Hey:) can I ask you something? I don’t know much about technique and I keep seeing these posts about how zhenya has flutz and her technique isn’t good and her pcs are too high and this and that and I’m curious, if she’s not that good how come she kept winning everything for two years straight? Was she the strongest athlete at the moment or were there other factors?
Putting aside, for now, the fact that “her technique isn’t good” and “her pcs are too high” are two statements full of holes I’d gladly poke at (don’t worry, I know they are not your statements, I’m addressing the people you heard those from), let’s talk about how, in skating, as in all sports, there is more to it than just technique. You can be the best in the world in all individual figure skating elements but you are unlikely to win anything if you don’t have the right strategy. In Zhenya’s case, the right strategy and the right execution were the main factors that kept her on top of the field during her historic 2015-2017 run.
To give credit where credit is due, Zhenya’s former coaching team, led by Eteri Tutberidze, was and is best-in-class when it comes to understanding the scoring system and utilizing that knowledge to maximize their skater’s potential scoring range. Zhenya’s programs were arguably the firsts that consistently employed a combination of backloading (to maximize second-half bonus), augmenting transitions (to maximize both TR mark and jump GOE for difficult entry/exit), and adding varied air position in the form of Tano/Rippon (also to maximize jump GOE).
The efficiency of their strategy was further ensured by having Zhenya sticking to a set of tried-and-true formulae. If you look at her programs throughout 2015-2017, they were essentially permutations on the same set of transitions and elements (even her 2017-2018 programs were not that far from the mark, to be honest). Sure, I, and I bet many others, were getting rather bored watching Zhenya performing the same things over and over again, but as a strategy, it undeniably worked. There is no clause specified in the scoring guidelines to penalize repeating oneself; on the contrary, judges tend to reward stability and cleanliness in execution.
Which is not to say that Zhenya played no part in her own success. And here we have to come back to one of the points we’ve set aside in the beginning: her technique. Realistically, Zhenya is not going to ever be remembered as a flawless jumper, but her jumps are far from the worst: she’s capable of employing complicated transitions in and out of every jump, she can top almost anything off with varied air position, her rotations are highly secure, and most importantly, she kept landing her jumps. During that 2015-2017 stretch, she performed 126 jumping passes and only fell on 5 of them - that was a success rate of 96% and it’s a patently insane stat, doubly so when you take into consideration the fact that she routinely performed all the above mentioned features to enhance her GOEs. Alongside the jumps, she also kept churning out level 4 spins and steps like clockwork - sure, she isn’t the best spinner or the best in skating skills either, but what she did was, and I cannot stress this enough, consistently good enough to get the BV. If all of those don’t add up to a hallmark of immense talent and extraordinary effort, I don’t know what else is. I’ve seen not a few people downplaying Zhenya’s consistency as something trivial and that, for me, is the biggest injustice of them all.
As a final caveat, it bears pointing out that Zhenya’s strategy was clearly not risk-free, as proven by what happened in the 2017-2018 Olympic season and her ongoing struggles this year. If / when your reputation and performance hinge on consistency, the moment something derails it, things tend to start going downhill fast and when they do, it can take forever to build them back up.
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what about zhenya makes her one of your favorites?
I was impressed when I first noticed Zhenya competing as a junior with the SP The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. I found the program to be remarkably elegant and her to display a rare musical sensitivity for her age (she was only 15 at the time).
Then in no particular order
I think the otaku side of her personality is super relatable and adorable
She’s got one heck of a nice triple loop
And these Salchows
Her costumes are always drop dead gorgeous
She is drop dead gorgeous
With the right program and the right choreography, she can be very expressive
When she’s healthy, her spins aren’t half-bad either
She’s so gutsy she once Zayak-ed a 3T for shits and giggles
Her utter dominance and rock solid consistency throughout her first 2 seasons as a senior were stuffs of legend.
She’s a hard worker and she’s incredibly strong-willed. See how she dealt with and overcame all the struggles throughout the entire Olympic season, how fearless she was with the move to Canada, and how much effort she’s putting in to better herself this season - she’s sticking with it even if the initial results weren’t what she expected.
This list is not exhaustive, obviously. Just thought I should stop here before the gif spam gets too abominably long :D
i don't think we talk enough about how much Sachie completely absolutely fucked up Kotoyuki while raising him because like holy shit.
"Do not think of yourself as a little boy, for you are simply a tiny adult waiting to grow."
>he is literally a small child so repressed he's never even tried senbei
"Hey AWESOME news your father is dead which means you can take over as the heir to the Tsuneki family at long last 💗"
>immediately tells him to pack up and get ready to head to a new place and say goodbye to the only person he's been friends with to focus on an even MORE restrictive education
like- she never even appears in-game but i think it is really notable that Sachie feels like she really was like, the root of Kotoyuki's human trauma primarily. and if you interpret SHf from an Anti-Fantasy perspective it means that Sachie was the one primarily responsible for raising him to unquestionably follow the path laid before him with the Fox Ancestor being more of an allegory for the abusive patriarchal system that Sachie likely taught him was the correct way to live.
like. she never shows up we don't even know what she's up to if she's even alive but it's interesting to me after you read these entries like... Sachie kind of. casts a pretty big shadow on SHf in her own right
The thing to understand about Hinako is that she is not against feminity. From what we can take from the memories and records, she enjoyed playing with girls. she enjoyed playing with dolls, she enjoyed girly activities and having friendships with the other girls just as much as she enjoyed playing with boys and doing boy-ish activities.
it is the other girls who rejected her, who ostracized her. who made her abandon her doll.
And this is important to understand part of the game's themes: Hinako had been teared apart into two a long time ago.
It's not just that she is being forced to choose between obeying society's expectations of her as a woman and abandoning them outright to reach her freedom. It's that choosing either will also private Hinako of a half of herself.
it's only by rejecting the notions that a woman has to be either/or and giving her the freedom to choose her path while being able to be herself as a whole when she can begin a path towards a happy future.
And whether that future might include a marriage or not. it is a marriage done if, and only if, that is the marriage both sides legitimately want and if it is done as a choice between equals.
But the important part is that she is able to be herself. Truly and fully.
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"we need more complicated female characters" you can't even handle a teenager with beautiful princess disorder.
"rinko is such a terrible bitch who should die i hate her so much blah blah wooorst SH character her entire character is just being a bitch cunt [more weird things to say about a teenager] and she's nothing but-"
One common interpretation of Hinako’s transformation as Fox Hinako and later on Shiromuku is that Kotoyuki is morphing her into his ideal bride and while I see it… I don’t really align with it so here are my explanations below
warning : spoilers for shf and Umineko
I do agree that Fox Hinako becomes more submissive than Hinako is even if there are moments showing her as still having some agency (her cutting her arm herself, her denying the stick saying she will endure pain for the last rituals etc), I also agree that Shiromuku represents Hinako turning into the idea of an « ideal bride » : the shiromuku is an outfit symbolizing obedience to your husband and Hinako completely lost her face to signify her transformation and loss of individuality but most importantly what makes her her.
despite that I don’t believe that’s what Kotoyuki actually wants.
Yesterday I kinda compared in a memey way the fact that Kotoyuki’s infatuation of Hinako reminded me of Sayo’s infatuation on Battler
Both starts with them being kids and a special event for one of the pair’s member not being held as that special to other member of the pair, but what makes it special ?
For Sayo it was the fact that she could connect authentically with only Battler as she was pretty lonely and coping with fantasy
For Kotoyuki, given how his mother forbid him to paly with some children, it would be easy to figure that he was pretty lonely but here is the letter talking about this
This start by a reminder that Kotoyuki absorbed the gender norms that normally the boy saves the girl and that the reverse happening is embarrassing but I think that’s precisely what ends up drawing him near Hinako. Basically she stands out as a someone special. Special enough that he does one little act of rebellion by keeping this a secret from his mother.
The rest of the letters showcase Kotoyuki’s limerance and further explaining that Kotoyuki would devote himself to study and even more for Hinako. I will come back to these a bit but what strikes me about this is that none of these letters tells us anything about what Kotoyuki views as an ideal bride on the contrary.
it seems to indicate that to him Hinako is already perfect, the ideal bride. She doesn’t need to change because that’s precisely her unruly nature that draws him to her. So basically Hinako turning into a perfect bride doesn’t mean it is what Kotoyuki wants since he already idealized Hinako and loved her as she was. So the wedding was just his desire to have her as his wife and since she was already perfect in his eyes there was no need to make him into his ideal bride.
That being said, Kotoyuki’s obsession for Hinako shows his toxic side since his letters feels very eerie to read
Like no joke it felt like Kinzo screaming BEAAAATOOOORIIIICHEEEE every time he is on screen and this moments very early on showcases how he viewed her as a bird to be put in cage. That’s the same feeling, like Kotoyuki wants to put Hinako in a cage called mariage because « he loves her ». Given how Umineko essentially deconstruct the figure of the beloved woman Beatrice Potinari, it’s obvious Ryukishi is trying the same thing with the idea of the Yamato Nadeshiko but this also showcases how Kotoyuki despite having feelings for her still ends up objectifying her but in a way that is considered « romantic » so it’s fine
However notice how in these letters he only focuses on his feelings and never Hinako ? The first letter indicates he was only a boy when he wrote that one, a BOY. It reads as child throwing a tantrum, determine to get the new toy at all cost. He isn’t even considering Hinako’s feelings at all, only how much he loves her and how it makes him suffer and yadi yada
Despite it being a « profession of love » he talks more about his feelings than Hinako herself
That’s what brings me to another letter
We get him talking about how he must become perfect for Hinako but see this line « wanting to make Hinako my wife is the same as wanting to make het the happiest girl in the world, anyway » ?
while it does show he wants Hinako to be happy, in his mind it’s already cemented that it can only happen if they are married … but did Hinako ever said that ? Where does he got that from ?
All of this makes it abundantely clear that Kotoyuki is assuming a lot of things about what Hinako wants and what will make her happy. So while he already considers her to be perfect for him and never suggest anything about her needing to change, this does show that his desire to devote himself to Hinako in becoming the perfect spouse …. Is entirely something he imagined and possibly not something Hinako ever desired
Back to Umineko a little bit, Sayo too pressured herself into wanting to become the woman that Battler would defintely love and this caused her great suffering notably body images issues. However Last note of the golden witch features a fragment where Battler never leaves the island and can spend his time with Sayo. She never becomes Beato but how could it be when her birth circumstances and the cliff accident still happened ? We can assume that since Battler was still there maybe he could have communicated with her more often and this helping her understand she doesn’t need to become his ideal type, especially when he was already crushing on her too
It’s unsure how long Kotoyuki stayed in contact with Hinako but one thing is sure, just like Sayo, he thought he needed to be the perfect men for Hinako when it might not be what she wanted nor needed. I know we make a lot of jokes about the way the Japanese fandom portrays Kotoyuki but it is true that generally the idea is that it’s the woman that has to work to become the perfect spouse but Kotoyuki decided to completely dedicate himself to becoming a perfect man for Hinako as opposed to being more lax … like I compared him to George but not even George had put this much pressure on himself
I also noted that Kotoyuki used the watashi prounons which is often considered to be incredibly polite for a man and even too soft as adult men often use boku instead. I don’t think it’s necessarily a gender reverse in their dynamic but it seems that what Kotoyuki does for Hinako is notable enough that even the other member of his family think less of him for it.
When we meet him in the dark shrine his appearance is heavily shaped by Hinako’s vision in my opinion. In the bad ending he appears an average man because Fox Hinako, the part of Hinako that wants to marry him, won the fight. In the good ending, he turns into a Kyubi because this is the part of Hinako that doesn’t want to marry that wins. In the true ending, both Hinako have reconciled so they can view him as the same thing. But much like how Kotoyuki can be accused of not knowing Hinako that well, the reverse is true : Hinako doesn’t necessarily knows Kotoyuki that well. So when she views Him as Fox Mask, he is meant to represent the ideal groom that he wanted to become, thereby obsurcing his own identity in Hinako’s eyes.
That’s why imo he never takes his mask off : he doesnt want her to see him as anything else than the perfect husband. But again, that’s never something Hinako wanted.
That’s why I don’t think his face in either the good of bad ending counts as his true face. The bad ending is just how he appears because now he can be sure that Hinako chose him. The good ending is him letting his toxic traits appears. And while many people (mostly anti kotoyuki) views it as just an attempt at guilt tripoung Hinako I think it’s actually a bit more complicated
While he is as deaf to Hinako’s feelings in this ending as he was when writing these letter « professing of his love », there is a true to it : he did decide very early on to devote himself to make Hinako happy by becoming the perfect husband and ensuring she would never struggle. It certainly must not have been easy especially as we know he hardly had any chilhood because of how his mother raised him. But much like what I said about his conforting Hinako : his main issue is his inability to realize that marrying him won’t necessarily make Hinako happy and comming to terms with that.
He clearly wants to see her happy and is capable of being genuinly kind : I don’t believe that someone who would feel genuine marvelement at eating cheap snacks that every Japanese kid eats wouldn’t genuinely be able to be kind and compassionate. But his desire to have Hinako being stronger, it makes it hard for him to admit he isn’t necessarily the key to Hinako’s happiness when he felt like she was his. That’s what the ritual, to me, actually symbolizes : he isn’t trying to turn Hinako into his perfect bride because she already is his perfect bride, the issue is that he refuse to face the reality that Hinako won’t be happy and has to make too heavy sacrifices for him.
I have already touched in it when discussing the rituals in my last post, but while the real scene probably weren’t as gruesome and violent and were just the product of Hinako’s hallucination, with Kotoyuki probably just trying to reassure her since she was having hallucinations and yadi yada. The violence of these scene is still meant to evoke through visuals Metaphor the pain Hinako is feeling as she kills her own past and her childhood when she isn’t ready yet, and the fact that he never stops her from making these sacrifices but only sympathizes with her pain shows that he isn’t capable of going as far as to renonce marrying her even for her to be happy. Granted there is at least two endings where he comes to term with that, but that further explains his frustration in Fox wets its tail : if he went through all these sacrifices then why won’t Hinako do it for him ? It’s no longer mere playing the victim to guilt trip her, it’s genuine anguish at realizing that while he felt that Hinako was necessary to his happiness, marrying him wasn’t necessary to her happiness.
That would explain why he constantly acts like marrying him = Hinako being happy. Yes, there is the culture teaching a woman’s value is only in being loved by a man which he likely assimilated very Young. But it’s clear through the egocentrism in these letters that he projected his own feelings unto Hinako, viewing her as a thing he needs to possess to be happy rather than a human being and assuming she will feel the same when he has no evidences.
That’s why Hinako is able to appreciate his kindness and reject him nonetheless : she never needed Kotoyuki to become the perfect husband to be happy. And seeing how she reconcile with Fox Hinako and even considers being the one proposing to him, she clearly didn’t even needed him to become the perfect husband to love him. Just like he never needed her to become the perfect wife as she was already perfect in his view
That’s also why to me Kotoyuki’s devotion can’t be shown by mutilation like it was the case for Hinako. As I have explained, I view it as a representation of Hinako feeling her past and identity being ripped away from her, something that he woudl never experience since he doesn’t need to change family register. But Kotoyuki also doesn’t have a past to lose unlike Hinako since he only lived in the future, or rather, a future where they are married. So his appearance is already a testament to the things he went through
He only appear as an adult because he never knew what it was to be a child. In the bad ending, he appears as a regular human because he can continue to appear as a perfect husband in front of Hinako, the very thing that testify of his own experience. In the good ending, he turns into a beast to showcase his toxic traits revealing themselves (hence why the Fox Spirit to me is really just a metaphor for traditions and all that and not an actual entity possesing him), showcasing the feelings he has developped during all these years which makes him into a monster. Fox man being half man half beast already showcase how despite being the perfect husband, his toxic side still transpires in some ways. But there was no need for any gruesome scene for us to see it, his trauma and the damage that this system caused where apparent from the very start. His form in the Dark Shrine is an embodiement of it, of the fact he had no childhood and that he spend years nurturing these unhealthy feelings for Hinako and dedicating himself to a vois quest.
Regarding the good ending, I have already explained how it felt really hollow and it’s no wonder as Hinako still had to kill a part of herself in the process. But she also ended up not realizing that Kotoyuki too suffered but in a different way. While Hinako was torn between the past and the future, Kotoyuki had always been forced to live in the future, by his family and even he himself.
But the bad ending looks even worse : Kotoyuki got what he wanted, Fox Hinako won, but in reality despite their feelings for each other they are not what either of them wanted. The girl Kotoyuki fell in love wirh died the moment she became his wife. As for Hinako, she never needed a perfect husband so even if Kotoyuki tries to make her happy, it can only result in more pain.
I think that instead of becoming outright abusive or manipulator, Kotoyuki might end up becoming like Episode 6 Battler and treat Hinako in the same way Battler treated Chick Beato, which is just as bad.
This also highlights how meaningful the true ending is as it helps both of them finally heal since Hinako realized she could have both what Young Hinako and Fox Hinako wanted and Kotoyuki indulged in the childish imperfection he was robbed of. But this further explains why they can’t be hapoy together just because they love each other when in the Fox wedding, they would have become people different from the people they feel in love with for the sake of appealing to tradition
To conclude I will simply say that I think the Sayo analogy isn’t perfect as Sayo’s situation was worsen by her low status as a servant and the fact that she struggled with her womanhood, both aspects absent from Kotoyuki’s backstory but I also think that the analogy isn’t perfect because we literaly see the poor Sayo’s life and we get an idea how she became Beato. While with Kotoyuki we are limited to Hinako’s perspective where we can get letters at best but nothing conclusive whereas seeing what exactly he went through could explain why he lacthed unto Hinako like this … I mean outside of the obvious loneliness factor. But there is a common pattern between these two and it might help explaining further why exactly his motivations where the way they were.
Ironically, it’s precisely by getting what he wanted that he ended up killing the Hinako he feel in love with
I think an issue i have with most takes regarding Kotoyuki is how they erase his victimhood for the sake of making him worse than he actually is (like whole « he is a literal Fox god trying to groom a 15 year old ») and in the process it’s also removing a lot of nuance regarding Hinako’s motivations
i think like people wanted SHf to be a very specific kind of game with a very specific kind of message and catharsis regarding abusers and that killing abusers make it better and the reality is that it is not that game with that kind of message: along with themes of like patriarchal institutionalized violence but for the time i'm just going to focus on the first thing primarily.
SHf is a story ultimately about breaking cycles of abuse. it discusses a really uncomfortable reality that many abuse people do go on to abuse others, and only by making the choice not to do so can cycles break. a really great example about that is Kimie that i talked about in a post not too long ago- Kimie is an abused woman but ultimately has no desire to make things better for Hinako and the next generation, even telling her in the boss fight this is a woman's role in society. Kimie is a victim but ultimately is a cog in the machine who just wants it to continue.
i feel like a lot of people were hoping Kotoyuki would remain like, as he appears to be in NG: less like a person and more an embodiment of these institutional structures to be killed to end it. but the reality is much more complicated than that- Kotoyuki is also a victim that is being groomed into fulfil a patriarchal role he does not want that will pervert the love he and Hinako shared into something ugly and disgusting. Kotoyuki does not really want to continue that system but feels it is his role, he is to wed Hinako and thus he is to be the husband she the wife, with all this entails. this is however not what he wants either but the role is being forced upon him and he has no idea what to do but follow through, believing if nothing else he can keep her safe and not be the some kind of abuser as Kanta. this is not to say he isn't fucked up, he does some fucking heinous shit to Hinako during this story and i still do wish to an extent (if not the degree as i used to) that the narrative was a bit more willing to call out that Kotoyuki is a man with much less to lose from this system than Hinako does, but that's a different discussion. that might've just been the point of Fox Wedding though. the point is even then it is explicit this isn't really what Kotoyuki wants and to be forced to act as such when he wants to love Hinako genuinely is a symbol of what this system does to men and even in the Good Ending where there's no chance of them getting together at all Hinako still thanks him for the genuine kindness that he showed when he could
i think it is very easy to want Kotoyuki to have remained the Fox Mask he was in NG, less a person and character and more what feels like an embodiment of this system to be killed as an extremely cathartic kill, but the reality is much more complicated than that. the end result is a lot of people trying to reduce Kotoyuki to this role as Fox Mask in that he's nothing but an evil pedophile and abuser and ignoring all nuance from him and Hinako to simplify him into something like that.
EDIT: this is also why nobody likes acknowledging the fact that she and Kotoyuki are like, very likely around the same age, and possibly both 20+
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fun fact: to anyone who thought that the way filipino teachers taught noli me tangere and el fili poorly, it's actually like. due to the catholic church's influence on the rizal law. i don't know heavy details BUT in the mid 20th century, teachers and the church fought for how both books to be taught in school, but due to how they tackle on the indecency of spanish friars when they colonized us, the church was like. oh no you can't do that. that's anti catholicism propaganda. even if, like, friars were the biggest sources of abuse back then (they basically took up leader positions for anything and everything. there was an account of spanish jesuits coming to the ph mid-19th century commenting on how spiritually deprived these priests were but i digress). so they make a middle ground where noli and fili are taught, but heavily censored in highschool.
this is why highschool is so bad at teaching noli and fili and doesn't focus on it chapter by chapter. it's censorship. the church basically argued it's stupid. and, by law, you're ALLOWED to ask your teacher to not read noli/fili if you don't want to.
this is why colleges retackle rizal, it's because they aren't restricted by censorship anymore. remember this kids: rizal wrote about how spanish catholic religious leaders colonized us and stripped us from our culture, and now filipino catholics were kind of brainwashed w the same ideology and prohibited us from learning about our history yet again. remember, the revolution was inspired by rizal's works.
noli and fili are big parts of philippine history and if you have the time, go read it to oppose ur colonizers LMFAO
Hhhh I did not expect "Life and Works of Jose Rizal" would make me obsessed with his novels, be more interested in history, and appreciate him even more.
Like BRO- this guy is a REAL person that EXISTED a CENTURY AGO and HIS WRITINGS STILL RELEVANT TO THIS DAY 😭 no wonder Bonifacio stans him so much I GET THE HYPE AROUND HIM NOW OH MY GOOOOD
We were kind of just told over and over again that this guy is a hero bla bla bla he is so smart bla bla bla he died for his country bla bla bla
But now I see him more as just a guy in a picture, but rather a human being who has balls of steel to not only call out the abuses the Spaniards were doing but to go BACK and even help MORE FILIPINOS??? wtf this man is insane 😭 like i could never-
Because of this, I don't think Rizal is just a national hero, but also a national treasure. Its tragic what happened to him 😔 BUT now he is now immortalized as someone who has the courage to fight for what is right rather than just ignore the injustices and let it keep happening!
I would love to yap more about the subject and what it means to me but my brain is not good at translating thoughts in to words, this is all i coud conjure up, more rizal and el noli stuff coming ur way!
Since I'm rewatching Maria Clara at Ibarra on Netflix, at dahil may time ako for today's bidyow I'm just gonna give my two cents on this comment:
I think we can all agree that Maria Clara did NOT deserve to suffer the way she did, and yes she deserves to be happy with the only man she ever loved. But Maria Clara's story is the story of many women who were oppressed, and abused by priests during the Spanish era and sadly, this reality STILL exists even up to this day. And as much as I fucking hate to admit this, there are still many untold stories of women (even boys and young men) who were sexually abused by these disgusting hypocrites who call themselves instruments of God, and what's more painful is that the victims are silenced and the abusers get away with it because *coughs* ✨the Church protects them✨
Don't get me wrong, I was baptized and raised as a Catholic myself, but I refuse to ignore cases like these which thankfully in the modern times are being addressed and taken actions of, but I'm not sure how many of these mga sugo ng Diyos are actually punished for their crimes (*clears throat* Church is still quite influential af even in the 21st century 🙃).
Ibarra is a good man with good intentions for San Diego, yet he was framed and accused of being a heretic and filibuster by [again] these fugly Church peeps because they wanted the Filipinos to remain indios: uneducated and poor af. Juan Crisostomo Ibarra is the image of those people who only wanted to help their fellow Filipinos, yet are the ones who are being punished for the most nonsense reasons, and the very people who called themselves his friends and supporters are the same people who turned their backs on him because they were afraid of suffering the same fate as Crisostomo (and Don Rafael) .
In the show, I saw myself in Klay (except that I passed my Noli, El Fili and Rizal lessons 🤣) my only drive to read Noli and El Fili was to pass my Filipino subject. I did not have a full grasp of the lesson that Rizal was trying to teach. The moment I passed my subject, I was like "Oh good! Finally!" but I didn't take those learnings by heart. And I said the very same thing Klay said in the earlier episode, "What's the point of studying Noli and El Fili when I can't even apply it on the course I'm taking or my job when I graduate?" And I admit, history wasn't my favorite subject, I found it boring. I missed the whole point of what my teacher was teaching me.
I could go on and on about the characters of the novels and the show but to sum it all up, every character and events are the very images of every Filipino, their struggles, and the truth about what was really happening in our country. Rizal's Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo weren't the kind of novels you expect them to be, it is not a stereotypical love story, and it wasn't written to make the readers OR the audiences happy. These novels are here to teach the Klays like you and me not only about our history but also open our eyes to the reality of how this cancer of the society still exists and if we, the Filipino people don't do something to "cure" this, our country will NEVER progress.
As much as I wanted Ibarra and Maria to have a happily ever after they both deserve, I am glad that GMA 7 actually didn't stray away too much from its source materials, because now I understand why I had to learn those books. I understand now why Rizal was named national hero, his novels paved the way for the Filipinos to finally stand up and fight the oppressors.
However, as much as it pains me of how tragic Rizal's novels are, at least in the show, they got a happy ending. Just in a different timeline and universe but still, happily ever after.
I am liveblogging me rereading Noli Me Tangere in my fandom blog and honestly the writing kinda slaps. If you wanna read Filipiniana literature, read Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo. I promise you it's not as boring as school made them out to be.
Jose Rizal is like extremely snarky and each paragraph has a backhanded statement that criticizes his time period and some of the scenes are really funny
Please, if you've never read the books for leisure before and had only read it for study, it provides such a different experience and you might just like it!
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