Alan blames his desire to sail through space on John. When John was twelve years old and super close to his newest baby brother, little Alan used to beg John to take him stargazing. They’d go every time John was home between school and space cadet camp, and they’d stay in a little tent and toast marshmallows over a campfire while they waited for darkness to descend. They’d stay out, just the two of them, under the stars, and Alan sits in John’s lap and makes up funny stories about all the constellations that John can name and John tells him all about his dreams to become an astronaut, just like their Daddy. Which is when Alan decides he wants to be an astronaut too (and fly cool things like spaceships) so he and his big brother can always watch the stars together.
john loves the stars, that much is true, clear, undeniable.
but how could anyone think that they were what he loved above all else?
how could he possibly love them more than the earth?
his love for the earth is what keeps him out there, up where the stars are. the stars are bright, faraway, incredible, but they’re nothing on earth.
earth is beautiful.
below him, it is blue and green, swirled in white with edges aglow and a thousand points of light within to make it shine.
and heaven knows that john has seen the worst of what he world has to offer from up there. there are guns and scorched ground where wars had touched the earth and made it rough, years before he had even come into being.
“but the world is not a cruel place.” his parents tell him, when he’s still little in their arms, and his mother’s voice is something lovely and distant. “i know that it seems that way, and that there is horror and sadness and crime unforgivable, but the earth is kind. it sends rain to wash away the blood and burning – when the skies cry it is all for you. it turns things green and growing up from the earth no matter how much is stripped away. it is always trying to grow to keep you alive.”
she brushes the hair from his forehead as he stares up at the stars in his father’s eyes.
i want to protect the earth, john thinks, in his little brain and his little heart it is already coming together.
when he grows up, the stars are waiting for him. he waves hello – yes, they are even more beautiful from up here.
and so is the earth, his true love, his home and the home of all he loves. the earth is the smiles of his brothers, the strength of his mother and father and everyone else who’s got him this far.
he will watch over the earth, as it had watched over him.
You know, this is a really important sequence in the episode.
Not
because John is about shut down EOS. Because that’s what the episode has
been building up to. Its important, and particularly with EOS’ words.
Even though EOS is a child, she’s very much a victim of her own
circumstances. She’s alone and afraid, and even without any kind of
visual emotional cues, you can tell the isolation is terrifying, and the
prospect that she’s about to die is makes her incredibly sad and
fearful.
But its also a crucial part of John’s character as well.
He’s spent the first half of the episode trying to convince EOS that
he’s not a threat to her. And the Second half begging her to listen and
saying he doesn’t want to hurt her at all. He wants to help her,
understand her and look out for her. Like another sibling, or more
appropriately a parent to a child.
Even at the very end, this
his hand over the button for emergency shutdown, he’s borderline begging
her to stop, pleading with her that he doesn’t want to do it. Hell,
even before, when he was in Thunderbird 03 being ordered to destroy EOS
if that’s what it took, John really didn’t want to do it. He
continues to try and reason with her, even when EOS turned the gravity
ring on max spin and Alan stops it, John already treats her as Thunderbird 5, lightly warning her not to damage herself trying to take
him out.
Here in this scene, John’s still very hesitant with
his hand over the shutdown. At this point, if you read between the
lines:
He’s begging EOS not to make him a murderer.
The following scene where he takes his helmet off, to me, that says ‘I would rather die than become a murderer’. It just says so much about his character that he would rather die than compromise his ideals and the ideals of his family.
Full view otherwise it looks like trash (hurimhilarious)
Adventure time John, complete with tiny EOS thrown in for laughs. He’s supposed to be floating but you can’t really tell because I’m terrible at drawing action, even in adventure time style.
Next up is Virgil. I have him, Gordon and Alan drawn up it just takes a while to clean up the pencil sketch.
Although I liked Scott originally (due to wanting Thunderbird 1) I grew to love John Tracy when I rewatched the series back in 2012. I felt bad for him (especially in the original seires) because he was always lonely up on Thunderbird 5 (even if he likes the solitary environment) and seemed to be forgotted by his brothers. I’m so glad that he has more screen time in the reboot though!
