That’s How It Be For Me

OKAY WOW wizards was so so good, and i can’t wait to see what’s next for our champions of arcadia!!

but the last shot of the whole team (minus douxie, nari, and archie) ending with jim hugging claire and looking up at the sword, which becomes focused in the foreground......i have thoughts

now we know throughout all of trollhunters, we were given a whole lot of sword-and-the-stone imagery with jim. i know there’s a very good deep dive post with explanations on mythology and references in the show by @cookiesaddict, but i’d really like to give my two cents so please hear me out,,

i remember AT LEAST two instances where the sword in the stone imagery and jim jumped out at me:

1) when he first discovered the amulet and is playing around with the sword in his backyard, and the sword gets stuck in a large rock. he pulls the sword out of the rock:

and

2) in the unbecoming episode, when he chooses to fight gunmar without the amulet, knowing he’ll die. there’s a sword in draal’s back, and jim pulls the sword out of the stone of draal’s back before beginning to walk out and face the fight:

at the end of wizards, excalibur is left without a weilder with arthur dead, but claire and douxie both suggest that it needs a new weilder. claire says, “who better than our trollhunter?”

so jim tries:

and he fails.

and you know what he says? he says, “but without the amulet, am i the trollhunter?”

which i think is an interesting thing to hear, considering the fact that one of the places that we see the sword in the stone imagery IS the unbecoming episode, in which jim comes to the realization that he is the trollhunter, amulet or not. even when given the choice to live a normal life, even without his friends by his side, even without the amulet ever having belonged to him - he knew he was the trollhunter.

so what changed?

well. a whole lot did. the unbecoming episode happens in part 2 of trollhunters, and in part 3 jim makes the ultimate decision to become part troll. it’s a huge thing for him to deal with emotionally, even knowing that it’ll help him defeat gunmar and save arcadia. he moves away from home, and in wizards, he’s corrupted by arthur - which, i think, was what snapped the last straw. becoming corrupted - making the choice to become corrupted (even when it was to save his friends) - that is what i think truly destabilized jim.

all of trollhunters, jim faced what it meant to be a hero, what it meant to be the savior of trolls and humans alike. his identity came to revolve around the hero he was; it’s what helped him through the change from human to troll - that knowledge that he was doing it for his friends, for his city. but of all the things jim went through, never did he ever hurt his friends directly because of the mantle he undertook. but arthur and the arcane order changed that.

they took his amulet, they took his body, and they took his soul. and they used it all to hurt his friends. they turned him from a hero to a villain, and it was all so easy for them.

so yeah, jim looks like he’s back to normal as his human self - maybe a bit scratched up, but overall unharmed. but the psychological effects of being used as a weapon against the people you care about most? that doesn’t go away easily. that changes how you look at your relationships, your life, your identity.

and maybe he doesn’t really realize it now, maybe that’s why he said it the way he did - “without the amulet, am i still the trollhunter” - because he was feeling a lot of things and cited the physical manifestation - the destroyed amulet - of his trauma as the reason he may not be worthy.

i can’t pretend to know everything about the original sword in the stone mythology - all i really know was what was in the show - so i don’t know exactly how one may prove themself to be worthy. but i do think that as of the end of wizards, jim doesn’t think that he himself is worthy - of excalibur, of the trollhunter title, of being a hero. he betrayed his friends’ loyalty - against his will, yes, but that’s most definitely how he sees it as. and what kind of friend betrays their friends? what kind of hero betrays their friends?

so jim is in a dark place. (again.) but i have hope.

in the unbecoming episode, we get this shot when jim decides to stand up and fight, amulet or not:

and at the end of wizards, after jim fails to pull out excalibur, we get this shot:

yes the compositions of the two shots are different, but i can’t help but feel the shot in wizards was intended to be a parallel of the shot in unbecoming. and even if it wasn’t, it’s still eerily similar in a way that i can’t ignore.

both shots have jim, and a sword looming in the foreground, almost as if they’re watching jim. i think they could be considered as physical representations of choice and heroics; the sword in draal’s back represents jim’s choice to become the trollhunter and excalibur, i believe, represents to jim what it means to be a true hero, something that toa has established anyone can be as long as they strive to triumph in the face of fear, but it’s something he may feel as though he lost. and yet, he still looks at the sword.

in the unbecoming shot, he has already made his choice. in the shot from wizards, he is only just beginning to consider the choice again.

after wizards, jim will be at a crossroads - there is no amulet, and, at least for a moment, no apocalyptic threat nearby. he’ll need time to go home, find himself, face what it means for him to be a hero.

and i think jim will forgive himself for the actions against his friends that he couldn’t control and, just as he did in unbecoming, make the decision to have courage in the face of his own fears, to be a hero, amulet or not. and only then, i think, will he be worthy to weild excalibur.

I think I'm funny

Jeff bezos origin story film where his mother is chased off a cliff by a horde of angry Amazon workers

Can you imagine that this huge space we see here is Arcadia Oaks, or some other town?

Like-- let's assume that below is Arcadia Oaks High's soccer field, which we've already seen. We know that the high school was already destroyed to bits and would need some time to rebuild (maybe a year? I know that construction nowadays are pretty fast). Even if it's not, that's some mass destruction happening somewhere else.

But also what if Nari dies and the place that was originally burned and practically turned to ruin came back to life where she died; and that's why the gang looks so sad. Pls don't kill Nari, writers

i’m tired of being good

Actually if you're an asshole to kids and then use mental illness as an excuse, i am ethically obligated to rob you at knife point

*Steve seeing a handsome stranger with Aja and thinking that she cheated on him*

Steve: OH my god! 😟😟😟

*Realizes it's just Eli*

Steve: OH my god... 😏😏😏

Remember that one Barbie movie where two girls lived together in a cottage and were in love

if you are in high school and you follow me idc if you learn nothing else from me, but learn this: do not join the fucking military. they will promise you all sorts of things in exchange for joining their muder-system for a few years. do not listen to them. you won’t find a sense of purpose, you won’t find an adventure, you might not even get the money they promise you for college. if you survive, you’ll come back with blood on your hands, feeling just as aimless as before except knowing you’re a killer. the government will drop you like hot potatoes the second you are not useful to them, and you will be on your own with nothing but some ptsd and a more intimate understanding of the phrase “blood for oil.”