callinf sinhal an abusive relationship isnt even disparaging people who ship it or the ship itself. i like sinhal. ive drawn them and im actively playing around with a sinhal heavy au wirh my friends. but irs just a fact. they would not Actually be happy together. sinestro and hal together would be sinestro sequestering hal away from better influences and needling his ideals into hal even more.
hal is a centrist and as much willpower as he has, he is swayed by the teachings of other people when he’s close to them. there’s a reason he becomes more left leaning after ollie’s roadtrip and there’s a reason he doesn’r flip out as much as he should wrt emerald dawn and sinestro. being with sinestro for real would make sin a main contact and his views would end up swaying further right and authoritative which hal certainly doesnt need.
now im super dizzy rn so idk how much i can write on this rn but. that hasnt even touched on the themes of power imbalances, sa and whatnot. i understand that intimate posing in violent situations is a staple of the cape genre, but i feel it happens very, very, very heavily in gl comics especially in regard to sinestro— who, once you start reading the “fear lanterns” as more “we make you submit out of terror lanterns” it’s impossibke to ignore or break from his character. i could talk all day but even just in emerald dawn and emerald twilight, the mirrored positioning of being behind eachother with an arm across the throat and pulling them in, being on top and shoving someone down, stripping rings and life and shoving and forcing while there’s a horrified expression on the face? in more modern comics, imagery of sinestro’s attacks with tentacles and chains and leashes and rope. it’s tugging you into submission, it’s not just making you scared. etc.
it mirrors a whole cycle of very sexual abuse themed things in gl comics. it’s not hard to read martin jordan as sexually abusive (cough cough. comparisons of “youve never flown with me” from martin and then to carol and kyle back to back to back with kyle’s even being remarkably easy to read as sexual as well) and then you tie that into hal’s canon regard to the guardians as father figures— and their ability to strip you of autonomy, to break your will and your mind and bend you into a soldier who is unfeeling and must preform in their manner, their ability to literally steal you away from your life and you wake up in their grasp to do their bidding after they’ve just cost you your job and broken your relationships by forcing you away etc. sinestro is worse off because he is under the thrall of this systemic abuse within the glc and he decides to break it by becoming even more authoritative— which hal then follows (not exactly. more complexly) with parallax, etc. whatever
none of this is fluid this is me yapping about green lantern while im dizzy and exhausted. the thing is. the glc is abusive and it is inspired by abusive systems that take away your autonomy in the real world and where sexual abuse is prominent. it is no wonder that those themes are insistent in the comics, that they’re so there and visceral on the page but unspoken enough for people to not talk about it as much as they should.
that sinestro, whether he likes it or knows it or not, is following in the guardians footsteps despite claiming otherwise, that he is also taking a role of power; physical, mental, emotional, sexual. he derives pleasure (though no, not always sexual in nature) from disparaging and putting down others, from making them submit. and hal jordan is his oldest living victim. this would not just cease if they got together. etc.
i cannot express just how important it is to consider this post and then read these panels under the context that it happens within the span of barely two pages of showing just how manipulative sinestro is in a situation of power imbalance. especially in regards to how the comic shifts sinestro from very aggressive / in control to, almost piteous and shown to have a lot of feelings...followed by immediately shifting back into that dominating position of being in the lead and being in control.
even if it wasn't intentional on sinestro's part--which i think in this case it isn't entirely, but also not unintentionally, it's complicated--this feels very off and wrong because you are literally seeing a character go through a cycle of being in control, briefly "losing control" as a way to make someone feel bad for them to doubt what they're seeing to make them think oh maybe there's something wrong and this isn't actually sinestro being bad / evil, and then once you're enthralled, he swipes back to being in control and wrapping you back around his finger.
the comic is extremely leaning into an allegory for abuse, especially something akin to sexual abuse and emotional manipulation.
it's also sosososos important to remember that at the point of this comic, technically sinestro hasn't "fallen down the deep end", not like how he is in his later appearances / in his first appearances as "evil green lantern." right now in the state of this comic, he is still what the guardians would consider a perfect green lantern, he has a peaceful perfect sector that is completely under his orderly control, and that is outwardly encouraged by the guardians. there is such a cycle it drives me insane.
hi :)
THIS IS WHAT IM SAYING. hi im typing this while we’re on vc.
the thing is you CANT divorce these themes from glc comics. i UNDERSTAMD that this is a constant theme in cape comics in general but the formatting of the glc fits so so so so heavily in a way i dont see in other comics. because it is BASED on a system that is inherently abusive and very very often sexually! there is a reason parallax towards kyle almosts mirrors how sinestro acts towards hal or how the guardians act to the glc and that is because parallax is a culmination of these ideals.
the terminology in glc villains and the guardians of “this has to happen” while being physically overpowering or holding a severe position of control is also like a huge huge huge huge example. they format things as though “there is no other way” or “this is what has to be done” amd the system of the corps itself enforces this as something you willpower through (one way or another) or you fail and you are dishonored, essentially. its really interesting to compare this to kyle as well who breaks this molding because he is NOT in the thrall of the guardians or the corps itself. which like. we’ve discussed how interesting a sinestro and kyle dynamic is because kyle does not feel himself to be tied into this inherent dynamic the way that sinestro and hal are.
