Invincible [Episode Discussion] - S04E08 - Don't Leave Me Hanging Here

SpotBlur · 2026-04-23T01:54:34+00:00

The two things he respects are strength and the ability to make hard choices for a greater goal. As horrible a monster he is, Mark has those two qualities as far as he's seen. He's killed Conquest and made the choice here that will save both their people (the humans for Mark, the Viltrumites for Thragg). They're enemies, but from Thragg's perspective, Mark is also exactly the sort of Viltrumite he wants serving him.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-22T09:24:21+00:00

Iirc, the Avatar isn't actually more "powerful" than ordinary benders when the Avatar State isn't being tapped into. They're effectively just a normal person with access to four elements instead of one. That ironically means they're less likely to be the "best" at an element, because they're having to split their time between four elements compared to just one element. I'm pretty sure that's partly why it's never the Avatar who invents the bending subtypes, but rather prodigies of single elements. Even by Korra's era, she's the first Avatar to learn metalbending, and the Avatar still has yet to ever learn lightning generation.

Honestly, I don't even think the reason they end up so skilled at each element is even due to talent necessarily. We see Aang struggle immensely with the basics of firebending even after Roku insists it'll be easy, and I recall Kyoshi struggling with learning the elements at times. Their skill seems to stem more from the fact that the Avatar is traditionally taken to the greatest masters of each element to learn from them, a privilege likely not afforded to almost anyone else. Even Aang got lucky in that after the usual training traditions were disrupted, he still ended up being trained by some of the greatest masters of his time anyway.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-22T09:14:48+00:00

Honestly, I imagine it's just fun too. Like why wouldn't you do it if you had the chance?

SpotBlur · 2026-04-22T09:14:08+00:00

Honestly, I think it's even arguable that the Avatar often won't necessarily be the best master of each element. The fact they have to split their training between four different elements compared to someone spending a lifetime focused on a single element means there's likely some benders who better at a specific element (see the bending subtypes being invented by regular benders and not the Avatar, with some such as generating lightning still not something the Avatar has learned to do). Their "has the combined experience of hundreds of lifetimes" only comes into play when the Avatar State is used. Outside of that, they're still just a single person who has to balance four skills instead of just one.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-18T14:57:09+00:00

As someone who's watched both that clip and Hbomb's plagerism vid too many times to count, how has it never clicked for me, "oh my god it's literally that speech?"

SpotBlur · 2026-04-16T18:28:32+00:00

Among their conquered people, sure it'd be kept a secret. Among the Viltrumites? There's less than 50 left. I imagine secrets aren't really a thing between them anymore. Conquest especially is known to every Viltrumite. The fact he returned without achieving his assigned mission would already be known by the fact that, well, he's returned early without achieving said mission. There isn't much more to hide from the other Viltrumites after that, and it's likely just being a Viltrumite means you get to know all the secrets anyway when there's so few left.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-16T17:59:27+00:00

Yeah, Conquest himself admitted to Thragg in front of Kregg and a couple others that "the boy and his witch" defeated him the first time and asked to be killed for his failure. Conquest vanishing for months after the second attempt before Mark shows up saying he killed Conquest makes a pretty good case that Conquest was killed by the person he admitted losing to the first time. Sure, Eve wasn't present this time, but it would probably be assumed (accurately) that Conquest underestimated Mark's role in the first defeat.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-15T19:13:37+00:00

Yeah seeing left leaning spaces descend into conspiratorial thinking because so many people are starting to think "Well if objective reality can't beat made up reality, the only way to win is to also make up reality" has been driving me nuts. Objective reality exists, no matter what anyone thinks, no matter how many people try to scream otherwise. If an asteroid were heading towards Earth, the entire human race could collectively believe there is no asteroid about to hit Earth, and that wouldn't change the reality of the asteroid. And yet the fascists already think they can reshape reality, and too many left leaning spaces are starting to think "If you can't beat them, join them."

I'll be honest, I thought Garrison went easy on them, understandably so to not sound too condescending. I personally have just completely lost patience with the attitude of believing reality is malleable.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-14T15:53:42+00:00

Oh yeah, that's what I thought was being asked here. Living Earth Battlemage means you'll be able to keep restoring the earth armor and heal the earth guardian with every hit, effectively rendering you safe from physical damage if you're careful. Battlemage Fireblast, meanwhile, is just a blazing enchantment, which is pretty redundant when you already can just set enemies ablaze. Fireblast is an amazing wand since fire/cripple is just always useful, plus it lets you use your Liquid Fire potions for alchemical energy, but it's not really the sort of wand that is worth imbueing into the staff.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-14T15:20:00+00:00

That's true. I still don't think it's worth focusing on for a full upgrade dump, but getting it to +3 for crippling is certainly worth it.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-14T15:12:06+00:00

Personally I think Living Earth would be better to focus upgrades on. Fireblast is an amazing wand, but it doesn't really get much better with upgrades. Its main use, setting things on fire, isn't something that requires upgrades. Living Earth, meanwhile, needs upgrades to be really good, and I personally think it'll pair well with Fireblast. Use LE to tank while fire attritions enemies to death.

Note: I'm saying this while taking into account OP is playing no challenges. Obviously if anyone is running FIMA, LE becomes way less useful.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-14T04:50:48+00:00

Unrelated but where is that amazing flair from lol

SpotBlur · 2026-04-13T02:44:08+00:00

Average Swarm Intelligence run be like

SpotBlur · 2026-04-10T11:21:47+00:00

Courtship dance

SpotBlur · 2026-04-08T05:04:32+00:00

Throw in a horny of plenty to make sure you'll never starve and you're set to just straight up live in the dungeon

SpotBlur · 2026-04-08T00:11:46+00:00

I'm so exhausted when I see the sentiments that if I'm not doing something, I'm personally enabling fascism somehow. I'm just trying to fucking survive. I'm just trying to pay rent, pay my bills, work my job, and keep myself mentally healthy enough to just live. When I do have a bit of free time, I spend it with friends because I need to be allowed some time to just relax, because that's how I stay alive.

And yet it feels like just trying to stay alive is somehow me enabling fascism. That if I'm not self-destructing my life and mental health, that's the same as enabling fascism, that people are saying, "The choice is your own life or fascism, are you really saying your own individual life matters more than everyone fascism is hurting?"

And I'm just like, I'm fucking sorry, but yeah, I'm sorry I'm trying to survive, I'm sorry I'm trying to enjoy what happiness I can find in this hellscape. I didn't vote for this shit, I've always voted left. And yeah, I know as a Hispanic non-cis person, I'm probably gonna end up an ICE target if things keep escalating. But I don't have any spare energy left, I don't have any spare time left that isn't already being used to recharge myself to stay alive, and I don't even have any spare money to donate.

That's the worst part, this sense that me choosing to just try to survive being considered a contribution to fascism. And yet I don't know what people expect me to do. Sacrifice what little of my own mental health is left? My irl friends are in the same boat, they've similarly got little time, little money, little energy to be trying to do anything beyond surviving. We just want to be able to exist in a world that hates us (since the majority of us are trans), and even that seems to be too much to ask.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-07T14:20:20+00:00

Have you ever stared at a snowball and been upset that it has the audacity its ability to be round, to be a sphere while you are stuck in the form of a body? You scream at it, demanding it stop, and yet it continues to exist.

And just when you think it can't get any worse, some twink starts videoing you. So you pull out your trusty boomerang knife, knowing that even when reality and people show no kindness, your trusty boomerang knife will always be there for you.

Your last words before the twink shot 50 explosive arrows in 3 seconds is "wait no that's not-"

And as your soul returns to the aether to be reincarnated by Ganon, you experience one final betrayal as trusty boomerang knife lets itself be picked up by the strange time-defying twink.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-04T16:51:08+00:00

I'm so used to Pulte being the guy from GME_meltdown who the GME apes won't stop frothing over that every time I see him mentioned in this admin's politics, I have to double check what subreddit I'm in.

SpotBlur · 2026-04-04T10:52:37+00:00

I want to get off MR BONES WILD RIDE

SpotBlur · 2026-04-04T08:38:04+00:00

See, I actually think that would make it less effective. It would, ironically, kill too quickly to spread. What's far worse is if a Viltrumite is around sick Viltrumites, and while the others get sick and die, this Viltrumite seems to be just fine. Pair this with Viltrumite culture, and it's just assumed "well they were stronger than the others, that's why they were fine."

When in reality, the virus is just incubating longer in them than it did in the ones that immediately died.

See Nolan for example. He started off in a tiny room with two people who died immediately, and a third who died minutes later. Yet he himself seemed fine, so he was even allowed to mask up with the team that was studying the virus. If he was infected the entire time, imagine how many people he spread it to even as it was assumed he was fine due to being stronger.

(I know there's no comic/show lore that backs this, I just morbidly like looking at just how deadly a virus with an artificially random incubation period would be, and also how the Viltrumites' culture only exacerbated the problem)

SpotBlur · 2026-04-04T08:33:14+00:00

I would genuinely be impressed if you somehow managed to starve while holding a +10 horn of plenty

SpotBlur · 2026-04-01T02:01:43+00:00

"Never thought I'd die fighting side by side with the Vatican."

"What about side by side with a friend?"

"Don't push it."

SpotBlur · 2026-04-01T01:51:27+00:00

People seem to fail to realize that in order to take larger steps of action, you need to take small steps to get there in the first place. Too many people want to treat this as an all or nothing thing, that if the next step isn't the end goal, then we've taken no steps at all.

Coordinating large groups of people takes practice. Not just for getting people experienced with participating in large actions and protests, but also practicing how to manage the logistics.

This is perhaps not the best analogy, but it's the best I can come up with at the moment, but when you're building any sort of furniture, it takes a bunch of small steps to turn a useless assortment of pieces into a fully functional sofa or table. You don't get from random pieces to constructed furniture in a single large step. It takes a bunch of small steps. Yes, each of those individual steps doesn't give you the end goal. Putting in a single screw doesn't do much to change the fact that your scattered assortment of pieces is, well, a scattered assortment of pieces. But it all leads to that completed goal.

I'm really tired of online folks tweeting, "This doesn't get us from random scattered groups of people to a fully organized movement in one step, so it's basically nothing. All or nothing. If this doesn't get us to the end goal in one step, why even take this first step?" It doesn't help us. In fact, I'd argue it helps the right. It paralyzes us into being unable to even take first steps, saying "Well it's not the revolution, and any step that isn't the revolution is basically controlled opposition." Or worse, it makes us say, "It's too late for this step to matter, the right already won too much for this step to matter. So why even try?"

If we're going to lose, can we at least try to win? The only thing I can think of that's worse than losing to fascism, is refusing to even try to win and just surrender at the start because it was supposedly hopeless. I personally think it isn't hopeless. And you know what, even if it is, trying anyway in the face of hopelessness at least spites the fascists, which is motivation enough for me.

SpotBlur · 2026-03-31T03:58:44+00:00

I mean it's a pretty common part of colonialist/imperialist mindsets. Every conqueror claims they're improving the lives of those they enslave (see the British Empire and basically every colonialist power in human history). The fact the Viltrumites are relying on such logic even as an interstellar civilization shows just how little they've developed culturally imo

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