I've been thinking about how grounded the evils of Wake Up Dead Man are and looking back, I don't think Samson is exempt from that. Though he may not be radicalized in the ways the others are, he's passive and disinterested in questioning the world around him... which helps enable the horrors he's surrounded by. He doesn't pick up on Wicks' drinking not because it's subtle (quite the opposite) but because he doesn't want to grapple with his mentor/inspiration proving himself a hypocrite. He remains fairly isolated in his garage and cuts himself off from the community via baseball games during church. Never-mind that Wicks' sermons aren't worth hearing, it nevertheless shows a distinct lack of curiosity, even in an environment when the purpose is to be receptive to morals, lessons, advice, and the like. Samson isn't interested in educating Martha when she displays her presumed ignorance about the penis graffiti, he (literally) closes the door on hearing Jud's side of the story, and - most obviously - he never questions Martha's insane plan. Sure, honey, I'll just take the place of our dead priest (did you murder him btw?), hang out in a crypt for a while, steal a big as fuck diamond, and help perpetuate the myth that Wicks has truly risen from the grave for the rest of my life.
At face value I think it's easy to write this off as a byproduct of his devotion to Martha, but in the larger context of the film it takes on a darker tone. What happens when community members sit idly by, staying isolated, or deliberately indulging in their denial? What happens when people refuse to both question the truths they've been told and likewise refuse to correct others in their misconceptions? What happens when you accept what people tell you - particularly loved ones - without question and then act without understanding what it is you're truly involved in?
Samson not only helps Wicks' horrors perpetuate, but enables Martha and Nat's own sins. His passiveness, blind trust, and willful ignorance help propel this whole tragedy.
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I hate how btvs lauds souls as some amazing feature of humanity that makes people inherently fucking good and worthy when many humans are awful people by choice and half the soulless ‘evil’ demons shown in the series are better and more decent than most of the creatures with souls in the show. you could have had an amazing plot addressing the incredible amount of effort some people have to make in order to do good despite being born to a group of people deemed evil by society simply for something they can’t control and instead you did That. as if working to understand morality and compassion through a genuine desire to do better is somehow less meaningful than being born with the privilege of caring automatically and not having to put the effort in at all. ‘oh I have a soul so I’m better’ no you’re not you fucking suck you left your wife at the altar while mister soulless was literally saving lives.
Gurathin's "Do you have feelings for it?" really adds another layer to his dislike of SecUnit.
Though the whole group is still grappling with whether to trust it or not, Gurathin remains the most stubbornly vocal about that distrust and on one level we already understood why. He's a former member of the Corporation Rim, someone who both grew up on the same feeds as the SecUnit engineers—'They go rogue and kill everyone all the time!'—and, as we learn this episode, has been horrendously abused by the Company itself, so why would he trust anything it gave them? One might even go so far as to say Gurathin still doesn't see SecUnit as a person, only a very dangerous piece of equipment.
Except... you don't see equipment as a romantic rival.
We know Gurathin has a rather intense crush on Mensah and who can blame him? She not only forgave him when few others would have, but she turned his whole world on its head, providing him with a new purpose and autonomy and love when he was very close to giving up. That's the level of devotion that inspires sneaking into her bedroom to smell her pillow, or staring star-struck across the dinner table, unable to think of a single critique. Gurathin loves Mensah and Mensah obviously loves him... but not in the same way.
Now toss SecUnit into the mix. Here's Company property that scares the shit out of you and as if that weren't enough, the woman you love is being so nice to it. Not just that, she's seemingly prioritizing it over you.
"It feel like it's going through something" vs. I'm going through something.
Running to talk to SecUnit vs. I was the one who was just threatened.
"I feel we can trust it" vs. I thought you trusted me?
"You need a MedBay" vs. But you won't get me to one because SecUnit advises otherwise, right? (Notably, Gurathin doesn't seem to be conscious when Mensah makes the decision to leave anyway, with or without SecUnit).
There are a lot of other moments like this and from our perspective we can see that Mensah is treating SecUnit similarly to how she no doubt treated Gurathin six years ago. The parallels between them abound, including being slaves to the Company who only start to demonstrate true autonomy after meeting Mensah. Gurathin still has a lot of healing to do, but after so many years he's in a better place than the slave that has just admitted to some level of personhood (not to mention the practical issues of them needing SecUnit to defend them), so of course Mensah is going to prioritize it to a certain extent. She's trying to help it the way she once helped Gurathin, but Gurathin is still so damaged and so JEALOUS that he can't conceptualize, "Oh. She's giving SecUnit what I was once lucky enough to receive."
He can't see that, so what comes out instead is, 'You have feelings for it don't you?' Because what other explanation does he have? If SecUnit already 'stole' her attention and her high opinion, why not her romantic love too! I don't think Gurathin would have ever asked that without the fever lowering his inhibitions, but I don't think the fever caused that worry either.
Gurathin makes me insane because I just want to scream, "SecUnit is you! It's you! It's not your rival, it's a mirror of who you were six years ago! You're not in competition with it, you're the best person to help it because you know something of what it's gone through!! You get to pass the torch, Gura, and help Mensah help someone else!!!!"
Just finished Good Omens 2 and I'm honestly boggling at the Aziraphale hate because yes, his decision led to the angsty cliffhanger, but it makes SO much sense for his character. Not just in a "Religious brainwashing and sunk-cost fallacy" kinda way but also a "Aziraphale has no reason to believe this isn't the perfect solution" way. That scene among the nebula is crucial because it establishes that Crowley loved being an angel—reveled in his ability to create and allow his creations to grow kinda like plants—and the only problem was that someone else was calling the shots, someone who wouldn't listen to his criticism. Aziraphale has also spent 6,000+ years watching Crowley do good, all the while forced to deny the fact that he's "nice" lest embracing his original nature get him into trouble with hell. Now, Metatron comes along with an offer that fixes everything in one fell swoop. Crowley can be an angel again, be nice without censure, his ideas and criticisms will hold weight because he'll be answering to Aziraphale, and they'll be together.
It strikes me that Aziraphale isn't there when Crowley sees Gabriel's trial, ergo he likewise doesn't see the (non)acknowledgement that there's an institutional problem up in Heaven. There just happen to have been two archangels who called it quits. Same when Gabriel blurts that phrase out to Crowley. Aziraphale has always been more blind to the ways in which Heaven is "toxic" (for very understandable reasons) and this season he's continually sheltered from new evidence of its structural problems. The plot just preaches to the choir: Crowley. He likewise wouldn't see the conflict Gabriel and Beelzebub have caused as evidence of an underlying problem because that's a problem he and Crowley will no longer share. Why would they be worried about Heaven still being unable to accept partnerships between angels and demons when Crowley will no longer be a demon? And that's something he presumably wants based on Aziraphale's memories of him and the ongoing admission that he's lonely.
The way I see it, they got what they thought they wanted at the start of Season 2. Heaven and Hell are keeping an eye on them, but functionally they're left alone. Crowley can spend all the time he wants with Aziraphale and nothing comes of that except that they're both continually named traitors and the higher-ups grumble about it. If Gabriel had never shown up, things should have been perfect based on Crowley's "Let's just run away and have each other's company" standards. Better, even, considering that they get to be together on their beloved Earth, rather than being bored out in Alpha Centauri without any sushi, plants, books, or Bentleys. And yet... Crowley doesn't strike me as particularly happy. Because, you know, based on that kiss he wants to be with Aziraphale, not just literally be with him, but the point of this post is that his "Let's run away and be an 'us'" falls totally flat when he doesn't explain that specific desire to Aziraphale; the desire to change what an 'us' means. From Aziraphale's perspective they're already an 'us.' That was the entire point of "our side" in Season 1 and now they can continue to be 'us' up in Heaven. Plus, Aziraphale likely sees this as a sacrifice on his part. He will give up his bookshop, his Earthly indulgences, take on the responsibilities of leadership (which I don't think he actually wants for a variety of reasons), and spend the rest of eternity in a place where he's felt so small because he thinks that's what Crowley wants. Crowley was happy as an angel. Crowley wanted them to be together without risk of permanent discorporation. They were able to achieve that after not-Armageddon and he still wasn't happy... so surely those two things together will do the trick. Crowley never actually articulates how he wants their relationship to change and the kiss comes much too late, when he's already rejected what Aziraphale must see as a perfect, selfless solution he's secured for them. Even if Crowley wasn't always moving too fast for him, an overture of romance isn't going to go well after that.
Is this crushing and angsty and devastating as a hiatus? Damn straight, my heart it breaking. But it's a good setup. More importantly, it makes perfect sense for their characters, particularly when they're still talking past one another. Aziraphale is someone who has always moved more slowly as a matter of course, as an angel he has remained immersed in the rhetoric of Heaven, his main avenue of breaking free of that (Crowley) has a huge communication problem (to say nothing of his own denial. He only made headway with the help of Nina and Maggie, seconds before Aziraphale shows up), and Metatron (in a no doubt incredibly manipulative manner) has just offered Aziraphale a job that presumably makes him happy AND Crowley happy AND allows him to maintain the moral this-is-how-the-universe-works perspective he's had since he was literally created. Of course he's going to say yes to all that!! And sure, there are problems in Heaven, Aziraphale isn't completely blind, but he can fix them now that he's in charge. How? Well... he'll figure that out later! Kinda like how he's been making plans on the fly this entire season. That seems logical from his perspective, right? It's not like he's gotten a crash-course in the concept of the master's tools never being able to dismantle the master's house...
Watching The Apothecary Diaries and from a character perspective I love the detail of the pipe, the one used in the warehouse explosion. In just a few, literal seconds of storytelling we're shown quite clearly who Maomao is:
She notes that she "accidentally" took the pipe with her. Despite being a poor commoner surrounded by luxury, she resists most temptations towards theft. There's one moment - was it when she went to Ah-Duo's palace? - where she notes that anyone with so many nice things wouldn't notice something small going missing, but then she knocks herself out of that thinking. Maomao isn't some #pure protagonist who'd never even consider such a thing, rather she's an upstanding and smart individual who realizes this is both wrong and, notably, a dumb move if she gets caught. Maomao is careful to ask for the materials she needs to pull off the bomb experiment and there are times when, even basking in a love of herbs, she will not pick them if they're from someone else's garden. Maomao respects others' property and not even her hyperfixations will override that (a common flaw in other single-minded protagonists). This also dovetails nicely into her admission that she and Luomen built a lot of things they needed because she grew up poor. Who's to say how hard someone else worked to make/buy/secure that object?
Sidenote: It's interesting to me that the exception here seems to be Jinshi. Just an episode earlier Maomao tried to fleece him of who knows how much through the sale of Granny's "educational materials," which, you know, is very much theft. Beyond the fact that the general wealth of a noble differs greatly from the specific possession of a commoner (or even a woman concubine), it feels almost... intimate to me? That's not quite the word I'm looking for, but I mean that Maomao allows Jinshi to influence her in ways she doesn't let others, at least outside of her immediate family. Another notable example of that is her unwillingness to fake an interest in him. We see many times over the course of the show - facing off against the women in the outer court, acting as a courtesan for the night, etc. - that Maomao is perfectly capable of playing the smiling, docile, hapless woman society expects. Yet from day one she's refused to apply that mask for Jinshi's sake and, in turn, despises when he turns his charm mask on her. Maomao wants people to exist plainly, just as she normally does... and a part of that is accepting that she's sometimes an imperfect, immoral person. Weirdly, trying to steal from Jinshi feels like an act of trust towards him, both on a safety level (I trust that you won't punish me too harshly if I get caught) and an emotional one (I trust you to see an important part of my character: that I'll bend and even break the rules for my family's sake).
Moving on, Maomao is also incredibly practical and is living under the realities of a) poverty and b) a patriarchal society. She notes many times throughout the series (this episode included) that Luomen is terrible at turning a profit and Maomao herself owes Granny a fair bit. Combine that with the reminder that she was just fired from one position after being kidnapped from another and of course Maomao thinks about selling the pipe. She didn't intentionally steal it and - crucially - she has no reason to think it's still important to the investigation, but now that it's in her possession she might as well make use of it. Clean it up, find a new mouthpiece, and sell it off for a good price. Maomao is constantly thinking about the price of things, particularly in the context of whether she, a commoner, deserves them and that leads to her likewise noting the everyday objects that could make a big difference in her life, things that others don't even notice. For Jinshi that's just a useless stack of papers to burn; for Maomao they're a potential source of income, translating directly to her father keeping a roof over his head. Class is HUGE in The Apothecary Diaries, so of course Maomao takes one look at a beautifully carved pipe and considers how much she could sell it for.
...but she doesn't. Maomao looks closer still, uses those keen deduction skills to assume the pipe may have sentimental importance, and decides to give it back. Laomen isn't in immediate danger of being evicted, she may have just snagged him a new customer in Lihaku, and Granny isn't hounding her too much, so soft-hearted Maomao is going to put practicality aside and return it. Because she is soft-hearted. This is the girl utterly committed to the big gestures - risking exposure to warn two mothers about the poison killing their babies - as well as the small: staying up night after night to sew pockets into everyone's clothes just so they might be a little warmer for one festival. Now here, Maomao decides to still clean up the pipe. It's not enough to just return it, she's going to return it in pristine condition, even though that won't net her anything other than a potential 'Thank you' now. For me, Maomao so often embodies the message that when peoples' basic needs are met, they're then free to be quite kind to one another.
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I'd like to write up a longer meta once I've had the chance to 100% the game + replay it with a focus on the storyline, but for now I just want to throw out some thoughts on the ending. Spoilers ahead!
I've seen more than a few fans disappointed with Chronos' redemption arc and I get it. It feels like it comes out of nowhere after hours of hunting him down, throwing barbed insults, "Death to Chronos," etc. However, I think that feeling of whiplash is precisely the point. We're playing this game from Melinoe's perspective and Melinoe, crucially, has no idea what - if anything - Zagreus has managed to achieve in the past. When she goes to deal the death blow and suddenly finds a repentant, self-recriminating Chronos kneeling at her feet, Melinoe is shocked. Of course she is! Instantaneously the Chronos she knew has been replaced with another and the writing helps us empathize with that, "What what?" reaction without leaving us completely in the dark.
There are numerous details that hint at Chronos' redemption, both thematically and from a practical perspective. From night one I wondered how the hell we were supposed to kill this guy. Not literally (there's an understanding that magic can accomplish almost anything in this game), but from a repercussions standpoint. In a world where incarnations of concepts are those concepts on a literal level, what happens if you kill time? How does the world function? How does anything go on? If I remember correctly, the characters briefly acknowledge the question of what the world will be like without Chronos, but they never come to any plausible conclusions. It was at this point I knew with some certainty that we wouldn't actually be killing Chronos. This simply wasn't a game interested in - or capable of - providing an epilogue that answered such a philosophical question as, "What does this world look like without time?" To keep things in the range of the doable, Chronos would either be "killed" in the same way he was before, AKA forced into imprisonment... or he would be redeemed, an option that MUCH more closely follows the themes of the first game, particularly when it comes to Hades.
There are other hints too: Chronos' numerous lines that reference his disappointment in the state of his family, Zagreus continually questioning Melinoe if she's sure they should kill their grandfather, the larger theme of characters blurring the lines between enemy and friend: Eris loves screwing up Melinoe's quest but will still hang out with her at the Crossroads. Hercules is an asset until he teams up with Prometheus. Medea is likewise an ally until she's poisoning you alongside Polyphemus, something she "has" to do due to the oath, but you get the distinct sense she's enjoying herself. Looking back, it's clear to me how the game was setting this all up. Now, Melinoe has a beloved grandfather she also spent her whole life training to kill. That... actually tracks given the rest of this family's relationships.
But the change is a shock, it's supposed to be, and the writing helps us get a taste of what Melinoe is feeling by providing a flashback that, frankly, only makes sense in retrospect. Not following it entirely the first time around keeps us aligned with Melinoe's emotional perspective in the present, but looking back it's a fantastic choice. The ambiguous time + "The House of Hades?" question mark + Chronos' slightly sinister sounding, "Ready or not, hence I go..." initially made me think we were seeing his attack on the house. That, plus keeping his original portrait, helps sell the idea that he's still in the early stages of becoming someone new; there's still that devious Titan lurking below the surface. Yet simultaneously, he's made enough headway that Hades trusts him to roam the house, play with his daughter, banter with his son. And the game itself! Yes, it's adorable, but it's also what Hecate played with Melinoe the first time around, back in the Crossroads.
There, hide and seek was Baby's First Training Session and although it's reduced purely to a game in this timeline - a moment where Melinoe is given her childhood back - she still seeks the "shadows" of the kitchen, reassuring us that her connection to the Unseen is not solely the result of a traumatic past, but something she's drawn to instinctually. In addition, we're further shown that her inclination towards the Unseen doesn't keep her from being kind. ('I'd find all the bits and put you back together again!'). This is still Melinoe, the same goddess we know, despite the difference in upbringing - an important reminder, I think, so that the player doesn't feel like we lost out on some "better" version of the protagonist. However, this is certainly not Chronos. He's had years to change his ways, will have years more before he returns to the present... but only he and Zagreus remember that. So of course Melinoe is shocked and distrusting; of course we're confused and uncertain. Those are the emotions that are meant to pervade the scene. We have to work through the sudden appearance of this new Chronos just as Melinoe does.
Overall, I think SuperGiant did a phenomenal job. They wrote an ending that makes sense (they were never really going to kill time), is thematically in alignment with the rest of the series (redemption), it kept our emotional tether to the protagonist (what the FUCK is going on), AND found a way to keep the runs going while simultaneously providing the catharsis of defeating the villain. We do get to kill Chronos. We get to kill as many Chronoses as we want! They're the versions of him that will never admit to their mistakes... but this one has.
It's a complex happy ending for an equally complex family. Did we expect anything else?
Specifically, I'm thinking about how the racists of FineTime aren't just written to be cruel and entitled, but downright childish too. Lindy - in a move that dovetails nicely into the episode's commentary on social media - has the attention span of a toddler, going on and on about how boring work is even though, from what we're shown, she doesn't have to do anything other than sit there and socialize, which is presumably what she'd be doing if she didn't have to work, right? But since this is something she has to do per orders of the gross old people, she complains. "You're no fun!" she yells at Gothic Paul, the only one in her group taking a mature stance on this issue (and, notably, the only one with a very small number of subscribers).
Lindy lacks the maturity and critical thinking skills we would expect from someone her age. Again, this is definitely a layer of the social media side of the episode's thesis, but she nevertheless demonstrates a kind of emotional dysregulation that's usually only seen in younger, developing children. Lindy does not think for herself and cannot adapt to changes in routine/the way things are "supposed" to be. When told a fact - the police are unavailable - Lindy repeats, "but I really need the police" over and over as if her need is going to magic up a change in reality. She parrots rules and rejects them in equal measure, driven solely by her current desires: "We don't do that [lower the bubble]."/"I can do whatever I want!" She moves from disgusted to infatuated to angry in the blink of an eye, with her anger characterized by childish outbursts and language: "Now shut up I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" When faced with something life-threatening, Lindy's response is to a) distract herself (by watching Ricky) and b) find a hiding place. Even taking her terror into account, she responds to these situations like someone far younger would. If I cover my eyes the bad thing disappears. If I hide under the bed, I'm safe.
And of course, Lindy's body is monitored in the way you would a child's. She's constantly watched by others, both her peers and, presumably, by the Homeworld. She's told when she needs to use the restroom which for me was VERY evocative of a parent speaking to their potty training child, trying to get them to articulate when they need to go by informing them of when it's most likely. Hell, Lindy literally can't walk without the assistance of this AI parent.
Yes, there are plenty of moments that evoke the very stereotypical, entitled teenager - talk of "partying," bragging about clothes, being obsessed with the guy online - but even more, I think, evoke the child. When Lindy plays the recording of "Mummy," smiling shyly at the praise before throwing out the kind of insults you'd expect to hear on an elementary school playground - "You're stupid" - she reads like she's a kid. Which is a hell of a commentary on her racism. The episode doesn't say that Lindy is literally a child (she's not, she even snaps as much). The episode also doesn't try to claim that being childlike equals harmless (quite the opposite). But equating racism with a childish, dangerously inept, can't-even-walk-or-use-the-bathroom-by-herself white woman... damn if that's not a statement.
Today I learned about a new AI tool (new to me, that is) called Granola that transcribes, summarizes, and "makes... awesome" your meeting notes. On the surface it's precisely the kind of non-generative AI tool that I'm normally neutral towards, so I've been struggling to articulate why learning about it immediately made my skin crawl.
As of this writing, I think my issue comes down to surveillance. Taking notes is a learned skill that utilizes a number of sub-skills. Even if I take at face value that Granola can prioritize what's important enough to take notes on (whether it's "better" than a human in that regard), it can never make value judgements. I've been in numerous meetings where we've discussed sensitive information and someone will explicitly say not to put that down in the notes. Or don't put it down until we've worked out how best to express this idea/concern/whatever in an appropriate way. When taking notes myself, I certainly haven't written down every awkward, frustrated, far-from-polished-at-four-in-the-afternoon thing that's spilled out of someone's mouth.
But tools like Granola are listening in and transcribing everything it hears. That's the draw: you can put your notes aside because this meeting will be automatically transcribed by the AI. But... I don't want a device listening in the whole time. I don't want someone to have an exact transcript of everything said that they can then save and disperse at their whim. I definitely don't want that happening without me even knowing about it, which is precisely what occurred when we were told - enthusiastically! - that Granola was recording everything we'd said for the last ten minutes. Isn't that cool?
Of course, I understand that on some level this isn't terribly different from the recordings/transcripts that already exist in our everyday lives, but that's also my issue: more and more we're normalizing surveillance. It used to be that if you wanted to record a meeting you'd ask beforehand and moving forward everyone would conduct themselves with the understanding that they were being observed. Now though, people act like recording others is a given right because they're just "taking notes." But you're not. You are literally not engaging in the act of taking notes.
Plus, it's equally frustrating because I will! I love taking notes and I am in no way a minority in that regard. I have yet to see a new AI tool that truly does the work better, but AI does make things easier... at a very high cost. So if you really hate notes, or can't focus on what's being said while taking notes, or are too tired to take notes, or feel like you're bad at taking notes... literally just ask someone else to take notes. I guarantee there's someone in the group who adores making beautiful, color-coded summaries of your discussions and is likewise capable of approaching that information sensitively, while also respecting your privacy.
I swear every time I hear about another ~wonderful~ AI tool my response is, "Yeah but we could already do that - better and safer - by taking thirty seconds to talk to another human."
