Coffee Fueled Color

Mostly, though, I have been busy locking myself away to watch Luke Cage over and over again. Look, after I went through it the first time, I had to do a second re-watch for nuances and commentary that I had missed. Annnnd then I had to do a Jessica Jones re-watch.

One thing that I can gladly say is that the marvel TV shows are building on each other--and I don’t mean things like strong universe building, where you get that it’s all part of one big story that jumps around to several different actors, though they do that fantastically. What I mean is that each new series/season takes the strong bones that were tested out in the previous one, and adds their own twist to them to make it an even stronger set of bones to pass on. Each show has it’s weaknesses, too, but I’m so glad to see that the weaknesses aren’t repeated. Of course, when you have different creative teams behind each project, the strengths and weaknesses are inherently different, but there has been great oversight on that, making the over arching strengths of each show into part of a larger whole. You know you’re going to get amazing friendship, down-to-earth mistakes like forgetting to charge cell phones, and stupid-fun action sequences in every Marvel TV offering.

I also had some lock down time with Gotham season 2, and .... that one has been quite a lot more disappointing. There’s still some great stuff. Gotham’s sense of visual style is--for all that people who enjoy computers can see the photoshopped edges--incredible. The number of times I squeal about seeing what is basically Timm’s noir animation come to life must make my housemates think I’m a lost cause. The kids are still written one hundred percent perfectly (though Bruce is growing up very fast XD).

Season 2′s big turn off for me is that it’s heading more and more ‘comic booky’ and the weaknesses of the comic books--race fail and racist short hand, blatant misogyny, and cliched character development (btw, the first two are much much worse than the final one, but now that the final one is there, it’s really hard to enjoy any part of the series)--are more apparent.

Still, as bizzaro-world as it is, I will watch anything that tells the story of this Penguin. The Riddler’s complexities are unfortunately being pushed into ‘too much comic book’ territory, despite the actor’s clear determination to deliver the best god damn performance of a broken person lurching from one identity to the next in an attempt to find some sort of solid ground. Here’s hoping the writers in Gotham’s room get smacked in the face with a newspaper every time they want to write about this weird vision of mental illness that they have somehow developed. Seeing Ed turn into the more detective for hire by the nefarious and not so nefarious version of the Riddler would be grand.

BUT. But. This has happened before, and to a much more story sensitive person. In my copy of Dragonflight (2005 Del Rey Books paperback) on page 16 it states that L'tol was green Larth’s rider. In Dragonquest and later books, this was revised to brown, as well. I always thought that this was a copy error as well, or that Anne McCaffrey had simply not bothered to remember Larth’s color from book to book.

That always disappointed me, since we know men who ride greens are almost always gay. Which would be super interesting, as Lytol is such a respected figure, particularly among Lord Holders, who are depicted as being fairly homophobic. Lytol already has a lot of dimensions to his character, but the added layer for someone who survived the death of his dragon, survived Fax, made Ruatha a viable hold, and did it all to benefit Jaxom, before going on to being one of the great leaders of Pern in recovering Southern would have been really cool. Still, Larth is brown in all subsequent books, so I always thought brown was canon.

However, this thing with Giron also erases a probably bi character. Dragonseye states that blue riders tend more toward homosexuality, as well, but for the sake of whatever argument you might want to make against that, let’s just agree that blue riders are by authorial word, not adverse to weyring up with green riders of any gender. So, if G'ron had been a blue rider, he would be definitively somewhere on the spectrum. As a brown rider, he still could be gay, bi, or anything else, but it is never actually confirmed, as browns are expected to be straight (even if later, the author decides that they will fly greens, as well as queens).

So, I love what they did with the Mirror Universe in DS9. It’s one of the reasons I liked DS9′s format: it took one off episode ideas from the earlier shows, and world built around them like there was no tomorrow. Last time I did a DS9 re-watch I was struck by the fact that Mirror!Worf and Mirror!Garak have a very bizarre subtext to their interaction (or not really bizarre, given the universe that they’re in, but there’s no counter to it in the standard universe. Their interaction is totally unique to the brutality of the Mirror Universe, which is different because most of the interactions between people in both universes echo along with each other). Anyway, I promised myself that I’d take a closer look the next time I went on a DS9 binge, and I’m on a binge now, so, I was paying a lot of attention through “Crossover” and “Through the Looking Glass” as the lead-ins to “Shattered Mirror” and “Emperor’s New Cloak.”

Anyway, I realized something while watching “Through the Looking Glass” which gives Mirror!Garak as surprising amount of depth, given that the mirror version is not a nuanced person. Garak is jealous of Sisko’s relationship with the Intendant. Garak’s face throughout “Looking Glass” is a wonderful study, and I recommend you all look at it.

He’s so pleased to tell Kira that Sisko is dead he can’t stop grinning. This is understandable, he spent his first episode establishing that he wanted to kill Intendant Kira to take her place, and also he clearly feels that the Klingon-Cardassian order is perfect just the way it is, so the death of a rebel helps cement his power and keeps the natural order of things going. However, he quickly picks up on Kira’s layers of dissatisfaction with the news. The smile drops right off, and irritation begins to percolate in snippy retorts to Kira’s lack of joyful response.

Now, why should Mirror!Garak be annoyed that his arch rival is upset by the death of a Terran? The fact that she might be deeply emotionally attached to a rebel is a huge point of weakness that he could exploit wide open. Hey, all those plans for her death? Well, he’s just struck an emotional blow, and even if this Garak doesn’t believe that a good insult will cut forever, he certainly has been established as being far too gleeful in torturing people, and emotional pain from Kira of all people should be making him happy as the proverbial clam.

Watch his face, though, when Sisko shows up, and Mirror!Kira gets self-indulgent all over him. Not only is Garak not happy that he can’t kill Ben in front of her, he can’t stop looking as the hottest of makeouts ensues. He’s absolutely furious that the Terran is getting the ‘Mistress’s favorite pet’ treatment. Why? Yes, it is annoying to have all your nice weekend plans pushed to the side for a booty call, but come on, Mirror!Garak has just gotten all the dirt he could possibly want on the Intendant handed to him. She’s emotionally attached to Sisko--not that she won’t kill or torture him as needed, but the necessary measures would hurt her. Also, this Intendant dallying with a jumped up Terran slave turned rebel? Klingon High Command would not like that. Oh no, precious, this goes far past her usual indulgences and into the realm of dishonor and treason.

So why is it that Garak spends the entire episode defending and collaborating with Kira, still keeping a sharp tongue in his head, mind, while doing his damndest to kill Sisko painfully? His feelings on the situation definitely get way out of control and into the realm of serious passionate “I will hunt you down and torture you” at the point when Sisko’s double cross is revealed and Garak shouts “Pursue!” The answer is pretty simple--Garak actually likes his Intendant, a lot. And he is infuriated that she’d still choose a Terran over him any day of the week.

“Destiny” (Season 3 - Episode 15, only 4 episodes before “Looking Glass”) established that Cardassians on the prime universe side see intellectual competition as a pretty damn romantic start to courtship. There’s not much obvious difference between Mirror!Cardassians and Prime!Cardassians, culturally speaking. Mirror!Cardassians seem to be about as brutal as they were during the Occupation of Bajor, and the major differences in Garak seem to be a certain lack of subtlty, but he’s also in a position of assured authority and power, which he has not occupied in the Prime Universe (Garak has always been aware of Tain in the Prime universe, even at the height of his own presumed power within the Obsidian Order, and honestly, we’re never going to know what he was really like, then. We’ve only really seen Garak ‘Brung Low’ and thus in need of every subtly as a weapon). We can assume, then, that Mirror!Cardassians have similar outlooks on romance and courtship, perhaps only a little less subtle, if there is any difference at all.

Enter Mirror!Garak, who has been trying to kill Mirror!Kira, and notably failing at it for as long as they have worked together. He, meanwhile, is treated to verbal tongue lashings about his own excessive enjoyment of torturing others, his lack of imagination, his competence, whatever Mirror!Kira wants to insult him with that day. He’s also her favorite instrument of fear, and he clearly enjoys how her volatile temperment and false sense of friendliness affects the Terrans under her thumb. Basically, she’s been leaving him the Cardassian equivalent of flowers and chocolates, and he’s been trying to make her see his undying dislike and hostility as expressed through assassination attempts. Serious grand romantic gestures, please step up and learn something.

His reactions in “Looking Glass” all make sense when read as unrequited infatuation. Mirror!Garak really loves working with Mirror!Kira, even though they are probably the most dysfunctional team in the quadrant as long as he continues to use power plays to substitute for intimacy, and she continues to totally ignore him. Just saying, any time Kira actually has a use for Garak, he’s wreathed in genuine smiles. Any time she’s overtly flirting with someone else, they suddenly get dragged into horrible plans of his for over turning her rule, or he will sometimes more simply try to kill them.

Good design choices, is what I’m saying. It could have been ruined if that part hadn’t been put to good narrative use. I don’t mean if they had left that whole section dialog free: that could have been satisfying in a different way. I think I’ve mentioned the value of silence in previous #MF’s thinky thoughts often enough. I know I ranted about the lack of it in certain sections of RE6, and tbh as soon as Barry picked up Natalia, I was worried that the game would spring some kind of bullshit fake stealth level, or use the quiet time to rip away all subtext and character motivations through cheesy dialog, but no, serious props, Barry and Natalia had a real conversation that advanced both characters. Props to the dialog team using the narrative moment, and SERIOUS commendation for dealing with the ‘Moira shot her sister’ back story in a really good way.

1. Polly was only injured, not killed for pathos, which is a major show of restraint and good judgement in a writer. It’s easy to believe only the worst case scenario will give rise to the sympathy that you want the audience to feel for your characters, when actually you can ease back and go for the less-overwhelming version, and get a better emotional reaction. Even though Polly’s not dead the incident still tore her family to bits, and maybe because she isn’t dead, the audience can feel more of the utter bitterness and poison that one bad reaction to a crisis can bring between people who are close.

2. Barry admitted that it was his own fucking fault for not locking up his guns with his kids in the house. The game’s narrative is very clear, beginning to end, that shitty gun ownership responsibility cannot and should not be offloaded onto Moira, that Barry’s initial reaction was horrendous, and oh, btw, if you like guns, and want to have them, that’s fine, but you’ve got to be a goddamn responsible adult if you want to own weapons.

3. The final part of this that made it such a marvelous moment for me was Natalia was being written like a normal kid, and Barry was being written as an adult, and they were having a real conversation about serious things, and none of the dialog felt patronizing. Natalia showed she was thinking about things from her perspective. ”Was it because she uses bad words?” - kid knows the way Moira speaks isn’t ‘okay’, but that’s the only bad thing that she can attribute to Moira. You can tell Natalia is trying hard to understand why Barry would ever be angry with Moira because what she knows of both of them is that they are Good A-fucking-Class People. She’s comes up with the direct ‘I know this is the only bad thing about this person’ question because she’s still just a child, and can’t be sure if bad language can be dismissed as a reason for massive familial strife. If she was older she would probably just ask “What do you mean? Moira might swear a lot, but she’s a very good person.” I like the kind of writing that treats kids as though they have minds of their own, which they do, but takes into account that kids are also kids. It’s a really hard kind of dialog to write, and RE:R2 nailed it here.

Anyway, Natalia is smart, and consistently brave, and trying to be helpful through the whole game. Also, her bricking things in the face was clearly helpful for the player several times, so good game design choices. Total treasure.

I suppose the final note is about the stinger, which I kind of want Ruin’s perspective on? The actual text about the cage looking for the bird, and the bird having changed makes the most sense to me if it is interpreted as:

The baggage of being a Wesker is always going to haunt the clone-y discards/family members. Said baggage includes a shocking amount of megalomania, a very unhealthy dose of self-absorption, and a complete-to-eventual shut down of empathy. However, while said baggage may try to entrap remaining shades of Weskers (for now, I guess that’s Jake and Natalia, but there’s a super easy ‘more to come’ that has now been written into the RE metaverse), they’ve changed, and can create their own destiny. Considering that’s 100% the character arc of Sherry and Jake’s campaign in RE6, which is taking place at the exact same time as Natalia is reading the poem, I think that’s what the game writers were getting at.

But.

But.

WHY DID THEY FRAME THAT SMILE FROM NATALIA AS THOUGH IT WAS FUCKING EVIL? Like the final shot was this deep smile, cut the music, we’re going in for some Deus Ex ‘Your friends aren’t who you think they are’ end stinger shit. The idea that Wesker-ettes aren’t going to do what RE has been priming their audience to expect from Weskers (i.e. pure and ridiculous evil) should be a good thing. And yet that final second was set up so that I, the audience, should believe it’s a bad thing that Natalia isn’t going to let herself be trapped by the Wesker-esque shit??? Maybe I’m confused about my interpretation of the bird-cage bit, or maybe I’m confused about the evil smile, and it’s not evil, I’m just primed to think that young girls grinning in horror games mean that children of the corn are gonna pop out of the field. idk.