[ SECRET POST #4795 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4795 ⌋

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


Spoilers and CWs ahead!



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02. [SPOILERS for The Good Place]



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03. [SPOILERS for Sanditon]



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04. [SPOILERS for Guilded Age]



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05. [SPOILERS for Star Trek: Picard]



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06. [WARNING for discussion of rape]

[Graceling]


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07. [WARNING for discussion of substance abuse]



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08. [WARNING for discussion of sexual assault]



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09. [WARNING for discussion of abuse/assault]



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10. [WARNING for discussion of incest/underage/etc. Not the main topic but figured it might start discussion]
























Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #686.
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.

Comments

[fscom]

02. [SPOILERS for The Good Place]
https://i.imgur.com/lxQATfg.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I loved the view The Good Place took of the afterlife. To me, it was the perfect compromise.

[sparklywalls]

I know a lot of people hated this ending but same anon.

As a kid, I didn't want to die (still don't) but somehow existing forever stretching out with no end in heaven gave me just as bad dread/death pangs in the back of my skull as death itself. I'd be awake in the early hours worrying about eternity some days and oblivion the next.

Now I don't really believe in anything and think this is it, which obviously means I'm still not exactly thrilled about dying someday. However, getting to spend as much time as I want being the prime version of myself, learning everything I wanted to learn, doing everything I wanted to do and *then* deciding I was ready to be scattered among the ages? That did appeal to me I have to say.

But I also get why people hate it. The whole premise of the show involves afterlife being "canon" so I imagine the solution being "eventually you don't exist" would piss off quite a few viewers.

OP, TW for suicide (and rampant stupidity)

[(Anonymous)]

Apparently the thing that pissed off a lot of viewers was that they thought the choosing to eventually not exist was the same as committing suicide, so the show's message was "commit suicide as soon as you're content with everything about your life."

As someone who actually came close to attempting suicide several times in my past, finding out people saw what happened on the show that way was like being punched. Whoosh.

Re: OP, TW for suicide (and rampant stupidity)

[sparklywalls]

First of all anon I'm sorry you ever felt that way, I really hope you're in a better place now but I say this while also believing it's not a process that has an end. Mental health is complicated and I know from experience some days are good, some days are bad. Most are inbetween and may you have more of the good and inbetween than the bad.

Anyway, I too didn't like the "it's like committing suicide" angle because not wanting to exist on Earth because of the sheer weight of what life is making me feel, and choosing a peaceful end after perhaps MILLIONS of years in the Good Place getting to achieve what I want are not the same thing for me. One is a dark place to be, the other sounds fulfilling and peaceful.

Re: OP, TW for suicide (and rampant stupidity)

[(Anonymous)]

Thank you for your comment. I have been much better for a couple years, because life got nicer to me and because I finally found a medication that works. I hope it stays that way, but I know anything can happen.

I also think an important point that was missed by those viewers was that you don't have to leave the Good Place at all, and it avoided the common narrative blunder of "we're going to tell you that both choices are equally valid but show you that one of them is wrong/inferior." Because Tahani changed her mind about leaving even after doing everything she wanted to do and found a new reason to stay.

[tabaqui]

Man, i am wondering if this got good, because I watched about five? episodes and hated every single thing about it.

[feotakahari]

It was really, really popular with the same kind of people who read Worm and post in the comments on Slate Star Codex. Make of that what you will.

[tabaqui]

I...cannot make anything of it, as I have no clue what 'Worm' or 'State Star Codex' are.

I just thought 'awful person gets into heaven by mistake her person who should be there isn't and she continues to be awful' was....fucking awful.

[(Anonymous)]

You'd be surprise by how much character development there's in the show, especially for Eleanor. Five episodes is not enought time for her to go from crappy person to good person. I'd recommend strongly watching until the end of season 1 (while trying to avoid spoilers for it).

[feotakahari]

How many spoilers can I give here? End of S1? All the way through the show?

[(Anonymous)]

It's hard to say without knowing you and the sorts of things you like, but I'm at the point where I'm basically telling everyone who hasn't seen it not to bother.

I can't stress enough how much I completely utterly fucking HATED the ending, and at this point I'm actually kind of angry that I wasted my time watching four seasons of the show knowing how it turned out, when I could've been doing something else.

So my vote is HELL NO, don't waste your time watching it, but that's just me.

[tabaqui]

There's no way i could force myself to watch it again, i just *really* did not enjoy it and was not into it. I kept waiting for it to be good, and it kept sucking.

Now i gotta know - what happened in the finale that pissed you off so much?

[(Anonymous)]

The suicidal ideology of the finale is still incredibly uncomfortable.

[(Anonymous)]

But the door wasn’t about cutting short a life full of potential, it was about embracing the inevitable end of all things with grace. Chidi wasn’t a tortured 13 year old taking a desperate extreme, he was a 99 year old on his natural death bed, accepting the end without fear, after a long life well-lived.

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

It doesn't matter how old you are or what you go through, ending your life because you think you've had enough is still suicide. People kill themselves for any number of reasons, just because it isn't conventional doesn't make a difference.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm one of the people who saw it as glorifying suicide, and I completely hated it.

I know some people are pissed at the people who interpreted it as suicide and/or think that we're just not deep enough to understand it, but no matter how many posts/comments I read from people comparing it various religious beliefs or saying that they find it peaceful and comforting or whatever, I just can't see it any other way.

The "they're already dead so it can't be suicide" argument doesn't work for me, either. They spend time with loved ones and have hobbies and learn new things and go to parties and to dinner, they do normal things that everyone does. They have lives even if they're not technically alive, and they reject them in favor of no longer existing. That just can't be interpreted as anything but suicide in my opinion.

If it was a dark, fucked up show (Animal Kingdom was the first to come to mind for whatever reason), it ending with the majority of the main characters killing themselves wouldn't be so jarring. But this one was always seemed so light and...idk, whimsical, that the ending was pretty much out of left field, and to me, it completely sucked.

[(Anonymous)]

I still need to watch seasons three and four. While I personally can’t imagine wanting a perfect existence to end, and am more terrified of the idea of non-existence than the idea of eternal torment, since at least that implies a “me” to torture, I think the show was going for a more Buddhist take on non-existence. They weren’t throwing themselves into the void, more like becoming one with the universe.

Again, I personally am terrified of the idea of my “self” ceasing to exist, which sucks because I’ve always been an atheist. But I don’t think the end goal of Buddhism is indistinguishable from suicide. Especially when people who don’t go through the door aren’t shown to be wrong or bad.

[cakemage]

Fellow atheist here, and yeah, the whole idea of non-existence is also terrifying to me, even in a "becoming one with the universe/wave returning to the ocean" sense. Thinking about the complete and permanent cessation of self, even in the peaceful context presented in the show, will never be anything but depressing to me.

+1

[(Anonymous)]

Like seriously! I completely agree with all of this!

[meadowphoenix]

it's very clear that people have too many different perspectives on life for any finale on the finality of it to make even a majority happy. but i liked it.

that said I think some of the sticking point is that it doesn't really do much to understand the nature of living, so the idea that you can choose the ether rather than that being a natural unchooseable end is going to look like suicide to many many people (I think reading it thus, when the background of that choice is that mostly everyone can change for the better is reductive and suggests that suicide as a notion overwhelms any non-negative understandings of that choice but again differing judgements based on differing understandings of life and death is what you get with this concept).

also they basically just did buddhism for christians, since most people are unfamiliar with the actual nuances of karma and enlightenment, honestly that's what bothered me.

[(Anonymous)]

I’m not a Christian and wasn’t raised as one or as religious generally, but since I’m white and grew up in the US I knew way more Christians than Buddhists. Also, I haven’t finished past season 2 of the show.

But hearing that most characters went through the door but (I think?) Tahani stayed behind made me think of bodhisattvas remaining in the world post-enlightenment to help others; and I only had one world religions class fifteen years ago that only briefly covered Buddhism.

So even though I personally don’t believe in an afterlife, but given the choice would stay there out of fear of ceasing to exist, I don’t think of the characters who went through the door as committing suicide, because I think that’s too narrowly Christian a worldview to describe what happened. In Buddhism, ceasing to exist as a discrete self is what happens when you reach enlightenment. Nirvana’s not Heaven/The Good Place. Nirvana isn’t a place of eternal peace or happiness at all. Nirvana is the dissolution of self.

[meadowphoenix]

right (i can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not so im clarifying), i agree the point was not suicide but the entire cycle was a simplified Buddhism, and i think people seeing it as glorifying suicide are being somewhat limited in their perspective.

[(Anonymous)]

"Buddhism for Christians"

Michael Schur is Jewish.

[meadowphoenix]

Didn't think Judaism had a dedicated "bad place" as such, but regardless I limited this to the majority religion with such a theory where the show definitely was going to be seen.