red vs blue: motivational chorus arc rewatch

[sword_logic]

the title of this post is probably slightly in error because all i want to talk about is S13. firstly, just to get it out there: S13 is probably the single best season of this show. it gives S6 a serious run for its money in my books. 13 is such a phenomenal season all around, and honestly the only major blemishes on its record, for me, are more personal than objective.

from what i remember (ymmv as far as fandom interactions go), miles got a lot of grief/doubt as a writer when he took over as lead writer but honestly, i think he's the best writer this show has had so far. not perfect by any means (who is?), but he listened, he tried, and he managed to:

• breathe life into a completely fresh setting in 3 (!) seasons
• show carolina with a truly wonderful amount of growth
• make kimball a competent, very human leader
• give tucker one of the single best character arcs on the show
• let wash take a back seat without feeling ignored/belittled
• highlight the reds and blues as genuine badasses without taking away what makes them so charming

my main issues with S13 in particular were the weird o'malley thing and..... maine's armor. i wrote a post about it on tungle when the season aired and i still feel Bad about it, but with more distance, i think i can see what they were going for: tucker getting what felix wanted. as a concept, that resonates more with me now, but it still hurts and feels bad/weird to put tucker in that suit of armor.

all of that aside, though, i enjoyed the chorus trilogy so much more when i didn't go into it with the intention to nitpick and analyze, and i'm sure time/distance/etc. also helped. 13 in particular was so damn enjoyable because that's when they started really fucking nailing the animation; everything looks quick and fluid and realistic in a way the 9 through 12 hadn't quite managed to do yet, and it's so much fun to watch. it's a really rewarding season to Me, A Viewer, and that last big wash/lina/felix/locus fight scene, that last fight scene, there is absolutely no other fight or scene in the whole series that's more genuinely god damn delightful.

i enjoyed locus's character arc a lot more on this watchthrough as well, and i think that also has something to do with more time and distance away from the season's debut and getting wrapped up in the minutiae. it's hard not to be when something is airing episodically, and getting to step back and look at things more broadly definitely benefits this season, imo. i can't quite put my finger on why locus clicked for me a lot more this time around, but the locus/wash parallels didn't seem as bizarre as they had when 12 was airing, and felix's manipulation of locus (especially near the end) seemed much more glaring - though probably because i was also paying a little more attention to it, as (for better or worse) two NPCs in the campaign i'm DMing were compared to the felix and locus so i had it on my mind.

the best part of this rewatch was realizing, partway through, that i was thinking about canon in terms of "oh, what an interesting departure from S11 au" rather than, like, the other way around. i picked up a few worldbuilding things i missed and/or forgot that i added to my notes, and i also made a few adjustments to some scenes that i think are a much better choice for the fic. chorus and its spiderwebby minefield of a political situation is such an interesting setting and it's honestly definitely been an inspiration for my dnd campaign (or, at least, the way i've reconstructed it for S11 au is). and it has been cool to take another look at how different my reimagining/prediction of events ended up being from how the chorus arc actually ended. rewatching while keeping S11 au in mind was definitely a lot of me thinking "oh man, i really did plan this out before S12 aired, huh" over and over. i thought the whole mercs thing was going to pan out to be a lot bigger than it was in 12/13, but you know what? it works for my fic, and and i'm not gonna bother changing it as i move forward.

i'm so happy with and proud of what i've got written so far, so now all i need is for the end of this part to not keep jumping out of my grasp every time i think i'm getting close to finishing up. yes, adding an extra scene is great, but also, i want to actually finish some time this decade.

for now: time to actually watch the three felix/locus episodes from S14, as i have never watched them before. @ self, godspeed.

Comments

[anneapocalypse]

I definitely have my complaints about season 13, mostly with regard to dropped plot threads that could have been really interesting with more time to develop and resolve them (the Counselor, Maine's armor, and Wash and Carolina felt like they should have all coalesced at the end and they never did, no two of those things were EVER onscreen at the same time). Despite all of that, it is probably my favorite season to date and I think it really is one of the strongest all around, for the sheer amount of stuff it manages to get spectacularly right. I have accepted at this point that the creator effort behind season 13 was a golden age to which RvB will never return and I'm trying to live with that, in a "we'll always have Paris" sort of way.

The Locus and Wash stuff also landed a bit better for me on recent rewatches. I still get really touchy at the implication that our surviving Freelancers are anything like the mercs when their situations, motives, and actions were *entirely* different. But discussing it with some other people and wrestling with it myself has managed to shake out some more nuance in the parallel for me such that it kind of almost works if I squint a bit. More importantly I can find a reading of it that works for me, authorial intent be damned.

I wish the very best in your writing and deeply look forward to seeing the next phase of the story.

Godspeed, indeed. I am interested to hear what you think about the merc prequel.

[sword_logic]

you know, the funniest thing about the utter lack of connection between the wash/carolina/counselor/maine's armor elements is, well, that's basically all that S11 au is about, and apparently that's overridden Actual Canon for me so hard that it barely even registers to me. mixed blessings? (???) but yeah, it's definitely a glaring hole compared to the threads that 13 does manage to bring together in a really pleasingly organic way.

for me, locus's obsession with wash works as an unreliable narrator/one-sided sort of thing rather than any Grand Narrative Parallel — it's always locus pushing their connection/similarities/etc, and wash refusing it. iirc, there's never a moment where wash starts the "we're the same" conversation; it's always locus going on about it and wash steadily replying to locus's insistence that he and wash are cut from the same cloth. i feel like locus was maybe intended to be the mouthpiece for an objective/doylist (lmao) Grand Narrative Parallel but frankly, that's not palatable to me at all (especially since wash straight up does tell him "i was a different person") and i feel like the "parallel" works best as a reflection of what locus thinks of himself and of wash. (and on that note, locus's whole "monster" thing didn't really work for me, either. though! i do like locus as a character much more this time around.)

as far as the merc prequel goes, my most emphatic thought is holy shit, that was fun. it was super fun! i think i caught myself smiling throughout most of it, i had a blast. the first episode in particular was such a treat to watch, especially that fight scene intercut with the dance floor. story-wise, though, i woke up this morning thinking "that was a neat story to tell, but what exactly does that have to do with felix and locus?" and, well, yeah. they could have swapped out felix and locus with new characters entirely and i don't think it would have affected how i see them at all. so, story-wise, interesting but not critical info? 7/10, not bad but could have been more related to locus and felix As Characters. magpie-brain-like-shiny-colorful-things-wise, absolute 10/10, that was so fun to watch.

[anneapocalypse]

I can work with Locus's Wash obsession from his perspective, definitely, especially since Wash, once he figures out what Locus's deal is, actively refutes his attempts to compare them. What has never really worked for me is Wash's fever dream, which is from his perspective and not Locus's and which tries really hard to set up that comparison in a way that, I think, misrepresents Wash as well as the relationship between the two.

Heh, yeah, that's about how I feel about the merc prequel. It's shiny and fun and a treat for fans; it's got neat bits of trivia-canon but as a story that's meant to show a pivotal moment in their lives... I don't think it holds up that well. It gives you "Locus has a facial scar and covers it up with makeup" and but it doesn't give you much in the way of "How these characters became who they are." But yes, shiny. For sure.

[sword_logic]

oh yeah, absolutely, the fever dream does not compute for me at all in any way. the only way i could have had it work for me was if it'd been entirely sans locus, but still paired with dr. gray's comment about wash's neural implants — so just a genuine fever dream sparked by wash's fear of killing his friends (again). but alas. a l a s .

the merc prequel didn't feel like a pivotal moment for felix and locus at all, and i'd go so far as to say it barely felt like even A Moment. the flashbacks and stories we got from the true warrior trial, kimball talking to tucker, santa talking to locus, etc. spoke much more firmly about felix's and locus's pasts individually and together than the prequel did, which is (locus voice) unfortunate. but hell, it was fun to watch, so it'll stay in my good books for that.

[anneapocalypse]

There is one way I can make the fever dream work. It just relies on what is not a very flattering reading of Wash in the beginning, though it leads to character growth later on. Wash telling himself "I was just following orders" about Donut kind of unambiguously demonstrates that he still hasn't taken responsibility for what he did in season 8. But Locus's fixation actually pushes Wash to self-examination and from season 12 to season 13 there's a change in him--by 13 he is actively saying, "No, FUCK YOU, I am NOTHING like you, and what I did do, I take responsibility for and I've changed."

[sword_logic]

that's a pretty interesting reading! though, yeah, very dependent on where you put wash in his character arc. all in all, though, my favorite solution for the fever dream is to file it away with all the other things i'm ignoring. :B

[anneapocalypse]

Yeah, exactly. I think the strongest rebuttal to that reading is that if you look at Wash at the end of season 10, he does appear to have taken responsibility for his actions and made a conscious effort to change. That's why he finally confronts Carolina--he sees her going down the same path he did, and he's self-aware enough to recognize what's wrong with that. So it's strange to turn around and see him on Chorus calling what happened with Donut "a misunderstanding" and "just following orders."

And looking at the inherent contradictions there... well, it's easy to see why I've gone back and forth so much on my interpretation of post-s10 Wash, and why so many fans have ardent disagreements over his later characterization. :P

Dropping that scene right in the circle file is as good a choice as any.