Let's Talk About The Way We Talk About Sigma

Okay, we all are sure that Pepa and Bruno drifted apart after her wedding day, but just imagine Bruno already feeling somewhat distant from his sister.

Like, he’s just started getting blamed for his visions. And he really needs to let all his strange emotions out, but his mom is off the table because she would HATE how he feels and lecture him about it. Julieta, though kind and loving, wouldn’t really understand. So that leaves Pepa.

But who is he to bring up a bad gift to Pepa? Who is Bruno to complain about his gift when he can just… turn it off. Pepa’s gift literally manifests clouds over her head and ruins days, crops, and clothing. Sure it’s still beneficial to the community, but he can tell that it makes Pepa stressed out.

And then after he tries to get her to calm down she blames him for making her gift act up. She claims that she hates him, and shuns him. Now the only person who could understand… is gone.

Their relationship is so tragic, and I love it.

Do you think Snape hate has increased since we found out he was poor?

I think there’s a number of reasons, but yes, I think it’s a possibility.  We can quickly compare and contrast how Draco and Snape are perceived by fandom, or even Regulus and Snape.  I suspect that the poverty that the Snape family were steeped in is too difficult for some readers to wholly grasp, whereas perhaps it is far easier to admire and aspire towards the riches and decadence of the Blacks and the Malfoys.  

Maybe it’s also easier for some modern readers to imagine the psychological impact of not agreeing with the politics of your parents than it is to imagine the undercurrent of domestic violence and living in a destitute environment in a dilapidated house.  Additionally, there are uncomfortable messages for some from Snape - this dirty, unloved, dishevelled child is as powerful and as capable as any other wizard, and given the opportunity, he flourishes.  Depending on your class, you may read Snape’s success as a powerful message of triumph over adversity - or perhaps, a dangerous message about competition from the underclass.  

Still, I suspect the real issue is generational - and not necessarily generational from Harry starting at Hogwarts in 1991 and us discussing this almost 30 years later, but generational from JK.  I’ve spoken a lot previously about how her depiction is of teachers from the mid 70s put into a book set in the early 90s and how that doesn’t wholly translate to the kid of the late 10s.  

With that in mind, I think her notion of a love story is also mired in history.  For someone of JK’s age when she started writing, unrequited love was seen in positive terms - it wasn’t meant to be creepy.  Love is a huge theme throughout the series, and the idea that Snape - who had walked down this horribly dark path and was outwardly a mean and nasty and spiteful man - would completely change his ideology and allegiance due to his unrequited love for Lily was supposed to have been indicative of the power of love.

But we read Potter now with modern eyes, and unrequited love has not aged particularly well.  It seems rare that people genuinely ‘quietly love from afar’ - and instead, fandom insists on applying traits to the character which don’t exist in the text.  For instance, there’s no indication of Snape being a stalker or a creep, there’s no indication that he wanted a sexual relationship with Lily, there’s no indication that he bothered her or harassed her.  He isn’t a ‘nice guy’ or an ‘incel’ - but some readers can’t find the trope that they’re expecting, so they apply others to the series, even if they don’t quite fit.

So, I think the author and the readership are in conflict.  The author wrote a tale of genuine unrequited love, and the readers are trying to view it through modern frameworks, and they draw incorrect conclusions about the character’s motives.

I suspect this is exacerbated by the readership not ageing with the series.  Everyone who read Potter whilst it was being published had to wait for the next book to be written, but these days, they’re binge-read.  I think that lack of distance between each book (and the subsequent lack of maturity, because you’re reading the next one within a week, and not waiting three years, so you can’t have matured further) means that many struggle to separate Snape from being a cipher for their mean teacher at school to becoming the secret hero that he is.

I think that’s my real conclusion.  The problem is that this is an old text which is being read as if it is modern - and that leads to a clash between reader expectation and authorial intent.

More Undertale thoughts:

Am I the only one who’s a bit confused when Sans is made out to be this great, chummy guy?

Out of all the main characters (except Mettaton I guess) he acts the least friendly towards you. Undyne tries to kill you at first, yeah, but she’s never seen a human before and she’s just trying to do what she’s been told. When she’s had a chance to hang out with you she turns right around and is more than happy to talk to you. Toriel takes care of you with no hesitation, because that’s just Toriel. Papyrus and Alphys quickly find out that you’re alright and are happy to chat and share their thoughts with you as well.

I can’t recall Sans ever doing anything like that. He helps you out in the beginning, but it mostly seems to be to make Papyrus happy and pull some stupid pranks on you. He only really talks to you twice - At Grillby’s and at the restaurant in the MTT Resort. Both times that seemed to me to be with the intention of getting some information out of you and figure out what kind of person you are. He asks you some questions, says what he wants to say and then he just leaves. He never really talks about himself other than to say things that are obvious or that the other characters will tell you as well. He’s lazy, puns are great, Papyrus is cool, yadda yadda. The other times you meet him he just “happens to be around” and maybe he’ll comment on something you did or say something funny, but he isn’t really helping or cheering you on.

All in all he doesn’t seem very interested in being your friend. It didn’t seem so weird to me on my first playthrough that he’d tell you he had the intention to kill you if it weren’t for Toriel, since I actually killed Toriel (didn’t catch on to the fact that you can spare her). But he says the same thing even if you haven’t hurt a single soul. That’s.. pretty uncalled for? Especially at that point in the game. If it was meant as a warning, he’s putting it out there way late. So I don’t know what to interpret it as, other than sheer spite.

And that brings me to the fact that I’m 100% sure Sans killed at least one of the other humans who fell into the Underground. Apart from the old characters (Toriel, Asgore, Gerson) he’s the only one with any real knowledge about humans. He’s certainly capable of killing a human. He’s following you, and again, he did outright tell you that he wouldn’t hesitate to kill you. Causally, like it was something he’d done before. How else could he sound so confident about it?

But if he did, if he really did help kill the other humans, nobody appears to know about it. So did he act on his own? And why? We know so incredibly little about Sans that everything just becomes guesswork, based on small hints and offhand comments.

I also fully support the theory that Sans used to be a scientist, because there are simply too many hints pointing in that direction for it not to be a thing. The -most- suspicious one is in the pacifist ending, where everyone is gathered before leaving the Underground. In one bit of dialogue, Alphys will make a pun before Sans can and then she laughs about how she knew he’d say that. To which Papyrus says that he didn’t know Alphys knew Sans and Sans just brushes it off with a “doesn’t everyone”. Papyrus! Papyrus who otherwise knows pretty much everything. Why is it a secret that they know each other? Was Sans also involved in Asgore’s shady science experiments? Did he also have a hand in researching Determination? Is that why he has some of the same powers as Flowey? Because really, that’s just what Sans is. A “Flowey Light” - Not quite aware or powerful enough to break out of the game world entirely, but enough to be able to mess around with things.

Sans is… complicated. I’m definitely not saying he’s malicious or unfriendly either, but he’s extremely reserved and when he watches you like a hawk throughout the entire game, I don’t exactly think it’s out of concern for your wellbeing. He might take a liking to Frisk in the end too, but never like any of the others do.

For his surprise value and importance to Undertale’s themes and his incredibly subtle writing I think Sans is the best character in the game, but also because he isn’t just a great, chummy guy. He does an admirable job of keeping his comic relief act together, but here and there the facade cracks and what’s underneath isn’t all that pretty. I kind of wish there had been shed a little more light on all the baggage he’s obviously dragging around, but then again, maybe it’s another strength to his character that we’ll probably never know. Let the little skeleguy keep his secrets I guess.

Sans’ Quiche

part 1 / part 2 / part 3

What if…

This scene is so good I really love it so much, the blocking and shot composition is great, and tense and I love it.

The way Deckard subtly recoils in disgust

And Silco juuuuuust sliiiiiiightly turns to him and it's like... dude you said the wrong thing.

I LOVE THIS SHOT framing it through the blood-spattered, cracked glass? Amazing choice. And the body language is so good. Only Silco can feel predatory while standing perfectly still and unbothered.

"Power" Silco spits. I made a post earlier commenting on how Arcane uses spit, it's gross. And they do this with Silco a lot. He's icky, he makes your skin crawl. And it was a good choice, because Silco is charismatic and the grossness counterbalances that, it maintains this unsettled feeling about him. If you're starting to like SIlco it helps keep you ambivalent towards him, because ew.

And then yeah this shot is just super cool

one of sans’ unspoken, but actually rather prominent flaws is overprotectiveness, and I think it shines through exceptionally well in the king papyrus ending.

sans deliberately lies to papyrus about the death of his friends in an attempt to protect papyrus’s innocence.  The problem here?  Well one is that Papyrus isn’t innocent.  He’s a grown adult, a king now, in fact.  He needs to know the seriousness of the situation if he’s ever going to rule properly.  But beyond that,

not telling papyrus that his friends are dead isn’t just irresponsible, it’s downright cruel.  We already know that papyrus had very few friends to begin with, and now?  He probably thinks the one friend he did have has abandoned him.  And while I doubt sans consciously intended this, the fact remains that sans’s overprotectiveness has hurt his brother, in a way that sans doesn’t seem aware of (probably because papyrus purposefully hides this from him, as shown when he waits for sans to leave before he says this).  Sans lies to his brother in an attempt to protect his positive outlook, but in the process of doing it he’s effectively forcing papyrus to internalize his sadness for the sake of what he perceives is best.  He does not allow papyrus to judge for himself what is best for papyrus, because he’s so scared of ruining that positive outlook he relies so heavily on.

and this is not the only instance of sans hiding information in order to “protect” the people he cares about

while maybe this one’s more understandable, it’s still wrong.  Eventually toriel is going to find out what happened, keeping the information from her does nothing except prolong both sans and toriel’s suffering.  But sans doesn’t think about this, because in his mind, he’s protecting her.  He equates keeping loved ones safe with keeping them in the dark about anything that could hurt their feelings.  Which is… not healthy for relationships at all.

Everyone seems to focus on how sans’s lies hurt sans, but it’s also important to acknowledge that his lies hurt the people around him.  It’s why pacifist endings are more important to sans than he even realizes in-game; a chance at the surface means a chance to recover, a chance to recover means sans stops relying on the (not so) blissful ignorance of others in order to deal with his own issues.  It means his relationships begin to be built on trust, rather than lies and internalized emotions.  And I think that’s better for everyone.

HP META MASTERLISTS

Hey! Here is a big master list of all my favorite Harry Potter character analyses and Metas! I had so many saved and I didn’t know how I should organize them so I figured I put them in a post. I’ll be adding more when I find new metas and will be posting them here.

I DID NOT write these! Please do yourself a favor and check out some of the wonderful and intelligent writers of these metas as they deserve all the praise for their hard and impressive work!

If anyone of the writers for whatever reason wants me to remove their meta from this list just tell me and it will be done!  

Some of these may be contradictory to each other but that is because I like to hear other interpretations. These may not line up exactly with your view of the characters (not all of them line up with mine) but please try to be respectful.

*Almost all of these are from Tumblr except one from reddit and one from a outside blog.

Enjoy!

LUPIN META:

Remus Lupin: in depth analysis

Gentleman Monster: How Remus’s Marginalization and Comparative Privilege Made Who He Is

The Marauders Map scene in POA: Verbal Fencing Between Snape and Lupin

Lupin and his use of pauses and “ers”

Neither Likes Not Dislikes Severus…

Remus And His Use of Language + Sirius’ Dark Humor

Fanon vs. Canon: Remus Lupin Edition (reddit)

Lupin as a manipulator

Lupin is a gold standard for for the male manipulator trope

Lupin and how he presents in front of others

Remus would rather categorize himself with his oppressor than validate his own experiences.

Lupin and how he views himself

Prisoner of Azkaban: When Hostility Meets Passive Aggression

Remus’ “unmistakable signs of trying to live among wizards”

Remus lupin: Repentance vs Regret

Lupin lying to himself and others

Remus did a lot of “growing up” during the lost years

“And I haven’t changed…”

Remus Lupin: ENFJ

If Lupin and Tonks had survived the battle?

Lupin and the boggart lesson

Nearly Always Right: Remus and Harry

Remus with his own special brand of comforting logic

Remus Lupin at his most dangerous

Remus Lupin is so detached from things

Fanon vs Canon: “Remus is always sweet and kindly.”

Fanon vs Canon: “Remus is always sweet and kindly.” pt. 2

Snape and Lupin parallels

Harry/Remus dynamic

Lupin isn’t the middle ground in Mrs Weasley vs Sirius argument

Remus and what his friendships represent

Power game that goes on between Lupin and Snape in POA

SIRIUS META

Shame of My Flesh: Reading into Sirius’ Thoughts on Crouch Family

The Hogwarts Express scene in Prince’s Tale: A Sirius and Snape analysis

Sirius and Molly Argument in OOTP

Someone Like A Parent: The Beginning of Bond in POA

Snape, Sirius, and revenge Arrested Development – Sirius, Snape, Obsessions and Blind Spots

Why Sirius hated Snape so much

Padfoot and Prongs: an analysis of the friendship

Sirius and Walburga: the passive-aggressive Sticking Charm

Sirius and Walburga’s similarities

Regulus and Sirius’s relationship

Sirius and Lily

Sirius and Orion Black

Sirius Black and Complex trauma

Grimmauld Place: Azkaban by a different name

The worse thing Sirius Black has ever done || The ‘Prank’

Sirius Black, Mental Health and Masculinity

Part one

Part two

Part three

Part four

Padfoot and the Liminal Space

Sirius was not an immature man -child

Sirius is both emotionally and academically intelligent

Sirius’ sense of humor

Sirius Black the Loner

Sirius Black and Acts of Service

Part one: Sirius and the shadow of being a Black.

Part two: Sirius Black: the victim of the system he was born to rule

Sirius and Snape both want to be part of a world that they will never truly understand.

Fanon vs canon: James and Sirius are either very saintly or very evil.” pt 2

Sirius’s views on Death-Eaters: The world isn’t split into good people and Death-eaters.

James, Sirius and Snape: privilege and intelligence

Sirius and Regulus’s relationship is Kreacher

Sirius is not as explosive as he is often characterized.

JAMES META

James and Sirius had the best friendship in the story

“the marauders’ is essentially just three people wanting to be james’ best friend but only one of them actually achieving it”

Too Deep for the Healing

How does growing up with elderly parents affect James’s personality?

“the marauders’ is essentially just three people wanting to be james’ best friend but only one of them actually achieving it”

Ashes thoughts on James

Fanon vs canon: James became a reformed character for Lily’s sake

Fanon vs canon: James and Sirius are either very saintly or very evil.” pt 1

James Didn’t Suspect Remus - First War edition

James inner sense of nobility prevents him from killing

PETER META

Peter Pettigrew is emotionally intelligent and uses it in a strategic manner.

Peter is a Beautiful Scum Bag

Peter Pettigrew and the Werewolf Incident (Not as Much of a Key Event for Him)

Peter and Remus

MARAUDER META

Reading Marauders Dynamics in SWM

J/S vs F/G: different types of troublemakers

The rifts that made it possible for the Marauders to fall apart were evident even as far back as Hogwarts.

An Analysis of the Snape’s Worst Memory Pensieve scene

The marauders recklessness

The marauders individual relationships

Fallout of the “prank”

LILY META

Lily’s weakness is her fondness for being the exception

Lily and Altruism

Lily’s cold anger

Lily and her friendships

Slughorn’s favorite student

“Friendzoned”

Lily Evans is attracted to James Potter in Snape’s Worst Memory.

Interpretation of Lily’s blush

Lily and internalized misogyny

Fanon vs canon: Lily is either very saintly or very evil.”

Lily intended to break off her friendship with Severus before SWM

Harry’s relationship to the Prince as a blueprint for Lily’s friendship with Snape

Lily never hated Petunia

What’s Up with Petunia’s Resentment of Lily?

Lily is blind to the flaws of people she admires/loves unless it explodes in her face.

Lily’s feelings for Snape are more complex than fandom gives them credit for.

“Lily in nature”

SNAPE META

Snape and Class

Lily and Sev

How Dumbledore’s death speaks to Snape’s moral evolution

Feminist reading of lily/James/snape

James and Snape were rivals? Nah.

Snape was really traumatized by SWM

Snape being female coded

The extremely dysfunctional friendship of Snape and Lily

Trolly problem: Snape and Lupin

Snape: class and power

Lily Potter’s Son

Two up, two down

Snape and the Order confrontation of the Dursley’s

Severus Snape or the Importance of Body Language

Snape and the prince nickname

Snape was not upset over the lost of the order of merlin

Snape had to practice being a person

Spinner’s End (white hound)

Snape as a “bad victim”

Snape and queer coding

Dumbledoor, Snape and the werewolf incident.

Snape was his own man

a matter of perspective

Snape, Sirius, and revenge

Snape doesn’t want revenge

Snape and lily’s shared spirit

Snape’s use of language

Why does Spinners End matter?

HERMIONE META

Hermione and Ron don’t blindly trust harry

Hermione “character growth” with SPEW

Hermione wouldn’t like fiction

Harry and Hermione understand each other

Hermione can be very ruthless

Hermione and internalized misogyny

Book Hermione

Cool Hermione Things: Magic Under Pressure

Hermione IS soft

Hermione was born a leader and diplomat

Harry is in awe of Hermione

Mr. and Mrs. Wilkins: A Closer Look into Hermione’s Modification of Her Parents’ Memories

Fanon vs Canon: “Hermione is always sweet and kindly.”

HARRY META

Deconstructing Harry: The boy we meet in Philosopher’s Stone to the man in Deathly Hallows

Harry And Personal Conflict: A Meta On Evolving Dynamic With Ron and Hermione

The Resurrection Stone Scene: Culmination Of Harry’s Emotional Arc

The Resurrection Stone Scene: Culmination Of Harry’s Emotional Arc

The Dementors and Harry’s Complex grief

Harry’s intuitive, empathy related approach to morality

Harry identified with and reluctantly admired Snape even before ‘The Prince’s Tale’

Harry and Hermione in The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore

Harry and The Dursleys: Examining His Response to his Abusers

The Mirthless Laugh: Sirius and Harry

Harry and intellectual curiosity

The Potters and class

Harry-Hermione Friendship

On Harry and the adults in his life

Harry and masculinity

Harry’s quirks

RON META

Ron and the Horcrux: An Alternate Reading

Ron isn’t a strategist, he’s the heart

GOLDEN TRIO META

Gender Dynamics in the Trio, Part One: Gender and Subordination

WEASLEY META

“Lucky you”

Percy with F&G and Bill

Percy fell through a big crack

Is Ginny Upset That None of Her Family Noticed Her Disappearances/Serious Health Problems/Posession in her First Year? (If She is, They Still Don’t Seem to Notice)

Molly Weasley is a Misogynist

That Time Fleur Exploded at Molly and Became a Member of the Family

The Weasleys Aren’t Evil, Or Anything, But They’re Not Saints Either

Ginny, the diary, and her family’s reaction

Does gender plays a role in Harry and Ginny’s respective interactions with Voldemort?

Percy and Arthur were close without actually knowing each other’s true selves,

Ginny and writing failures

fred and george could be weirdly brutal towards ron

Percy, Fred, and George

Weasley siblings reacting to the expectations put upon them

Weasley analysis

OTHER CHARACTERS META

Bellatrix: Mental health and the feminist lens

Dumbledore as a Mentor

“all draco wanted was to be loved” debunked

Walburga Black: the madwoman in the attic

General Thoughts on the Black Family

Fanon vs canon: “The Evans family treated young Snape very warmly.”

Albus Dumbledore Has Done Great, Generous, Things for People (Though He Also Uses These People as Pawns Later)

Albus Dumbledore is not only respected and feared, but also loved

Trevor and Neville’s Boggart

Wandlore: Remus and Lily

Neville’s Boggart

The Abandoned Boy And His Problematic Fathers: Snape with Voldemort & Dumbledore

The Blacks are a family in decline

WORLD BUILDING

Hogwarts School Uniform

Why the Wizarding World Didn’t Oppose Voldemort

The Blitz Paved the Road to Voldemort

Hogwarts Houses by Muffin

How Old is the Bias Against Slytherin?

No, Really, the Hogwarts Houses Are Awful

House Elves Are Slaves

A History of Magic Brought to You By The Carnivorous Muffin

Light and Dark Magic is Stupid: Here’s Why

The Wizarding World Lacks a Key Understanding of Magic

The Wizarding World and Its Profound Ignorance of Muggles

The Slug Club is Actually Very Necessary

The Order of the Phoenix is a Useless Joke

MISC. META

Harry Potter as a colonial fantasy

Death as one of HP’s themes

The “not like other girls” syndrome in the Harry Potter books.

HP series being ‘ethically mean spirited’

Marauders era and the 70s aesthetic?  

JKR and chirstianity

Harry potter series and how american readers can understand classism a little better

Slytherin and Eton: A Primer on the British School System.

JKR’s absolutist way of seeing the world: gryffindor and slytherin

The fact that Snape is one of the youngest if not THE youngest professor is fucking hilarious.

I have a theory about Rincewind. We all know that Esk is the female Wizard but narritive convention would dictate that she have a counterpart. What if the reason Rincewind isn't good at wizard magic is because he's more suited to witchcraft then wizardry? Has anyone talked about this before? I want fanfiction of this...

“I can’t be having with this,” Granny said, each word sharpened to points and enunciated with the accuracy of a champion knife-thrower outlining an unlucky target. Her glare was focused like a laser. It looked as though it could shatter rocks and burn cities to the ground. It was only slightly undercut by the enormous array of novelty candles that adorned Nanny Ogg’s mantelpiece. Rincewind, the unfortunate soul in her cross-hairs, shrank a little deeper into his armchair. He rather felt he couldn’t be having with this either, and tried to say so, but the old woman’s look seemed to have fused his tongue to the roof of his mouth.

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