#actually… ive already written all that. what isn’t written is all the connective tissue ‘character moves from A to B’ stuff

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: trying to solve my narrative issues by spending a fuckton of time mapping them out

[macgyvertape]

Castlevania kinda had a pacing problem

spoilers for all of Netflix’s Castlevania. I haven’t seen much analysis for the show on tumblr, im honestly curious if discussions I had with irl friends mirror what fandom talks about

tldr: Castlevania seems inconsistently paced from season to season, and within season as well, leads to a lot of characters motivations feeling unclear so characters repeatedly explain why they are doing something while they’re doing it

overview of the seasons:

S1 I know somewhat of a test for Netflix but it has good main trio character establishment and sets the scale of the conflict

s2: pretty complete emotional arc for most characters and resolves the plot of killing Dracula while setting up additional characters to continue the story. Isaac, Hector, Carmilla all established with the audience as characters whose story would continue

honestly I would bet this is the most popular season

S3: s2 did a bit of worldbuilding, but this season really fleshed out the world with both a wide range of locations and exploring the question of “what now, Dracula is dead but vampires and night creatures remain”.

There were basically 4 plot threads: 1) Sypha/Trevor investigating the cult & Saint Germain; 2) Hector & Carmilla (also introducing Lenore, Striga, Morana); 3) Isaac’s journey of revenge & self discovery; 4) Alucard sits around the castle and is betrayed.

overall characters roughly feel like they are in the same place if not worse. A big criticism I saw at the time, which hold up after rewatching this before s4 is nothing felt resolved for the main characters

I would say this season is where the pacing issues start to become apparent, juggling 4 plot threads that lack a central theme or even mutual character connection. If there was a central theme it would be “humans are awful to each other”. The Judge doing Hot Fuzz style murders, The Wizard in the tower, Sumi & Taka

S4: it starts with the same 4 plot threads, though upfront it is made clear that the plot theme is “people are trying to resurrect Dracula”, and the progression of the plot works to resolve unrelated plot threads until the main trio reunites for the boss fights. To me and my friends watching it was obvious that the show would reunite the main trio, the question was how and how far into the run time.

Season 4 is why I’m writing this essay, for the past 2 days I’ve been like, yeah that character sure explained their motives repeatedly maybe with some philosophical discussion, but it’s just such a weird place considering where they were in s3

Alucard’s arc:

Where he was left in season 3, it was after killing people he had trusted in self defense and impaling their corpses. It was clearly meant to parallel Dracula’s dislike of humanity. However overall his character lacked a proactive motivating force.

Honestly the most interesting thing I found in s3 was Alucard clearly misses Sypha and Trevor, however they don’t miss him or refer to him

One reason Sumi & Taka betray Alucard is for the secrets and power of Castlevania. After inviting the village including St Germain who Alucard was warned of into the Castle, Alucard makes 0 effort to secure anything, not even his personal childhood room. Guess he really learned nothing

Discussing St Germain, I think it’s funny that they had a several minute flashback sequence for his lost girlfriend (who doesn’t have a name or a voice actor), to remind the viewer of who he is, and to justify how he’s suddenly back and down for murder.

In s4 there is the call to help the village, and the walk back to the castle is a montage of Alucard opening up to Greta and becoming friendly literally overnight. He laughs off the impaling, and basically all of the darker things he went through in season 3, which has me asking what was the point of his season 3 arc then? 

Honestly writing this I realize the biggest parallel he has with Dracula is the call to action from a bold woman with a dramatic entrance speech which then leads to a romance

Isaac’s arc:

in s3, with all the other themes of “humanity sucks” I was always unsure if the townspeople were meant to appear irrational while attacking a larger force instead of letting him pass through an leave, or him not caring about how he’s provoking them is meant to show his insanity

ive seen the discussion elsewhere, curious about the Discourse here

is s4 Isaac has the whole monologue about how he now has agency but him gaining that agency was his s3 arc. In s4 he’s already at the point of accepting it. By the end of s4 he’s one of those who comes the furthest from his first character appearance to his last.

s4e5 where of Isaac attacking Carmilla in Isaac’s 2nd appearance had him resolving like 4 plot threads at once (Carmilla, Striga& Morana, Hector, and Isaac himself).

but i do wonder if Trevor, Sypha, or Alucard even know any of these people exist. I think not

I was honestly confused if I missed a scene from his dialogue about building something and what is inherent nature, to “My plan has evolved, my plan is now conquest” because he only conquests the one castle and the rest is left unclear

Upon rewatch the connection there is “killing [the wizard] felt just ... I liked that feeling”, so the show says that Isaac in the end attacked Carmilla for the sake of justice and not revenge.

Isaac in his last conversation expresses the theme of s4 “build something new on these old bones, where people can live for the future”

however, his arc honestly feel scenes were cut, and then dialogue was written around it. He’s the only living character who doesn’t show up in the epilogue and the sentient night creature “what if I could empty hell” dialogue was some of the most interesting worldbuilding. Night creatures with sentience and possibility of regaining memories!!!!

The Council of Sisters & Hector’s arc:

oh I’ve already seen s4 discourse about Lenore/Hector while searching for character analysis, a chunk of it seems to be rationalizing the absolute difference between how s3 ended with these characters and s4. It was extremely confusing for me and my friends; wondering if 1) was Hector showing more emotional intelligence than before and putting on a facade to cover up hatred? Nope 2) did more time pass than 6 weeks for there to be some kind stockholm syndrome? No, Hector seems fine to let Lenore kill herself

The slave control ring: played up in the climax of s3 and easily solved s4. s3 Lenore says if he tries to harm them, flee, or take it off it would cause crippling pain, in s4 Hector just easily cuts off his own finger.

for a control ring that they take time to show a version being on the Rebus, it doesn’t do much controlling of Hector

also guess the definition of “do harm” just refers to direct action

Lenore in s4: has no purpose in conquest, has that useless remarked on by multiple characters, is imprisoned, then kills herself after a genre aware philosophical discussion. This essay is long enough, but what the fuck happened to this character who ended s3 clearly physically and sexually abusive? Seriously this was one of the biggest writing changes to the point where she was treating Hector as an equal. Compare her last words in s3 “shh the real people [vampires] are talking”. The change in the relationship is actually something I would have taken being shown, or atleast told of what exactly caused this change other than the vague “you adopted him”

Striga&Morana get the best arc of the Council. 3 scenes: the tent argument, Daybreak armor fight & argument resolution, declaration of feelings and turning away. You could argue Castlevania is plot to be connective tissue between fight scenes, but for all the dialogue about human resistance in different seasons it was nice to see it. Overall the scenes were short but had a lot of showing what their relationship is not just telling,

unlike Carmilla. For as much hyping up as they did with her, and as much power as she had, she only appeared in 2 episodes and no other group except Isaac knew about her military conquest.

the map scene where she states her motive for conquest of wanting to take things from old men is the key example of how characterization became tell not show. How interesting was that monologue compared to the past seasons flashback to her murmuring the old vampire lord, or all her repeated insults of men/man-children that shows how she judges people??

That monologue had to carry the weight of justifying the Sisterhood bonds falling apart as well as why her motivation changed from building a human pen from Styria to Braila to world conquest. I think it did so poorly

Sypha & Trevor

really Sypha & Trevor have the main plot in the show. I checked and post season 1 the only episode they don’t appear in is s4e6, which is entirely devoted to the Isaac, Hector, and Council of Sisterhood arc. Their partnership and adventures are the main plot of the show.

Its easy to see what Trevor’s arc was over the show: coming to peace with the deaths of his family, taking up the mantle of being a Belmont, and starting a new family with Sypha.

With Sypha I actually had to scroll through tv tropes for what is her character arc, and I guess hers is disillusionment from adventure and life outside the speakers? My friends joke that Sypha’s magic is what the plot demands to look cool in a fight, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Tangent: the ending of their arc was easy to guess: as soon as Trevor went to fight the final boss alone I literally said “oh i bet Sypha’s pregnant, Trevor’s doing a heroic sacrifice, theyll use the unexplained magical dagger mcguffin, and 60/40 odds that he goes through an infinite corridor to outright come back vs just the implication he might come back”

I guess my final thought of the show, was overall the SUPER Final Boss got my by surprise. It was a good twist I enjoyed. Not that Death appeared, I had guessed that from the heavy foreshadowing, but I was surprised by who it was, because I had thought I thought the characters involved feeling shoehorned into the plot was just more bad writing. The Alchemist who put St Germain on the path or murder for no discernible motive for helping? Sure gotta move the plot along. New Dracula court member Varney who has a whole introduction with almost every character he meets and banter about his smell? Sure thats basically how all characters talk with a snarky and acerbic voice.

[tessatechaitea]

Justice League Dark #15

Don't worry. This review won't concentrate on Detective Chimp's butthole. Probably.

It always surprises me when somebody criticizes my comic book review site as being biased. I mean, yeah! I never claimed it wasn't going to be biased. But the people who accuse me of bias always do so when I critique something they love. Nobody ever stands up for the things they hate when I shit all over them in an obviously biased and subjective way! At times like that, they simply respond, "Yeah! Ann Nocenti's mother's vagina was a portal from some hell dimension where random statements with no thematic connectivity are regarded as high art! Now Tweet directly at her and call her a nasty name!" What I'm trying to say is that I understand how people think. I once listened to that one Simon and Garfunkel song that says, "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest. Mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmm mmmmmmmmm." How come the music producer didn't tell Si and Gar to not enjoy their delicious packed lunches in the middle of recording?

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice this but it made me laugh out loud for quite a while when I cropped the cover of Bridge Over Troubled Water.

I should publish all of my reviews in a manner that shows a side-by-side comparison of the review I set out to write and the review that winds up getting written. Because everything after the first sentence of the first paragraph was the train already derailed. Instead of bitching and moaning about the bias of people complaining about my bias, my brain immediately had to admit to its own bias! Stupid brain. You're supposed to hide my vulnerabilities and weaknesses to help me survive in this travesty of an attempt at polite society! How I didn't get the shit beaten out of me every other day in junior high I'll never know. No, wait. I do know how that happened. The few times people attempted to tease me, they were frustrated by either my lack of notice that they were making fun of me or my super aggressive flip-the-fuck out whirl of arms and fists and tears and screams. There were victims out there who both reacted appropriately and weren't deadly tornadoes of incomprehensible rage built up by an inability to understand how all of this human interaction was supposed to work! Sure, point out that I'm picking my nose in front of everybody but I didn't realize you were saying it to humiliate me! My nose needed picking and what was I supposed to do? Pretend, just like everybody else, that nobody picks their nose?! Okay, sure, maybe I could have realized I could have picked it in the bathroom or used a tissue or cared at all about how it looked to do it right there in front of everybody. I had the capacity to understand that because I certainly didn't jerk off in public! Usually. See that? Did you witness my brain's betrayal just when I was calling out my brain's betrayal?! Don't tell people about my habit of picking my nose in public, you stupid squishy Judas! Just do what I tell you to do, asshole! No offense, asshole. You do everything just right. You're my second favorite body part. Goddammit, brain. If you ask me to Google "chimpanzee butthole" one more time, I will stab you through my eye! I am not doing it! Who am I kidding? I'm only human. I'll definitely be Googling "chimpanzee butthole" at some point today. So Justice League Dark! Some paladin character I don't remember from the previous issue notices that there's an eclipse happening and he was just reviewing "astrological charts" which didn't reveal an eclipse was due. Bobo decides to argue with him.

I don't think Occam's Razor states, "If I can think of anything at all that's a way more mundane explanation than the one you have, my explanation must be the correct one." It's a little more complicated than "That sounds crazy therefore Occam's Razor states you're crazy or incompetent."

I'm not an expert on Occam's Razor so Occam's Razor states my explanation of it is probably incompetent or crazy. Oh, the paladin was Doctor Fate sans helmet. I wish I hadn't been circumcised so I could call my unerect penis Kent Nelson and my erect penis Doctor Fate. Anybody who follows me on Twitter is going to think they've already read this review because I just keep tweeting out all of my jokes from it. Oh fuck you! There have definitely been at least three actual jokes so far! Man-Bat looks at the eclipse and begins thinking up a new formula. Occam's Razor says he's incompetent and crazy but I bet he just came up with a new Eclipso transformation formula just by looking at the dark moon. Is that how science works? You come up with a crazy idea first and then it's just a matter of mixing a few stupid chemicals to make that idea reality? Because if so, Eureka! I just came up with a serum that will allow me to suck my own dick! Diana gives Zatanna and Doctor Fate a tour of her underground archive of magical objects.

I often give James Tynion IV a hard time but he can't be all Snyder-toadie theater nerd if he included the Ace of Winchesters in Diana's treasure hoard.

Diana's most dangerous item is Eclipso's black diamond. I'm currently rereading the 90s Eclipso comic book which was touted in the letters pages as being the first open-ended comic book focusing on a villain. I guess Deathstork didn't count even though he was an unrepentant pedophile. The series ran for 18 issues but I think I gave up on it around issue #6. Swamp Things heads off to find Circe via The Green but instead he finds Jason Woodrue, the new Flower Elemental, making a deal with the Parliament of Flowers to make the world pretty. Swamp Thing tries to stop him but Woodrue infects him with The Rot. So now he can't do anything but decompose while Detective Chimp and Doctor Fate Lite (Khalid!) try to find Abby Arcane to help him. But before they can even begin that quest, Man-bat walks in with the new serum he easily invented because the hard part of science is the imagination to come up with the invention. His new invention is a Man-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat-bat serum and it works terrifically!

Or terribly? I think it's a success. But maybe not.

Everybody seems to think Man-bat is under some kind of spell but they seem to have forgotten that he's insane. Unless we can't trust Batman's judgment on who is insane and who isn't. I mean, according to Batman, every villain that runs a gang is crazy and every thug in a gang is a criminal. Man-bat was kind of a lone criminal so maybe he's only crazy in the way all scientists are crazy? Is that a thing? I mean, Beakman was pretty fucking loony but Bill Nye seemed sane. Those are the only scientists I know. Diana, Doctor Fate, and Zatanna begin a ritual using Eclipso's black diamond to teleport Diana to the moon where she can find the center of Hecate's power. I don't know if the creative team remembered how the 90s comic had Eclipso existing between panels to narrate or if their rendition of the ritual was just a happy accident because showing him trapped in the Black Diamond just translates into Eclipso stuck between borders.

Either way, kudos. Love this page. And I don't often mention when I love art and layout so you know I'm being completely earnest here!

Wonder Woman makes it to the moon but it's haunted by something terrible. I don't know what that something is. I guess I'll find out next issue if I remember to purchase Justice League Dark #16. Justice League Dark #15 Rating: B. I like a lot of stuff going on this comic book because I like the characters so much. The creative team is doing a decent job although I'm not blown away. I'm not sure I get blown away by many comic books anymore. It's especially hard to think, "Justice League Dark really makes an insightful impact in the comic book landscape" when I'm also reading Chris Ware's Rusty Brown in which that kind of thing is happening every few pages. Maybe I shouldn't even compare the two! Just because they're using the same medium to tell their story it doesn't mean they should be given equal weight. One is mainstream entertainment and one is high art! I think. Maybe the mainstream comic is just telling a tense and action packed story and the high art comic just makes me feel like shit. So it's obvious why I think it must be high art! Anyway, go read Rusty Brown! It's terrific! And if you want to read this, it's worth it at 1994 comic book prices. So see if you can haggle this shit down to a buck seventy-five or so.

[caden]

i feel we should examine the whole idea of “do spoilers matter” or not at a deeper level then ‘people who complain about spoilers are annoying so spoiler warnings are stupid’. like the idea that a lot of you guys seem to have of “if having the plot spoiled ruins the movie for you then the plot wasnt any good anyways” seems sort of... not fully wrong but also underdeveloped to me. like, there are tons and tons and tons of stories that are widely considered to be amazing and have clear artistic merit that you absolutely wouldn’t want spoiled. Like, you wouldnt want to know darth vader was lukes father. you wouldnt want to know bruce willis was a ghost the whole time. For drama to be effective you need tension, and a very very efficient way of keeping the audience engaged is by putting them in a mindset where they’re unsure of what will happen next, or by revealing a game-changing plot twist, or by suddenly putting a character into an unexpected position. It seems totally disingenuous to me to be like ‘well it shouldnt matter to the audience whether or not they get to be surprised by what happens in the film they’re watching’. You can’t honestly believe that to be true. Being able to be surprised by a story is like one of the fundamental draws of good storytelling and probably has been for all of human history. Imagine how much worse US or Get Out or any Shakespeare play would be if you knew exactly where the plot would go before you saw it. I know there’s some research that suggests people actually enjoy stuff more if they already know what will happen but you can cast a lot of doubt on that data-- i think that it indicates more that people are more likely to appreciate a good plot once they understand it more thoroughly, hence why you might like a great movie more the second time you watch it. That doesnt mean there isnt value in the first time, it’s just a different way of viewing it.

All that said, the stuff with people not wanting spoilers for endgame has different wrinkles to it. (dont worry im not about to spoil anything). It can’t all be chalked up to ‘people care super deeply about the characters and plot and the writing is always so unpredictable and engaging that they dont want to know a single thing before going in’. Ive spent a lot of time recently thinking about the way infinity war and endgame are constructed, and they’re made in such a way that REALLY facilitates them being ‘spoiled’. because they’re written around moments. The plot isn’t so much a naturally moving thing with motivations and momentum of its own as much as a connective tissue between various cool things happening. Like, whoa, spider-man just met the guardians of the galaxy. oh sick, theyre in wakanda. holy shit, half of them died. Endgame goes REAAAAAALLY hard on this style of writing. And as a method of milking emotion from the audience, it really really works. Assuming the moments themselves are all effective, you’re guaranteeing constant engagement because every three minutes another epic thing is gonna happen. And I think when people fault marvel fans for being obsessed with spoiler warnings, this style of filmmaking is really what they’re trying to critique. because there’s a suggestion that if your movie is just jumping from crazy twist to shocking death to funny reference to epic fight, you’re losing the thing that should actually be the connective tissue of a film-- its themes, character arcs, ideas, setting... etc. And while I personally don’t think those things are mutually exclusive, (bc i do believe that infinity war and endgame genuinely have themes they try to discuss), i would also agree with the argument that reliance on shocking moments over actual ideas is bad writing. But as I mentioned earlier, a filmmaker like Jordan Peele whose works are generally agreed to be very good also uses this writing style-- his plots escalate via twists and turns and are expertly constructed to keep the audience wondering what’ll happen next, and he does a really great job with it. 

Now, i DEFINITELY think there’s an argument for ‘disney intentionally plays up the spoiler warning angle in a way that’s ultimately toxic to the filmmaking process’. Like I don’t believe that the “tom holland doesnt get to read the script” stuff is true, I 100% think it’s all a publicity stunt-- but they shouldnt be setting a precedent that makes people think doing something like that to a lead actor is acceptable. It’s not how films should be made, and the only reason I’m sure its all fake is because I have enough filmmaking experience to know itd literally be impossible to efficiently shoot a big-budget film under those conditions. Of course all the buzz about endgame spoilers is HUGELY beneficial to their marketing teams, so obviously they’re gonna go hard as hell on enforcing that narrative. Like they 100% WANT everyone to both be spoiling the movie and getting anxious about having the movie spoiled, because its all free advertising for them. But in terms of ‘big movie studios having greedy practices that harmfully affect the artistic process and make their films worse’, its incredibly low on the list of bad stuff that studios do imo. 

So, like, if you’re gonna critique all the various aspects of that, I think you should A) put your efforts towards exposing all the spoiler panic through the lens of how it affects the way that films are produced and consumed, or B) put your efforts towards analyzing the media itself, watch the film and ask ‘is this film more engaging and well-made because of its reliance on moments that can be spoiled? If no, why is that not working? If yes, is that engagement coming at a cost or is it justified? Essentially, I’d like to feel that the criticism was either coming from a social angle or an artistic one. And if that were the case I think i’d have less of an issue with it. Just saying “people are dumb for caring about spoilers” is silly. Maybe it’s dumb, but that’s not the point. People will consume media however they want to and if they want to care about spoilers then they have a right to care. You guys aren’t wrong if you think marvel shit is stupid and badly made, because art is subjective and no opinion on it is wrong. But other people also aren’t wrong for liking and caring about it, and being like ‘we should spoil it for them to teach them a lesson” is gross and totally unproductive. I know 99% of it is jokes but you gotta remember that some people have spent a very long time being very excited to see this movie and doing something that wrecks that for them is just mean and inconsiderate. It’s not about whether them feeling that way is stupid or not, because yeah, it’s stupid to be that invested in superhero movies. It’s about it not being cool to intentionally hurt someone just because you can. And the reason i don’t have a lot of tolerance for it is because I feel like saying “caring about spoilers is stupid” is a kneejerk, surface level attempt at media criticism and we can do better. I obviously care pretty deeply about the way we consume and criticize pop culture and i think it’s in everyone’s benefit to have more productive discourse about this stuff. No ill will towards my friends who are saying the things that i’m ragging on, i obviously don’t think it’s coming from a malicious place or anything-- this is just my read on the situation. Was gonna post this like two days ago but then decided someone would prob message me a spoiler because of it lol