“Have you ever had to make that choice? S-sorry, I mean…of course not. You’re Zooble.”
This sentence, I think, summarizes the point of this entire scene because it’s so patently wrong.
Zooble’s speech about having to choose to love themself is very obviously something they’ve had to teach themselves. The shot where they say it even shows them reflecting themself onto Gangle.
Zooble’s entire deal is that they’re uncertain of themselves, to the point where it’s been embedded in their design for the circus. Zooble’s comment about their body gimmicks reads to me as them trying to find solidarity with Gangle, who is the only other person in the circus where their state of being can be easily changed at will (Gangle with her emotions, Zooble with their body). That attempt to reach out, coupled with Gangle’s idealization and misinterpretation of Zooble, has this scene feeling decidedly lonely on Zooble’s side. While the dynamic between the two of them is very sweet, it is notably one-sided at the moment, with Zooble always providing support to Gangle, while this line shows that she can’t do the same for them. How can she comfort them through their insecurities if she doesn’t even realize they exist?
(This shot is definitely from Gangle's perspective, what with the sudden light shift to make them glow and look idealized)
It makes me wonder if any of the other circus members are at all aware that Zooble suffers from dysphoria. Perhaps they all assumed the constant changing was due to an opposite reason, believing Zooble is so confident in their self identity they can so easily change themself. Obviously Zooble would never have let Jax know such a vulnerability, but the reveal that one of their closest friends is seemingly unaware really highlights how emotionally closed off Zooble must be to the rest of the cast.
(This is Zooble's reaction after Gangle's line, and they almost pull their hand away from her)
Now, I don’t believe this conflict is going to escalate into some dramatic rift between the two, nor do I think this isolation for Zooble is meant to foreshadow an abstraction for them. Despite its zany aesthetics, TADC has consistently veered towards the grounded in regards to resolving its mysteries or conflicts (eg. Jax’s corn phobia, Ragatha’s conflict with Pomni, etc.). The massive crashout between Jax and Pomni in episode 6 is the dramatic exception that proves the rule.
Rather, I think this is setup for a small arc for Gangle in the future, where she realizes this mistake and steps up to become the support for Zooble, as a way of showing her gratitude. While Gangle is certainly growing, becoming more confident and happy, that is a fragile development due to being dependent on Zooble’s support. I think the series plans to solidify that development into something sturdy with Gangle finding the strength to be support for someone else.
HB The Full Moon, and Stolas' Mistakes from Trauma
A lot of people have correctly pointed out that Blitzø lashing out in TFM is a trauma response, but what I haven't seen as many talk about is how Stolas’ reactions are also a trauma response.
Longer analysis under the cut
Throughout the series you can see that when Stolas is upset or vulnerable in front of other people, he defaults to politeness and royal decorum.
Some good examples of him doing this in front of Blitzø is Ozzie’s. When Blitzø insults his date outfit Stolas is visibly upset, but quickly regains his composure into a noble strut, and when Blitzø pushes him away at the end of the episode Stolas gives him a formal bow. Only when Blitzø drives away does Stolas give himself the freedom to cry (and even then it looks like he's holding himself back, even when alone).
Stolas not being willing to cry (especially in front of other people) is also a common through line, and both of these behaviors can be very easily rooted back to his father. Throughout The Circus we see Paimon policing the way Stolas expresses himself, such as scolding him for crying or bowing to an imp.
This is also why he got such a thrill when flirting with Blitzø, since that’s one of the only times where he can be very outgoing and crass.
In regards to his relationship with Octavia and Stella, Stolas clearly is taking on the role of the Peacemaker for the sake of Octavia. This is pretty explicitly stated in The Circus, but can also be inferred from the fact that Octavia didn't realize her parents hated each other so much until she was older back in LooLoo Land.
So Stolas’ strategy for dealing with Stella is not to match her anger and potentially escalate the conflict, but instead quietly endure for the sake of peace (and appearances). Even when he's visibly angry at Stella during their Still-Not-Divorced party, he doesn’t even speak to her. He just withdraws with some alcohol (and then Blitzø). His strategy to things that upset him (and especially anger or cruelty directed at him) seems to be to just leave as soon as he possibly can, and if he can't then endure it without showing how upset he is.
(It's also worth pointing out that what Stella described when she and Stolas sleep together also looks like withdrawing behavior. It's just all over their marriage, really.)
So during their confrontation in The Half Moon, you can see Stolas go through every single one of these trauma responses as he feels like Blitzø rejects him.
When Blitzø harshly pushes back against Stolas’ confession (because Blitzø cannot comprehend someone sincerely liking him like that), you see Stolas put his regal hat back on and emotionally retreat to his usual politeness with "I wish you the best for your business," before physically retreating by walking out of the room.
My guess is he was already close to crying by this point and was trying to withdraw from the situation before Blitzø could see it, but Blitzø chases after him. Even as Blitzø yells at him, he keeps his face turned away as much as possible.
He never interrupts or argues back when Blitzø lashes out at him (which could be reminiscent of the way Stella always lashed out). He then gives his single response, unable to hold back the tears anymore (which Stolas only barely turns for Blitzø to see), before a quick goodbye and teleporting Blitzø away before he can even receive an apology.
(Also, since this is definitely the first time Blitzø has ever seen Stolas cry, this moment hits even harder for the both of them.)
If Stolas had waited a little longer to hear that apology, or just stayed to let Blitzø process what he was hearing, the break up might not have happened. But then he wouldn't be acting like Stolas, would he?
A lot of people have correctly pointed out that Stolas was incorrect in not giving Blitzø the proper time to process any of their conversation, and that Blitzø’s trauma made him react the way he did. But what I do love about how the confrontation was written is that it's not all one party's fault or the other. Both of their traumas have instilled certain responses that clash beautifully this episode, between Blitzø’s instinct to push back and Stolas’ instinct to pull away.
It's a goddamn soap opera and I love it.
(Side note: the trailer revealed clips that seems to show Stolas' going on a petty revenge streak with Blitzø due to this breakup, which I think will be both fun to watch and a good/interesting step for Stolas' character. It will be one of the few times he properly expresses his anger and makes a scene rather than placate one. Though with that kind of intoxicating rage I can definitely see him taking it too far, especially since the breakup wasn't solely Blitzø's fault, but both parties are likely to interpret it that way. Thus, the soap opera continues.)
Okay, I’ve just watched Sinners for the third time and I just want to point out one little fun thing with the villain of the movie. Spoilers below.
One of my favorite tropes involving villains is that they take what is seemingly the most direct approach to their goal, usually causing it to be unethical in some way, and do not realize that said “straightforward” approach actually makes their goal much harder to achieve.
It’s a great trope, but can be difficult to execute. I’m sure many people can point to stories where the villain has an interesting motivation, but the violence and murder feels tacked on to make their motives artificially “bad.” But I’d like to point to Remmick as a great execution on this idea!
Though his motivations are hard to fully parse until the very end, they’re actually quite simple and understandable: he wishes to reconnect with his ancient Irish culture, which is now inaccessible to him due to colonization and displacement.
Thus Sammie seems like a very obvious route to that desire, with his mystical ability to call up spirits of the past. However, it is cruel in many ways. Not only does the conversion of one to a vampire require killing him, but for Sammie’s magic to work for Remmick is that his ancestry is literally erased and replaced with Remmick’s. We see this happen during the Rocky Road to Dublin scene, where all the vampires only dance to ONE culture: Remmick’s.
I love how this scene at first feels like a crowd coming together and having fun until you realize this is just because they’re all under Remmick’s control. This is the supernatural equivalent of a man with no friends making a bunch of sockpuppet accounts to leave comments on his posts.
However, there is another reason that to become a vampire is considered a terrible fate by most of the cast: as Annie says, the body’s soul is trapped in the body and “cannot rejoin their ancestors.”
Fortunately, if the vampire is killed with either a stake or the sunlight, their soul is freed and can reunite with them.
Do you see the irony?
Remmick wishes to rejoin with his ancestors more than anything, so much so he’s willing to slaughter people for it. Yet the chance to be with them has risen every day for the centuries he’s lived, and he’s never taken it.
It all plays out with another great addition to the “villain’s counterproductive plan” trope: only when the villain is defeated do they actually attain their goal. His soul is freed from the earth thanks to Smoke and Sammie.
(Another great example of this off the top of my head is Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean)
I like to think that Remmick realizes where he’s going as the sun rises - his face is hard to read with all the monstrous changes, but just before he rises in a pillar of flame, you can hear the faintest sounds of an irish fiddle.
Often when I look into fandoms or discussions about a tragedy, I find some people imagining happy "what-ifs" of the story, and other people being very annoyed with the former and saying that they're missing the point of the story.
I do think it's true that viewers finding a "fix-it" with a story, especially one that's supposed to end poorly, can enter territory where they are just trying to outsmart it, or boxing a complex story into a series of archetypes.
However, it's also worth acknowledging that trying to find the way out of a tragedy is a very significant and fundamental approach to engage with a tragedy. In my experience, the most compelling tragedies are ones that do have escapes - even easy ones!
Exploring ways a story could have gone differently sheds light on the way it pans out. "Character could have done __ to survive" begs the question of "Why didn't they?" And if that latter question has a satisfactory answer, then you have a more solidly constructed story.
Exploring what could have saved a character also emphasizes the Tragic Downfall. Reimaginings of the cast entering a found family or romantic relationship can highlight the way isolation was a driving factor in the tragic ending.
Moreover, imagining the ways something could've have gone right just makes the tragedy hurt all the more. Each time you uncover how this could have all been avoided is another reminder of what could have been.
I've started watching NATLA, and though I'm not really enjoying it, I've found it really interesting to compare its writing decisions to the show as a way to break both down and see how their parts tick. Since NATLA is trying to be more faithful than some other adaptations, the changes it does make stand out more and reveal the mechanics of the storytelling.
While I overall think a lot of NATLA's changes--even the minute ones--made the story execution weaker, the more complicated and interesting change of theirs is the intro, showing the day the Fire Nation ambushed the Air Nomads.
Pacing Criticisms
Cards on the table, I think that putting this sequence at the very beginning was a mistake. Watching Aang's emergence from the iceberg in NATLA made me realize how much the original cartoon imbues its beginning with mystery that makes for a much more active viewing experience. Aang doesn't know much about the present, Katara and Sokka don't know much about Aang's origins, and in their back and forth of information, we the audience organically learn both. Watching Katara and Aang piece together how long he's been frozen in ice was more satisfying and natural than Grangran deducing everything immediately when Aang showed up.
But Sherlock Grangran was kind of the only decision the writers could do, because if they tried the build up the cartoon did, it would just feel tedious to the audience, because we already know everything from the start. They kind of wrote themselves into a corner there.
But let's ignore that problem. We could imagine in another draft that this sequence of the Fire Nation attack shows up as a flashback, kind of like what happened in ATLA with The Storm.
That then begs the question: How does this sequence’s inclusion change the audience's experience, and is it for better or worse?
Facing Vs. Hiding the Horrors
Both series portray very dark and horrific situations, but the way they try to evoke horror from the audience are very different approaches, and for me raises a question I've been asking myself for a while: When wanting to display discomforting violence, is it more effective to imply/hide it, or to show it in detail? Somewhere in between?
(I specify discomforting violence, as opposed to violence meant to be catharsis or spectacle.)
There are arguments for both. Explicit violence can create a visceral, physical reaction to an audience member (especially the squeamish ones), though for some it can come across as gratuitous and even exploitative.
Whereas hiding the violence can horrify the audience by leaving a lot to the imagination (insert that quote about fear of the unknown from Hack Penmanship Lovecraft), or give the sense that the events are so awful that even the camera has to look away. Some also say this gives the characters more dignity, though others think this softens the emotional reaction almost as a form of self censoring (there's a reason kid's media often tries to show horrific stuff off screen, such as the original ATLA).
Ultimately I've come to the conclusion that the former approach works for some stories, whereas the latter works better for others, all of it based on a ton of factors.
So I don't think NATLA's choice to delve into more detail about the Air Nomad genocide is an illogical decision. I wasn't sure about it when I heard it, but I thought that maybe I'm just attached to ATLA's off screen approach, so I kept myself open.
And dialogue issues aside, I don't think the scene is that poorly done. But it did ultimately solidify for me that ATLA's narrative is stronger without an explicit depiction of the Air Nomad genocide.
The Grief of Never Knowing
The image of Gyatso’s skeleton from ATLA has haunted me ever since I saw it as a kid. It was an emotional gut punch in a very well done episode, but this particular screenshot has stuck with me, and that is because of the Fire Nation soldiers. A lot of people have pointed this out, but there are a lot of bodies here, and it implies that Gyatso managed to not only kill these soldiers, but do it when they were strengthened by the comet. That image is very discomforting--Gyatso is always seen from Aang’s perspective, and thus we only see him as the gentle old mentor and friend, one who cheats at games and throws pies he meticulously baked.
It also puts into Aang’s position and the grief he has to face. From his perspective, he was gone only a few days as 100 years passed. He never gets to see the interim, and thus neither do the audience. He is left with the same implications as we are, and has to face the realities of grieving the fact that sometimes you’re not there when they leave.
An excellent point from @endless-nightshift here is how one of ATLA’s core themes is coping with the aftermaths of atrocities and war, analyzing their long-lasting affects rather than just the initial shock of violence--something I had never consciously realized but once said out loud makes a lot click into place for me. There is a reason the show starts a full century into the war rather than just a few years.
François Truffaut once said that “there is no such thing as an anti-war film,” because the medium of film is inherently better at elevating and glorifying what it shows rather than deriding or deconstructing it. While I don’t think it’s impossible to do the latter, the extended action sequence that is the intro to NATLA causes that sentiment to echo in my mind as I watch, rather than invest me into the story.
The implied atrocities of ATLA draws me in to empathize with the wounded characters and world, whereas the explicit action of NATLA pushes me away.
…and that’s where I was planning to end this analysis, but there is one thing NATLA’s intro adds into the canon that I think is actually genius--if they take advantage of it in the future.
The Air Nomads are Joy
When I first saw the addition of the Comet Festival, I saw it as a purely mechanical decision to have all the Air Nomads in one place for the attack, as well as to make the act even more scummy. However, the more I thought about it the more I realized how it could tie into one of my favorite themes of ATLA: the Air Nomads (and especially Aang) as the joy and hope of the world.
(This entire section was heavily inspired by this beautiful analysis by @littlestarlost)
There is a recurring motif of associating the Air Nomads with humor and fun. Iroh mentions their good humor; Gyatso baking pies just to prank the other masters with it; Roku’s first airbending flashback being him using it to mess with his friend. This is a core tenet to Aang’s character as well. The first line he has in the show is inviting Katara to go penguin sledding with him. Half the stops he makes in Season 1 is purely to have fun. He excites Kyoshi island with an airbending party trick. The humor in ATLA’s tone isn’t just there because it’s targeted towards kids, but is the bedrock of the series’ themes.
(On a personal note, the humor is also what got me and my family into the show. We saw the intro sequence with Aang crashing into the statue and it made my mom laugh so hard that we watched the whole series, and years later we’ve rewatched it dozens of times and own all the DVDs)
Joy and fun and hope were the first things to die when the Fire Nation attacked, and part of Aang’s job is returning that to a world that has been scarred by decades of war. You may already be seeing where I’m going in regards to the Comet Festival.
A core conflict in the cartoon finale is Aang wanting to keep to the principles of the Air Nomads while still finding a way to stop the war (side note: I think the resolution and Aang’s decision to spare Ozai was a good one, I just think the execution was a little janky). Beyond the surface level conflict of who wins in the battle between Aang and Ozai, there is the additional tension of who will win ideologically. The return of the Avatar State is an interesting development in this dynamic, having Aang suddenly physically winning the fight, but spiritually losing up until the last moment. In the end, it is a triumph where Aang manages to find a third option to win both conflicts, despite them seeming diametrically opposed. It is about defeating Ozai and the Imperial Fire Nation by wholeheartedly rejecting their ideology of violence and might-makes-right.
But now I see a really cool opportunity for NATLA with what they’ve established in the intro sequence: What if Aang reclaimed the symbol of Sozin’s Comet for his people? That day of the Fire Nation attack, centuries of the Comet Festival were wiped over in history, with people now naming that event as Sozin’s Comet and the beginning of the war. Wouldn’t it be poetic for Aang to mark the ending of the war by wiping away that stain done to his culture, taking it back from the Fire Nation in what ways he can? To turn a tool for genocide into an event of joy and fun once more.
I’m reminded of moments from the cartoon like Suki commenting how beautiful the comet looks. It would just tie everything up beautifully, and I really really hope the NATLA writers--if Netflix does give them enough seasons to get there--take advantage of this.
So, to sum up what I think of NATLA so far: I think a lot of its changes have made the story weaker, but I don’t want them to stop trying changes. If I wanted a 1:1 copy of the cartoon, I’d just watch ATLA--it’s also on Netflix, after all. With more work, I can see the writers making changes that accentuate and build on the beauty of the original.
(Note: These are the thoughts I’ve accrued from just watching the first episode. I plan to watch more, but it does exhaust me at the moment. Still, I hope I can do more of these kinds of analyses, it’s a really fun writing exercise for me)
Scavengers Reign: The Dread of Knowing vs. The Horror of Not Knowing
Just a little analysis, heavy spoilers under the cut.
As lots of people have mentioned, one great thing about Scavenger's Reign is that it feels like a legitimate ecosystem that is dangerous but is not technically out to kill you (as opposed to other scifi planets with hyper aggressive megafauna and cute little guys and nothing else), and I think part of that feeling is because Scavenger's Reign as a Formula™ when showing off the dangers of the planet: they almost always show it in its natural environment first. Before Hollow meets Kamen, we see them hypnotizing a regular little creature; when Ursula is captured by those bird things, she sees the method it kills through another prey animal captured; my personal favorite is when Sam is infected with his first parasite, and the opening of the next episode is like a step by step documentary of this cloning parasite's life cycle.
It's all very Hitchcock's Bomb Theory, where the show details these horrifying fates on the animals as a way of telling the audience, "this will happen to your beloved characters if something isn't done about it." It leaves the experience drenched in suspense and dread, and once again the cloning parasite is probably my favorite example of that. We the audience know what is happening, but the characters don't, so it gives you that fun screaming-at-the-screen kind of tension where they can't pick up all the warning signs, and you know why they don't, but dammit they're about to die and it's stressful.
But then there's a specimen that very noticeably breaks this rule.
This fucking thing haunted me when I first watched it, and not just because of the obvious body horror. With every other creature and its behavior, I was able to at least somewhat understand it under the framework of an ecosystem, despite the strange sci-fi elements: Hollow's species have weird hypnotism powers, but that's because it's a method of gaining food; This plant clones animals, but it's because it's a way to infiltrate social animals and propagate itself. And while Sam's heart parasite can at least be understood as wanting to propagate itself, its other behavior is a lot harder to parse. And I feel like part of that is because we never see what its intended prey is. When we get that episode intro showing off the parasite's life cycle, it's showing the effects on the previous group of humans, and never an ordinary animal. And a lot of the parasite's behavior thus feels really specifically attuned to prey humans. There are very few creatures we see on the planet with dexterous hands that could build the shrine(?) it apparently needs to reproduce (is this even to reproduce? Is the implanting of seeds in other animals its means of reproducing? What the Fuck is UP with this thing). Also, because it's unclear how much control it's exerting over the woman, there's the possibility that this plant monster has a very extensive understanding of human social dynamics and physiology in order to pose as a regular human and lure in more victims (of course, there's also the idea that the woman is mostly autonomous, but ultimately puppeted by the plant monster, and thus the plant doesn't need that understanding, but I think part of the horror is not really knowing).
In a world where humans are very much not native, that means this heart parasite is either really really quick to adapt to humans as a prey, or it was already adapted to humans before they ever arrived. And because we never see it properly preying on anything other than humans, we can't get a definite answer.
(I know some may point out that Sam says the heart parasite urges him to implant the seed in lots of animals, not just other humans, but once again we don't actually see what that would entail. How tf would a bird build a shrine?)
By showing how the ecosystem works in its natural state, Scavenger's Reign easily brought suspension and stakes to the characters in danger, but when it refused to give that expected explanation, it instead veered into full on Lovecraftian Horror.
