Moving forward again – Dave post on the back burner. I found what I was looking for but it was stupid and gave me a headache. Here’s some loose speculation on some new stuff:
Openbound Part 3 had a couple weird things going on: the main one that stuck out to me was how Rufioh and Horuss each serve as analogues to both Dirk and Jake. Horuss is of course the horse guy oblivious to his partner’s reservations, but he also talks about resolving an identity crisis through loudly enforced traits of his personality, which seems like a commentary on Jake’s oft repeated love of ADVENTURE and FISTICUFFS. Rufioh is the passive dude who seems to attract everyone’s affections, but like Dirk, he the anime guy who gets decapitated and revived. Both are both.
So when when Rufioh is talking to girls and calling them ‘doll’ over and over, I get this weird overlaid image of Grandpa talking to the blue doll and Bro talking to Lil Cal. From the Grandpa view, retrieving Tinkerbull (Rufioh’s happy thought!) from Damara is a statement of the old man’s adversarial attitude towards the feminine? Rufioh berates Damara as though she’s directly responsible for his loss of happiness (she then reminds him of the actual cause, his unhappy relationship with Horuss).
Not sure if Horuss serves more as analogue for Bro or an analogue for the soul itself in that one, via the usage of horses we saw with Roxy. But at any rate, it seems like Damara is serving the Witch role of absorbing undeserved antagonism, a la Anthy.
Conversely, viewing Damara as a mouthpiece for Lil Cal is… flimsier and messier. Her hypersexuality could align with Cal directive to Gamzee (“kill them all”) and her particularly aggressive flirting with Horuss could be analogous to Cal’s sway over Bro? Or else his sway over the soul in general…
just chiming in to mention the Horruss:Dirk parallels have always seemed astonishingly weak to me. Jake’s behavior doesn’t really line up with Rufioh’s at all, but more importantly Horruss’ approach to conflict resolution (ignoring problems entirely and utterly nullifying the feelings of others) has a lot more in common with Jake’s treatment of Jane than with anything Dirk does.
the resorting to flattery to get/keep what they want and loudly talking about their own traits as self-assurance is also something Horruss and Jake have in common…along with Tavros. Seems like a pretty clear Page thing to me.
As for Dirk he’s keenly aware of Jake’s reservations–overblowing them into thinking Jake wants nothing to do with him without actually talking to Jake about them is the source of Dirk’s anxiety re: their relationship, which is honestly kind of the opposite of Jake and Horruss’ willful obliviousness.
the rest of this is pretty interesting, as usual. I hadn’t considered Witches as absorbing undeserved antagonism ubut i sure am now. i need to go lie down
i think the finale arc of the adventure zone is literally the most fucking powerful piece of media ever created and here’s why
you know that opening narration in Watchmen where rorshach is all “they’ll look up and scream save us, and i’ll look down and whisper no” and it’s all very gritty and dramatic and uhuhu sheeple
it’s literally the total fucking opposite of that
the apocalypse is bearing down, a hundred billion voices screaming in cacophonous and deafening unison GIVE UP AND DIE, and the entire world shares a glance, and takes a breath, and looks up and says:
No.
And I don’t believe I have ever seen something with such a powerful faith in humanity. I don’t think I’ve ever seen something that describes such an unshakeable connectedness, such an unbreakable will to exist. The apocalypse is happening and people are still fighting.
And I think that especially now, especially in times of such upheaval and uncertainty, and now with the threat of nuclear war looming from the darker corners of our political houses, we need more than ever stories that say what this one does–and I have never seen it more clearly and more beautifully communicated.
Flying through Storytelling 