Video review of "The Bridge" Chapter 30

My first full attempt at a video review,
Links and Transcription below!!!!

This month’s chapter is a bit of a back and forth, between Anguirus, Xenilla, and Junior.

It starts out in the magical land of Shama-lama-ding-dong, I mean, Shambhala, otherwise known as Shangri-La. We get some canon backstory on Terra long before the events of the saga, when the last of Earth’s manna was still being used. Apparently almost everything, living or technological, relies on it, like nuclear power in the fallout world. Machines and buildings fall apart, creatures who use it de-volve into animals or humans.

I do hope that we get some more details of this ante-Bagan world of dragon’s, shape-shifers, even Immugi’s getting de-powered into pythons. I very much like the inclusion of the D-Wars stuff, to whatever extent he borrowed from it. And it makes me wonder if the Artox Army are laying in wait somewhere, ready to obey the command of the evil serpent himself, Buraki.

As a regular reader of the series, I can tell when extra effort goes into a chapter, and before we even get into the bulk of the episode, we see a pre-constructed mythology. Descriptions of people, places, and relationships are always a sign of pre-cognitive story writing. I should know, half the time I’ve got enough head canon to choke a donkey, other times I just kinda wing-it. And this one, this one I can tell Tarb has been sitting on for a while.

This is a whole new world that Tarb could explore if he wanted, a lot of material that could wind-up in the Amalgamverse forum, or on Fanfiction.

So we get the Anguirus: Origins bit of the story, I was a little surprised that Tarb chose him to serve this particular exposition vehicle, but he does it well. Now we knew already that Godzilla and the other guardians were creations from previous ancient civilizations, and in the wake of Bagan’s rampage world tour, they spent the last of their powers to create and imbue them with abilities. In what is basically an embryonic chamber for Anguirus to absorb the mana in something like a nutrient bath, his creators pull a set-it-and-forget it, leaving him to grow and mature for tens of thousands of years.

Battra makes a brief cameo in mention, which I thought was cool. As the Punisher of Godzilla’s gallery, I think he’s massively underused in both canon and fanon material. For all the spotlight Mothra has, her brother/father has just as much potential.

Jumping forward to the present, we find Anguirus on SweetApple Acers, which is a nice way of contrasting the intent of his origins with how things turned out. He was the alpha prototype, meant to bear the element of fire. But it was not to be, and here he is hauling apples like a shmuck.

Tarb has been teasing a Spike/Anguirus scene for a few months now, and I had the feeling it would involve a conversation during a walk, since that’s a pretty convenient exposition device. And let’s face it, what kind of conversation are a stoic and a child going to have anyway? Going in, I was curious to see how this would play out.

The juice box is a clear hint of his adolescence, Spike experiencing some depression that he hasn’t learned how to deal with properly with yet. And the comparison is made explicit when Anguirus is reminded of having to deal with immature Kaiju like Rodan and Gorgo, this Gorgo presumably being the juvenile from decades ago.

Here is where I really start to notice some odd phrasing, some of which I’m willing to chalk-up as typos, or misfires while in the heat of putting down words, again, this is known to me. (It is known). ‘Returning his addressing’ is just one that really sticks out, but after a while, you know that some of these couldn’t have gotten past Tarb and two screeners unless they were intentional, which leads me to think he’s being poetic. And this has been an ongoing trend for as long as I‘ve been following the story, sometimes it’s character speech, and sometimes it’s not.

Spike here, is having an existential question as to his usefulness, his place in the world, which is something we all tend to ask ourselves at one point or another. And certainly one we’ve been asking about Spike since season 1. This is a fair thing to wonder about oneself, ‘could I be doing more?’ Is this all I’m good for?’ ‘What else can I put pesto on?’ are all common issues we deal with, and for someone surrounded by ponies who save the world on a regular basis, I imagine it has a much closer impact

We never really compare ourselves to those distant to us, sure we look at body builders and models as examples, but it’s the people closest to us that really shape our day-to-day lives, and who we measure ourselves against. Humans, being the tribal creatures that we are, are always striving, consciously or unconsciously, to be a valued member of our group, if just a sufficient one to merit inclusion. Sure Spike has had his moments to shine, most of us have our 15 minutes of fame sooner or later, there remains the fact that he is overshadowed by the fame and destiny of those around him. And he knows it.

Trying to help the young dragon jogs a memory for Anguirus, back to when he sacrificed his ultimate power to save someone else, Baragon, who apparently just went four rounds with Ghost Godzilla. This is a very interesting dimension to his mythos, that Anguirus would have been the most powerful of his kind had he not joined the fight with Gamera. But he gave it up to save Baragon, and to ensure that a major threat could be dealt with. This is an obvious nod to the fact that the original GMK line-up was planned to feature Anguirus, Baragon, and Varan, Tarb changing it further to include Gamera.

The little moral of this portion is basically to keep the faith. Even if you’re not in a position to be the big hero in the present, it may just not be your time. Stay optimistic, don’t let your spirit wither, and an opportunity will arise.

It’s a cute little scene by the end, and definitely fills out the need for some character building of those who aren’t main characters. Anguirus is a great straight man for wilder characters, and in a position to offer some guidance to those his junior. His lot is just kinda tragic. He was denied the fire and great strength he was supposed to have, relegated to being beaten by the stronger Kaiju again and again. But he takes it in stride, not quite an optimist, but persevering through the hardships, and being a figure of stability among his comrades.

After quite some time we finally come back to SpaceGodzilla and Blade Dancer while on their train trip back to Canterlot. I believe I’ve said it before, but Xenilla and blade dancer is my favorite ship of the series, so far at least. I’ve gone into my reasons why already, but I will say that this chapter re-enforces those reasons.

We finally get an explanation behind the visions, I mean, we already knew what they were, we’re just finally getting to some exposition. There’s not much to comment on in this first segment, so I’ll wait until we revisit them later on.

Next is arguably the meatiest part of this month’s episode, the case of Canterlot v. Godzilla, wherein Junior winds-up on trial. This is a scene that has been coming since the heroic defense of Canterlot, and the short bit with Moonbeam on the radio. This doesn’t turn out to be the regathering of the fellowship I was looking for, but there certainly is plenty of material presented to set the stage for the meeting. I only hope we get some character insight with Rodan and Destoroyah in the next chapter, since we hit the other four in this one.

I don’t recall having any previous hint that this scene would be taking place, so it’s inclusion took me off guard, a path I hadn’t foreseen. And as we went through it, I became more interested by the politics and social dynamics at play. Despite the action of later segments, this part was to me the most interesting. And judging by the comment section, I’m not alone in being impressed.

Godzilla, in this story, is my favorite character. Mostly because, well, he’s Godzilla. Whether you like other characters as much or more, he’s pretty much the main character.

The aesthetic of a trial is enhanced by the fact that Junior’s seat is next to Fancy Pants’ seat to govern the hearing. Like a witness beside a judge, it becomes less a clarification and more an interrogation, as is mentioned plainly in the text.

I thought his inclusion of the surname ‘Gojo’ was strange, and I don’t know if I like it all that much. But since I don’t envision it being something of much importance going forward, I’m just gonna forget about it.

With our mouthful of name and title trail mix, we proceed onto the questioning. And I did like the way BlueBerry Frost would act as translator and counsel, telling him what others meant, and what he should do.

The first two questions are benign enough, what you’d figure they’d ask him in a fact-finding committee. But then Moonbeam gets her hooks into the conversation, and goes in for the kill.

The observation about mammals and reptiles was an interesting one, and something I hadn’t really considered before. Though as mammals ourselves, we’re much more inclined to be accepting of our fellow mammals because we can connect with them better. We separated from reptiles so long ago, they might as well be alien to us, so it’s no surprise that were more wary of them. That and our arboreal ancestors had a rather adversarial relationship with snakes in trees.

Now here, I think most people are taking Godzilla’s side because they know that to destroy evil monsters who try to take over the word is a good thing. And even that is because we tend to view it as a predator-prey dynamic. I don’t think herbivore animals would bat an eye if all the wolves were wiped out, because wolves eat them. Likewise, Gyaos eat humans, so we’re all like: “Go ahead Godzilla! Kill ‘em al!”

But what I see being played out between Junior and Moonbeam, is Egalitarianism vs. a quasi-civilized Barbarism.

Without going into r/K-Selection theory, Moonbeam fears that which is strong and she has no check on, whether it be benevolent or malign. This is classic Slave Morality, making a virtue out of meekness. If it is strong and beyond the control of those weaker, then it is to be feared and must be destroyed.

Godzilla is much more a realist, not quite a practitioner of Master Morality, but if something is a threat, he will not hesitate to exterminate it. While he would prefer not to, he has no qualms about killing hordes of Gyaos or other dangerous Kaiju, regardless of some concept of inherent rights possessed by all living creatures. I’d call this a type of lawful Barbarism, where there is a law to appeal to, but when the law falls short, or is inapplicable, then heads get split by axes.

For Godzilla, that fact that his strength is in service to others, but not servile, is the great advantage. He does it because he thinks he should, not because others make him. And he does not imbue his adversaries with some right to life, to be preserved at the expense of future danger.

For Moonbeam, because she would be at the whim of those more powerful, seeks to make that power beholden to her, like a mouse putting a yolk on a bull. For her survival, the strong must be made to serve, not because they want to, but to prevent herself from being the victim.

“But, obviously not all life is equal to you. After all, you seem to think killing is OK if it stops problems, yes?”

This is the explicit admission of Moonbeam of her diametrically opposing view. To the r-Selected, Slave Morality holder, all life must be equal, so that those she fears will consider her life as valuable as theirs. If her life is not equal to theirs, then there is the danger of them asserting their Master status over her.

But this conflicts with some of our natural instincts to use our strength to put an end to threats. If someone were to prey on our children, it might seem perfectly natural to murder them on the spot, since threats to children cannot be tolerated, and to eliminate any future threats that might arise. To some, violence is a valid path to resolution, it can be finite, establish borders and force compliance of belligerents. To others, violence is to be feared, because they lack the power to wield it on par with those around them.

Why Moonbeam would fear power? Well, she hints to it at the end of her participation in the chapter. We already know that her sister is Starlight Glimmer, who at this point in time is still in charge of her cult in the mountains. We saw that Starlight is exceptionally powerful in her magic, matching Alicorn Twilight to a stalemate. Starlight used her power for bad, and no-one could stop her. Godzilla used his power, and no-one could seemingly stop him if he wanted to do bad things, like kill and eat ponies.

Moonbeam, I think, feels powerless. Her understanding of power is warped by her sister, viewing power as inherently corrupting. The dictum “Power corrupts” is the encapsulment of Slave Morality, and because Godzilla has mighty power, he is fated to be mightily corrupted.

All that said, I do have to echo a few sentiments, Moonbeam is a bit of a cunt here. She faults the fact that Junior’s parents weren’t married, despite the fact that neither of them are his biological parents, or even of compatible animal species. I don’t quite fault her for not knowing that Humans and Kaiju marrying would be insane, but she has enough information to know the term bastard cannot even remotely apply to his species.

To turn the tables on her, Moonbeam also clearly has issues with her parents, and seems to go right for a “Sins of the Father” concept. Which betrays another link to her malformed relationship to power. Perhaps one of her parents was also powerful, and used it for ‘not nice’ ends.

To sum it up: for her, Power is inherently untrustworthy, Godzilla has power, therefore, Godzilla is inherently untrustworthy.

She asks him how they’re supposed to be assured that he won’t turn his anger on them. And the truth is that there is no assurance, because if Godzilla thought there was a pony threat, he would handle it, because that’s the right thing to do no matter who the aggressor is.

I really don’t agree with the accusations of Racism and Xenophobia thrown at moonbeam, not least because I disdain those terms in themselves, but because they’re thrown around defacto as pejoratives. Moonbeam is perfectly justified in being afraid of Godzilla, she’d be nuts not to. He’s a powerful alien who does not share her culture. There are historically very good reasons to be alarmed by something like that. Moonbeam may not be very polite about it, but she’s not a villain.

This was another scene that really deserves to be animated.

Oh yeah ponies, every fear you have about the monster you think Godzilla is, that’s King Ghidorah. Just you wait until a malevolent, red eyed, three-headed Pegasus shows up, then you’ll be begging for a giant fire-breathing dinosaur to help you. I’m not dissuaded from thinking that Ghidorah could conquer Equestria without changing into his real body.

When Lea joins the discussion things take a much lighter turn, right into exposition territory. Lea gets to answer a few questions, like how they met, the nature of their relationship. I genuinely liked the segment where they address the question of if they’re married, with the flabbergasted reaction from both.

Way to sink all the Goji-Lea shippers Tarb.

I would also agree that Godzilla is the younger sibling. While his body might be older than Lea, she is mentally much older than him, carrying on the lineage of her foremothers.

Going into that, I really like the fact that Lea still has genetic flashbacks to the night Senior killed Battra. Both of them belonging to a previous generation, to see their legacy occasionally reflected in Lea and Junior makes for good inner conflict. Especially for Lea, since she’s otherwise kinda lacking in the character complexity department. The fact that Senior still haunts her is cool, what could be cooler, would be Lea tapping into some Battra anger on an occasion.

“What you mean Godzilla no turn into mighty Yak?! YAK SMASH!!!!”

I like Captain Blueberry Frost well enough, but sometimes I do have to read her dialog 2 or 3 times to understand what she’s saying. Not a complaint per se, just something that slowed me down.

It was a relief to see somepony finally explain to Godzilla what we’ve been trying to do by yelling at our computer screens for years, and clue him in on what flirting is. I mean, I get the running joke, and enjoyed Blade Dancer’s frustration, but after a while you’d think Godzilla would recognize some signs of a female showing attention, even if only by comparison to other species courtship rituals.

I have to wonder about what this ‘other trouble’ could be that Frost refers to. Are there some unruly highway-ponies robbing travelers? Did they go out on missions to herd the buffalo tribes onto the reservations? Is there some kind of secret conflict with the Bat-ponies? The possibilities.

The next few bits felt like a bit of fluff for Godzilla, but nothing terrible, just Frost trying to get across to Godzilla why he should learn how to live with the ponies, since he’s stuck there for an undetermined amount of time. This hopefully will open him up to some new dimensions with other characters, and he might just even understand what’s been going on between himself and Luna! Go LunZilla!

But I did like the ending theme, where it’s revealed that Frost led him to the pub with the hidden agenda of showing him some of the gratitude that Canterlot residents had for what he did for them. Showing him that not all of the voices on the matter were afraid of him. He gets a round of grog on the house, a courtesy of the barkeep, and after a good swig, tries to have one more thing clarified. So I though this part was a long time coming, moreso because of our perspective as readers has been so much longer than the characters.

Coming towards the end, we drop back in on Lea after her deposition with Junior. She hasn’t really done all that much in a while, aside from some overly complicated drama during the Day of the Babies. But Tarb does write her with a charming personality, and I do enjoy whenever we spend time with her. Like Godzilla, I think we could follow a good arc with her as the main protagonist, she has a good power set in this body, and her having to live under a disguise adds a compelling layer of intrigue to her dynamics with others.

Her initial reaction to SpaceGodzilla visiting her is predictable, seeing as the last time they were in the same room, a massive brawl broke out. The concept of Xenilla as a schemer, and that he already has Mothra in check by knowing that he can extract what he needs from her, is finely done.

Tarb shows us the first time that Mothra encountered SpaceGodzilla. Apparently the humans breached the protection spells around her home island, allowing the rest of the mutant faction to sense the Mana stream that flows through it. She arrives in time to see the vile forces run into a Godzilla-like monster. While I think the established rules on monsters being able to sense one another would have alerted her, I get why Tarb wanted to reveal him to her the way he did.

SpaceGodzilla takes on a squad of vicious killers, Gaira, Zedus, Krystalakk, Megaguirus, Jiger, Dagahra, Zigra, Agon, and Barugaron, a pretty sizable faction by itself, with some formidable skillsets.

All that accounted for, I do still think that Xenilla has the power to take them on, not only could one attribute Godzilla’s strengths to him, but a number of other abilities that can reach an opponent before they even get close.

Only a few monsters could boast of being able to stand up to forces like that, SpaceGodzilla is one of them.

Among what is actually a very dynamic fight, I think it’s pretty cool to see monsters from different places brought together. So far, all the Kaijuverse characters we’ve been dealing with are from Godzilla’s movie canon, plus of course the Gyaos who are the big mainstays of the Gamera canon, so there’s not a big stretch there.

And the double choke slam to Gaira and Zedus was great to see.

After a fierce battle, and Xen finds himself at the bottom of a Kaiju beat down, Destoroyah makes her entrance and goes about being the resident unstoppable force.

When all the dust settles, the mutations are sent scrambling off to lick their wounds, Destoroyah back to her own devices, and Xenilla stands tall. He also reveals that he has protected the Shobijin the entire time shielding them from danger in a crystal pouch.

So now that Xenilla and Mothra have an understanding, I have to assume he’s going to ask her about the visions he’s been having, since she has access to all the memory of her antecedents. This it seems, is how Xenilla and the others are going to get Bagan on the mind, and hopefully start to get the two strands of the story coming together.

Back on the train to Canterlot, Xenilla explains to Blade dancer that he’s not the hero that Earth wants, he’s the hero that Terra needs.

Xenilla turns out, has been making himself the villain, the hammer used to beat Godzilla into the stronger, tougher hero that’s required to keep Earth safe from the big bads who threaten it all the time.

This I think is a novel motivation, one that has only been done a few times. I say that because it’s kind of a perilous motivation for an antagonist, one that betrays that the villain isn’t actually evil, and perhaps isn’t the danger that they are initially presented as. Now I think Xen is in a unique position to be this kind of antagonist, being a brother, the partial clone of his parent, and probably the most cerebral of the Kaiju involved.

Which begs a few questions for me; since Destoroyah knows what he’s really up to, why is she on his side? What does she think she can gain by aligning herself with him? And if Xen has access to a small army of his own, isn’t he arguably the more powerful faction on Terra? If so, then what are the real power dynamics?

Returned as we are to the undeniable chemistry of Xen and Blade Dancer. In a scene that’s supposed to be about his admitting to himself that he does what he does out of familial love, brotherly love and love for Earth, for me, I’m still more interested in how this affects things between them.

Xenilla continues to be an emotional labyrinth, filled with inner turmoil, self flagellation, and a reluctant desire to be a useful brother to Junior. This of course is sweet, sweet ambrosia to Blade Dancer, who drinks it up, and further endears Xen to her. There’s something about the ‘fixer-upper’ guys women just can’t resist.

The ‘next time’ blurb, mentions Bagan sending in a queen to recruit local help. My money, is on Legion and Chrysalis.

In summation, this was one of the best constructed chapters in recent memory. The visits to different characters, the back and forth in the timeline, and the little battle scene contribute to what might otherwise be a filler chapter, and turn it into a fine example of Tarb’s skill as a writer.

Sure it’s filled with inner and interpersonal drama, and might seem more at place on a daytime soap, or on Arrow. But the evolution of Junior and Xen’s experiences in the world, really carry this chapter. Anguirus’ flashbacks provide some needed exposition in the general history of the Godzilla’verse, and reveal him to be a hidden tragic figure not just in the grand scope, but among his friends.

We hadn’t spent much time with Godzilla, Mothra, Xenilla, and Anguirus in a while, and it was nice to see where they’re at, and be there for some pivotal moments in their journey.

Having conducted my analysis, my space-ape creators are satisfied. The Magnificent Machine is pleased with this chapter, so you will not be destroyed with finger missiles, and belly lasers. …. Today.

Heatseeker's "Path of the Unforgiven" on FiMFiction & FanFiction
http://www.fimfiction.net/story/278529/path-of-the-unforgiven
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11907316/1/The-Path-of-the-Unforgiven.

Heatseeker's "Godzilla/Marvel Saga" + related Crossover on FanFiction & DeviantArt
https://www.fanfiction.net/u/6783529/HeatseekerX51
http://rmc1618.deviantart.com/gallery/