Racing Turtles

This was a whole thread, here are some of my favourites:

Sadako, the Silent Crawler Kaiju

Another Lord of the Rings Hot Take: the reason Frodo starts starving  himself isn’t *just* because of the horrific emotional toll of the  journey. It’s also because the only food Frodo and Sam have is Lembas  bread, which the Ring takes away your ability to eat.

When Frodo  tries to share the Lembas bread with Gollum, Gollum is physically unable  to eat it. He wants to eat it, but Can’t. Because it’s elvish bread, it  burns Gollum’s throat and “chokes” him.

I mentioned in a previous post that Frodo isn’t just afraid of becoming like Gollum– he’s afraid of becoming like Gollum because he knows that Sam despises Gollum, and he’s paranoid that he’s becoming someone who Sam can no longer love.  

When Gollum says that he can’t eat Lembas bread, Sam coldly responds that he’ll have to “starve then, and good riddance.”

And  then Sam repeatedly worries that Frodo isn’t eating enough, that he  worries Frodo is starving himself. (”You haven’t eating anything all  day, and you’re not sleeping neither– don’t think I haven’t noticed!”  “I’ve seen you– you’re not eating, you barely sleep.”)

I feel  like the reason Frodo is eating less isn’t the horrible emotional  strain of the journey– it’s also because he’s physically losing the  ability to eat. As the Ring takes over his mind eating elvish food is  starting to become painful for him, the way it’s painful for Gollum.  Frodo saying ”I can’t recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass” on Mount Doom is a direct callback to Gollum saying that “we forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind” in the beginning of the film.

One  thing I think is really compelling about the Ring is that….there is  no clear line between “the emotional toll the journey takes on the  characters” and “the actual physical damage the Ring does to their  minds.” There’s no clear separation between the times when Frodo is not  eating because he’s traumatized and afraid, and the times when Frodo is  not eating because the Ring is warping his mind and making it harder for  him to eat. It’s like the Ring is parasitic, feeding off the guilt and  trauma it creates in people.

Frodo tries to hide how little  he’s eating because he doesn’t want Sam to worry about his emotional  state…… but also because he doesn’t want Sam to realize that he’s  gradually becoming corrupted like Gollum, that he’s gradually becoming  the kind of person he’s afraid that Sam can no longer empathize with.

[quotes snipped]

WV wasn’t a warrior. He was a leader. He believes ‘you were never cut out to be a leader of men’ after his failure, but the responses of the other carapacians show that they believed in him and were willing to follow him. That will probably come back in some way. After all, he’s still showing bits of that Blood-like tendency: everyone likes him and considers him a friend, he governs Can Town which represents inter-species cooperation, etc. He believes in democracy and fairness. I can definitely see him taking some sort of support/motivation/leadership role in the endgame. 

But most of all, the WV: Dream sequence shows that he doesn’t want the ring. He dreams of turning into Jack and slaughtering his own followers. This shows his guilt over what happened in WV: Rise Up/Descend, but I think it also shows his fear that the power of the ring will corrupt him. I mean, why not go for the whole LOTR parallel? I can’t see WV willingly putting on the ring, considering all it represents to him. But I can see him taking it and being the one wise enough not to use it, doing his part to end this cycle of violence once and for all. After all, monarchies transition from one ruler to the other through right of inheritance. Democracy is where you have a choice. 

In his dream, I don’t think it’s too far from the truth to suggest that WV was equating the ring-gained attributes — that bloody one-armed winged dog-headed appearance — with his failure as a leader. He envisions Blood spreading from his arm into destructive twists of power that destroy the united, black-and-white army in front of him, wiping them out just as surely as Jack Noir did the army he had led himself. As far as WV is concerned, the deaths of all the soldiers he led was his own responsibility: WV believes he is the one who got them killed, as badly as if he’d donned the ring and performed the execution himself.

As you’ve pointed out, the Ring of Orbs Fourfold represents one hell of a lot more than some fancy destructive powers. The ring symbolizes Blood: The utmost responsibility borne by leaders, the power of commitment and unity. If performed in sound mind, wearing the ring wouldn’t be an act meant simply to grant dueling power to WV. Rather, it would be a rebuke of the fear he expressed in his dream, the fear that his leadership could only lead others to their deaths. He wouldn’t be accepting a role as “Vindicator”; he’d be accepting a role as leader, both entrusted with the ring by others and trusting in himself, in his ability to unite and lead.

Blood is trust, and WV is an Heir of Blood! He may be dejected and wandering from his role for now, afraid that his leadership can only lead to suffering, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t meant to overcome that someday, wear the ring, and lead an entire people to victory.

How often have we seen Heroes accurately read Skaian cloud-visions? What people are sure the clouds have shown them is often what they need to believe to do what Skaia wants them to; while Skaia can show Prospit Heroes and Carapacians(? doesn't WV see a vision at some point?) the future, it's up to them to interpret it correctly. Jade was "sure" she'd see John wake up but she didn't; she needed to think that to be in the right place to save him and to die(setting up her God-Tiering later), though. It's just as likely that whatever John saw served a similar purpose.

a female character getting depowered so that a male character can get powered up would be dumb though

Yes, if it were boiled down to something that simplistic and shallow it absolutely would be. Remember when the Black Queen was de-ringed so Jack Noir could wear it, which was totally lame and sexist because it represented a male influence getting control of power from a female one, and clearly nothing else, like the idea that it might have been going to someone with a long narrative history of being an unhinged rulebreaker, or any other thematic stuff you could point to because everything else about the event clearly meant nothing at all? Yeah, that was SO dumb.

…I think I’m getting irrationally pissed off and rude again. Sorry. Just… I really doubt what happens with WV potentially having the opportunity to use the ring would be simple enough to boil it down to that, please. Don’t you think so, expect at least that much out of this comic? :(

In case anyone forgot, it has already been heavily implied that WV was supposed to be the one who wore the ring, using its power in service to PM, which it’s pretty clear he would do if he could bring himself to put it on, and the only reason PM wore it at all was because Jack made her angry.

I’m of the opinion that a female character doesn’t have to be a powered-up, badass, super-agressive person to be a good character, and neither does a male character.

Stop arguing that every character needs to fit your stereotypical view of how a character of that gender needs to be. It’s more sexist than any other argument regardless of what that stereotypical view is.

A character can be unique. They are defined by their gender in some ways, but not exclusively. They are also defined by their behaviors, their reactions to situations, their thought processes if readers/viewers are privy to them, etc.

If you think Hussie lets gender define his characters so heavily, then you haven’t been paying attention.

it’s amazing how you can infer so much about my attitudes from a single sentence. And I’m really impressed how you demolished my implicit argument that every female character needs to be super-powered, badass and aggressive.

by which I mean, I’m pretty annoyed by you using me as a target to take out your anger against other people.

With that out of the way, on to some speculation.

First, addressing what you brought up.

Now that you’ve reminded me, I do recall that John had a vision of WV with the ring, and got the feeling he was supposed to have it.

And it’s true that PM is not a badass or superaggressive. She doesn’t actually want to be a warrior.

I doubt it was implied that WV will use the ring in service to PM, since WV represents democracy so I don’t think it’s likely he’d serve a monarch. Unless he elects her, maybe.

But, yeah, WV having the ring is definitely foreshadowed, and PM relinquishing it makes sense.

Second, despite what you brought up, I must disagree with the conclusion.

Because despite all that, WV wearing the ring, and being the one to use its power instead of PM, still seems unlikely. The ring is two things: a symbol of monarchy and a weapon. Why would WV want either of these things?

PM is a reluctant monarch and a reluctant warrior. I think she’d gladly give up being either. But WV is not a monarch at all, and not a warrior at all. Why would it make any sense for him to wear the ring?

Not sure if I should jump in here since it seems to be getting pretty heated (I saw something about ‘idiot SJWs’ in the notes) but

I’m going agree with you, raginrayguns. The WQ seemed to want WV to bear the ring. She said he’d be the Wastelandic Vindicator, I think (I’m not TOO far away from that in my reread, but my memory is not perfect). However, WV shows serious distaste for the ring and all it signifies. As you point out, it is a symbol of monarchy, and he hates kings. It is a symbol of warriors, and PM was always more of a fighter than WV. (Though she didn’t want to be.) WV wasn’t a warrior. He was a leader. He believes ‘you were never cut out to be a leader of men’ after his failure, but the responses of the other carapacians show that they believed in him and were willing to follow him. That will probably come back in some way. After all, he’s still showing bits of that Blood-like tendency: everyone likes him and considers him a friend, he governs Can Town which represents inter-species cooperation, etc. He believes in democracy and fairness. I can definitely see him taking some sort of support/motivation/leadership role in the endgame. 

But most of all, the WV: Dream sequence shows that he doesn’t want the ring. He dreams of turning into Jack and slaughtering his own followers. This shows his guilt over what happened in WV: Rise Up/Descend, but I think it also shows his fear that the power of the ring will corrupt him. I mean, why not go for the whole LOTR parallel? I can’t see WV willingly putting on the ring, considering all it represents to him. But I can see him taking it and being the one wise enough not to use it, doing his part to end this cycle of violence once and for all. After all, monarchies transition from one ruler to the other through right of inheritance. Democracy is where you have a choice. 

The Ring fits PM much better, I think. WQ chose PM to be the new queen and even crowned her. The Ring is a sign of the office of Queen, so when WQ passed that on to PM, the "right" to use it became hers. Queens and Kings are, by taking on the alterations their Signs of Office bring, the strongest warriors of their Kingdoms and, while WQ was a planner who never used the Ring's abilities and WV is an inspirational figure from an entirely different kingdom who hates the kingdom system, PM is a warrior and servant of Prospit with the disposition to fulfill that function of the Office directly. Furthermore, as a Knight(She's the most mobile White Carapacian we see, she's the only White Carapacian to "face" the Black Queen, she follows a "code" through her mail-carrier bit, and through that she is a Messenger which, since the Jack can be a "Valet" or "Page" among other things, makes her a "Jack" and a Knight) she parallels Jack(arch-agent, Queen-killer[like the Knight piece in Chess], and the most versatile Black Carapacian we see; also he's a "Jack" and the Jack card represents, among other things, Knights) and his attainment of the ring while also inverting his violent "usurpation" of the Ring and Office through her "rightful" receiving of the Ring via abdication from WQ. Having WV gain PM's Ring would also ruin the themes the two Ring-Bearers embody; Black/White, Justice/Chaos, Duty/Whim, Derse/Prospit, Male/Female, ect ect. You'd have two Black Carapacian Ring-Bearers, and that just doesn't seem to fit Hussie's MO to me.

I could see WV gaining a King's Scepter, but gaining the White Queen's Ring doesn't fit very well. Sure, WQ says PM "may" appoint a Wastelandic Vindicator, but in what way has WV been "groomed to face the slayer" and in what way is WV a warrior? WV's "power" is inspiration: he embodies the message in Homestuck that the "power" was in you all along, regardless of class or station, and that your "power" comes from believing in it and acting upon it. WV doesn't need the Ring or anything else, and "using" it for anything other than destroying would betray his character, particularly given that, unlike most Ring-bearers, he's never felt any desire to put it on. And would the Ring even work on him anyway? I mean, the Rings don't work for Players, Jade proved that(you could bring up Roxy of course, but a Void-Player doesn't need an item to display Void Powers for any reason beyond the psychosomatic), so maybe they don't work for the "opposition" either. Certainly something worth considering, seeing as we haven't seen a White Carapacian put on a Derse-Ring or vice versa.

The only part of the text I can think of that points to WV using the Ring would be his dream, but as has already been stated, that was a dream about why he wouldn't want to put it on and about the guilt he felt for, as he sees it, getting everyone killed. It wasn't foreshadowing, it was a symbolic representation of how he judged his culpability for the uprising's bloody defeat; by inspiring all his fellow pawns to fight against tyranny, he sees himself as having killed them just as directly as if he'd been Jack Noir using the Red Miles. If anything the Dream elucidates why the Ring is a poor fit for WV; WV is a "passive" character that inspires others to and leads others in action, whereas Ring-Bearers are "active" characters who carry out their will directly and by themselves.

Of course, that's just my read and I can certainly be wrong about it. One could argue that, as a Ring-Bearer, he MUST wear the Ring at somepoint. My response to that would be "someone's gotta be Samwise :)"