i already ranted about this a bit in the ta server the other day but im so frustrated about this again. the point is that thalia IS older/has more experience than percy, because ttc is all about how the traditional criteria of what makes a hero doesnt guarantee victory and a happy ending. heracles is glorified but had to manipulate zoe along the way. mr. d is contemptuous towards theseus for abandoning ariadne and takes it out on percy and other demigods. luke is a traitor, personally betrays annabeth, even loses the fight in ttc, and yet he's still able to take the sky, which poseidon mentions is the mark of a hero (i will never fail to mention this, btw).
thalia has immense main character energy and haunts the narrative even before she ever even appears for a reason. it's because she's set to fulfill the archetype of what is traditionally expected of a hero—which, sidenote, zeus' fatherly approval of her is important in this aspect. and percy admires and respects her for those qualities. she's the obvious choice, not percy, and that is the entire reason she yields the role of being the prophecy hero: the obviousness of the choice means that she has come to expect power and even hunger for it.
the role of the prophecy hero goes to percy not because hes just as powerful or as strong as thalia. he's not. this is not about powerscaling. the whole reason why percy becomes the prophecy hero is because he chooses to not let nico carry that burden. sure, he's a teenage boy that occasionally resents not being in the main spotlight at times, but the doomed fate of being a demigod hero is one that runs throughout the series, and lest we forget, sally as percy's primary formative person has never wanted that for him. she's always wanted a good ending for him. but more than compassion, what sally instills in percy is agency ("if my life is going to mean anything, i have to live it myself"). with that in mind, percy is the absolute last character who would want to be the top dog for the sake of his own ego. like first and foremost he wants to go home to his mom okay. i guarantee you percy jackson does not give that much of a shit about powerscaling against thalia grace
I keep thinking about what kind of punishment would work best on Sun. I doubt Jay is just going to go around cutting himself anytime Sun needs to be punished. But it is emotional pain that works as a punishment for Sun. So my suspicion is that neglect would work very well. We all saw how much it stressed Sun out when Jay went to the States and didn't answer his phone calls. I can see Jay choosing to ignore Sun for an indeterminate amount of time. Not let him sleep in their bed, or sleeping elsewhere himself. I think that would be a very hard punishment for Sun to endure.
In SPN world "the supernatural" is literal maneaters and monsters, enemies of the people. In BBC Merlin there are a few of good harmless "supernaturals". But not all of them are, over and over again you picture them as innocent flawless sheep. The show is much more complex, it's not a school lesson on American history or something.
The idea that a school lesson on American history would be less complex than a poorly written early 2000s tv show saying “there is such a thing as being born inherently evil” is so so so silly <3
These shows oversimplify a concept which reflects real life bias (bioessentialism), which is why marginalized people (like myself) tend to be critical of the ideologies they implicitly (or explicitly) and unquestioningly relay.
Even so, you seem to have it mixed up. It’s actually SPN which plays with the idea that the supernatural is evil by default with the exception of a few good harmless ones. We see this frequently with the vampire, werewolf, and demon plotlines, and quite poignantly with Amy the kitsune, who Dean kills for [checks notes] having killed sexual predators to save her son’s life.
In BBCM, they do approach with suspicion of sorcery by default (which is likewise equivalent to real life profiling), but it is well-established that magic is not inherently evil and that sorcerers are people first, which is why they may act on either good or evil. It is the Pendragon regime which refuses to recognize the neutrality of magic as a force of nature.
Again, I do recommend that you learn the function and methods of bigotry in society, since you do live in a society (even if you don’t interact with it much). While I haven’t taken any college-level courses centered on American history, common sense tells us there is a lot to learn from in any such class.
I’m lucky to be in attendance at a university with many options in gender, ethnic, and cultural studies, but I understand that this privilege is not available to everyone. However, there are alternatives such as Coursera and Khan Academy where you can participate in structured lessons on these very topics. In fact, even YouTube has innumerable video lectures to choose from.
Of course, I recommend reading the accredited literature on these topics, but you don’t strike me as someone who read the books they were assigned in school (very much “the curtains are blue because they’re blue” vibes). You may need to begin with media comprehension studies instead of diving straight into the deep end. There are countless books and videos that help teach this form of literacy, and it is well worth it, especially when reading news articles, research/studies, and even watching a silly tv show packed with propaganda. Good luck!
Do you have some analysis for how Marinette continues to claim that she has "no choice" in whatever course of action she's currently taking? It's just annoying at this point.
I'm pretty sure the answer is a doylistic "the writers want to paint Marinette as the underdog and/or they genuinely believe she's an underdog who's facing terrible hardship and impossible odds".
But that's boring, and there's actually a pretty consistent watsonian explanation.
For all that Marinette is creative, she's actually quite cognitively inflexible. It takes a lot for her to adjust to (or even process) new information or pick a different course of action.
A good example is Chameleon. She keeps trying the same tactic over and over again despite failing. Calling out Lila's lies in front of everyone isn't going to work the fifth time she tries but she never stops and thinks about trying something else. It's Adrien who had to pull the breaks for her and cause her to change course.
A Fairy Good Night is another good example. The moment the thought popped into her head that Max might have trouble adjusting she got completely stuck on it. She took it as 1) something true 2) that she had to act on and 3) barely processed any evidence to the contrary. It was only when Max outright told her, in the plainest way possible, that the thought is completely baseless.
This isn't helped by how she has problems with object permanence, so to speak. If something isn't right in front of her, she kinda forgets it exists. Her treatment of Chat Noir is prime example, especially in Kuro Neko where she jumps to the conclusion he's taking a break based on nothing and doesn't consider that something might have happened or his personal life interfered.
This also goes for concepts and ideas. If something isn't part of her conception of the world, she doesn't see it. Child abuse is the most blatant and topical example here.
However, the way she handles problems is also emblematic of this. Her focus is always on stopping the visible distress and treating the symptoms rather than solving the underlying problem. If she can't see the problem, that means there is no problem, right?
You might think her anxiety and overthinking goes against this, but it doesn't. Her thoughts may be running a thousand miles a minute, but she's still getting stuck on her anxiety and catasrophizing. That's how we get episodes like Illustrhater, Sublimation and Vampigami, where she gets stuck on her anxiety and must act on it in order to manage it.
Those things combine to make it so that Marinette tunnels visions on whatever her current course of action is and struggles to see alternatives until something external changes her train of thought. This contributes to her shortsightedness (she doesn't think about the consequences beyond what she's tunneled visioned on) and her black and white thinking (whatever path she's seeing seems to be the only one to exist at the moment, making nuance impossible).
This leads to her acting like she's a lot more helpless than she is. Most of Marinette's problems are things she has the power to at the very least mitigate, if not outright solve. However, that would require her to be able to consider alternatives to her current situation.
She's Ladybug, so she only sees paths where she keeps being Ladybug. She's the Guardian, so she only sees paths where she continues to be the Guardian. She does everything herself, so she only sees paths where she does everything herself. She keeps secrets from Chat Noir for literally no reason, so she only sees paths where she keeps on keeping secrets from him.
Marinette is someone whose actions are heavily influenced by inertia. She keeps doing whatever she's doing until something outside herself comes and changes her course. The source may be psychological, but it still leads to her feeling like she's unable to change her circumstances, even when she's the one in charge.
A moment that really jumps to mind for me about this is Marinette crying about how they know nothing about the new butterfly holder in Nemesis. She never even tried doing anything to learn more about the new holder?? Alya did. She even got some nuggets of information. But Marinette never so much as tried.
And there's no reason why she couldn't have. The plan she came up with in Nemesis was a plan she could've came up with in ep 1 of s6. Sure, they would have to use the illusion of someone else rather than an illusion of Marinette, but that's about the only change needed.
Even if we're assuming that it only worked because they knew Chrysalis would target Marinette (an assumption that has many logical holes to it then again that entire plan is one giant plot hole), they could've just briefed the team ahead of time of the plan, kept putting out illusions as bait and alerting the team once Chrysalis bites.
But that would require Marinette to change course from her existing passivity, which in not something she does unless her anxiety or someone else kicks her ass into gear.
Marinette has a lot of power at her fingertips, which means she has a lot of choices and things she can do. However, it doesn't matter how many paths she's able to walk on if she's only ever able to see the path in front of her. It'll still feel like she has no choice but to continue doing what she's already doing, because that's the only choice she can see.
Gotta say, I'm deeply curious about what Sun thought Jay might do here
There's absolute terror in his eyes. Seriously, what does he think Jay's plan is? He can't think Jay is about to kill him. I mean, Jay is looking at him in a cold and pitiless fashion
I too would be quite frightened if my Dom was looking at me like that, especially if I knew that s/he was a sadist. I suppose it's the unknown that scares him so much. Their relationship is frustratingly unnegotiated(standard disclaimer that if you're going to practice kink, always, ALWAYS, negotiate, don't do it like these two), so Sun has no real way of knowing how far Jay might take this.
I will say, it's notable to me that, despite Sun's resistance and fear of what Jay might do, he doesn't go to the lengths that he could to stop Jay, even with his stab wound. I find it highly unlikely that there would be no stronger actions for him to take in order to prevent someone from using a knife on him in that moment. He has a whole other uninjured arm that he isn't using to push Jay off of him.
Seriously, he could absolutely use his other arm to fight against Jay more effectively, but he doesn't. It's clear that, at this point, Sun ultimately feels that Jay has a right to do as he wishes to Sun. Sun might beg and plead and struggle some, but he won't ultimately try to stop Jay from punishing him. The main weapon he uses, at least in that moment, is this:
Which, as I think we all know at this point, will only be a goad to Jay's appetite
He is exactly the wrong Dom to use scared puppy(or bunny) eyes on to escape punishment. There isn't the kind of softness in him necessary for that to work. That tactic only works if your Dom doesn't like to see you in pain. Jay very much likes to see Sun in pain, so no amount of begging with words or facial expressions is going to sway him against hurting Sun. A lesson Sun is learning the hard way in this scene.
Alya: I was right earlier, wasn't I? Gabriel was Monarch.
Marinette: I never lied to you.
Alya: Technically, you didn't. You just kept the truth from me and manipulated me so you wouldn't have to answer my questions. Wow, thanks Marinette. So this is what being BFFs is like?
The show saved me the trouble of needing to argue that Marinette was manipulative in Nemesis by outright saying that she manipulated Alya to avoid answering her questions. Nice!
This means that I can skip the tedious part of making my case that Marinette isn't a perfect innocent angel and go straight to the fun part of breaking down exactly how she tried to manipulate Alya and why those tactics work.
Just to get this out of the way: no, I'm not accusing Marinette of being some heartless manipulative mastermind. Most manipulation is learned intuitively, by people noticing what works and what doesn't work in order to get them what they want.
Marinette knows those things can make Alya stop asking questions that she doesn't want to answer, so she does them. How much she actually understands what it is she's doing is debatable. She may be thinking "I can't let Alya know no matter what" and so is willing to resort to tactics she knows are manipulative, or she may be running purely on instinct without thinking too much about why those tactics work.
So lets get into it:
Alya: I know you have a secret, I know it's about Adrien and I know you don't want to tell me about it.
(...)
*Alya shows Marinette the mirage of Monarch detransforming into Gabriel Agreste*
Marinette: Why would I have done that? Why keep it a secret that Gabriel Agreste was Monarch?
Marinette's first reaction to being confronted with the accusation of lying is to double down and defend the lie by trying to poke holes in Alya's story.
This, by itself, isn't manipulation. However, it does show us where Marinette's head is at. She doesn't want Alya knowing about the lie, so she keeps trying to cover it up even after she got caught. She knows Alya isn't certain yet, that the guess she's making may be educated, but it's still a guess.
So she tries to exploit that uncertainty, sow even more doubt that this story is right. If Alya can't give a motivation or gives a wrong motivation, that would allow Marinette to point out how the story doesn't make sense and spin the entire thing as being wrong and illogical.
I would classify this as more of a debate tactic than a manipulation tactic. She's attacking the idea itself and trying to debunk it.
Unfortunately for Marinette, it doesn't work because Alya gets the motivation right.
Alya: To protect Adrien.
So Marinette switches to another tactic.
Marinette: You really think I could lie to my boyfriend like that? And to my BFF? And to the whole world?
She sounds and looks angry when she says that, which is an expression she didn't have when asking why she would've lied about Monarch. Obviously YMMV on the exact nuances of the tone (I would classify it as a mix of offended and indignant), but it's undeniably the tone of someone unjustly accused of something horrible.
And she is accused of something horrible. Alya's accusations are serious. Marinette is aware that lying about Gabriel being Monarch to Adrien, Alya and the entire world is a bad thing. So for Alya to imply such a thing about her best friend? To even consider that Marinette is such a horrible person who would be willing to do any of it?
Try to imagine for a moment accusing someone you're really close and love of being a pedophile. Not a fun experience, right? Leaving aside how half this site is so conflict avoidant that even telling someone a valid criticism to their face is something they can't do, accusing someone you love of something bad isn't easy for the accuser.
For one, there's the entire aspect of trying to reconcile the the person you love doing something horrible, which is complex and a big reason (although far from the only one) why it's unfortunately common for loved ones of abusers (who aren't being abused) to not believe victims.
But more importantly in our case, what if you're wrong? What does it say about you that you thought so lowly about the person that you were willing to consider that they could do something so horrible? Those are not the kind of things you're supposed to think about the people you care about. Many would consider it justified to reconsider whether you should actually be friends with someone who accuses you of something like that.
This is what Marinette is banking on. If Marinette was innocent, then Alya's accusations are an insulting. Alya knows Marinette, she's her best friend. Hell, she knows Marinette is a superhero! She should know better than to think that Marinette is capable of such a thing.
(If you doubt that this is the train of thought which is expected in such a situation, I recommend you go and check the reactions to Heartfixer. Quite a few people were pissed at Adrien for believing his girlfriend was cheating on him when he saw it with his own eyes. Most of their arguments boiled down to "Adrien knows Marinette and how much she loves him, he should've known better than to suspect she would be capable of such a thing.")
By acting indignant and offended, Marinette is implicitly making Alya to be the bad guy in this situation. Alya is the one doing something wrong here by thinking about Marinette so badly. She's shifting the blame, so that now Alya has to defend her actions (accusing Marinette) rather than Marinette having to defend her actions (gaslighting her boyfriend and lying to everyone).
And once Alya has to defend her action, she's implicitly accepting the premise that she's doing something wrong that needs defending in the first place. That would allow Marinette to keep pressing Alya about her being the bad guy for accusing Marinette, which would serve two purposes: 1) It derails the discussion away from Marinette's misdeed 2) If Alya is the bad guy for accusing Marinette, they could "resolve" the conflict by coming to a compromise where Marinette graciously forgives Alya for accusing her so long as Alya doesn't do it again.
This is a full-on manipulation tactic. Marinette isn't attacking the idea itself, she's exploiting human feelings and tendencies (such as the desire to not feel like the bad guy) in order to get Alya to drop the topic without Marinette ever needing to admit to anything. She's unfairly placing blame on Alya when all Alya did was try to hold her accountable. She isn't trying to defend herself, she's trying to make Alya feel bad enough that she stops asking questions.
This tactic ends up not working because instead of turning defensive, Alya is fully willing to own up to her opinion of Marinette.
Alya: Do I think Marinette Dupain-Cheng would do anything in order to protect other people even if it means ruining her own life?
Alya: Yes.
I'm going to ignore how even in this Alya is framing Marinette as someone selfless and heroic, because that has to do more with with the show's bonkers moral framing of the big lie (which is its own can of worms) rather than the actual dynamic of the conversation.
But despite the dubious way the writers went about it, this is still Alya justifying her opinion and owning up to it. She rejects Marinette's framing of Alya accusing her being a deplorable liar and instead gives her own framing which is more accurate to who Marinette is as a person but still supports Alya's accusations.
(Ignore that Marinette is a massive liar and that Alya's interpretation is far more charitable than many would agree with. As said, this is the show's weird morality at play. As far as the narrative is concerned, Marinette is a long suffering noble hero who's willing to do anything for the people she loves, even if it means getting her hands dirty. So Alya's framing is very in line with who the narrative claims Marinette is.)
We also get a zoom in on Alya's face and a sound cue to indicate to us that what Alya is saying is not trivial. This is a serious thing to admit. Yet Alya says this calmly and with conviction. There's nothing about this that Marinette can attack.
So once again she switches tactics.
Marinette: Don't you think my life is enough of a disaster as it is?
Alya: Why would you say that?
Marinette: Because clearly *starting to speak in more panicked/stressed tone, sounding on the verge of tears* everything is falling apart! I couldn't defeat Hawkmoth and get his miraculous back, so now there's this holder of the butterfly miraculous. A new Hawkmoth, who's more dangerous than ever! They even attacked me and my family!
Marinette: *starting to cry* I've never seen my parents so afraid. I'm scared too, Alya! We have to stop them, before I can't go on anymore. But we have nothing on them, we know nothing about this new butterfly miraculous holder! Whether they're a man, or a woman, or what their name is, or what they really want!
Those stresses Marinette is crying over are all very valid.
They're also utterly irrelevant to the conversation.
Like, just to put this in perspective, this is Alya asking Marinette "did you lie to me and gaslight your boyfriend?" and Marinette responding "my life is such a disaster" and starts crying.
None of the things Marinette speaks about have anything to do with the big lie. If the thing she was crying to Alya about was how hard making the decision to lie to Adrien was, or how stressful keeping it a secret had been or anything at all that's related to the big lie, I would be willing to read it as a genuine reaction that's only accidentally manipulative. That she burst under the pressure of Alya's questioning because of how stressed she is, and her tears are more an expression of her emotional turmoil rather than an attempt to fish for sympathy.
But that's not what happened.
Instead, the things she cried about was how much of a failure she is as Ladybug and how scary it was for the butterfly holder to target her personally.
Again, all things that she's genuinely very stressed about. But they're not things that the conversation reminded her of. Nor are they things that she was so preoccupied and bothered by that she was already on the verge of spilling them to anyone.
We saw her in the scene right before this conversation. The things she was preoccupied by and anxious about were the big lie and feeling like she's lying to everyone. She didn't bring up these topic even when she interacted with her parents (who were reassuring her of how supportive they were), where it would be the perfect opportunity to talk about it. If nothing else, her parents fully understand feeling scared because the new butterfly holder attacked them personally.
Marinette is choosing to bring those things up.
There are two possible reads here.
Either Marinette is just so stressed by the sheer act of Alya pressing her for answers about whether she lied or not, that she places it as equivalent to all those things she ranted about that make her life a total disaster. And so she starts crying because Alya is supposed to be her friend but here she is, adding even more stress to Marinette's life and helping ruin it.
Or she's bringing it all up with the intention of distracting Alya from pressing her about the big lie.
We don't actually have to wonder which read is correct because the show outright tells us.
Marinette: I never lied to you.
Alya: Technically, you didn't. You just kept the truth from me and manipulated me so you wouldn't have to answer my questions.
Alya is framed in this scene to be the one cutting through Marinette's bullshit and saying the truth as it is. We're supposed to see her words and actions as giving Marinette a reality check. Therefore, we're supposed to take her assessment here as a correct read of Marinette's motivations in the scene. This is further supported by how Marinette doesn't even try to deny this.
The manipulation Marinette pulls here is two fold. She hijacks the conversation with something very emotional, stuff that Alya can't simply brush aside and return to the original conversation without feeling like a jerk.
And she tries to get Alya on her side by fishing for sympathy. Can't Alya see how much her best friend is dealing with? How her life is a complete and utter disaster so she needs to be coddled and reassured to let her know she's not alone? How can Alya keep on criticizing Marinette and adding to her burdens when Marinette is already suffering so much, doesn't she have a heart?
This time, the manipulation works.
Alya may be angry at Marinette, but that's still her best friend. She cares for her. She can't stay unmoved when she sees how bad Marinette is feeling.
*Alya's expression turns sympathetic and she approaches Marinette, dispelling the mirage in the process, and lays a hand on Marinette's shoulder.*
Marinette: I've had this idea but it's very dangerous and I don't know if you'd wanna hear about it.
That's a very manipulative line. Marinette is implying that Alya wouldn't want to hear about Marinette's idea to stop the butterfly holder because Alya is angry at Marinette.
She's creating this false association where "being angry at Marinette" = "putting Paris in danger", and "helping save Paris" = "being on Marinette's side and not questioning her about the big lie".
If Alya continues pushing now, she would be doing it at the expanse of catching the butterfly holder.
Alya: If it can help save Paris, of course I wanna know.
But Marinette knows Alya would never do that. She's a hero, so she would pick helping Paris over questioning Marinette. That's the exact thing Marinette is counting on.
The entire thing is textbook DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender), which is a classic manipulation technique that often comes out in response to being held accountable.
Marinette started out by trying to deny this was possible. Then she attacked Alya by implicitly placing her as the bad guy for accusing Marinette of horrible things. Finally she hijacked the conversation by painting herself as the real victim in all of this because her life is just such a disaster, you see.
And it worked. She did manage to get Alya to drop the topic and instead go and comfort Marinette. She got exactly what she wanted out of all of this.
For the short term, at least. But Marinette tends to only think about solving the immediate problem in front of her without ever thinking about the consequences beyond that. See: Her being upset that the boyfriend she gaslighted the entire season to think positively about Gabriel now thinks positively about Gabriel.
This wasn't just predictable, this was the outcome she was actively working towards. Marinette just never stopped to consider what achieving this outcome would actually be like.
And she didn't stop to consider that just because she got Alya to drop the topic now doesn't mean she was going to drop it forever.
show devil’s minion, as it is right now, is so precious to me, because it is based around the idea that no matter who you are, there is someone out there who could love you.
for instance. how beautiful is it that armand has always been repulsed (oh, the past-present tense drives me crazy) by the idea of making a vampire, but turned daniel into one? and that their vampire bond consequently makes the whole world disappear?! or that armand broke the great laws for him over and over, first letting daniel live for decades knowing that vampires were real, then making him into a vampire in his old age even though he has a neurological condition which clearly (i.e the antibodies) has continued into his vampiric life in some way?
and how fucked up and yet soooo romantic it is that armand responded to daniel asking him to prove his love by telling him in vivid detail how he witnessed the worst, most intimate moments of his life? and how armand loves him anyway? and worse, the fact that this is the moment daniel decides to ally himself with him?
because screw it, let’s talk about daniel. all he knows up to this point is that a five hundred year old vampire held him captive for a few days, tortured him, erased his memory, then 52 years later played a twisted, flirtatious, psychological game with him in dubai until daniel managed to get the better of him. then said vampire turned him and abandoned him and daniel is reeling with all of it and yet he still decides that armand is the one he wants. like oh i see you i see the rotten core of you i see the mess of you I still want you i want you because of it. we are as terrible as each other and i can’t live without you because i am so fucking lonely that I’m spending my new vampiric life failing to get through to lestat and bowling on my own. and everything keeps disappearing around me and I feel you- HELLO?
daniel seems so desperately lonely this season, doesn’t he? and remember when he said to louis in 1973 I can be your lestat? your claudia? but better? he didn’t ever want to do this alone! but he was forced to! abandoned as a fledgling, unaware of how to use his gifts, still needing antibodies… and now armand shows up again after years of leaving him to fend for himself and says I want to be your maker after telling him he loves him and that he’s followed him his entire life and that no matter how lonely he’s been he was never truly alone, he was always seen, even as he was cruel or selfish or stupid there was someone there watching him, helping him-
I know their scenes together in TVL are scarce but they hold so much emotion in those few short moments. at this point, without any further exploration, devil’s minion from my perspective is a story about how you could be the worst, most repulsive person in the world and someone would still find you interesting. you could be hated by your daughters, or leave your wife at home pregnant while in the thrall of addiction, or aggressively fuck young students who show up to your guest lectures, and someone in this world could watch all of it and still love you. you could abduct and torture and alter the memories of someone, stalk them for their entire lives and abandon them at their most vulnerable, and they could still choose you. not despite these things. but because of him.
ahhh doesn’t it just ache in your chest? your stomach? it makes me feel sick to think that you could spend 500 years building walls around yourself that you thought no one could see through and one day this journalist, this cynical old man, this mortal sees through the cracks and exposes you for who you are. and you - always two steps ahead, always thinking of every possible thing that could go wrong - we’re so blinded by love that you didn’t even see it coming!
and on the other side of it you could be old and weary and bitter and jaded and someone could still be desperately hungry for you and make you their one exception. and you try so hard to be nonchalant and not let anything get to you but they make the whole world fall away, you feel them in that moment where only the two of you exist, and you surrender your ego and your pride and choose them.
love without conditions. you are not good, but neither am I. you think you are unlovable, but so did I. look at us.
