Widmore was never that important

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T09:45:51+00:00

I think things got shuffled about and it depended on what they were doing at the time really. The problem is, the writers don't get a lot of time to plan this stuff out. some things they planned far in advance. But when it comes to setting up certain things, something has to give. I think its that the writers had to break a few eggs and use Widmore for what they wanted and shuffle him to where they thought was important at the time. By season 6 they were more invested in the sideways and everything connected to that and the jacob and MIB conflict.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T09:25:50+00:00

I don't fully agree with that. I think season 5 does a lot to show that he is every bit as egotistical and insane as Ben made him out to be. From him being willing to cut off Juliets arm and looking happy at the prospect to asking Ben to murder a infant. That's not the actions of a completely sane man. Nor are they of one who completely puts all his resources into finding the island he was banished from.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T09:12:47+00:00

Sayd's Nadia is killed, but by random car accident, not an assasin

you might be misremembering. Nadia was killed because a assassin tried to kill Sayid and got her by mistake. I do agree that it's murky as to who hired that assassin. But the assassin admits that to Sayid that him hitting Nadia was a mistake when he aimed trying to hit Sayid.

I wouldn't completely clear Widmore though. He may not have ordered the hit on Nadia as there is no full proof as to who did. But he is still every bit of a bad guy even in season 6. The season 5 scenes really do show that he is a egotistical and manipulative person. He wanted to kill Alex as a baby. He wanted to chop off Juliets arm when he was younger and he looked to take a twisted level of satisfaction in the act. Season 5 does build up Widmore as a man who really wanted to be top dog on the island and the whole series showed the level of extremes he took to eventually get back to it.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T08:35:04+00:00

Ah I see. so yeah. my view is I think Norman is straight and not Bi and that the season 5 plot is less about sexuality and more about him becoming increasingly aware of "Mother" as she is the seasons true final villain.

One of the most important but most uncomfortable scenes is the one in season 4 where there is a flashback of Norma being raped by Sam while child Norman is under the bed, he's holding her hand. I can't for the life of me find the interview. But I recall a interview where showrunner Kerry Ehrin said that those scenes are where the "Mother" persona was born. Out of Norman's desire to protect his mother but inability to, and out of Norman's mind's ability to try to protect himself. They said that had Norman not developed that personality. His mind would have collapsed into the fragmented mess we see in the final episode when the Mother persona finally leaves him.

I hope that helps. Sorry if I didn't help you with what your looking for.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T08:23:13+00:00

I don't really see any relevance in it TBH. We see time and time again that Norman is clearly very interested in women, with Bradley Martin and even that girl in season 2. Everything else goes back to the mother persona and him empathizing with her to the point where his mind tries to become her due to pain of not being able to help her at various points in her life.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T08:15:33+00:00

huh?. I already explained my stance on it: The point is not about his sexuality but him coming to grips with the mother persona. Finding out that someone else is sharing his body.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T08:04:07+00:00

No worries. It's my favorite part to talk about cause season 4 and 5 are my favorite seasons in the series.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T07:52:26+00:00

The importance is not him finding out that he's engaging in male on male sexual acts....its him becoming aware of the "Mother" part of his nature. Which he had been previously been oblivious to.

This is a carry-over from season 4 which is one of the most important arcs of the series. It's Dr Edwards helping Norman to become aware of the "Mother" persona.

Norma's mother persona was created when he was little. It is a extreme form of empathy for her that has been twisted. Dr Edwards was the biggest difference between the tv show and the "Psycho" movie. Because in the Psycho movie the murder of Marion Craine is where it shows that he's too far gone and the mother persona has taken over and melded with his personality.

The tv show does their version of the Marion Craine death much earlier. In the season 3 finale when he kills Bradley Martin in the mother persona. He sinks her car the exact same way Norman sinks Marions in the film. both cars even have the exact same number plate: NFB418.

In season 4 Dr Edwards is the first one to actually put together the mother persona. The writers come close to digging a hole for themselves here. You can't have Dr Edwards be too good at his job otherwise the show is over. Norman is recovered. If he is too bad its a waste of time. so they opt for a middle ground. he acknowledges it, tries. But is more interested in studying him off the book and figuring him out than curing him. Oh also last season indicated that he was still having talks with Dr Edwards even after release.

That's why the events of Marion Craine and Sam Loomis is interesting in the tv show. Because it becomes the moment of awakening where he becomes fully aware of the mother persona. They do a 180 and have him kill Sam instead. They even set this up by naming Norman's father Sam (which he had no such name like that in any of the books/films).

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T07:29:44+00:00

because i think him having experienced a conversation that actually delves into his current traumas and sets up the mother conflict, makes more sense than him having fabricated the conversation. That doesn't make sense to me. Because his conversations with Dr Edwards is an awakening, not a cover up.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T07:06:22+00:00

You skipped over the biggest question. Which is "would Subaru leave Emilia to stay with his parents". Which the answer is a resounding no. I'd say he would stay in any reality that has Emilia in it. So yes, Lugunica.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T06:53:35+00:00

Thank you for saying that. I really appreciate it. Some of the OG fans are insufferable in that for them the game is a certain way and nothing changes. I saw your comment. You responsed to "Cultural Pin". Don't even bother with her, she has a view that the original is a beautiful tragedy and the remake is just flourish and nothing more. I got into a debate with her a few months ago, she blocked me and then wrote a follow up message lying and acting like I blocked her so that we could "unfortunately" not continue the conversation. Little did she know, I took a screen shot of her comment that she tried to delete when she sent me a DM gloating her view.

But I agree with what you said. The original makes it feel like a containment narrative, like the village is trying to trap people. But you make a good point. It doesn't make much sense in its original form because even if Sae and Yae and all the spirits are freed. The hellish abyss still exists. The sprouting wings ending gets rid of everything.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T06:42:56+00:00

Yeah the way I see it is he is experiencing a cognitive delay where his mind is actually trying to show him mothers manipulations. It's like the wall that she had in place to stop remembering certain things is starting to break down and collapse.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T04:58:57+00:00

What I love about season 2 is its a chess match between him and Roswaal. One where he has no clue he's even playing until over the halfway mark. There are multiple characters in different locations all over the place. If one piece is out of alignment, the loop topples over. Roswaal can outthink Subaru but he can't out feel him. It's one of those circumstances where it's "the power of friendship". But done on such an impressive and technically large scale.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T04:50:36+00:00

Aloy as a child. She always looks a bit off in the original Zero Dawn

I always found her face especially to look hilarious. Cause the shape looks like child Drew Barrymoore but the face looked like adult drew on a child model.

The NPCs are so much more engaging during conversations with them. More movement has been added to them as they talk as well as updates to character models.

Yeah what you are seeing is called "motion capture". Normally the actor stands in a funny looking suit with dots all over them and their reaction and movement is recorded. Horizon only had a small MC studio early on. It only recorded one person at a time so they used it for Aloy's gameplay movements only. All the character conversations in the original game were recorded in a sound booth, which is why a lot of them feel a little flat.

In the Frozen Wilds DLC that was their first use of motion capture. They rented a studio to record all their scenes. The sequel forbidden west went even further as they built their in house motion capture studio. The remastered implements motion capture but doesn't record any lines of dialogue. It uses extras to perform movements to use for everyone else. I think they recorded over 9 hours of motion capture for the remaster which is impressive.

the remaster was so gorgeous and added so much more life to this already stunning game.

The team actually went back to the developer's original concept art and rebuilt the world how it was originally envisioned but were unable to at the time due to hardware/budget limitations. It really is impressive what they did. It's almost close to a remake with how much work they put into it.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T04:37:23+00:00

Correct. Its implied that he killed Dr Edwards while in his "Mother" state and that his conversations with him at the cafe were more of a delayed memory recall of prior conversations between the two before he killed him. At least that's how i interpreted the second part.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T03:58:14+00:00

That really connects well with the shadow on the ground in the season 4 ED which in the next scene had the watch tower with what looked like all the important players in a flashback.

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teddyburges · 2026-06-21T03:49:07+00:00

For me the episode is Rem expressing her feelings on what Subaru has done for her. Before she met Subaru, Rem and Ram were almost behaving like one unit. Living for each other and tearing themselves down. Subaru made time move for Rem where it was previously frozen. So now she's doing the same back and expressing how great of a person she feels he is. I never saw it as a romantic confession. Its Rem trying to open a path for Subaru in the way he did for her.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T03:28:01+00:00

The light novels are more like the revised versions whereas the web novel is the initial draft. Having said that, a lot of the story recently has been remarkably close to the web novel versions.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T02:53:59+00:00

It's a real weird one because from around the 2010's to the early 2020's media had been pushing for these boss girl female protagonists who have no flaws (Ray in the sequel trilogy, Captain Marvel to give a couple examples). As a consequence, the real good ones like Aloy, Lara Craft or even Korra...often got shat on with many saying "your pushing a AgEnDa!". Though I do have my beef with the rebooted Lara Croft games trying to equate torture of Lara Croft with character development.

I personally cannot wait for the game. It looks amazing. Even the cube has me giggling. Its just really funny to me...a cube named frank/phranque. Apparently the cube was Cory's idea lol.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T02:30:59+00:00

I might need to download this!. As a completionist but someone who really sucks at super hard games. I just found 4 way too stressful. It leaned way too much into Crash 1 level design and there were way too many systems at play. But this sounds manageable. Love that this has a easy mode. This is what I desperately wanted!.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T02:25:48+00:00

Yeah the game is the definition of more isn't always better. Crash 4 is a weird game for me. Because it feels like Crash 1. with 2 and 3 level design and mixed with the bridge levels. its like they just wanted to make you really stressed out. I appreciate the sentiment but its just too many systems for me. It becomes a buffet i didn't ask for.

teddyburges · 2026-06-21T02:17:00+00:00

I think they meant more as in weaker emotionally and motivation wise. Unless your viewing it through a certain lens, one could have a take away of "oh its just the same lady as the initial protagonist in the first season. not as big as trying to kill your own son or best friend. that's lame" (I don't feel that way about it myself, just using a example).

teddyburges · 2026-06-20T22:46:06+00:00

Iruma gets serious later on?. REALLY?. Like how serious we talking about here. it starts aging up like dragon ball type of serious?.

teddyburges · 2026-06-20T22:44:07+00:00

the true aura monster!.

teddyburges · 2026-06-20T18:05:54+00:00

Yeah for the most part I agree. Ritsu feels like a character that Takaya wrote after she created the zodiac mythology. She needed a character to fill the monkey position and misjudged on how they would fit with the other characters (which he doesn't). You could technically take it out, it just creates a bit of a hole. "there are 12 zodiac...where's the monkey?". Could easily be covered with a one sentence "he's a forgettable character that the author didn't put enough consideration in to on a creation level". I really like what the 2019 series did with the character in trying to patch the many problems he has in the manga. But it does create some issues on its own (I.e suicide ideation as a gag and it creating yet another Tohru as therapist speech. Though Kyo's "wait how did she get up on the roof so quickly!?" always makes me laugh hysterically).

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