So we have these three in a VR simulation, one that basically analyzes each respective mind and tries to put them in a simulation of their most profound fears.
We got Olivia’s first, where we see the environmental consequences of Andrias and how her mother chastises her for not being able to continue their legacy and promise.
Then we got the grubhog, where Yunan has developed a phobia from a bad experience.
Then we got Marcy being put in a school setting, with her friends not wanting her in their lives anymore.
If there’s anything to be said about Season Three Anne, it’s that she is doing so much better than Season One Anne. Well, maybe not in terms of trauma, but there is something to be said for how much positive change Anne’s personality has experienced.
Her parents agree: she has grown much more responsible. Even Anne acknowledges it. In five long months, she has grown so much. The Anne of the debut episode would never have done what Anne does now.
Right?
Yeah, no.
Ever since her friend was skewered like the main course at an amphibian cookout, Anne has been going back to the same old things she used to do. This is really something she’s been doing for a while, something that she worked so hard to get rid of, that she went to the other extreme.
Anne is a pushover. Still.
Allow me to explain. As the Protagonist, Anne has a lot of things to do. She has to hide the Plantars from the government, find a way to make an interdimensional portal, destroy a tyrannical and homicidal king, save her friends, make up with her friends, figure out what’s going on with her weird glowing blue powers, and return the Plantars back to Amphibia.
That’s a difficult list, one that really has me wondering how she’s going to pull it off in 20 episodes–especially when she has already used up 3 of them and only found more problems.
But you see, that’s exactly the issue here. Anne has overcommitted. She has taken on too much. Because if she doesn’t do all this stuff, then she’s going to lose everything.
Sound familiar?
Anne’s sense of responsibility for things hasn’t grown this drastically. She hasn’t done some grand heel-turn from a lazy slacker to a diligent soldier. She has just changed the things she was responsible for.
Before, her responsibility was to keep her friend group together. So she agreed with everything they said, doing things she didn’t want to do, just so that they would stay friends. She hid parts of her personality away, afraid of being mocked. And it worked, up until she gained a sense of self worth.
Then, her responsibility was still to keep her friends together, but it changed. Now she was determined to make sure Marcy wouldn’t get herself horribly injured or die. She even extended that to Sasha, despite her past, offering her a chance at forgiveness and trying to work things out with her, even though Sasha was a known backstabber.
As for now? Now, everything there has failed. Keeping the friend group together didn’t work. Marcy did die, despite Anne’s best efforts. Sasha did betray them again, despite Anne’s best efforts. And while neither intended to do that, the fact is there: staying friends with them that easily isn’t going to work.
But the thoughts are still there. Watching your friend die doesn’t get rid of bad thoughts, it worsens them.
So now Anne has these ideas in her head. She has to do what is expected of her, or else she’ll lose what she has. She can’t do anything that would indicate that she’s struggling with her tasks. She can’t have people acknowledging her opinion, as that would make more problems and disrupt the fragile status quo. She can’t have people worrying about her, not when she should be prioritizing others and worrying about everybody else.
Just because she’s in another dimension doesn’t mean Anne isn’t still Anne.
She has this huge list of things to figure out, but she takes this on by herself, strictly keeping her parents out of it and only somewhat including the frogs.
Anne isn’t being responsible, no. Not in a healthy way. Anne has allowed her responsibilities to completely surpass her boundaries, taking up every ounce of herself and leaving her no room to rest. Furthermore, she has become more and more secretive, refusing to let anyone even know what’s going on in her head. Her compartmentalization is in full effect, and it’s making it impossible for her to fully understand why she feels so awful.
It makes Anne unable to ask for help.
Now, difficulty asking for help is not a new thing for any of the Calamity Trio. We’ve seen it in Sasha, how she would rather fling herself off a cliff than admit her weakness–and even in redemption, she still won’t let anyone breach her walls. We’ve seen it in Marcy, how she would rather send her friends to another world than admit that she’s scared of losing them, because even if she did ask for her help, what’s the use? They can’t help her, not when her problems are this bad, and not when she believes she had them coming.
Anne has the same issue going on. For her, asking for help would destroy her carefully curated façade of composure and compliance. It would make her a problem, something that needs to be addressed. And in Anne’s world, there are already enough problems without her, too.
But what Anne doesn’t realize is that asking for help is exactly what she needs. If her parents can help her fight off robots, then she won’t have to hide from them. If the Plantars can help her search through the museum, then she can find a portal faster. And if she can communicate what she needs, it’ll make it so those big confrontations like Reunion and True Colors don’t happen–because Anne won’t hide her problems and try to solve them on her own.
HELLO PEEPS, IT’S BEEN A WHILE, BUT HERES SOME RANDOM AMPHIBIA SWAP AU THOUGHTS, particularly with Anne->Newts, Marcy->Toads and Sasha->Frogs. This switch makes me the most emotional I think.
First thought, the Plantar’s kindness getting through to Sasha through a slower and more climatic way than it did with Anne. I imagine Sasha can get away for a bit with her manipulations, wearing a mask that stuff isn’t bothering her. She slips and gets annoyed, scared, and anxious at times, especially at the beginning when she finds Sprig and is told she can’t search for her girls until the winter passes, but once she’s settled into the Plantar’s basement, she begins the facade of ‘being nice and gaining control of the frog family so that whatever she wants whenever she wants goes.’ It works. Hop Pop favorites her because of her sweet talks, she gets Sprig’s friendship and loyalty easily and Polly is all over having an enabler badass. Then consequences pile up. Responsibilities get put on her shoulders. She’s now an older sibling to two impressionable kids who are copying her beliefs and her actions. She has chores Hop Pop is trusting to her because of how responsible she’s talked herself into being. The townsfolk eventually also come around her flattery and always ask for her time. Sasha thinks she’s detached from everyone. Despite the goofy adventures she goes on and some moments where she snaps from annoyance at the craziness (particularly with the kids and maybe even also coming around to talking to One-Eyed Wally) where she shares bits about her anxieties and her anger, and she’s always comforted and taken seriously and shown that she’s being accepted. Loved. She doesn’t allow herself to accept it. She’s using them, just biding her time, making things more comfortable for herself until she can leave and find her girls. But then, she’s made frog of the year. The townspeople genuinely love her and cheer for her. She feels. Nice. And in the middle of the night she sees her.
Marcy.
Switching to how it’s been for her,
It’s interesting for me to think about her dynamic with Grime. She’s softer, more innocent with her wonder. She absolutely believes she can befriend the toads and is always asking then questions about the world. It annoys some of his guards, but she forms some friendships with others that find her fun to talk to. And eventually, maybe even before the Heron attack, Grime sees her value as a strategist. He strikes a deal easily with her. She helps him with responsibilities, research, paperwork, and he DOESN’T keep her in a cage. Even eventually offers to help her travel to look for her friends. Maybe. Marcy is having a blast being leaned on by someone. This is her time to show how useful she is, even if it’s by creating new weapons and traps for political adversaries. Grime is very impressed by her mind… but also becomes a dad much faster with how often he has to save her from herself. He’s soft on her after like a week of accidents. Hell, maybe these accidents even started in her cell and the real reason he got her out was because he hadn’t realized how many ways someone could accidentally almost kill themselves while being chained and behind bars. He’s seen things. The toads generally leave Marcy alone with some exceptions that were interested in teaching her stuff and playing games with her. She’s accepted.
I don’t want to have to rewrite the entirety of the episode (note from future me, I GUESS I DID) on the Toad Tower but the differences are their motivations. Marcy constructed the plan to invite the town and talk to them diplomatically into giving up Hop Pop for the better good. They would execute Hop Pop in front of everyone as an example. When she found Sasha and saw her family, she was surprised. She started worrying that what she was doing would be wrong. But in her time spent alone with Sasha, the blonde girl talks big and makes it clear she was just waiting to find either of her friends to ditch the frogs. She could stay in the tower with Marcy from now on! Marcy is relieved. This means she can still put her plan in motion. So, laughing, she explains what she’s doing that night to Sasha, who slowly drops a fry in shock. The ditzy nerd she knew is talking about taking a life like its just another statistic. Something needed to keep balance. And more than that. The frog she’s going to kill is someone who has taken care of her. Someone who saw her as family now. Someone who took her in and never backed away from helping her. Even with all her bullshitting, after all her masks and lies, Sasha starts to sweat. Her hands shake. She smoothly tells Marcy she needs to use the bathroom. She’s none the wiser. Sasha runs to the frogs. She tries to get them to run away. Something in their ineptitude frustrates her enough to take charge and be the lead of their group through the sewers. She’s angry. She shouldn’t be doing this. She’s trying to come up with excuses as to why she cares enough to wade through shit for them. And through her heavy thoughts, they get caught.
Now they’re in the top of the tower. Marcy has been told what happened. She’s confused. She asks Sasha about it in front of everyone. What happened to the plan? To not caring about the frogs? Was she going to run away… and leave her behind? Sasha falters as she sees Marcy’s eyes. She’s hurt. Sasha feels terrible, this wasn’t what she wanted! She tries reaching out, to comfort her like she always did. But a hand wraps around hers and stops her. Sprig’s. He’s looking at her. Scared of what he feared she’d do. What she would have done, if she hadn’t had a change of heart. She resolves herself. Squeezes his hand back. And she hardens, putting on her leader persona. Marcy can feel the shift immediately and flinched at Sasha’s tone as she tries coaxing her into letting them go. Isn’t an execution too extreme? Come on, Marmar, this isn’t like her. She’s not a killer. She’s good.
Marcy shakes. Is she right? Should she stop? But Grime steps up. Reminds her of the King expecting results. It’s their necks on the line. He’s right… both sides are right. Morally right. But what about her? What does she value? She holds her heart as she asks a question. The deciding factor. Her voice quivers. “What about you? If we let them go, who are you going with?” Sasha’s pause is a lifetime. The answer was… unexpected for both of them. “I, I can visit! Now that we know were we are! It’ll be like… sleepovers!” Marcy dropped her hand. Her demeanor changed. She blinked a few times, fighting the sting in her eyes. “I see. Hah. Yeah. We always loved those, right?”
“Yeah! It’ll be just as fun, I promise!” Sasha saw a tear drop. Concern grew. She took a step forward. “Marcy… are… are you… ok?”
“Yeah,” Marcy looked back up. Smile in her face. “I’m ok. But. I’m sorry for what comes next.”
She threw a ball. It rolled under Sasha. And it binded her, making her fall hard into the floor. Grime smiled and followed the plan. Gave the orders to subdue the rowdy townsfolk. Separated Hop Pop and Sasha from everyone. Sasha screamed, begging for them to stop. Not believing what was happening. Marcy talked over her. Assuring her she’d come to see this was necessary. They need to stay together!
And as Hop Pop almost falls into the plant, the shrooms explode. Chaos erupts. The Plantars are on Sasha immediately, helping her out of her bindings just in time for her to see the stunned Marcy staring at her. And the ground crumble beneath her. Sasha flings herself to catch her. Barely gets a hold of her hand. Marcy is crying. Sasha tries desperately to keep hold of her. Shes slipping and the frogs come to help. Sasha is surprised by them. She chokes a laugh as they tell her they’ve got her. Marcy’s gut twists. Misinterpreting her face, Sasha tells her that its going to be ok. She’s got her. She’ll always have her.
Marcy’s eyes furrow. Sasha… is a good friend. And she… again. She failed her. Because of her neediness. Because she can’t let go. She keeps dragging her down. She closes her eyes. She accepts her fate.
“Sasha…”
“Mar…cy?”
She opens them again at her name. She smiles, painfully.
“You deserve better friends than me.”
And she lets go.
Grime catches her. Sasha is pulled up and hugged as she sobs. She failed her. She feels that she’s failed her. But. Surrounded by these frogs, what pains her the most is. She’s glad they’re ok.
They have become her family.
~
I’ll try to wrap up my thoughts faster, this was seriously supposed to be a quick ramble of points but I went storymode again, good gravy.
Sasha is embarrassed by how much she cares about the dumb frogs and the dumb town, but she accepts it. Opens up much more after that.
Marcy is… lost. Like Grime, she gets lost in trying to escape from what happened by drowning in hyperfixations instead. Crying whenever Grime brings it up, so they both avoid it because he does NOT want to be responsible for kicking a puppy. It’s not healthy, and Olivia brings them both back into action by making them work together in outthinking her.
When Grime proposes taking over the kingdom, Marcy gets swept back into action. So she had a breakdown with a friend. That doesn’t mean she can’t enjoy living the rpg life now that she’s here. And it’s not like taking over the palace would affect the frogs and Sasha much. In fact, it could help them! Yes. This was for the good of everyone. She would help Grime become king.
~
While all this happened with these two, Anne’s life in newt society has been… relatively ok. Anne’s easy for Andrias to manipulate. She’s never questioned anything and she’s always ready to be of service. It’s the least she could do for the person that’s housing her. So he lets her do whatever she wants. She spends time with the newts, helping Olivia losen up a bit, learning combat from Yunan, doing odd jobs all around the city and befriending everyone in sight. It’s great PR for the king. Really. It’s been far too easy. The only annoying thing to deal with has been…
…. eugh. Emotions. Days where Anne gets homesick. Days when she asks too many personal questions. He has to keep up the nice act, but her perception is scary to him sometimes. She comes to know when something is bothering him. She’s always ready to hear him out. Hed… never tell her the whole truth but… he has sometimes… shared bits of it. He’d always get mad afterwards. It’s like the kid is a walking therapy session. He involuntarily softens just the slightest bit around her.
Out of spite, he agrees to his master’s demands. She may be useless in the ways that truly matter but. As a conduit of the stones, she can still do something good for him.
One last thought, Anne’s betrayal comes in the form of the opposite of Marcy’s. She wants everyone to go home, regardless of the attachments they made in this world. Andrias convinced her of the urgency to return when Sasha left her. It was like she didn’t need her anymore. Like she was discarded. And after needing Sasha for so long… she got scared. She misses home. She misses her family. She misses school. She misses her friends. They need to go back. They need to be back to normal. As soon as possible. And her friends…
So just a small detail about Sasha and Anne’s fight in “Reunion”.
It’s very, very easy to miss, but while Sasha and Anne are circling each other, there is a moment her where Sasha’s eyes changes colors.
Further breaking down the frames, we can tell that it actually flash 3 different colors. White, dark pinkish brown, and dark, dark red.
All 3 of which are just a distant, distant variant of Sasha’s Pink.
What i find more interesting, is that this is the only such moment of it’s kind.
Every other time when one of the girls inadvertently call upon their Calamity powers directly, their Eyes are always clear and bright with the blue, pink and green all very clear and visible.
This moment at the tower is the only time in the series when the eyes don’t even come close to glowing in their intended color, and furthermore, it doesn’t seem to have come with any increase in strength or speed for this duel.
This in and out of itself is interesting, and I can see 2 explanations for what caused this moment where the powers are instinctually called upon, and seemingly just fizzled out. Neither of which are exclusive from the other.
1. In this moment, Sasha is so far removed from the ideals that strength is build around(Namely protection, love, determination and force of will), that the powers simply refuse to come. She is extremely emotional, and in great need, but as she is at this point, fighting the person she loves more than anyone or anything, the powers will not flow through her.
2. The second, and in my opinion far more likely answer, is simple that when it comes down to it, Sasha’s heart isn’t in this fight. She doesn’t truly WANT to fight Anne. Not really.
The moment that ended up costing Sasha the battle, despite being stronger, more experienced and a flat out better warrior than Anne, is that at the end, Sasha ended up doing the exact same thing she did later at the gatehouse when she and Anne fought again.
Rather than dealing a final blow, Sasha instead just stood there, menacingly and pointed a sword at Anne, thinking/believing/hoping that that would be enough.
And just like at the gatehouse, this complete lack of capability of bringing herself to deliver a coup de grace, ends up with Anne counterattacking from a position of seeming defeat, and easily beating her.
I very much think this chronic inability to commit herself to actually defeat Anne decisively is why her powers fail her in this hour of need.
One of strenght’s defining virtues, is determination, a refusal to ever give up, but here, Sasha isn’t able to do that. Not with Anne. Never with Anne.
And so when she instinctually calls upon them, they immediately dissipate.
So there was a cut scene where Marcy explained why she didn’t go out into the continent to actually look for Anne and Sasha, which apparently “Some newts” at the council suggested she should do.
She instead presents it as HER idea to instead stay and wait for Anne and Sasha to sooner or later make her way to the capital.
Now what I’m curious about is whether it really was her idea all along, and Andrias just went with it to make full use of Marcy’s talents and make her feel important in the capital, or whether Andrias subtly planted the idea in Marcy’s head, and just let her think it was her own idea, when in reality she was dancing on his puppet strings.
Either way, the result was the same. Withouth realizing it, she was chained to Newtopia, and only left it to go on very specific missions to further make her feel like Andrias appriciated her greatly.
So one thing i noticed about the way Mother Olm speaks about the powers of the Calamity gems, is that she, and by extention the Olms as a whole has a somewhat contradictory view of them.
On one hand, she basically says that her kind basically believed the gems shouldn’t be used at all if possible, while condemning the other races for using them for conquest.
But at the same time, she makes it perfectly clear that as far as she is concerned, the powers of the Gems and by extention the Music Box, rightfully belongs to Anne, Sasha and Marcy, and that Andrias has “Stolen” them.
And she encourages Sasha to obtain and use those powers as well. Because it is her “Right”.
By what? By destiny and divine mandate, that’s what.
Andrias has lost his divine right to the powers, and by extension his right to rule. And here comes 3 new chosen ones to wipe the board clean to allow a new and better Amphibia to rise.
One thing i find interesting though, is that it’s not hard to figure out how the Olms probably helped lay the groundwork for the Amphibian Empire of old.
On one hand, the Olms believe that the Gems powers are better left alone. But at the other hand, they very much belive that the people who master them and prove themselves worthy, has a “Right” to use them, a divine mandate to do so.
These two ideas are not compatible.
The olms didn’t want anyone to use the gems if it could be helped, but at the same time they preach that it’s wielders have a right to do so.
The Olms in the olden days would have promoted this idea that the users of the stones powers had a divine mandate to use them, which not too surprisingly lead to them actually do that very thing, which lead them to becoming a real powerful force on the continent.
Which for better or worse is the logical endpoint of the Olms stance that the gems wielders have a right to make use of their powers.
The olms were probably very hurt when the Amphibian empire began to expand beyond to other worlds, but at the same time, assuming they were big advocates for the sacredness of the gems, and the people who were worthy of using them, they no doubt played a massive role in the rise of the empire, by being champions of the calamity users “Right” to use their powers as they saw fit.
It’s a delightful, but very believable contradiction. These powers are sacred, holy, and should be left alone. But if you DO manage to master them, they are YOURS by RIGHT to use as you will.
I rather hope this contradiction is brought up and called out in the show, because the Olms believe in the Divine right of those wielding the stones powers, just as much as Andrias forefathers did, they just didn’t like the way the people with that right utilized it.
They weren’t wrong about that path mind you, but it’s very clear that both these two groups sprang from a shared belief in that those who had obtained these powers had a right to use them.
Sasha post character development: You bet the entire resistance on a CAGE MATCH?!
Sasha in Reunion: Alright, i’ll fight the person I love more than any other, in a trial by combat to settle the matter of whether Hop Pop should live or die, no problem.
So first, that’s the shitty map from truck stop polly, just in full size.
Secondly, whoever colored it actually managed to fuck up the location of the resistance, as they colored the smaller valley west of the titular valley green.
I really hope it was Anne XD
Sasha: Hey Anne, could you color this map? I need the entire thing red, except the Valley, which is in green.
Anne: Sure thing Sash!
Later.
Sasha: …Anne, Why is the west Road green?
Anne: Wait, that’s NOT the valley?
Sasha: You lived here for half a year, how can you NOT know where the Valley was?!
Anne: So in my defense, the maps here are really, really bad.
So just a small, symbolic detail i really liked about the mural.
Looking at the pattern, the crack that goes through the 3 girls originates from Marcy, symbolizing how she was the one who got the whole mess the three girls found themselves in Amphibia Rolling in the first place.
However, while that part of the crack is broken wide opened, Anne’s part looks more like a healed scar, with the crack looking like it closed up after having been broken.
Meanwhile, Sasha’s part looks more like Marcy’s, except for the top bit, where it meet’s Anne’s part of the crack, where it also looks like it’s closing up and “Healing” just like Anne’s part.
All 3 girls have their own issues and has suffered their own emotional damage, but Anne has mostly healed and has grown into a much stronger Person, while Sasha is still on her way to doing that, and now that Anne is back, she can finally start taking the last few steps she needs to do it to truly heal.
Meanwhile, Marcy hasn’t healed at all from “True Colors”, and in fact has not only been completely separated from her friends, but has reached the absolute nadir of her life. Hence why her crack is completely busted open and broken.
asdswascf imagine if shortly after rescuing Marcy, Anne and Sasha start talking about the prophecy and them being the three stars that save the world expecting Marcy to be all excited
and Marcy just says “Is that all you needed me for? To stop Andrias?”
Marcy:Is that all you need me for? To stop Andrias?
Anne:No! Well… we DO, but tha-
Marcy: So what now? We save all the worlds and… that’s it?
Anne:Well, yeah!
Sasha: We can just forget this ever happened.
Marcy: How are you going to forget with me around? I’m the reason we’re here in the first place. That’s why you took so long, isn’t it? You hate me. You didn’t even want to save me!
Anne:Marcy-
Marcy:Don’t act like you want me here! What’s you plan for me, huh? Are you going to send me back to my parents? So you can just forget about me? Are you going to leave me alone!?
asdswascf imagine if shortly after rescuing Marcy, Anne and Sasha start talking about the prophecy and them being the three stars that save the world expecting Marcy to be all excited
and Marcy just says “Is that all you needed me for? To stop Andrias?”
