2023-05-07 18:25:36 ¶ ●

if the world of a frog’s origin is significant, that adds some new food for thought; but while i’m on the final frog, since it’s such an important mystery that i’ve yet to weigh in on as far as this blog goes, my basic assumption has basically been thus. knowing that the trolls’ session was a perfectly engineered performance with an intended and planned-for outcome, it seems ridiculous to think that Karkat and Kanaya really did look as hard as possible for their final frog and somehow just fail, causing something to be wrong with the universe they created.

in a similar vein, with the kids’ session being the rush job that it was, it doesn’t seem to track, logically, that Jade should be able to locate the frog she needed so quickly and incorporate it into her magnum opus tadpole so inconsequentially. and indeed, we know the story isn’t so simple, because someone deliberately sent the frog where it would be easy to find. so the question is just who and when.

it also needs to be considered that despite all of Karkat’s bellyaching about giving the universe cancer, nothing really seems to be intrinsically wrong with his creation - even calling it “his” creation is a stretch. he’s being egotistically fatalistic. Karkat thinks Jack is the cancer, but we know that guy had nothing to do with him, and while we may be tempted to draw connections with the kids’ “cancerous” battlefield, we know with hindsight that the involvement of a self loathing teenager isn’t at all a necessary component to the growth of a game-breaking Tumor.

so the question begs to be asked; if you can create a completely functional - if a little dysfunctional - universe without this oh-so-special final frog, what is the point of the frog at all? the unique extracanonical nature of Jade’s pearly white frog suggests this final piece of the puzzle was what allowed our heroes to finally break free of English’s ouroboros of sex and death; but then why do Karkat and Kanaya seem to think they needed this frog, and why did it only show up when Jade needed it?

it’s obvious to me that Kanaya’s disappearing frog and Jade’s appearing frog are one and the same; the key to the escape hatch in reality was snatched away from the trolls because escaping the cycle was never in the cards for their session, and bestowed upon the humans by an unknown but presumably sympathetic party. the question just remains, as it has for over ten years now, who exactly is this party supposed to be?