#amphibia analysis

[nextstop-fixationstation]

OK analysis time! Matt said that Marcy's affection towards Sasha was more surface level than Anne's, which was described as "complicated." People might assume that this means that Marcy's affection for Sasha wasn't deep, or that their relationship wasn't.

If we're being honest here they weren't presented as having depth to their relationship so much as having acts and services. They're on the level with each other and can interpret each other's needs for a plan but they are lacking somehow when it comes to each other's emotional needs. This is something Darcy touches upon when they say they might not have ever been friends at all, and might be a core conflict between Sasha and Marcy. It's also a good example of why Anne is the actual Heart of their friendship. She connects and makes their dynamic deeper. While Marcy is desperate to keep people together and hates being alone, she admits she lacks a core understanding of emotional intelligence and this is something she admires in Anne. Marcy treats herself as a tool and mostly makes friends by doing things for them and complimenting them. She's kind of the perfect POV character for a journal that gives lore specifically because she's very attentive to things like strengths and weaknesses and team synergy, but isn't necessarily attuned to emotional intelligence. She kind of blocks herself off from feeling certain things too keenly or doubting herself, and masks it using this peppy overachiever persona.

Maybe if Marcy were more emotionally self aware, she would have been even more openly hurt by how dismissive Sasha is of her interests (even though Sasha clearly does like nerdy things), or she would have noticed that her friends don't really care for RP (etc). But in the series what we see is a Marcy so afraid of being left alone that she'll hide every emotion and every hurt aside from what she thinks will make people stay - she delivers compliments, improves infrastructure, says all the right things to earn trust. She's a great twist antagonist! Admitting that her friends don't or can't reciprocate her interests or desires is important to her arc, because it serves as a lesson to her that friendship is more than just doing things together or doing things for each other. Marcy and the others aren't just tools in schemes and plans.

We hear from Anna that Sasha has difficulty knowing when to bring other people to the table, so for someone like Marcy who thinks that she needs to earn everything through acts/upgrades, it makes sense that their relationship remained very surface level. Neither of them pushes the other to see things differently, while Anne does. Anne can acknowledge where people hurt and hurt her, and can acknowledge that this doesn't mean they aren't friends or significant to each other. Anne notes the complexity! It's why she's so compelling.

So, Marcy acknowledging how hurt she is that her friends don't want to do what she wants is significant because she also says, "I believe in you." Love goes beyond the stuff we do for each other. There's a bit of faith, too. What she did isn't right either. Being hurt isn't an excuse.

Darcy isn't just "evil Marcy," the Core is also every temptation for Marcy. Escapism, distraction, perfect friends who go on quests with her whenever she wants. There's a darkness to this kind of insecure attachment that Darcy reveals. Fear of inadequacy and irrelevance. Fear of loss. Fear of change. Fear of what is deeper than skin deep. Maybe my friends will forget me if I move. Maybe I'm just their nerd, just like Sasha's just cool. So their relationship isn't surface level to us, because this nuance is communicated to us through the subtleties of the show's execution. It's a really well acted, well boarded, well written show with fantastic music! It's really amazing!

Sasharcy IS very complicated! But it's complicated because they never dig deeper with each other until it's too late. It's also why it's significant that Sasha is the one to ask, "Can we save this friendship?"

Why is friendship with Marcy so easy? Is it because they got along and there's mutuality here, or is it because they didn't let themselves get any deeper than what was easy? It's so easy for them to just be the controller and the executor.

Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness takes time. It takes a lot of thought, discussion, and work. Friendship in the long term, deep enough to mean something and hurt when it's gone, is similar. It's not just sentimentality and acts of appeasement.

aaaaand that's what i think matt meant when he was like "marcy's affection for sasha was kind of surface level"! I will admit I was like noooo Matt noooo don't say it was surface level whyyyy but like i had time to think abt it so i'm fine now lol lmk ur thoughts💙

smth i didn't add to my original tweet thread is that i DO find it interesting that marcy appears to specifically empathize with the experience of lonely people who grow up a certain way or doing things a certain way to protect themselves from loneliness. she seems to have an intuitive understanding of people fitting into groups via niches, but is drawn to people who already seem like outcasts as opposed to being able to identify it when someone is surrounded by people they seem to easily connect with. Marcy has this fundamentally insecure and lonely viewpoint that makes her very interesting to read and analyze, and I suspect it also contributes to her popularity. I mean, clearly *I* love her

[foreverlookingatyou]

Marcy Wu, and Why Her Unfinished Character Arc Worked.

I'm gonna ramble a bit about our favorite newtopian ranger, marcy wu!!

so. I, like many others in the fandom, was a bit disappointed with how the show handled marcy's growth and character arc. it felt rushed.. incomplete, and overall messy. I felt that marcy's growth wasn't given the same attention and care that anne & sasha's growth was. coupled with the overall tragedy of marcy's character and role in the story, I was feeling extremely discontented with marcy's character.. until I realized that the show writers may have unintentionally made that the point of marcy's arc.

because LISTEN. out of all of them, marcy was the one who came away with the least positive things from amphibia. she didn't connect with her amphibian charges (she even admits it herself in the finale, and says that she wished she got to know them better), she was more focused on the technical and worldly aspects of amphibia, and while she did come into her own, she wasn't able to address and tackle her underlying core issues in the way that anne and sasha were. --

the two main themes of amphibia are learning to embrace change and letting go. and all the story arcs of the calamity trio showcase this in different ways (that's a discussion for another time, however). of these two themes, marcy's arc leans more towards the letting go aspect. but here's the thing. that was her main problem. marcy's greatest fear is being alone, and her greatest flaw is her inability to let go. marcy couldn't FATHOM a world without anne and sasha. they were her biggest support system, and by moving, marcy was essentially stranded. she had a hard time connecting with people, and she didn't have the social skills that anne and sasha did. so to her, moving was the absolute WORST thing that could have happened. she was unable to live in a world without anne and sasha, and so she didn't. she chose to take matters into her own hands, and as long as she was able to get anne and sasha on board, everything would be fine, right? wrong. we obviously saw how catastrophic that was, both for marcy and everyone around her. it was beat into marcy's head repeatedly how reckless and stupid and downright fatal her mistake could have been, how fatal it was. marcy's biggest lesson in amphibia was that there are some things you will have to let go of. no matter how desperately you latch onto them, there will always be claw marks left behind.

--

my point however, is that this was marcy's only major flaw. marcy was a flawed character, deeply flawed in some ways, but from what I observed, she was never flawed in the way anne and sasha were. outside of her major flaw.. marcy was a pretty well rounded person. and of course, there is growth to be left desired, but most of marcy's (visible) flaws were communication, and the ability to make yourself be truly seen in a friendship.. and they aren't really even flaws. more just things she needs to work on.

unlike anne, she didn't have self-esteem issues. she was pretty confident in her abilities and her interests, as shown by the first temple. surrounded by the right people (which at the time, were unfortunately not anne and sasha), she would've flourished. and in amphibia, she did. because for once, she was allowed to be the person she truly wanted to be. and unlike sasha, she didn't have horrendous control issues. anne and sasha's flaws are what I like to call character flaws, flaws that are innate and come from you; ie, they aren't as a result of other people's actions. anne and sasha were allowed to address and properly correct their character flaws because amphibia (and the places they landed in) was the perfect environment for them to see their flaws and to see the consequences that came with them. sasha learned that trying to control everyone and everything around you will only drive them away, and end up destroying both them and you in the process. her strength came from lifting people up, allowing them to rise WITH her instead of pushing them down like she used to. anne learned that self love is important, and in order to become the best version of yourself, you need to surround yourself with love, and in turn, it will come back to you. anne's heart comes from the people around her. their love allowed her to give love tenfold-- both to herself and the people around her. their major flaws only got resolved because of amphibia.

but marcy? her main flaw, which is letting go? that could not be resolved in amphibia, no. because amphibia only amplified this flaw. because choosing to go to amphibia, making the conscious decision to run away, is the entire reason why this flaw is most prominent. marcy flourished in amphibia, yes, but she was never able to address her major flaw. because of a multitude of different reasons, of course, but also because to marcy, amphibia was another out. another way to run from her problems instead of facing them head on and dealing with the fallout. anne dealt with the fallout. she stood up to sasha, for ONCE in her life, and watched her plummet down a cliff in return. (this is a weak point, but for the sake of parallels, I can't take it out.) sasha dealt with the fallout. she betrayed anne, once, twice, and was forced to go back to wartwood, anne's town, with the knowledge that she and anne are no longer friends, no longer anything. marcy's way of dealing with the fallout.. was not the core. to many, the core may be a physical personification of all of marcy's flaws coming back to bite her in the behind, but I disagree. the core was a cruel, merciless, and downright horrible way for marcy to learn her lesson, yes, but the core was not the fallout. the fallout, that showed marcy the consequences of her major flaw, was in true colors. was in the throne room. was in watching anne and sasha's faces twist into horror and disgust, respectively. the fallout was in living with the fact that everything she did was for nothing, and that she still had to live in a world without anne and sasha, that in her mind, they now hated her. that was when marcy hit rock bottom. and when you hit rock bottom, you have nowhere to go but up, right?

--

marcy did atone. in the core, in the face of everything she could have ever wanted being handed to her on a silver platter, she said no. she swatted aldrich’s hand, and said that for once in my life, I'm not going to run away. I'm going to face this head on. and why did she do that, pray tell? because of anne and sasha. because everything that marcy wu did depended on anne and sasha. because in her mind, even if they hated her, she'd rather face their potential wrath instead of accepting a reality without them. the real them. it's natural, of course. her major flaw was not of just letting go. it was letting go of anne and sasha.

--

and so, the reason why marcy wu's major flaw could never be resolved in amphibia, is because amphibia is a personification of marcy wu's major flaw. sure, she had good moments, and things about it she will always cherish and remember (and less good things that she’ll always remember), but marcy wu could not start getting better, could not start healing, until after she left amphibia. going through that portal meant many things, for all of them, but for marcy, I think it represented her final act of truly letting go. of letting go of her escapism, and her tendency to run away. of letting go of the old version of her, who came to amphibia with the intent of being with anne and sasha forever. going through that portal also symbolizes the end of that version of their friendship, the version that marcy kept chasing after. and I think that’s one of the many reasons why the only way to close off marcy’s journey, at least from our point, is by having her move. the move, and how marcy dealt with it, was what started this entire, crazy journey. and by choosing to have marcy move at the end of the series, even after everything that happened, is a brilliant move from the show’s writers. because it shows that marcy truly did learn from her time in amphibia. she HAS accepted and is taking the steps to overcome her major flaw, and I think more than anything, that is proof of the growth that marcy is capable of. marcy acknowledges that anne and sasha changed, yes, but through her actions and words, she also acknowledges that she changed as well. going through the portal, going back to earth, facing everything is a symbol of marcy's growth. because the marcy we were introduced to would have never done that.

--

going to amphibia changed all three of them. and even though we only get to see anne and sasha’s growth, marcy’s growth is SO poignant as well. I think it was for the best to leave marcy’s arc unfinished, because it shows that she still has a lot to learn and a LOT of healing to undergo. marcy’s final arc in the show has drawn to a close. but her character has not. and the amount of opportunities, possibilities, lessons, friendships, love, and more, are limitless. I also think it's poignant that we're left with a sort of open ended interpretation as to what happened to marcy after she moved. as for her friendship with the girls, I have many thoughts on that, but that’s also a discussion for another time. I think I’ll close it off by saying that moving was good for marcy in a different way as well: it allowed the calamity trio to truly come into their own. their reconciliation with marcy in all in was proof that they want to give their friendship another try, and that they are better off in each other’s lives. but showing that they drifted apart, came back together, and redefined their friendship on their own terms is beautiful. I think even without amphibia, they eventually would have to come apart. not forever of course, but long enough to carve out their own paths and figure out what they want to do with their lives. I know the fandom loves the idea of them being codependent messes together (it’s also a guilty pleasure for me lol) but I LOVE the fact that in canon, they allowed their childhood friendship to morph into something new, something better. in the wise words of anne boonchuy, change can be difficult, but it’s how we grow. but of the things you let go, you’d be surprised what makes its way back to you.

not to get all sappy, but out of all of them, I think I’m the proudest of marcy. and I relate to her a lot! so writing this was extra personal :,)

[agalychnisspranneusroseus]

do u thoughts on the olms having some core looking imagery bc this has plagued me for YEARS. why does that one olm have a fuckinh core eye necklace

I had to look it up because I couldn't remember but, do you mean Parisia??

I'm not sure of it's meant to be a core eye but if it IS and if it's related to the paintings on Mother Olm's wall... all I can come up with is that someone, maybe Leif, was able to actually see into the future with the box (another thing that I don't know where to begin to explain) to even have a visual image of what these future events would look like (how did they even know the appearance of these prophesized heros?)

Like they got them down to a T 😭

There's also the same mural over and over again, both in the First Temple and in Mother Olm's chambers. The fact that most depictions are carved and not painted leads me to believe the olms might have made them.

The temples in general have a lot of olm imagery, but if the olms believe the power of the gems rightfully belong to its users and that taking it from them constitutes stealing (something that would allow for use of the box), then the olms didn't create them. Valeriana created the box, but her order didn't invent the mechanism through which power was extracted from the gems (the temples). We know that because she says her order studied them. Now that I think about it, could it be that the olms DID build the temples precisely to prevent people using their power before Valeriana came up with an artificial way to do so? In that case the olms only saw the calamity trio as the legitimate users of the stones, which would make sense if they know the prophecy can only be fulfilled by three foreigners (morrowind reference! /jk). If that's the case, and if we take into account the prophecy is older than the temples, then they might have been built in order to facilitate the prophecy. The temples themselves make no sense though so don't get me started on those 😭😭😭

I'm sorry I'm rambling about olm imagery but I felt the need to think about it before even beginning to tacke Parisia having a fucking core eye necklace 😭 what does she even need a necklace for?? She's fucking blind 😭😭😭 everyone is blind. No one is ever gonna see her necklace. Anyway I couldn't find any other instance of core imagery so... I can only imagine Parisia represents the worst of the olms, seeing how the prophecy is, supposedly, about the calamity trio saving amphibians from becoming the worst version of themselves. The olms clearly have SOME idea of what this great evil looks like, given the mural. It's possible Parisia wears the necklace as some sort of remider of what's out there.

Okay so I know I already shared some useless lore musings with you that you did not ask for BUT. I HAVE MORE. Now check out this fucking insane mother olm concept art. I know it's extremely cursed but it's soooo interesting to me

Like there are many concepts they ended up not going with obviously (Mother Olm as the LITERAL mother of olms, Mother Olm as a prisoner...) but I thought you'd find interesting that little but up there about rejuvenating goo 👀 another interesting Olms - Core - Leviathans connection, if they all know about this thing and seemingly use it to prolong their lifespans. Who discovered it first? Is it a common substance in Amphibia? Clearly it comes with a cost. I just find the idea that whatever kept Marcy alive is what keeps Mother Olm alive fascinating.

[veramoonmin]

Do you ever think about how Sasha reacted when she got to Amphibia?

Like, she was immediately tied up and kidnapped by frog soldiers that could have killed her. She wasn't given time to grasp the situation, wonder where her friends were, figure out where she was, etc. Just thrown into chains.

She didn't have a nice farm family to ease her into it, or a king to help her find her friends and let her explore the worlds culture. She was literally a prisoner. The only reason they didn't kill her on the spot was because she was an anomaly that they wanted answers from. They wanted to know if there were more humans, and she knew that.

As far as she knew, the only humans in Amphibia were her best friends, the friends that she knew since they were toddlers, The friends that she needed to protect, the friends that she needed to find. She had no idea where they landed, or if they were even safe. She might've assumed that they were in a similar situation to her. At that time, her main goal was probably "escape and find the girls".

Anne and Marcy were probably one of her biggest motivations to escape. Sasha was locked up in a cell, with nobody but the occasional guard that gave her rotten food, and she exploited the fuck out of that.

She turned on her popular-girl-charm and thrived. She pissed off one of the most feared toads ever for fun. She got multiple guards to quit their own job by only talking to them. She learned their interests, their hobbies, what made them tick, and used it to her advantage. She knew how to get close to them, because thats what she'd do in school.

She got the girl who took Annes snack to give it back, she got the teacher to let them go to the bathroom, etc. Because she was popular. When your popular, you know learn to make small talk, how to be charismatic, you learn how to manipulate.

She thought out her options, her surroundings, and the people, then managed to dig herself up from the fucking grave.

she taught the people how to be better. She taught them breathing exercises, food recipes, optimism, and a lot more. Sasha made herself a crucial weapon to them, and to put her in chains again would be a mistake. She made that fact clear when she defeated a giant blood-thirsty monster with cheerleading. She had more skill with cheerleading than any of the toads in there.

She built a friendship with the soldiers, and taught their leader how to interact. At this point, she could have left, but she saw potential.

She was given a castle,

She was partying,

And she let it go to her head.

Her end goal was always to go home with her best friends, and that never changed. When she was a captive, when she was a soldier, even when she was the bad guy. she wanted to get home.

But that wasn't her priority.

Sasha wanted to have fun first. She didn't care if the girls went home before her, because she had a choice to leave. Earth was an end goal, not her main goal. Sasha wanted to rule over a kingdom, be treated as royalty, to live her fantasy life.

Sasha had the same dream as Marcy, but the difference is that she didn't want it to last forever.

[mandareeboo]

So I’m sleepy but fuck it, thinking about how the basement must have been this horrific, terrible place to Sprig and Polly for so long??? The place they hid in for days after herons killed their parents???? The taste of old coal and soot as the screeching of birds bigger than they know how to measure make a crescendo of death and destruction. The slow creaking of the door opening to their dear old Hop Pop as he gathers them in his arms and weeps because they, at least, are safe. Returning to a Wartwood that’s fallen to shreds and missing various frogs, including their parents. And it’s sat empty for years since, the forbidden boogey man of the Plantar home.

Only for random sasquatch teen Anne Boonchuy to come in and make it her own, scatter teen magazines and prop her favorite tennis racket on a wall. The smell of beetle jerky and the glint of random swords she’d grabbed over time she didn’t know what to do with. And every day it slowly warped from the room Sprig and Polly were in as their parents were killed into Anne’s Room, smth comforting and warm and full of laughter and, somehow, someway, okay to breach again.

[mdhwrites]

It's actually really annoying when people trash Amphibia for "filler" and some little screw ups that don't matter, but at the same time praise TOH

So the fascinating thing here is... What the fuck counts as filler in Amphibia?

This isn't actually to say there isn't filler mind you, it's just that it's kind of dealer's choice what is and isn't. But let's back up a second so I can explain. I did a blog about how looking back, VERY little of The Owl House ISN'T filler. This was going by the definition that most people CLAIM to be using with Filler where anything that doesn't directly progress the story or main themes is unnecessary and thus filler. So that's the definition I'm going with for Amphibia.

And also as a reminder from that: Filler is Flavor. I consider filler to be a genuinely good thing in moderation to a piece of media. That flavor after all can make a lot of moments stronger than they would be without the extra time and characterization. With Amphibia... Oh dear god that extra time and characterization pays off BIG. S2 alone calls back to parts of S1 at least three times to really sell big moments within it...

Big moments that are also in support of the themes of Amphibia. Not only that but Anne growing as a person is required for the sake of the overall story. Even in S1, her growth is important so as to have not had her come back under Sasha's sway and her and Sasha's relationship is directly addressing how change can sometimes can be necessary, despite being painful. It's important both to the themes and overall plot. In fact, most of Anne's relationships are actively, at all times, discussing the effects community, family and change on someone.

This is what makes it effectively Dealer's Choice when it comes to Amphibia's filler because most segments, not even full episodes, can have some argument as being important to building on themes and relationships of the show which directly alter the decisions characters will make long term and so are necessary. If you think everything with the frogs is filler, you do not have the justification for Reunion. For that matter, you don't have the justification for the Aquarium trip or for True Colors because the questioning and rejection of Marcy and Sasha respectively NEEDS that further context because Anne in episode 1 doesn't care about frogs and cares more about her friends. When Sasha says jump, she says how hi, hence why she was able to be convinced to steal.

As a personal example... I have the hot take that if you watch After the Rain, someone could tell you "Marcy charges the stone" and then you skip The First Temple. After the Rain gets across the change in how Anne and the Plantars view each other, because them genuinely being a found family is important, and addresses what's going on with the music box but actually charging the stone? It says little about Marcy's character, mostly just doing the same thing Marcy at the Gates did and while the expansion of Hop Pop and Anne's conflict is good, it's not technically necessary for anything and you'd get to skip what is, in my opinion, one of the weakest episodes of the show.

Amphibia's filler still doesn't allow for "It's not filler just because you don't care about it," though. I still would recommend watching both but only because I can claim the elements to be redundant can I claim The First Temple as able to be skipped. BUT it still expands so I'm not even strong on that argument because it is still directly addressing the themes. The other half of "After the Rain" with Sprivy and her Mom is talking about differing perspectives, something that connects with accepting others and community so while it's not about Anne, it could still be said to be important to the overall discussion of what is important to Amphibia... But someone might argue that other elements address it so you can skip it.

Amphibia is a complex beast like that. Not to say there is NO filler. They have a Halloween episode that can be pretty much skipped... But also why the fuck would you? That's to me the real sin of bad filler. It doesn't add flavor. However, when you do shit like a Gravity Falls crossover and just pack it full of as much fun as possible, I'm not going to CARE if it's important or not, I'm just going to enjoy it because it's entertaining and I'm theoretically here, watching a kid's comedy adventure to be entertained.

That's, to briefly mention it, part of my issue with a lot of The Owl House's filler. It's not fun and it's not enjoyable. The fandom skips or forgets a lot of episodes because why would you ever want to go back? But I never plan to skip the Halloween episode even if it's very doable to do so.

So to me, I think Amphibia A: is more serialized than people give it credit for, it just does it in a way that is more episodically friendly and B: even when it is doing filler, you don't mind because it's going full blast on fun because it's genuinely happy to be what it's doing. So... Screw complaining about it. And this is coming from someone who still looks at the structure of Amphibia and goes "You could probably have cut a third of this and still managed almost as good of a product."

But I wouldn't want them to. Not when it's such a blast spending time with these characters.

======+++++======

I have a public Discord for any and all who want to join!

I also have an Amazon page for all of my original works in various forms of character focused romances from cute, teenage romance to erotica series of my past. I have an Ao3 for my fanfiction projects as well if that catches your fancy instead. If you want to hang out with me, I stream from time to time and love to chat with chat.

And finally a Twitter you can follow too!

[pyroclastic727]

Anne, responsibility, and compliance

If there’s anything to be said about Season Three Anne, it’s that she is doing so much better than Season One Anne. Well, maybe not in terms of trauma, but there is something to be said for how much positive change Anne’s personality has experienced.

Her parents agree: she has grown much more responsible. Even Anne acknowledges it. In five long months, she has grown so much. The Anne of the debut episode would never have done what Anne does now. 

Right?

Yeah, no. 

Ever since her friend was skewered like the main course at an amphibian cookout, Anne has been going back to the same old things she used to do. This is really something she’s been doing for a while, something that she worked so hard to get rid of, that she went to the other extreme.

Anne is a pushover. Still.

Allow me to explain. As the Protagonist, Anne has a lot of things to do. She has to hide the Plantars from the government, find a way to make an interdimensional portal, destroy a tyrannical and homicidal king, save her friends, make up with her friends, figure out what’s going on with her weird glowing blue powers, and return the Plantars back to Amphibia. 

That’s a difficult list, one that really has me wondering how she’s going to pull it off in 20 episodes--especially when she has already used up 3 of them and only found more problems.

But you see, that’s exactly the issue here. Anne has overcommitted. She has taken on too much. Because if she doesn’t do all this stuff, then she’s going to lose everything.

Sound familiar?

Anne’s sense of responsibility for things hasn’t grown this drastically. She hasn’t done some grand heel-turn from a lazy slacker to a diligent soldier. She has just changed the things she was responsible for.

Before, her responsibility was to keep her friend group together. So she agreed with everything they said, doing things she didn’t want to do, just so that they would stay friends. She hid parts of her personality away, afraid of being mocked. And it worked, up until she gained a sense of self worth.

Then, her responsibility was still to keep her friends together, but it changed. Now she was determined to make sure Marcy wouldn’t get herself horribly injured or die. She even extended that to Sasha, despite her past, offering her a chance at forgiveness and trying to work things out with her, even though Sasha was a known backstabber.

As for now? Now, everything there has failed. Keeping the friend group together didn’t work. Marcy did die, despite Anne’s best efforts. Sasha did betray them again, despite Anne’s best efforts. And while neither intended to do that, the fact is there: staying friends with them that easily isn’t going to work.

But the thoughts are still there. Watching your friend die doesn’t get rid of bad thoughts, it worsens them. 

So now Anne has these ideas in her head. She has to do what is expected of her, or else she’ll lose what she has. She can’t do anything that would indicate that she’s struggling with her tasks. She can’t have people acknowledging her opinion, as that would make more problems and disrupt the fragile status quo. She can’t have people worrying about her, not when she should be prioritizing others and worrying about everybody else.

Just because she’s in another dimension doesn’t mean Anne isn’t still Anne.

That’s why we see her throwing herself into her responsibilities. Every time she’s alone, she looks scared--but she won’t show that in front of her family.

She has this huge list of things to figure out, but she takes this on by herself, strictly keeping her parents out of it and only somewhat including the frogs.

Anne isn’t being responsible, no. Not in a healthy way. Anne has allowed her responsibilities to completely surpass her boundaries, taking up every ounce of herself and leaving her no room to rest. Furthermore, she has become more and more secretive, refusing to let anyone even know what’s going on in her head. Her compartmentalization is in full effect, and it’s making it impossible for her to fully understand why she feels so awful.

It makes Anne unable to ask for help.

Now, difficulty asking for help is not a new thing for any of the Calamity Trio. We’ve seen it in Sasha, how she would rather fling herself off a cliff than admit her weakness--and even in redemption, she still won’t let anyone breach her walls. We’ve seen it in Marcy, how she would rather send her friends to another world than admit that she’s scared of losing them, because even if she did ask for her help, what’s the use? They can’t help her, not when her problems are this bad, and not when she believes she had them coming.

Anne has the same issue going on. For her, asking for help would destroy her carefully curated façade of composure and compliance. It would make her a problem, something that needs to be addressed. And in Anne’s world, there are already enough problems without her, too.

But what Anne doesn’t realize is that asking for help is exactly what she needs. If her parents can help her fight off robots, then she won’t have to hide from them. If the Plantars can help her search through the museum, then she can find a portal faster. And if she can communicate what she needs, it’ll make it so those big confrontations like Reunion and True Colors don’t happen--because Anne won’t hide her problems and try to solve them on her own.

[valerianavow]

@sonofrose had a good post about pacing earlier that I've been trying to put into words for a while. It's about the kind of show Amphibia is and what it shows on an episode-to-episode story. I want to spin off of that a little bit and talk about what Amphibia feels like it's written as to me.

Amphibia is a "portal fantasy" story. In Japan, the name for this genre is "isekai", or "other world." These stories are structured in a very specific way, usually only deviating on a few story beats from author to author. They're all about escapist wish fulfillment.

Ordinary children are the heroes [...] Selected as the CHOSEN ONE, the ordinary child travels to another wold, grows wise and strong, overcomes trials and challenges, succeeds, & returns home. This so-called hero's round is a circular journey, ending where it began. - Michael O. Tunnell, Children's Literature, Briefly

- The Hero(es) find a way to another world that's challenged by Evil.

- The other world gives them powers, maybe a cool sword, and sometimes has a prophecy that says only the Heroes can defeat the Evil.

- The Heroes have a few setbacks, and then excel in what they do and defeat the Evil. The world is saved!

- The Heroes come back home, to Earth, and then the story ends.

There's a million stories that fit this description, blow by blow. Peter Pan, Chronicles of Narnia, The Phantom Tollbooth, Wizard of Oz, Inuyasha, Digimon, Sword Art Online... from classical fiction to current media, the list is very, very long. Most plots stay the same. Relying on those story beats means the author can expand on the points between them, detailing a world, characters, and unique plot twists that the author wants to communicate as they go without spending too much time with a challenging concept. And the key thing is: the adventure ends when the Chosen One comes home.

Portal fantasy is the rawest form of escapist wish fulfillment fiction that exists. It's a great story concept, the idea that other worlds exist and that fantastic adventures can happen if you only open the right door. Earth isn't interesting. The problems and boring reality of Earth is the starting and ending point, giving the protagonists a simple contrast with the magical adventures they're on. Earth sucks! School sucks! Parents suck! Learn to swordfight, fight evil and save the world! Then go home, return to the mundane - but remember that magic truly exists. It's a really solid plot and one we know and love as a culture.

From the start, Amphibia seems to be a classic portal fantasy. We're shown that Anne, who's thrown into this fantastical other world, can do wild feats of strength, and we learn she has a close friend from Earth locked up by an antagonist somewhere else. The story's clear from there- the Hero has to gain power, experience the world, and then go and rescue her friends and set up the Evil to defeat.

And then Sasha joins the bad guys, duels Anne and falls off Toad Tower.

That moment, the end of season 1, is where all the expectations and logic that Amphibia is just another portal fantasy is shaken. There's setbacks in the Hero's Journey, but in these stories, the children work together- they find the meaning of friendship, they fight Evil, they prevail. They don't spend most of the stories separated from each other and off doing their own thing.

Season 2 spends a lot of time restoring the audience's assumption that things will come back to a portal fantasy's version of normal. We're given the quest, the hints at a greater force with the prophecy and temples, and a Chosen One, finally, in Anne herself. The girls are brought back together and are finally working together! They're learning what friendship means. At that point, it's reasonable to think that Sasha's the antagonist of the series, which is a clever challenge to the basic idea of portal fantasy. The logic carries through, still- even though Sasha's planning to betray them, surely her restored relationship with the girls will give us the good ending after she's defeated and remembers the True Meaning of Friendship.

And then Marcy's secret is revealed.

When Marcy thought she might have found a portal to a fantasy world, she was assuming she'd get that story we're all extremely familiar with- the trio would stay together, learn the meaning of friendship, keep traveling on "to new worlds, so we could have amazing adventures just like this one, forever and ever! Where we'd never have to grow apart, where the three of us could be together, forever!"

Anne and Sasha react in horror. It's brutal. It's a complete betrayal of their friendship.

And it's literally the pitch of any other portal fantasy story.

The world of Amphibia wasn't an escapist wish fulfillment fantasy. It's a real world, with real problems. But Marcy's speech isn't a mistake, and it's not a character flailing blindly. It's the pitch you'd expect when you start watching the show blind. "A child finds a magical portal to another world, goes there with her friends, and adventures with them, growing closer together as friends." It's the pitch Marcy herself would be very familiar with as a kid who read a lot of escapist portal fiction.

And it shows us exactly what the writers of Amphibia are trying to communicate with the show.

The original vision of this show was a lot grittier, a lot darker. [...] I really thought it would be super short. Almost one season, or half a season, like, super short. It made sense then that the tone was darker, grittier, and the story was able to resolve itself much faster. The story kind of ends with Reunion, like Anne and her frog family like "we're going to find a way out of here, I swear it", and that was all I had in my head when I first started pitching. And then obviously it blossomed into this much bigger thing. - Matt Braly, Cartoon Universe interview 2021 (emphasis mine)

Amphibia has always existed as a challenge and critique of the genre of isakei/portal fantasy. Braly's original concept was a story where the hero doesn't get to go home. It didn't end in the way you'd expect of that kind of story to end.

In the version of the show that we have, it does the same thing, in an opposite way. Anne goes back to Earth, the place where these stories end. And the story continues. Because it's not meant to be a portal fantasy. It's meant to be a story about Anne.

It makes perfect sense that the fandom thinks a lot about a version of the story that fits the classic beats of portal fantasy. We're all super familiar with it. It's a good structure of a story. We want to see the Calamity Girls work together, find the true meaning of friendship, and beat the Evil hand-in-hand before going home with a happy ending. That's not wrong of us. I personally love to exist in that space. It's a really rewarding one, with a lot of fun things that could happen.

But it's not the story Amphibia's interested in telling.

Amphibia doesn't care about the story beats of portal fiction. It doesn't care about the Hero's Journey. What it cares about is what is honestly one of the best reimaginings of a portal fantasy story that I've ever seen. The point of Amphibia's story is not that Anne is destined to fight some greater evil, or that Anne, Marcy and Sasha are meant to be the Chosen Ones. The point of Amphibia isn't the fate of a world in the face of an Evil that must be defeated by Good. The point of Amphibia is that Anne has a family who cares about her, and that she has a place to call home. That's the entire point of the story. Everything she does in the story is motivated by that simple thing. She's not meant to fight. She doesn't want to fight. Fighting hurts her, hurts her family, hurts her friends. It's not noble or heroic. The circumstances she's forced into to protect her family makes her pick up a sword, again and again. All she wants to do is protect them.

Amphibia is not a story about Amphibia. Amphibia is a story about Anne and the people who love her.

We're just along for the ride.