#well at least all this long form theorizing/meta analysis

[pttucker]

Okay, so, I've been thinking about some of my more recent posts and have started to combine them with some of my older posts and think I've come up with another theory that I want to throw out into the wild while we've still got like 40% of the novel left to go.

Well, actually it's not really a new theory for me per se, but I think I've finally cemented it whereas in the past I've had vague suspicions. Which has resulted in another giant post.

tl;dr: there are three stories in the novel, with the novel itself being Dokja's story and I think by the end Dokja will realize that he's inside ORV itself in a sort of Neverending Story kind of way, the Fourth Wall is between him and our world (and maybe also him and TWSA), and that the true Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint belongs to us.

So, anyway, I recently made a post about Han Sooyoung being the author of TWSA and overall I think this current arc we're going through right now is another major allegory / foreshadow for how the characters relate to TWSA, just like the Peace Land arc. But thinking on it some more, I think this arc (and possibly also Peace Land) is also showing how they relate to ORV itself.

Like, I actually even specifically said that certain passages relate to the overall plot of ORV such as this one—

Regrettably, there was no guarantee of the work ending up as a success even if the author did an excellent job. – Time to start our attack, Yoo Joonghyuk. Because the ones to complete the story were the 'Characters', not the author, that's why.

—and I think by taking that just a tiny step further, in combination with other clues, ORV itself will end up being almost a Neverending Story type of deal. Not necessarily with Dokja trying to talk to us like Sebastian and the Childlike Empress, but literally just realizing that he's a character in a novel.

Which is something Dokja has technically already realized, and maybe even unconsciously accepted, not only because of the above passage where he lowkey calls himself a character but also because he's seen that he's listed as a character when he messed around with the Fourth Wall (more on that later) and we have no idea if he recently became one or if he's always been a character and didn't realize it.

Unrestrained questions flooded my head. Why did I get this story here? What was the relationship between that story and being called a character? Was I now a character or was I still a reader? I… Was I still able to change the future?

However, I think the big reveal for Dokja is going to be not that he's a character but that the novel is not TWSA but instead ORV.

In fact, I know I've been using "TWSA" as kind of a shorthand for the world that Dokja is now in, with the scenarios and Joonghyuk and such, as compared to the "real world" he was in before as a company worker, but technically speaking TWSA is not Dokja's story. He is not inside TWSA. TWSA still exists as a completely separate text that he has access to and every time he looks at the revisions of TWSA they are still Joonghyuk's story. They go all the way up to the 1863rd round, and while Dokja is in the TWSA revisions, that's because Dokja is a part of Joonghyuk's story in the third round.

And speaking of the revisions, I kind of breezed past this in the tags of another post but Dokja got the Final Revision immediately after thinking to himself that he wants "an author" to tell him that he did good, that it's all going to work out in the end, that he's made the right choices. At the time I thought that perhaps Sooyoung could be the author of the revisions but now I don't think so anymore.

Going back through the text, the First Revision appeared when Dokja was dying in the Industrial Complex and he wanted to read TWSA to try to figure out if there was any sort of hope to fix things without having to ruin his story by killing innocent people. (And honestly he wasn't in any shape to kill people even if he wanted to at that point.) The Second Revision came after he abandoned Breaking the Sky Sword Saint to fight the outer god alone and felt like crap because of it (to be fair she shoved him through the portal while he was still trying to convince her to come) and he and Joonghyuk had a mini-conversation about what to do after and all Dokja could think of is to just keep struggling as best they can.

Basically what I'm trying to say is that all of the revisions have come when Dokja is at an extremely low point, floundering, trying to have someone tell him what to do, tell him that he's made the right choices, etc. Except not once has he actually said anything to anyone in the story around him. He didn't actually end up asking Sooyoung if he did the right thing; he wanted her to tell him it's going to be okay but he only thought it. Just like every other time the revisions have appeared. Almost like they came from someone else who can see what he's going through right then and knows he needs a little help...

Also, back when Sooyoung's version of the story first appeared, I was a little confused by the (First) after it, thinking that maybe Joonghyuk only had the first part of the story, but then later we see that Joonghyuk has 『Han Sooyoung – Records of the 1863rd turn (Last)』.

So now I don't think Sooyoung is writing the TWSA revisions, even if I do think she wrote the original TWSA, and I think that her story is also getting revised as she changes it because she is also a character in which "the ones to complete the story were the 'Characters', not the author" applies.

And speaking of the stories, I kind of went off on a sort of three, three, three tangent in the Sooyoung post, but I realize now that that can be taken even further. There's three unknown beings still left in ORV (Secretive Plotter, Oldest Dream, TWSA's Author), there's three protagonists in both TWSA and ORV, there's three people involved in a novel (Reader, Writer, Character), and there's three ways to the survive the apocalypse. Which, TWSA lists those ways as Regressor, Returnee, and Reincarnator.

But, technically, aren't we also seeing three ways to survive the apocalypse right now? Joonghyuk's way in TWSA, Han Sooyoung's way in her diary, and Dokja's way in ORV itself. Not to mention, now that I think about it, we have Regressor Joonghyuk, Returnee Dokja, and now Reincarnator Sooyoung...

Three separate stories, all sort of TWSA but not technically, more like they're all different versions of the same story. And the dokkaebi's have recently started talking about "which story will you choose" (talking to Bihyung btw, who's been helping Dokja all this time...) and everyone else in ORV keeps going on about a Single Story and how they're all vying for their true story and ending. And how maybe the true story/ending has finally come. Because this particular timeline is going through Dokja's story...which is ORV.

And too when I had the post about the "failed stories" I wondered if maybe it was foreshadowing for ORV ending in tragedy (and maybe that's still true) but also now that I think about the "failed stories" and how both Sooyoung's story and Joonghyuk's story could be considered the "failed stories" in a loose way. Granted, we don't currently know how those stories actually ended since ORV started off with Dokja waiting for the epilogue and the 1863rd ending was disrupted by Dokja, though Dokja has been pretty heavily implying that at least TWSA ended in tragedy up to the epilogue. And with the Single Story it's possible that all three of them will end up combined in the end of ORV itself.

Especially since we don't know what happened to 1864th Joonghyuk. It's possible we may see him again at the end of ORV. Also, I just realized that Joonghyuk stopped being a character when he moved past what was written in his personal story but, atm at least, he's also past ORV's story since we haven't seen him since and Dokja has no way of knowing what's going on with him.

On the topic of endings and epilogues, Dokja has been less and less willing to read TWSA as he starts living his own story and has finally outright said that he doesn't think his epilogue will be in the file. And, yeah, if Dokja's story is ORV then his epilogue would be ORV's epilogue. And ORV does have one. Even though I don't read the chapter titles ahead of time due to spoilers, I did notice when I looked to see how many total chapters ORV has that the last one had the word "epilogue" in the title.

And that's not even getting into Dokja casually stating that the novel is a lie. Which is very interesting.

And of course, there's the infamous moment where (while Dokja is sleeping I might add) the Fourth Wall starts telling the 1863rd Joonghyuk Dokya's story and it literally starts reciting the opening passages of ORV itself. And I'm pretty sure that when Sangah shoved him into it, he once again saw Dokja's story (ORV) just due to the fact that he zeroed in on not just Secretive Plotter, who doesn't appear in TWSA, but specifically all the things Secretive Plotter did in regards to and with Dokja.

In fact, as Dokja messes around with his Fourth Wall more and more, it becomes more and more sentient and present in Dokja's story (ORV) and he starts seeing things that perhaps he, as a character of ORV, was never meant to see, such as the fact that he's a character or that the Fourth Wall goes from simply blocking mental attacks to narrating Dokja's actions, reflecting his thoughts, etc. Just like ORV does for us readers.

I've actually briefly contemplated in the past that perhaps the Fourth Wall isn't necessarily protecting Dokja from the elements of TWSA, but in fact protecting him from the outside world (relevant part quoted below)—

Oh man, what if that's what it means by Fourth Wall? Instead of Dokja being a real person and the Fourth Wall existing because he knows he's not part of the novel, what if he's a character and the Fourth Wall is actually the barrier between him and the real world where the author lives? In which case, the being behind the Fourth Wall could be the author (or the reader!) of Dokja's story.

—and I then later began to wonder if it might be our world and not just some random third world inside the story of ORV, and I really do think that's the case now. Or it could be both! If I'm reading a comic about Batman who's reading a comic about Spider-Man, both I and Batman have a Fourth Wall between us and the fictional world we're reading about, ergo Batman has a Fourth Wall working both ways. (Ignore past Marvel/DC Comics team ups, pretty sure those aren't considered canon lol.)

And this is not only because of the fact that the Fourth Wall is acting more and more like a narrator (or like the third-person text of ORV) but that Dokja reacts so poorly to it going down. Sure, the first time the Fourth Wall went down a million constellations tried to attack him so that caused him issues, but later when he took down a little bit of it for the giants he was in a place with only his most trusted constellations who didn't seem to make any attempt to attack him and he only opened it up a teeny tiny amount and yet he still was physically wrecked. I don't think that he would be that affected by now by the elements of TWSA, especially since he literally learned he was a character and was freaked out for a moment but didn't have this big world-ending crisis...like he might if he attempted to connect to our world. Also, Dokja still hasn't gone back to the idea of using ORV on himself...

And on that topic, I know that I've kind of joked before that Dokja is the most oblivious person ever for someone who also happens to be able to read various characters' minds and see their actions, but honestly speaking there are tons of parts of ORV that are from other POVs that Dokja has never and likely will never see. I actually started tracking them about a hundred chapters back and we get a different POV, even if it's just a few paragraphs, almost every third or fourth chapter. And they're all from the third-person POV, just like how the Fourth Wall speaks.

Meaning that the true omniscient reader's viewpoint is ours.

PS: a very weak "clue" that I'm not really "officially" including is also the fact that The World After The Fall is mentioned as a book that Dokja has read and that's a real webnovel written by the same authors as ORV. I'm not really counting that since I do understand the concept of a cheeky little cameo but it could still be fun to at least acknowledge the possibility that it's something that secretly indicates that Dokja is maybe a little more connected with our world than any of the others.

PPS: I think if I find time this weekend I'm gonna go back through at tag everything or make a list of all my posts or something. Trying to find links for this majorly sucked and I just kind of gave up at points lmfao.

#I swear all I do lately is wander around in a daze thinking about ORV #I took a shower and zoned out so hard contemplating this theory I couldn't remember if I washed my hair or not #And then I got to work and realized I forgot to take my medication #ORV IS LITERALLY GOING TO KILL ME #lol I think I'm a bit tuckered out from all this theorizing all at once #well at least all this long form theorizing/meta analysis #time to go back to my regularly scheduled programming where I just react to dokja being a little shit and everyone else going along with it #orv #orv spoilers #orv liveblog #orv novel chapter 377 #omniscient reader's viewpoint #long post #kdj #yjh #hsy

[atlaskat]

Bakugou Katsuki -- psychological analysis (meta)

I’m not a psychologist, just a social science student studying for an exam, so take this with a grain of salt.

I’m also not totally up to date with the manga (I’ve read up until volume 17). Please feel free to add your own thoughts in the replies if you want to, or call me out if I make a mistake. 

------

I won’t be speaking too much on biological factors, but I think it might be good to just go through some thoughts I have on the matter. In psychological theory, there’s something called “temperament”, which is essentially a child’s most basic form of relating to the world. A well-known experiment on temperament is the famous Marshmallow experiment, where small children were presented with a marshmallow. If they could wait a certain amount of time without eating it, they would receive one more. Follow-up studies on these children showed that those which showed restraint and could wait for the marshmallow had generally gotten further in life -- these children often developed the capability of making and sticking to long-term plans, and were able to work much more methodically than their peers. 

I think Katsuki would be one of the children that waited for another marshmallow. At first glance, he seems very impulsive, rushing into battle and relying on his brute force -- but I’m actually very sure that this characteristic is part of his later development, and not part of his temperament. The reason I believe this is because he shows a very clear understanding of a much bigger and long-term picture. He is very committed to becoming a hero, and this commitment entails behavior which isn’t completely typical for people his age (such as studying hard, never slacking off despite his delinquent-like persona -- even in middle school --, sleeping early, training very hard to maintain his physical condition even as a young teen, etc). This shows his self-restraint, and his ability to plan ahead.

(I’m aware that the amount of pressure to do well in education is very different in many Asian countries, but compare Katsuki to for example Kaminari -- who also wants to be a hero, but is at the bottom of his class and doesn’t seem very good at planning or studying hard. What I think is most important here is to highlight Katsuki’s commitment).

I would also argue that heritability play a role in Katsuki’s personality and cognition. Intelligence and capability to learn have some hereditary factors, which I think apply to Katsuki. It’s difficult to say what came first in this regard though -- a child might be born with a slight affinity for learning (being able to memorize things quickly could be such a trait), but this doesn’t mean they become “smarter” because of it. In this specific case, the humanistic approach of “without the right support and challenge, no child will reach their full potential” is applicable. 

Still, I think Katsuki was born with at least some higher capability to grasp new concepts, which I think plays a part in his, at least partial, understanding of what it takes to not just get on top but actually stay there. Quickly memorizing new information could also play a part in the way others view him -- thinking he’s skilled, amazing, even as a small child -- which in turn fuel both his willingness to learn and his ego. I think his kindergarten years are hugely important, more on it later.

The last thing I would like to say Katsuki was born with is extroversion. This personality trait can be studied in the brain -- the “reward systems” of the brain (mainly dopamine production and the middle brain as well as around nucleus accumbens) react stronger to positive emotions. I say “born with” because of its clear hereditary implications (and as I think this trait comes from his mother Mitsuki. However, it’s possible to theorize that instead of being born with extroversion, Katsuki was born more or less without neuroticism, which occurs when the activity of the amygdala is higher than normal. This leads people to be more anxious, cautious, and avoid situations which might cause unpleasant emotions). Katsuki was very young (2-4 years old) when he first began enjoying being the center of attention, which I think shows he was born with extroversion.

Katsuki’s attachment style  Since we haven’t seen that many interactions between Katsuki hand his family, especially not as a child, this part will contain a lot of my own theories and headcanons, sorry about that. 

Attachment styles are easily perceived phenomenons studied in depth by Mary Ainsworth and John Bowlby. Ainsworth noted that a child’s style of attachment manifests itself in two primary forms:

Stranger anxiety and separation anxiety. After 6 months of age a child will show an autonomous need to be close to, or seek comfort in, their “object of attachment”, usually a parent (often the mother). This need becomes apparent when the child is introduced to a stranger, or left alone, through signs of stress/anxiety. 

Ainsworth devised a test to study these anxieties -- the “Strange Situation”. The test looks like this:

The child arrives in a new room together with the mother

A stranger appears

The child is left alone with the stranger

The stranger leaves

The mother returns

All in all this only took three minutes. The most interesting part was the child’s reaction once the mother came back -- its attachment style was most clear then. 

Children usually have one main attachment style, which have two categories with a few subcategories. Secure attachment The child clearly prefers the mother to the stranger. It might cry or be anxious while the mother is gone, but stops as soon as she returns. These children go on to use their object of attachment as a secure base while they explore the world, meaning they return to seek comfort if they experience something negative, but quickly recover.

Later in life, these people can regulate emotions with more ease. They also cope better with adversity, and are able to connect better with people their age (forming deeper relationships). I believe Izuku was a securely attached child. Insecure attachment This form is more complicated. It has three main categories:

1. Resistant attachment The child has attached itself to in this case the mother, but the attachment is less stable. The child is anxious to let the mother out of sight -- doesn’t trust she will come back. The child may continue crying even after the mother returns and cradles it. 2. Avoidant attachment The child, generally doesn’t cry and doesn’t show its physical/emotional needs. Often it will act a bit aloof -- avoiding or completely ignoring the mother. It will act similarly towards the mother as with the stranger. These children have learned that their natural behaviors to attract attention from their objects of attachment will lead to rejection, so they suppress the needs for affection/comfort. More often than not they still experience the same levels of anxiety as other children, but don’t seek their parents to soothe them.

Disorganized attachment The child shows a lot of contradictory behavior, such as crying to be picked up, but immediately wanting to be let down again, often as a result of being scared of their object of attachment. People who were insecurely attached as children generally have more emotional problems, and are at higher risk for mental illness. I believe Katsuki had an avoidant attachment style. The attachment style of a child is largely based on the behavior of the object(s) of attachment, the parents. Insecure attachment is usually the result of parents not understanding/being unable to provide the comfort their infants seek. My theory is that Mitsuki is, like her son, a very determined and career-driven person. Like I’ve said before, I think she’s extroverted, but I also believe that she doesn’t easily connect deeply on an emotional level with people. This could be a result of how she herself was treated as a child -- as we tend to mimic our own parents -- or simply just her personality. Her own emotional needs might not take up a big part of her life, or she doesn’t really need others to comfort her, which in turn means she might assume others are the same. Ainsworth had a few criteria for a “good parent”:

1. Responsive 2. Permissive 3. Cooperative 4. Psychologically available

I think Mitsuki was, or is, lacking in most/all of these. Clearly, from what we’ve seen, she’s stubborn and knuckle-headed -- while she might have been responsive to baby Katsuki, she might not have known how to handle things beside his clear physical needs, like keeping him fed and clean. If she was also working during this period, as I would definitely assume (considering her job as a fashion designer and how well-off the family is; they live in a huge house), her availability might have suffered. Think like this:

- Mitsuki is tired, but has to finish work - Katsuki begins crying - Mitsuki changes his diaper and feeds him, but puts him down again to work - Katsuki starts crying after only a little while, but nothing ‘looks’ wrong (he’s fed, clean, warm, etc) so Mitsuki goes back to work - Katsuki continues crying, which frustrates Mitsuki because ‘nothing is wrong’; she might snap -- such as yelling, ignoring Katsuki further, or leaving the room entirely. As Katsuki begins to speak (let’s say at around 1,5 years), he might try to achieve emotional closeness by showing her his toys, trying to talk to her/play with her. If he is already ‘extroverted’ by this point he will be a lot more vocal than a timid child his age. If he hurts himself, or becomes scared, he probably tries to get Mitsuki’s attention at first, and I think this is where her biggest mistake might’ve lied. Based on how she treats Katsuki being kidnapped by the League of Villains I believe she disregards a lot of comfort-seeking behaviors as weakness. 

“When you get down to it, you got taken and inconvenienced everybody cuz you’re so weak!!” I think this shows clearly how Mitsuki herself feels. Of course she worried for her son’s safety, but worrying about someone in itself is an inconvenience to her. She equates her own worrying with other people’s weakness -- if only people weren’t so weak, she wouldn’t have to be inconvenienced by worry. Mitsuki, like any parent, never wanted anything bad to happen to Katsuki. She was probably very aware that the world could be a dangerous place, so she tried to eradicate any ‘weakness’ within her own child so as he couldn’t be hurt by the world. I’m not sure where to place Masaru, Katsuki’s father, in all of this. A child can have several objects of attachment, but Bowlby expressed that usually there is a sort of hierarchy in the attachments themselves. For example, the child might favor one parent for playing, but prefer the other if they become scared. I think Mitsuki simply was the more important object of attachment in this case (this can be a result of having more skin-to-skin contact in the first months, or Masaru could for example have been working a lot of the time). Izuku on the other hand became securely attached to his mother Inko, as I think Inko is very emotional and open as a person. While the scene where Izuku cries about not having a quirk comes when he is about 4 years old, I still think this shows clearly that he seeks comfort in his mother. So, a little TL;DR before the next point: Katsuki was an ‘extroverted’ baby, who experienced a lot of emotional rejection from his mother very early on, which made him suppress his needs -- perhaps unconsciously starting to share his mother’s view on emotionality itself (and his own need for help at times)  as weakness. Erikson’s life stages and Piaget’s cognitive development Another model I’ll be using is Erikson’s life stages as well as a theory by Piaget.  We’ve passed the first life stage -- infant (0 - 1,5 years). This is where Erikson means that the child will develop a basic way of relating to the world: positive (the world is a place where my needs are met) or negative (the world is a place where I feel alone). Right before starting kindergarten I think Katsuki had developed the negative view, even though he was an ‘extroverted’ baby, as a result of his attachment style.       - Izuku, on the other hand, developed the positive one. This meant he had a fundamental sense of hope for the world, which is very important later in life. The second stage -- toddler (1,5 - 3 years). Starting kindergarten is an extremely important step in Katsuki’s development. I think he would’ve been completely different without it -- I really can’t stress this enough. Avoidant-attached children will have to fulfill their needs somehow -- usually through validation from sources beside the object of attachment. ‘Avoidants’ can become narcissistic and overly confident, all as a means to protect themselves. This is exactly what happened with Katsuki, let me explain: As I’ve already explained, I think he was born with both extroverted qualities and an affinity for learning new things. His innate temperament was also perseverance. His avoidant attachment meant that it was seemingly very easy for him to be separated from his mother to go to kindergarten, although at the start, his negative view of the world might’ve made him cold/closed off. The kindergarten personnel catered to him, though. Through a lot of positive reinforcement (to which he is especially sensitive as of his extroversion), attention, and frequent intelligence-related challenges (such as new and complicated games, learning to read, etc) Katsuki developed a more positive outlook. According to Erikson, if one stage of life doesn’t “succeed”, it can be recuperated later, which I believe is what happened here. Where I think the kindergarten fell short however is with too much praise, or very easily letting Katsuki off the hook. I believe they saw very much potential in Katsuki from a young age -- perhaps because of this they were too eager to inforce how amazing they thought he was. Often times, we think that anger should be “released” and not repressed. We should get it out of our system, so to speak. However -- counter-intuitively -- we shouldn’t actually do this. Borrowing from the cognitive approach to psychology, the more often we think a certain thought or behave in a certain way, the stronger that mental connection becomes. I think Katsuki, because of his avoidant attachment, might’ve acted really aggressively as a child too. Instead of giving him strategies to cope with his anger the kindergarten teachers probably encouraged him to “release” it, which just made this cognitive scheme easier to access. Thus more likely to be activated again. Children who feel that their opinions and ideas are interesting and valuable will become more sociable, and take more charge, while children with overprotective carers will start doubting their own abilities. Where Mitsuki wasn’t able to do right, the kindergarten picked up the slack and followed Katsuki’s whims to encourage him. He probably developed really quickly, which probably stunned the teachers and carers. The adults’ attention fueled his confidence and ego, and this drew other children to him, which meant more attention.

According to Bandura and Skinner, both real consequences, imagined ones, and reinforcement dictate personality as well as social interactions. Sometimes though, something called “observational learning” occurs, in which no reinforcement is needed. A child often learns behavior by imitating something someone else does, and I’m not excluding this as a possibility to explain Katsuki’s bias/bigotry against quirkless people. Of course, cognitive bias also plays a major part here. As humans, we are wired to look for details which inforce our worldview. 

Bandura’s model of reciprocal determinism. The individual and the environment affect each other mutually. This is part both of how Katsuki grows egotistical, and also his disdain for Izuku. Another important factor of personality is expectation. If an individual expects to be able to change the environment, they are more likely to attempt to do this. Without kindergarten intervention I believe Katsuki would have become a pessimistic, unmotivated person. Third stage (3 - 5 years) By this point Katsuki had already replaced his emotional needs and attachment to his mother with attention and admiration from his kindergarten peers/teachers (feeling superior to others). During this stage the child is supposed to develop a sort of pride of their own abilities. Katsuki was already an independent child (also because of being an ‘avoidant’), but this is where it might’ve went a little overboard. The development of his quirk was, as we all know, a turning point in both Katsuki’s view of himself/the world and his relationship to Izuku. This is mainly because of the quirk development. I’ve already stated that the kindergarten let too much slide -- the bullying of Izuku started even before the quirk development -- but now that becomes more important, as Katsuki was now capable of doing a lot more damage. Developing the quirk solidified Katsuki’s inflated ego -- now he was sure that he was the most awesome kid alive. It also solidified Izuku’s worthlessness to him (of course, if Izuku wasn’t useless, surely he should’ve developed a good quirk too?), which is how “Deku” came to be. At the same time, Izuku “needed help with everything”, but he was also really helpful towards others. He was sensitive, emotional, but still brave -- someone like that was worrying to Katsuki even back then. Katsuki -- an ‘avoidant’ -- repressed his needs, while Izuku indulged in them, openly showing this ‘weakness’. This is where Piaget’s theory comes in.  According to the theory, people develop “schemata” and “concepts” which are cognitive structures. 

1. A schema is a mental representation which covers a range of behaviors, e.g.: a child learns to pick up a bottle. It learns that it can pick up other things too, so the action of picking something up becomes a schema. 2. A concept is a mental structure which relates to the environment. A concept of an object entails for example what that object does, what it’s used for, and its relation to other objects. Children develop concepts and schemata very early on, and after that there are two processes which occur heavily in the first few years, and then continue throughout life: 1. Assimilation -- new information is modified to fit existing schemata/concepts. For example, a child making engine sounds while playing with a block of wood has assimilated the block into their concept of a car.

2. Accommodation -- the new information can’t fit into existing schemata/concepts, so new ones have to be made. This is part of changing worldviews -- let’s say a little boy only has two categories for animals: birds and fish. But then he sees a dog. If he says “that’s a fish”, he has assimilated the new information, but if he makes up a whole new category of animals, then he has accommodated the new information. There are periods of life in which a child will assimilate more than it accommodates (and vice versa). Piaget called these periods “cognitive equilibrium”. The counterpart is “disequilibrium”. This might be part of something which happens during the first few years of life -- there is an explosion of neurons, brain cells, during this time. When the accommodation has occurred, the child will go back to assimilating. Katsuki developed a lot during kindergarten, and therefore created lots of new concepts and schemata. For example, “I am awesome and everyone else is not”, is a cognitive scheme which enables one to enact their superiority over others. “Deku is useless and I can hit him” is another such concept. However, ‘Deku’s uselessness’ is something Katsuki came up with as a defense mechanism -- as stated before, Izuku indulged in (normal) behavior which Katsuki saw as weakness. But, as any child, he still experienced anxieties and wanted affection. This went against his conviction that sensitivity was weakness, so Katsuki projected all these needs onto Izuku. Punishing Izuku then became a way of punishing himself for the things he wanted. This worked for a while, but then Katsuki became aware of the fact that Izuku was brave enough to go against him, and not only that, but look down on him enough to assume he could need help. He, the most awesome person ever.

This could mean two things. 

Sensitivity is not weakness, and it’s not wrong to want it

Katsuki is still so weak that even people like Izuku are a threat

Accommodation is a more difficult process than assimilation, so Katsuki avoided changing his view of sensitivity, which was so deeply ingrained, by adopting the second possibility. But this was scary, and incredibly disturbing to Katsuki, which meant the hostility towards Izuku especially grew. So this is when the bullying picked up a bit. Stage four -- 6 - 12 years During this stage most children begin going to school, the stakes and expectations are higher, etc. I believe Katsuki thrived in a school environment too, with steadily increasing levels of challenge.  This is also when both Katsuki’s and Izuku’s admiration for All Might increased, for different reasons. In Katsuki’s eyes, All Might was so strong he always won no matter what, which enabled him to get in more fights. Winning these fights fueled his ego, and he began believing he could surpass All Might. Stage five -- 13 - 18 years Ooh, here’s when it gets juicy. I believe the bullying might not have been too intense back in stage 4. Erikson defined this stage as “identity against role diffusion”. During their teen years, most people begin identifying all the different sorts of roles they have in life, which might cause some anxiety. That’s why a lot of teenagers are experimenting with their identity, and go through what adults often disregard as “phases”. This searching is very important however, because every person needs to have a secure sense of “this is me” to be mentally healthy. We need to believe there’s a core in our identity, which will stay the same even if we or our surroundings change. Middle school Katsuki and Izuku are both 14 when the series starts. Katsuki is still delusional, prideful, and narcissistic. His teachers think he is powerful enough that it’s inevitable he will go on to UA, which only confirms his view of himself. Right now he tries to act unbothered, but Katsuki is painfully aware of the fact that Izuku hasn’t abandoned the dream to be a hero, even though he is quirkless. All of Katsuki’s intimidation tactics -- blowing up the notebook, for example -- are all desperate attempts to discourage Izuku from even trying, because Katsuki is still scared and disturbed by Izuku in general. Perhaps more so than usual, because I think Katsuki’s trying to find his identity right now as well, especially since it’s time to apply to high school. “Leaving Izuku behind” might be the most symbolic thing Katsuki can think of. He feels as though he’s been stuck with Izuku for years, and wants to hammer home the differences between them, defining his own identity in the process. Still, Izuku is going to apply to UA. I know Katsuki looks pretty unbothered while telling Izuku to take a swan dive off the roof, but I’m 100% certain he’s absolutely shaking inside. It really is a last resort type of thing. Which doesn’t make it alright, of course, but I think it’s important to keep in mind that Katsuki by this point is a vulnerable young teen, unconsciously terrified of going into the world without knowing exactly who he is. Izuku’s response to this bullying and especially the swan-dive line are interesting to me. He doesn’t get depressed, instead he thinks to himself that the idiot Kacchan would have instigated a suicide if he really went through it. This is partly why I think Izuku is securely attached to his mom, even if he now doesn’t approach her with all his problems. He developed a strong sense of hope for the world, more on that in a bit. The Sludge Villain incident is a big stepping stone for both Katsuki and Izuku. We see Izuku genuinely almost give everything up after meeting All Might, and still, even as he saw someone who had bullied him, he still rushed in without a second thought as soon as that person seemed to need help. And in reality, Katsuki was asking for help. You can’t say this isn’t the face of someone who needs saving.

Of course, Katsuki catches up with Izuku just after the incident, telling him “I didn't need you to save me!”, the works.

He’s struggling really hard here to assimilate the new information. He doesn’t want to accept it. When he fell into the creek back as a child, I don’t think he actually needed any help, he probably would’ve been fine. The problem then was Izuku thinking he needed help, which he equated to being looked down upon. In this moment, the problem is that Katsuki really needed the help. Had Izuku not been there, not spurred All Might into action, Katsuki might very well have suffocated. And he knows this, he’s a smart kid. That’s why his reaction is so extreme this time. Accepting that he could’ve died if Izuku wasn’t there means, again, that there are two possibilities to Katsuki:

1. He is weak and needs Izuku’s help of all people 2. He has been wrong about sensitivity all along Both of these mean he has been wrong, both are unacceptable to him. But I think the first one, at least unconsciously, does become its own schemata. Some time after the incident Katsuki stays silent when it’s again noted that Izuku is applying for UA. On the first day there, he only tells Izuku to get out of his way, but doesn’t mock or question his presence. Izuku even comments that “ever since that day, he stopped tormenting me.” They even sit beside each other without any real problems. I think this again is due to two things: 1. Katsuki is hyper-focused on his real goals right then, he needs to do really well 2. He has accepted “Deku is applying for UA” as a new schemata, which is easier to swallow than accepting either the sensitivity or needing help thing. 

High school -- UA There’s of course a minor hitch once Katsuki realises Izuku was accepted, but I think that’s fairly standard. What I think is more important for Katsuki is the fact that entering UA means coming into contact with other people his age who are more advanced than he would’ve ever thought. He’s been so far up that nobody could catch up to him for years, but suddenly, other people are merely steps away if not on the same level. The fact that other people are so close to surpassing him, and seeing Izuku has somehow developed a powerful quirk, opens the gate to the possibility that Izuku might surpass him too.  As many have noticed, Katsuki is much more subdued since starting at UA. I think he’s beginning to warm up to other people (they’re not scared of him, he can’t dominate them like that). But I think his anxiety has slowly been growing, leading to the outburst/fight at Ground Beta, with All Might’s retirement as a final straw.  I want to analyse him further (and even more how he’s affected by avoidant attachment!!!), but this will have to do for now. Please let me know what you thought, if you agree, if you’d like more, etc. It’s really encouraging. Have a nice day!

#long post #bnha #bnha meta #bnha psychology #psychology #bnha analysis #katsuki bakugou #bnha bakugou #kacchan #midoriya izuku #deku #bnha deku #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #bakudeku #psychological analysis #mitsuki bakugou

[aspoonofsugar]

Nen and Characters: Kachou and Fugetsu

This analysys will be different from the usual ones because Kachou and Fugetsu’s story isn’t over yet and so I can’t draw a definitive conclusion on them and on what they are supposed to represent within the narrative.

So, this meta will contain several speculations and thoughts in reguards to these two characters.

First of all let’s consider this:

Both Kachou and Fugetsu’s abilities are mutual cooperation type powers and they both need the other twin in order to be activated.

The fact that Kachou and Fugetsu complement each other has been hinted through their names since Kachofugetsu is a Japanese saying which means “beauties of nature”. So the words kachou and fugetsu are meant to come together to form one single concept.

This obviously symbolizes the strong bond the two sisters have, but I think this bond might be a double edged sword.

THREE EXAMPLES OF SIBLINGS LOVE

It’s not the first time that we have a couple of siblings who have a power based on mutual cooperation:

The Ortho siblings’ power worked that way as well. Whereas the sister was the one who had to conjure and to attach the tag on a target, the brother was the one who used the darts to kill them. The essence of their ability was trust:

However, this apparent invincible bond was quick to be broken once things didn’t got the way the siblings wanted:

In short, the Ortho siblings are a deconstruction of a perfect fraternal love. Their power may seem to represent the trust between the two characters and it might be that way to an extent, but at the same time it was born out of the two siblings’ flaws. The brother likes to be admired and praised for his abilities, whereas the sister finds convenient to leave all the work to her brother.

There is at least another fraternal love who, despite having healthy and wonderful elements, may turn out to be limiting for the characters if some aspects of it aren’t addressed and it is the one between Alluka and Killua.

It has been theorized that Nanika might be an Ai which is also known as the Desire of Codependency:

As I wrote in this meta the description fits Nanika. What is more Killua himself is a character who struggles with codependency as his relationship with Gon establishes:

The two siblings’ personalities might make them prone to become co-dependent if they (and especially Killua) don’t pay attention to it:

Right now, Killua is the only one who can use Nanika’s power and he can do it without being worried about Nanika’s requests. It is obvious that such a situation might lead him to become too dependent on his sister’s incredible powers exactly like Alluka and Nanika depend on him to be protected and to be taken care of. Luckily it seems that Killua isn’t that eager to use Nanika’s powers for now:

So, we have two examples of siblings whose powers and personalities are complementary and for both this complementarity is both a strength and a limitation.

Let’s now consider Kachou and Fugetsu’s case and let’s compare them to the two couples of siblings above.

First of all, let’s consider that, differently from the Ortho siblings, Kachou and Fugetsu’s powers aren’t abilities they chose, but are a representation of their subconscious. This means that, whereas the Ortho siblings chose their power in order to compensate each other and to avoid facing their flaws, Kachou and Fugetsu didn’t choose theirs and their abilities are a representation of the deepest parts of the twins’ personalities.

Considering this, there is an aspect of Kachou and Fugetsu’s nen beasts which becomes interesting:

Fugetsu’s nen beast is a worm-hole, whereas Kachou’s one is shapeless. In short, despite being “beasts” their two guardians don’t resemble any kind of animal or even any kind of living creature for that matter.

This is important, especially because (not counting Woble) Kachou and Fugetsu are the only princes whose nen beasts don’t appear as proper guardians which stay next to the respective prince.

This has probably to do with the fact that both Kachou and Fugetsu’s identities are strictly intertwined with each other to the point that they can’t define themselves without the other.

This is why Fugetsu’s nen beast is a passage which leads her to her sister and this is why Kachou’s one assumes a specific form based on what happens not to her specifically, but to both twins.

So, whereas the Ortho siblings’ power is symbolic of a bond which is strong, but superficial and partly utilitaristic (let’s consider that the siblings’ power has a specific goal which is to kill an enemy), Kachou and Fugetsu’s powers are representative of a bond which is so strong that it defines the two sisters to the point that it becomes a disadvantage. For example Fugetsu’s ability would have been more advantagious if the ability to open a second door didn’t depend from Kachou because in this way she could have gone back to her room without being discovered by Mizaistom.

At the same time Kachou’s nen beast’s ability doesn’t seem a particularly useful ability in a battle like the Succession War is.

This is also a point of contrast with Nanika’s ability which turns out to be extremely convenient for Killua who gets to basically have infinite wishes for free.

At the same time, though, in Killua and Alluka/Nanika’s dynamic there is a specific hierarchy in the sense that it is mostly Alluka/Nanika who defines herself through Killua and not the other way around. Here, however, both twins define themselves through the other even if they do so in slightly different ways. These two ways are also representative of each twin’s flaw.

FUGETSU AND ESCAPISM

Fugetsu’s nen beast takes the form of a game Fugetsu used to play with her sister when they were children:

It being a childhood game is indicative of the fact that Fugetsu’s personality is a childish one, as it is said by Mizaistom as well:

Let’s compare the scene above with the following one:

In both scenes Kachou and Fugetsu’s ways of thinking are portried as child-like. It is obvious that both twins are to an extent finding relief in the world of their happy childhood. This is also symbolized through the choice Kachou does of using her Mosquitone Device in order to communicate with Senritsu:

Said device can only be heard by people under a certain age and strengthens the idea of the twins as two children who distrust adults. However, whereas Senritsu praises Kachou for her strong will and recognizes that, despite being a child, she has thought things through, Mizaistom dismisses Fugetsu’s attitude as simplicistic.

This has probably to do with the fact that Fugetsu tends to depend on Kachou:

And because of this she tends to be more naive than her sister. Fugetsu herself is aware of this to an extent:

She knows that Kachou is always ready to protect and to help her. It is obvious that Fugetsu is perfectly able to see through her sister’s lies:

However, she was never shown to directly address them and this leads us to what her beast’s power is i.e. a teleportation ability. A teleportation ability can be seen as an excellent metaphor for escapism i.e. a person’s tendency not to face certain situations head on.

Given this premise and Fugetsu’d personality it is not really surprising that she and her sister try to avoid facing the Succession War by escaping. However, the narrative isn’t going to let them do so:

They have accepted to take part in the War and so they can’t escape from that. They have to face it.

In short, Fugetsu’s nen beast represents her tendency to escape in a happy world of her creation and not to face problems by depending on Kachou. We can see how it was Kachou’s tendency to protect her sister through lies which contributed into strenghtening Fugetsu’s flaw:

The current situation perfectly represents this dysfunctional dynamic. Kachou has already died, but Fugetsu keeps finding comfort in Kachou’s lie and in this way doesn’t have to face such a loss.

By this point, I think there can be two possible endings to Fugetsu’s arc. Either she survives and in this case she will have to face and accept Kachou’s death or she dies because she isn’t able to let go of the illusion Kachou created.

KACHOU AND LIES

Let’s consider this:

And let’s compare it to this:

Senritsu comments on the fact that Kachou’s whole self is a lie and right now “Kachou” herself has become nothing more than an illusion.

Kachou exactly like Fugetsu tends to find comfort in her relationship with her sister. However, (as @hamliet said in a conversation we had) Kachou is active whereas Fugetsu is passive. Fugetsu accepts her sister’s lies, but Kachou is the one actively lying and creating illusions.

Her nen beast’s power is indicative of this. As a matter of fact, even if this power is right now being used to trick Fugetsu, it could have been easily used to trick Kachou as well in a reverse situation.

This is because Kachou lies both to others and to herself and her beast represents this.

Let’s also consider Keeney’s subplot in the last chapter.

His story comments the twins’ one in two different ways.

On one hand Keeney is a person who was never able to overcome his loved ones’ death:

On the other hand he dies sure that his sacrifice will help Kachou and Fugetsu to live:

However, he is wrong since Kachou dies immediately after.

I think it is obvious that his whole subplot is used as a warning to the twins’ one. Kachou is sure that everything will go well as long as she and Fugetsu are together:

And this is why her nen beast takes her place in order to stay next to Fugetsu until death:

It is true that Kachou’s nen beast may be useful to Fugetsu, especially because it was able to open Fugetsu’s door and so it is possible it might be able to use Fugetsu’s door like Kachou did.

However, it doesn’t matter how much helpful or how much a relief it might prove to be for Fugetsu, Keeney’s story warns us that in the end this way of facing the loss of a loved one is detrimental and will surely lead a person to their death.

THE TROLLEY PROBLEM

Nasubi has already explained that what the siblings are facing is a version of the trolley problem.

Halkenburg has chosen his country and as I wrote here he will probably progressively become more and more similar to the tyrants he wants to stop. In short, I don’t think Halkenburg’s choice is the correct one.

However, Kachou and Fugetsu’s one isn’t correct either. They chose each other and disreguarded all the others. They didn’t try to save their other siblings and didn’t show any interest in their country. This is of course understandable and sympathetic given the fact that they are two children and that they are in a horrible situation.

That said, if this arc is going to explore how the public sphere and the private sphere are linked and influence each other, it may be possible that the answer to stop the Succession War isn’t one which takes into consideration only one aspect and completely ignores the other.

If this theory is true, then Kachou and Fugetsu’s attempt can be seen as an attempt which is at the same time similar and opposite to the one Halkenburg did.

Halkenburg too tried to avoid the succession war by killing his father, but was stopped by his and Nasubi’s nen beasts. Moreover, after this failure he decided to embrace the Succession War.

Kachou and Fugetsu tried to avoid the war by escaping, but the ritual they accepted to perform stopped them. At the same time, they, in contrast with Halkenburg, chose their siblings love over their country.

Thank you for reading!

If you are interested in other analysys of HxH characters through their nen abilities here is a list of the ones I wrote up until now:

-Nanika

-Kurapika and Chrollo

-Killua and Illumi

-Gon and Hisoka

-Meruem and Komugi

-Palm Siberia

-Neon Nostrade

-Neferpitou and Shaiapouf

#hxh #hxh meta #kachou hui guo rou #fugetsu hui guo rou #keeney #nen and characters #dark continent arc #succession war arc #my meta

[sanrionharbor-blog]

Thoughts on Sansa S8 Endgame

Speculations galore! Long post ahoy!

Let’s run through every possibility I can think of for the end of show-Sansa’s story (and yes, there will be many more possibilities besides these because GOT is layers upon layers, man, I’m still new to the fandom, and there’s probably a lot I’ve missed).

At the very least, let’s do this categorically.

Dead, Alive, or a Fate Worse Than Death?

1. I’d bet money that Sansa survives the whole dang thing

2. But if she does die…it could be A) Sacrifice to save Arya, Jon, and/or Bran, B) in a possible collapse of Winterfell, C) after ensuring the demise of Cersei or a similar threat, D) something worthy of a song

3. Crack Theory: Sansa Becomes the Night Queen?

Shipping...

1. Let’s start with the most popular ship: Jonsa. While I’m not personally a Jonsa fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a complete impossibility. And while I’m not personally a Jonerys fan, I neither hate it nor see it as a no-brainer. Jonsa makes sense practically (uniting Targ and Stark, North & South; they already trust one another; cousin marriage isn’t considered incest in-universe, etc.), though I’m not entirely convinced if the show goes this direction that it would be the most romantic ship ever. The best I see is that it has vibes similar to Ned/Cat when they were first married to one another; they didn’t love each other romantically at first, but it would come with time. As for political!Jon Theory making this ship possible, while I wouldn’t completely put it past the GOT universe to make Jon that cold, it honestly doesn’t jive with what I think is at the core of Jon: which is a hardscrabble sort of nobility, decency, honesty. I mean, if he was politcal!Jon, wouldn’t he have come up with a smoother way to handle Cersei in their first meeting? Anyhoot, the ship isn’t hateful. I think the biggest obstacles are the fact that, even though they are technically cousins, they were raised as brother and sister. You don’t just erase that. This is somewhat “remedied” by the fact that they were never close and Sansa pretty much treated him as a whole-lot-less-than-a-brother for most of their childhood. But GOT has never shown incestuous relationships (again, I don’t really consider historically based cousin relationships as incestuous, but it is a close family bond never-the-less) as a good thing. At all. The Targ’s went mad; Dany’s brother was creepy as fudge; UMM Jaime x Cersei dear Lord; Craster and his Merry Brood, etc. (But this mainly just spells doom for Jonerys, IMHO). So, as with anything in GOT--it’s possible, it’s also not possible, there’s undertones, but there’s undertones for the complete opposite thing happening, etc. Lastly, as for the “romantic framing” of S7, I think it falls under that same maybe/maybe-not. I LOVE Jon and Sansa’s dynamic, even if I don’t see it as romantic, even if does or does not end up romantic. It is certainly one thing: intimate. And the framing (forehead kiss, bittersweet reunion, worrying for one another’s safety) supports that at the very least. If they don’t end up romantically, Jon is the last real strong male relative that Sansa has. That’s not to diss Bran, but D&D have made him a remote magical old man stuck in a teenager’s body. In some ways, he’s dead to Sansa too (as Meera said, “You died in that cave.”). The poetry, the irony, is that the people Sansa had the most problems with in her family (Arya and Jon) are all that Sansa has left now (yes, yes, I love Bran, but again he’s acting more like a solo unit than a family unit at this point)--and she realizes how much they’ve always meant to her. Jon, and Arya for that matter, are different sides of Sansa, just as she is a different side for each of them. The parallels are lovely, and this ship could very well set sail.

2. My personal favorite: Sanrion (Sansa x Tyrion, Tyrion x Sansa, whatever the preferred parlance is). Yes, I’m biased, so this entry will be the longest--BUT, let’s remove my shipper goggles. This, to me, is just as possible as Jonsa. That is, I don’t see it as guaranteed at all, but there’s plenty to read from the text. Let’s get the trouble spots out of the way: 1) the build-up has been few and far in-between since S4 (though they did throw us a bone in S7). 2) the 50/50 chance of Tyrion dying in S8 (no, I’m not basing this on “leaks,” interviews, or what-not--I’m just using this as a baseline guess, given that this is GOT and given that Tyrion is at the center of a very dangerous web of relationships), 3) the show possibly not wanting to ask a twentysomething actress and a nearly 50-year-old actor to act out anything deliberately romantic (however, I don’t expect an on-screen ship to be anything but unconventionally romantic--I very much see it being done with subtle dialogue, color theory, ambiguous looks, an epilogue, etc), and 4) Tyrion may or may not be in love with Daenerys. None of these trouble spots spells doom for me. The greatest “doom” is simply Sansa ending up alone (thematically possible) or with someone else (also thematically possible). Let’s break down counter-points to the trouble spots, then I’ll list my reasons why this ship could sail. 1) Almost all relationships in GOT are troubled and/or unconventional, built up over one season, hidden underneath layers of symbolism, or suffer from the fact that one or both partners are either dead or seperated (by this same token, Sansa’s other popular ships, Jonsa and Sansan, also suffer the same dearth of “development” or copious screen time. Arguably, Jonsa’s foundations were mostly built over the later seasons), 2) yeah, Tyrion could die (and I would be heartbroken but not blindsided) or Tyrion could live (but I would bet money that Sansa lives through the whole thing), 3) the show already put them through the most awkward phase of their “relationship” (i.e., their wedding night, though it was toned down compared to the books) and they can still sell this relationship in any number of ways (again, dialogue, color theory, looks, just holding hands again geez Louise), 4) Tyrion’s “love” for Daenerys is incredibly debatable and may only be used as fuel for a soap opera plot that I really hope doesn’t happen, but even the director of the S7 finale said Tyrion’s main concern was political and Dinklage proposed the idea that Tyrion only “think he’s in love” with Dany, that what most people feel for Dany is awe (I’m neither a Dany fan or hater, but it’s hard to deny that she’s shocking, enthralling, powerful, attractive, a force, for lack of a better term). Now, on to the practical/thematical reasons why I think this ship would work. Let’s use letters for this, haha. A) Fairy Tale parallels/Turning Tropes Upside Down: It’s easy to read inversions of fairy tale archetypes into Sansa’s storyline, as that is what her character is naturally drawn to: songs, princesses, true love, beauty. So far in the story she has learned that looks can be deceiving; life is not a song (though I wouldn’t be surprised if GRRM turns this on its head again, and Sansa simply learns that all great tales involve sorrow and darkness as well as joy and light--i.e., bittersweet vs. simply sweet); people are not black and white (Tyrion shows her that the Lannisters aren’t necessarily all evil and Littlefinger shows her that allies, even someone who loved her mother, are not necessarily all good); etc. Just some of the fairy tales/tropes that play into Sansa’s personal storyline and the subtext of Sansa x Tyrion include: Beauty and the Beast, Psyche and Cupid, Hades and Persephone, The Princess in the Tower archetype, and many, many more (I’ll meta about it one of these days--and there are already many excellent posts under the Sansa tag that expound on these). B) The Queen Elizabeth Theory: So Sansa has parallels with two remarkable historical Queen Elizabeths: Elizabeth of York and Queen Elizabeth I.  Since this has been said by so many before, here’s a quote and link to the article as summary: “The show is based off the War of the Roses, the real-life family feud between the Lancasters and Yorks that ended with the two broods combining their houses. Since the storyline happening at the end of season seven is extremely similar to this moment in history, we can infer that GoT will follow that path...” Link  C) Character Actions Written Especially For the Show: Just to name a few: GRRM purposely changed a moment in the books to where Sansa hands Tyrion a cup instead of him having to crawl underneath a table to do so; Tyrion remains loyal to his wedding vows (and this is probably inspired by his trauma for having killed his father and lover as well) even when it was very possible that Sansa had left him high-and-dry and the marriage was, in Tyrion’s own words, a “sham marriage”; Sansa and Tyrion both stick up for one another’s character, etc., and D) Also, aren’t they technically married? :-p [There’s a lot more, but again, I’ll save that for a future meta]

3. Sansan: While there may end up being a slight possibility in the books, I don’t think show-Sansa and show-Sandor are heading in this direction. However, the same fairytale motifs play into play here: Beauty and the Beast, Hades and Persephone, etc. Also, bridge4 over on Youtube has a fabulous analysis of the “unKiss” over on his channel, which I think could pop up in some shape or form in S8. Here’s the  link

4. Sansa Alone: Also supports the Queen Elizabeth theory. Specifically, Elizabeth I “the Virgin Queen.” This would a different form of poetry/irony: Sansa, the one who wanted most to be a queen consort and be married to a handsome king and have babies, ends up as a queen (full-stop) but leverages her power as a single lady. Not my favorite ending for Sansa, as I’m Teh Unabashed Romantic, but it’s plausible, thematic, pragmatic. Only time will tell!

The Fate of the North, Night King, Direwolf Theorizing

Just spitballing various takes:

1. The war is “won” (as in mankind survives), but Winterfell or possibly the entire North is compromised. As in, perhaps they have to trade the North to the Winter King at the promise he won’t invade the rest of Westeros. Or Winterfell explodes, so the North and all of Westeros is saved but the Starks lose their home

2. The Starks deliberately blow up Winterfell, for any number of reasons. Perhaps a bunch of wights or what-nots ended up there. Perhaps the dead in the Crypts were resurrected, and this was the only way to neutralize that threat. Or something deeper and darker lurks in the Crypts, something worse than the Night King. In fact….

3. Maybe the true enemy ends up being something awoken within the Crypts of Winterfell, and the Night King is not what he seems….

4. The old gods play an unexpected role

5. The godswood is burned or ends up in splinters or is used to create a new throne (ending the age of iron, fire, blood and making this a “time for wolves”)

6. Sansa’s direwolf Lady is resurrected (of course, poor Lady is headless…) and manages to wound Cersei (if she gets her arse up north, which seems unlikely) before Cersei’s killed by whoever the heck the Valonquar is

7. Speaking of, could Ghost be the Valonquar? I mean, he was the runt, the littlest brother of the brood. Eh, dunno. I just don’t expect the Valonquar to be anything close to what we think he/she/it/them is.

8. I like the idea of parts of the ocean being permanently frozen over because of something the Night King does. Dunno why. I don’t think there’s any foreshadowing to that in the show; it just sounds cool, and represents a permanent consequence to the land. Because I do not expect there to be zero consequence for the landscape of Westeros itself. The Greyjoy’s are already kinda sorta doomed (with eunuch Theon being the last male of that line, unless Euron’s got a kid somewhere and he ends up surviving to take the throne and not be a dick about it), so it’d be a bit of tragic poetry if their islands, their seas were frozen and lifeless but thanks to their efforts the rest of Westeros is safe and their people will have to make a life on land

9. One or both remaining dragons are frozen for all timez

10. Sansa becomes Queen in the North or Queen of the Seven Kingdoms (is there really an in-between?)

Bonus

Lastly, here’s just an observation on an important part of Sansa’s storyline and character development: Arya Stark. I believe Sansa and Arya adopted different pieces of the original storylines in GRRM’s book proposal outline--not that I put much stock in the outline. Sansa was created, at first, to add tension to the Stark family. GRRM says he was surprised by Sansa’s developments; he also says he empathizes with whichever character he is currently writing, so I think he just naturally found things that he liked in Sansa that made her more than a complication device. Because his original vision included Arya as the sole Stark daughter, I wouldn’t be surprised if Sansa and Arya aren’t the result of this once singular character being developed into two very different ways. The archetypal Amazon Wild Child and the Princess in the Tower. Two sides of the same coin--or, in Ned’s words, Sansa is the sun to Arya’s moon and vice-versa. For this reason, I don’t put it past Sansa to continue developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady and Arya developing her personal brand of Brave Northern Lady. Because that is what they both are: brave, northern, ladies. Will Sansa find herself at the center of a love triangle? I really, really hope not, but at this point if it is gonna happen I find it much more likely with Sansa than with Arya.

#got s8 speculation #got #game of thrones #sansa #sansa stark #endgame speculation #fan theory #shipping #stark #night king #jonsa #sanrion #sansa x tyrion #tyrion x sansa #sansan #arya stark #spoilers #possible spoilers anyway #got spoilers #direwolves #the north #got s8 #tropes

[alexchristin]

Design for Theorycrafting

Recently, Danny O’Dwyer and the team over at Noclip have done a documentary series, interviewing prominent independent developers (Derek Yu of Spelunky, Jim Crawford of Frog Fractions, and Jonathan Blow of The Witness), talking about the games that inspired them as children, discussing their own takes on the significance of mystery in games, and explaining how they weaved elements of it into their design fabrics. The documentary series is fittingly titled “Rediscovering Mystery,” and a solid must-watch.

It takes courage for a developer like From Software to even attempt to include such a vast, and totally missable areas such as the Painted World of Ariamis or Ash Lake in the original Dark Souls. And there’s no doubt, that the effort from Jonathan Blow and his team, to build an island full of mystery and surprising treats, elegantly placed on the fine line between obscurity and conspicuity is absolutely commendable. However, aside from being a big help when you need it, the Internet is also a land riddled with spoilers. People are always discussing, debating, and engaging in joint-efforts to unearth even the most obscure secrets of all in games. And often as a result, the easy and most logical answer from developers on how to retain the player’s interests in games is to keep expanding their worlds, and to include even more obscure secrets for them to find out.

I do believe that this approach is, not only costly for sure, but also fairly limited in its efficiency. Not to undermine developers’ effort and control over the experience, but there’s one thing that many designers I know will probably agree on: the most profound, interesting, valuable and effective drive of all stems from within people’s heads. And the most common manifestation of such drive that one can see, comes in the form of theorycrafting.

A spoiler-resistant design paradigm

According to Christopher A. Paul (2011), the word theorycraft originated from World of Warcraft, which describes “the search for the optimal set of strategies with which to play, by using statistical analysis and mathematical modeling.” In the broader context, theorycrafting refers to the practice of analyzing theoretical scenarios, speculating possibilities, performing statistical reports, planning strategies for unexpected events, or simply “connecting the dots.” All of these are done mostly off-game, or at least not within the context set up by the games they’re playing.

Take a look at almost any game, you’ll find a universal advice suggesting that starters do a “blind” playthrough first, then come back a second time with a strategy guide to “one-hundred-percent” the game. While there’s nothing wrong with avoiding spoilers before you can enjoy a good book or a good movie, I do think that the old method of adding depths and maintaining player’s interests no longer holds itself well. What if instead of discouraging players from communicating with others on discussion boards, or encouraging blind playthroughs, we can design games around the reality of gaming today?

Minimal handholding

While this is a popular mantra adopted by many modern designers and may seem ostensibly obvious, I’d still like to stress its importance. Instruction on basic controls and maneuvers is fine, but make it so that players will have to do their own homework in order to overcome bigger challenges (say, higher difficulties). They can take notes, read up, discuss with other people, or even come up with their own ideas and strategies. You may be told how to move around and perform various attacks in Dark Souls, but nowhere in the game will you find an explanation on how Poise works, or how sometimes having low-to-no Poise is actually beneficial. The user interface and functionality of Darkest Dungeon may imply that you should treat your units as precious and cure them of devastating mental afflictions, but you’ll have to learn for yourself that it’s really costly to maintain a sane army, and the path to victory involves treating your units as expendables.

I myself have spent about 1,500 hours on the Long War mod for XCOM 2012 by Firaxis, and tried to pinpoint exactly what about it that reeled me and thousands of others in, even during its development period, and how it had us all absolutely enthralled. XCOM 2012 was fine, but it certainly, most would agree, did not have much to keep people playing for hundreds of hours. And that’s where the mod steps in. In direct opposition to Sid Meier’s idea at GDC 2010, which is basically to occasionally “cheat” in favor of players so that they themselves won’t ironically feel cheated, Long War relieved XCOM of every last bit of its shackles. As a result, the game was significantly harder, but a majority of XCOM players found the honesty and transparency worth a lot more in the long run than the ocassional helping hand.

Ensure High Interactivity between Game Elements

The first thing that comes to mind when people start thinking about strategies is how different elements within a game will interact with one another. And good news is, you don’t have to make such complex network of interactions obvious. Human beings are good at noticing and distinguishing patterns, and we love playing the game of connecting dots. What would happen if I combine Element A with Element B, and then sacrifice Element C, which on its own is very beneficial, to go for Element D? Would I then have to change my playstyle now that this setup is in place? And how? These are amongst the questions players are going to ask themselves when they theorycraft. Try to think ahead of them, and leave footprints on the ground behind so that players will follow them.

Extra Credits’ episode on Depth vs. Complexity explores this particular topic further.

Encourage micro-and-meta strategies

To reiterate a point previously made: the higher the difficulty level (by which I mean the amount of depth the game can and may provide to the player) the more the game should require the player to think outside of the immediate in-context scenario being laid out in front of them and plan ahead for future possibilities. The player should have to not only care about major factors and decisions, but also minor details that at first may seem trivial, but will make a difference in specific scenarios. For example, a 5% hit chance boost may seem negligible—not a lot of difference between an 80% hit and an 85% hit. But in the specific scenario where the player’s hit chance is penaltied down to 0%, and the 5% boost will be applied after the penalties, then it becomes the difference between chance and no chance.

To do that, a game needs to require players to acquire more knowledge than it can offer explicitly inside itself (unless they decide to constantly break the 4th wall and rain down paragraphs after paragraphs on the player, which is a bad idea by the way.) Obviously, this requires the game to contain a lot more depth. People won’t have a lot to read up on or talk about if the game they’re playing is Flappy Bird!

Micromanagement in gaming is often referred to as tedious. However, I do think it can be interesting and sometimes deeply profound if the player can see that:

It matters. It’s not going to matter if your SPD stat gets a 25% boost if you’re already the fastest moving unit in a turn-based combat and others have no way to catch up, which is what a lot of old RPGs were guilty of.

Everybody else is doing it.

The game is designed around the fact that everybody is doing it.

I found immense joy in discussing strategies with other players in the XCOM Long War community, and to play around with various ideas and theoretical scenarios in my head whenever I was on break at work. That made me feel like I was improving even when I was away from the game, and the game also helped me learn to think and to plan things carefully, and deliberately.

Reduced Linearity

Just like minimal handholding, even though reduced linearity isn’t anything new to experienced designers, it is amongst the key qualities of games designed for theorycrafting. Naturally, if every scenario in a game is scripted, every puzzle has but one single solution, and nothing that the player can do will make any significant impact to its outcome, then that game’s resistance to spoilers is clearly low. Someone nonchalantly tells a player that maybe they can turn left at this juncture, and they can’t unlearn that! You want to make sure that problems almost always have more than one answer, and there is a moderate space in which the player’s theorized solution may go off-track.

Maintain control over gameplay

With that said, in certain games, even if they’re non-linear and designed to encourage theorycrafting, there is still the risk of the player figuring out the optimal play and sticking to it rigorously, ultimately ruining their own experience. Soren Johnson, one of the Civilization designers, wrote “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.” (2011)

The current most efficient ways to tackle this problem that we know of, is to introduce random elements, or in some context, procedural generation. The idea is to allow the computer to systematically and algorithmically generate environments or outcomes based on the player’s input and a dice roll. Randomness is not necessarily “lazy design,” but rather meant to serve as insurance against optimal play always producing the same results, making sure that no strategy is without its flaws. Allow people the freedom to metagaming and micromanagement, but at the same time try to mitigate certain-win strategies as much as possible. Work closely with testers and even the community.

Final Words

Designing a game that is challenging, complex, with a lot of depth, and which encourages strategizing, planning for possible scenarios, coming up with creative ways to solve problems, might seem to be an overwhelmingly difficult task. But I do think it is a good ideal to push towards. If people are going to read up on games before diving in and perhaps spoil it for themselves, let them do it as much as they want. Make it so that the challenges in your game can take that fact on the chin and still give them a hard time. And a good time.

Lastly, I’d like to leave you with a few words from Professor Brian Moriarty’s lecture back in GDC 2002, The Secret of Psalm 46.

“If super power is what people really want, why not just give it to them? Is our imagination so impoverished that we have to resort to marketing gimmicks to keep players interested in our games? Awesome things don’t hold anything back. Awesome things are rich and generous.

The treasure is right there.”

References

Christopher A. Paul (2011) Optimizing Play: How Theorycraft Changes Gameplay and Design. Retrieved from http://gamestudies.org/1102/articles/paul

Sid Meier (2010) The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know is Wrong). Available at https://www.gdcvault.com/play/1012186/The-Psychology-of-Game-Design

TangledAxile (2016) Yes, XCOM2’s RNG cheats - in your favor. Here’s how. Message posted on Reddit. Available at https://www.reddit.com/r/XCOM2/comments/45u81x/yes_xcom_2s_rng_cheats_in_your_favor_heres_how/

Soren Johnson (2011), GD Column 17: Water Finds a Crack. Retrieved from https://www.designer-notes.com/?p=369

Brian Moriarty (2002) The Secret of Psalm 46. Available at http://ludix.com/moriarty/psalm46.html

Extra Credits (2013) Depth vs. Complexity - Why More Features Don’t Make a Better Game. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVL4st0blGU

#game design

[sherristockman]

Foods That Prevent Inflammation Also Enhance Your Brain Function Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola It is important to realize that chronic inflammation often leads to chronic illnesses and health conditions, including obesity, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer and immune-mediated conditions. In fact, inflammation plays a significant role in seven of the top 10 leading causes of death.1 Inflammation is a normal part of your body's response to the environment to protect you from foreign invaders, such as bacteria, viruses and fungi. However, chronic, long-term inflammation increases your risks for devastating health conditions that may change the way you live or may even lead to death. Many times, inflammation starts in your gut. Your intestines are a large and complex organ designed to pass nutrients to your body and gather waste to pass from your body. What you eat has a considerable effect on the permeability of your intestinal walls and how much waste or toxins may leak into your body. This leakage is a substantial driving force in the development of chronic inflammation. The degree of permeability is in direct proportion to chemical mediators inside your intestines and in your bloodstream, in real time. This means that you can affect permeability immediately with the choices you make. However, repeated damage reduces the ability of the intestines to respond properly. Eventually this may lead to impaired absorption of nutrients and overburden your immune system. Inflammation also has an effect on your brain. Recent research has found those with inflammatory markers in their 50s experienced a reduction in the size of their brain 24 years later.2 Inflammation May Lead to Reduced Brain Volume This study provides more evidence that systemic inflammation may have lifelong effects on your health. The researchers took blood samples from a large, biracial community and analyzed five inflammatory markers at the start of the study and then again 24 years later. Those markers included levels of fibrinogen, albumin, white cell count, factor VIII and von Willebrand factor.3 Using these levels, the researchers created a composite score they could compare against other participant scores and MRI images taken at the conclusion of the study. The participants were divided into three groups based on the level of their inflammatory markers.4 When the group with three or more elevated biomarkers was compared against the group without any elevations, they found the group with higher inflammation experienced a 5 percent reduction in brain volume.5 Brain areas with reduced volume were in the hippocampus and other areas associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease. Those with higher levels of inflammation also performed poorer on a memory test given to the participants.6 Lead study author Keenan Walker, Ph.D., from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine said the effect of one standard deviation increase in inflammation, appeared to correlate to having a copy of the gene that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and was associated with a decrease in size of 110 cubic millimeters of the hippocampus. Although the results from this study support evidence from others that inflammation negatively affects brain volume7 and cognitive performance,8 the authors acknowledge this study used inflammatory markers from only one point in a 24-year timespan.9 There are several factors that affect the degree of inflammation you may experience in your body and brain. When you address these factors, you may be able to reduce the long-term effects of inflammation, including cognitive decline, cancer, immune-mediated disease, Type 2 diabetes and numerous other health conditions. Sleep Clears Your Mind and Detoxifies Your Brain Achieving quality sleep may be one of the most important factors in developing optimal health. A lack of sleep can have many ramifications, ranging from short-term to lifelong. Research has found sleep loss for just one night may increase the inflammatory response in your body, and a good night's sleep can reduce your risk of heart disease and autoimmune disorders.10 Subclinical shifts in basal inflammatory cytokines have also been noted in those whose sleep was restricted between 25 and 50 percent of normal.11 The mechanism explaining the alteration in inflammation is not known, but the researchers theorize it's likely related to metabolic changes. In a recent meta-analysis of 72 studies involving more than 50,000 participants, the data demonstrated that both too much and interrupted sleep had the effect of increasing the inflammatory response.12 Dr. John Krystal, editor of Biological Psychiatry, commented on the meta-analysis, stating,13 "It is important to highlight that both too much and too little sleep appears to be associated with inflammation, a process that contributes to depression as well as many medical illnesses." Adequate amount of quality sleep not only reduces inflammation, but also helps clear your brain of toxins and metabolic waste products. Sleep is critical to keep your brain's unique waste management system fully functional. Researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center14 found this system is activated during sleep when your brain cells shrink nearly 60 percent, making waste removal easier.15 For example, during sleep your brain removes amyloid-beta in greater amounts than when you're awake. These are the proteins that form in the brains of people suffering from Alzheimer's disease. If you have trouble sleeping or would like tips on how to improve the quality of your sleep by addressing your environment, please see my article, "Want a Good Night's Sleep? Then Never Do These Things Before Bed." Too Much or Too Little May Increase Inflammation Your body works optimally in moderation. In other words, too much or too little sleep and you'll increase your inflammatory markers. The same is true for exercise. You may think of this as a Goldilocks effect — in other words, not too much and not too little will allow you to reap the greatest benefit. Consistent overexertion at any exercise can lead to chronic inflammation. The aftereffect of overexertion may also lead to overuse injuries or illness. Fatigue, dehydration and other injuries16 may follow a single intense workout, while chronic secretion of cortisol from overexertion may also negatively impact your immune system and lead to colds and other illnesses.17 Cortisol is released during a physical or psychological stressor. It has different functions throughout your body, such as regulating blood sugar, reducing inflammation and assisting in memory formation.18 Researchers have found that prolonged stress may alter the effectiveness of cortisol by reducing your cells sensitivity to cortisol and increasing the inflammatory response.19 Lead author, Sheldon Cohen, Ph.D., Carnegie Mellon University, commented on the link between stress and the immune system, saying:20 "The immune system's ability to regulate inflammation predicts who will develop a cold, but more importantly it provides an explanation of how stress can promote disease. When under stress, cells of the immune system are unable to respond to hormonal control, and consequently, produce levels of inflammation that promote disease. Because inflammation plays a role in many diseases such as cardiovascular, asthma and autoimmune disorders, this model suggests why stress impacts them as well." Often the greater risk lies in a sedentary lifestyle. Sedentary behavior has influenced inflammatory markers in participants, independent of obesity, single workout during the day or blood sugar levels.21 Sitting during the day has been associated with a 66 percent higher risk of certain cancers, including endometrial cancer, colon cancer and lung cancer.22 For suggestions on how to increase movement in your day, see my previous article, "Here's What Sitting Too Long Does To Your Body." Inflammatory Response to Food The foods you eat may have a major effect on the inflammation in your body. The National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases wrote about the common Western diet and the relationship to inflammation:23 "While today's modern diet may provide beneficial protection from micro- and macronutrient deficiencies, our over-abundance of calories and the macronutrients that compose our diet may all lead to increased inflammation, reduced control of infection, increased rates of cancer, and increased risk for allergic and auto-inflammatory disease." Foods that increase the inflammatory response in your body include:24,25 Sugar High fructose corn syrup Artificial trans fats Processed vegetable and seed oils Refined carbohydrates Excessive alcohol Processed meats Oxidized omega-6 fats The Nitric Oxide Dump In this video, I demonstrate a simple exercise called the Nitric Oxide Dump that has several benefits. This three-minute exercise, done three times a day, will stimulate the release of nitric oxide to support your immune system, lower your blood pressure and decrease platelet aggregation. Nitric oxide also helps you to develop more lean body mass. Since it's a short exercise you do several times per day, it reduces the potential for overexertion and helps you keep moving throughout the day. You'll want to wait at least two hours between each session. The exercise doesn't require any equipment and can be done anywhere you happen to find yourself. A combination of exercise with dietary restriction may increase your benefits and mobilize adaptive cellular stress-response pathways that involve DNA repair, mitochondrial biogenesis and anti-inflammatory cytokines.26 Anti-Inflammatory Foods Help Reduce Inflammation Markers Just as some foods may increase the inflammatory response in your body, others have an anti-inflammatory effect. According to Harvard Medical School, one of the most powerful tools to fight inflammation does not come from a pharmacy, but rather from your grocery store.27 Some of the top anti-inflammatory foods include: 28,29 Garlic Strawberries Blueberries Cherries Almonds Walnuts Olive oil Spinach Kale Salmon Mackerel Sardines Cloves Ginger Rosemary Turmeric Keep in mind that while fish is traditionally recognized as a primary source of healthy omega-3 fats that help reduce inflammation, eating seafood from contaminated waters offsets any benefits. You risk polluting your body and damaging your health with chemicals and heavy metals the fish have absorbed from their environment. Unfortunately, a large majority of wild-caught fish are too contaminated with mercury, heavy metal and chemicals and farm-raised fish carry their own list of risks from pharmaceutical treatment, overcrowding and unsafe contaminants.30 As a general rule, I recommend eating only authentic wild-caught Alaskan salmon or smaller fatty fish with short life cycles, such as sardines, herring, mackerel or anchovies. These are good choices to get omega-3 fats while avoiding as many toxins as possible. Although not a specific food, eating a diet high in healthy fats and low net carbohydrates and moderate amounts of high-quality protein has also demonstrated a significant effect at lowering your inflammatory response. Also called a ketogenic diet, recent research from the University of California San Francisco uncovered a potential mechanism that helps explain why the ketogenic diet so effective in reducing inflammation in the brain.31 In short, this mechanism explains how alterations in glucose metabolism influence inflammatory responses in your cells. I would recommend you consider implementing a ketogenic diet in your nutritional plan. My previous article, "A Beginner's Guide to the Ketogenic Diet: An Effective Way of Optimizing Your Health," will show you how to apply it to your lifestyle and the positive benefits you can reap from it.

#VitalityPath