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fandomplethora · 6 years ago

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Jihyun’s AE & Rika’s Behind Story

and the theme of forgiveness and letting go.

so, this is strictly my opinion, not meant to upset anyone or start arguments - just where i stand on everything at this moment. this game always has a way of making you reevaluate things and reflect more. also, they have a way of throwing major facts in to really turn the story to a somewhat new direction. so, again, this is my opinion - and...i’m writing this so i can get my thoughts organized after staying up all night completing everything. just a warning - this is going to be a very, v e r y long post.

SPOILERS AHEAD.

i saw many people complaining about Jihyun not being in his own AE that much. and, i understand that, because they hyped it up by releasing it on Valentine’s Day making it seem like the AE was going to take place, perhaps, after him and MC reunite at the party. but...i think that the way they did it actually answered a lot more of our questions.

because the main complaint of Another Story was that it seemed like for whoever you saved, the other would be sacrificed. (Jihyun’s Route - they left us thinking Saeran was dead and on Saeran’s Route, Jihyun disappears with Rika & Saeyoung and Vanderwood are kidnapped by the Prime Minister.) to show everything all romantic and “lovey dovey” (as Zen and Yoosung would say) - with just showing the fate of the other characters as a passing thought, would have really made audiences/players upset too. at least, it would have for me. this route and AE, and just Another Story as a whole, was not just about romance. (just like in the other routes too.) it is about support and healing and recovery and self acceptance. and then romance.

Saeyoung, Jihyun and Saeran (a n d Rika/Mina) are three/four of the characters most wrapped up in this main storyline. with Jumin and Yoosung right behind them and Hyun and Jaehee and Vanderwood behind them. (this is not me rating the characters or saying how important they are - at the end of the day, they are all equally involved in this story and have equal bearing on it. i’m just saying that Jihyun and Mina were at the center of the RFA as an organization and they are the ones who “adopted” Saeyoung and Saeran. Jumin is Jihyun’s best friend/family and, by proxy, Rika’s friend, and Yoosung is Rika’s adoptive cousin. Zen and Jaehee had no previous connection to the situation before the RFA. Vanderwood kind of did by being Saeyoung’s colleague and, later, good friend but...again, he had no awareness or connection to the situation as a whole. the last three became involved later after becoming friends with everyone and involved in the RFA.) but, by the time we d o reach present day with the RFA and the timeline of their routes and AE’s...everyone, e v e r y o n e, is involved and has equal weight in the situation.

okay, but back to what i was saying, the reason why, i believe, Cheritz created “episodes” for Jihyun’s route is the same reason Saeyoung had secret endings attached to his route. there was so much more to uncover, discover and solve. it’s the same reason we have Rika’s Behind Story. there was a lot more to add to the situation. and, why, i believe (and hope), they will do the same thing for Saeran’s AE too. these four characters are so deeply wrapped up in each other’s past, present and future - it is needed to delve deeper. and, depending on which route’s AE or SE you are doing - it IS going to be from t h e i r perspective and what leads to the best outcome and understanding for t h e m.

Cheritz gave us the option to “Forgive” or “Judge” because of the controversy surrounding Rika. but, also, because of Jihyun. and what was needed for him and his fate. the “forgiveness” ending seems to be the better of the two because it is what truly lead to closure for him (and everyone else). Jihyun took j u s t as much blame onto himself with how everything went down. it’s why he needed time away. to find himself again but, also, do what he could to make up for his mistakes. and he could only do that, and truly heal himself, by helping Saeran. and, in the end, i think being together with Jihyun helped Saeran heal as well. they were both victims of Rika but also carried so much guilt onto themselves for their actions though it was the product of manipulation and/or brainwashing. they helped each other heal. t h a t is what Jihyun was doing what he was for those two years. (contrary to the previous belief that he was just traveling by himself.)

(let the record show that i have not completed the Judge AE, only the Forgive AE, and don’t plan to, this is going off of what other people have said about it.)

so, forgiveness. i think Hyun said it best. he basically said that forgiveness is something you do for yourself and your happiness. i have always believed that. everyone had mixed feelings about everything because Rika is the one who still brought them all together and did do a lot of good. but then...she also had this other side of her that she hid away that hurt so many.

i think what is getting lost in translation is that...forgiveness is not excusing. forgiveness is something that helps you let go of the past. they never excused what she did. there is even a line MC says about this. “it doesn’t excuse what she did but...” (something like that.) they are not being selfless by forgiving Rika. it was the only way to move on. because by forgiving Rika...they also all forgave each other. Jihyun, Saeyoung, Saeran and the rest of the RFA.

i believe in all of this. but i am also a person that believes that people can still be held accountable even though we forgive them. while i never endured the level of abuse that these characters did - i have lived in an emotionally/mentally/verbally abusive and manipulative home with someone at the center of (most of) it. and they a r e a toxic person who has suffered from past trauma and current mental illness who refuses to see the affect of their actions and get help. their actions hurt others. when being around them consistently, it is hard to forgive them. but i believe in forgiveness, at a distance, is necessary at times. just because you forgive, it doesn’t mean you need to let them back in or repeat history. it does not mean you excuse them. you acknowledge it and make them accountable. they need to know what they did. but you forgive them too, for you. because how i chose to handle it is that...i don’t wish them ill will. that anger inside of me i felt for so long actually hurt me more. made me change who i was. i recognize that we are not people we need to have in each others lives. for the sake of our mental health and happiness and future. ...and i’m still, even today, working on the forgiveness part. (i would probably need a couple years away to do so too...and i didn’t go through nearly as much as the MM characters did.) but i do think it is something i need to do...for me. just like they needed to do what they did for them.

so, i do wish Rika had been held more accountable. b u t, in a sense, she was. e v e r y t h i n g came out. what she did and said. what happened within the RFA. who the Prime Minister really was and who Saeyoung and Saeran really were. and, i thought, at first...all of her guilt was just a lapse and/or manipulation. but she was actually feeling guilty - but, more than that, she turned herself in. she admitted she was wrong. she helped reveal who the Prime Minister was. while she did not serve time or spend time in treatment...she achieved self love as well. self revelation, in a sense. but...i know the question - at what cost? and that’s the part that gets me.

but i don’t think that things would have turned out the same if other things had not gone the same way. as in, if Saeyoung and Saeran had not been brought back together, if the Prime Minister was still after them, if Jihyun hadn’t done what he was able to...she would not have been able to move on either as she did. i, personally, think that it would have shown even more true growth if she had served time (and been held accountable by the law more) in a mental health facility and then came back the other side still with her new perspective and continued going to therapy even when she was out. (but i have read that she was still held accountable by the public.) (and, side note, w o w - the public really came through for the other situations as well.)

in reality - i just don’t know if this is because of the lack of awareness of mental health in Korea that i have heard other people mention, but another thing that left me with mixed feelings is that...Rika is not just magically better. (while her actions a r e her choices) she has severe past trauma, abuse and mental illness that is n o t her fault that she needs professional help for. this has not changed. so, i did not like how she just went off on her own, to live her own life, without this being further addressed. going along with the previous paragraph, i think a way to properly approach these facts is to show her accepting treatment as well. not just show a conversation with God and then, bam, that’s it. that is not how it works. if religion or some kind of revelation helps you, that’s great. but it can’t be the only step. Rika...Mina is sure to have relapses, is sure to have moments when those dark thoughts come back. she needs professional help and continued treatment to help her learn how to deal with these facts and separate who she really is from them. that is what having anxiety, depression, PTSD, BPD, personality disorders...whatever you feel she has, is about. her symptoms are not her fault, her actions and reactions to them are what she is to be held accountable for. to show her receiving treatment again, as she even does go live her own life, would have been a healthy message. also, again, to show her having consequences for her actions but then still coming out better on the other side would have been okay too. the discussion with God was very deep but even She said that there are things Rika had to do for the sake of the future still. i just hope that maybe ongoing treatment is mentioned for her in the future.

also, in terms of legal action, if we are thinking about this in reality - what about all the other hundreds of believers she had with her at Mint Eye. where is their closure as well? i don’t know. i also don’t know if maybe there are other things just left out of the AE or Behind Story that have not been mentioned yet.

but, as a whole, Mystic Messenger’s (and Cheritz’s) theme of forgiveness is a positive one. because while we can talk all day about “what about justice?”, “what about consequences?”, “what message does this send?”, “what about people being held accountable?” - this all comes down to opinion and interpretation. what Rika did was wrong. it was. that has not changed. i have made previous points and posts about her and those still stand. mental illness and past trauma are not an excuse for abuse. but one thing that has changed is that she did try to truly make up for it, even at the cost of turning herself in. she did. is that enough after everything? well, again, that comes down to your opinion.

because there are many who don’t like Mina. and there are people who don’t like Hyun. there are people who don’t like Yoosung. Jaehee. Jumin, Saeyoung, Jihyun, Saeran. Vanderwood. even people who don’t like MC! don’t like their actions, their personalities and whatever else.

(me, well, if you follow me or look at my blog...i love all eight characters with all of my heart and i have always had mixed feelings about Rika too. i also really like MC as a character too. (but i also have the opinion of, as long as you are not being abusive about it or taking an unhealthy stance on it, you can have whatever opinion you want.)

i don’t think the AE and the Behind Story was to make us like Rika. it was just explanations, more answers, another perspective to truly allow us to come to our own conclusions. we can still think what we think, keep our stances and have your favorite or not-so-favorite characters. this entire update was just granting us more insight into Mystic Messenger’s storyline. and about finding closure in a way that works for the characters and how they are written.

this game and story is different because they have very serious and deep themes that truly affect players and audiences. that could, hopefully, help us.

themes of mental illness, emotional/mental/verbal/physical/sexual abuse, forgiveness, friendship, family, trust, recovery/healing, letting go and love.

so, i will say this...one thing i greatly, greatly enjoyed...was how the RFA really came together and worked together. there were no secrets, there was open communication. they were physically all together at times even, apart from the party. they were there for each other. a l l o f t h e m. the only “secret” in this was the fact that Saeran truly was alive and saved by Jihyun. but they already suspected him to be alive at least, though i wish he would have came forward sooner. but i think it worked out in the end because it showed Saeran able to come forward (more) comfortably and reunite with his brother. Jihyun helped him recover in those two years. granting Saeran the time he needed along with Jihyun, away from everything.

as Jumin or Jaehee said...“we promised no more secrets” and everyone kept their end of the bargain.

this update showed so many different sides to all of the characters. Hyun and Jaehee continually trying to be understanding while also incredibly real with the situation, Yoosung’s reevaluation of everything and confrontation of the cousin he so admired, Jumin’s conversations with Saeyoung and how much he helped him. while he cares about his company it came second to the RFA, his family and Saeyoung’s situation. Vanderwood even talking Saeyoung down and being there for him, choosing to protect Saeyoung and, in the end, the RFA as well. Jihyun and Saeran’s recovery process. and, of course, even Mina’s transformation.

could some things have been done better? yes. should they have taken a different approach to the subject of mental health? yes. should they have left trigger warnings for the AE’s and Behind Story? hell yes. (the one thing i a m genuinely upset about.)

but, this update brought new things to the table. it is good writing to write such deep and flawed and human characters. because we are all deep, flawed and imperfect. it is what makes us human. again, yes, how some things were handled could have been better. i am not in denial about that. but, overall, i was happy to see all of our characters happy.

t h a t is the point. how you may handle things in your real life is your choice. and, so, how this AE ended is what brought these characters happiness and closure after everything.

i wanted to see them all together, helping one another. i wanted them all alive and healthy and happy and i got that. and i was overjoyed to see that after everything that happened.

i know many have their opinions on why Cheritz did this how they did. i know and i get it. but...this is just where i stand. many different emotions/feelings but, overall, grateful.

my only wishes left are; that the same respect is granted for Saeran’s After Ending. some are thinking there might still be a Rika Route and are still wanting to see a Vanderwood Route. i just hope, if there is a Rika Route, it is handled well and with respect and healthily. and i am one of those hopeful for a Vanderwood Route too with how much he has become involved, especially in Another Story. and, also, that their AE’s, if they get a route, end well.

i also wish that the other characters’ routes’ After Endings could have happened without any sacrifice as well.

and, i am just saying this for kicks, but if we get nine Routes, nine After Endings, the Secret Endings, the DLC’s...i would be satisfied. i also am still a believer in releasing a finale. a “Final Story”, on top of this, where everyone is equally involved and there is no one character to be pursued and it is just trying to solve the mystery that is the RFA, helping each character and helping them reach an ending where all of them are together and happy.

but that is still just my thing. and maybe they’ll save t h a t plot for the tv show. ;-)

no matter what...say Cheritz no longer updates after the release of Saeran’s AE, i will still be forever grateful to them and this game. this game has taught me a lot and the lessons i have taken from the story have truly begun reflecting in my own life. and this update was no different.

i love Mystic Messenger.

it is truly a game so much deeper than it’s surface appearance and genre. it is a bigger story than we thought...and may not always like, depending. but that comes with, no matter what, such wonderfully written characters that have taught me so much and i love with all my heart.

so thank you, again, to Cheritz and their staff. and for the kind and inspirational words that their VA’s left us as well.

and thank you to -

Hyun

Yoosung

Jaehee

Jumin

Saeyoung

Jihyun

Saeran

Vanderwood

and even Mina

and to MC

i can’t wait to see what is released next. what new additions to the story will come. and what new updates and events there will be in store. but, first...take care of yourselves, Cheritz! you deserve it. <3

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themediareviewer · 7 years ago

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Pan (2015)

Directed by Joe Wright. Family/fantasy movie.

Okay, so this is the type of movie that I feel I will come to disagree with my own opinion in a few years. I’ll explain why. I think I speak for all of us when I say that nowadays it’s quite hard to watch a movie without having ANY preconceived ideas of it. Either we’ve watched the trailer (one of those here-is-the-whole-plot-of-the-movie-except-for-maybe-the-last-two-minutes kind of trailers), or perhaps one of our friends has watched it and talked about it heatedly, or maybe we’ve gotten 5,839,286 GIFs of the movie on our feed and already know most of the whole plot.

My point is that, by the point when we sit down to watch a movie, many times, we have already formed an opinion about it. Sometimes, the movie has been so hyped up by our friends that when we watch it, our expectations are not met and we end up not like the movie, period. Or, on the contrary, the media has been so harsh with the movie, that when it’s anything more than a catastrophe, you actually end up enjoying it.

When I walked into Pan, I did NOT have a good image of the movie. I had read somewhere (and this is a bit of information that I have NOT managed to confirm since then), that although the story of Peter Pan has become public domain, people who use the story still pay the copyrights to the owner. Why, you ask? Because the actual “owner” of the story, writer J.M. Barrie transferred the copyright to the Great Ormond Street Hospital , which is a children’s hospital in London. In fact, in the strongly-worded article I had read at the time, the article’s writer had specified how important that source of income was for the hospital, and how it helped a lot of children (a good writer always appeals to the heart of its readers, right?). Now, it was said (and this is the part I have failed to confirm, please let me know if you find an article about it) that this iteration of Peter Pan chose NOT to pay the copyrights. I mean, no one is actually obliged to do it… but it does seem like the right thing to do, particularly when you think of today’s movie stars’ salaries (which can go up to millions of dollars), donating part of the revenue of your million-dollar movie to a hospital of children, doesn’t seem like such a hard thing to do.

In other words, this movie was already not looking good to me as a person (I am the type of person who can’t fully separate the artist from the art, and although I won’t go on about it here, I will say that I preferred not to buy this movie, and only watched it when it came to Netflix). In addition to that whole internal debate about watching the movie or not, I also found a lot of reviews about this movie when I was trying to confirm the information in the paragraph above. And they were all extremely negative, with scores going from 0 stars out of 5, to 23%, to “YOU SHOULD JUST NOT WATCH THIS” kind of reviews.

So, when I sat down to watch this movie and I first met the main character, I was astounded to realize that I quite liked him. Played by Levi Miller, he was easily one of the best parts of the movie. But even more surprisingly, I was FLOORED when I noticed I was actually enjoying myself! I almost felt ashamed by that point. “How can you like a movie that might be STEALING money from sick CHILDREN????” my heart would scream. But then my eyes and my ears and my love for art started to speak louder and I realized that some aspects of this movie were truly worth talking about.

I’ll start by the easy one: the soundtrack by John Powell. If the first thought in your head after reading those words is, “Who the hell is John Powell?”, don’t worry, that’s normal. I do have a very soft spot for soundtracks and one of my favourite of all times is from How to Train Your Dragon (2010) by (you guessed it!) John Powell. The way he layers different instruments together is breathtaking and clearly resembles the rush of feelings you might get when you’re flying — a theme that is very relevant to both movies might I add. I listened to this soundtrack after having watched the movie, and even individually, these songs are wonderfully crafted. The first few chords of the “Opening Overture” pulled at my heartstrings, and “Kidnapped/Galleon Dog Fight” had me excited for everything this movie promised. Even the song, “Smells like Teen Spirit” (or how I call it, “Hello, Hello, How Low”) is so wonderfully dark, I had chills at the power of hundreds of voices singing it together; and then Hugh Jackman’s evil voice joins in and the all is deliciously creepy. Unfortunately, it was intercut with unnecessary jokes and the movie’s tone doesn’t live up to the song. Nevertheless, if anything positive should be coming out of the movie, the soundtrack is definitely the one.

Now, if you’ll allow me a second positive element to take out of this movie, I’d say that the circus elements were visually stunning. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that all of the art directing was brilliant, because the indigenous section of the movie was very weak on that front. (In almost all fronts really, but I’ll get to that later.) However, the circus-themed aspects of the movie were pretty enticing -- and had this style been consistent throughout the movie, it could have been one of my favourite art directing in a while. However, it wasn’t. We only had a few glimpses of it, such as when we first see the pirates of Neverland: in an otherwise dark room, one yellow spotlight lit up, a pirate dropped from the ceiling, with an elastic clearly wrapped around his waist, snatched something up, and slipped back up out of view. The snappy timing of the situation, the comically elaborate costumes and the whole theatricality of the sequence made it all very surreal and visually intriguing. Again, I wish this circus theme had stayed throughout the movie, because the rest of it simply did not live up to it.

This leads me to the next point which is where I will shift into negative gear. Now, from the beginning of this review, you probably thought I was going to say this movie was genius, but fear not; those reviews online had good reason to criticize this movie. And my reason for joining them is because the aspects that this movie gets wrong, it gets really wrong.

The first aspect that bothered me was the inconsistency in tone. The beginning of this movie is quite delightful in my opinion -- a sort of “Home Alone” vibe, as my friend called it. Adults are quite simply caricatures of adults, and the children are the real heroes of the story. That in itself was a tiny movie that begins with (**tiny spoiler**) Peter at the orphanage and ends with him and Nibs finding something they were not looking for (**end of spoiler**). Then, the second movie begins: an action movie where Peter is forced into a dark, adult world where death, slavery and capitalism are ever present; this, by far is the strongest part of the movie in my opinion. The conversation between Peter and Blackbeard in the Captain’s Cabin is one of the most chilling sequences I have ever seen. Their age difference is so obvious displayed, thanks to the difference in the complexity of their dialogue and interests. I was very positively impressed by the scene’s depth, and particularly by Hugh Jackman’s acting.

From then on, the movie goes downhill. It becomes your usual very-bad-adaptation of a story, with corny costumes, weird character development and quite frankly, racism left to right. I’m not one to hammer on socially inadequate problems, because I’m afraid of joining in today’s abuse of the term “politically correct”. However, this movie really did some very poor decisions on that front. I mean, the most violent character is the only prominent dark-skinned character; the only traitor is the Indian-looking character; the only character that can barely speak English is Asian; and the only strong indigenous character is played by a white actress. I mean. It’s hard to defend casting decisions like that.

Apart from that, although the special effects were pretty good, the integration between them and the characters was a bit… jarring. By that, I mean that sometimes we would see an extreme long shot (shot from very far) of a CGI battle taking place, then suddenly cut to a close-up of the character’s reaction to the battle... and not for one second did I believe that those two shots were taking place at the same at the same time and space. My movie-geek mind could just see the actors standing in front of a green screen and some director yelling at them “PRETEND TO REACT TO THIS!! REMEMBER THIS IS ALL VEEEERY SCARY!!” The soundtrack and quality of the actors themselves almost fixed this feeling, but I couldn’t quite shake it off. This CG oddness got considerably more relevant whenever flying characters were involved; it was very difficult for me to believe that they were part of the same world as the non-flying characters, which took me away from the story in numerous occasions.

Finally, one of my biggest problems was the character of Hook. I won’t say much about him in respect for those who want to watch the movie spoiler free, but let’s just say that as an origin story, it felt quite thrown together and poorly developed. His motivations were nebulous to say to least and it’s difficult to see how he and the Captain Hook we know turn out to be the same person. And if they truly do, then I would love to see that happening, because what I saw so far did not sell me on that story point.

Not only that, but it felt like a wasted opportunity to make something incredible. Imagine if (** Spoilers ahead till the end of this paragraph**) after Peter gets taken to Neverland, Peter’s best friend, Nibs actually grows up and becomes bitter. And suppose, that when Peter does come back for him, Nibs has become a self-reliant old man, whose life was so sad and lonely, that his only drive to live was to hate that “blasted Peter Pan” who left him rotting in that orphanage. Now suppose that at some point in the movie, you find out that Nibs’ last name is actually Hook. I mean, wouldn’t you have lost your mind a tiny little bit? Wouldn’t it have been superb if Peter turned out to be the originator of his own nemesis? Wouldn’t it be tragic if, child-minded Peter doesn’t see the bitterness in Nibs-turned-Hook, and continues to play hero-versus-villain with his best friend for the rest of his days? Meanwhile, Nibs-Hook is actually trying to get to Peter, but can’t quite bring himself to kill him because they were best friends once? (**End of Spoiler**) Now that would have been true to the creepy, deep tone that the movie had established in the beginning, and could have actually done justice to the great character of Captain Hook.

In fact, as ridiculous as this might sound, I believe that the lack of time was part of this movie’s problem. “Wait, you’re saying you wanted more of this??” I hear you rage. Well, sort of, yes. I think this movie had a lot of rich material they could have explored, particularly in the dark aspects, like the slavery and war. The contrast between innocent children and truly infamous world is a hard sell, but a very possible one, if Stranger Things (2016) has taught me anything.

The indigenous people also felt thrown into the story for me, and even seemed unnecessary the way they were presented. Their fighting style didn’t seem particularly unique (or effective), their costumes were not particularly rich, and their intentions seemed to come from a glorified past we didn’t get to see. I feel like they had to be there because they were in the original story, but their necessity in this movie was questionable.

Now, if the movie had had more time, say, (**Spoilers ahead**) if the first movie had focused simply on Blackbeard’s exploitation of pixum and Peter’s escape from the compound, then the second one could have been about Peter discovering Neverland and its inhabitants (the tribe, the fairies, the mermaids), and the third movie could be the climax where Peter rises up against Blackbeard and the Pirates (**end of spoilers**).

Again, I know this would all never happen, because producers don’t like investing in something they’re not sure will sell. They would hardly invest in three Peter Pan origin movies, particularly if the first one did as badly as Pan did. But as usual, I am speaking from a story standpoint. And although I understand that people claim that the world has simply “moved on” from the notion of Peter Pan, the boy who never grew up, I think that if we had had the time to explore a new, original Neverland, we could have been sold into loving Peter again. This movie could have reawaken the joys of being a child into many viewers’ hearts. But instead, it settled for being a rushed movie, with clashing themes, and brilliant aspects just begging to be explored. Now, it’s true that, as I said in the beginning, my expectations for this movie might have been so low, I ended up finding too many redeeming points about it, and maybe one day I’ll come to disagree with myself about all this. But for now, I honestly feel that this is one of the only bad movies I wish they had done more of.

#movies #review #mediareviewer #pan #joe wright #levi miller #hugh jackman #adaptation #frustration #j m barrie #john powell

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