fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #4446 ]

[ SECRET POST #4446 ]

⌈ Secret Post #4446 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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07. [SPOILERS for The Umbrella Academy]

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08. [SPOILERS for The Umbrella Academy]

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09. [SPOILERS for The Promised Neverland]

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10. [SPOILERS for The Umbrella Academy]
[WARNING for character death]

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #636.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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10. [SPOILERS for The Umbrella Academy]
[WARNING for character death]
https://i.imgur.com/JtfqI1f.png

Yeah, she was tied with my least favorite character in the show.

She was also going cold turkey off what sounds like pretty strong psychoactive medication in the middle of her powers coming back.

*There's a reason they tell you to taper off.*

She was obviously going through fits of paranoia and, while I understand Allison and Luther's fear and ore aggressive choices, they really didn't help.

Also, Luther? You shut her in a cell overnight with neither food, water, meds, or even a fucking book to read for distraction. That freak out at the house is on *you*.

Luther's decision-making skills are just...bad.

Yeah, that's a running theme of the whole show.

Seriously? She had just slit Allison's throat. She's lucky they didn't kill her.

And ALLISON, who knew the whole story, begged him to let her go. Literally everyone else told him "this is a bad idea/this is wrong" and he didn't listen.

This is gonna be an agree to disagree situation because I think Allison was reacting emotionally and not logically. Letting Vanya out when she is unstable enough to slit her own sister's throat and murder her boyfriend is a bad idea. If someone is in the middle of a psychotic break and armed with deadly weapons, you disarm and restrain them before anything else. Vanya is the weapon, she had to be isolated. Yeah, it turned out badly, but let's say they didn't lock her up. Who's to say someone wouldn't have set her off anyway? Allison was talking calmly and not threatening her at all when she started tearing shit up in the cabin. She only started to rumor her in response to Vanya's very real threat. And maybe locking her up was a bad idea, but only because the best idea would have been to kill her.*

*One of my main complaints about the show is that it sucked at establishing relationships between the other siblings, save Allison, and Vanya. Their connections were so tenuous that killing her did seem like an option to me, and I wasn't surprised when they decided to attack her in the last act. That is some deeply shitty writing.

Definitely going to agree to disagree but I do want to address some of your points.

Her attack on Allison was a) in reaction to Allison's "attack" which while technically nonviolent did involve essentially mind control and what was upsetting Vanya to begin with, and b) a complete accident that she immediately BSOD'd about.

Her killing Harold was not an accident, sure, but he was an asshole and she'd just found out he was manipulating her and her entire family, encouraging her trauma and fear, and then screaming at her.

If anything, Luther was reacting emotionally, not Allison. Vanya came to him for help, BEGGING for help, asking about Allison and trying to explain that it was an accident, and he choked her out and locked her up before he knew the whole story. The only other person who knew what happened in the cabin was Allison, so IMO it was her call to make, which she tried again at the theater.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-03-09 00:41 (UTC) - Expand

She slit Allison's throat after Allison tried to mind control her.

Yes, Allison was desperate. Yes, Allison truly believed she was protecting Vanya, and had good reason to believe that. But the fact remains, Vanya should still have had a right to make her own decisions about where she was going to go and with whom. Her decisions in that scene were VERY BAD decisions, but that doesn't mean Allison had a right to forcibly take away her choice. And the particular way that Allison controls people is especially disturbing, because she doesn't just force them to do something - she takes a part of a person's mind away from them.

What Allison did was an attack. Vanya reacted reflexively to Allison's attack, by lashing out. I don't think Vanya's actions were good actions, but I also understand why she did what she did in the moment.

Plus she'd literally just found out that Allison's power had essentially stripped her of her own (thanks again, Reginald, you asshole), and was the (partial) cause of her feeling useless and unwanted for her entire life. That was the worst possible time for a rumor, especially when no one had a clue what she was even capable of at the time.

Yeah. With the state Vanya is in it wouldn't be a surprise if she heard Allison's "I heard a rumor..." and mentally finished the sentence with something such as "...that you don't have any powers."

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2019-03-09 03:43 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, Luther locking her in the same barren cell where she was subjected to traumatizing solitary confinement as a small child was just unutterably stupid, and also cruel.

And ok, the argument over whether it was a justifiable action is...complicated. I lean towards it not being justifiable, but I can see why Luther might feel it was a necessary precaution. But setting aside the ethics of it, and the cruelty of it - it was just really, really stupid.

They knew she was powerful. They didn't know how powerful. They locked her up...and never bothered to think, "You know, in the event that she's powerful enough to break out of here, we'll have made ourselves her enemies"? Stupid, stupid, stupid!

Yup, this. Plus - Luther, plus basically being brainwashed as a kid (and it being reinforced daily by her father figure).... I didn't like her character at all, really, and found her uber-tedious, but she had pretty much everything stacked against her.

You're right that ALL of them were fucked up. That was kinda the point. They were all selfish assholes who didn't notice or care that anyone else besides themselves was having trouble until it was thrown in their faces. I don't think any of them were more fucked up or more at fault than anyone else, they're just a disaster of a family with a lot of work to do when it comes to understanding each other, which we started to see as the season progressed.

Not your intention with this secret, OP, but your secret and the comments on it have convinced me not to bother watching the rest of the series (we watched 2 eps, were sort of "Meh"), so thank you for saving me those hours!

I liked Pogo at the beginning but I'm not upset that he died. It was wrong to kill him but he was complicit in keeping Vanya's powers a secret. Mr. Hargreeves is dead, if Pogo spilled the deets sooner then Vanya might not have gone berserk in ep 10.

Agreed. I mean, I'm still sad that he died, because he was the closest thing to an actual adult in that house, but I definitely wanted to ask him some goddamn questions about things that he knew and didn't do anything about, especially after Reggie kicked it.

Yeah, I'm really ambivalent about Pogo.

On the one hand, he was complicit in some really horrible things to do with the children's upbringing. He just let stuff be done to them. And he continued to be complicit in keeping some horribly cruel secrets from them, even after their father died.

OTOH, he literally refers to Reginald as his "Master," and appears to feel that he rightfully belongs to Reginald on some level. Which isn't surprising given that he's every bit as much a victim of Reginald as the children are, and yet unlike them he can't leave. He's an incredibly tragic figure, really, and I have a great deal of sympathy for him. While also being angry that he basically helps Reginald abuse his kids horribly.

That's understandable. Personally I do think that Pogo is sentient enough to be assigned personhood and therefore be responsible for his actions and inactions, but I can see how Pogo might feel like Mr. Hargreeves owns him and therefore continue to do his bidding despite feeling torn. Hmm. It's interesting, I had felt more sympathy for Grace who was also not human and also complicit so this is something I hadn't considered before.

Grace was programmed, though, and apparently could be reset and tampered with as Reginald wished, so I don't know how much agency and complicity I'd put on her. Pogo, though, is evidently sentient and obviously has an actual conscience.

They all had choices, tbh.
Luther could have chosen to listen to Allison.
Diego could have been less dismissive ('she doesn't get a vote' 'Why are you here?')
Pogo could have stopped enabling Reginald's abuse.
The only one I'd see as not having options in the present time period was Grace, and even then, they seemed to imply that she had some kind of developing free will.

Vanya wasn't perfect, but it's not like the rest of them weren't also assholes at times. Allison is the only one we see actively making an effort to include Vanya, and that's after 29 years of ignoring her along with the others. So while I could see how they would lack sympathy for her (Klaus would probably love to swap places), it's not as if they're showing her their vulnerable, damaged sides, either. And any one of them could have realised they were adults and 'got therapy' at any time, that's kind of the point of child abuse, they'd all internalised their abusers beliefs to a certain point.

Luther has to believe their suffering had a purpose to it, and that their father did care in some way, so he literally just remakes himself as the father figure.
Allison used her power to control her loved ones, probably in part due to the influence of her childhood under a controlling parent.
Diego hates Reginald, but still feels compelled to re-enact their childhood as a fantasy (cops and robbers, etc.) and for Freudianism, is the one most devoted to Grace the wife/mom figure.
Klaus is stuck in arrested development and defines himself as weak and incapable as Reginald viewed him. (Also Diego and Klaus, despite themselves, can't help but bow to Luther even when he's wrong, showing they've also internalised the number structure Reginald set.) When Klaus does begin to wonder about his potential, even then, it's due to Reginald's suggestion.
Even Five's hyper-focused on the end results rather than the means (becoming a killer of individuals in order to avert a future apocalypse), just like Reginald, and it's interesting he's the first one to say 'the old man was right.'
None of them were really capable of rejecting their upbringing entirely, because that's what an abusive upbringing does - resets your parameters for what's acceptable. I don't really think Vanya is any worse than the others on that one.

+10000

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