poor Zelda... do you think that the Domain, which is STILL mourning Mipha a century later, would just... wave that away?

Now... how much Zelda is truly to blame for the Calamity is another matter, one that I will explore in a post hopefully shorter than this one. Suffice to say, I have many opinions, and some of the conclusions are perhaps unkind to her, which only further justifies my interpretations of Hyrule's blame, and Zelda's guilt and grief.

The point is that... Hyrule would see an easy target to dump their grief on. And I I don't believe they would just let it go.

Furthermore, Zelda has no political influence anymore. She can't force anyone to listen to her, or obey her commands, since all of that was destroyed in the Calamity. Moreover, with Zelda's reputation being that of colossal failure, I doubt that anyone in Hyrule would wish to submit to her, to give her the chance to fuck everything up again.

God. I feel really horrible typing all of this out, lol. And yet, I genuinely believe that this would be the reaction to her. So, if in the sequel, everything is being rebuilt and everyone is totally happy with Zelda, well...

I'm gonna be very upset. Because, in my opinion, if all of Hyrule just forgave Zelda's failures, and ignored their disastrous consequences, that would be extremely unrealistic.

As much as this headcanon hurts, and would hurt me to see, I'd be very vindicated by it, lol.

If anyone has any opinions, feel free to let me know.

Just please keep everything civil lol. This is only a random person on the internet's opinion.

#botw zelda #botw #post botw #botw2 #loz botw #loz breath of the wild

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mc-critical · 3 years

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What is your opinion about Esmahan? Do you think she has a cold relationship with her mother? I mean Şah sultan is a really good mother (she steps over her pride and pardons Lütfi for her sake) but she chooses to live with her father even after the beating. Lütfi wasn't a bad father of course and i can understand Esmahan for not wanting him executed but i feel like she left her mother alone when she needed support.

And what do you think about Şah and Lütfi's relationship? I don't blame her for not falling in love with him (forced marriage) but i can't understand why she humiliated and hated him so much( even Mihrimah had some respect for Rüstem)

I really liked her character and story arc, she was the most the interesting rival of Hürrem after İbrahim imo. I wish we could have seen more of her story and background

I don't like Esmahan all that much, to be honest. She felt very bland and forgettable, even though she had potential for storylines other than the rivalry with Mihrimah for the love triangle. She had a crush on Mehmet that sadly wasn't well developed and a mean girl streak, which didn't do much for me, either. They should've fleshed her out more.

I talked quite a bit about why I think Esmahan went with Lütfi here. Otherwise, I totally agree that Şah is actually a very good mother and she loves her daughter a lot, given that yup, she literally sacrificed her own pride for her. What I found interesting about Şah's relationship with Esmahan (with the exception of the advantages a marriage with Bali Bey may bring for Şah's goal) is that you don't have this duality of ambition and care that defines all her other relationships. With Esmahan you see Şah at her most openly loving and openly emotional. She doesn't have anything to mask here, she loves Esmahan, she's going to do anything for her and she's gonna end you if something happens to her. Anytime they had a scene together, I could always feel Şah's tenderness and how motherly she is, even for a little bit.

Anyway, despite of that, it was obvious that Esmahan had more of a bias to Lütfi and it's a pity we didn't understand why, beyond the speculation that Lütfi could've spent more time with her before they came to Topkapi maybe? It's actually one of the more interesting aspects about her I wish got more explored.

I talked briefly about Şah's relationship with Lütfi (especially how it could've been pre-Topkapi) in the last paragraph of this ask. For me, Şah was demanding to Lütfi not only because she didn't love him, but also because, despite of everything, she likes to be in control and would definetly stand against anyone who dares to cross the line, which she feels Lütfi does from time to time. I doubt such a scandal like the one with the prostitute has happened before then, so Lütfi probably didn't raise his voice like this, let alone ever beat his wife, but other problems could've been there. Lütfi doesn't seem like a person who would be totally okay to not get his way almost every time, even when it comes to his wife. In my opinion, Lütfi loved her and probably has tried many times to win her over and if she refused him so often and pre-Topkapi, too, if he felt like his efforts weren't appreciated... he isn't a person who would shallow his pride that easily and even if he could because Şah probably pulled rank on him or he simply respected her wishes, there's no telling how long would it last, so scandals might have happened.

Still, I believe they lived more calmly and peacefully before Istanbul, because they were in a less tense environment and had more time to focus on what's perhaps the best thing in their marriage - Esmahan. But when they came to Istanbul, appeared a dear person from Şah's past and it was an even stronger reminder that this was a loveless marriage. Ibrahim was even more of a catalyst in their conflicts in Istanbul and while this wasn't all of it, since it was clearly hinted that they had problems before, as well, it added even more fuel to the fire. Istanbul and in extension, Hatice's castle, was the memory of Ibrahim Şah tried to erase with all she could, but deep down, her feelings were still there and when she arrived, they were maybe reborn again. And his death touched her a lot, regardless. All these reminders that were, I can guess, practically nonexistent in Şah's life before Istanbul made it even harder for her to even stand Lütfi. I don't justify her for quite some of her behaviour and I feel both were at fault in how their relationship developed, but I understand where both come from.

[And yes, I also love Şah as a character and I'm very satisfied with what we got with her, overall. I'm not that big on her as an antagonist of Hürrem's as most people, but I can't deny that she was effective in ways no one else was.

By the way, I find nearly all of Hürrem's antagonists interesting characters and I honestly dislike when they are judged only based on their "intelligence" and so forth, because that's not the only thing that matters in an antagonist, but yup, I was glad to see such a pragmatic sultana, even though I don't want for everyone else to be that way, as well. Şah's power is in her uniqueness and if everyone were like her.... basically, I'm happy we had her and I'm happy they didn't repeat her!

I would also love a little more flashbacks of her past, but if we got them, then this interesting deciphering of motivation by the audience we had going with her has a high chance to disappear or at least, minimize in a significant amount.]

#magnificent century #muhteşem yüzyıl #muhtesem yuzyil #sah sultan #lutfi pasha #esmahan sultan #ask #celebriel-52

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groundramon · 4 years

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So curiouscat has stupid short reply lengths so i had to post this here

Tw for: bullying, fatphobia, discussion of sexual harassment (oh it feels good to have enough characters to write a proper tw)

So it might surprise ppl to know that my favorite frontier character is JP, the raging heterosexual. But like, to me...hes so much more than that. JP is a character that I saw so much of myself in. His social isolation from his peers, leading him to push away others to avoid getting hurt...its not that people outwardly bully him, its that no one sees behind his surface and nobody bothers to truly care about him. People only recognize him as the class clown - no one actually wants to hang out with him. And that...that hit me HARD as a kid. It was the experience i had growing up. I wasn't outright bullied, I just felt...excluded. Judged. I wanted friends but was too afraid of being judged or excluded. And sometimes it caused me to be dismissive of genuinely good people. And quite frankly, that's STILL a problem I have, not even a year after an exfriend of 7 years said that our interests were one of the things driving us apart. My intense fear of being ridiculed for my interests drove me as a kid, and sometimes even now as an adult, to completely stop caring what my peers thought about anything. For all intents and purposes, im a bit of a hipster - i hate on what's popular and i tote my more obscure interests. Because I feel like that's the only way. Obviously i have fairly mainstream interests but lemme tell ya, i went to a christian school in the late 2000s/early 2010s - goddamn pokemon was obscure/counter-culture in a setting like that. But despite my desperate attempts not to care, I DO care, just like JP. It fuckin stung. And now i have depression and social anxiety whoops. Honestly ngl, it got so bad that I genuinely projected that it was implied JP was isolated for being fat/not conventionally attracted, until i was like "wait a minute...frontier didnt go that hard"

But what makes JP such a tragic character to me now is that at the end of Frontier nowadays when i watch it, im left asking myself....DID JP make any friends?

I know JP is a raging heterosexual but quite frankly, he is dealt such a shitty, judgemental hand for an innocent crush. JP's most nsfw fantasy is marrying Zoe and holding her hand, like... And yet, despite this, he's accused time and time again of being a perv. JP is, well, a big fuckin guy. As such, he thinks "its probably a good idea to let all my friends climb up this latter before me, so i dont crush them all if i fall - plus ill look chivalrous too!" But he unfortunately forgets that Zoe has a skirt on and, y'know, not pants. I understand Zoe's hesitation completely - i wouldnt trust a man who kept hitting on me either. Her relationship with JP is completely justified. Like, its not like JP doesn't take no for an answer - he just still has a crush on her. Yes he should probably give it a rest but like, he's 13 and his most nsfw fantasy is to hold hands and marry and respect his crush. Inb4 you say "but its a kids show of course it is-" literally everything about Zoe is sexualized so no the fuck its not lol

What gets me the most though is the beach episode... again, not because of Zoe. She thinks someone has peeped on her (understandable but it was a digimon) and confronts them about it. But koji and takuya IMMEDIATELY suspect JP, and only believe his immediate denial when Tommy points out that JP was with them the whole time. Like first of all, YOU FORGOT HE WAS THERE??? it took the baby of the group pointing that out for you to remember???? Second of all, JP has never done anything to warrant not being believed - again for zoe id understand, a bitch has gotta be weary, but not for the guys? And thirdly, and perhaps most importantly of all, YOU GUYS CONSIDER SOMEONE YOU'D EASILY SUSPECT OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT YOUR "FRIEND"???? i would NEVER be friends with someone who i could see sexually harassing another one of my friends!! What the shit!! I realize they're kids but GEEZ. And i know its implied JP only cares about the perpetrator because he likes Zoe but idc, despite being persistent in his crush JP has literally NEVER done ANYTHING to disrespect women. And if the scene where takuya and jp run into Zoe's changing room to see whats wrong after she screams counts - well lol takuya was there too.

Zoe was dealt a terrible hand by the writers (worse than JP imo) so I understand people being weary of JP, but - in the dub at least - he literally did nothing wrong... dont confuse the writers sexualizing zoe and being misogynistic with JP sexualizing zoe and being misogynistic.

And im gonna say it - JP is only treated this way cuz hes fat lol. Its not a coincidence that the only MC in the digimon anime who's treated like a perv (despite the fact that they failed in writing one, cuz hes not a perv) is the fat guy. Japan LOVES the fat otaku stereotype (America, look what you did, you made it fatphobic) and in JP's case he's treated completely differently because he's fat. Takuya doesn't have an explicit crush on Zoe but just look at how he treats her vs JP. And which one is demonized lmao? Like, frontier has major problems in general, but to me this isnt a coincidence.

Also, I think JP's crush on zoe is initially just flirting/wanting to impress a girl to fill the void in his heart, but then he genuinely comes to respect her and like her for who she is. He likes that she's kind but stands up for herself and even though he's hopelessly infatuated with her, he just wants her to be happy, even if its not with him. He relates to her struggles to fit in despite not understanding how someone so beautiful and charismatic (in his eyes) could be disliked by her peers.

Hackers Memory discussion coming up, but the spoilers are minor/vague. Frank discussion of sexual harassment and...pedophilia i guess? But its like...ephebophilia, not literal children.

I realize the Story games and the anime are two different beasts entirely, and Cyber Sleuth especially is targeted at an older audience. BUT... compare how JP is treated in Frontier to how Chitose and even Keisuke are treated in HM. Chitose goes after countless women and isn't even reprimanded for going after someone he considers a CHILD. To clarify - Ryuji and Chitose both call Arata a child. Arata is canonically older than Yuuko. Chitose flirts with Yuuko. It is gross. Like he gets the physical embodiment of the cold shoulder and you get to insult him for it, but that's not proper reprimanding. In comparison, yes JP is older than Zoe...by a year/grade. But JP gets accused of SEXUAL HARASSMENT BY HIS "FRIENDS" and Chitose just gets "haha good ol chitose, hes a wild one." Plus i think Chitose and JP get the shit smacked out of each other an equal amount of times in the story, which like...one of these people is worse than the other!

Then there's Keisuke, the protagonist of HM, who's significantly better than Chitose but still gets dirty thoughts about Yuuko and is only reprimanded by Erika. And honestly I love Erika but HM plays up the tsundere heterosexual couple aspect. So imagine the only person who calls you out on your shit is your fucking love interest, who also beat the shit out of you with a plush toy for entering her room without knocking, not knowing anyone was in there (id say hes not a playboy but considering he befriends a stranger to practice "getting chicks" at chitose's recommendation, hes totally a playboy) and yet all she does when you start thinking weird shit about Yuuko is be like "hey. Stop that. Get some help"

Also Erika's best friend is chitose so like, someone save this poor girl PLEASE

But my point is that Chitose is conventionally attractive and...well they play up the idea that Keisuke isn't but hes not conventionally unattractive like JP is.

Gee, i wonder why they're treated differently? /s

TLDR: JP drinks respecting women juice and i kin him

#Stormy speaks

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zdbztumble · 5 years

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So About That Roxas…

Well, it’s that time - time to invite unholy disdain upon myself for my blasphemous views on fan favorite Roxas!

OK, that’s an exaggeration. I don’t know how unpopular what I’m about to say really is. And to make this perfectly clear up-front - I don’t dislike Roxas. I think he’s a fine character, and his (very) long prologue is one of the strongest parts of KH II. But I do find Roxas more valuable and compelling in how he relates to other characters, and in the fact that he is an aspect of Sora, than in his own right. All on his own, I don’t find Roxas to be particularly active or interesting.

And that isn’t a flaw. Given what Nobodies are (prior to DDD, at least), I would expect that from Roxas. Almost every member of Organization XIII isn’t terribly dynamic or dimensional on their own merits - their personalities are one-note (if that), which can be by turns tragic, obnoxious, or an effective foil for the protagonists. When Roxas draws jealousy from Hayner, general confusion from his friend group, some amount of pathos from Axel, mixed emotions from Riku and disdain from DiZ, and attraction from Namine, he’s a great example of the latter. I never find him obnoxious, and when he is on his own, there is a sense of tragedy with him. Because while Roxas may have agency, and does display a curiosity - almost an obsession, after a while - with gaining answers for the strange things happening to him, he’s ultimately empty. None of his joys, none of his curiosity - and not even his rages and despairs - last. He ends up defaulting, always, into a quiet, resigned, and hollow state, and he doesn’t seem happy about that.

This is true of the Twilight Town prologue, at least. In the brief flashbacks we’re given in KH II, and at the beginning of the Sora/Roxas fight, a different Roxas appears. He’s still empty at the core, but his front to the world is crueler, dismissive even of the words of his supposed best friend Axel, and predatory. We learn later in the game that DiZ altered Roxas’s personality when he dropped him into the digital Twilight Town, and it’s not hard to see why. Even with the altered personality, the strongest display of feeling Roxas can manage is anger. It’s only when Roxas confronts Sora, accepts him as “a good other,” and fully rejoins with him, that Roxas appears genuinely happy and alive in KH II.

But I do have problems with how Roxas is used, in KH II and especially in 358/2 Days. To start with II - there are some pretty big missed opportunities. Roxas was a member of Organization XIII, presumably working toward their goals (to go just on what we see in KH II), and every member of the Organization who sees Sora recognizes Roxas within him. Wouldn’t it have been nice to have someone else do the same? If, when visiting one of the Disney worlds that Sora hasn’t been to before, there was a character who had a negative encounter with Roxas, and therefore fears Sora and the Keyblade?

The lack of any such scene speaks to a larger problem with Roxas in KH II: his limited relevance once the prologue ends. He does come up here and there throughout the play time, which I do appreciate, but he doesn’t really have an impact on Sora before their clash other than as a source of mild confusion. Sora’s reactions to being called by Roxas’s name never progress much past “huh? Cut that out!” and he has no real reaction to learning that his own Nobody was a member of Organization XIII. Had Roxas’s activities over the past year created a negative consequence that Sora had to deal with, that might have invited some internal conflict within Sora’s heart, culminating in a much more emotionally charged clash with Organizers like Xibar and Saix. Hell, even without such a scene, the knowledge that a part of him was a member of the bad guys could have, and should have, made Sora feel at least a little upset. That’s not to say that the absence of such a mini-arc is a dealbreaker for KH II; what we did get works well enough. But, much like Roxas himself, something seems to be missing.

A future game might have been able to address this issue...had it not been for 358/2 Days.

This isn’t a revisit of Days; I can’t very well revisit a game I only ever played the first few minutes of, years ago, before losing touch with the friend who had the DS card for it. You’ll get no views of the gameplay here. But I am familiar with Days; I’ve read the breakdowns, researched its writing, and watched the movie multiple times. And I gotta tell ya - I know the game has its fans, and it may have some strengths and concepts missing from other titles, but I really don’t care for its story. And that has a lot to do with how it mishandles Roxas.

I’ll start with a caveat - I am not the audience for Days. At no point while playing KH II did I ever want to know any more about Roxas or the Organization than that game saw fit to reveal. What we got was enough for them to work as the villains in that story, and that’s all I ever needed them to be. This was always going to be an easy title for me to skip, or at least not take any real interest in. But that’s a matter of taste. Plenty of people take more interest in the backstories of Roxas and the Organization than I do, and this was perfectly acceptable as a subject for a midquel game. But the execution, IMO, is a complete mess. It ignores or retcons several of the snippets we get about the Organization in KH II, to poor effect, and fails to expand on any of the villainous Organizers in a way that might turn them from one-note video game bosses and elements of a hive mind into fleshed-out characters. Axel is given several coats of whitewash, and his history with Saix lacks any resonance when Saix is left as such a hollow villain. There’s no playing alongside Disney characters in a game so given over to original KH lore, and that lore is rewritten in ways I don’t like. The trends of mystery for its own sake and teasing histories and future events at the expense of the story at hand continue, the same few points of lore and logistics are over-stressed, and the dialogue and voice acting just isn’t good (and can anyone tell me why they re-dubbed Christopher Lee in the HD movie version? I mean...it’s Christopher Lee!)

But as I said, the real problem is with Roxas. For a character meant to be the protagonist, Roxas cedes a lot of narrative real estate to new character Xion. Like Days itself, I know Xion has fans - ardent fans. I can’t argue with that, nor would I want to; you can like what you like, and I won’t assess and critique her as a character here. But all I can say about Xion is that, as a writer, she strikes me as redundant. A member of Organization XIII, unusually lacking in knowledge about their life beforehand, wielding the Keyblade, inducted into the Organization within this game, derived from Sora through unusual means, with a connection to Kairi and whose existence arrests Sora’s full restoration from the events of CoM; setting her character aside, Xion’s narrative function is exactly what Roxas’s was established to be by KH II.

One could say that the game makes a point of this, turning it into an orchestrated conflict between the two by Xemnas, but practically speaking, this means that Roxas spends a key chunk of the story displaced. He becomes a friend on the sidelines as the real meat of the story concerns a character who, from the very beginning, anyone who played KH II would know isn’t going to matter past this game. This ends up making Xion more important, and more interesting, than Roxas within Days itself. But almost everything that Xion goes through could have easily been given to him by dint of what we see in KH II. That Sora’s restoration is upset because his memories of Kairi are being absorbed into another being would have been especially appropriate for Roxas, since Kairi’s very name is always fractured in the restoration process during II’s prologue at first, and the process itself is at such a low number despite a year having passed until Roxas is in DiZ’s hands. Those character elements unique to Xion herself, and the conflict between her and Roxas engineered by Xemnas, aren’t enough to justify her presence in the larger KH story IMO, and end up confusing elements of the lore (replicas, memories, etc.) If she had been cut, and those aspects of her story relating to Sora’s restoration given to Roxas, the story and lore integrity would’ve been better for it.

But that wouldn’t have solved everything wrong with Roxas in Days. Let’s look back at what KH II shows us of a pre-DiZ Roxas again. A cold and predatory figure; the Dusks who first come for him in Twilight Town address him as their “liege,” implying that they served him the way other Nobodies serve the Organizers; the Organizers themselves seem to have been quite close to Roxas, taking his betrayal hard and referring to him as “brother.” And Organization XIII, as we see it in KH II vanilla, is a collective, with no real secret about its motives within the ranks - that motive being, in so many words, to let the remaining Heartless continue their genocide across the worlds just so that they can swoop in with the Keyblade, harvest the captive hearts, and offer them up to their Kingdom Hearts in a mad bid to gain hearts of their own.

So why is Roxas so innocent in Days?

That cold exterior, the flashes of temper - that’s not what we get from Roxas here. What we get is a blank slate who becomes a puppy as he strikes up a buddy-buddy relationship with Axel, and who later performs the same function for Xion. He talks about fighting the darkness and asks hopefully if he’s performing “good” deeds. His interactions with his friends show him to be cheerful and open. The Samurai are supposedly under his command, but that’s a detail relegated to the reports. His relationships with anyone in the Organization other than Axel and Xion don’t even warrant scenes in the movie, and nothing suggests that they would deem him “brother;” Saix and Xemnas regard him as no more than a tool . And even though he’s destroying Heartless with the Keyblade, and those hearts are becoming part of the Organization’s Kingdom Hearts...somehow this is a point he needs explained several times? And he and Xion openly doubt why they need hearts at all - a point presented as one to be sympathetic toward, despite everything from KH II and a good chunk of this very game stressing that it is in fact a problem that Nobodies lack hearts?

This is not what was indicated in KH II. What’s worse, it’s boring. A far more effective choice IMO would have been to let Roxas be villainous. Go the dark protagonist route; give us a cold hunter of a character, with the impulsive anger and fractured psyche Sora showed in CoM, fully aware of what the Organization is up to and the price that others will pay for it and still committed to the cause. Then, when the events of CoM play out in the background, and fragments of Sora’s memories find their way to Roxas (assuming we still cut Xion in this scenario), that’s the turning point. That’s when Roxas can doubt the Organization’s cause, when he can begin to question his lack of memories and his true identity, and betray the Organization by setting out to find Sora. Give him two separate fights with Riku, to justify the dialogue claiming such in KH II. Let him develop some awareness of Namine after he gets Sora’s memories; Namine’s dialogue in KH II indicates that they’ve never met before, but a connection at a distance could serve to give more substance to their relationship, and supply Namine with opportunities to develop as a character. Depict the scenes where she first comes into contact with DiZ and Riku, agrees to take on their help in restoring Sora’s memories, and feels conflicted about the moral gray area their harsh but necessary actions occupy. Let her be ultimately responsible for setting Riku on the right trail that ends up bringing Roxas into their hands.

Of course, one reason why they may have opted not to do this is because having a dark protagonist complicit in an evil scheme involving the deaths of countless people may have been difficult to pull off while still earning an E10 rating at most. And honestly, the story told by Days doesn’t strike me as necessarily the best fit for a video game even as-is. They might have been better off with planning it as a proper movie from the get-go, instead of a string of cutscenes divorced from the gameplay as they ultimately presented it in the HD collections.

And another objection to this approach might have been that a villainous Roxas and morally ambiguous Namine might have been less “likable,” and therefore less usable in future titles. To that I say - so what? I didn’t want Roxas and Namine as characters in any titles past KH II anyway - not because they were bad characters, or because I didn’t like them, but because their stories concluded. Concluded on terms they chose, and were at peace with. It was tinged with a bittersweet quality, but they did get a “happy” ending. If a midquel story complicated their morality, that wouldn’t negate the events of KH II or the resolution they received; it would have created a journey to get them to that point, starting from a much darker place, and given more weight to the idea that it was necessary for them to rejoin with Sora and Kairi. I’d argue that would enrich what we see in KH II, whereas the actual route they took in titles like DDD and KH III disregards or undermines everything that made the ending of KH II work.

#z's crits #kingdom hearts #roxas #namine #kingdom hearts 2 #critique #commentary #358/2 days #xion

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chaos-of-the-abyss · 5 years

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Who are your least favorite to favorite sons of Fëanor?

Ask 2: What do you think about the sons of Fëanor, each individually, and overall? Did you take away anything from their stories? Personally I learned a lot while reading about them and I was wondering if anyone else experienced the same thing.

Okay, as you probably guessed, I’ll be answering both these asks in the same post, since the answers to each one tie pretty closely into each other.

7. Amrod

I don’t dislike Amrod at all, but we just…don’t know much about him, so my feelings toward him are mostly indifference. The only thing I might be interested in knowing is his thoughts about his father’s actions, his brothers’ actions, and his own.

6. Amras

It’s almost a tie with Amrod, frankly. The only reason I’m placing Amras above him in this list is because, in The Shibboleth of Fëanor, Amras, horrified by the Kinslaying at Alqualondë defies his father and tried to go back:

“In the morning the host was mustered, but of Fëanor’s seven sons only six were to be found. Then Ambarussa went pale with fear. ‘Did you not then rouse Ambarussa my brother (whom you called Ambarto)?’ he said. 'He would not come ashore to sleep (he said) in discomfort.’ But it is thought (and no doubt Fëanor had guessed this also) that it was in the mind of Ambarto to sail his ship back [?afterwards] and rejoin Nerdanel; for he had been much [?shocked] by the deed of his father. ‘That ship I destroyed first,’ said Fëanor (hiding his own dismay). 'Then rightly you gave the name to the youngest of your children,’ said Ambarussa, 'And Umbarto "the Fated” was its true form. Fell and fey are you become.’ And after that no one dared to speak again to Fëanor of this matter.“

It appears that Fëanor didn’t mean to kill his son, but Amras died anyway. In any case, I find Amras’ righteousness and willingness to stand up for his beliefs impressive. Even after seeing what his father could do, he defied him because he couldn’t bring himself to follow Fëanor after he committed something so atrocious. Given Fëanor’s character, I’d say that’s pretty damn courageous.

5. Caranthir

Caranthir is (somewhat) interesting to me for a few reasons. For one thing, he seems to have taken after Fëanor the most in terms of temper, being noted as the “harshest” and “quickest to anger” among the Fëanorians. It makes me wonder what kind of relationship he had with his father, because Fëanor was hotheaded as well. I would not want to be in the room if those two had dissenting opinions.

Another reason why Caranthir interests me (somewhat) is that he was married. Literally nothing is known about his wife, but I’m curious to know how they parted when he left Aman to follow his father and his brothers to retrieve the Silmarils. I can’t imagine they parted on amicable terms.

The third reason Caranthir is fascinating is his relationship with Haleth. What did he think of her personally? Was he impressed at her independence or offended that his offer was refused? How did she (and her people) affect his opinion of humans?

I also wonder what were his thoughts about the Kinslayings and what he thought about as he was dying. (Morbid of me, I know.)

4. Curufin

Curufin I also find interesting for pretty much the same reasons as Caranthir, although the “harshest and quickest to anger” is replaced by “Fëanor’s favorite” (favoritism is not good for your children, Curufinwë Fëanáro!), “much like him in appearance, temperament, and skill”. I actually can’t imagine being Fëanor’s favorite child would have had a good impact on anyone. Fëanor was a perfectionist, and I feel like he wouldn’t accept anything less than the absolute best from his favorite son, and that he didn’t hold back when expressing disappointment either.

Like I said for Caranthir, his relationship with his wife is also a point of interest. How did they meet and fall in love? What kind of household did they run (and raise Celebrimbor in)? How did their relationship deteriorate over the years? How was their parting?

What was he thinking about as he was dying? Was he regretting his actions? Or did he feel that they were all justified? Was he remembering his wife and his son? And speaking of his son, what was his relationship with Celebrimbor like? And how did Curufin’s actions affect their relationship?

And of course, his relationship with Celegorm. The House of Fëanor has always struck me as quite a dysfunctional one, what with Fëanor and Nerdanel slowly growing apart. Why did Curufin bond with Celegorm the most, out of all his brothers? Was it circumstance? Did they share a common interest? They didn’t strike me as being too similar when I read about them. Or maybe they complemented each other well?

One thing that adds nuance to Curufin is that he balanced love for his son and his wife (probably - hopefully), duty and love for his father and brothers, and his close companionship with Celegorm with the fact that, as @martaaa1506 and I were discussing before, he’s a class-A asshole. Not only did he (and Celegorm) trick Luthien into believing they would help her and then kidnap her instead, he also attempted to kill her after his plans failed. Chill. You’d think the poor girl deliberately ran over his puppy with a car or something, when in fact the only affront Luthien dealt him was obtaining a Silmaril and not, like, handing it over to him or something of the sort.

Personally, what makes Curufin so fascinating for me is that I believe by the point of the events of Beren and Luthien, he’d become the worst version of himself. He was on a downwards spiral since a certain point and by that time, he was wholly obsessed with his oath and willing to do anything to obtain the Silmarils. He was even willing to harm people who didn’t simply surrender them to him (as in Luthien’s case) - that’s how consumed with his oath he’d become, and that’s how far he’d fallen.

3. Celegorm

Celegorm fascinates me for almost the exact same reasons as Curufin, given that they were together so often. Of course, Celegorm wasn’t married, but I’ve always been quite engrossed in his friendships with Oromë, Aredhel, and Huan. With the first, I can’t help imagining the falling out that their companionship would have had, since Celegorm decided to follow his father and brothers into exile.

With the second - it’s just so fascinating, imo. They were close friends and cousins, despite the fact that their fathers had a relationship full of animosity. I can’t imagine that Fëanor was happy with his son’s companionship with his half-brother’s daughter. And he was the one Aredhel sought after she left Gondolin; more evidence of just how strong their friendship was. She left her brother and went to him first. He also later helped Aredhel escape Eöl. It’s pretty clear to me that Celegorm cared a lot about her, and I can’t help thinking he must have been so enraged and grieved when he heard that she died - at the hands of her own husband, no less.

And of course, his relationship with Huan. Huan was one of Celegorm’s oldest companions, and they probably knew each other very well. Huan seemed to be pretty loyal to Celegorm, considering that he followed him into exile despite being a hound given to Celegorm by the Valar. I always wonder how Celegorm must have felt when Huan assisted Luthien over him. Did he blame everything solely on his hound? Or did it make him self-reflect and wonder how far he’d fallen? Tolkien says that the “love between them [Celegorm and Huan] was less than before” after that incident, but that can be interpreted in so many different ways. Obviously, their relationship took a blow, but was it just from mistrust, anger, and resentment?

Speaking of Luthien, am I the only one who always pities Celegorm every time I read about her casting off her disguise and him falling head-over-heels for her? (Though whether he actually did or not is debatable.) He fell hopelessly in love with a woman who’s already in love with a human man; that’s some tough luck right there. It also makes me curious; was it just her beauty? I doubt it.

[As I mentioned in Curufin’s section, their brotherly dynamics fascinate me as well.]

All these things aside, Celegorm, like Curufin, was an asshole. Love Luthien or not, it doesn’t change the fact that he deceived and kidnapped her and intended to force her to marry him. (It was also a politically driven move to secure Doriath, but still.) Like Curufin, I think Celegorm was, by that point, the worst version of what he could have been, fulfilled. He was at the height of his negative potential, so to speak.

Also, I don’t know if this is just me, but I think Celegorm would have been really heartbroken to hear that Huan died defending Beren, someone he hates. This is his companion that’s been with him for thousands of years, who not only abandons him but dies for the sake of this human man. A lot of resentment towards Huan, and a lot more hatred towards Beren, I think, would have been caused by that. Personally, I feel Celegorm had a deep-seated personal grudge against Beren and Luthien’s line because of all that transpired between himself and Huan on account of Beren and Luthien. Plus, if he really was in love with Luthien (a fucked up love, I must admit), it must have stung to hear that she chose mortality, again for the sake of Beren. Ouch.

2. Maedhros

I know, I know, I can hear the surprise. Maedhros is second, and not first? (Most people love Maedhros the most, and Maglor second, though it’s quite a close case in some.) Admittedly, Maglor won by a very narrow margin. I’ll explain my reasons in his section.

Ah, Maedhros… how can I express why I love him so much? As @arya-durin-51 put it so perfectly, Maedhros is a stellar mix of both duty, love, and personal morals, acting on all of them at varying points in his life. He runs a perfect balance between doing his duty, acting out of personal love for those in his family, and a general sense of righteousness. Here are a few (emphasis on few) examples:

Maedhros followed Fëanor because he loved his father, but also had a duty towards him as his oldest son. It was this mix of duty and love that prompted him to continue following Fëanor even after his father’s actions at Alqualondë, yet he wasn’t wholly controlled by those traits, either, as shown when he expected the ships to be sent back for Fingolfin’s people and was angered by and refused to take part in the burning of the ships, motivated by personal morality and love for Fingon.

Maedhros attempted to negotiate with and trick Morgoth, a risky move (tht resulted in his capture and torture), because he felt it was his duty; he swore the Oath, because he felt it was right; he had to take this opportunity or the deaths his father caused, and his father’s own death, might be for nothing, and because he loved his kin and didn’t want them to be damned; if he could take this risk and reclaim a Silmaril, they would be closer to accomplishing their oath and less likely to suffer the “everlasting darkness” that they mentioned should they fail to reclaim the Silmarils.

Maedhros surrendered his kingship to Fingolfin because of his personal morality: he felt that his house wronged Fingolfin’s, and that he owed Fingon a debt for rescuing him from Thangorodrim. He stood by these despite the fact that his decision was met with dislike from his brothers.

Maedhros argued against Maglor’s idea to ask for the two Silmarils peacefully again because of duty, love, personal honor, and fear. He felt that he’d done too much to be forgiven, and that trying the peaceful way would prevent him from fulfilling his oath (duty), and thus, render the deaths he caused pointless (personal honor), and damn him and his brothers to the Void (love and fear).

I could go on and on, but you get the idea. The notion that love is the very opposite of duty… well, Maedhros says hi.

Also, Maedhros seems to be the leader among the House of Fëanor after his father’s death, naturally, since he is the oldest and the elves of Aman seem patriarchal to me. All the brothers did their own thing, but I do think there’s a recurring occurrance of them gathering around Maedhros’ banner at times.

We should also consider his adoption of Elrond and Elros. I’ve never doubted that Maedhros loved those kids and that they did love him back, but was that really all? [This will be more expanded on in Maglor’s part.]

I’ve always been partial to angst-riddled characters as well, and Maedhros definitely has a good amount of angst under his belt. He was tortured at the hands of Morgoth and Sauron for thirty years. That’s longer than I’ve been alive. It could have utterly broken him and turned him into just a husk, but even after enduring that, he still marches against Morgoth; again, because of duty, because of love, and because of personal honor.

And of course, we have his suicide. Thinking about Maedhros’ state of mind when he jumped into that chasm makes my heart break every time. I can’t imagine how he must have felt: he’s in terrible pain because of the Silmaril, but he can’t bear to let go of it because he’s done so many things to reclaim it, and if he lets it go now, literally all of that would be pointless. Innocents would have died for nothing. His little brothers would have died for nothing. And speaking of his brothers, I imagine Maedhros was absolutely torn with guilt when it comes to them. He was the eldest, the (in my opinion) unspoken leader, but he was one of the two last survivors. I always thought he believed he failed to protect them. Then there’s the guilt over all of his actions. Maedhros regretted many of the things he committed because of his Oath. Taking all of those factors into consideration… scarily, it’s not at all difficult to understand Maedhros’ decision.

All in all, he’s just such a tragically complex, heart-wrenching character that I can’t not love him with all my heart.

1. Maglor

As made obvious through the process of elimination, if nothing else, Maglor is my favorite out of the Fëanorians. I think it has something to do with his surviving the entirety of the First Age’s events (perhaps he committed suicide later, though).

First, there’s the fact that he was married, which is clearly always a point of fascination for me when it comes to the sons of Fëanor. Same deal; how did they meet, how did they fall in love, and how did they fall apart?

Like Maedhros, Maglor was motivated by duty, love, and honor. He followed Fëanor for the sake of his love for his father and his duty towards the head of his family. He committed his (frankly quite terrible) actions to reclaim the Silmarils out of love for his family, not wanting them to be subjected to the aforementioned “eternal darkness” of the Oath, and a sense of personal morality, feeling that if he didn’t, everyone who fell victim to his pursuit of the Silmarils would have suffered for nothing.

I also imagine that Maglor felt a lot of guilt for the fall of Maglor’s Gap. Since he was the second eldest son of Fëanor, I’m pretty sure that he was in charge of the district, but it was lain waste to by Glaurung. One can assume that being attacked by a dragon led to many, many deaths and a lot of gruesome violence, which I think Maglor, as the governor(?) of sorts of Maglor’s Gap, must have felt some kind of responsibility for.

What mainly draws me towards Maglor is the fact that he, out of the seven brothers, was described to be the most like Nerdanel, inheriting her “gentle temperament”. Nerdanel, as we know, was extremely affected by Fëanor’s individual actions, to the point of desparating from him when it became too much for her to bear. Because of that I think Maglor, out of the seven brothers, thought the most about his crimes, which led to the most regret. That doesn’t mean he was a wimp, just that he felt his guilt the most strongly out of the seven. Not that the other brothers didn’t feel the same guilt; more that Maglor allowed his actions and consequentially, his remorse, to affect him the most.

[Applies to Maedhros as well.] His relationship with Elrond and Elros is so fascinating, in my opinion. (Along with the fact that it also proves Maglor had a fatherly side, which I love.) I imagine he first adopted them out of guilt and pity, and later came to love them as if they were his own sons. As stated, “love grew between them”, but their dynamic strikes me as more complicated. Elrond and Elros still did witness the remaining sons of Fëanor attack their home and massacre many of its inhabitants. If it were me, I don’t think I could easily forgive that, even if Maedhros and Maglor were nothing but kind and loving to me. Yet despite this glaring knot in their relationship, Maedhros and Maglor raised those twins really, really well. Just look at the kind of people Elrond and Elros grew up to be. I’m curious; how did they fix such a serious issue? Did they just ignore it? Did they explain their actions to Elrond and Elros and earn forgiveness?

And thinking about how Maglor (and Maedhros) must have felt to let Elrond and Elros go… I cry every time.

Then we come to post-Morgoth’s defeat, where Maedhros and Maglor steal the Silmarils from Eönwë’s camp. Maglor actually argued that they should try to reclaim them peacefully, which, given all the shit that’s happened to so many people because of the Fëanorians, is a pretty huge risk. The Valar (and Eönwë) have good reason not to accept any offers of peace from him and Maedhros, and the result of such a refusal would probably be the capture of Maedhros and Maglor. So why the argument that they should attempt a negotiation? I can imagine so many heartrending motivations behind this, honestly. I think it was a combination of these factors:

Maglor was just exhausted of all the violence and all the bloodshed; he felt that he had committed too many sins and he was sick of it. Like I said, given Maglor’s “gentle temperament”, I believe he felt the weight of his actions more strongly than his brothers because he allowed himself to.

Maglor felt that violence would lead to worse things. He left his home, his wife, and his mother, and has killed many, many people, and still doesn’t have anything good to show for it. The only effects are: he’s left a trail of victims in his wake, his younger brothers are all dead, and one of the Silmarils, which he participated in two separate Kinslayins to obtain, is out of his reach.

Maglor longed for redemption and forgiveness. I mean, who wouldn’t? Again, given his personality, I think his sins affected him the most emotionally and mentally out of all of his brothers because he let them get to him. At that point, he was disgusted with himself and everything he’d done, and hoping that if he could make it up somehow. And plus, even if he did fulfill his oath, what’s left for him? He’d surely remain banned from Valinor because of everything he did. I think Maglor was pretty desperately hoping to make amends.

In the end, though, Maglor was swayed by Maedhros’ caution that the sons of Fëanor wouldn’t be forgiven. Much like Maedhros, he was influenced by duty, love, personal honor, and fear. He was terrified that if the peaceful way didn’t work (a very valid concern on both Maedhros and Maglor’s parts, because frankly, it’s difficult to earn forgiveness after everything they’ve done) he would be failing to fulfill his oath (duty), and thus, make the deaths he caused pointless (personal honor), and damn him and his brothers to the Void (love and fear). These concerns in Maglor overpowered the desires and concerns listed above, and he agreed with Maedhros to steal the Silmarils. I like that. I like that some things in Maglor were overshadowed by others.

And we have Maglor’s fate to consider. (I won’t talk about his death here, since he’s not confirmed to be dead.) Maglor, unable to bear the pain of the Silmaril that he held, threw it into the sea, and afterwards, wandered the shores for eternity, lamenting. Personally, I believe the “pain of the Silmaril” was more than just the physical pain of it burning Maglor’s hands, but the emotional and psychological pain it brought him to look at something that he abandoned his home, his mother, and his wife for, something that he caused so much death and bloodshed for, something that his younger brothers died trying to obtain. Maglor was just done with Silmarils and done with the Oath; he didn’t want to think about it or have anything to do with it anymore, and just threw it into the ocean. Some part of me wonders if he also regretted it afterwards, thinking that what he did rendered all the deaths (the deaths of those he killed as well as the deaths of his brothers) pointless.

By this time, I think Maglor was fully and utterly consumed with despair and regret. He can’t return to Valinor and face the Valar his mother, or his wife, because of all the crimes he committed. He can’t even face his brothers, because, in the end, he gave up the Silmaril. All-in-all, Maglor believed that he was irredeemable and that there was nothing in the world left for him. And his story ends on this depressing, depressing note. Some fans think he committed suicide, and given his state of mind by the end, it’s heartbreaking to say that it’s not impossible; perhaps Maglor decided that even the “everlasting darkness” was better than living at that point.

Maglor’s character arc ends in utter tragedy for him, and I love that I’m such a sadomasochist. He’s such a morally grey character and so complex, but there is absolutely no happy ending for him. Maglor’s story closes on a fate so bleak that you’d think it belongs to some kind of absolutely, completely, despicable villain. Arguably, that’s the fate of all the sons of Fëanor, but personally I think Maglor’s ending is the most disheartening of the brothers’ endings. I already adored him before, and the fact that his development ends at his very lowest, most despair-inducing state sealed the coffin for me, so to speak.

I first read The Silmarillion when I was 13, and it had a gigantic impact on my perception of being morally grey. The seven sons of Fëanor have done awful, awful things. I’m especially horrified at the fact that they attacked a refugee camp (the Havens of Sirion) and killed most of its inhabitants - refugees. They deserve to answer for and take responsibility for their actions, but that most certainly doesn’t make them non-sympathetic, one-dimensional, or complete villains.

If there’s anything I can say Professor Tolkien has taught me with these beautiful, nuanced characters, it’s these two things:

1. Don’t throw away your morals for your goals. Over the course of reaching for their goal of reclaiming the Silmarils, the Fëanorians abandoned so much of their personal morality. Celegorm, Caranthir, Curufin, Amrod, and Amras paid the price through death. Maedhros and Maglor reached a point that even the Silmarils, the objects that they were so determined to obtain, rejected them, and they had to stomach all of their guilt and grief on top of all that, living to see the repercussions of their actions. Achieving your goals is good, but remain yourself. Don’t let those goals consume you.

2. Fear can be much more powerful motivator than hatred. I personally think that while overall, the seven brothers might have been driven by hatred for Morgoth at first, in the end it was something much more primal that became a motivation that they all shared: fear. They were all terrified, in my opinion, of what awaited them should they fail to fulfill their oath. Maedhros and Maglor, in particular, might have also been driven by guilt and desire for redemption - at least, these traits were more prevalently displayed in them than in their younger brothers - but fear was a motivation that all seven of them shared.

Sorry for the extremely long reply, lol. I wasn’t at all intending to make it this lengthy, but my Tolkien nerd side just came out. Plus, I’ve been wanting to explore my feelings toward the sons of Fëanor in depth for a while now, and these two questions gave me the perfect opportunity.

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lolasnoodles · 4 years

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about little women...

2 days ago i went to see little women with my friend! i absolutely adored it and was supposed to come up here and scream it about it earlier. but welp. i was really excited about the film ever since the first trailer came out so the fact that i was able to see it in theatre is really awesome!

first of all. i was so wowed by timothee’s beauty. like i know that hes gorgeous but he is so breathtaking on screen? saorise’s facial features really mirror what i had in mind in jo and greta gerwig made such a great decision to place her in a historical setting because she too looks perfect. the scene shot at the beach was too pretty and the colours were so soft and clean. i also loved the editing which presented really well the characters’ change and coming of age.

anyway, i went to see this movie purely for the actors and the story and had no expectations in greta gerwig. i found lady bird slightly underwhelming (but maybe i will have to rewatch and decide again) and remakes usually are not better than the previous versions (imo the 1994 version was already gold)!

but damn i was wrong.

the way that greta reshaped the story in her own way and presented a completely different version of little women from the 1994 version was fascinating. i was initially kind of turned off by how “unsubtlely feminist” the trailer was, especially with jo’s monologue (but ofc turns out they cut out the most important part for the trailer). i am in no ways not in support of women’s cinema, but rather i dislike it when it is presented in a unsubtle and straightforward fashion. i don’t like it when writers create or twist the story simply to make a point. the feminist ideals presented in a piece of art should not interfere with the story itself. i do not watch a film to receive a lecture.

what i saw in little women was a much more complicated and beautiful portrayal of womenhood. jo, despite wanting independence and self-sufficiency as a woman, internally struggled for intimacy and romantic relationships. she was so focused on rejecting the notion of marriage that she even neglected the part of herself that desired it. however, her longing for romantic relationships does not make her any less of an independent agent.

im also glad that the film gave light to other female characters as well. the 1994 version kind of gave me the impression that the story was all about jo jo jo (but also i was quite young when i watched it so there might have been details that i left out). meg got married earlier in the story and beth was just there and died. i love how we get to see meg’s struggle to balance her desire for a better life and her love for Mr. Brook. i also love beth??? like she is honestly so strong in her own quiet ways and i cried at the scene where jo said she will stop the tides for beth.

about amy....i was the most unimpressed about her in the 1994 version, because she only appeared immature and whiny, and all of a sudden she married laurie (like it literally happened so freaking fast). but i feel like she may be my favourite character after watching this movie. i see a lot of myself in her. even though she was the youngest in the family, she gave off a lot of “middle child” vibes -- not being acknowledged enough, always second to someone, smart but not smart enough apparently. a very awkward position. she is unlike jo and understands marriage as an economic proposition, not in a cynical way but rather with a sense of resign and accepting it as an unfortunate reality for women (just like aunt march!) but in the end, she could not betray that part of herself that believed in love and marriage and turned down fred.

and i have also understood why amy married laurie and jo married the professor, which i felt was not well justified in the 1994 version (like both couples just all of a sudden fell in love). both laurie and jo are idealistic and need someone like amy and the professor to challenge them. i also like how jo struggled over her feelings for laurie (did she love laurie or did she simply want to be loved?), and none of that was present in the 1994 version.

i have too much to say about the movie and there are still so many little things that remain unsaid. this is only meant to be a short log that records how i feel about the movie (but perhaps it had gone too long). in no way do i dislike the 1994 version (even though i have appeared to crap on it for the entire log), but i definitely prefer the 2019 version and think greta has done a fantastic job.

LOLA WHY ARE YOU SUCH A BAD WRITER YOU GOTTA IMPROVE IMPROVE IMPROVE

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myhyperfixations · 6 years

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How is Keith a gary stu?

OkLet me start this off by saying that Keith isn’t actually a Gary Stu, he just hits those Stu notes a bit too often for it to go unnoticed.

What character is or isn’t a Sue/Stu is something that can barely ever be said objectively because everyone determines what level of Sueness is their personal annoyance threshold on their own. It’s a matter of opinion so whether or not a character is a Sue/Stu can be argued but, as with most tropes and character types, things aren’t quite as clear-cut as a short summary of a trope will have you believe.Most of these things exist on a spectrum and for Sueness that spectrum has the two extremes of “Character That Can Do No Wrong That Everyone Loves, The Narrative Carters To Them And They Are Super Awesome!1!!!11!” and “Character That Everyone (Including The Narrative) Hates, We Don’t Like Them Here, Super Incompetent” let’s call this the hated-loved spectrum (cause those up there are pretty wordy).

Now let’s take a look at Keith.He certainly falls more onto the “loved” side of the spectrum, especially from a narrative perspective. That isn’t a bad thing, protagonists are supposed to be likable and the narrative shouldn’t treat them unfairly, it’s a good thing when your protagonist has some Sue/Stu notes because some aspects of that trope are necessary for a likable character and unlikable protagonists are more difficult to pull off.Everyone likes competent characters because seeing a bunch of people fail over and over at easy tasks is frustrating and doesn’t make for a good story. However, a good story is also not present when the protagonists get handed things like powerups and positions of rank without putting in the work to deserve these in the first place.

Like I said, Sueness is on a spectrum and the threshold is something each of us determines for ourselves. “At what point is this character annoying me because everything gets handed to them and they always seem to win?” That’s what it’s about: frustration and annoyance with both the narrative and the character.

We don’t dislike Gary and Mary for being good at things, we dislike them for taking away everyone else’s thunder, lowering the stakes in the narrative, and being boring.

Keith isn’t a Gary Stu to me yet, he certainly has his flaws (although the narrative could stand to stop sweeping those under the rug, like his bad leadership qualities that somehow don’t impede him from being the chosen leader), he has just hit the Stu notes more than I like at this point so he’s close to hitting my threshold for Sueness.

This didn’t start out this way but in recent seasons, and by that I mean 6 and 7, Keith has slipped further and further into the role of cool anime protag who is the leader and also the loner and also saves everyone and also uncovered a “secret evil plot” from an ally and also has flowy hair and also... you see where I’m going with this?

It’s annoying that Keith slips into this role for two main reasons: 1. this is an ensemble show and it’s annoying when he gets all the big moments and 2. because he doesn’t fit the role the writers are forcing him into but everyone in the narrative acts like he’s the perfect man for the job.This is a fairly recent problem because Keith has only become relevant again in s6, but boy did he do everything even slightly competent there.

Side note: I think that the writers are gonna turn the whole Lotor situation on its head and that would fix most things that annoy me by showing how Keith made a mistake but as of right now...

Keith matures off camera with his mom (on a space whale for two years) and gets a dog that can teleport. Listen, guys, the dog is cute, I get it, but it’s super OP and makes all the other pets look lame in comparison, hitting that Gary Stu note.

Keith uncovers the eeeevil plot Lotor had, making him justified in his unreasonable connection of Lotor to literally everything sinister that was happening after s2 (I’m not kidding, go back and watch s3 and 4, anything happens and Keith is like “LOTOR” immediately, even though he has no proof) (I think this one will be proven void in s8 but as of right now it’s annoying that he gets vindicated for accusing someone without proof), especially since the narrative had almost everyone else carrying around the idiot ball.

Then he saves Shiro, also implying that all the others couldn’t have. (He was also conveniently absent during most of the clone plotline, effectively washing his hands of the blame, making him look more competent than his team again.)

Then he unlocks the super mega powerup to get to them in time, saving them from Lotor (cause Lotor was destroying them) Keith to the rescue!

In s7 he has a super strong connection to the Black Lion and summons his bayard from across the room.

He’s the one who defeats the Druid. (Even though... Allura is the one with the Alchemy Powers, I really don’t understand why they had to give this one to Keith as well, like I get that they fought before and there was a personal vendetta but those things didn’t matter when he killed Sendak despite having no history with him, which leads me to...)

And then there’s obviously him killing Sendak, saving Shiro again and receiving the moment that has been foreshadowed as being for Shiro since s1.

These are just off the top of my head but I’m sure there are more, I found s7 quite boring so I don’t remember much from it.

None of these would bother me individually but put together like that it’s starting to get to the point where I’m like “Oooook, so is Keith gonna kill Haggar too? Is Keith gonna become the emperor? Is Keith gonna be Supreme Leader of the Coalition or something like that?” because none of those make a lick of sense but neither did Keith killing Sendak so who knows at this point. All of those predictions sound plausible (even though they really shouldn’t be) because it feels like the narrative wants to give everything to Keith and it has lowered the stakes for him because he’s clearly gonna come out on top every time.

To conclude, Keith isn’t a fully fledged Gary Stu yet but he is on that path and s8 should derail that before it goes too far, give some other characters some cool moments, and have Keith be wrong about things.The best way to do this, imo, would be to have him be wrong about the colony, but that’s my Lotor stan brain talking (it’s me tho, what did you expect >:3).

#answered #mini meta #meta #i'm not gonna tag the boy cause that'd be a bit rude #send me more asks pls #i love them #Anonymous

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roboctopus · 7 years

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On Whedon's WW script and Batgirl

Gave it some thought... and as much as Whedon's WW script angered me, I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt on Batgirl (at least until we get more info on the movie). Yeah, the script pissed me off but a couple things came to mind the more I thought about it. 1) it's been like 12 years, people change and progress. As far as I can tell, he genuinely sees himself as a feminist and does at least try for making empowering female characters. Yeah, he makes a lot of mistakes, but he gets a lot of backlash for those mistakes and we've yet to see if he'll learn from it. For all we know, he'll be keeping the AOU Black Widow anger and the anger about the WW script in mind when working on Batgirl. I want to be hopeful. Yeah, it would have been nice to have a female director/writer and Whedon has his problems, but there are worse directors and writers for female characters. 2) I'm gonna own up to a bit of a bias, a part of me will always be a bit forgiving and hopeful because of Buffy. In rewatching, I do see some issues, but I can appreciate it for its influence and feminist message for its time. And I can't help but think that a lot the Whedon hate gets amplified by the fact that his work had an influence on feminism in pop culture. It's not easy to see a "feminist ally" make these kinda mistakes, but I'm not sure he should be getting quite the amount of vitriolic hate that he has for his more recent stuff. 3) I highly doubt this was a final version of the script. If it was, that kinda sucks but this didn't really read to me as a final product. Things change over the production of a movie. This could have been one of many drafts that could drastically differ from what was the finished product. I DON'T like that this was a draft at all, but I generally try not to judging something that isn't a finished product and don't feel quite right comparing it to a project that was finished (the new WW movie). 4) We haven't heard ANYTHING about this Batgirl movie beyond Whedon's involvement. While the internet's overly negative reactions to most fandom movie news is sometimes justified, quite a few times it wasn't. People freaked about Keaton, Nicholson, & Ledger, and were (IMO) proven wrong. As poorly thought out as the character was, I thought Affleck did the best with what he had and I look forward to more (hopefully better written) Batman from him. People freaked over Gal Gadot. I didn't like her casting out of concern of her main credit prior being a Fast and Furious movie and I was proven wrong. (And yes, I know all my examples are all actors, I honestly haven't really given much thought to directors of superhero movies til the Snyderverse started so yeah) I'm just done jumping on the hate train this damn early into a movie's production. It's tiring. I'll be pissed about the script on its own, but if I can be kinda excited for Justice League despite all I dislike about Snyder's past films, I'm not gonna let a bad script from over a decade ago destroy any anticipation for a live action Batgirl. Besides, I doubt she'll be portrayed any worse than in the neon trash fire that was Batman and Robin.

#my opinion #i get not everyone's gonna agree #if I got a fact wrong #or missed something #feel free to tell me #given how bad things seem #to be getting in the real world #and how good WW turned out #I'm trying to be a bit more #positive when it comes to #pop culture and fandom #and not drown in every outrage #joss whedon #wonder woman #batgirl

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naruto-oc-critiques · 7 years

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Hagiwara Sengen

(welp guess who??? feel free to be blunt, I wanna know how she appears to other people. Also tell me if you like her design, Is it too impractical? Sorry if its repetitive or has bad grammar, I edited it at like 12am rip)

Name: Hagiwara Sengen

Gender: Female

Era: Pre-Konoha, Wartime Era

Personality: Reserved, Charismatic, cautious, hesitant and loyal.

Ln: there’s a little overlap of personality here with the charisma part, but if you’re planning that as her public persona, it’s fine. from this she sounds like the kind that would separate her public and private life.

Values: Loyalty, strategy and Filial Piety.

Ln: These are all great values! as extra information, are there instances where these come into conflict? It would lend depth to the character.

Fears: No one needing them, becoming crippled or unable to reproduce.

Ln: how did these fears come about? the last two are easily justified since it’s a shinobi society with high death rates, but the first, is it taught, or a clan value?

the ‘loving to talk’ thing is my only gripe with this. you previously said she’s ‘reserved’ and ‘hesitant’, these traits seem to disagree with ‘talkative’. unless it’s another two-faceted thing where she likes to talk to her friends, or to herself, but that would be a personality characteristic then. perhaps you can consider changing ‘loves to talk’ to ‘loves to discuss’? I have no idea, but right now it’s contradictory.

Likes: -Frog/critter catching (As achild this led to a lot of ruined kimonos. Later in life she gained the sense to change into more casual clothes at her retainers relief) -Loves to talk (Though she hardly ever gets the chance to) -Running in extravagent and expensive Kimonos (Though she’d never let anyone see her do it) -Yokan -Summer (Yokan is traditionally eaten in Summer so she gets excited when it comes around)

Ln: maybe expand more on her childhood? it wasn’t laid out below, and it sounds like she was a real firecracker, so how did she turn out the way she did, was it the upbringing, or something else?

Dislikes: -Long battles (anything that involves endurance) -Writing (She has notoriously bad handwriting and even has an aide to write/respond to things for her) -Hates fish (They’re too slimy and she hates looking at their dead, lifeless eyes.) -People who hold grudges

Family: Asama

Weapon: Hachiwari/Kabutowari

Ln: cool! I’d love to see how she wields it — can’t help but notice she doesn’t have it its holder in her character design?

Group: Hagiwara

Role: Clan Head (Direct Ancestor {Kohana} was founder)

Sexual Orientation: Straight Height: 174cm

Ln: that’s pretty tall. maybe you should have a height comparison thingie (like with a cat or tree or something) in the character design so that the above-average height is clear. rn she looks short in the art, ‘cos of the short length of her clothing.

Appearance: -Body type: slightly pear shaped -Skin: Pale and appears unmarred -Hairstyle: Bun with Sakura petals -Hair colour: Bright green -Eye colour: Red/pink

Ln: one gripe. why sakura petals? Is it the vanity part mentioned later? does it stay on in a fight?

Clan Info: Clan founder: Kohana Speciality: crushing the enemy with skilled and lethal attacks Clan size: Large (Though their civilian population has always seemed to outweigh the warriors) Clan colours: (not limited to) Golds and blacks General hair colours: Whites, greens and browns (though there has been blondes) General eye colours: reds, blues and greens General chakra type: (not limited to) earth, fire

Ln: are there reasons for the color choices, or is everything in honor of Kohana? I’d also say that having such diverse colors for hair and eyes isn’t quite feasible gene-wise, since stuff like red eyes and green hair would most likely be recessive genes, or else we’d see more of them in the series, but this is pre-village, so, I’d say come up with a good reason (maybe chakra or something) and it’ll fly. But it’ll still be good to hammer it down to one or two colors, like the red-hair-is-Uzumaki thing or black-skin-is-Cloud.

-The founder Kohana was said to have been a villager that fought alongside Ootsutsuki Asura against his brother Indra.

-Kohana wielded a bow

-Filial Piety is core teaching within the Hagiwara because when Kohana was young, she left her poor father to follow Asura but when she returned found her father had died of exhaustion. She blamed herself for his death and instilled into her children not to make the same mistake.

-The Hagiwara then say that she became an ‘Onna-bugeisha’, that was known for charming looks but deadly skill. She eventually caught the eyes of a wealthy man and married. It was said he had a flower garden built in her name and she in turn trained their children in Ninshu.

-Hagiwara women are generally named after flowers/related things and often care a lot for their appearances (It was supposed to be in honour of Kohana, but it quickly progressed to a tradition fueled by vanity)ooo I like this one!!-Hagiwara were known for horrible stamina and so most of their taijutsu and jutsu is based around lethal and explosive strikes.

-Because the Hagiwara joined battles near the end they had quite a few enemies. (The enemies hated them because they exhausted themselves wearing down the opposing side only to have a new fresh set of warriors take the battlefield to crush them. Similarly, allies sometimes got angry because it felt like the Hagiwara were stealing their victory)

Ln: nice!! so rare to see actual human emotions like jealousy and envy in the construction of OCs and clans, this is great!

-Like other clans, the Hagiwara didn’t necessarily take sides unless they were paid.

-The Hagiwara have fought the Senju and they only managed to save themselves from defeat because the Uchiha were hired as back up in response to the Senju.

-The Hagiwara may have a large clan but very little of them are warriors. (This lead to it being almost exclusively civilian by the time of Boruto)

-The Hagiwara were fierce supporters of peace and did not take long to ally themselves with the newly founded Konoha. (This happened while Sengen was in power) The idea of a village appealed to them greatly as it meant their civilian population could be safe.

-The Hagiwara were pinch hitters, and were mostly only hired to make sure to drive a battle home quickly.

-The clan/group (Hagiwara) was not known for their stamina and weren’t hired too often, so they established a merchant business under the founding family’s name (Asama)

Ln: hang on, so, what’s ‘Hagiwara’ if that wasn’t Kohana’s surname? what does the Hagiwara name refer to if it’s not the surname of the founding family?

Also maybe explain a bit more of the core principles. If the clan is so big on peace and even has a merchant empire, why did they develop such a decisive fighting style, and how? Were they like the Shaolin monks, who observed, but didn’t participate in most worldly happenings?

Trivia!!

-Sengen is one of the many names Kono-hana-no-sakuya-hime is known by (Sengen name comes from the depiction of the Flower goddess scattering Camilla petals)

-Botan {Tsuyu, Ryuu and Yosho’s sensei) is one of the last ninja descendants of the Hagiwara

-Sengen’s name was originally Senben xP A site mistranslated the name

-Sengen likes wearing heavy/detailed/traditional kimonos in her spare time

-despite her friendly and easy to approach attitude, She didn’t have many friends because being the head of a clan often meant most saw her as untouchable.

-Sengen was a REALLLLLY lonley character

I really like Sengen! I love the values and traits of the clan and your exploration in roles of females in both the social and biological way. The detail about vanity is especially appreciated, though how does it apply to men? How is the lineage passed down, is it through female, in honor of the female founder, or is it patriarchal?

Another aspect that you might want to look into is her childhood. I know you said Sengen finds it ‘hard to establish any honest friendships’, but is that consistent throughout her childhood, or did that happen after her induction as leader of the clan? There are also many political angles that you could consider from having Sengen as the leader of a clan. Are there inner disputes, on what, and how does Sengen solve them? What about inter-clan relations? The Hagiwara doesn’t sound like a particularly popular clan, and they also manage a trade empire on the side. Surely that racks up enemies, how does Sengen deal with that?

Setting the OC in the pre-village era gives you a lot of freedom for creativity! You might not have been able to say everything here since it’s a character submission, so you could very well have answers to those questions already. You’re on great track!

You mentioned a design review? ^^

The outfit is pretty, very much so, which totally fits, since her clan is beauty-oriented, but if that is her clan-head attire, then I’d say it’s not extravagant enough. I headcanon that pre-village era is one of huge disparities, so imo Sengen’s official attire should be more lavish, with way more layers, more makeup, more elaborate hair and ornaments, all over her. And preferably with some huge, un-manageble-without-an-aide trail.

If the attire is her combat attire, then I think that the clan head’s current attire is a little too not-useful. Since she’s so tall, and her clan specializes in lethal, game-ending strikes, clothes should actually be more close-fitting to avoid trailing bits getting in their way, and short fabrics like Sengen’s current bottom piece would be scaled up in size and be both flappy and not much protection. Since they use lethal strikes, I actually think it’s viable that they would incorporate lots of padding into their attire so that the force of their hits doesn’t rebound, which would mostly be around the lower leg, feet, upper arms and hands. And that would eventually morph into decorative+functional padding.

Though, this outfit is okay for her super-causal, everyday wear, and I say that because the Warring Clans era would be quite conservative outside of the battlefield, and allowing even a clan that emphasizes beauty to walk around with so much leg revealed could be scandalous. Or you could just spin it as Sengen’s personality to go against societal norms.

Also, I read this somewhere, that the kimono shows sexuality not through showing leg (that too, but) but showing the neck. So you can think about keeping the open-collar sleeves but changing the undershirt to a tank, so Sengen shows a lot of neck and shoulders.

Another interesting idea is the possibility of Sengen, being clan head, using fabrics and fashion choices to hide battle scars/wounds. It could help to explain away some hanging bits of fabric, like her asymmetrical sleeve could actually hide some scar or blemish on her arm that otherwise could be called out for in the beauty-centered clan culture.

That said, your character is very well-developed, the story is logical and makes sense, and you even made such a great drawing of your character! A lot of effort must have been put in, so if you just go that little bit further she would be so much better! Keep up the great work!

- Ln

#submission #Naruto OC #Outfit Critique #mod Ln

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