oops this was supposed to be an organized post about zoey having anger issues but now its just a long ramble, oh well, enjoy i guess
i wrote an big ass essay in @plslemmedie’s comments and still had more thoughts so I’m just making my own post lol(go look at his post(and all his stuff) its very good) i will repeat my points from the comments tho so don’t worry about missing anything
To start, the character introductions mention that zoey gets scary in rap battles and that “you better watch out” while mira’s only mentions that she is the black sheep of her family. Zoey’s aggression is one of the first things we hear about her, so it’s clearly important, and it’s a description of her from others, while mira is only ever described(in the movie) as aggressive by herself. We see mira being direct with rumi about how she thinks rumi is acting strange and hiding something, but she only pushes the issue on the train, after rumi has already dodged her questions several times, and she doesn’t get insulting or physical, she just asks questions that rumi doesn’t want to answer. To rumi(and the audience because rumi is the main character) this feels aggressive because mira is hitting a sensitive point, but mira isn’t being unreasonable when she asks for answers.
Zoey shows anger and aggression as well, she just pushes it down or directs it at herself. At the doctors office, she seems to get upset at his reading of her but she quickly laughs it off. When she gets mad at rumi for wanting to change the takedown lyrics, she tries to destroy her notebook, directing her anger at her own work rather than at rumi.
But when they are backstage after golden, zoey is the one to confront rumi about the patterns, and to get mad at her association with jinu. “How can we be together when we cant tell your lies from your truths” feels much more angry than “i knew it was too good to be true” which just feels sad and resigned. Overall i read mira as someone who is not afraid to address and talk about her emotions, and others emotions as well, she starts the emotional exchange before the idol awards and shes the one whos trying to figure out whats wrong with rumi so they can fix it. She might be insecure about this trait because she sees it as aggressive, but it actually makes her a great communicator and by far the most emotionally intelligent of huntrix. However, zoey is someone who pushes her emotions down because they are “too much” giving her much more potential for an emotional blowup than mira.
I think the problem with putting zoey in the mediator role is that there is nothing for her to do. Mediators are there to make people be honest about their emotions rather than avoiding them or devolving to insults, but mira is already someone who is honest about her emotions and trying to make rumi do the same, and even when rumi is mean to her we don’t see anything to imply that mira would start being mean too. Notice how in the train scene zoey only stops the fight when they need to focus on killing demons, she isn’t trying to meditate the fight because it doesn’t need mediating, mira already fills that role. Zoey trying to stop them wouldn’t be helpful because this is a conversation they need to have, and there isn’t anything in miras method that she needs to change
i want more fics with aggressive, emotional zoey and mediator mira. I think this could actually make *both* characters more interesting because i think mira would see her mediation as more aggression, she is making rumi and zoey acknowledge things they dont want to talk about and in doing so upsetting them, and even if its for the better i bet she would feel bad about it. Maybe zoey and rumi can help her realize that her being “aggressive” is what made them finally acknowledge their emotions so they could begin to heal.
I also find it interesting that mira doesn’t really acknowledge when Zoey’s upset in the movie, she doesn’t even look at zoey as she tries to rip up her notebook. The actual reason for this is probably just that rumi is the main character so everyone is focused on her, but it would be interesting if mira had to deal with guilt at not noticing zoeys built up anger. Maybe zoey is mad at mira for being so attuned to rumis emotions but not noticing zoeys impending breakdown, maybe she thinks mira just doesn’t care. why should she? Zoey is being unreasonable anyway
imagine after the idol awards mira is just glad that her family is back together, maybe she has a little bit of anger but she quickly acknowledges it and works through it either on her own or in a conversation with rumi. Rumi is still working through her shame but she knows now that mira and zoey dont hate her so she’s already in a much better place. And zoey is… fine. Sure she was angry at rumi for lying to them but mira worked through it and rumi isnt mad at them for reacting poorly so everything is fine. If everyone else is okay then zoey being angry still would be unreasonable and rumi and mira shouldn’t have to deal with her being so overly-emotional. Maybe she gets a twinge of anger when rumi continues to hide her true feelings out of habit but she quickly pushes it down (she’s a hypocrite but Rumi’s feelings are valid and a lot of them come from trauma so she deserves to have help working through them, zoey should be able to figure out her emotions herself). Eventually that anger explodes and she knows shes being unreasonable but she never learned how to stop the anger and now thats its out she cant push it down no matter how hard she tries
I like the idea of zoey not having any big major trauma and discounting her feelings because of it. Miras family is abusive, and rumi was raised to hate herself, they’re allowed to be angry, be sad, be messy. but zoey had a good childhood, yes it wasn’t all easy but most everyone has dealt with a bit of bullying, parents fighting, moving countries, its nothing *that* bad. it would be wrong of her to act like she understands anything mira and rumi have gone through, it would be selfish to make them help her with her feelings when they deal with way worse. Rumi and mira have to help her understand that just because her life has been “normal” doesn’t mean she came out unscathed, just because those traumas are common or relatively small doesn’t mean they aren't traumatizing, and you don’t have to experience any amount of bad things to “deserve” to feel
or i think an interesting interpretation if you really want to put zoey in the mediator role is just having her be a bad mediator. If you want to interpret her stopping the fight on the train as an attempt at mediation then maybe her idea of mediation is just stopping any conversation with negative emotions, even when it’s important. Mira tries to get rumi to open up but zoey stops her because it could cause tension. After the idol awards zoey stops any attempts at a serious discussion of what happened because they’re all together again and she cant take that risk. Zoey accidentally pushing her own emotional repression onto rumi and mira because she never learned the difference between an important emotional conversation and a relationship-breaking fight
or maybe you could explore the similarities between rumi and zoey, both feel so much shame for taking up any space in the lives of those they care about. Rumi constantly pushing herself to be the perfect leader, never resting or leaning on her friends. Zoey constantly sanding herself down to avoid being too much, she never lets herself feel anything that might put a strain on others. On the surface their relationship is fine, they have fun together and do love each other but have they ever had a deep conversation? How much do they really know about each other when all they’ve ever talked about is the easy, surface level stuff, each making themself as palatable as possible at the cost of a deeper connection
idk this was supposed to be more organized but then it got rambly again, i just love zoey and think there is so much more to explore with her then people give her credit for
