I'm never going to be over the foundation concept art that took the second google images result for "whispers sense8" and photoshopped him into cleon the first's outfit. I genuinely lose my marbles every time I think about it
my therapist: pope whispers isn’t real, he can't hurt you
pope whispers:
I know a lot of us have Thoughts about the direction demerzel’s arc has taken in the past couple of episodes, but even putting aside questions of taste I don’t think it adds up. if you take everything at face value, it doesn’t make a lot of sense from a characterisation standpoint and is contradictory to what we’ve been led to believe about her relationship with empire so far. imo there has to be a missing piece of information that we haven’t been given yet, because as far as I’m concerned it all completely falls apart when you watch the cleon i flashback in episode three again
more thoughts under the cut
these... are not the words of a man who’s in the process of completely removing her free will? are they? what’s the point of this very humanising scene showing their bond if he just sees robots as objects to be controlled? why would he need so much reassurance about her continued loyalty if he’s already programmed it into her? he’s an entire clown car of hubris and ego but he seems to have genuine love and respect for demerzel as an equal if nothing else
(also fucking lol at cleon sending her to be reprogrammed and then getting sulky when she spends more time with the programmers than with him. clown car. I used to think this meant that she was slipping some secret extra code in there that he didn’t know about but I’m not sure any more)
the scene in episode seven where xiii confronts demerzel also hints that her claims of loyalty may have a loophole:
and yet the halima scene in episode eight seems to imply, when taken at face value, that she has no free will after all:
these scenes cannot coexist!
here are my guesses as to what’s going on:
1. cleon actually was that much of a dick and was programming demerzel into complete loyalty. the flashback scene was him testing out the new protocols and being unsure of whether they would hold after his death? I guess? cleon xi was prone to the same anxiety and uncertainty before his death so I guess this has legs. still doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for the reasons I outlined above
2. cleon’s despair over having “left everything in pieces” got the better of him, and in a weird fit of desperation in his final days they did some extra reprogramming that neither of them entirely thought through (so after the flashback scene but before his death). as much as I don't want demerzel to be 100% programmed, this would be an interesting angle to explore in fanfic or something
3. some extra programming was done after cleon's death to ensure complete control; either by a third party (cleon ii?) or by demerzel herself in a moment of madness (grief?) that she's come to regret
4. she thinks she was telling the truth to halima and xiii, and genuinely believes that she does not possess total free will, but she does in fact have some spark of it that she can draw on at crisis moments (zeroth law logic)
5. she is lying to both halima and empire, and has free will, but it’s in her (and maybe cleon i’s) interest to make it seem like she does not. this could explain her agitation about having to kill halima; she doesn’t want to kill her, but sparing her would break the clones’ trust in her and remove all power she has over them. I’m still convinced that she’s got some secret plot going on in the background, which explains xiv’s altered biology and her eagerness to hide it from xi. I don't know if this theory has legs any more or if it's just a hangover from me having read the books and knowing the extraordinary lengths demerzel goes to to gaslight everyone around them
6. I have fallen into the classic fan mistake of trying to overanalyse and make sense of bad writing that will never be resolved. I am preparing my clown wig as we speak.
he's a hubristic monster he's a fragile old man he's madly in love with demerzel he altered her programming he created an indescribably fucked up and traumatic cloning system he's a poor little meow meow his clones worship him like a god his clones hate his guts and every episode only gives me more questions
