#fishy.analysis

Can I talk about this chapter for a hot minute because holy frick-

Yor wants to learn to cook because she feels inadequate as a wife who Doesn’t know how to cook, and she says to herself it’s important for her to know how to cook so she could keep up her wifely facade and no one would suspect her, a 27-year-old single woman, of being a spy (and incidentally learn she’s actually an assassin). And like, yes that’s all there is to this chapter, she wants to improve her cooking skills, she goes to her friend(?) and studies, and eventually she succeeds and her family enjoys her meal. That’s all. Except this isn’t the first time we learned Yor is a bad cook, but it is the first time we see her attempt to improve on it. And part of it is the societal expectation on wives and women to know how to cook because that’s their Role, but we know Loid doesn’t really care about that (Anya does comment on it, in the blunt way children might say and hurt without meaning it).

What this is, is a feeling of inadequacy. Yor’s best qualities are her strength and her care for Loid and Anya, the almost instant devotion to them and the fierce protectiveness that runs through her whenever they’re in danger (e.g. teeth), and as long as she had those she can tell herself she does her job (as a wife, as a mother) well. That’s how she learned to take care of Yuri, after all - that’s the love she knows to show. That wasn’t enough though, not in the last chapters when Loid felt so sick of her cooking he was incapacitated in the toilet all the day (a lie Anya made up, but Yor doesn’t know it), not when despite her best efforts Anya slipped away twice (to save Loid, but Yor doesn’t know it). To her those are failures that prove Yor Briar is not a good Wife. Her strength did not fail her, but it did not prevent the catastrophes she (thinks she) could’ve prevented. And if her strength is not enough, what else is there to Yor?

She turns to face her fault, her inability to cook. Yor goes to Camilla so she could teach her how to cook, which is a brave choice because Camilla seems to hate her guts. Yuri drops by to taste-test, and we learn Yor cooked for Yuri after they lost their parents. After many failed attempts Camilla asks if the siblings can remember any of their mother’s favorite meals, and through recollection and trial and experiment Yor succeeds - she manages to make the stew they ate as children. It’s delicious. Triumphant, Yor returns to the Forger household and makes it again, and to her delight Loid and Anya immensely enjoy it.

She cries tears of joy, elated, because Yor Forger is a good wife; not wife as in Wife who must know how to cook; wife because she loves them. In this act, Yor proves to herself she still cares for her loved ones even if not by using her strength. It’s why the stew she makes is the one Yuri knows too, the one her mother made. It is victory for Yor who is not just the perfect assassin, for Yor who found value outside her work in this loving pretend-family. When she puts her heart into it, Yor overcomes her shortcomings and find love again.

An open world game lends itself well to exploration, sidequests and hidden secrets. It relies heavily on the player’s own decision to further the narrative, to observe the world surrounding them and make their own deductions about it from the clues they found. The story is told in such a way to accommodate the genre; if possible, the story never tells you outright what is happening, you have to connect the dots yourself. The overarching themes about identity and humanity are present in each sidequest and NPC you meet. The constant despair the protagonists can never escape from is never stated plainly, but it’s right there - just stop and look around you. Just as the game rewards your exploration and initiative, the story wishes you to engage with the text and dig deeper.

By their nature, single-player games are great in telling stories with only a single POV, the protagonist and indirectly the player. There is a great understated power in this restriction because you are able to control what information the player receives and manipulate it to suit your storytelling needs, like utilizing the lack of immediate available information to build tension and intrigue. But in Automata you don’t control a single protagonist, you control three - and in effect, the story is of three POV’s at once. Multiple POV’s have a different innate power to build intrigue from knowledge, rather than the lack of it, because even if the protagonists are plural the player is still singular. You, the player, have all the pieces of the puzzle, but every protagonist only has the incomplete picture, and you become acutely aware of this fact. Think of the secrets 2B, 9S and A2 keep from each other, the acts of love and devotion and betrayal they make; how the knowledge they have and the knowledge they lack affect their relationships and viewpoints of each other; the agony you are put in knowing everything the protagonists never do. To utilize this effect well, it’s necessary for each POV to interact with the other and to see the same events from different perspectives, which is exactly what Automata did in the first and second half of the game.

Or assorted thoughts about materialism vs. spiritualism in hnk

PS: only on CH54, give me some slack.

Like, take V4 for instance. It’s essentially a recovery arc, a Volume dedicated to grief and dealing with the aftermath of tragedies. And I don’t think that’s the obvious direction for the show to go on after V1-3, heck just look what most fanfics post V3 suggested. It’s not necessarily a unique choice, but there’s a bold statement in following a Volume so centered about tragedy and death and just, mellowing it. In essence, V4 tells you quite straightforwardly - no, this show isn’t about death as a plot device. It can happen, but it’s not the point.

Followed by V5, with its opening track titled “Triumph”, I think that’s where the hope really shines through. Because you could argue V4 was just a temporary rest, so they could build all that hope in V4 only to smash it to pieces in V5 a la V3 all over again. Except for all its dark moments, V5 ends with the White Fang halfway recovered and no significant personal losses, and miss Raven-you-could’ve-made-me-a-boring-villain-so-easily-Branwen... strangely human. You could argue similarly for Cinder not dying.

I absolutely love Ironwood’s character, precisely because I despise everything about him.

I’ve mentioned this a day or two ago, but when I first saw Ironwood, well - I was already a skeptic, because military man is military man and that’s enough reason to question everything about him. He’s tall, imposing, somewhat good-looking (although that original army haircut, ugh...), certainly strong.

And then he fucking speaks, and he’s the nicest person around. He’s soft-spoken, he’s trying to get a word in while the rest of Ozpin’s gang talks all over him, Glynda cuts him off to reprimand him. Honestly you want to feel bad about him, he’s only trying to do the right thing and everyone treats him like a child. His history with Glynda makes you think of a fleeing romance, lovers separated by duty. He’s shy, he’s awkward to be around, he can’t give speeches for shit.

And there’s something so charming about that in a person, you know? He’s not perfect, he’s not trying to be a god among man, he acknowledges his problems communicating with others. You feel sorry for him because maybe you were just like him too.

But here’s the scary part; he’s always been the most dangerous of Ozpin’s gang. He was ready to call for an invasion on Mount Glenn, he brought an army to peace talks, he saw his force as safety. He brought the most terrible ideas to the table, and never seems aware of their danger.

And there’s a duality to this, because his character isn’t military macho man, walking charisma and suggesting you serve justice in violence. He’s not impervious to judgement of his character, he doesn’t only show his strong front. He’s not nationalist radio 24/7, he’s not ancient general offering his wisdom.

His character is the military man, stripped down to its very core - the authoritarian view of “I know exactly what needs to be done and I know better than you”, the sweet poison in offering you to make a better person out of yourselves in enlistment, the insidiousness of taking those who were abused and molding them into soldiers, the very idea that with enough force, with enough violence, I can solve everything, I can bring peace!

It’s a new kind of danger, because he doesn’t want you to join him on his pedestal. He lowers it down and offers you a step with some kind words.

And it blew my mind when I first saw that! Like, how easy would it have been to make him a walking caricature of general, with the exact same plot beats? Everyone would’ve known he’s full of shit, we’re past the point of falling for that kind of character. But you can’t look at Ironwood’s character at first and realize he’s dangerous because he looks bad like you’d expect, he’s dangerous because his actions and words make him dangerous.

And here’s the actual scary part; it’s real. If one mask doesn’t work, we change it for another. If people can see the veneer for what it is, we can fix it. Dangerous people will always find a way to be appealing, and that’s true for the army just as well. Danger is always in actions, not appearances.

Okay, something’s bothering here me; look at the distance between Salem’s index finger and her thumb. Look at the sharp angle between the thumb and the forearm. It’s unnatural, right? Even in Anime proportions, this looks wrong to me.

Assuming this isn’t an animation error or a deliberate exaggeration, is this the first time we see how unnatural Salem’s body really is? Beyond the discoloration, of course. Anatomically, Salem’s body is made of some weird stuff.

Which, we knew, obviously, Hazel mentioned she put herself together after he destroyed her body. But seeing it? I keep thinking about the shot from the intro, where Salem looms menacingly over Oscar with the Hound’s wings sprouting from her body.

I feel like we might see more body-horror with Salem later on.