LEGION - "This will make you vomit" - The Something Awful Forums

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Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Escobarbarian posted:

Speculation, but did we ever find out how she got out of the asylum after waking up back there? Could be she was killed after that and she's been fake ever since.

If Syd or another mutant can inject people into memories then there's no reason to believe that Syd was ever at the asylum or that the asylum even exists (unless the asylum is in "red hook") , as iirc the interviewer seemed confused about both the existence of Syd and the doctor that David referred to. The scene where they sleep together started with David's door opening and closing with no feet shown, and then Syd appearing next to the bed.

The only thing that is likely real are the present scenes as the camera left David to look at the rest of the school and Dog Man.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2017 23:20

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 11:01

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

J33uk posted:

Want to hide a secret paramilitary institution in the middle of a large urban area? Easy, just put up a shitload of hands that point away from it.

I think this is unironically the answer, the hands are a psychic device to make people not see the building.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2018 04:30

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

The season definitely has a plot but it also feels like a show that intends to continue after this season to an extreme degree. Season 1 felt like a show that took a narrow conceit and, by the end of the season, had opened up into more of an ensemble show (albeit obviously focused on David). This season feels like an extreme narrowing back onto David, but while still teasing at the other characters without coming close to committing. And while I can think of plenty of other shows where plot movement is stalled out so the show can focus on side stories (with varying degrees of success or necessity), Legion at times I feel goes too far with its languid, luxurious approach to David's story.

For example, while I enjoyed the sliding desert panel scenes, some of those scenes could have been shortened with probably no loss to impact and that time could have been spent on things like whatever Ptolemy is doing in the mainframe, or how Kerry/Keri are dealing with (or have dealt with?) their separation anxiety, or spending any time actually talking to Melanie.

The cow is like the S1 plant man - funny/weird background stuff that I don't think is supposed to really be given a lot of attention. But I think both seasons have elements that the show seems to want you to pay attention to (like The Eye, or some of the other Division 3 background stuff in S1) but kinda whiffs at fleshing out sufficiently, and S2 has had a lot more of that.

# ¿ May 27, 2018 07:48

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I think they accomplished it perfectly and that if they tried to remove the ambiguity and messiness you seem to object to it wouldn't be even half as effective a statement.

It's necessary for David to be able to excuse this to himself, to be able to believe there were mitigating circumstances, that it's all a conspiracy against him, that he was just fighting back on the same terms that Farouk set, and so on -- that's the temptation. The thing is, circumstances don't actually mitigate what he did, and while it may or may not in fact be a conspiracy, he can't morally afford to fight on Farouk's terms, because Farouk is a monster.

What are Farouk's terms that David can't morally afford to fight on? You're praising the ambiguity but the argument against isn't so much that there's any ambiguity but that the show went way too far into it. The show itself obliterates any easy or final read into what David did during the mindwipe because earlier in the season he literally expunges people's thoughts and it's shown as unambiguously good because those thoughts (presumably from the Shadow King although this was not clear) are described as diseases infecting the minds of those around them.

Also, where was Chapter 11?

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 07:15

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

There's no way she could have hurt him at that point. She's unconscious, and he has his powers back. He has all the time in the world to talk it through with her once they're home, to figure out with everyone's help how to put things right if she's under SK's control. And that's if this even is an implanted delusion and not just regular old lying and cherry-picked truths, which seems much more likely.

[/quote]
This is a somewhat poor argument given that the reverse applies during the confrontation at the end, and in far less stressful conditions. Expecting an emotionally unstable person to revert to calm rational behavior after getting into a near-loss psychic super-fight, nearly getting murdered by a woman that he loves and thinks loves him, and then suffering a concussion is a bit much. David assuming that her mind was corrupted by the SK and quickly-but-messily mashing ctrl-z so he could go back to bashing the SK's skull in (I don't recall if D3 was there yet but I thought not) is a fairly reasonable set of actions, and the end of the episode states as much: much as David can't see how others perceive him, Syd didn't seem to realize how others would perceive her actions at that moment - David is stammering a bit but he was portrayed as genuinely confused at some of the accusations in the desert.

Having Kerry frame David's action as "treachery" is also unearned unless his magic welding mask was also psychic - from his perspective Syd should have come across as possessed.

# ¿ Jun 14, 2018 05:31

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Magnus Manfist posted:

I thought Syd trying to shoot David made sense?

It's not that she thinks he's evil, worse than Farouk, or deserves to die or whatever, she's just decided he's too dangerous to live and this moment when he's depowered might be literally the only chance anyone ever has to take him out (he does indeed try to do something to her with his powers, but they're switched off).

I don't think the show ever shows Syd going through this thought process except maybe when talking to Two-Face. Part of the problem is that from the audience's perspective, which is divorced from David's perspective for the following, we see the following sequence of events:

Syd wakes up in a tent with David after navigating an unreal desert. She steps out and sees a giant hole and a giant pink drainplug. A white rabbit on a hook is tossed out of the hole; she frees the rabbit but then is snagged by the hook and pulled into hole, which she somehow survives. She then navigates a maze that is similar to Division 3 before finding a mind-controlled Melanie. Melanie shows Syd context-less images, including information that Melanie shouldn't have which Syd calls out or that Syd should know is incorrect (like the video of David roaming the hall in S1). Kerry somehow enters the labyrinth where the minotaur (or Jabberwock, maybe) runs around on the ceiling and kills a Vermilion. Kerry then teams up with Syd to fight the minotaur and the sequence ends with, seemingly, Syd losing to the minotaur (although maybe she shifted bodies). The next episode picks up with Syd apparently having cut off the minotaur's head, dragged it out of the maze and through the monastery and back to where David is.

The main problem is that Syd should be questioning what she's seeing and does question what she's being told, but is either convinced off-camera (which means she's either an idiot or the audience should have been shown this) or mind-controlled by Farouk... which kinda supports David just erasing the last few hours in the heat of the moment. Even if she completely accepts that the future info from Mel-Farouk is true, and stopping David from killing Farouk is indicated to be the correct action by Future Syd, that doesn't mean that killing David makes sense, vs simply ensuring that Farouk survives to counter David if/when David turns bad.

quote:

They have evidence that he literally destroys the world!

What evidence?

# ¿ Jun 19, 2018 03:34

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Magnus Manfist posted:

She's been blinded for a long time by a basically immature relationship with him based on shared trauma and him being the only person who can touch her but ever since season 1 people have been telling her she goes to a lot of trouble to convince herself he's a good guy, she's been gradually losing faith in his ability to learn to be normal (kind of the cornerstone of her character), and when she sees everything he's done from an outside perspective it tips her over the edge. Yeah, she's obviously being manipulated by being shown that, but that doesn't mean it's not true - Farouk just knows exactly what to show her. Most of it she knew was true, it was just an outside perspective on it.

I don't disagree with the gist of this, but think it accelerated way too much at the end (partly because the season seemed really interested in long, visually pleasing but overall low-value shots) and when the provider of the perspective is the series' villain merged with a shambling drug addict Syd should be at least not rapidly accepting it to the point of committing murder.

quote:

Dr Robo-nerd says something like there's a 98% probability the pokeball was built by Kerry in the future, the implication is clearly that they've assessed the evidence and decided to believe the message from the future that David destroys the world

Sure, what I'm saying is how do they know what the message was? There are only two people who went into the future: David and Farouk. Why would they ever believe that Farouk is telling the truth?

quote:

She is convinced on camera during the penultimate episode when she is at the bottom of the hole with Farouk. She is repeatedly shown David's Yellow Shirt personality enjoying the hell out of being an evil jerk.

Again, she questions how she is being shown this and is, I think for the S1 content, either in the know about what she is looking at or was not perturbed at the time.

# ¿ Jun 20, 2018 04:45

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

eke out posted:

i think they wanted to remind us that she was also traumatized by that incident, because she was a child with no real comprehension of what sex would be like. but they may have lost sight of the other part, where she was simultaneously someone who, out of curiosity and carelessness, did something profoundly bad with her powers with ramifications to others she didn't really understand.

if you squint hard enough, you can almost see the show moving towards some kind of personal growth where Syd realizes part of the reason she can't get over what David did to her is because she's never really confronted (and reckoned with her guilt over) how she analogously used her powers on others.

we might be on our way to something along those lines, but I'm still afraid we're not going to get there because none of this plot has been handled particularly gracefully

The only reason I could see some growth being possible (in however few episodes remain), but at the same time doubt it, is Syd's description of what sex was like in comparison to what David did was so out of whack it emphasizes the disconnect that would suggest later revelation. At this point my gut feeling is that the S2 writers liked the idea of David being confronted with the idea that his form of help could be construed by the audience as negative (mind-wiping Syd) and everyone in and out of the show turning on him, but wrote themselves into a corner by having Farouk being so manipulative and evil (and Syd's actions being clearly wrong from the audience perspective) that mind-wiping would come across as too sympathetic, so the mind-wipe also being a (accidental?) roofie got bolted on to shove David into a non-sympathetic position.

I wish the last two seasons were like this episode, though. The forward plot progress with contained story was great, to say nothing of the visuals/storytelling.

I thought the time eaters looked a lot like Blue Meanies.

# ¿ Jul 16, 2019 05:52

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

twistedmentat posted:

So David isn't supposed to be sympatheic right? Because him going around and killing everyone willy nilly and saying it doesn't matter because he is going to fix everything makes him a selfish, spoiled rear end in a top hat. Like rather than stop being a needy, selfish jerk and try to be a better person, naw he'd just change reality so that's fine!

I don't know why Switch went with him so easily though. Going to assume that David planted a trigger inside of her to get her to do whatever he says later.

Considering everyone on the sky boat is trying to kill David I'm not sure how him changing as a person is supposed to undo the need to kill them all in defense, particularly with Farouk running around. He's not really a "good" person but he's also seemingly out of options to make things "better" without hitting a reset button.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2019 19:43

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

AtraMorS posted:

Like Syd tried to argue, it's an argument that only works from David's POV. The Syd that fell in love and everything else is going to be utterly unmade; her consciousness will stop, no different than dying.

Following his logic, none of the people David knows now are "real people." None of the people he will ever know can be "real people" because he can always pull a redo for himself, and the logical endpoint of that POV is a sort of solipsism where nothing David does ever matters or means anything, not like the bits of motherhood that Lenny had meant something to her. He's just concocted an elaborate excuse to not have to look at himself or his actions with any sort of scrutiny.

But that box already opened in the first episode of the season when Switch undid David's death. Syd is already erased. So is David. Time travel and souls don't really mesh. So if Switch went back in time to the last 15 minutes of season 2 and kicked David in the nuts then from David and Syds perspective everything would be fine and David would still be with the Syd he knows.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2019 17:21

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Corte posted:

I don't think they were referring to the concept of a soul or how it would be affected, simply that the current Syd as she exists now would be erased and replaced with a new version based on whatever changes David makes. If David goes back and does something that fundamentally changes the timeline so he no longer goes to Clockworks they will never meet and fall in love. Also I don't think we got her exact feelings or thoughts on the subject as she was sweet talking David to get close enough to touch him.

This is true, but in relation to Syds speech it doesn't really matter any more based on events from two consecutive episodes, one where David "erases" Syd by purging the Farouk influences, and then again when Switch erases two Syds that successfully kill David. It's a philosophical question that can't withstand being made real without also defining other unknowns like the existence of a soul or how time travel actually works.

Essentially, why is the current time stream the correct one?

# ¿ Jul 25, 2019 19:29

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

AtraMorS posted:

A Syd was already erased. The Syd talking to David in the most recent episode is not that Syd because, as you say, that Syd was erased. This contemporary one has no memory of either successful attack; from this Syd's POV, they showed up at David's and found a crater. If Switch did as you say, then the Syd that David currently knows--i.e., the Syd that he raped--would disappear, so no, it would not be "the Syd he knows." It would be the Syd he knew.

I have no idea what souls have to do with any of this unless you're trying to tie it to some ineffable, permanent concept of self, but it's hardly necessary.

No, it would be the Syd that David knows, because it would be the David that the audience knew, up until that moment. The David in the conversation in the last episode would also cease to exist.

The concept of self or souls or whatever is relevant because

quote:

Because it is the one in which people currently exist.

Doesn't seem to follow if our current existence has no intrinsic value. Kicking David in the nuts would seem to be a better outcome for most of the characters from the last episode. Switch has already obliterated at least two universes, what's one more?

# ¿ Jul 26, 2019 00:06

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

AtraMorS posted:

Yeah I lost you here. I'm not trying to be insulting or anything. The conversation just officially got too abstract.

If Switch changes the past before the rape then David and Syd will be reset to that point. David will get the Syd he knows because David will only know things up to that point.

I think the show also does a poor job of saying why that's bad for David vis a vis "the Syd you know will be gone", because David since the end of S2 has seen... maybe 15 minutes of Syd, and she keeps trying to kill him? From his perspective she may as well have had a stroke and her brain went nuts like Kevin Sorbo, so fixing that seems like a really good idea to him.

quote:

What I'm saying (and what Syd was trying to explain to David) is that the people who currently exist matter more than people who do not. That's all. Therefore, the current existence--whatever it is, however hosed up it is--has value over an existence that does not yet exist, and it is wrong to forcibly wipe away all of those current lives even if the goal is to replace them with something "better."

I just don't think the show supports that, and not counting butterfly effect stuff I'm pretty sure the dead would prefer to be alive. Amy probably would, and I bet Clarke would like to be alive and have his husband's memory restored. David may have stacked the deck a bit in the last episode but Syd saying "don't erase us" is really "don't erase me" because she's almost all that's left. We think that which exists matters because we don't have any choice - if we could time travel and fix our mistakes we may have a different outlook.

I also assume Kerry would like a reset so maybe she can finally get into a fight where she doesn't lose.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2019 06:45

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

For David to live with who he'd become.

For everyone else to get some closure for what he did to them, in one form or another. Maybe not by killing him, although his steadfast refusal to be helped or to ever humble himself in any way was kind of pointing in that direction, but certainly not by being erased from existence!

So a misery ending? A "justice" ending would have worse consequences for Syd who reframed her raping a guy into her being the actual victim, repeatedly tried to murder David, and even post-rebirth was only trying to stop David to make him pay for what he did to her, not others. Cary is a sort of helper dupe while Kerry is an extremely violent child who loses every fight she gets into, so I don't see what their positive outcome would or could be. Everyone else is dead.

In the actual ending David doesn't really fix anything. Syd fixes David by telling his mom to love him (albeit with a sorta strange song choice), giving him the love that he does deserve, and changing the past. David doesn't get/give some childish comeuppance because what's the point in that?

quote:

We got that episode with Syd and the wolf that ended up just being pointless. Second childhood necessary to know to protect...a baby? Ok.

The rebirth episode was to change Syd's goals from murdering David to saving David. Kerry was on board the "kill baby hilter" train and Syd stopped her.

Zachack fucked around with this message at 06:58 on Aug 13, 2019

# ¿ Aug 13, 2019 06:56

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

Not a "misery ending." Just an ending that doesn't imply that anyone who's ever been abused or hurt by a loved one should just accept that they're an inferior, damaged versions of themselves and should jump at the chance to be replaced by a do-over.

The people hurt also took terrible actions against others, the chance to pull up died halfway through this season. And I'm pretty sure all the corpses in space would love a do-over. And I don't think Sid or the Karys were jumping at a do-over so much as accepting it was going to happen.

quote:

Your characterization of Sid is also really weird and contrary to what the show actually presents but I'm not going to argue the point all that hard because it actually doesn't make much of a difference whether she has her own share of skeletons in the closet or not. Trying to erase your actions so you don't have to think or deal with the consequences ever again is hosed up and nihilistic either way.

The characterization is exactly what the show has shown. Sid raped a guy in season 2 and destroyed his life. Sid tried to kill David at the end of season 2 and succeeded twice in the first episode of season 3. Sid reframed her raping a guy into her being violated when she talked to her younger self in the time eater episode. Sid in the previous episode says it's about her hurt, not the hurt to others. Sid is a mess of characterizations and got a astral plane do-over near the end to kinda fix that.

In the real world you can't erase your actions because we don't have a time traveler, an omega-level psychic parasite, blue meanies, or a literal god walking around. But trying to fix your mistakes is the opposite of nihilistic, if David was nihilistic he would have just rewritten existence on his own, or just finished wiping out Division 3 and lived his cult life. David wanted a better life for everyone, whether they like it or not.

Zachack fucked around with this message at 07:22 on Aug 13, 2019

# ¿ Aug 13, 2019 07:20

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# ¿ May 4, 2024 11:01

Zachack: Jun 1, 2000

Codependent Poster posted:

Yeah I think Farouk had an unearned face turn at the end there. It needed more time or clues. It still almost worked though because the actor is so cool.

To me a lot of this season felt lime there was a missing season (or half season) in between s2 and s3. David forming his cult, maybe more background on Switch (who barely exists as a character), more on how Division 3 is ok with Farouk running around (and maybe seeding the turn at the end) and maybe more setup on the Ptolomy mainframe thing.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2019 16:01

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