Trishs Conflicting Viewpoints On Simpson And Jessica

Trish’s conflicting viewpoints on Simpson and Jessica

Jessica and Simpson near the end of the series are working toward a common goal, killing Kilgrave. It’s Trish’s reaction to them and their goal that shows us what type of people they are and their differing viewpoint on the job they “have” to do. For Jessica this job is essential and the whole reason Kilgrave is doing any of it is to get to Jessica. For Simpson It’s because he wants to be the knight in shining armor, the hero.

When Simpson tells Trish that Kilgrave isn’t someone you can capture and that he must be removed Trish responds by saying that he can’t be the one who decides that, that he is being judge, jury, and executioner. There are other people that need him alive like Hope. To her his crusade isn’t in alignment with her moral code because he isn’t seeing the entire picture, like the casualties of Kilgrave’s antics, he has laser focus on killing kilgrave no matter the sacrifices. This was perfectly displayed when he told Trish about his marines saving the barbies. They all burned, but the barbies were saved. He doesn’t really register the losses that come about due to his quest. When his war buddies get killed he is initially upset, but immediately brushes it off and agrees to be a test subject for the super soldier pills so he can go back to his quest as soon as possible. He even tries to remove Jessica so she can’t hinder his mission any more. He also places blame of everything, but himself when things go wrong or he does something deemed wrong by Trish. To him the ends justify the means. By the end he can’t even tell that he’s doing something immoral to achieve his goal.

When Jessica comes to the conclusion she has to kill Kilgrave it it under worse circumstances. Hope has just died in her arms and any illusion she had that she could stop him without becoming what Kilgrave made her, a murderer. Trish supports Jessica’s conclusion and does everything she can to support her. This is because Jessica understands the casualties that Kilgrave has cause and realized that there is no other way. When Jessica Kills Kilgrave he has become so powerful he cannot be contained. Throughout the season Jessica constantly puts the blame on herself for everything kilgrave does. She constantly tries to put just herself in harms way to reduce the casualties. The ends don’t justify the means. Jessica knows this and Trish knows this. Jessica believes the deaths that Kilgrave caused should have been avoided and due to her he has only grown more powerful and that is what eventually drives her to permanently stop him, not the illusions of heroism that drive Simpson. 

Lotor (season 5)

Season 5 really focused on developing Lotor as a person. At first I thought his character was inconsistent from what we had seen in previous seasons, but the more we saw of him the more I realized that this was the real Lotor. Lotor in the previous seasons felt meticulous and cold and this season established why he always acted like that. He was always told he was less for being part altean and he was raised to believe in victory or death. It was survival of the fittest within the Galran empire and he was at a disadvantage because of his altean heritage and that he was outcast by his own father for his empathy which lead the rest of the Galra to treat him as lower and unworthy. They probably didn’t even try to hide their distaste, so Lotor had to put up a wall to hide his empathy and curiosity from his people. He still continued to “rebel” against his father by allowing the planets he “conquered” to rule themselves and find more peaceful ways to show his strength than his father and people. He is more inherently peaceful and introspective than his father, but due to continuously being taught victory or death he couldn’t throw the teachings away completely which was shown in both his battle with the white lion and Zarkon. No matter how stacked the odds were against him in his battle with Zarkon he kept fighting and finding ways to make the playing field more level. This was, in my opinion, due to his inability to give up because of those teachings as well as his desire to stop his father. I think Lotor truly did want to stop his father, but he didn’t want to kill him to do it. This is why he didn’t look proud or victorious when he felled his father. He was starting to see the cracks in the teachings of the galra. 

His relationship with Allura was one of the most interesting and entertaining parts of the season. I believe that he initially was just fascinated with her power, but has come to genuinely enjoy being around her. I think this relationship will end up being a key player in Lotor’s development and future. I believe Lotor isn’t inherently evil and does truly want what is right, but he is somewhat similar to Zuko in that he doesn’t know exactly what path to take yet. His relationship with Allura could help him make the right decision when the time comes. 

I was worried throughout the season that Lotor would betray Allura and the palladins, but the further along the season went the less sense it seemed to make that he would. I couldn’t find anything he could gain by betraying voltron. I do think he initially planned to betray the palladins, but the longer he stayed with them and got to know Allura the less he wanted to. At the end of the season when he fails the test and Allura passes and gains the knowledge we are shown that he has changed as the season progressed. At the start of the season he wouldn’t have tried to act happy for Allura especially after failing to achieve what he had worked tirelessly for, but he seems to be slowly realizing that his thought process of “victory or death” is flawed and closes him off to other possibilities. This season has managed to convince me they are going through with Lotor’s redemption. I’m still uneasy about him, but I also don’t believe he is evil just mislead in is thinking. 

I think Lotor does believe quintessence can bring peace to the galaxy and it is meant to mirror Honerva’s path. While Honerva slowly becomes corrupted by the quintessence the same may too happen to Lotor, but I believe that his path will end up diverging from his mother’s in that he will learn from her mistakes and if he doesn’t directly learn from them I think Allura can help him see a different path from descent into corruption. This could be an interesting path to see come about.  

Annabeth Chase - Character Growth at its Finest

I’m writing this because recently I have seen many people say that they really dislike or hate Annabeth and don’t know why people like her. I want to explain why people like Annabeth and why I personally find Annabeth a compelling character who I can relate to. 

 Annabeth starts out the series as a jaded young girl who has lead a rough life. She has been experiencing monster attacks since she was five or six. She ran away from home at the age of seven because of the emotional abuse her stepmother put her through due to the near constant monster attacks. She had terrible nightmares and her father neglected her. She would have died from either monsters or starvation if she wasn’t found by Thalia and Luke. They quickly became her new family. Annabeth loses this newfound family Thalia through sacrifice and Luke through betrayal. Due to these events she doesn’t trust others easily and avoids attachment because anyone she does get attached to leaves by either their own free will or force. Annabeth tries to solve her own problems and doesn’t trust others to solve her problems. This is partially due to her hubris, her fatal flaw, and her negative experiences with her father and step mother in her early life. All of these flaws come from an understandable place and they grow and change as the series goes on. 

 Annabeth’s inability to easily trust others and fear of being left by her loved ones is a large part of her character in the Percy Jackson series and even affects her in the heroes of olympus series. She initially treats Percy with indifference and even uses him as a distraction, so she can capture the opposing team’s flag. It’s only when she goes on a life threatening quest with him that he gains her trust fully. In the sea of monsters she is wary of Tyson because he is a cyclops one of the monsters that almost killed her and her makeshift family. She grows to realize that he isn’t like most cyclopes. Then later there is Rachel Elizabeth Dare. Annabeth feels that Rachel threatens her place in her new “family”. Rachel can see through the mist and likes Percy. This essentially makes Annabeth useless in her own eyes. Rachel can lead them through the labyrinth and all of Annabeth’s research was for naught. Rachel also has the guts to admit to Percy that she likes him, something that Annabeth herself hasn’t been able to do. She feels as though she is losing her place in the group as well as Percy. Annabeth later comes to terms with Rachel and they become good friends. Later Annabeth is put into a similar situation with Reyna. Reyna developed feelings for Percy and made a move on him. She doesn’t dote on that fact and has grown enough to where she knows that Percy won’t leave her like others in her life. She also comes around to trusting Reyna much quicker than Rachel. Annabeth trusts her enough to ask her to take the Athena Parthenos to camp half blood and solidify the bond between the greek and roman demigods. This is also why she desperately wants to prevent losing Percy in Tartarus. She has already lost her family twice and she doesn’t want it to happen a third time. Percy is the only person who hasn’t left her at any point and been with her through both her highest highs and lowest lows and vice versa. 

 Annabeth’s fatal flaw causes her a lot of problems throughout the Percy Jackson and heroes of olympus series, but in the Magnus Chase series she understands she can’t solve every problem by herself and sometimes she needs to let others sort out their own problems. In the Percy Jackson series her hubris causes her problems when it comes to Luke Castellan. She believes that Luke’s betrayal is her problem and that she should be the one to solve it. This backfires for her until the final book. In the last olympian she talks to Luke and tries to convince him to see the error of his ways, but she ultimately lets Percy and Luke make their own choices. In the mark of Athena she realizes there is a time and place to rely on others and do things herself. While it may not seem that significant, but this is a turning point where she realizes that just like how she needed to follow the mark of Athena on her own others have things they need to do on their own separate from her.  

 This is an overview of her growth as a character and her reasoning behind her actions. It is because of these changes and actions that she is one of my favorite characters throughout Rick Riordan’s mythological world.  

Princes Lotor and Zuko

The parallels between Lotor and Zuko are numerous. They were both inherently more peaceful then their fathers and seen as failures and outcast by those same fathers for their empathy and standing up for what they thought was right. Zuko when he was against purposefully sacrificing young soldiers and sending them to a fruitless fight and Lotor for not subjugating and destroying a race of people and instead learning about them and working with them. Due to their banishment they developed a facade that hid their empathy from those around them that slipped at moments. They both work tirelessly toward a goal they think is noble that is warped because of their parents views. Zuko his honor and Lotor the quintessence. I think like preince Zuko Lotor truly believes that the quintessence is the solution to his and his people’s problems. Lotor may end up betraying the Palladins, but it won’t be because he is evil or wanted to betray them. It will be because of a source of conflict and his obsession towards his goal. If he does betray the palladins he will eventually get his redemption arc where he realizes what he strove for wasn’t the solution to his answers. The source of conflict was set up this season in Honerva. I believe it will play out similar to Azula with Zuko in the crossroads of destiny. It is made clear throughout the season that both of Lotor’s parents were neglectful and one was abusive, so if he accepts that Haggar is his mother and discovers she has been helping him with the palladins and indirectly saved him from Zarkon through Kuron he may be manipulated. He admits to Allura in the finale that he envies her because she had Alfor as a father and he travelled the world with her and it was implied that he also envied that she got to have that childhood with happy family memories. If his mother is revealed to have loved him and “love” him his emotions can be manipulated in her favor. There is also the parallel between Honerva and Zarkon and Lotor and Allura. Both sets have a fixation on quintessence and believe that it can bring prosperity to the people, but while Zarkon and Honerva slowly become corrupted in their initially honorable quest Lotor and Allura have the ability to change their projected outcome. I think that while Honerva slowly edges Lotor to corruption Allura, because she is pure at heart, can prevent his downward spiral. The reason the relationship between Lotor and Allura was expanded upon so much this season could be for this reason, to prevent Lotor from becoming his Father and Mother and truly use quintessence to help the people and bring about a new age of prosperity instead of destruction and death. Lotor’s redemption arc has just begun. 

Kuvira - Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely

Kuvira’s story is that of a descent into villainy through the corruption of power. Her original intentions are noble. She plans on reuniting the Earth Kingdom and create a kingdom where the people under her rule will not have to be afraid or alone. The Kingdom wasn’t united even before the earth queen fell and it didn’t have a strong central government to rule for the people. This is why her regime was important. It united the people under one government and delivered on it’s promises to the regions that joined her, but the more she brought the kingdom together the less she wanted to step aside for Prince Wu. Prince Wu is someone who has never struggled a day in his life, doesn’t understand the needs of the people, and has everyone do the work for him. He is unqualified in every way for his job. Kuvira has seen the struggle the people of the earth kingdom have undergone and does, at least initially, truly want to create a better environment for them. The previous government didn’t work and there needed to be a new form of power for anything to change. Like Zaheer said “new growth cannot exist without first the destruction of the old.” The more Kuvira saw of the kingdom and its circumstances the more she realized the old form of government needed to be done away with. She came to the conclusion that to do that she couldn’t give up her power.

The main turning point in her intentions turning from noble to twisted was with Varrick’s invention of the spirit bomb. Her intentions up until then still had the people in the kingdom’s best interest at heart and she hadn’t up until this point resorted to violence to get a region to sign over power.  Once this weapon of mass destruction was discovered no one could oppose her military might and the power of the weapon started to go to her head.  She displayed her military might to zaofu as a means of intimidation and later forces the people within the city to accept her as their leader. This descent goes even further to her assault of republic city. There is a slow progression throughout the season. The more her power grows the more radical her thinking becomes. When she is faced with eliminating her enemies as well as Bataar Jr she thinks on it for only a moment before making her decision. If this was at the start of the season I have no doubt Kuvira would not have sacrificed Bataar for her cause. This perfectly illustrated how she feels. Her goal has become bigger than any one person. It is the ultimate dissolution of her initial goal. The people were her main reason for taking the position and she let the power she amassed warp that goal until it didn’t even take the people into consideration. It is only though Korra saving her that she realizes the steep decline into the abyss she had taken. Korra saving her signified what she initially stood for, the people. No one goal should be above the lives of the people and she had lost sight of that through her crusade. Once she realized that she stepped down and let herself be taken away for judgement.  

Why Killmonger is my Favorite Marvel Villain

Erik “Killmonger” was told stories of the utopia that was Wakanda by his father and saw the worst the world had to offer. When he was just a boy his father was taken from him by the very people he was told stories about. The people who had the means to stop the violence and save others like them had taken his fathers life because he wanted to “share” their technology with their less fortunate people. I believe that the death of his father caused him to adopt his father’s ideals and work towards the realization of them with unparalleled focus and resolve. To him Wakanda was the villain for killing his father and denying the rest of “their people” their technology. His ideal was noble, but it was taken to an extreme because the world had taken all he cared about and never gave him anything in return. The rage and hatred he held was there boiling just below the surface and the only reason he didn’t self-destruct was because he had a cause to channel it towards. Erik’s life was a tragic story of a man working towards a “noble” cause that got warped because of loss and neglect.

T’Challa ended up learning from Erik. He realized he couldn’t keep Wakanda’s resources separate from the world. That doing so was wrong and was the reason for his current conflict. He saw the ideal that Killmonger had beneath the radicalization and ended up acting on what he learned. The best villains are the ones the heroes can learn from