Tag: pr meta

I know we joke a lot about how both of the science boys are convinced that THEY’RE the normal one of the two. But honestly, they’re both very unusual in a lot of ways. My question is do you think they’re both aware of how unique they are? How much has being different fed into their sense of self? Because the human race is at war and that’s got to lead to a siege mentality within the Shatterdome, and being the last remaining members of K-Science can’t help with that.

I think they know, but they couch it to themselves in their own internal narrative as like… just the way they choose to present themselves as per their preferred “cool” subculture (how others see their “cool” subculture is another matter entirely).

(Details below the cut)

Let’s start with Hermann. I’m 100% convinced Hermann knows he is an eccentric and embraces this ideal about himself. But what kind of eccentric he thinks he is is very different from how other people see him. He sees himself as like… Oxford professor, throw-back to the days where people had culture, damnit. His heroes were WWII era scientists like Alan Turing and by God, he knows his place in history and he’s going to live up to it. I think he misses out on the part where like… wearing slacks that aren’t tailored quite right and granny glasses makes him look less “respectable academic” and more “cosplaying your grandmother”. He’s trying so hard to be this intense, serious academic, and comes across a bit ridiculous as a result. Like how he makes his rants like the “Handwriting of God” speech deadly serious, and seems to have zero irony or awareness that other people are literally “wtf-ing” behind him and even Stacker is kinda ??? about why this subject came up at all. He’s very intense, very earnest, and completely unaware that no one else really sees him as he sees himself. 

Meanwhile, Newt genuinely thinks of himself as a rockstar. He dresses like a member of Good Charlotte circa 2005 or maybe just like one of the Blues Brothers. He’s got the tattoos and the glasses. He’s painfully hipster (god I bet he ironically drank PBR in Boston before the Kaiju landed) with that nerd subsection of being at least mildly otaku-ish with the Kaiju obsession thing. He definitely loved the concept of Kaiju before it was cool, i.e. before they showed up for real. He buys into his own rockstar image buuuut, like Hermann trying to pull off the “respectable professor” thing I’m not sure Newt pulls off the “rockstar vibe” to the extent he’s aiming for it, given he comes across as more “hyperactive and shrieky”, and I think his attempt at “ironic nerdom” with the glasses and tie are just seen as “actually nerdy”. 

To the second half of your question,I think in the last days of the Shatterdome under Pentecost you had a lot of big personalities. People to whom being part of the “The Resistance” was more important than, say, being paid, or just living out the final days of Earth with their loved ones. Everyone is kinda eccentric and aware of their own importance in that Shatterdome. It’s the opposite of a faceless organization (and probably a lot of that is GDT going by “The Rule of Cool” – everyone is really, really cool). But I also think Pentecost let a lot of regulation go by the wayside so he could recruit these best and brightest, and for Newt that was certainly a draw, who likes to march to the beat of his own drum and respects people who let him do that. Whereas for Hermann I think it was more about Doing What Must Be Done, especially after his father backed the Wall of Life, he had to make a stand with the person making the biggest stand.

Do you think either of them cross the line when they’re arguing during the first war? Ask them both separately and they’d both say that absolutely yes (Hermann especially) but it’s clear they both keep getting drawn back to each other. But do either of them actually, properly hurt the other with their fighting?

Oh, absolutely, Anon!

I’d actually go so far as to say the famous moment when Hermann says Newt’s intelligence about the Precursors is “Impossible!” in PR1 was crossing a line, so we see it on screen. It’s in part because Newt doesn’t see the gesture for what it is: Hermann trying to protect Newt not only from himself and another Drift, but from Pentecost’s inevitable orders to do it again. He’s trying to discredit Newt to save him. 

My suspicion is that as long it’s an attack on things they can debate, all is fair game. They constantly debate things like the other’s intelligence and effectiveness as a scientist. Those are matters that are up for debate. I think Newt spilling guts on Hermann’s side is an ongoing debate over the placement of the line itself, to make a point. The reason Hermann claiming the findings were “impossible” was so offensive to Newt–I mean he literally looks thunderstruck and betrayed in a way he did not when Hermann criticized the experiment in the first place–is because it’s not a matter that’s up for debate scientifically. The experiment clearly worked, it functioned as intended (though side-effects may vary, Newton…). 

Things that are not up for debate are things they can’t effect themselves. Hermann can choose to have a less awful haircut, but he can’t choose not to have the limp. I think it’s also an ironclad personal principle of Newt’s to never bring up the limp as well. It’s a little harder to pinpoint a line Hermann won’t cross with regards to Newton, but there is respect there, and I at least headcanon that only they are allowed to insult one another’s careers. Hermann is a scientist, he is informed on when Newt is wasting his time on an experiment or is “desperate to be right” while chasing a dead end. However, I do think they’d defend one another against outsider attacks. If someone else called out Newt as annoying or a waste of resources, I think Hermann would be outraged (same goes for Newt on Hermann’s behalf). Edit: just to add because I agreed with reblog tags, if Newt is on medication for ADHD or anything similar, Hermann would consider that totally off limits, especially from outsiders. I also think if any outside criticism of them smacked of old-school jocks vs. nerds bullying (like that K-Scienes are useless in general, or that either of them is a dweeb or something) they’d flip out on the other’s behalf. 

But yeah, I’d never want to put it out there that they had this idyllic cut-and-thrust style of argument going on that never tripped over the line. I think they trip over one another’s lines all the time (literally, in Newt’s case with the lab line). I think they say things that hurt more than intended. Otherwise I don’t think their fights would be as caustic as they are. But I also believe the fights themselves are a way of showing attention and care for one another, the last remaining source for intellectual and academic debate in their lives, and a welcome distraction from how well and truly fucked the world is. I don’t think they always read each other correctly, but I think when they do on occasion actually apologize to one another when they recognize a crossed line (”Ten years of experience, man, I’m very sorry.”) even if it comes across as flippant. They make it work. It’s apathy that would hurt them more than any level of line-crossing, and that’s the reason for Hermann’s betrayed expression in Uprising, I think, that Newt refuses to help in return (when Hermann has done so much for him) and doesn’t even consider Hermann’s theory about the Kaiju blood. (Though one must admit, there is a level of “turnabout is fair play” in that flippancy, given that Hermann was similarly dismissive of the Kaiju drift in PR1, soooo…)

So Raleigh and Mako have their iconic first face-to-face meeting at the helipad and people have written meta about how drift-memories show Mako silhouetted and haloed by the umbrella while Raleigh looks commanding and soulful. We know they’d been writing for a few years but do you have any strong headcanons about how Newton and Hermann first met face-to-face?

(For the record, I LOVE that meta about Raleigh and Mako that you’re referencing!)

This is a really interesting question, Anon! A lot of my headcanons kinda come about either because of fanfic I read that feels “right” or expediency for something I need in a story where I need an explanation that feels “right”. My headcanon about their first meeting is definitely a combination of those two. I think the @hermannhaslovedthestars webcomic does an EXCELLENT job and really solidified for me a sense of what happened, and a vague reference to that sort of set up (which I’ll describe below) even played into some dialogue I wrote for the latest Prisoners’ Dilemma chapter (hopefully forthcoming this week).

I’ll go into detail below, putting it below a cut so I can ramble ;P

So I think their first meeting was a huge disappointment for both of them, like soul-crushing. They had been writing canonically “passionate” letters to one another for years, the idea they were crushing hard on one another remotely is so ubiquitous in fanon it’s practically canon at this point. My thoughts on this draw from other PR meta I’ve enjoyed but they include:

– The letters helped filter out some of Newt’s more rambling and hyperactive interactions and leveled him out enough that he came across as, y’know, a normal human. It also let his genius shine in a way Hermann found appealing. 

– Likewise for Hermann–I was going to say that the letters helped Hermann come out of his shell but I just realized that’s fanon and not canon. Canonically, Hermann has no trouble butting into conversations he’s not a part of and saying rather embarrassing personal things like the “Handwriting of God” speech. At least when it comes to his field (which is the extent of how we see him really in the films) he’s not shy at all. So let’s let that fanon die for a second. 

– Really what the letters probably did for Hermann was make him less of a stern, judgmental jerk hung up on his work. He’s a bit of a forbidding person even (if not especially) with his social awkwardness. So I imagine it’s more that the letters allowed him the perceived privacy (see his rule about “public displays of affection”) to open up a bit and maybe even make flirtatious overtures and give compliments to Newt. So letters helped him come across as a normal human as well, one who can give displays of affection. 

– So then you’ve got this situation where both of them in person are so much more abrasive than they are over letters. Newt is too loud and chaotic and any playful jabs he makes probably don’t land right and end up stinging Hermann’s pride instead. Hermann is too stern and serious, a total killjoy, and his waspishness is on full display. He won’t do anything affectionate in public, where they probably met, so none of his softer side can come through. Newt is bouncing off the walls and not checking himself at all or slowing down to clarify his point or pad it with anything less than his unfiltered internal monologue.

– I see both of their worst social habits going into absolute overdrive as the first meeting progresses. They were both already super nervous, and then as things don’t click they get even more nervous, so they both fall back on their worst behavior instincts, insulting one another and trying to shore up their pride (which both have in spades, to the point of arrogance). This just makes matters worse and before you know it, they’re both in too deep to calm down and check in with one another and see if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding along the way. 

– All their worst fears about the other, and about this meeting, are realized. This is in part because I’m sure both had a best case scenario and a worst case scenario in their head, with nothing in between (even though reality is always in between), and it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy when everything isn’t amazing and it’s not this incredible meeting of souls where finally all the social isolation they’ve felt elsewhere just melts away because they’re with each other.

– Because here’s the thing, our social habits don’t just go away when we’re with someone we care for. No one can read our minds. And it takes a bit of acclimation before even the most attentive soulmate can read what’s really happening in our heads. I think from the letters they thought they knew one another very well and, sure, they knew one another’s minds very well, but not their social cues like, “I insult people when I’m nervous,” for Newt or “I snap at people when I feel like I’ve lost control of a situation,” for Hermann. 

– By the way, Hermann canonically shows he cares by snapping at Newt, for example about his safety for the Drift experiment, disguised as criticism of the experiment itself, which Newt was unable to see for what it was. Meanwhile, Newt is like an immature kid on the playground: he pulls Hermann’s proverbial pigtails because he wants his attention, regardless of whether it’s positive or negative attention. But look at how he puffs up around Hannibal Chau as well and tries to impress him! Newt pokes the bear with people whose positive attention he craves, which are people he respects. If he didn’t respect Hermann, he wouldn’t care about getting his attention at all, but Hermann can’t read that about him.

– Most tragically though, I think both of them needed that meeting to be everything for them. They needed to see fireworks and hear the choirs of angels singing. At even the first sign of awkwardness, which could have even been just due to mistranslation or confusion, I think the first chink in the armor appeared, and then everything fell apart like dominoes after that as the anxiety level skyrocketed when things didn’t go as well as they had dreamed (and of course they didn’t, because they couldn’t). And that built the resentment as the other “betrayed” what Newt/Hermann needed from him, emotionally, to the point where it became a wall that was impossible to climb over without one of them, at least one of these two prideful, socially inept geniuses to back down. Someone needed to bend and say, “Hey, did I miss something?” but I also think, for the record, that both of them were bullied growing up and when you’re bullied you often learn 1) how to be a bully yourself and 2) how to not show weakness. So they locked themselves in a game of chicken where neither could back down from being a jerk because to admit weakness was to lose. The pen-pal becomes the enemy and neither knew how to stop it from spiraling further after that.

– I do think they both secretly know they “like” each other, or at least that they see themselves as “in the trenches” together and that they do have positive interactions (largely despite themselves) over the year, but in order to end the fighting, it really does take Hermann conceding that he cares whether or not Newt lives or dies with the “I’ll go with you,” line about the Drift. He’s conceding that Newt’s idea will work (which he resisted before) and helping Newt. Newt immediately construes it as a romantic overture because, well, it kind of is for them in a way that I consider borderline canonical given that the actors played them as in love in Uprising. Hermann ducks a little bit there and pleads “the end of the world” as a reason for his change of heart, but Newt basically disregards that (as he does many things Hermann says, lol) and makes it a friendship thing anyway which Hermann responds to as well, giving lie to his claim that it was pure business.

So to go back to that first meeting… I think it was a date. Maybe they met at a bar or a coffee shop. Maybe it was more romantic than that. Maybe one of them set it up to be a date and the other thought they’d meet before trying to date, and the wires got all crossed. But I absolutely believe that both built up this first meeting in their mind to such heights that there’s no way on earth that they wouldn’t walk away disappointed in some way, and that’s exactly what happened.

Edit: Actually, I wanted to add how I think that would play visually. 

I bet in their memories there is a visual change in the Drift from what “really” happened.

I bet both of them are larger than life in that memory. I bet in the memory of the first time they laid eyes on each other they both look amazing, like the hottest fanartist take on the other that you can imagine. Newt looks like a rockstar. Hermann looks like, well, Burn Gorman in a suit when he’s not trying to look “like Hermann” (which has a whole physicality around it to downplay how fucking hot that man really is). 

I bet it morphs. I bet they both start to take on aspects of a childhood bully the other had. Newt becomes sneering, Hermann becomes disdainful. They start to “look” like someone who is out to get them but maybe, just maybe, the attractiveness level doesn’t drop. Hey, if you’ve been bullied, if you’ve been socially awkward, then chance are you’ve been rejected by someone you perceived as attractive, to the point where attractiveness itself becomes forbidding. 

It could play into them making the other out to be some sort of obnoxious little goblin that’s out to get them: downplay the threat, make it ridiculous and mock it so it isn’t as scary. Hermann is constantly pointing out to others and himself how hopeless Newt is, Newt points out how Hermann’s (probably staggering) intelligence is pointless and basically just self-important noise. 

But to go back, I think visually in the Drift they’d see one another as “sneering” for most of their memories, but it would be like scars overlaying this borderline angelic or heroic first image of them informed by that love and hope that things would work between them, before they opened their goddamn stupid mouths and ruined it.

This might be an odd question but you do exceptional meta so. Do you think Newton and Hermann ever have fun during the first war? Do you think they have any good memories of the time they spent in the Shatterdome?

“I’d like to come back,” Newt said. “God knows, you guys drove me crazy sometimes. There was never any money, never any time, we couldn’t even afford proper lab equipment. Remember that, Herms? Running every diagnostic by hand, doing the work of ten people, at all hours of the night? Christ, those were some of the happiest days of my life.”

“Mine as well,” Hermann murmured. “Hindsight wipes away all memory of the daily grind of fear and discomfort, until all that remains is glittering nostalgia. The privilege of age, hmm?“

– The Only Way Out is Down – Ch. 9 

Absolutely. I’m sure there were pauses between Kaiju attacks, where things slowed down and the Shatterdome had down time and opportunities for camaraderie. I’m sure they had opportunity for poking fun at one another and for daily routine. 

I’m 100% sure that in retrospect, those were the best years of their life. But that’s because it’s hard to appreciate having a sense of purpose and people surrounding you all caring about one another and focused on the same goal when you’re literally certain you’re going to die by the end of the year. Having that fear go away makes those memories far more enjoyable than those moments were at the time. 

Saving the world was probably the high point of their careers, and it’s hard to imagine a circumstance that would bring them to similar heights. Even if there’s a second war (as Uprising hints) they wouldn’t approach it with the same innocence and unfettered drive as the first one. While I think at the time, if you’d asked Newt and Hermann about the lab, they would have said it was the most miserable point in either of their careers, but in retrospect they’d trade anything to go back to those days.

I loved the cast gifset where Charlie Day is talking about the Jaeger pilots in such positive terms (i.e. admiring their abs). How do you think Newton feels about the Jaeger pilots in general? How does Hermann feel about them?

image

(Credit @kisswithatear) 

Honestly, the reason I think this could be Newt is because it struck me as so sarcastic XD

I tend to headcanon Newt as having a dim view of Jaeger pilots. Of course many authors have given him many different attitudes which are all equally valid, but my reference points are 1) the deleted scene with Raleigh in PR1 and 2) the Precursor!Newt showboating in PR2 where he’s like, “Oh look, giant robots, real original guys.” Because no matter what word-of-god says that that’s the Precursors, to me that is 100% Newt. 

I’ll go into more detail plus add my thoughts on Hermann below.

1) The reason I cite the deleted Raleigh scene with Newt is because there’s just no flippin’ way Newt doesn’t know who Raleigh Beckett is. He’s a hotshot Jaeger pilot who took down Yamarashi, among other Kaiju. To my mind, Newt is clearly fucking with Raleigh with the whole, “Oh, look at you, you’ve got a good eye for THE KAIJU YOU LITERALLY FACED IN BATTLE.” 

He must have known that Pentecost was looking for Mark 3 pilots, he must have known who Raleigh is. Jaeger pilots were celebrities! Knowing who killed the Kaiju Newt dissects is probably an aspect of his job since he’d probably watch the videos of their defeat for data? Which is what makes me think he’s got a sour view of Jaeger pilots.

“Kaiju samples are extremely rare, so look but don’t touch please.” Ok so we see these Jaeger pilots pummeling Kaiju to bits, that can’t make Newt’s job any easier. He says as much with, “I’d like to see one alive, and up close one day.” The thing that offends him enough to chase after Raleigh and start bitching him out is when Raleigh says, “Trust me, you don’t.”

This tells me that Newt has spent a lot of time speculating on what he could learn and accomplish if he had better access to Kaiju, ie Kaiju that haven’t been pummeled into bloody scraps by people like Raleigh. It makes me think he spent a lot of time bitching out said Jaeger pilots in his head while dissecting the few samples he could get his hands on (his wonderment at the “heaven” of Hannibal Chau’s shop tells me there’s pieces out there he literally only knows about in theory and reinforces that he dreams of getting his hands on those pieces). 

IMO, Newt’s ideal approach to the Kaiju War would have been more scientific and even peaceful (to cite myself in ch. 6 of The Only Way Out is Down) – he probably wanted to try a diplomatic approach if possible, maybe reason with the Kaiju somehow if they can be reasoned with (as of the film though it looks like the predominant theory is that they’re dumb beasts, however while Newt is shocked to find the Precursors exist as masters, he rolls with the punches pretty quickly and is already developing a theory on how they operate). 

So Jaeger pilots to him represent (in my mind) the worst kind of “shoot first, ask questions later” when it comes to the Kaiju, and as an inquisitive person that is always asking questions, this is the greatest insult. Not to mention the purely personal grudge he probably has from having to sift through pulverized samples. Who knows if Earth could have been saved sooner with an approach that wasn’t “punch them to bloody scraps”? Both to find a more peaceful solution, but also to give scientists like him better data, and it’s all the fault of people like Raleigh, hence he does not like Jaeger pilots as a group that Raleigh represents. He has no other obvious reason to dislike Raleigh on sight like that.

(Aside: As of PR1, Newt clearly seems to think there might have been another way. Interestingly though, the internal morality of Pacific Rim is that Newt is wrong and needed to learn a lesson on this fact because Raleigh Beckett is proven right that Newt shouldn’t want to see one up close. It’s actually a rather odd moral lesson coming from Guillermo Del Toro that looking for an intellectual solution and wanting to get closer to monsters sees one of our characters get punished, especially given the events of PR2 where Newt’s curiosity in PR1 literally destroys his life and almost destroys the world again. The only justification I can think of for this internal morality that isn’t “being intellectual and looking for a peaceful solution is bad, punching things is always the answer” is that Newt learned these guys are conquerors, basically fascists, so GDT is less saying, “Hey kids, violence is always the answer!” and more saying “Punch a Nazi”.)

2) I mean, the scene in Uprising to me just backs up everything I said in point 1. Newt is all, “Oh yeah, REAL ORIGINAL, guys.” To me that’s 100% Newt unless the Precursor Hive Mind has that level of awareness and context about human actions enough to make sarcastic jokes about it. Which is, btw, a hysterically funny thought like, “Hey, we tossed out a whole different looking Kaiju every time, bitches. We adapted. And you’re still just doing rock ‘em, sock ‘em robots I mean, come on, where’s the pizzazz? Where’s the presentation?!” But even if we go with it being them, I think their context of the world is filtered through Newt’s thoughts and perceptions, so I really do think Newt is exasperated with the giant robot schtick. Like, hey, it was cool at first, but after 10+ years humanity didn’t look for any alternative besides jocks like Raleigh Beckett punching them to death?

Oh, I also think Newt hates jocks. I mean for real, buys wholly into the jocks vs. nerds stereotypes, hook line and sinker. Newt is clearly and canonically very aware of nerd stereotypes and tries to undermine them by being “cool” with tattoos and dressing like a member of Good Charlotte circa 2005 (which would have been his impressionable teen years). But to care that much about how nerds are perceived tells me he cares so much about those stupid stereotypes and sees it as his personal duty to show up the jocks and pick fights with whoever he perceives to be a jock at every opportunity. See again: Raleigh Beckett. 

As for Hermann – I can sum him up a bit more quickly I think. 

– We know he worked on the Mark 1 Jaegers, so he probably has a positive view of Jaegers in general (*coughJaegerFuckercough*) BUT, in all seriousness, given that we see Hermann go from Jaeger programmer, to Breach theorist, to Kaiju-blood rocket K-Sci savant in Uprising, he strikes me as someone who defined his life by the Kaiju War probably from the beginning of it. He strikes me as someone who saw the threat immediately (just like Newt) and dove headlong into fighting this threat. It gave his life purpose. So, his career is less total Hollywood “all science is the same, right?” and more that Hermann goes wherever he feels his intellect is most needed. Once Jaegers were being more widely programmed, he moved on to studying the Breach, because there weren’t enough people working there and he knew he was smart enough to understand it. After that, once the Breach was closed, he recognized that no one was thinking about rapid Jaeger deployment in case they came back, so he began optimizing that.

– But we know from semi-canon that at one point Hermann wanted to be a Jaeger pilot and even attended the academy. As a kid with a Space Champion helmet, I headcanon he wanted to be an astronaut. I think that too plays into the idea of Hermann always wanting to be at the bleeding edge of where humanity needed a mind like his most. In peaceful times, it was exploring space, in the Kaiju War, especially at the beginning, they needed Jaeger pilots and programmers.

– I think if Newt is a Kaiju groupie, Hermann’s dangerous obsession is that he’s a military groupie, and was only held back by his illness/injury in his leg (whichever it is). He salutes all the time even when he doesn’t have to. He clearly idolizes people like Marshal Pentecost, and treats them with enormous respect. If we use the Left Brain/Right Brain dichotomy with Newt, he is lawful, orthodox, and axiomatic to Newt’s chaos and anti-authoritarian tendencies. He sees them as a critical part of the war effort, and himself by extension. He stuck with the PPDC when, apparently, no one else besides Mako did. He’s basically a lifelong military scientist by Uprising. 

So overall I’d say that Hermann has a positive view of Jaegers and Jaeger pilots, and may even idolize or be envious of them while recognizing his own expertise lie elsewhere. He goes where he is most useful. But he may be argued to have an even romantic view of them, in extreme contrast to Newt’s disdain. I could see this as a point they argue over. 

I threw on a few scenes from Uprising to try to recapture Hermann’s voice (because honestly, I was not letting him be as difficult a person as he actually is in fic) and I gotta say, the moment where he pulls out the Kaiju blood and Precursor!Newt is all “Is that Kaiju blood?” is fucking hysterical because it’s clearly the Precursors being like 

um

Is that ours?

And you can tell they’re so pissed and taken aback but they gotta play along even though they’re super bad at it and just terrible at pretending to be Newt. Like, the only reason they’ve gotten away with it this long is because 1) they’ve stayed away from people like Hermann who know Newt, like they are genuinely freaked at the prospect of being within 100 feet of Hermann because they know he’s the one person who could sniff them out and 2) because “alien possession” as an explanation is a genuinely batshit insane thing to figure out. 

So I had a random thought about Alice and how Hermann must view “her” and it kinda plays into/powers a lot of The Prisoners’ Dilemma / Kidnapping AU but it still applies to canon so I figured I’d talk about it here.

– Newt says, “you can finally meet Alice,” in Uprising, which implies that he’s mentioned her to Hermann before.

– Hermann is clearly upset and gay about the very existence of Alice, but brushes off the mention of her immediately.

– This leads to the inevitable conclusion that he avoids thinking about her or discussing her. And this means, tragically, that Hermann, at some point, tried to do “the right thing”, so to speak. 

Oh, not the really right thing, societally, which would be to stop being a petty bitch about Newt’s “girlfriend” regardless of whether he and Newt had a relationship, and actually accept the dinner invitation (which was almost certainly a trap). But he at least doesn’t do the “wrong” thing which would be to relentlessly cyberstalk and track down every flaw about this witch who stole Newton. 

– Because if Hermann had gone looking for information about “Alice”, things like her resume, her alma mater, or even just her picture, chances are he wouldn’t have found anything. 

– Which would have raised every alarm bell and a ton of questions about who the fuck is “Alice” and maybe got him digging enough to do something sooner.

Because frankly there’s just no way that petty, nosy ( “Please excuse him, he’s a Kaiju grrrrrroupie.”) Hermann Gottlieb didn’t cyberstalk the fuck out of “Alice” unless he actively chose not to do so because he knew it would be his very bad instinct to do so. He tried to do the right thing and oops, may have doomed the world in the process. 

Dinosaurs, Kaiju and Secondary Brains

idonotbitemythumbatyou:

the-oxford-english-fangeek:

geiszlerian:

No matter how many times I watch PacRim, one line always strikes me as being a little odd. During Newton’s first meeting with Hannibal Chau, this exchange takes place:

N: I need to access a Kaiju brain, completely intact.
H: No, no, no. The skull plate is so dense that by the time you drill into it-
N: The brain has rotten away, but I’m talking about the secondary brain. Now, we both know the Kaiju are so large they need two brains to move around like a dinosaur.

It’s undeniable that Newt is extraordinarily clever. He canonically holds at least one PhD, while the extended canon of the novelisation states that he actually holds six advanced degrees (as well as having taught at MIT, pioneered research in artificial tissue replication and created the Milking Machine used to extract noxious chemical agents from Kaiju glands for specialized classification). You’ve gotta respect that the guy is considerably more intelligent than a large portion of the global population and does know what he’s talking about, even if he gesticulates wildly with ink adorned arms as he does it. Newton Geiszler knows his shit.

This is why it struck me as odd that he should so candidly acknowledge, with utter seriousness, the concept that dinosaurs had a secondary butt brain.

The myth that dinosaurs had two brains stems from the 19th Century when a large canal was found in the hip region of a Stegosaurus spinal cord that could have accommodated a structure up to 20 times larger than their famously small brain. This led to the widespread belief that dinosaurs like the Stegosaurus had a second brain in the tail, which may have been responsible for controlling reflexes in the rear portion of the body.

For decades, popular articles and books claimed that the armour-plated Stegosaurus and the biggest of the sauropod dinosaurs had second brains in their rumps due to this extra mass of tissue.

This is inaccurate and totally untrue.

Why would a doctor with genius-level intellect, a doctor well versed in biology and biotechnology, still believe a concept that has been disproven by experts in the field? Surely a person with Newt’s level of intelligence would not be taken in by inaccurate interpretations like the butt brain theory?

Unless in the Pacific Rim universe it is not a theory.

Newt’s post-drift monologue gives us this extra insight into the history of the PacRim universe:

These beings, these masters, they’re colonists. They overtake worlds. They just consume them and then they move on to the next. And they’ve been here before in a sort of trial run. It was the dinosaurs.

I always kind of breezed over this quote under the impression that the dinosaurs were already present on Earth and that the Precursor’s initial attempt to overtake the planet was the mass extinction event that wiped them out. However, taking into consideration Newt’s assertion that dinosaurs did have a secondary brain, I now more firmly believe that some of, if not all the ‘dinosaurs’ of the Pacific Rim universe are in fact early Kaiju specimens that succumbed to the unsuitable conditions the planet presented, causing the Precursors to wait until the 21st Century to make their second attempt on the planet.

Newton isn’t expressing belief in and inaccurate theory when he’s talking to Hannibal; he’s presenting a pretty awesome example of the kind of world building Guillermo del Toro is so good at. Sure, in our universe the concept of a secondary butt brain is popularised misinterpretation, but in the PacRim universe it is a scientific reality.

Or maybe I’m just looking into this too hard?

But hey, isn’t that the beauty of meta?

#i saw someone complaining about the lack of research in relation to the secondary brain thing#and i just think#if guillermo spent weeks discussing the way air displaced by large objects like jaegers and kaiju would shake windows as they pass by#he wouldn’t include something like one of his genius level scientists believing a disproven theory#unless it was for a reason…

Finally I can sleep at night.