Months ago, I locked my keys out of my car. Fortunately, I was very close to a friend’s house, and called them immediately. Having a warm place to wait for the AAA locksmith turned into me staying for dinner and cocktails, and that turned into me coming back the next week at the same time for another Tuesday dinner. I kept going back for more Tuesday dinners.
Then, last month, my birthday (March 27th) fell on a Tuesday, and my friend (who is also a chef) went wild.
That was my birthday cake. A five layer lemon cake with raspberry filling between each layer. I believe the icing is cream cheese frosting. But, despite my pleas to my friend for them to give me the recipe (to share with you of course, not for my own selfish gain! Not at all!), I was told I may have the cake whenever I wish, but I may not have the recipe.
Now, speaking of wonderful things I’d like to have all of the time but are really only available to me when the people in charge of it feel inclined to give them to me, let’s talk about the female leads of the Final Fantasy franchise.
I’ll be focusing on Terra from Final Fantasy VI, Yuna from Final Fantasy X and X-2, and Lightning from Final Fantasy XIII and Lightning Returns.
One of the most interesting things to me about Final Fantasy titles that feature women as main characters, is that they often share that role with other people throughout the game. When Final Fantasy XIII was being marketed, it wasn’t only Lightning that was on posters and promotional material. Snow appeared alongside her consistently. Lightning also isn’t the character the player is forced to play as. The story jumps around—much like Final Fantasy VI does—allowing the player to control every party member individually at different times. The only two Final Fantasy titles where the player isn’t allowed to switch away from the main female character are Final Fantasy X-2 and Final Fantasy: Lightning Returns, neither of which are main title Final Fantasy games.
When I used to complain (before the release of Final Fantasy XIII) that there was no main title Final Fantasy where a woman was the main character, all of my friends (who were male gamers) told me to play Final Fantasy VI. At the time, I was resistant. I had seen gameplay footage from Final Fantasy VI, and the footage I had seen featured Sabin’s battle with the Phantom Train (which has an all male party), and Locke’s separate rescues of both Terra and Celes. Knowing nothing else, I had written the story off as one like Final Fantasy X—where a woman was the most important character in the game, but it was not she who was the player character.
How wrong I was. While it is true that the player can choose not to play as Terra for a good part of the game, she’s also the most valuable character in the game—both as a party member, and within the story’s narrative. By end game, my Terra could dual cast and did maximum damage with every one of her attacks. No one could stand up to her. And, in the final battle, it is she that speaks to Kefka:
Everyone else is there to back Terra up when she tells Kefka they have something to protect:
To the point of making Kefka visibly ill:
It was Yuna in Final Fantasy X that held the role of a female main character who was not the player character. It’s Yuna’s summoner abilities in the game that drive the narrative forward—and without her, Tidus (the character the player actually controls) would have no purpose. In a way, Final Fantasy X takes the trope of female narratives that center only around a man, and flips it on its head.
In X-2, however, we end up with an interesting subversion of that trope. Yuna, free of her duties as a summoner, becomes a sphere hunter. Her motivations for doing so? She found a sphere that held footage of a man that looked like Tidus—meaning he might still be alive after the events of Final Fantasy X. Her motivations for becoming a sphere hunter revolve around her lover from the previous game, yes, but Final Fantasy X-2 is one of the Final Fantasys out there to have multiple endings. While the player can choose to reunite Yuna and Tidus at the end of the game, the player can also choose not to.
If the player selects “It’s better this way,” the context of Yuna’s game suddenly becomes about her dealing with her grief over losing Tidus as opposed to letting her life be defined by him. Due to that, it’s arguable that Yuna’s choice to become a sphere hunter was never wholly about Tidus to begin with, but rather finding something new to do with her life now that she’s done being a summoner—and that small detail adds so much more agency to Yuna in the story. As she says in the good ending without Tidus, this is her story, and it’ll be a good one.
It is perhaps Lightning’s main characterness that is most like that of other traditional Final Fantasy protagonists: she just happens to get mixed up in events in the right way at the right time. If her sister had never become a L’Cie, she never would have taken the first step towards bringing down a Fal’Cie in Final Fantasy XIII. Then, in Final Fantasy XIII-2, she just happens to disappear from time and space—leading her sister, Serah (the only person who remembers her) to lead her own personal X-2ish quest in pursuit of her sister. Lightning Returns is yet another example of this—where a god of the crumbling world just happens to choose Lightning as his messenger.
While Terra is the halfling child of an esper and a human who is one of the only people left in the world able to control magic, and Yuna is the orphaned child of the previous High Summoner who is expected to do great things as a summoner herself, Lighting is just a girl in the military that loves her sister.
Lightning fighting for Serah at the beginning of Final Fantasy XIII
Serah and Lightning reunited after the events of XIII-2
Serah as Lightning’s strength in Lightning Returns
Lightning’s portrayal was a breath of fresh air—because she didn’t have to be anything special to be a female main character.
May we have many more great female characters and many more amazing lemon and raspberry cakes in our futures!
Those of you who follow me in other places on the internet know I'm bisexual, so you get why I'm excited. It’s all too often that those of us who are bisexual are erased by the gender of our partners—or our lack of one. People assume being bi means that you’re constantly craving the company of two sets of genitals, instead of understanding that it means that we can find our perfect partner amongst people of more than one gender.
The bi pride flag is made of three colors. Blue, pink, and purple. The purple rests solidly in the middle as a visual metaphor for what it’s like to be bi. No matter the gender of the person I may one day choose to spend the rest of my life with, that will never change my sexuality. It’s like being a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup. Not chocolate, not peanut butter, but BOTH.
So let’s talk about how to make some mouthwatering peanut butter brownies!
Ingredients:
Brownie Batter -
3 oz unsweetened chocolate, roughly chopped
⅓ cup unsalted butter (plus a little greasing the pan)
1 ¼ cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
¼ tsp coarse sea salt
⅔ cup all-purpose flour
(Store bought is also fine if this sounds like too much work)
Peanut Butter Batter -
¾ cups peanut butter
⅔ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
¼ tsp vanilla extract
A few pinches of salt
Before you begin, preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. You’ll want to dig out an 8’’ square baking pan as well, and line it with parchment paper and then coat that with nonstick cooking spray or butter.
Once you’re done with that, we can start in on the respective batters. To make the brownie batter, melt the chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl over a gently simmering pot of water. Turn off the heat when they’re mostly melted, and stir them together until they’re fully melted and smooth. If you don’t have a heatproof bowl, you can melt the chocolate and butter in the microwave using thirty second bursts. Be careful not to microwave for too long, though, because you could burn your chocolate or cause it to separate.
Next, whisk in your sugar. Then your eggs (one at a time). Then your vanilla and salt. After your whisking is done, stir in your flour with a spoon or spatula.
The peanut butter batter is much simpler than the brownie. Just throw all the ingredients in a bowl and whisk/stir until completely combined. I find whisking works best when using smooth peanut butter, but can be tricky when using crunchy.
Once both batters are ready, spread a thin layer of brownie batter across the bottom of the pan. Then toss alternating spoonfuls down in rows to fill the pan. Use a butter knife to swirl the batters together in pretty wavy fashion. This works best for me if I think of drawing figure eights or infinity signs. Now the brownies are ready to go in the oven! Bake for thirty to thirty five minutes, and check with a toothpick to make sure the brownies are cooked all the way through.
There’s a very special book I want to talk about this month. I only just got my hands on a copy a few weeks ago at Rose City Comic Con in Portland, and the artist (Irene Koh) was sweet enough to even autograph it for me.
That’s right, you guessed it. The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1!
“But what’s so exciting about this book?”, those of you who didn’t guess what I was talking about might ask. What’s exciting about this book is that it’s a fantasy story about a young woman named Korra, who is tasked with keeping her world in balance. She is the Avatar, capable of manipulating all four elements and communing with spirits. And she just happens to be in a relationship with Asami Sato—another woman, who also previously dated Korra’s ex-boyfriend.
That’s right. You heard me. There’s an A-list title out there that features two bisexually behaving women in a relationship with each other THAT ISN’T FOCUSED SOLELY ON THEIR RELATIONSHIP.
That doesn’t mean the relationship between them isn’t a large part of the story, though. And what’s even more exciting about it is how realistically Korra and Asami’s love story is handled. While the previous iteration of The Legend of Korra that ran as a cartoon on Nickelodeon refused to even acknowledge the same-sex relationship Korra and Asami canonically started during the events of the cartoon, the Turf Wars Part 1 gives Korra and Asami room to talk about what it was like when they were still questioning their feelings for each other.
These two pages made me cry because they were so spot on about what it’s like when you first discover you might have feelings for someone of the same sex as you. You’re scared they might push you away, you’re not sure what you’re feeling is real—and yet ultimately you come to the conclusion that you want to take the leap.
The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 doesn’t fall prey to the trope of letting Korra and Asami exist as the only queer characters in a non-queer vacuum, either. Almost as soon as Korra and Asami return to Republic City from their vacation, one of the previous Avatar’s children Kya notices their relationship—in part because she’s in a same-sex relationship herself.
The book then goes even further to retcon how same-sex relations were handled by the different cultures in the entire Avatar franchises continuity.
Normalizing same-sex relationships, giving them a place in the historical narrative even when they weren’t accepted… These are new, exciting things for an A-list title to do. Korra and Asami meet with different reactions as they navigate their new relationship. Korra’s parents are worried she and Asami will be mistreated if they don’t keep it private. Due to their reaction, Korra and Asami are nervous about telling their friends, and their mutual ex/friend, Mako. The truth comes out after a battle when Korra rushed to the side of a possibly wounded Asami.
Everyone reacts well, except for Mako. But Mako doesn’t react poorly! What’s exciting about Mako’s reaction is that it hints at further discussion about how friends can support their friends who come out. Sometimes people feel that someone else’s sexual preference reflects on them. In particular, sometimes men who have ex-girlfriends that come out as bisexual or gay will feel emasculated and respond poorly, taking their misplaced hurt out on others. Mako isn’t the sort of character to take those feelings out on Korra and Asami—but he is the sort of character that might be confused about his feelings after hearing that two of his exes got together. Should something come of that and a conversation is had between Mako, Korra, and Asami, it will serve as a positive example for how other people in Mako’s position can respond.
All in all, The Legend of Korra: Turf Wars Part 1 is exactly the sort of representation I’ve been craving all these years. It couldn’t have come at a better time—and we finally got that kiss Nickelodeon refused to give us at the end of Season 4.
Yakiniku with onions and ribeye has been one of my favorite Japanese style dishes since I was introduced to Japanese cuisine. It’s expensive, so it’s one of those things I only indulge in when I really want a treat—and I recently learned to make it at home.
Ingredients:
½ lb beef ribeye (or you can substitute a different cheaper cut in a pinch)
2 tbs unsalted butter
½ large yellow onion, thinly sliced
1 tbs cooking sake
⅔ cup white wine
1¼ cups water
3 tbs soy sauce
½ teaspoon ginger juice (grate ginger root and then squeeze the pulp to get this)
2 tbs sugar
¼ tsp very finely minced garlic
½ tsp salt
2 cups hot cooked rice
Optional Ingredients:
2 tbs beni shoga (pickled ginger) for serving garnish
2 large eggs to break over your yakiniku beef bowls just before serving
Serves two, so double the recipe if you’ve got four people in your family like I do.
Before you do anything, you’ll want to freeze your beef for an hour. This will make the beef rigid enough to cut into thin slices. Slice the beef very thinly, almost shaving it. In a saucepan over medium heat, melt your butter. Once melted, add your onions and cook until translucent, about four to five minutes.
You may also want to start steaming your rice now, if you haven’t prepared it already. Each cup of rice will become two cups once it hydrates, so one cup of rice will be enough to make the two you need. If you’ve got a rice cooker, you won’t have to pay much attention to this, but if you’re working with a pot like I am, here’s a great way to make sticky rice. If that’s too much work, just cook it normally in a pot and keep the lid on. Once the lid starts to jiggle a little, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about fifteen minutes until the rice is completely cooked through. After that, remove the rice from heat and let sit for another fifteen minutes without removing the lid. Washing and soaking your rice can also make a difference in how sticky your rice turns out, so consider letting it soak overnight or washing it vigorously before cooking it.
Once your onions are done to your satisfaction, add your white wine and cooking sake and let it cook for another two minutes. Next, add the water, soy sauce, ginger juice, sugar, garlic, and salt to the pan and mix well. I find it easier to do if I combine those ingredients in a measuring cup prior to adding them to the saucepan, as it makes it easier to dissolve the sugar in the other liquids and disperse it more evenly throughout the seasoning.
Next add the beef. Stir the mixture constantly to keep pieces of meat from sticking together and keep on heat until the meat is just cooked through. That should take about two to three minutes total.
Divide your rice between the bowls you’ll be serving the yakiniku in, then spoon the beef and onion mixture over the rice. If you feel like it, provide an egg for each person to crack onto their meal and mix with their beef. A garnish of Japanese pickled ginger called beni shoga will add a splash of color and a tasty side treat to the dish as well.
Hopefully you know what kind of media tie-in I’m about to make the leap to. But don’t worry, it’s not what you think. I’m not going to list off all the problems I have with dating sims. Instead, I’m going to talk about the beefiest dating sim of the year: Dream Daddy!
Dream Daddy is a dating sim produced by Youtube famous group The Game Grumps, and is a dating sim where you create a dad and then go forth to date other dads. Although there are definitely some really good dating sims out there in the world, this is the only dating sim that I know of that focuses less on the fan-service and more on the realistic portrayal of people.
Before even entering the game, the player is asked to choose a body type for their character. The game is body positive, offering players three different diverse body types. The game is also inclusive of trans men, mirroring the three available body types, but wearing binders.
After creating your Dadsona and jumping into the game, your first interaction is with your daughter, Amanda. Through your conversation with her, you establish your character’s backstory. Was their previous partner a man or a woman? Was your daughter Amanda adopted or born to you and your partner? The freedom allowed to the player with these dialogue options is momentous for a dating sim.
But the good feelings don’t stop there. In the game, there are six different dads to date. You can date every dad a total of twice before choosing to get serious about one of them—so the game doesn’t ask you to pick a favorite without getting to know them—but what’s exciting about each dad’s storyline is discovering how they go against the stereotypes you assume about them.
For example, let’s take Damien.
Damien is marketed as the goth, Victorian obsessed dad of the game. The achievements you get for going on dates with him are called Interview with a Vampire 1, 2, and 3. But Damien isn’t all that he seems. He’s a man who cares a lot about his clothes and about being able to do the things he likes, but he’s also afraid of horror movies.
He enjoys the gothic pastime of strolling through graveyards because he feels it allows him to celebrate life.
And, if you compliment his clothes on your first date with him, he’ll talk about how important it is to him to be able to pick from a closet of period specific clothing—including binders.
Trans characters are often overlooked in media, so this tidbit of information that confirms Damien as trans while also not making a big deal out of it is a huge victory for the dating sim genre, which is often written off as shallow and there only to provide fan-service.
Damien isn’t the only character in the game doing his part for representation.
Craig, Hugo, and Mat make the cast ethnically diverse, making room for Asian-American, Latinx-American, and Black-American representation.
Mat represents how a person who likes people but has social anxiety acts in social settings.
Hugo represents the intellectuals who also enjoy “base” things like wrestling.
Brian represents how always trying to please someone else can backfire and make them think you’re competing with them instead—leading to an entire debacle over both people thinking the other one hates them. He also is an example of an overweight and active character—counteracting the stereotype that being overweight is a result of laziness rather than genetic disposition.
Joseph represents tolerant religious practice and how to be a cool youth pastor.
But it goes even further than that.
Craig, the dad who seems to be successful at everything he touches, is actually representing what high functioning anxiety looks like.
And Robert, the seemingly unfazeable bad boy of the dad group has some self-destructive tendencies that he doesn’t want to admit to himself. This realization is very difficult to get to, however, as if the player sleeps with Robert either of the times Robert tries to avoid the subject, he will discard the player as someone who is only interested in him superficially and can’t be trusted.
It’s worth noting that all of the dads have different familial make ups as well. Some have lost their past spouses like Dadsona has. Others have separated from their partners amicably. Others never had a partner to begin with, and still others may still be involved with their crumbling marriages.
What I’m trying to say, is this is a wonderful story in which you act as a real father figure to your remarkable photography major of a daughter, and also meet some other remarkable fathers along the way. Go play Dream Daddy and let it wash away your beefs with dating sims.
I receive a lot of tea in March. Probably has something to do with my birthday being at the end of the month and my tendency to always have a cup of tea somewhere in my immediate vicinity. There’s one tea people don’t usually get me, though, and it’s because I’m supremely picky about it: chai.
Quick linguistics lesson. The word “chai” only means “tea.” The particular brand of tea we’re used to drinking here in America when we use this term is actually a “masala” chai, which is made of an array of spice and black tea. The thing about any masala is that ingredients may differ each time it’s prepared, based on things like region, occasions, and preferences. Due to chai’s mosaic nature, I’ll be listing off the different spices and what they do for the overall taste of the drink, then moving on to the instructions. This way, you can pick your own spice blend and then get cooking!
Cardamom is the most often mentioned spice in chai recipes I’ve found. Green cardamom is considered more traditional. It’s intensely fragrant, with sharp vegetal notes of green spice and pepper. The green pods are harvested before the black cardamom pods, which are muskier and more smoky. Cinnamon sticks can be added to bring out notes of sweetness and to give your drink a feeling of warmth. Fennel seeds offer a gentle anise or licorice note to the chai. Fresh ginger can give your chai a fresh vegetal spice note—and the good news is you won’t need much of it for that. Black peppercorns give the chai a spicy bite, which I’m rather a fan of. Those five are the most commonly combined spices, but there are some other options to consider depending on your palate. Whole cloves can give your chai a musky, strong taste. Coriander seeds lend a sweet and mild citrus note to the masala. And, if you happen to be a great fan of the anise or licorice flavor, star anise can be used instead of fennel seed to get that taste in your chai.
Once you’ve decided on your spice blend, you’ll need a few other things.
Ingredients:
Masala spice blend of choice
Water
Black tea (Darjeeling, Assam, and Ceylon are all top picks. Don’t spend too much on it as the spices will be the most important thing about the chai’s flavor)
Milk
Sweetener of choice (honey and brown sugar are recommended)
You’ll want about ⅓ the amount of milk as you have water. Your spice blend should be balanced as you see fit. You should have enough tea to steep the water you have well. For those of you left feeling uncomfortable without measurements, here’s one, two, three spice-specific and measurement-including chai recipes that you’ll love.
Once you’ve assembled your ingredients, the first thing you’ll want to do is crush and bruise your spices. Pods and cloves should be lightly crushed. Ginger should be sliced into rounds, you can leave the skin on. Cinnamon sticks can be bruised, they don’t need to be crumbled to give off their flavor. Add your spices and your water together in a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes or until fragrant. Covering your pot will keep too much water from burning off, since we are trying to make tea. Once you’re satisfied that your water has been sufficiently flavored by your chosen spices, remove the masala from heat, and add your tea. Let the tea steep as long as you like, but the recommendation seems to be about five minutes. Now you can add the milk and the sweetener of your choice. If the chai has cooled, you can return it to heat, but be sure to keep the heat just below a simmer or you risk scalding the milk in the tea. Once you’re satisfied with the taste, strain and serve!
Tea always takes a little while to steep, but this one has two steeping periods: one with the spices, and one with the tea. Both take a great deal of time, totally to about fifteen minutes if you’re simmering the spices for ten and steeping the tea for five. This is part of why chai is such an investment, and why its flavor is so distinctive. This month’s media tie in also has to do with a steeping of a sort—but this time it’s in hardship and time. Off putting, I know, but bear with me. This month, we’re going to talk about the portrayal of mental illness in Kingdom Hearts: Final Chapter Prologue and the new fifth season of Samurai Jack.
There are plenty of misconceptions about mental illness, from the idea that you can’t have one if you’re functioning to the idea that only certain people are susceptible. What’s exciting about these two different pieces of media is that they take two very capable heroes and show how anyone can develop a mental illness given enough time and misfortune.
Let’s take an element of Aqua’s gameplay in Kingdom Hearts. Aqua is a keyblade master, a keyblade wielder considered powerful enough to fend off the forces of darkness with the light of her heart and keyblade no matter the circumstances. But, even in a fantasy world, how realistic is it to expect someone to fend off the forces of darkness for ten years while living in the realm of darkness? During her travels in the realm of darkness, Aqua enters an area called The World Within (30:37). The area is littered with mirrors, and each time Aqua messes up—by choosing the wrong mirror, falling off the edge of an area, going the wrong way and having to start a puzzle over—Aqua’s own voice reverberates through the speakers, discouraging her. The things it says include “Just let go of everything and fade into the darkness,” “No one can save you, and no one wants to,” “You’ll never see the realm of light again,” “Is there any point in continuing this fight?” and “Your bonds of friendship only tie you down.”
As the player continues through the area, the voice starts triggering of its own accord, berating Aqua with discouragement even when she isn’t making mistakes. As if that weren’t enough to signify Aqua slowly developing a mental illness, in each of the three mirrors she goes through is a phantom of Aqua—identical to her and as solid as she is. It’s easy to see how these phantoms are part of Aqua, as it was her reflection that pulled her through the mirror into this world to begin with, and the first time Aqua encounters one of her reflections, it discourages her the same way the voice does (40:40). These phantoms attack Aqua, and even though she beats all three of them, the battle against them becomes more difficult each time (46:50, 52:43). The third phantom is much stronger than the other two and is capable of creating clones of itself that mutter discouragements at Aqua as they prowl around her. Each clone goes down with one hit, the real phantom being the only one that doesn’t immediately disappear after being struck—but if the player is distracted for too long dealing with the fake phantoms, they lose their ability to defend against the real one when she strikes. That particular attack might make the battle seem hopeless, but Aqua is able to kill all of the clones at once if she lands a hit on the real phantom. It’s a very literal way of demonstrating the way coping with one’s mental illness can at times require a large amount of energy, and how sometimes dealing with one problem (the real phantom) can help soothe other created ones (the clones of the phantom).
Media is often prone to portraying heroes as besting things like mental illness as something other than a part of themself. While a player or viewer of Aqua’s story might be inclined to write the voice and Aqua’s phantoms off as creations of the darkness and not part of Aqua herself, the game doesn’t pull any punches on the subject. If Aqua attempts to leave The World Within through the original mirror she was pulled through at any time before she’s finished fighting all three of her phantoms, she will find an incomplete reflection of herself in the mirror and be unable to pass through (49:29). In this way, the game undeniably confirms the voice of discouragement and the phantoms to be part of Aqua.
The game also shows Aqua developing coping mechanisms to deal with her illness. During her travels, Aqua encounters Terra, the friend she saved from the realm of darkness. This friend is fighting a battle of his own, trying to resist another’s soul possessing his body and mind. When Terra is winning his battle, we see the person he is fighting against bound by chains of light (1:21:09). By the end of the game, Aqua is also using these chains of light to bind the darkness (2:14:30). What’s exciting about this is that her illness isn’t being shown as something she can destroy. Mental illness is a condition, part of our biochemistry and brain pathways. It can’t be destroyed, only lived with, treated through coping mechanisms, medication, and counseling so that it doesn’t overtake us and continue to affect our quality of life. Aqua’s victory comes through learning to bind the darkness within her to live with her condition.
Jack is also dealing with a mental illness in the new season of Samurai Jack. The premise of the new season is that fifty years have passed since we last saw Jack, but that due to his time traveling, time no longer touches him. Having lost the magic sword that made it possible for Jack to destroy Aku, the villain of the series, Jack has fallen into serious mental turmoil. He hallucinates his parents and the people of his village in the past as they accuse him of abandoning them in the first episode, and in the second he argues with a clean shaven, robe wearing version of himself that mimics the version of Jack the viewer is familiar with from previous seasons. The argument occurs nine and a half minutes into the episode when Jack is losing a battle against a team of new foes. It goes like this:
Phantom Jack: It's time to end it, don't you think? Jack: Never. They are just machines. I'll find a way. I always have. PJ: When you have the sword, but now it's gone. There's no hope! J: I've been doing fine without it. PJ: Well, listen to you. And what are you going to do when Aku finds you and realizes you have no sword? J: Aku doesn't know, and he hasn't shown himself in years. He keeps thinking that one of his machines can defeat me. PJ: Maybe he's right. You haven't faced anything so powerful. How much longer can you keep this up? J: It always seems bad at first, but then I find a way. They're just nuts and bolts, just nuts and bolts. PJ: Who cares anymore?! There's no way home. There's nothing to fight for. There's no more honor. Come to think of it, the only honorable thing to do is— J: Quiet. PJ: No! I won't spend eternity in this forsaken time! J: What do you want from me? PJ: I want it to end. Aren't you tired? Wouldn't it be great to be free of all of this? Our ancestors are waiting for us. They want you to join them. [Dramatic music] [Horse whinnies] [Horse snorting][Jack sees an opening to new shelter] J: There. PJ: You'll never make it! They'll get you! J: I'll make it.
Jack makes use of several coping mechanisms in this short exchange. The first is to rationalize. His phantom makes a big sweeping statement about how there’s no hope, and Jack retaliates with data—mainly that he’s still alive and has made it this far without it. His phantom asks him what will happen when Aku finds out he’s lost the sword, and Jack rationalizes that Aku hasn’t found out yet, and that it’s likely he won’t since he only sends his minions these days. Then his phantom changes tactics and asks Jack how much longer he thinks he can win against these minions. Here, Jack minimizes the threat, reducing his enemies to nuts and bolts, reminding himself that it always seems bad at the beginning of a fight but that he finds his way through. Here Jack’s phantom gives up arguing logically and goes after Jack’s fear of death. The phantom doesn’t actually say the word “die,” but it’s implied given his use of “end it” at the beginning of the argument, and his implication that Jack’s ancestors want him to join them at the end. Jack disengages his phantom here, not allowing his phantom to speak the word “die,” instead interrupting him.
It’s obvious that Jack has been living with this condition for a time now, considering his sequential use of coping mechanisms up to this point. It becomes apparent that Jack is having a particularly bad attack, due to his shaking pupils at the beginning of the scene—something we’ve never seen Jack’s eyes do before—the physical appearance of a phantom of himself, and the failure of all of his coping mechanisms up to this point. Even at the end of the argument, Jack has yet to best his phantom. What ends the argument is Jack doing something his phantom tells him he can’t do—he makes to the temple he’s spotted, and loses his attackers in the twisting corridors. Sometimes when all other coping mechanisms fail, action can defeat a panic attack or other rut of negative thinking. Jack wins this round with his illness through just that.
What’s exciting about both of these portrayals of mental illness is that both characters cope with their conditions. Their conditions don’t defeat them. It doesn’t invalidate them. And it doesn’t stop them from living. These are powerful, truthful portrayals of conditions that one in five people will experience within their lifetimes. It means a lot to see them in our media.
