As much as i feel like Amphibia might have benefitted greatly from a full on Sashanne or Marcanne ending, i do very much think the current one has it’s merits.
As the creator said, it does leave it very much open, not only on the shipping front, but also in the details of how Sasha and Anne began drifting away after middleschool, yet apparently remained on great terms as adults, which has a lot of implications that you can read into if you wish, or you can take it at face value if you so desire.
And i really like that.
My personal reading from what both Anne and Sasha says, is that they drifted apart in high-school, then seems to have begun reaching back together in their current years after both got their careers off the ground.
And that is part of growing up. Sometimes you do lose contact with the people around you because you NEED to focus on your job, your future, only to reforge a new and different relationship later in life.
As Anne said, they both had to learn to let go of what they had, but that didn’t mean that nothing good came out of it in the end.
The way Sasha speaks of it, she has some regrets about it, maybe things she wish she did differently, but in the end, that’s okay. As anne said, No one is perfect.
Just to take one example of a way(A sashanne reading) you can read it, maybe Sasha’s regrets is that she could have confessed her feelings for Anne in high-school, and maybe that would have made them stick together and forged a strong, and lasting bond that would have remained strong until this day.
But for whatever reason, she chose not to(maybe the fear of rejection, or that Anne wasn’t into girls was too strong, and in the end she didn’t dare try for fear of her friendship breaking), and she in hindsight regrets that fact.
And that might be the case. Or maybe them going straight into a romantic relationship in their teens when their careers and educations took them so far apart would have killed it dead in the long run.
She does not know what could have happened, and she definitely has regrets about that.
And again, this is just one take on the whole thing. The beauty of this ending is that you can definitely see how things went the way it did, it’s not an time-skip epilogue where the show asks you to buy that one of the girls became an astronaut and became the first human to set foot at mars or something equally ludicrous.
Each end point makes logical sense.
Instead it tells you where each girl ended up, while leaving it to the reader to read their own interpretation of how they got there, and where they go from here
That’s how to write an open ending.
Even after Amphibia, there were mistakes, regrets, roads taken and not taken, and the characters still wishing things could have been different.
That is life.
The important thing, is that you don’t cling to the past at the expense of your future. The past is important. The worst things you can do is cling so hard to it that you break what you have now, or you are so bitter about how things went that you try and kill it out of spite.
I do occasionally wonder if the way the Owlphibia AU has taken shape in my head accidentally subverts Amphibia’s theme that things change, but really thinking about it… things still change A LOT in the AU, it’s just that those changes are different from the changes in Amphibia. In the series finale, that change is represented by saying goodbye to the weird interdimensional stuff. In the AU, the weird interdimensional stuff is the change, irreversibly altering not just the characters but the world. But either way, things do change
This may be an unpopular opinion, but I like that the Calamity Trio drifted apart after Amphibia. They still cared about each other, but after everything that happened there was no way things could have gone back to the way they were. Nor should they have, considering how unhealthy their relationship was before Amphibia.
They weren’t the bestie clique anymore, but they remained friends and they must still care about each other a lot to still be so close after so long in the epilogue. There is a deeper connection there, one that like their relationship with the residents of Amphibia could never be broken no matter how much time and space come between them.
Also remember the saying, “If you truly love something let it go, if it truly loves you it will find its way back.” Sasha and Marcy came back to Anne. They aren’t kids that have less agency in their own lives anymore, they could easily all become besties again. This wasn’t just an ending, it was a whole new beginning.
All in all I guess I am trying to say as bittersweet as it is and how it isn’t the “perfect” ending everyone wanted or imagined, I think it makes it all the deeper and all the more beautiful.
Also, for those wondering, this would be the shoe Anne lost in “Commander Anne” as we know from word of god that the original one is still in the rubble of Toad Tower.
It’s ironic, isn’t it, how out of the three girls who got transported to Amphibia, Anne seems to be the only one who never questioned whether she wanted to get back to earth?
Marcy wanted to stay because she was afraid, because once she went home she worried she would lose her friends. Once she accepted her loss, she chose to go home.
But Sasha too, for a while she wanted to stay. Amphibia gave her a chance to indulge her desire for power, she had the opportunity to rule the world and she wanted it. And then, she got better, by re-evaluating her relationships and helping the people of Wartwood, she overcame her vices and learned to support people without manipulating them, she learned that she doesn’t need to be in control. And once she had grown, she chose to go home.
But Anne never wanted to stay. From the very start, Anne was looking for a way home, and she never once questioned that. Anne grew as a person during her time on Amphibia, it presented the obstacle of a foreign environment and she overcame it by making a home there. She built relationships with people, became part of a community, she found people she loved and in turn, she grew as a person, she became strong and considerate, she matured and learned to love herself. And not once did she ever think of staying.
When the time came all three girls were willing to potentially depower the gemstones and end up living in Amphibia forever, if that’s what it took to save it. But after everything they got from Amphibia, they chose to return to Earth.
Anne loved Amphibia the most, she became the most connected, she found a family there, she was willing to die for Amphibia. But she didn’t once want to live there.
I feel like the finale episode of Amphibia is called “The Hardest Thing” bc not only was the hardest thing to happen was the change of friendships and how life changes… but I think its directed at the fandom bc the Hardest Thing fans can except is change
like… yeah the amphibians cant ever see the humans they grown attached to everyday and its sad (and i may or may not write/read fix it fics to cope bc i hope one day they can reunite), and it is sad the calamity trio did part for a bit (but i love the message of even if they went seperate ways they still are a part of each others lives and still keep in touch)
and just ;-; its so beautiful and sad and the hardest thing IS change, which the characters of the show and us fans have to accept and the hardest thing I shall accept is that the show is over and it ended on a bittersweet note but i still love the memories that this show gave me and I’ll still go back and watch it because it was a part of my life for a long time
change is. scary. sometimes people drift apart, sometimes they change in ways you don’t expect, sometimes they stay. all of this is ok. what matters is how you choose to do in spite of all the changes in your life. do you stay in one place complacent, or do you embrace and challenge it, no matter how scary it may seem?
That was the main message in Amphibia, and I’m so glad I got to be a part of this ride. A show as silly as it is infinitely complex, a show so lighthearted as it is dark, a show so fundamentally earnest and honest with its characters that it trusts you to stay with them and watch them fuck up again and again and again, knowing that it’ll all be worth it once you see them become the people you know they’re meant to be.
this show means a lot to me and I’m glad it ended on such a phenomenal note. thanks amphibia. See ya later.
