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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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Hey Clyde, did you check out Wonder Egg Priority at all? The first ep is super promising, but the series as a whole is one of those real fascinating disasters from a story and a production standpoint that might be up your alley as a thing to pick apart haha.

I’d warn that it’s also reeeeal offensive and this generally gets worse as it goes though.

Hi, Phoenix! How are you and Cube doing?

Okay, I hadn't watched Wonder Egg Priority when I received your ask this morning. Now I have. In a fit of intense curiosity I settled down for a rare binge session and tore through all twelve episodes + OVA in a single sitting. It is now nearly 3:00am as I write this because I, oh so clearly, make fantastic life choices.

A question for you: what did I just watch?

The rest is going under a read more partly for spoilers, but more-so because WEP—and the summary I'm about to give, because I feel like I need to try and explain this to tumblr's faceless void for my own, dwindling sanity—comes with about every trigger warning under the sun. Seriously, if you are triggered by anything that we might think of as a "standard" trigger (meaning, not unique to you and your own experiences), best to proceed with caution.

Right! What the ever loving fuck happened in this show? Well, let's work through this chronologically. Two genius, frat boy brothers (I get their names mixed up so I'm not even gonna bother) are locked in their apartment and closely monitored because of Super Secret Science Research. Even though, I think, they're the ones who created this company. Not important! What is important is that they're bored enough to create an AI for funsies, thinking of her as their daughter and letting her name herself Frill. Frill is the perfect, cutesy, also genius child who has a habit of popping her lips — which the camera focuses on in an incredibly creepy fashion. One day Brother #1 (the hot one) falls in love with a random woman we know nothing about and Frill gets jealous.

"Jealous in a general sense?" you ask, thinking this show is in any way normal. "Like, just of her Dad giving attention to someone else?"

"No," I respond, patting your hand. "Jealous because she's in love with him." Which, beyond the subject matter itself, comes completely out of nowhere. Frill has a line about what you'd do if some woman stole your husband away. I, fool that I was, briefly considered that these two guys were lovers, not brothers. Oh no. They're brothers. Frill just considers Dad #1 to be her "husband."

So, in true evil AI fashion, she murders the wife, leaving only her newly born child behind. Who is a daughter.

Uh oh.

Dad #1 locks Frill in a coffin-esque hole in the basement and goes on with his life. Things are great! Until years later when the daughter reveals that she has fallen in love with her uncle (Dad #2 to Frill). She knows (somehow??) that both her dad and her uncle loved her mom, so if the loser uncle will just wait a few years he can marry her instead! He brushes her off, but the next day she’s found dead of an apparent suicide.

Realizing that this was somehow Frill’s doing, he marches down to the basement and confronts the murderous child they’ve had locked up for years. She’s now surrounded by screens in, again, true creep AI fashion. How did she get all this while she was locked up? Oh, just the three bug girls she created as friends prior to killing the wife. They’re devoted slaves, I guess. So the uncle says enough of this insanity and seemingly sets Frill on fire.

OH and Frill’s subtitled dialogue also puts “uncle” in quotation marks, implying that the daughter was always Dad #2’s??

Anyway, both brothers are now super obsessed with death and claim that they think Frill has had a hand in lots of girls’ suicides, even now after her own death. This is brought into question later when it’s revealed that they might have just concocted this scheme to try and bring back their daughter. I’m really not sure. Regardless, they use hand-wavey science to create eggs that I guess contain the souls of young girls who have committed suicide, then they sucker in other young girls who have lost people to suicide to try and rescue their loved ones in a dream world, saving others along the way. A tomboyish girl, Momoe, lost a classmate who admitted to loving her, but who Momoe rejected. Rika, a former junior idol, used and rejected an overweight fan only to learn later that she’d starved herself to death. Neiru, the 14yo president of some science company (yup) was attacked by her sister before she jumped off a bridge. Finally Ai, our protagonist, is a victim of bullying who managed to make friends with a single girl, Koito, who then jumped from their school building for unknown reasons. They’re all given the chance to bring these individuals back to life, provided they protect other victims of suicide by defeating the monstrous traumas that drove them to that act in the first place.

And you know what? That concept was great. However, the execution ranges from “Okay, that was pretty good for an anime. Kudos there” to “That’s the most offensive thing I’ve seen in my life.” Needless to say, unpacking all the battles they fight would take a lot more than this already absurd summary. Basically, if you can think of something horrible to happen to young girls (and one trans guy whose existence in that egg undermines the whole message of the episode), there’s an attempt to tackle it here.

During all this the four girls become friends and Ai works through her suspicions about Mr. Sawaki, a teacher at her school. What’s going on with Mr. Sawaki? Uh… everything! He’s somehow connected to Koito’s death, he’s dating Ai’s mom, and Ai apparently loves him too because her friends say so, even though this is never actually addressed and she barely interacts with him. It’s all quite the complication.

In time though the girls complete their “mission” of bringing their loved ones back to life. Rika and Momoe manage it first, only to find that Frill’s bug-girl lackeys have arrived to kill them. Why? Because that’s what Frill does, I guess. Momoe’s crocodile familiar (cute animals the girls were gifted to help them fight) takes a killing blow for her and the bug-lady then proceeds to carve up his corpse and force feed it to Momoe. Fantastic!! Building off of that, the next bug-lady who Rika encounters kills her turtle too, following in the footsteps of her bug-sister by, presumably, forcing her to eat parts of its head. Ai refuses to sacrifice her familiar to stay alive, but luckily the suicide she was protecting turns out to be herself from a parallel universe (that's a thing now!) and she takes the killing blow herself, which is done by pulling out the eye she’s sensitive about (she has heterochromia.) So parallel Ai passes on (again?) and the three girls don’t work through this trauma at all, instead becoming more traumatized through the realization that the loved ones they brought back no longer remember them. They’re alive, but the relationship they all had with them is dead.

It’s about this point that the main storyline wraps up and I’m relieved that there’s an OVA to finish things off. Surely they can somehow bring this all together in 45 minutes.

…25 minutes of that OVA is recap.

So with only about 20 minutes left, we learn that Neiru, the only one to not complete her mission yet, has mysteriously gone missing. It turns out she was an AI/clone/something all along, made to replace her sister and, presumably, that’s what caused the whole stabbing-suicide incident. She successfully brings her sister back, but stays behind in the dream world because Frill promises her she can become human. How is Frill here when she’s dead? How will Neiru become human? Isn’t Frill the “temptation of death” or whatever? There are no answers. A flashback finally reveals that Koito was having a relationship with a teacher at another school, he committed suicide, she transferred, she tried the same thing with Mr. Sawaki, he kept refusing her advances, and finally while threatening suicide to get his attention, she accidentally fell.

(So why was she in the suicide egg if it was an accident??)

Except, all this information comes through Mr. Sawaki himself, there’s a whole subplot about whether he’s really a villain, or if Ai is just making him into one, and this show might as well be titled How Much Pedophilia Can We Put into One Anime? So make of that what you will.

A dead character randomly shows up, but it's fine because she's actually just a version from a parallel world. How did she get here? Why is she here? Lol, it's cute that you think these are answered.

Rika, the character who cuts and almost committed suicide halfway through the show, breaks down saying how much she misses her dead loved ones, right after her friends refused to let her go on another mission that would surely end in her death and… that’s it. That’s all we get about her.

Momoe too, though she’s hopefully just vibing somewhere with that longed-for boyfriend.

Ai transfers schools and then one day randomly remembers that she loves Neiru and rushes back to start cracking eggs again because that will? Somehow?? Let her see Neiru???

When I say there are too many unanswered questions to possibly list here I really, really mean it.

Finally, in a personal attack on me, the protagonist with a name that is literally AI is not in any way an artificial intelligence.

And that’s it! Congratulations, you now “understand” WEP. And see, the funny thing is that the off-the-rails, bat-shit crazy aspects kind of catch you off guard? Yeah, the first episode is fantastic. In fact, I think I got through about six episodes thinking that this was a solid, if at times really messed up anime, but I was willing to shrug off a lot of stuff due solely to the amount of sensitive material they were attempting to cover (which is always quite difficult to do). Probably the only reason I was able to binge so fast was because the first half of the series was so engaging. The characters are charming. The animation is GORGEOUS. There's actually a ton of good here that is also worth yelling about. But then the plot comes in like a freight train and I was left staring dumbfounded at my screen as more and more insanity kept happening. Having watched the "explanations" I am now more confused about the show I just saw.

Phoenix, if you’ve bothered to read this rambling, 3:00am rant: thank you. I think? Idk if I should actually be thanking you or cursing you for tuning me into this, but it was definitely an experience, that’s for sure lol.

I'm off to bed now RIP the chance of having normal dreams ✌️

#mymetas

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lynfantasy · 6 years

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Lotor?

(For this character ask challenge)OOF. Alright, prepare yourself for salt, because I absolutely love this character no matter what, and that is precisely why I am very mad at the official crew about him. (Though I swear this isn’t ALL salt.)

The last time I did this ask challenge, I answered these questions for Lotor here, but that was before season 5 even came out. Now…

(Putting this under a read-more because this is LONG – there’s two long playlists under the “song” section, and I added a ton of screenshots at the end.)

Favorite thing about them: I loved how complex and out-of-the-ordinary he was. He wasn’t a hero, he wasn’t a villain, and he wasn’t even a traditional antihero. He wasn’t good, but he was altruistic; he wasn’t bad, but he was willing to do things that no one else would. He was neutral, and he didn’t need to be redeemed into goodness. He certainly didn’t seem to have any reason to fall or rise – he already knew what he wanted and how he was going to get it, and both his motives and means were shockingly pure.And then…Least favorite thing about them: Season 6 just completely ruined him. That colony thing?? I’ve vented to many friends about this, and there’s a post I have half-written that I might put up sometime, but it just doesn’t make sense to me. The creators of the show said that they wanted him to be a morally gray character, but then they had had him commit a truly evil act? And he doesn’t even seem repentant for it? I just can’t forgive them for doing this to him. This wasn’t some “cool plot twist.” I’m not sitting here, thinking, “Wow, I really fell for that, didn’t I?” I don’t feel like Lotor betrayed me. I feel like the writers betrayed him and did him a disservice.Favorite line: “All I ask is that you judge me by my actions rather than your preconceptions of my race.” This line was just… wow.Also: “My father’s blood is not just in my veins. It’s also on my sword.” Damn.I also still very much love his opening speech in season 3, and a special shout-out goes to his speech in the beginning of season 6 until Sendak interrupted it.BrOTP: Mmmm, well, Team Sincline forever. In a better universe, they’re all still getting up to their own shenanigans together.I also still wish that Lotor and Keith had gotten a chance to bond. It could have been great.But let’s all take a moment to acknowledge what a great and supportive friendship Lotor and Shiro had in season 5. That was good. Good on you, (clone) Shiro.OTP: Lancelot. I can’t really explain why, but this is my favorite ship. In a close second place comes Polycline, the ship of Lotor and his generals all together in a romantic sense, which just warms my polyam-loving heart.As for what I would like to see in canon, well, I was pretty happy with Lotura, and I’m still holding out hope that they might have some dramatic redemptive reconciliation.NoTP: Eh, I don’t really do NoTPs. I can’t say I’m fond of Lotor/Throk, though.Random headcanon: I think Lotor’s ships are perfectly capable of making it through the Quantum Rift without being subjected to the time dilation effects. I also think that, on more than one occasion, Lotor has purposefully turned down the protection against time dilation because he can’t afford to take time off but he really needs a break, and what better way to accomplish that than to take a trip that will give him weeks or months to himself but will only cause him to miss about a week in regular time?Unpopular opinion:

FANWORK CONTENT CREATORS CAN STILL MAKE CONTENT WITH A SOFT CHARACTERIZATION FOR LOTOR. SHIPPERS CAN STILL SHIP LOTOR/PALADIN SHIPS. CANON SHOULD NEVER LIMIT CREATIVITY.

Song i associate with them: Hoo boy, I have not one but two playlists for him… Instead of linking a playlist, I’ll just list the songs for you all to find at your leisure, since everyone uses different music services (and honestly, I just pirate off of YouTube 99% of the time).

My “canon” playlist, in chronological order, is:

Natural by Imagine Dragons – I’m so glad this came out recently, because if there’s any singular theme song that fits Lotor in every canonical aspect, this is it.

Who We Are by Imagine Dragons – Team Sincline. Need I say more?

Best Day of My Life (minor key) by Chase Holfelder – If you only know this song in its major form, you might very well be wondering why it’s here, but Chase Holfelder’s minor key version has a very different tone to it, and I think it fits Lotor quite well for season 3.

Gold by Imagine Dragons – This works for his rise to power in season 3 and fall in season 4, as well as hinting at his eventual rise and fall again in 5 & 6 and that final snap at the end of 6. It could honestly go at the end, but I thought it fit best here, as the season 4 song.

Icarus by Bastille – I associate this song with both Keith and Lotor in seasons 3 & 4. Honestly, if you listen to the chorus, it sounds like them both at the end of season 4. Icarus (Lotor) is flying too close to the sun… Icarus (Keith) is flying towards an early grave.

Blame by Bastille – This isn’t a perfect fit, but it reminds me of Lotor’s pleading with the Paladins at the beginning of season 5 to not hand him over to Zarkon. Honestly, I sort of picture Lance as the one singing the scathing verses. There’s no room for you here.

I’m So Sorry by Imagine Dragons – This could also go anywhere, but I can picture this as a backdrop to Lotor’s final confrontation with Zarkon. It’s so scathing and sarcastic, except for the bridge. I imagine the bridge as being addressed to Lotor’s generals.

White Blank Page by Mumford and Sons – Canon Lotura. Just… just listen to it. It’s so tragic and fits them so well for season 6.

This Is Gospel -> Emperor’s New Clothes by Panic! At the Disco – Initially, I was going to put just Emperor’s New Clothes on here for Lotor’s breakdown in season 6, but I listened to these two back-to-back, and I thought that This is Gospel fits in a tragic way if you think of it as the sane part of Lotor’s mind trying to warn Allura, knowing that he cannot fight the corruption of Quintessence.

Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing by Set It Off – …I mean, in light of season 6, how could I not include this one. The bridge is basically a summary of that final confrontation.

Viva La Vida by Coldplay – Initially, I had this as a song for season 4, but I couldn’t leave this playlist on such a bitter note. I like to picture that Lotor will eventually come out of the Quintessence field and, alone and without resources, will have to hide out somewhere and rethink a lot of things, and this song is perfect for that.

I’ll Be Good by Jaymes Young – Following the thread of an eventual redemption from the previous song, I think this would suit a redeemed, post-s6 Lotor very well. It’s also simply a very bittersweet and beautiful song to end off on, and it stands in very strong contrast against Natural, the first song on the playlist.

My other playlist is for miscellaneous songs that don’t fit into the canon timeline and for ship songs. In no particular order:

Stay Frosty Royal Milk Tea by Fall Out Boy – This is such a Lotor song, but it technically doesn’t fit canon, since he did become emperor. However, I’ve got an AU story that this fits perfectly, and I think it suits a lot of other Lotor-centric AUs I’ve seen. Besides, thematically, it really does fit Lotor pre-s5.

Broken Crown by Mumford & Sons – The meaning of this song is ambiguous, but if you interpret the “crown” here as literal, it could suit Lotor pretty well, especially in an AU where he refuses to rule.

Therapy by All Time Low – I think this would fit a human AU best, but it could work for any version of Lotor who is introspective about his own flaws and problems.

Battlefield (Meet Me on the Battlefield) by SVRCINA – I’m a little iffy on this one, but someone else recommended it to me as a Lotor ship song, and I do think it could fit a few different Lotor ships quite nicely. The song is primarily about revolution and altruism, both of which fit Lotor, and the romantic aspects would work well for a Lotor/paladin ship.

I Walk the Line by Halsey & Walking the Wire by Imagine Dragons – These two songs work well as two sides of the same coin. I particularly imagine them for Lancelot. Lotor sings I Walk the Line, talking about the difficulty of maintaining a balance between his relationship and his loyalties in the war but declaring that he will be true to Lance above all, and Lance sings the far more optimistic Walking the Wire, saying that although this balancing act is difficult, they will come out on top, together. It could theoretically work for another Lotor ship, but Walking the Wire is such a Lance song that I really picture it for the two of them.

Hold Me Tight or Don’t by Fall Out Boy – Funny story, I pictured this as a Sheith song first, but then @noirsongbird recommended it to me as a Lancelot song, and… yeah, it fits. It also specifically fits one of her (very good!) fanfics, so that’s cool.

King and Lionheart by Of Monsters and Men – Technically, this could sort of work for any Lotor/paladin ship, but I think it would work better for Keitor, Shotor, or Lancelot. It was recommended to me by @noirsongbird as a Lancelot song, and I have to agree that it fits them very well.

I Don’t Know Why by Imagine Dragons – Again, this could work for multiple Lotor/paladin ships, but I picture it for Lancelot. It’s a great forbidden love song, so it would suit a secret romance across battle lines quite nicely.

So… yeah. A lot of music. Sorry? I’m sure this isn’t even everything, haha.

Favorite picture of them: Oh gosh, how could I choose…

Like… damn.

But also…

He’s so cute and pretty??

I mean, just look at him.

For favorite fanworks, I’ve got to put this one up, of course (and please follow this link to the post for it and give it a like!):

This was a gift to me for my very recent 20th birthday by my amazing friend @honestlyprettychill (thank you again babe)!!

There’s a lot of other really good Lotor fanart out there. Check out @itsnotdoneyet and @invidiaesc for some great stuff.

Annnnd that’s it! Sorry this took so long. I hope I answered the questions to everyone’s satisfaction! I have an ask for Keith that I’ll work on next, but I don’t have any after that yet, so please feel free to send in more!

#voltron #lotor #lotor appreciation #lotor ships #s6 salt #meta #lotor meta #voltron meta #music #playlist #voltron playlist #lotor playlist #screenshot #answered ask #my post #mod speaks

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medjaichieftain · 7 years

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Silence Watches The Mummy and The Mummy Returns – Musings, Headcanons, Criticisms, & Observations About Ardeth, Horus, and the Medjai - [Part 1 of 2]

This is going to be… such a random hodgepodge of stuff, heh. I’m going to number them just to give this big wall of text some structure, but they’re not in any specific order. And by all means message me or comment somehow on anything you read here. I would love to discuss any one of these things! =)

[1.] What are the Medjai, really? Medjai means “bodyguards”, I think. If you listen to Imhotep at the beginning of the first movie, right before Anck-su-namun takes her life, he says something that is translated into the “Pharoah’s bodyguards,” and he definitely says “Medjai.” In the second movie, Nefertiri calls for her father’s bodyguards to help him, and she also called them “Medjai.” Back to the first movie, Ardeth describes the Medjai as “we, the Medjai, the descendants of Pharoahs’ sacred bodyguards.” I always took this to mean blood descendants, but I think I was wrong. I think they are occupational descendants, not bloodline descendants. The reason for this is because the Medjai are also described as being this secret society of warriors (except for the one dude who was managing the library, probably so that the rest of them would have a decent informational contact). They appear to be all men, in scouting/hunting parties, out on the sands, keeping watch over stuff, right? How do they get more Medjai, then, heh? Do you ever see any kids? Or even any women? I think that in the world of The Mummy, there are tribes of nomadic desert people who call the Sahara home who actually live in family units, and then there are the Medjai, who I think come from all those other tribes. The curator of the library in the first movie says that they are “sworn from manhood to protect,” which to me means that it is a choice and that they don’t become Medjai until they come of age. So I think the Medjai are not a family society in and of themselves, so much as they are comprised from warriors of many different tribes in a given region who take an oath to essentially give up their family lives to take on this immense religious and moral duty. That is not to say they never visit their families at all, but I think it is more an occupational vow and not one passed down through bloodlines. This is further confirmed for me by Rick supposedly being a Medjai in the second movie, because… I’m sorry but his pasty White ass probably does not have any Egyptian blood in him, haha, so it’s more likely that he is not a descendant of any Pharoah’s bodyguards. But… neither did he choose to enter the Medjai at manhood, so Rick kinda confuses me. He said he got the tattoo at an orphanage, and didn’t even know what it was. That… doesn’t seem to fit with how the rest of the Medjai function. How can you be a warrior for a god you don’t believe in when you don’t even know that you are one in the first place? Which brings me to the pronunciation of the word “me-djai.” It changes, heh. By the second half of the second movie, everybody (including Ardeth) is saying “mah-djai” instead of “meh-djai.” As in, magi? As in… a group of wise men who know a lot of shit that you should pay attention to? I wonder if this was meant to be a play on words that further illustrates the roles that the Medjai played in society or whether the actors all just got lazy in pronouncing the damn word, heh. I’m thinking the latter, but eh… food for thought.

[2.] We never actually ever see Ardeth’s Medjai tattoo on his wrist, the one that would match Rick’s. He wears a leather bracelet that covers it up, and actually, so did Rick in the first movie. Since the Medjai are supposed to be a secret society, it makes sense, but then in that case I wonder why they would cover the wrist tattoo but then put tattoos on his face and the backs of his hands. Not very secret anymore, is it?

[3.] As much as I love Ardeth, his character does annoy me a little bit in that he is an obvious plot device. In the beginning of the first movie, the Medjai are seen as scoundrels, villains, and evildoers. They attack without warning, they’re savage, they have scars, and they’re older looking men. We are not privy to any of their names and we can’t see all of their faces clearly. Even the music that introduces their presence is sinister and ominous in nature. We are taught at first to see them as villains, and this annoys me because it is totally based on the social concept of “The Other.” This nebulous, not clearly defined, nameless, faceless, “other” person that you cannot feel anything for or identify with or even consider a human being because they are “other” than you. It is unfortunately the basis for a whole lot of religious, ethnic, and cultural stereotyping and prejudice. It is not until we meet Ardeth, who is coincidentally the only Medjai given more than a couple innocuous lines, a much younger guy, devoid of scars that we can see, a seriously good looking dude, amazing hair, haha… that the Medjai suddenly have a face and a meaning. From then on they’re good, noble saviors, warriors for god, and protectors against evil. I’m not saying don’t view them that way, I’m just annoyed that they are portrayed as 100% evil at the start and then 100% good later on. The truth is somewhere in the middle. Maybe their cause is good, but they do kill innocent people for it and their methods can be cruel and violent. Necessarily so? You decide? But still… why must they be either black or white morally speaking? They are somewhere in between and they should have been ortrayed that way from the start. Instead, they start out as blanks, as “Others” to us until we’re shown a pretty one and then suddenly we care, heh. That urks me a lot, which is why I go out of my way to notice background Medjai in both movies and wonder at their lives and deaths. I would have appreciated the fleshing out of at least one other Medjai besides Ardeth. It is a shame that neither movie ever bothered to do that.

[4.] I have been thinking about Ardeth’s alignment, that is, his moral compass. Ardeth is not 100% Good in terms of alignment. He is Lawful Neutral with Neutral Good tendencies. He is willing to kill innocent people to protect hundreds of thousands of other lives. He admits this himself verbally when Evie asks him and the head librarian guy if their actions warrant killing innocent people. Any Medjai is prepared to do just that. Their cause is to protect the greater good, not to save individual lives. That’s where the Lawful Neutral comes in. However, he has Neutral Good tendencies. What this means is that… sometimes… Ardeth is willing to go against his code and/or act in favor of Good. So maybe here and there, he does decide to go the distance to save one or two lives (he threw himself at the mummies at the end of the first movie to allow Rick and Jonathan time to get the Book of Amun Ra and escape), and maybe sometimes he will choose to go against his vows to the Medjai in favor of a personal commitment (choosing to stay with Rick, Evie, and Jonathan to help them find Alex in the second movie instead of going off on his own to let the other chieftains know of their location after Horus is shot down). He also gave the Americans and Rick’s group in the first movie time to leave their camp when it was attacked, saying he would shed no more blood, but they had one day to leave. He should never have allowed them that day if he was adhering strictly to his duties as a Medjai, but his Good tendencies wanted to spare lives.

[5.] So I have come to the conclusion that Ardeth wears “high heels” because he rides a horse, heh. I’ve gotten a bunch of comments on his wearing high heels and wtf is up with that, haha, and I think it’s because he needs the heels to grip the stirrups of his horse. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. XD

[6.] Okay but like… why didn’t the Medjai just move the Book of the Dead somewhere people wouldn’t find it instead of constantly fending off people who came to Hamunaptra looking for it? Without it, no one can wake Imhotep, right? So… relocate it out in the middle of the freaking desert somewhere where the Medjai know where it is but no one else does, and guard it. If everyone thinks/knows it’s at Hamunaptra, put the damn thing somewhere else? Why didn’t they just do that? Because there would’ve been no movie, that’s why, haha.

[7.] The other Medjai who died in the beginning of the first movie… did Ardeth know them? It is likely that he did, since he was the regional chieftain. So he would know and command all Medjai in that area. Otherwise, he wouldn’t even be in the story because this wouldn’t be his region, heh. So… did Ardeth send those men there to attack the boat in the beginning of the first movie, and if so, did he and his other men mourn the fact that they did not return? He certainly knew the ones who initially attacked Hamunaptra, because he was right there fighting with them. What was the conversation like after they left that night… with only half the men they came with? The bodies of the men were just left there, and not another word was said about them. Do they have some sort of agreement that bodies aren’t recovered due to time, danger, or resource constraints? If so, what do they bring back, if anything, to the families of these men? How are they honored/recognized for their dedication and sacrifice? I’m sure Ardeth would say/do something to honor them. And then how does losing so many men on a regular basis affect him emotionally? It really makes me wonder.

[8.] So for those who didn’t know this, Ardeth was supposed to die at the end of the first movie. The scene where his gun jams while Rick and Jonathan are trying to excavate the Book of Amun Ra and he has his iconic line, “Save the girl. Kill the creature,” and then he throws himself at all the mummies in the corridor? Yeah, he was supposed to die then. But apparently test audiences liked Ardeth so much and were so upset that he died that they actually changed the ending to include him… and then gave him a much bigger part in The Mummy Returns. (Thank you test audiences, omg, haha.) That’s why he’s just kindof gone for the whole final battle at the end of the first movie and then scares the shit out of Jonathan at the very end sitting on his camel, heh. But it makes me wonder… The Pharaoh’s bodyguards at the end of the first movie were, by definition, also Medjai. If the makers of the movie had decided sooner that Ardeth should live and he had been involved in that battle, would those undead Medjai still have gone after him, or would they recognize him as one of their own? I really wonder about that… and about why the Medjai mummies would be helping Imhotep…? That made no sense…? Like what all was in what Jonathan read that told them hey, forget your duties in life and go help the guy who killed your pharaoh?

[9.] What’s the deal with Ardeth and Lock-Nah? They knew each other by sight and they knew their full names. And the very slight head cant Ardeth gives when saying his name gives me a “(sigh) here we go again with this guy” vibe. Lock-Nah too was smiling like “hey… this guy I love to pick on!” And it seemed like that kind of relationship to me, like… Ardeth has probably tried numerous times to foil the cult of Imhotep over the years and this guy Lock-Nah probably pushed back, screwed him over, and generally engaged in bombastic fuck you-ery to the point of Ardeth just being sick and tired of him. And from Lock-Nah’s point of view, he thinks he’s better than Ardeth in every possible way and enjoys watching him fail. The way he watches Ardeth fight the other cult members in Evie’s house toward the beginning of the second movie with this amused condescension, and then makes the comment, “Not bad… for a Medjai,” is indicative of his perceived superiority over Ardeth. He says “Medjai” like he’s saying “scum of the earth” or something, heh. He has no respect for Ardeth as a person, for the Medjai as a society, or for the morality for which both stand. What makes me think that their relationship is more than just soldier-of-virtue vs. immoral villain is Ardeth’s emotion whenever he fights him. And I’m not saying he cries or makes comments or even shows a range of emotions on his face, it’s just that he looks… to not have the same level of concentration on his face as when he’s fighting Anubis’ army, for example. He’s serious then, focused, confident. With Lock-Nah, there’s a sense of “if I don’t keep on my toes and pay attention I’m going to die.” Maybe Ardeth perceived Lock-Nah to be a better fighter than him, skill-wise. Or maybe there was more to their relationship that we didn’t get to know. By the time he faces him in the jungle of Ahm-Shere, he’s comin’ at him yelling out this battle cry and just going for it. Whereas in the beginning of the movie he seems uncertain of himself, by the time he gets to that duel at the end, there’s a savagery that comes from Ardeth that is just rare to see. The next time you see it, pay attention to the death strokes Ardeth makes, the last two strokes with his sword. Maybe I’m reading into stuff (which I love to do) but he seems ragged, emotional, and just a bit angry like, “stay down, asshole.” It makes me think that Lock-Nah did something to Ardeth or to his life or family or screwed up some mission that was really important in the past… and things got a bit personal between them. Some have said that he’s avenging Horus but he never saw Lock-Nah fire the shot that killed him, so I don’t think that’s what it is. Unless he just assumed? I guess we’ll never know. I love too how when Lock-Nah finally does fall, he has this look on his face like, “Huh. Shit. Wouldja look at that. Bastard finally killed me.” Haha. Damn straight.

[10.] Ardeth gets wounded twice (in Evie’s house and on the bus) in the second movie and never tends to the wounds at all. We never see these wounds again, and in all honesty it doesn’t even look like his clothes are torn. This is just like the exhaustion and dehydration issue. As a writer, I have to keep track of all my characters’ wounds and how those wounds would impair the characters. So it irks me in movies when I see a character sustain a wound that then just disappears by the next scene. Ardeth should have been hurting from those slashes and claw wounds. At the very least, his clothes should have remained torn and he should have had a bandage on the wounds.

[11.] Do all tribes of the Medjai shop at the same clothing store? They all wore the same exactly tunics and sashes. I understand wearing the same basic fabrics and styles, but if these were regional chieftains or commanders of larger tribes, they should be from all over the Sahara and possible even from near other cities and towns. I don’t think they would all have the same outfit from all those different tribes. When all the commanders were lined up they looked like carbon copies of each other. There should have been a bit more variation in color at least if not style and fabric and accessories in their outfits.

#ardeth bay #horus #the medjai #the mummy #the mummy returns #meta

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