Arcane | S02E02: Watch It All Burn

Please do me a favor and reblog if you LIKED The Last Jedi

I need fans wanting to celebrate Star Wars on my dash.

Fena: Pirate Princess EP:3 - Bar-Baral

“For ten long years…I could never get it out of my head. Her voice, shouting out my name amid all the fire and terror. Her trembling hand. Her eyes, filled with despair and sadness as she drifted away. The emptiness that descended on me afterwards. I’ll never let go of her hand again. It doesn’t matter to me who she is. I’m going to go save Fena. If anyone tries to get in my way, no matter who they are, I’ll kill them without mercy!”

Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai (Chapter 4) by Ai Yazawa.

When Twist Villains go Bad(ly written)

Sometimes I think a lot about “twist” villains. Villains that are first cast in the role of love interest and then revealed in a TWIST to be bad and afterward their entire personality changes. Ya know. Hans. The Darkling. Maven (I only ever read book one of the Red Queen, so I dunno if he became a less cartoony villain later on). Show Daenerys. 

What bugs me about these twist villains is that they are essentially two characters. The before character and the after character. The character that the author was writing back when they were trying to conceal the twist. And the character the author is writing now as an ‘AH HA!! GOTCHA!!”

The implication is that the character after the twist is their “TRUE SELF” and the character before the twist is a fiction. A performance. But the author is afraid that we’ll get their twist too early so they don’t actually build those villainous elements into the character and foreshadow it. Then they’d risk not being able to SURPRISE the reader. And they want to feel all superior about tricking us and laugh about how “sometimes you can’t trust a pretty face”.

But the result of this desperate “GOTCHA” is some cheating in the writing and a lot of retconning.

For instance, once in Frozen, Hans is shown smiling softly at Anna when no one is looking at him. It’s just him on screen. Why did he do that?? What was the reason if not just to lull the audience into a false sense of security?

And the Darkling is clearly driven by a desire to help the Grisha but post twist I guess he’s just okay with allying with Grisha-enemy #1 Fjerda (and they’re okay with allying with him somehow too???)

Everything about their demeanor changes. Everything about their dialogue. It doesn’t feel like a gradual transformation. It feels like a good/evil switch.

And some might say “its a warning because sometimes you can’t TELL who’s going to be evil because they’re liars :)”

But a character pre twist and post twist should still be recognizable as the same person and have a consistent character.

Take Petyr Baelish for instance. The moment we meet this man, we think he’s sketchy. Ned thinks he’s sketchy. This man is a liar and a politician. But…..lots of people in King’s Landing are liars and politicians and Baelish seems to be helping Ned. He even gives a reasonable motivation! It’s because he’s friends with Cat that he’s helping Ned. But he also flat out says: “you shouldn’t trust me”.

So when HIS twist comes, it IS surprising at first. We kinda thought we had his motives figured out. But it makes sense AND he’s still the same person afterward. Same vibe entirely. Nothing about him transforms when he stops lying.

And then there’s the twist villain that descends unexpectedly into villainy. Annakin was a good example of this (perhaps because we all knew it was coming). He was always brilliant but also impulsive and hot headed. He’s driven by his fear of losing those he loves, especially after the loss of his mother, and it’s those good intentions that lead him over the edge. But he’s still the same person after the switch. He’s just deeply changed. Certainly his arc was handled ten times better than that of Daenerys

On another level, I hate that usually the “twist villains” are there SPECIFICALLY to shame female characters for being stupid or gullible or naive. Like “oh you silly girl. Trusting this bad man who looks pretty but lies. You’re just like our young readers. They’re also stupid and need a LESSON to know DON’T TRUST ANYONE, especially someone who makes you FEEL LUST.”

But so rarely do these fictional twist villains act like real life abusers or men that they actually need to watch out for. Because the author is hiding the red flags because they want their twist. It’s just…it’s bad foreshadowing. It’s bad character writing. It’s annoying over all. No thank you.

TROS solidified my opinion that the Jedi are assholes

And the Skywalkers aren't that much better.

Like they pretty much used Rey as a puppet to take down Palpatine, left her to die, and then when left-for-dead Ben Solo drags his heroic ass from the Star Wars Pit of Despair, looks around desperately for help in saving her, they give a silent, "lol get fucked."

Even Anakin Skywalker, the guy who started this whole mess, who Ben has been calling to for help for years, the man who wanted to do this very thing Ben Solo has to do is like

And not to mention Luke and Leia abandoning a child because he has darkness in him, then adopting a Palpatine whose biggest struggle is her struggle with the dark side.

Like what the fuck?

 by ~YoRuMi-Chii

“Cruel Beauty” by  Rosamund Hodge 

Woops, hugs again.

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