People are complicated, she’s both and neither

At this point she’s competing with Phantasy Star Online’s FOnewearl and FOnewm for “biggest clown hat” – and I think she might be winning.

Part of me also thinks that maybe the irony poisoning came from plat sr. Since before she seemed pretty sincere.

Part of me thinks that might be the case. I didn’t consider it on that deep a level but part of me thought the series must be setting up some subversion on the death flags trope with all these death flags. Add to that the alt text returning and maggie just might be wrong afterall.

Because Echo is dead certain* that between herself, Mustard, and McBell, at least one of the three is going to kill at least one other. Every fourth-wall-breaking bone** in her genre-savvy body is screaming this at her.

But why does she believe it? Because she thinks a happy ending is passe. A clown? Being happy? How trite. No, she very explicitly says to Mustard, a clown’s story should end in tears. She is, to put it simply, irony-poisoned. Her whole schtick is that she takes other clowns’ routines and throws a twisted version back in their faces. She is the ironic Echo.***

But if she’s right that the story isn’t heading for a cliché, then she’s definitely wrong about the tears. Chronologically-ambiguous setting notwithstanding, for us, on the side of the fourth wall that Echo thinks she understands so well, that irony is well over a decade out of fashion. “But doctor, I am Pagliacci” is so old that even memeing on it is dated. Sincerity is what’s now new and refreshing.

And sincerity is something Mustard and McBell have in spades. They’ve worked long and hard to earn it.

* Pun not intended but I’m keeping it.
** That one was intended
*** That’s gonna come across a whole lot less dramatic if I’m not allowed to use HTML.

Or maybe it’s all catharsis.

That’s so true. She was a bad person. Now she’s a hero. And her own sister couldn’t see that. But mcbell could.