Man, Civil Wart is such a strange episode when you look back. With Matt talking about how a whole bunch of stuff from S1 will return for S3B, I’m honestly kind of struggling to think of ways it could be relevant between the inconsequential ship war caused by Love Choi-
…
Wait.
Hold on a second.
“In the not so distant future, three grounded yet supernatural teens-”
THREE STARS BURNING BRIGHT
“-must navigate their feelings if they hope to survive.”
SHOULD THEY FIGHT OR EMBRACE THE FALL
THEIR CHOICE WILL DETERMINE ALL
Man, that introductory narration basically described the entire basic idea of Amphibia before we ever became aware of it, doesn’t it. Like my friend @mira-blue would say, I wonder what else that episode might lead to…
Honestly, with the distinction Anne gave in Civil Wart that Love Choice 2 was still being made, it makes me look at how Love Choice ended with Constance being taken away while Hunter and Alistair both declaring they will rescue her, and how that very ending split the town of Wartwood between the differing leaderships of the two figures who most embodied/identified with Constance’s respective potential love choice.
While Love Choice’s general premise and the ensuing ship war is a pretty clear parody of the Twilight series and its infamous shipping wars, I can’t help but find the color choices and the way the townsfolk emulated either love interest for said ship war VERY interesting to consider, especially given the upcoming S3B episode sypnosis:
Commander Anne - Anne is made leader of the Wartwood Resistance, even though she’s not good at the job.
With how Sasha presumably was the leader before then and an effective one at that, it has me wondering if the episode will end with Wartwood divided once more on whether to follow Sasha’s well established strong guidance, or to follow their strong emotional connection to Anne in spite of her lack of long term planning skills.
Or to borrow a bit more fitting terminology from a different lowkey S1 episode with potential to return in some manner for S3B, what if Civil Wart was potentially foreshadowing a future actual divide between the RED Townies and the PURPLE Farmers on who to listen to to stop Andrias - and by extension, differing approaches to rescuing the ‘Constance’ in this situation with Marcy?
After all, when you stop to look at Anne throughout the show as well as the trio’s concept art, Sasha has always been strongly associated with red/pink, while Anne -besides the VERY early concept during pitching- has always been strongly associated with purple even before blue explicitly entered the equation in the show.
Of course, such a future divide in the town would most likely not reach anywhere close to the extreme attitudes towards the other as Civil Wart depicted, but obviously, the Plantars at this point would definitely stick by Anne through thick and thin regardless of how well she does. Yet, for as much as Anne may want to help out from her newfound and sometimes-very-unhealthy drive to take on responsibilities as folks like @borkthemork and @pyroclastic727 have detailed before, that wouldn’t necessarily translate over to being a good leader in the long run. She's been able to come up with plans on the fly like in The Dinner and True Colors, but I'm not sure she has the head for strategic planning over extended periods of time.
In contrast to the Plantars, Wartwood has presumably gotten used to working with Sasha in Anne’s absence, and Sasha simply is a much more natural long term leader and planner than Anne is, which could draw some quite interesting lines between those who want to stick with Sasha’s approach for the resistance and those who pick Anne’s, and how they may still try to figure out how to work together with a common enemy.
On top of that, a majority of Wartwood wanting to return back to Sasha’s leadership could easily lead into addressing some behind the scenes development for her, as while she learned to stop being so controlling and manipulative in Turning Point, it would not at all be surprising if it turns out she might have reversed a bit too far in the opposite direction, and this episode could be a starting step to help nudge Sasha towards a healthier medium between the two extremes.
For an example scenario, if Sasha basically cedes authority to Anne the instant they reunite out of fearing becoming overcontrolling all over again, that could involve something like Sasha blindly and wholeheartedly trying to follow any direction Anne gives her while completely refusing to share or stand up for her own input, even if her own input really would be much more effective.
Overall, I feel real meat of the episode would come from just how exactly Anne became leader, as either Sasha put Anne in charge instead of herself, Wartwood collectively chose her out of the emotional attachment, and or Anne might have tried picking up the responsibility out of a partial desire to help and potentially partially as a response to the trauma/issues she might face in Escape to Amphibia/as a result of her trust issues from True Colors.
And from that, finding the healthier middle ground between them -and by extension the two groups that may be accidentally formed between them- might be a bit more difficult or longer than Anne anticipated all the way back in The New Normal, hence how a shock like a significant majority of Wartwood sticking with Sasha would fit into all of this.
Also, damn could a bit of an organizational split between Anne and Sasha’s approach potentially explain just why the episode sypnosis for Sprivy suggests there is some kind of divide between the titular couple for them to even have to “devise a scheme to be together” in the first place.
Now, with that said, to finish tying all this hypothetical speculation back to the very in-universe movie that inspired it, it will be rather interesting to see if, where, and when details about Love Choice 2 get dropped. After all, just like I brought up how the first movie’s ending and audience repercussions could turn out as foreshadowing for how the first half of Sasha and Anne’s reunion may go, the sequel might thus logically foreshadow some later details for however things proceed between the trio.
As for what could potentially have been foreshadowed by Hunter being a cyborg and Alastair being a deer, the use of sticks to represent the latter’s antlers would be a rather clever way of tying into the foliage in Anne’s hair and her Super form, but I’m kind of struggling to figure out how Hunter’s cybernetic eye could work with Sasha.
I know there’s the popular theory that Sasha will lose an eye, but I honestly just can’t see it happening as a way to make her parallel Hunter. Now, I could see that parallel working if instead, she kept both eyes and simply got an eye augmentation device she is able to wear and take off like the Scouter from Dragon Ball, but the only closest thing Sasha would have had access to would have been a growing bunch of broken frobot pieces from over the rebellion.
While Loggle did used to be a blacksmith, I highly doubt he would know how to fashion a device like that. I guess Polly might be able to figure out how to craft one for Sasha sometime after Anne and the Plantars get back and they adjust to Sasha, though that wouldn’t work if the idea is she got it during the time skip, and that would likely require there to be a precedence for humans to somehow be able to use/even WEAR frobot parts easily without needing much modifica-
…
Oh.
That could work.
Loggle does have a thing for pulling out frobot eyes after all...
