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very interesting to me that Parrot's take isn't "we shouldn't decide whether or not someone else lives or dies", it was "i am more worthy of making this choice about life and death than you because you are evil". what is the moral threshold for deciding someone's fate, parrot?

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my actual theory regarding the Underworld is that it’s only open to players who have traveled to code-disrupted regions or have been deemed “important” by the server or some metaphysical force and the only reason Boosfer got dropped in is because Wemmbu happened to be with him

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can i talk abt how the way some uu fans perceive flamefrags actually just sucks? I'm going to talk about it anyways because it actually bugs me to no end lolll

so going into this I can say it's actually amazing (/sarc) how I go around seeing flame's character get boiled down to being aggressive or stupid in any way, when he very much is not. If you watch his POV with your eyes open you would clearly see that he bites back when provoked, he does the things he does for a reason, and he isn't an idiot. he's literally just concluding this whole training arc and picking up every single thing taught with general ease HE'S NOT AN IDIOT!!!!!! it pains me so much because most of the things i'm hearing people say about flame could literally be applied to wemmbu instead and it would fit like 10 times better man. honestly to end this off, whether intentional or not I feel ultimately there's gotta be some sort of racism embedded into ideas because why is it the black character that gets perceived as an aggressive brute when he is Not lol.

tagging this bc i am not afraid of ppl. come discuss with me if i remember to check my notifications

i love flamefrags send post

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This reminds me of the various posts I've seen about Flame being hypocritical for his philosophy around fighting when it comes to Wemmbu, especially in terms of battles where one combatant has worse gear than the other. I saw soooo many people pointing out that Flame was such an asshole for attacking Wemmbu when he was low on gear post-fight with the Law, and it had me like??? Dude, Wemmbu was the one who started that. He attacked Flame out of the blue at the abandoned Mafia outpost when Flame had established very well he was in the absolute trenches, but zero people acknowledged he was just doing to Wemmbu what Wemmbu had done to him. Flame has his moments of naiveté when it comes to trust, but he's not stupid or unintelligent, and people so often portray him as the one in the wrong when he has ANY conflict with other players. Baffling behavior.

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Everyday I mourn that we didn't get Flame's POV until season 2. Obviously we had the Spoke POV for an insider view of the Mafia, but he wasn't a diamond, and he was only there briefly. Flame was committed. He was a diamond crime (one of, like, 12). He presumably knew Jaden during the Mafia. He went from working from Zam, who used him primarily to kill Wemmbu and conquer other, smaller kingdoms, to being abandoned by ManePear and joining the Invisible Mafia probably sometime in the infancy of Ash's era. For a character so deeply devoted to his strength, it's not shocking that he would need several arcs to parse out his own feelings about himself and his actions because he spent so long having his strength and actions defined and commanded by those above him. Also not to angstmaxx but like my goodness it could not have been good to be someone who so thoroughly values their own strength and identity in an organization that works so hard to strip its members of that very identity. And then when it falls, he still clings to it anyway, because the diamond trims were the most widely-known threshold for strength on the server, and therefore the easiest way through which he could lift himself up. Fascinating set of circumstances, and we never even get to hear him speak about it.

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dude i don't even go here for spoke. i'm an imperial fire enjoyer. but i always end up saying the most about spoke because he Contains Multitudes man. Just genuinely the most confusing man alive. every time i write about him it's like here's three different possible reasons he did what he just did, and here's four more different ideas about how his past shapes him. you talk about wemmbu or parrot or whoever and it's fairly straightforward most of the time like yeah x caused y and that's incredibly interesting still but you hit spoke and he's like x, y, f, and g maybe caused z but there's also influence from h, p, and o, and of course we can't forget that time with m.

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Protag POV & Arc Predictions

In light of Parrot's final arc episode being posted, here's a collection of some of my thoughts on what the other POVs might include from the cut sections of Parrot's video, as well as my musings about future arcs for the four of them.

Spoke:

I definitely think Spoke's episode is going to focus more on wrapping his arc with Leo up. Now that Leo is aligned with the Law VERY clearly, we can safely say he's an antagonist for Spoke to defeat with "public" (audience, server, other protags) approval, meaning it probably won't be something other players end up targeting him for. As far as I can see it, the only people who would have gone out of there way to avenge Leo were BAT, but that's obviously gone down the drain recently. I don't know where Leo or the other commanders went, but I'm actually assuming most of them died off screen during the fight and the other protagonists have their deaths, because I don't think it makes much sense for them all to randomly flee and leave LettuceK so willing to surrender. Given Mapicc was missing, I think there might be something going on with the BAT plotline, but I'm also kind of skeptical of this because none of the characters actively point out that Mapicc is missing? I don't know if Mapicc has an elytra, but he was with them at the beginning of the battle and then seemingly disappeared, and that was before they double-checked to make sure everyone was present for the first time (the "where's Zam" conversation). All that being said, no one pointed out his absence at all during the last part of the video, including Spoke and Zam, and I think it would be crazy of them to go on voting for LettuceK if they were aware he wasn't there???? So I don't know, maybe the lurking invisible player had something to do with that, but I just found that entire situation weird.

My final prediction is that Spoke is going to kill Leo. Leo is the final loose end in regards to the Farlands Fuckery Incident with Mapicc and Zam, though Leo himself is unaware of that. Given Leo is now firmly a server villain and his beliefs are at a point where I don't think he can be convinced to back down, he almost certainly has to die from a storytelling standpoint. Additionally, Spoke is currently combatting the notion that he is a bad person, and with the Kill vote on LettuceK, it would be surprising to me if he, for some reason, had a massive change of heart in the upcoming episode. Killing Leo is what he expects of himself, so I think it's what he'll end up doing, especially since he has Jumper's approval, and because Mapicc and Zam are both under the impression that Leo tried to kill him (meaning neither of them have any massive issue with it). As for the lies, I think there are two very distinct directions Spoke could choose to take with this.

Leo or Jumper unintentionally reveal Spoke's lie, and he has to reconcile with the loss of his friends, which is still the only thing (in my opinion) that he thinks separates himself from becoming Ash. The next season takes Spoke firmly into the realm of moral debasement, and he either commits to the bit (at which point Jamato would have to step in once more for the good of the server) or realizes he is, in fact, not the same as Ash. That last bit is up to interpretation, but my prediction stands.

He gets away with the lie. The next arc involves him overcoming or handling the guilt without the pressure of being in a life-threatening situation, and he ultimately reveals or continues hiding the information of his own accord, which has an entirely different effect on the friend group. I think this one would be less interesting (though I'm assuming there would be more complexities to it than this barebones nothingburger description), but it would be a cool subversion of the things we expect to occur as the viewer.

Parrot:

This is obviously the end of one big arc for Parrot and it's always hard to tell where the characters will go after something like that, but I think he'll definitely have a storyline about the difficulty of ruling/the moral decisions involved? As much as I think it would be interesting, there has to be some kind of conflict there, so maybe his views on the nature of the server slowly change, or he has to deal with some kind of "big bad" like LettuceK did with Wemmbu and Flame. I'd like to see how Parrot would handle something like there were he in the exact same position. I think it would also be interesting to see if he continues interacting with an imprisoned LettuceK, and whether or not LettuceK's ideals would change, though I don't think that's super likely.

Flame:

Flame has stated he wants to become a combat master, and he should be relatively free to do that given he's no longer exiled, but that does kind of bring me to wonder what's going to go on with him and Lomedy.

In terms of POV predictions for the finale, I don't think Lomedy is going to die, and I think the lack of mace exchange could in all likelihood come down to Lomedy either not being freed from prison or simply not caring to have the mace returned (either because he agrees they need to handle LettuceK after learning of the things LettuceK has done, or because he doesn't want to associate with Flame any longer and Torchflower gets massacred). I don't really have any prediction one way or the other about whether or not he'll decide to be friends with Flame again, though I personally would lean toward a very hesitant yes. Flame and Lomedy seem to get along fine when they're not being attacked or anything, and Flame should be safe for now, which means he can have his fair-weather friendship with Lomedy, though I don't know how strong of a relationship I'd say that really is. They have a lot of ideological differences that I don't think they can really reconcile. I'd like to see if they bring his and Jaden's relationship back up again as a point of contention, though I think that's more likely to be resolved than not. Ultimately I think Flame's arc right now is still about discovering his own identity and figuring out what exactly strength means to him, so I'm hoping it won't be as fight-or-die combat centered as it was when Flame was struggling to prove himself against Wemmbu and other groups since he has seemingly moved past the need to justify his own strength to himself, and is more content to reconcile his weaknesses and choose to grow past them.

Wemmbu:

This guy is kind of an unknown for me. I think he's still coming to terms with the motives he has for violence and his more purposeful avoidance of it when it's unnecessary, but I think his decision at the end of this episode was as far as he needed to take that arc for character reasons, so I'm betting he'll go a different direction entirely in the beginning of the next major arc, and it's kind of hard to predict what that might be. it could be something to do with the Farlands, but I don't think he has much specific interest in it. The most likely outcome would be him wandering off with Egg and just getting into trouble somehow by doing that, leading to some other arc about the specific morality of violence and revenge idk. As for his POV i'm going to assume he freed Jaden with Spoke's help and was thus convinced to join the resistance or whatever, and there was definitely some interaction with Parrot cut from the episode so we'll probably see that too. I also want to know if he had any words with Flame or Jaden after the vote, seeing as from an outsider POV, Wemmbu probably seemed like an easy sell on the Kill vote. From his POV as the viewer we're more aware of his decisions regarding killing and his lack of impulse control when it comes to fights, but the other characters certainly weren't aware of it, so I hope there's some acknowledgment of his vote, especially with Imperial Fire and Cannonball, given he kind of has weird complicated relationships with both of them. Spoke's preoccupied with his own things so I don't expect anything from Orbital. Also, since we're discussing duos, I bet MinuteTech was pleased as punch to see Wemmbu taking his side in the "let's not kill people for no reason" debate given he's been trying to sell Wemmbu on this since the End fight with Baablu and Fantst lmfao.

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Deputy_Ace's Stand

I've seen some discussion about the fight that took place with Deputy_Ace and I want to throw my own take into the ring because I like to yap, and I'm mildly fond of Ace.

I have very mixed feelings on Ace's death, so to keep it simple I'll put things this way. I think Ace's death was well-written from a character standpoint, but I think it got drowned out by other things that went on in the episode in a way that made it feel kind of underwhelming.

To be frank, I think Ace's death was a waste, but I also think the way he died worked best for the way in which his character lived. t's been obvious for a while that he wasn't content with LettuceK's decision-making, and I don't think it was crazy for him to stay through the Purge and such, because it's clear Ace was kind of naive (especially in that episode). He was genuinely invested in LettuceK's goal, and though he kind of made his point about his discontent by talking about LettuceK ignoring him, which seems sort of shallow, I think it was more of an observation on Ace's awareness that the Law's original goal had been bastardized. He seemingly realized this, but I also don't think he thought badly of LettuceK, which is why I think he chose to word his frustration simply as Lettuce ignoring him, rather than truly addressing the root issues, the same way he argues to LettuceK that he's not betraying him for Theo and Parrot, but because believes in what they stand for, which is very similar to LettuceK's original goal, pre-corruption.

I suppose I just don't like that it felt so wasteful. It happened really quickly, and it was kind fo drowned out almost immedaitely after by the team-ups and the return to District 13, and I think there should have been a bit more emphasis placed on the sequence. As for the death itself, I don't think it was a bad writing decision. Ace was finally pushed to betrayal because he saw LettuceK try to kill someone Ace himself perceived as pure-hearted, and that was enough for him to realize there was no possible justification for Lettuce in that moment, where there was some level of deniability previously, or he just wasn't aware of everything that was going on. Ace's death is quick because he feels the destructive need to "die standing", which he sees as the noble thing to do in that moment. It's a self-sacrificial move that absolves him of the guilt of being complicit in LettuceK's schemes for so long, and it's eerily familiar to the deaths that several of Parrot's allies have had before, where they rush into danger for noble causes in a manner that ultimately don't account to anything. It felt right for him, as a character choice, because he was finally standing up for what he believed in. Unfortunately for him, it just happened in an environment that placed him wholly at the disadvantage, and there was no way he was making it out of there alive.

It would have been more satisfying, to me, if he had made it out and given us some additional insider perspective on the Law or LettuceK, but it's also understandable why they didn't go this route. And that's why I write--so I can include stuff that didn't get added to canon.

I also get why Parrot and Theo moved on to focus on other things so quickly, though. They had other things to do, and ultimately neither of them knew Ace. The times he was shown doubting never had anything to do with him, and the episode where it was incredibly apparent he didn't agree with LettuceK was Wemmbu's Great Sea episode. I just wish he got a little bit more of a nod from the story. RIP Ace, you were a fun little guy.

TLDR: Ace's death was not bad, and I appreciate that it made sense, I just have some minor issues with the presentation.

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The Vote

UU PARROT FINALE SPOILERS BELOW //

Players on FlameFrags' "Kill" side: Horace, Flame, Jaden, Spoke, Jumper

Players on Parrot's "Spare" side: Parrot, Theo, Wemmbu, Zam, Fymada, Egg, Minute

While we definitely think we could have seen and predicted this split, I do want to talk about it a little bit.

The Kill Side:

Flame choosing to head the "Kill" side is the least shocking thing ever, mostly because as I've said before, Flame works on a sort of "eye for an eye" system, and LettuceK has pretty much taken the cake in the "who can inconvenience and harm Flame the most" competition all things considered. He was exiled and had to fight for his life multiple times (probably double digits), so that narrative choice isn't surprising.

By that same logic, Jaden's choice isn't shocking. He and Flame have very similar ideologies, at least as far as we're aware. Jaden is often more restrained when speaking to others, but he treats revenge with both Flame and Wemmbu in a similar manner--that is, they've caused him harm so he causes them harm in return. Wemmbu is the only one of the two to actually change this, by doing a good deed for Jaden, but overall he seems to operate under an ideology similar to Flame's, and LettuceK certainly harmed him.

I will say, Horace was a bit of a surprise. This was admittedly a mistake on my part, as I assumed him working with Parrot and being a "weaker" player would skew him toward saving people when necessary. Horace doesn't appear an overwhelming amount throughout the series, but I don't think it's entirely shocking that he would walk the path of revenge here. When the Mafia happened, Horace took his frustrations out on Parrot and eventually defected to their side because he felt there was no greater avenue for victory. If nothing else, LettuceK did keep up the pretense of fair election for long enough that Parrot and Horace were able to form their own opinions and make connections before being attacked or coerced, unlike with the Mafia. Horace ending up on top this time and choosing to put an end LettuceK could be seen either as him wanting to put an end to the cycle of powers on the server by disallowing LettuceK the chance to ever regain influence, a personal choice based on his own feelings, or a parallel to his helplessness earlier in the story, when his civilization was destroyed and he never had any hand in taking Ash down for it.

Spoke is also unsurprising, and since JumperWho was aligned with him and voiced her own extreme distrust of and dislike for LettuceK as an extension of Leo's control, it's not a shock. It is interesting to me, however, that Spoke switched from sparing to Ash to wanting to execute LettuceK. I think this could come down to him either viewing himself as a bad person and a murderer, as he stated in his most recent episode, or this links back to Ash. This is a lot of conjecture, but when Spoke confronted Ash alone, he was making the decision by himself. MinuteTech and Mapicc were there, but they urged Spoke alone to make the decision. If Spoke had killed Ash, he internally believed he would have been proving Ash's theory about his amorality correct. Ash even says as much, pointing out that Spoke probably thinks he's breaking a cycle by sparing him. In the LettuceK situation, Spoke wasn't making the decision on his own, and it may have felt safer to invest in a violent action because he was neither isolated in the decision nor incredibly in his head about it because of that isolation. Either way, I hope it's touched on in Spoke's episode, given Zam voted opposite of him.

The Spare Side:

In a similar vein to the Kill side, I think we could have seen most of these votes coming.

MinuteTech has historically been against violence he deems unnecessary, and even though LettuceK has slighted him, he doesn't let personal feelings interfere with his espousal of his beliefs. This was a decision he also made with Baablu and Fantst.

Zam has been encouraging peace to some extent in all of Spoke's recent episodes. He's 100% down to murder people when he feels it is appropriate, but he also leaned toward trusting Jumper, questioned some of Spoke's decisions, and overall has argued for the most peaceful and mediated solutions out of Spoke's group of allies (Mapicc, Jumper). This holds true to the manner in which he handled things in the Zam Empire--temporary bans and exile before permanent bans. I like that that particular facet of his character has stayed the same, despite the overall shift he appears to be making in order to separate himself from his actions in his Empire (peace with and reliance on Wemmbu, wanting to explore and stay out of trouble, being content with other players having more power than him or power over him).

Fymada has seemingly always preferred the more peaceful approach, given she represents the downtrodden people of Capital City.

Parrot making the choice to Spare was never in doubt. He likes to avoid murder whenever possible, even when the party in question has harmed him badly. What's most surprising here, in my opinion, is actually Theo agreeing with him so easily despite some hesitation. When Theo and Parrot first worked together in D13 and the Farlands, Theo often argued for violence (though not the hasty violence that Purpled favored), and that behavior generally continued through Parrot's Treasure Arcs. I like that he and Parrot have affected each other so much, though not in a way that's particularly harmful or codependent. They have a really cute friendship, shoutout Cartwings. They evidently have a lot of trust in each other.

Wemmbu was the big sway vote here, but I don't think it's particularly shocking. His hesitation alone in the episode kind of signaled he would ultimately choose to side with Parrot. He and Flame had similar experiences at LettuceK's hands, but Wemmbu's past few episodes (save the most recent) included several scenes where he was reckoning with the speed at which he resorted to violence, mostly during the Great Sea mini-arc right after his escape. He's evidently going through some internal strife in regards to his own actions and his decision to spare LettuceK (someone who has harmed him and his friends) means he's had quite substantial development from the Power Arc. It's especially interesting that he's self-aware enough of the conflict to make that choice despite having the orbital strike cannons and a lot of the firepower that allows him to kill people so quickly. Earlier in the episode, his unleashing of the cannons on the Law's army seems quite reminiscent of the Wemmbu we saw during the Power Arc, so for him to make such a starkly different decision was nice. To be fair, that may have had something to do with them being outside of an active combat situation, LettuceK surrendering, and several of his closer allies (Minute, Egg, Parrot) leaning Spare, but I think it was primarily an independent decision that speaks to his change of heart over the past 10 or 20 episodes.

Egg is always sort of a toss-up with this kind of thing, but in the past few episodes he has seemed to lean more toward peace than violence, so he was ultimately predictable as well. His mind often changes depending on the situation, but he's had a fairly consistent tune recently, so we could've seen the Spare vote coming.

The "Morality" of Sparing and Killing:

This is a topic I feel really complicated about, so bear with me. Parrot's POV very much portrayed Parrot as being the one in the right. He keeps quiet when other people are talking, but he ultimately seems unbothered or unmoved by other perspectives, and he even lashes out slightly when Flame becomes frustrated with him.

This isn't an exact quote, but Parrot draws the conclusion that killing LettuceK would make them no better than LettuceK himself, which I think is both fair and unfair at the same time.

LettuceK and Parrot both started with and continued to have good intentions throughout the Kings Arc. The thing that set them apart from each other was their perspective on justice, and LettuceK's unwillingness to let players like Flame and Wemmbu go. His continued and plentiful attempts to reign them in eventually forced him to go for their allies, and then for the allies of those allies, until he was essentially witch-hunting those that didn't agree with him. This, is unequivocally bad; however, the only reason he was able to do these things was because he had power. He had thousands of players, several strong combatants, and charisma enough to sway the entire server into being chill with a public execution on multiple occasions.

Simply put, Parrot doesn't have this power. Even when he finally gets elected, the vote isn't insanely overwhelming. Parrot only beats Lettuce by a 1,000 vote margin, which Wemmbu points out is because a lot of LettuceK's crimes went on in the shadows.

Parrot is justified in thinking killing Lettuce may make them similar, and it might even have the same moral implications, but at the end of the day that is his own viewpoint.

To people like Flame or Jaden, who have very different ideals than Parrot, the reasoning probably seems almost comical. I suppose the discussion will look different in the other POVs, and I'm eager to see how it's handled, because Parrot very quickly dismissed the Kill votes as out of hand.

It was very apparent that a moral conflict was at play, and I suppose the one-sidedness left me with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, though I think that's entirely in character for Parrot's POV and it didn't shock me. Eager to see what Spoke and Flame do with that conversation in their own episodes, given I don't think either of them are necessarily wrong at all for feeling how they do, and the moral distinctions of Parrot's ideology are probably entirely lost on them given how differently they operate. This is far from a slight at them, and I personally enjoy both Spoke and Flame s characters more than Parrot, so I'll probably have more to say when their episodes drop.

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i know jumper and spoke already have a duo name from ls (?) but in UU they will be Halftruth. To Me.

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it is genuine torture to write character analysis for spoke by the way. i am intrigued by him. i hate him. i love him. i hate him. his writing is beautiful because of the constant fight between spoke's portrayal and perception of himself, his true nature, and the commentary from other people about his nature (whether his true nature or the front he puts up). unfortunately that also makes him a fucking nightmare.

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I suppose my biggest question in regards to the Eggchan betrayal theory is simply... why?

It's well-established that Eggchan only joined the server for Wemmbu, and he has since been defined by his connection to Wemmbu, so unless he formed some other incredibly important or emotional connection to someone or something, his priority should still be Wemmbu.

For those that have mentioned the Law, I still have to ask why? If it were a true connection to the Law, it would have to have been formed in the brief period in which he worked with them while Wemmbu worked with Parrot, in which case he immediately left them once more for Wemmbu. If it were some sort of coercion, or some sort of unfounded belief that they would spare Wemmbu should he work with them, Egg would have to know the Law has no intention of ever letting Wemmbu live in peace. LettuceK has made his aim to kill or permanently imprison Wemmbu incredibly clear, and Egg has directly witnessed this several times.

Disregarding then the notion that Egg found some other attachment around which to base his presence on the server, the "betrayal" would have to be either moral or personal. Egg would have to have some disagreement with Wemmbu that is so fundamental and large that he is willing to disregard all 100 episodes of their friendship, including the canonically pre-existing bond they have. In that case: what morals or belief could possibly create such an extreme conflict between him and Wemmbu that he both feels the need to hide it and to act on it? Egg's morals have often differed from Wemmbu (or, perhaps, the better way to word it would be to claim that Egg's and Wemmbu's courses of actions and ideas often differ, rather than their true morals), but it has never been such a point of contention that they have massive fallout (Parrot and Wifies, Parrot and Theo (temporarily), Flame and Lomedy, Spoke and JamatoP). On the contrary, when Wemmbu and Egg are separated from each other, it has always been because of outside circumstances (canonical real-life responsibilities or studies, someone being imprisoned, Wemmbu doing something dangerous enough that he doesn't want to involve Egg).

To me, there are zero reasons to believe Egg would in any major way betray Wemmbu, especially with no set-up whatsoever. It feels as though it would be a cheap shock, especially when UU often puts so much work into foreshadowing or providing reasoning behind betrayals and/or plot twists.

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Crime & Justice in UU: A Character Analysis

Okay so given the nature of this topic, I'm going to have to examine this at both a macro level (general, systemic, broad), and a micro level (individual). For the purpose of this analysis, I'm also going to preemptively define three of the terms I'm going to be mentioning: rehabilitative, restorative, and retributive justice. 

Rehabilitative Justice: This approach to justice focuses mainly on the offenders. It theorizes that, through education, therapy, and other outreach methods, offenders are more likely to see the "error" in their actions and choose not to re-offend. 

Restorative Justice: This approach to justice theorizes that crime is a social issue, and must be handled as such. Crime harms victims, offenders, their relationships, and the community at large, and it is something that needs to be healed from. Restorative justice seeks to reduce recidivism (the likelihood of a criminal offending more than once) by healing the community, relationships, and context in which a crime occurred, so that everyone involved may have a greater quality of life. This can be used in conjunction with rehabilitative justice, but it generally examines more of the social or environmental reasons around offending. 

Retributive Justice: The kind of justice we normally see in television shows. This approach to justice has an "eye for an eye" approach, and theorizes the best way to handle crime is through punishment—sentencing, expulsion, detention, capital punishment. This theory proposes that crime is an act against the state, and therefore blame must be determined according to the system, so that pain (punishment) may be distributed as necessary. This approach posits a sort of “good versus evil” mentality that is common in the media. 

Each of the four main protagonists approach justice and crime differently, as determined by their morals. To examine their morals, we must first discuss the main crime featured in and focused on in UU: murder. 

Murder in UU is portrayed differently from POV to POV, with each protagonist placing more or less weight on it according to their in-universe morals. This will be expanded on further momentarily, but a character like Flame, whose strength is deeply rooted in proving himself against other combatants, views the act of murder very differently than someone like Parrot, who experiences guilt over his first kill in the series and has a much smaller relative number of kills. 

Parrot’s POV is easily the most condemning of murder and banning on the UU server. He isn’t directly responsible for the death of a player until his Search for the Farlands video, when he kills someone in self defense (citation needed), and Wifies comforts him by explaining that Parrot was forced into the situation. This doesn’t stop Parrot from feeling guilty about it, as he actively views murder as a bad thing at this point in the series. Keep in mind, he had just witnessed a friend be killed in front of his eyes for seemingly no reason, and later that episode. These overwhelmingly negative feelings about murder likely stem from the fact that Parrot views himself as one of the “little guys”—the players who are often forced down by larger powers on the server (Zampire, Invisible Mafia). He has experience being forced to do things or being chased by the seemingly amoral or evil institutions on the server, and therefore identifies with the innocent players who are forced into unfortunate situations, like in Mining Town. Interestingly, Parrot only seems to kill players when he perceives them as both dangerous and part of one of these higher, oppressive powers on the server—the District 13 member who he assumed was a Mafia informant, and the Law member he shot while under the correct assumption that the information the Law player had would be used against the Owl, a player actively undermining the Law’s oppressive authority. This logic also applies to the Director in their final moments together, though Wifies’ oppression is only exerted over Parrot himself and a few of his friends. That, seemingly, is enough for him to deem Wifies an oppressive authority, despite his level of harm being much smaller relative to the PrinceZam Empire or the Invisible Mafia up to that point. He also applies this view to Wemmbu, and it’s not difficult to see why. During the identity and power arcs, Wemmbu bombs several areas on the server without restraint, including Capitol City, which Parrot lives in. From his perspective, Wemmbu has become the newest oppressive authority on the server, as he destroys anything he doesn’t like at the drop of a hat—his view doesn’t change even when Wemmbu does invisible, because he’s unaware of Wemmbu’s beliefs or ideas until much later in the series. His relationship with Wemmbu, however, is also proof that Parrot is able to admit when he has misjudged someone or something, and he does this with Wemmbu, Marlow, and the assumed Mafia informant from District 13, as he later expresses regret for his actions. This makes Parrot into something of a Robin Hood figure, or someone who is willing to harm the rich and powerful (through either theft or murder) in order to help the average player, as he views them as people, despite their relative lack of importance in the story. Parrot is not part of any larger system of justice outside of the Treasure Hunt Arc, but he most closely represent the restorative justice ideology in that he seeks to level out inequality, prevent average players from having to engage in desperate acts, and prevent any oppressive systems of power from even taking root in the server to begin with.

In stark contrast to Parrot’s almost fantastical view of what the server should be, Spoke’s views on murder and his actions serve primarily to benefit one thing: himself. Spoke’s morals and beliefs about right and wrong shift quite often throughout the series, perhaps making him the most ideologically flexible of any of the protagonists. Spoke’s arc pre-Mafia is unconcerned with murder, but it does confront the notion of offending (using exploits, in this context), and his desire to be better because of his past actions. This genuine desire to be better is seemingly spurred by one of two things: Wemmbu hunting him down, and JamatoP’s disappearance, both of which are direct consequences of his actions. One of them functions as a formal deterrent—Wemmbu’s active attempts to impede and steal from Spoke, and one is informal—the shame and guilt he feels over the lost relationship with JamatoP, his first friend on the server. It isn’t until the Mafia arc that we form a clear image of Spoke’s opinions on murder and banning, when he makes it incredibly clear he’s against it when the player involved is innocent. He has no qualms against killing in self defense, but when he truly infiltrates the Mafia, he, Mapicc, and Leo very clearly draw a line in the sand; that is, none of them are willing to go as far as to murder an innocent player in order to get promoted. Whether or not this is Spoke’s true moral conviction, is a belief shaped by his friends as he spends time with them, or is a line he draws in order to mentally separate himself from Ash is unclear. What is clear, is that he ultimately goes back on this statement when presented with the opportunity of a promotion. He feels immense guilt about killing Rose, but he is ultimately willing to kill an innocent, uninvolved player in order to further his goal of killing a very clearly non-innocent and harmful player so that Spoke, his friends, and the entirety of the server may be free from Ash’s control. This guilt does not purify or absolve him, however, because Rose herself makes it clear that Ash’s death will not pacify her—she does not go willingly to the grave, Spoke forces her there. Spoke is trapped in a cycle of retributive justice in the Mafia. He seeks to punish Ash, and in turn punishes an innocent player, and is then internally forced to punish himself before confessing about his fears to his friends, finally reassuring him that he is not the same as Ash for partaking in a needlessly violent act. After Ash’s fall and subsequent warning to Spoke, Spoke’s mental state becomes conflicted. He has a fixation with Ash, and then Reddoons, and in each of these situations he struggles to justify his actions to himself as a need for status in the form of the dragon egg. He commits murder without qualms while infiltrating Reddoons’ base (the smugglers) and justifies the action because they were not morally upstanding individuals.

This point of view, and the one he maintains in the Mafia, is a twisted mirror to Parrot’s. Where Parrot is willing to kill those deemed “evil” for the sake of “good”, Spoke takes his ideology one step further and kills those who are “good” or those who are “evil” in a manner that is entirely uninfluential to the server at large so that he may kill those who are “evil” for the sake of “good”, which in Spoke’s mind seems to be the safety of his friends and allies. Parrot and Spoke both seek to protect, but they have different thresholds for the violence they are willing to carry out so that they might achieve their respective visions of safety in the server. In the most recent episodes, Spoke’s moral and internal decline has become even more apparent, as he continuously escalates the level of violence he is partaking in to cover his tracks for Leo. He starts the arc by lying and sending Flame to commit murder for him, draws Flame and Wemmbu into a fight he intends to be deadly, takes credit for Wemmbu’s alleged death in a murder that is not real, and then finally resorts to a real murder when a group of innocent players threaten the foundation he has built for himself inside of BAT. He digs himself deeper into this moral and criminal hole by killing JumperWho’s spies and refusing to acknowledge it. JumperWho affords him the benefit of the doubt in this chain of crimes though her suspicions of him are founded, while Leo, burned before by the threat of a player who can lie, manipulate, and cover their tracks, is willing to partake in the same morally gray behavior Spoke loves to dabble in. Leo lowering himself to Spoke’s level (a sign of Leo’s own unraveling) only emboldens Spoke’s actions, and he becomes determined to premeditate and carry out Leo’s assassination, no matter what steps he has to take to get it done. The only thing Spoke seems unwilling to sacrifice is Mapicc and, when Mapicc goes missing, Spoke seems to come entirely unraveled. Jamato, for all his good intent, accuses Spoke of being the same as Ash—one of Spoke’s most deep-rooted fears—, and then makes out as though he is going to take Mapicc from Spoke. Mapicc’s reassurance to Spoke in the Mafia Arc was dependent on the fact Spoke had friends and allies that he cared for, unlike the isolated and cunning Ash. For all intents and purposes, Mapicc is the one strong bond that stands between Spoke’s notion of himself and his notion of Ash. Jamato not only reminds Spoke of the connection between Spoke and Ash, but unintentionally threatens the strongest of the walls that mentally separate the two. Spoke drives Jamato away so that he may keep control over Mapicc, not because of a lack of care for Mapicc’s autonomy, but because of an overabundance of care for Mapicc’s safety. His pretending as Leo and threatening to kill his own friends is not something malicious or evil, because it keeps them close to him. Murder has long been something he was able to justify, and with JamatoP—the original inspiration for Spoke’s desire to be upstanding and good for the server—out of the picture, he is allowed to do what he must in order to keep Mapicc and Zam safe, entirely free of guilt.

Spoke is difficult to categorize within the theories of justice because he so often oscillates between them. By trying to fix his mistakes, whether or not the concern for the exploited items is genuine or caused by his realization that the wealth has spread to people who are aligned against him, Spoke is experiencing rehabilitative justice—he is the one being rehabilitated, though through his own effort and without the input of some greater system or authority. By killing Rose and attempting to kill Ash, he is working within a retributive framework, even though his intentions are based in saving the server. By apologizing to Rose’s family and taking accountability for the damage he inflicted upon them, he is experiencing restorative justice, though once again of his own volition instead of under the command of some greater power. He reverts into the retributive framework during the Hidden Bases and the BAT arc, all with the intention of saving his friend. Notably, Spoke himself is almost never in the conventional position of power (discounting the 1,000 player special episodes, which I’m not discussing), and his agency is often expressed in response to someone else’s urging in terms of his moral direction. In the exploits arc, Jamato’s disappearance and Ro’s massive collection of items forces him into rehabilitative action. In the Mafia, Ash’s active attempts to harm and manipulate Spoke and his friends push him toward retributive action. The two times Spoke is directly in control of the framework in which he is operating are his apology to Quackenstein—and his later decision to spare Ash in the Arc’s conconlusion—and the Hidden Base Arc, when he goes out of his way to torment Ash, Squiddo, Reddoons, and Jaron. As they enter the BAT arc, Spoke is once again pushed to retributive action as he attempts to kill Leo and Jamato, though whether or not those attempts are justifiable is debatable. He is a complicated mix of morals and motives.  

Unlike Spoke, it’s fairly simple to recognize the manner in which Wemmbu operates. He thrives on retributive justice, though in a manner that is perhaps more forgiving than the real-life equivalent. Wemmbu works on an “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” system. Zam destroys his civilization, so he destroys Zam’s. Jaden takes the Eggpire from him and he strands Wemmbu and Egg on the Pirate Islands, so Wemmbu wrecks his castle alongside Theo and abandons Jaden underground to starve to death or fruitlessly attempt escape. Flame beats him repeatedly, so Wemmbu becomes determined to beat Flame in turn, just a single time, so that he may prove himself stronger than Flame. Boosfer attacks Capitol City, a slight that Wemmbu takes personally, and Wemmbu destroys the upper echelons of Boosfer’s bandit team in turn. He hunts Boomie down and executes him simply because Boomie knows of his identity. Wemmbu doesn’t like people having power over him, whether explicit—Zam’s oppressive rule, Flame’s repeated victories—or internal/implicit—the knowledge that Boosfer and Boomie could expose him, his feelings of frustration when Theo forces him into a fight. This disdain for powerlessness and his own subsequent desire to be stronger than everyone around him so that he won’t be disadvantaged again colors his interactions with the “chungies” of the server, for lack of a better term. Wemmbu generally has little regard for the lives of anyone who directly stands in his path. The most straightforward example would be the OG Players living in the Farlands. Wemmbu kills Lakerek, and only superficially expresses remorse for it when he realizes he can no longer get information from the deceased player about the location of the Forge, where he got his weapons. Wemmbu’s drive for power, especially during the Farlands Arc, pushes him to jump straight to murder as a solution for those who impede his ascent. The players living in the Void Palace are not outright confrontational with him, and even when he realizes his and Egg’s room has been trapped, he doesn’t outright react with violence because he believes Serpentbound might still give him what he wants. Even then, he leaves to seek the Forge on his own and discovers the Orbital Strike Cannons. It is only when the OG Players explicitly stand in his way and attempt to send him through the End Portal that Wemmbu reacts with violence, killing one of them and forcing Serpentbound to be party to Wemmbu’s use of the Orbital Strike Cannons. Wemmbu is a person in which fighting—and the possibly fatal consequences—has become a deeply ingrained response.

That being said, it is not uncommon for him to spare his enemies and come to some level of understanding with them. Wemmbu makes no attempts on Zam’s life after Zam apologizes, he actively helps Jaden during his stint as the Invisible Knight, he makes reluctant peace with Boosfer, and he finds himself aligned with Flame against the Law. Critically, despite Flame and Wemmbu having two major fights—one of which was set up by Spoke with the intent to kill—, neither of these conflicts end with Flame or Wemmbu dead. They are not particularly inclined to kill without motive, a distinction that many on the server fail to recognize. Wemmbu’s eye for an eye system and his ability to put past grievances aside when he feels the appropriate amount of violence has been enacted on those who wronged him is a neat fit for retributive justice. Notably, despite his ability to set aside the aforementioned conflicts with his enemies, Wemmbu does not embody rehabilitative justice. The context of his relationship with his past antagonists may change, but the characters themselves often retain the cores of their identity. There is no impactful emotional change shared by Wemmbu and his enemies, because Wemmbu does not afford himself the chance to be vulnerable. The only time he comes close to violating this rule is with Parrot, when Parrot offers him a genuine apology and takes responsibility for the way in which his actions hurt Wemmbu. Even before that, Wemmbu demonstrates some level of hesitance when it comes to killing Parrot, but he entirely stops after Parrot apologizes, even without enacting any violence in his typical eye for an eye pattern. Unlike both Parrot and Spoke, Wemmbu is often completely in control of the “justice” he attempts to implement and force onto other characters. Where Parrot is beholden to his ideals and hos notions for the good of the server and Spoke is beholden unto his own morals and often reacts to his environment more than he outright shapes it, Wemmbu’s revenge is often entirely on his own terms, and he is often the one to make the decision to stop. In Zam’s case, Wemmbu chooses to put their past behind him for the time being and lets Zam escape while he fights Clown. In Jaden’s case, Wemmbu fails to address the past negativity in their relationship with Jaden, but he makes it clear he no longer has any specific intent to kill Jaden, despite ample opportunity. This logic also follows with Flame, who he chooses not to pursue despite or search for for any prolonged period of time despite having the very clear upper hand in their fight, and with Parrot, who he chooses to spare after realizing his typical eye for an eye system wouldn’t be emotionally gratifying. 

Flame follows a similarly retributive system, though he displays it differently. Where Wemmbu exhibits some restraint in his eye for an eye ideology and comes to agreements with his enemies quite often, Flame prefers to handle situations in more black and white terms. When someone attacks Flame, no matter their strength level or the value of their gear, he aims to kill them as a form of revenge or punishment. This is obvious in his early arcs, when iron-clad soldiers attack him and he pursues some of them even as they ask to be spared. Flame views violence against him as a transgression that cannot be resolved, unlike Wemmbu. That being said, he is less predisposed to unnecessary slaughter than Wemmbu. Flame works on a hypocritical and sometimes convoluted honor system, but he must first be slighted for him to go out of his way to attack an innocent player. This is sometimes not the case for Wemmbu, who is very clearly willing to kill lower-level, weaker, or those who aren’t on his side for his own gain, as when he kills Lakerek’s friend after their duel, attacks Oroboroid, and urges Flame to kill the low-level players in Capitol City’s underground market for experience bottles. This seems to tie back to one of Flame’s various conversations with Lomedy about his identity—Flame doesn’t take any particular glee in the act of killing, but it is both necessary and fulfilling in that it gives him a defense: his title as the “Strongest”. This makes his actions retributive, in that they are primarily focused on punishment, but he is more restrained in his distribution of this punishment than Wemmbu is. In this way, both Wemmbu and Flame are able to take charge of their own beliefs and impose them on others, making them judge, jury, and executioner in one fell swoop. 

Anyways, just some thoughts. More to come, will continue screaming into the Void. Up next: PrinceZam, Invisible Mafia, and LettuceK, a.k.a. the true systems of justice and punishment.