#dghda meta

dghda s1 is about literally so much oh my god but if i were to pare it down to its barest bones and try to describe it in one word, i’d say it’s about duality. the duality of fate and free will, which is arguably the one of the main ideological engines driving the entire series. the duality of how different people react to similar traumas, as shown by the constant visual and narrative paralleling of characters (dirk and todd/ken and bart, todd/suzie boreton [she’s s2 but that one in particular is interesting enough that i’m gonna include it here lmao], etc.). and most notably to me the duality of the self — specifically in terms of what it means to lie to other people.

all the members of the agency trio are characterized in a way that’s inherently contradictory. dirk is an inner pessimist whose goals in s1 require a facade of borderline grating optimism. todd’s most defining traits are both his dangerously fierce loyalty and his past lying. farah spends pretty much the entire time trying to hide her weirdness/anxiousness under rigid plans and combat skill. and ALL of their arcs have a core moment in which they acknowledge that they have effectively created multiple versions of themselves via their inauthenticity, which serves as a major catalyst for their character growth.

anyways all of this to say. IT’S A SHOW ABOUT HOW LYING FORCES YOU TO CREATE MULTIPLE VERSIONS OF YOURSELF. AND THE MAIN SCI-FI MECHANIC IS LITERALLY SWAPPING SOULS WITH OTHER PEOPLE.

the villains are people who cannot reconcile with who they are and instead become addicted to pretending to be other people, and its ultimately their unwillingness to let that go that leads to their downfall. the people that swap their souls too many times take on an uncanny demeanor, because to continue lying about yourself is to lose your humanity. and the element of time travel further emphasizes this. patrick spring creates multiple versions of himself by time traveling because he’s traumatized and he cannot move on, and he dies by another version of himself. him creating multiple versions of himself inadvertently forces his daughter into a false version of herself. and when dirk and todd go back in time, they walk away learning that you can’t fix everything. splitting yourself up does not free yourself or other people. rather, much like the other lies they’ve told themselves and other people, it leaves you permanently stuck in a loop of self-destruction.

since we don't have the official ages of the blackwing folk, this is what i feel each character gives off (and i'm not counting francis, bcs we know how old he is and he's def the oldest)

first we have the OG rowdy 3, who are probably around late 30s to 40s

then i actually think mona could be older too. think about it, she's literally a shapeshifter so is technically ageless.

y'all know i'm obsessed with dirk/mona being found family siblings, that's why i think mona would be older than dirk/bart/vogel. idk dirk just gives off younger brother energy, and i think because of that mona did a lot to protect him in blackwing, yk bcs she's like a god essentially. bcs of this i always saw her as an older sister type, bcs i feel thé sheer power of her was so often used to protect dirk in blackwing.

now i'm like a firm believer in dirk and bart being the same age. like, their abilities parallel eachother so much it makes sense if the universe decided to drop 'em both onto earth at the same time (i would even not necessarily doubt bart and dirk being biological siblings, but that's just a bit too off canon for me to fully adopt dkfjdjf)

and then i think vogel is def the youngest, just because (iirc) riggins/preist/freidken/someone mentioned that when vogel joined blackwing was when the project became too unstable, causing the initial breakout. so clearly, there was alot of time before vogel joined.

the disease flare-ups in both of the brotzman siblings are stress-triggered, but it's sensory-heavy for amanda and emotion-heavy for todd. cases in point,

amanda:

freezes when she goes out on the street;

hurts her hand when she drums;

bursts into flames in a loud & bright store, despite feeling proud of herself for leaving the house;

todd:

gets a burn on his hand in which he held the phone when panicked amanda called him;

chokes when farah leaves him alone and he ends up running into police (while on the run from the government).

though, despite the difference, there's a similarity in that both cases somewhat represent the idea that "what you fear most in yourself, will hurt you (so let go of the fear)":

— amanda knows she's got the disease, so she stays holed up indoors despite hating the boredom, so even mild sensory distortions send her careening.

— todd believes his feelings are not worth examining, so he doesn't, and they boil under until they boil over.

advice for amanda: live your life, even if it's dangerous.

Hello friends!! It's been a WHILE but I'm back with this series - You may follow the google docs file I'm writing everything down in, also! If you haven't yet, links to the first three episodes:

S1E1 - Horizons / S1E2 - Lost and Found / S1E3 - Rogue Wall Enthusiasts

Click read more to read the analysis of the fourth episode! Tagging: @clockworkcheetah @urlocallesbiab @generalized-incompetence @amber-angel @goatygoat @frenchfriedgiraffe

Turning to Exhibit A: this is Patrick Spring. he has two massive electric-crossbow arrows sticking out of his chest. he's about to bleed out probably :)

and then Catherine saves his life! And Patrick immediately falls in love with her and they have a great time together (before she gets fridged for crimes of being a woman). good, great, we all knew that part.

BUT THEN we turn to Exhibit B: guess who ALSO gets shot with two arrows. that's right, this bitch right here:

and WHO, might you ask, saves his life????

aaaaaand if we follow the logic of things doubling up and paralleling and whatever that the show revolves around, we come to a very straightforward conclusion.

this is adding on to this post i made a while ago. basically, i fully believe that the writers of this show set up the perfect opportunity to have the theme of s2 be about childhood, specifically exploring the effects of trauma (and escapism/maladaptive daydreaming). its already something that is featured or referenced to, however i think that there was a lot of potential for the show if they fully embraced the theme.

sharing the following thing i wrote in the dghda server re: todd's character growth in s2 upon the request of another server member!

for context, this is regarding a conversation that sprung up in the dghda server about some people viewing Todd as manipulative/uncaring towards Dirk, vs other people who saw his arc in s2 through a different lens. to be clear, despite various disagreements, the conversation was positive and everyone was respectful which was really nice, considering how bad discourse can get sometimes. but anyway i came in late to the conversation and this was my contribution - clearly, i fall in camp 2:

[About Todd's ups and downs in S2:] growth isn't linear and people can take steps forward and then fall back, but what matters ultimately to me is that they keep trying to take those steps forward even when they make mistakes and I think Todd does do that.

He's spent so much of his life in a prison of his own making, lying to everyone and digging a hole so deep he didn't think he could ever get out of it. And I think he did always care about Amanda at the very least but he did this HUGE fuckup and covering that up led to this avalanche of horrible decisions and now he has to own up to his shit and learn how to care about people again without hiding from his actions.

He definitely gets tunnel vision about Amanda, and I think that makes sense. He’s so desperate to “fix” things and a big part of his story in season 2 is learning that, like Amanda said, some things you can’t just FIX. Sometimes you just have to pick up the pieces you have left and do your best to make something good with them.

Additionally [in regards to previous comments made about Todd ignoring/not caring about the trauma Dirk suffered in his second bout in Blackwing], he doesn’t know the extent of what happened in Blacking, not yet. And he’s taken several steps back by centering all his focus on finding Dirk - Dirk who has always seemed so optimistic and enthusiastic - to “fix” things (because he hasn’t learned his lesson about fixing things yet). And he doesn’t know how to reconcile the Dirk he knew before with the things that this new stint in Blackwing has changed about Dirk.

I don’t think Todd is malicious or not caring about Dirk - I think he has done so much self isolation over the years that he is unused to knowing how to identify what’s going on with other people/doesn’t know how to handle things. He does try to uplift Dirk, even if he doesn’t always do it in the right way, but that doesn’t make him cruel or manipulative. It makes him a human person who is also struggling to learn how to exist in community with others.

I think there’s also something to be said for the black and white ways we can view fictional characters who react to situations in ways that create defensiveness in us based on our own experiences/our own traumas. I think processing that through fiction is such a powerful tool but it can also put blinders on us and view some characters as wholly good “perfect cinnamon rolls” and other characters as “horrible manipulators”, when really, both types of characters have strengths and flaws, and neither exists purely on one end of the spectrum or the other.