Ok, since I was being so critical of pretty much ever adult in Spider’s life last night, I’d like to show y’all this:
Idk if anyone had already posted this Tik tok here before but it’s an amazing character study of Quaritch’s dynamic with Spider. Props to the person who made it! 😭
I'm loving how much more layers of Quaritch we get to see. While I don't apologize for what he's done, its great to see how much he's willing to go, just for his son.
Quaritch and recom Quaritch are not the same characters. I mean second is a clone with implanted memories so why always I read about this character all people write like both are the same? Recom Quaritch feels and acts because of memories from human Quaritch. For me it's weird because I hated a lot original Quaritch but when I watched Avatar 2 I was like nooo way I like his clone?. haha Just to add other point of view. Greetings, thank you!
Dear anon,
I'd like to preface this reply by saying I don't know how the fandom depicts him, really. I discuss him with friends in the recom-centric server, and I read their snippets and some of their fics, but I'm one of those writers who avoids reading the characters they write.
My brain is aggressively pantser oriented. If I read a story, if I even imagine it in full, then "it is told" and I lose interest in writing it. "Two cakes" only exists as a reader for me. I can't write the second take on a concept I've read. It feels like a chore. I also dislike reading a really smart idea about the character because I might feel like I can't implement it.
I like to give myself time to come up with my own strong vision of a character before I start reading them written by others. If I pick up a fic with them it'll usually be with a concept/style I'd never go for (that includes smut).
So yeah, I don't know how "the fandom" portrays him. I'll give you my two cents though, for free :
Quaritch and Recom Quaritch ARE the same person. By design. They share the same memories. I am totally writing a fic in which the memories are edited, but that's not hinted at in canon.
A clone with memories is meant to be the same, on day 1. He is designed to be the same. He's made in universe by the RDA to be the same, and by the Avatar team to be the same.
What makes recom Q interesting is that he starts diverging from that day 1 onward. Every experience he has is filtered through the qualia of a fundamentally alien body. Taste, smell, vision, hearing, touch, experience of pain, not to mention the sensory blast of having new limbs and organs!
And then new experiences a smart recom can't miss : potential discrimination, bottom of the company totem pole (a loss of privilege a white man with titles like Quaritch must feel keenly), the way they're turned into disposable guinea pigs from the 1st mission, the impossibility of going back home, the fact they're basically slaves, company owned bodies and endlessly duplicable minds...
They get time to think on all that. Does it affect them? Do they double down on their mission out of spite? Hope for a better future? A shot at freedom? Are they brain-dead killers looking to shoot things no matter what body they're in? (Looking at you Lyle..)
That's where the tasty lives. In that dichotomy between a human mind that makes them the same, and an alien body that makes them different. That's why recoms, Q and others, are so compelling. There's a ton of room for emotional angst, and a lot of directions to take character growth in as we patiently await.
I feel like different writers will make him go places at different paces, and that's fine. He hasn't changed that much over the course of the film. We don't know Avatar 1's Quaritch that well, so how much atwow changes Recom Q is really up to interpretation.
But I feel like this is just arguing on philosophy.
You, as an individual, are in constant flux, but you are also informed by your past. Do you believe in determinism? In fate? In Free Will? Because there's a whole branch of philosophy/neurology that makes a VERY compelling argument that we don't have free will. It doesn't help that science has proven that our brain often sends signals before we've made a conscious decision to act.
It's still a very hot topic, as we don't know where consciousness resides/how it works (the philosophy of mind teacher in Adelaide uni opened his class by saying if we were smart about it there was a nobel prize to be won lol)
What's compelling about Recoms is that even if you believe in the absence of free will you have to admit that the change in qualia by definition alters their character and takes them down new roads. But it's fine to me if writers think the mind inside the recom is still human and struggles to remain true to itself for a long time.
A Quaritch desperate for change is as tasty as a Quaritch who struggles to hang on to his past as a raison d'être.
He's a babygirl because he's cursed. He carries the "sins of the father" in the most literal manner possible. Not only in universe but IN FANDOM. People actively blame Recom Quaritch for what Human Quaritch did in A1, not realising they are not the same person, even if Recom Quaritch still feels like they are and can replay the whole scene in his mind.
It's FUCKED and I'm soooo here for it!
It's also why it's so different with recom Q. He's not the same visually, and he's got so many new layers added by his situation that you're face first in a blue cake.
My favorite thing about fanfic authors is they can identify any gap in a canon timeline where characters are offscreen and exploit the ever living fuck out of it
i love the word “buir” in mando'a coz it has an ending rhotic sound and
the words children use for parents usually have bilabials /m/,/b/,/p/+vowels coz consonants made in the front of the mouth tend to develop first. so they’re easier for toddlers to pic up
rhotics like /r/ harder to acquire. develop later in childhood
so like if u take in a foundling under 2-3 years (human standard) ur baby’s not saying buir its gonna be like boo, buh, buwi, buhi or whatever until it learns rhotics and thats just so goddamn.cute man
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