aster talks about tv

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i understand that this is a tv blog and this is a very video game-adjacent post, but i'm talking about the anime here so i still think it counts! anyways, i don't like how setsu is written in the gnosia anime. it's not consistent with their character from the game, which i wouldn't be upset about if this new version was, like, good. but it's not.

it doesn't feel like setsu is working together with yuri, or that they even like each other that much. setsu isn't willing to share role information with yuri for some reason, and they don't even share that they're looping too until quite a while in. in the game, even when the player and setsu are on opposite sides, they're still willing to work together to find things out. and why shouldn't they be? oh plus i don't like how their eyes look in the anime. setsu's eyes are really pretty and i don't feel they were done justice.

i wouldn't expect anything less from how good the breaking bad one was, but goddamn

ever since oh il-nam, i have trust issues, so i decided to write down every single elimination in squid game where i could see the number of the player as they died. i don't trust the intercom woman, she lies.

because of my horrible handwriting, i decided to put it all into a google doc too. this is easier to read, but you don't get to see my deteriorating mental state when i was trying to categorize the game 1 deaths and going over every number with a different pencil.

also, this is only counting deaths within the games. that means the doctor and sae-byeok don't count, for example, plus anyone eliminated during the special game.

they're SO good and really important to understanding the series in my opinion! i've read all of them except the access guide, which is very hard to get. the secret history and final dossier are great, but more focused on worldbuilding than providing additional characterization (although there's a lot of that in there too!). personally, i am much more interested in the character development side of things, so i'm just gonna talk about the diaries!

the secret diary of laura palmer is probably the most well-known of the twin peaks books, and for good reason. it tells her whole life story from her twelfth birthday to the day of her death, which is especially nice given that we only get about an hour and a half total of living laura content for the whole show and the movie.

it adds tons of additional context to every single laura relationship that's talked about in the show, and even some that weren't, like shelly and josie! we also get to see some events we've heard about play out, like donna's story she tells to harold. i was surprised at how much entirely new stuff there was in this book, to be honest. it all works out very seamlessly with the pre-existing material, which keeps it a very engaging read even if you already know everything that's going to happen.

something about this book that i didn't learn until after finishing it is that it was actually released before season 2 was! this recontextualized a lot of the book for me, because it wasn't that it was interpreting events from the show and movie into written form, but the reverse. that also means that leland being BOB was still unrevealed, so they couldn't make it too obvious or anything. oh, fun fact, this book is the reason people write BOB capitalized. pretty neat!

i don't wanna make this a synopsis post or anything, so i've left a lot of plot specifics out, but it is such a beautifully written book. please read it. even if you're not a fan of reading, there's the audiobook narrated by sheryl lee herself, and she does an incredible job as always.

the dale cooper autobiography is just as good as the secret diary in my opinion, but in a much different way. for laura, we kind of already know what's going on in her head and what happened in her life, so her book is mostly additional context. dale cooper's life before twin peaks, with the exception of the windom earle plot, is entirely unknown without this book! he never talks about his childhood or his parents or even his FBI training. that makes this book almost entirely new material, with only short sections containing characters we know from the show.

this book is why i wanted to make this post. people already know about the secret diary, they know it's wonderful, but i never see anyone talk about the dale cooper book! it provides so much additional depth to his character, knowing how he got to where he is. it also elevates the windom earle plot in season 2 a lot. i liked windom before reading this, but i think his time on the show was just a bit too goofy. we didn't get enough insight into his personality, and they spent barely any time on caroline herself. the autobiography fixes those issues.

the format of this book is also very interesting and fun, with a similar structure to the secret diary. it's a series of cassette tape recordings, starting when he's thirteen and ending when he's assigned to the case of laura palmer's murder. this means it spans a much longer timeframe, from december 1967 to february 1989.

there's something very intimate about a book compared to a tv show. since you can't see or hear the events, you have to fill in the details in your mind, which gives you a lot of space to reflect. as i was re-reading certain passages from the book so i could make this post, i felt like i had a deeper understanding of dale cooper's character than i would ever get from the show. it makes rewatching episodes like episode 29 that explore him in depth so much better.

i feel like the teens never interact outside of their respective pairings, you know? we got some bobby/audrey stuff in mid-season 2, that was great! they're so good together! same for audrey/donna, when they were trying to investigate what was happening between ben and eileen.

and they only use the school set in the pilot and for the nadine plotline, which is such a missed opportunity. i know they only had two seasons and couldn't do everything, but i wish this part of the show got a little more attention.

some of the scenes are funny but oh my god

the negative response to this season when i looked it up online after finishing it genuinely surprised me. i thought it was really good! a very solid ending to a great show. part of that might be because i'm ignoring the wider marketing by netflix for the "Squid Game Cinematic Universe" and how that might've found its way into the show, like with that cate blanchett cameo. it's not exactly a new thing for tv, it's always been for the profit of a network. i don't care about that, it sucks but what are you gonna do? what i care about is the actual content of the season.

something else that probably influenced some negative reactions is the decision to split it into two seasons. i think this was a pretty obviously bad decision, i think it hurt the show, because it loses context of the progression of the games as a whole. i saw some people were upset about so many people dying in hide and seek, but that's the same point as marbles from season 1. we got so many major character deaths in that game!

but that's also an external factor. in this post, i mostly wanted to talk about some of the character development, particularly in three characters- gi-hun, myung-gi, and jun-hee.

jun-hee probably has the least going on of those three, her motivations are fairly straightforward throughout the whole show. something i really like about her character is that, ultimately, her decision to keep the baby was a selfish one. she only kept it to get back at myung-gi and give her some purpose and company, even knowing that she would be unable to support both of them on her own. after she lost myung-gi, she needed someone who would love her.

then, in the games, she does find people who love her, and even learns to accept help from myung-gi in hide and seek! but of course, he ruins it, and kills hyun-ju and inadvertently geum-ja. now she's alone again and blaming herself, with the only person willing to support her being gi-hun. but with her injury, it would be impossible to pass the next game, even with his help, and she knows that without him the baby has no chance. so she sacrifices herself for her child, and trusts gi-hun to make it out. a very good ending for her character, in my opinion.

myung-gi is... weird. on my first reaction, he came off very unsympathetically, and i even thought his behavior in the last game was kind of a cheap heel turn. but after rewatching and thinking about it a lot, i think i understand his character.

an interesting aspect of the second and third seasons is that there are some obvious parallels between characters from game 1 and 2. hyun-ju is like ali, in-ho is like il-nam, yong-sik is like gi-hun, and myung-gi is like sang-woo. that's the way to think about him. he's a businessman who gambled and failed, and now he's broke. he'll do anything to regain that status, even putting his life before the lives of his friends and loved ones. he does care about people, that's made very clear, but he cares about himself more.

of course, that doesn't make him a monster. i think his plan in the final game was pretty clear: shift attention away from the baby as long as possible, and then when there's no other way, betray the O group and make it out with gi-hun and the baby. mr. lunchbox's death really messed that up. now, myung-gi is a believer in the selfishness of humanity. he thinks gi-hun will do what he would do, so he can't trust him. he's so confident in this that his only recourse is to leave gi-hun behind and kill his baby. that's the only way he sees for him to stay safe. it's really sad to be honest, and even though he's obviously horrible for it, i can't help but feel for him a bit.

gi-hun himself, i can see why some people would be disappointed actually! not because i think his story in this season was ill-conceived or anything, it's just not very fun to watch compared to him in other seasons. most of the time he's just staring into space thinking about shit, and most of his development happens internally. i do still think a lot of people are misinterpreting his actions, though. his decision to kill dae-ho was extremely uncharacteristic of him, and never something he would do before the whole revolution chaos. he's just consumed by guilt at this point, and he needs someone to blame. dae-ho, even though his actions were understandable every step of the way and they would've lost anyway, is a perfect target!

after he kills dae-ho, though, he just feels even worse, even attempting to kill himself right after. the only thing that gives him determination to go on is his conversation with geum-ja, and knowing that he's the baby's only hope. even after jun-hee's death, something that would normally make him shut down like we've seen before, he doesn't give up. part of this, of course, is because of his own daughter, and his regret for not making contact. he's reminded of her when he sees the baby, and he's reminded that he needs to make things right in any way he can.

something that only strengthens his determination is his meeting with the front man. even with all these horrible people who would do anything for a little more money, he retains his faith in humanity and doesn't kill them. by the way, that flashback to the 2015 games was really great! a high point of the season imo. tells us a lot about in-ho's past, even though it's relatively short.

then, in the final game, there's all that chaos and gi-hun is left alone with the baby. and, because he's gi-hun, he does the selfless thing that no VIP watching expected him to do, and he sacrifices himself for the baby just like jun-hee.