Hey, so we all know the Guinevere android is sentient. But severely busted up, so it's mostly inert. Like yes, we all got that memo...
But why is NO ONE talking about how this inert android's FACIAL EXPRESSION SUBTLY CHANGED AS THE PILOT WENT ON??
Like Gwen clearly gets HAPPIER after Frankie rescues her? And I know it's 2D, beautifully hand drawn art and so the expression cannot truly remain perfectly frozen and be the same from all angles... but I cannot help but find it so SO interesting that Gwen remains SMILING after Frankie and Andi rescue her to try and fix her up. She goes from not smiling, to being picked up with a smile. And then we end with an almost trepidacious soft smile. Going from " :} " to " : )"
I'm sure yall have taken note about how when Guinevere's system reboots, she sees Andi and Frankie as they were when they were children, and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT because of how it adds to KOG's characters, plot, and themes!
Make no mistake, Guinvere seeing them as children is not a glitch in her programming; on the contrary, her programming is functioning perfectly as it should!!! By having Andi and Frankie be shown to her as the bright-eyed innocent children she remembered them as, it conceals the harsh realities of adulthood that they both have experienced, and by doing that, it conceals the truth of WHO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT, MAKING THEIR ADULTHOOD SO BRUTAL IN THE FIRST PLACE.
If SHE doesn't know about the cruel reality that her oppressors are culpable for, then NO ONE ELSE would, and if she or anyone else doesn't KNOW about, then they can't DO anything about it, ensuring that the system maintains it cheap facade of perfection, and with it, the status quo it has imposed and inflicted upon those under its heel.
It's little things like this that make my detail-obsessed autistic brain purr with delight.
I know there’s probably so much more story and lore behind the Gwendroid’s decimation of that guard bot and it’s probably devastating or horrifying or whatever, but I’m in love with the idea that each Princess Guinevere is programmed to fucking decimate any adult that seems to be a threat to a child. Like “is that your parents or guardian :) ?” *does not verbalise but seems afraid* “i see :) i will sort this out :) one moment please :)”
"hello?" and "is anybody there....?" have far more sinister implications than they seem :(
these text boxes threw me off hardcore initially, like it was such a jarring shift from blue blood, body horror, and error messages to delicately designed decor and fonts
i originally wrote it off as guinevere's internal/subconscious trying to communicate, but after really looking at the details i'm 99.999999999% sure that these two text boxes are actually two other guinevere androids reaching out.
specifically, i think it's
what makes me think that?
well, lemme walk you through my thought process !
1. the guinevere's are confirmed to have some sort of telepathy, hivemind, or otherwise shared means of communication
regardless of how it functions, as long as they're online, they are all able to share information/communicate and i think the purple text boxes depict an aspect of how they do so.
2. the two text boxes come from two separate speakers
the border designs and font styles are different because they represent two different people. One who expresses themselves with cursive and standard grammar rules, and the other who informally types in times new roman. the former has a rounded, flowing border, while the latter is structured and repetitive (id imagine this plays into their personalities in some way)
with this in mind, how can i be so sure it's princess guinevere and ballerina guinevere out of all of the guineveres?
3. each guinevere is kind of labeled lol
if you've seen the guinevere cards on the park planet website you might have noticed that each of them have a unique star assigned to them
it's subtle, but each star shape varies between each another
now ill be honest, the grain over the purple text boxes made spotting these differences a bit difficult. only one of the boxes has star motifs in them (multiple at that), and there are flowers and other details that don't seem to have any particular significance to any individual guinevere at this time, so i wasnt completed sure who was who
UNTIL
i saw this
look a little closerr
the three guineveres we will be seeing sept. 19th 8)
BONUS
i swear i didnt pull the last star being the original guinevere (aka the one that falls from park planet) from my ass :,)
thematically it makes sense that the star that is oriented differently would represent the Guinevere that has no desire to be apart of the park.
in addition, the descriptions for the other guineveres on the park planet website imply that they'll have an antagonistic role in the series, which further alienates our main Guinevere from the others.
full circle back to why these purple text boxes are much more sinister than they appear. these mechanisms might further explain why an android as powerful as our guinevere hasn't been able to escape the park. she has four adversaries that likely match her in ability and are interconnect to one anothers minds.
I was just rewatching the KOG pilot for the 31st time, when I NOTICED SOMETHING....
So. See this moment?
When Andi stares at it, at the 0 on Guinevere's chest, there's a split second, very minute moment, of her eyes widening.
And that's when she suggests bringing it to security.
That wasn't just a look of surprise. That was recognition. She knows this model is special - maybe not to the exact extent, but she certainly knows something, through her work most likely. And she's smart. It's not exactly hard to figure out what 0 means on a robot.
And this also recontextualizes some of her later lines.... like this one:
Look at this smug ass fucking grin. I just know she's laughing to herself internally, thinking 'we have what is probably Olivia Park's personal fucking android and you have no ideaaaa'. Not even Frankie knows. Like, before, I didn't pay this comment much mind, just seemed like a normal remark to get Sparky to oblige, but with this context, it hits.
It also makes this make more sense....
When I was watching it at first, I thought this scene was a tiny bit heavy handed - like, of course this character would start to get optimistic right before shit hits the fan, it's the most cliche thing ever (not /neg!)... but. When thinking about Andi's motivations, her possible sickness, her wanting to protect Frankie and get them a better life... coupled with this possible piece of the puzzle where maybe she's aware of just how big of a jackpot they hit... yeah, no. I can see why she's optimistic.
(I just also think it's so tragic that she feels she needs to hide all this stuff... that she's not explaining anything to Frankie. She just has a 'good feeling'. It will simply 'improve things'. How? Nahhh, can't say anything about that... can't let Frankie know that anything is wrong!!! (Ignoring the myriad of reasons why this secrecy is a bad idea. I get her, though. I really, really do.....))
And I just. Grhfvtrffhr i'm so insane over the fact that not even a full second of a very tiny detail in an animation can recontextualise stuff like this for me. It's so, so fucking good.... God!!!
Anyways, watch Knights of Guinevere on YouTube. It's actual peak cinema.
Something I like about Knights of Guinevere is that Gwen is just as much of a victim of Park Planet if not more so then everyone else. I've always wanted to see a story do that instead of having the mascot be an enforcer of there evil corporation like most stories would do.
