I’m going to talk about Malevolent. Welcome to my TED talk, take off your coat, dry your shoes, stay a while.
mainly, I’m going to talk about perseverance.
let’s be real here. Our boys John and Arthur are insane for surviving that much.
Buuuut the one thing that kept them going? Hope. Silly, dumb, blind (haha) hope kept them both alive through Horrors, Terrors, Scaries and Kayne.
the main type of Horrors/Terrors/Scaries you ask? What comes up the most? What is the most terrifying thing ever to the poor widdle blind detective and his pet vestigial structure of a god?
being alone. Honest to god (any god) alone.
Arthur experiences this multiple times - not only just not having any family members (until Daniel, but you know what I mean), no friends (for, like, 80% of the podcast) and no safety net that he is in anyway aware of. He’s so, so alone.
he loses himself (Faust?? Larson?? Uncle??) he becomes the thing he was trying to destroy so many times. And he doesn’t really matter. Not really. The only reason why he’s special is because someone else was (Kayne, what an attention seeker). Only because Kayne wanted to bring the rock down on dear Azathoth’s head did any of this happen to Arthur. So he doesn’t matter. Remember that.
Now I’m gonna talk about Faroe. My girl has been through it, okay? So.
both major points in someone’s life!!
and for most characters that come into a story (are born into it, found in a ditch, adopted, etc, etc) the point in which they enter the story and the point in which the exit is wildly important.
(I know this is the same for the mc too but likkee)
so little Faroe, who was born alone with only a dead mother, preoccupied doctors, empty room and no dad, and died to a dead house, preoccupied nanny, empty room and no dad.
so by many people’s terms, our little girl never even existed.
she was no one and nothing, just like the lighter, just like Arthur.
I’ve noticed this theme with lots of things in Malevolent: insignificant things/people/places/memories can make all the difference.
capital Nothing becomes capital Something.
a detective becomes a hero.
a fragment of a god becomes something to believe in.
a messenger becomes the message.
John and Arthur met because of a little accident, survived because of a little light and lots of little (mostly insignificant in the wider view of Existence) people and their little lives and experiences.
TLDR; stuff only has meaning if we let it.
