frankie boyle's beanbag chair of death

So, part of my issue with part 6 is: what is the bad guy's plan again?? But it's apparently to create a world where everyone has a predetermined fate, one they subconsciously know and cannot avoid. And this is good for... reasons. Pucci seems to sincerely believe that this is the way to live, that it will bring humanity peace. But like, we know DIO. It's always about himself. It's about manipulation to mold the world in his image. I don't even think there's really a good reason for DIO to do this - it's contingent on him not being around to enjoy it - except that he's a massive egotist who finds satisfaction in enacting such a grand plan. And this is why I feel like Pucci's abilities are thematically appropriate: they're perverse schemes of control masquerading as benevolence. Pucci frames these stand discs as gifts, even the gift of sapient life in FF's case, but a) he's only giving what he's already taken from others, and b) he's only doing this to use people. So by the time Pucci is really getting moving with the plan, we have an impression that it's going to be this same scheme wrought large - one big prison.

What I like about the ending is, first, holy shit is Pucci threatening. Nobody else in this series IMO creates the sense of hopelessness and despair, of being completely outmatched, as Pucci when he begins to accelerate to the point that he is untouchable and knows it. And yet the showdown still feels tense - the heroes maneuver him to where they want, they scheme to use their abilities in concert, they pull out every trick. They sacrifice everything they can to protect each other. And shockingly (to me anyway) it works - Jolyne, given another moment to act by Jotaro, uses the ocean's accelerated currents to carry a last survivor to safety. She's like the embodiment of everything I like about the Joestars in this moment: clever, resolute, protective of innocents, self-sacrificing, but most of all using a sneaky trick to get one over on some guy who thinks he's hot shit. And Emporio carries that determination forward, desperately, to a confrontation where the last bit of Weather, the last strand of fate that Pucci tried to sever, preserved by his own ability and enabled by his triumphant grandstanding, is Pucci's undoing. Beautiful. And honestly? Surprising in how plausible and matter-of-fact it is. Didn't you think, wuh-oh, he's going to pull some deus ex machina to get out of this? But instead it's a very Jojo thing of "actually I know an interesting fact, making me the victor"

So then what happens? Man, fuck if I know. And here's the thing: neither do any of the characters. Emporio emerges in a world where everyone he loves is gone, and only a shadow remains, and no one knows that happened but him. It's such a cruel tragedy, intermingled with the complicated truth that nobody is confined to their fate anymore. No one knows their destiny because Jolyne and Emporio saved the whole world from that prison-like existence of endless, undeviating conformity that DIO called heaven. It's such a bittersweet note to end on, one I think the epilogue to part five was striving towards, but that nothing really hit since the end of part 1.