(I have not seen Stone Ocean yet so rest assured I will update this if I get any facts wrong)
I really hate how Dio is considered bisexual rep by the JJBA fandom, when there’s multiple reasons wrong with that: A. Dio is the kind of person who loves no one but himself and every person he is close to is out of manipulation rather than genuine affection. B. The only people Dio has ever canonically fucked is the dozens of women he impregnated/killed and any man who was romantically obsessed with him like Vanilla Ice, it’s not reciprocated. Even women simping for him like Mariah wasn’t reciprocated. Dio saw all of the subordinates simping for him as pawns and as for Pucci, he saw him as his successor and Pucci’s love for Dio is portrayed as a religious admiration, not romantic love. Pucci is a PRIEST ffs. Dio literally chose him BECAUSE he wasn’t driven by any desires, including sexual desires.
(Also it’s worth noting that Pucci met Dio when he was 16 so I’d advise people to stop making the “Dio’s boyfriend” jokes. Also DONT SHIP THEM FFS)
And I know ppl will go:
“Oh but Araki confirmed in an interview that Dio could go either way in terms of dating a man or woman”
Yeah, but that was from an interview nearly 20 years ago and in that same interview Araki confirmed Dio did not love Pucci. And even if Dio is bi, what I’ve seen from the story doesn’t reflect that. Every man Dio’s ever been close to, he’s either manipulated or abused them. One of them is his brother Jonathan, whom he abused and desecrated his body. His relationship with Pucci is strictly platonic and again reads more like a god manipulating a starstruck teenager into being his protege cos they share a common goal.
And in terms of women… there are countless half naked corpses of women with their blood drained whenever Dio’s in his mansion. I think that says it all, really.
So taking Araki’s word out of account, why do people think Dio is bi? Well, people forget this detail but Dio is really touchy feely and invasive with people. He licks his lips when he encounters Polnareff and Avdol, he twirls Kakyoin’s earrings when trying to groom him. (Also bear in mind Kakyoin’s 17). When he seduces women to his chambers, he gets them naked and slowly rubs their necks before piercing his fingers into them. He always speaks in an eerily calm, confident tone to lull people into a false sense of security. He frequently toys with people’s emotions and uses their vices to his advantage. The flesh buds he uses to brainwash people are TENTACLE LIKE PARASITES COMING OUT OF HIS HAIR LIKE ITS FUCKING HENTAI.
This man is fucking CREEPY and that’s kind of the POINT? Dio is all about domination and power. And as long as they’ve been in fiction, vampires have always been a supernatural personification of predators. And seduction is one of a vampire’s strongest skills. The fact he does this to anyone regardless of gender is proof that Dio is an opportunistic predator and serial killer.
So with all that in mind, do we REALLY want a predatory vampire who grooms, abuses and kills people regardless of gender as one of our bisexual rep in Jojo?
I’m well aware Dio’s not the only canon LGBT character in Jojo, thank god. But I do not consider Dio bisexual at all, no matter what the word of god says, cos the actual text of the story does not present that.
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the latter half was very engaging and i actually thoroughly enjoyed it. pucci’s writing and reasoning was very immersive and compelling and good !!
the idea that in the end everyone got the past and present that they deserved was heartbreaking and beautiful and it was a good end to this universe i fear. it hurt like hell that a child was the one who had to bear weight to it but emporio is the best for a reason. i believe emporio also got a better future through it, even if it wasn’t the future he was expecting—but i suppose that’s the message of the story.
i stopped to consider many times how araki could create something so intricate and beautiful. so personal and filled with life that wasn’t just his own. it’s real art i think, to see the world so far outside of your own. i think that’s what makes jojo so beautiful, it grows with its author, and with its readers and the world around it.
More than anything else in his life Yoshikahe Kira puts the most effort into not standing out. He is not the type of man who wishes to be life’s star, no he’d much rather be just another random background character in the world’s grand narrative. And yet he wears flashy eye-catching clothes like a bright purple blazer, pinstripe green shirt, or a tie covered in Skulls. His design more than any of the other stand users in part 4 stands out, not only because of his lack of uniform clothing but also because of his physical appearance. The man has lush blonde hair and bright blue eyes, two traits rarely found in rural Japan. You'd think he would have at least dyed his hair black by now, especially with how much blonde hair sticks out like a sore thumb in Japan. Yet he chooses to remain the same, to never hide his eye-catching features despite them contradicting his desire and efforts to remain unseen. One could just chop this up to arrogance, that Kira believes himself to be so skilled and fortunate that he doesn't feel the need to change his appearance to match the norm. Yet that wouldn’t make sense considering how obsessed the man is with maintaining everything in his life, down to the exact time he eats and sleeps. No it is not arrogance that creates this contradiction but rather the very essence of his own nature. Kira is a living contradiction, a serial killer who wishes to live a peaceful and quiet life.
Kira is what the youth call a total square. He is a plain salary man that lives his life based on a set routine. Eating a healthy diet, doing light exercise, going to bed on time, avoiding parties, no smoking, and keeping to himself. He even makes sure to drink a glass of warm milk before bed every night. Yes he lives a life even too dull for the most mundane and ordinary of men. Or at least it would be if he wasn’t one of the most horrific serial killers in human history.
Kira has killed countless innocent women, coldly snuffing out their lives just so he can use their severed hands to satisfy his deranged urges. Committing acts devoid of even the faintest hint of peace for reasons beyond a normal man’s understanding. He is a truly sickening creature reaching heights of moral depravity that rival that of literal monsters like Kars and Dio. Worst of all, his motivations are even more inhuman than them. At least Kars and Dio were on some level motivated by a desire to thrive in a world that rejected them for the circumstances of their birth. Kira just kills people on the whims of depraved urges. A complete contradiction to the peace and quiet he claims to love.
If one did not know any better they would assume that there are two different versions of Kira. Yet not only are they one in the same, but it is precisely because of this contradiction that Kira can strive. Kira’s facade of an average man just living a quiet life is ultimately what allows him to kill without consequences. Not only because he is the last person anyone would suspect but because his existence is such a contradiction that people are unable to acknowledge it. And this is why Kira and his murders fade into the shadows. However perhaps the greatest power born from Kira’s contradicting nature is his very Stand, Killer Queen
Killer Queen is a perfect reflection of Kira’s contradictory soul. A cat face monster with the ability to to turn anything it touches into a bomb. At first glance this power would be seen as more hindrance than a benefit to Kira. Not only are bombs incredibly loud and eye-catching, but they leave behind evidence of their existence in the damage they cause. Yet Killer Queen is Kira’s greatest tool in his crimes. The Bombs Killer Queen creates are both invisible and silent to the average person, allowing Kira to kill whoever he wants without attracting any attention. Most importantly though the Bombs Killer Queen use don’t just destroy their targets but completely erase them, leaving behind no evidence whatsoever. Just like Kira himself is a contradiction, so are the bombs Killer queen creates.
Most interesting of all though is how Kira is completely oblivious to his own contradictions. When Kira takes on the identity of Kosaku Kawajiri he is given everything he has claimed to always want, the ideal peaceful life. He is now a normal family man, living in the suburbs with a nuclear family, and a past devoid of anything unusual. By all accounts Kira should be happy not only did he make the perfect escape from Josuke and his gang but he now lives the model life of a Japanese citizen. Except Kira isn’t happy, if anything he’s more miserable than he’s ever been. While living as the truly normal and average salary man Kosaku Kawajiri, Kira’s sense of inner peace is thrown into complete chaos. He finds nothing but stress when faced with the man's family, feels nothing but disgust when doing his job, and having to resist his own urges drives him to madness. He is finally living a quiet life and yet is brought nothing but grief by it. It’s Kira’s greatest contradiction and he is completely oblivious to it. And that is because what Kira considers a quiet and peaceful life is completely divorced from reality. To Kira it is normal to indulge in your darkest impulse and take other people’s lives. To him murder is Peace. Shown best with how he proceeds to "court" the severed hands he collects, treating them like his girlfriend and even taking them out on "dates". And this is what makes Kira such a terrifying villain, his complete disconnect from the world around him and humanity. Kira is obvious to his own contradiction because he doesn't consider them a contradiction at all.
I think it’s important to remember that Jotaro was an absent father but not a bad father. Like his absence from Jolyne and her mom’s life wasn’t even because of ambition or not caring about them. His absence was because he cared about them and didn’t want to be the reason why they died or got hurt.
I feel like araki really does a good job of showing not telling us this, so good of a job that it went over people’s head.
Like, Narancia is 17 when he dies In like a split second to a Stand.
Shigechi Yangu is 13-14 years old when he gets killed instantly by Kira via Killer Queen.
Hayato is 11 years old and has to go through Bites the Dust like 10+ times.
Stand Users do not fuck around if they’re on that evil shit. You can literally die in a second. Jotaro knows this. Stand users are also drawn to each other.
Compound that with all the trauma Jotaro went through as a young man and you can understand why he’d separate himself Jolyne and his wife if it meant they don’t have to encounter that.
We see how quickly Enrico Pucci goes after Jolyne just to get to Jotaro. We him give his own life just to save her.
This man loves them dearly.
But he also knows that if it’s a wrong-place-wrong-time situation with a Stand that it would mean they’re both killed or maimed. Yeah, he’s a stoic guy but he isn’t some unfeeling cold dude.
You know it had to hurt him deeply to watch his own family split up all because he can’t risk being a indirect cause of harm for them
This man literally is willing to break the law and just walk Jolyne out of prison to keep her safe. He loves his family yall.
The story of Foo Fighters parallels The Little Mermaid in so many ways (the original version by Hans Christian Anderson, not disney)
FF's identity was so important to them, they feared losing that sentience and no longer existing
The mermaid was troubled by the thought of their kind turning into sea foam and simply ceasing to exist when they die
FF and the mermaid were turned human by someone powerful, and then later tasked to kill the ones they loved so they can keep their humanity, but they were unable to bring themselves to and died for it. However, in doing so, they realised they had a soul and they were real and they did exist and they were content with their fate
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so, why IS introduction hol horse such an asshole in comparison to his further characterization? : a theory
so, hello 👋 welcome to a theory i have and have had for a bit. i apologize for it being so long, but there's a LOT to be said!
as someone who prides themselves on overanalyzing hol horse, i have used all my brain power to come up with a theory that accurately describes just WHY intro hol feels so ... out of place.
hol horse is a man who, while a coward, is true to his heart & true to his core. he is a gentleman to the ladies, so much so that it becomes a cardinal trait within most of his appearances - hol horse is ALWAYS gonna love women & respect the ladies. this is in both SDC and CDDH (which we will be using as evidence despite its non-canon status as it is a prominent characterization & builds upon what is already in canon.)
but if we look back at the Emperor and Hanged Man arc, where hol horse is first introduced, we get a different picture. he
works directly with a man known to be a predator towards women & girls
says he talks up women so they'll die for him
yet, in comparison, aside from the obvious and easily joked about "i respect all women" rant in the hol & boingo arc, CDDH shows hol as someone who has a strong moral code when it comes to women.
in fact, there is an extremely important SDC hol horse flashback that reveals he saves multiple women who were victims after his attempt to kill DIO.
it's just... it's just odd. if he truly is a secretly gold hearted man who cares, why would he treat women like garbage and use them as bait to save his own life? why would be more threatening and full of himself if every further appearance just erases it & never mentions it again... 🤔
well, let's begin our theory with the fact that it seems DIO, all this time, never really trusted hol horse, calling him pathetic and wondering when "he'll do something on his own for him" even after he had "killed" avdol.
so DIO does what DIO does when he wants someone to work for them BUT doesn't trust them as easily. Hol's just in it for the money & the riches, right? he's a valuable ally, but not as committed to the cause as DIO feels he should be... but I digress...
let's note that in Hol Horse's first appearances in Emperor & Hanged Man, we never get a peek at his forehead - his hat masks it.
this is in comparison to getting to see it in the Justice & Hol and Boingo arcs.
so we're left with DIO not trusting a minion, a deliberate covering of the forehead, and a personality that contradicts further & more consistent characterization later on in SDC and — wait.
haven't we .... seen this before?
and wasn't hol horse supposed to be a crusader at some point, much like Polnareff and Kakyoin?
and haven't we learned that DIO implants the buds to keep those he doesn't trust in line? if hol horse did something that brought back DIO'S trust in him (say, killing a member of the Joestar Party), DIO would KNOW he was committed and loyal to him, proving himself...and thus, no more need to control him.
no more need for a fleshbud, even if he disappoints him afterward.
and no more need for hol horse to act more evil, more manipulative, and more forgiving of disgusting crimes against women he'd never forgive otherwise.
Emperor Belos and Funny Valentine: The Lie and Toxicity of White Savior Complex
It may seem strange what I'm going to comment but Belos shares some similarities with Funny Valentine from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Steel Ball Run in the sense that both are a satire of radicalized white supremacists, genocidal colonizers.
Even if we look at it from a historical point of view, Valentine's ideal (Americans superior to other cultures) is clearly the evolution of Belos's ideals for modern times (pure humans superior to native savages and heretics).
Both were heavily influenced by their upbringing, young Phillip being in an environment of anti-witch frenzy, while young Valentine was told from early on that above all else stands patriotism, that the only pure righteous action one can take is born from the love of one's country and they follow these ideals because a loved one inspired them (Caleb and Valentine's father) to the point that Belos and Valentine see it as a way to bond with said loved one as well as that they both feel that they should live by the ideals or values of their respective loved ones but as time goes by they genuinely believe in these values regardless of what Caleb or Valentine's father genuinely believed in those values so Belos and Valentine never question these values to the point of wanting and seeing themselves as heroes or marthyrs for what they think is a noble cause.
Beneath what appears to be a feeling of wanting to do good for their people lies a distorted feeling of love that they both have and firmly believe is normal and/or good:
Valentine sees his patriotism as an extension of love for family and friends and he becomes a soldier and later the president to protect the United States.
Belos became a witch hunter to fit in in Gravesfield and protect his family and town from witches and aspires to be Witch Hunter General.
This is because Belos and Valentine don't love Caleb and Valentine's father but love the idealized versions of them that they both had in their heads. Belos saw that Caleb left with Evelyn and believed that she manipulated him into abandoning him when clearly Caleb left of his own free will and was happy with her and Valentine never got to know his father, he only knew what others had said about him.
What I'm getting at with this is that at first they both followed their ideals because they believed they were doing something good, but as time went by those ideals were flawed (and most likely Caleb and Valentine's father knew it or at least they suspected it) but Belos and Valentine continued to cling to those ideals to a toxic degree because it gave them power, control, benefits and justification of their nefarious actions to the point of developing a desire for personal satisfaction of being remembered as heroes by showing that they are better than others for being the chosen ones (Valentine wanting to become the best and greatest president of the United States of America and Belos by wanting to become the best and greatest Witch Hunter General). This can be seen by the simple fact that they saw themselves as the chosen ones because they believe that they are the only ones that can save their people (Valentine sees himself as the only one who can take the corpse and bring prosperity and security to his country and Belos is seen as the only one who can protect humans from witches).
Later they both become politicians in order to achieve their goals:
Valentine wanted to use the saint corpse to bring good fortune to the United States at the cost of ruining other countries and total chaos and killing innocents and Belos wanted to protect humanity by committing genocide to the inhabitants of the Boiling Islands, except that Valentine became the president of the country he loved the most and Belos became the Emperor of the place he hated the most.
Belos and Valentine hurt their own citizens or fellow (fellow humans for Belos, fellow americans for Valentine) they claimed to protect and they manipulated everyone in the process thanks to their charisma, everyone admired and respected them to such an extent that they manipulated the protagonist at one point in the story and even manipulated the audience into believing that they are selfless heroes.
Valentine and Belos say they want to make things better for their respective nations but they follow an ideology that hurts the marginalized and don't seek to improve their situation (in Valentine's system black people are still treated as slaves and the natives continue to be massacred and their lands are stolen. The system Belos supports excludes all those who don't fit his impossible standards of virtue like Luz or Caleb).
An important aspect that Belos and Valentine have is that they both support colonialism:
At the time Valentine is president the native american population was being exterminated and Valentine does nothing to stop that. That it's so true that there are some natives like Sandman, who learns the culture of the Americans and signs up for the Steel Ball Run in hopes of winning the prize money to buy his people's land for the white men to leave them in peace.
Before Belos came, the people of the Boiling Islands were more connected with nature, they could use magic freely and they were kinder but when Belos comes and establishes his system, those who did things before Belos came are branded as wild witches and are imprisoned at best or petrified at worst, in addition to the fact that the inhabitants are more discriminatory and unsympathetic than before.
All of the above regarding the idealization of their flawed ideals is that Belos and Valentine refuse to change or at least have a reflection on these ideals because as I said before that gives them power and they justify it by saying that they are doing something good for their people and being the choosen ones to do that. The Owl House and Steel Ball Run waste no time in showing that all this makes Belos and Valentine had a feeling of colonialist white supremacist superiority.
It is most likely that Belos was taught as a young man that the Native Americans are savages and that the only ones who could "fix" said natives were colonists like him. At the time of Steel Ball Run, the Native American population is still being eradicated and their lands stolen, and it is most likely that Valentine has been taught the same thing as Belos regarding the "savage" natives. And even their plans consist of expanding this genocide with other cultures that don't adhere to their ideals of what a human/American should be like.
The aspect of colonialism reaches the point that Belos and Valentine use the corpse of a long-dead person praised by the land they rule (Jesus Christ and the Titan respectively) as part of their plans regarding their nation. They claim that they're chose them to carry out their actions.
When actually that's not true:
Luz and Johnny are selfish, immature and have a lot of traumas, contrary to how Belos and Valentine paint themselves but even so Jesus Christ and the Titan choose to help Luz and Johnny throughout their stories for the simple fact that Luz and Johnny choose to mature and improve as people which makes Luz and Johnny choose to accept the help while Belos and Valentine appropriate the bodies of the Titan and Jesus Christ as if they were their possessions and take the choosen one role by force and at the end of their stories they take literal possession of the Titan and Jesus Christ's bodies.
Also, Valentine and Belos have a disturbing fixation on two 14-year-old girls with similar names who ended up helping them without wanting it (Lucy Steel and Luz Noceda) and the fact that both girls have helped them makes Belos and Valentine see this as a sign that their actions are just and right. The way Belos and Valentine see Luz and Lucy is almost, if not completely, misogynistic as they relegate both girls to roles and treat them as objects that only serve to help Belos and Valentine and feed their delusions of white saviors,even both girls have powers from the aforementioned deities (Ticket to Ride/Love Train and the glyphs) that Valentine and Belos waste no time in appropriating and using them for their nefarious goals (again seeing the factor of forced appropriation by white colonialism).
Another thing that Valentine and Belos share is tha both use clones to achieve their goals (Valentine brings copies of himself and other people from other universes thanks to his stand D4C and Belos creates grimwalkers to help him) but they also use their knowledge/powers in an attempt to find a loved one who inspired them and who they miss dearly (Valentine tried to find an alternate version of his father from another universes but failed and Belos created grimwalkers because he misses Caleb and longs for human contact).
Although Belos and Valentine had presumptions of superiority, in the end they are defeated by Luz and Johnny who obtain greater power (Johnny gaining Tusk Act 4 after Gyro's death, and Luz gaining the Titan's power after her own death) and what they do is beg them to don't kill them.
Belos tries to appeal to the fact that he and Luz are human but she ignores him and let Eda, King and Raine from trampling on him.
Valentine tells his story to Johnny and he wants to believe in Valentine but still suspects the president and when his suspicions turned out to be correct, Johnny kills Valentine.
The failure to accept their deaths with dignity to the point of trying to manipulate the protagonists only shows how hypocritical and cowardly Belos and Valentine are because both believe that sacrifices are necessary and sacrifice others but are unable to admit that their ideals reached toxicity or that their plans are nefarious and that beyond doing it for their people, they did it for the pure personal satisfaction of being the heroes of their stories. Belos could at least try to understand the witches like Caleb and Luz did and could even accept Collector's kindness but he refused, Valentine could make America prosperous in other ways and improve the situation or quality of life of minorities who did need his help such as women, afroamericans or native americans, but Valentine refused.
All this shows that they don't want to help anyone and they just want to be the heroes of their story regardless of who they have to harm to do so. Just as the Titan said:
Honestly, I'm sick and tired of people acting like Jotaro is completely stoic, serious, callous, etc. He has nuance, he has different sides, he's not two-dimensional, he's a person. He is a real living person, he feels and expresses things like any other person does. His cow tail wags in excitement and glee, it cowers between his legs when he is scared. He cries when he is upset, he cries often. It's... so weird. He cannot stop crying. So I don't understand you guys calling him edgy bean or... whatever. I don't understand how you even know him? God, just, please, for the love of all that is holy and epic in JoJo, get him right! Or he'll start crying again! YOu do NOT want Jotaro to cry. I KNOW you don't. I don't. I wouldn't.
