Welcome to Night Vale
May. 3rd, 2015 19:40![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zubeneschamaliThis is not either of the two posts that I've been meaning to make for a while, but it is some ramblings about the latest Welcome to Night Vale (the May 1 episode), so feel free to ignore if you aren't a fan.
If you are a fan and have fallen behind, you need to catch up.
So. That happened. A lot of that happened.
I've been expecting more on Nulgorsk for a while. I felt so smug when I noticed that the date of 1983 matched up with one of my Cold War obsessions, Operation Able Archer 83. And then someone pointed out that the title of the Nulgorsk episode was "The Deft Bowman," and hello, I didn't feel quite so clever anymore. They left a neon sign right there in the episode title.
Also, how often does the Community Calendar turn out to have something fundamental to the overall plot? Like, mentioning that there are people going around and changing time and knocking off interns before they can grow up to be warlords. Suddenly, the death rate of Night Vale interns doesn't seem so strange. (Or maybe it does, just for different reasons.) But all of these alternate timelines start to make more sense now that we know there are people altering time. It also fascinates me how some material objects remain even when everything else changes.
I have some random thoughts to throw out there; sorry they're not better organized, but my brain is abuzz:
1) Night Vale is what's left. It's the pocket of the world that was somehow saved when the world ended in 1983, and that's why it's so hard to get in and out. Carlos and his scientists happened to come along at the right time to get in before it was sealed off (or maybe they were already there because it was near a nuclear launch site?), and he doesn't realize how much time has passed.
2) The desert wasteland where Carlos and the survivors are is the world that ended, and while travel between worlds is possible for the hooded figures, they can't allow anyone else to go back and forth. People would freak out if they knew. The Sheriff and his Secret Police, the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, the hooded figures...they're all protecting the people of Night Vale from the truth. They can mess with memories as part of that protection, though some people (Earl, Simone, and maybe Steve) occasionally remember things they shouldn't.
3) We know Cecil is Kevin's double, but what if young!Cecil became Kevin, and our Cecil came from somewhere else (or somewhen else)? His mother has been hiding from him, his brother disappeared, there was that weird thing with the mirror: what if Cecil's mother is afraid of Kevin, not realizing they're different?
4) The Man in the Tan Jacket bought lot #37. He's from another timeline/AU, but since the people of Night Vale have been programmed/enspelled/whatever to make them forget, they can't hold on to what he looks like or where he's from or anything that he's done. He's trying to fix things, or set things right, which is why he wants Cecil.
Dang it, I just finished a re-listen, I can't go back and do another one.
If you are a fan and have fallen behind, you need to catch up.
So. That happened. A lot of that happened.
I've been expecting more on Nulgorsk for a while. I felt so smug when I noticed that the date of 1983 matched up with one of my Cold War obsessions, Operation Able Archer 83. And then someone pointed out that the title of the Nulgorsk episode was "The Deft Bowman," and hello, I didn't feel quite so clever anymore. They left a neon sign right there in the episode title.
Also, how often does the Community Calendar turn out to have something fundamental to the overall plot? Like, mentioning that there are people going around and changing time and knocking off interns before they can grow up to be warlords. Suddenly, the death rate of Night Vale interns doesn't seem so strange. (Or maybe it does, just for different reasons.) But all of these alternate timelines start to make more sense now that we know there are people altering time. It also fascinates me how some material objects remain even when everything else changes.
I have some random thoughts to throw out there; sorry they're not better organized, but my brain is abuzz:
1) Night Vale is what's left. It's the pocket of the world that was somehow saved when the world ended in 1983, and that's why it's so hard to get in and out. Carlos and his scientists happened to come along at the right time to get in before it was sealed off (or maybe they were already there because it was near a nuclear launch site?), and he doesn't realize how much time has passed.
2) The desert wasteland where Carlos and the survivors are is the world that ended, and while travel between worlds is possible for the hooded figures, they can't allow anyone else to go back and forth. People would freak out if they knew. The Sheriff and his Secret Police, the Vague Yet Menacing Government Agency, the hooded figures...they're all protecting the people of Night Vale from the truth. They can mess with memories as part of that protection, though some people (Earl, Simone, and maybe Steve) occasionally remember things they shouldn't.
3) We know Cecil is Kevin's double, but what if young!Cecil became Kevin, and our Cecil came from somewhere else (or somewhen else)? His mother has been hiding from him, his brother disappeared, there was that weird thing with the mirror: what if Cecil's mother is afraid of Kevin, not realizing they're different?
4) The Man in the Tan Jacket bought lot #37. He's from another timeline/AU, but since the people of Night Vale have been programmed/enspelled/whatever to make them forget, they can't hold on to what he looks like or where he's from or anything that he's done. He's trying to fix things, or set things right, which is why he wants Cecil.
Dang it, I just finished a re-listen, I can't go back and do another one.
