#bad wizards

[onewomancitadel]

My favourite vicarious experience of watching R/WBY was when my best friend watched it at my behest and at Volume 1 or 2 she was asking where Ozpin's wife is ('because he's obviously Odin, where is Frigg') and like in any other story you would not be rewarded with this speculation. Then at the end of Volume 3 she immediately said to me 'there is his wife'

She called it three volumes early.

[biscuitballblog]

This Week’s Theme is Bad Wizards!

I love how we both chose bad wizards from video games. The 1st wizard is Zoark from Medievel and the 2nd Dhoulmagus from Dragon Quest 8

[onewomancitadel]

I got into an argument with my boyfriend before because he thinks I'm a hypocrite for liking bad wizards but being afraid of mad scientists. I told him that mad scientists tend to not be a benign sort of silly, if they are silly they are so for scary reasons, and mad scientists do things in the real world that bad wizards could never do with magic.

Salem's Grimm-human experiments get closest to the mad scientist trope of my bad wizard collection but I think of her as more of an alchemist and the theology of Remnant is a little different. It is truly the most terrifying thing about her, to me, but happily there exists Ruby with her silver eyes, so there is some sort of countermeasure. The countermeasure is necessary in this circumstance, because part of also what scares me about mad scientists is their unchecked ambitions and corruption.

Anyway, I have people holding me accountable.

[onewomancitadel]

Bad wizards whose deep beliefs in freedom against evil ostensible gods end up metaphysically changing the entire world and perhaps even lose themselves and sight of their own cause and maybe even become monstrous but have the opportunity for a transformational redemption are my very specific interest

[onewomancitadel]

When the sun rose in the sky, a burning wind punished my lands, searing the world. And when the moon climbed into the dark of night, a frigid gale pierced our homes.

No matter when it came, the wind carried the same thing... Death.

But the winds that blew across the green fields of Hyrule brought something other than suffering and ruin.

A small, small moment in The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, but the way it humanises Ganondorf is kind of staggering. Him trying to make you understand what he's doing. Why he wants Hyrule back - the same way you would if you loved Zelda.

I love this... sense of drama and observation and attempt at - empathy? Why is he telling them this? What's the point? This sense of self-awareness? I like how it reaches through the audience-level of storytelling, that it feels like fate to him that they all meet where they do, and that, yes, he loses, sword in head, buried with Hyrule.

I love when villains have epic speeches but it's not some self-aggrandising bullshit or explaining their plan, it's them reaching out in a moment of almost humanistic communication and maybe even some sense of wistfulness.

[onewomancitadel]

Bad wizards must make a dramatic entrance through a yonic magically powered portal, preferably accompanied by a condescending greeting (belied by the fact she's around their age). She's going by the bad wizard playbook.

I'd give it a 9/10; she loses a mark because she hasn't killed anyone yet and spends the rest of her time here focussed on her crush instead.

[onewomancitadel]

The funny thing about my previous post about Cinder and her masks is that my Best Mate hates concealment, even the good kind. I know for her it's affronting that somebody would hide something at all, even something good, and it's frightening. A good character hiding a bad side is as discomforting as a bad character hiding a good side, and what's interesting to her is, yes, some sort of suppression with characters like Qrow (to use a R/WBY example, as he's her favourite character), but not outright disguise like, say, Cinder (or other naughty, bad wizards I'm usually interested in).

So it means on the regular I have my particular taste challenged, and I have a familiarity with an opposing perspective - though there are really interesting areas where our tastes do crossover, and generally I'd say her reading of R/WBY is one I align with.

Anyway, I've come around to good characters hiding bad sides (hot!) when previously I found that offputting, so that's funny. It just has to be done a certain way (acknowledged by the narrative), I think.

[onewomancitadel]

I got marked by the Goblin King in a dream by a finger on the forehead, and just as it happened I was awoken from slumber by my boyfriend. I think he's hiding something from me