About Five And Vanya

Klaus is probably telling them his why I don’t date twins anymore story

Ok here's the essay (brought to you by Autistic Vanya Anon): I feel like Vanya has trouble with relationships, she avoids eye contact but I might be seeing things, I headcanon her to have cromesthesia which is a type of synesthesia which goes with autism sometimes, just interesting auditory issues in general, child!Vanya not wanting to eat certain foods (oatmeal), her hyperfixation on the violin, her apologizing for everything feels familiar too, and most importantly, I'm autistic and I said so.

Omg that’s so good

I’m jumping onto this bandwagon!

That’s such a good headcanon

From Trixie and Katya’s review of Umbrella Academy on Youtube. Thank you Trixie for speaking out on this symptom of amnesia no one wants to talk about

the umbrella academy + emo kylo ren tweets (part 1 here)

So far I haven't seen anyone talk about Vanya watching Pogo die. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that scene

holy shit holy smokes I have SO many thoughts thank you so much Anon because there’s a lot of subtext and so many interesting dialogue choices, blocking choices, and musical choices that add so much to the scene. Major fucking props to Elliot Page for his stellar acting and major props to the CGI team for the subtle emotions on Pogo’s face, as well as Adam Godley for a heart-wrenching voice performance.

you know its a big deal when i actually rewatch the scene instead of going off my shitty memory

I’m gonna try and break it down so let’s actually start by establishing the vibe between these two before this scene. 

Episode 1 established that Vanya does love Pogo or at least to some degree she does, she is someone that she trusts. He’s the one who tells her that the mansion will always be her home, he’s the one who tries to assure her her father did love her (that’s fucked up Pogo, come on man), and he’s concerned about her safety (offering to call her a cab). Vanya’s defenses are still there but they aren’t as raised as they are with Diego or Allison, there is some level of trust in their relationship (she opens up about the sandwiches in an attempt to make small talk, she does not actively make an attempt with her other family members).  If she was stuck in the house while her siblings were out, no doubt she probably latched onto this old chimpanzee as a pseudo-father figure.

She trusts Pogo, she is not aware of his complacency in her abuse. Pogo holds affections to all of them but I do think there was a bond between Vanya and him that’s being alluded to here. 

Let’s fast forward to the scene now that we’ve established there is a bond, because we have set-up so let’s have some pay-off:

Vanya tearing down the mansion is a fucking treat to watch, there’s no denying that. However, the events leading up to it are sad, distressing, she should never have reached this point of destruction. She was betrayed by the people she loved (Allison with the rumor, Leonard with the journal, and her siblings by locking her in a cage and walking away and leaving her there). She’s breaking down mentally and she’s taking the house down with her - she is both tearing down her cage and herself.

Look at how calmly she’s walking, she’s done. 

So when she gets to the living room (is that what it’s called?) and she has the flashback of Reginald telling at her to be quiet, yeah she’s fucking pissed. He tore apart her life, he told her time and time again to be quiet, continuously muted her (physically with the cage, mentally with reinforcing the rumor). She is done with Reginald, she’s done with it all. Except-

(We’re going line by line now)

“Miss Vanya, that’s quite enough!” Pogo talks to her like a child throwing a tantrum and in some ways, she is. He talks to all of the Hargreeves if they were children and in many ways, they really all are. They’ve never grown up, Vanya never got the chance to grow up. When was the last time she was in touch with her emotions, before they were strangled by her pills? When she was four years old. Of course everything is overwhelming, she’s been sedated for years now. 

“Miss Vanya, I under how upset you are. But I can assure that none of your siblings bear any of the responsibility for what happened to you as a child.” Pogo is trying to defend the other Hargreeves and to some extent, what he’s saying is true. But the thing is...what happened to her as a child is continuing into her adulthood and destroying her life. She has lived sedated and under the influence of a poorly thought out rumor. She’s struggling physically and mentally. What happened to her as a child is still clearly fucking her life up and the other Hargreeve siblings contributed to it, unknowingly or not.

And when she turns to them, her eyes turn brown again. She is herself and she needs to be to hear his answer. This is someone she trusts, this is someone she has turned to for comfort time and again throughout her childhood and when she moves towards him, pretending to be lax and casual, you can tell there’s a storm brewing. She doesn’t want him to be a part of this, she doesn’t want to believe that another person she thought could trust is complicit in this fucked up conspiracy of her life.

She asks anyways: “Did you know?”

Listen to her, she’s on the verge of tears and she so desperately wants Pogo to say no, she wants to spare him but only if he admits that he still cares, that he wasn’t a betrayer. This is an opportunity for him to escape, to lie, and Pogo, who has been so wrapped up in keeping secrets throughout the season, now knows that lying will only make things worse. He tells the truth but he does it in a way that let’s us know what we’ve always known: Pogo’s loyalties have always lied with Reginald, never with the children.

“Your father discovered...that you were capable of great things. Much like your brothers and sister. But your powers were...too great. He only wanted to protect you from yourself as well as your siblings.” Vanya has been told she’s ordinary, that she is not worth much because of that. Now she’s being told she was too great? Pogo pretty much just said: You will never be good enough.

Then the last line...fuck he has shifted the blame onto her, that her father was only doing what was best, that she was too dangerous. Pogo, what the fuck.

Vanya asks again, she needs to hear him say it, and there is no triumph in this scene, this is another betrayal of someone she thought she was close to, someone she could trust. All he’s done is say you’re not enough and you’re too dangerous. 

Major fucking props to the CGI on this part where Pogo is silent, he is thinking this over. He has spent years fanning the flames of this lie and if he lied again, if he said, Vanya would not have killed him. But Pogo knows the time for lies is over, that Vanya, who is a little girl that is hurting from years worth of abuse and lies, deserves the truth: “Yes, Miss Vanya. I knew.”

There is no one left that has not betrayed her in some way or another, Pogo has just admitted it. Vanya hangs her head, her face grows shadowed and both the gears in the audience’s head and Pogo’s head are turning: what will she do? Then she looks up and her eyes are silver. Vanya is letting go of any sliver of hope she once had for her family, she’s done. She thought had a bond with Pogo, a level of trust from a bond forged in childhood to one quieter in adulthood but still there. It’s gone and he’s said as much.

She lifts him in the air and keeps him there, lets him writhe in agony in a similar way to Leonard. Both of them have betrayed her, both of them are going to pay for it.

Look at where she flings him! The symbolism is SO fucking blatant here: He is impaled on antlers underneath Reginald’s portrait. The show has shown us these taxidermied animals (she’s turned Pogo into one) and how Reginald’s portrait looms over them. She knows where his loyalties die now and in some ways, it reads to me as Vanya saying: “You will die like a dog by your master’s side.”

She’s watching someone she thought she could trust die, she did that to him. She’s not enjoying his suffering, she didn’t relish in the act of impaling him, but she did because that is what she believe needs to be done (the parallels between this and Leonard’s death...fuck man). She needs to be sure he dies, she’s not taking any chances While he dies, he is being forced to look into the eyes of his killer, the killer he helped create.

The music is sorrowful as Pogo gasps for air, blood dribbling down his mouth. As with any Vanya soundtracks, there is a heavy use of strings, strings are Vanya’s instrument. It’s grieving, Vanya is grieving for what she has lost and for what she never had to begin with.

Thank you so much for the question, it was a real treat to go through the scene again and just dig into how phenomenal it is. I hope this somewhat answered your question, even if I did go a bit overboard!

Vanya Hargreeves Was Completely Valid In Everything She Did

Ok. So.

Vanya Hargreeves—I’m just gonna say it, is the most relatable character I’ve ever seen. Specifically Ellen Page’s adaptation. Here’s why.

Vanya is what happens when somebody doesn’t respect themself, gives too much, and gets hurt.

In her childhood, Vanya was raised to see herself as nothing. To place everyone above her—her siblings, specifically. She was supposed to be small, of course so that she wouldn’t be dangerous. However, that just made her incredibly depressed.

She didn’t just crave connection and respect though. She wanted to give it to others, because that’s what she was taught—that others deserved it, not her. That’s why she left the lights on for Five. That’s why she reaches out to him again. That’s why she talks to Allison. That’s why she reaches out to Leonard. Why she talks to the first chair violinist in the bathroom. Because she wants to be needed, to be useful, and loved in the only way she knows how. For others.

Which brings me to my second point. Vanya Hargreeves is not a selfish person. A lot of people seem to think that because she is shy and anxious and self defeating that she’s self centered, but that’s not the case. She reaches out multiple times to people, tries to do what they would need, because she cares. She genuinely cares.

So what happens when someone takes advantage of that low self respect, and that need to love and be loved?

Leonard fucking Asshat Jenkins.

Leonard was raised by an abusive father, and boy oh boy did he learn a few tricks from him. He molded himself into everything Vanya could need, and she took the bait, because she was desperate. She’d tried multiple things already—attempting to validate herself and her experiences by writing a book, giving lessons to children, taking medication, reaching out. So why not let this man be a good thing in her life? If he ever treats her wrong, it’s her fault, right?

Then Allison tells her her secret. Vanya didn’t remember being rumored—a very close parallel to how a lot of people deal with trauma. Indeed, being locked in a cage and treated how she was was traumatic. Vanya is angry. She’s been shown that she’s worth something, and now someone who’s repeatedly let her down and only recently been a better sister to her has turned her back on her by telling her this gut wrenching truth from her past. Remembering trauma alone is huge. But hearing it from one of the people who unwittingly hurt you? Can you really blame her for lashing out? Of course, it was an accident how far it went, but her anger, if not right, was still understandable.

And then Leonard. Leonard, the person who she trusted, was just out to hurt her too. Vanya recognizes this—this isn’t the first time she’s been used for her powers. So for the second time, she becomes angry not at herself, as she’d always done in the past, but at someone else. She lashes out. This man who’d filled her with such happiness, happiness that turned to poison. Someone she’d been intimate with. Someone she loved.

Then as a cherry on the fucking cake, her siblings lock her in a cage. Imagine going through an abusive relationship, discovering past trauma, and also discovering you have fucking super powers—then the only people you have left, the people who are supposed to help—lock you up. They’re scared of you. They’re just like everyone else. There’s no hope.

So yeah, Vanya Hargreeves at that point was hurt, confused, lost, and oh, sooo angry. And I think she had some pretty fuckin good reasons. She had no reason to hold back. She’d been holding back all her life.

While trying to kill the world is really shitty, look into Ellen Page’s lifeless glowing eyes and tell me Vanya Hargreeves wasn’t just a puppet being controled by her hurt. Her illnesses. Her trauma, her grief for her past and the loss of trust she’d endured. Tell me she was evil. I’ll tell you she’s me.

Vanya getting ready to say hi to carl and pretend like she didn’t just fuck his wife:

Lgbt Umbrella Academy Icons

i swear if none of the Hargreeves run up to Sparrow Academy Ben and try to hug him because they're so happy to see him alive in season 3, I'll be throwing punches