#whately

The ‘Gun and Sorcery’ storyline, like ‘His Blue Soul’ before it, continues the trend of giving us brilliant and interesting character development which I just love. It also, more than any storyline before it, is a bunch of shorter subplots held together by the main plot of the mysterious Gunslinger. It’s fun to watch the short storylines within the larger one.

I like the lore we learn in this storyline about how magic works in the AT4W universe. It’s interesting and not something I’ve seen done before.

I remember Linkara saying, when this storyline was first airing, that a big part of the reason he wanted to do a storyline about Linkara possible turning evil was because of the TGWTG Anniversary specials. Doug Walker (the Nostalgia Critic) tends to write the other reviewers as all being jerks even when they aren’t normally and Linkara’s character was no exception. Since Linkara is one of the reviews who likes the reviewerverse the most and tries to keep everything in the same universe, he wanted to address the way his character behaved in the anniversary specials which is why the majority of the flashbacks of him being ‘evil’ are from them.

Holokara is terrifying and he makes a great villain. The implication that Linkara could one day become like him makes his actions seem all the worse. The times Holokara calmly threatened to maim and kill the others, all with a smile on his face, were so chilling.

Here’s the thing though; while I do believe that our Linkara had and still has the potential to turn evil, I don’t think he’d ever have become the same brand of evil as Holokara. At times, Linkara has been angry and unreasonable, he’s contemplate doing terrible things in the name of the greater good, he’s yelled at people for annoying him but he’s never hurt 90’s Kid (now 90’s Dude) simply for annoying him or calmly threatened to maim Harvey Finevoice for disagreeing with him.

A few months before Holokara grabbed 90’s Kid’s heart, when Linkara was very stressed he yelled at 90’s Kid in anger that he could throttle him. He then immediately apologised when Harvey called him out on it. Holokara grabbed 90’s Kid’s heart and threatened his life because 90’s Kid had interrupted his review. Linkara wouldn’t have done that. A version of our Linkara, that was farther down the road of evil, might have yelled at 90’s Kid at the time of the interruption, he might even have punched him but he wouldn’t have done what Holokara did.

Yes, Linkara was heading down a darker path. If Margret hadn’t intervened, he might have turned evil but in a different way. He could have become more selfish, powerful, pushed the others away and maybe even decided to take out people he deemed a threat before they even did anything. He wouldn’t have been willing to murder innocent people over a comic book storyline he disapproved of.

That leaves us will the question of why Holokara turned out the way he did if our Linkara wasn’t destined to become like him. I have a theory.

Technically, Holokara should have been LESS evil than Linkara. Think about it. Holokara was first brought online so that Linkara wouldn’t get trapped in Silent Hill again. He is based on scans of Linkara’s brain before he faced the Entity, before Lord Vyce came back for the first time and those things contributed to Linkara heading down a darker path. Word of God says Holokara was never used between Silent Hill and being brought back online to review comics while Linkara went on his quest.

Why is Holokara evil? Well I think Whately succeeded in his plan more than anyone realised. He wanted to hollow out Linkara and use him as a vessel to spared the message of the Entity and Silent Hill.

Obviously, Holokara didn’t die when Pyramid Head stabbed him through the chest but I do think that some of the magic of the place changed Holokara in a way that wouldn’t show up in a normal scan of the mobile emitter. Holokara wanted to choose what stories got told and was willing to use fear and force to achieve it, just like Whately wanted.

Poor 90’s Kid. He always seems to get the rough end of things. Someone hug my baby! He deserves better!

For me, the ‘Gun and Sorcery’ storyline is the one where Linksano finally completes his journey from villain to hero (all be it while being a very chaotic form of good). He is now a loyal member of the comicrew and I think he should be trusted completely. I admit that when Linkara first started employing him, I expected him to turn on the others at some point. After Holokara, I no longer believed it.

The others could be counted upon to team up against Holokara and try to take him down. However, it would probably have been safer and easier for Linksano not to help. Hell, he could have warned Holokara about the plan and tried to get on his good side or used this as the perfect distraction to start his own evil scheme. He didn’t do that and instead did everything he could to take down Holokara down with the others. He is officially one of the good guys now.

Yey! It was great to finally learn Margret’s name and see her talking with Linkara.

Harvey Finevoice’s backstory is just heart breaking. Harvey needs a hug too.  There where jokes the year that storyline happened that Linkara had ruined Christmas with feels. AT4W! The mainly light-hearted comic book review show with more dead children than you’d expect.

I’m glad Harvey was able to let himself finally move on from Charlie’s death rather than trying to replace him with Linkara. To me, he’ll always be the unofficial dad of the group but he’s no longer just doing it because Linkara reminds him of Charlie. He cares about the others in their own right.

It’s nice to watch Linkara fight Insano again. Insano doesn’t do much actual villainy these days. I like the fact that Linkara tried the whole “I have a holodeck. You don’t need to do this,” thing with Insano but, unlike with Linksano, it didn’t work.

Jaeris is awesome. I love every minute of him. Like Linksano said about good intentions and the path to hell, Jaeris only wanted to be a hero and save his world. Things weren’t to be and you could argue that he was forced by necessity into the role of anti-hero.

Despite how understandably angry Jaeris was after Linkara destroyed his watch (though I don’t think either character was completely right or wrong in that situation) he still chooses to fight alongside him to stop Insano. He might not be ready to call Linkara friend yet but he’s willing not to be enemies.

Everyone in AT4W needs a gosh darn hug so bad! Poor 90’s Kid, Linkara, Harvey Finevoice, Jaeris and Nimue! They all face hardship in this storyline. Linkara has really gotten into his stride of setting up future storylines now what with Nimue’s malfunctions throughout ‘Gun and Sorcery.’

Want to know my thoughts on the other storylines? Here are links to them which I’ll update each time I give my thoughts on a new completion.

His Soul is Blue

The Other Insano

All That He Sees, He Conquers

A Piece of the World is Missing

His Blue Soul

Gun and Sorcery (you’re already here)

Ghost of the Machine

The Machinations of Worms