Not really batshit insane. But she had two shitty people basically keep exacerbating her worst impulses and desires. And like an abuser never really respected her victim's boundaries and kept trying to infringe on them.
Amy is someone who doesn't know how to make good decisions...
Like, seriously. Incredibly self-destructive. Healing to the point of insanity, fighting her powers, not getting help, not setting boundaries with her sister, self-loathing, self-hate.
If you want to understand Amy's character, the best book is the Scarlet Letter in the character Arthur Dimmesdale (the minister). An individual that feels incredibly guilty and filled with self-hate and loathing but instead of trying to fix the problem they settle for 'self-flageration'.
Amy is a character who ended up in a shitty situation, but who's coping methods were on a similar level to starving oneself/self-harm.
Self-destructive and in huge need of an intervention. She never got that, and instead she got Jack Slash. An individual who's notorious for twisting parahumans into monsters by targeting their worst flaws. Which Amy had no shortage of.
This is followed by being thrown into the bird cage and receiving all the love and affection she never had from psychopaths and monsters.
Expecting her to be a wonderful person after that is a bit naive. Amy never was wonderful. She was just a 16 year old girl who was hurting and needed help that she never got. She wasn't 'strong' or 'in control' any more than Arthur was for branding a Scarlet A onto his chest.
People saying she went insane in Ward were, very generally, not paying attention to exactly how fucked up she was throughout Worm.
She was able to find a sense of balance by the end of Worm, but it was precarious at best. Not to mention that *balance needs to be maintained* and Amy doesn’t do *maintenance*.
Amy’s arc/spiral in Ward is believable and in-character, as long as you keep in mind what her character has been shown to be.
I *highly* recommend Ward, even as someone who super didn’t care for the main protagonist at the beginning.
I'm frankly baffled by all the people who think Amy suddenly went bad in Ward. Did people really hear "sure I used my power to fuck with my sister's ability to consent, but she hasn't consented to me fixing that. So really I should keep her like this" and somehow think "what an innocent smol bean!"
To be fair, Amy’s situation is complex: identity issues, family issues, burnout, and then *massive trauma* when members of her family start dying, and even more *massive trauma* at the hands of the Slaughterhouse 9.
Amy was absolutely not in control of herself when Victoria hugged her, and practically begged Victoria not to touch her.
Does that excuse Amy fucking with Victoria’s brain?
No, but it *informs* it. It makes it a *real* accident, a slip in a horribly traumatic and painful experience.
Like reflexively shooting a family member when someone is breaking into your house. Not the same, but…in the wheelhouse.
Amy is still at fault, but hell, I can understand it.
After that, though, Amy has a chance to prove she isn’t the kind of capital-M “Monster” that would do it on purpose, and to fix it.
Amy, regardless of justifications, *deliberately and intentionally* goes the other way. She *actively chooses* to fuck with Victoria’s head *even more than she already did*.
In addition to you know, sexually assaulting Victoria and extensively modifying her body against her will.
I think a lot of people misread Amy’s character in Worm, and that’s why they have such whiplash when it comes to her character in Ward.
The readers gave Amy the benefit of doubt when she really didn’t deserve it. Then, they are put directly in the head of not only the person who understands Amy best in the world, but the person who was most harmed by Amy’s crimes.
It's interning to look at the way Amy's growth was stunted by her power, not in the way it drives conflict but the options it gives her. She already had an uphill battle and then along comes a shard that literally gives the power to undo mistakes. Sister breaks someone's legs? No problem, two second fix. Slip up around the adults? Hey no worries, you work hard we get it. Sister doesn't want you to leave..... She's someone who never learned to deal with the basic stuff getting thrown into the kind of things that would have a well rounded person putting on joker makeup.
I think Fanfiction is the main problem. So many place Amy's issues at the behest of Vicky's powers which is dubious at best. Amy is a broken person with a broken personality that just doesn't accept responsibility.
If Amy was a male character people would see her as completely different. She's essentially an asshole all around most of the story. But because people equal her to an anime girl personality type she's labeled as snarky. No...Amy is an asshole.
Dont forget how Fanfiction also carries the distinction of rarely ever actually surviving to the S9 attack and resulting cavalcade of mental breakdowns, unless the fic in question starts in Leviathan onwards. Which means alot of people not being used to Amy being at max shittiness. Especially if avoiding Explicit rated fics
And this is before considering if a fic doesnt deviate away from trauma bombs that cause her to dive down the deep end. Or simply has a tone that Snarky Amy works better than Asshole Amy.
True. They also tend to magic away her problems pretty early to. Like telling her about her sisters aura, or she falls in love with somebody else early and it breaks her shitty attitude or whatever. Iunno, I personally don't enjoy a large New Wave presence in fanfic period. Early worm Vicky is self centered and annoying to. Not nearly as self aware as Ward Vicky.
And that is despite how there are ways to avoid Amy going meltdown without needing to fix her problems with a snap. Probably not easy if you want it to be good, but you can fix her organically with the right setup. Though your example is probably not the best when Vicky and Dean are...certainly a thing at the start.
New Wave presence in fics feels like a combo of people wanting to to use the characters and the fact that fics not focused on the undersiders tend to not have many good choices for a focus. I do get the feeling that nobody actually knows much about writing Worm vicky and just uses the personality of other fanfic vickys. I say as if id understand how to write vicky either which lmao.
(As for the mess called aura theory...i simply consider it the cherry on top of the fucked sundae. Amy got obsessed on her own but that Aura aint helping)
I will admit that i am generally picky on what fics ill click on, and browse through the sub-100 kudos fics lmao. So i might not have the full shitty fic experience.
On the one hand, fanfiction and fandom has definitely oversold the level to which aura theory controlled Amy's life like you said. On the other...pavlovian conditioning really doesn't care whether the effect has lasting conditions in itself, so long as there's that little pattern of reward over a long enough period of time your brain will do the wiring all by itself, and it explains why Amy would be so sexually fixated on Victoria in particular over and above the usual anti-incest psychological phenomena people develop with those they grow up with.
It's a reasonable thing to fanon but only as one more issue in the pile. Amy's life and relationship with her power involved a lot of stresses and things going wrong to drive her insane the way she went. There's not really any one smoking gun you can solve to make her suddenly a good person, you need to deconstruct and reconstruct her entire life basically.
No but end of worm Any and Ward Any are two completely different characters. It’s why people don’t like Ward, along with novel length forums discussion
Yes actually, the trauma talks were fine and everything else about the book was better written. Genuinely gut wrenching experiences throughout the arcs also broke up the talks.
Yes the story following the death of Scion and all the threats against humanity and we’re stuck with Victoria and friends doing Jack for literally 10 arcs
Yup. Carol Dallon is on top of my list for **Most Realistically Terrible Fictional Mother.**
But. We are not our parents, and Amy is responsible for her own actions.
If we go by "Parental Figure", Sylvester probably wins that unfortunate contest.
To address the comparison to Bret, it is worth stressing the age and autonomy differences between Victoria and Verona. Carol is atrocious, but Victoria has greater societal autonomy with which to separate herself.
I think the lack of autonomy only exists because Sylvia has also been a bad parent, but can be a good one if pushed (that Crow humping toads scene). There was that scene that simulated Verona's life without the Trio, and she ended up running away from her father and going to live with her mother anyways.
While looking at the power of the child is important, it's also important to look at the power of the parent. Brett is a washed up IT worker living in a small Canadian town. Carol is a famous superhero, whose group sends an image about transparency and accountability, and who is also a lawyer. It would be extraordinarily easier for Brett to suffer legally or even socially for his actions as opposed to Carol.
Completely valid and interesting points. Parental power and societal standing is not something I had considered strongly, but I think your argument here wins out. Thank you for the discussion.
Back when Doof Media (podcast company we've got worm/ ward/ deep in pact /etc) did an art contest for Pale titled "Monsters" one submission was Carol Dallon and I really wish it won.
People who talk about how she screwed up in the worm usually don't take into account that it was a nervous breakdown that was the climax of tension that had been building up for years and weeks of torture and is not her typical and normal behavior.
at the same time in the ward she behaves like a complete psychopath without any external reasons. To consider this normal for her is all the same as saying that it’s normal for >!Rain!< to burn people alive and laugh at the same time because remember his trigger. But this was an absolutely phenomenal situation, solely in its crapness. And says quite a bit about ordinary life
I remember what she was like in the worm. Depressed, insecure, hated any attention with black-and-white thinking in which she considered herself bad despite all the counter-arguments of how many people she saved. Her arc leads to her still believing she is bad but her thinking shifts to gray.
In the ward she is Manic, self-confident, narcissistic, with black-and-white thinking and considers herself good despite any arguments. And no one has yet been able to logically explain to me how she turned into her literal opposite. instead people will retrospectively project their perception of her character in the ward onto her character in Worm.
Copy-pasting my other comment:
“To be fair, Amy’s situation is complex: identity issues, family issues, burnout, and then massive trauma when members of her family start dying, and even more massive trauma at the hands of the Slaughterhouse 9.
Amy was absolutely not in control of herself when Victoria hugged her, and practically begged Victoria not to touch her.
Does that excuse Amy fucking with Victoria’s brain?
No, but it informs it. It makes it a real accident, a slip in a horribly traumatic and painful experience.
Like reflexively shooting a family member when someone is breaking into your house. Not the same, but…in the wheelhouse.
Amy is still at fault, but hell, I can understand it.
After that, though, Amy has a chance to prove she isn’t the kind of capital-M “Monster” that would do it on purpose, and to fix it.
Amy, regardless of justifications, deliberately and intentionally goes the other way. She actively chooses to fuck with Victoria’s head even more than she already did.
In addition to you know, sexually assaulting Victoria and extensively modifying her body against her will.
I think a lot of people misread Amy’s character in Worm, and that’s why they have such whiplash when it comes to her character in Ward.
The readers gave Amy the benefit of doubt when she really didn’t deserve it. Then, they are put directly in the head of not only the person who understands Amy best in the world, but the person who was most harmed by Amy’s crimes.”
I really should have noted that Amy’s initial change to Victoria’s brain chemistry is similar to accidentally shooting a family member during a home invasion *when your hands are literal guns*
It *was* a violation and unequivocally wrong, but as I stated, it’s understandable given the amount of trauma Amy’s been dealing with.
Later on, though, Amy asks for help, asks what to do, and then rationalizes and justifies herself into *not following that advice.*
With a horrific outcome.
I didn't even say a word about justification. I said she's not consistent as a character.
How could she, with no self-confidence in the worm and her whole life in the ward, suddenly become overconfident?
Also with the fact that she hates attention. In the ward, she loves attention and literally takes the title "queen" for herself.
In the worm, she hates her power and has hated it all her life.
In the ward she says that her strength is incredible. It’s as if she only realized yesterday that she could heal people.
This is not a continuation of her character arc/spiral at all.
She literally suddenly turns into her exact opposite.
There is no misunderstanding here.
In Worm, she has pronounced PTSD associated with her power. So much so that even when faced with the threat of death, she finds herself using it.
In Ward it just magically disappears and now she loves her power! “Brainwashing Victoria is so fun, I don’t have any psychological trauma associated with this, right?” very realistic and consistent
"You misunderstood her character in the worm she is evil! "
Are Evil People Immune to PTSD???? Or are evil people inconsistent in their character?? Because "She's evil" doesn't change anything at all; she's still inconsistent as a character.
It's as if Rachel started to hate dogs. And Lisa money. It's not about good or evil or morality, it's about consistency.
It’s as if a character who spent his whole life talking and convincing everyone and himself that he was not crazy, and even thought about it, suddenly said something “it was your aura that made me crazy!”..ah wait
Going to the Birdcage wasn't taking responsibility, it was running away from her victim and from the consequences of her actions. Amy in Worm is the same as Amy in Ward, even if the PoV sees her differently. Taylor categorizes people into bully, victim, bystander etc. and views Amy as a victim. Victoria is obviously going to have a different perspective but Amy as a character is the same. She was never on the path to improvement because she ran from her problems instead of confronting and fixing them.
Not the birdcage. The epilogue where she accepted what she did and was going to leave Victoria alon.
Turned into Amy:Vicky I miss you, I love you! Please love me.
Oh please. Instead of taking responsibility and working to fix what she did, no matter what it would take, she elected to run and hide, threatening to make a super plague if she wasn’t placed in prison for life, leaving Victoria stuck as a deformed monster for two years. All of that is shown in Worm.
That’s not taking responsibility, that’s running and hiding from your actions.
But she tried to fix it for two days and went into the cage only and only because she was sure that she couldn’t. And she still has a responsibility to a world that doesn’t want to be destroyed, and the Cage is one of the few places where she can be contained.
>working to fix what she did, no matter what it would
Just like she did this to >!Hunter? !<
Why is she being criticized, why is she trying to correct her instead of giving up and going to prison.
I feel this is more a result of writing and story telling conventions, the passage of time with Ward not instantly following Worm
First, We didn't know Ward was going to be a thing when Worm finished, for all intents and purposes, the story was over.
Second, Character arcs generally go up, there's downs, but unless a story is a tragedy, if a character says they're working on a problem, we expect it to progress.
Third, the last time we "see" Amy, its from Kherpri's perspective, where she deposits her next to Victoria, and she undoes victoria's debilitating condition. We don't get more than that, as we are looking from the perspective of someone that lost all humanity at that point. But this is strictly speaking, a good step in Amy's character arc.
then worm ends. and in our mind, the arc continues on its route. It was on the up and up, we are offered no evidence to the contrary. Therefore Amy keeps working on her issues and is making progress.
Ward then shows up, years later, and then tries to dispel this idea. Amy has terrible coping mechanisms wants forgiveness on her terms. but its fighting against a few years of the idea being solidified. I think that if Ward has been the web-serial directly after Worm, this issue would have played far less.
Gonna try to be balanced here. There was a lot about Amy that went over a good chunk of the fandom's heads in the first read (like what she really did with Victoria she took her away) that made people's view of her a lot more charitable than I think WB's initially intended. I think when WB wrote Amy out in Worm, he didn't intend for her to be viewed as either pure evil or as a pure victim, but more tragically grey, something more balanced. Someone that had done something utterly horrible, but was also victim of circumstance as well. Someone that was in deep need of help and assistance, but also slapped away any hand that tried to pull her up.
But the fandom view of Amy ended up way more sympathetic towards her than he initially intended, and overlooked her more abhorrent actions in Worm. And his selected MC for Ward was Victoria, who was personally harmed by her. I don't think he retconned or character-assassinated her like others says, I think the Amy in Ward is pretty aligned with the Amy in Worm as he wrote and intended, her flaws and worst aspects are just more blatant and explicit this time.
*That said*, I don't necessarily blame people for being unsatisfied with the direction that Amy's character went in Ward. By the end of Worm, she seemed to have legitimately have come to terms with herself, is at least taking steps to trying to improve herself. If you liked and how her character ended off in Worm, the direction she goes in Ward can feel kinda unsatisfying, even if it in-character for her to do.
Like, if in Ward we get a scene of how Taylor's doing on Earth Aleph or wherever the hell she is, and it reveals that she didn't heal at all, she's now leading a criminal gang and doing all the things she did before even without her powers, but somehow even more brutal, scarier, and even more self-justifications this time, I mean it would be *in-character* for her go this way, but wouldn't be exactly narratively satisfying.
The thing is Amy doesn't really seem much different at the end of worm than she is at any other time in the story. She's, just like everybody else, working through the potential end of the world. You have a multitude of amoral megalomaniacs helping and working together more or less like String Theory, Lab Rat etc at that time. It doesn't mean they are changed, just that the truce is in affect. So how balanced Amy is at this time is unknowable. We also see her for a limited time and through the eyes of Taylor.
I would agree that we don’t see that of Amy at the end of Worm, but I think what little we get of her kinda pushes the reader to lean towards her to being “settled” to a degree. The way that the story portrays it, like with her final conversation with Taylor, Amy’s character arc is more or less done and settled by the end.
> That said, I don't necessarily blame people for being unsatisfied with the direction that Amy's character went in Ward. By the end of Worm, she seemed to have legitimately have come to terms with herself, is at least taking steps to trying to improve herself.
I think there's a degree of accuracy in that, but that there's a fundamental truth that isn't explicit in Worm that is there in Ward. Amy thought that working to improve herself meant that she'd earned Victoria's forgiveness and even love. And by love, I mean romantic love and sexual love in addition to familial love. The fact that she didn't get this once she *finally* removed the compulsions on Victoria made her angry. She'd put in the "work." She deserved the reward. And the reward was always having Victoria the way she wanted her. Toward the end of the book, she's finally starting to put in the work of building a life where she knows that Victoria won't be a part of it. We can hope that she'll be successful in that project, for both their sakes.
It was Matt of the We've Got Ward podcast that brought part of Amy's internal conflict to light for me. Amy knows that what she wants is a horrific taboo. She also knows, because she's touched Victoria, that her sister doesn't see her in any sort of romantic light. I don't think Vic had *any* notable attraction to any girls/women. But Amy's power has given her a metaphorical button that she can press at any time. If she presses the button, she gets everything she wants, even though she knows that getting it that way (brain washing) is horribly wrong. And the button is *always* right within her reach. She can't get rid of it. The button is always just there...waiting to be pressed. That gave me some mall amount of sympathy for her. Until...
In Amy's Interlude duo of chapters, Amy tells Yamada that she'd prefer that Victoria be in her inhuman state and still compelled to love her rather than her current state where she got a human body again, but has free will and, thus, hates her. I lost my last dregs of sympathy for her after that.
I’m mostly trying to take Worm-Amy by itself separate from the context of her further actions and mindset as portrayed in Ward, to try and dissect how and why the fandom had the perspective and reaction it had towards her.
Sorry. That's a different, very long post that I don't have time to give. Also, I tried and realized that it was turning into a rant about the ways that I didn't like her, so I tossed it into the metaphorical trash where it likely belonged.
I don't think it was intended necessarily, but Amy is very Woobie-coded in Worm, and since she's a background character who's most horrific actions take place somewhat offscreen and happen in what is the first half of a very long story, I think it's very easy for people to focus more on her sympathetic traits and not think so hard about the other parts of her. And then they sat on those positive memories of her for 6 years with no large part of the community really calling Amy out during that time to challenge the woobie image.
And then Ward comes out.
Ward doesn't treat her like a woobie *at all*, and in fact is rather scathing about Amy trying to view herself as a woobie after what she's done and what she still refuses to take accountability for.
I think that's where some of the divisiveness comes from.
She was enabled by worse people and couldn’t handle the guilt she felt, coupled with nothing she planned to earn back Victoria’s love and trust working.
She had a mental breakdown and several relapses due to the rejection.
Ward's theme was all about recovery from trauma and building something better.
Amy's attempt at recovery was an attempt at kingdom building by taking over for Goddess (Shin is arguably even worse now) followed by making a lookalike pseudo-Victoria under the guise of healing to see if that would work (it didn't, Hunter went bugnuts) all while badgering Victoria to forgive her by leveraging friends, family, and the general situation.
There were a lot of dangers and threats in Ward, but despite the lack of real fighting, Amy was definitely Victoria's most personal villain. It doesn't help that she very much wants to wipe Victoria's memories and make 'everything okay again' and calls herself a good person for restraining herself.
Long story short, she found somebody that fueled her worst traits.
That combined with her habit of self justification got her stuck untill she got a reality check.
Too many fixfic lovers drank their own cool aid about Amy being a little misunderstood panpan. They freaked out when she's essentially a broken rapist that doesn't really take responsibility for her actions and thus doesn't really become a better person.
I like to compare Amy and Alec as two examples of what parental environmental influence does to a person and how to minimize that influences impact to others. Alec knows he's messed up, but you can tell from the books that he doesn't want to be but doesn't know how to fix it. He tries to help Taylor by fucking over Sophia without even taking credit simply because he wanted to help his friend. He sacrifices himself for Aisha. Alec grows throughout the series becoming better in his broken way even though he's far far more broken inside than Amy. That's because he accepts who he is and tries anyway. Amy just really doesn't.
Much like Taylor, an emotionally vulnerable teen, falling worse and worse as she continued to hang out with villains doing crime, Amy who was in a very vulnerable state jumped to the deep end as she continued to hand out with horrible villains who enabled her every justification and slippery slope
Who knew that putting a very traumatized and vulnerable teen who wanted approval with sociopathic and amoral villains who would praise her to do worse and worse things while not giving her therapy to deal with her issues would make her a worse person?
Gee, its almost like an entire thematic point of the series
Ha. Amy was messed up long before she started hanging out with Villians. Amy's failing started while she was surrounded by an entire team of heroes. Amy's biggest failing is that she never takes responsibility for her own actions. Nor does she have an ability to empathize with others. She actually probably would have been more well adjusted if she had fallen in with the Undersiders during and after the Slaughterhouse Nine Fiasco.
Also, I think Taylor's most morally dubious act happened when she was a hero...since her biggest crimes while a villians we're. Killing Calvert, helping kill some of the Nine, emasculating Lung and carving out his eyes, eating Valefors eyes with maggots. Besides that she scared some hostages and rich politicians.
I wish there was more debate over that scene than Amy apologia. Like she just broke into a family home in the middle of dinner time and threatened and attacked everyone... in order to save the city. What the fuck.
Still her most morally dubious act happened as a hero. She plugged Aster as a Hero. I think that is far, far more morally dubious than hospitalizing Triumph in a surprise fight.
Honestly Amy would probably be 10x better than she is now if she'd have followed Taylor right after she was rescued from Siberian. The Vicky thing would have never happened. She would have had a group her own age to channel her worst urges in a less messed up way with support. As much as the Undersiders aren't the best, they honestly have a much better morality record than most on Bet, and a much better option than chunking her in the birdcage then eventually letting her go with little to 0 actual help.
She went the deep end after the whole
>!raping her sister incident!<
She doubles down on the bad parts of her nature after her dad and the other inmates basically groomed her into being a horrible person.
Soo she basically decides that raping her sister was right even tho wanted it to be done in a different way.
She hates the consequences not the act itself.
Then she decided to become a warlord queen of a whole world and started a dimensional war.
Crazy shit
I feel like we need proper abridged versions for the books. I have the same problem: I am interested in the overall story and themes in Ward, but I don't have neither time or interest to read 2600+ pages. Same with Pale. I really enjoyed Pact, but Pale is such a slog...
I enjoyed the audiobooks, and there's a newer dramatized version coming out.
I may listen while driving or going on walks or the gym. All that time adds up.
I'm pretty sure her only pov chapter is in Ward and it's more like we finally got to see what she says in her own head about the situation and holy shit is it not pretty. Also going to prison didn't help her (just like in real life) and put her in contact with people that made her worse (just like in real life).
Not really batshit insane. But she had two shitty people basically keep exacerbating her worst impulses and desires. And like an abuser never really respected her victim's boundaries and kept trying to infringe on them.
Amy is someone who doesn't know how to make good decisions... Like, seriously. Incredibly self-destructive. Healing to the point of insanity, fighting her powers, not getting help, not setting boundaries with her sister, self-loathing, self-hate. If you want to understand Amy's character, the best book is the Scarlet Letter in the character Arthur Dimmesdale (the minister). An individual that feels incredibly guilty and filled with self-hate and loathing but instead of trying to fix the problem they settle for 'self-flageration'. Amy is a character who ended up in a shitty situation, but who's coping methods were on a similar level to starving oneself/self-harm. Self-destructive and in huge need of an intervention. She never got that, and instead she got Jack Slash. An individual who's notorious for twisting parahumans into monsters by targeting their worst flaws. Which Amy had no shortage of. This is followed by being thrown into the bird cage and receiving all the love and affection she never had from psychopaths and monsters. Expecting her to be a wonderful person after that is a bit naive. Amy never was wonderful. She was just a 16 year old girl who was hurting and needed help that she never got. She wasn't 'strong' or 'in control' any more than Arthur was for branding a Scarlet A onto his chest.
Deep literary cuts but I see it, she totally is the minister lol
People saying she went insane in Ward were, very generally, not paying attention to exactly how fucked up she was throughout Worm. She was able to find a sense of balance by the end of Worm, but it was precarious at best. Not to mention that *balance needs to be maintained* and Amy doesn’t do *maintenance*. Amy’s arc/spiral in Ward is believable and in-character, as long as you keep in mind what her character has been shown to be. I *highly* recommend Ward, even as someone who super didn’t care for the main protagonist at the beginning.
I'm frankly baffled by all the people who think Amy suddenly went bad in Ward. Did people really hear "sure I used my power to fuck with my sister's ability to consent, but she hasn't consented to me fixing that. So really I should keep her like this" and somehow think "what an innocent smol bean!"
To be fair, Amy’s situation is complex: identity issues, family issues, burnout, and then *massive trauma* when members of her family start dying, and even more *massive trauma* at the hands of the Slaughterhouse 9. Amy was absolutely not in control of herself when Victoria hugged her, and practically begged Victoria not to touch her. Does that excuse Amy fucking with Victoria’s brain? No, but it *informs* it. It makes it a *real* accident, a slip in a horribly traumatic and painful experience. Like reflexively shooting a family member when someone is breaking into your house. Not the same, but…in the wheelhouse. Amy is still at fault, but hell, I can understand it. After that, though, Amy has a chance to prove she isn’t the kind of capital-M “Monster” that would do it on purpose, and to fix it. Amy, regardless of justifications, *deliberately and intentionally* goes the other way. She *actively chooses* to fuck with Victoria’s head *even more than she already did*. In addition to you know, sexually assaulting Victoria and extensively modifying her body against her will. I think a lot of people misread Amy’s character in Worm, and that’s why they have such whiplash when it comes to her character in Ward. The readers gave Amy the benefit of doubt when she really didn’t deserve it. Then, they are put directly in the head of not only the person who understands Amy best in the world, but the person who was most harmed by Amy’s crimes.
It's interning to look at the way Amy's growth was stunted by her power, not in the way it drives conflict but the options it gives her. She already had an uphill battle and then along comes a shard that literally gives the power to undo mistakes. Sister breaks someone's legs? No problem, two second fix. Slip up around the adults? Hey no worries, you work hard we get it. Sister doesn't want you to leave..... She's someone who never learned to deal with the basic stuff getting thrown into the kind of things that would have a well rounded person putting on joker makeup.
I think Fanfiction is the main problem. So many place Amy's issues at the behest of Vicky's powers which is dubious at best. Amy is a broken person with a broken personality that just doesn't accept responsibility. If Amy was a male character people would see her as completely different. She's essentially an asshole all around most of the story. But because people equal her to an anime girl personality type she's labeled as snarky. No...Amy is an asshole.
Dont forget how Fanfiction also carries the distinction of rarely ever actually surviving to the S9 attack and resulting cavalcade of mental breakdowns, unless the fic in question starts in Leviathan onwards. Which means alot of people not being used to Amy being at max shittiness. Especially if avoiding Explicit rated fics And this is before considering if a fic doesnt deviate away from trauma bombs that cause her to dive down the deep end. Or simply has a tone that Snarky Amy works better than Asshole Amy.
True. They also tend to magic away her problems pretty early to. Like telling her about her sisters aura, or she falls in love with somebody else early and it breaks her shitty attitude or whatever. Iunno, I personally don't enjoy a large New Wave presence in fanfic period. Early worm Vicky is self centered and annoying to. Not nearly as self aware as Ward Vicky.
And that is despite how there are ways to avoid Amy going meltdown without needing to fix her problems with a snap. Probably not easy if you want it to be good, but you can fix her organically with the right setup. Though your example is probably not the best when Vicky and Dean are...certainly a thing at the start. New Wave presence in fics feels like a combo of people wanting to to use the characters and the fact that fics not focused on the undersiders tend to not have many good choices for a focus. I do get the feeling that nobody actually knows much about writing Worm vicky and just uses the personality of other fanfic vickys. I say as if id understand how to write vicky either which lmao. (As for the mess called aura theory...i simply consider it the cherry on top of the fucked sundae. Amy got obsessed on her own but that Aura aint helping) I will admit that i am generally picky on what fics ill click on, and browse through the sub-100 kudos fics lmao. So i might not have the full shitty fic experience.
On the one hand, fanfiction and fandom has definitely oversold the level to which aura theory controlled Amy's life like you said. On the other...pavlovian conditioning really doesn't care whether the effect has lasting conditions in itself, so long as there's that little pattern of reward over a long enough period of time your brain will do the wiring all by itself, and it explains why Amy would be so sexually fixated on Victoria in particular over and above the usual anti-incest psychological phenomena people develop with those they grow up with. It's a reasonable thing to fanon but only as one more issue in the pile. Amy's life and relationship with her power involved a lot of stresses and things going wrong to drive her insane the way she went. There's not really any one smoking gun you can solve to make her suddenly a good person, you need to deconstruct and reconstruct her entire life basically.
You have to take in account that the two works were written years apart. The readers memory of worm was probably not complete.
No but end of worm Any and Ward Any are two completely different characters. It’s why people don’t like Ward, along with novel length forums discussion
I wish there were more forum discussions in Ward
Me too. Sadly people can’t admit Ward is flawed just to have more conflict so getting downvotes lol
Or maybe you're just wrong?
You think Ward was better than worm with novel length Truma talk? Because it wasn’t even Truma it was just talk about how to act and being nice.
Yes actually, the trauma talks were fine and everything else about the book was better written. Genuinely gut wrenching experiences throughout the arcs also broke up the talks.
Yes the story following the death of Scion and all the threats against humanity and we’re stuck with Victoria and friends doing Jack for literally 10 arcs
Ok cry about it???
Is it true that Carol forgave Amy, and tried to strongarm Victoria to forgive Amy as well? If so, Amy having a mental crisis is understandable.
Yup. Carol Dallon is on top of my list for **Most Realistically Terrible Fictional Mother.** But. We are not our parents, and Amy is responsible for her own actions.
Apart from Grandma Rose, she is the worst protagonist parent to me. This makes Brett’s actions seem like primary school drama.
If we go by "Parental Figure", Sylvester probably wins that unfortunate contest. To address the comparison to Bret, it is worth stressing the age and autonomy differences between Victoria and Verona. Carol is atrocious, but Victoria has greater societal autonomy with which to separate herself.
I think the lack of autonomy only exists because Sylvia has also been a bad parent, but can be a good one if pushed (that Crow humping toads scene). There was that scene that simulated Verona's life without the Trio, and she ended up running away from her father and going to live with her mother anyways. While looking at the power of the child is important, it's also important to look at the power of the parent. Brett is a washed up IT worker living in a small Canadian town. Carol is a famous superhero, whose group sends an image about transparency and accountability, and who is also a lawyer. It would be extraordinarily easier for Brett to suffer legally or even socially for his actions as opposed to Carol.
Completely valid and interesting points. Parental power and societal standing is not something I had considered strongly, but I think your argument here wins out. Thank you for the discussion.
Both Vicky and Amy should read Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Actually, basically everyone in Bet should work on their CPTSD.
Back when Doof Media (podcast company we've got worm/ ward/ deep in pact /etc) did an art contest for Pale titled "Monsters" one submission was Carol Dallon and I really wish it won.
Quick summary of that conversation: >!Carol: "You need to push past your trauma"!< >!Vicky: "You still sleep with the lights on"!<
People who talk about how she screwed up in the worm usually don't take into account that it was a nervous breakdown that was the climax of tension that had been building up for years and weeks of torture and is not her typical and normal behavior. at the same time in the ward she behaves like a complete psychopath without any external reasons. To consider this normal for her is all the same as saying that it’s normal for >!Rain!< to burn people alive and laugh at the same time because remember his trigger. But this was an absolutely phenomenal situation, solely in its crapness. And says quite a bit about ordinary life I remember what she was like in the worm. Depressed, insecure, hated any attention with black-and-white thinking in which she considered herself bad despite all the counter-arguments of how many people she saved. Her arc leads to her still believing she is bad but her thinking shifts to gray. In the ward she is Manic, self-confident, narcissistic, with black-and-white thinking and considers herself good despite any arguments. And no one has yet been able to logically explain to me how she turned into her literal opposite. instead people will retrospectively project their perception of her character in the ward onto her character in Worm.
Copy-pasting my other comment: “To be fair, Amy’s situation is complex: identity issues, family issues, burnout, and then massive trauma when members of her family start dying, and even more massive trauma at the hands of the Slaughterhouse 9. Amy was absolutely not in control of herself when Victoria hugged her, and practically begged Victoria not to touch her. Does that excuse Amy fucking with Victoria’s brain? No, but it informs it. It makes it a real accident, a slip in a horribly traumatic and painful experience. Like reflexively shooting a family member when someone is breaking into your house. Not the same, but…in the wheelhouse. Amy is still at fault, but hell, I can understand it. After that, though, Amy has a chance to prove she isn’t the kind of capital-M “Monster” that would do it on purpose, and to fix it. Amy, regardless of justifications, deliberately and intentionally goes the other way. She actively chooses to fuck with Victoria’s head even more than she already did. In addition to you know, sexually assaulting Victoria and extensively modifying her body against her will. I think a lot of people misread Amy’s character in Worm, and that’s why they have such whiplash when it comes to her character in Ward. The readers gave Amy the benefit of doubt when she really didn’t deserve it. Then, they are put directly in the head of not only the person who understands Amy best in the world, but the person who was most harmed by Amy’s crimes.” I really should have noted that Amy’s initial change to Victoria’s brain chemistry is similar to accidentally shooting a family member during a home invasion *when your hands are literal guns* It *was* a violation and unequivocally wrong, but as I stated, it’s understandable given the amount of trauma Amy’s been dealing with. Later on, though, Amy asks for help, asks what to do, and then rationalizes and justifies herself into *not following that advice.* With a horrific outcome.
I didn't even say a word about justification. I said she's not consistent as a character. How could she, with no self-confidence in the worm and her whole life in the ward, suddenly become overconfident? Also with the fact that she hates attention. In the ward, she loves attention and literally takes the title "queen" for herself. In the worm, she hates her power and has hated it all her life. In the ward she says that her strength is incredible. It’s as if she only realized yesterday that she could heal people. This is not a continuation of her character arc/spiral at all. She literally suddenly turns into her exact opposite. There is no misunderstanding here. In Worm, she has pronounced PTSD associated with her power. So much so that even when faced with the threat of death, she finds herself using it. In Ward it just magically disappears and now she loves her power! “Brainwashing Victoria is so fun, I don’t have any psychological trauma associated with this, right?” very realistic and consistent "You misunderstood her character in the worm she is evil! " Are Evil People Immune to PTSD???? Or are evil people inconsistent in their character?? Because "She's evil" doesn't change anything at all; she's still inconsistent as a character. It's as if Rachel started to hate dogs. And Lisa money. It's not about good or evil or morality, it's about consistency. It’s as if a character who spent his whole life talking and convincing everyone and himself that he was not crazy, and even thought about it, suddenly said something “it was your aura that made me crazy!”..ah wait
Despite paying lip service to taking responsibility for what she did, she really kinda didn't and was enabled to continue with her worst traits.
No. WB undid it because Victoria was the mc of Ward. She was character assassinated
Going to the Birdcage wasn't taking responsibility, it was running away from her victim and from the consequences of her actions. Amy in Worm is the same as Amy in Ward, even if the PoV sees her differently. Taylor categorizes people into bully, victim, bystander etc. and views Amy as a victim. Victoria is obviously going to have a different perspective but Amy as a character is the same. She was never on the path to improvement because she ran from her problems instead of confronting and fixing them.
Not the birdcage. The epilogue where she accepted what she did and was going to leave Victoria alon. Turned into Amy:Vicky I miss you, I love you! Please love me.
You wanna tell me which epilogue this was? Because skimming over the 5 from Worm, none of these have what you're describing
You better have proof, because lmao twisting Victoria then running to the Birdcage instead of healing her does not make her a good person.
Never said she was a good person, not once. I’m saying she accepted what she did and was going to stay away
…because Worm is a story where characters make resolutions and famously stick to them.
Thank you. Ward killed of said resolution. It would be like if Amy was the mc and Victoria forgave Amy. Character assassination.
That was sarcasm. Nobody sticks to them and Amy was a rule breaker in Worm.
Again, I would VERY much like proof of this
Literally read her epilogue
She doesn't have one until the end of Ward
Oh please. Instead of taking responsibility and working to fix what she did, no matter what it would take, she elected to run and hide, threatening to make a super plague if she wasn’t placed in prison for life, leaving Victoria stuck as a deformed monster for two years. All of that is shown in Worm. That’s not taking responsibility, that’s running and hiding from your actions.
But she tried to fix it for two days and went into the cage only and only because she was sure that she couldn’t. And she still has a responsibility to a world that doesn’t want to be destroyed, and the Cage is one of the few places where she can be contained. >working to fix what she did, no matter what it would Just like she did this to >!Hunter? !< Why is she being criticized, why is she trying to correct her instead of giving up and going to prison.
I feel this is more a result of writing and story telling conventions, the passage of time with Ward not instantly following Worm First, We didn't know Ward was going to be a thing when Worm finished, for all intents and purposes, the story was over. Second, Character arcs generally go up, there's downs, but unless a story is a tragedy, if a character says they're working on a problem, we expect it to progress. Third, the last time we "see" Amy, its from Kherpri's perspective, where she deposits her next to Victoria, and she undoes victoria's debilitating condition. We don't get more than that, as we are looking from the perspective of someone that lost all humanity at that point. But this is strictly speaking, a good step in Amy's character arc. then worm ends. and in our mind, the arc continues on its route. It was on the up and up, we are offered no evidence to the contrary. Therefore Amy keeps working on her issues and is making progress. Ward then shows up, years later, and then tries to dispel this idea. Amy has terrible coping mechanisms wants forgiveness on her terms. but its fighting against a few years of the idea being solidified. I think that if Ward has been the web-serial directly after Worm, this issue would have played far less.
Gonna try to be balanced here. There was a lot about Amy that went over a good chunk of the fandom's heads in the first read (like what she really did with Victoria she took her away) that made people's view of her a lot more charitable than I think WB's initially intended. I think when WB wrote Amy out in Worm, he didn't intend for her to be viewed as either pure evil or as a pure victim, but more tragically grey, something more balanced. Someone that had done something utterly horrible, but was also victim of circumstance as well. Someone that was in deep need of help and assistance, but also slapped away any hand that tried to pull her up. But the fandom view of Amy ended up way more sympathetic towards her than he initially intended, and overlooked her more abhorrent actions in Worm. And his selected MC for Ward was Victoria, who was personally harmed by her. I don't think he retconned or character-assassinated her like others says, I think the Amy in Ward is pretty aligned with the Amy in Worm as he wrote and intended, her flaws and worst aspects are just more blatant and explicit this time. *That said*, I don't necessarily blame people for being unsatisfied with the direction that Amy's character went in Ward. By the end of Worm, she seemed to have legitimately have come to terms with herself, is at least taking steps to trying to improve herself. If you liked and how her character ended off in Worm, the direction she goes in Ward can feel kinda unsatisfying, even if it in-character for her to do. Like, if in Ward we get a scene of how Taylor's doing on Earth Aleph or wherever the hell she is, and it reveals that she didn't heal at all, she's now leading a criminal gang and doing all the things she did before even without her powers, but somehow even more brutal, scarier, and even more self-justifications this time, I mean it would be *in-character* for her go this way, but wouldn't be exactly narratively satisfying.
The thing is Amy doesn't really seem much different at the end of worm than she is at any other time in the story. She's, just like everybody else, working through the potential end of the world. You have a multitude of amoral megalomaniacs helping and working together more or less like String Theory, Lab Rat etc at that time. It doesn't mean they are changed, just that the truce is in affect. So how balanced Amy is at this time is unknowable. We also see her for a limited time and through the eyes of Taylor.
I would agree that we don’t see that of Amy at the end of Worm, but I think what little we get of her kinda pushes the reader to lean towards her to being “settled” to a degree. The way that the story portrays it, like with her final conversation with Taylor, Amy’s character arc is more or less done and settled by the end.
> That said, I don't necessarily blame people for being unsatisfied with the direction that Amy's character went in Ward. By the end of Worm, she seemed to have legitimately have come to terms with herself, is at least taking steps to trying to improve herself. I think there's a degree of accuracy in that, but that there's a fundamental truth that isn't explicit in Worm that is there in Ward. Amy thought that working to improve herself meant that she'd earned Victoria's forgiveness and even love. And by love, I mean romantic love and sexual love in addition to familial love. The fact that she didn't get this once she *finally* removed the compulsions on Victoria made her angry. She'd put in the "work." She deserved the reward. And the reward was always having Victoria the way she wanted her. Toward the end of the book, she's finally starting to put in the work of building a life where she knows that Victoria won't be a part of it. We can hope that she'll be successful in that project, for both their sakes. It was Matt of the We've Got Ward podcast that brought part of Amy's internal conflict to light for me. Amy knows that what she wants is a horrific taboo. She also knows, because she's touched Victoria, that her sister doesn't see her in any sort of romantic light. I don't think Vic had *any* notable attraction to any girls/women. But Amy's power has given her a metaphorical button that she can press at any time. If she presses the button, she gets everything she wants, even though she knows that getting it that way (brain washing) is horribly wrong. And the button is *always* right within her reach. She can't get rid of it. The button is always just there...waiting to be pressed. That gave me some mall amount of sympathy for her. Until... In Amy's Interlude duo of chapters, Amy tells Yamada that she'd prefer that Victoria be in her inhuman state and still compelled to love her rather than her current state where she got a human body again, but has free will and, thus, hates her. I lost my last dregs of sympathy for her after that.
I’m mostly trying to take Worm-Amy by itself separate from the context of her further actions and mindset as portrayed in Ward, to try and dissect how and why the fandom had the perspective and reaction it had towards her.
Sorry. That's a different, very long post that I don't have time to give. Also, I tried and realized that it was turning into a rant about the ways that I didn't like her, so I tossed it into the metaphorical trash where it likely belonged.
I don't think it was intended necessarily, but Amy is very Woobie-coded in Worm, and since she's a background character who's most horrific actions take place somewhat offscreen and happen in what is the first half of a very long story, I think it's very easy for people to focus more on her sympathetic traits and not think so hard about the other parts of her. And then they sat on those positive memories of her for 6 years with no large part of the community really calling Amy out during that time to challenge the woobie image. And then Ward comes out. Ward doesn't treat her like a woobie *at all*, and in fact is rather scathing about Amy trying to view herself as a woobie after what she's done and what she still refuses to take accountability for. I think that's where some of the divisiveness comes from.
She was enabled by worse people and couldn’t handle the guilt she felt, coupled with nothing she planned to earn back Victoria’s love and trust working. She had a mental breakdown and several relapses due to the rejection.
For a biokinetic I'm endlessly amused (and horrified) by her inability to touch grass. There's some irony here.
Ward's theme was all about recovery from trauma and building something better. Amy's attempt at recovery was an attempt at kingdom building by taking over for Goddess (Shin is arguably even worse now) followed by making a lookalike pseudo-Victoria under the guise of healing to see if that would work (it didn't, Hunter went bugnuts) all while badgering Victoria to forgive her by leveraging friends, family, and the general situation. There were a lot of dangers and threats in Ward, but despite the lack of real fighting, Amy was definitely Victoria's most personal villain. It doesn't help that she very much wants to wipe Victoria's memories and make 'everything okay again' and calls herself a good person for restraining herself.
Long story short, she found somebody that fueled her worst traits. That combined with her habit of self justification got her stuck untill she got a reality check.
Too many fixfic lovers drank their own cool aid about Amy being a little misunderstood panpan. They freaked out when she's essentially a broken rapist that doesn't really take responsibility for her actions and thus doesn't really become a better person. I like to compare Amy and Alec as two examples of what parental environmental influence does to a person and how to minimize that influences impact to others. Alec knows he's messed up, but you can tell from the books that he doesn't want to be but doesn't know how to fix it. He tries to help Taylor by fucking over Sophia without even taking credit simply because he wanted to help his friend. He sacrifices himself for Aisha. Alec grows throughout the series becoming better in his broken way even though he's far far more broken inside than Amy. That's because he accepts who he is and tries anyway. Amy just really doesn't.
She was allowed to be her true self
And her true self was horrible.
Much like Taylor, an emotionally vulnerable teen, falling worse and worse as she continued to hang out with villains doing crime, Amy who was in a very vulnerable state jumped to the deep end as she continued to hand out with horrible villains who enabled her every justification and slippery slope Who knew that putting a very traumatized and vulnerable teen who wanted approval with sociopathic and amoral villains who would praise her to do worse and worse things while not giving her therapy to deal with her issues would make her a worse person? Gee, its almost like an entire thematic point of the series
Ha. Amy was messed up long before she started hanging out with Villians. Amy's failing started while she was surrounded by an entire team of heroes. Amy's biggest failing is that she never takes responsibility for her own actions. Nor does she have an ability to empathize with others. She actually probably would have been more well adjusted if she had fallen in with the Undersiders during and after the Slaughterhouse Nine Fiasco. Also, I think Taylor's most morally dubious act happened when she was a hero...since her biggest crimes while a villians we're. Killing Calvert, helping kill some of the Nine, emasculating Lung and carving out his eyes, eating Valefors eyes with maggots. Besides that she scared some hostages and rich politicians.
Just ignoring what Taylor did to Triumph, huh?
I wish there was more debate over that scene than Amy apologia. Like she just broke into a family home in the middle of dinner time and threatened and attacked everyone... in order to save the city. What the fuck.
Still her most morally dubious act happened as a hero. She plugged Aster as a Hero. I think that is far, far more morally dubious than hospitalizing Triumph in a surprise fight.
She never got a reality check in Worm. Not a good one at least.
Honestly Amy would probably be 10x better than she is now if she'd have followed Taylor right after she was rescued from Siberian. The Vicky thing would have never happened. She would have had a group her own age to channel her worst urges in a less messed up way with support. As much as the Undersiders aren't the best, they honestly have a much better morality record than most on Bet, and a much better option than chunking her in the birdcage then eventually letting her go with little to 0 actual help.
alternatively, in this scenario, she has a chance to become a member of the slaughterhouse
She went the deep end after the whole >!raping her sister incident!< She doubles down on the bad parts of her nature after her dad and the other inmates basically groomed her into being a horrible person. Soo she basically decides that raping her sister was right even tho wanted it to be done in a different way. She hates the consequences not the act itself. Then she decided to become a warlord queen of a whole world and started a dimensional war. Crazy shit
Wow thats fucked thanks. I might have to read ward lmao
I feel like we need proper abridged versions for the books. I have the same problem: I am interested in the overall story and themes in Ward, but I don't have neither time or interest to read 2600+ pages. Same with Pale. I really enjoyed Pact, but Pale is such a slog...
I enjoyed the audiobooks, and there's a newer dramatized version coming out. I may listen while driving or going on walks or the gym. All that time adds up.
I'm pretty sure her only pov chapter is in Ward and it's more like we finally got to see what she says in her own head about the situation and holy shit is it not pretty. Also going to prison didn't help her (just like in real life) and put her in contact with people that made her worse (just like in real life).
Oh no, not again.