jaxihammer

my brain is a carousel and Sam Reich is in control

171 posts

All Of This^^^

All of this^^^

This got way too long, but whatever. SPOILERS for World's Beyond Number up to the end of Arc 3. One of my favorite parts about the world of Umora is its portrayal of institutions. This is also, unsurprisingly, one of the biggest sources of discourse around the series. With the completion of Arc 3, we are presented with two very distinct sides of a conflict: The Citadel vs The Man in Black. In general, though, a pretty clear motif has been The Citadel vs The Other (ostensibly spirits and nature) so I would argue that this categorization has existed long before lines were clearly drawn during the coven. Sadly, and unsurprisingly, this has led to a lot of takes that operate only from this binary. "Citadel Bad" is the pretty common sentiment as yes obviously the Citadel is not a good institution. What is interesting, is seeing the perspective that "Spirits Good". This is by no means as common a thing to see as the Citadel Bad posting, but the fact I still see it around, even post arc 3, is a testament to how nuanced the institutions of Umora are, and how commonly that nuance is missed.

Listening to the fireside chat for Episode 33, the cast discussed the portrayal of the Citadel versus that of the Coven of Elders and The Man in Black. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially they say that since the cast has advocates for the Citadel as part of the core narrative, the Citadel has to get a lot more critical shit flung at it. On the flip side, the Coven of Elders and The Man in Black are obviously messed up, so they do not need as much attention thrown their way to prove that.

This was fascinating given that it seems that there is an opposite effect happening from what I have experienced. I think it ties into the whole paranoia around Steel being another Brennan(tm) twist villain. Because the cast are so carefully portraying the nuances of the Citadel, which thematically is heavily evil colonial empire, Ghibli industrialization allegory coded, in order to try and balance both having clear decent people as a part of it while it also being a massive, out of control, hierarchical institution has ironically led to many people losing the trees for the forest.

Since its getting so much nuance thrown its way, in actuality it has to be fundamentally bad cause otherwise I as the viewer would have to engage with complicated questions like considering how good can exist within the confines of an obviously not good institution. That little trickster Brennan has to be tricking us, its a common gaff! Brennan "I hate Elon Musk with every fiber of my being" Lee "Fuck capitalism" Mulligan cannot possibly be asking us to consider that pure violence is not the best way to handle a corrupt system, no this has to be a trick!

On the flip side, this willingness to ignore that the Citadel probably shouldn't just plain be destroyed because its fantasy praxis also seems to lead to their being an opposite view of the other institutions we have seen. I saw a take that the cast must be on the side of the Coven of Elders ooc since they aren't as critical of them as they are of the Citadel and since the cast are all leftists outside of the game, they clearly are positioning the citadel as the objectively bad capitalist allegory while the witches are the Ghibli nature allegory and thus must be ultimately good!

Obviously, this is deranged and not a dominant take amongst viewers (I assume) but it still goes to show how easily the casts attempt to carefully portray the various institutions of Umora can be and are misinterpreted. A further point to this is I think Brennan does too good of a job of showing the temptation of these institutions, which is a common and incredibly dangerous aspect of powerful institutions in real life.

The Citadel is grand and powerful and efficient and any academic's dream. It has beauty and incredible innovation as well as common and familiar urban trappings. It has incredible coffee shops, delicious snack stands, and abundant resources. Wizard stans are of course going to fall in love with it. I think this leads to a reactionary sentiment though of, "Oh, I like this thing, but this thing is bad, therefore me liking this thing is bad, so I must hate this thing to rectify my mistake of liking this thing". Everything good about the Citadel must actually be a bad thing as otherwise I can't categorically despise the Citadel.

On the other side the Coven of Elders is composed of quite literally the most attractive person the cast are going to meet, the scariest person the cast are going to meet, the mysterious tragic goth blorbo, and activated gammie. The Coven of Elders is the embodiment of "God forbid a woman do anything". They are all so unbelievably cool and interesting, its hard not to get caught up in the trappings of it all. But they are all also clearly deeply flawed, if not in general monstrous individuals who wield vast amounts of power they probably (definitely) should not have.

Its so easy to look at the Coven and think "they can commit a bit of war as a treat" because they are so literally enticing. It also helps that the Coven is more easily viewable as a bunch of individuals rather then a faceless conglomerate of domination. I think its easy to not even consider them an institution since they are so easily recognizable as people. Yet it seems incredibly important that we do need to consider them as such because they too, like the Citadel, are kinda not very good.

Hakea, the literal founder of the Coven, is so far removed from common decency that she does view the war as just a little treat. Potential millions of lives lost is no sweat off her back, and due to her immortality she can easily hold that position. Yes she is gammie and I love her, but she is also an incredibly powerful individual who has spent the last centuries doing nothing but going through the motions with that said power with no regard, even to he other sisters. If Ame had not awoken her, she would have let her die, and Mirara with her too. Its doubtful she would have done anything about Indri until it was too late.

I don't even know if I have to say anything about The Man in Black. He is so obviously bad to the bone that if you are an unironic apologist I don't even know what to say. If you are an ironic apologist though you are valid and I get you. I think if there is any truly, uncompromisingly evil force in Umora, it is him. The fact that he is literally wielding an enemy faction of the Citadel like weapon is pretty clear indication he is bad news and is not some radical revolutionary.

All of this is to say, Brennan very clearly knows this about his institutions. They are meant to be enticing and grand and glorious simply because that's how many institutions paint themselves. It would be disingenuous and just straight bad storytelling for the citadel to be all smog and slave labor. It would be bad for the witches to all be well intentioned but misguided or the Man in Black to just be the fantasy liberator. Both sides are vectors of violence and oppression. Both sides have good aspects and bad. They are fantastically layered and nuanced and that's a great strength to the show, but it also leads to a lot of really binary and reactionary takes.

All Of This^^^

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