I can't believe Owen Owengejuicetv really said "I'm done being the brown haired orange eyed big-brother-coded low-key fruity child soldier who killed their closest friend as a breaking point and misses them after being evil and hypocritical and gets doomed to die which is why he realizes he was in the wrong and the next closest person to him who is like a little sister to him decides to not save him and risk her own life to do it." and then said "I'm gonna be funny lion man" and passed the mantle onto Nominalgravy.
Finished Outsiders SMP a few days ago, spoilers for that. HIGHLY recommend you watch it, oh my god what a rollercoaster!
The reveal of Owen's backstory and the final twist of it being a TV show made me think. Imagine you're a demon. You've survived a war between your kind and humans, a very fragile peace that is constantly threatened by lingering racism and tensions between the two people. One of the human generals, a man so violent he's literally become a boogieman for demonkind, murders your representative on live television and is sent to this reality TV survivor show without any of his memories.
And this conqueror, this monster, literally the face you see when think of what scares you the most, is suddenly kind and loving and protective of the other demons in the maze. He cares for their wellbeing. He openly considers them his friends. He murdered entire cities in cold blood, and yet there he is, defending one of his former targets with full conviction.
And you keep watching, hoping that he will die. That his punishment for all the bloodshed will be painful and slow and broadcast in 4k. But he survives all these impossible odds because of course he does. He's an elite soldier after all.
So he won't die. But as all contestants slowly reclaim more of their memories, you wait for the other shoe to finally drop. Can this man change? Has the maze had any influence on him and his worldview at all? If he doesn't die, can he at least be redeemed?
No, of course not. He reunites with his self-proclaimed best friend and starts mocking him. Calling this person whom he was going mad for "a disease" and "target practice". And then he kills them mercilessly and your heart shatters as you sit in front of the TV.
The general doesn't stop. He openly schemes to the audience on how he plans to kill the other demons locked in there with him, and your stomach turns. You want to stop watching. You want to help them, criminals or not. You know that this man, should he make it out of the maze, will be pardoned of all his crimes. The boogieman will be back and you will not know a single day of peace again. And so you keep watching, hoping each day that he will slip up, fail, that the other contestants will realize his plans and stop him. But one after another they fall to his hands.
The dragonborn is last. You watch their fight. If anyone can stop this monster, its another monster. The second worst boogieman. You hate it too, fear it just as much as you do the general, but in this instance, this crazy cannibalistic cult leader represents your entire species. If it dies, you know you'll be next.
That night you can't sleep. The general is lurking behind every dark corner, coming for all of you. Nobody can stop him, not even another monster. You know that in a few weeks, he will be free and nobody will bat an eye if he keeps on murdering demons.
The series finale hits. You almost don't want to watch it, don't want to hear this monster laugh and smile as he celebrates his victory over the maze. You don't want to listen to his stupid interview, where his genocidal racism is given a nonchalant stage. But some members of your community say that you all should know what's coming. So you watch, anxiously. And the dragonborn returns! It's not dead as everybody assumed! It unveils all of the general's crimes, turning the other contestants against him. You cannot believe that this is really happening. They lock him up, the same cell where his former "best friend" had been locked up for months. Could this really be it? Could this monster really be defeated after all?
He seems to have doubts, at last, and you don't know if they're earnest. The young woman, the one he took under his wing, visits him, and he pleads with her. You expect her to release him, because of course she will. This is how these people always get away with it.
But she doesn't.
And he dies a gruesome, painful death as the prison cell is flooded in lava.
The rest of the finale goes by in a haze. He's dead. The monster is defeated, the boogieman is slain. He won't raze any more cities or murder demons under cloak-and-dagger. More people die on TV, but you cannot process it right now, because the main fear you had for months did not come to pass.
It takes you a few hours to realize that out of the four survivors, the only demonic one is the dragonborn. Your community talks about it too, sure, but truly, there is no real danger. Your people have dealt with cults for all pf demon history, and the dragonborn itself had lost an arm in the confrontation with the general. Not a good look for a strong leader.
Your life goes back to normal, as best as you can. There's still a lot of problems in society; war trauma, racism, prejudice on both sides, and poverty. But at least for now, it didn't get worse.
