Umbrella Academy

Edit: Crap, page topper again.

Inkdagger

Im sure he had to sigh his approval on things, sure, but that's still doesn't imply he had much involvement with the shows actual writing or creation.

And besides, accusing someone of being a "racist homophobic anti-semite" on social media seems like a big stretch to make when that person had little to do with a shows creation. That'd be like calling Alan Moore and imperialist authoritarian because the Watchmen movie was bad.

Edited by Eldritcho on Mar 12th 2019 at 10:07:29 AM

Wait what? Why...why would they call him that? And how, in any way, was the show anti-Semitic?

https://twitter.com/bibliogato/status/1101309459148754945?lang=en

Here ya go.

Also Hargreeves is accused of being a stereotypical Jew despite being an alien.

So...because a person is speaking Yiddish, it's anti-Semitic? Fucking hell, that's stupid.

Yeah there's coding but... that's not quite enough for it.

Honestly, I don't understand the logic of the opening of episode 9 right after 8. It makes Hargreeves look a bit more reasonable for locking Vanya up when she murders three people in a row for no discernable reason.

Did she actually murder them? Threw them around and amusing abuse but I don't think it went outright to murdering them until we saw Robo!Mom's debut but, obviously, she just rotates her head.

Tossing someone out of a third story window will probably result in their death. Plus, considering she didn't know that Robomom was a Robot and she turned her head around, she probably wasn't worried about killing the others.

Fair points but I also wasn't sure if I was over thinking it. I kind of felt like we were at a point in the series where a child killing people so offhandedly wouldn't be played for laughs, so they couldn't possibly be dead. I guess maybe its a minor tone problem.

Also it made Vanya look a little petty and self-centered when she's going through the house, destroying everyone's rooms, and the awful, horrible, abusive memories she has to conjure up of her siblings being terrible to her are... normal reactions when a sibling barges uninvited and unannounced into your room.

I thought it was pretty clear that Vanya was emotionally stunted.

I mean, I get that, but I feel like the narrative wanted the siblings to be as much at fault for Vanya being the way she was when we never see any of them being outright mean to her and pretty much all of their issues go back to Hargreeves, who was a demonstrably terrible person. The worst thing you can say about the siblings is that they were complicit...

Okay, fair enough, that's also bad.

Isolated those are pretty much normal incidents, but if you are constantly pushed away, if you are always left out, those incidents aren't so harmless anymore. That is pretty much how bullying in school works. It is less the name calling, it is the constant feeling of not belonging which causes the most hurt.

I can see where the instances taken in isolation are pretty bland, but I think its the principal of the action. Kid!Diego's comments were pretty awful. I'd also cite back to the scene with the portrait as NONE of the kids react to Vanya at all while she's crying and begging just out of frame to be included. And, since Hargreeves, Pogo, and Allison KNOW she has powers and are ignoring her, they're just being cruel and petty for little gain.

Its also moments like these that I don't quite understand how Robo!Mom fits in. She's nice, compassionate, and trying to help the children with their emotional issues as we see with Diego, but what could her possible reaction be to Vanya's ostrization from everyone else? Surely Robo!Mom would come into some kind of conflict with the others if everyone is being awful to Vanya, right? I suppose that's what I'd like to explore more or at least get clarity on in the next set of episodes.

Hargreeves probably programmed it into her not to give a shit about Vanya.

And Allison made Vanya forget she had powers when she was four. I don't remember a goddamn thing about being four years old. The only reason Allison probably remembered was because of a recent chain of traumatically relevant events triggering the memory.

Finished the series/season. Loved it, the way the whole thing was build on disfunctionality that grows as causes the characters to sabotage themselves and each other, and while even though they try to improve themselves the mistakes they've made still can't be denied.

On the one hand, because of that I really love how everything snowballed and unfolded. It really felt like a house of cards that that was slowly but inevitably falling over, with the protagonists as the disappointed builders who, still, have a change to rebuild the house in a way that works. I especially love the theme of pride and secrets: the characters had those things driven into them since they were children. As adults, their reliance on those things cause their downfall time and again. Nobody who ever goes rogue to do the right thing ever accomplishes anything, because they don't actually know what they're doing, are sabotaging the attempts of others to do the same things they are, and are simply letting their pride drive them, which is a great subversion.

But, on the other hand, the flipside of the plot being built on the characters' mistakes is that it's very obvious how the plot only works in places because they keep making mistakes. If Klaus doesn't steal the book looking for drug money, the apocalypse doesn't happen. If Fives travels back a few days and stabs Harold / Leonard in the face, the apocalypse doesn't happen. If Fives is forewarned about any of the characters needing to be anywhere at moments they're there not, the apocalypse doesn't happen.

In short, the biggest nagging issue is that one of the main characters can time travel, and even though that's on the fritz, he also at certain points owns a perfectly working time machine. Which is never mentioned after he steals it from the Commission. Hell, if - as soon as everyone finds out about Harold's manipulations and Vanya's powers - he used that time machine to go back a few days and warn everyone (plus stab Leonard in the face), the apocalypse not only doesn't happen, it probably never happens. Which, even better, seems to be the plan they actually go with at the end of the season, but since now they have to rely on his on-the-fritz powers they end up doing so imperfectly.

Another way of putting it is that it kind of hurts the stakes. The apocalypse is sold as this extremely resilient moment in time that can't be changed no matter how much Fives tries, but... it's not. Any number of things could have simply stopped it in its tracks, and literally theonly thing that keeps Fives / the heroes from stopping it is ultimately that they don't get the information they need until right before it happens. Which perfectly explains why they couldn't stop it the first time, when all this was unfolding an their mistakes were piling up the way they ought. But not after, when they know better and have the means to act on it.

Going on to the premise, it also makes it difficult to believe that Hargreeves would be able to predict this disaster so closely that he could know that killing himself would give them a fighting chance in the nick of time. What, did he have a hunch Vanya would randomly go bananas at this point in time? He didn't know a thing about Harold (and if he did, what the fuck?), that Klaus would hand someone dangerous the keys to ending the world (and if he did, what the fuck?) and events only transpired to cause the apocalypse because he brought everyone together (and if he knew that... well... you get the picture).

I mean, in the end, it's an idiot plot that works, don't get me wrong, because the plot contrivance relies on the characters' flaws for justification. But at the same time, it's still a step too contrived at moments.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 15th 2019 at 10:25:21 AM

You're right, Five has a time briefcase and it just sits there, even when they learn that Vanya has powers and Five could go back in time and prevent Harold from even meeting her. I mean, we already see that time can be changed — "The Day That Wasn't" was completely changed into "The Day That Was" due to Five's time traveling. But they never end up using the time briefcase again.

They might discuss the possibility of why next season.

I'd have to rewatch the first season again, but I don't think they really discussed how time would deal with paradoxes. Five himself is motivated BECAUSE he saw the Apocalypse. What happens if that never happens? Will Five and the timeline somehow be reverted in a way that makes Five's characterization impossible?

Depends on how they're spinning time travel which... I already don't understand their idea of time travel.

And that's why I tend to hate time travel stories...they never make any sense.

@Son Of Sharnkado: you might wanna see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3Xv_g3g-mA

It explains how lonliness can warp your perception to make you think everyone's out to get you. So those minor stuff her siblings did would feel like deliberit rejection to her.

Probably not. From the looks of it, they've time traveled themselves back to when they were kids. Unless they somehow change practically nothing, that time machine is long gone.

Almost certainly not. Time travelers in this universe are never implied to be personally affected by changes to the timeline. Once they change things, the original timeline only exists in their memories of it. It's erasure doesn't affect who they are.

On that note, paradoxes clearly aren't a thing in this universe.

You hop to the past and change things, that's alters the future. From a timeline point of view, you more or less just appeared out of nowhere one second and had an effect past that point, and that's that.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Mar 17th 2019 at 6:14:36 AM

There's just a lot of stuff I just don't understand about the Time Agency stuff and I feel like I'm supposed to understand it by now.

Slightly jumping back to Vanya-Mom, I just got hit with the thought yesterday; Mom could have in no way been programmed to ignore or be terrible to Vanya. The entire reason for her invention WAS because of Vanya and her petty nonsense with the other nannies. So Mom presumably had a good relationship with her.

Which... calls into question what that relationship was. Was Mom under some kind of... geas or wierdness censor to be unable to acknowledge the damage Hargreeves was causing to Vanya? At least the other kids' damage wouldn't show until later. I suppose this question DOES go for Klaus too as his stuff I would argue is easily the most traumatic over all and the most obviously damaging.

If she's programmed to 'protect' the kids, what are the limits to that if they were rather blatantly being abused?

It's probably "protect the kids in the confines of what Hargreeves thinks is right." IIRC she was there when Hargreeves had Allison geas Vanya, smiling away as usual.

Yeah, Robomom was programmed herself by Hargreeves, so she probably had to ignore the emotional abuse, even though she herself tried to be there emotionally for all the children (even teaching Diego how not to stutter). Vanya does have good memories of Robomom, but she probably also has worse memories of Hargreeves.

In which case, I'd like to see that explored. Have Vanya confront Robo!Mom over doing nothing, even if the only gain is closure on the topic. Or I would be very curious if there might have been a moment Hargreeves DID go too far and Robo!Mom jumped in, if only that one time and against her programming. That could be a rather interesting development of character.

Particuarly since I don't know how else to develop Robo!Mom.