#mae analyses

last life, everyone is more jaded, and the world doesn’t both putting on pretences anymore. the grass of spawn is a duller green, and the rest of the world feels harsher too. enormous mountains and plains of stone and tightly-clustered dark oak trees that block out the sun. bases become larger, but with that comes higher walls. more defences. they’re more spread apart.

last life is red. it’s full of murder and violence. alliances are meaningless. tonally it’s completely different to the other two right from the very start. it feels like killing and waiting to be killed.

3rd life is yellow. it’s the equilibrium between red and green life duos. it’s the yellow of sand and golden crowns and clocks. nobody is sure what to expect and it’s tense as everyone holds their breath to see what will happen when somebody turns red.

or maybe im wrong

it’s because he sucks ❤️

3rd Life: Grian accidentally loses Scar's first life by blowing him up with a creeper - the first death on the server. Last Life: Grian accidentally loses Scar's first life by stealing it and being killed by Bdubs - the first death on the server.

"It's ye and me till the end, Hand." - Ren to Martyn, 3rd Life "It's just you and me, till the end." - Ren to BigB, Last Life

"Can we still be friends?" - Scar to Grian after turning red in 3rd Life, throwing flowers at Grian. "We can still be friends!" - Grian to Mumbo after turning red in Last Life, trying to kill Mumbo.

3rd Life: Scar threatens Ren and Martyn for enchanting and reputation points, but is denied. He swears "when I turn red, Ren, you're on my list" and turns red within half an hour. Last Life: Scar threatens Etho and Bdubs for the enchanting table that Etho stole from him, and repeatedly threatens to turn red and kill them/destroy their base. He, again, turns red within half an hour of this.

In both 3rd Life and Last Life, Jimmy turns red after accidentally blowing himself up with a trap at the door to Ren's base.

3rd Life: Impulse is known for his dishonesty and playing all sides. Martyn is known as one of, if not the most loyal players on the server. Last Life: Impulse is the most loyal to the Southlands. Martyn is the first to betray them.

3rd Life: The Red Army consists of Ren, Martyn, BigB, Skizz and Etho. Last Life: After Lizzie turns red, the Shadow Alliance consists of Ren, Martyn and BigB.

3rd Life: Jimmy is the first permanent death. Grian is the final one. Last Life: The two of them end up allied.

3rd Life: Scar turns red by falling from a high place right in front of his closest ally. Last Life: Grian turns red by falling from a high place right in front of his closest ally.

3rd Life: Scar lives atop a mountain and calls it Monopoly Mountain. Last Life: Scar lives atop a mountain and calls it Magical Mountain. (But he accidentally calls it Monopoly Mountain once.)

In both 3rd Life and Last Life, Impulse loses his green life to Scott; both times mark his first death on the server.

3rd Life: Cleo loses her final life in a river by Ren's base. Last Life: Cleo is betrayed by BigB and is killed by him in a river by Ren's base.

In both 3rd Life and Last Life, Tango creates a game that essentially involves gambling your life - literally gambling in Last Life's case.

3rd Life: Etho threatens Scar in chat, saying "YOU HAVE LIVED YOUR 6TH LIFE SCAR, YOU ONLY HAVE 7" after Scar escapes the Red Army yet again. Last Life: Scar loses 6 of his 7 total lives in one session - the session focused around the conflict between Scar and Etho.

For a series which only lasted for eight sessions, 3rd Life has had a profound impact on the MCYT fandom. While it did go comparatively unnoticed on Twitter (as is consistent with YouTube-based Minecraft content as a whole, admittedly), Tumblr and other platforms have fallen in love with this series, and it’s become a vector for many fans to familiarise themselves with Hermitcraft and Empires SMP as well. But at its core, 3rd Life is a simple vanilla survival series with a gimmick. What about it resonates so much with so many people?

I would argue that its simplicity, its small cast, its vanilla gameplay “with a twist” is certainly part of it. It’s an easy series to consume, with many POVs totalling four hours or less, and it doesn’t require any prior knowledge of any of the members. Its mechanics are easy to understand. As a standalone, it functions perfectly – it’s immersive and can be followed easily by anyone, regardless of any prior knowledge they may or may not have. However, these factors alone don’t quite encompass what makes 3rd Life so special. Its true charm point lies in the format of the series, and how well it utilises improv.

[more below the cut; this is a fairly long post about 3rd/Last Life meta and my love of its improv. I'm mostly talking about 3rd Life here as it's a completed series, but this most definitely does apply to Last Life as well]

(aka: there’s only room for one blond(ish) british guy in this death game)

Sorry for 3rd and Last Life posting on Double Life release day. This was supposed to be out before Double Life. They changed the release schedule. That is not on me!!!!!!!!

Anyway, I’m not going to lie, I started writing this because of a shitpost, but I’ve been meaning to do it for months now anyway. I think about them so much. I love them so dearly. I do not know how long this is going to get as I am writing this entirely on the fly but regardless I sure am going to take advantage of Tumblr now auto-collapsing long posts and not use a read more for once! Nature is truly healing. 

To briefly explain what narrative foils are: they’re two characters who contrast with each other; they might have some similarities, but are polar opposites in other ways, which makes their differences stand out even more. Usually in literature, this is done to make the good qualities of a protagonist stand out more than they would otherwise (interesting etymology lore: the term comes from when people used to back their gemstones with foil to make them shine even more). We’re not dealing with conventional media in this case, so it’s not like we really have a protagonist, but I find that this is a really good lens through which to understand both Grian and Martyn’s characters. What’s most amazing to me is that they manage to achieve this in both seasons - sort of on purpose by cc!Martyn in LL, I think, but otherwise accidentally. As is generally the case with anything meta about this series.

Starting with 3rd Life, Martyn and Grian begin the series very similarly. By this, I mean “very chaotically”. They both begin alone, determined to cause mischief in a new server. Specifically with creepers, and specifically resulting in Scar losing his first life. They’re both complicit in that death happening, with Martyn’s soundboard being the reason everyone becomes desensitised enough to creeper sounds that they let their guard down, and they’re instantly branded as the dangerous and unpredictable ones on the server. Before any of that, though… they’re allies. The server’s first alliance, formed over diamond swords and golden apples, is between Grian, Martyn and BigB. The Blue Sword Boys. I always joke that you can see how mentally ill someone is about 3rd Life by seeing what their reaction to the Blue Sword Boys is, and. Well. I’m writing this. So you can kind of see where I lie on the normalcy scale. Anyway, they share their diamonds, and declare themselves allies. Funny how things work out.

Post-alliance, they return to the surface, and both of them find themselves indebted. Grian’s life debt sends him off to the desert on the back of a llama, and Martyn finds himself setting up shop in the snow after stealing a bit of enchanting. These are absolutely opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of the severity of their crimes, but have near identical consequences for the rest of the series, which is really funny to me. Scar’s life is worth about the same as Protection I iron leggings, or something. The conditions of their newfound alliances are different by name (effectively a servant, vs a willing employee), but they’re overall very similar: both enter these roles willingly, to make amends, and end up doing whatever their “boss” asks of them. As for the Blue Sword Boys? Grian never mentions them again. 

Throughout the next couple of sessions, we see Grian and Martyn’s respective loyalties grow ever deeper. Grian complains through it all, vowing that he’s out the second he turns yellow, whereas Martyn is content to do as Ren says; he advertises for Renchanting, defending Ren in the process (though not without worry about Ren’s ability to keep a secret). The divide between Monopoly Mountain and Renchanting also widens with every session: particularly in session 3, in which Ren refuses Scar’s trade offer - partially for Martyn’s sake - and Scar famously vows “when I turn red, Ren, you’re on my list” and turns red not long after. It’s here that their position as foils begins to become clear; they started the series in the same way, and now their paths are beginning to diverge.

To talk more generally about their alliances, both are, of course, famously loyal to one (1) person. Martyn is the Hand of the King, and Grian is Scar’s subordinate, even if they’re both definitely more competent than their respective leaders. Both have other allies, but only truly care for Ren/Scar - even though they both had intended to betray those same people. Grian insisted he was leaving Scar the minute he turned yellow. He didn’t. He couldn’t. 

I’m technically free of Scar’s bonds, but I feel like I’ve got this moral obligation now. I don’t understand— I can’t let him die. I just— I don’t want to see him go, he’s like the most interesting character on the server, and I just can’t let him go.

Martyn is the same. He planned to betray Ren at the last minute. But… he doesn’t. He can’t. He defends Ren until his dying breath, following his King into the afterlife without hesitation. Unlike Grian who finds himself on equal footing with Scar, though, he never becomes Ren’s equal - nor does he want to. Martyn shows his loyalty by digging in his heels and being the best Hand that he can, be it advising his King or in wartime. Grian shows it by choosing to stay at all. The only betrayal that happens regarding either of them is Scar killing Grian: Grian is the one who’s betrayed, the one who screams “TRAITOR!” and “BETRAYER!” at the one he’d meant to leave behind weeks ago. But he’s also the one who forgives Scar within moments, who agrees that it’s a mutual win for both of them, who kills Scar but it’s not a betrayal, it’s simply all that was left for them in the world.

As I said, Grian never mentions the Blue Sword Boys again. His focus is entirely on Scar. But Martyn wants to save Grian from Scar - he never forgets their initial alliance, and he truly does care for Grian. It’s mentioned in multiple sessions, but the session I want to talk about in depth for this is session 4. This is, of course, the session where Grian traps Dogwarts. That trap killing Ren is certainly the breaking point for friendly relations between Monopoly Mountain and Dogwarts as a whole, but even after all of that, Martyn still suggests to BigB that they try to save Grian. It’s BigB who suggests that Grian “likes” being with Scar, to which Martyn quietly - regretfully - asks, “Have we lost him?”.  

The subject comes up again in session 6. Skizz brings up the idea of Stockholm syndrome - Martyn responds by firmly stating “Grian’s got that BAD. Grian’s got that bad.” It’s no longer a question of whether Grian can be saved; it’s not BigB trying to convince Martyn to give up on Grian; it’s that Martyn has given up. They’re both so deep into their respective alliances that the other is now merely The Enemy. And yet… Martyn still hasn’t forgotten the Blue Sword Boys. Session 7, he’s being hunted down by Grian, Scar and Scott. As he fights back, he takes out his diamond sword, the diamonds given to him by Grian all those weeks ago. He yells, “You gave me this, Grian, and I’m gonna use it!”. And yet neither can kill the other - Martyn dies to a skeleton after escaping them.

I don’t think that I need to go into detail about the war, we know how that goes. So let’s skip to the end: Martyn follows Ren into death without even a moment’s hesitation. The culmination of all his loyalty, all his devotion to Ren, is to die to Scar side by side with his king. Grian and Scar, of course, proceed to the final fight: an armourless fistfight to the death. The idea for that fight was suggested by the ghosts - specifically, Ren and Martyn’s ghosts. And this was not the first time that they’d had this idea - far from it. Ren and Martyn had planned to have that fight for themselves should they make it to the final, all the way back in a much earlier session (I don’t have specifics for this one for once though because I am a sleepy bitch and I did look for a bit but couldn’t find it. But it did happen!). It’s just… incredibly ironic, is it not? That fight was what Dogwarts wanted for themselves. Their victory. And yet it was fought by their mortal enemies. Grian carrying out Martyn’s final wish. Both of them follow their allies to their deaths, unable - unwilling - to live without them.

That was… a ride.

Onto Last Life!

Of course, things are immediately quite a bit different between Martyn and Grian. They’re allies, in total contrast to 3rd Life. Namely, they are both in the largest alliance on the server. Brought together by Grian, who surrounds himself with people in the Southlands, but never quite making a true connection to any of them - not like last time. Even when he joins up with Joel, their alliance is one of mutual convenience at best. They’re both similarly unhinged: that does not translate to true loyalty, not like his bond with Scar. Martyn, on the other hand, intends to go about his series selfishly. He joins the Southlands, but doesn’t expect it to last, between the Watcher voice and his inability to leave Ren (more on that later). He actively intends to betray them, joining the Shadows in secret. And yet it’s Martyn who becomes attached to the Southlands, with his marriage to Mumbo and his closeness to Jimmy and Impulse (especially Jimmy, with their shared Evo history).

Martyn decidedly does not trust Grian, however, and even works directly against him despite their alliance. He recognises the threat that a red Grian would propose, like returning Scott and Pearl’s Wither skull as soon as he finds out Grian already has one skull hidden away. I think this is where you can see how their paths have truly, irreversibly diverged: Martyn, whilst still as chaotic as ever, will never be the guy who ran around a village with a creeper soundboard and Bad Omen. He’s more serious, more devoted. Conversely… 3rd Life did quite the opposite to Grian, especially because he never got to properly be red. By the time of Last Life, everyone is well aware of how he’ll inevitably become even more unpredictable and bloodthirsty. 

As mentioned, both of them reunite with their former allies multiple times - both of whom live alone, unlike their newly Southern ex-partners. Grian and Martyn both try to act as if they don’t care. They’re not attached to Scar and Ren anymore. But neither of them are very good at hiding how much of a lie that is. They’re not able to resist worrying about Scar and Ren, or helping them when they need it most. Grian outright says he’d leave the Southlands for Scar if he could get a life as well. Martyn takes it a step further and does betray the Southlands for Ren, joining the Shadow Alliance and gaining a life in the process. 

The next point of interest is, of course, Grian killing Mumbo and Jimmy. This firmly cements Grian and Martyn as enemies once again: in yet another Pure Chance In The Traffic Light SMP moment, Martyn is chosen as the boogeyman - and he chooses revenge. He hallucinates their pumpkin ghosts in the next session, unable to deal with losing them, and the voice preys on this. It fills his head with promises about bringing them back, and Martyn, in his desperation, believes it. All of this, and yet he was never supposed to get attached to begin with. Grian, on the other hand? The one who formed the alliance? He justifies their deaths to himself and to others as much as he can. They weren’t his friends anymore. They were hurting him. He had every right to fight back. He warned them.

However much Grian truly believes these justifications is up to you. But, at the end of the day, he’s the one to destroy the Southlands, to put the final nail in its coffin. And it’s Martyn who suffers most from it.

Lastly, I of course have to mention the end of Martyn’s series, and the Watcher lore as a whole. By definition, Watcher Grian and Listener Martyn contrast each other. But it goes deeper than just “Grian watches, and Martyn listens”. By now, we’ve already established that Martyn upholds his purpose, whatever that purpose is: be it loyalty to his King, or obeying the Watchers. Grian, though? The Watchers say it best: “he was only ever meant to watch”. They want Grian dead, and they want Martyn to do it - as seen with his attempted boogey kill on Grian. Grian disobeys his purpose, and Martyn enacts the Watchers’ punishment for it, blindly following without truly understanding who was commanding him. They use his loyalties against him - the same ones that Grian forcibly severs. And yet… despite that disobedience, Grian’s still playing the game as intended, isn’t he? He never refuses to cooperate like Scott does - he dances exactly as the Watchers want him to. Upholds their rules, even at the cost of his friends’ lives. He plays the part perfectly, just… not the part he was supposed to play. 

if there's one way to describe grian in 3rd life and last life, it's "always red". we've called him that, he's referred to himself as that, you get the idea. bringing in him being a watcher who chose to join the game... i think the rules of the game just don't affect him as much as they would a normal player, because to some extent he's choosing compliance. he didn't have to follow the life system, he didn't have to play the game at all. so his disposition doesn't change that much between lives. he's only complying with the rules insofar as he has to; he does red-like things even on green, when he wants to.

scar, meanwhile, is decidedly not a watcher. but what scar does have is this unstoppable refusal to follow the rules regardless. scar does what scar wants; as grian put it, "scar doesn't really care about the rules of this game". there's no reason for him to not play, but he continues doing what he wants regardless. he trades, he sells crystals, he hands out reputation points. he teams up with pearl and tells her he doesn't care what life either of them are on. and the watchers don't like that. think about how much bad luck befalls scar, constantly. but he survives, against all odds. over and over again.

the watchers do not like scar.

i think when grian joined 3rd life, he wasn't intending to go against the watchers at first. he tried to enforce the rules, he tried to make scar act like a "proper" red life. but somewhere along the line, as he's planting traps for scar, grian realises it's much more fun to exploit the rules. bend them a little. maybe blow up several people. scar hatches the seeds of grian's defection from the watchers - by the time last life rolls around, grian has sought to do what he can to go against the watchers. he takes out reds without mercy because... that is mercy, arguably. it's better than letting them suffer for much longer.

it's not really too surprising that the two who categorically refused to do as the watchers said ended up lasting the longest in 3rd life, right?

I am still sick and I’m mad about it. Instead of resting like a normal person, I am going to be taking out my frustration on a Minecraft roleplay character and picking apart his brain!

Also, I couldn't think of a better title for this than the one I used for Scar, so... I guess this is now a series? Of me reading way too deeply into Last Life characters? Because I definitely enjoy making these deep dives and will be doing it more in the future.

Scott’s a really interesting character, because whilst a lot of people see him as yessss king villain arc arson et cetera – and that’s the front he puts on – Scott is, arguably, the most moral player in Last Life. This isn’t intended as a criticism of the other players, however; it’s quite the opposite, I find it fascinating that Scott has been able to maintain his morality like that. Last Life is effectively an anarchy server, and plenty of other players have no qualms embracing that. Not Scott, though.