Looking Way Too Deep Into Things Because Its Late At Night - Tumblr Posts
MORE GENLOSS BRAINROT LETS GOOO
!!!MAJOR SPOILER WARNING!!!
Generation loss’s ending is so incredible I can not STAND IT OH MY GOD I need to write out my thoughts before my brain explodes because I haven’t been able to think about anything else since.
The first episode was an absolute curveball to everyone who’s been keeping up with the spooky ranmail and everything and I’m not gonna lie I was a little nervous about what this show was really gonna be when I was watching it. But the thought process it took behind every detail to make something so goofy actually be horrifying once you understand the context of the next two episodes WAS BRILLIANT. Every piece of the puzzle just adds more and more to the storyline and it makes me want to dissect every detail of the vods for hours.
But I think the most bone chilling part of this-very intentionally I must add- is the final sequence. We witness every one of the characters sacrifice themselves for GL!Ranboo and GL!Slime isn’t any different spending his last breaths being killed by the wire creature (for lack of better words) to make sure Ranboo hits the finish line. But as soon as you feel any level of triumph you realize that Slime is just like Sneeg in the episode before sacrificing himself to ensure the show goes on.
Because it was never about the hero.
Ranboo isn’t special. He’s just another pawn in the game with the illusion of being the protagonist to make it more interesting for the desensitized viewers watching these people die over and over.
He was never meant to win.
And then that leads to us.
The audience.
Given the illusion of choice.
Do you publicly execute this man? Or do you let him live to be tortured the rest of his miserable existence until he is inevitably killed by Showfall for breaking the rules. If you spare him, is it a fate worse than death? We fight with this moral dilemma, trying to decide if it’s our decision whether people live or die.
But he’s a murderer! He killed people and showed no remorse! Showfall metaphorically whispers in our ear that he earned this fate for the terrible actions he committed. But was it him? Did he have any control over the actions he committed throughout the show or is he a victim?
He begins begging to be let go. To just escape from this snare he never asked to be trapped in the first place. The audience heavily leans towards letting him live because maybe being alive in this horrible show is better than the execution. But he knows that was never an option for him. He watches as a cartoony figure jokes about his demise and a audience poll decides his fate. And in that moment he realizes his choices were never his own.
So he gives up.
Begs to just be put down because being part of the cast means he will hurt more and more people the way he’s been hurt. That he will be the cause of more and more pain, and very likely more murderers.
And the audience decides death is the best route for him to take.
Maybe he died believing this is his fault. That the audience decided he should be dead for the horrific things he chose to do. But did he ever really choose?
His story was a tragedy before he could even pick up the pen.
And then there’s Showfall. Once again the ever present voice in our ear. Whispering that we are just the same as he is.
You just chose to murder a man. Is that not any different than him killing the innocent to progress in this game? Showfall now has the audience in the same grip as the man in the guillotine.
Your story as an audience is a tragedy long before you will ever pick up the pen.
i rewatched genloss episode three and I’m about to make it everyone’s problem
Rewatching this episode with the knowledge of what’s going to happen adds such a nuance to this that you can’t fully understand until you already know the ending. From the first 10 minutes Hetch repetitively tells Ranboo he’s still in control of the simulation. He says things like
“Just listen to me I’ve got everything under control”
“I’ve programmed them (the Showfall drones) to believe there’s no show going on right now”
“I’ve disabled your mask”
Even Ranboo acknowledges this, at one point exclaiming
“I don’t know! you’re the one in control!”
Ranboo has gotten very used to this routine. Do what you’re told. Try to succeed the best you can. And maybe less people will die in the process. But this times different. He’s given partial control. The veil over his eyes is lowered just enough where he’s seeing more than he’s ever seen before. But he has no control. Hetch is doing the same thing Showfall has been doing this whole time. Telling Ranboo exactly what to do to get the best show out of him.
As the episode goes on, Showfall alludes to the simulation being active as ever more and more. There’s still background music perfectly timed. The camera angles are still there. Hetch gives us a lazy excuse that he’s using it to watch Ranboo, but this is the same guy who said Ethan and Nikki are still alive and well.
But I think the most sinister thing this time around is that they’re not just feeding Ranboo the answer to the questions they throw at him. They’re feeding him a narrative. When he exclaims “why me?!” Hetch responds with no hesitation “There must be something special about you”
“It’s a show. There’s a script. You’re the hero” ***
(We will most definitely come back to this ;) )
The most CLEAR part that shows us that the simulation is alive, before of course, we are shown very obviously, is the lead up to the kill switch scene. The audio distortion times up with Charlie’s perfectly timed speech. It has its own music. So many different camera angles. Zooms. It’s the best camera work of the whole show. It’s so cinematic and that’s on PURPOSE. Showfall is winking at us through the production of this, almost teasing us at what’s to come very soon after. We should have caught this. We should have been screaming at the screen telling our beloved hero to run. But we were celebrating. This should have been our biggest sign that this is all wrong and there’s no way in hell this is right but we were CELEBRATING. Our hero had won right?!
Yet he knew subconsciously that it was all wrong. Why else would you bow at a camera that’s supposed to be turned off? Once again he’s blind. The veil is pulled fully over his eyes yet again and he is back to the puppet we’ve gotten to know all along.
His victory is nothing but a set up to add more to the cinematography of his death.
And it leads on to the scene that we all dread on every rewatch. The execution. Or the box as I like to call it (🙃) Remember that point I said we’d come back to? This scene has so many parallels it makes my head spin. Hetch reassures Ranboo less than 20 minutes before that:
“You were just doing what you needed to to survive”
“There must be something special about you”
Because he had to do what he had to do right? He was just a guy trying to survive? Or was he? Did our beloved hero really have to do the things he did? Did he betray us? It festers in our brains deciding if this man should live or die while Hetch fuels the fire.
“don’t you see there’s consequences to your own actions?!”
“We only pushed you in the right direction!”
“That was the real you! Ranboo!”
He parallels these phrases in a way that makes us question everything we think we know about him. And the final nail in the coffin hits us right in the decision making skills as he hammers in:
“The choices you made. That’s the real you. That’s what makes you a hero”
That’s. What makes you. A hero.
No valiant efforts. No conquests. Not even winning. No. This was never about being brave or bold. This was about being a pawn. An actor playing whatever part he’s told to play. “The hero” is a title only given to the unluckiest of fools. Believing they are making a difference while being tossed away the second they break script.
That’s what makes a hero.