Honestly, I would’ve loved to see this episode with Astra alive and on her way to redemption. Not that it wasn’t brilliant as is (it’s one of my favourites so far), but we know the only reason they chose to off her was because Laura was too busy to film. So it makes me wonder if Astra had still been around, how would she have reacted to see Kara – the one person who believed Astra could change for the better – go to the dark side? Would she embrace the pull to join her or would she be strong enough to resist the urge?
I suppose if there were so much of a chance of Astra switching sides, Alex would remind her what the real Kara would want; what her sweet, kind Little One would hope Astra would choose when seeing her go off the rails like this.
I also want to know how Kara would hurt Astra. We know that even without the ‘that’s why you killed my aunt’ line, the interaction between Kara and Alex was pretty loaded, pretty hurtful. Then again, would she hurt Astra? Or would she understand where Astra – or Non – came from and want to join their side of the battle?
I don’t know, I’m just really interested in what Astra’s role would’ve been; there are so many possibilities.
I’m absolutely here for Red!Kara talking to Astra because that would fuck me up in the best of ways. Because we’ve seen Kara’s rage at Alura for leaving her alone, for being the one to send her away. And we’ve seen Kara angry at Astra, but the thing with that? It’s never really been a personal kind of anger. It’s an anger for the things Astra has done to Earth, and what happened on Krypton, for the atrocities she’s committed in her pursuit of her goals but it’s anger on someone else’s behalf. It’s never really shown to be selfish anger. If Kara is that angry at a hologram of Alura for leaving her alone, how much angrier must she be at Astra, for leaving her alone.
Because unlike Alura, Astra was on Earth. Alura might have made the choice to send her off, but that was a split second decision not to crawl into the pod with Kara, made in the heat of a moment, no time to take it back. But Astra? Day after day, week after week, year after year, Kara had to deal with being the last, the only one who remembered Krypton. She had to shoulder all that loneliness and pain and agony and death all by herself. And we’ve seen with the Black Mercy, there really is very little Kara will not give up to have Alex in her life, but everything else? She’d give up, to have her old life back. And Astra was a part of that life.
And it wasn’t until she became Supergirl did Astra make contact with her. THe woman who taught her the names of all the stars, who once told her she couldn’t love a daughter as much as she loved Kara, and she made the decision over and over not to contact her, because at least from Kara’s perspective, all she would need to do to find out about Kara is to contact Kal-El. But she didn’t.
It’s easy for Kara to be angry on behalf of others, but for herself? That’s a very different story, one we got to see with the red k letting nothing go unsaid and god I wish we got to see Kara’s interacting with her Aunt and then we’d get to see why it took over a decade for them to have contact, or if Astra actually knew where Kara was, or even if Astra knew she was alive (also I want them to hug afterwards they never hugged and I’m so sad)
complete sidenote, but wow did melissa do a fantastic job with red!kara just the way she holds herself as evil!k and just completely transforming anything recognizable about what we’ve come to associate with kara, like we’ve seen plenty of comparisons of how melissa based her work!kara as an homage to calista, and clearly this is also an homage to laura.
Tag: redk!kara
Take What You Want
Cat still has a balcony and it
still has one hell of a view. It may not
be quite as impressive as the view from the office in the building that still
has her name on the side, but Washington D.C at night is nothing to scoff
at. Especially when you can see the
White House in the distance and know you’re one of the people who keeps the
place running.Sometimes Cat thinks the balcony
was a mistake. If she’s honest with herself,
she only wanted it for the unspoken promise it embodies. There are things that can still happen so
long as she has a balcony. Possibilities
that still exist, however unlikely they may be.
An apartment without a balcony would have been an admission, one that
she hardly dares put into words. Instead
she has a balcony that never serves its intended purpose. What hurts more? A dream unfulfilled or a dream surrendered?Still, when the last of the work
is done and she’s showered and cleansed and changed into her pyjamas, a few minutes
observing the D.C skyline by night with a glass of scotch in hand makes a nice
ritual to close out the day. And if
she’s foolish enough to indulge in a moment or two of nostalgia, no one but her
will ever know.Telling herself that thoughts
this maudlin are a sign of the mid-life crisis she refuses to have, Cat turns
to head inside and go to bed when the unexpected occurs. For a moment she imagines it was summoned by
her errant thought.The familiar whoosh of displaced
air and rustle of a cape alert Cat to a familiar presence before the shadow
falls across her balcony. A smile is
already curling at her lips as she turns to face her surprise visitor, a
suitable quip coming to mind.The smile fades and the witty
remark dies in her mouth as she takes in the scene.It’s Kara of course, and yet
not. Cat knows at once what she’s
looking at, even as a hard ball of ice forms in her stomach and chills her from
the bone out.It’s there in the hard set of her
shoulders, the imperiously raised chin and the cocky tilt to her hips as she
floats over Cat, just high enough that Cat must crane her neck to look to look
into dark, dark eyes. The warning signs
are etched so deep in Cat’s memory that she doesn’t need to see their black
fury to know what’s happening. Looking
into those eyes is just the last piece of evidence that eradicates any doubt and
crystallises the knowledge that this is a reality she must deal with, not a
nightmare she can hope to wake up from.“Not happy to see me, Kitty Kat?”
Kara says, almost purring.Even in
this awful moment, Cat can’t help but give her credit for making the pun purely
with the tone of her voice.
RedK!Kara mild? That’s a wild assessment, I’m like super curious as to what you would consider extreme (outside of canon-altering murder). Kara’s off-the-deep-end dive into self-proclaimed godhood complete with delusions of grandeur were way darker than and of Clark’s RedK depictions in Smallville or Adventures. She got wonderfully dark and she got there quick
And you’re right on that; she was perfectly dark. Unfiltered enough to actually address all that anger and hurt squirreled away, mean enough not to care who her feelings hurt.
Although I am gonna argue the godhood and delusions of grandeur, because, like. Comparatively speaking, she is a god, and her grandeur and ability isn’t delusional; she IS ACTUALLY capable of everything she claims. That’s part of what’s so scary about it. She could literally raze the city to the ground. The only difference is she’s flouting that ability now.
But on that same vein of thought, that’s why I say she’s mild. She’s mild for a Kryptonian.
Imagine Astra or Non altered by RedK. Imagine them crackling with power, with a dozen other just-as-powerful Kryptonians, their heads full of thoughts like, “All it would take is one, well-coordinated attack to upset the human’s power structure long enough to seize control.”
They could punch through the ceiling of a global conference and full-on Ghost Ship a room full of world leaders and diplomats with just their heat-vision. They could destroy the companies ruining the environment by just breaking them apart.
And because they’re human-size and can fly faster than the speed of sound, even last-ditch options like nuclear weapons wouldn’t be effective in stopping them. They could just as easily lure war-ready nations like the US into doing half the work for them, just by tricking smart-bombs into following them to their chosen targets.
The only reason Astra and Non didn’t consider those options before is because there are so many humans on Earth that their best option was to force global compliance, but on RedK, and having just lost his wife, Non wouldn’t have freaking cared anymore. “Just kill em all,” would’ve been his go-to.
Now you compare ability to what Kara did. She acted out. Threw a tantrum. Gave in to, and let free, all those selfish, self-serving thoughts that hit all of us in our worst moments, but that’s all they are; selfish moments.
She was forced to be something she’s not for most of her life on earth, so RedKara made sure everyone who looked at her knew she wasn’t like them.
Her softness has lead people to take advantage of her, so RedKara made people afraid to cross her.
Her actions are all backed up by insecurity, more comparable to what you’d seen in kids and people acting out in mourning, in stress, in fear. Not malice. If they were, she would’ve killed Cat. She would’ve killed Alex.
When she wakes up, she has to ask Alex if she killed anyone. Not because she doesn’t remember, but because, if someone had been killed, it would’ve happened as a result of her not paying attention while having her fun; not because she’d willed their death to be so.
And yeah, as a tv show that doesn’t want to put long-lasting consequences on their character in the middle of a story-arc they hadn’t yet concluded, there were restrictions to what they could and could not have her do, but I also argue that a majority of that restriction exists only because of who her character actually is.
For all her darkness, RedKara didn’t cross lines she had the ability (and possibly drive) to do so. Like that unconscious part of your brain that won’t let you bite through someone’s finger, even though you could. She was dialed back. Too good at her core to be truly evil, even then. Angry, yes. Frustrated and loud, vindictive, even, yes. But for all her power, she doesn’t actually use it. Shows it off, but doesn’t wield it.
Even when she was advancing on Alex with her heat vision, there’s not a single part of me that believes she would’ve done it. There was probably a voice telling her to just do it, but she couldn’t. Didn’t want to. Was angry at Alex, but didn’t do anything with it.
When I say she’s mild, I say that because she didn’t have to be. She could’ve done anything she wanted, and she did do whatever she wanted. She just didn’t want evil things.
No one died. No one was hurt except Alex’s broken arm (which RedKara didn’t even know had happened, and thus wasn’t her strict intention [and also probably was only included because Chyler had an injury at the time]).
So yeah! That’s why I say she’s mild.
red! kara
Question of Smoke 