#essayoki

Then we move on to their adulthood. One of theirs main themes is craving humanity, while not being fully human, and being gods in a way.

Agnes tries to simply mimic people around her to try and "fit in", without really understanding why they do what they do, to pretend to be human, a person, someone with the most ordinary life.

Jon, on the other hand, tries to prove that he is still human. He's ashamed to be not human, to have any sort of power. He wants to be human so badly, but he barely knows what humanity is for him. Of course, he's not physically human anymore, but what makes him convinced of his lost humanity, is how other people view him. (I do have a huge analysis of Jon, that talks about his humanity in depth so you can check it out if you want!)

But even before that Jon did show signs of being misunderstood as a human. Both Jon and Agnes were still very much outcasts even as they grew up. Honestly this part very much seems like something Martin could say about Jon.

They both carry the burden of their destiny and their godhood.

While Jon only found out about his destiny at the very end, for Agnes she knew nothing more than her destiny. She never wanted it, but it’s all she ever have known. Jon feels guilty and scared of his destiny, it’s something he genuinely hates. Both of them feel trapped by it and the world reminds them of it.

Agnes is not known. None of her close ones could really describe who she was as a person. Not the people, who raised her, not the person, who was in love with her. She, as the chosen one, has no voice in her own story. People barely knew her, barely cared to.

Both of them are unknown despite quite literally having completely opposite ways of their story being told.

Jon, on the other hand, is the main character. You, as a listener, know so much about him, how he's feeling, what he went through. And yet, while they are a few people like Georgie, Melanie and Basira, to whom he was a friend, who knew him, and cared about him, at the end the world doesn’t know him. Every single person knows him, some saw him in their dreams, but they only know him as the Archivist and nothing more. To them, he'll forever be the Archivist.

Lastly, their love and their death.

These quotes are here just because I constantly think about them:

These two scenes just seem so similar, especially, with the context of their destinies and how they feel about it. Again, Jack and Martin feel very similar, especially how they view their lovers.

Something something your lover, who you often don't really understand, who often leads you to wonder what's going on in their head, to wonder how they really feel, dying by their own hand (/by yours when asked to kill them) after a kiss, while crying over you and feeling guilty for the pain they've caused you in this moment. Is this anything.

I don't think Harlan is a bad writer. I enjoyed a lot of Malevolent's first seasons and the fact that I care enough to be frustrated by the writing in the show later on only proves that Malevolent isnt bad. Especially considering the amount of (granted, a lot of unposted) art I've made for it.

The characters were interesting and I quite liked the dynamics. I loved Kayne as soon as he first appeared in the show, he's exactly the type of characters I enjoy. He was always my favourite character along with Yellow, The Butcher and Charlie(Noel). Yorick and Antoine were fun too!

Malevolent was fun for me. I love media that has a lot of metaphors that I can dig through and think about months and months later. But i do have my gripes with it...

I don't think patreon making most of the decisions is bad. I think it's totally okay if you're not a fan of that decision on the writing's part! The only problem that i personally had with it is that it's clear where this moment happens in the show. I wish it would be a bit less noticeable, because, once I realised that, I couldn't stop finding those spots throughout the whole podcast. But that's nitpicking.

Later seasons feel more like AUs. Which is fine! If they were just AUs that is.

I think S2(The Dark World) and S4(New York) (i could have totally mixed them up, apologies if i did) are the ones that I personally enjoyed the most.

I liked the writing of S3(?)(The Larson's Mansion), but I really didn't like where at this point the characterisation started to go and I wasn't hooked on the story.

Despite me enjoying the New York arc, that was the point of no return for the story imo. I don't mind cults being in the centre of attention, that was always kind of the point in the story. I do mind how... over the top everything went down. The characters were left unfinished. And I like characters dying! it's okay for characters to die, it doesn't make the media bad just because your fave died. Sometimes the whole point is that this character's life was cut short without any meaning.

However..... If that was supposed to make me feel that way, it failed. It succeeded in showing Kayne's cruelty in the fact that he doesn't care, yes. But. There was nothing else to it. It did not bring anything else to the table, no satisfaction, no care for the characters we've followed so far.

I'm also not a fan of how Faroe was presented in S5. I didn't see her grown up version, 'cause i already stopped listening at that point, but the whole "she was always there with you in the flames" (or something, forgive me, it's been a while) really threw me off. I'd get it if it was Arthur to think that, he's allowed to be delusional. But making that almost a fact doesn't make sense for her metaphorically speaking. She was always haunting the narrative, but not as an angel or a glimmer of hope, but as a mistake you can't fix. You can't apologise and make it better, she's gone and you have to live with the grief of failing her.

The addition of.. so many more characters in S5 and the whole time traveling PLUS multiverse travelling also made me stop caring. It's not that the characters were bad or the writing for the season itself. That is just not a 30s detective horror story anymore. Stories can change, but this just feels like a completely different show with your favourite boy there!!

The fandom's favourite boy... I could not like Arthur the same after what he did to Bella. I'm all for flawed characters and I actually loved what it was meant to portray at first! But then Arthur was kept being treated as this silly lovable badass guy, who made some mild mistakes and it just... never sat right with me.

God knows I love Jon from TMA and his writing and, comparing the two, I can't help, but see where I cheer for Jon's morally gray actions, because how much more depth they add to his character, and where I sigh at Arthur's choices because they make me even more disappointed in how much more unlikable I keep finding him each time his bad choices are brushed off or forgiven.

I don't think I have anything to add to my female characters being written poorly, so I'll just copy what I've already said in those tags. I do understand why there aren't any lead female characters... aside from Lilith i suppose. Harlan is the only voice actor for the show, he can only do so much with his voice. But in S1 most of the side characters were women to balance it out. The further we go the more main male characters we get, unlike how it was in S1-S3 with characters who you can call the main cast being only Arthur and John. Thus, simultaneously, with getting less and less background characters, especially female background characters, and I can only handle so much female characters erasure before I'm done with said media altogether.

To summarise: we've lost the plot and that saddens me deeply.