like, to elaborate on my tags actually:
Thimble and Thaisha are specifically are treated as unreliable in their opinions (see here re: repeated use of "rose-colored glasses" in regards to Thimble and some mentions of the issues I am talking about here as well). Notably, Thimble and Thaisha's defense of Thjazi earlier in Convergence and now was completely vindicated.
I highly recommend rereading Mara's whole discussion (beginning around 5:10 in episode 31), because it reads "I have just gotten out of the torment nexus and you are giving me the third degree on my dead colleague, who was, by the way, correct in the plan you are grilling me on, and all of the issues you are taking with it could not have reasonably been foreseen, ie, you are trying to hold a dead man accountable for not realizing that he would be 1. arrested and held for execution before 2. he could share information about the plan with Hal [which, btw, Mara doesn't know this but when Hal expressed frustration with this specific aspect Bolaire said it was right of Thjazi to not tell Hal things] and 3. he would be betrayed to 4. House Tachonis, who 5. would close off the Tenebral Reaches as well, so sure, guy who's making this about how bad he's got it while in the meantime two bodies cool in the basement and I was, again, just saved from an enslaved to House Tachonis death from exhaustion from cruel and unusual torture, I'll say whatever about Thjazi will make you shut the fuck up. are we fucking done here and can we move on because from where I'm standing, his plan literally still worked."
In many ways it's precisely what Hal is saying. Thjazi (again. his brother) is dead and this is not a productive topic right now when everyone is both exhausted and figuring out what to do next. The "he won't let go of us" is both only true of Julien in the literal sense (which Thaisha points out) and in a figurative sense the entire campaign is Thjazi Died And Shit Popped Off, like, yeah, the narrative haunter is haunting the narrative, you still need to do something instead of throwing yourself a pity party that even within the category of pity parties is profoundly self-centered and insensitive to the fact that other people exist.
Similiarly, Hal is upset to see Bolaire on Misha. This is a valid feeling. Everyone else he's seen Bolaire wear has died. He does not know about Tyranny wearing him earlier that night. There is literally no reason why Hal should have any other reaction, and there is literally no reason why it's wrong. Sure, it probably hurts Bolaire's feelings. Hal seeing Misha on Bolaire made him think Bolaire was going to kill his friend. There is quite literally no way to intepret Hal at fault unless, again, the axis of your morality pivots on "you can't ever make Bolaire feel bad."
It very much frames Hal not as "Thjazi's brother; man who is mourning both his brother and his own peace; man who is terrified for his children and their mothers; man who has two bodies in his house again, after just burying his brother" but as Bolaire's closest friend and like. well. the thing is. Pretty objectively, Bolaire isn't Hal's closest friend. Hal has a lot of other people in his life, and that doesn't mean Bolaire can't feel a certain way about Hal's response, but Hal is not in fact obligated to be Bolaire's emotional support in hating on his own brother.
If Mara's statement about abuse is both not just a watsonian "I will agree with you to get you to stop wasting my time" nor a doylist "I, Brennan Lee Mulligan, have been talking for 5 hours nonstop and I used a rhyming turn of phrase that may not convey my precise intent" and is not abuse in the sense of "abuse of people's trust/access", and I think there are compelling cases for all three of these things, the examples given of Good Guys Who Abused People all both carry a whiff of "if you're leftist enough it's just moral grayness" which I don't find to be a good statement to be making in the first place, and also ignore that the abuse by Clinton, MLK, Chavez, and Gandhi was sexual; and the targets were women of their same ethnicity. The implications of making this comparison about Thjazi, with Bolaire as the victim, are therefore deeply questionable.
If I had a nickel every time I saw "yeah, Thaisha and Vaelus are about to make out all the time but Bolaire and [man] are achieving heretofore unseen levels of intimacy" I would have at least ten cents and I should have zero. like, you had to invoke how this is better than an f/f ship? I certainly enjoy an m/m ship myself, but you really couldn't express your own enjoyment without expressing that was superior to the ship that involves women? Not even a comparison in depth about how these ships are different, or what specifically is lacking either, like, not an argument, just "wow f/f ship exists but this interaction between two men is so much more important."
This is not even my full list, but just, this has been a pattern from the start and it has only gotten increasingly worse. Like, again, textually and metatextually I do not care for the character and the fandom response does not enter in to that, but I think the intensity of misogyny and racism in the way some of his fans approach him through their refusal to entertain the possibility that anyone else could possibly have a point is absolutely worsening it.
amandla
gamechangershow
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
germansingergirl
areudirty
jimmyeatworldofficial
gracieabrams
