You can call me Zen/Lizz. Not spoiler free. she/they. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/zennyaep?igsh=YTh4bDUxaW12a2dn STOP KOSA https://linktr.ee/omarsbigsister
lots of great Ralsei moments in ch5 but the momentary relief he feels when Kris tells him they hate Flowery too really steals the show. you can tell he's struggling with rejoicing there is a fellow hater and his desire to be a Good Person
When ralsei comes out as a trans woman flowery should come back from the dead, hand her estrogen and say "sorry to keep a lady in waiting" then die again
If it turns out a character is canonically trans and you have a problem with it for *any* reason, I don't care how much you claim to not be transphobic, just know that I will be side eyeing you very intently from then on. I don't care if the character turned out differently from the version of them you created in your head. Creators know their own characters better than you ever will, and representation is far more important than whatever personal headcanons you might have had.
one really nice bit of Ralsei's character development in chapter 5 is that he really is a lot more forth-coming with sharing what he knows. there is stuff he still hides, sure, but explicitly tells Susie that the plantners are Asgore's seven coloured flowers the moment she questions their nature, and doesn't mince his words explaining that they cannot just take the flowers to Castle Town, trusting his friends even with the facts that may not be so pleasant to hear
I so desperately want Ralsei and Noelle to initially not fuck with eachother at all. I need them to have beef and not get along. I need them to both be trying really hard to rein back their jealousy and not fully succeeding.
I love the idea of them being friends, but I do really think that they are too similar to get along immediately. I need them to be besties only after irritating the hell out of eachother
I've always been a fan of Ralsei=trans theory. I've looked at Ralsei from the very beginning and seen myself.
When I look at Ralsei, I see someone who's very constrained. Prefers following the rules (like egg me!), yearns to see other people smile (like me!), hates stepping on toes (like me!) more willing to suffer than to see other people suffer (like me!). Who wants to smile so that nobody can see what's troubling them (like me!)
Assuming Ralsei isn't cis, then it's likely Ralsei is a prince because the prophecy says the heroes have one. Ralsei is fitting themself into a box. Into a panel of the prophecy. Putting themself in a role so that they can prevent as many people from getting hurt as possible. But Ralsei doesn't belong in a box. Ralsei is trapped.
I think Ralsei is happiest as some flavor of nonbinary. Maybe genderfluid, maybe demi-girl. Either way, I think the "they/them" at the end of Ch5 is significant. I think Ralsei will no longer desire to stay in a societally approved box. The flowers have shown there's no need for that. You can be "chef" gender, if you want. Screw it. Ralsei will no longer constrain themself to satisfy you. Ralsei tested the waters in Chapter 5 by having opinions that might hurt people, and to make jokes at other people's expense.
I'd like to think, if it's not too asset intensive, Ralsei changes their presentation, with help from Susie. The return of the "Thrash your date's ass" thing that didn't work out for Susie, except Ralsei does it for themself. For instance, a "Dark Femme" sort of aesthetic as opposed to their current "Light Androgynous" one.
I'm thinking about how the Red Lotus had the goal of freeing Vaatu and enacting a more chaotic goal of overthrowing oppressive governments and institutions, and I'm wondering if the White Lotus (and its flaws) similarly parallels the most extreme of Raava's intentions.
One of Raava's major flaws (that I believe anyways, and I think would have massive potential for exploration) is her belief that she can bring balance to the world alone, without her other half. Even before Wan got involved, she had already been suppressing Vaatu or "keeping him under control" (her words directly) for at least ten thousand years. And even though it's framed as wrong of him to ask, Wan is right when he does - "What gives you the right?"
Because peace and chaos are both essential to the balance of the world. Complete homogeneity is deeply oppressive, and complete chaos can cause massive destruction. Vaatu is essential to the balance of the world as much as Raava is, and while the show leans more into the extreme side of Vaatu's personality, Raava is not perfectly flawless either (ie. her hotheadedness, her disdain towards Wan, her insistence on maintaining control.) And instead of accepting Vaatu's chaos as essential to balance, she uses Wan's aid to imprison him and takes on the mantle of Avatar Spirit alone.*
While I believe that Raava does not consciously want complete homogeneity nor does she want the status quo upheld, I think it is possible for the most starkly extreme parts of her to become externalized into an organization - the White Lotus.
Whether or not it initially started out to be a following of Raava (which could make sense, given that it's clearly an ancient organization and was founded to maintain peace among the Four Nations, and the tile it's named after is over ten thousand years old, with Iroh himself claiming that the spirits invented Pai Sho in Legend of Korra) and lost that part of its roots, it does parallel some of Raava's most extreme tendencies in a fascinating way, especially if Raava became far more brutal than she is. The White Lotus works independently of any Nation's government, instead serving its own internal goals as being completely neutral. But it's not! For most of its history it's worked in secret to maintain its idea of the status quo, from the Platinum Affair (I believe it was involved in) to secretly watching Yangchen's upbringing to isolating Korra for her childhood so they could train her. Similar to the way Raava quietly guards the Avatar, the White Lotus does as well, but sometimes in a far more controlling manner so they can raise them to be what they believe the world needs most.
Much like Raava's suppression of Vaatu that was eventually lost to history, the White Lotus has covertly had its tendrils in many, many political dealings over the Era of the Avatar, and has more than occasionally forced aside those that stood in its way to maintaining its idea of peace. The most direct parallel is when its members imprisoned the members of the Red Lotus (which was more directly affiliated with Vaatu) in deeply inhumane conditions for thirteen years. While they may have had "reasons" for doing so, with the Red Lotus attempting to kidnap Korra, the White Lotus was not opposed to feeding Korra propaganda and isolating her themselves, because that's exactly what they did.**
In conclusion, it's very possible that the White Lotus could have originally been formed as a following of Raava and what they believed to be her will, and often parallels what could be some of her worst tendencies or the most extreme outcomes of her unbalanced influence over the world.
*(note that obviously part of this comes from the show's extremely flattened writing, but for the purposes of speculation, I'm taking Raava's actions within the context of her universe. I also am not absolving Vaatu of responsibility, he did claim to want to destroy Raava for good. However, after being held essentially immobile for ten thousand years and then another ten thousand years, I'm sure that is a contributing factor.)
**(Because Zaheer didn't immediately attempt to kill Korra in the spirit world and seemed genuinely interested in telling her about his ideology, and continued to help Korra in season 4, I do not believe the Red Lotus would have killed four-year-old Korra if they had been successful in their kidnapping attempt. It seems much more as if the White Lotus feared Korra being turned 'against them' by the Red Lotus's ideology. I'm also not stating that Raava isolated or brainwashed any of her avatars, because she didn't, but again, the most extreme length of the principles she represents.)
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