#plot parallels

Even in the manga, it's in quotes, and that's something that makes me read deeper into it.

Our earl might assume the cigars are regular tobacco, but there could be opium smokers, too. Either way, he's been around it and probably figures he can tolerate it for a while.

But let's not forget how something wafting in the air at Sphere Music Hall on a "Sirius" day made him fall asleep/pass out, so blood could be taken without his knowledge or consent.

Since Sebastian is also being treated as a mere guest, and not as a servant of a guest, he might also accompany his master to this "smoking room", and I hope so... because Sebastian could shake off any effects of the drugs, unlike our earl. This would be a great parallel to Lucas and friends on Tanetane Island (Mother3), where Lucas and the other humans eat mushrooms 🍄 that make them hallucinate, while his loyal dog, Boney, doesn't partake, so Boney is the only one not affected by the drug.

Keeping with the Tanetane mushrooms idea, if our earl gets drugged and starts to hallucinate, this could be a really wild -- and scary!! -- ride for him. In the game, Lucas hallucinates all sorts of horrors...

...including one of his dead older twin saying the wrong twin died and that Lucas should switch places with him (Claus).

It might be a bit like the dream sequences during the green witch arc but much more twisted. In that dream, real Ciel says revenge wasn't necessary or expected. If our earl now takes a bad drug trip, it could be more like real Ciel telling him he's a failure, maybe even also suggesting the younger twin should have died instead. It could include Vincent telling him he was never meant to become his heir... or maybe Rachel saying she's going to spank his bottom black and blue. Soma and/or Agni blaming him for their suffering and Agni's death....

Whoever and whatever it is, it would be a twisted and particularly angry version of them or it. Lucas et al don't recover until some sense is literally knocked back into them... with a wooden plank or something... by a Magypsy.

In the manga, it's usually a reaper who steps in to provide the Magypsy parallel, though during the witch arc, it's Sebastian who fills the role by being 90% serious about eating his young master right then and there.

It is possible that they just gain some info and leave unscathed. But I'll honestly be surprised if nothing trippy happens in the "smoking room" or soon after.

1) both were raised/guided by a magical freak (Lady of the Lake/Merlin)

2) both were sexually abused

3) first reaction to their bastards was "fuck naaawww 😭"

4) ULTIMATELY LOVED THEIR BABIES

5) Fell in love with the same woman

6) both were the greatest (Lancelot was the greatest knight, Arthur was the greatest king)

7) I don’t know how to describe it and I don’t know if it counts, but Lancelot had amazing strength, and Arthur had an amazing sword (I guess that counts???)

Tells best friend

Best friend really wants to help

Mentor helps out

Crush on girl

Girl’s father wants MC dead

MC must act normal around girl’s father

Girl’s father ends up somewhat an ally

Hi there!

“Beautiful, and willful, and dead before her time”. I see what you mean. But nobody really uses the Lyanna tale as a cautionary tale in canon. Maybe Ned, when he speaks with Arya about Lyanna. I wouldn’t want them to talk about Lyanna that way to be honest. Because Lyanna was 16, and whatever her motives for going with Rhaegar (which has yet to be confirmed!) she was the victim of an older man who took advantage of her naivete or her predicament to seduce her and fulfill his stupid prophecy. It should not be a cautionary tale, because the fault is Rhaegar’s and blaming Lyanna is like blaming a girl that gets groped for dressing with a too short skirt.

Nevertheless, I think the Lyanna parallels are important for different reasons. Arya fans mostly want to establish that Arya is a Stark to the bone and “as cool as Lyanna” (whatever that means). The Lyanna parallels are used by J0nrya fans to prove that Arya will end up with her Targ cousin.

Sansa fans usually point out the parallels to show that parallels are more than just the outer appearance of a character, to show that Sansa has connections to her Stark side as well and the parallels are also used to show that Sansa might end up with her Targ cousin.

This is a legitimate use of parallels. Just because Lyanna’s love story (if it even was one) has a bad end does not mean that the parallel has to have a bad end. When we talk about “star-crossed” lovers and “Romeo and Juliet” today we don’t necessarily want the couple in question to have a bad end. It is more about the set-up, about the situation, not necessarily the outcome.

We see parallels of Sansa with Naerys, but that does not mean that a) we want her to have the same end or b) that the author who made the parallels aims at the same end for her.

I assume that neither Arya nor Sansa fans want their fav to die early like Lyanna, but pointing out the parallels to Lyanna does not jinx Sansa’s or Arya’s arc to have a bad ending. The ending is set in GRRM’s mind and nothing we do in literal analysis is going to change that.

Lyanna might be a tale that shows the reader that things are often not as they look and that we should be careful about what we make of the information the author gives us. So, it is a cautionary tale for the reader, but not in regard to Lyanna’s behaviour but in regard to the unreliable PoV.

I don’t think Lyanna is a cautionary tale in-world for the girls. It is not treated as such. You might argue that it is a tale that shows the reader what could happen to the girls, but I think that is more the function of Jeyne Poole’s arc.

Otherwise I agree, Lyanna shares some traits with Arya and some with Sansa and that is definitely on purpose, as is the fact that the traits she shares with Arya are a bit more on the surface than the traits she shares with Sansa.

Both girls have grown beyond Lyanna’s flaws I would say, despite being younger. Arya knows by now, that willfulness has boundaries. She experienced situations where she had to lay down and willfulness would have brought her nothing. Sansa knows that ‘the world is not a song’. Both girls don’t need Lyanna as a cautionary tale any longer.

Only through one episode so far but I love what OITNB has done with the episode narration. For six seasons we’ve been in Piper’s head - getting her perspective, her story. Sure we’ve seen the others grow and the plot expand so that more women carry the narrative and all its important perspectives, but moving into season 7 there was the overarching question - how will we remain on the inside with all our other faves with Piper on the outside? Piper has, by virtue of being the ‘main’ character, been at the centre of a lot of the driving action.

Answer one: Alex. 

That scene at the end of episode one, shown in the season trailer, where Piper and Alex meet through the visitation window is defining  

(1) in itself for how it frames the problem of change, of honesty and openness in their relationship for the coming episodes, now that they aren’t sharing the same space 24/7 (there’s an echo here of Larry and Piper, I think, coming full circle), and 

(2) how it places Piper very much on the periphery of this story in a way she - and we - haven’t been before. Instead, that torch instead passes to Alex early on, when she picks up the voiceover.  

But answer two: everyone. 

Piper doesn’t carry this story alone anymore. She hasn’t for a long time. Through the six previous seasons, the main ‘voice’ has been disseminated throughout our favourite characters, and the narrative has taken on a number of different perspectives and voices all culminating in this moment at the end of the first episode of the final season:

“Shit, I forgot my mom’s birthday again. This is my life now Is it sweater weather yet I should’ve been a dancer shelikesme I miss my man herbreathreeks fuck a jennifer lawrencethesebitchesneedto Stream of consciousness takes over, and the mundane, everyday thoughts we hear are so familiar they could very well be any character, any voice, even our own. It’s humanising, equalising: an acknowledgement and a celebration of the fact that season 7 is everyone’s story now.

I can’t wait to see where it takes me.

She either doesn’t have a real place OR she becomes a fill-in for the parallel to Hinawa’s ghost in the final confrontation between Lucas and Claus. In the game, Hinawa's ghost (her voice) talks the dead, reanimated Claus into ending the fight between him and Lucas. Claus sends a lightning attack right at the Courage Badge/Franklin Badge that Lucas wears. This causes the lightning bolt to reflect off the shiny metal badge and bounce back, incapacitating Claus.

What I mean by that is: instead of having the ghosts or memories of Vincent and Rachel like they used near the end of anime season one (when Ash/Angela is trying to overwrite the earl’s cinematic record) we could end up with Coudia/Claudia’s mourning/hair locket *literally* saving the earl’s life during a confrontation with real Ciel. Like it blocks or bounces back an otherwise fatal gunshot (yeah, I know that’s so cliché). That’s ONE possible scenario.

An even *crackier* scenario would be some sort of Bizarre Doll version of Cloudia/Claudia trying to get the earl to break his contract... or trying to get the earl and real Ciel to stop fighting.

Normally, we would have Rachel as the parallel to Hinawa (the mother of Lucas and Claus), but it looks like the old Phantomhive matriarch (the twins’ paternal grandmother) is being given more importance here than their mother.