#kog analysis

[cuttyclowngirl]

Andi covers her mouth BEFORE the smoke catches up. Prior to doing that, she was on the verge of wheezing from running so hard. Frankie on the other hand, even after being enveloped in said smoke, while running, while also pushing the weight of the Gwen droid, doesn't let out a single cough. Andi wasn't going to cough from the smoke, she felt a coughing fit coming on. She's hiding it from Frankie.

[serulata]

i saw this scene and my heart embedded itself within my throat. my breathing hitched. i'd known, yet… it's here where i felt, plainly, this story is crafted by ingenuity and artfulness; not of spite, as i see is claimed in abundance. it's a cultivated, mournful ode to understanding idolatry, slipping childhood, and inhabitations of bygone dreams. incarnated by figures of forced purity.

the princess gwen we follow is a victim of horrific pain & abuse. not only is she non-human- due to her repute as an elevated symbol of subjugation, we're unsure if, if others were to know, they'd give to her their empathy. guinevere androids excel at facial-software detection, adhering that information unconsciously for the ends you may imagine. her statue is defaced because she represents the ails of the park from which there is no inoculation other than expired aspirations, hopelessly looking for the sky, and wishing for better.

for andi... it's similar. the status-quo emphasizes daily griefs spurred by her position, being perceived as irreconcilable, traitorous, and betraying her social standing. soon enough, she's discarded all the like. she, gwen, and frankie take on roles as commodities despite distantly slotted roles in all their respective worlds. andi as an engineer, frankie as a labour worker, and gwen as the face of extraordinary, starry blisses, kiting above the undercity. for frankie? it hurts me so, so much. because we see how she clings onto this memory she shared with andi sneaking in during afterhours. she didn't meet gwen in the perfunctory manner of lining up, waiting, paying; it was a spontaneous break from the drear of her life below, shown tenderness by the princess she loved. ever since that day, she'll cling onto this idealism. she has to be an engineer. she has to be closer, up high, high enough to see clearly.. ah. because she still believes in the magic of the park that hasn't dulled, as it did, for so many. it continues.

this is. gutwrenching. such a tragic introductory stage to this world. this pilot absolutely stole my breath away, as i knew it would, and i am so, so excited to see what's next, as i know i'll be in good hands. oh. my goodness

[shirajellyfish]

She's aware

After watching the Knights of Guinevere pilot about 5 times now, a detail that has jumped out to me is how Guinevere seems to be fully awake and aware the entire time. On first watch you might think she's too damaged to be really conscious, especially with how still she is, but if you watch her face she's reacting to everything that happens. She just can't do anything about it.

Some of these little expressions are very blink and you miss it, so I decided to make a compilation of all of them. Images under the cut, I hope you find this as interesting as I did!

Right after being pulled out of the water, she looks very much horrified. This is one of the few times we see her with an expression like this. Though it initially seems to give her the blank slack-jawed expression of something dead or deactivated, on repeat watches it becomes clear that this is an intentional expression. She is in fact afraid and hurt and unhappy here.

Closed-mouth frown when she gets dropped. Almost looks like she's wincing from the rough treatment. You could say the wince effect is just from that eye already being broken, but considering the quality of the animation I'd bet on the animators having been very intentional with the angle of this shot to create the wince effect on purpose.

Our first real confirmation that yes she's entirely aware. She moved her hand over her injured eye intentionally and has turned to look at the people shutting her in here. Her finger also tries to twitch erratically, despite being mostly missing. You could say that this is simply due to the damage, but it's also possible that she's doing this entirely on purpose. Her happy memory with meeting Frankie was when Frankie fixed that same finger. It's entirely possible that she has already recognized Frankie, and is trying to call out for help by imitating that same damaged twitch. "It's me! Remember me! Remember this!"

When the storage unit is opened, she's in the same position. Still very unhappy. But then...

She sees who opened it. She still looks pretty afraid, but this is the first smile we see from her.

A moment later, back to a frown. This is when Andi is trying to convince Frankie to tell security. Guinevere really is completely awake, listening and reacting to everything.

Then Frankie tells her happy memory story, and look at that smile!

"That's right!" Though she can't seem to speak at the moment, Guinevere does seem to intentionally open her mouth with a big smile to play along with Frankie. It's not just Frankie puppeting her here, she's genuinely trying to show agreement.

This one I'll admit I might be reading too much into, but it might also be intentional that she flops over to lean onto her friend here. It could also be the motion of the boat and all, but knowing what we know it's also possible she did it on purpose.

When they're caught. That smile is looking a little afraid now isn't it.

This is probably the tiniest, most blink and you miss it expression of the lot- She is NOT smiling in this one, quick shot. This is when Frankie's boss is trying to convince the two, with both threats and promises of a better life, to give Guinevere up. She seems to be worried that they will do exactly that.

But when Frankie makes it clear her intent to resist, Guinevere is smiling again. A smaller smile, but still a smile.

The obvious sign, the scream. This one was impossible to miss. But it wasn't her spontaneously waking up in time to warn them- she has been awake this entire time.

Once again I think they used the angle and her broken eye intentionally to create this expression. The look is almost satisfied. Maybe because she finally managed a clear communication, maybe because she knows she's done everything she could do in this moment. There's also a slight sense almost like she's bracing for impact, definitely knowing what's coming for her.

She twitches once again here. That's not water damage, she's trying to either warn them that danger is still coming or to get up and defend them.

More twitching here, almost seeming to struggle in Frankie's arms. She might be trying to get up and face Sir Arthur right here and now, or might be otherwise preparing to do it.

This smile looks distinctly afraid to me.

Just before Sir Arthur breaks though, she's twitching and trying to move again- though this one is pretty obvious.

Absolutely no one missed this, but how could I not put the best expression in the entire pilot in here? This girl she is distinctly unhinged. Rad as all heck.

After, she goes from that satisfied smile to this much more vulnerable expression. She can be vulnerable when she's being held safe and close and cozy by her friend here to help her.

One last one, again maybe a stretch- but when she's put down, her head turns towards Frankie. It might just be the jostling of being set down, but it's also possible she's turning to her friend on purpose.

I can't believe the amount of attention to detail that went into this pilot and I love every second of it.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

*hypnotically* you don't need the next three hours of your life, give those hours to me. you need to listen to a weird man get distracted by minor animation details.

[craftyzombieeee]

Can I just say that Knights of Guinevere seems to be making some criticisms at Barbie as well?

Like, the way she is one character, put into various different roles in movies just to have more versions of her to sell. This mermaid is Guinevere, this ballerina is Guinevere, this princess is Guinevere. You need to get this new Barbie because it connects to the new movie, where she's a princess, or an astronaut, or a movie star. There's also the consumerism that inherently derives of this, in some cases, in spite of the messaging of the movie.

She is made as a raceless alien to be more appealing and yet she still has recognizably white features, like blue eyes, a petit nose, and thin lips, because these are features "beautiful" by default because of our white supremacist world. Sure, Barbie can have darker skin, but if you look at the toys, they never have a larger nose, or bigger lips, because those wouldn't be "pretty" on a toy.

We see costumes meant to be worn by a variety of little girls, and maybe they come in different sizes, but I bet you the marketing never features a fat kid playing in them. I bet you the movies only have fat villains, or at most a fat side character only there to be the butt of a joke. And of course, Guinever herself can be a mermaid, or a planet-hopping ballerina, but never fat. Sure we want Barbie to be inclusive of all body types, but the movies never feature a fat main character, and the ads never have fat kids or toys, and if you want a larger-bodied Barbie, you're gonna have to order them online at double the price of thin Barbies on store shelves.

Lastly, this one is the most conjecture, but we see she has a prince companion in one of the movies, and I'm expecting them to make some criticism of how Guinevere must love this guy because "a princess needs a prince", and how her love to another woman could not compare, or must be explicitly platonic. This goes with Disney's whole token representation "the first gay Star Wars character" thing, but Barbie is also guilty of this. How Barbie always has her Ken, even when he is literally just there to keep people thinking that she is gay. Mattel made a whole ass movie about how the love between two girls was enough to break barriers, defeat a curse, and raise a mythical castle out of oblivion, and they put in two random guys that never do anything to be their pairs and called it "the castle of friendship". Of course Barbie can be anything, but never gay. What would she do without her Ken?

[fluffythings-and-0-braincells]

psst, hey! I noticed some symbolism!

We already know Andrea and Frankie are Gwen's knights, but did y'all notice that each of them is represented by broken knight gear?

Frankie is a broken shield, and Andrea is a broken sword. I might be wrong about why, but I want to try to analyze it anyways. So let's start with the most obvious one, Frankie.

So Frankie. Francesca. Frank. She's not okay, both physically and mentally. She hallucinates that her handmade toys are alive and talking to her; has 3 different life-sucking jobs, one of which includes a boss who has PULLED OUT 2 OF HER TEETH because "she didn't behave". She even tried to help a broken android of her favorite childhood character while ignoring that both she and Andrea were bleeding and bruised.

All this to say, I don't think Frankie cares about her well-being enough, which is understandable considering the things the girls need to do to make rent and survive in this late-stage capitalism hellscape. But we see that she's the kind of person who not only sacrifices herself for those she cares about, she's also willing to lose teeth and get beaten up to fix something because she wants to work with Andrea in the labs.

From what we know so far, she's been punched, dragged through the mud, and probably had to steal to feed herself and Andrea, along with stealing parts for both her and Andrea's robots. And yet, she still gets back up, she still has hopes and dreams of working as an engineer for the park.

She's a broken shield that still stands because her convictions remain strong, despite all the pain and cracks she's endured. But that doesn't mean she's indestructible, and eventually something has to give in, and that something may be her mental health, along with losing an eye.

Now, Andrea... we didn't get as much insight into Andrea's way of thinking as we did with Frankie, but I think the reason she's a broken sword is related to her working for the park as an engineer.

Throughout the entire pilot, we get to see Andrea justifying herself to others, saying she had no choice but to be a crownie due to a lack of money and the state of the world as a whole. We don't know if that is completely true or if she had to convince herself that this was the only way to survive due to a different motive. What we do know for sure is that she HATES her job and also loathes the company behind the park. There's also the fact that she isn't as good as Frankie at robotics, yet somehow got the attention of Park Planet for long enough to be employed by them for a while.

My theory on that is that she showed one of Frankie's inventions to get employed at the park, but couldn't match the expectations placed on her and got fired after her dino animatronic malfunctioned.

Her passion for robotics seems lost, along with her dreams for a better-paying job for both her and Frankie. Who knows how long she fought to get a chance at a better job at Park Planet, how many nights she stayed awake to show she was good enough, and then she got fired. Her sense of wonder and love for the park is GONE, yet she's so used to being in fight or flight mode, she's ready to yell and fight off people calling her a crownie even after she was just fired. not because of loyalty, but because she's used to it. She's used to fighting tooth and nail, used to picking up the pieces and finding a new way to survive.

A broken sword can still be used as a weapon when you're desperate, but it can also cut you if you're not careful, and I wonder if she'll accidentally hurt Frankie later on in the name of survival for both of them.

[ghostdrinkssoup]

Thinking about how Knights of Guinevere is about two mechanics working together to save the last shreds of an artwork that’s been laid to waste. How one of those mechanics still remembers the awe and wonder that artwork inspired in her childhood, while the other is disillusioned with the corporate machine and only sees her craft as a means to an end. How they both decide to save the artwork because doing so is the only way to get their careers back on track. And maybe that artwork is valuable regardless of the corruption that birthed her. And maybe we need to save art from the corporations

This is where I think the Queen Guinevere allusion comes in, because The Death of King Arthur depicts loyalty through three distinct lenses: 1) a knight’s worship of his King, 2) a King’s worship of his people (staying true to his word, acting chivalrously, etc), and 3) the lovers’ worship of each other. What all three have in common is a moral contradiction: Lancelot betrays his King, is exiled from the Round Table, and abducts Guinevere against the orders he’s been given. He also commits adultery. Yet, his transgressions reflect his ability to honour the code of chivalry, since Guinevere (his lover and queen) would have been doomed to certain death if he hadn’t intervened. He betrays Arthur, yes, but in doing so remains loyal to him by acting in his favour, reframing notions of loyalty and worship by locating them outside a simplistic view of good versus evil. Malory’s rendition of the Arthurian Legends thus asks: Can betrayal be an act of love and worship? Can strict obedience be a sign of ill-intent and short-sightedness?

These same questions are reimagined in the Knights of Guinevere, because Frankie and Andi are tasked with saving their queen by rebelling and breaking all the rules. Because there’s nothing more loyal to creation as a whole than saving an artwork from exploitation, represented as literal dismemberment and torture. The show is reframing the code of chivalry to refer to the relationship between artists and the media they create

[ramelcandy]

Hey don't know if anyone has noticed this yet but

The doll Frankie and Andi where trying to get isn't dressed like princess Gwen in the pilot.

She's dressed like princess Gwen from the teaser