One game that I’ve had sitting on my Steam Library, yet somehow never opened or played, for years has been The Missing: JJ Macfield and the Island of Memories. This game released in 2018, and when it comes to talking about video games that revolve around queer issues and themes, I basically never see anything about it outside of initial reviews that came out after it released. Over the past two days, I decided to finally play it all the way through to see what it was about. This game was nominated for Game for Impact at the 2018 Game Awards, losing out to Celeste, which unfortunately is a hard game to beat and is another of my favorite games of all time.
That said, as much as I love Celeste and continue to play it even now, The Missing is a game that hit me so hard that I was reminded of the first time I played Life is Strange. The latter game helped me come to terms with who I am, so the fact that The Missing managed to inflict a similar feeling upon me is impressive. Like a lot of my favorite games, The Missing is a game dripping with symbolism and dream logic. Is this my new favorite game? Possibly. My favorite tends to rotate between Life is Strange and Celeste, depending on my mood, but The Missing is an extremely well written game.
So what is The Missing? It’s a 2D platform-puzzle game, written and directed by Hidetaka Suehiro aka SWERY. If that name sounds familiar to you, it’s almost definitely because Suehiro is most well known for his work on the Dead Premonition games, a pair of critically polarizing horror games that take a lot of inspiration from western works like Twin Peaks. The second game reportedly had transphobic content in it, something Hidetaka quickly apologized for, noting his English skills as poor and something he would work to fix. Considering his history, I’m inclined to believe he made a genuine writing mistake and this game is part of why I believe him.
This game will contain deep spoilers for The Missing, so stop reading her if you do NOT want to be spoiled about the twists and turns of the game’s story and contain some triggering elements such as talk on suicide and self-harm, along some other topics.
So right off the bat, I wanna talk about the gameplay. Normally, I forego talking about gameplay primarily because I like to talk about story and character content. But here I need to point out that the game’s 2D platforming can be frustrating, especially on a better hardware setup. I recently got a new laptop running a GeForce RTX 2070 Super, which is wonderful compared to what I used to have. However, the game was running so quickly that my inputs were being read incorrectly. I was unable to jump as high as normal, making the game near impossible at the point where I changed laptops. By limiting the FPS down to 60, the game worked normal. But it did show me how finnicky the controls can be at parts where you have to do some precision platforming. In addition, some actions require small cutscenes every time you do it resulting in the game slowing to a crawl. I do believe, however, that these problems are minute enough not to cause a problem. I completed the game, with all collectible donuts, in around 7 hours.
The Missing is a game primarily about two women: Jackie Jameson Macfield and her best friend Emily. The two are extremely close, and while out camping near their hometown, Emily suddenly vanishes and the island turns into a nightmare. JJ is struck by lightning, killing her, but she’s suddenly granted the ability to regenerate her body after she dies. The goal of the game is to find Emily while proceeding through areas and solving platform-puzzle challenges to progress and grab 271 donuts, the game’s main collectible. Grabbing every donut is important, since each one takes you a step closer in understanding JJ as a character via unlockable text messages with her friends and her professor.
Most of these challenges are not solved normally, however. As I said before, JJ can regenerate her body after being harmed. Of course, her body can be completely decimated with her having to horribly harm herself to remove limbs up to only being a head in order to progress through these puzzles. JJ can also harm herself in other ways, including setting herself on fire or breaking her neck in order to flip the area upside down. All of these self-harming behaviors are integral to the gameplay. The last gameplay type is running away from the Hairshrieker, a monster made of bones that chases JJ through the island with a giant box cutter. It’s pretty much just platforming with a monster that will kill you.
First Hairshrieker encounter
So far it seems like a pretty normal horror puzzle game, right? What could possibly be so deep and meaningful about it? Especially if it’s a queer game being written by a Japanese auteur. It’s weird, because I’ve played games by queer or trans devs that deliver authentic experiences to players. Now I’m unsure whether or not SWERY consulted anyone when writing this game, because it feels a lot like Tell Me Why in the aspect of being a game written with consultants in mind to produce an experience that feels genuine.
From the very beginning, the game lets you know that there’s something up with Emily. Hiding secrets and running away from JJ at every point, with JJ unable to ever catch up to her. As JJ collects donuts through the game, reaching a certain number will unlock text chains that JJ has previously had with people she knows ranging from friends to her professor to her mother and Emily, though the latter two unlock no matter what as you progress through the game. Each chain shows what kind of person JJ is around certain people. Around her punk rocker friend, Abby, she seems always willing to help as well as being understanding of Abby’s plight about being talked down to for her attitude and the way she dressed. With Philip, who is less of a friend and more an annoying classmate, is a rich kid who takes advantage of JJ’s kind attitude, even though JJ is fully aware she’s being taken advantage of. There’s Lily, a more feminine girl who seems to have an obsessive crush on JJ. And finally there’s Professor Goodman, a product designer whom JJ works for as an AI (assistant instructor.)
Text chains with JJ’s mother and Emily are probably the most important. Throughout the game, they will periodically update to reveal more of JJ’s personality. JJ is truly only herself around Emily, where there’s a stark difference in the way she interacts between someone like Lily or Abby compared to Emily. JJ seems to put on a mask for everyone else, only showing joy and her insecurities to Emily, who is always there to show JJ support. JJ’s mother, on the other hand, has a horrible relationship with JJ. JJ often gives her mom one word responses as the mother seems to push all her wants onto JJ, such as JJ becoming some sort of heir to the family. This implies JJ’s family is quite rich in some aspect, as the mother desperately wants JJ to inherit her deceased father’s legacy and often talks about how happy she is that JJ turned out “normal.”
Early on, the game wants you to believe that Emily has a secret. The secret can easily be interpreted as Emily being a lesbian and having feelings for JJ, who may or may not reciprocate them. At the beginning of the game, Emily attempts to lay her head against JJ’s, only for JJ to pull away making Emily quickly move away. However, JJ eventually relents and the two hold their head against one another. So is that the secret? Of course not. It’s very obvious that JJ and Emily have feelings for one another, but they’re both unsure how to process their feelings. All that matters, however, is that Emily loves and supports JJ unconditionally. Because it’s not Emily who has the secret, it’s JJ.
Throughout the game’s text chains, JJ will also interact with texts from FK, her stuffed animal she carries everywhere for emotional support and the mysterious appearance of a doctor with a deer head, speaking like he was straight out of the Red Room in Twin Peaks. Eventually Emily begins speaking like that as well, making things feel a lot more like a living nightmare. While JJ is always extremely angry and exhibits self-harmful behavior both physically and emotionally, FK represents a more innocent part of her. They represent the part of her that still has love and hope inside, but the anger, fear, and depression that JJ has often overpowers FK’s innocent pleas to try and help her. As the game goes on, JJ slowly calms down and becomes less hostile toward FK, eventually their words helping JJ stand up once more.
Talking to Philip doesn’t really do much, other than show JJ’s less than enthused responses to his spoiled nature. The other three, however, all slowly hint at JJ’s secret. Conversations with Abby often revolve around JJ asking her how she has the confidence to dress and act as her true self, and how she deals with superiors who question and criticize her. With Lily, it’s often talking about more feminine activities. And despite Lily often coming off as stalker-like, JJ continues to speak to her because there’s not a lot more people to interact with her interests such as baking and cooking. Her conversations with Professor Goodman often feel more like the proper parent JJ wishes she had, with Goodman often offering her advice as well as talking about his family and interests. He also reveals that JJ’s mother often attempts to divulge information about JJ from Goodman, which only serves to make JJ more uncomfortable about how much her mom pushes her to be “normal.”
As she gets closer to the end of her journey, texts from everyone become more hostile. This all begins when JJ’s mother finds out her “secret” after invading JJ’s privacy at the family home by reading her diary and questioning why there are women’s clothing in JJ’s closet. Phone calls from Emily slowly reveal that something is wrong, with text messages lining up with what Emily is saying to her. We hear distorted weeping as JJ follows after Emily up to the clock tower they loved as kids. We hears sounds of electricity, the distorted deer man’s voice, and a voice that continuously says things from JJ’s point of view. It all continues building up to her finding Emily’s body hanging from a noose, as well as a note on the ground.
JJ reads it.
It’s a suicide note.
It’s not Emily’s.
JJ weeps and hangs herself next to Emily, before her body breaks free of the noose and she falls off the clock tower. Her body is barely able to regenerate when it lands, and she slowly walks through the hallway of her small university. We see shadows mock and berate JJ, some people even becoming physical. She only just barely gets through all of this because of Emily always being there to support her.
Final text messages reveal a few things. With Abby, JJ attempts to bring something up to her several times, but she decides not to when Abby doesn’t reply. Abby does reply eventually, revealing she was busy setting up for a concert and becomes worried when JJ never replies back. Philip doesn’t even notice that JJ’s gone, only thanking her for telling him to follow his acting dreams. Professor Goodman invites JJ to share dinner with he and his family. And Lily? Well this text chain is important, because it pretty much reveals what happened that led to the events of the game.
JJ and Lily went to the library to study, with JJ covertly checking out a book about a certain “condition.” We’re not told what it is, but Lily reveals she saw the book and proceeded to ask other people about it. Those people didn’t keep their mouth shut and word about JJ’s “condition” quickly spread. In addition, once discovering JJ’s diary, her mother decides to send her off to a special kind of therapy that will make her normal again. With all of this happening, JJ has an emotional and mental breakdown to Emily. Her emotions spiral about how much of a freak she is, while her mind makes up stories that Emily only talks to her out of pity. Emily initially gets a little angry at this, before realizing what might be happening. JJ doesn’t reply for a while only eventually saying “goodbye” to Emily, ending the text chain.
So what is JJ’s secret? While it isn’t technically revealed until the last scene of the game, one can pretty much put all the pieces together at this point. JJ is a closeted transwoman and the only person she’s out to is Emily. The clock tower JJ goes to is where she came out as trans to Emily when she was younger, declaring that she was “Jackie Jameson.” And JJ was so happy when Emily didn’t abandon her. As JJ got older, she still presented as male out of fear of being harassed. It’s why she’s so locked up when speaking to anyone who isn’t Emily. It’s why she asks Abby how to properly deal with not letting people get to you or standing up to an abusive parent.
JJ suffers from horrible gender dysphoria, taking out a book from the library most likely about the subject. Lily was not attempting to be malicious, but her actions cause her to out JJ to the entire school. It’s implied JJ is from a place where being openly trans is a death sentence, since being trans in the United States has long been a favored target of harassment from conservatives, TERFs, and other bigots. And considering how 2021 has been nothing but the rise of the GOP targeting trans people with TERFs becoming more and more prevalent thanks to outspoken bigots like JK Rowling.
Harassment against trans individuals are very real, with bad apples often being used as “evidence” that all trans people are evil and bad. Though, I’d argue by that logic then all cis people would be the purest form of evil if we judged all cis individuals by the cruelties of every cis monster in history. It’s just history repeating itself, like if a convicted criminal was gay back in time, then homophobes would use a singular instance of one person to justify hating an entire section of humanity. I think it’s important, if you are cis, to have empathy for trans individuals during this time. Trans people just want to exist. We want to live our lives without having to live in constant fear that someone wants to murder us for just existing. For just eating lunch at a park without fearing that some cis man will come and beat us nearly to death for existing. People like the GOP or TERFs like JK Rowling are cruel individuals. They don’t care about humans or anyone else other than themselves. They just want us dead.
And that’s the mindset that JJ has. JJ believes that her mere existence will make Emily’s life worse off. That people will make Emily a target of harassment if people knew that the person closest to her was trans. JJ lashes out at her for a specific reason. To make herself feel more like the monster she believes she is, so that it will be easier for her to justify committing suicide to herself. To make a monster and make Emily hate her for it, something we see when JJ is fused into the Hairshrieker while Emily shoots a shotgun at her. A symbolic representation of JJ trying to make herself feel like a monster so Emily will hate her, and not feel bad when JJ dies. Of course, the reality of this is the complete opposite. Emily loves JJ, she is the single most important person in her life. It takes a conversation, after JJ realizes she is already dying, with FK to realize that even if everyone else hates her that there’s one person who doesn’t. There’s one person who loves JJ so much, that JJ dying will doom her as well. That JJ needs to live and be there for Emily the same way that Emily is there for JJ.
A final confrontation with the Hairshrieker shows JJ, in her dream, no longer breaking apart when she self-harms. It shows that pain is always going to be there, but with the resolve that Emily will always be there for her, she’s able to avoid falling apart into pieces as she eventually kills the Hairshrieker and finds Emily. She finds what she was looking for this whole time, a final text message to FK showing that JJ is starting to feel better. It was the fear of Emily dying from JJ’s attempt that drew her to confront her negative feelings, something we see JJ do when she believes Emily is dead.
The final scene is telling because JJ wakes up as how she looks in reality: closeted and presenting openly as male. Before her is a paramedic with a deer head sitting behind him in the room. The deer man being the paramedic attempting to save her life. FK, her beloved plushie, was pooling blood together and helping stop JJ from bleeding out after she fell unconscious. A phone call from her mother shows JJ, in my opinion, ready to say goodbye permanently to her. An acceptance that her mother is a horribly negative influence on her life, suggesting and nearly forcing JJ into conversion therapy. We found out that JJ eventually told her mother and she did not take it well at all, implied to be the straw that broke the camel’s back that caused the suicide attempt. Emily discovers JJ’s suicide note and finds her quickly enough to call for help, with Emily’s weeping and saying “you broke our promise” representative of JJ dying and leaving Emily, since their promise was to never be apart from one another. Emily eventually rushes in, and the two hug with JJ thanking her for always supporting her as well as telling her she’s reconciled with herself and found what she wanted. The game ends there.
But that’s not the end. If you had collected all 271 donuts through the game, you will be rewarded with several images that take place post-game. JJ is now openly trans and Emily takes her to try on new clothes, some of which resemble her dreamscape’s outfit. The two are shown happy together, moving forward from the tragedy stronger, that one person can make your life all the better by being there for you.
One of three pictures that’s a reward for collecting all donuts
The game hits hard. It hits hard in a lot of ways. There’s a scene where JJ describes her body mutilation in detail to FK, but it’s really easily seen as JJ describing the horrific extent of her gender dysphoria. And the gameplay reflects that. JJ self-harms and her body falls apart, a body she feels so gross and foreign in. How she hates it so much, and how no one else around her can understand that pain. How she lashes out because she can’t fully understand why it hurts her so much. She hates herself, she thinks she’s an overall negative factor to everyone else. It doesn’t help that she is this way because of her mother constantly drilling this sort of thinking into her head: that she is abnormal and must be made normal through conversion therapy. JJ would rather die than that happen, and she justifies this through depression-filled mental gymnastics to prove she’s better off dead to herself and Emily.
This game is not for the faint of heart, especially if constantly hearing bones breaking and body parts flying around is a trigger for you. However, the game does not pull punches in showing how cruel the world can be to a trans person. Even if not 100% of people are going to harass you, it can feel like that if there’s a big enough chunk causing you problems. JJ’s mother is the only person not supportive of her struggles. While the game’s ending does imply the mother feels remorse, and JJ forgiving her, I’m not so sure. That, to me, may just be JJ’s kind nature showing through in general. But I feel as though the problems her mother caused can not just be forgiven through a single call right after a suicide attempt.
There’s also the talk about whether or not JJ and Emily are in love, and I believe they are. The implications show that they are closer than just platonic best friends, but JJ’s self-doubt and self-hatred drive a wedge between their relationship evolving. This is something we talked about earlier, where JJ moves her head when Emily tried to lean on her. Being intimate, both emotionally and physically, keeps them from taking a step forward due to JJ’s depression and anxiety. By the time of the post-game, JJ is starting to become more accepting of herself and she’s able to be openly happy with Emily in public, showing they may be moving forward closer than ever.
Do I recommend this game? Yes. Even though the game is written by quirky Japanese auteur, it has this genuineness to it that feels a lot like Tell Me Why, a game that features a transman as one of its two main protagonists. Though this hits closer to me because JJ is a queer transwoman. Playing through the game, I noticed my behaviors parallel greatly with JJ’s drawing me closer to this story. I’m upset I didn’t play it sooner, but now that I have it’s certainly one of the best games revolving around being trans and why I think SWERY was being sincere in his apology about the second Deadly Premonition game. Because this was a game super understanding of the trans experience, how cruel people can be to trans individuals, how others are supportive, how outing someone (even unintentionally) is something that can ruin a life. But we are humans too. We just want to live life. And be happy.
Even though this isn’t a game made by a trans individual, it’s one well-researched and genuine in its ability to make others feel empathy for the trans experience while also validating the negative feelings a trans person might feel through their life. It’s a shame this game is barely talked about, because I highly consider playing it if you haven’t yet. An excellent piece of queer horror. Since I’ve done this, I guess it’s time I put effort into analyzing HWBM next, huh?
With the release of We Know the Devil on Nintendo Switch, I believe it’s time to post my full in-depth analysis and explanation of We Know the Devil. Some of you who follow me may know this was originally intended as a video, and written with that intention. However, with my new work and my love of writing still what I love most, I’ve decided to post the script to this video as a singular post. This is a long analytical essay, clocking in at around 9000 words. This is long, yes, but it’s also an essay I’m very proud of. For anyone who has played WKTD and not fully understood what a lot of the meanings are, this is for you. This is my love letter to We Know the Devil and Worst Girls Games. Thank you for this game that helped change my life.
(Note: This obviously contains spoilers for every facet of the game, so I highly recommend you play the game in its entirety before reading this.)
Daughter of God by PhemieC, a WKTD Fan Song
Introduction
I think there is nothing more frustrating than growing up in a semi-religious household and proceeding to attend religious school up through high school. Especially when it’s Catholicism. Maybe it’s because there’s so many different messages to be said about it. How people who are Catholic can so wildly differ from center-left to extremely far right.
This too was an obvious split I could see growing up, especially in high school. Religion was always overhead when I was growing up, though, mostly in in elementary and middle school. We were forced to attend church twice a week, sometimes thrice a week early in the morning each time. As I grew up and slowly discovered a different purview of the world, it often clashed with the ideas and thoughts drilled into my mind by the religious institutions I had been raised in.
I didn’t realize I was queer or trans until I was in university as a result. Things never clicked for me because I was simply raised to believe being queer was wrong, and the idea of being trans simply never even existed. What caused my break with religion? I’m not sure. Maybe it was the people I met who were genuinely terrible, but often propped up in school as the “good Catholic kids.” How could they be so good when they would bully me at length, I thought. Eventually I would define myself as myself and not by outsider opinion, but of course I was a lot older by then.Maybe that’s why one of my favorite games of all time is We Know the Devil, a Western-made visual novel developed by Worst Girls Games in 2015. This short 3-4 hour romp is somehow one of my top five favorite games of all time. How? How is this little indie visual novel developed by a no-name studio in a little more than four months so high on my list? Well that’s what I’m here to discuss.
We Know the Devil is a game whose main target audience are queer and trans people, I think that much is obvious. Aevee Bee, the writer and co-director of the game, is a transwoman so you can tell this was always gonna be a game I was going to have to check off my list at some point in my life.
Development wise there’s not much to say other than the game was developed in a little over four months, as I said earlier. Kind of amazing to see how fast something like this can be developed. It’s well put together for a simple visual novel, though there are some grammar and spelling mistakes sprinkled throughout the dialogue. It doesn’t bother me too much though.
The art direction for the game is unique and extremely pleasing to my eyes. All the backgrounds in the game are nothing more than photographs taken on a digital camera. All of them are empty and give a feeling of isolation, of areas abandoned by humanity left to be reclaimed by nature. Some might call it lazy to not just design backgrounds, but I feel it fits the nature of what this game is. It has an eerie feeling that’s hard to shake, like watching The Blair Witch Project.
The character art for the game is equally good. Black and white monochrome character sprites with what looks like the sharpness turned up as high as it could in order to make it look like it was taken on an old digital camera from the late 90s. Of course, it goes along super well with the photographic backgrounds used for the game.
Venus
The music for the game though? Sublime. Good. I’m no musician so I can’t give you an in-depth reason for why I think the music is so good, I just find it to be very pleasing to listen to. Alec Lambert, the composer, creates a mostly haunting yet sometimes peaceful soundtrack that fits the game absolutely perfectly. It reminds me of scntfc’s soundtrack for Oxenfree, another game I absolutely adore. Only this one feels a lot more distant and corrupt, which again, fits the game a lot better than anything else.
But above all else, it’s the characters, their arcs, and the overall themes of the game that sell me on why this seven dollar visual novel on Steam is not only one of my favorite games of all time, but also why it’s one of the most important to me.
Take it from me, living in the Midwest isn’t great. Even though states like Michigan or Ohio are pretty north, you’re pretty much living in a deep southern state in most places. Much of the land you’ll see is often empty fields of corn or signs telling us we’re all going to hell soon and Jesus has spoken that the rapture is upon us.
The Summer Scouts are not a great place to be. Like at all. Dressed in uniforms with white shirts with crosses stitched onto the chest pockets, it’s very familiar. They aren’t just a religious summer camp after all. This is where they send the specifically bad kids who need the extra work put in.
Every time you run through We Know the Devil, you’ll encounter the same choices to make but with different outcome choices.
We have our members of Group West as well. First there is Neptune, who is the most outspoken and sarcastic of the three. She seemed annoyed and tired with almost everything, often shutting down anyone and everyone with her sharp tongue if she’s not ignoring them while she’s on her phone. Next, there’s Venus. Venus is quiet, shy, and called the pure one of the group who doesn’t even cuss which gets him teased by the other two. Though he’s often looking for something, something that makes him feel utterly incomplete and lost, attempting to fulfill this void by pleasing others even to his own detriment. Finally, there’s Jupiter. Jupiter is the top of the class over achieving academically girl. She’s good at most of what she does, but always fails at the end. The type to blank on the final question and cannot answer for the life of her.
The three attend a bonfire led by the titular Bonfire Captain. And oddly designed character who has more in common with the Hawt Dawg Man from Life is Strange than he does anything or anyone else.
He tells the story of himself and two friends he once had when he was younger. How he liked one of these two friends and the other he dismissed as annoying. Over time the captain talks of how he attempted to be an even BETTER friend in order to help the annoying friend along. But eventually he would give up claiming:
“Some friendships you can keep up. The rest you gotta leave up to god.”
Surface level this seems like a friendship that has simply ended, vanishing off like many do. However, as I like to always think, context is key in literally any piece of media. The captain plus his two friends equals three people, just like the rest of the groups in the game. And as expected of a camp counselor in a Christian summer camp, he is extremely Christian. He mentions that some of the annoying things his friend did includes “[He] wouldn’t go along with us.” And he follows it up with: “I probably could have stopped it if I had told him to cut it out and man up instead of basically doing the opposite.”
The implications here is that the annoying friend is someone who did not follow the status quo. Someone who was outside the nice comfortable square that a white cisgendered heteronormative Christian society has made up. Something happens to the “annoying friend” that is implied to have had something bad happen to him. But the captain did nothing. He admits he could have intervened to save the person, but he chose not to for he decided it was god’s will that this person was punished.
The game has barely even started, and yet right off the bat the game is dropping some heavy hints about what is to come. The world of We Know the Devil is different from our own. There are many evils that only God can protect the people from.
After the events at the bonfire, the captain will tell Group West that it’s their turn to face the devil. The devil being within a small cabin in the woods. On their way there, they encounter Group South, the best/worst kids in camp. In that they try to suck up so much they end up being the most annoying ones in camp that Group West hates. Group South harasses the group, particularly Venus, as they attempt to repair the sirens.
The sirens and the radios make up two of the more important aspects of the world in which the game takes place. The sirens set up around the forest are designed to make public awareness that the devil is attempting to break in. The radios that the campers have are the only weapons that can fight off the devil once it shows its face. For you see, the analog channels is how God communicates with people and protects them from corruption.
The three members of Group West have a lot of great banter off of one another, and you really come to enjoy all three of them as a group. The three have very different personalities, but they all have the same types of wants and those wants allow their differing personalities to come together well.
However only two of the three can come out unscathed…
One will end up alone. Two won’t.
[BLUE – Neptune]
Neptune: sarcastic, tired, confident, and angry.
Neptune is the only one of the three who shows any sort of backbone to anyone else in camp. Neptune is also the only one who accepts who she is on the inside. But also she’s not willing to ever show it on the outside.
More than anything, she knows that there is something more that Jupiter and Venus want. They don’t know what it is and they don’t seem to want to think more about what they want. And this? This instills anger in Neptune more than anything else.
Neptune is a character who knows what she wants. But she’s not willing to go the full way in order to obtain it. She envies Venus’s kindness, but believes that kindness will never be able to let a want be obtained. Being mean and sarcastic is more truthful, and it lets he not feel bad about being unable to get what she wants. But in the moments of kindness she does show, it’s ever filled with her wants. Her wants of Venus and Jupiter.
Throughout the game, it’s often Neptune who brings to light most of their issues. She’s perceptive, but she covers this up by a facade of sarcasm and laziness. Neptune is the type of person who knows who she is deep down, but when confronted she gets defensive about it. She gets angry and denies it.
Neptune knows who she is. She knows who her friends are. She knows what they want. But she’s not gonna rob them of experiencing figuring out who they are. But the issue stems that she herself is not ready to accept herself openly and out. She’s angry at herself too for the hypocrisy, but she ignores it. Rather she lets it fester. She lets it sit there and grow exponentially often resulting in her own anger.
The intrigue that Neptune lays out is her unwillingness to tell the others who they are, but rather she pushes them to admit it themselves. After the drinking session with Venus and Neptune, the former attempts to confront Neptune about her need to be mean to everyone. Most of it slides off of her, but Neptune’s response is calm for once. Telling Venus that the wants that he has can’t be given to him by kindness. He has to figure out what he wants and admit that to himself in order to obtain it. But Neptune also remarks that she’s a bad kid too, because her own kindness is wrapped up in her own wants.
Similarly, she does drop hints throughout the game about the other two’s identities and problems. With Jupiter, she often tells her off for her self-harmful behavior. Whether it be talking down to herself or seemingly melting down over a small thing that Neptune doesn’t think matters. When it comes to truth or dare, Neptune tells Jupiter to reveal who she likes. Neptune knows the answer, but before Jupiter can even respond, Neptune says nevermind. Perhaps she, herself, is too scared as well.
During seven minutes in heaven, though, she does show off much of her own hypocrisy that makes her seem not too different from Jupiter. They are both, physically and metaphorically, in a closet making out and touching each other. But because no one else is there, it’s impossible for anyone else to ever determine what happened. It’s their words only, and only can become truth if they both say it out loud.
With Venus, she often attempts to nudge him towards figuring out what he wants. She knows he has a crush on her, seen during truth or dare. Though she playfully, though soaked with her trademark meanness, teases him about it the two have a rapport that’s equal and as meaningful as the one that she has with Jupiter. If not more so bringing out that short gentle nature that’s buried somewhere deep within Neptune.
By the end of the night, they can hear God speaking a sermon on the radio, buzzing lowly through the cabin.
“A method for the extraction of bile. Create an incision on the middle finger. All the water of the body can be thought of as a single ocean, as one drop- and extract the resulting ink. Place in a vial and explain to it the worthlessness of the treasures of earth. Break it against a mirror, the cause of vanity- each of you shall choose. It is certain the devil is coming.
Neptune becomes angry. Why? Because both Venus and Jupiter believe they are the devils. But Neptune? Neptune believes, in every sense, that she is the most likely to be the devil. Why? Because she’s the only one who knows who she really is. And the mere idea of Venus or Jupiter becoming their devils makes her believe they are simply saying it to pity her and make her not worry about being the devil, but we know they also truly believe it.
Neptune coughs. That’s her signature reaction. She coughs primarily when she’s either rejecting her own voice or when she hears Jupiter or Venus putting themselves down. When a person vomits, they often throw up the contents of their stomach. However, if you dry heave enough without anything in your stomach and cough violently enough, you’ll puke up your stomach bile. In one of the choices of a non-Neptune exclusion route, we see that Neptune needs to eventually be taken to the bathroom to deal with her cough because she fears she’s gonna vomit up said bile.
More importantly, to me, it represents something Neptune hates more than anything. She hates when Jupiter and Venus hate themselves out loud. When people say something horrible about themselves, a tertiary party who disagrees often says to “stop spouting bullshit” if it angers them enough. She hates that they won’t accept themselves, but she herself spouts the same bullshit by not admitting the truth about her sexuality out loud.
Eventually she becomes the devil when she is forced into the bathroom. She coughs. She vomits. And she sounds louder than ever, but refuses to come out of the bathroom until she eventually relents.
Neptune is forced to the bathroom during one of her coughing fits, this one the most violent yet. The coughing becomes louder and louder, each cough more violent than the last resulting in vomiting. The others want her to come out. She refuses. Come out, they ask. She refuses. They ask again. She breaks and comes out.
Neptune is leaking bile and ichor from all over her body. Her ichor will force Jupiter and Venus to admit to themselves who they are and turn them into devils. She’s so sick of the two of them not accepting themselves, something she previously wanted them to figure out on her own. But this time? No. Their refusals have annoyed and angered her so much that her devil form wants nothing more than to MAKE THEM understand themselves.
Neptune bashes Venus up against a wall, happy enough to force him to taste. Jupiter attempts to save him, but Neptune is a devil now. With much more physical power, she easily is able to knock Jupiter away. All inhibitions are gone now. She refers to Jupiter as “babe” and opens up finally about it all.
She hates how the world determines the three of them are bad. How because of their inherent queerness that they have to be “good”, but Neptune? She thinks they’re good already. So, so, so good. Neptune can now see how overwhelmingly unhappy that Venus and Jupiter are. So she simply stands there and rants at them about how obviously unhappy they are in her eyes, and how she will make them happy by forcing them to understand. She’s angry about it. Furious even. That’s why her devil form is the only one who gets the chance to speak to the others. How being one’s own queer self is “wicked.” How it’s wrong. Neptune hates that.
The idea of “good” is brought about by what social conservatism says is correct. Being good cisgendered straight Christians who obey their parents and their church. But Neptune’s idea of being good, or by extension the devil’s, is that you are who you are without shame.
“She’s a flood, of every wicked thought, and they are pouring out of her mouth.”
Neptune’s bile and ichor will stain the others. It will make them devils as well. But there is nothing to fear when there is two against the devil. It’s there because it’s a stain that is hard, or near impossible to remove. Neptune wishes to stain both of her friends, her crushes, so that they will join her. So they finally understand.
The radio contains the power of God within it. Thus, it is the only weapon powerful enough to cast the devil out from a person, erasing who they are so they fit God’s image.
And in the end? Neptune is left to dry, the ichor draining from her while Venus and Jupiter keep watch. The wicked thoughts are gone, though were they ever even really wicked in the first place? Be who you are. Don’t let anyone else tell you who to be. Of course, that’s selfish isn’t it? The treasures of the earth are not for us. We are to obey god and not become vain…
Blue Ending CG
[YELLOW – Venus]
Venus: Kind, pure, and wanting.
Venus is a pushover. He doesn’t swear. He’s one of two kids that the captain likes. Venus doesn’t like that though. Without an intentionally mean bone in his body, Venus just wants to get along with people and avoid the complexities of arguing with people.
Unlike Neptune, who knows who she is and what she wants… Venus is the opposite. He is lost. He can’t figure out what he wants. The lights he sees throughout the game are analogous to that feeling of when a word is right on the tip of your tongue. You can almost feel it out, but then it’s gone again. And no matter how much you think on it, it simply never comes.
Venus is the only “male” character of the group, but it’s not that hard to guess there’s much more going on with Venus than meets the eye. We know very early on that Venus is pretty much a doormat for everyone else.
Despite his avoidance of arguments, he often finds himself envious of Jupiter and Neptune. Jupiter’s ability to not get harassed at all and Neptune’s ability to simply snark and harass right back.
Early on we can see Venus doesn’t really stand up to anyone. Group South particularly harasses him because he doesn’t stand up for himself. He’s timid, but also has a serious mean streak. He often says things that get under the skin of others, though it seems to be unintentional. He’s extremely innocent in a lot of facets, but also can feel extremely insensitive and not catch when he says something that does hit hard. Neptune mentions this to Jupiter, and how she wishes he did it on purpose and not just unintentionally do it.
Much like how Neptune coughs horribly every single time she says something she doesn’t truly believe or when she wants to angrily reply to a self-defeating Venus or Jupiter, we have a similar thing occurring for Venus. Throughout the game Venus will make note of lights. Lights that no one else can see, and these lights usually appear to Venus when he thinks about something. Something…
Just like how Neptune’s cough gets worse and worse as she progresses into a devil, Venus sees these lights more and more. Guiding him… somewhere.
The lights can easily be seen as something like the Will-o’-the-Wisps, small beings of light leading him “astray.” Something that Neptune mentions in a scene between her and him is that Venus is looking for something. Some sort of identity to grasp onto, but he can’t reach it. He doesn’t know what he wants, and thinks that the world can reward it upon him if he’s nice enough. It’s Neptune who informs him that it won’t happen. Why? Because she knows that exact same feeling of having a kindness filled with want.
When fixing the radio deep in the night he and Jupiter talk about his beliefs, and the most telling thing is that he finds life to be unfair. No matter how much a person can try, things will never turn out for them. That certain people don’t have to try hard, and they’ll come out on top. When Jupiter says that she believes the people in the normal scouts try harder than her, Venus can only quickly reply and ask if she truly believes that anyone in the normal scouts have tried harder than her.
This is the best point that Venus makes and shows his true belief for why he acts the way he does. The world isn’t fair. Reality isn’t fair. And that’s what Jupiter tells him. Life simply isn’t fair, but it’s what Venus says next that rings eerily true.
It’s a reality that someone else created.
And that’s completely right. We can remark life isn’t fair, and often or not people will reply with that is true, but that’s simply how life is. But Venus has the forethought to mark that the lives we live are set up by society. A society who has made the rules that life will be unfair for certain people. This entire conversation rings true to me. Immediately after he has another knowledge nugget to drop on us.
He asks Jupiter if it makes her mad when the game is rigged from the start, but they also tell her to “do her best!” Wouldn’t that make her angry? It makes Venus angry. It makes Venus so angry that he doesn’t even want to try because it’s rigged for him to lose from the beginning. Venus can only ask and wonder what is wrong with him… What does life want out of him?
Throughout the game, Venus obviously has very low self esteem about himself. Even within his own group, he finds himself only being useful for repairing the sirens and radios or being the one who gets teased. Despite this, he keeps on moving forward. Cranking out a smile hoping he can figure out what it is he wants.
Venus goes to extreme lengths to try and not cause a fuss. To his own chagrin, he is quite well attuned with fixing the radios and other things. Not because it’s something he wants to do or likes to do, but because people expect that of him to do. He hates it, but he sticks by and keeps doing it because that’s what he thinks he needs to do to keep goin. When outside with Jupiter making the rounds, he notes that Group South wanted him to screw up with a radio in the dining hall. He knows they’re wrong and he knows how to fix it, but he lets himself get in trouble anyway. Openly admitting to the fact that he gaslights himself because it’s easier than going down the back and forth where he’ll just believe them anyways.
But at the end of the day, Venus feels ignored and unseen. So disconnected from the world that when Jupiter naturally thinks that the two of them are friends Venus interjects to question it. As well as the idea that he simply wants to play dumb and sit away because he notices whatever is going on between Jupiter and Neptune. Jupiter finds the idea that boys have it easier with emotions because it seems so straightforward. Though Venus rejects this notion, claiming that boys seem to find it easier to get mad about a secondary thing in order to hide what they might actually be angry about.
Jupiter asks what Venus is angry about, but immediately notices he’s lying. He isn’t angry about anything. Rather, he’s jealous. And Jupiter notices he’s jealous of her and Neptune. A jealously so seething, that Jupiter can feel it. But Venus doesn’t know why. Venus is afraid he can’t change, condemning himself to that factor. He will let himself be hurt physically before he is cruel to to others.
Then hands appear around his neck and start choking him. Jupiter rushes to stop the hands, which suddenly vanish once she takes hold of him. He cries and says it’s okay. Not angry. He says it’s okay. But even Jupiter knows it’s not okay. It’s just not.
By the end of the night, they can hear God speaking a sermon on the radio, buzzing lowly through the cabin.
“Shining as Lucifer, the morning star, in the dawn, and symbolizing the arrogance of desiring a beauty that is not god’s. Venus 5:23. That which appears to be within grasp, and yet, is ever- of the vanity to be seen and to see. The human eye sees clearly by the light of god, but the devil by his own light, and thus sees only his own truth- each of you shall choose. It is certain the devil is coming.”
Do you see that? It’s the light. The fireflies are all over, but they don’t see it like he does?
The ending is nigh, isn’t it? God speaks of arrogant beauty that is not his. Neptune eventually tells the others they need to leave. But the lights are here. In mass, they have arrived towards them, now enough to be seen by Neptune and Jupiter. And the lights only want Venus.
When the lights come into the cabin, they decide to run. Though, they have to force Venus to follow. As they attempt to escape, the lights become more and more overpowering. They aim for the road, where the artificial street lights will protect them. But not all is well, but it’s off the table. Jupiter trips and falls onto Venus. Her attempts to help him up, results in her injuring herself.
Why are they there protecting Venus? They don’t need to. Venus is used to being the butt of the joke. Used to being the one who’s there to fix the radios. Venus is used to being the odd-one out. The one who sits back and seethes with envy against Jupiter and Neptune. They should leave him behind to his ultimate fate against the lights.
But now Venus can’t look away from them. They’re glowing oh so bright and oh so horribly, but it’s so beautiful at the same time. He wants the lights. He wants to see them. He wants the others to see him.
Venus? Venus wants them to see her. See her for who she truly is. She doesn’t want to be what the cruel artificial reality tells her to be. To be the pushover fix-it man, someone who’s only good for what he’s told to do. She hates fixing things. But she did it because that’s what she was supposed to do right? As a good boy?
She’s not that. She’s not a boy. She wants to cast shadows over the light and light over the shadows. The truth is that she is a woman. Venus is a woman and she wants people to see that. She so desperately wants everyone to see her for who she is. Venus shines ever so brightly, wings covering her with eyes wide open for her to look and be the center.
Venus reaches out to us. She has eyes to fly with and wings to see. As terrible as an angel, be afraid. That wing to see the truth and that eye to lay it bare. We feel the heat on our skin and recoil. It wants something from us, a lot of things, maybe everything. Every wish of the eyes belongs to it. Nothing can escape this light. But we do. We can’t feel the beat of the wings or the light of the eyes. We can’t be seen. We chose to cover our faces. But there is nothing to fear when there are two against the devil.
All of this boils down to the idea of looking away from transgender people, especially when they’re so self-hating about it. Venus allows herself to be opened back up by the devil. To finally admit that she is who she is, and not what the unfair reality says she has to be. When Neptune tells Venus that she wants something, but can’t figure out what it is it’s quite obvious what it ends up being.
She wants to transition, but may not even fully understand what being transgender is. She’s in some backwards ass place after all, perhaps that’s why she reached out for something she didn’t know she needed. She needed affirmation of what and who she was, but was unable to grasp for it until her old body was shed away into a being of light. The game does not miss a beat in changing Venus’s pronouns. Venus tries to open up about this, who she is to Neptune and Jupiter, who simply repel the devil from her body. Denial of who she is. And in the end, Venus is forced back into a body she does not want. She wanted to be seen, and now she simply hangs from a tree, knowing what she wants but not being allowed to have it…
Unused Yellow Ending CG
[RED – Jupiter]
Jupiter: Afraid, tired, and untouchable.
Jupiter’s personality can be easily described as not caring. Most things seem to roll right off her back. Harassment does not give her a rise, so she is left alone. People will try to walk all over her, but she doesn’t give them the time of day.
She will always take the blame, even when something is not her fault. In her mind, she will rationalize it is her fault. Early on in the night, Neptune and Jupiter attempt to get into the cabin which has a busted lock from the other groups. While there, Jupiter discovers different types of lilies in the greenhouse area before she accidentally breaks a decrepit old cabinet. Despite it being both an accident as well as something that was bound to happen because of how unkempt and unmaintained the cabin is, Jupiter breaks down and starts crying.
She is someone who tries so hard to impress and put on this facade that she’s unaffected by everything, but in the end? She takes everything on harder than anyone else. When Jupiter is left alone in the cabin, while Venus and Neptune go outside the two converse about the fact that this is happening and that Jupiter needs to let herself get hurt and then be open about it. It becomes something that pisses Neptune off more than anything, the fact that Jupiter allows herself to be hurt over and over again but will never admit she does such a thing. It is self harm.
Self harm is a recurring element for Jupiter, symbolized by her bracelet which she constantly snaps against her wrist. She does this every time she does something she believes is wrong or when she begins to get uncomfortable with her own thoughts she will snap the bracelet harder and harder against her wrist. It’s small, but it’s a persisting theme with Jupiter’s character. It’s simply analogous to self harm in that manner. Even if it’s just a wrist band snapping against her, she does it to remind herself that she is bad. She is wrong. She shouldn’t do this. She shouldn’t be thinking this. What shouldn’t she be thinking?
If it wasn’t already obvious, Jupiter is a lesbian. A lesbian with a big old gay crush on Neptune. Unfortunately, Jupiter has a LOT of internalized homophobia.
Being a lesbian is wrong. It’s bad. It’s not good. Snap. She goes back and forth between her feelings for Neptune and her internalized homophobia about what she is doing is completely wrong.
During the Seven Minutes in Heaven scene between Jupiter and Neptune, the two we can assume are kissing and Neptune is running her hands over Jupiter’s body. Jupiter, of course, doesn’t take much of it well but is reassured by Neptune that no one will ever know simply because they’re alone. Therefore what they are doing right now? It never happened. It only happened if they both admit it happened. If only one admits it happened, it’s only one person’s word versus the other. Therefore, whatever happened in the closet? It stays in the closet forever. And no one in the Midwest will ever know or admit it either. The two could do whatever and they would be denied until admission occurs.
More often than not, it’s easy to see her own internalized homophobia through the entire game. Just like with Neptune, you find more about her when she’s in the closet with Venus. Venus, as she knows at that point, is a boy. She’s not attracted to boys like she is with girls. Not to mention, Venus doesn’t ACT like the boys she often deals with. But she has as much an emotional connection with Venus as she does with Neptune.
She buries her face in Venus’ hair, making remarks about how soft and nice it is. Jupiter tells her that she feels safe around Venus compared to everyone else, whether it be because of her inherent dislike of guys or the overwhelming feelings she gets around Neptune. Venus seems perfect to her because of that. Venus is someone who won’t hurt her, someone safe and kind who she can just bury her face into and not care about it.
Even more interesting is that Jupiter herself ignores the pain inflicted upon her by others because it’s easier. Just like Venus, it’s easier to let pain and suffering hurt you. Except with Venus, who reacts to these lashes, Jupiter doesn’t. She shrugs and moves on, angering Neptune and making Venus sigh. She let’s all the pain hurt her because not only is it easier, but somewhere deep down she thinks she deserves it. She deserves it why though?
Unlike the other two, Jupiter is the only character who we know has some concrete things occurring at home. During the drinking session, Jupiter reveals that her dad is gay but married a woman anyways. Internalized homophobia aside, Neptune asks why then, of all people, would he essentially send his definitely lesbian daughter to such a horrible place. And her answer? They did it because it was easier than dealing with her mom.
The idea being that most of how Jupiter feels about herself is internalized because of her mother. And despite her dad being the same, he finds it easier to simply hide who he is as well and passes these teachings down to her. Not because of anything inherently bad, but because in this world it seems being yourself only leads to hardships and denying yourself to appease others makes life easier. It’s easy to see that Jupiter really does live by this sort of tenant.
So she sits back and lets herself get harmed. Jupiter takes a beating from the world around her and says it’s okay. It’s not okay though. It’s self-harmful behavior, but for Jupiter she thinks it’s the right thing to do. Just so mom will chill.
By the end of the night, they can hear God speaking a sermon on the radio, buzzing lowly through the cabin.
“A hand held against the world. To be touched and to touch; touch is a language unto itself. And it too is a language of power. Thus unto Jupiter, which is also the language of gravity, according- the fist which can give takes too, and gives by taking, or takes by giving. Just as a word is honest or dishonest not by how it is spoken, but by he who speaks it, so is the honesty of touch. It is certain the devil is already here.”
Jupiter isolates herself from the others. It’s certain this time she’s the devil. No plan this time either. Jupiter sits there and snaps her band against her wrist, the room growing warmer with each passing moment.
She continues to try and hold it all in. To continue to deny it. Only a few more hours until dawn, right? No need to find out who the devil is, even if they all know who. Both Venus and Neptune can only look away.
It’s just a phase, right? No agreement. She begs them to mock her. To make fun of her. To make her feel bad. But they know her. They won’t do that.
There hands and fingers everywhere. They touch everything. They squeeze the cabin like an empty water bottle. And just like that Jupiter breaks. All of herself begins flooding out in a wave of internalized hatred.
She’s so gross. She always ruins everything. And then her hairband finally breaks. And the storm of hands breaks loose in the cabin. Jupiter tells it like she thinks. She isn’t good. Like Venus had said before, anger directed at a rigged competition that is life, Jupiter bemoans the unfairness of religious doctrine changing to fit the needs of whatever society deems correct in a certain time period.
Jupiter could do her best to be good and get into heaven on that good merit. But then they ripped it out from underneath her. They changed the rules just went she thought she had it right. Her mother told her not to touch others. Dad taught her not to let herself be touched.
What if she stopped trying to be good? Jupiter is starved. Touch starved more than any person should. And she hates every minute of it. This time, however, Venus and Neptune are here for her. But she doesn’t want them to be. They should be disgusted with her. Even when they tell her otherwise, that internalized disgust of herself rings out.
She wants to touch. She wants to be touched. She wants to hurt. She wants to be hurt.
Jupiter controls a flurry of hands able to do all that she desires. Even before this form of her came out, it was present even earlier. In the closet with Venus, she gets annoyed when Venus tells her that she simply would rather be physically hurt than to be mean. On the other hand, Jupiter wishes she could be even more mean than she already is. Jupiter absentmindedly snaps her hairband, and suddenly hands begin to choke out Venus. To hurt Venus. Her deepest desires to touch and to hurt, and Venus accidentally gave her desires an open shot.
But Venus forgives her anyways, even when they both know it was Jupiter’s hands. A moment that solidifies both of their own desires. Venus being seen as a girl and Jupiter touching Venus like how she wants to touch girls. In a moment they are who they are, before they are forced to retract from that moment.
Jupiter is a lesbian raised to never be touched or to touch. Instilled that touching and being gay is wrong and dirty, and that she needs to be punished for it. She thought denying it would make her life easier and better. After all, being good is based on merits until they decide not anymore. So what happens? She breaks down. And for a moment? Jupiter’s storm touches everything.
“Jupiter reaches out to us. She has a hand for every kind of touch; that hand is for hitting, that hand is for petting, that hand is for grabbing, that hand is for holding. We feel the pull on our skin and recoil. They want so many things from us; maybe everything. Every wish of the body belongs to it. And every wish is a hand, expressing that desire. And every hand is a storm that is bigger than the world, reaching for us. But it will not. The hands don’t touch us and the storm doesn’t break over us. We chose to be distant from her.”
Jupiter dared to be wanted. Dared to be touched. Born to only hurt. Born to think that her feelings for girls is only a phase, something queer people are told all the time. It’s only a phase. You’ll like boys soon enough, the say. Harassing you over the idea of not liking men. You hear it all the time from anyone who isn’t a lesbian. Lesbians can like men and be in relationships with them, so saying you only like women is just a phase. It’ll pass, as soon as you get the right man. Jupiter is mocked and she lets it happen. Maybe she’ll get past the phase soon.
Jupiter allowed herself to become a devil to try and get what she desperately needed. She hated herself too much, however, and told Neptune and Venus to expel the devil from her as soon as they could. They accepted her, but Jupiter could never accept herself. It was too internalized in her.
And in the end? There’s heartbreak. Jupiter lay unconscious and alone, the devil expelled from her body. And Neptune and Venus? Te two people she cares most for? Te two people she so desperately wants to touch? They sit there together with hands interlocked with one another. Held. Touched.
Red Ending CG
[TRUE END – The Worst Girls Since Eve]
Parables I:I “The devil is only the shadow of man cast from the light of god.” The meaning of this parable is that there is no devil.
What do you do then? What do you do when the answer seems desolate and meaningless? When the devil is everywhere, filling every gap of the darkness?
To break away from the analysis for a moment, in order to actually obtain every ending you have to leave one of the three characters alone and isolated. So what if you mathematically leave everyone out the same amount, thus no one is left totally alone?
By the end of the night, they can hear God speaking a sermon on the radio, buzzing lowly through the cabin. Wait no. It’s on the wrong frequency.
“Oh. Hi there. Oh, darling… I miss you. I have always missed you. I can still remember what your faces were like. I have missed them since before you were born. Please come back. I know I can’t offer much. The bodies I can give you are weak. The stores I tell are impossible. My world is even more precarious than this one. But please come back. It hurts to see you like this so much. So unhappy in those bodies of yours. Stricken by those stories. Forced to live in so much pain. I can’t even come save you. But I can promise one thing. There is room for three in my world. And only two in his.”
The sirens roar out through the night. Those in the camp are coming for Group West. They know the devil. Jupiter fears the worst will come upon them. Venus hopes it’s quick and painless. Neptune? Neptune destroys the radio.
The radios themselves represent a physical connection to religion and the religious community. You sit there, turning on the radio to listen to god and his sermons. The radios themselves are weapons capable of reducing a devil back into a human. Even just having one thrown can cause a devil to crumple over onto the ground, as if hit by a speeding bullet.
Neptune wonders why if god hates the devil so much, why does he not do it himself? Why does he send out his followers to do the work for him? Neptune is the first of the three to give into the devil. The devil fucking rules.
Venus wonders where the devil could be. But they are the devil. But again, Venus wonders where the devil is? Jupiter once more falls into her own pit of despair. All of her insecurities about being bad flowing from her mouth. But like Neptune yells at her about, she shouldn’t be good for people who hate her. More importantly, if she’s going to suffer and hurt herself to appeal to the people who make her feel like she is worthless why won’t she martyr herself for Neptune and Venus? More of a confrontation than anything else.
Venus suddenly blooms as well. She has found the devil just like Neptune has. In what can only be described as one of the most liberating things I’ve read since the book Dreadnought, Venus’s old body falls off. Literally falling off of her, shedding it off like a snake. No blood even. It’s not her body anymore and it’s one of the most affirming things I’ve read in fiction for a trans character.
There’s no pain. A moment of euphoria of accepting one’s self and casting who you used to be away. Neptune, for the first time, isn’t filled with vitriolic anger and sarcasm. Rather she asks Venus how she is. Her new arm looks to be in a rough place, and she makes sure Venus is okay. Jupiter still is in denial though. But this time, the other two are already devils. It’s not just her alone this time.
More important for Venus is outright talking about her dysphoria. All this time something had been bothering her. She would look on at her friends with jealousy, but there was never an answer there for her. And how the body peeling off, transitioning, helps her to not have to feel pain thinking about the things that are off about her body. It’s normal. She feels normal in a body that better reflects her.
Jupiter is the only hold out, still fearing for her own life. The false ideas instilled in her are staying strong. Neptune brings up a new argument. One that relates to the other three endings in the game.
In those three endings, they are achievable by leaving one of the three out and then having the other two use their radios the exorcise the “devil” out of them. And then the other two will be completely fine, at the cost of the third who was turned due to their isolation and not allowed to exist. And the worst part? Jupiter calls it gross, but Neptune says it’s normal. Because it is normal. The other endings show how normalized that kind of behavior is. To give up one of your friends in exchange for one’s own self preservation. To out them.
It’s ugly to do that to someone. To turn someone into a scapegoat. To live in a society where one’s self preservation can make you hurt someone else so badly. And the fact isn’t that there’s a scapegoat to be had, but as Venus said: “What’s ugly is we have to choose at all.”
But Jupiter’s walls are finally breaking down. She cries. She misgenders and then properly genders Venus correctly. Despite it all, despite knowing it the fear is still there. It’s an understandable type of fear. Coming out and living as yourself can be life changing, either negatively or positively. It’s scary.
But in the end, there is no more going back. To a life that they all hate. Neptune doesn’t want to go back home. To that life. Venus doesn’t want her old body back. She’ll die if she has to go back. But they promise they’re there for Jupiter. And they won’t abandon her in this time of need. And that’s what makes it different. They’re all there for each other. There is no two against one. There isn’t a scapegoat. None of them are afraid anymore since they finally do have each other supporting them.
The devil is representative of things that society forces people to repress, especially queer and trans people. As much as non-queer people want to say it is, the problems that queer and trans people faces, including teens, is still horribly relevant today. God are those who believe in a world that must be ruled by their religion. They don’t think for themselves, they follow the teachings of their church and hurt others. It’s a religion that teaches you to love your neighbor, but they hide behind their religion like a wall. They hide and harm and say its in the name of god. And if there is a god? Well he’s a shitty god. He lets people suffer in his name and kicks back watching them suffer.
But now they are the devil. They are together. They love one another. It’s best friends forever. It’s a first kiss. It’s a love story. Jupiter’s storm finally is allowed to begin, her blood mistifying around them. Neptune’s dark color ink and bile finally begins to clear up, all the toxicating elements within her finally washing out. And Venus is there to help clean her. Calm and patient. And Jupiter’s storm of hands makes sure every part of Venus knows she’s loved and seen. They’re finally content and happy.
Though despite it all, others will try to rob them of their happiness. It’s only natural. Humans are cruel to others who aren’t exactly like them. Ready ot hurt at a moment’s notice. Why? Because they’re different. Not only are they different, but they are no longer ashamed that they are different either.
And while the three dream of fixing the camp. Dream of freeing everyone from shackles that institutions have placed on them. The camp? All of them are like Venus, Jupiter, and Neptune. They just need a little coaxing to be freed. To understand like them.
They have a new apple. There is nothing to fear when there’s two against the devil. But they can’t wait to see what they’ll do against the three worst girls since Eve.
True Ending CG
Ending Remarks
I want to thank you, personally, if you made it this far into the essay. This was one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. And going through it again personally reminded me how much I do enjoy love writing. I would love to make writing my profession one day, since it’s something I genuinely love doing and it’s the one thing I think I’m pretty decent at. I’m not GREAT at SEO, so I’m not sure how many people will come across this. But I would love to make posts more regularly, however now that I work I’ve been unable to to do so as much as I want. My ultimate goal is to make this my job. And I would be thankful if you considered tipping me on Ko-Fi. It would mean the world to me, truly. Links below to my Twitter and Ko-Fi, in addition to links to where you can buy WKTD yourself now on Switch!
Also yes I do own the glow in the dark art print. And yes, it does hang on my wall framed.
(These will now be posted every Saturday, to talk about my thoughts on developments of Ruby’s current volume.)
So just gonna say this in addition to all the other people saying this. May had absolutely zero interactions with Penny up until this point. She is not Penny’s friend, and only ever saw her as someone utilized by Ironwood as a weapon.
Remember early in Volume 7 when the Happy Huntresses held up Ruby, Penny, etc on the road? That’s what May knows. Yes, she’s trans, but she’s also still human. Her eye roll scoff was in response to Ruby’s cocky smirk at her, but also the fact that once May knows “robo-girl” is NOT what Penny wants to be referred to, she refers to Penny as Penny. She corrects herself and keeps at that. Ya’ll are just jumping on May for being trans and holding her to a higher standard than everyone else, despite ignoring the context of May not being someone who knows Penny in the same instance as the audience or Ruby.
For those upset at the possible hacking that is most likely going to take place, let me give the thoughts of someone who watched 45 episodes of a show that is literally dedicated to that very ideal. The idea of androids being real. People like Watts and Ironwood exclusively see Penny as a weapon, an object to be used, while our main cast see her as a person. And she is a real girl, a real person with real feelings. In aforementioned series, that is something that occurs throughout most of it. The idea these androids are tools versus the idea they are individuals with their own dreams and aspirations. Penny is a real person, but she was still created by human hands and that means she’s susceptible to the human greed, narcissism, and ego that Ironwood has.
If anything, this hacking storyline will just go to further Penny eventually as her own person and not just a tool that can be hacked to override her very being and force her into Ironwood’s subservience. It’s fucked up and cruel, because that is what Ironwood has become fully now. Penny is a real girl, there is no doubt about that, but it’s a problem she’s been struggling with a lot and the logical next step in that struggle is the final step in it. Penny is an android. She can be hacked and forced into Ironwood’s bidding. And that’s the horrifying last step in her conviction that she’s not some tool to be used by others. She is herself and that’s who she is.
The last thing to talk about is Nora. I felt like the episode didn’t focus as much as it could have on Nora, but also it’s pretty depressing for her too. Her complete lack of self resulted in her saving Penny, but at the cost of injuring herself severely. And that is sad that Nora thinks that is her sole use to people. I am interested in seeing where her story goes.
This is a really good streamlined episode, and it leaves us some horrifying things to come: Nora is injured horribly and Penny has not only been separated from her friends, but also is on her way to being hacked by Ironwood. Like the opening implies, everything is only going to get worse.
People keep talking about the grim reality of Luz having to go home eventually. I really hope there’s a part in the show where Luz gets to make the decision of what she wants in her life. Gravity Falls didn’t do this, by having Dipper and Mabel leave Gravity Falls at the end and return to their normal life. But there was nothing necessarily problematic for them in their normal environment either.
I really hope this show allows Luz to remain in the Boiling Isles. For her to be able to pursue education of becoming a witch and doing something with it in her future. It’s something she loves. It’s something she wants. And more importantly, it’s something she excels at, especially when you consider she’s a human.
Luz has nothing at home except her mom. And even then, her mom is less than pleased with the type of person that Luz is. What I really hope for is that conflict between Luz and her mother. The conflict of actually wanting to stay, and not giving in for other people. My point being, someone like Amity does everything she does from self sabotaging herself by being a bully to destroying her own ability to make friends all to uphold the standards of making her parents happy, at the cost of her own life. It’s only by Luz wandering into her life, that she’s able to start making her own decisions again and acting like the person she is as opposed to the type of people her parents make her to be.
I want to see Luz go through a mirror image of that kind of thing. Where she is under this assumption that she’ll have to go back home. Because in stories like this? The girl goes home when summer ends. That’s the normal trope that Luz knows will happen. She has to go home eventually, leaving behind a world that she feels truly comfortable to be in. That’s how these stories go. But The Owl House is also very smart at subverting all these regular tropes seen in this kind of story.
From things like a money hungry principal only obsessed with money and donations to the petty rich rival girl. These story lines are abandoned and subverted because the show sets out to do that. Principal Bump knows when he’s made a mistake and even moreso goes AGAINST the emperor’s cover by allowing his students to mix magic. Amity, well we know about Amity by now and her own arc of subverting the rival trope.
Considering we’ve seen Luz’s mom open the door in the trailer for Season 1B, I can almost guarantee this is going to be something that happens. Luz is gonna be dragged back home during the midst of major problems, and damns herself to the path that her mom wants her to take. Her mother is misguided. And no matter the good intentions that Luz’s mom has, it can damage Luz regardless by robbing her of the future she wants to have with the people she wants to have in her life. She has friends now. A mentor. These people who genuinely care about her, and also accept her as she is. And while Luz’s mom loves her, she can’t or won’t understand her daughter. After all, the inciting incident of the show is Luz being send to a conformity camp.
My point being, if the show ended like Gravity Falls in that, Luz goes back home and the story ends there that kinda robs the whole point of the show. The idea of not letting anyone tell you who to be or what to want. Eda has Lilith constantly telling her who she SHOULD be, aka someone works for the Emperor’s Coven. You have Amity’s parents telling Amity she can’t associate with “weak witches” in order to not damage their family name. You have Willow being too afraid to switch tracks at school despite how wonderfully powerful she is at plant magic.
Luz is avoiding the issue for now, but she’ll need to eventually need to confront her mother on this. Because that’s something that would fit into the overall theme of the show: being yourself. Luz is learning magic. Why? Initially it’s because she thinks it’d be super cool to be a witch. But the more time she spends in the Boiling Isles, the more she becomes connected to it. The more she is discovering magic that has been lost to time, revealed to her my the nature of the realm itself. Luz’s initial “I want to be a witch because it’s cool!” is thrown away. She wants to be a witch now because she’s honing her skills and it’s becoming a part of her. The world itself is opening to her. She’s understanding it, and her overwhelming sense of empathy is what allows her to excel so much.
She managed to easily shatter the walls that Amity had built around her. She quickly befriended and became mentored by the Isles’ most wanted. She helped a long abandoned powerful Palisman move forward with her life. And there’s so much more. Luz brings positive change to the lives of the people she meets on the Isles. And more importantly? Them being in Luz’s life helps Luz to become a a far better person too. Luz was socially stunted from the fact that her peers rejected her and the adults above her stifled who she was, resulting in someone who throws herself into fantasy to escape the harsh treatment she receives for simply being different.
Luz may only be 14, but going through a door into a whole different realm filled with magic and demons? I feel like that’s a good card to play for literal life changing and discovery moments. Luz has a dream now. Luz is actively changing a stunted society because of her “misplaced confidence” as Eda describes it. Eda wanted to bring about change, but does so in a chaotic way. Luz brings change in a similarly chaotic way, but does it in small ways. She brings change by interacting with people. She didn’t really do that prior to the Isles.
If Luz was to go home permanently, it would feel antithetical, as I had said prior. Luz’s dream is to become a witch now. People have skills that they make use of in trying to achieve their own dreams, so that they can be happy. More often than not, someone else will enter and quash that motivation. Whether it be parent telling their dreaming artist child to not become an artist because “it won’t make you money” or anything else, it’s something that happens.
Luz’s mom’s good intentions shouldn’t overrule the happiness that Luz draws from the Boiling Isles. Luz can love her mom like any child would, but I also think Luz should be allowed to pursue the opportunity fate has given to her. The sad and alone Luz from the beginning of the show is gone. She didn’t show it a lot, but early you can see it. Things like the chosen one and stuff were part of Luz’s misplaced pre-conceived notions of magic. But now being a witch? That is something that people train to be, and it’s something Luz wants. She has a want now for herself, as opposed to a want of others to simply accept her.
I love the end credits because it shows one major thing. And that’s the idea that The Owl House, to Luz, is home. It feels like home to her. While we don’t see much of Luz in the human realm, we can tell it’s a place she doesn’t want to be. Eda gives her the chance to go back home. Hell, she can go home whenever she wants. But she doesn’t. Luz strolls happily through this new world she is a part of, and the credits end by Luz running back to the Owl House, a place she wants to be. A home.
There’s this really weird disconnect because of Luz’s mom, which is the regular fuel of a story like this. Luz feels inclined to go home eventually, not because she wants to or because she believes there’s any sort of future there for her or even because it’s home. She feels inclined to go back because her mother is there. She loves her mother, but feels hurt by the fact her mom can’t/won’t understand her. So many series like this end with the human going home because of that sort of connection. The idea that she must give up her newfound happiness because she MUST go home to her mother.
But Luz’s mother, as we see, eventually shows up in the Boiling Isles through Eda’s door. A second season is already greenlit. Which means the show itself won’t end with just summer ending and Luz going home. Luz’s mom will know about the demon realm, and that Luz is being trained to be a witch. That all these things are happening, and it will most likely result in over protective parenting occurring. Whether that be for safety or more related to the mere idea of Luz learning magic.
This is a conflict that should DEFINITELY be explored, and I just don’t want people to assume that’s how this show is going to end. A second season was greenlit before the show even premiered, so while we’re nearing the end of the first season, we still have an entire next season to look forward to. And if everyone, in show, is already fearing about the idea of “You can’t stay here forever”, we know it must be something they will subvert. Otherwise, why would the characters keep bringing it up in this fashion?
The Owl House has become Luz’s home since the beginning of the show. And while Luz’s mom certainly throws a wrench into how Luz should feel about that, it’s something that I think, and hope, will be explored. If Luz didn’t want to live in the Boiling Isles and grow up to have some sort of witch job, she wouldn’t have fought so hard to get into Hexside, a SCHOOL FOR MAGIC, when she has like less than three months max to be in the Boiling Isles.
I feel like Luz shouldn’t go home because the human realm isn’t her home anymore. She may be a human, but the inhabitants of the demon realm are starting to see her as one of their own. Home shouldn’t be solely defined as living in a house with your parent, regardless of how much you care for or love them. That shouldn’t be your sole defining thing of home. Home should be a place you feel safe and loved. A place where you can define yourself without fear of judgement.
Luz’s mom may love her, and may think that stripping Luz of her eccentricities is for the best, we know it’s not. Eda may not be super reliable sometimes, but her growing love and care for Luz is evident. Luz has created more of a life for herself in the demon realm compared to her entire life in the human realm. Hell, Luz went from having no friends to several friends and even having someone potentially romantically interested in her! *cough* Amity *cough*
My overall point is that Luz’s very being is linked to the Boiling Isles now. She lives there. She attends school there. The reason Luz flourishes in the Boiling Isles despite the challenges she faces as a human is because it’s the place she’s meant to be in. She doesn’t aim to be a witch because it’s cool or because it’s fulfilling her own fantasies, she does it because she realizes this is truly what she wants to be. Nature itself shines it upon her to learn from it. It knows that Luz desires this and works hard for it. Yes, her attention problems lead to issues, but she discovers her spells when she does set her mind to it. The ice glyph is shown when she finally is forced to sit down and take a moment. Not trying to cheat it out with the wand, but to take in her surroundings. And then she notices it. It may be her second spell, but it’s her first acceptance that the realm itself will help her learn. It knows this place? It’s where she belongs.
After all, if Luz’s calling is to learn magic the way she is what good would any of her lessons from the demon realm be if she were to return to the human realm permanently?
P.S. Luz could literally visit her mom whenever too, Eda could just open the door on weekends or something so Luz and her friends could visit. Boarding school is a thing, remember. You get sent away all year to nearly all year for school, thus what becomes home? The school you spend 9-10 months in or the home you spend 1-2 months in?
Back in the beginning of 2020, I had made a short post on Tumblr talking about how I think Gravity Falls was the best animated series to premiere and end in the 2010s. Alex Hirsch and his team created one of my favorite stories with wonderful themes and one of the greatest mysteries presented in an animated medium. So when I initially found out several years ago that Dana Terrace, Alex’s partner and someone who was probably most well known for her work on the DuckTales reboot, I was very excited.
Of course, time passed and I wondered when the show would finally drop. Luckily, it came right at the best time. Several big and well loved animated series, like SPOP or SU, were beginning to end. And The Owl House broke into my heart as quickly as Gravity Falls did.
For anyone reading who might NOT know what The Owl House is, I’ll give a short synopsis. Luz Noceda is a 14-year-old Latina girl who is an outcast at school. She doesn’t have friends and enjoys fantasy worlds to escape into. After an incident at school, her mom decides to send her off to a summer camp to be converted into a “normal person.” Before she can leave, she finds an owl has stolen her favorite book and she follows him into an old shack with a door that leads her to the Demon Realm. From there she meets a woman named Eda, a witch called The Owl Lady, and her roommate, a small demon named King. From there, Luz decides to stay on these Boiling Isles, finding herself accepted amongst her new housemates while she learns to be a witch from Eda.
Already, the overall theme to me is great. Don’t let other people, regardless of who they are in your life, tell you who to be. And this is something that permeates for the entire main cast. But this is kinda common, so why is this easily becoming one of my new favorite animated shows? Well, for me, it’s because of the tropes it subverts almost entirely in this magic school genre.
And they do go from smaller tropes to bigger ones. Some smaller ones include the principal at Hexside, Hieronymus Bump. From his appearances, he comes off as extremely worried about the school in a stereotypical way of the image of the school and not exactly its students. In the episode, The First Day, Luz finally attends Hexside where she is unable to pick one single magic track to go onto. When she’s caught mixing magic, she’s placed into the detention course where she can’t learn magic. Bump is following the rules to a T as he wants a donation from the huge Emperor’s Coven to pay for the repairs to Luz’s previous visits, and the Coven forbids mixing magic.
However, after Luz and her fellow detention classmates save the school from a Basilisk by mixing magic, we see that Bump actually dissolves the detention class to allow students to mix magic and in turn allowing Luz to study every track. It’s a nice subversion of the usual mean principal who might only do this if he’s being blackmailed. Rather here, Bump sees the usefulness of mixing magic and how well it was used to stop the Basilisk who easily incapacitated the entire school.
That’s only one example of subverting these kind of magic school tropes. But obviously, the most important subversion in the show is the character of Amity Blight. Amity first appears in the third episode, I Was a Teenage Abomination, which also introduces a lot of the Hexsiders like Willow and Gus.
In the episode, Amity is portrayed as just the generic rival character and foil to the main protagonist. Someone who exists solely to not like and to see Luz triumph over. She’s the mean girl who excels at everything and stopped being Willow’s friend because Willow wasn’t good enough. But… that’s not who Amity is. At all. Amity really only fulfills this role for this singular episode. Following this, her major appearances are about deconstructing this Draco Malfoy-esque role.
Amity is important because it’s allowing Amity to follow along with these themes of not letting anyone tell you who you can and can’t be. In the episode, Covention, we meet Amity again which results in Luz challenging her to a Witch’s Duel. Of course it doesn’t go well when Eda and her sister, Lilith, use Luz and Amity in an attempt to prove their own ways to the other. We see how upset Amity is, and in this moment of vulnerability, one can see how much pressure she is under to become a powerful witch. At first, we’re not sure why, but it’s something we’ll get to. This is only Amity’s second major appearance, and we’re already seeing that this stuck-up and bullyish exterior is nothing more than a facade.
In Hooty’s Moving Hassle, Amity isn’t a main character, but we can see her at the end of the episode looking out the window forlornly. She’s supposed to be doing a ritual with her “friends”, but she isn’t. Rather, she sits there alone. She looks tired and sad. Not with anything in particular. Just herself. Her situation. She doesn’t look like she wants to be there.
This moves into Lost in Language, which is directly after this. In this episode, Luz encounters Amity at the library while returning some overdue books for Eda. We see Amity reading her favorite children’s book to the kids there. An open and honest depiction of who Amity actually is. Of course, once more, she comes off to a bad start with Luz, whom Amity can’t seem to figure out. Luz spends the rest of the day hanging out with Amity’s twin older siblings, Emira and Eldric. The two are complete troublemakers, who seem to be on the complete opposite end of the personality spectrum from Amity.
A star flies past the library that night, bringing the books contents to life. We find out Emira and Eldric brought Luz here to get revenge on Amity, whom they find too uptight and want to get back at using Amity’s diarty. Luz is obviously uncomfortable with this, and finds Amity may be someone she truly can be friends with. Especially when she finds out that Amity’s favorite book series is the same as her own. Of course, Luz accidentally finds Amity’s diary. After a small struggle, pages fall out revealing Amity’s deepest thoughts.
Most of those thoughts though are about Luz and some other things. Why won’t the human leave her alone? But the first one is the most important. She writes “I wish I had somewhere to go.” This just hurts. Amity sees what has happened and pins the blame on Luz, calling her a bully. I think this is where we can really see where Amity is. Who she is. While she comes off as the antagonistic bully, she isn’t. She’s alone. Sad. She flees to a secret nook in the library where she can be herself and doesn’t have to think about the kind of life outside that’s being pushed onto her.
Amity may hang out with the popular girls. But Amity doesn’t like them. Amity doesn’t consider those people her friends. Amity, deep down, knows she doesn’t have friends. And her only reason for hanging around with them is to keep up appearances. But… that’s not for her own ego. She’s being forced to do that.
Amity’s favorite book being about a character named Otabin, who seeks friendship and positive relationships, is very reflective of herself. Amity wants friends, but she can’t find them. She’s forced to be stuck with these people she doesn’t like, but has to keep up with. And by saving Otabin with Luz, Amity finds someone she can possibly have an actual fresh start with. After all, things didn’t go well with Willow. And Luz tries to apologize by giving Amity the newest Azura book, which Amity didn’t have.
It’s a small gesture, but it is a reached out hand to bridge a gap by using their shared common passion. It shows that even Luz can tell that Amity isn’t a bad person, but rather there’s something more to her. And Amity is torn where to go. We see a lot that Amity is kind of in the shadows, and in the shadows are the only places she can be herself and let her true emotions out. In Covention we see this when she runs off after the duel. And Luz shows her the small lights she can create now. And in Lost in Language, the same thing happens. Amity’s most pure personality is only allowed out in the dark of the night in the library, the only place she truly feels safe to be herself.
By the time of Adventures in the Elements, we see Amity is moving tiny steps forward toward being herself. But most importantly, we see how quickly she has moved toward being Luz’s friend. To the point where she’s setting up a time and place to meet with Luz to talk about the Azura book. She’s also happy to hear that Luz may be attending Hexside, but that Luz needs mastery over two spells.
Eda attempts to teach Luz to take in nature so she can learn magic from it, Luz is impatient though. They head to the mountains where they encounter Amity and her siblings also training as Amity attempts to master a fire spell. And there’s just a lot of cute moments in the episode. One of the best ones being Amity turning and seeing Luz in the middle of training and waving to her, before Amity falls into the snow. It’s a small detail, but it does show how quickly Amity is progressing in trying to find someone who genuinely likes her for her and not for some obtuse arbitrary rich family reason.
Even when Luz ends up using up Amity’s training wand’s power, which results in a snow monster kidnapping Eda and the twins, Amity traps Luz so she won’t get hurt. She lacks confidence in Luz’s abilities, but is more worried about Luz’s safety than anything. And when Luz finally takes in nature, and discovers ice magic? Amity is actually proud of Luz. Sure, Luz has to apologize for nearly getting everyone killed, but Luz is making strides toward magic and Amity is making strides toward Luz.
Again the subversion is that, the Malfoy-esque character isn’t allowed this kind of development early on. Usually it comes out at the very end. But, Amity is being allowed to develop from step one. She enjoys being around Luz. And as we see in The First Day, this absolutely terrifies Amity. To the point where she’s walking alone in the hallways wondering how this affects her and Luz and if them attending Hexside together changes anything.
These are just small things. Amity is opening up. And this? This scares her. Especially because she’s extremely drawn to Luz more than anyone else in her recent life. As many others have pointed out, Amity is trapped in the shadows until Luz comes along as her light, represented literally by Luz’s first spell being able to cast light.
The last major episode that we’ll talk about is the most current one as of airing, Understanding Willow. This episode may seem to be about Willow, but it’s major focus is Amity as well. Most importantly, her previous friendship with Willow and what exactly led to that ending. It’s all set up through Willow’s memories being pulled out and placed out as photographs. When Amity sees them with one of her “friends”, she panics and attempts to burn the memory. Of course, we see that Amity loses control of the fire and they burn up all of Willow’s memories.
Luz and Amity seek out help from Eda, who transports them into Willow’s mind in order to repair the damage to her memories. We also see that Willow has two dads, which is just good for us to move forward with the idea of Lumity happening. But again, back to Amity’s character. One thing I find interesting is the faith that Luz has in Amity. Luz is disappointed in Amity, but she’s not angry. Luz knows Amity well enough by now to know that even though what Amity did was wrong, she didn’t do it out of maliciousness.
When we see Amity going through these memories that both she and Willow shared, we can see that… these are things that Amity treasures and holds dear to herself as well. And when they see that the inner part of Willow’s mind is purposefully burning and destroying everything with Amity in them, this hurts Amity. There’s a final memory that Amity has been avoiding this entire time, and the inner Willow forces Amity and Luz inside of it.
This memory is the moment where Amity told Willow they weren’t friends anymore. And this occurred at Amity’s birthday party. We see how much this shakes Willow, and why it angers the inner Willow so much. And Amity, as much as she doesn’t want to face the memory, allows her own memory to play as well. That, right before this interaction, Amity’s parents were… well… abusing her emotionally. They don’t like Willow, and they find her to be so below their family. They don’t care that Willow brings Amity joy, they just want their appearances to not be tarnished by having a child play with this other child they find repulsive. And if Amity doesn’t stop being friends with her? If Amity doesn’t cut things off and starting being around her shitty modern “friends” they will make sure Willow never gets a chance at becoming a proper witch. They will make sure Willow never steps a foot into Hexside.
And they’re pushing this onto a child. A small child. Their small child. And the only thing Amity can do is stop being friends with Willow so that Willow can pursue her own dreams one day without Amity’s parents doing something to ruin them. And this episode just shows how harsh Amity must live. Why she is the way she is. How even from young childhood, her parents have been emotionally manipulating and abusing her. How they utilize the most powerful ways to get someone to do something for them. Guilt. They can ruin Willow’s life and place that guilt on Amity, their extremely young daughter.
You could have stopped being friends with her! It’s your fault for not doing so.
This one scene makes my heart break for Amity. To see that so much has been done to her, to the point of her closing herself into the darkness completely so that she doesn’t hurt anyone she might come to care about. She plays the role of the bully to isolate herself. So people won’t want to be her friend. No matter how much she wants love and companionship, she sets herself up to never be able to have that. Because if she does, her parents may step in to ruin it all.
“Willow, you were never too weak to be my friend. I was too weak to be yours.”
This sets up why Luz is so important to her, but also why she’s always so worried about her relationship with Luz. Luz is a human. Not even a witch. Luz is the epitome of everything her parents hate about witches. Except Luz is even worse because she can’t perform magic without drawing out the Isle’s natural energy through magic circles.
And this? This frightens Amity. Even more possibly than her friendship with Willow. While we know same-sex relationships exist on the Boiling Isles, as we see Willow has two dads, and it’s very possible that Amity’s feelings for Luz may run deeper than friendship. And this? This is why she’s so scared. She’s falling for a human. She’s a Blight. She couldn’t even be allowed to have a “weak witch” as a friend when she was younger. How could she possibly deal with any burgeoning feelings for Luz?
In the hallways, Amity worries if this will change anything between her and Luz. Why? Because now they will see each other everyday at school. This creates more chances for Amity to gravitate towards Luz. And with Understanding Willow, we see that Amity may even start to disregard that. The invitation to her “friend’s” party? She lets it fly away. Almost… almost like she’s taking a full step to try and be more open in public with her feelings. She wants to be who she wants to be. And after seeing the damage she caused to Willow? That might have been her own wake up call.
I find this important. Many people have been using the song “Little Miss Perfect” to describe Amity. And what Amity is going through can be compared to what a younger lesbian may go through. Parents who convince you to be one way, and use threats to force you to shove parts of yourself down. Parents who see signs of who you may turn out to be when you’re young, and use emotional manipulation to repress that within you. Obviously here, it’s Amity having feelings for Luz being referenced to a real life case of the “Little Miss Perfect” realizing she’s a lesbian but her status and parents forcing that back down, creating a miserable person who only exists for the status of others. And I think tackling this issue of homophobic parents underneath the more veiled references to Amity being a Blight, a powerful witch family, and Luz being a human, someone the Blights probably see as utterly worthless.
The next episode that airs, next week, is Enchanting Grom Fright, where we got that good image of Luz and Amity in formal wear at a dance in the hallways. Alone. Close. While Amity has a very soft smile on her face. The amount of time spent up on Luz and Amity is very indicative of where we possibly might be going with them. And I find this to be important because of how Amity’s character so closely resembles that repressed lesbian kid who is slowly opening up to someone she knows won’t judge her. And to have this on a Disney show? To have this happen before the series finale is paramount in the evolution of LGBT representation in animation.
To allow a relationship like this to grow and actually show the nuances of a possible queer teenage relationship from its start? That’s important because shows like LoK and SPOP give us some great rep, but that rep isn’t too focused on post-admission. And the way that, so far, that Amity’s character and relationship with Luz has developed so far has been so wonderful. It doesn’t make us wait to the finale or final season to show that Amity can be a better person. We’re seeing that all right now. And that? That’s important to me. That’s important to a lot of people. To see Luz, this oddball girl, become accepted by Eda and King and all of her new friends? To see her then essentially reach out and save this abuse victim in probably a time where she’ll need it most? There’s so much here, and it’s all done so wonderfully. And I can’t wait to see where The Owl House goes next.
(Note: This is an opinion piece on my thoughts on some of the negative criticism I’ve seen for The Last of Us Part 2. While I have yet to play the game, I disagree with the overall thought based on the premise and what I’ve seen. My opinion is subject to change after I play it, but I felt annoyed at people all using the same criticism and acting as if no other piece of media has existed prior that’s been… well… depressing, cynical and bleak on humanity.)
I recently read over some reviews for The Last of Us Part 2, which releases this Friday. One of the most important criticisms I read was the violence and the overall nihilistic nature of humanity as seen in the game. A Forbes article detailing the game’s review embargo being lifted has warnings plastered that because of a strict embargo still remaining in on the last twelve hours of the game, that people need to be cautious about thinking the game is good.
The negative criticism comes from the apparent bleak and cynical attitude towards humanity, and it’s something that I would actually disagree with at least from the perspective they’re framing it from. A constant revelation is that the reviewers became numb to the overwhelming amount of violence in The Last of Us Part 2. And this is something that… honestly confused me. Wouldn’t that be the point? Some games have violence for the sake of having violence and it eventually becomes pointless, like in Doom. And I love Doom, but the gore and blood and demons eventually just become part of the routine.
However, The Last of Us has always dealt in extremes based on basic humanity. One important note is that the game is TOO cynical on its view of humanity as a whole, and while I have yet to actually play the game like most people, a cynical view on humanity is the right one. Especially for a minority person like Ellie is. See humans are cruel. Humans are monsters. The critics talk about how humans come together in times of need, but you have to remember that NOT EVERYONE is like that. For every protester and rioter out in the world right now, there is one or two more counter protesting racist bigots or false flagging plain clothed police officers making protesters out to be horrible. The reaction to COVID-19 by many people was not to stay in their homes and take precautions to not spread the disease. Rather it was to grab guns, gather in public places and shove their guns in the faces of police officers so they could eat in the McDonalds. George Floyd was brutally murdered by police over a counterfeit bill that he probably didn’t even know was counterfeit. Even now more innocent people are being brutally attacked and even killed by police officers. The government itself is run by a group of fascist oligarchs who support the removal of rights of anyone who is not a cisgendered heterosexual white Christian male.
Let’s face it. Especially here in the US? Humanity sucks. Remember, The Last of Us takes place in a post apocalyptic world too, where the cordyceps fungus can infect humans too. This game takes place TWENTY years after society collapsed. A society where major safe zones are run by a fascist military dictatorship and that a lot of group outside of the safe zone are run by equally differing extremists. The Fireflies weren’t so good either. They lied and withheld information from Joel and Ellie so they could try AGAIN to make a cure. Even Joel himself has mowed down so many people over the past twenty years. In games where violence occurs, but violence is not the theme, we often take it for granted. We take killing NPCs as nothing more than strategically removing the enemy. Do I throw this glass bottle over there so I can strangle the guy? Or do I get into a fist fight with him before he can call for help? Or maybe shooting him would be easiest? That’s how we view the combat of something like The Last of Us.
The idea that the game is simply “too violent” and “too depressing” or “so much violence I got numb to it” is something you don’t often see in reviews of games where you’re killing people or demons or whatever. In an FPS, going around killing everyone is barely ever even spoken of as “mindless violence.” How much violence does 19-year old John Gamer get out of the newest Call of Duty? Well if he plays it like most people, he’s getting near daily violence in multiplayer. He runs around loading out his guns and killing other people in multiplayer. But never once does anyone really speak about the POINT of violence.
The only reason, I can suspect, The Last of Us Part 2 is being ripped apart by some critics because of the violence is because that very violence is part of the very fabric of the game itself. This isn’t new though. The Last of Us isn’t the first medium to have people in an apocalyptic setting doing horribly shitty things to each other. The Walking Dead is 193 issues of suffering. Rarely anything good happens and it’s always one horrible tragedy after another. Even when things might get better, they eventually collapse once more because in a lawless world like the post-apocalypse? There are no rules to follow. There’s no centralized structure for society anymore. People do as they please to make their own lives easier. It’s easier to kill someone else and take their stuff than to find your own stuff. It’s not new and it’s certainly only fueling the conspiracy theory that the game itself must be horrible and every critic has been paid off to give it glowing reviews.
Now unless there is a full consensus on the negativity of a game, I often don’t take reviews into consideration when buying a game, especially a sixty dollar triple A game. The criticism I’ve seen mostly seems in relation to the world around us now, the idea that The Last of Us Part 2 focuses too much on the negative cynical idea of humanity, and fails to pay any attention to the good of humanity. Of course, there are good humans. There are good humans who do good things. For every bigot, there is some rioting protester fighting for someone’s rights. But this is reality. This is not The Last of Us. Our world isn’t crumbled due to fungus and assholes grabbing up power with their guns.
To say the game is bad and that it’s themes of violence are hammered over your head, only because of the current world climate is not criticism in good faith. Rather the bleak cynical world of this game does not mesh well with the bleak cynical reality we live in at this moment. And while I will give this game its own proper review upon finishing it, I wanted to leave my thoughts on this. It’s an interesting fact that this game is being called out for being “so violent you become numb to it” while other games probably have equal amounts of violence. Same for movies too. As much as everyone is mocking the comparison of video games to movies all of a sudden, there are movies where there is just mindless violence all over the place. Where people are brutally murdered for no reason, and those movies are often heralded as masterpieces for being “so raw.”
I’m not trying to compare movies to games, though, that’s a whole other topic that I can sum up as “they are two different mediums with different merits.” If The Last of Us Part 2 is the game that sets out to be just a bleak and depressing time, that is FINE. That’s not a criticism of the game when the writer outright states the game is not meant to be “fun” like PS4’s Spider-Man.
Remember Life is Strange? A game whose one, of only two possible, endings is so bleak and depressing and horrifying that the music in the ending implies that Max is going to kill herself one day? There are so many games where the ending makes you question the point of the game itself, like Life is Strange. Of course, that’s only related to one of the two endings, but if you choose the more infamous ending, it’s just depressing and unfair and cruel but it gets a pass because people tie it’s horrible stupid and cruel and “bury your gays” ending as “Letting go of someone you love.”
Critics mostly agree that the game itself is worth playing. And I believe, in some cases, some of these reviewers simply may be biased from the get-go. Now I love the first game to pieces, it’s one of the best games of the 2010s. The Last of Us Part 2 sets out to be something else. It is NOT another The Last of Us. And it shouldn’t be just… the same game over with a new plot. The story and themes of the original game can’t be repeated. So many sequels get shit on because they “aren’t enough like the original” or “are too much like the original.”
All of these are pre-release opinions. Who knows how I’ll feel after I play it. However, for now, I just wanna precaution people on one thing. If you end up liking or loving the game, you’re for sure gonna see a ton of negative reviews. Mostly negative user reviews that are only going to be further pushed and hyped up by people who have been WAITING to hate the game from day one. It’s why a certain view review on a channel that mostly does 100-200k views has over a million on his The Last of Us Part 2 review. To me, I honestly believe some people are either bitter and resentful over how cynical the game is or they are
Review of The Last of Us Part 2 will be incoming after I complete the game. The Last of Us Part 2 launches on Friday, July 19th 2020.
So I got recommended one of my least favorite YouTube channels based on my She-Ra search history, and we all know and hate Clownfish TV. Their name is almost self-reflective of their own foolishness. The channel itself makes no attempt to cloud itself other than a bunch of people pushing out the lowest common denominator of content. Clickbait titles, clickbait thumbnails, and overall inflammatory content that mainly appeals to heavy right wing people. A lot of people don’t like to throw that around, but it is their main audience no matter how much they try to say they aren’t. The comments on these videos are enough to tell you what kind of people the audience are as well as the ones behind the channel.
Not to mention they false flag a lot as well. If you don’t know what false flagging is, it’s the idea of planting yourself into a comment and saying you’re something you aren’t and agreeing with a horrible explanation. Such as someone claiming to be gay, but saying even the most well developed character relationship is forced if it’s same sex, but saying a horrible rushed straight romance was excellent. It’s an attempt to give credibility to someone horrible by claiming you are part of the marginalized group. I saw a comment in the newest Clownfish She-Ra video where the commenter claimed to be a gay man, but saw much more compatibility between SEA HAWK and ADORA.
The main argument these people hide behind are the timeless anti-SJW arguments as well as the idea of it somehow ruining the original show. I’ve seen some commenters refer to Noelle as having “hijacked” the property, and their newest video is about referring to She-Ra as a multi-million dollar fanfic as well as saying it ruins the original show. The idea of it “ruining their childhoods.” Now to note, Masters of the Universe as a property in its original form has been dead since 1987. We’ve seen attempts to bring it back, but it never hit the same popularity it had in the 1980s until She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
Going back, the MOTU franchise is just not that good. It suffers from the same thing as every 1980s cartoon, and that’s the fact that it’s primarily engineered to sell toys. The show itself serves as a commercial to sell you a product. TMNT is the same way. It has a MOTW format in an attempt to sell you more and more and more action figures. That’s why there’s so many old TMNT or MOTU toys. Because that was the point of those series. They had a very basic lore and then that’s it. MOTU’s lore is, as I said, very very basic. It doesn’t explore much, and it really boils down to selling the toys they needed to sell.
Reimaginings of old properties, to me, is not a bad thing. I see people calling it the epitome of laziness, but at the same time when the He-Man show by Kevin Smith was announced they all rejoiced it even though at the end of the day it’s the same thing. But it gets a pass because the person is Kevin Smith and the show is He-Man. Now I don’t like Kevin Smith at all. He’s a half-baked writer who made one successful movie, and now worms his way into everything he can because of said movie. It’s very easy to see from the comments on this video that the people there are heavily anti-LGBT. I mean, 90% of the comments were talking about how She-Ra oversexualized its characters. Let that sink in. Two girls kissed and that’s the conclusion they jumped too. (Writing this, I had to close the tab just because of how gross the comments were getting.)
I am a fan of Power Rangers, and have been since I was a child. Unlike MOTU, Power Rangers has endured to this day. And one thing to note is that more often than not, if a show wants to try and sell toys and get ratings via nostalgia bait, they will make as much reference to the original as possible. The past ten years of Power Rangers has pretty much been non-stop references to the 1990s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers in an attempt to recapture the popularity of that era. The issue is, that era is over. It’s long gone, and while we can have nostalgia over it, nobody born after that era will care that much about it.
I’ll get back to my Power Rangers references in a moment, but SPOP was a success for many reasons. It’s a mix of it being well written, character driven, and a good diverse cast of characters. And yes, Mattel released toys for SPOP but it’s been far few and in between in merch. Trust me, I’d love more SPOP merch besides the dolls and the overpriced Adora and Catra Super7 figures. The issue is, the lack of merchandise shows that it was less about selling toys and more about telling a new story of interest using an old property.
In 2016, Boom Studios, a comic publisher, started releasing a Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers comics. The comic itself is a reimagining of the original show. However it lacks much of the corniness, campiness, and overall MOTW formula the original series had. It deals with many social issues as well. Basically, the story itself takes from the original show, however nothing is the same for the most part outside of major plot beats. But even those beats have been changed heavily for the sake of an interesting and cohesive narrative with well developed characters. The Ranger the common public knows and loves the most is the original Green/White Ranger, Tommy Oliver. Everyone knows him, and his merch is bought the most, which is why most anniversaries for the series on TV are referred to as Tommy-versaries. The specials are mostly about Tommy, with all the other Rangers simply serving as background cameo fodder. The comic turns the fan favorite Tommy into a very weak willed character in the comics. He’s a good person, but by the time he becomes the White Ranger and leader of the team, he can’t really handle it. He has become the most powerful Ranger, but his inability to lead the team after Jason’s departure leads the group into many traps.
The point being is that reimaginings of older properties isn’t a bad thing. And as I’ve said before, just because something new has arrived does not mean the old thing is gone forever. If someone truly hates SPOP so much? If someone hates it for “ruining their lives” and feels the need to make fifty hour long rants about how horrible She-Ra is and how Noelle is a horrible human and writer, they don’t need to watch the new one and continuously complain about it for eternity. The original MOTU isn’t erased. It’s still there to watch if you seriously want to. Just like how if someone doesn’t like new Power Rangers, they can turn on Netflix and watch the original show whenever they want.
I used PR as my example primarily because it’s the franchise I’ve personally seen evolve and devolve over the past couple decades. And the thing is, the PR comic has been heavily well received. It’s been seen as the proper way for how a PR story should be told in the modern day. Of course, there’s a one huge reason why so many people dislike SPOP, which we’ll get to soon.
For my research, I often go to the main places where actual fans of these things would hang around. I visited the MOTU subreddit to gather the opinions of big MOTU fans according to previous posts who frequent said subreddit. Most MOTU fans did have a positive reaction to SPOP, referring to it as an improvement over the original series in a lot of places. Even people who were fans of the original designs said it themselves that the original show exists, and they can easily separate SPOP as it’s own show with its own designs.
Of course, the people who absolutely hate the show hated it for one reason and one reason only.
I hate it. Agenda driven. Ruining something i cared about from my childhood.
I think at this point that is the primary driving force behind most people who hate the show. It’s not any genuine criticism of the show. I tend to roll my eyes when all negative criticism is the same exact argument.
Agenda driven
Ruined my childhood
The new She-Ra looks like a boy
Not enough like the original
“You’re shoving too much sexuality into a kid’s show!”
“You don’t need to see yourself in media. No one does.”
We’ve gotten to a point where it’s like yeah, Noelle is saying in interviews proudly that she pushed for the gay agenda. It’s always the same arguments over and over, and it is tedious to go places and see people angrily complain about it. I’ve even seen some people talk about how horrible Noelle’s writing is, and how she’ll never be able to sell an original idea. All this ignorance forgetting that Noelle had to sell ideas in the first place.
For something like Lumberjanes, she had to pitch that comic idea to get it greenlit by Boom Studios. And guess what? The comic that was intended to be eight issues long? It’s ongoing to this day with up to over seventy issues, five yearly annuals, two graphic novels, and four chapter books. Noelle left after Issue 17, primarily because she began to work on She-Ra’s production. Even as much as a couple months ago, we saw a picture of Noelle in what I assume was working on a pitch for a Lumberjanes animated show. And because of the overall success of She-Ra, I could see a Lumberjanes animated show being picked up by someone. Maybe even Dreamworks on Netflix.
The thing is, none of these people can actually create real criticisms about anything. As a result, they simply bark the same things over and over again because they cannot form real critique about why this show is bad. So in the end, their opinions don’t really matter.
My final thing to talk about here is the last point.
“You don’t need to see yourself in media. No one does.”
This is something I see a lot of these types say. You know. The neurotypical cisgendered heterosexual white people who see themselves represented in every medium since the dawn of the written word. Of course THEY don’t feel the need to see themselves in media. After all, they are in every piece of media. Even some of the media we come to see as boundary breaking, like Steven Universe, has its primary character being a cisgendered heterosexual white person. Even in a show that’s meant to break bounds for LGBT representation has that central character in every corner of the show. So god forbid a show have major non-neurotypical lesbians as the driving force of the show.
People who are not in that majority of the rest of 99% of society need to see themselves in something. It shows that you are a person too. You aren’t some abnormality. You are a person. It lets you know that other people like you exist. NT cishet white people don’t have to ever deal with the idea of being alone in the world. Depending on what kind of place you grow up in or who you grow up with? You might never even know there are other trans, gay, lesbian or non-NT people out there. Representation is important for that very reason.
At the end of the day, I have this to say about pretty much any show that is remotely left leaning or diverse in its cast. It will be called political. It will be angrily ripped apart for no reason other than the fact it tries to be progressive.
So this is my advice to anyone who sees these kinda comments online from anyone. Ignore it. I let stuff affect me heavily a lot of the time. But I’m trying harder not to let these opinions hurt me. Because I know at the end of the day, they are empty temper tantrums. I wrote this for anyone who is like me who lets comments get to them. I wanted to get a lot of this off my chest, because She-Ra has come to mean a lot to me since it began streaming.
MOTU, from its origins, was about love and empathy for other people. Fighting evil armies hellbent on destroying everyone. So I find it funny that the people hating on SPOP, which continues those themes of love and empathy, complain and compare it to the original show which has those same themes as well all while spewing the most hateful comments. And they will never ever see the irony.
Tl;dr: Reimaginings do not ruin or remove the original properties. They exist to bring new life to dead franchises that haven’t been touched on a major scale since their inception. Haters will always spew the same four or five points at fans of the show primarily because they do not like the progressive diversity of the show. Even if She-Ra was considered by the entire general population to be the greatest piece of fiction to ever exist, these people would still argue that it was bad because of those reasons. So at the end, it’s best to simply ignore these people and let them stay in their echo-y bubble chambers until they pop. You will always have someone out there who does love you for you, and it’s better to ignore the people who would rather say you don’t exist or your existence is some sort of political statement.
I wanted to write this little thing about the show, primarily because of how much this show has hit me. Now I just wanna make some warnings first. This post is gonna detail why I think this show is so wonderful to me, as well as touch on spoilers from the entire series from beginning to end. If you haven’t watched season five all the way through yet, I just thought I’d put another spoiler here just in case. Can never be too safe when it comes to making sure others don’t get hit with spoilers. I also wanna touch on some of the themes of the show, which include mostly the mental illness I closely identify with Catra. I don’t wanna make anyone uncomfortable, so if topics of borderline personality disorder and abuse makes you uncomfortable, turn back now. I hope anyone who has suffered similarly
To preface this, prior to 2018 I was not really a fan of He-Man or She-Ra in any terms. Those were 80s shows primarily dedicated to pushing toys as opposed to being a story. And that’s fine and typical of a cartoon from the 1980s, but it was never my cup of tea. However, Noelle Stevenson was my cup of tea. I had been a fan of Noelle prior to the premiere of She-Ra, primarily her work on the comic book series, Lumberjanes. The comic had been one of my few reprieves from life in 2016, when I was dealing with the revelation of being trans. I hadn’t really found all that positive depictions of trans people before, and I was searching for some form of representation that was natural and well depicted. That was something Lumberjanes had excelled in. I was instantly hooked, as well as becoming a huge fan of Noelle’s other major work, Nimona.
So when I had heard Noelle was going to become the showrunner of a She-Ra reboot, I was half-skeptical and half-excited. I wondered how Noelle could possibly turn the 1980s era series into a show that would fit in well in the modern climate, along with the hopes of deeper characters and story that Noelle had experience in writing. So yes, I was extremely excited as time progressed and more and more information regarding the show dropped. Of course, there were the angry detractors who based their primarily wrong opinions on the design of Adora, but hey I was 100% for it.
A lot of my love for the show derives from Catra and Adora. I think through the entire series I was rooting for Catra to eventually build herself back up to where she needed to be. I always suspected I was borderline, and I recognized a lot of my own negative qualities in Catra, and after eventually being professionally diagnosed Catra became a character I was extremely attached to. I rooted for her to get better, but I too could be a little disconcerting of her actions. And… that was something I primarily appreciated about Catra’s treatment. Catra’s entire character arc is designated around this cycle of lashing out and hurting everyone, including herself. And yes, a lot of what Catra did is wrong. But I empathized with her struggles. She was so lost. A victim of child abuse by Shadow Weaver, she never knew any real positive coping mechanisms outside of huddling for positive support from Adora.
The importance of Catra’s development as a character, to me, was to produce a harsh cold look at what people like that? People like us can go through, at least that’s what I got from it. Watching Catra lash out so much was important because, when she would eventually come to healing it would be all the more satisfactory. Feelings of worthlessness, self-doubt, and so much more can be seen in every scene with Catra. Catra fighting over what she wants, and at the end of the day Catra just wants to not feel the pain she feels every beating moment of her existence. Adora left to protect these people, as Adora feels the need to literally die for any and everyone in order to feel useful to people. But Catra felt betrayed by the idea that Adora broke her promise to stay with her forever. She lashes out in a negative way that harms others. And I understood why.
It always hurt when people would scream horrible things about Catra being toxic and abusive all the time for four seasons. It hurt because Catra was locked in this cycle of self-hatred that no one cared to fully understand or help her break out of. I took Adora until season five to finally understand what Catra needed. Catra needed both love and someone to tell her what she was doing was horribly self-harming and would get her nowhere but pain. Prior, Adora just thought Catra was a villain (like many of the vocal anti-Catra haters) while Scorpia seemed like the opposite, someone who was just in everything she did. I think that’s a reason why Catra could never return those feelings Scorpia had for her. Catra needed what season five Adora was able to give her. Catra is not a horrible villainous abuser who get sick delight in torturing everyone. Catra is not some upstanding citizen to aspire to. Catra is a trapped, scarred, and mentally ill girl who only knows how to feel a little bit better by allowing her anger and sadness to deregulate around her.
Those behaviors are not good. And I know that. In my life I’ve allowed my negative emotions to lash out and control me, and afterwards there’s never a good feeling. Just in place of anger and pain, it’s emptiness. Until anger, sadness, and pain make their way back into you. I needed a character like Catra. I needed a character I saw myself in. We just didn’t see the bad, we saw the pain Catra would go through. So much so we would see Catra lost and broken, just as much as we’d see her antagonizing the rebellion.
Catra pushes people away. You push people away to avoid rejection. You don’t let anyone in out of self preservation for what’s left of your stable state of mind. Between her perceived rejection by Adora and the complete and total rejection she received from Shadow Weaver, this was a completely understandable response. It was something I could see in myself, to not get close to anyone ever. Just to save your own state of mind.
The ending of season four, when Double Trouble confronts Catra, is one of the most important scenes. It gives the desperate confrontation of Catra’s problems from someone who is 100% capable of copying her appearance. However, it also is the half-assed understanding that a lot of people would give to Catra. The idea that everything in her entire life that has gone wrong is 100% her own fault, and it’s her own fault she’ll be alone until the day she dies. For me, that’s the idea of telling someone it’s their own fault they suffer from some condition that is not their fault. Catra needed someone to tell her most of what DT said, however squaring the blame solely on Catra only served to send her into an extreme depressive state, where she cared nothing for her own life. When Glimmer shows up, Catra just tells her to do it. Because Catra now believes she is at solely at fault for her current state and, as we’d see in season five, because she believes she is so worthless that no one needs or wants her. That she could be wiped from existence without a second thought from anyone.
For so long, I’ve felt like Catra. I’ve felt the abandonment and betrayal from people who I thought were supposed to care about me. To this day, it’s happened so many times in my life that I have unfounded fears that anybody I start to care for and get close to will leave so I try to not be close because if they leave it won’t hurt as much. Even the idea of leaving as not to hurt the ones I do begin to love crosses my mind, much like how Catra teleports Glimmer to save her from Horde Prime. The double of her telling Adora how sorry she is for everything she’s done, while also surrendering herself to possible death as not to harm Adora ever again. Borderline characters are often written off as overly emotional joke characters or toxic abusive stereotypes. A character like Catra hits me so hard because how raw she is. Her emotions always feel real and justified to someone like me who can always see where Catra is coming from. I know it’s wrong, and I hurt to see Catra self-destruct over the course of three seasons. But all of that was required so that we could see the healing she needed.
Everything that happened over the course of the series was so well done. My heart always went out to Catra. She did things that were bad, yes. She did things that definitely make no logical sense, for sure. But even in the end, I hurt so much for Catra. She tried to fill the void in her life with things she thought would help her move on. Things that would fill the desire of someone who understood her. The importance of Catra to me is her raw and unapologetic portrayal. Everything that ever happened to Catra pre-season one was not her fault. And even then, Catra is probably not even close to finishing her own maturing. And seeing her get a happy ending made me cry. To see that in the end, she could accept finally that Adora never gave up on her? It’s something I needed to hear. Something that helps me realize the person I love in my life won’t give up on me either, and I have to believe in them and not the doubts that control me. The idea that I have done some not so good things before, but I don’t have to let all of those experiences define who I am as a person.
In the end, Catra was a person who was deserving of love. Someone who was capable of giving so much love in the same way she couldn’t control her negative emotions. Catra saved me from believing things couldn’t get better, and I was destined to self destruct permanently one day. And for that I will always be grateful to She-Ra and the crew who made it. She-Ra, to me, is not only a wonderfully crafted show (another topic I’d like to write about is how well its written) but also filled with so much heart for marginalized people who are stereotyped. BPD people unfortunately are horribly stereotyped as abusive or toxic people inherently. She-Ra helped, imo, to make people understand we are capable of healing and giving love too. We are more than the disorder people hate us for. And Catra, to me, is the greatest positive fictional example of a borderline person. And to me? That’s what I needed more than anything.
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