remember delle seyah named him ozzman (?) originally which is a name from her family and that’s his middle name now. So he has a name from each one of his families :’)
And another anon:
Yeah, the name thing bothered me too. But Delle Seyah seemed to take it well-ish when they told her he chose a new name.
I do remember Ozzman and that it’s now apparently his middle name, but nobody uses it, and to me, it was a way to push down Delle Seyah in favor of D’av. I don’t understand why that whole ep was framed that way. I get the show wanting to cement D’av’s place in Jaq’s life and vice versa, the effect on D’av, but it went way too far. And writers can have Delle Seyah go along with it, I doubt they wanted to put more screentime on that.
It wasn’t as if it was a rejection of the Qresh way of life, it was literally acting as if choosing names is a rite of passage for everyone, when it very much has not been shown to be that, nobody else did it, even Dutch’s name was picked by Johnny. So the choice of Jaqobis over Ozzman in this particular situation came from…where? It wasn’t even about Delle Seyah the person not deserving him carrying on her name, it was just like, oh, I’ve bonded with my bio dad more than my surrogate mom.
Those were the two s4 eps I’ve mentioned as irritating me, the two after Delle Seyah gave birth, when Jaq was going through his growth spurts and everyone was trying to figure out a way to save him while Delle Seyah was offscreen for almost the whole thing and then we had the D’av-Jaq ep and after making sure to place D’av as the more important parent against Delle Seyah, they focused on his perspective against the lead character Dutch’s? It felt like someone was trying to make up for so much of the show’s main dynamic being Dutch-Johnny and by that point bringing in Aneela and her bonds with Delle Seyah and Dutch and overcorrected to try to give D’av some screentime and perspective for a while. Because most of the time they don’t write like that and I was fine with the rest of the season and s5. Even without much screentime in s5 at all, I very much adored how the Kendry-Kin Rit(-Jaqobis) family was written.
I get there’s some logistical reasoning behind some of those mid-s4 decisions, they needed certain characters to be in certain places, and they needed certain dynamics to happen, but that’s the problem with plot first. They usually do character first so well, some of that writing really stood out
Update: I’m a few eps into s4 already and I’m dreading it ending Bc I’ve inhaled these far too quickly and I want more lol. I still love Delle seyah. You’re totally right about the show wanting us to keep liking her. She’s been hilarious and had heart and growth, & I think that makes the difference in not wanting her to suffer and pay for what she did. Plus, Johnny shooting her felt like a bit of revenge for pawter. I also think the fact that everyone is morally gray to a point helps. (1/?)
Every single person on the show has done some heinous shit. Some on purpose, some on accident, but the entire world is kinda built on heinous shit happening & them either perpetrating it or kinda ignoring it (like the slavery stuff/ letting guards die for them etc). Hell, pawter made a bunch of ppl die to win her battle. Dutch & co may be the good guys, but their hands are far from clean, which I think makes it easier to accept stuff that Delle seyah and aneela have done. (2/3)
I’ll have to see where the rest of the show leads, but I think this may be the one show I have where I would ordinarily hate some characters & possibly the overall msg but it works for kj, maybe Bc I love Dutch / aneela / Delle seyah lol. I tend to go more for righteous vengeance & this show isn’t that. Too much gray to be that. I think Root was the closest I’ve gotten to rooting for “villain” & we never see much of her evil past. Loved Regina too, but didn’t finish ouat Bc I got mad at it (3/3)
Anon, you watched it too quickly! s4 already?? Ah, man, I wish I could watch s3 and s4 again for the first time. s3 especially, WHAT a season. Queens rise! The kiss! Torture and ice cream! Tether! The Scarback origins! Season three had something so dynamic and epic and well-balanced, it was genuinely a really well done season of TV. Remember that moment at the end of 3×09? Not to spoil so uh, where Pree’s Wayfaring Stranger cuts back in right as it’s happening? Yeah, that moment. >_> The direction and music and everything went so hand in hand, all season long.
Although, I did really love season 4 too. There was one ep in the middle of it I really disagreed with (and then another I kinda disagreed with right after) but they seemed to ease back on the characterization they were pushing. It’s amazing to me how even with as much of a setup season it was, trying to fight back to a status quo and not even make progress in the fight against the Lady, but just to a point where they could build from, it was still so good. Weird dynamics, evolving family, things that worked even when they shouldn’t have. Really, even though s4+5 were announced together and written at the same time, it’s s3+4 that fit so well together.
All right, okay, so it might have been a bit of an exaggeration when I said I don’t really root for bad guys, because once I thought about it, I like so many. Root, HG Wells in Warehouse 13, Eva in NCIS: NOLA. I actually have a pretty extensive list of villains in f/f ships, lol. I think what I meant by exception was that when it came to Delle Seyah vs Pawter, because our baddies usually do not directly KILL main characters, I was okay with instantly forgiving Delle Seyah? I stopped watching OUAT a few seasons in and I loved Regina and SQ, from the start, before her background was even revealed, but when it came to Regina vs Snow? I sided with Snow. I was pissed at Villanelle, the ultimate bad girl, for Bill. Until Eve basically gave permission to continue to like her being still as infatuated as ever.
And I think that’s how it usually works, I’ll go with the main characters. And here’s where my exception comes in because for the whole of season 3 things only got worse between the good guys and Delle Seyah + Aneela and I was somehow rooting for them all? Like, maybe they’ll make up when it comes down to it? (And they did!)
As you said, she did have things happening to her, Johnny shooting her, then she had Gander the way Villanelle post-Bill ep had Nadia’s boyfriend, antagonists so annoying you went back to rooting for a murderer. And she herself changes a bit, she helps Johnny, she helps Bea, she cares and suffers. Which is how Root and Regina and HG really won us over, right. We care about people by seeing them care for others and be cared for. Aneela was barely in season 4 but the way she was adored by her family and Delle Seyah, that did so much to endear her to us.
You’re right, everyone’s done something bad, but there’s a difference between–or maybe a scale of–redemption, between people like Dutch and D’av who feel guilty and terrible about what they did and then people like Delle Seyah, or NCIS: NOLA’s Eva, or…Star Trek: Discovery’s Terran!Georgiou. In Discovery, we like Michael and Ash because we see their struggles and progress, while Georgiou is like an asshole cat who we like for being an asshole cat. There are just different expectations and allowances for different characters? Even a little growth and empathy from those characters is such a huge win.
It’s because of their environment too, like, Georgiou from her hellish Terran universe, Delle Seyah growing up among the Qresh. Certain things are just accepted and expected, as you said, cruel things. Killjoys is definitely a gray kind of world as opposed to, say, Supergirl or OUAT, where morality is set up to define character worth and people are allowed to stray so much less.
Killing Eve goes all the way in the other direction. There’s a distance the narrative sets between us and the victims. A fair number of innocent people die in the first eps, but it’s not until she kills Bill that we’re mad, and even then, because of the way the main character handles it, we get over it. And then sometimes narrative distance is shrunk so we might not even like allies. Jeri Hogarth, on a gray show, sets my teeth on edge. I don’t like her, despite her being a lesbian and my massive childhood crush on CAM. The way she’s bad, the way the show doesn’t really ever soften her through Jessica or other characters, I can never like her.
Heh, this got a lot longer than I expected, but your asks provoked some really interesting dissection of what I like and don’t and why. After your previous ask I was afraid you might have given up on the show, I’m so glad you didn’t. Let me know how the rest of the viewing goes, if you want!
Update: Delle seyah and Dutch kissed and I love them. But now Delle seyah murdered pawter in cold blood and I hate her??? She is actually like full out evil??? She’s definitely a character I’d abhor at this point in time and I’m not sure if she actually ever is redeemed or just keeps being an evil murder queen whose intentions eventually line up w Dutch & co’s… but I’m shocked that she got a happy ending after this evil shit lol. Like wow. Way for the writers to break byg all things considered
Yeahhh. So you’ve arrived there. Yeah, she’s FULL evil. I totally understand what you mean about hating her, I very predictably tend to go for the nice, boring, responsible good characters, always. Superman, Cap, Amy Santiago, hell, Elizabeth was my favorite Wakefield twin! I was never the type of person who’d be like, oh, these queer-coded villains are my thing.
But I don’t know why, Delle Seyah somehow is my Exception. I’ve actually wondered about this for a while, what makes her different. It’s not because she’s queer or a WOC, that doesn’t sway me automatically. I’ve been discussing it with a like-minded friend and we have some theories:
First, I’m still easily led by the narrative, I’ll go where it wants me to. And it’s the show that seems to still like her. Dutch, the lead, never stopped being my actual fave and if Delle Seyah had seriously gone against her, I’d side with Dutch, but the show doesn’t ever really make me choose. Yeah, season 3 has a whole building war with them on opposite sides but the fact that they give us that much of Delle Seyah’s point of view and sympathetically, that’s not trying to get us to hate her.
Secondly, Delle Seyah’s actions are shown to be exactly as bad and hurtful as they are. She’s set up in contrast to the good guy leads who care about feelings and not hurting people and the greater good and helping strangers and all that. In a setting like this, I need that. OUAT always had a lot of trouble with this, they wanted the cartoon villain with no nuance and then also a sob story to justify them but ended up being so messy. A lot of other media does that too, like The 100 with that massacre in mid-season 3. In an effort to shock the audience with atrocities and then continue without dealing with the fallout, they minimize what happened. But we know what Delle Seyah did was bad and Johnny continues to remember it, as he should! Even when she’s included with the others because of aligned motives, we never forget who and what she is.
And then, you have to remember, watching this in real time, we had years to process all this. The wait between season 2 and 3, 10 months. And we never thought she’d survive. You’re watching now knowing she got her happy ending, imagine thinking at any point for three seasons that she could die. Possibly more likelihood of a death near the season finale because of how TV works, but you know how it is with f/f characters, and a villainous QWOC at that? Surviving every ep was a victory. We never thought she was getting away with anything in the long run.
And lastly, nobody on the show is perfect. Everyone’s done crappy things. It’s far more about trying to do better and be better and that’s kind of…enough? There’s no line crossed that people can’t come back from. People don’t have to suffer the same amount of pain they caused to continue to exist freely and do better from now on.
It’s not redemption through punishment.
It’s a little hard to talk about more than three seasons’ worth of plot without spoiling too much, but she does go through her growth. To the point of being an actual good person, well, not really. There is some suffering in there, she does go through some things, but nothing that’d make up for full on murdering a character. She just begins to care about more than herself. And that seems to be enough. The people who die in this show don’t do so because they deserved it, it isn’t to redeem themselves. As long as you’re alive you can do better and once the other characters are okay with that, we are too.