I Wholeheartedly Believe The Conversation Went Like This

this might turn into a structureless rant and it will be rambly, but i’m just gonna be so honest, that moment with sevika at the end was so unearned and it accidentally encapsulates one of my biggest gripes with season 2.

the writing of the season betrays everything they set up about the piltover-zaun conflict. i fully expected a deeper exploration into the innerworkings of piltovian systemic oppression and/or the failures of its institutions. and it didn’t even have to be nuanced, mind you - had they done any kind of social commentary on just one aspect, be it the corruption of the council or the indifference of the privileged class, and how it accelerated the pace of piltover-zaun wealth disparity, i would have been fine with it. (i have SO MANY ideas on this specific topic i’m not even joking, maybe just because i’m a no chill raging leftist idk.)

instead, what we got was half-baked ideas of generic activism (i refuse to call it class activism) and throwaway music videos about anti-establishmentarianism that just boil down to “oppression bad”. don’t get me wrong, this is not inherently a bad message, but it’s an underwhelming and ineffective one, because it’s so inoffensive that it doesn’t actually challenge anyone’s political standings enough to elicit radical changes. and if you don’t think any political development adjacent to “zaun independence” is a radical change then i don’t know what to tell you.

and worst of all, the cumulation of DECADES of class struggle manifested into… nothing. NOTHING. a mutual avenger-level age-of-ultron threat just sidelined that whole plot line into the stratosphere. “we were oppressed but there’s an invasion so we’re cool i guess?” - said no zaunite ever. and do i even want to get into the fact that the final boss is a zaunite or are we not ready for that conversation yet? (i mean people have talked in depth about how displeased they were with viktor’s character development more eloquently than i can so go read those posts and give them some love.)

it’s so unimaginative and ridiculous that at the end the resolution to the class struggle is the fact that poor people are represented in the council now. the conclusion to that whole conflict is not even a triumphant moment it just felt empty. and it felt empty because the story, in the way it eventually played out, did not respect the core conflict that it had consciously tried so hard to flesh out. piltover and its ruling class were condemned for the fact that they crippled an entire city and its people, but then never had to face the consequences of those actions - and they probably never will, because even if sevika’s on the council now, she can still (and will very likely) be outvoted in any zaun-related matter. be so fucking for real.

it’s actually funny and eerie how that ending mirrors our current world in the way political institutions treat marginalized minorities demanding better treatment: instead of making actual systemic changes, those in power often shut down voices of the oppressed by giving them a seat at the table but with little to no negotiation power. it’s a shut-up-and-take-it tactic. it’s a non-solution. it’s disingenuous and evil. and it’s so disappointing that the writers decided that the ending we got was the best one they could think of for the people of zaun.

Zaun never got its independence but its ok guys Sevika is on the council now

harold, they’re lesbians

people are gay, steven 

i’m a lesbian, carl 

don’t be a transphobe, chad 

we support the gays, david 

i’m not jealous, flavio. i’m gay

see, i have always interpreted syril’s motivation as finding a place where he can belong, whether that place is a person, a community or an ideology.

syril never really fits in with his colleagues on morlana one, he feels like “a stranger” and “a tenant” in his own childhood home, he doesn’t even have the same accent as any of his coworkers. sure, this can be because he is very socially awkward, but he sticks out like a sore thumb wherever he is. the only time where he sort of (but not really) blend in is when he works at the bureau of standards, not because he finally found his calling but because working a menial job directly for the empire in coruscant means there is little to no room for individuality.

for more than half of the season, we see that the only thing he CAN attach himself to is his own sense of self-importance. he yearns to be seen and recognized by the people he believes to share his values. at its core, his belief is simple and inoffensive enough: maintaining law, justice and order. humans have a natural inclination towards justice, so it stands to reason that he expects everyone to share his sense of righteousness. but when he becomes disillusioned with the people around him because they don’t care about the same things he does, he immediately feels displaced (and the audience feel that too.)

so we have a character who just doesn’t feel right no matter what situation the story puts him in and suddenly he’s with the isb. even though he doesn’t seem to fit in at first, he feels vibrant. he feels energetic. he feels alive. as if he has found his calling. under the rhetoric of the empire, his faith in justice and order is easily reassured and at the same time easily misconstrued as being of “service to the empire”. in other words, he feels vindicated and thus he conflates serving the empire with the pursuit of justice.

so it comes as a shock to no one that he attaches himself to dedra, or at least the version of dedra he’s made up in his head, because he believes she - and by extension the empire - shares his values. his conversation with her after he stalked her and him saving her at the end of the season are, to me, an indication that he has already been radicalized by the empire and its false sense of order and security. so it will genuinely confuses me if he actually turns to the rebellion in season 2.

Syril Karn is doomed to remain a fascist to the end

I've watched a bunch of videos with people talking about how Syril is a wildcard who could go either way with his allegiances, and seen speculation about how he could have easily been a Rebel instead, if he somehow ended up finding that side more attractive.

Here's why I think this is a shallow interpretation of the Andor show.

As the video 'How to Radicalize a Normie' by Innuendo Studios (link here: https://youtu.be/P55t6eryY3g?si=UxUauetzOETvTg1r) says, the young fascist man is not exactly looking to conservatism for a political ideology, but for 'the cure to his soul-sickness'. Syril needs to feel like he is worth something - and his mother refuses to offer him unconditional love. In fact, she actually refers to him as an investment - berating him for failing to offer her what she considers a sufficient return, and then gushing with praise when he reveals that he has been promoted. There is a void in his heart that needs something or someone to love him without reservation - and here comes the Empire, that tells him that he is good and worthy simply for supporting its vision of order. The Rebellion cannot offer any of its members the same - sure, it believes in equality of all the people who the Empire would otherwise look down upon, but it needs them to prove their worth before giving them value as individuals. The Empire, however, will allow Syril to passively consider himself better than large swathes of the galaxy simply by being.

Cassian, on the other hand, learns over the course of the series that he is loved and an individual by his family and community, without reservation. The final episode reinforces this idea - Maarva, Brasso, B2EMO and Bix retain their affection for him despite all his flaws - as Maarva relays through Brasso, she 'love(s) him more than anything that he could ever do wrong'. Even Pegla, who was grouchy earlier about Cassian taking the ships he is responsible for, is able to offer unconditional empathy to him upon seeing him after Maarva's death. Cassian is therefore not vulnerable to the Empire's rhetoric in the way Syril is.

I hope this thread gets reinforced in Season 2 - it really makes the anti-fascist critique that runs through the show.

op i will kiss you on the mouth (if you’ll let me ofc).

i literally ranted on my blog about the non-solution (sevika being on the council) to the piltover-zaun conflict yesterday and in that post i haven’t even gotten close to dissecting the intrinsically problematic politics behind the show yet, so it’s really cathartic to see this post popped up.

context: i was born and raised in a country where there are still traces of colonialist and imperialist invasions. my country was liberated when my mother was 6 years old, and less then 30 years before i was born - it’s recent enough that this kind of oppression and economic exploitation is not a foreign concept to me. i grew up hearing stories about how people like my great grandfather fought and died for the freedom i enjoy today, how significant that sacrifice was and more importantly, how violent the struggle was.

you see, in stories like these, the point is rarely ever the victory, it’s the fight. no matter what version of victory the oppressed masses envision it to be, they can never reach it without violence - either towards themselves or their oppressors. anticipating that, what i wanted from season 2 was not that zaunites will be promoted to positions of power or even that zaun will eventually be independent, i just wanted to see the class struggle play out in its full bloody grittiness. this is not me saying that it would be cool to see a bunch of people murdering enforcers or vice versa, i’m just asking for the fight to be treated with the weight it deserves, even if it means people will face brutalization and by extension, death. but after the first 3 episodes of the season, i doubted i would ever get the story i was looking for and sadly, i was right.

(and at this point i dont even know if i should vent all my grievances about the politics in this show in one single post as a magnum opus and be done with it because I HAVE MORE TO SAY)

i despise the way the fandom talks about jinx. i'm sorry, but a teenager with severe mental health issues who was raised by a dictatorial drug lord in a city where crime is rampant, children are often orphaned, and there is no clean air or water, was never going to turn out right. that is not to say that i condone all of her actions (e.g. killing the firelights, helping shimmer run rampant in zaun), but i do believe that she is the product of the circumstances she grew up in. will all that being said, i don't think she did anything wrong to piltover. most, if not all, the piltovans jinx attacked were enforcers and councilors, her oppressors and the primary people responsible for the subjugation of the undercity. and before y'all argue with me in the comments "but in the s1 finale, the council was going to make zaun independent", i beg for y'all to think beyond authorial intent since the show has deeply flawed politics (see: christian linke saying that the piltover-zaun conflict is an allegory to how the us two-party system fails to communicate with each other). while there are councilors that i like as individual characters (jayce and mel specifically), i don't believe that a consensus would've gave zaun true liberation because there has NEVER been a time where the liberation of oppressed people hinged upon their oppressors granting them their freedom. negotiating with your oppressors is akin to having a conversation between the sword and the neck, there can never be peace unless the oppressed takes away power from their oppressors. whether it's between the irish and the british, the algerians and the french, or the vietnamese and the americans, the oppressed ALWAYS had to fight for their liberation, even for examples that "prove" otherwise. nevertheless, i do believe that jinx's resistance is flawed since her violence is aimless and i wish that in s2, she would actually embrace being a symbol of zaun and use violence to achieve liberation for zaun, but i don't think the writers would be able to explore violent resistance effectively because they're cowards.

I danced with you in a nightmare

I was dragging you across the floor

A little doodle that I did for myself that I actually really like, so I'm offering them to the internet. They're so silly <3

Please note that this is a redraw of a piece off of pinterest that I could not find the artist for. I tried digging around, nothin. If yall know the artist please let me know so I can credit them!

Mothma

I just can't turn my brain off for episode 7 because it's foundations are so contradictory. How can we believe that Piltover decided to change it's ways because one Zaunite kid died when Piltover has collectively proven throughout season 1 and 2 that they don't care about those kids?!!??

In season 1 enforcers regularly harassed and assaulted children in Zaun. In Act 1, Marcus tried to fire his pistol at Powder when she tried to escape him, he only stopped because she was out of range. Vi was a teenager when prison guards regularly beat her as she was falsely impropisoned in Stillwater by the same enforcer without question. Caitlyn didn't care that a child as young as Isha (probably 8) got thrown into Stillwater and neither did any of the guards. Jayce felt guilty that he killed Renni's son, but he never apologized for what he did, and chose to leave his body in the same place, in the same position he died for Renni to find her boy.

Remember that one scene where the camera lingered on that one Piltovan kid who has hurt when Jinx diverted the Grey back on Piltover and Ambessa wiped a tear from his eye? It's sad to know a child got hurt by the Grey, but do you know what other child was hurt by the Grey? VIKTOR. He was hurt by the Grey as a child, to the point that it was killing him by the time he was an adult, but Piltover, including Heimerdinger NEVER saw that as a wrong to be righted. I could keep going on about the ways the Piltovan cast have harmed children in one way or another, but that would get repetitive. The point is Piltover and it's cast have consistently proven that they don't care about children in Zaun in any way that matters, so to assume that Vi's death would bring about change is just dishonest to the story that's been told up until that episode.

“Akari (燈)” by Soushi Sakiyama (崎山蒼志) - Jujutsu Kaisen 2nd Season - Ending Theme

day 3 - one bed only