Something I find really neat about that extra speech they gave Conquest is that it made him a really fascinating parallel to Rex
Think about it, his whole speech was about he's a warrior that has been doing this for so long, he's sick of it, but he just keeps doing it, keeps fighting, keeps killing people, because what else is he gonna do? open a flower shop? Hell, his own people didn't even see fit to give him a name
And It's the exact same with Rex. Conquest has to keep conquering. Meanwhile Rex, has to splode. Consider that, a name, something so basic yet intrinsic to any being, because names allow you to define something. Mark is allowed to define what Mark means, Eve can decide what Eve means. But Conquest? he can't decide Conquest means flower shop owner, it means he dominates. And Rex? he had a name, but it got changed because...Branding? a joke Cecil made? imagine that, your entire existence defined by a joke, and not a very funny one at that
And Conquest really is Rex taken to his logical extreme. Imagine Rex survived the Invincible war. And he keeps surviving and fighting and getting stronger for 50, 60, 70 years. And this entire time, he's solely defined as a hero, the guy who makes the villains explode. And all the other heroes and villains, they retire because they have dreams and aspirations outside of heroism or maybe they just get old and tired, and there's new heroes and a new Cecil, and here's Rex, surrounded by Invincible 3, and Immortal and Kate's kid Infinity, and Monster girl's weird bug kid, and they're all petrified of him, they know he's been at the game so long, and they know he has barely any personality left other than fighting, and even though Rex is surrounded by fresh new heroes, he's more alone than ever, and he can't cry because no one who would care is left
Hot take: I think the biggest demonstration of how weak Viltrumite society is, in my opinion, lies in how quickly they adapted to Earth. I love a lot of shows where aliens are shocked upon arriving on Earth, and the gimmick tends to be that they take a long time to adapt, while the Viltrumites... don't. I mean, Nolan discovered Fanfiction.net and the Korean ones and almost abandoned the mission (or Kragg and his Marlboros).
And honestly, comparing other similar stories, I think it's because the Viltrumites have no art! Or what we'd call "cultural heritage." That is, if I think of characters like Vegeta from Dragon Ball, Periodot from Steven Universe, or, more lightly, the Tamarians from DC, they take much longer to adapt to Earth. This is because, despite their societies oscillating between barbaric and dictatorial, they are still presented to us as societies with some kind of cultural heritage that hold them to their home planet
omg!! okay, i've got a lot of thoughts on this, and i'm partly going to use this as a sociological study, so it's kind of a win/win!!
viltrumite society is as if neoliberalism and ascetic rationalism taken to the absolute extreme
i imagine most are familiar with the concept with neoliberalism, but just in case, neoliberalism is quite individualistic in nature, highlighting individual responsibility. fundamentally, any circumstances that a person is in is due to their own making, whether by their best qualities, or personal failings. it is the foundation for the myth behind "the american dream"-- that as long as you work hard enough, you can do anything, you can be a pop star or a ceo or whatever the hell you want. on the flip side, it is also why USAmericans blame people for poor circumstances-- "homeless people are poor because they're lazy/drug addicts have no self control/all criminals are inherently evil" and so on and so forth
ascetic rationalism is a concept that comes from the sociologist max weber. rationalism itself is quite self explanatory, in that things should be done more rationally; efficiency, reason, knowledge. rationalism and neoliberalism go pretty much hand-in-hand: for instance, the social welfare system. in countries in the anglosphere (such as the USA), since people on welfare are, in the neoliberal sense, completely at fault for their circumstances, the state "rationally" gives them the bare minimum, if that, considering these welfare payments are way below the poverty line, in order to motivate these people into changing their circumstances, and that way the government doesn't need to expend resources on them (failing to consider how societal structures, rather than personal failings, ended that person up in that situation to begin with). ascetic rationalism, then, applies rationalism to the personal domain rather than the institutional-- things should only be done when they have a purpose, it must be efficient, it must enhance a goal of some kind, because all else would be a waste of time and resources, e.g., think modern hustle culture (which ofc in part comes from a cost of living crisis, but my point still stands)
now, back to the viltrumites and their extremist forms of neoliberalism and ascetic rationalism. we see neoliberal built into their colonial mindset: if we bring technological advancement to a planet, we deserve to dominate it; killing some people in the short term is acceptable if it benefits population growth in the future; basically, anything that anissa uses to rationalise viltrumite rule. and we see ascetic rationalism in their very culture: sex is purely for procreation, not for pleasure; emotions are weakness; relationships are a waste of time, art is meaningless, etc etc
but i believe that this was further worsened by the scourge virus, which as we know wiped out most of their kind. when only 50 people are left to govern an intergalactic empire, they become even MORE neoliberal and rationalist-- one viltrum agent per planet, why, the very use of enslaved planets' armies to conquer other planets is borderline bureaucratic (which too, is a feature of rationalism)
so, when push comes to shove (ie, the coalition destroying viltrum and also waving the new strain of the scourge virus over their heads) they ofc have no choice but to make do with earth
but!!!! but!!!!!
while viltrumite ideals are quite extreme, like in all the examples i used to explain these sociological concepts, they are ultimately societally COMPATIBLE with USAmerican culture, especially when hiding their own coloniality (ironic, right?). in fact, i'd go so far as to say that there are plenty of USAmericans, the kind who put trump into power, who think very similarly to these viltrumites
which only leaves cultural compatibility. but the viltrumites already speak english (universal translator implants??? is what i assume) , and as you said, viltrumites have no cultural heritage!!!! there is no art, no nothing!!!! we know that the viltrumites don't have art, but there are other aspects of culture like food, and we know that their empire extracted resources from other planets, so they were in a prolonged process of absorbing (albeit, by force) other peoples' cultures. they are adept at getting used to difference, adopting the foods and technologies of other cultures, etc etc
so, unlike the other aliens you mention, the viltrumites are simply most equipped TO assimilate to earth, or more specifically to cultures like USAmerica. the arts are just the cherry on top to them, it's another resource for them to extract, especially when the ONLY thing that the planet ever represented to thragg was their shared history-- they had nothing else to connect themselves to each other
and to take it even further, it's that very same individualist neoliberal ascetic rationalism which is why oliver struggles to belong on earth and to assimilate, not just his speedy aging-- he came from what was essentially the complete ideological opposite to viltrum: they are collectivist, social liberal empiricists (empiricism being that all knowledge comes from within, which is oliver's people down to a T; thraxans learn to read by themselves iirc in part because of their short lifespans). you can even see this reflected in the costuming of the viltrumites vs the thraxans!!! they viltrumites, save for thragg, wear only white or grey, without a hint of colour. conversely, the thraxans fashion is colourful, it includes jewellery. by extension, it's the opposite to the West on earth.
furthermore, it's why thraxa is immensely important to nolan in his character development; he arrived there to conquer it as a substitute for earth, yet due to the immense difference between thraxa and viltrum, it expanded nolan's point of view more than the USA ever could have
it's why it's important for mark to realise that his neoliberalist superheroics are flawed!! in his post-war arc, he's doing his best to CHANGE the circumstances of the people he's fighting for both theirs and society's betterment-- getting the gravitator to work for the government instead of stealing for cash, sending the space lady home with some energy to help her people, approaching powerplex with empathy, etc etc. he's becoming more than the viltrumite that his father
sorry to nerd out on you!! hope you enjoyed this!!
there's an invincible post i remember seeing once that was specifically about comparing mark+amber to nolan+debbie in terms of nolan instilling in his son the tendency to lie to his partner and see her as a lesser priority compared to his ✨ greater purpose ✨ and how even if it's on a smaller more mundane more well-intentioned scale, you see in mark and amber the beginnings of the disrespect+manipulation and "viltrumite with a human pet" attitude in nolan and debbie and i wish i could find it again because it makes every single mark and amber interaction in season 1 make me feel like my bones are being twisted out of my body
I find it so…interesting how Viltrumites don’t know what bread is.
Like some people said before, Viltrumites lack any kind of real culture. They lack fashion, art, and it’s confirmed they lack cultural cuisine.
But to not even have something as basic as bread?
All cultures have some form of bread. grains have been a staple in almost every culture on Earth.
It’s a food that has been with humans since the beginning. It may as well be its own god with the name “staff of life.” It’s a social food we use to bond and connect with each other. It’s embedded in our religions. The food of the common people.
And for Viltrumites to lack bread for such an “advanced” society…
None of you understand Amber Bennett: She's just a girl, your honour. A review of the show writers' least favourite love story from Invincible season 1.
Now let me just preface this by saying I have 2 points to make. Just two, very long, super rambly points that does have mild spoilers for Invincible season 2. Read at your own risk.
Point 1: Amber isn't "understanding" enough is utter bullshit.
There’s no indication that civilians outside of the ones associated with the GDA have any idea how brutal fights are for superheroes. Amber quite literally has no idea what the hell Mark is going through, even after the superhero reveal. The only thing she has a smidgeon of understanding of is his dad beating his ass on live TV. And even that is a heavy maybe because we don’t know how much of the fight the cameras could cover and how much was broadcast to the general public.
Point 2: Amber’s dated Losers before.
This is stated explicitly in canon, she's “been down that road." Furthermore, she’s also the daughter of a single-parent household. She used to hang out a community centre as a kid because her mom did late hours. Daddy Issues anyone? She’s got a lot of her own problems that we never get to unpack or linger on because the writing decided she wasn’t going to end up with Mark.
What if she’d already dated an absolute bastard before Mark? Someone who seemed sweet and genuine at first, but then he started slacking. He’d be late to dates, stop taking an interest in anything she did, and just never show up for her in any way that mattered. Amber would make up excuses with her friends and family, oh he’s busy, he’s studying; he cares, I swear, he just has a strange way of showing it.
Her friends and family don’t believe her completely but they humor her because she really seems to like him. And the ex-boyfriend isn’t a douchebag the whole time.. he brings gifts to make up for being late, he plies and pacifies her with honeyed words and promises to be better.
But each time the lies get more and more difficult to believe. Traffic and science projects, traffic and science projects, even when he shows up smelling like weed and alcohol. Her friends and family give her tight-lipped smiles when her ex-boyfriend gives her sloppy kisses and proclaims over and over “She’s too good for me, this one.”
She tries to be empathetic, she tries to be understanding when they’re alone, he can tell her what it is that’s wrong. But every-time she brings up giving them some space, he takes it as an indication of her not believing him and he guilts her with one sob story or another— she knows him, he was so gentle and respectful before they started dating, does she really think he’d do this to her if he didn’t have a good reason? Just a masterclass in gaslighting. So she gives him a second chance, third chance, fourth even.
But then he begins cheating on her. Whenever she confronts him about it, he plays victim and accuses her of being “crazy” even though the entire school knows otherwise. She catches him one fine day, and dumps him on the spot. For a short while, Amber’s very proud of this but as time passes she starts to feel extremely embarrassed that it took that long for her to catch on.
No one blames her, of course, but they all say something along the lines of “We never liked him anyway” which makes Amber doubt the perception of him she had. She internalises their support as a failing on her part to be vigilant, she didn’t want to end up making the same mistakes as her mom, after all.
Amber becomes guarded. She doesn’t entertain male attention (from Todd, for example) but then she finds out resident wimp Mark Grayson takes a beating for her and she feels bad.
So she gives him a chance. Mark was a nonissue, a nobody with no track record of being amazing or awful, just an in-between, normal guy who was maybe a little soft spoken and needed to stand up for himself more.
But every time they try to hang out, something comes in between them. The excuses are laughably obvious this time and Amber is caught between trying to understand if Mark Grayson is trying to let her down easy because he’s not interested or if he’s just another douchebag taking her for a ride.
He leaves her alone during their study date for an hour to do something shady and/or potentially related to Eve (I know she overheard him yelling at Cecil in his bedroom); Mark tells her he’s been to Mount Everest, but can’t tell her How he got there, and leaves on a non-specific trip for two weeks, right after their first date, and can’t even tell her Where he’s going or what he did when he was there?
So she does what she’d wished she’d done in her first relationship, she sets her boundaries. Firmly. She gives Mark multiple chances to come clean when she tells him she’s not riding that wave again. It’s been brought up a few times that Amber has lingering relationship-trauma.
During their study date Amber tells him she’s been in relationships with violent potentially abusive guys (“Met plenty of guys who were willing to throw a punch for me.”); or when he stands her up for the Dinner with her mom she tells him that he needs to make a choice because she’s “Been down this road before, and once was enough.”
But he still keeps at it and she starts getting tired of defending him to her friends and her mom. He’s just busy, he’s just studying; he cares, I swear, he just has a strange way of showing it. And this time they shake their heads and lightly imply that she’s stuck in a pattern. Amber can feel them comparing Mark to her old boyfriend and it all becomes a bit too much.
Either he’s a no good drug dealing prick or he’s just wasting her time, whatever it is, Amber’s had enough of being left in the dark.
The soup kitchen is the final straw, but then she finds out that he gets run over by a bus. He actually gets hurt, this is the first time Amber’s seen him hurt, and she feels awful because if she hadn’t pushed him to show up for her again and again maybe he would’ve been more careful.
He doesn’t let her visit him in the hospital. A hit and run on the wrong side of town was the story this time— he can’t even tell her this, the specifics of his accident! Eve was his first point of contact after his parents?! At this point Amber is convinced that he’s involved in something violent or something to do with Eve, or both and she’s not sure she wants to keep going with this.
Amber is confused and hurt but she also feels responsible for Mark’s injuries. Maybe she Was too paranoid, maybe she Was projecting all her relationship-trauma on him and he would tell her what happened at his own pace. So she backtracks, gives him another chance.
College is really the best of all worlds, Mark makes her promises that this time will be different, and Amber tentatively agrees to college together. (She’s still stressed out about his injuries and on edge the whole time though and asks if he has a concussion).
This is really important because Amber ends up at Upstate U later. She decided to go to college with him, basically because of Him. This wasn’t any specific plan she had before, this was her making room in her life for this boy and potentially everything their lives could be together.
Then the Reanimen Incident happens. And she loses her shit. Mark Grayson is not the flakey but well-intentioned boyfriend she thought he was.. Mark Grayson is not even a good person! He LEFT her and William at the drop of a hat to save his own slimy skin, that bastard! Her intuition was right, she never should’ve given him a chance.
Amber was no longer going to give Mark Grayson the time of day, much less share a bed with the self-serving jerk; she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of spinning another tall tale. Or seeing her cry. She closes the door to the shower rooms behind her, and overhears Rick leaving to get them all some beer. Dorm room walls are thin, after all.
Then she hears something else.
“You’re Invincible!” William’s voice carries over excitedly, “And you never told me?”
Here goes the "problematic" bit.
I think Amber was lying when she told Mark she knew he was Invincible weeks ago. Amber didn’t even know who Invincible was until a few minutes after the Reanimen attack. She isn’t acting for anyone around her, she’s genuinely confused when the superhero jets off because she’s never seen him in her life.
I think she overheard William freaking out about it in the dorm room and she pieced together Mark’s absences with his vague excuses and why couldn’t visit him at the hospital. She takes a shower to cool off but sitting and stewing on all of it just makes her angrier and she decides to go to the frat party just to get away from Mark for a while.
Now why wouldn’t she just tell him she overheard them talking?
Amber is an assertive independent character with a lot of pride. And that’s not a bad thing. Amber has a lot to be proud of. She has a strong sense of justice, she doesn’t take crap from anyone and she has too much self-worth to put up with liars.
You can clearly see this in the way she approaches Mark in the beginning. She asks William if he’s dating Eve, and then instead of calling him herself, she gets Todd to give Mark her number so he can call her if he’s interested, despite the fact that she already is. She has too much pride to chase him. It’s one of her fixed flaws, and it’s consistent to her character.
So finding out that Mark is actually Invincible almost by accident, is kind of embarrassing for Amber. Not only because she yelled at him for disappearing but for all the times he misled her and lied to her only to actually have a good reason for doing it. There’s a lot of mixed emotions there, shame, guilt, concern. Guilt.
Admitting that she overheard he was Invincible would be like admitting she was a stupid, nagging girlfriend who had no right to be a part of his life (the way the fandom perceives her) so she doesn’t. She tries to distract herself with the party, flirts with someone she just met not ten minutes ago, and feels awful because he immediately drops the girlfriend bomb.
Now she’s forced to confront the fact that she has a boyfriend, and her flakey, well-intentioned superhero boyfriend is sitting and moping in the dorm room because she doesn’t have the guts to tell him she knows. Because telling him she knows would remove the choice he’d need to make when deciding whether or not he was serious about their relationship.
Amber was serious, Amber was going to change her life and potentially open her future to college with him, but was Mark really sure about Them if he couldn’t even tell her of his own accord?
Telling him would be like giving him another out. And Amber was done giving him an out.
When he finally confesses he doesn’t see why she’s mad at him, because he doesn’t see her at all. He can’t even begin to imagine what this roller coaster of a weekend has been for her because she’s been serious about him all this time and it took them breaking up completely for Mark to choose her back in the first place and go all in.
Now it’s true that Mark is entitled to his secrets but Amber is also entitled to being upset that he can’t tell her 1 solid thing about his life. Not one thing does he trust her enough to explain, and at that point why should they even be dating each other? Why should she change the course of her future for a guy who can’t tell her where he was last weekend?
Then Omni-man beats him up on live TV, and now that she knows that he’s Invincible, she finally gets a glimpse into the bloody, gruesome world that is Mark’s. His Dad isn’t a superhero, his Dad is a Monster, and Mark is discovering this the same time as the rest of the world.
So she freaks out because she cares, and she’s so relieved to see him not beat to a bloody pulp like on TV that she kisses him. She likely had no intention of getting back together with him before that, but world-ending fiascos often come with heightened emotions, and they’re just kids at the end of the day.
She’s not a manipulative, narcissistic villain, she’s just a proud girl, in love with a boy who can’t decided whether or not he loves her back.
Now do I think Mark is a terrible jerk who doesn’t deserve Amber? No. I watched Invincible the same way it was intended, almost entirely through Mark’s eyes, and it’s hard to assign blame in this case because we see how horrifying and traumatic being a superhero actually is. But that’s the point, we only see one half of the story.
We see Amber through Mark’s eyes and in his opinion she could afford to be more compassionate to his excuses the moment she finds out he’s a hero, the way Eve can, but that’s not true at all because Amber has no idea what being a hero is like. Eve does, and that’s the difference that Mark is wilfully blind to.
But Mark also has no idea what Amber’s life is like and it’s easy to get lost in the sea of all the lives lost and villains fought, that he genuinely hasn’t spent any time with his girlfriend as a person beyond his Girlfriend. Amber isn’t a person to him, like William stopped being eventually; they became sort of tethers to Mark’s humanity, a way to distinguish himself from his Dad. A way to ground him.
Seriously? When was the last time Mark even talked to William, his once Best Friend? They’re not his Mom, they’re concepts to him. They’re civilians, potential victims he could end up losing if he doesn’t police himself and his powers. Mark slowly becomes disillusioned to his own life as a human, the more the leans into the Viltrumite half of his parentage.
It’s a little tragic but it’s the story we’re seeing. In season 2, when Mark and Amber break up and he gives up his dream for college, these two things are almost explicitly correlated. Mark is coming to terms with the fact that he’s going to outlive everyone he knows, even his new baby brother and that is just the most chaotic example of a slow-burn trauma if I’ve ever seen one. He’s giving up being human, but maybe not giving up his humanity.
TLDR: None of you understand Amber Bennett because the writers decided that Mark would outlive her before he ever had the chance to see things from her perspective and I am SALTY about it
the real reason i headcanon sinclair as trans is just the vibe. she just has that sort of vibe. the literary analysis i made up after the initial vibe is that she is disparagingly fixated on the ideal male archetype (reanimen are all 7ft tall buff dudes + sarcastically calling rick an alpha male) which represents the odd push/pull with masculinity that a lot of closeted women have. the whole "maybe if i try harder and really lean into it i can succeed at being a man but also i dont like men and i dont want to be one and masculinity is suffering". she lowkey resents/is jealous of cis men who easily preform masculinity and reap the benefits of male privilege w/o being marginalized for failing at gender. + she uses initials instead of her legal first name obviously. the funny reason is
1. Choose a name (it can be your name, your OCs, your friends - your pick!)
2. Spin this wheel and apply proposed changes up to four times (we want the name to differ but still be similar enough to be recognizable)
3. Between each spin apply the changes, hear out how its pronounced in google translate, and decide wherever it needs further tweaks; repeat until you get desirable effect
4. Congratulations, you got your name!
Bellow you'll find few examples of names edited this way (in brackets are numbers of changes applied, in square ones how theyre pronounced)
((You can find simillar sounding letters guide here))
Amelia - Kmellie (3) [kay-MEL-yee]
Boris - Uboriz (2) [YOU-boh-reez]
Christoph - Cariistopph (3) [CARIO-stoph]
Desmond - Dep'mmont (3) [DEPP-mont]
Hannah - Gaa'nah (3) [GHA-nah]
Jacob - Eyacob (2) [AA-yaa-cob]
Jason - Haason (2) [HAY-syhn]
Jessica - Jeesicau (2) [JEE-zee-cow]
Michael - Naykel (2) [NEY-khel]
Ottavia - Rttavya (2) [rhe-TAV-yaa]
Pasha - Fa'sha (2) [FA-sha]
Stephen - Stehen (1) [STEH-yen]
Wendy - Dwenn (3) [Dwhen]
Zariah - Zaariak (2); [ZA-rhiakh]
And the canon names if we wanted to achieve the same results using these changes:
are funny but the romantic imagery in the conquest fight is so so interesting to me. his strangely mellow and easygoing tone of voice, his behavior towards mark (and eve) ranging from paternal and encouraging to almost flirtatious all throughout the violence he’s inflicting on them and others, how that affection is entwined with the violence, the closeness in feeling their bodies as he maims them and the intimacy in him telling mark his secret, those are the only times he has ever felt any kind of closeness like that, the only time he’s been permitted to.
he is a physical embodiment and confirmation of what was implied in s1 with omni-man, that viltrumites’ enforced isolation and supremacist ideology ironically makes them more prone to forming attachments with others- as conquest says there’s nothing like that on viltrum- omni-man’s closeness with his family on earth is what makes him doubt what he’s doing, conquest’s closeness with mark drives his entire fight with him.
the thing is that this isn’t really a Power Of Love situation, honestly it just makes viltrumites scarier—
omni-man loves his son enough to try and convince him to kill everything he holds dear, because he would rather try and brute force his mentality into mark than actually dispose of him. when he finally forced himself to, at the last moment he can’t bring himself to carry through with it - the weight of that so much that he just abandons mark there mangled. which is honestly much more painful than just killing him.
mark, in the au in s2e1, loves eve so much that he would rather paralyze her than kill her — in general, mark, even in this world, seems to still care about humanity as much as he usually does. he portrays viltrum’s takeover as advancement, as saving lives — he has the power to kill them, but would rather subjugate them and mentally pin the blame on the victims than himself. (just like his dad!)
conquest.
interesting too that in all these cases, these are built on the viltrumite loving someone who can match their strength - mark in s2e1 does this to eve, not amber - showing their might-makes-right ideology still creeps in. “this person is special because they’re durable enough to withstand me” - viltrumites are more prone to closeness with others, but are just as brutal as ever and will still kill millions they perceive as insects, putting their loved one up on a pedestal with them.
in conquest’s case, i think the weirdly romantic-sexual undertones of the fight are very deliberate and very worth analyzing. there’s the obvious heart bubble shot, the way he wipes mark’s face, him calling eve pet names, but even past that there’s the emphasis on more hands-on gore and brutality — which is standard to invincible but feels especially thematic here — eve coming into the fight vulnerable with an already-injured leg and being slowly stripped of her armor, mark tearing a chunk out of conquest’s shoulder with his teeth, several points where mark and conquest are on top of eachother the latter of which one where mark has both his wrists broken and can only attack conquest with his head, it’s all much more close and invasive than punches and kicks.
this is what intimacy is for conquest, the closest thing to it viltrum really allows, to say nothing of someone who is incredibly asocial and maladjusted even by their standards. and it’s scary. it’s violating. eve is stripped of not only her armor but her clothing by the end, mark is so mangled he can only drag himself across the ground, earlier reduced to sobbing and crying out for a man he hates, they’re both deeply vulnerable and irreversibly changed - eve in a literal sense with the shift in her powers, mark in an emotional sense. though i’m sure the trauma will follow them both (hasn’t read the comics)
i sort of rolled my eyes at it at first because i don’t really care for sex scenes even if it was just a tasteful fade to black to close things off, but wrt the last mark and eve scene, thinking on it it feels less like an obligatory celebratory moment between the main couple to cap off the season and more like a natural conclusion to what we witnessed. because all of it was intimacy. and frankly if they can experience normal intimacy after that i’m happy for them lmao
