A big part of the movie revolves around Jett's age and that she's past her prime and getting too old to play.
I was wondering how old the other characters are, especially the other players, because it would be really stupid and hypocritical how others make fun of how old Jett is when the other players are not much younger than her.
I already did a bit of theorizing how old the characters are. I know there is a novel that apparently states that Will is at least 20 but there are clear differences between the movie and the book. Like how in the same novel Will is a feet smaller than in a movie. However, it doesn't mean it's completely useless for our discussion.
In the novel Jett played for 20 years not 15 like in the movie, so we can assume a 5 year difference between a novel and a movie.
It basically makes my theory about Will being around 16 correct. Yuppy!
If we assume Jett joined the team as early as possible, at 16 (like Will) or 18 (adult), we add 15 years to that, meaning Jett is 31-33 years old.
Lenny is next, because his story is very interesting. I don't know if I remember correctly, or if the translator got it wrong, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Lenny said he played for 10 teams in 10 seasons.
I'm no basketball expert. I just like the movie and know that the ball has to go in the basket (and that points vary depending on how far you shoot it). I tried doing some research, one Google search, I'm still confused. To me, 10 basketball seasons translates to 10 years. Let's do the same thing we did for Jett. He started playing professionally as soon as he could. That would make him 26 - 28 years old. As I suspected, not much younger than Jett.
Olivia is very new to the team. She just got there a year ago. By applying the same rules, she should be 17 - 19 years old.
Archie is surprisingly hard to pinpoint. He has young daughters, but it's hard to guess their age. In movies, it's common for child characters (or really all characters) to act more mature or immature, depending on the tone of the story. 3–4 Years: Children communicate in full, often complex sentences, and can hold a conversation. Let's round it up to 5. Thanks to Frank, we know that animal pregnancy in this world is the same as in real life. The pregnancy of the Indian rhinoceros lasts about 14–15 months. Assuming in good faith that Archie did not have children while he was a minor that would make him around 26 - 30/32 years old.
Modo is next and I have nothing to say. He could be 17 or 30/32 for all we know about him form the movie alone. But the fact that it is a reptile raises an interesting question. How long is a life spam for those animals? If it were natural, Frank would have died in about 3 years. It could be that everyone lives as long as the average person, that only reptiles can live longer.
The only other character I can guess the age of is Mane Attraction. He won 2 times in a row. That makes him 18 - 20 years old. Oh no, my ship has a problematic age gap. I have to write it now that Mane Attraction and Will start dating when Will is 18. Or go with a novel. Or just don't care because those aren't real people and don't act like their ages anyway.
Final Thoughts:
I bet some people are disappointed that Olivia is so young. Older people can be addicted to their phones too!
But those same people will be happy that Archie has children while Jett doesn't, even though she's older than him.
Many might be surprised by the small age difference between Will and Mane Attraction. This explains Mane's immature attitude. He's a teen star, his ego growing, until Will showed up.
I think the reason everyone mocks Jett, even though many of the players are around her age or probably older, is because of the high expectations. Nobody expects anything from Lenny or Archie. And even though many of the players are categorically inferior and older than her, at least their teams won the Claw. It just goes to show that even with the best player or players, if the team doesn't work together, it doesn't matter.
I find it funny how old Lenny is. His friendship with Will and Olivia, despite the age difference. Going back to their interview, I can picture his mother asking him ''When will you get married?'' and ''I want some grandchildren before I die." Especially if one of his younger teammates was already married and has kids.
Also, as a Lenny x Olivia shipper, I can imagine Lenny bringing Olivia as his fake girlfriend. Or the media and their parents, going absolutely crazy over their age gap, but not them being different species. (More on that in another post.)
Notable members include: Jett Fillmore, Will Harris, Modo Olachenko, Olivia Burke, Archie Everhardt, Lenny Williamson
Y’know, there was a brief time where I was willing to be a bit more lenient with how folks portrayed some characters in Goat 2026. Not all of them stood out as particularly Black to me. I just figured y'all at least knew which characters were undeniably Black, as in, it wasn't left up to interpretation. But apparently, no matter how obvious the writing and portrayal of the character is linked to their Blackness, y'all still had the audacity to depict them as white, of all things, when reimagined as human beings.
So now I have to say, nah: they are all Black. Every team member here. Meaning when you draw them as humans, they better be Black. This is already a Black sports genre story anyways.
“But what can I do about Olivia’s hair?” Either make them into afro-puffs, use the concept art where she is drawn with Black hairstyles in mind, or base it on Y2K straightened Black hairstyles. Either figure it out or don’t do it, I'm just at that point.
Literally, I can’t imagine watching a movie like this and forming the conclusion that someone like Will Harris is a generic white boy. Truly, what were y'all smoking? So for this series, I do want to point out some possible reasons, some of ya’ll don’t want to see these characters as Black. We know it’s due to antiblackness, but we gotta dig deeper into some of these reasons.
Why can’t Will be Black?:
He’s goofy in a corny way
He’s considerate
He’s small thus “non-threatening”
Typical underdog story you associate with scrawny small loser white boys
“None of those reasons only apply to non-Black characters,” and yet time and time again, y'all demonstrate you believe that to be exactly the case. Your actions speak louder than words here, remember that.
See, Will shares a similar demeanor and appearance to the character Miles Morales: a young inner-city Black boy with a humorous personality, fro-ed out hair, love of sneakers, you get the gist. Hell, there’s talk that Caleb McLaughlin may end up voicing Miles in the next Spider-verse movie(don’t quote me).
The thing with Miles, however, is that he isn’t an anthropomorphic animal or anything like that. He’s visually a normal human Black boy. Unfortunately for non-Black fans, many didn’t know how to engage with that fact. Miles’s character was funny and charming and sweet and all, but they just couldn’t imagine a Black boy having those traits, while also being unapologetically Black. I’ve seen attempts to whitewash his character on the account that his mother was Latina, but then stump themselves learning she’s Afro-Latina. People tried depicting him as a troubled Black youth who steals art supplies he can’t afford, which no…he doesn’t do that. His dad is a cop(awful), his mom is a doctor, and he goes to a private school; they aren’t struggling financially. So when all of those attempts to sanitize his Blackness were met with criticism, non-Black fans then turned all their focus onto Gwen Stacy. That's sadly the common tactic for these guys when they enter a fandom focused on Black stories, they focus on the token white.
Now, because Will is depicted as a goat person, some of y'all decided that was a perfect opportunity to say he can be white, cuz “no one said he couldn’t be,” thinking y'all are clever. We already went over how stupid that logic was, so I won’t say much here again. If you are out here believing that a character looking like this, in a Black sports movie genre is white: skill issue.
What I will talk about are the characters yall WILL agree are indefinitely Black…but only due to bigoted biases of preconceived notions towards Blackness.
See, for me, Jett Fillmore is a Black woman because her VA, Gabrielle Union, makes her sound like a typical, old-school auntie who knows how to smack-talk and got game. She was also characterized as someone who had trouble expressing emotional vulnerability and was always hardest on herself. I often see this happen to Black women irl, as we tend to keep to ourselves and close ourselves off, figuring no one actually cares to help us (which does happen more often than not). We live under a system that puts us under constant pressure and hypersurveillance, waiting, and cheering for our downfall. We are expected to help everyone, but at the same time, never to express our thoughts, as that makes us appear aggressive, threatening, and hysterical. That was just an interesting storyline they gave her, and I would have liked to explore that more (how was she not the main character???), but for what we got, the signs were there.
Also, she’s literally a black panther wearing her own Jordan brand; it’s honestly not that hard to conclude that this is a Black character. So for a time, I was impressed to see the fandom depict her as a darkskinned Black woman, cuz fandoms never go that far unless - oh….oh boy
Yeah, so imagine my disappointment to learn the fanbase seems to only agree she’s a darkskinned Black woman, because they see her as an aggressive and angry individual who is “masculine” because she doesn’t have a “feminine body.”
Idk about y'all, but it’s funny how every other day on this website, we talk about how women should be allowed to express their emotions, allowed to express anger over personal injustice, and allowed to have varying body types without being demeaned or questioned about their gender expression. But when it comes to Blackness and Black women, we all of a sudden can’t find ourselves to extend that same grace and consideration. Why does Jett need to be considered a masculine figure for being a Black athlete? Why does Will’s race AND his gender need to be questioned by non-Black people for not meeting the assumed image of Black boys?
Misogynoir in women’s sports is so disheartening to witness. Our bodies are already masculinized (or called animalistic) enough as it is. You then have to add on top of the fact that we aren’t allowed to scream, get angry, get energetic, be happy, or show any visible disappointment with a turnout, lest you be deemed the villain.
Similarly, we have the character Mane Attraction that fandom will also not argue is Black. You would think it’s because of his inner-city AAVE, his use of diss tracks, or his cornrowed mane he takes great care of (even if they might be extensions, which gestures). But no, looking at how y'all treat Jett, I can only assume it’s because Mane is a big, strong, and aggressive individual bullying the “meek, frail, and feminine” main character. I’m being sarcastic with those traits I used to describe Will btw, because that's how he’s all of a sudden framed when it comes to shipping. No, he's just smaller than the average Roarball player, that was kinda the point. Which you should ask yourselves why being small = petite and feminine...and white. Had Will been built like the other large animal players, I’m very certain yall would label him aggressively masculine for speaking AAVE.
Basically, a lot of y'all in the fandom are phony for encouraging this behavior, honestly. All this talk of how we want media to stop portraying everything as an assumed binary, only to show y’all want the status quo to remain. So until further notice, everyone on The Thorns is Black. “Everyone?”
Hey, if you can somehow find a way to make Will a white boy, I’m sure y'all can find how to make the other guys Black.
In this post, I would like to discuss the members of the Thorns and their relationships with one another.
Let's set aside the obvious. Jett doesn't like her teammates. From her conversation with Flo, I gathered that due to her play-style and the fact that the Thorns never won the claw, teammates are constantly being swapped out (with the exception of Jett) to create a team that finally breaks the curse and wins. It's no wonder they couldn't win. Not only because Jett was playing alone, but also because the members swapped so often that they didn't have the opportunity to learn to play together as a team. This is my interpretation, when she looks at the team having fun without her, she looks like she wants to join them but thinks it's too late because she's burned all the bridges. You've probably seen the movie, so you know their relationship has healed.
Now about Olivia. She's very interesting. Archie's daughters call her Auntie Olivia, at least in the Polish dub. I know that in many cultures, any older woman is addressed as "auntie," and this film has a lot to do with Black American culture. But I prefer to believe it suggests a deeper connection. Jett keeps to herself at this point in the story, and the girls' mother is nowhere to be seen, presumably dead, so Olivia is the only female figure in their lives. I doubt Olivia took the role of their mom, cooking, cleaning, and doing important things like going to the doctor or daycare/school. She seems too young and immature for that. She seems like the kind of person who would happily entertain Archie's daughters, share their love of girly things like fashion, and keep an eye on them while Archie cooks, cleans, or just relaxes. I assume (based on my inferences from the film and extended sources) that she and Lenny joined the team around the same time. They seem to be close and have a lot in common. They pay a lot of attention to their respective devices (They seem almost addicted to them.) They have long necks. (They might bond over similar experiences. Neck pains, getting them caught on something, etc.) They are the closest to Will in terms of age(Or at least acting his age, more in the post about their ages.) and personalities, chill and friendly, but with a bit of attitude and sass. I really like how she brings Lenny down to earth and makes him come out of his shell. In the YouTube interview, she makes him pay attention, and brings up him being a rapper to Will. There are many possibilities. Maybe Lenny is famous, but Will simply doesn't know it, which I find unlikely. Considering Olivia spends so much time on social media, I think the most likely scenario is that she simply found one of his music videos or something about his rapping career, and that's how she and the rest of the Thorns found out. I like to think she's his biggest supporter in his career, she can help him with his social media and be his spokesperson because he's so humble and shy and his "problem" is communicating with people. I'm not hiding my bias here, I ship it. But I like my ships with potential and some logic. Olivia, being the social butterfly ostrich she is, could easily unite members who don't have much in common, for example, by getting Archie and Lenny to spend time with her at the same time.
Besides Jett, Will has the most interactions with Modo, which mostly boil down to Will being scared or weirded out by Modo, Olivia, who I just discussed, and Lenny. Their first interaction takes place on a plane. Will wants to sit across from him, but the seat is designated for his legs. Later, when they finally play together, Will gives him a high-five (or rather, a high-three), which completely surprises him. Afterward, the entire team (except Jett) bonds and creates a diss track. It's very sweet and simple. My question is: does Lenny really need that seat for his legs, or did he say that to get rid of Will? I think he really needs it. He's huge and needs extra space even in that luxurious plane. I get cramps just from sitting on a train for 2 hours, and I'm not a giraffe. If he didn't want to spend time with Will, he could just put on his headphones, close his eyes, and relax. He could have put it in a nicer way. Despite my love for Lenny, he's no saint, I think he looked down on (wink, wink) Will for being small. But after witnessing with his own eyes that Will can play, he changed his attitude. However, in my opinion, that little high-three really resonated with Lenny. Remember, he was bounced around from team to team like a whore ball, so it's important for him to have a teammate who genuinely wants to be his friend. Archie has a moment when he protects Will as if he's his child. It's played for laughs. You can interpret it as Archie becoming more fatherly towards Will. Another important character is Dennis. Will is the only one who initially listens to him. Both are dismissed by the team, but as the film progresses, this changes.
Archie becomes protective of his team, including Jett.
Jett isn't mean to her team anymore.
Last and unfortunately least is Modo. I'm sorry. I like him. Aside from the running joke about him being weird and being part of a collective that dislikes Will, then likes him, is disliked by Jett, then is liked by Jett he has nothing. You might say that this whole post is me grasping at straws, creating whole relationships from dialogue and interactions that could've landed to any of these characters (Anybody could've mentioned that Lenny is a rapper.) or jokes, but in the case of Modo, there's nothing for me to grasp. There's potential for an interesting dynamic, with him owning the Thorns now, but we have to wait for a sequel or a show.
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