Navy Avam - Blog Posts
I always found it a bit interesting to view Orchid and Navy through sexist pair of lenses within their writing because you wouldn't be wrong for thinking that. Looking at the couple's design, it's just blatantly allegorized as such; It's rather encouraged throughout their ingrained positioned roles. It's a different perspective to partake for sure. In a general observation, the best part is that it appears just as explicit as it is consistent in the two.
But if you're asking me on a deeper, personal level, I like to explore the nuances within that frame of enlightenment. The out of bounds of that construct is so incredibly fascinating to me. I enjoy my share of speculations, after all.
As a couple, the two are ever hardly mentioned or brought up. As someone who developed such an attachment, you can imagine my shock in the newsletters’ one truth, two lies.
And then you consider what their cameo was in the episode itself. The complications are the timeline.
When escaping the frame, Purple seems as though he's a fully grown stick, and his first reaction is to reach out for his dad. If you were to consider his bout of chasing and longing, the reaction seems a bit underwhelming from my takeaway when acknowledging just the severity of his state, which is why I personally don't agree with Navy's state in abandonment in the period just yet.
As valid is this concern is, what bugs me the most is the thumbnail.
The thumbnail of the file has the trio in the frame. It's a bit ironic considering how.. catering and loving the family is when we only ever familiarized them as not the best via Purple's presentation. Oddly enough, Purple appears roughly young in the frame. Somewhat between the height of his first presented sparring and the second.
The first bargaining versus the second bargaining has a drastic and visible difference in a general observation. It's quite a gap with Navy's eagerness and roughness alongside Orchid's lack of accompany. This can suggest the frame in which their written canon got altered from the attack in an attempt to make sense with the sudden disruption.
When thematically, the two’s writing are still ongoing, not properly constructed. Perhaps they didn't have the time to be. Perhaps because they can't be. And that causes many, many issues. (being in which we know of)
To consider the 5 second scene as an “origin” seems so utterly.. lazy and jagged when you're viewing it from a writer's standpoint. Things start to drastically change when you portray the bit as a potential kickstarter to what we are presented later on, and everything just seems to click.
The file withering away without the security of their rightful positioned page on Newgrounds. Without their predicament in coding, it completely discards alongside speculated hundreds (if not thousands) of others.
While not directly stated, the implications of Dark and Chosen's rampage conquencing and ingrained not only in their victims’ traumatic nightmares and loss of loved ones, but instantaneously in disconnection with their coded writing and platforming—makes an incredible poetic combination.
StickWave on X
The severity of the two's actions and how Chosen's intricate reluctance (but bystanding) will be contributed in the long run, as Alan stated his plans on exploring the emotional depths and development of his character. (As hilariously traitorous and belittling it sounds when Chosen is already quite in-depth. He already has much exploration, careful thought, naunce, and a lot going for him as a stand-alone character in his established arc.)
But I'm getting ahead of myself for the PowerPoint.
Without the uploader's ability of continuation in their chain of chronology and writing in a digestible format (as it contradicts the already decaying code from the displaced file), it practically leaves this family stranded. How the two will continue on with their nurture and catering from here is plausible to one's eye.
I find Purple as a character very useful when understanding Navy and Orchid as individuals, as their styles are very well coreherent within him. As anonymous as they are, they appear familiar when keeping Purple's responses in mind.
Navy's design is a simple dark blue color. Commonly associated with masculinity. Displayed in authority, strength, solitude, power, responsibility, care, and common sense. His programmed positioning well highlights and compliments that standard. His role stems as a husband and as a mentor for their child, giving strict tutorings.
Orchid’s design is a light pink color. Commonly associated with femininity. Displayed in carefulness, dignity, delicacy, kindness, tenderness, and usefulness. So shocking when her programmed positioning consists of that standard. Her role stems as a wife, a mother, and a comforting and supporting role.
Their creator redirects these socially constructed (and vaguely misogynistic) choices into their original characters. It's gender essentialism. It's an extremely patriarchal thought to have. This is what happens when writers don't want to look too deeply into their own biases and replicate them into a fictional construct thats still based on the society that generally formed those said biases.
It only ever feels encouraged with Alan's own odd choices and remarks toward the topic of diversity in a female cast. But then again, I digress.
The two play as role models. The two are parents, after all, as much as they are lovers. Or supposed to be. It's a general faux relationship.
And then you have Purple—whose role is simple in itself; a child of the two. Children who are nurtured, raised with careful precision, and molded on whatever methods they are conditioned to. It reflects on them.
What stood out to me the most was how Navy's adamants in strict authority, which was not only directed to Purple but to Orchid as well. So it only ever appears as strange when he does the same with her.
This only ever came off as an odd question to me of course. Navy's methods were not only coherent within Purple but began to rub off on Orchid as well. Orchid isn't even a subject for sparring, unlike Purple, yet she's treated with the same field of intellect. Not offering a hand, not offering help. His methods appear as a "You help yourself or no one will." Directed for everyone in general, not just Purple. In Navy, it's all for oneself and their ability in defense. Combat is quite a normalized bat of action in-universe regardless, and he still offers a gesture. He's just as alarmed, of course. That's his family.
It's such a huge gap for someone who we saw as so, so loving and catering. Someone who was made to be so loving and catering.
And you wonder where Purple's nasty tendency of running away from his responsibilities stems from. And you wonder where his longing for validation stems from. And you wonder where his difficulty of forming and maintaining relationships stems from. And you wonder where his warped perception of belonging stems from. How he ends up defying (most of) these very traits and facing them head-on. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
As someone who is characterized and coherent within Purple via harsh training and micromanagement, he's cold. Navy wanted only the best. He wanted to raise someone who was special, someone who knew what they were capable of, someone who knew how to fend; to fight. Someone who was good. It's what he was made to do. From an interrogated perspective, these ideals can be a very parallel to what Navy forces within himself. To be held high, to feel validated, to feel worth. A beg that he's living up to phantom strings of a no longer existing story, something that doesn't hold strength in necessity anymore, but a necessity of confirmation.
And if Purple isn't cut out for those expectations? It's like a betrayal to life itself. But what is the purpose to life itself when the purpose withered away long ago? And if there was supposed to be something more, he wouldn't know.
He's trapped in a fading prison that is not essentially out of his making but is left with his responsibility to escape. But how can you retrieve the digits when you have no conscience of the fact that it was rotting with your own independence to begin with? How can you care, when all you can think about is the emotional hurt that brings out the worst of you, the part that your lingering hubris and negligence doesn't want to fathom is the worst of you?
In his worst, he stays clinging to the structure because it's beneficial for him. In his best, it's the only thing he can comprehend. And he sticks to it.
It's an endless cycle of dysfunctionality, a constant feedback loop. Though not by his own hands, but kickstarted by his utter ignorance to process his emotions that he deems unfitting for a role as his. A sublevel degree of dependency of an origin that no longer exists, and his inability to move on. Someone who metaphorically runs from his consequences, fear of accountability, but someone who is willing to subject those steps away if it contributes something for the only other obliged and existing role he has. He's a husband as well, after all.
And Orchid.. doesn't look back once. Not even a glance. Something that bugged me from the get-go was Orchid's flinching/covering herself when confronted by Navy. If you're in a safe, healthy relationship, you shouldn't feel the slightest bit of obligation to defend yourself. Because you trust your partner. This implies that Navy had either
1] Laid his hands on her before (which I highly doubt)
2] Grew anxious from watching his sparrings with Purple
And if 2 is the case, it comes off as intricate. You would ask why she wouldn't just leave him? If the viewing of sessions made her so wary to the extent of self-defense, why would she submit her child to go through that?
You could assume there was denial and codependency playing out and you wouldn't be wrong for thinking that. You would think that her ability on leaving that relationship would be so difficult within herself that she would chase when Navy redirects that choice.
But she proves you wrong. She doesn't beg, she doesn't interfere, she doesn't digress, and she doesn't look back once. From what we were shown during that time frame, it just didn't make any sense.
If you were to separate Orchid from her role and ask of her within her identity, you would get plainly nothing. She's a mother, a wife, and what else? She is empty behind them.
She doesn't attach herself to Navy and Purple. If anything, she isolates and disappears away from the scene. It's only ever evident in her discomfort with Navy and how he acts out in his conflict. How he treats their child. Stomping her away. As loving and empathetic she is for Purple, she doesn't interfere unless she's positive that it's a necessity, thus her flaw.
And you wonder where Purple's adamants of independency and self-soothing stems from. Once again, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Motherhood in Orchid is equivocal. It's both the desire and loss of identity. But what identity is there to be loss if there's plainly nothing if not her role? Nothing in store for her? In her writing? You really can't be alienated either way.
In her assumed relief, it's all of that. She's dazed. She's paralyzed, up until her legs begin to give up from under her, and she needs Purple's help to stay upright.
Using Alan's interpretation of death within animations, their code is disconnected, but still very there. It's the inability to be altered by one in the real world, so it's left as unadulterated (unless with the acceptable scenario of Second) as death in-universe doesn't abide by human biology. But what code is there to detach when they detached long ago?
...or rather, the last strands of code taking those steps in separation. In whom by definition, was Orchid's last strand of function.
In their discarding canon, it's the loss of functionality in both the pursuit of it and in the defiance of it.
It's the self extertion to the point it is actively damaging to not only yourself, but everyone around you versus the other whom is so out of touch that it causes unintentional hurt to the self and those around you. (In which both parties can't be communicated properly.)
Or as I love to put it in trope, the burning hatred of the figure you were made to love versus the boundless affection of how at the end of the day, you were still made to love them.
The topic of Navy's abandonment and that head turn really haunting and sticking to Purple and constantly replaying in his mind is a topic I HATEEEE. It always makes my gut feel itchy.
Navy just couldn't find it in himself to be that parent that Purple needs, he left not only himself but also for the betterment of Purple and Orchid, and Purple refuses to acknowledge that whatever he does—it won't make him change his mind and man that hurts.
Adding nuance in Navy and Orchid
Me and a friend had a nerd voyage about Navy and Orchid, and Paw brought up their cameo in AVA11 - Victim, in which I never previously considered—and it generally got me thinking about their relationship in compliment of the Newgrounds Tragedy. It had me contemplating about what if, rather the Newgrounds Tragedy was responsible for their substantial regression. What went wrong? I really would have never even begun to compose my thoughts if it weren't for him, so all credits!
Navy and Orchid's relationship is especially interesting to me as they were written and programmed to persist as these ideal, beautifully in love couple who attend towards their child. It's on the thumbnail of their uploaded file after all. All 3 of them in the frame! Protective and adoring arms wrapped around Purple.
Now, the timeline of this is a bit rough.
Purple in the thumbnail appears as though he's rather young. I can safely conclude that he is roughly around the same height as the first combat sequence in his presented backstory in AVM29 - Note Block Universe. The thumbnail provides some context that their story was perhaps on-going.
Navy being written as this character who gives strict but positive practices on combat towards Purple. Giving encourages. Orchid being a kind, lighthearted and comforting supporter toward this, nothing more and nothing less.
Nothing more because their creator was not given a chance to, that is.
The destruction of their file in the 2011 tragedy forced a sudden halt. An acute awareness that the couple's intervention with each other was nothing but automated; synthetic, leaving a sour taste as one would when your entire reality and purpose is completely shattered. There could be no interference towards their line of written story and code, forcing them to stick with their present (or what is known to them as the present)
No updates, no progression, no development, no further growth. Really, just nothing. Just an uncompleted story that forces the two to endure and carry on where they had been abandoned at. It's not like they have any other choice, just as the thousands of animations beside them.
As mentioned, Navy was loving, but designed with strict authority and boundaries towards training.
Navy's intentions and reasoning towards the sparring is unknown, making me beg the question; does he even know? Was his creator given the time to?
This confusion can host some hostility, oh undoubtedly.
Following with these characteristics in oppose to how he handles the aftermath of the tragedy, Navy engages in being impatient, inconsistent, irrational, eager, pestering, forceful, and downright abusive from the power imbalance in reflex to the instability of not having some designated context or rather purpose. Security.
Orchid, being the timid bystander. Providing comfort and sanctity to Purple every once in a while from a far too rough sparring. She's kind, neutral, observant, and naturally empathetic. But the entire interference leaves this bitter taste as she's nothing more than this role.
And honestly, that is heartbreaking for Orchid, and downright sad. Discomfort of aiding in your child's physical and mental development due to the dreadful profound ability of your unfair positioning does not correlate to not standing up for them at all. She has her priorities of not interfering unless certain that he is being empowered. She does not appreciate power imbalances—and this shows as she rather progresses from present comfort towards near audibility unless firm - and this is where I believe her fatal flaw comes in. Ignorance until positive.
And this shows in Purple, it shows a lot.
She does try her best, yes. She's still very loving, she still really loves Purple. She loves Navy. it's in her code after all. But her noticeable absence speaks volumes that she was attempting to distance herself.
But I find the reasoning to be much more due to Navy than Purple, if I'm being honest.
Navy and Orchid's relationship is surely strange. So in love in contrast to their narrative, then stranded to a rough prevention of their chronology. It doesn't defeat the purpose that they still, very much love each other. But the revulsion that it was nothing but a hoax will leave a agonizing dread in the atmosphere.
But after all, they have nothing else to stick to. Be optimistic with what you're left with, make best out of the worst. They can continue where their unfinished log was unfortunately Interrupted. And it goes as unwell as you would expect.
Hell, Navy's reaction towards these issues definitely encourages a hatred in Orchid and prompt towards distance. She was obviously discouraged from him and his impulses way early on, but the conflict rises when her son is the most vulnerable victim of it, and she does not like this.
Orchid and Navy are a loving bunch but two very different individuals. It wasn't too long until Orchid's comforting, soothing nature began to grow anxious and clash with Navy's raw approaches, outbursts and harsh eagerness. The worst part is that this isn't even Navy's fault.
And this shows. You would think once Navy leaves—she could rest. She could feel secure. She is loose from this lined attire that kept her glued to these strict set bounds; she's ridden of worries, and,
And this is where she proves you wrong. She is guilt-ridden, she's upset. She's left paralyzed, numb, in shock, detached. But why?—Why would she feel this way? Isn't she relieved of the split from the first ever obligated context she was programmed to be with?
Oh.
Ohh,
Ohhh, my poor girl.
And it's such a complexity of being doomed by the (unfinished) narrative. And it's rather the contrasting spectrum of it: the burning hatred of the figure you were made to love vs the boundless affection of how at the end of the day—you were still made to love them. The horrors is inescapable, no matter how much you try to run away from it.