For topic: The Letters Page! Episode 4 Discussion (Expatriette)
Justifications #4
There were a lot of things in this episode that I almost commented on, but Ex-Patriette is not my favorite character, nor do I feel I fully understand her, so I ultimately only feel ready to speak on one aspect of the story, and it’s one that isn’t really about her. Wager Master shows her a vision of Citizen Dusk, who almost certainly exists in some alternate reality, and offers her a chance to gain those powers and that life, which Amanda declines. Now, we never learn in the comics where exactly Citizen Dawn gets her powers, nor any of the other Citizens of the Sun, but I do think we know exactly where Citizen Dusk’s powers would have come from - the same dark dimension which empowers Writhe, complete with the creature known as Voidsoul who lurks within it. I believe that if Amanda had taken WM’s deal, Eugene’s experiments in harnessing dark matter would have been fruitless, and there would never have been a Writhe. What the ripple effects of that would have been is difficult to guess at, but Writhe’s status as a nemesis to La Capitan makes it seem likely that the consequences of his removal would have been far-reaching. And, given how much mental instability Expat is prone to as a result of her traumatic upbringing (when by contrast Gene appears to be fairly sane prior to his time as Writhe, and might well have remained so if not for Voidsoul’s influence), I think it’s a good bet that any contact between Voidsoul and Citizen Dusk would have probably ended up with OblivAeon having one more Scion wreaking havoc during his attack.
EDIT: Another observation from later in the episode. C&A point out that Expatriette gave her two special pistols the names “Pride” and “Prejudice”, in large part because she grew up among the Citizens of the Sun, and saw that there was an established pattern of the citizens getting special new names. While the Citizens may take a certain measure of pride in those names, I think that from the perspective of both of the Cohen women, the Citizens have those names because they are tools, and therefore Expatriette is specifically naming her guns in the same spirit. Expat uses the guns as objects, because they are objects; Dawn uses the Citizens as objects because she’s the kind of person who uses “lesser” people as nothing more than devices to enact her will, and is egotistical enough to want special names for those utilities. So Expat mimics the naming convention as a sort of wry commentary on her mother’s status as a user.