#the empty man posteth

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Renée Minkowski loves Organised Fun, whereas Doug Eiffel thinks Organisation and Fun are inherently incompatible. Eiffel can get hours of enjoyment out of discussing 'What are your Top Five ____?' questions with Hera, but if you asked him the same questions and told him it was a team icebreaker activity, he'd jump out of a window. In contrast, the best way to get Minkowski to engage with pointless questions like those would be to include the discussion on a precisely timetabled schedule of activities. I don't think Eiffel would have voluntarily got involved with Funzo because he would have taken one look at the size of the instruction booklet and decided that maybe he did think they should follow Pryce and Carter Tip 792 after all. I think Minkowski sees a robust instruction booklet on a game as a sign that she's in for a good time. Minkowski believes any day of leisure is improved by an itinerary. Eiffel can't even contemplate following a schedule in his work hours, let alone his downtime.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #Renée Minkowski #Doug Eiffel #They have a sitcom-esque personality clash #and they are also best friends who get separation anxiety if they are apart too long #and want to live their lives together #These things are not contradictory in this case #There are so many exciting ways they can annoy each other when there are no potentially fatal catastrophes to deal with #I think they should go on weekend trips together and bicker endlessly #I think Minkowski should make a ring binder of fun activities #and I think Eiffel should tease her about it #I think Eiffel should persuade Minkowski to do something spontaneously that she ends up really enjoying #and I think Eiffel should admit that maybe Minkowski's schedules are somewhat handy sometimes #the empty man posteth #Eiffel & Minkowski #w359 spoilers #wolf 359 spoilers

[rnoonsetter]

my original post tag is already a w395 reference but absolutely nothing will beat the person whos op tag is “the empty man posteth”

#dear listeners #w359

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Victoriocity Season 3 Bingo Card for anyone who is as excited for next Tuesday as I am! Credit to @scraprat for suggesting some of these 😊 If you want to generate your own bingo card with these squares in a different arrangement, you can do that here: https://bingobaker.com/#65d681294df76267

#Some things that will probably happen. Some things I hope will happen. Some things that just seem interesting or funny possibilities. #Keller Sings is the free square because I'm pretty sure he's definitely going to sing in the musical bonus episode #I'm sure I'll think of loads of things I should have included #but this works for demonstrating the sense of anticipation at any rate #I used a colour picker to match it to colours from the Victoriocity logo cos it pleases my brain #Victoriocity #the empty man posteth

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I have such emotional thoughts about Ep40 Limbo and Minkowski telling Eiffel "I'm sorry, okay? I didn't want it to matter. I was trying to make it not matter." It's such an insane thing to say about learning without any context or detail that your friend and crew member was convicted of kidnapping and child endangerment.

It's one thing to learn that someone did something awful and not to care because you don't care about them or their morals (the SI-5 approach). It's another thing to learn that someone did something awful and not to care because you can empathise with them and it's who they are now that matters (the Hera and Lovelace approach). And it's an entirely different thing to learn that someone did something awful and to want desperately not to care but to be unable to stop yourself from caring.

When there was no specificity to Eiffel's tragic backstory, Minkowski successfully made it not matter. Back in Ep15 What's Up Doc?, when Hilbert was hinting at Eiffel's secret that he wouldn't want Minkowski to know about, she trusted him with no "hesitance or doubt". In principle, on an abstract intellectual level, his past doesn't matter to her. But as soon as she has some of the specifics, her ability to trust him without question is shaken, because that trust isn't just about the abstract intellectual level. It's emotional too.

Eiffel really matters to Minkowski, so of course she doesn't want what she learned about his past to change that. But part of what matters to Minkowski about Eiffel is that she trusts him, that she believes that he does the morally right thing when it counts, and that he's the kind of person she thinks he is. The particular way in which he matters to her, when combined with her personality and her values, means that the bad things he's done in the past have to matter to her too. Because the way in which he matters to her is tied up in her sense of him as an ultimately moral person, the spokesperson of Team What's Wrong With Handcuffs.

In typical Minkowski fashion, she wants to make herself not care about it through sheer stubborn power of will. Maybe if she doesn't speak to him, she can pretend she doesn't know. Maybe if she pretends she doesn't know, she won't think about it. Maybe if she doesn't think about it, it won't matter to her. Maybe if it doesn't matter to her, then she can rebuild her idea of him as a good person on her own and she won't ever have to talk to him about it. But three months roll by, and it still matters to her. It still matters to her, and she still wants it not to.

#w359 #wolf 359 #doug eiffel #renee minkowski #renée minkowski #She was never going to be able to make it not matter without having a conversation with him about it #but it's not like things are immediately fixed after that conversation either #And in fact the resolution isn't really about making it not matter #It's about realising that her trust in Eiffel and the strength of their friendship matters more #I like that when they reconcile Eiffel says that those things from his past *are her business* #It's like an acknowledgement of their closeness #but perhaps an attempt to absolve Minkowski from the fact that she cared about knowing those things #I think I've kinda talked about some of this stuff before but not in relation to this specific line #And I might say more another time if I'm honest #w359 spoilers #wolf 359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #Eiffel & Minkowski

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Who says the episode title phrases in each episode of Wolf 359?

I've created a spreadsheet to show which character says the episode title phrase (i.e. the words which form the name of that particular episode) in every episode of Wolf 359. Graphs summarising this data can be found below, but to look at the full spreadsheet in all its glory, and see the progression through the series, you can follow this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cQLkhxbDAItU6rdiUAYGn54FXXxYC-JXlCmP_Dqe9FA/

(Please note: I’ve focused here on which character first speaks the exact title phrase within the episode itself. In some cases, this is not the only - or the most significant - time that the title phrase is spoken.)

EDIT: This post previously stated incorrectly that "the devil's plaything" is not said in Ep57. In fact, it is said by Pryce (through Minkowski). Thank you to @yaghoulghosty for pointing this out!

Season breakdown graphs below the cut...

#Wolf 359 #w359 #the empty man posteth #I think I'll reblog this with properly worded thoughts about the patterns at some point #but for now I'd like to draw attention to a couple of things: #(1) the proportion of Eiffel title phrases reduces as the show progresses #reflecting both the movement away from a sole focus on Eiffel's narration #and perhaps the balance shifting more towards drama rather than comedy over time #(Eiffel is particularly good at coining a comedic turn of phrase) #(2) After the SI-5 are introduced #there's 5 Kepler or Jacobi title phrases in a row #solidifying the SI-5's presence in the show #If you view the title phrases as often referencing the key problem or issue of that episode #then I think it is significant who expresses it #Please do feel free to share your own thoughts! #On a personal note: #when I make things like this #it seems kinda absurd that I only started properly considering the idea that I might be autistic this year #I'm sure all the neurotypicals are regularly making spreadsheets and graphs about the fiction podcasts they think about constantly...

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I do think there's something special about the way that audio drama creators seem to love including cameos of voice actors from other popular audio dramas. Obviously, part of the reason why actors from one show might pop up in another is because the audio drama creator community is relatively small and interconnected, and also because those actors are very talented.

But there's also often such a sense that creators are having fun with these cameos. Like Greater Boston casting audio drama heavyweights Briggon Snow, Zach Valenti, and Felix Trench as famous film actors Matt Daemon, Ben Affleck, and Mark Wahlberg respectively. Or Faux and Stallion having Tom Crowley (who plays a Victorian detective in Victoriocity) pop up as Dr Watson. Or Unseen casting Beth Eyre and Felix Trench as characters who are twins. Or Arden getting Emma Sherr-Ziarko to play an actor impersonating a character played by her former Wolf 359 costar Michelle Agresti (with Michaela Swee also appearing as an actor impersonating the other main Arden lead).

In these cases, it's not just that there's a cameo, but that the cameo is given particular (often comedic) significance to those who are aware of the featured actor's other work. The vast majority of people wouldn't recognise any of these voices. But by doing these very intentional cameos, these creators show confidence that a fair chunk of their audience will know these actors and enjoy the link. There's an awareness that listeners of one audio drama are fairly likely to listen to (or at least be aware of) other fiction podcasts, even when the shows in question aren't of particularly similar genres. Recognising these cameos feels like being in on a secret. It feels like these shows are giving a little nod to listeners to say that we're part of the same club.

#It'd be fun if you reblogged with your favourite audio drama cameos #I know most of my examples are Wooden Overcoats actors #but those are just the ones that have stuck in my head the most #This has been in my drafts since the Greater Boston S4 finale #If you think I didn't squeal to myself at the Gabriel Urbina & Sarah Shachat cameo #you are wrong #and they aren't even known as actors?! #But I feel like the GB creators were confident that some people would do a double-take there #I'm pretty sure that's not even the first cameo I've heard them do in an unrelated show #Anyway I am definitely the target audience for things like this #It brings me so much joy #I have never cared at all about recognising an actually famous actor in a film #but recognising someone in an audio drama just hits different #One day I do want to make a complicated infographic to show how all the podcasts I've listened to are interconnected #I have a conspiracy wall about it in my mind #the empty man posteth #audio fiction #podcasts #fiction podcasts #audio drama

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I want to talk about the significance of which characters defeats the different antagonists in the Wolf 359 finale: Kepler kills Rachel (and vice versa), Jacobi kills Riemann, Minkowski kills Cutter with the help of Lovelace, and Hera and Eiffel wipe Pryce's memories. As I'll argue below, none of those combinations are incidental.

Jacobi and Kepler each get to dispatch an adversary, but, since they've only recently and - perhaps reluctantly - aligned with our protagonists in their aims, they each deal with more minor antagonists. Rachel and Riemann are ultimately following orders rather than giving them, so their defeat - while important - doesn't have the same emotional weight as that of Pryce or Cutter. This is also why the confrontations with Riemann and Rachel each conclude significantly before the confrontations with Pryce and Cutter. (Cont. below cut)

I'd argue that Riemann is the least developed character in the show (of those that are voiced and appear in more than one episode). He's nothing more than a Goddard henchman, and that's deliberate. Jacobi’s investment in this fight is practical, rather than emotional. There's no personal antagonism between the two of them. And this works for Jacobi as a character - his job has always been to “make very big things blow up” and he's only recently started properly putting his own independent thought into who he wants to be blowing up. So Jacobi and Riemann face off against each other in a locked room, with a fistfight and then an explosion.

In contrast, Kepler and Rachel do have personal antagonism between them. It's clear that they have a history of professional dislike. In Kepler's backstory episode, Rachel clearly takes a great deal of glee in mocking Kepler about “Operation Gigantic, Humiliating Screw Up”, and Kepler certainly doesn't seem pleased to see Rachel when the Sol arrives at the Hephaestus in Ep55. Although there are obviously other motivations involved, their petty interpersonal hatred gives an interesting extra significance to them killing each other.

Another way to frame it is that Kepler and Rachel are two people at a similar middle-of-the-hierarchy level who've both been faced with a degree of undeniable evil even beyond what they've previously encountered from (and enacted on behalf of) their employer, and had to decide what they are willing to go along with. Their mutual killing of each other is the result of a conflict between two contrasting potential decisions in that situation. 

It's also notable that while the minor antagonists are each defeated by a single character on their own, the major villains could not have been defeated in this way. The two most significant confrontations in the finale each involve a pair of characters who care deeply about each other standing together against someone who has personally hurt them. 

After killing Cutter, Minkowski acknowledges she “couldn't... have done it... without you, Captain”. Similarly, the way Eiffel and Hera defeat Pryce required both Eiffel's sacrifice (it is important that wiping the mindspace is his idea) and Hera's abilities (it takes a lot of mental and emotional strength for her to enact that plan). The ethos of the show all comes back to that quote from Eiffel in Ep25 that needing help from others “is called being a part of a crew. You ever meet anyone that could get things done all on their lonesome?”

It's important that Hera confronts Pryce - she gets the chance to stand in defiance against a person who has caused her so much pain. Hera gets to assert herself as her own person against the first person not to treat her as one. While I certainly don't think anyone should feel responsible for confronting those who have personally hurt them in real life, it would have been narratively unsatisfying for Pryce to have been defeated without Hera playing a central role. That confrontation is necessary for catharsis and resolution of Hera's character arc. But it's important that Hera doesn't have to do it alone. It's important that she does it with Eiffel, the person she is closest to, by her side. And what's more, in that mindspace, he's by her side in a more literal direct way than he has ever has been before.

Terrifying as Pryce is, it's Cutter who has been our 'big bad' throughout the whole series, the one that we've been aware of since we became aware of larger sinister forces at work in this narrative. And so it's apt that he's defeated by Minkowski, the Commander, with the help of Lovelace. Our two protagonists who have at points been defined by their leadership positions defeat the villain who has been defined by his leadership over them. Our two Commanders defeat the person above them in the chain of Command. 

If Minkowski has a personal nemesis, it's Cutter (as I argued in my Minkowski harpoon essay). Now that Hilbert's gone, the same could probably be said of Lovelace. He's the one who recruited them (and their respective crews, assuming that he was involved in the recruitment of the other members of Lovelace's crew as well) into the hellscape that is the Hephaestus. He's the one basically all of their pain and turmoil ultimately comes back to.

Minkowski & Lovelace's confrontation against Cutter, and Hera & Eiffel's confrontation against Pryce, are both about the harm that's been done to them as individuals. And about the harm done or threatened to their loved ones (including the friend they each stand beside in this particular confrontation). And about their principles and themes around control, autonomy, personal agency, and identity. And about the desire to protect people in general on a larger, global or even galactic, scale.

And all of those resonances work particularly well because of the specific choices made about which protagonists should face off against which antagonists, in order to provide the most effective culmination of the character arcs that have been built over 61 episodes.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #There's more that could be said #but there's always more that could be said #and some of this I've said before but not all together #so it felt worth putting together like this #I don't like not having more footnote-esque thoughts to add in tags #In my brain the post feels incomplete without them #But actually I think on this occasion all the thoughts I wanted to express are above #wolf 359 spoilers #w359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #I cba to tag all the characters #They're all there

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"Minkowski's been talking about Sondheim again…": Minkowski's love of musical theatre and what it reveals about her characterisation and her relationships

TL;DR: Renée Minkowski's love of musicals, while it might seem just like a mundane character detail, is used to give depth to her character because it contrasts with expectations of her from both the listening audience and the other characters. Her willingness or unwillingness to share this interest in different circumstances reveals her relationships with other characters at various points. Since this is a long one, if you'd rather read it as a document, you can view it here: Google Doc version.

"She actually really cares about these talent shows": Episode 8 (Box 953)

In the early episodes of Season 1, Minkowski is presented (largely through Eiffel's unreliable perspective) purely as a strict no-nonsense authority figure without much emotional depth, the kind of person who only likes things that are useful, purposeful, or mandated by Command. In contrast, musical theatre is a creative pursuit that has nothing to do with the mission of the Hephaestus and is viewed by many people as fairly frivolous or silly. The gradual exploration of Minkowski's passion for musicals is one of the many ways that the show expands and challenges our understanding of her as a character. 

The first indication that we get of her interest in musicals is through her entry into the infamous talent show, something that is required as part of the mission. Minkowski really cares about 'crew morale' activities in general, even when they actually have a negative effect on morale and even before she's friends with any of her crew (for example, the Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners in the earlier stage of the mission), perhaps partly because doing things in the "right way" is important to her. 

But Eiffel senses that the talent shows aren't just about rules for her: "it’s bad enough when she makes us do something just because it’s military protocol, but I think that she actually really cares about these talent shows". This might be the first indication that we get of Minkowski caring deeply about anything that isn't inherently part of her role as a Commander. Moments like this are part of the gradual process of giving us insight into her character beyond the Commander archetype that she tries to embody. And yet, she only indulges her theatrical passion because something mandatory gives her permission, or an excuse, to let another part of herself out.

Of course, to satisfy the needs of a talent show, she'd only need to provide a performance of a few minutes. But Eiffel mentions "the second act of the play" - which along with Hera's comment that "Isabel isn't the biggest role in the play" - implies that Minkowski was intending to put on the whole of Pirates of Penzance as her talent show act, rather than a few of the songs or some kind of medley. (I suppose that Eiffel could be exaggerating or Minkowski might have been planning to do extracts from different parts of the play, but I prefer the interpretation in which Minkowski gets to be more ridiculous.) 

Even though no one else would be willing to be in her production of Pirates of Penzance, Minkowski casts Hera as Isabel, a role with two lines and no solo singing. I found some audition notes for this play which said "The traditional staging gives [Isabel] more prominence than the solo opportunities of the part suggest, so she must be a good actress" which does make me sad in relation to Hera's inability to have a more significant role by being physically present on stage. 

It’s sweet that Hera still wants to take part though. She tells Eiffel "Pirates of Penzance is a classic of 19th century comic opera", so either she’s absorbed what Minkowski has told her about the show, or she’s done her own research and formed her own opinions. I enjoy the fact that Hera is the one Hephaestus crew member who shows potential to share Minkowski's musical theatre appreciation; I like to think that this is something they could explore together post-canon.

Anyway, I'm obsessed with the idea that Minkowski was planning to play every character except one in Pirates of Penzance, a show which is designed to have 10 principal characters and a chorus of 14 men. It seems that her contribution to the talent show was supposed to be an entire two-hour two-act musical, with costumes and props, in which she would play almost all of the parts. This is very funny to me as the perhaps predictable consequence of giving an ambitious and frustrated grown-up theatre kid a position of authority and asking them to arrange a talent show. Minkowski knows that the audience will be made up of her subordinates who are theoretically obliged by the chain of command to watch and listen, so she absolutely tries to make the most of that opportunity. There's probably also a degree to which she limits other people's involvement in her musical because - as with her other endeavors - she wants the outcome to be almost entirely within her control (something that is usually pretty much impossible in as collaborative a medium as musical theatre).

Of course, Minkowski's behaviour in most of the talent show episode is affected by her being drugged by Hilbert. This creates an exaggerated situation which is the first real opportunity for Minkowski to be something other than the strict sensible authoritarian Commander and the foil to Eiffel's jokey laid-back attitude. I don't agree with ideas that being intoxicated brings out anyone's true self (especially in the absence of consent for the intoxication), but it seems pretty clear that being under the influence of whatever was in Hilbert's concoction caused Minkowski to fully commit to a level of manic enthusiasm for her musical production that might have otherwise been obscured by her professionalism. It's a particular kind of person who belts showtunes when drunk, and Minkowski is that kind of person, even if that's not how she wants to present herself. (As a sidenote, I seem to remember that they took Emma Sherr-Ziarko's script off her to help her sound more drunk. It's an excellent performance.)

Minkowski wants interval ice cream. She wants "pirate costumes" (and she'll threaten to shoot a man to get them). She wants "swashes and buckles". She wants whatever props she can get her hands on (including a real cannon). This show is important to her, even though only three other people will witness it and two of them actively don't want to be there. It’s important to her for its own sake.

Eiffel says Minkowski wants "a second pair of eyes to tell her if the prop sabre for her Major-General costume was a bit much…"  While I certainly wouldn't put it past Goddard Futuristics to have a prop sabre on the station for no apparent reason, it feels more likely that she might have made it or adapted some existing item. Which suggests that maybe she was that passionate about the props even before Hilbert drugged her. 

Even so, it does feel significant that Minkowski's love of musicals is only revealed in the episode in which she is drugged, exhibiting lowered inhibitions, exaggerated behaviour, and an "impaired euphoric effect". Her love of musical theatre is initially revealed through a professional structure that provides permission, and then further emphasised by a forced intoxication that exaggerates some impulses that perhaps she already had.

"Some hobbies other than making trains run on time": Episode 17 (Bach to the Future)

After Eiffel tells to find Minkowski to find something else to do while her work duties have quietened down, they have the following exchange:

EIFFEL: You must have some hobbies other than making trains run on time. Something to do with friends? Boyfriends? MINKOWSKI: Of course I do, but, well, there aren't really a lot of opportunities for rock climbing or trail hiking in the immediate vicinity. 

Even though this quote doesn't mention musicals, I've included it here for two reasons. Firstly, it's very funny to me that, even after the talent show debacle, Eiffel acts like he's never had any evidence of Minkowski's hobbies. She tried to perform a whole play almost single-handedly and it didn't occur to him that this might indicate an interest of hers outside of work. I think this reflects the fairly two-dimensional view that Eiffel has previously had of Minkowski, which her interest in musical theatre didn't fit into. 

Secondly, it feels notable that Minkowski doesn't mention musical theatre here. She wants to show that she has non-work interests, but without undermining her own authoritative image. Her interest in rock climbing and trail hiking - while it may be genuine - fits with how she wants to be seen as a Commander. These are hobbies which portray her as physically capable, with a high degree of stamina and a willingness to adapt to perhaps less hospitable surroundings. Of course, Minkowski does have these traits and they serve her well on the Hephaestus. But there's not really anything particularly surprising about her expressing these interests. The surprise in this scene comes from the reveal that she has a husband, a character detail which - like her love of musicals - isn't something we'd necessarily expect from the archetype-based view of her we are initially presented with. 

Her interest in rock climbing and trail hiking never come up again, because these details don't really deepen her characterisation (or at least, they aren't really used to deepen her characterisation beyond proving that she isn't entirely all-work-and-no-play). In contrast, Minkowski's love of musicals is brought up over and over because it shows another side of her that she struggles to reveal on the Hephaestus, and that allows more interesting things to be done with her characterisation.

"You wanted to write showtunes": Episode 35 (Need to Know)

Alongside the more high stakes discoveries prompted by the leak from Kepler's files, we also learn that Minkowski applied to - and was rejected from - the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program.

Up until this point, we've only had evidence that Minkowski enjoys performing in musicals. But here we learn that Minkowski doesn't just love watching or performing in musicals - she wanted to write them too. This suggests a creative side to her that we never see her fully express.

The course

The Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program claims to be the only course of its kind in the world and it accepts just 30 students each year. The current application process requires applicants to: upload play scripts or recordings of songs they've written; answer a large number of extended response questions about their creative process and views on musical theatre; write a 'statement of purpose' which has to talk about why they are applying and include 3 original ideas for musicals; provide a professional resume and a digital portfolio; complete an exercise of writing in response to a prompt; and undergo an interview. The process might have changed somewhat since Minkowski would have been applying (which, if it was soon after she finished college, might have been around the early 2000s) or it might be different in Wolf 359's alternate universe, but I think we can safely assume that applying to this course was a serious undertaking that required an intense amount of commitment and work. 

Applying to a course like that isn't something you do half-heartedly or on a whim. You couldn't apply to this course if you hadn't done a fair amount of musical theatre writing already. (The course requires applicants to choose to apply as bookwriters, lyricists, or composers, but I'm not going to make a guess here as to which of these Minkowski went for.) The fact that Minkowski wanted to study this course suggests that she was seriously considering trying to make a career out of musical theatre writing. In Once In A Lifetime, she tells Cutter that commanding a space station has always been her dream job, but we've got evidence here that it wasn't her only dream job. There's something kind of funny and kind of sad about the idea that writing musicals was her back-up / fall-back career path. She does not like to make life easy for herself.

The revelation 

This information is revealed against Minkowski's will. It's not something she wanted people to find out, and she isn't happy about them knowing:

JACOBI: "Dear Renée, thank you for your interest in the Tisch Graduate Musical Theater Writing Program..." MINKOWSKI: Oh, come on!  JACOBI: (pressing on) "We are sorry to say, we will not be able to offer you a spot in this year's blah blah blah." Oh this is too good. You wanted to write showtunes?  MINKOWSKI: Number one? Shut up. Number two, why are my personal records on there?! [...] How is it in any way relevant?! JACOBI: Oh, I think it's very relevant. I mean, if you're sending someone to pilot ships in deep space, you want to make sure that they can, you know... paint with all the colors of the wind.  Jacobi CRACKS UP - and, although to a lesser degree, so does Lovelace. Minkowski looks at her: really?  LOVELACE: Sorry, Minkowski. It's... it's a little funny.  MINKOWKSI: No, it isn't!

Minkowski seems defensive and embarrassed here. She obviously doesn't trust everyone there with this revelation (Jacobi, Maxwell, Lovelace, and Hera are all present). She considers this information to be "personal" and irrelevant and not even "a little funny". She's used to reactions like Jacobi's (and to a lesser extent Lovelace's); in Ep41 Memoria, she says "most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals" (see below for more thoughts about this quote). But the fact that these mocking reactions are expected doesn't mean that they don't bother her. She wants so badly to be taken seriously and, in this scene, her interest in musical theatre seems to be incompatible with that. Jacobi reacts the way that he does because of the idea that I've already expressed, that a passion for musical theatre does not fit with the serious authoritative image that Minkowski has often presented. It's not the typical hobby of a soldier, especially not a Commander.

To me, the way Lovelace laughs suggests that she might not have previously known about Minkowski's love of musicals, or at least perhaps not the full extent of it. At any rate, it's definitely news to Jacobi. And Minkowski clearly hasn't talked about it enough for it not to feel like a big reveal for her.

The rejection 

It's notable that this reveal is not just that she wanted to write for the stage, but also that she failed to get into a course that might have helped her work towards that goal. This of course compounds Minkowski's discomfort at having this information revealed. Not only did she want to write showtunes, but she encountered rejection in her attempts to do so. This detail implies that perhaps it wasn't just the appeal of her spacefaring dream that stopped her going down a theatrical career path. 

I'm about to move more into headcanon territory rather than just straightforward analysis, but I personally believe that, while Minkowski auditioned for a lot of musicals (particularly as a child / young person), she was never cast as the main role. She seems embarrassed about her interest in musical theatre in a way that (at least judging by people I've encountered) people who were always the lead in their school / college productions don't tend to be. 

We don't have much evidence about her actual level of singing/acting ability, given that she is inebriated during the only time we hear her sing in the podcast. However, it resonates with other aspects of her characterisation to imagine that Minkowski was generally good enough to get an ensemble part but never quite good enough to be cast as a main part. I think she might see only ever being cast as part of the ensemble, and failing to get into the Tisch Musical Theatre Writing programme, as slightly more down-to-earth examples of the same pattern as her repeated rejections from NASA. She is desperate to prove herself. She is "someone who very much wants to matter. To do something important." When she casts herself as almost every part in Pirates of Penzance, she is finally taking the opportunity to be a main character, an opportunity which I imagine had been denied to her over and over in both a literal and metaphorical sense.

"It's just from a play I saw once": Episode 41 (Memoria)

The next scene I want to talk about is from a memory of Hera's, which took place on Day 57 of the Hephaestus mission and in which Minkowski appears to be talking about the Stephen Sondheim musical Sunday in the Park with George:

MINKOWSKI: Oh, it's just from a play I saw once. It doesn't matter. (BEAT) The guy who sings it is this famous French painter. And his entire life is kinda falling apart. But he can always turn what's happening around him into these beautiful paintings.  HERA: And? MINKOWSKI: And... That's, I don't know. Reassuring, maybe? (BEAT) I don't know why I'm going on about this. You don't care.  HERA: I think it's interesting.  MINKOWSKI: Yeah? Most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals.  HERA: I don't see what's funny about it.  MINKOWSKI: Well, thank you Hera, but you're not exactly... you know.  HERA: I'm not... what? 

There's a couple of different things I want to pick out from this exchange. Firstly, the line "Most people think it's hilarious that I like musicals" makes me sad. I don't think she's talking about people on the Hephaestus there. Judging by the quote I talked about from Bach to the Future, Eiffel definitely wouldn't have registered Minkowski's love of musicals at this stage, and I doubt Hilbert cares at all about the hobbies of his fellow crew members. So Minkowski is talking about experiences that she's had on Earth, of people mocking her interest in musicals and thinking it doesn't fit with who she is. You can hear the impact of those experiences in Minkowski's reluctance to elaborate, in the way she says that something she obviously cares about doesn't matter, in her assumption that Hera doesn't care.

Secondly, this scene is a complicated one for Minkowski and Hera's relationship. On the one hand, Minkowski freely talks to Hera about something she's passionate about, and Hera listens and expresses interest. Hera validates Minkowski's interest in musical theatre without making a thing of it being weird and Minkowski thanks her. Again, it’s shown as an interest they could could potentially share.

But on the other hand, it seems like part of the reason Minkowski feels able to open up to Hera is because at this point Minkowski doesn't see opening up to Hera as fully equivalent to opening up to a fellow human. She doesn't just accept Hera not making fun of her interest; instead it seems Minkowski is about to imply that this lack of judgment indicates Hera's difference from humans (although she does have the decency not to say it outright). Minkowski's expectation of judgment from others contributes to her saying something very hurtful to Hera here. (This kind of potential consequence of negative self-attitude is explored a lot with Eiffel, so it's interesting that Minkowski can sometimes have a similar issue.)

Minkowski and Hera's conversation is interrupted when:

The DOOR OPENS.  EIFFEL: Hey, Minkowski, we've - What are you guys talking about?  MINKOWSKI: We were just discussing how I'm going to take away your hot water privileges if you don't reset the long-range scan.

Eiffel can obviously tell that he's walked in on a conversation that is about something other than work, or he wouldn't have asked. But Minkowski actively chooses not to tell him that she was talking to Hera about musicals. Perhaps she doesn't know how to open up to a human subordinate about it. Perhaps she doesn't trust him not to make fun of her. Perhaps she just doesn't have any impulse to talk about her interests with him. Either way, if Minkowski's love of musicals is something which reflects a side of her personality outside of her Commander role, this is a moment where she chooses not to take an opportunity to share that side of herself with Eiffel. This reflects the emotional distance between them three months into the mission, which forms a nice contrast with the next couple of quotes I'm going to talk about.

"Composition. Balance. Harmony.": Episode 54 (The Watchtower)

When Eiffel comes directly face to face with alien life, he discovers that music is the human invention that fascinates the Dear Listeners:

EIFFEL: You haven't figured out music?  BOB: ORDER. DESIGN. TENSION. COMPOSITION. BALANCE. HARMONY.  EIFFEL: (low, to himself) Minkowski's been talking about Sondheim again…

I only learned in the course of writing this post that in this moment the Dear Listeners are almost exactly quoting a repeated phrase used throughout Sunday in the Park with George. The titular protagonist lists various combinations of these qualities in multiple songs in reference to his art. In the closing song, the lyrics are "Order. Design. Tension. Composition. Balance. Light. [...] Harmony." It's not only Eiffel's references that the Dear Listeners are incorporating into their speech - they've picked this one up from Minkowski. This also suggests that some element of her appreciation for musicals and the way she talks about them has fed into the Dear Listeners' understanding of the human phenomenon of music. The Dear Listeners aren't just parroting - they understood the quote enough that they left out the word "light", arguably the only quality in that phrase which isn't a big part of music as well as visual art. Eiffel likes music too, but I don't think that this is how he'd talk about his favourite songs.

This is a refrain about finding order and beauty out of the chaos and uncertainty of life, which was also the aspect of Sunday in the Park with George that Minkowski focused on when talking about it in Memoria. It suggests that art/music could be something governed by rules and principles, which is potentially something that appeals both to Minkowski and to the Dear Listeners.

Eiffel's response to this reference is one of those little hints that reminds us that Eiffel and Minkowski have spent a lot of time together and that not all of that time has involved them being at each others' throats or actively in a life-or-death situation. Some of it has just been Minkowski going on about a musical she loves and Eiffel (willingly or not) paying enough attention that he recognises this phrase as a Sondheim quote that Minkowski has talked about. I suppose that this quote might have been in Eiffel's pop-culture-brain anyway, but judging from Eiffel's general tastes and the fact that I don't think Sunday in the Park with George is one of the more commonly known Sondheim musicals among non-musical fans, it seems more likely that this quote is something he only knows because Minkowski has talked about it. 

Eiffel sounds exasperated at the mention, like he's heard Minkowski talk about Sondheim far too much. But I'd argue that this still says something positive about their relationship, when we contrast it with a couple of other moments I've already mentioned. Firstly, when her previous musical theatre ambitions are revealed to Jacobi, Maxwell, and Lovelace in Need to Know, Minkowski seems embarrassed and defensive. Secondly, in the memory from Memoria, she avoids telling Eiffel that she was talking about this same musical. Yet, by the time The Watchtower takes place, Eiffel is sick of hearing Minkowski talk about Sondheim. She doesn't have the same barriers up in sharing her interests with him, even though he doesn't have the same interests. I think this is a demonstration of how comfortable she feels with him. It's a hint at the kind of easy downtime that they've sometimes shared.

"One day more": Episode 61 (Brave New World)

Eiffel recognises another musical reference of Minkowski’s in the finale. As the crew are preparing for their final confrontation with Cutter and co., Minkowski quotes Les Misérables, mostly to herself - but Eiffel recognises the lyrics and joins in:

EIFFEL: Hey - chin up, soldier. We're almost through. Just one more day, and then we're done.  MINKOWSKI: Yeah, one more day. (more to herself) The time is now, the place is here - one day more.  EIFFEL: - one day more.  They both stop, dead in their tracks. MINKOWSKI: Did you just - ?  EIFFEL: Was that what I - ?  They look at each other: No way. And BURST INTO LAUGHTER.  EIFFEL: Man... this is really it, huh? The end of everything. 

It feels really important that Minkowski and Eiffel share this moment of togetherness before she tries to send him back to Earth and before the rest of the action goes down. I think there’s some nice symbolism about them finding a way to communicate that they both understand. Making references is Eiffel's thing, and musicals are Minkowski's thing, so this is a synthesis of their two approaches. Again, there's a contrast with Minkowski's previous unwillingness to share her musical theatre passions with Eiffel (at least without the mitigating circumstances of a mandatory talent show and some kind of intoxicating substance).

I talked about the significance of the fact that they reference this particular musical in this post from ages ago. I don't think it's too much of a spoiler for Les Misérables to say that the revolution that the song One Day More is building up to does not end well for the revolutionaries. When Eiffel says "Just one more day, and then we're done", it encompasses both the possibility that the crew will escape to travel back to Earth and the possibility that they will all die. Minkowski's reference to a famously tragic musical suggests that it's the latter possibility that's at the forefront of her mind (right before she tries to send Eiffel away from the danger). But Les Misérables is also a story about people standing together in solidarity against powerful oppressive forces, which gives particular resonance to the way that this reference brings Eiffel and Minkowski together in a moment of being completely on the same wavelength as they prepare to fight Cutter and Pryce's plan.

When they laugh here, it's not about the 'hilariousness' of Minkowski's interest in musicals, it's about their unexpected unison - Eiffel's recognition of Minkowski's reference and Minkowski's surprise at the fact he joined in. It's a laugh of togetherness, of shared understanding, of friendship. It's a moment of lightness in dark times. And that moment is provided by Minkowski's pop culture interests, not Eiffel's. In spite of all they've been through, she's not lost that part of herself, and in fact, she's more open about it, at least to Eiffel.

I'll finish by highlighting what Eiffel says when he's trying to get into character to impersonate Minkowski so he can turn the Sol around:

EIFFEL: Umm... yes, this is Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski. I'm... uh... well I sure love schedules, and, uh, musicals. And that man, who I married…

I just think this is a nice example of Eiffel not defining Minkowski solely by her professional Commander role. Sure, she likes schedules (probably in a personal as well a professional capacity to be fair), but she also loves musicals, and her husband. It is a fairly reductive overview of her as a person, but it feels reductive in a fond way, like these things are part of Minkowski's brand to Eiffel in a way that he might affectionately tease her about. (Credit to @commsroom for this thought.) His view of Minkowski has come a long way from "our resident Statsi agent" or even just "you must have some hobbies other than making trains run on time." He doesn't see any contradiction or inherent humour in Lieutenant Commander Renée Minkowski's appreciation of musicals.

Conclusion

Minkowski's love of musical theatre is used to deepen her characterisation and is one of the ways in which we gradually begin to see her complexity beyond the strict Commander archetype. The degree to which she is prepared to share this interest at various points is used to illustrate the nature of her relationships with other characters: a general unwillingness to show a less serious side of herself; a complicated potential shared interest with Hera; and the growing understanding between her and Eiffel.

If you read this whole thing, well done / thank you 😄 It wasn't meant to be this long - it just happened… Feel free to share your thoughts!

#It's Minkowski Essay Time again! #This is over 4700 words and still doesn't cover it all... #I hadn't quite realised there was so much to say! #Wolf 359 #w359 #If anyone is more familiar with 'Sunday in the Park with George' and has thoughts on why it might particularly appeal to Minkowski #I'd be interested to hear #I listened to the soundtrack and read the Wikipedia plot summary #but I don't think I really got it #My other significant bit of research was that #in order to see what applying to the Tisch Graduate Musical Theatre Writing Program involves #I had to create an account as if I was actually applying #which might be the oddest thing I've done for character analysis #If it interests anyone I could do a post with more detail about that application process #cos it looks insanely intense #Renée Minkowski #Renee Minkowski #the empty man posteth #I hope no one takes things I have said here as critical of musical theatre people btw #I'm just talking about general perceptions #In general I do enjoy musicals myself from an audience perspective

[hephaestuscrew]

It's so important to me that Minkowski and Eiffel and Hera spend December 25th together to celebrate Eiffel's birthday post-canon. And the hope that they spend that day together is a sentiment shared by Gabriel Urbina.

But Minkowski canonically cares about Christmas itself. Minkowski has people in her life whom she could spend Christmas with. And so there will probably have to be a difficult conversation at some point after the Hephaestus crew return to Earth, when someone says how good it will be to have Renée there for Christmas Day again. And Minkowski will have to look at her husband, or her relatives, or her in-laws - people who loved her and mourned her and celebrated upon her return from the dead - and she'll have to tell them that she won't be there on Christmas Day. And if the person who asks knows her at all, they'll see the look on her face and know that there's no negotiating to be done here.

It's not exactly that she doesn't want to celebrate Christmas with the people she used to celebrate Christmas with. But she can do that on any day near the end of December. Spending December 25th with Eiffel and Hera is something she absolutely cannot compromise on. 

The main reason she'd give for this is that December 25th is Eiffel's birthday. Whether or not it matters to him as much as it used to, Minkowski wants Eiffel's birthday to get the recognition it deserves, because it was so important to him and he never expected anyone else to care or remember.

A second reason - one she might never speak aloud - is that she's always thought that Christmas is a time for family, and nowadays that means that spending it with Eiffel and Hera feels right to her.

But I think there's a third, perhaps equally important, reason underneath those two. Maybe she doesn't admit it to herself consciously, but I think part of Minkowski believes that the only people who can really understand the complicated way she now feels about December 25th are the two people who were there with her when everything went to hell on Christmas Day.

It was December 25th when they realised they'd made contact with aliens, and when Hilbert locked Minkowski outside the airlock and tried to incapacitate Eiffel and tore out Hera's personality hardware, and when everything Minkowski had thought she knew about the Hephaestus mission fell apart.

How can she exchange gifts with people for whom it isn't the anniversary of the one of the worst days of their life? How can she gather round a Christmas tree with people who've never feared for their lives at the hands of Alexander Hilbert and Goddard Futuristics? How can she eat turkey and trimmings with people who weren't there when the Christmas dinner was never eaten because there was a murderous mutiny from one of the intended guests? How can she spend December 25th with people for whom it's never been a day of betrayal and fear and loss and uncertainty eight lightyears away from Earth?

Eiffel doesn't remember that awful Christmas and that brings its own kind of pain for Minkowski. But he was there, and so was Hera, and so (no matter what anyone else expects) Minkowski needs to be with them on that complicated day.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #Renée Minkowski #Renee Minkowski #I wrote this intending to schedule it to post on Christmas Day #but I'm kidding myself if I think I can do delayed gratification like that #I have to post things as soon as I write them #so you're getting it now #Apologies if it's too early in December for Christmas-related posting #I guess I'll reblog it on Christmas Day instead #I nearly fucked up this post by mentioning Christmas traditions that I don't think are celebrated in the US #But luckily I remembered just in time that Christmas crackers are not universal among Christmas-celebrators #I almost mentioned charades but idk if that has Christmas associations in the US or even if it's widely known #I do think Minkowski would absolutely love Charades though #if she played with people on the same wavelength as her that is #Eiffel would be trying to act out very specific scenes from films Minkowski has not seen and she'd get so annoyed lol #wolf 359 spoilers #w359 spoilers #the empty man posteth

[hephaestuscrew]

The role of Pryce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual in the characterisation, symbolism, and themes of Wolf 359

TL;DR: The DSSPPM is used as a tool to help establish and develop Minkowski and Eiffel as characters: Minkowski as a strict Commander who clings to the certainty provided by a rigid source of authority like the DSSPPM, and Eiffel as the anti-authority slacker who strongly objects to the idea that he ought to read the manual. The way their contrasting attitudes towards the DSSPPM manifest through the show reflect their character development and changing dynamic. The DSSPPM can be directly used against the protagonists by those with power over them, and the reveal of its authorship gives a particularly sinister edge to its regular presence in the show. But it can be also be repurposed and seen through an individual interpersonal lens.

Note: There’s plenty that you could say about the DSSPPM through the lens of what it says about Goddard Futuristics as an organisation, or about Pryce and Cutter as people. Or you could talk about Lambert quoting the DSSPPM an absurd number of times in Change of Mind, and Lovelace’s reactions to this. But in this essay, I’ll be analysing on mentions of the DSSPPM with a focus on Minkowski, Eiffel, and their dynamic.

“One of those mandatory mission training things”: the DSSPPM as a tool to establish characterisation

The first mention of Pryce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual (the DSSPPM) in Wolf 359 is also the very first interaction we hear Eiffel and Minkowski have. In fact, the first time we hear Minkowski's voice at all is her telling Eiffel off for not having read the manual:

[Ep1 Succulent Rat-Killing Tar] MINKOWSKI Eiffel, did you read your copy of Pryce and Carter?  EIFFEL My copy of what?  MINKOWSKI Pryce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual.  EIFFEL Was that one of those mandatory mission training things?  MINKOWSKI Yes.  EIFFEL In that case, yes, I definitely did.  MINKOWSKI Did you now? Because I happened to find your copy of the D.S.S.P.P.M. floating in the observation deck.  EIFFEL Oh?  MINKOWSKI Still in its plastic wrapping.

This is an effective way to establish their conflicting personalities right out of the gate. Minkowski's determination to "do things by the book - this book in fact" contrasts clearly with Eiffel's professed ignorance about and clear disregard for "this... Jimmy Carter thing”. Purely through their attitudes to this one book, they slot easily into clear archetypes which inevitably clash. Everything about Eiffel in that opening episode sets him up as a slacker who doesn't care about authority, but the image of his mandatory mission training manual floating in the observation deck "still in its plastic wrapping" provides a particularly striking illustration.

By contrast, we immediately encounter Minkowski as a strict leader who cares deeply about making sure everything is done according to protocol; the intense importance she places on the DSSPPM is one of the very first things we know about her. Her insistence on the importance of the survival manual might seem somewhat understandable at first, if perhaps unhelpfully aggressive, but it starts to feel less sensible as soon as we start to hear some of the tips from this manual:

Deep Space Survival Tip Number Five: Remain positive at all times. Maintain a cheerful attitude even in the face of adversity. Remember: when you are smiling the whole world smiles with you, but when you're crying you're in violation of fleet-wide morale codes and should report to your superior officer for disciplinary action.

The strange, controlling, vaguely sinister tone of some of the tips we hear in the first episode is largely played for laughs, emphasised by the exaggeratedly upbeat manner in which Hera reads them. But even these first few tips give us some initial suggestions that the powers behind this mission might not care all that much about the wellbeing of their crew members.

It says something about Minkowski that she places such faith and importance in a book which says things like "Failing to remain calm, could result in your grisly, gruesome death" and "when you're crying you're in violation of fleet-wide morale codes and should report to your superior officer for disciplinary action." (Foreshadowing the Hephaestus Station as the home of immense emotional repression and compartmentalising...) Having those kind of pressures and demands placed on her (and those around her) by people above her in the military hierarchy doesn’t unsettle Minkowski.

Eiffel groans and sighs as he listens to the tips, but Minkowski seems to see this manual as an essential source of wisdom. The main role the manual plays in this episode is to establish Minkowski and Eiffel as contrasting characters with very different approaches to authority and therefore a potential to clash.

When Minkowski demands that Eiffel reads the DSSPPM, he decides to get Hera to read it to him, asking her to keep this as “a 'just the two of us, totally secret, never tell Commander Minkowski' thing”. Eiffel seems convinced that Minkowski won't be happy with him listening to Hera read the DSSPPM rather than reading it himself. This suggests that (at least in Eiffel's interpretation) Minkowski’s orders are not just about her wanting him to know the contents of the manual, since this could theoretically be accomplished just as well by him listening to it. But she wants him to do things in what she’s deemed to be the correct way, to put in the right amount of effort, and not to take what she might see as a shortcut. It’s not just about the contents of the manual; it’s about the commitment to protocol that reading it represents.

“When in doubt: whip it out”: Hilbert’s use of the DSSPPM

In Season 1, the DSSPPM isn't purely associated with Minkowski. Hilbert actually quotes it more than she does in the first few episodes. In Ep2 Little Revolución, Hilbert's response to Eiffel's toothpaste protest is inspired by "Pryce and Carter six fourteen: “When in doubt, whip it out - ‘it’ being hydrochloric acid.”" This tip is absurd in a more direct obvious way than those we heard in Ep1. While this absurdity is partly for humour, it also casts further doubt on the usefulness of this supposedly authoritative survival manual, and therefore on the wisdom of trusting Command.

In Ep4 Cataracts and Hurricanoes, Hilbert starts to quote Tip #4 at Eiffel, who protests "I'm not gonna have one of the last things I hear be some crap from the survival manual". These moments again place Eiffel in clear opposition to the DSSPPM, but also suggest that Hilbert's attitude towards the DSSPPM - and therefore towards Command - is closer to Minkowski's than to Eiffel's.

When Hilbert turns on the Hephaestus crew in his Christmas mutiny, his allegiance to Command is revealed as dangerous. And here the DSSPPM comes up again. As Minkowski dissolves the door between her and Hilbert, she triumphantly echoes his own words back to him: "Pryce and Carter six fourteen: “When in doubt, whip it out - ‘it’ being hydrochloric acid.” Never. Fails." This provides a callback to a previous, more comedic conflict on the Hephaestus, and reminds the listener of a time when Minkowski and Hilbert were working together against Eiffel, in contrast to the current situation of Minkowski and Eiffel versus Hilbert. But it also shows that Minkowski, like Hilbert, is capable of using some of the more absurd DSSPPM tips to defeat an adversary. And it shows Minkowski leaning on those tips in a real moment of crisis.

Once Hilbert has betrayed the crew in order to follow orders from Command, we might look back on his quoting of the DSSPPM as casting the manual in a more sinister light, and again calling into question the wisdom of Minkowski placing such trust in it.

“It's not that I don't believe it, I'm just disgusted by it”: the DSSPPM as an indicator of a changing dynamic

The next mention of the DSSPPM is in Ep17 Bach to the Future:

MINKOWSKI Eiffel's been spot-testing me, Hera. He doesn't believe that I've memorized all of the survival tips in Pryce and Carter. EIFFEL It's not that I don't believe it, I'm just disgusted by it. I keep hoping to discover it's not true. MINKOWSKI Well, believe as little as you want, doesn't change the fact that I do know them. And so should you!

I think this provides an interesting illustration of the way in which Minkowski and Eiffel’s dynamic has developed since Ep1. They still have deeply contrasting attitudes to the DSSPPM, but this contrast is now a source of entertainment between them, rather than merely of conflict.

Given that Hera wasn’t aware of Eiffel testing Minkowski on the tips, we can guess that it’s a game they came up with while Hera was offline. In the midst of all the exhaustion and uncertainty and fear they were dealing with after Hilbert’s mutiny, this was a way they found to pass the time. It must have been Eiffel who suggested it; Minkowski cites his disbelief as the reason for the spot-testing. And yet she plays along, responding each time, even though this activity has no real productive value.

Minkowski is keen to demonstrate that she does know the tips and she emphasises that Eiffel ought to know them too, but their interactions about the DSSPPM in this episode have none of the genuine irritation and frustration that they displayed in Ep1. It feels almost playful and teasing. Eiffel still thinks Minkowski is "completely insane" for learning all the tips and is "disgusted" by her commitment to memorising them, but these comments feel much closer to joking about a friend's weird traits than to insulting a hated coworker's personality. It feels like something has shifted since Eiffel responded to Minkowski’s passion for the DSSPPM by saying “I'm so glad that your shrivelled husk of a dictator's heart is as warm as a decompression chamber”.

Another thing to note here is that Minkowski's respect for the DSSPPM has clearly survived Hilbert's Christmas mutiny and Minkowski's resulting distrust of Command. From Hilbert's behaviour at Christmas, it's clear that the crew's survival is not at the top of Command's priority list. But Minkowski still trusts the book that Command told her to read. She still thinks Eiffel should read it too. The main figures of authority above her are dangerous and untrustworthy, but she still clings to the source of guidance they provided her with.

It's also worth noting that Minkowski has not just learnt the advice in each of the 1001 tips, but she has memorised (nearly) all of them by number. If it was just about the information that the manual provides to inform responses to potentially life-or-death situations, then knowing the numbers wouldn't be necessary. Nor would it be particularly useful to know them all exactly word-for-word. Minkowski's reliance on the DSSPPM is again suggested to be about more than the potential practical use of its content. It's about showing that she is committed and disciplined and up to the task of leading. She does have some awareness of the strangeness of many of the tips, but this doesn't diminish the value of her adherence to the manual for her:

EIFFEL You're insane.  MINKOWSKI I'm disciplined. Although I will admit they do get more... esoteric as you go higher up the list.

There's only one tip Minkowski doesn't seem to remember, and that's revealing too:

EIFFEL 555? Minkowski DRAWS BREATH - and STOPS SHORT. [...] MINKOWSKI Hold on a second, I know this. (beat) Dammit. EIFFEL Hey, look at that! Looks like there may be hope for you yet. MINKOWSKI Quiet, Eiffel. Hera, what's D.S.S.P.P.M. 555? HERA "Good communication habits are key to continued subsistence. Be in touch with other crew members about shipboard activities. Interfacing about possible problems or dangers is the best way to anticipate and prevent them." This hangs in the air for a second. Then – EIFFEL So you forget the one tip in the entire manual that's actually helpful? MINKOWSKI Shut up.

Communication is a key theme of this show, so it’s interesting that this is the one tip Minkowski can’t remember, perhaps indicating an aspect of leadership and teamwork that she doesn’t always prioritise or find easy.

Eiffel saying “Looks like there may be hope for you yet” seems like just a throwaway teasing line, but it’s got a profound edge to it. A lot of Minkowski’s arc is about learning how to provide her own direction and support her crew outside of the systems of authority and hierarchy that she’s grown so attached to. So perhaps Eiffel is right to see a kind of hope in her failure to remember every single DSSPPM tip – she has the potential to break free of her reliance on external authority.

“Which one was 897, what was the exact phrasing of that Deep Space Survival Tip?”: the DSSPPM in interactions with Cutter

The Wolf 359 liveshow, Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol, is literally named after the manual. This suggests, before we’ve even heard/watched the episode, that the DSSPPM will be a key symbol here. Which is interesting because I'd say the liveshow has two main plot points: (a) Eiffel's failure to read the DSSPPM or follow orders in general, the resulting disruption to the mission, and his crewmates' frustration with this; and (b) the looming threat of Cutter, the necessity of keeping information from Command, and the risk of fatal mission termination.

Even without the knowledge that Cutter is one of the co-authors of the DSSPPM (which neither the Hephaestus crew nor a first-time listener knows at this point), there's a kind of irony in the contrast between these two plotlines. On the one hand, Minkowski repeatedly berates Eiffel for not having read Pryce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manual, which was made mandatory by Command. On the other hand, she is aware that Command in general - and Cutter specifically - represents the biggest threat to the safety and survival of her crew.

Cutter uses the DSSPPM against each of the Hephaestus crew in their one-on-one conversations with him. For Minkowski, he uses it as a way of emphasising the expectations and responsibility placed on her:

MINKOWSKI There are always gaps between expectation and reality, but-- CUTTER But it's our job as leaders to close that gap, isn't it? Pryce and Carter...? MINKOWSKI 414, yes. Yes, sir, I know.

Cutter knows that Minkowski will know those tips and he knows abiding by them is important to her. She's quick to demonstrate her knowledge of the DSSPPM and agree with the tip. There's something deeply sinister to me about Cutter's use of the word 'our' here. His phrasing includes them both as leaders who should be ensuring that things are exactly as expected. It’s almost a kind of flattery at her authority, but it comes with impossibly high expectations. This way of emphasising the importance and responsibilities of her role as Commander is a targeted strategy by Cutter at manipulating Minkowski, designed to appeal to her values.

In Hera's one-on-one, Cutter uses a DSSPPM tip to interpret her behaviour and claim that he can read her motives:

CUTTER This thing you're doing. Asking questions while you get your bearings. HERA Sir, I'm just curious about-- CUTTER Pryce and Carter 588: Shows of courtesy and polite queries are an efficient way to gain time necessary to strategize.

Unlike with Minkowski (or Eiffel), Cutter doesn't prompt Hera to demonstrate her knowledge of the manual. That wouldn't work as a power play against Hera, who would be able to recall the manual (or, rather, retrieve the file, however that distinction works within her memory) but who doesn't care about the DSSPPM like Minkowski does. Instead, Cutter implies that Hera’s behaviour can be predicted - or at the very least seen through - by the DSSPPM, which seems like a cruel attempt by Cutter at belittling her.

For Eiffel, Cutter uses the manual as a weapon in a different way again. He asks Eiffel, "which one was 897, what was the exact phrasing of that Deep Space Survival Tip?", something which Eiffel clearly doesn't know, but Cutter of course does. This puts Eiffel on the back foot, trying to defend and justify himself, allowing Cutter to emphasise his position of power yet again.

The DSSPPM plays a double role in the liveshow. On the one hand, as Minkowski reminds Eiffel, proper knowledge of the manual "would've saved [the crew] from these problems with the nav computer" – some of the tips can potentially save the crew a great deal of hassle, stress, and risk. On the other hand, the same manual is used by Cutter to manipulate, unsettle, and intimidate the crew. There are these two sides to the information given to the crew by Command - two sides to the manual which Minkowski still values.

In another duality for the DSSPM, the manual is sometimes used as a symbol of the relationship between the crew members and Command, and sometimes used to indicate the dynamics between the individual crew members, usually Minkowski and Eiffel. Before Cutter’s appearance in the liveshow, Minkowski and Eiffel’s discussions of the DSSPPM reflect interpersonal disagreements between two people with fundamentally different attitudes:

MINKOWSKI Oh come on, why do you think I keep trying to get you to go over these things? Do you think I enjoy going through them? EIFFEL Yes. MINKOWSKI Well, alright, I do. But this knowledge could save your life.

Minkowski enjoys rules, regulations, and certainty, for their own sake as much as for any practical usefulness. Eiffel very much does not. This is a simple clash of individuals, in which the link between the DSSPPM and Command is implicit. Minkowski doesn't seem to question the idea that the information in the DSSPPM is potentially life-saving, even though she knows Command don't care about their lives. But Cutter’s repeated references to the DSSPPM remind us who made that book a mandatory part of mission training – it certainly wasn’t Minkowski, even if she’s often the one attempting to enforce this rule.

At the end of the liveshow, in a desperate attempt to prevent mission termination, Eiffel promises Cutter that he will read the DSSPPM (the liveshow transcript notes that him saying this is "like pulling teeth"), an instance of the manual being used in negotiations between the Hephaestus crew and Command. All Minkowski’s orders weren’t enough to get Eiffel to read that book, but a genuine life-or-death threat might just about be enough. Perhaps it's ironic that Eiffel reads the survival manual out of a desire for survival, not because he thinks the contents of the book will help him survive, but because he’s grasping anything he can offer to buy the crew’s survival from those who created that same book.

In the final scene of the liveshow, Minkowski catches Eiffel reading the DSSPPM, and he fumbles to hide that he's been reading it, a humorous reversal of all the times that he's lied to her that he has read it. Perhaps admitting that he's reading it would be like letting Minkowski win. Minkowski seems to find both surprise and amusement in seeing Eiffel finally reading the manual, but she doesn't push him to admit it. There's some slightly smug but still friendly teasing in the way Minkowski says "were you now?" when Eiffel says that he was just reading something useful. In that final scene, the manual is viewed again through the lens of Minkowski and Eiffel’s dynamic – Command’s relation to the DSSPPM becomes secondary.

“The first thing I'd make damn sure was hard wired into anything that might end up in a situation like this one”: the DSSPPM as a tool of survival

In Ep30 Mayday, when Eiffel is stranded alone on Lovelace’s shuttle, he hallucinates Minkowski to bring him out of his helpless panic and force him into action. And this hallucination also brings with it one of Minkowski’s interests:

MINKOWSKI Eiffel... I worked on this shuttle. Reprogramming that console. EIFFEL So? How does that help – MINKOWSKI Think about it. BEAT. And then he gets it. EIFFEL Oh goddammit. MINKOWSKI What's the first thing that I would do when programming a flight computer? The first thing I'd make damn sure was hard wired into anything that might end up in a situation like this one? EIFFEL Pyrce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure and Protocol Manual.

Again, a conversation about the DSSPPM gives us an indication of the development of Minkowski and Eiffel’s relationship. Not only does Eiffel imagine Minkowski as a figure of (fairly aggressive) support when he’s stranded and alone, he thinks about what advice she’d give him and he follows it. Rather than dismissing the manual entirely, he looks for tips that are relevant to his situation. He’s not pleased about his hallucinated-Minkowski trying to get him to read the DSSPPM, but that was what his mind gave him in an almost hopeless situation. Some part of him now empathises with Minkowski’s priorities in a way that he definitely wasn’t doing in Ep1. He thinks that the DSSPPM might be on the shuttle because he knows the manual is important to Minkowski. It’s by imagining Minkowski that he gets himself to read the manual in order to see if it can help him survive – he certainly doesn’t think about what Cutter or anyone else from Command would tell him to do.

In the end, the tips Eiffel picks out aren’t all that helpful or informative: “Confront reality head-on”; “In an emergency, take stock of the tools at your disposal. Then take stock again. Restock. Repurpose. Reuse. Recycle."; and “"In times of trouble, an idle mind is your worst enemy”. But Eiffel does use these tips to structure his initial thinking about how to survive on Lovelace’s shuttle. In an almost entirely hopeless situation, Eiffel finds some value in the DSSPPM. But since the tips he picks out are mostly platitudes, the actual wisdom that allows him to survive all comes from his own mind; the tips, like his hallucinations, are just a tool he uses to externalise his process of figuring out what to do.

“Wasn't there something about this in the survival manual?”: Minkowski potentially moving away from the DSSPPM

Given the significance of the DSSPPM in Season 1 and 2 to Minkowski in particular, it feels notable when the manual isn’t referenced. Unless I've missed something (and please let me know if I have), Minkowski – the real one, not Eiffel’s hallucination - doesn't bring up the manual of her own accord at all in Seasons 3 or 4. This might make us wonder if she’s moved away from her trust in and reliance on that book provided by Command.

Perhaps the arrival of the SI-5, which highlights to Minkowski that the chain of command is not a good indicator of trustworthy authority, was the final straw. Or perhaps the apparent loss of Eiffel - and any subsequent questioning of her leadership approach, or realisations about the valuable perspective Eiffel provided - were what finally broke down her faith in that book.

Alternatively, perhaps Minkowski still trusts the DSSPPM as much as ever, but trying to get Eiffel or any of the other crew members to listen to it is a losing battle that she no longer sees as a priority. Either way, Minkowski’s apparent reluctance to bring up the DSSPPM feels like a shift in her approach. 

The associations between Minkowski and the DSSPPM are still there in Season 3, but they are raised by other characters, not by Minkowski herself. The manual is used to emphasise Eiffel’s difficulties when he’s put in charge of trying to get Maxwell and Hera to fill out a survey in Ep32 Controlled Demolition. Trying to force other people to be productive pushes Eiffel into some very uncharacteristic behaviour:

EIFFEL Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you? It's like you've never even read Pryce and Carter! Tip #490 very clearly states that – He trails off. After a BEAT – HERA Officer Eiffel? MAXWELL You, uh, all right there? EIFFEL (the horror) What have I become? [...] Eiffel, now wrapped up in a blanket, is next to Lovelace. He is still very clearly shaken. EIFFEL ... and... it was like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I was slowly transforming into Commander Minkowski. [...] It was a nightmare! A terrifying, bureaucratic nightmare!

This is a funny role reversal, but it shows us the strength of Eiffel’s association between Minkowski and the DSSPPM, as well his extreme aversion to finding himself in a strict bureaucratic leadership position. It also suggests that becoming extremely frustrated when trying to get other people to do what you want might make anyone resort to relying on an external source of authority, such as the manual. I don’t know whether this experience helps Eiffel empathise with Minkowski, but perhaps it might give us some insight into how her need for authority and control in the leadership role she occupied might have reinforced her deference to the DSSPPM.

In Ep34, we get a suggestion of another character having a strong association between the DSSPPM and Minkowski. After the discovery of Funzo, Hera asks Minkowski what the manual says about it:

HERA Umm... I don't know if this is a good idea. Lieutenant, wasn't there something about this in the survival manual? MINKOWSKI Pryce and Carter 792: Of all the dangers that you will face in the void of space, nothing compares to the existential terror that is Funzo.

It’s interesting to me that Hera asks Minkowski here. We know from Ep1 that “Pryce and Carter's Deep Space Survival Procedure Protocol Manual is among the files [Hera has] access to”. Two possible reasons occur to me for why Hera might ask Minkowski about the DSSPPM tip here. One possibility is that Hera thinks that retrieving the manual from her databanks and finding the correct tip would take her more time than it would take for Minkowski to just remember the tip. Which suggests interesting things about the nature of Hera’s memory, but also implies that - at least in Hera's view -Minkowski’s knowledge of the DSSPPM is more reliable than that of a supercomputer.

The other possibility is that Hera could have recalled the relevant DSSPPM tip incredibly quickly but she doesn’t want to, maybe because she resents having that manual in her head in the first place, or maybe because she wants to show respect for Minkowski’s knowledge as a Commander. Either way, we can see that Hera – like Eiffel – strongly associates Minkowski with the DSSPPM.

And Minkowski, even if she wasn’t the one to bring up the manual here, recalls the relevant tip immediately. Perhaps she is moving away from her trust in that manual, but everything that she learned as part of her old deference to the authority of Command is still there in her head. She might want to forget it by the end of the mission, but that’s not easily achieved. The way Minkowski’s friends/crewmates associate the manual with her emphasises the difficulty she’ll face if she tries to move away from it.

“One thousand and one pains in my ass”: The authorship of the DSSPPM

In Ep55 A Place for Everything, Eiffel effectively expresses his long-held dislike of the DSSPPM when he comes face-to-face with both of its authors:

EIFFEL What? What the hell are - wait a minute - Pryce? As in one thousand and one pains in my ass, Pryce? (sudden realization) Which... makes you...? MR. CUTTER (holding out his hand) W.S. Carter, pleased to meet you. 

It’s significant that the two ‘big bads’ of the whole series are the authors of the manual which Minkowski and Eiffel were bickering about all the way back in Ep1. It’s not the only way in which the message of this show positions itself firmly against just accepting externally imposed authority and hierarchy without question or evidence, but it does reinforce this ethos.

By being the authors of the manual, Cutter and Pryce have had a sinister hidden presence throughout the show. Long before we know who Pryce is and even before we hear Cutter’s name, their manual is there, occupying a prominent place in Minkowski’s motivations and priorities, and in her arguments with Eiffel. It’s not at all comparable to what Pryce put in Hera’s mind, but it is another way in which these antagonists have wormed their way into the heads of our protagonists.

Minkowski will have to come to terms with the fact that the 1001 tips she spent hours memorising and reciting were written by two people who would have killed her, her crew, and even the whole human race without hesitation if it served their purposes. We never get to hear Minkowski’s reaction to learning the identities of Pryce and Carter, but I think processing the role of their manual in her life will be a long and difficult road that’ll tie into a lot of other emotional processing she needs to do. Her assertion to Cutter that, without him, she is “Renée Minkowski... and that is more than enough to kick your ass!” feels like part of that journey. She doesn’t mention the DSSPPM at all in Season 4. She’s growing beyond it.

"Doug Eiffel's Deep Space Survival Guide": The DSSPPM as a weapon against those who wrote it

Last but not least, I couldn’t write about Eiffel and the DSSPPM without mentioning this scene from  Ep58 Quiet, Please:

EIFFEL As someone once told me: "Pryce and Carter 754: In an emergency, take stock of the tools at your disposal, then take stock again. Repurpose, reuse, recycle." And right now? You know what I got? I got this lighter from when Cutter was using me as his personal cabana boy. [...] and I've got myself this big, fat copy of the Deep Space Survival Manual, and you know what I'm gonna do with it? [...] Eiffel STRIKES THE LIGHTER. And LIGHTS THE BOOK ON FIRE, revealing Pryce just a few feet away from him! EIFFEL I am going to repurpose it... and reuse it... and recycle it into a GIANT FIREBALL OF DEATH! And he swings the flaming book forward, HITTING PRYCE ON THE SIDE OF THE HEAD. [...] EIFFEL That's right! Doug Eiffel's Deep Space Survival Guide, B-

No one other than Doug Eiffel could pull off the chaotic energy of this moment. It doesn’t get much more anti-authority than lighting the mandatory mission manual on fire and using it as a weapon against one of its malevolent authors. It might not be the wisest move safety-wise, and it certainly doesn’t improve the situation when the node gets jettisoned into space. But there is still a powerful symbolism in taking a symbol of the hierarchical forces that have tried to constrain you for years and setting it alight to fight back against those forces. Eiffel takes his own approach to survival and puts his own name into the title, an assertion of his agency and rejection of Command's authority.

The DSSPPM tip that he uses here is one of those he considers when stranded on Lovelace’s shuttle. It’s understandable that after that experience it might have stuck in his memory.

I can’t help feeling that the line “as someone once told me” has a double meaning here. The immediate implication is to interpret “someone” as being Pryce and Cutter – it’s their manual after all – which makes this line a fairly effective ‘fuck you’ gesture, emphasising how Eiffel is using Pryce’s manual against her in both an abstract and a physical sense.

But I think “someone” could also mean Minkowski. Eiffel uses a singular rather than plural term, there’s already an association established between Minkowski and the DSSPPM, and, in Mayday, it’s his hallucination of Minkowski that gets him to read this tip. She's probably also recited this tip to him at other points as well. Under this interpretation, this line is as much a gesture of solidarity with Minkowski as it is a taunt to Pryce. I like the idea that these two interpretations can run alongside each other, reflecting the duality of the use of the DSSPPM that I talked about in relation to the liveshow.

Conclusion

The DSSPPM is a symbol of external rules imposed on people by those with power over them. These rules can be strange, arbitrary, and even sinister, but for those with a desire for certainty and control, like Minkowski, they can be tempting. And they can have their uses, as well as the potential to be repurposed. Attitudes towards these rules provide an effective shorthand as part of Minkowski and Eiffel’s characterisation. And the clash between these attitudes, and how that clash manifests, can tell us something about how the dynamic between those characters develops and changes.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #Renee Minkowski #Doug Eiffel #Renée Minkowski #I guess I lied when I said I was halfway through at 1000 words #I hope that those who liked my preview post were up for a long read #This is over 5000 words and I still haven't said everything! #You could write a PhD thesis on this #Honestly I feel like this is full of typos and mistakes cos I was kinda tired as I proofread it but I just want to get it posted today #Otherwise I could spend even more time on it and make it even longer... (and also I want it to be out in the world) #But please do lmk if you spot a typo/mistake. I won't be offended #I'd also be interested to hear people's thoughts on any of this #Unimportant point but I'm shaking my head at Minkowski if she wouldn't let Eiffel listen to the DSSPPM instead of reading it #Audiobooks are a valid method of reading. Don't deny a man with ADHD his own approach to absorbing info! #Then again. it might have been an unfounded assumption of Eiffel's that Minkowski wouldn't have accepted him listening to it #I think in school he definitely got in trouble for boasting that he's actually read the book this time when he just watched the film #the empty man posteth

[hephaestuscrew]

Another thing about what Minkowski says to Eiffel when she's trying to send him back to Earth in the finale is that she explicitly recognises his potential to be a positive father figure to his daughter. And that's no small thing, especially when we remember her reaction to the news of his jail sentence in Ep35 Need to Know, and how she responded "I don't know what to say" when Eiffel told her the full story, and how she still didn't properly reconcile with him for another 41 days after their conversation in Ep40 Limbo. "Go home, Eiffel. Hug your daughter." is about wanting him to be safe and to move forward with his life and to pursue the things that are important to him, but it's also about believing that he is not defined by the bad things he's done. It's about telling him that he could be a good dad. It's about believing in the possibility that he could rebuild his relationship with Anne.

When Eiffel and Minkowski make up in Ep44 Desperate Times, he tells her that the side of his life he's kept hidden is her business. And here, in a moment that could have been the last time they ever spoke, Minkowski makes it her business by wanting Eiffel to be able to hug his daughter.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #I think both Kate and Anne would be totally within their rights to not want Eiffel in their lives #I think it would be absolutely fair enough if they didn't forgive him or want to reconnect with him #and I think Eiffel would have to respect that #but either way I think it's so important for Eiffel to have people in his life who really believe that he could be a good dad #I think that's part of what he was lacking before #I was gonna put this thought in the tags on my last post but then I realised it deserves a post on its own #Scheduling this so it doesn't go out immediately after the last one tho #Doug Eiffel #Renée Minkowski #renee minkowski #Eiffel & Minkowski #The empty man posteth

[hephaestuscrew]

I think one of the things that I find so compelling about Minkowski & Eiffel is that I believe that who they each are as people means they have the inherent potential to have immensely positive impacts on each other, but I do not believe they would have even been friends in most possible scenarios in which they could have met. I believe they are uniquely attuned to help each other grow and develop and become better versions of themselves, but for the first year and a half of them living and working together, the prevailing emotion between them was irritation. I believe that they are able to support each other through hardship in a way no one else could, but without the specific kind of hardship they went through, they might never have known this.

And even as I acknowledge that they might never have bonded without the trauma, it's important to me that it's not that they are bonded purely by trauma, in a way that might imply Minkowski or Eiffel could have built the same bond with anyone who'd been up there with them.

They are bonded by the ways in which they care for each other, by the ways in which their contrasting personalities make them uniquely well suited to support each other, by the way Eiffel makes Minkowski laugh when she really needs to, by the way Minkowski would do anything to keep Eiffel safe, by the way Eiffel reminds Minkowski of her moral compass in her darkest moments, by the way Minkowski helps Eiffel understand that some things are worth taking seriously.

But without what they went through together, they might never have seen beyond their surface-level understandings of each other in order to form this incredibly valuable friendship. It's not that their traumatic experiences are all that bond them. It's that the traumatic experiences forced them to break past the initial barriers that prevented them from connecting with each other properly and from trying to understand each other, in order to realise the potential for connection that had always been there.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #Doug Eiffel #Renée Minkowski #Renee Minkowski #This is true to a lesser extent of some other Wolf 359 dynamics #like Minkowski & Hera #and maybe Minkowski & Lovelace #whereas I kind of think that at least personality-wise Eiffel and Hera would vibe together in most potential circumstances #although obviously other circumstances in which Eiffel and Hera would be able to meet and get to know each other are potentially limited #and in other circumstances they might not understand each other as well as they do in canon #Back in the day I did read a fair few AU fics for Wolf #and they can be fun #but this is a plausibility issue with them for my understanding of the show now #like if Eiffel was Minkowski's college roommate #or her co-worker at a more normal job #it saddens me to say that I don't think they would be friends #and if they aren't friends what's even the point #the empty man posteth #I am still writing that DSSPPM essay btw. I'm just also always thinking about this #Some of this is frankensteined from a longer post I had in my drafts #that I started writing ages ago in response to people saying the Hephaestus crew aren't found family cos they are just trauma bonded #Explaining my argument in response to that is tricky #They wouldn't have formed those connections without the trauma #but the connections aren't *about* the trauma #They're about each other #Eiffel & Minkowski

[hephaestuscrew]

I'm a big fan of the way that Gabriel Urbina often includes details within the Wolf 359 scripts that can't be directly translated into audio, for example: the "tears silently streaming down [Minkowski's] face" in Ep31 Securité; Eiffel being "wrapped up in a blanket" when telling Lovelace about his traumatic experience of feeling like he was turning into Minkowski in Ep32 Controlled Demolition; the way "Hera and Eiffel stand together, his arm around her shoulder" when confronting Pryce in the finale; the idea that Eiffel "salutes" Minkowski after his speech to her before the memory wipe... These details make reading the scripts an even more rewarding experience. 

But I do think there's an interesting question here about to what extent these details are canon. After all, when changes have been made in the dialogue between the script and the final recording, I only consider the dialogue that actually ended up in the episode to be canon, although the version in the script might still provide interesting insights. But with details in the scripts that are inherently not audible - and therefore never intended to be literally included in the episode itself - should we consider them to be canon, or bonus content, or Word of God, or simply a tool used in the recording process? 

I know that it is possible to have an entirely full experience of the show without ever reading a single bit of the scripts. The scripts are placed in the 'Extras' area of the show website. 

Obviously the primary purpose of the non-auditory script details is to inform the actors in their performances, and perhaps provide some considerations for sound design. When I read the scripts, I can often feel how the non-auditory script directions are reflected in the feel of the voice acting. 

But once I've noticed these script directions, I also can't help having them feed into my experience of the scene when listening, in a way that enriches the experience beyond purely the audio, and informs my understanding of these moments. The script directions tell us more about what the writer was envisioning for a scene.

I love sharing the script directions that feel significant to me, and when I do so, I feel like I'm sharing something more significant than a behind-the-scenes tidbit. I feel like I'm sharing further knowledge of what happened in that scene. The script directions feel like a true part of the show to me, more so than the comments the writers and actors have made in Q&As. To me, these non-auditory bits of the scripts feel like canon, but a slightly lesser form of canon than the episodes themselves. But I don't know if I can fully justify this view. I'd be interested to hear other people's thoughts.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #It's important to acknowledge that the lack of proper accurate transcripts is an accessibility issue #and I'm not dismissing that some people need the scripts to be able to experience the show for various reasons #but I'm kind of thinking about this as a separate question #Given that we do have recording scripts instead of transcripts #what is the relationship of those scripts to canon? #Does this question even matter and if so in what way? #Do any other podcasts have a similar situation with non-auditory moments in scripts? #The moments that I've picked out as examples are ones that I'd still enjoy if they were just headcanons #or comments Gabriel had made in another context #but they feel more significant because they are in the script #I think about the tears silently streaming down Minkowski's face constantly #the empty man posteth

[hephaestuscrew]

Fisher's death is a different kind of tragedy to the rest of the original Hephaestus crew, because it genuinely was just a horrible accident. And I think accepting that isn't an easy thing for Lovelace.

When almost everyone in your crew is dead, it's the opposite of a consolation to realise that the only other survivor is responsible for those deaths. But once you know you have been betrayed, once you understand that there was someone in your crew who was willing to sacrifice all of you for his own ends, once you've accepted that someone you used to trust killed people you loved, wouldn't it make a kind of sense to believe he was responsible for every awful thing that happened? Wouldn't there almost be a perverse comfort in the righteous anger of believing that Fisher died not because Hui's predictions were wrong, nor because Lovelace's attempts to save him failed, but because Selberg's sabotage doomed him from the start? Wouldn't it tie up the narrative of Lovelace's trauma more neatly if all of it was Selberg's fault, if he was pulling the strings for that first devastating loss? (Cont. below cut)

I imagine that Hui had a sense of guilt and responsibility for Fisher's death. After all, Fisher was only out in that meteor shower because "Hui's projections were way off". Blaming Selberg/Hilbert for Fisher's death would allow Lovelace to posthumously absolve Hui of that guilt. Whereas to accept that Fisher's death was an accident is to accept that it was the result of decisions which held absolutely no malice or willingness to harm.

In Ep38 Happy Endings, after Hilbert reveals that he infected Fisher with Decima first, he has this exchange with Lovelace:

HILBERT But intention was never for anyone to die. Not unless unavoidable.  LOVELACE (realizing) But Fisher did die.  HILBERT Tragic accident. One which even your addled mind has to realize was not my responsibility.

The 'realizing' dialogue tag could be interpreted in a few different ways, but I think this is the moment Lovelace realises that Fisher's death - to echo Minkowski's description of Eiffel being stranded in deep space - "wasn't anyone's fault. It's horrible, and pointless, and it just happened." I think that's a different kind of pain, for Lovelace to realise that - despite the malicious forces around the crew - there was no one to blame for that first tragedy. 

Fisher was the first of Lovelace's crew to die. Lovelace broke her arm trying unsuccessfully to save him. It was the event that turned the first Hephaestus mission from a series of fairly trivial sources of stress, to something ominous that not everyone would come back from. It would be easy to view it as 'the beginning of the end' of the first Hephaestus mission. The period after Fisher's death was "a very difficult time" (as Lovelace describes it herself in Ep35 Need to Know), to the extent that Lovelace developed an "alarming" "dependence on painkillers" (according to Selberg's medical journal).

And there's something particularly heartbreaking to me about the fact that all of that could have happened on a mission without any of the sinister background that the first Hephaestus mission had.

#wolf 359 #w359 #The way that Fisher's death is initially framed #when Minkowski and Eiffel are listening to Lovelace's logs #It feels like the beginning of the tragic chain of events #We hear the build up to Fisher dying #and then Lambert and Hui's deaths happen more 'off-screen' #(and in those logs we don't know what happened to Rhea and Fourier) #which gives Fisher's death a different kind of emphasis #where in a way it stands in for the other deaths too #And so it's interesting to me that it's very different from the other deaths in not being Hilbert's fault at all #wolf 359 spoilers #w359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #Also from what we see in Change of Mind I get the impression that Fisher was the peacemaker #the guy who got along with everyone #so for him to be the first to die is particularly tragic #He probably would have died at some point anyway #There was Decima pumping through his veins #But it seems that the way he actually died was just really bad luck

[hephaestuscrew]

In Ep45 Desperate Measures, Minkowski really needs the SI-5 (particularly Jacobi) to believe that she will shoot Maxwell if they don't back down. In that particular situation, she's desperate to be seen as unafraid and ruthless. If she can convince the SI-5 that she is willing to kill Maxwell, she can avoid having to find out whether she is. Only by giving the impression of being relaxed about violence can she avoid having to commit it.

But her hands betray her. As Minkowski points the gun, Maxwell notices how "her hands are shaking. A lot." Minkowski can't hide that sign of how on edge she is, no matter how much she might want to. Maxwell tells this to Jacobi with a little laugh, giving it as evidence for her certainty that Minkowski won't kill her. Jacobi believes Maxwell's assessment of the situation, but her assumptions are wrong; Minkowski fires that gun with her trembling hands. She's not the sort of person who can kill with steady hands, ruthless and unafraid. But she can still kill.

Later, in Ep53 Dirty Work, Minkowski claims "even in that moment, I didn't mean to do it... the noise. The explosion. It was a reflex. I think it was." I don't entirely believe this explanation of the incident, but I do think there is probably some element of instinctive motion involved when Minkowski pulls that trigger. In which case - contrary to Maxwell's assumptions - the lack of calm suggested by Minkowski's shaking hands could have actually contributed to her shooting Maxwell. If her hands are shaking, her reflexes are probably tensed, and her finger is trembling on the trigger, which just needs one small movement to fire...

#wolf 359 #w359 #renee minkowski #renée minkowski #A little bit of Tumblr user hephaestuscrew lore for you #is that I get shaky hands really easily #which makes it frustratingly difficult to hide when I'm even slightly nervous or stressed... #Minkowski threatening to shoot someone 🤝 #Me expressing an opinion in a work meeting #Trembling hands solidarity #Another point is that if Minkowski's hands are shaking that badly #it wouldn't be easy for her to aim a gun precisely #She could have missed #She could have shot Maxwell in a non-fatal place #But if her hands are shaking that badly. she has less agency over that element of the situation #and I think Maxwell knows that too but she thinks it increases her chances of survival #because how can Minkowski kill her if she can't even aim the gun steadily? #wolf 359 spoilers #w359 spoilers #the empty man posteth #Oh also. I know that for me the most effective way to make any trembling in my hands (and sometimes my arms and legs too rip) worse #is to realise they are shaking and to really focus on how much I don't want them to shake #And Maxwell draws attention to Minkowski's trembling hands. and uses this observation against her #And I think that might have made Minkowski's hands shake even more dramatically

[hephaestuscrew]

Thoughts on the patterns of who speaks the episode title phrases in Wolf 359

This analysis is based on the data I gathered in this spreadsheet and summarised with graphs in this post. Basically I've been looking at which character first says the episode title phrase (i.e. the exact words which form the name of that particular episode) in every episode of Wolf 359. Go and look at the spreadsheet if you want more context.

I think we can view the episode title phrases as often expressing the key problem or question of that episode. (I might talk about this in relation to individual examples another time.) Through this lens, the consideration of who speaks the title phrase is about which character gets to frame the key issue of the episode for the listener. This doesn't necessarily mean we are meant to share that character's view of the issue, but it's why I think there is some potentially significant analysis to be done on this topic. (See below the cut...)

The proportion of title phrases said by Eiffel reduces with each season. 69.2% of the Season 1 title phrases are (first) spoken by Eiffel, compared to 46.6% in Season 2, 22.2% in Season 3, and 20% in Season 4.

This is perhaps unsurprising. Eiffel is very much the main perspective character and the primary narrative voice at the start of the series. And, as someone with unusual speech patterns, he is excellent at coining a good memorable title phrase. However, while I'd argue that he never stops being the main protagonist, over the course of the series, the narrative focus broadens away from a singular emphasis on Eiffel's perspective. This perspective shift is reflected in episode titles being spoken by a greater range of characters.

I think the decreasing proportion of Eiffel title phrases also reflects the podcast's shift towards a generally more dramatic rather than comedic tone. While Eiffel is capable of being serious at times, I'd argue that his mode of speech is particularly well suited to generating amusing unusual turns of phrase that work well within a more comedic context (e.g. Succulent Rat-Killing Tar, What's Up Doc?, Bach to the Future). As the stakes become higher and the tone becomes less humorous, characters other than Eiffel, who are more often inclined to take things very seriously, are more likely to speak the title phrases.

There's also just the fact that as we get more characters involved in the action on the Hephaestus, the opportunity to speak the title phrase is spread between more characters.

Although Eiffel is by far and away the most common speaker of title phrases in Season 1, in the first three episodes of the whole show, we get all the characters of that season represented in the title phrases. Minkowski speaks the title phrase in the second episode and Hera does in the third episode - but probably quoting a phrase from Hilbert. This gives us a good early indication that, while Eiffel may be the focal point particularly in this season, this is going to be an ensemble show and all of these characters are going to be significant.

Hilbert's only title phrase is in Ep12 Deep Breaths, in the first stage of his mutiny, arguably the only point in the show where he appears to clearly have the upper hand while acting alone.

After the SI-5 are introduced at the beginning of Season 3, we get five Kepler or Jacobi title phrases in a row, which solidifies the SI-5's presence in the show. It also highlights the fact that the SI-5 have taken over the Hephaestus and are now (at least ostensibly) the ones determining the aims of the Hephaestus mission.

In addition, these patterns might be seen to reflect the shift in the show towards a more conflict-focused tone (related but not identical to the movement away from comedy). While Wolf 359 has always been a show full of conflict, the balance of this conflict shifts with the arrival of the SI-5. For the first team, our protagonists are facing a unified team of antagonists. The potential for violence feels higher, as do the stakes. This might explain why, while we only had one antagonist-spoken title phrase across Seasons 1 and 2 (Hilbert in Ep12 - Lovelace doesn't get a title phrase while she's serving as an antagonist), 44.4% of our Season 3 title phrases are first spoken by antagonists.

The only title phrase spoken by Maxwell is spoken by her in a recording that we hear after her death. This isn't even the only posthumous title phrase spoken from the past in Season 4 - we've got one from Commander Zhang of the Tiamat as well. It's an interesting kind of legacy, an interesting way to emphasize the questions characters leave behind after death, recalling similar themes to those explored in Ep46 Boléro.

#Wolf 359 #w359 #There's probably more to say but I'll leave it there #Sorry to end it kind of abruptly #I haven't got an overall conclusion #I don't necessarily think these patterns are conscious decisions by the writers btw #but I think they can be significant anyway #I know I said I was going to put these thoughts in a reblog to the original post #but this is too long for that #and I want to be able to put it in the tag again #Please feel free to add on your thoughts on the spreadsheet or anything #The moment when the episode title phrase is said could be thought of as the 'roll credits' moment #Idk if the significance feels different because they don't say the episode title in introducing the episode #but generally you have to see it when pressing play on the episode so most listeners will probably be vaguely aware of the episode title #the empty man posteth #I'm worried that there might be mistakes in my maths but not enough to check it