Good morning evening night morning afternoon! Whitepine 10 was today yesterday! It was good! I have many thoughts swirling around in my brain and I wish to speak of them!
I was so scared this was going to be the last episode, but I believe we are getting one more? So yayyy
My spoiler ridden and also very long so under the cut they go
Ok ok ok so! I have thoughts!
First off, I am not surprised that the killer was just a random guy. Honestly, I think I would have been disappointed if it wasn't. Having Mysti's death be so... impersonal, just a random act, a wrong place wrong time thing is beautifully tragic. I think it fits into the main themes of the show too. On systems that are built to put down and dehumanize others. To those systems the people in them are not people, just fuel. They are something that can be disposed of at a moments notice when they are jamming the wheels of the machine. Who cares if one fails? They have thousands more to replace them with. Mysti's death is just another product of that system
(Also, I've seen other people mention this before, Whitepine isn't a murder mystery. The focus of the show was never about catching the killer. Really, the focus has never been on Mysti or her death. Having the semi-final episode be the grand revel of a who-dun-it storyline that never happened wouldn't have made sense.)
I do think the person the neighbors saw (mentioned by Rekrap in the beginning) was Mr. Peirce. I was at the live premiere and saw chat freaking out about that. It is interesting how the real killer came forth right after that... perhaps there is analysis to be had there, but that kind of theory crafting is not for me.
And now, a quote from Serapter that basically sums up the rest of this episode:
I don't think this needs saying (I hope it doesn't because that was the main plot of this episode) but Zombie is a classist, misogynistic asshole who treats people like fuel (I am bringing back my own metaphor look at me go). Actually! It's not barely a metaphor at this point! The servants were literately shoveling the fuel to the ball he insisted on putting on instead of waiting a day for the boiler to be fixed.
(I don't know where else to put this so I'll just put it here. This episode I noticed that whenever Zombie told Pyro that he didn't have to check the door he specifically said to leave it to a "maid." Not any of the servants, but a maid. This has pretty clear implications I'll leave to you to read into.)
His main motivating factor is his need for control. He keeps his children in his estate without their own finances to control them. He keeps the servants living in the estate, their needs tended to by his money, to control them. He purposefully fails keep the bare minimum of labor laws to control people. To keep them dependent on his money, to exhaust them of their fight, to keep the fuel burning because without him they couldn't afford to live. Zombie is the epitome of greed and control. He is the kind of person who benefits from a machine that eats people alive.
You wanna know who also benefits from that machine?
Zolister.
I can tell that Zolister is trying to do good. I think Zolister believes he is doing his best. But fucking hell if that doesn't reveal just how naive he is.
Zolister is someone who has clearly lived his life benefiting from the power structures put in place. He has grown into someone that sees the wrongs these systems perpetuate, but he is still extremely out of touch in his methods. He genuinely believed that there was a way to fix a system that runs of the blood of the people, he wants to be a part of that system to "fix" it. He does really want to do good, but he is to disconnected to see how he can make any real change.
He is so disconnected from the people, that he doesn't remember the name of the person he is trying to help. In episode 5 he specifically asks Ivory for her name, then makes a comment about it. He should know her name, he remembers Mr. Peirce's name, but not Ivory's (most certainly a result of the misogyny). Consistently throughout the episode, he gets her name wrong. This just further solidifies the fact that while he is trying to help, he is missing an integral part of understanding how to do it. If he truly wants to fix the machine that kills people, he needs to entirely dismantle the machine and part of that is to stop treating the people like fuel. I doubt he means to treat the servants as fuel to his agenda, but the fact he can't even connect with them enough to remember their names just goes to show how ignorant he is.
His lack of connection also directly harms the people he is trying to help. Zolister could have confronted Zombie about all the health and labor violations and left it at that. But he didn't. He brought Ivory into it. Again, I doubt this was intentional maliciousness, but his words are almost certainly going to backfire on Ivory.
There is no doubt in my mind that this will cause Zombie to reprimanded Ivory again for "going behind his back." A part of me thinks that in the next episode Ivory is going to be fired. It would be a good place to end the series, and Zolister's confrontation sets it up well.
And to connect this all back to the quote at the start of the episode: Zolister represents the disconnect from the world, while Zombie represents being unconcerned with it.
There are many other things I think I could analyze (Vi's poem and and corruption of the police (the police is also a part of the system that uses people as fuel)) but this is all I think I can articulate well at the moment. Sooooo..... I think this is it!
It was nice to get all my thoughts out, I'd love to do this again sometime.
God I love Whitepine...
I was so scared this was going to be the last episode, but I believe we are getting one more? So yayyy
My spoiler ridden and also very long so under the cut they go
Ok ok ok so! I have thoughts!
First off, I am not surprised that the killer was just a random guy. Honestly, I think I would have been disappointed if it wasn't. Having Mysti's death be so... impersonal, just a random act, a wrong place wrong time thing is beautifully tragic. I think it fits into the main themes of the show too. On systems that are built to put down and dehumanize others. To those systems the people in them are not people, just fuel. They are something that can be disposed of at a moments notice when they are jamming the wheels of the machine. Who cares if one fails? They have thousands more to replace them with. Mysti's death is just another product of that system
(Also, I've seen other people mention this before, Whitepine isn't a murder mystery. The focus of the show was never about catching the killer. Really, the focus has never been on Mysti or her death. Having the semi-final episode be the grand revel of a who-dun-it storyline that never happened wouldn't have made sense.)
I do think the person the neighbors saw (mentioned by Rekrap in the beginning) was Mr. Peirce. I was at the live premiere and saw chat freaking out about that. It is interesting how the real killer came forth right after that... perhaps there is analysis to be had there, but that kind of theory crafting is not for me.
And now, a quote from Serapter that basically sums up the rest of this episode:
"[rich people] seem a little disconnected from the world, or ... maybe unconcerned with it."Oh boy oh howdy the thoughts I have about these fucking rich people.
I don't think this needs saying (I hope it doesn't because that was the main plot of this episode) but Zombie is a classist, misogynistic asshole who treats people like fuel (I am bringing back my own metaphor look at me go). Actually! It's not barely a metaphor at this point! The servants were literately shoveling the fuel to the ball he insisted on putting on instead of waiting a day for the boiler to be fixed.
(I don't know where else to put this so I'll just put it here. This episode I noticed that whenever Zombie told Pyro that he didn't have to check the door he specifically said to leave it to a "maid." Not any of the servants, but a maid. This has pretty clear implications I'll leave to you to read into.)
His main motivating factor is his need for control. He keeps his children in his estate without their own finances to control them. He keeps the servants living in the estate, their needs tended to by his money, to control them. He purposefully fails keep the bare minimum of labor laws to control people. To keep them dependent on his money, to exhaust them of their fight, to keep the fuel burning because without him they couldn't afford to live. Zombie is the epitome of greed and control. He is the kind of person who benefits from a machine that eats people alive.
You wanna know who also benefits from that machine?
Zolister.
I can tell that Zolister is trying to do good. I think Zolister believes he is doing his best. But fucking hell if that doesn't reveal just how naive he is.
Zolister is someone who has clearly lived his life benefiting from the power structures put in place. He has grown into someone that sees the wrongs these systems perpetuate, but he is still extremely out of touch in his methods. He genuinely believed that there was a way to fix a system that runs of the blood of the people, he wants to be a part of that system to "fix" it. He does really want to do good, but he is to disconnected to see how he can make any real change.
He is so disconnected from the people, that he doesn't remember the name of the person he is trying to help. In episode 5 he specifically asks Ivory for her name, then makes a comment about it. He should know her name, he remembers Mr. Peirce's name, but not Ivory's (most certainly a result of the misogyny). Consistently throughout the episode, he gets her name wrong. This just further solidifies the fact that while he is trying to help, he is missing an integral part of understanding how to do it. If he truly wants to fix the machine that kills people, he needs to entirely dismantle the machine and part of that is to stop treating the people like fuel. I doubt he means to treat the servants as fuel to his agenda, but the fact he can't even connect with them enough to remember their names just goes to show how ignorant he is.
His lack of connection also directly harms the people he is trying to help. Zolister could have confronted Zombie about all the health and labor violations and left it at that. But he didn't. He brought Ivory into it. Again, I doubt this was intentional maliciousness, but his words are almost certainly going to backfire on Ivory.
There is no doubt in my mind that this will cause Zombie to reprimanded Ivory again for "going behind his back." A part of me thinks that in the next episode Ivory is going to be fired. It would be a good place to end the series, and Zolister's confrontation sets it up well.
And to connect this all back to the quote at the start of the episode: Zolister represents the disconnect from the world, while Zombie represents being unconcerned with it.
There are many other things I think I could analyze (Vi's poem and and corruption of the police (the police is also a part of the system that uses people as fuel)) but this is all I think I can articulate well at the moment. Sooooo..... I think this is it!
It was nice to get all my thoughts out, I'd love to do this again sometime.
God I love Whitepine...