I am a self-professed hater of the Master of the Heavenly Yard novel. I think there are a bunch of problems with it, and here are the main ones for clarity's sake:
The antagonists and their plan are incredibly out of left field and are only kind of foreshadowed vaguely in album booklets
The antagonist LINEUP is weird (irina, gallerian, gammon, etc.)
There are not enough cameos and especially not enough cameos that MATTER
Allen is suddenly the main character despite not mattering ever since Cloture of Yellow and Wiegenlied of Green (discounting his cameos in other novels such as Fith, Pierrot)
People's character arcs disappear for no reason (Specifically Rilliane)
If you don't want to read what is more of a rant than actual critique/analysis, the TLDR is that I think there should have been another novel between Muzzle of Nemesis and Master of the Heavenly Yard. From here on I will mostly use acronyms and shortened names for stuff.
The antagonists and their plan is incredibly out of left field and is only kind of foreshadowed vaguely in album booklets
and
The antagonist LINEUP is weird (irina, gallerian, gammon, etc.)
Number 1 and 2 kind of go together, so I'll talk about them interchangably. The biggest issue with these two is that they both suffer from "hey, where did THIS come from?".
This is mainly because, for some reason, mothy (the writer) never elaborated on Evils Theater, its inhabitants, and what the fuck they're doing at any point. We only get minor glimpses like Capriccio Farce or the album booklets. On its own, this isn't so bad. We have a lot of stuff we don't know about Evillious' history. However, most of those things don't end up being incredibly important in the literal FINALE of the series.
Now, the final villain in the mothy novel is Ma. However, for a large portion of the book, our main antagonists are: Gammon, Gallerian, Michelle, Irina, Adam (kind of), and Eve (kind of). Now, I don't think I really need to spell out why this is an odd group but I will anyways.
First, we get no indication that ALL of these guys TOGETHER somehow had enough contact with each other to form a detailed plan regarding the end of the world.
Two, Gammon and Gallerian are enemies, meaning them being in the same group (and I recall them being in the same place at some parts of the novel) without serious infighting needs an explanation. We never get one.
Three, when did they make this plan considering Gallerian has been dead for years? In fact, HOW did they make this plan? How did they come to the conclusion that they HAVE to destroy the sinners to stop Ma....instead of just like, killing her? And you can say "But Ma was presumed to be killed by Nemesis!" but that would mean they started to plan just before the world ended. I find that hard to believe. How did they come to the conclusion they have to go back in time? No idea.
Four, why does Gallerian agree to this plan when he KNOWS the sinners have to be destroyed. Aka himself. And let's say that somehow Gallerian accepts dying for the greater good or whatever..why does he let Michelle make a contract with Eve for the plan then!? Her becoming the main contractor for sloth means she HAS to die. This is the same Gallerian that does everything for his daughter and the same Gallerian who ends his song saying he'll come back and achieve his goals to create a paradise for himself and his daughter. I don't even like the guy, but how exactly does this make sense with his previous characterization?
Five, why is Michelle here. HOW is Michelle here? She was in the Heavenly Yard for decade(s), so she couldn't have communicated with them beforehand. Moreover, she was a sheltered, innocent 16 year old when she died. How on earth is she now a terrorist who's fine with suicide if it means saving the world or resetting it?
Six, how did Gallerian learn some important lore for this plan? Uhh because there was randomly a black box belonging to Luna Hazuki in the Hellish Yard....for some reason.
Seven, how did Adam realize Irina was Maria which set off the events that led to him being Neo Adam? Idk
Eight, why does Irina suddenly decide she wants to save the world? Idk. You can argue that it's because she changed her perspective due to her time as Michelle, but that's subtext at best. Her suddenly wanting to save the world technically fits with her NOT being an actual HER as of OSS:C and P, but I'm not sure how much that was preplanned. Besides, I'm still not a fan of that specific reveal because it means unlike every other HER, Irina was just a normal person who wanted to destroy the entire world not because she had a fantasy illness but..because she just really wanted to I guess? But I digress, this is OSS territory.
Nine, pretty minor but, how does Irina make the entire THEATER her body, something unprecedented in the series before this?
Some of these may have been answered in the novel and it's possible I just forgot, in that case please correct me.
Onto our third point:
There are not enough cameos and especially not enough cameos that MATTER
Technically I can just answer this one with "Nyoze" and be done with it, but I won't.
-Nyoze doesn't exist for some reason even though he has a significant connection to Nemesis, one of the main characters of the novel, and is literally in the Court Ending and OSS
-Arte and Pollo are reduced to Banica's servants (this is more an issue I have with their writing THROUGHOUT the series and this was the perfect time to address it) even though their roles as Hansel, Gretel, Ney, and Lemy could have been impactful and tied up loose ends. Lemy is Irina's adopted son, and we have a bunch of Pride Arc cameos here INCLUDING Mariam, Ney's adoptive mother. Also Prim is in the background a lot here for some reason. I get that she was a contractor too, but there were other minor contractors? I guess it was because they weren't HERs..
-Germaine and Allen are somehow on great terms despite their terrible parting
-Despite the abundance of Pride Arc cameos, most of them don't mean jack shit story wise. We literally don't get an actual Three Heroes reunion. What the fuck. Also does Allen even talk to Leonhart?
-Despite the Pride Arc cameos, we don't see most characters from the Greed/Wrath arcs, even though Ma, Gallerian, and Gammon are all antagonists in this novel and there are a lot of characters connected to them (such as the members of PN)
-Do we get any cameos from the Envy arc? The Sloth arc? The original PN?
Allen is suddenly the main character despite not mattering ever since Cloture of Yellow and Wiegenlied of Green (not counting his cameos in other novels)
Now, I know mothy (the author) intended the series to start and end with the twins. I can accept that. The problem is that the series never gives a reason for it? It feels very abrupt. Even if I'm generous and start counting after the Pride Arc, Allen hasn't been relevant for about 6 novels at this point. I suppose Tailor of Enbizaka counts..but eh. That's not even mentioning Rilliane herself, who at least got to be relevant as Postman and Lillith but otherwise wasn't very important either.
Anyway, if we had gotten a novel inbetween Muzzle and mothy, this problem could have been fixed. Alternatively, Allen could have reincarnated more than once, thus keeping him in the story.
People's character arcs disappear for no reason
Just saying "Rilliane" instead of "People" would probably more accurate here, but eh. Honestly this might be the most minor point, but it's still annoying.
Rilliane, in her past life, died as an old woman. Let's say around her 80s or so. She also had a redemption arc where she stopped being..you know, the 'daughter of evil'. In her 2nd life, she was a normal person. In her 3rd life, she had issues, but she wasn't terrible either. However, when she dies...she's in her 14 year old self and is STILL a spoiled princess.
I'm sorry, but if you want Allen and Rilliane to be the main characters and the literal bookends, why are you ignoring Rilliane's character development literally her BIGGEST aspect in the pride arc? That just makes her character seem static, contradictory, and unsatisfying. Because you erased the development that you wrote and showed the viewer in the very first novels!
And that's it. That's my thesis on "Why Master of the Heavenly Yard Sucks, and Why There Should Have Been Another Novel Before It". Thank you for reading until this point.
PS. One of the few good things was Ma's writing. Absolutely superb.
What do you think about Evrart Claire? You mentioned you think about him in one of your tags I think.
okay i will first direct to you to trusted mutual @sydmarch for the most in-depth evrart thoughts with the appropriate warning for nsfw lmfaoo
but like. evrart is one of those characters where you have an initial knee-jerk reaction to them and then you kinda have to reevaluate after all is said and done because you get a LOT more context on them as you go.
most shallowly, you're meant to see evrart as the slimy "fantastically corrupt" union (mob) boss who sits in his office embezzling and making others do his dirty work (the hardies as his enforcement, you as his little errand dog, you get the point). however, a first point i want to make is that comparing a justified labor or civil rights advocate group to a "mob" is such a ubiquitous piece of capitalist/bigot rhetoric that it should automatically clue you in to the fact that something else is going on here. also taken in context with the fact that kortenaer poses as a scab to break the strike, further framing the union as a lazy, entitled, unreasonable splinter faction of stupid socialists-- obviously we know that the people who made this game are leftists, so it's not just Ough Unions Bad. there is Something Else Going On! because we are seeing this union strike filtered primarily through the lens of someone who is, consciously or not, a moralintern lackey! even at his most self-aware, calling himself the moralintern's bitch, harry does not have enough awareness of the world and his role in it to recognize how he is being manipulated by the various agendas at play here, and that affects our perception of it.
i think evrart presents as corrupt and weaselly on purpose! again syd has said a lot of this already & i've added some stuff in their tags, but i'll reiterate here for convenience. he is aware of the rhetoric people can use against him and he uses that to his advantage. he's using his personal reputation as misdirection. we see in dialogue that even joyce, an ultraliberal diehard capitalist who obviously dislikes the union, concedes that it was respectable in and of itself before the claires came in:
and we can infer that a lot of that might be because the union was *less effective before the claires took charge*. of course a capitalist will respect an ineffective labor union! but on top of this, the claires' open "corruption" give anti-union people an easy target for criticisms that serve to legitimize the union itself. oh, they say, well, the union is alright, it's just the claires that are ruining it. it's misdirection and it's genius. evrart's reputation isn't a concern if the union is doing its job, right? and here's another thing: i think people will trust open corruption more than they'll trust altruism that seems to good to be true. especially in a world with something like moralism, where this organization has killed millions and will kill *millions more* for a "greater good" that is literally just the status quo. if evrart's corruption is an open secret, as joyce puts it, people feel they can trust him *because* he's transparent about the bad things he supposedly does or supports or whatever. at least he's honest, right?
this makes the juxtaposition of evrart with joyce SUPER interesting, too. i think they both have that 'honest about their bad traits' way of going at people- joyce with her self-aware but relentless ultraliberalism, evrart with his intentionally misrepresented agendas. of the two, i think people tend to like joyce a lot more, despite her and evrart using pretty much the *same exact tactics*, and i think that tendency is largely explained by the intersection of gender and fatphobia and ingrained capitalist rhetoric, but i digress.
yes, the way evrart's little tasks are presented makes them *feel* slimy- you're evrart's peone, you're a little bitch dog running his errands to get a gun you never should have lost to begin with, he knows how to help and he's toying with you- but it's on purpose!! you can be joyce's little bitch dog too and it's not framed anywhere near as scummy. It Is On Purpose. because if evrart pretends to be the "socialist" mob boss, maybe it really does get martinaise the youth center, or enough money to, you know, fix the crumbling buildings that could kill the tenants at any moment. there are genuinely good things he is sincerely trying to accomplish. he is curating his image exactly as he needs it to be to get things done and that's partly why joyce hates him *so much*.
and of course this isn't to say that the claires never do anything wrong. contracting dros to kill the previous union head, for example. if i had to pin evrart's major sin, i think he's an "end justifies the means" type of guy. the other union head candidate needed to die for progress to be made. the fishing village will have to go so we can build martinaise up properly. some people, if not willingly cooperative- like harry- need to be used for their status regardless. we see the union at the opposite end of "for the greater good" as moralism: where moralism wants to stall the world, the union represents ruthless progression. why else the red-vs-blue juxtaposition of the union vs the moralintern and its financial interests? the red banners draped over shipping containers?
Tell us why despite being 'problematic', you love eclare and think they belong together. I can't help it - I get why many don't like them, but when I see them onscreen they just scream "soulmates" to me :)
Putting under read more.
Eclare, to me, has such great chemistry and from their first scene, there was obviously a connection there. And their story being the Romeo and Juliet esque type, except they are alive and are both at consenting ages haha.
Eli, for all flaws, absolutely loves Clare and she is his #1 woman (ignoring s13-14). He genuinely wants her to be happy, which is shown when he gets Clare and Jake back together and backs off for the most part (I say most part because the two share a kiss, but even the, he's still so respectful of her boundaries).
And Clare loves Eli a lot too, but doesn't want to be his only good thing or have the weight on all his shoulders. She WANTS him to have other interest and have a healthy life. ANd she's able to confide in him and just cry it out. Even though it took a while, she was able to tell him about Asher and Eli was by her side from start to finish. Same way he was there when Clare had cancer. Which is why it's even more ridiculous that the writers had Eli cheat but that's for another day haha.
Short answer: Chemistry, development, & unconditional love and support.
From the moment they kissed in episode 5, there has been growing intimacy between Jack and Langwidere, yet their relationship has remained undefined. That was bound to come to a head at some point, and in a way, this episode was the one where it did.
Jack wakes up to find himself now a pseudo-king, his every need hilariously attended to by Ev’s servants. But while Jack does find some pleasure in his new outfits, let’s face it, he’s never been enamoured by wealth or status. He finds himself in an odd position. It’s obvious that Lady Ev no longer sees him as part-time servant and wants to make sure he receives special treatment. But on the other hand he’s no real king of Ev. He’s in limbo throughout the whole episode, not quite sure of who he is to her. Though I’m not sure if the writers intended it, it was frustrating to watch. That in turn made their argument in the bed chambers especially cathartic.
A lot of people see Langwidere ignoring Jack as a case of her being ‘mean’, but that’s not how I saw it at all. She barely has time to mourn her father before she has to make a plan to protect her kingdom from the wizard and put it into motion. I’m surprised she even had the time to spend the night with Jack. Also note that as he leaves she’s asking the guard about how the guns work. This is all new for her.
When Jack replies with a salty comment when she tells him there are some plans she cannot reveal to him, she doesn’t have the time to argue so her best choice is to ignore him. But more importantly, I think she genuinely wants to keep him away from all that’s going on to protect him. She’s already lost two of her loved ones to the actions of the wizard (well, one to Sylvie but she doesn’t see it that way), and I doubt she wants to see Jack at risk. There’s this second of shock when he barges into the hall, and her tone is very firm. Then there’s that moment when she just looks at him – Though hardly covered by the mask, her face was deliberately unreadable.
Having no chance to spend time with her, and not very interested in captilizing on his new benefits, people-person Jack goes to find Jane. It’s a sweet moment. Despite the fact that she had to release him to Langwidere, there’s no bad blood there. Jane’s predicament will eventually frame Lady Ev and Jack’s conversation. A matter which they use to talk about their relationship, without talking about their relationship.
Jane is also really astute when she asks him, “You’re with Langwidere now? What about Tip?” Thank you. For any observer the rate at which Jack and Langwidere hooked up is truly astounding and Jane had every right to question it. Also, remember that Jane saw Jack at a point where his primary concern was Tip. I think there’s definitely a part of him that does love Tip, just like Tip loves him. But as to what kind of love that is, it’s something that they both have to figure out. In any case he can’t just pretend Tip doesn’t exist at that he doesn’t still occupy a position in his heart.
I doubt he’d be able to have a proper relationship with Lady Ev as long as he hasn’t resolved things. He says that “With Langwidere it’s simple, she owns me.” You could say in his position, comparatively, it is certainly simpler. And yet, if you see his face, there’s something about her owning him that makes him bitter and uncomfortable (as it well should).
On either side I don’t think Jack has fully committed himself.
Langwidere on the other hand, despite her callous ways and curt way of speaking, is definitely falling hard for Jack. When she enters the room she’s relieved to see Jack awake, and to her mind, after a whole day of preparing Ev’s defences, she can’t wait to find some rest with him. When she says that she’d been waiting to be with him all day I don’t doubt that because she’s many things but liar is not one of them. Interestingly she wants what Jack wants in the morning. Just time together. Their goals are somewhat aligned, but the timing is off.
Also note how she starts speaking carelessly about her servants/subjects being crippled and then feels guilty for using the term. Can you imagine Ep 4 Langwidere stuttering as she tells Jack “I-I didn’t mean…” Yep I think not!
People so commonly think that she’s messing with Jack but out of the two of them she’s the only one that has vocalised her feelings. It’s convoluted, yes. She still understands human relationships by utility. But just like she was genuine about wanting a friend but not knowing where to get one, in the same way she very much wants Jack to be hers out of her feelings for him. She doesn’t want to lose Jack, because Jack is all she has. But she doesn’t understand that keeping him as property is not the right way to go about it.
When I wrote my first Jackev meta, I said that the only way I could ship them if that they continued to be themselves but slowly make progress. And surprisingly, despite how incredulous the writing on the show can be, it’s turning out to be the case with them.
Jack is the only person who can call her out on her nonsense. Who wouldn’t back down and tells her that people don’t just exist for her benefit and to be used and tossed aside by her. He is the voice of all reasonable audiences when we watch her ask, “How else do you know it’s yours?” and replies, “How can you think that way?” Honestly, it’s pretty messed up. I wonder if the show will ever explain how she got that mentality, but needless to say she’s been through quite a bit in her life.
Her throwing a curveball back at him by freeing him was a bigger twist for me than say, Tip coming back to life (Boy, didn’t see that coming, uh huh…). You can see it caught him off-guard too. I think at that point he probably was thinking about how incredulous that she’d challenge him like that, but it also made him realise that she was right. While he thinks that Langwidere is using him and he’s not entirely wrong in thinking that, the fact is he would kiss her, would sleep with her, but doesn’t love her enough to stay.
That being said, Jack made the right decision by leaving. He has to be a free man if they were ever to pursue a relationship. And if he comes back for her eventually (I’m thinking he will do that at some point, now that he’s witnessed the stand-off), that will definitely bore holes in her warped philosophy.
It was still sad to watch him go though. Even though I doubt he’s in love with her, at this point he does care for her. Walking away is hard, but something will never sit right if he stays. And props to Stefanie Martini for her acting, because when Langwidere turns her head away, my heart still broke for her. In that moment she is so regal, so outwardly composed, but she can’t bear to look at him. It hurts more thinking back to last episode when she was sitting in the same room, baring her heart to him, willing to show him her face and herself. And he told her, “I do see you.” So now she has to face the immensity of taking care of her kingdom on her own, as the one person she thought would understand her walks away.
This reviewer wondered if Lady Ev’s masks were a reflection of how she was opening up to Jack:
I found it quite strange how transparent the mask of Lady Ev was this episode. It made me wonder, as Jack began to peel away the layers of her defense, were the mask supposed to be representative of this? That she was becoming more open, more willing to be seen since he was opening her heart?
I am inclined to agree. In the place where she was most at risk, and the time when it was the hardest for her, her mask practically covered her whole face.
When she was resolved to take revenge on the wizard she was wearing a military mask. And after Jack tells her that he does see her, she feels at peace enough to wear a mask that would let people see the emotion on her face.
They are both stubborn people, both flawed – and I suppose that what makes them so intriguing to watch week after week.
After reading @kira-ning‘s latest Jackev meta, I realized two things which I thought needed their own post. The first is about the odd romantic/political trio tug-of-war that Tip-Jack-Langwidere currently find themselves in.
Since Tip/Ozma is the rightful Queen of Oz and Langwidere is the Queen of Ev, then Jack is the King of Hearts, making him one of the most powerful men in the land. How he handles these relationships will indirectly affect EVERYONE. He might be able to help Langwidere consider the best options and possibly even be a bridge to unite the Kingdom of Ev with Tip/Ozma and the witches against the Wizard to depose him and place Ozma back on her family’s throne as a friendly neighbor with a strong alliance. Or he has the potential power to pit Oz and Ev against each other if he sides with only one kingdom.
The second thing is Kira wondered what circumstances lead to Langwidere’s inability to understand any relationships other that family, politics, servants and property. Why are ‘friends’ and ‘lovers’ such foreign concepts?
Well, it all goes back to the Wizard. Twenty years ago when the Wizard killed the royal family of Oz (including it was thought their baby girl who was heir) to claim authority over the kingdom, it terrified the rulers of the neighboring Kingdom of Ev who had a young child of their own. As we’ve heard Langwidere tell the Wizard, he left the Kingdom of Ev to fend for itself when the Beast Forever last came, which resulted in her mother’s death during the great flood. The King of Ev now reeling from the grief of his deceased wife, his kingdom in tatters from the Beast Forever, and the threat that the Wizard may turn his eye to expand his kingdom by killing himself and his only child, resolves to rebuild and fortify his kingdom against all possible threats. Trusting his daughter and only living family to the charge of no one, he insists that she become his constant companion. Hiring the best tutors and teaching her himself the ins-and-outs of politics and business, the only personal relationships they have are with each other as incredibly co-dependent family. The king never allowed himself to fall in love again, which would have modeled what a lovers relationship is like, and he never allowed Langwidere other companions or friends because of his fear she might be killed (and possibly he selfishly didn’t want to share Langwidere’s affections with anyone else). All of this resulted in Langwidere being quite clueless when it comes to friends and lovers. So almost from birth, Ozma and Langwidere have been connected. The Princess Ozma’s ‘death’ directly affected how Princess Langwidere was raised.
Until Langwidere stumbled upon Jack in Jane’s workshop, she never realized what she was missing. Along with the fact that her longtime companion, her father, was no longer mentally there, she began to feel lonely and longed for a new companion. The only way she understood how to accomplish this was to ‘buy’ a new companion. While her father truly was unfit to rule any longer, she kept up appearances and effectively ruled as regent for two reasons. The first is that she loved him tremendously and didn’t want to see his honor diminished. The second is that 'the mask of her father the king’ allowed her freedom to do as she wished, whereas if she were officially queen she would have many more demands on her time along with further expectations of decorum. As we’ve seen both before and after she became queen, she takes ruling very seriously. Then we come back to Jack challenging her worldview at every turn. Helping her to see another viewpoint as she also does for him. They are learning about love and friendship and making very painful mistakes along the way but they’ll get there.
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been seeing posts/comments over the internet showing concern over Jack’s age. The truth is his age hasn’t been explicitly stated, neither have there been many clues for us to work with. I don’t see the age difference between him and Lady Ev being as big as some suggest, but at this stage your guess is as good as mine. The reason why I start by saying this is because this is often how concerns about this relationship are articulated, while I would suggest that even if the two of them were to be the same age, their relationship would still be disturbing.
As Jack and Lady Ev navigate where they stand in each other’s lives, we will continue to see the tussle between ‘my property’ and ‘my friend’. Inter-mixed with genuine feelings, there’s a definite power play going on. This will never be completely resolved unless and until Lady Ev makes Jack a free man. And for that to happen, there’s still a lot of growing to do. And I would also suggest – that they are indeed helping each other to grow, in a very unconventional way.
*Please note this long meta includes potential spoilers for future episodes.
Interestingly, it is becoming more evident that neither of them very self-aware but Jack is even less so than Lady Ev is. Jack doesn’t realise he has a streak of self-centeredness – to be honest I didn’t realise it either until he got so angry at Tip. Not to say I can’t understand how he feels, and he’s had it rough, but haven’t they all been through something rough?
And that’s what Lady Ev tries to tell him in the carriage. He’s angry at her not accepting his efforts to comfort her (we’ll get to her end later), so he finds the first opportunity to snap back at her. He’s consumed with his body – but here’s the thing - Lady Ev has absolutely no problems with his body. And I think the moment she tells him to get out of the carriage is the moment she’s to her limit with him feeling sorry for himself for something she personally accepts – especially at a time when she’s mourning her father and also (by her own admission), wants to feel sorry for herself. Was that a callous act? Oh absolutely. But did she have a point? Oddly yes.
What’s interesting about the whole conversation in the carriage is that there’s so much misunderstanding between them. When Lady Ev tells Jack that everything he says is wrong, everything about him is wrong I don’t think she’s talking about his body at all. But Jack takes it that way, which is why he says, “I thought that’s why you liked me?” – From Ep 4 till now he still can’t fathom her buying him or wanting to be friends with him other than some common understanding that they are both (physical) freaks. On a side note, that is possibly why he’s also protective of her need to mask herself – he may be thinking that it’s something physical she’s hiding as well.
More likely than her referencing his physicality, I think she’s actually referencing his attempt to comfort her. To her, it’s wrong because it doesn’t make sense. Remember, it’s highly unlikely she’s experienced genuine acts of kindness in her life. Lady Ev has an odd way of correcting words. It’s not ‘sick’, it’s ‘leaving without actually leaving’. It’s not ‘died’, it’s ‘murdered’. It’s not an abstract ‘loss’, it’s a personal ‘father’. Again she’s an extreme of frankness. She has no understanding of, or at least no inclination towards niceties. She wants everything said exactly. She had no qualms telling the wizard she wants revenge, while staying in Oz. That’s the kind of person she is. So for us, what Jack says may be easily identifiable words of comfort, but she doesn’t recognise them.
When Jack tells her that the more he ‘sees’ the more he realises how hard it is for her, she turns away from him, then asks him why he’s even talking. Later on in the conversation he’s just trying to be kind to her. But as with them at the carnival, I think she doesn’t yet realise that there would be a person out there who isn’t her father who would voluntarily show her kindness. And she certainly hasn’t learned the socially appropriate way to respond to that.
Then there’s the more obvious part of her taking out all her anger and feelings on Jack. That’s definitely part of it too. Also, she is clearly struggling with some jealousy regarding Tip. I had previously theorised that she would get jealous over Tip, but when that didn’t seem to happen last week I was surprised. Turns out she was jealous after all – and not only is that not surprising I do think she has genuine feelings for him. This isn’t simply about him being her ‘property’.
Additionally, I think what’s great about the both of them is Jack doesn’t care that she’s a princess (now queen) either. He demands to know why she’s throwing him out of the carriage. He insists he was trying to be kind. And it’s only when she tells him he missed that he huffs out the door.
Complicated? We’re only getting started.
What amazes me is that Jack has such confidence in the good that’s in her. The first thing he says to her when he sees her at the screaming forest is, “I knew you couldn’t be so mean to leave me here” – And I’m like, really?? Cos that’s totally something I could imagine her doing. He has 10 times more faith in her than I do. She on the other hand has no qualms admitting that she did in fact leave him and was mean. But he’s also right – she did go back for him.
But here’s where my confusion starts. How on earth did she know which part of the forest he was in? How did she know he needed oil?
And, most disturbing of all, why would they choose this timing to have a scene like this? What I mean is, I don’t think her laughing when she sees Jack rusted is out of character. I don’t see her oiling him where she shouldn’t, and enjoying her control over him, out of character. What is confusing is that she has clearly been distraught about her father and overwhelmed by her new responsibilities. How is she able to suddenly switch to this teasing (even devious) side of hers like that?
If this theory proves right and she does have multiple personalities than that would explain this scene quite well. But then it raises even more questions. She doesn’t change her masks so a change in personality has nothing to do with the masks. Furthermore, as per my understanding of split personalities, it is usually associated with some memory loss, and usually the second personality surfaces when it is triggered (please correct me if I’m wrong). I don’t see any of that applicable to her.
I think this scene was mainly put in to show us that the mechanical parts of Jack still have a sense of touch. Which would then clear up the bulk of the questions people may have when they eventually have sex after. But it also highlights that she does delight over having control over him.
She intentionally stops just as he’s really enjoying it, is teasing when he asks her if she’s really stopping then. Plus the proximity in which they are standing and the framing of this shot, which is after she has already oiled him – it’s definitely still quite sexual.
Then we see them head back to Ev, and I’ll be honest with you, Ev is so beautiful. It’s beautiful in an empty way, and certainly does put us back in an atmosphere of melancholy as Langwidere and Jack travel up on the funicular.
The guards are just – there. Lifeless, almost mechanical themselves. And they are so disassociated from her. If you remember, she sent Jack to look for her father. Her guards just stood with her. It does seem like Jack is the only one she can trust. Even as they go up staring out through the window, there’s the split moment where it looks like she reaches out to his hand (it cuts too fast though).
That’s emphasised when she brings him to the most private of rooms, and the hugeness of the room emphasises how small she feels at the moment. This scene, in direct contrast to the scene in the screaming forest, is one of incredible vulnerability for her.
She grieves the loss of her father, admits how overwhelmed she is by her new responsibility by telling Jack it’s not something she wanted. The truth is even with her father around she must have felt helpless and alone, but put on a front in the face of threats to Ev like the wizard.
Jack feels for her when she cries, but instead of saying anything, he now turns, voluntarily, to walk away. It’s so nice how he remembers that she wanted to be by herself in the carriage, and doesn’t want to upset her again. And in contrast to the carriage, now, instead of commanding him to leave, she asks him to stay. She says, ‘please’.
As @livinglights puts it so well here, it’s beautiful how she’s willing to be so open and vulnerable so as to take off the mask, when not long ago she said she’d only do it when they were friends. As she told Tip last episode, Jack is her friend. When she says it she truly means it, now more so than ever.
Also as frustrating as it is that Jack stopped her from taking off the mask, it’s still a beautiful moment because he doesn’t want her to do anything uncomfortable on his account. Granted I think she really wanted to show her true self to him, having no one else to be so intimate with, but this too is a nice contrast to the scene in the carriage. Remember when he tells her ‘the more I see of everything’ she immediately looks away. But this time when he says, “I do see you”, she doesn’t. Previously, she wasn’t ready to be seen. Now, she is.
When he moves to kiss her she responds to him. And after the lack of agency in the forest, is nice that he does have some here.
I would argue that even her undressing is of a completely different dynamic from that in the forest. Here, she bares herself in an offer to him. And the shot also suggests a little more vulnerability too.
So in conclusion I can totally see why Jack and Ev’s relationship can put people off. As it stands, it’s not healthy. It is however, to me, the most fascinating dynamic in the show. There’s still so many questions still left unanswered that potentially change how I feel about them, but for the time being, I’m still willing to see their progress.
There was far too little of Tip, Jack and Lady this episode and that is a shame. Even if they do keep Tip and Jack separate, they should at least be getting more individual scenes. As it stands in the episode, I expected their reunion scene to be at least twice the length that it was. Meanwhile the scene with Frank trying to impress lil’ kids with ~*~science~*~ lasted at least 3 minutes – To establish that he’s insecure and easily threatened really didn’t need that much time.
In any case I digress. Let’s get on with my children, and let’s start with the bffs first. Tip and Jack met under an unlikely circumstance. I hadn’t expected them to meet so soon, but it is just as well. I can understand Tip’s eagerness to make amends with Jack. He had thought that he’d killed his best friend and had almost himself because of the guilt. Of course the moment he saw Jack he’d want them to be friends again.
Actress Jordan Loughran did a pretty decent job portraying Tip’s emotions given the limited time she had to work with. Then Tip confesses that he loves Jack.
It seems like with these three we will be exploring what terms like friendship and love mean. Realistically, Tip doesn’t have much of a clue what kind of ‘love’ he’s referring to. He just found out he’s a girl, is under the tutelage of an emotionally volatile witch, and is at the end of the day just a 15-year-old. But in any case it is heartbreaking to watch how he blurts it out in a desperate attempt to reconcile with his friend.
Then there’s Jack. I can understand his anger of course. He’s still suffering the trauma of waking up with a mechanical heart and his body forever changed. He’s clearly in a state of confusion. He didn’t think he’d see Tip again, certainly didn’t think Tip would tell him he loved him, and doesn’t want Tip to see him as a monster because he still cares about what Tip thinks. But I hope at some point though, when he calms down, he will remember that his fall was as much his fault as it was Tip’s.
Jack’s line of ‘we can’t be fixed’ is also important. I think down the road we’ll see this two come to accept each other into their lives again, and also help each other to accept themselves. Tip may be holding out on the promise of magically turning back to a physical boy, but that doesn’t mean that all the issues he now struggles with will just disappear that way.
Interestingly, I think Lady Ev is already playing an important part in this process of self-acceptance. From Jack’s end at least. Though her means are questionable (when are they not?), by forcing him to reveal his body, she’s forcing him to realise how right his words are. He can’t change who/what he is now, and he can’t keep it a secret forever. Though it might not have been her intention, she actually prevents a lot of misunderstanding between him and Tip.
This is what I like about Lady Ev, she has very little, if any, tolerance for dishonesty, either forthright lies or by omission. I don’t think it is right for her to force others to be as frank as she is, but I can admire this trait of hers. She definitely noted Jack’s anger and wanted to be on his side.
Also, though she continues to boss him around regularly, note that she calls him her friend. I’m endlessly fascinated by how she calls him ‘my Jack’. Not just Jack, but ‘my Jack’. Depending on how you read it, she could mean ‘my property Jack’, ‘my friend Jack’ or both. I’m leaning towards both. Because it’s clear that she wants to draw a distinction between her and Tip along the lines of friendship. She doesn’t have to. She could have simply said Jack is my property now, but she still sees him as a friend (though the lines are blurred with her, clearly).
I also love how Lady Ev swooped in, easily put two and two together and quickly figured out that it was Tip who almost killed Jack. It is a trait that puts her at an advantage in politics and also in this situation. I thought when Jack and Tip met it would be a bigger deal to her, but she handles it in her usual haughty manner - much like the way she negotiates with the wizard.
Yet when it comes to her father she’s just this vulnerable child. She’s afraid to upset him, tends to him immediately, and when he’s turned into stone she immediately ups and wants to go back to the comfort of her own home. The moment where Jack runs past her and she’s sitting there waiting for him to find her father is the essence of Lady Ev. She’s spent years ordering people about, and she continues to do so with Jack. But look past her condescending tone and you can easily tell how worried she is. She’s anxious to have her father found as soon as possible. And what’s amazing is that even with her face fully covered, Stefanie Martini can still show Lady Ev’s range of emotion.
Whatever her relationship with Jack, I am glad he’s by her side. She has no one else left that she can trust, and she needs a friend more than ever.
In the last scene we also get to see her, as a leader, contrasted with Frank. Frank is cold-blooded, to the extent that shocks even her. She’s cold, but like I said before, not as depraved as the wizard.
Anyway I’m interested to see how things will progress now that King Ev is dead, the wizard is pushing his agenda hard, and Tip’s true position is about to be revealed.
Ok so let’s talk about my children Jack and Lady Ev for one hot second because they are so different from the extreme slow-burn friends-to-lovers types that I usually ship. But yet, I ship it. Not with any commitment of course, given that it is still early, but there’s definitely potential. If the show shows how kissing doesn’t actually change them at all, but allows them to grow individually while navigating this odd we’re not friends but a not yet defined ‘something else’ dynamic then I’m willing to get behind it. Because the novelty of this ship lies in it’s dang this could be the sweetest thing or a bloody trainwreck odds and I actually like that.
So some background: Though I always knew they were going to kiss (I saw @kalena-henden‘s gif before I watched the show), I didn’t think it would be under those circumstances. I thought they had already been friends for awhile. Like a lot of people, I didn’t expect so little build up to a kiss - which is often something built up as a crowning moment in a budding relationship. Even in Emerald City, where there’s significantly less of a wait, even Dorothy and Lucas had 4 episodes before they kissed.
However, when Jackev did happen that way, I was immediately intrigued. Intrigued precisely because it’s different, it doesn’t have a firm foundation, it’s a little awkward, but yet it’s really in character for the both of them.
How so? Please click to read more if interested - this got a little bit out of hand, and by little bit I mean I might have wrote an essay.
Let’s do a little character study of what we know of Lady Ev so far. She’s stubborn (or insolent, in her own words), cunning, mean, yet cares deeply for her kingdom and her father.
Lady Ev was clearly isolated from her peers as a child, and was most likely spoiled growing up. She genuinely thought a friend was something/someone that could be bought. Given her position as a princess who is in active rule of her land, she understands negotiations and transactions much better than friendship and companionship.
But she’s not depraved. She actually listens when Jack tells her that she can’t just get a friend but has to earn it. She deeply wants a friend and means it.
In fact I think part of the reason why she had Jack brought over to her was precisely because he would stand up to her. Her criticising the wizard’s ‘mask’ shows that she can recognise honesty, her bluntness demonstrates the same. I think she appreciates that trait in Jack. Jack may dislike her, but even when she was very mean to him when they first met, he frankly said that she wasn’t cruel.
Also note that in the case of the festival, she still gets what she wants, which is for Jack to go with her, and that’s very clever, but she listens to him first. She also extends her hand to him, but doesn’t insist that he join her to the festival.
All her life I believe people were kind Lady Ev because of her position or because she commanded them to be. The only possible exception being her father. But then here comes Jack, who respects her wish to stay behind the mask, despite his curiosity about it, and saves her from a bunch of ruffians without being ordered to. I do believe she was genuinely taken aback and grateful - without knowing how exactly to express it. So she kissed instinctively, and I would argue that that too is part of what we know of her so far.
I’m also really curious about the fact that she’s pretty physically affectionate? She barely knows Jack, refuses to acknowledge him as a friend yet, but wants to hold his hand.
Then there’s Jack, our dear hormonal Jack. His bestie grows boobs one day and the boy doesn’t know what to do with himself. So he tries to kiss him (shall go with he/him pronouns for now). Is it surprising then when a beautiful, albeit masked, princess leans in to kiss him that he would go for it?
It was quite cute by the way, how Jack hesitated at first. He still doesn’t know what Langwidere wants from him I’m sure. But that’s part of the fun of shipping them. All these big terms like ‘friendship’, ‘relationship’, ‘love’ - They get to figure it out together. I have no doubt in my mind that next episode we’ll see Lady Ev go back to addressing him as property, and I’m sure at some point Jack’ll get annoyed again. But you see, I’m in this for the process. Jack is the only person so far who can call her out on her BS.
But mostly, I ship them because I think Lady Ev is absolutely correct when she says, ‘It takes one to know one’. Both of them are aware of how different and ‘freakish’ they are. Jack, because of his new physical appearance, Lady Ev - well we’ll find out. As much as Lady Ev wants a friend, I think Jack also wants friendship too. Look at how concerned he is that she’d be scared of him. See how he tries to be nice to her about her father, even though she’d been really mean to him.
So here’s what I think will happen: Jack will probably assume that they are in a relationship, but truth is they’ll probably still have to figure out what this ‘something else’ is. In the meantime there will be lots of physical affection and kissing JUST BECAUSE. Then somewhere along the way Jack will be reunited with Tip. Langwidere will probably get angry - and hopefully we’ll get to see if she is as ‘cruel’ as Jane worried she’d be.
ANYWAY IN SUMMARY: LOOK AT THE POTENTIAL Y’ALL. THEY ARE SO CUTE AND MESSY AND AWKWARD AND GUHHHH!
