#my opinion of the fandom I've made my home in hasn't changed either | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

imminent-danger-came · 9 months

Note

I love reading your tags- especially when theres just even MORE info dumping there.

The least favorite character ask made me giggle a bit, "This character that appeared for a single episode is actually pretty cool. And this character is really awesome in this particular context. But ALSO I really like this character with very little actual screentime."

You‘re absolutely right though! Characters whose only purpose is to fill a particular role are chosen really well too! Like the Host Girl; sure, she doesn’t really have a personality or anything, but she doesn’t NEED to have one. As you said, she‘s collateral damage. She gives us more insight to Wukong, she shows us just how ruthless he can be. He‘s willing to kill the epitome of innocence: A child. A defenseless little girl with a cutesy voice, who was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

(It‘s also worth a mention that, contrary to Wukong, she revealed a softer side of Macaque. Not to the extent the fandom built it up, but in an arguably more meaningful way. He‘s worried/feels bad for a total stranger. Even if it was only a concerned look, she once again gave us a deeper insight to a member of the main cast.)

And the characters with less focus either have really genuine interactions (Yellow Tusk with Azure) that just endear you to them, or they drop a banger line (like the Jade Emperor) before their purpose is fulfilled.

Nothing wrong with being a plot device if it‘s done well!

This wasn‘t really much of an ask rather than me rambling. Sorry.

I welcome rambles in my ask box! Half of you that show up in my ask box could just write your own analysis posts.

And you're also totally right! There isn't anything wrong with characters that are there just to function as plot devices. Sometimes a child is there just to be a child, and that's all they need to be. I think I feel this way about Megapolis (a name for the city that hasn't even been mentioned in show). Like it's a city filled with innocent people, it's MK & the Gang's home, and that's all it kinda needs to be tbh. LMK has to be extremely tight with what it chooses to focus on because of time constraints, and it does that well. When it comes down to it, focusing on the characters/plot is more important than focusing on the setting (which I think debatably wouldn't contribute much anyways—like we don't need more of a reason to care about the city, you know?).

I have this same opinion when it comes to the Demon Bull Family, which may be an unpopular take, but the truth is that a lot of their development happened off-screen. After ROTSQ and until we see them again in 3x06, it's clear that there have been positive changes between Red Son and his parents. I think I've seen some folk want Red Son to cut off his parents entirely, but that kinda goes against the core of his character. Part of Red Son's appeal for me is his complete devotion to his family despite their flaws (saving them in ROTSQ and EYD, attempting to save them in 4x09). Red Son and Princess Iron Fan only ever wanted world domination because that's what DBK wanted, and after that failed—they gave up. They hit the bricks. Red Son then started a food business with his dad (jealous of MK and Pigsy's noodle shop mayhaps?), and I think it's telling that DBK would even agree to do that to begin with. DBK and PIF's disregard of Red Son may not be acknowledged in the way people want, and I get that, but it's not that it didn't happen. I'd say there's another jump in their development between the end of 3x14 and the beginning of 4x09, where the fact that DBK calls out for Red Son as he gets taken away shows a closeness between them that we hadn't seen before. It's also clear that DBK has grown past the person who only wanted to create the world in his own image, chastising Azure Lion:

Demon Bull King: "How many times must you be struck down chasing this same foolish dream?"

(4x09 Roast of the Monkie Kids)

(Plus "This pursuit of yours has warped your mind brother—it is the only reason I could imagine that you would have the nerve to assault my home and harm my family!" echoing PIF in 1x10 "Come to your senses, this power has poisoned your mind!"; Azure unreasonably considers DBK a traitor like DBK had unreasonably considered Red Son a traitor, etc.)

DBK, unlike plenty of other antagonists in LMK (Spider Queen, LBD, and Azure specifically), learned to stop and accept the world as it was. He failed as a conqueror, but he still had his family, and he could try and not fail as a father for his "half-baked son"—or that's how I interpret DBK anyhow.

((I also want to bring up the fact that DBK didn't dare use the Samadhi Fire ring he had to power himself up with Red Son's furnace in AHIB. Like, even the Mr. Bull King has some restraint—there are prices too great to pay for the world, hence why he gave up on world domination after 1x10, when he almost killed his wife and son.))

To me it makes the Demon Bull Family feel like characters that exist outside of MK & the Gang, and can grow/change even when they're not on screen with our main characters, and I think that's cool. We also legitimately didn't have time for anything else.

#So tldr on the way the DB family has been handled thus far: I get if people don't like it that's completely fair #but idk if it's objectively bad.#I know there's a Villad's interview out there where he says he thinks during s2 Red Son took a lot of time to himself #That he realized some thangs about how his parents had treated him you know #And I get if people are disappointed by that. Unfortunately they're minor characters at this point & we got a lot of other stuff to focus o #Me personally I like what we have #They are insane for paralleling the Demon Bull family's one scene in s4 with 1x10 #Like. Holy shit their writing is TIGHT #lmk #lego monkie kid #asks #lmk Red Son #lmk DBK #lmk PIF #lmk analysis #you know what I think I just realized I legitimately like DBK. Like a decent amount.#The way he looks away in shame from PIF in 3x06 before she explains the Samadhi fire's origins. Omg. Is that guilt???#''So you can see it would be impossible for fools such as yourselves to control that power—#if even the spawn of the Demon Bull King himself could not.''#OMG!!!!!!!#anyways

56 notes · View notes

stellocchia · 3 years

Text

Since I really enjoyed yesterday's stream I decided to do one of my overly long analysis on it

So, here's my analysis of (DSMP LORE) Healthy Competition

Dialogues will be color-coded as usual, so here's what I used: Phil, Wilbur, Ranboo

As always I am incapable of brevity, so everything's under the cut

The stream starts with a conversation between Phil and Wilbur in which Wilbur admits that he hasn't been to visit Phil in a while, which makes Phil's later threat about throwing him out feel that much more ridiculous since Wilbur clearly doesn't really live with him either way...

"Alright, it's got one for Phil, one for Ranboo, and one for Techno. Is that all that live here? Just you three?" "Yep, just us three, just chilling"

The only reason why I'm singling this out is that it was right after the mention of Techno's birthday and Wilbur was pointing at the seats occupied by the 4 members of the Syndicate so it feels slightly weird that Niki wasn't mentioned at all. But also it's technically not a lie, she doesn't live there and she only comes around for the Syndicate meetings.

Another thing to add is that Wilbur did notice the chest Ranboo left for him and consciously decided to ignore it.

"I must admit I've come to you with a bit of a- a bit of a proposition. You're into propositions Phil? Are you a bit of a 'propositions' kinda guy?" "Oh, depends, depends. You- you've had some pretty... let- let's just say, uh- not- not a great track record on propositions that you've had in the past" "Alright... I mean, I'm trying to move past that"

I wonder what exactly Phil is referring to here. Because, like, Wilbur did bad things, don't get me wrong, but what's his track record with "propositions" in particular? Because he isn't talking about "Tommy, let's be the bad guys" here since he doesn't know about that. Is he talking about Wilbur founding L'Manburg? But then again, I don't think Wilbur interpreted it that way. I think that, from Wilbur's reaction, he clearly interpreted it as a jab at him exploding L'Manburg (which is the one thing he's trying to move past) which would be extremely hypocritical from Phil since he did the exact same thing but worse.

Also, I really do think that Wilbur is trying to move forward. He's lonely and he has the lowest possible opinion of himself so it doesn't feel weird that he'd want to move on. He isn't putting the work in it right now and he hasn't really changed, but he does seem to want to (though I think he may not know how).

"He [Quackity] didn't seem afraid of me, which is cool. Not many people- I mean you don't seem afraid of me. You aren't afraid of me, are you Phil?" (little look into Wilbur's mind and his fear of isolation once again. And this is fear of isolation, he's worried that other people are afraid of him and therefore are only waiting for him to step out of line so that all their fears would be confirmed)

"'Cause I'm not afraid of you [Phil]" (bold words for someone who spent who knows how long lying to his dad because of a crippling fear of disappointment...)

"Technoblade spent his entire time taking down the establishments, what he left is, as predicted, a power vacuum for a new establishment to come in" (in case it wasn't obvious, Wilbur is not the biggest fan of anarchy. And he actually got this one criticism spot on, indeed all taking down L'Manburg did was getting 4 new governmental-like structures to sprout in its place)

"Phil, I want to make a burger van" *Phil sighs and walks away* (I'm more sure now that Phil really meant "creating L'Manburg" as Wilbur's bad track record with propositions)

Wilbur repeating 4 times that he has no ulterior motive with the burger van managed to make me think the exact opposite. That said that ulterior motive may just be to create a safe little home for himself and Tommy for all we know honestly. Also, the whole thing with Phil trying to convince his grown-ass kid to go play with the neighbor kid and Wilbur throwing a tantrum in response was hilarious...

"If he's [Ranboo] shit you gotta come help me okay? If he's shit you've gotta come be burger boy with me, okay?" (he still is mistrustful to an extreme and pretty childish admittedly)

"Why is he [Phil] treating me like a kid?! Why is he treating me like a little baby?" (remembering how Wilbur treated Fundy I think it may be a family problem)

Another interesting thing to point out is that Wilbur was openly scared of the spider attacking him here, and fights it off, but he doesn't move away from the explosion later on and he didn't move away from the exploding creepers last stream. Other people already made this connection, but I do think it may be a sort of way to punish himself. Specifically, it's brought up later on that he thinks he got off easy for what he did, so he's using what he hurt others with (explosions) to hurt himself now as a sort of punishment for that. Which is another indication of just how much his stay in Limbo didn't help with his mental health.

"Am I being- is this [Ranboo having both cows and wheat] a setup?" (the paranoia never left)

"Ranboo I'm gonna go out on a limb here: do- do you wanna be friends?" "Su-sure yeah, I don't see why not" (I think that at this point it was still just Wilbur following along with what his dad told him to do and trying to find out more about Ranboo. That does seem to change later down the line)

"And then we decided that it [the 'cookie' outpost] was too much trouble so we kinda just left it" (So we have confirmation that the cookie outpost was abandoned)

"We're not gonna annoy Quackity" "That's good" "We can't annoy- we can't annoy him because we're simply put- we're simply put gonna be making...- I got the real estate! He's giving me the area and we're gonna be making a competing business"

Wilbur says this as if he wasn't perfectly aware that this would annoy the sh*t out of Quackity. As if the point of it wasn't exactly to annoy Quackity. Or well, annoying him isn't the end goal, it's just the means to an end. We don't know the actual end goal (though I think Wilbur still wants to either be let into Las Nevadas or actually instate a rivalry between them as he said, one of the two).

"We [he and Quackity] were a part of the same cabinet during New L'Manburg or whatever" "Cabinet?" "Yeah a cabinet is like-" "Was this- was this with Tubbo?" "Yeah yeah" (...) "So you were part of the old L'Manburg? I didn't know that actually, I thought you were a bit of an independent"

Once again: Wilbur is missing A LOT of knowledge. He wasn't aware that New L'Manburg had a cabinet and he wasn't aware that Ranboo was ever part of the country either. He has a lot of misconceptions about what happened during the time he was dead so it really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that his views on a lot of things are as warped as they are. Wilbur is getting to his conclusions with an incomplete and sometimes wrong set of data.

"Do you dislike anyone Ranboo?" "Not too much I don't think. I mean there are other people I don't, like, agree with what they've done of course, but I think that everyone is just a product of what they've gone through and everything so if you understand that then you understand the person!"

There is nothing inherently wrong with Ranboo's reasoning here. It's true that most people are a result of their environment and, once you understand what they've been through you can understand them better as a person. It's also fine that he personally doesn't want to hold grudges. But that way of thinking isn't applicable to those who have been hurt by others, sure they can reach an understanding, but an understanding of a person doesn't justify shit and doesn't change shit unless that person works towards repairing old broken relationships. It just all sounds like a nice way of thinking about things in theory, but in practice, it just takes away responsibility from those who have wronged others to fix things and moves it to those who have been wronged. (Ranboo isn't advocating for everyone to think that way though, but I know the fandom will).

Either way, they arrive in Las Nevadas and Wilbur talks about how their place doesn't benefit the consumer and puts down 3 signs.

"I've been trying to think of a name for it [his and Tommy's area], I'm thinking about 'Paradise'"

There are two possible reasons for the name that I can think of:

1) It's in reference to Las Nevadas itself and how Las Nevadas is based on Las Vegas, the famous city of sin

2) It could be a reference to Tommy insistently calling Las Nevadas Paradise in the last stream and Wilbur trying to convince him that their place is the true Paradise

Wilbur does decide to make the Burger Van right at the border which really feels like a very obvious provocation. The other thing is that he makes it clear that he wants the van to be red and white which could be a random choice, but really feels like a reference to Tommy (since they are famously his colors) or an imitation of their opposition. Or both considering how much Tommy liked the restaurant of the opposition and the fact that Wilbur is still trying to convince him to stay.

"I'm not very fond of blue" (at this point it's obvious that Wilbur has quite a bit of pent-up animosity against Ghostbur. I wonder if it is because it still feels like people liked the ghost more than him...)

"Like, the Cookie Shop, I don't even know if it was a cookie shop, to begin with, because it was a little... fortified if I'm entirely honest, I realize that now" "Really?" "Yeah did you not see- oh wait- that giant stone structure?" (Ranboo really did fail to realize that the cookie shop was actually a military outpost, huh?)

"See, I like Tubbo. He's strong-headed, he doesn't let people push him around, you know?" (this is both an interesting change in what he thinks of Tubbo if he actually thinks that and further confirmation that Wilbur isn't a fan of people he considers to be 'followers')

"Why do you claim that you're so 'peaceful' and 'neutral' and yet somehow appear in almost every conflict this server's had since I died?" (since I saw people claiming this is manipulation already, just know that it isn't. He's just confused because, admittedly, Ranboo is a confusing guy and Wilbur doesn't really know him at all)

"Ranboo, why did you come to help me?" (...) "And then also I just think, you know... you can, you know- I think- I think you're an alright person, you know? So I wanna- I did kinda wanna get off on a better foot with you then what happened-" "Why?" "Just because I don't really like having the thought that people don't really like me" "Nonononono not the bit about the right foot, the 'why don't you think I'm a bad person'" "Well I mean, I think that you did bad things, but like, I think that you also went through things that made you that way and then I also think that you've changed now (...) but I think that now you've- apparently you've been away long enough that I think that if anyone goes away for that long eventually they'll have a thought about their morality and everything and maybe become a better person because of it"

I know this quote was absurdly long, but it is one of the most interesting conversations of the whole stream and it is really important and it tells us quite a bit as well. For one thing Wilbur was left quite emotional from someone simply admitting that he's an "alright person" and that they think he's capable of changing and this does bring him to open up to Ranboo right after. What Ranboo says to be exact is that anyone would have changed after going through what Wilbur went through and that change could be positive and while I completely disagree with it, it's clearly something that Wilbur needed to hear.

Now as to why I disagree with the notion that 13 years of semi-complete isolation could change anyone for the better should be rather obvious. But if it isn't, well, that's torture to put it simply. Psychological torture. Just like abuse it's one of those things that only cause trauma and a worsening mental health state and we see this with Wilbur because he didn't change, he only became more self-deprecating. Hurting someone doesn't make them become a better person all of a sudden, that's really not how it works. Hurting someone makes them become more traumatized.

"I think I scare people" ( as I said, immediately opening up about his insecurities)

"I think that a lot of people share your idea, but they share your idea in trying to- trying to keep me from hurting them" (for a bit here Wilbur talks about how he feels like everyone else is just waiting for him to step a foot out of line, which does really show that he's still interpreting all his interactions with people through the lens of his paranoia and self-deprecation, because no one is really interacting with him with that objective in mind)

"Dream's had his comeuppance and I've not" (this seems to be the crux of Wilbur's insecurity. This idea that he got off scot-free for his crimes, the idea that the only difference between him and Dream is the punishment that's been bestowed upon them which, of course, is wrong, but he doesn't know this, because he doesn't actually know why Dream's in prison)

"I've been investing into the wrong areas Ranboo, I've been investing into the wrong people" (This is either a reference to Tommy, to Phil, to Quackity, or to all of them)

"We're kindred man, we get each other" (the reason why he thinks that is because he seems to think that Ranboo has a similar type of paranoia to what Wilbur experience himself and he's not entirely wrong. Ranboo is deathly afraid of conflict and of being disliked so much so that he never stands up for anything in fear of angering others)

Little definition of "neuroticism" for you all since Wilbur kept mentioning it: neuroticism, one of the Big 5 personality traits, is typically defined as a tendency toward anxiety, depression, self-doubt, and other negative feelings.

I'd say it's quite fitting for both characters...

"I feel like life dealt us the same cards and the difference is that you built your trust by showing people your cards whilst I- I keep them close to my chest and I feel like that may be the big difference" (I felt like this was interesting. Especially knowing how much Ranboo actually doesn't share and how much he actually also keeps close to his chest)

They talk about tubbo in general for a bit and about what's been going on the server in general. Ranboo also that he's part of both Snowchester and the arctic commune (mostly the latter though).

"This has been chill, this has been good, I'm excited to show Tommy. What's your opinion on Tommy?" "Oh, he's- he's great. Tommy's awesome" "I agree I agree" "Definitely gone through a lot but I think that it's made him a good person" "Well you seem to think that everyone going through something at least gives them some merit you said" "I mean, yeah. I mean if- if no one- the only really bad people are the ones who are just evil because- just because and they don't have any reason why"

Included the whole thing here because if I stopped at Ranboo saying that Tommy going through trauma is what made him a good person it would have sounded really bad. As things are I think that that was just poor wording on his part and that this mostly goes back to the mentality he expressed before about how people sometimes do bad things because of the environment they're in pushing them and this idea he seems to have that actual hardships (like 13 years in Limbo or whatever he knows about what Tommy has been through) can encourage people to be better which is... sort of naive honestly. Again, trauma isn't a catalyst for the betterment of a person, and any improvement Tommy has made came from his self-reflection, not what he's been through.

After they're done with the van Wilbur brings Ranboo to their competing establishment and asks him to smash the windows, which Ranboo does with no hesitation whatsoever. After that Wilbur proceeds to place down one single block of TNT in a corner and Ranboo starts being a little more hesitant.

"You trust me right?" (I feel like that was a trick question considering how their common paranoia is the thing that Wilbur praised in Ranboo before)

Wilbur hands Ranboo the flint and steel to detonate the piece of TNT which Ranboo does, albeit with some hesitation.

"You passed the test, good job man, you go back to the van (...) Ranboo- Ranboo... I'm proud of you man. You've taken a side, you've proven that you can choose a side"

Quite a few people have already pointed out how similar this scene was to the time Wilbur tested Tommy in season 1 to decide if he was fit to be his right-hand man. In both situations, Wilbur gave someone a chance to cause some destruction against someone on the opposite side. Tommy passed the test by refusing to do so and showing that he was willing to uphold his morals and what he believed in. Ranboo passed the test by doing the exact opposite, by showing that, as much as he talks about how he chooses people and not sides, he's not willing to prove that even when all he would need to do to do so is doing nothing.

And it's an interesting scene to analyze as a parallel to that, but it's also interesting to note that Wilbur knows about Ranboo and Tommy griefing George together. He knows that Tommy was the only one to face any consequences for it (not that exile was actually the consequence for the griefing, but this is from Wilbur's point of view). Now putting this in the context of Wilbur seeing himself in Ranboo and thinking that he himself got off scot-free explains this next part perfectly in my opinion.

It explains why he made sure to leave this sign:

To me at least. This is only a theory honestly, we don't have an actual full explanation. But I do think that Wilbur may feel like the both of them never got the comeuppance they deserved, which is why he did something that's sure to get a reaction from one of the most powerful people on the server. Though considering that he also left 2 diamonds as retribution + a chest with all the materials he picked up it could have also been Wilbur's idea of a bonding moment and he could actually really be proud of Ranboo.

#long post #dream smp #wilbur soot #philza #ranboo #c!wilbur #c!ranboo #dream smp analysis #character analysis #stream analysis #tw self-harm #tw self-deprecation #tw torture mention #tw abuse mention #I'm sure there are plenty of things I missed #but this was all for now

237 notes · View notes

sydney-stylites-blog · 7 years

Text

Of betrayals and backstabbings | The Dragonpit edition

Yeah the title really doesn't make a lot of sense, but I liked how it sounded 🤷🏻 I kind of wanted to explore the whole Jon betraying Dany thing again, and why the Dragonpit scene conclusively ended any doubts I might have had regarding that.

I've been staunchly against the concept of Jon betraying Dany and I've addressed it multiple times already. Betraying Dany doesn't fit in Jon's character sketch. There a million already existing problems which everyone has to deal with, and Jon playing Dany is not one of them. Of course, then we have the classic case of Ygritte brought up. If Jon could betray her for the Night's Watch, why can't he betray Dany for his family? What antis conveniently forget every time they bring this up is that Ygritte (and the wildlings) were coming to destroy the Night's Watch (and a ton of innocent people while at it). So Jon betrayed her because he had no other option. Dany is coming with her armies and dragons to save Jon's home, save the North...so why, why would Jon betray her? What would he have to gain by this?

Consider this. When Sansa and Arya played Littlefinger, that was awesome! We not only supported it, but we were thrilled af when it happened! But what about when Littlefinger had betrayed Ned Stark, and that was after telling him he shouldn't have trusted him? I mean, he had warned him earlier hadn't he? So the betrayal wasn't out of the blue, right? It was something we should have been expecting, wasn't it? But did we support that? Did we agree with or sympathise with Littlefinger?

And okay, when Jon betrayed Ygritte, who did you agree with more? Did you feel bad for Ygritte but also felt that Jon had done the right thing? Could you see Jon's struggle between love and duty and acknowledge that the right choice wasn't as easy to make?

Why were our reactions different to all those situations? Short answer - motive. Our reaction to betrayals are based on the motive, and how well it is portrayed in the narrative. 'A woman murdered a man' evokes a different reaction than 'a woman executed a man who had led to the death of her own father'. Throw in the fact that he was still trying to get her to kill her sister, and we not only agree with the woman in question here, we are positively cheering her on! Because that's the difference motive makes - it justifies actions otherwise considered wrong, and we have numerous examples of it in Game of Thrones. My personal favorite, of course, is Jaime and the Kingslayer story because it perfectly highlights the difference between us knowing the reason, or judging the action as it stands.

So what could be Jon's motives for playing Dany?

We have the obvious, to protect his family and Winterfell from the unstable witch (that is supposedly Dany on tumblr).

But that's the thing again antis. Dany has never once, not once threatened or even implied in extremely vague terms anything that could be constituted to be a threat to Winterfell or the Starks. In all their interactions, whenever she wanted Jon to bend the knee, she never even went in the general area of threatening his family if he refused to. The issue of family wasn't brought up at all in that sense, so the idea that she would harm his family now, after having clearly developed feelings for him, has only sprung from the minds of the Jonsa Fandom who very much want it to be true because it justifies their POV and their ship. Because the assumption that Dany would want to destroy Winterfell, destroy the Starks and Jon realized this and is appeasing her by catering to her romantic feelings would work extremely well if, if it had been implied anywhere at least once, even if vaguely. But it hasn't been portrayed, and by itself fails to suffice as the motive setting up Jon conning Dany.

Jon will never betray Northern independence for love, and is only faking it to protect the North from Dany's ire.

Considering that the North was already protected from Dany's ire before Jon pledged himself to her, I don't even know where this comes from. Dany promised to fight the White Walkers without asking anything in return (an action which squarely put her in the 'good guy' category), Jon playing her to accomplish something which had already been accomplished is not only senseless, paranoic and unnecessary, but it also would then put him firmly in the douchebag category. Dany let him keep the North, only for him to offer it to her twice, and then ultimately turn right around and say lol, kidding?? Really Jonsa peeps? That makes sense to any of you? Why is it so hard to accept that Jon judged her worthy of his allegiance? But of course, that wouldn't work for the antis and this mess is far more appealing.

About the Northern independence though, I've already mentioned it before, but I'll say it again. The whole 'King in the North' concept arose because the Starks would not accept the Lannisters as their king, not after what they had done. Supporting the Baratheons would have been treasonous and dishonourable, and would have embroiled them in a civil war they had no interest in being part of. The main reason however, was that the Northern Lords had grown disillusioned with the Southern kings who did not care about the Northern issues at all and only paid attention to the North when it was in their own interests. Now, with Daenerys pledging herself to defeat the White Walkers, the entire dynamic of the game had changed, the Southern ruler in point, was not a Lannister or a Baratheons, but a Targaryen, who was coming to save the North instead of abandoning them to their plight and, contrary to popular belief, could in fact be trusted. The North Remembers, and it is this that Jon hopes the North will remember once the Walkers have been defeated, that Daenerys is not her father. So, in short, Jon is not playing Dany for Northern independence because it's frankly ridiculous and the alternative (he feels she's a worthy ruler) makes much more sense in this case.

Jon is playing Dany for Sansa's sake, either because he took her advice about not making mistakes seriously or he's deeply in love with her.

This is a very shipper reason, as canonically there has been no love shown from either of them, but I would have still accepted this reason if they hadn't already made it crystal clear that Jon and Sansa don't agree politically. They both have different views regarding politics, and while Jon does ask her for her opinions, he does what he believes he should do anyway. Also, while Sansa has a more grounded worldview which takes into account people's feelings and motivations - rewarding those true to you for their loyalty (Karstarks and Umbers), taking Cersei more seriously, not abandoning the North and literally everything else, Jon's are more idealistic and based on his strong moral code of 'honor' - not taking the castles away from the Karstarks and Umbers, choosing to believe in Tyrion, putting his own life on the line to save his people (by going to Dragonstone). Jon has been consistently portrayed, all throughout this season, as valuing honor above everything - a very strong Ned Stark trait tbh - and not taking Sansa's advice as seriously as he should (which is what she notices as well, and it upsets her). So with this set-up, believing that he is actually playing Dany because of what Sansa has told him is, quite frankly, a stretch, because there is no narrative indication which would make us believe that. This would also explain Sansa's reaction to learning he had bent the knee, she's resigned to it because she knows that though Jon loves and respects her, he still does what he thinks is the right thing to do. Also, Sansa doesn't berate him for doing what he did in the way she would have had she believed he had been repeating Ned's and Robb's mistakes - - > she doesn't believe he's making those mistakes ie bending the knee to Dany is not disastrous (as the antis would have you believe). Sansa is upset because Jon clearly didn't consider asking Sansa's opinion about a very important political decision, and she's upset because she knows that the Northern Lords will not accept this easily, but she doesn't react as if it's the worst thing in the world ever, nor does she act thoughtful, which would have indicated that all is not as it seems. In short, Sansa's reaction is very much expected under the circumstances, which are that Jon doesn't take her as seriously as he should. And given this, it seems unlikely to imagine that he's in cahoots with Sansa and they're taking down the Dragon Queen together (together! 😂)

Every reason for Jon playing Dany would have worked if the narrative had given some sort of suggestion about a possible motive, some indication of Jon treating Sansa's advice seriously, or made Jon give up the North before she pledged to fight the Walkers. And the nail in the coffin for the 'undercover lover' theory was the Dragonpit scene. Nothing would have cast stronger doubts on whether Jon truly loves Dany or not, than him accepting the truce. Despite it being the smart political move, it would have also raised a tiny red flag regarding Jon's true intentions, in my mind at least. Jon basically had nothing to lose by accepting the truce, nothing except for his honor. And that made him refuse! It wasn't just him making a public proclamation that he loves Dany (although it sorta was 😂), it was him being faced with a choice to sacrifice his honor, his word, to get what he wanted, it was him being asked to choose whether he truly was his father's son, it was him being expected by the one who knew the truth to do the dishonourable thing for the greater good. He could have lied and supported Dany later, he could simply have walked away from the battles to come because they didn't directly concern him and his people and let Dany fend for herself. But would it have been the honorable thing to do? Smarter, yes. Wiser, yes. More beneficial to his own people, yes. But honorable? After taking Dany's help to defeat the White Walkers, which let's be honest, are a far greater threat to the North than anywhere else, after taking her armies and dragons to save his home and then turning his back on her when Cersei came at her with fresh forces would have been as far from honor as possible. If Jon has indeed been playing Dany all along, then he should have accepted Cersei's offer - which would not only have placated the Northern Lords later, but would also have served as a potential hint of him playing Dany. But in keeping with the characteristic theme of this season, Jon chooses honor over the alternative more politically savvy choice. He upset everybody, even Dany, with this choice when he could have gone with the easier one, which would have ensured everyone - those at the Dragonpit as well as the Northern lords - would have been happy with the outcome. Everyone would have gotten what they wanted, and the subsequent - if any - reveal of Jon having played Dany all along would have made much more sense to the audience.

But Jon did not make the easy choice. The deliberate inclusion of this scene was only to portray that even when the choice is tough, Jon would choose honor. This is his character, his identity. Also, the callbacks to Ned Stark, aside from foreshadowing that when the time comes to choose, Jon would most likely choose his Stark heritage, remind us that Ned Stark valued honor above all, and the only times he sacrificed it was over love - love for his sister and love for his daughters, which caused him to abandon his honor for their survival. So for Ned Stark's son to betray a woman who trusts, loves, respects and admires him, a woman who's had the same struggles in life as he himself has, a woman who is willing to set aside her own personal goals to help him destroy the threat to his home, for him to betray a woman who has already given him everything he wanted, is actually a betrayal of Ned Stark's legacy and everything he stood for. By going so far as to blatantly lie in Ned Stark's name, Jon would have, in one stroke, destroyed everything that Ned Stark inculcated and symbolised, given what we already know about him having no motive at all for the undercover lover angle. So the callback to Ned was very necessary in highlighting that Jon is truly Ned's son, and throwing away his honor without an ironclad reason is not his character. It's simply not.

Also, this scene was very important because it very starkly set up the contrast between Jon (and even Dany) and Cersei. Remember how all of us were totally skeptical about believing Cersei at all in the first place? Even after the convincing reason of her wanting to protect her to-be-born child, it still was hard to believe that she would actually help them. And why was that?

'When enough people make false promises words stop meaning anything. Then there are no more answers, only better and better lies.'

As the audience, we now know not to trust Cersei. Even when she's being completely sincere, it's hard to trust her because her words have long since stopped meaning anything to us, she's not someone who's promises we'll ever trust, because as Jon said, they are only better and more elaborate lies. And lies won't help us in this fight. So Jon not lying is very important to show us this difference, of how we basically trust Jon's promises and how cautious we are when it comes to Cersei. And as if that's not enough, Cersei's scene with Jaime lays it all completely out, when Jaime is do adamant about sticking to his promise and is struggling to understand how Cersei could have lied to them.

Cersei: I'll say whatever I need to say to ensure the survival of our house

To Cersei, the priority is only her house, her family, to the point that she can't even acknowledge the enormity of the Northern threat. She's focused on ensuring her family's survival, everyone else be damned. And that is categorically shown as an evil thing. Saying whatever is needed to be said, making false promises, basically everything that the Jonsa fans expect from Jon is clearly and emphatically shown to be evil, to be wrong. The whole purpose of the Dragonpit scene is to bring out this contrast between Jon and Cersei - Cersei doesn't care about futile things such as honor and promises when the question is about her own family's survival, Jon however not only cares about the realm, as a whole, but he also highly values honor and takes his promises seriously. We even have Jaime Lannister (my cute nugget 💖) walk away from Cersei, whom he loves above and beyond all, because of his honor. If, after all this, Jon is shown to not have any honor at all, then...

#jonerys #jon snow #game of thrones #undercover lover #doctor who gif #because i'm an idiot

121 notes · View notes