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neon-moon-beam · 3 years ago

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Breaking Down The Known Ways Ingo Could Have Gotten To Hisui + My Theory Based On The Most Likely Option

There’s really only a few options within the Pokémon canon currently that would be responsible, so I thought I’d break them down. I organized the scenarios from least likely to most likely. This doesn’t mean I absolutely 100% without a doubt believe the most likely option is what happened, just that I see the most evidence for it and have built a bit of a theory around it.

This took me a long time to put together due to the research involved, editing to be as succinct as I could make it, the fact that I have a life outside of Pokémon and being online, as well as being a bit burnt out on PLA. It was around 8 pages in Word; much longer than any of my previous posts! So be warned that this is a longer post.

I was working on this before the PLA Guide Book was released. The “XX Years Ago” isn’t factored in because not only would it likely not impact any of these scenarios, but we don’t know what numbers the “XX” was supposed to indicate, and the concept art hasn’t been confirmed yet as being canon.

I did, however, make a compilation of evidence suggesting Ingo has not been in Hisui for a decade or more, and if you haven’t already, you may want to read it as some of the information in there factors in to some potential scenarios in this post.

That being said, I don’t want to discuss theories or headcanons with people. I prefer to post for people who may want to read it, but to be honest, I don’t have the time, energy or desire to engage like that. If you disagree, that’s fine. Just please make your own post instead of adding to mine.

Bl*nkshippers dni—I will block you.

Major plot spoilers ahead.

One of the Pokémon (other than Arceus) with time-travel or dimensional travel capabilities sent him back:

First of all, Dialga and Palkia are out of commission prior to, and during the events of PLA thanks to Volo’s actions, so one of them using time or dimensional travel is out. As the game is now, there’s a lack of anything considered outside of the Hiusi PokéDex making it unlikely it was any of the others, such as Celebi or Hoopa. Ingo saying he’s from “another world” is probably because the few things he does remember are so different from Hisui that it seems like one; it might not be a literal statement. We also have no evidence that it was a Pokémon not seen in the game that sent him back, and it would be unsatisfying and even a cheap move for them to tell us later that a Pokémon we don’t see was responsible. We also don’t have any motive for a random Pokémon to have done this to him. This is the least likely way he got to Hisui. I don’t think I really have to explain this one further.

Volo Personally Sent Him Back In Time By Accident Or On Purpose:

This one has nearly no evidence for it. Again, it might help if you read my post about how long Ingo has been in Hisui in order to get a bit more background on Volo’s creation of the Rift and the implication of his interaction with Ingo.

Let me first point out two things: First and foremost, fan interpretations of Volo have started to go far beyond anything we can actually confirm with PLA. He’s bitter, a little entitled at times (he believed Arceus should appear to him based on his status as a descendant of the Celestica and his insistence on meeting it) and he has some moments where he’s unhinged, notably the closer you are in the plot to the fight with him, but there’s little evidence to suggest he’s a sadistic edgelord who wanted to inflict as much suffering as possible on the world.

The second is we don’t know too much about Volo’s backstory, his motive, or what happens after the events of PLA. The last we hear of him is that he told Laventon he was defeated by the player character, to continue the Dex, and it would be the last time they would meet. He says he will meet Arceus no matter how many “years, decades, or centuries” it takes him. Is this meant to be taken literally? There’s a lot suggesting Cogita may be immortal and/or a time traveler, so is Volo the same (and what is their relationship to each other and Cynthia)? Cogita also doesn’t seem too concerned about Volo being out there, both before and after his defeat. There’s a lot that could be going on here, but we aren’t shown in-game so far, and as this post is about how Ingo could have arrived in Hisui, I won’t be going into that here. The takeaway from this is we don’t know enough about his motives, or if he would even have ever known Ingo in another time, to determine whether or not he would have had any reason or motive to specifically send Ingo back in time to Hisui.

Moving on, Volo doesn’t seem to have much control over the Space-Time Rift. Despite having Giratina make it, he had to wait for Dialga and Palkia to come through it, which seems to have taken a few months at least. If Volo was able to transport people and Pokémon from the Rift at will, why not just pull Dialga and Palkia out immediately? And more importantly, why bring one man he’s never met before back in time? Volo wanted to remake the world as he desired, but he never mentioned wanting to rip people from their friends, families, and homes and throw them across time and space before then. If he had wanted to do that and had the ability to, there should have been more people other than Ingo, and Pokémon not native to Hisui appearing. He also seems to have no idea how Ingo got to Hisui, as evidenced by him asking if Ingo thought his memory loss had to do with the Rift. Considering no other characters (save for the player character to a degree that’s debatable) have amnesia, and the Rift itself is obviously not just inflicting amnesia on people in Hisui, this is likely Volo discreetly trying to get information. He’s probably aware by this point, if not all along, that the player character was sent by Arceus to stop him. There’s a lot of overlap between the player character and Ingo; amnesia, unexplained arrival in Hisui from somewhere unknown, natural affinity for catching and training Pokémon, gets along easily with Nobles (Ingo is made a Warden, the player character is given a Celestica Flute to call them at any time and quells the frenzied ones with ease). Volo may have been trying to determine if Ingo had also been sent to Hisui to stop him. It’s not likely he was trying to get a kick out of faking concern and sympathy for someone he had secretly inflicted pain upon.

Faller Theory:

I’ve talked about why Ingo most likely isn’t a Faller here, so I won’t delve into the details of that post here, but I do have more to add regarding gimmicks in the mainline games, Ultra Wormholes, and more comparisons with Anabel.

Besides the lack of Ultra Beasts and any mention of Ultra Wormholes, from Gen 6 onwards, each Gen seems to have a gimmick that has only been seen in either the region it was introduced in, or has only made it to the next Gen and then disappeared. Mega Evolution, introduced in Gen 6, has not been seen since 7. So far, Z-Moves have not been seen outside of Alola. Dynamaxing has been left in Galar; it did not make it into BDSP or PLA despite being in the same Gen, but the plot of SwSh also tells us why Dynamaxing is exclusive to Galar. There is an Ultra Wormhole in the back of the Dynamax Lair in the Crown Tundra, but this was likely to allow the Ultra Beasts to be obtainable in SwSh (which more or less just handed us these things), and it seems likely that Gen 7 and SwSh happen at the same time as each other. The Pokémon in the Den have no bearing on the plot itself, are optional, and the Ultra Wormhole in the Den doesn’t affect anything, nor are there any Fallers mentioned in regards to it.

So with that said, Hisui’s gimmick is Space-Time Distortions. They’re not Ultra Wormholes; they’re a result of Volo using Giratina to make the main rift. The ones that appear in addition to the main one, or even after the main one closes, are sort of like aftershocks. Unless they do a DLC for PLA that incorporates Ultra Wormholes and Ultra Beasts, they’re absent from Hisui. It would be a bit of a cop out to have a character arrive in Hisui this way with literally no mention or indication that a mechanic we’ve seen in games before was how they got there, and many people would be disappointed by the omission of the Ultra Beasts if this were the case.

A lot of people have compared Ingo to Anabel, but his appearance in PLA is markedly different from hers in Alola; Anabel appears happy and has her original team with her, and her memories are far more gone than Ingo’s. In fact, Looker tells the player more about Anabel than Anabel herself. She doesn’t even know she’s a Faller. Ingo, meanwhile, looks absolutely miserable even if he’s positive and supportive when speaking to people. He remembers more as time goes on, from having a Fire-type partner Pokémon, to “someone who looked a lot like” him, to the fact that training and battling Pokémon was the norm where he came from. And he never forgot the train stuff even though there isn’t a single train in Hisui to remind him. There’s far more focus on who he was prior to arriving in Hisui and the fragments of his backstory than there are on Anabel’s past.

While people can be in Ultra Wormholes for a short time with little consequence (as evidenced by the player traveling through them in Alola), there’s one more point to consider: Ingo did not have his Pokémon with him, despite the fact that their PokeBalls were almost certainly on him in whatever point in time he was snatched from (he did arrive in his work uniform, after all). All the options discussed in this post, save for one, would have essentially sent him through time with whatever he currently had on him, including his Pokémon. For them to not be with him, suggesting they were intentionally left behind by whatever or however he time traveled, and having memories that are still there but mostly inaccessible compared to Anabel (and Mohn) seems to indicate however he time-traveled was not an Ultra Wormhole.

The Space-Time Rift (Or A Space-Time Distortion) Alone:

Let me start this off by talking about the player character for a bit. The game shows us as soon as it’s booted up for the first time that Arceus itself sends the player character back in time to Hisui. All the other characters believe them to have fallen from the sky, out of the Rift. However, the game never actually confirms Arceus sent the player character through the Rift.

It’s much more likely that after Arceus handpicked the player character it transported them to Hisui in a more unique way. We see Arceus’ realm at the start of the game, and it looks nothing like the Rift, and when it uses its powers to send the player character to Hisui, and the times it does something via the Arc Phone, its power is shown as a golden light. However, Arceus can make rifts identical to the one made by Giratina, as its seen warping through them during the fight with it. It could have made a much smaller rift to send the player character to Hisui, and immediately closed it back up. It’s unlikely that Laventon saw a much smaller rift above Prelude Beach and confused it for the Rift above Mt. Coronet. It doesn’t make sense, and later he is able to differentiate Space-Time Distortions, which have small rifts in the air above the area, from the Space-Time Rift. It’s much more likely that he never saw the actual transportation method, just the player character hitting the ground.

Also consider that the player character wouldn’t just have fallen out of the Rift at the top of Mt. Coronet; they would have shot halfway across Hisui to land at Prelude Beach. Laventon just sees them drop from the sky after his Pokémon take off towards where they’ll land (potentially his Pokémon were signaled by Arceus to do so). He likely only really saw the split second before the player character hit the ground. In a world where there isn’t any type of aircraft and most people do not keep Pokémon, let alone fly on them (Braviary being an exception) and with no flying Pokémon at the scene, what other explanation does Laventon have other than the player character came out of a hole in the sky that appeared recently that has everyone concerned? The Rift is strange to the people in Hisui, and so is the player character. People are interpreting events in the only way they can. Also note that some of the people who are sure the player character came from the Rift are some of the same people who wonder if the player character is a monster in human guise, has magical powers when the Rift worsens, and after the battle on Prelude Beach, Kamado questions if the player is a “divine being”. We all know the player character is just a regular person from Hisui’s future who has a natural talent for raising and battling with Pokémon, and that Arceus itself sent them to Hisui. NPCs can also be wrong that the time-traveling was done via the Space-Time Rift Volo had Giratina open.

While Akari/Rei shows some concern that if the Rift is closed, the player character won’t be able to go back to their “world”, the only options the player is given to respond with is that they don’t know if that’s true. After Dialga and Palkia are captured and the Rift closes, they look up at the now-regular sky and smile. Why would they do this if that rift was their only way home? It could be that they realized that since neither Dialga nor Palkia were the ones speaking to them through their phone, someone else sent them and the Rift really wasn’t the cause of their arrival in Hisui.

Ingo himself isn’t exactly a reliable narrator during the point the player travels with him. He seems to remember even less than the player character about where he came from, and when Volo questions him, he says it’s better to ask the player character because he himself doesn’t “remember a thing”. While he doesn’t think the Rift is the cause of his memory loss (and possibly by extension, his arrival in Hisui), his sudden appearance and lack of memory is almost exactly like the player’s. The only thing he’s missing is an altered phone and a direct order from Arceus. He doesn’t remember anything prior to “standing there” and being found by the Pearl Clan. Neither he nor anyone else mentions him falling from anywhere, or even finding him in a state that suggests he fell (which calls into question if the concept art for Ingo made the final cut). You’d think Ingo himself or someone in the Pearl Clan would mention if he had been found in need of cleaning up, if not medical attention. We aren’t shown the player character falling from anything either, so presumably they don’t remember the exact way they traveled, but the moment the actual game starts, they’re on the ground being found by Laventon.

Something else that doesn’t add up here is if the Rift or a Space-Time Distortion was responsible for Ingo’s arrival in Hisui, why aren’t other people and Pokémon appearing? Why just one man? While there are Pokémon that can only be caught in Space-Time Distortions as well as items, these are all things that are part of Hisui’s past or future (as well as starters and their evolutions needed for the PokeDex and locked until after the Disaster Looming mission). The Sinnoh fossils are obvious, but the evolution items also make sense considering the Pokémon that need them were first discovered in Sinnoh but the items don’t exist in Hisui yet (begging the question of how they evolved in the wild—maybe they wandered into a Distortion and found the anachronistic items on their own?), including Porygon Z, which is why the Porygon line can be found in them. Yet we don’t see a single other NPC out of their time or place, nor Pokémon native to other regions that are not part of Hisui’s PokeDex. That makes Ingo’s appearance seem a bit more deliberate, rather than simply bad luck.

Arceus Handpicked Ingo The Same Way It Handpicked The Player Character

This section gets more into theory, but I do try to back my theories up with what is, in some cases isn’t, in PLA.

This is probably the most likely via process of elimination. It’s unlikely to be an unseen or new gimmick or Volo, and the Rift and Distortions are not bringing in other people so that only leaves Arceus deliberately sending him back to Hisui.

But why Ingo? What does he have to do with anything? And why doesn’t he have a phone or clear mission?

We don’t know for certain that Arceus ever spoke to him or gave him a mission, but the player character doesn’t really remember their encounter with Arceus either, at least not at the beginning. They seem to not know or understand who is sending them messages about meeting every Pokémon in Hisui; just that it’s something they’re supposed to do without real incentive (presumably the incentive would be to be sent home afterwards, but this remains to be seen). Ingo, however, doesn’t seem to know what his purpose in Hisui is and even says so directly at one point. This seems like a Chekov’s gun that has yet to go off—PLA already forces the player to travel with Ingo and hear what he has to say with no option to speed through the text, and considering how short the game itself is compared to other mainline Pokémon games, there really wasn’t room for embellishments. Why have Ingo himself wonder about his purpose in Hisui if he’s just been carelessly thrown back in time by coincidence or bad luck?

Ingo is drawn to having Pokémon battles despite his memory loss, and even comes up with a few battle types at the Training Grounds after the Daybreak mission. This is most likely him remembering what he enjoyed and his job prior to being sent to Hisui, but it also seems that Hisui may be behind other regions when it comes to both living with and training Pokémon (some of the Old Verses suggest Hisui was abandoned by people for a time) . Other NPCs mention regions where people are living with Pokémon and battling for fun. The people in Hisui rarely keep Pokémon themselves as the idea seems strange and dangerous to them, and even fewer battle with them. Battling is usually done to protect oneself or a village from wild Pokémon. While some of the Galaxy Team know how to battle, most other people in Hisui with Pokémon, notably in the Diamond and Pearl Clans…don’t. They send out multiple Pokémon at a time while the player can only use one, and taking turns is more dependent on speed, and so someone with three Pokémon to the player’s one can in theory, get in at least 6 turns if the player’s Pokémon is slower. It’s frustrating at times to get used to if you’ve played other Pokémon games before PLA, and often it feels unfair. It certainly would not hold up outside of Hisui during the time PLA takes place, and clearly down the line Sinnoh ended up having normal battles.

The best kind of person to send to teach people who have no idea how to battle would be someone from a Battle Facility. A regional Champion could work, but it’s possible to become Champion simply by being overleveled and/or using type advantages as a strategy. You can win using revives over and over after inflicting a status move, or even to the point of the other Pokémon running out of PP and using Struggle, to outlast the other trainer! With all that Gen 5 added in terms of held items, battling can become very complicated (especially evident if you’ve ever watched an online tournament). A Champion may also not be the strongest trainer in a region; they’re just the strongest trainer to complete the Gym Challenge and oust the previous Champion. Stronger trainers may not take the Gym Challenge for whatever reason, and considering how much more difficult battle facilities tend to be and how much skill they require, your best bet for someone who can rival or even surpass the Champion in skill is there. Ingo is one of the best Battle Facility heads out there, if not the best for Singles. Since Hisui isn’t ready for Doubles or Multi Battles yet (Pokémon can’t even hold items and don’t have abilities, and many moves haven’t been created or discovered yet), it wouldn’t make sense to send back someone who specialized in those to start off teaching people the basics of Singles.

Remember how Ingo doesn’t have his Pokémon with him? Neither does the player character. One reason for this is because the player is supposed to project/self-insert onto them. It would kill the challenge and fun of the gameplay to allow the player to do something like transfer their team from BDSP to PLA; they’d likely be overleveled for everything, or not able to be transferred if they’re not in the Dex. But from a story perspective, if the player’s and Ingo’s Pokémon had traveled back with them, it could potentially change the future in a bad way for non-Hisuian Pokémon to show up (and Arceus wants the player to meet every Pokémon in Hisui at that time, not ones that haven’t made it to the region yet). Considering Pokémon trainers always have their Pokémon with them, something had to deliberately separate the player character and Ingo from their Pokémon.

Going along with this is the seemingly temporary amnesia. The player character doesn’t seem to remember as much at the start. Most of the answers you can select are some form of “I don’t know”. (However, being able to say you don’t know what a Pokémon is, from a developer standpoint, is to allow returning players to skip part of the tutorial while new players can get more context. Every Pokémon game is always going to be someone’s introduction to the series.) As the plot progresses, you have more options to know or remember things, and they seem to happen more starting around the time Ingo begins to recall things. After Electrode is calmed, Ingo returns to say he remembered a bit more about where he came from, and the player is allowed to say the “world” they came from was similar. They’re also allowed to say to Volo that Arceus’ name sounds familiar, and at the end of the Daybreak Mission, they remember Gyms and/or Contests. It seems their memories were temporarily locked away, likely because they would have just tried to get back to where they came from rather than complete the mission, or at the very least, potentially said too much and altered the timeline. The things they remember and tell people about are harmless; people living together alongside and training Pokémon, places for people to test their skills…all things that are in present-day Sinnoh. Contests and Gyms could potentially already be starting in other regions, considering Hisui seems to have fallen behind others during the time PLA takes place.

As for Ingo not having an Arc Phone or clear-cut mission, this one does not have a clear answer, let alone hints. What makes sense to me, is that Arceus dropped them in the places they needed to be to best complete their missions, and as Ingo seems teaching people to battle and live with Pokémon, not completing a Dex, he didn’t need a phone to guide him around (he is an adult, after all), or to do things like open the sealed caverns for the Lake Trio. You can also make the argument that Ingo never got sidetracked from his mission, whereas the player gets roped into helping NPCs with what sometimes seems to be menial tasks, and saving the region wasn’t stated to be part of the mission either. Arceus does remind the player after the Disaster Looming mission that they still need to seek out all Pokémon while the game itself considers everything past this point postgame and even rolls the credits. By finishing the PokeDex, the player ends up showing people how to live with Pokémon as well, but gets off track multiple times. Ingo seems to be taking a direct route, possibly even an express to his destination once the player helps him remember a few things.

Dropping the player character in the middle of Jubilife would have caused suspicion, panic, and likely got them instantly booted from the village, so Arceus dropped them just outside it and orchestrated things so Laventon, who was already putting together a PokeDex and is a lot more open-minded than most people in Jubilife, would be the person to find them. The player character is canonically 15, so they’re still a kid. They weren’t actually hurt when they fell, but Laventon didn’t know that initially. Most people would feel bad for not helping an injured kid/leaving them out in the wilderness, so this could have been to ensure Laventon would help, or if somehow someone else got to them first, they’d be taken in and have a better chance of meeting him.

Ingo mentions “standing there” before being found by the Pearl Clan, suggesting he no sooner arrived in Hisui and was taken in by them, but he doesn’t say where. My best guesses are either right outside the Pearl Clan Settlement or near a site sacred to them in the Coronet Highlands given how quickly he seems to have been made Sneasler’s Warden. Wherever it was had to be close to Pearl Clan sites to ensure he was found by them specifically. I have a theory that the Pearl Clan was chosen over the Diamond Clan because Sneasler did not have a Warden at the time. Again, in-game evidence suggests he hasn’t been in Hisui for over a decade, but even if he has been, the Pearl Clan seems to be treating him as an outsider still. Besides his skill with Pokémon, why make an outsider a Warden so soon? If he had ousted someone as Warden, or it had come down to him and someone else, you’d think we’d be hearing from Pearl Clan members how an outsider was chosen fairly quickly over someone born into the Pearl Clan and possibly trained for years for the position, the same way people talk about how it came down to Irida and Palina for leader and their opinions over the final choice. With no mention of this at all, it would seem Sneasler did not have a Warden for some time (as there’s also no mention of a Warden having died or otherwise left the position) and there was nobody in the running for a replacement. And if Sneasler accepts the strange man who prefers to keep his Pokémon in balls and has a natural way of living with them, then the Pearl Clan is more likely to trust him and his way of doing things, which inevitably was going to reach the rest of Hisui given collaboration between all of its inhabitants becoming more and more necessary.

The Conclusion:

Random Pokemon Sending Him: Almost definitely not, unless there’s a DLC or direct sequel that explains how and why this would be

Volo On Accident Or On Purpose: Highly unlikely; what little we know about Volo and his actions doesn’t add up here

Faller: Possible but still unlikely; the gimmick in PLA is Space-Time Distortions, not Ultra Wormholes, and they’d need to put more Alola stuff in via DLC for this to really work out

He Somehow Fell through The Rift Or A Distortion: More likely than the other options, but doesn’t explain why this only happened to Ingo and has a few other plot holes

Arceus: Most likely, more evidence stacks up here than the others but still relies on the theoretical as there’s still so much we’re not told about Ingo’s backstory upon his arrival to Hisui

Thank you so much for reading all of this!

If anyone wants it, I have a master list of my reassurance posts and a few others here, and it’s also currently pinned on my tumblr.

~Moonbeam

#Submas #Ingo #Ingo Pokemon #Subway Master Ingo #Emmet #emmet pokemon #Subway Master Emmet #Pokemon Legends Arceus #Pokemon Legends Arceus Spoilers

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duchezss · 4 years ago

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Buckle in folks cause I’m about to put more effort into this than an english assignment Presenting Why Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous is actually an amazing show

Now what defines the term amazing you might ask? I’m talking about a show that goes above and beyond in plot, characters, storytelling, and overall experience. Nowadays most adult shows don’t meet my standards much less a kids show so if that gives you an idea how good this show is stop right now and go watch it if you haven’t. Spoilers ahead ofc but as an aspiring film major I will be diving into just about everything I love and this is gonna get long.

For your convince I will start with a simple bullet point list and then extend on them below, so if you only wanna see the big points and not my thoughts behind them this first parts for you.

Black mc

Diverse main cast (4/6 are poc)

Actual plot lines and a lot of suspense

Very dark for a kids show

Complex characters that develop

Fits in with the main Jurassic World series beautifully

Body language and facial expressions are top tier

Have genuine relationships (platonically and/or romantically) between all of the main 6

Phenomenal camera angles and use of special effects

Great with details

Amazing VA’s

Continuity

So the nose dives begins

Black mc: To some people this might not matter that much but holy cow this is so important and such a big step. The people complaining are just weird middle aged white people, like do you know how big of an impact a black mc can have on young black children. It’s so important and it makes them feel happy because someone actually looks like them. Clear evidence of this was Into The Spider Verse (which is also an amazing movie oml). Come to think of it the only black mc I think I’ve ever seen in an animated kids show is probably Static Shock (also an amazing show ily). Somehow representation has got swept under the rug in this day and age which is ironic really, but this show does an amazing job with tackling that and I love it.

Diverse main cast: I can’t think of any recent kids movies/tv shows, live action or animated, that have this much representation. In animation is also very easy for the show runners to make a character poc and then have a white VA, but jwcc is quite the opposite. Honestly the characters look so much like their VA’s that something tells me the animation team based the characters off them and not the other way around. Not only that but their names actually match with their ethnicities. So for reference or just anyone that doesn’t know, Ben and Brooklynn are white, Sammy is hispanic, Darius is black, Kenji is asian, and Yazmina is middle eastern. Sammy’s last name is Gutierrez, Yazmina’s is Fadoula, Kenji’s is Kon and Darius’s Bowman. Gutierrez is a common last name in Mexico and Latin America in general. Fadoula is found throughout upper Africa and the Middle East, Kon is rare name of Japense origin, and Bowman is a common last name among black folks in the US. So not only do they have a poc cast, voiced by poc people, but all the characters have realistic names. Not to mention they are very good on skin tone in the show, personally I think Yaz should’ve been just a bit darker but hey I’ll take it and run.

Actual plot lines: This seem like stating the obvious but work with me here. Most kids and even adult shows have a very episodic format, there’s nothing wrong with that per say but having a plot and conflict build up and having little things matter is much more satisfying in my opinion. Most kids shows have some conflict but its very PG which is also fine that’s what it’s meant for. But every once in a while you’ll find a show that had plot wise beyond it’s years and those are the golden ones. Easily and rightfully the most famous is Avatar the Last Airbender or ATLA. This show to this day is still one my favorites and truly nothing will ever top it, but in my years of watching kids shows after it jwcc might just be second. We can argue all day about what’s the best and it’s truly a matter of opinion, but to me atla and jwcc just achieve such a level of complexity that 99% of kids and even adult shows don’t reach.

Very dark: While this might not be exactly the best for kids it’s great for an olderish audience. Honestly it having a much darker element makes the show enjoyable for all ages while still keeping it chill enough so that children may watch. But come to think of it it’s hard not to make a show about dinosaurs dark, the show runners do a wonderful job at keeping it intense and exciting, but still kid friendly, and to me thats incredibly impressive. Not to mention since the show isn’t afraid to go dark they can do more (such as ben’s “death”, the hunters etc) which makes it go from good to great. Reminds me a lot of atla and I know I keep mentioning atla but know that is the biggest compliment ever. atla is easily the best animated/kids show of all time so the fact that a bring it up so much is huge. There have been shows in the past that have tried to replicate what atla (such as voltron..) and it just hasn’t worked. I think this show nails the boundary between too dark and not dark enough.

Complex characters: Oh yes. If there’s one thing I love more than an ensemble cast it’s a cast that grows and develops as the series progresses. Sure the main 6 might start off as typical character tropes (Darius the super fan, Yaz the loner, Sammy the extrovert, Ben the underdog, Kenji the arrogant, and Brooklynn the influencer.) but they become so much more than that. I’d say at least half of them are completely different people between the 1st episode and the latest one. An easy example being Ben and Kenji. Ben started off as a naive, timid, and terrified person and has become confident, independent, and brave. Kenji started off as arrogant, selfish, and apathetic person and became compassionate, driven, and concerned. All of them have had some sort of change even if it’s not super dramatic and that’s important. It makes the storytelling better because they grow as they go.

Fits in with JP/JW beautifully: In terms of shows connecting to movies this has gotta be some clone wars level s-tier stuff. Personally I have never watched clone wars but my sister has and she always raves about how well this show connects to the movies, and from what I’ve seen I completely agree. A youtube channel by the name of Silverscreen Edits actually put together the scenes from every time they overlap, mainly in S1 but also the cold open from Fallen Kingdom. I’d advise you to watch it because it’s just incredible. The show runners nail ever detail of these scenes and it truly feels like you’re watching the same scene from a different perspective. The set up is beautiful and I cannot rave enough about how amazing it is, my favorite easily being the dome scene because of all the small details. Not to mention this show actually connect JW and FK because it shows us that the cold open was 6 months later while the rest was 3 years later. Quite honestly I had no idea these two scenes were that far apart from each other, I thought the opening was from a years or two later not 6 months, so this show really connected the dots between these two movies and made them flow together much nicer. And I love all the countless references too old and new JP/JW movies. Overall this show is a great addition to the franchise.

Body language and facial expressions: You might be thinking to yourself, hmph that is a really odd point to make, let me tell you it’s not and I’ll explain why. When analyzing films I usually tend to stick to live action because one of my favorite parts of films is how characters react to things, and we animation we really don’t get that. Most of the time even if shows get this complex they won’t use both the way jwcc. What impressed me so much was how amazing they are at this, the animation team seriously needs more praise. Jwcc is great at facial expressions which I will say other animated shows know how to do as well, but they are also so amazing at body language which is rare rare when it comes to animation. It’s because it’s so hard and often times it just doesn’t fit, but they do an amazing job with this and it makes the characters feel so life-like. When a character is sad or closed off their shoulders hunch, when they feel scared they stiffen up and cover their ears (which is another detail I love so much, I never realized till this show that hardly anyone ever covers their ears and it makes a lot of sense because these dinos are very loud) and when they feel hopeless their shoulder sag and their head drops, do you see what I mean? You can quite literally tell what these kids are feeling and thinking without them saying anything that is so impressive and it makes the show that much better. It makes it easy to analyze and if it wasn’t clear around I love to do so.

Genuine relationships between all of main cast: I will not budge at this point at all, gonna say it right now if you disagree argue with the wall. I might have some bias on this but one, if not my favorite, part of any media is an ensemble cast. It’s something I actively seek out, and when I say ensemble cast I don’t mean a trio, I mean a full cast, my favorite being 6 but 4 or 5 will do. So when I found out this show had 6 main characters I was immediately interested. Not only because I love ensemble casts but I also wanted to see how they handled it. Ensemble cast are so rare because they are extremely hard to do and do well. I will even criticize atla on this. At one point they had 6 main characters and they never elaborated on more than a handful of the duos and just focused on the group as whole. But this is typical and easiest to do without giving up individual character development so I get that. But jesus christ jwcc does a phenomenal job with this, and I mean phenomenal. Out of the 15 different duos you can get between 6 characters then have elaborated on 11 of them, and it could easily be more this is just from memory. I might make a post elaborating on this specifically because it’s just amazing. This time they take to flesh out these relationships truly makes them feel like a unit and a family, instead of just a group of people all working towards the same goal. This is easily the most impressive and rewarding of any of the points on this list in my opinion. (coming from #1 squad lover right here)

Camera angles and special effects: This shows downfall for some was that it had strange animation, honestly it never bothered me and since I’ve watched dragon prince and rwby, it’s clear that bad animation never stops me from watching a show. But I think people just won’t give it a chance, because when you do you’ll see it’s actually very good. To me the coolest part of the animation is the dinos. They look incredible and so so similar to the cgi used in JW. That’s hard to do so more claps for the animation team I love y’all. They also have to work around the PG side of this show and do a great job at implying what happens but never actually showing what happens. This is all angles, not to mention they do a great job at showcasing the park and the scenery so that magic from the movies really translates to the show. Finally my favorite scene of the show from an avid slow mo lover has got to me when Ben falls of the monorail (idk why it is cause he’s literally my fav and I was so upset) The scene is just beautiful and the set up before hand makes it that much more heart breaking. The use of slow mo is amazing I literally cannot rave about this scene enough. It builds so much suspense and they used just the right amount, to much and the scene would move to slow, and to little the scene would be to fast. I need more great scenes like this in S4 (idk if I want the angst that comes with it too I’ll get back to you)

Details: To me details, in any show in general, is what makes it go from great to fantastic. An example of this is Harry Potter, something that hooked me into this franchise was how much small details mattered and it’s the same with jwcc. There are so many throw away lines that end up coming back and all us are hitting ourselves for missing it. Such as Ben saying early on he knows where the tracker beam is and when he “dies” and the crew can’t find it it shows how important he was. Those are details I love to see. Or the three dinos, one of which Sammy released, coming back all season. Of course toro as well and he always kept his burns. Not to mention the animation team always kept Ben’s scar in and I think that’s an important detail because he shaped who he is. Keep up the good work animation and writing team because I love what you’re doing with this (also I’m 90% sure the compass is another one of these details I’m calling it rn)

Amazing VA’s: Honestly VA’s in general do not get enough credit and they really should. But these 6 are pretty amazing let me tell you. If I’m not mistaken Ryan Potter (Kenji’s VA) is the only one with a notable history of voice acting as he played the title character in Big Hero 6. (fun fact I had no idea and when I found this out I quite literally screamed). But the others have also done things as well, most of it being live action though, and voice acting is much different. Honestly I just need to make a post about the various roles they’ve had cause looking into this has been an experience. Anyway all of them do such an incredible job with this ahh. I think the times where you can really tell how different they all are is when they lash out. This happens quite often and honestly it’s expected, I mean they’re 6 teenagers in a stressful environment of course they’ll last out. But all of them have such a different way of doing it, Darius is hopeless, Kenji is nervous, Yaz is emotional, Ben is harsh, Brooklynn is stern, and Sammy is level headed. Usually everyone lashes out the same way so the fact that they’re so different in just one aspect shows you how good they are. Each character is so individual and all of them have different goals and morals which is not only realistic but it makes way for conflict which is always interesting.

Continuity: Now this could arguable go with details but it’s slightly different so I’m making this a separate point. Continuity to put it simple it basically not have the show be episodic. Honestly that completely what I expected from this show because that how most kids shows are. In this show the plot not only progress each episode but so do the characters and their trauma. Most of the time the plot will progress but anything bad that has happened to the characters will not show and is hardly talked about (COUGH VOLTRON). To me it’s something that has to be addressed because if the characters don’t grow what was the point of it. And they’ve shown that characters grow based on the events that happen and I love that. Another thing about continuity is when show runners stick a pin in something and actually go back to it (COUGH RWBY). Jwcc is amazing at this and make a point to bring back just about everything that gets sidelined in the first place. It’s so impressive and make the show that much more enjoyable. There have been countless times where I get so caught up with the pins that shows just leave there and it makes me so mad, but jwcc is good at for the most part because of course some things will slip through. But they always get back to the important things.

The conclusion: Overall this show is phenomenal and if my essay hasn’t convinced you I’m not sure what will. The show is amazing at storytelling and plot and the lovable main cast makes it that much better. It is so much better than a good chunk of kids shows and honestly part of me wishes it was rated PG-13 cause I really wanna see that. But they do an amazing job and keep it kid friendly enough while still discussing mature topics. It’s the next atla to me and something that many kids shows now days try to be and fail. It’s impressive and complex and truly one of the best shows I’ve ever watched. Film major mara out, and if you actually read all of this ily mwah.

#jwcc #jurassic world camp cretaceous #jurassic world #jurassic park #jesus why did I write so much lmao #I have issues I spend more than 2 hours on this..#hyperfixations go hard ig

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blueeyedangell · 4 years ago

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!!! SPN SPOILERS AHEAD !!!

hey clowns! so i’m here to hopefully give more affirmation that cas is going to be coming back in 15x20. now- i’m in no way saying that we will 100% see cas in 15x20 but i will give you said information and allow you to come to your own conclusions.

i’ve noticed since 15x19 i just can’t stop feeling very unsatisfied and overall bad about the ending. after watching it there was a pit in my stomach and a bad taste in my mouth, and it just didn’t feel like a real ending. not an ending to a show that has 15 years worth of build up. i have to agree with what i’ve seen on here since then, that 15x19 was meant to leave a bad taste in your mouth. from dabb himself he said:

“For the most part, we wrap up a big chunk of our mythology in Episode 19…Episode 20 is more character-based and is more concerned with Sam, Dean and this family they’ve built around them than it is with figuring out the Case of the Week.”

from this, i take that 15x19 wasn’t meant to seal the bookends of our favorite characters. 15x19 was meant to seal the end of the mythology, the end of their fight with god they built up, what would happen to jack and amara, etc. in episode 20, we will see the family that they have around them, and cas was recently just carved into the table at the bunker and officially made apart of the family (take that as you will).

from a story perspective, there is nothing else left to wrap up. chuck is human, jack has restored humanity, and unless we’re gonna see a filler-hunter episode of two bros for the very last episode of a show that’s been airing for 15 years, just doesn’t make any sense. i know the writer’s of supernatural can be ignorant and bad, but that bad? to ruin the last episode of a historic tv show and leave one of the biggest plot holes probably ever? maybe so, and if that happens, then it does. but, let’s move on to happier things!

as we can all probably agree, 15x19 didn’t feel like the ending. but this is because it isn’t supposed to! looking at some photos we have from this season, this was a promo poster for season 15, sam and dean driving off into the sunset in a field but there’s a giant ring of fire. not to also mention they’re driving off on a gravel road through a field, and if you know about the barn promo photos (keep these in mind) and the photo of misha in an onion field, as well as the photo misha took with robert wisdom (uriel), they were in field locations. could i be giving the writers too much credit? maybe. am i gonna believe that? probably not.

now where have we seen this before? well, a few place a matter of fact. the first one that is probably most similar to the promo is this:

okay, i know this is a lot of information to take in, so let’s take a break, breathe in, breath out, think of something that makes you happy, and let’s get back into it.

now i don’t know about you but those two look pretty similar, and the gif quality really doesn’t do the real scene justice. but as we see, this is the scene when ruby is pulled out of the empty to talk to cas; i already did a whole post about how she plays into cas coming back here.

another place we’ve seen the fire aspect is, again, in the season 15 title card. i know i haven’t shut up about it, but it really makes no sense for them to use the empty as their major theme, especially with it burning up on the title card, and really have so many open-ended, untied bookends with such a major aspect. not to mention dabb created the empty, and he also wrote the confession as well as 15x20, would he really leave a vital character to this season’s story unfinished so messily?

remember those barn promo photos i was telling you about? well i looked at them for the longest time and even edited the photos to get better lighting, and either that is the exact same barn from 4x10 or they built a replica of that barn. in 4x10, we see castiel and uriel (wink wink), and it’s also the famous moment when they’ve come to take anna from dean and sam. dean and anna have the big kiss and of course the whole, *cas looking down sadly even though he barely knows this human and he’s a strong angel solider*. then again, the empty is angel and demons worst regrets and sorrows playing on repeat. it’s funny that we would have so many coincidences adding up, but of course, it really could just be a coincidence (excuse the bad image quality, it’s 2008 style).

i mean the little things of course like the barn door and the pillars, but i mean the stair case in the exact same place? i’m not sure who the masked men could be, it could either be just a monster hunting case, or it could be monsters who are from the empty or demons helping them or who knows? all i know is their placements looks like it mirrors the placements of people in 4x10.

plus in the photo of misha and robert, what looks to be behind robert through the window of the truck? is that... house?? that maybe has a barn?? okay maybe that’s a stretch.

to sum it all up, it’s a lot of speculation from everyone because we really just don’t know right now. we can guess, we can look into what they’re giving us, but we’ll just have to wait until thursday to come and show us what the ending is really gonna look like. but- i have hope that the writers, cast, and crew know the show, and it’s fans. we just hope that that is enough to take us through the home stretch and bring us back home to the main point of the story; that it may have started out as two brothers but along the way, after fifteen years on the road and so many wonderful people, they’ve learned that- well, “family don’t end in blood”.

#spn spoilers #spn 15x20 #spn #spn spec #destiel #deancas #castiel #spn s15 #i really have no clue for this to be honest #i'm picking at crumbs #it just doesn't make sense to me #why go through all the effort to leave it at that #and doing a bro hunting episode #i have no clue #but we will see #also sorry for this mess of a post #if it really is just a hunting episode #please ignore this post #it was a moment of weakness

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stars-in-my-damn-eyes · 3 years ago

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O-Ophelia 💙*hands under chin* tell me all about Ophelia

OPHELIA MY BELOVED of course i can tell you about Ophelia

EDIT 2024; OUTDATED INFO THIS IS ALL LIES NOW

First of all, some Basic Information about her:

- She uses she/they pronouns, with a preference for she/her

- She’s 24 at the start of the story, and her birthday is on the 15th of June. Since the story begins in September 2017, this makes her birth year 1993

- Her birth name isn’t Ophelia Harrow, it’s Rhian Vaughn. She changed it after her father and brother fucked off from the GA after being accused of treachery, in order to sever links between them, as Ophelia was fairly important within the GA. However, she does regard Ophelia to be her ‘real’ name, rather than an alias - basically, a name change.

- They’re the deputy leader of the GA’s Division IV - the Division that deals with research and development, as well as creating and upkeeping the GA’s tech and buildings and all of that. Div IV is mainly known for the cool weapons and advancements in medical technology, but they’re also in charge of shit like washing machines and roof leaks and architecture.

- Incidentally, she has a gf, Alice Kingsley, who’s also the proper Head of Division IV. If this sounds like a conflict of interest, it probably is - but Alice didn’t choose them as deputy head, and the GA runs on 60% nepotism and 40% the weirdest meritocracy you’ve ever seen, anyways.

- Following on from that, Ophelia specialises in bioengineering. In a way, it can be argued that a substantial amount of the plot is, as a consequence of this, her fault.

More, less basic info is under the cut:

I actually wrote a backstory snippet about her in March of last year (shortly before I started writing witcher fic, and the jump in writing quality between this short and DttD can be mainly attributed to @/chaoskirin telling me not to be so overly reliant on the past perfect tense (thank u!!).

Since then, i have overhauled most of the details of their backstory, but the broad strokes stay the same - mum died/was killed, got scouted for being a Sciencey Gal and moved to Central, met Alice, befriended Alice, worked together with Alice to help her dad and brother escape the GA (tho the details of this have been COMPLETELY changed simply because i did not vibe with how it happened in OiaSoM), she changes her name and becomes the deputy head of Div IV (AS AN ADULT THO HOLY SHIT 17-YEAR-OLD ESCHER I THOUGHT YOU WERE BETTER AT ASSIGNING ‘GROWN-UP’ AGES TO PEOPLE JFC), and then gets assigned to covertly assassinate Kite Jansen, an architect-turned-Problem, who they later befriend.

Anyhow, the old version can be seen here: Ophelia is a State of Mind. I’m going to rewrite this at some point, to reflect her updated backstory, and with approximately 90% less use of the past perfect tense.

Also OiaSoM kind of sucks as an Ophelia primer because it also leaves out some of the most important elements of their backstory, but that was done on purpose because I do actually plan to write the damn thing as a comic/webcomic eventually. Subsequently, I figured it was kind of stupid to have major plot twists floating around on tumblr tagged with their character name, so unfortunately you don’t Quite manage to unlock all of Ophelia’s tragic backstory here. I mean sure, it’s still full of spoilers because you’re not *supposed* to immediately know that Ophelia used to be with Div IV, but given that even the characters treat it as an open secret in-narrative, i think it’s an okay “spoiler” to give.

Moving on, some less plot-relevant facts about Ophelia:

- Her favourite colour is dark blue or indigo, her favourite food is strawberry jam sandwiches, her lucky number is 13, and her favourite weather is thunderstorms.

- They doesn’t own pets and can’t see themself doing so, but if they did own pets, they’d want a goose, a lizard, a snake, and a few mice. Maybe a turtle.

- She is very intelligent and capable in her chosen field, but she has no ambitions for herself beyond what others tell her to do)

- She’s Welsh and she speaks with a sort of combination mainly-Welsh-but-also-fairly-noticeably-Estuary-English accent due to the fact that she moved to Central, which is populated mainly by the English, when she was 10, which influenced her accent.

- Despite being very book-smart, she’s not overly savvy-smart. Think of her as a high-int, average-to-low-wis sort of character.

- They’re not really a people-person. Despite this, they do manage to accidentally adopt five children (Vixie, Jack, Kaede, Max, and Beanie) once they’re placed on the same Team as them.

- Her gf, Alice, is Max’s older sister. Max also doesn’t like her very much at ALL initially, however, they grow less cold towards each other throughout the story, and eventually get to a point where they can tentatively consider each other friends.

- They, for some reason, are trusted fairly intimately by Mark Grey. It’s concurred upon that part of the reason for this trust is that Ophelia is a fairly shitty actor and thus, to his mind, can be trusted on the basis that it’s pathetically easy to catch her out. However, this information is fairly outdated - during their time in Div IV, they learnt how to put on an excellent poker face. More likely, a greater part of the reason that is trusted by him is that she’s one of the highest-ranking people in the goddamn Alliance (hence their status as ‘“former” Div IV member’ being an open secret) and that position isn’t given to just anyone.

- They suffer from insomnia, and gets regular nosebleeds. The two probably aren’t related.

- She used to smoke, but quit due to the fact that it worsened her insomnia as nicotine is a stimulant. She also abstains from alcohol and caffeine - the first because she dislikes the taste of alcoholic beverages, the second due to her insomnia.

- Ophelia is attracted to women and describes herself as sapphic or wlw. She’s currently questioning whether she is bisexual or a lesbian, having identified with both labels in the past.

- In terms of gender, Ophelia would call themself a demigirl/demi-woman who prefers she/they pronouns.

- Ophelia also has joint hypermobility. She is One Bendy Girl.

Anyways this has been Misc Ophelia Facts with Me, please feel free to ask more questions if there is something that I mentioned here that you want me to elaborate on and THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING 💚💚

#asks #my ocs #ophelia #ocs

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asphodelical · 4 years ago

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Persona 5 Royal: Why Yoshizawa is a Disappointing Character

Yoshizawa is one of two brand new confidants introduced in Persona 5: the Royal Edition. (I will be referring to it simply as Royal from this point on.) Being a new character, especially the only new playable one, automatically makes her special. But I think the writers handled her character in a way that makes her seem like less of a fully realized person than everyone else. (Massive spoilers ahead.)

Let me start by saying that all of the Phantom Thieves’s first major developments are dependent on the Palace Rulers: Kamoshida for Ann and Ryuji, Madarame for Yusuke, Kaneshiro-ish and Sae for Makoto, and Okumura for Haru. So it makes perfect sense that Maruki would be that for Yoshizawa. However Yoshizawa has the addition of her character centering around the last big plot twist of the game: The fact that she actually isn’t Kasumi as she was introduced, but Sumire. And that Kasumi died shortly before the beginning of the narrative. Sumire’s whole identity crisis permeates through other facets of her character, which is one of the biggest problems that I have with her.

Let’s go in chronological order and talk about how she was presented while she was Kasumi. From the beginning it’s established that Yoshizawa has a well known reputation as a skilled gymnast. She’s cute and polite is kind to Joker during the early months while the rest of the student body treats him like the plague. However, almost every single scene between April and November are exclusively with Joker and none of the other Phantom Thieves. The only other major characters she’s seen interacting with for those months are Maruki, and the one scene with her, Joker and Akechi. She also gets special treatment within the full anime cutscenes: the dancing at the school festival (which I refuse to watch), the beginning of the New Year’s segment, and the magical girl transformation sequence when she receives her Persona. Yoshizawa is already a brand new character. That already makes her special. The audience is aware of this. There was absolutely no need to push her on us that hard. When writers do these types of things, where they push for one girl to be more of the canon choice than the others or heavily emphasize that a certain character is more special, I am almost always less inclined to like them. (Another perfect example of that is how in the original Final Fantasy VII Aerith has a much higher base affection score than Tifa.)

The first truly significant event centering on Yoshizawa occurs on October 3rd-when she gets her Persona. Morgana established that a Persona user’s Metaverse outfit is what they each believe a rebel to look like. Yoshizawa quickly deduces Joker’s identity when he comes in to save her on October 3rd, and gains her Persona right after. It is canon that Sumire likes Joker, as she is the only one to outright state that she’s in love with him in her Rank 9. So I get that her costume is basically identical to Joker’s, just with a leotard. But this all occurred while she still believed herself to be Kasumi. After January 9th, when she resolves to be herself, her Persona should’ve changed. I’d really like it if her costume changed too, but the Persona is more significant.

This leads into how I don’t think the second half of her confidant does enough to establish who Sumire is as Sumire. Unsurprisingly, the bulk of it revolves around her trying to separate herself from her Kasumi identity through her gymnastics. But we don’t actually see Sumire do much of anything outside of that-just shopping for clothes and not doing very well until Joker comes along to help. The things we know about Sumire from the beginning and in both identities through to the end are: she’s a rhythmic gymnast, she eats a lot, her cooking is hit and miss, has an inferiority complex, wants to be a top gymnast, and she’s polite to everyone. Outside of that? Not much else.

Compare this with Haru, the last official Phantom Thief to join and who has the least amount of screentime. Since she comes in so late into the game, the writers had to make sure to make her story personal and to make her very likable. The quickest ways to make a character likable are for them to be funny, charming, or endearing. (And yes, all of those adjectives are broad and can be interpreted in so many ways. But you get it.) Haru’s entrance in the Metaverse is funny, and she has a personal connection to a Palace ruler. Her relationship with the Thieves also develops - starting from being against them due to the misunderstanding with Morgana to quickly realizing that they’re genuinely nice people. She doesn’t have as many clear cut relationships with most of the crew, except for Makoto and Morgana. The writers make up for this by framing her in scenes with varying characters. The clearest examples that come to mind are: the photo with her and Futaba above, she runs out with Ryuji to Shido’s campaign, and she’s sitting next to Yusuke in the scene before the credits. As I mentioned before, Sojiro also shows up in two of her confidant ranks which helps her feel more like a part of the family. Her confidant also didn’t solely focus on her relationship with her father; The bulk of it focused on her business philosophy and goals. We also know the following things about her: she dresses in pretty pastels, she likes tea and coffee, is working to improve her own coffee brewing skills, she wants to open her own cafe, she likes gardening, she can be very sadistic in battle, didn’t have much freedom of choice growing up, and took ballet classes when she was little. (There’s more but I’m stopping here.) The bottom line here is that through visual framing and smart writing choices, Haru managed to be likable, still feel like she belonged and was fleshed out enough within a very short period of time.

Back to Sumire. I acknowledge that part of the reason why we don’t get as much of a grasp on her is because half of her confidant was when she was still Kasumi. But not only do I not have solid knowledge of Sumire’s character, but she also does not have any distinct relationships with any of the other Phantom Thieves.

Forming meaningful bonds with many other people is one of the core themes of Persona 5 and Royal, and it permeates through the story and the gameplay. Do you know why Futaba, Sojiro and Maruki are a few of the top tier characters in the game? Because Royal takes the time to have each of them spend time with and have distinctly different interactions with other cast members. Futaba gets four whole days worth with all of the Thieves and Sojiro. Sojiro (AKA Best Dad), aside from being an active participant in the Thieves’s meetings post-Futaba’s Palace is also present in the following confidants: Futaba, Haru, and Caroline and Justine’s night events. He also interacts with Maruki, who himself has scenes with each and every Phantom Thief.

That’s in stark contrast to Sumire who doesn’t spend any time with any time with anyone outside of Joker (and that one scene with Akechi). Her relationship with every other Phantom Thief is that of polite courtesy and referring to them as “senpai.” She doesn’t even have a single location based event, like the one with Futaba and Iwai in Nakano (my personal favorite) or Ann and Takemi at the Meiji Shrine. The argument here is that since she disapproves of the Phantom Thieves then she really isn’t one. To which I say, then she does not earn her place with them at the Christmas party, and she doesn’t earn her place on the team in the third semester. (I actually never have her in my party on principle, unless I really need an extra Bless attacker.) Sumire also never gets called out for her hypocrisy - she disapproves of the Phantom Thieves changing cognitions when she herself had her own cognition changed by her own volition. (Yeah, that rhymed. I know.)

Now you may ask, “But what about Akechi? He’s also the only character with one Showtime. And his confidant scenes are exclusively with Joker.” To that I say, you are correct! But the one singular sensational difference is that Akechi spends time with and therefore interacts with all of the Thieves: Sae’s Palace, at the school festival, in the train station during Medjed’s public announcement, and the initial meeting at the TV station. The way he speaks with different characters is also very clear: the public battle of wits he has with Makoto at the school festival, his condescending treatment of Ryuji, and anytime he and Ann speak together are the best examples. (I have a head canon that Akechi and Ann get along really well together and I’m glad that a lot of others in the fandom share the same sentiment.) While he definitely doesn’t have distinct connections with some of the others, it’s definitely more than I can say for Sumire.

Final disjointed thoughts on other issues I have with Sumire that don’t really warrant a full paragraph:

I felt her confidant storyline was more about seeking validation rather than assistance

I respect that she’s the only girl to outright confess her feelings for Joker. But girl. You just regained your true identity. Please don’t go chasing after anyone. You’re fifteen. Be single for a while. Figure yourself out.

A lot of her dialogue uses the word “follow” in regards to Joker. So young.

Her third awakening Persona, Ella, is a fucking bride. I get it in terms of the “Cinderella” motif, but also they are really trying it with the canon romance choice.

Going back to my idea of her Persona changing - Cendrillion can be her “Kasumi” Persona, the second can be her “Sumire” Persona. Once the “Sumire” Persona is unlocked, then Cendrillion should no longer be usable. (If we can’t use Robin Hood then we can’t use Cendrillion either.) Then Sumire’s third Awakening can represent both her and Kasumi, but with a larger visual emphasis on the Sumire side.

Since we’re introduced to Sumire when she looks like Kasumi, without glasses and her hair up, I was disappointed to see her look like that for most of the second half if you maxed out her confidant.

I don’t get why everyone makes such a big deal about her being an athlete when Makoto said she’s studied aikido and Ryuji’s character arc revolves around his relationship to the track team and running.

The only reason why I’m so hard on this girl is because I truly love Royal. It’s the only game where I’ve cried. (Not a lot but it still counts.) And Sumire is basically the one thing that is preventing me from rating this game a 10/10. Had her “specialness” been toned down much more and if she had been treated more like the other characters, I would be more inclined to like her. In fact, the twist might have been more effective if she had been written more normally. But it is what it is. Thankfully the things I love about the game outweigh my dislike of her.

#p5r #persona 5 royal #opinions #i hesitate to tag this because i don't want people to come for me #video games

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indecisive-behaviors · 4 years ago

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Okay so I just reblogged a thing talking about season 2 and 3 of Cobra Kai and I have some Thoughts about what they did to everyone’s character arcs in this so if you’d like a rant it’s under the cut with spoilers from all 3 seasons plus spoilers for all 3 Karate Kid movies

Okay so my issues start with one very key scene that I personally think fucked up the whole rest of the narrative, and by extension everyone else’s character arcs: which is from Different but Same. And no not that scene- not yet at least.

The first scene that I think fucked over the narrative and killed several character arcs was the beach scene. Miguel, reasonably distraught over the idea that Sam is hiding him from her dad(which she is actually doing to be fair), gets completely drunk and when Sam and Robby arrive together he loses it, pushes Sam and subsequently gets dumped. Now why do I think this ruined everything? It completely goes against Miguel’s character up to this point. Miguel is absolutely trying to mimic Johnny in a lot of key ways but also up to this point Miguel has also been Johnny’s conscience; he’s smart and kind and had not at all shown to be anything even close to what Johnny was in KK1. He’s stood up for his friends, defended the girl he likes from bullies, he’s a huge mama’s boy and a bit of a hopeless romantic. In no episode up until that point does he ever display any tendency towards unnecessary violence, despite Johnny’s “strike first” motto. Miguel getting wasted and violent does not add up in my mind. Miguel is supposed to be a narrative parallel to Daniel for fuck sake. Also, and this is my main complaint, there is no fucking reason for Miguel to immediately jump to the conclusion that Sam is seeing Robby- literally none. They look very much alike, hell Robby looks a little like Amanda honestly, he could very well be her cousin for all Miguel knows. Robby and Sam don’t even act like a couple in the shot- they’re literally just sitting next to each other at family dinner. None of this subplot makes any fucking sense.

And then, obviously, there’s the very next scene- Johnny goes with Daniel back to his place, tipsy and happy and seemingly in a very good place with each other. Then Robby shows up, Johnny loses his shit and Daniel proceeds to get pissed and kick Robby out. Now there is one thing I point out about this scene whenever I talk about it that doesn’t add up: no where in this scene is it ever even implied that either Johnny or Daniel know about Robby’s original intentions. (Also nothing up till that point ever even establishes why Robby knows about Daniel and Johnny’s rivalry in the first fucking place for the record). There is no reason for Johnny to suspect that Daniel knew and was hiding it, or even that Robby was doing it on purpose, and there is no reason for Daniel to get mad or even suspect that Robby knew what he was doing or was lying about it; and the fact of the matter is that Robby never actually lied(also Daniel never fucking asked) about his home situation. His mom was neglectful and an addict, and his father wasn’t in the picture. That’s it, and none of that was a lie. Now I’m not sitting here and denying that what Robby did was wrong because it absolutely was-- it was manipulative and unfair to Daniel and he had a right to be angry when he found out it was the case but there is nothing to suggest that he didn’t just jump to conclusions. And also, personally, I don’t think any of that justifies kicking a teenager to the curb, and one that Daniel explicitly knows has no one and nothing to fall back on. Be angry, be furious with Robby, but leaving a teenager to fend for themselves is cruel and completely unjustifiable behavior from a grown ass adult(also there’s a whole can of worms involved in Daniel never trying to figure out where the fuck Robby’s parents are and letting him live there without an explanation but that’s for a different rant).

Now assume none of that weird subplot happens, there is another way to have the Robby and Miguel rivalry that would have made so much more fucking sense and it only hinges on one fucking thing- Robby enters the tournament. It could be with or without Daniel’s approval(maybe even with a KK3 parallel, but Daniel honestly seems pretty into the tournament these days so he’d probably be down for Robby joining and reping Miyagi-do), but all we need is for him to do it. Robby gets there, and Johnny sees him, potentially rocking a Miyagi-do gi and can have his surprised/hurt moment with him and Daniel, even potentially a confrontation between them. We can also still have Miguel beating Robby in the tournament and having Johnny be conflicted about his son losing. Hawk can even still hurt him and give Johnny his “holy shit this is wrong” epiphany and Miguel not understanding why Johnny wants him to go easy on Robby. Robby can still be hurt and upset by thinking Johnny cares more about Miguel after he loses.

Okay now as for season 2? Assuming everything stays the same in season 1, I have one MAJOR complaint. Robby becoming Sam’s love interest; and no it’s not because I think Miguel and Sam should be an endgame couple when the show is over(I do but that’s beside the point) but because it turns Sam into a plot device. This carries over into season 3 where she starts dating Miguel again and apparently just never breaks it off with Robby which is such a dick move I can not for the life of me imagine Sam of all fucking people doing it. She isn’t perfect by any means but she’s also outspoken and and much more confident by that point and should not have had a problem breaking up with someone in an email. But I digress, back to season 2- the moment I saw that Sam and Robby were going to be a couple I immediately knew the writers fucked up. There was no build up for it, nothing in season 1 to foreshadow this as a possibility(Different but Same doesn’t count because that was a whiplash of an episode) and they just decided offhandedly to put her in the middle of Robby’s and Miguel’s rivalry. There was no reason to make them a couple other than to fuck with Miguel and set up the Tory & Sam rivalry which could have happened fucking anyway with the shit at the country club, the rift between Sam and Aisha, and Miguel’s ongoing feelings for Sam even after he’s dating Tory(also a dick move what the fuck Miguel??). Adding Robby as fuel to the fire was super unnecessary and all it did was set up the clusterfuck that was the season 2 finale.

And OH BOY was that finale a clusterfuck. First of all, as a prelude- Fuck. Daniel. He pulled the exact same shit as in season 1 with dumping Robby the second he does anything even a little bit wrong. But also, as a gut punch, Robby didn’t actually do anything wrong. What was he supposed to do at the party? He couldn’t stop Sam from drinking even though he wanted to, it was her (very poor) choice. But he did what he could, he kept an eye on her, and when the cops showed up, he didn’t just leave her, he put her in the car and drove her somewhere he thought she’d be safe without having to immediately face her father(who super fucking overreacted btw) while she was recovering. This scene, which could have been an excellent bonding moment for Johnny and Robby, and an introduction to Sam getting to know Johnny outside of her father’s influence, was turned into a brawl for no fucking reason.

Which leads me to the school fight. And right off the bat I’ve got to say this; even as, and maybe especially as, a person who has written post season 3 fix it fics, there is no way for Robby and Miguel to convincingly fix what happened in the season 2 finale. Yes, what Robby did was absolutely an accident and he has already done his time for it. But the elephant in the room is this: Miguel could have died. Or at the very least, been totally paralyzed. There is not a good way to come back from that. They will always have that hanging over their heads, even if they somehow reach an understanding. And I know someone is going to try and make the argument about that being a parallel to Johnny and Daniel in KK1, but if it is that it’s a terrible parallel. What Johnny did was supremely fucked up and I won’t deny that, especially with the Halloween scene and Daniel’s knee in the tournament(which actually was technically more Bobby’s doing, but I digress), but it was never “almost permanently disable/kill someone” bad. (Again there’s a whole can of worms to open about the shit with Chozen and Daniel’s seemingly pretty easy forgiveness of a man who tried to kill him because what the fuck?? But again that’s another rant.) But the writers wanted to push the envelope so now Johnny will always have the tug of war of choosing Robby, who he loves but who also really fucked up, and Miguel, who was the original reason for the rivalry in the first place but who was also the one who, again, almost died because of his son, even if he somehow fixes his relationship with both. It will always be “why did you pick him over me?” and Johnny will never have a good enough answer for either of them. And finally the big complaint- Johnny completely regressing in season 3. Season 3 honestly felt like a rehashing of season 1 because we literally had to see him progress in his arc all over again from square fucking one. He still isn’t there for Robby, he’s still fucking up things with Miguel and his family, he’s still fucking up his relationship with Daniel, he still chooses to miss his appointment with Robby to see Miguel(who would have been there after the appointment and he could have seen him then), he abandons half of his fucking students to fend for themselves and leaves the other half with a man he knows is a dangerous psychopath. And yes we get the cool scene at the end of December 19, but is it worth it?? I’m genuinely asking because, as much as I love that scene, I really don’t believe it is.(edit: Also fuck that whole subplot with Eli and Demetri- you don’t get to just break the arm of the boy who was your best friend and just have that go away with no repercussions. Fuck. That. I hope Demetri gets at minimum an actual on screen apology, and hopefully Eli actually trying to make amends.)

We could have still had the big team up- have Johnny admit to Daniel that he’s fucked up and tell him everything that’s happening with Kreese. Have them join forces to defeat Kreese in the tournament. Have the dumb fucking bet. Introduce Terry Silver in season 4. Have Johnny’s and Daniel’s tenuous truce strained at every turn because they’re idiots. Do all of it. But y’know what? We could have had all of that- all of it- without it being at the expense of at least 2 character arcs; Johnny’s and also Robby’s.

Also before I end this I just have to add- nothing and I mean nothing will ever redeem Kreese or Silver for me. I do not give a singular shit about either of their tragic backstories, I just don’t. I get why and how Chozen got his redemption- he was a teenager when that shit happened, and while the shit he pulled is personally unforgivable in my opinion, he has actively been trying to redeem himself by spending the last however many decades making it up to his community. I’d even understand a Barnes redemption to an extent, even though I wouldn’t accept it, because he was also very young and being manipulated by, again, a dangerous psychopath. But Kreese and Silver? Abso-fucking-lutely not. They were two grown ass adults who purposefully targeted an 18 year old and put him through emotional and physical for weeks, paid someone to intimidate him through both threats of physical violence but also through vandalism, and gaslighted him and isolated him from the only family he had at the time because he beat them in a children’s karate competition. Look, I’m not sorry, I don’t give a fuck about Kreese’s tragic backstory, nothing about what Kreese has done can be rationalized by just saying “oh his mom and girlfriend died and he was in ‘Nam”. And any good thing he does for Tory, or even Robby, does not balance out all the harm he has caused. Silver is even less redeemable- I don’t care that he almost died in war, I’m an army brat I know plenty of people who almost died and don’t act like this. In canon we have evidence of him being completely, unrepentantly evil- the first scene with him in it has him basically confirmed as the BP of nuclear waste, he pays people so he can beat them up, he’s been personally funding Kreese’s child indoctrination classes. They could pull out the saddest backstory for him possible and I would not give a shit. And that’s fine. We don’t need every bad guy to have a tragic backstory- sometimes an evil villain can just be an evil villain for no reason, not all of them need a traumatic turning point that the authors shove in to make the audience sympathize with them. So please, writers, stop trying to make me feel sorry for them because I really don’t and I don’t understand anyone who does.

Okay rant over.

#cobra kai #karate kid #spoilers #johnny lawrence #daniel larusso #robby keene #miguel diaz #sam larusso #tory nichols #aisha robinson #eli moskowitz #john kreese #terry silver #demetri #chozen toguchi #mike barnes

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unpopularly-opinionated · 4 years ago

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To get it out of the way, I didn’t drop a dime on Disney to watch the new Mulan movie, but I have seen it.

The TL;DR, non-spoiler review is, when you compare it to the original animated movie, it’s about a 3/10, but when you judge it as it’s own movie, I think it’s about a 7/10.

Pre-post edit: Before I wrote everything below (which is filled w/ spoilers btw so be warned), I wanted to give this a 7/10 on it’s own merit w/o comparing it to the original, but after really examining the message of this version it’s really difficult to give it a 7/10, so I’ll say 5/10.

It’s not a bad movie, I just think the message it sends is kind of fucked up and a huge 180 from the original, which I know I said I wouldn’t compare it to, and I’m not, but just objectively the messages are contrasting.

The movie isn’t actually that bad, it’s just different and similar in very odd ways. The whole movie felt really conflicted over whether to make it it’s own thing separate from the original, and whether to make it a 1:1 copy of the original. Put into words, I think it just had a bit of an identity crisis.

Some aspects of the movie that they changed from the original don’t immediately make it clear why they were changed, which leads me to believe they wanted to make it it’s own thing, but then they threw in clear scenes that were from the original, and evidently the movie is called Mulan, so clearly they didn’t shy away from that.

Some of the changes made sense. It’s very obvious they wanted to try and go for a “more serious” tone for the film. This is likely why there’s no singing which is the biggest missing feature, but also likely why Mulan is missing her humor from the original, and why her grandmother isn’t in this, and obviously Eddie Murphey’s Mushu and the Cricket. This movie isn’t funny, and it’s not supposed to be, which is fine.

The changes that didn’t make immediate sense to me though were small changes, such as changing her family name from Fa to Hua, or even changing her fake name from Ping to Jun, or the Huns to the Rourons, or the family worshiping a Phoenix instead of a Dragon, or giving her a younger sister, etc. Very small minor changes which don’t ultimately change anything of the film or plot itself so ultimately aren’t a huge deal but then why change them? This is what I mean when I say it seems like they wanted to make this movie their own thing...but also the same.

The scenes they decided to recreate weren’t obviously 1:1, but I think they did a pretty decent job. The Matchmaker scene happens. The lake scene happens. They soldiers talk about what they look for in a woman and all say relatively the same things. Those were pretty cool scenes.

Hands down, the instrumental version of Reflection was the best ever. They used it a couple times and every time I get chills cause I was just fangasming over it. Really minor detail, but fuck was it awesome to hear nonetheless.

The action was actually pretty well choreographed I thought. It really reminded me of Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon with the sort of flying through the air, running on walls, etc.

The actor they got to play the villain, Bori Khan (also different from the original), looks identical to the animated Shan Yu. Like as identical as a real human being can be to an animated character. I honestly thought that was perfect casting. I don’t recognize him, or 99% of the actors in this (honestly the only one I recognized at all was the general from Rogue One), but he was great.

Some of the more major changes were...a bit hit or miss. This movie evidently focuses a bit on what they call Chi, which is kinda magic but also kinda not magic? It all gets vaguely Disney-explained but Mulan’s Chi just makes her a pretty decent acrobatic fighter. The enemy “witch” uses Chi to straight up transform into a hawk or a swarm of bats among other things, but she’s sort of implied to be more advanced with Chi than Mulan is so that’s okay I guess. The Emperor also has Chi and he briefly uses it to...make some fabric defy the laws of physics briefly I guess.

The part about the Chi that bothered me slightly was how they used it to reinforce this sense of otherness about Mulan. Obviously Mulan has always been about a girl defying social norms to save her father and to bring honor to her family and country, but in this version Mulan has Chi, and girls aren’t supposed to have Chi. Only boys can have Chi, and women with Chi are seen as witches and are usually exiled. This is the story behind the bad “witch”, she was exiled for having strong Chi.

The reason why this felt like an issue is because it sort of takes away the fact that Mulan is “just a girl” infiltrating a male-dominated space to defy social norms and do what only men are “allowed” and “capable” of doing. Instead, she’s some pseduo Jedi-like character with abilities that not only show her as more capable than the men, but also not like other women.

So whereas in the original you could point to Mulan as an example and say “See, women can do what men can do” you can’t do the same in this movie because this Mulan actually has something that makes her special and unique that not every woman might have. To use another Star Wars reference, Chi is quite literally the Midichlorians of Mulan. Whereas before any woman could do what she could do, now only some women like Mulan can do what she did.

Another weird aspect was I guess the message of the movie. Like, people say this movie was made for China and uh...yeah, the message of this movie kiiiiinda proves that.

Throughout the training parts, the General emphasizes the virtues they all live by which are engraved on everyone’s swords: “Loyal. Brave. True.” and the conflict stems from the fact that Mulan isn’t being true by hiding her identity, which is why she’s failing as a soldier and I guess a human being and it’s only after she embraces who she is that she starts kicking ass.

There’s also the scene at the very beginning with the Emperor, like in the original, where the soldier tells him about the invaders approaching. In the original, the Emperor was a very kind and caring old man who cared more about his people than anything else. Evidently, they tried to like...make it more realistic or something, I guess, so in this the Emperor doesn’t really seem to care about his people, and he keeps emphasizing in that scene and throughout the movie that they need to “protect the dynasty” which was just weirdly loyalist.

And then of course the end where they’re supposed to repeat the message of the film, the part you’re supposed to take away which is...”devotion to family”. That, along with the previous two things I mentioned, really make this movie feel like a 180 from the original. Whereas the original was about a woman defying social norms to be protect her father and bring honor to her family, this one felt more like a woman defending her country and vaguely reinforcing those social norms...?

Perhaps I misinterpreted, I don’t know. I just thought it was weirdly the opposite message the original sent.

#random rant #mulan 2020 #mulan #disney #long post #spoilers below

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panharmonium · 5 years ago

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no man can know his destiny...

...because if we told him what it was, he might decide to tell destiny to bugger off!

all right, folks. i am obviously eight years late to this party (party? maybe not party; that’s...maybe not the best word), and i am aware that everybody who was ever in this fandom has probably already consumed all the finale reaction posts that they ever needed to read. i am putting this S5 finale round-up together for my own purposes anyway, because now that i’m no longer avoiding spoilers, i want to make sure i get all of my own thoughts down on paper before i accidentally run into anyone else’s.

fair warning before anyone decides to invest their time: this post is sixteen single-spaced pages long. i am putting it under a cut here, so feel free to scroll on by.

with that said, off we go!

in a land of myth and a time of magic (i fell in love with a ten-year-old tv show):

so, to preface this, i think it’s pretty fair to say that i very rarely complain about merlin.

i watched the first episode of merlin on a complete whim - i was by myself, on a trip to atlanta, and despite the fact that i usually never sit down and just decide to watch random tv, i was scrolling around on netflix before bed and saw merlin and thought “oh hey, that’s always been on my list as something i thought i might like.” i clicked it. i watched it. i thought it was going to be a silly, fun, low-investment show i could use to fill the spare time on my trip.

it was silly. and it was fun. it was not low-investment. i fell in LOVE.

and i know this comes through in the way i write about it, like - the vast majority of the blogging i have done about merlin has come from a place of THIS THING IS GREAT AND I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT BECAUSE IT’S GREAT. sometimes the story will go places that stress me out or make me sad, but usually that hasn’t impacted my enjoyment, because generally, when i evaluate stories, i react more to my perception of the story’s integrity, as opposed to whether or not i personally ‘liked’ the ending. so i might personally prefer stories that don’t end in tragedy, but if the story has earned its ending, with integrity, then i won’t feel any desire to criticize it. i will talk about how sad i am or how low it made me feel, but if the story has earned its ending then i can’t - i just can’t argue with it. i have to respect it.

and i think i’ve demonstrated that well enough in all the other blogging i’ve done about merlin. with 5.10 and 5.11 particularly; i felt those episodes were impossibly tragic and dark and SO unhappy, but i respected the storytelling, despite this. i wasn’t hopping on here to make posts like ‘ugh this is getting so dark this episode sucks!!!’ i was writing about the story they were crafting - which, yes, WAS getting dark, certainly - and about how impactful it was (even when that impact was just “OUCH”). i was still deeply engaged, at that time.

so - i think i have earned the right to say honestly that the following analysis does not come from a place of ‘this was SAD and that makes it automatically CRAPPY!!!’ that’s not how i assess things. 5.10 and 5.11 were devastating, but i respect them. i loved watching them. i would watch them again. i thought that the show had the potential to pull off something masterful, after those two episodes.

but the one thing this series has always struggled with a little bit is follow-through. bbc merlin is at its finest when they aren’t afraid to go barreling after the moral ambiguity and complexities that their show inherently contains (‘to kill the king,’ ‘the sorcerer’s shadow,’ ‘the disir,’ ‘the kindness of strangers,’ ‘the drawing of the dark,’ to name just a few), and they achieve real greatness in those moments. but they sometimes pull back from the difficult questions they pose. and i can’t tell if it’s that they’re deliberately chickening out, or if it’s just some variation of carelessness or ineptitude that makes them fumble the ball, but the end result is that they hit these amazing highs of “wow, i can’t believe we’re finally going there; we’re addressing the central conflict” and then all the complicated questions they asked just get dropped.

it happens in ‘the sorcerer’s shadow’ (which is an amazing episode otherwise), when kilgharrah kind of...word-of-god handwaves away merlin’s conflict, saying ‘we just gotta wait for arthur to be king, that’s the right way to go about this.’ and they double down on this by having merlin say that it was gilli, not merlin, who had betrayed their kind - which is just not - that is not what that episode had been saying, up until that point! the entire point of that episode was that yeah, merlin has in fact gotten himself into a position where he’s made a morally questionable decision to serve a regime that oppresses him and others like him. they show us how conflicted he feels when he’s confronted by this reality. they show us that he knows it’s true. it was brilliantly done - and then they pulled WAY back.

but even then i don’t think it was like...unforgivable, at that point. it doesn’t break the story’s integrity; i can definitely believe that merlin would take that tack - i’m not sure he’s quite ready to confront/accept the reality of his situation at that point. so i get it. it wouldn’t be a big deal - if the show had eventually addressed/followed through on this conflict in the end.

and i think the same is true of the episodes leading up to the finale. they were dark and complicated and tragic, but they were telling an important story; and none of the terrible things we saw happening to the characters were dead-ends, story-wise. there was a place for that story to go. there was room for morgana to have her arc resolve in a meaningful way. there was room for mordred’s arc to do the same. the place in which we found ourselves at the end of 5.11 was as dark and complicated as merlin had ever been, and it was still bursting with potential.

and then you watch the finale and it’s just - empty. i described it as a paper castle in some other post, and that’s what it felt like. no substance. it was like they stuffed us on a bullet train and whizzed us past material that should have taken an entire season to handle, and you didn’t see any of it or feel anything because the trip took ten seconds and the scenery was a blur.

it honestly felt like they thought they had another season coming and then someone popped in and told them “actually you have to wrap this up in two episodes.” i can’t think of another way to reasonably explain how dramatically the quality of the storytelling downshifts between 5.11 and 5.12. i wasn’t watching the show then, so i don’t know, but it’s - at least if that had been the case, i would UNDERSTAND what had happened. it’s just insanity, otherwise.

so anyway, with all that said, here are my own reasons for why i think the last two episodes were objectively bad writing, as opposed to just writing i don’t personally like. nobody is obligated to agree with me on any of these points, but i’m also not putting them up here to debate them, really - i truly believe that almost everything i watched in the last two episodes was poorly-conceived.

(there’s an entirely different discussion to be had, of course, about the relative merits of ending your, uh, hopeful fantasy story on a bummer of a death knell, and i might touch on that later, but that’s a little bit more subject to personal preference, and honestly, it’s not the point i’m trying to make here, because to be frank, these episodes are bad without even getting into who lives and who dies.)

i. plot contrivances: EVERYWHERE.

i don’t mean plot devices. plot devices are important, in a story. a plot device is something like how merlin throws excalibur into the lake in 1.09, and then is able to retrieve it in 3.13 because of a choice he made to show someone compassion in 2.09, and thus he is able to save the day and defeat the undead. excalibur is a plot device, in that scenario - the ability to use it in 3.13 unfolds organically.

a plot contrivance, on the other hand, is artificial. it’s unnaturally convenient. it doesn’t feel convincing. it’s what you reach for when you can’t think of a way to make something happen, but a writer is supposed to look at these things when they edit and think ‘hey. if i can’t make this happen without it being contrived, maybe it shouldn’t happen. maybe i need to look at this again.’

so like, from the very beginning of 5.12, we have:

the face-sucker slug. never seen one before. never heard of it before. never given any indication that any such creature ever existed. never given any indication that “stealing” magic was something that could even happen. no idea where morgana found it. created for and introduced in this very episode, just to give merlin a reason to go to the crystal cave; removed from the episode ten minutes after it’s introduced, forgotten.

gwaine’s sudden girlfriend. NEVER SEEN HER BEFORE. NEVER HEARD OF HER BEFORE. NEVER GIVEN ANY INDICATION THAT ANY SUCH CREATURE EVER EXISTED. where does she come from? why do we care? (surprise: we don’t.) created for and introduced in this very episode for the sole purpose of explaining how morgana could get the information she needed to interfere with everyone’s plans, which was a contrived idea in and of itself, because it relied completely on making gwaine act like the kind of dope who tells a civilian military secrets.

you just. you can’t. if your plot point can’t function without a) introducing a brand new character in the penultimate episode of your show and b) forcing a long-standing character to do something they just wouldn’t do, you can’t use it. you just can’t. you have to figure out something else.

this lady’s very existence is nonsense. absolutely, utterly contrived. to waste that much time on a character we’ve never seen before and don’t care about, in the last two hours of your five-season show...incredible.

morgana’s army. they outnumber camelot’s forces “five to one.” where did they come from? how did she amass such a force? in season 4 she was losing all her allies - the episode with annis and caerleon was specifically designed to show us how people were turning from her methods and aligning with arthur. and then she spent two years in a pit. how did she amass such a force in such a short period of time? what could she offer them? why do they fight for her? there is no explanation of who the “saxons” are or what they want - the show just needed an army for camlann.

aithusa. aithusa was, apparently, just a vehicle to enable mordred to obtain a blade forged in the dragon’s breath. beyond that, he served no purpose. he literally just vanishes, along with that entire storyline - the future of the dragons, everything - just dropped, forgotten, never mentioned again.

morgana in the crystal cave. “gee, i finally caught merlin, the guy who’s supposed to be my doom. i think i’ll just...trap him behind some rocks. wouldn’t want to kill him, while i have him completely powerless and at my mercy. how then would he escape from this super powerful magical cave and ensure that the next step in this impossibly weak plot unfolds?”

the crystal cave itself. what is the entire point of this detour? killing time while arthur and merlin are separated? i mean, the whole “merlin loses his magic for all of five minutes” thing was a contrivance itself, just to ensure that merlin and arthur had a reason to be separated during the battle. but even putting that aside, once merlin is in there, and balinor says ‘you have to go into the light to discover who you truly are, you have power of which you cannot conceive’ - what purpose did that serve? all we see merlin do once he gets to camlann is call down some lightning. he’s done that before. he...he did that in season one.

the entire detour in the crystal cave changed nothing. it was a contrivance to mark time so merlin didn’t arrive at camlann at the same time as everybody else.

arthur at camlann. the idea that we are supposed to believe that arthur somehow finds himself all alone on that battlefield, long enough for mordred to sneak up on him and stab him and for him not be found by a single other human being until merlin shows up. he is the KING. there is no conceivable circumstance where his army lets him go wandering around by himself after the battle has been mostly won. it doesn’t make sense. it isn’t believable. it’s a contrivance to make sure mordred has an opportunity to get him.

“only the sidhe possess such magic.” the SIDHE????? you guys. the last time we saw the sidhe was in that gooftastically wonderful filler episode where a pixie wanted to bone gaius. you can’t - you just - you can’t center your entire ‘this is how we save arthur’ plan on a race of beings that we haven’t heard of since early season 3 and which we never knew anything more about than that they once possessed a farting princess.

“not without the horses.” are you telling me. that the reason they don’t make it to this fabulous isle in time. is because. their horses. were conveniently scared away. that’s what killed the glorious once and future king. the horses ran off.

and the horses conveniently ran off because they were conveniently scared away by morgana, who conveniently happened to show up because she was conveniently put in a position to extract information from someone who conveniently knew where arthur was going - all of this, of course, predicated on the impossible-to-believe assumption that a) gwen would ever tell anybody where arthur was going, when the stakes were this high, when nobody needed to know and camelot had already fallen prey to spies multiple times, and b) that gwaine and percival would, if they did for some reason know where arthur was headed, be so foolish as to literally serve themselves up to morgana on a plate, when they know that the whole point of this scheme is that they WANT morgana to hang out in brineved wasting her time in order to allow arthur to reach the isle safely.

I SAY AGAIN: if your plot point cannot function without making characters do things we just do not believe they would do, you can’t use it. you can’t. you have to revisit what you’re doing. you can’t just make anything happen that you want to in order to drive the story to the place you want it to go. it has to make sense.

kilgharrah. is called just in time to deliver a pat explanation of the ending, but not in time to shuttle arthur over to the isle? merlin could have called for a ride ages ago. merlin and arthur weren’t traveling fast, or far. it’s not like kilgharrah was having that much trouble getting around. we see that he handles carrying the two of them just fine. we see that he flies away, zoop, no problem. there is no reason for him not to have been called even a single hour sooner, other than that the plot demanded that he could not be, because the plot demanded that arthur not get there in time.

it breaks the boundaries of disbelief. it takes you right out of the story. it reminds you, inappropriately, that all of this is a thing someone planned (poorly). all of it is contrived.

ii. dropped plotlines

i can’t believe i actually have to say this.

i’ve seen tv shows tank before, but usually, when tv shows tank, it’s just that the quality of their writing has declined, and they’ve resorted to resolving their plotlines in ill-conceived ways.

i have never, in my life, seen a tv show DROP all of its major plotlines before it ends. i have never seen a tv show just. FORGET. to address their premise. never. i still can’t believe it actually happened. i’m sitting here trying to remember if the merlin finale was actually some kind of anxiety-induced fever dream i had while i was gearing myself up to watch the last few episodes.

merlin bbc had, at its outset, two major plotlines. these would be supplemented later by other throughlines (many of which were also dropped), but the two major ones always stayed the same, one for arthur and one for merlin:

for arthur, the question of him one day becoming the greatest king in history and uniting the land of albion

for merlin, the question of him one day liberating the magical community from oppression and being able to live free from fear

those were the two constant throughlines in this show, from episode one. the struggle to unite the land of albion, and the struggle to make the land a free and just one for ALL of its people, not just those without magic.

this show, somehow, ended without actually addressing either of these things.

it’s amazing. i don’t even know how they managed it. somehow, this show ended without actually ending.

to elaborate on this (and other dropped plots):

a) the once and future king: we never see a united albion. the show is driving at it, in seasons 4 and 5, when arthur makes peace with annis in S4, and then gets annis’s permission to travel through her lands in 5.01, and then helps Mithian’s father in S5, and makes peace with odin in 5.04, and then tries to make peace with the sarrum in 5.08, and it’s all making sense, and you expect that plotline to continue until we see its eventual fulfillment at the end of the show. you would expect, if this were supposed to be such an important thing, that the big struggle at the end of the series would have been all the peoples of albion united together against a threat.

but we never see any of these kingdoms again. we never hear a peep out of them. no one ever mentions them. it’s like they all just vanished into the wind. as far as we’re aware, camelot fights morgana’s army on their own - it’s like annis and odin and godwyn and rodor and those five kings that came together to sign the treaty in 2.10 never existed.

the dragon says at the end, “all you have dreamt of building has come to pass,” but we’re just like - WHERE? we literally didn’t see it! it was never shown to happen! you can’t just say that the most important outcome of your five-season series happened when it never did! it demonstrably NEVER DID! you can’t…..oh my god, you can’t...try to end your show offscreen, lol; i don’t know what else to say!

look - this is something i wrote before i knew how the series ended, when i was considering the possibility of arthur dying:

i wrote that before i even knew what happened. that’s not the result of, you know, retroactive complaining because they killed a character and i didn’t like it. i was doubting the idea that they would even be able to kill arthur, because i legitimately didn’t believe the show had shown us the uniting of albion yet (and they hadn’t, lol).

it just...it truly doesn’t make sense. something got tangled as they approached these last episodes. in 5.10, finna tells merlin, “without you, emrys, arthur cannot build the new world we all long for,” indicating that it hasn’t been built yet. but that scene takes place just a few weeks before the finale - you’re saying “the new world” hadn’t yet been accomplished at that point, but now, a few week later, it has? arthur didn’t DO ANYTHING in that interval! we saw camelot fight off a bunch of invaders (alone) like they’ve done a billion times before. there was nothing to hint that now albion is united.

and if finna was referring to the “new world” meaning a magical world, i mean - arthur didn’t do anything to build that, either. he died.

something happened. some wire got crossed. i don’t know what it was, but it meant that the show ended without actually closing out Main Plotline #1.

b) one day, we will be free: this show also somehow managed to end without addressing the plight of the magical community, which was THE central conflict of the show for all five seasons. more than that, it was the show’s premise - it was how they crafted their entire idea; it was one of two defining features of their pitch to BBC: that they would “wind back the clock” to when the characters were young, and that magic in this universe would be outlawed.

they literally abandoned the show’s premise. the episode directly preceding the finale was entirely about camelot’s wrongdoing and the right of magic-users to stand up and fight for their rights. it is not a crime to fight for the right to be who you are. and then we literally never heard a word about this struggle again. it was dropped like a hot sack of bricks.

IMPOSSIBLE.

and yet

it’s just left, twisting in the wind. we have no idea what happened. the one and only glimpse of camelot that we get at the end of this show has nothing to do with magic; it’s grim and somber people chanting ‘long live the queen’ in the throne room. and then we’re gone from that place, forever, never to return. it’s like they don’t even remember that ‘freedom for magical folk!’ was the driving source of conflict for the entire show. you would never have known that “magical oppression” was ever a feature in this show, if you just watched the end. camelot’s wrongs are never addressed, never referred to, never amended. the fate of the magical community is never hinted at. we don’t have any inkling of what happened to those people. we literally do not even have any indication of whether the magic ban was lifted.

it’s like none of that ever existed. it’s like the show just FORGOT its entire premise.

this truly might be the most unbelievable thing about the finale, for me. i’m still having trouble wrapping my head around it. in a roomful of writers and editors and producers, not a single person pointed out “hey uhhhh...we haven’t actually resolved either of our plots?”

i was exposed to enough vague reactions from fans to expect the finale to be disappointing. i assumed that the show would resolve its major plotlines in ways that i either didn’t approve of or found unsatisfying.

i did NOT expect them not to resolve their major plotlines at all.

i have never seen a tv show literally forget to end. never. never seen that happen before in my life.

c.) i am the last of my kind: the reveal of merlin as a dragonlord ushered in a third important plotline - his responsibility to the dragons, his duty to protect them and help them thrive. and the question was always ‘all right, so as a dragonlord, how is merlin going to ensure the survival of the dragons as a species, since they’ve been almost exterminated - .’ and that was also dropped. like a hot potato. like it never was. we never get clarity on what the heck was going on with aithusa, and then at camlann, aithusa just vanishes. gone. literally never to be seen, mentioned, or wondered about again.

d) i am old, merlin: this is a smaller thing, but in 5.10 the show starts this subplot about kilgharrah being unwell and merlin suddenly confronting the idea that kilgharrah is not, in fact, immortal. and it was actually very poignant and made me emotional despite how kilgharrah kind of drives us insane. they set us up for the idea that we are going to lose him. they set us up to expect that we will eventually see merlin arrive at a place where he doesn’t have that voice in his ear anymore, kind of like when luke goes to cloud city and obi-wan can’t help him.

but then, in the finale, kilgharrah just shows up like he always does, and there’s no mention of anything that came before. he’s fine.

it’s - it’s inconsistent, it’s not appropriate; there’s no emotional throughline. the exchange they have in 5.10 is such a beautiful moment, when a wavering merlin asks “what will i do without you?”

and kilgharrah says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world, “you will remember me.”

that’s such a powerful thing. for someone like merlin, for someone who has lost so many people who mattered to him - you can feel that line expand to cover miles and miles of ground. it’s about more than just kilgharrah.

but having kilgharrah then show up at the end of the finale to deliver his neat little explanatory summary the same way he always does dilutes that previous moment down to almost non-meaning. there’s no emotional consistency. they emotionally prep us for this figure’s departure, and instead he shows up, the same as always, with no reference to the fact that a few episodes ago we were getting ready to watch him leave us.

it’s not good writing. it just isn’t good writing.

iii. i want you to always earn your ending

i think it’s hard to come to grips with the idea that bbc merlin was specifically a show whose kind of...big premise was being a deliciously torturous slow burn up to some massive and long-awaited reveal, and then it fizzled just before it gave the audience what it had been leading up to for five seasons. it’s really just...wow. i’ve seen shows fizzle before, obviously, but the fact that this one was specifically built on the idea that you were waiting for something momentous (and inevitable!) to happen - which then doesn’t happen? that’s just...hoo boy.

the long-awaited, promised “payoff” doesn’t happen in any way that is convincing or satisfying or remotely plausible. it’s a little walk in the woods, and it ultimately doesn’t matter, because as soon as it’s over, so is the show, and everybody except merlin is long dead.

not with a bang, but with a whimper, indeed.

for a show that had its audience waiting on tenterhooks for five seasons for merlin’s secret to be stripped away, the fact that the show’s biggest “payoff” ended up carrying so little weight and feeling so unconvincing is truly a shame. there was no way for the show to give this concept the weight it deserved by flying through it in thirty minutes. the audience knows that there’s no way this could have been resolved so quickly, so everything that happens between the “reveal” (such as it was) and the end feels...false. it doesn’t seem real. it’s not believable. it feels (again, to use the word that truly sums up the entire spirit of this finale) contrived. rushed and squished together to be neatly tied up in the time they had available.

and that’s poor craftsmanship. stories shouldn’t feel like ‘well, i needed to reach x destination no matter what, so i made this that and the other thing happen to ensure that we got there.’ a reader/viewer shouldn’t be able to sense the presence of the author. they shouldn’t be able to feel the hand of god reaching in and arranging pieces to force a conclusion or extract an emotion that hasn’t been earned.

stories, if they are crafted appropriately, should feel like they have no author at all. like they just are. like everything that happens is the natural next step to whatever came before, as if events could not possibly have unfolded any other way. and i don’t feel like the “reveal” and arthur’s reaction to it met those criteria. all the supposedly super sad and emotional moments they were having at the end made me feel absolutely nothing, because the things arthur says don’t feel real. they haven’t been earned in-story. i felt like i was watching that sequence from a hundred miles away...just like...clinical. removed. like i was taken completely out of the story. like i was in the lighting booth of a theater watching some scripted scene play out below me.

(and this might be the time to mention that this has NOTHING to do with the actors. the entire cast was killing it. they were AMAZING. their performance threatened to wring emotion out of me even despite me being completely unconvinced by the idea of what was happening.)

but that aside - how can you stay immersed in something when you can feel the creator’s hand coming down and forcing a resolution that doesn’t make sense, that hasn’t been earned? it snaps you right out of the suspension of disbelief that all stories require you to maintain in order for you to engage with them. the writers needed arthur to say these things sometime before the end of the show, and so he says them, regardless of whether or not it would ever actually happen like that. but i didn’t believe it, because it wouldn’t have happened like that, and so the emotional impact was zero.

here’s the truth: you can’t use lines like “i want you to always be you” and expect me to get weepy about it when you haven’t earned that kind of resolution. it’s a false tearjerker. the writers are relying on our previous emotional attachment to these characters and our burning desire to see merlin validated in order to slip a contrived resolution past us without actually doing the work to make it plausible. they’re playing on our affections in order to cover up the structural shortcomings of the story they cobbled together.

i don’t like when a story tries to manipulate me like that. i’m not going to play that game.

iv. you are destined to be albion’s greatest king (*thor face* are you, though?)

i think there are probably some people out there for whom arthur’s death would have been a dealbreaker no matter what the rest of the story looked like. i respect that.

i’m in the camp where i could have accepted the ‘legend-compliant’ ending, if only it had been earned. as it is, arthur is never allowed to fully realize himself before he dies. the show keeps saying, and i quote, “one day you will be the greatest king this land has ever known,” but arthur skips off to avalon after having reigned for a whopping total of three years, during which time he is not shown to accomplish the only goal that was prophesied for him (uniting the land of albion) and during which time he also becomes further entrenched in his father’s anti-magic views (along with the hypocrisy of using magic for his own purposes), as opposed to ever seeing the error of his ways. he doesn’t right his father’s wrongs. he doesn’t usher in justice and freedom for all camelot’s people. he doesn’t change the status quo in camelot much at all, to be honest - and then he dies. and they try to tell us “there will never be another like [him].”

how? how can that not fall completely flat? he hasn’t accomplished his goal yet! he hasn’t become what they’ve kept telling us he will become.

so i can understand the ultimate plan of arthur shuffling off this mortal coil and being prophesied to return, and i could even accept that as an appropriate ending, but not when it hasn’t been earned. the way it actually unfolded, watching this moment feels like we skipped a season somewhere. it feels like a sham.

we’re being asked to give arthur credit for something he did not actually achieve, and it makes the whole thing feel like a farce.

v. gratuitousness and inconsistency

i had no emotional reaction when i realized they had actually killed gwaine.

that is insane, because you know how much i love him. but his death was so ridiculous that I actually started laughing in disbelief. and that in and of itself should be a sign that something wasn’t working. when your emotional beats are landing this wrong - falling this flat - something has slid fundamentally sideways with your storytelling.

i laughed when they killed my favorite knight! but what other reaction was i supposed to have? it was laughably silly! the premise itself was already foolish - that gwaine and percival would even come out here and endanger arthur in that way - and then gwaine dies because morgana used a nathair to extract information from him? we’ve seen morgana use the nathair twice before! she tortured elyan with it. she used it on alator. neither of them died. it’s never been indicated that being tortured with this creature will kill you. which isn’t to say that it can’t be the case, but from a writing perspective, if you’re going to use a sudden inconsistency to kill a major character, it’s noticeable! it’s jarring! and it makes us feel, once again, that the writers just grasped at any little thing they could think of to make what they wanted to happen happen.

and then there’s the whole question of why they wanted gwaine to die in the first place. what purpose did it serve? gwaine didn’t have to die in order for morgana to get the information the writers wanted her to have. and you’d assume that if they still killed him after that, that there would be a reason for it, or that it would at least...matter, somehow, but - WE LITERALLY NEVER HEAR ABOUT HIM AGAIN LOL. i wasn’t even sure he was dead at first. that’s how insignificant it felt. i felt like zuko in the ember island players.

that’s it. we never see him or percival again after that scene. there’s this weird moment where percival examines a footprint and the implication is that he’s going to follow morgana or something, but then it never happens. it’s like the showrunners ran out of time and were like ‘ok well, we just won’t be able to get back to that dangling thread.’ they gratuitously axed their most developed knight and then forgot they did it.

that’s why i laughed. it was so unbelievably bad - there was literally nothing else for me to do.

vi. let the bodies hit the floor (but like, anticlimactically)

i don’t feel like i need to examine mordred and morgana’s fates too closely, because i suspect the subject of “they deserved better” has already been done to death, and that’s kind of a different conversation than what i’m dealing with here. i’m not here right now to argue that they should have lived (though of course, yeah, i have my opinions on what would have made a better story), i’m just here to deal with how ineffectively the story we did get was executed.

one thing that amazes me is that when i watched the S5 deleted scenes, i realized that the showrunners did in fact originally have the right ideas about making morgana and mordred’s arcs deeper/more nuanced, but somehow these ideas never made it into the final cut. there are two deleted scenes that change so much about what could have been - one where arthur and merlin are talking about morgana and arthur is expressing regret and confusion about what happened to her, and merlin says it’s not arthur’s fault, that “there were others better placed to help morgana,” indicating his own guilty feelings.

and the other one was after mordred defected to morgana, where he has a whole conversation with her about how he thinks there is still GOOD in arthur!!!! he’s uncertain about what he’s doing! I JUST

i can’t believe

they had the seeds

of this better story

and they consciously decided not to pursue them. it’s not like they didn’t have the idea. it’s not like they just never thought of it. they thought of it, filmed it, and deliberately removed it. unfathomable.

it’s also pretty remarkable that the big baddie they’ve been touting for the last three seasons just pegs out from a stab wound in about 5 seconds as we’re being hustled on to something else. there is no space devoted to morgana’s death scene (such as it was…). it’s a parenthesis. it feels like, ‘oh we gotta get this out of the way quick hurry up let’s move on.’

and the thing is, i am not wholly opposed to the idea of morgana ultimately destroying herself - it’s not necessarily my first choice, but there are ways they could have gone that route and still told a meaningful story - but if they wanted to go that way, her death would have to matter. it would have to be treated like the terrible failure it represents. it would have to be given the weight of tragedy.

but structurally, the way this scene is set up, there is no way for this to happen. the viewers are already hyper-strung out on tension, when she appears, because they’re suddenly starting to get this horrible realization that one of the show’s two central characters might actually be about to die, but nobody wants to stop clinging to hope despite their bad feelings so there’s just this desperate, screamingly loud ticking clock running in the background, and when morgana shows up in the middle of that clenching fear, there’s absolutely no way her death can receive the attention she deserves. the audience doesn’t have room for something like that. they don’t have room to feel anything on top of what they’re already feeling. they’re already about to explode. they’re already maxed out on investment. they can’t focus on her; they want her to disappear because something more urgent is going on.

and so the show hustles us past her, and her death is just this blip. it barely registers. if you sneezed, you would miss it.

(and then mordred, for his part, doesn’t even have the benefit of a structural problem to explain the anticlimax of his death. he just gets taken out like the trash. for a character that they just spent all this time developing and making sympathetic - boy.)

i think...the thing, ultimately, is this: if this show truly felt that what they had to do was take their previously hopeful premise and stun their audience with the death of the hero, then they should have understood that trying to stack other things on top of that is too much. trying to squash morgana’s death right up against arthur’s is foolish. it’s ridiculous to expect your audience to be able to process morgana’s death and arthur’s in-progress dying at the same time. these two things happen within two minutes of each other. the audience has been following these characters for five years. it’s unreasonable to expect your audience to hold so much emotion at once.

vii. you’ll just have to trust me

the last thing i want to say is a more general thing.

the rest of this analysis focused on the ways in which the finale is poorly-crafted, rather than on my personal feelings about who they did dirty. it’s not really about my own personal thoughts re: the merits of killing gwaine and morgana and mordred and arthur or stranding merlin across the centuries; it’s about if these things (and all the other things in these episodes) were done effectively, and the answer, sadly, is no. the show could have killed all these people and still written something i would have respected (even though it would have been devastating), but that’s not what happened.

but here, at the end, i think i can make room for a little sentiment.

so what i want to reflect on here is this: ultimately, i don’t end up rejecting stories just because they do things i don’t like. the pre-finale episodes were filled with things i didn’t like. i hated how merlin turned mordred and kara in instead of letting them run. i hated how he let the execution proceed. i hated how arthur refused to see the injustice of his own actions. i hated how merlin was getting so wrapped up in ‘make sure arthur doesn’t die’ that everything else was fading away, that he was doing things he could never have done in good conscience before. but i was still deeply wrapped up in these stories, because i believed they were plausible and true. i accepted them. it made sense to me, that these things would be happening, dark and unpleasant as they were.

i don’t start rejecting stories just because they go places i don’t want them to go. i start rejecting stories when i feel they’ve betrayed my trust.

writers and readers/viewers can only ever move together if they trust each other. i allow stories to take me places i don’t want to go because i trust the authors to keep me safe while we travel. i know that they may take me somewhere i don’t want to be, but i trust that they will never take me somewhere i don’t need to be. i trust that they are taking me somewhere intentionally, with the story’s integrity in mind. a creator i trust can take their story anywhere, because i know they will take care. a creator i trust can end their story tragically, because they remember that i am experiencing it alongside them. they don’t surprise-punt me off the edge of the cliff so i can crash, alone, into the painful conclusion. they carry me the whole way, and by the time we get to the end of the line, we can both look back and see that the road that led us here was straight and true. i don’t fault them for taking me here. it was the right place to go.

the end of merlin didn’t feel like that to me. putting aside the fact that it was all so contrived that it didn’t even feel real (illustrated clearly enough in the ten pages above) - the truth is that even if it had displayed the highest quality writing in the world, the way this show ended felt like the audience had been abandoned. the bond of trust between the creator and the consumer was severed. the show forgot to take care.

i’m a ‘galaxy far far away’ girl first and foremost, so i’ll borrow an excerpt from the world according to star wars in order to make my point:

kasdan: i think you should kill luke and have leia take over.

lucas: you don’t want to kill luke.

kasdan: okay, then kill yoda.

lucas: i don’t want to kill yoda. you don’t have to kill people. you’re a product of the 1980’s. you don’t go around killing people. it’s not nice.

kasdan: no, i’m not. i’m trying to give the story some kind of edge to it…

lucas: by killing somebody, i think you alienate the audience. (x)

i think merlin forgot this.

i’m not saying that merlin shouldn’t have killed anybody at the end of their show. i’m not even saying that they shouldn’t have killed arthur. i’m saying that they forgot to take care.

merlin bbc betrayed their audience. you cannot take a show whose underlying theme has consistently been the promise of better things and then turn around and end it like that without taking special care of the people who are watching. you cannot just take an audience who has spent five years listening to someone bright and full of unflinching hope say - without any indication that anyone should doubt the certainty of this statement - “one day things will be better” and expect them to walk into this kind of ending safely.

by killing someone, i think you alienate the audience. and this doesn’t mean that nobody can ever die. but it does mean that if you’re going to kill someone, you have to understand that there is going to be an automatic pain reaction from your viewers/readers/etc, and if you want to maintain their trust, you have to take so much care. you have to be sure that you know exactly what you’re doing. you have to be sure that it’s the right thing. the only thing. you have to make sure that it doesn’t betray the fundamental promises you’ve made whilst crafting the rest of your story.

the end of merlin is truly stunning in a) its utter reversal/unfulfillment of every major promise that comprised its premise and b) the casualness with which it throws its characters away in the last episode. it’s not just “killing someone.” it’s a slaughter. we have to watch almost half the cast die onscreen, and then at the very end literally everybody is dead except merlin himself.

and this is merlin! not game of thrones! merlin is a “family show;” that’s what the writers/directors/producers keep calling it when you listen to the episode commentaries and they talk about how they can’t show certain things or make it too bloody. they wanted to follow in the tradition of “big, kind of epic family-entertaining shows, that—across generations—work on lots of different levels.” but i cannot imagine a young person who has watched this show for five years coming into the finale to see mordred and gwaine and morgana and arthur violently executed, and to see gwen in mourning, and merlin anguished and then more alone than he ever was even when he was hiding his secret, and then, whoop, there’s the credits, that’s all folks. aren’t you glad you got on this ride?

the show ends without fulfilling any of the promises it made repeatedly for years. the liberation of magic, the uniting of albion, and, for merlin, especially, the long-predicted day when he would be known and recognized for who he was - all forgotten. all abandoned. the finale finishes without giving the audience any of the things that they have spent five years being told to expect. the show rewards five years of emotional investment with death and desolation. it breaks all of its promises. it doesn’t take care.

i was lucky enough to have been so disconnected by how shockingly bad these episodes were that i mostly sat there shock-laughing at them in disbelief, the first time i watched. but going through them again to put this write-up together was just like - that’s when a deep sadness kicked in, for me. not at the ending itself, exactly, because, as i’ve said before, it was so poorly put-together that i can’t even see it as real. but just - at the idea that i still had to see it, period. that i had to witness this thing that i loved so much descend into this misery, for all that i didn’t recognize it as something plausible or true. that i still had to watch merlin drag arthur all over creation, still trying, still scrabbling for that sliver of hope, only to have arthur bite the dust like ten feet from their destination. that all merlin ever wanted in his life was to be accepted and loved for who he is, and that he put all of this on hold so he could (supposedly) bring about a world where it would be possible, and then he never gets it. that a life of hiding himself and believing that everybody around him hated who he was inside - that was as good as it was ever going to get, for him.

the writers just - piled it on. ‘you can watch mordred die, even though we just went to all this effort to make you root for him! and now you can watch gwaine die (why????? we don’t know!!! it doesn’t change the story, but why don’t you watch it happen anyway!). and now you can watch morgana die! but don’t look too long, because arthur is dying! and now you can see camelot cold and in mourning - but only for one second, because now you can see merlin, who we never showed meeting any of his friends ever again, wandering around as a solitary old man thousands of years after everybody else is dead and the universe we spent the last five seasons living in no longer exists!!!!!!’

unbelievable.

it doesn’t upset me in the sense of “it’s so terrible that the story ended that way” because i know it didn’t, really. it was contrived and false enough that i laughed through most of the episode. i know it isn’t the way things would have gone, and i won’t have any trouble forgetting it; whereas if it had been well-done, i wouldn’t have been able to dismiss it so easily. but i still had to watch it, regardless. you’re forced to watch it, because you care, and the creators know you care enough not to look away, and they use that trust to keep you glued there while they gut-punch you over and over and over again and then peace out without concluding any of their plotlines, saying, “isn’t it clever??? we really fooled you, didn’t we? technically, we fulfilled the prophecies - nobody ever said any of the characters would get to enjoy the new world they would build! i bet you’re so surprised!”

it leaves you stunned.

it’s so...mean.

it’s so careless.

i don’t have any desire to subject myself to that a second time. after i’m done with this post, i know i’m never going to watch those episodes again. they weren’t good, first of all; and if you need more clarification on that, please see the first ten pages of this document. but more importantly, i don’t feel the need to subject myself once again to the callous disregard for the trust i gave this show’s creators.

if i’m supposed to trust a creator to carry me over rough terrain, i’m trusting them to carry me all the way to the end. they can’t violently dump me to the ground two feet before the finish line, run me over with an ATV, and then expect me to willingly climb back into their arms.

viii: if you want something done right

in conclusion, i guess the one nice thing about this is that we can crawl the last two feet ourselves.

for me, sadly, i think canon!merlin is always going to end at 5.11. the last two episodes don’t feel believable to me. i couldn’t watch them and be convinced that i was watching something plausible; i felt like i was watching two hours of scripted theater. which is, of course, what we’re always doing - but if the story had been crafted appropriately, we shouldn’t have realized it. we shouldn’t have been able to feel the writer’s hand reaching in and making improbable things happen. we shouldn’t have been laughing in disbelief as supposedly “sad” things were happening in front of us, and we definitely shouldn’t have been almost falling off the couch because the last scene was so jarring we thought it was an advertisement. (the TRUCK, people. blaring across the screen and bulldozering through medieval fantasy-adventure show merlin bbc. nothing on earth or in high heaven could have prepared me for that moment.)

but the one good thing about a piece of media that ended so unsatisfactorily is that it lights a fire under people’s butts to go ahead and sort of...row the boat themselves. i was afraid, before i watched this, that seeing it would make me never want to go back to merlin again. i put off finishing season 5 for an entire year because i was in the middle of writing a fic and i thought that if the end of the show upset me, i would never want to write another word. but now that i’m finished, i’m relieved to be able to say that the finale, while it will always be a bitterly disappointing sore spot, was also SO laughably bad that i don’t feel the slightest compunction about just...letting it lie unrecognized. if it were well-crafted and i was just ignoring it because it made me sad, i’d feel guilty for being petty. but it was Just Actually That Bad, so my conscience is clear.

and so is the path to more fun things, i hope, because that is the point of fandom, in the end, to have fun with something you love in the company of other people who love it the same way.

i hope i haven’t written the last merlin thing i’ll ever write. i hope there’s more inside me that i want to say. i hope i haven’t come in too late to make connections. i hope i’ll enjoy rewatching (most of) this show someday. i couldn’t imagine that any of these things would be true, when i knew the end was going to be a let-down, but now that i’ve finished, i feel like there’s infinite room to play, and that, at least, makes me smile.

i’ve said before that this was a hell of a ride. it ended in a trainwreck, sure, but i’m not sorry i got on.

#the once and future slowburn #merlin S5 #meta

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ilovefanfic86 · 4 years ago

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Supernatural S15E20 “Carry On” Series Finale

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

Warning!!! I am going to be very emotional in this post. I kinda still am. There will also be plenty side noes.

I knew they would play that version. (Grabs tissues)

They were babies.

Bobby will always be the dad the boys desrved.

Sam was so damn buff in “Lazurus Rising”.

I like how we get to the old characters/actors.

It feels like they wanted to make us cry before the actual episode.

Here we go...

*Deep breaths*

Lol!! “Ordinary Life”

Dean kept Miracle!

THANK YOU JARED!!!

I’m Sam making the bed.

I loved this montage of Sam and Dean living a free life.

The title card for the last time.

Pie Fest!!

Finally Someone brought up Castiel.

*Side Note*

What Dean said makes sense. Them honoring Cas’s sacrifice by being happy and free is what the should do, but fuck that.

What is this purge shit?!

They are SINGER AND KRIPKE!

Haven’t seen John’s journal in forever. Its beautiful to see that they still have to use it.

Evil mimes = Vamp mimes Thank you Dean.

Well its clear that Jack brought back everyone. Good cause I was worried about Garth.

I don’t trust this plan.

Dean and his ninja stars are too funny.

Yea, clearly a trap.

*Side Note 2*

I am feeling a little let down with the “MOTW” storyline. It’s not what I was expecting. Hopefully this goes somewhere.

Damn! Sam got his ass scooped up.

Wait... What? Jenny? I barely remember her.

Oh... Well bye Jenny.

DAMN IT DEAN!!!!!!!!!!!

I FUCKING HATE THIS SHOW!!!!!

Dean telling Sam that he is proud of him.

STOP!!

I am truly speechless right now. Dean is really dead.

Poor Sam. He had a hunter’s funeral with just the dog.

My heart is really broken right now.

Thank you Donna.

*Side Note 3*

I noticed that the call is from Texas. Like “Walker: Texas Ranger” Lol!!

I am having anxiety watching Sam leaving the bunker.

The Table...

*Side Note 3*

How did Dean fight the universe’s ultimate badasses and was taken out by a FUCKING NAIL!!?!?!?!?!

Dean and Cas deserved better.

Dean is in heaven.

BOBBY!!!

Wait... What did Jack do?

So, no more reliving life’s greatest hits?

Rufus is with Aretha Franklin and John and Mary live up the road.

Harvelle’s Roadhouse.

CAS HELPED JACK MAKE HEAVEN FOR DEAN!! SO CAS IS IN HEAVEN?!?!?!?

Except... WHERE THE FUCK IS CAS?!?!?!?

There’s Baby! With the original license plate.

Sam had a baby and named him Dean!

I can’t see the woman on the porch? Is that Eileen?

Little Dean has the possession tatt.

OH GOD SAM IS ABOUT TO DIE!

An acoustic version of “Carry On...” Who said that this was okay?!!!!

Is he going to meet Dean on the bridge?!!

“Heya Sammy.”

After watching the episode a few more times and reading the lastest gossip about the finale. I do have some opinions on the matter. Some of you may agree and some may not. These are my opinions and thoughts.

Given all that has happened this year I am grateful that they filmed anything. They risked their health and the health of their familes, to get us the finale. I appreciate that. However, there is clearly somethings that were amiss.

First, Dean. (a.)At first I was just completely hurt about his death. I was so mad that he was killed by rebar because of a lame ass vampire. I get the angle that they were going for with it. Now that Chuck isn’t writing their lives anymore, they don’t have plot armour anymore. Basic shit can hurt them now. Just like when the didn’t have any “luck”, regular people shit happened to them. So, if you fight in a barn around random ass rebar sticking out, you’re bound to get hurt.

(b.)Social Media. I get on Twitter and Supernatural is trending. But, not because of high praise. No. It was because a lot of the fandom felt cheated by the finale. Which is how i felt at the time.Then that Jensen did not like the ending. That he thought that the ending was going to be different than what we got. Granted that they couldn’t go full out because of the virus. If I am correct, Jensen said that they would go out “Butch and the Sundance Kid” style. Plus they edited so much of the episode “Despair” that him and Misha felt that the charaters were cheated. Also Jo (Alona Tol) and Ellen (Samatha Ferris) Harvelle were not asked back. Which I thought was strange.

(c.) What happened to all of Dean’s earthly possessions?

Seceond, Sam. (a.)Sam’s life. I am glad that Sam got to live a long life and have the family that he always wanted. I know that because of the pandemic we couldn’t shoot everyone together. That being said, Did Sam marry Eileen? We don’t see or hear from her. The only glimpse of his wife is on the porch and its so far away we can’t tell who it is. Also in Sam’s montage, we see a lot of pictures inside his house. But not one of his wife. It just seems rushed is all.

(b.)Sam’s aging. I am not okay with the wig that they had Jared wear. It looked like a Party City wig. Again, rushed production. But, I do forgive them for a shirtless Sam/Jared. THANK YOU!

(c.)Sam’s heaven. This may go into the plotholes area. When Sam goes to heaven will he see Jess again? Jess was the love of his life and he said that he still thinks about her.

Third, Castiel. (a.) Misha Collins did a amazing job as Castiel. His performance in “Despair” really broke me. That being said, Cas deserved better than the show gave him. A few mentions in the last episode. But no one is really talking about the fact that Cas confessed his love for Dean and it was completely ignored. We just know that Jack got Cas out the Empty and they both made a new heaven for Dean. Does Cas and Dean ever see eah other?

(b.)Destiel/CasDean. DESTIEL BECAME CANON! This was a huge thing for the SPN fandom. People who have never watched the show were interested by this. This made 2020 a little more enjoyable. Now, I know that there are some that are against Destiel. That is your right and opinion. However, it is now plain to see that Cas has always had the feelings toward Dean. And they are not on a platonic level. There has been years of evidence to this. Sam and Cas’s relationship is not the same as his and Dean’s. Naomi programmed Cas to kil Dean but couldn’t once the time came. From angel to demon, Devil and God has all said at one point or another that Castiel was in love wth Dean.. Whenever Cas died on the show, Dean spirals out of control. He always tries to find something else to get his mind off the fact that Cas is gone. Does Dean feel the same for Cas? I’m not sure, but I lean more to that he does. I have always believed that Dean was Bisexual. He’s been seen checking out men on the show. I just wsh that they would at least acknowledged it.

Fourth, Plotholes.(a) There are so many plotholes after the finale that I need answers to. I have too many to put on here. I will put those in a different post.

For what the finale was, I liked it. It did fall a little flat, but if I just focus on the fact that they both got the ending they deserved.

2 brothers, hunters, Archangels vessels, Men of Letters, Legacies, Knight of Hell, Boy!King, ‘Messengers of God’s Destruction’, Dads, Heros. Thank you.

Sam and Dean Winchester... There is peace, now you’re done.

(not my gifs)

#supernatural #Sam Winchester #Jared Padalecki #dean winchester #Jensen Ackles #castiel #Misha Collins #jake kline #alexander calvert #bobby singer #jim beaver #spn spoilers #SPN #spn final season #spn finale #spn s15e20 #SPN Spoiler #Carry On My Wayward Son

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fuckyeaharthuriana · 4 years ago

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Cursed - review (spoilers) up to episode 8 (very long post)

I am going to write a non spoilers review and a spoilers review when I finish the show as well, but for now. Here we go.

The review will be divided in:

Plot: alias, who I am supposed to root for? What the hell is that sword? Characters: alias trying to peek around Nimue to get more scenes from the secondary characters, plus... name droppings? Romance: zero chemistry?? tropey endings?

I generally enjoying the show, especially after the first episodes, which were just boringly long and could honestly be avoided.

1. PLOT

The story starts to be a bit more delineated by episode 7, I have to say. When I started it, I was extremely confused about who I was supposed to root for, what was happening, why all the arthurian names where mixed up.

First of all, let me say that the show looked very pretty. A part from the hideous transitions (animated transitions), the way the show uses colors was absolutely lovely.

a) The plot is this: Someone made a magic Sword (let’s call it Sword) which was able to give very good fighting abilities (and magic) to whoever was using it. Merlin came to use it, at some point, but the Sword ended up fusing with him, corrupting him into a need for revenge. He helps raise kings with the use of his sword, until the Sword consumes all his power and almost kills him.

He is saved by a Sky Fay woman who takes the sword out of his body and hides it, trying to save Merlin from his dark power. They fall in love and are together, until Merlin leaves, angrily, when he finds out that the woman has “destroyed” the Sword (but she has just hidden it). She later marries a guy, and has Nimue, who is actually Merlin’s daughter.

The story starts when the Red Paladins attack Nimue’s village and Nimue’s mother asks her to bring the Sword to Merlin. During her journey he encounters Arthur, who is a thief, and Arthur’s sister, a nun called Morgana who actually works with the Fey people, trying to save them.

The plot picks up once we are around episode 6 and 7, and Nimue is finally back with the hidden Fey, alongside Arthur and Morgana, and they decide that they will keep the sword and fight against the Red Paladins.

b) This is the overall plot. The beginning of the show is extremely slow. The show is heavy handed in his need to show us how oppressed and suffering Nimue is. She is shamed by her own people for being “demonic”, she is discriminated by humans (even if she is one of the fey who has zero fey features), she is attacked by both. When the Red Paladins destroyed her village... I was confused, because we didn’t really see any positive feelings Nimue had for her home (she hated everyone, she was discriminated, she was trying to leave). Also, somehow everyone could tell she is Fey? I was confused by how badly she was able to hide, her who looks like a normal human and could have easily cut her hair or something.

Her meeting with Arthur is also... strange. He is introduced as a love interest, we get bits of his story (thrown away from his family, his father has been killed, seeking honor) with the show, he is a thief and his “attachment” to the plot could have been a bit more... consistent. He helps Nimue, bringing her to Morgana, and conveniently Morgana is working to help the Fey and working for an underground smuggling operation. I think I would have enjoyed it much more if Arthur had been more involved in Morgana’s smuggling operations.

The other side of the plot revolves around Merlin or the Vikings (Pym). He is Uther’s advisor, and Uther is a shitty king. He is just there to... give Merlin something to do? I think the show would have worked well without him.

c) Uther and Pym are the comic reliefs of this show. Uther is shown as having no spine, so I am not sure why he was there. He had no interest in the Red Paladins, or the kingdom, he just wanted the Sword because apparently that gives power to the king? At the same time, we have Pym (Nimue’s friend, thought dead in the attack), who ends up as a healer for a raider ship. Honestly, the people in this show were so horrible that I definitely rooted for Pym’s Vikings. I am not sure if the show wanted me to root for the fae or the vikings, but I definitely wished for the vikings to keep raiding.

Now, for the main plot point that confused me:

d) The Fae and the Red Paladins

I was very confused about why the fae were chased and hunted. The world has Christianity, the Pope and the Church but is basically in a fantasy land (but also it has the Ninth lost legion and the Roman Empire, but the gods are not from anything I could recognize). We are supposed to believe that there is an old ancient religion, and that the fae follow.... Hidden gods? shadows? they have power related to the land? But do they? None of them seemed to have any powers, only Nimue had magic. The show seems to imply that they do, but we only see Nimue using her powers, while the fae is powerless against the Paladins. So... I suppose the Paladins attack them just because they look different? Or because they follow another religion?

I wish there had been a bit extra information about why the Red Paladins are so anti-fae. Something maybe related to the sword, like the Sword murdered a bunch of people and it was made by people following this specific religion?

How powerful are they? Why do they have a fortress? Are they getting taxes from the kingdom, is that why they have the “money from the Beggars Land”. Furthermore, in episode 8, why don’t the Red Paladins fight Nimue? Why leave her fight one on one? There has not been enough time for the reputation to build yet, and we have not seen her reputation building (I take as example Black Sails, and the way John Silver’s reputation was built there). The conquest of the Red Paladins in episode 8 was a bit... too easy. All these religious zealots suddenly are like nope, we surrender. The politics were generally quite confusing, I was never sure where the characters were because they could fast travel to any point at any time.

e) The Sword

I have to say that I really enjoyed the idea of the Sword as something that drains (took Merlin’s power) and corrupts. I definitely want to see what happens to Nimue after using it, and how Arthur will end up with it, as king.

f) Too much gore

TOO

MUCH

GORE

There is no point in it. The Red Paladins are shown to mutilate and torture and kill more than once. It is not needed. We need to see it once, then... just cut away. The guy who is following Merlin to kill him? He is immediately shown torturing a poor person buried alive. There is no point for the majority of these gore scenes.

g) Characters just ends up at the right place at the right time

There is no map or order. We NEVER know where character are. They can instantly transport themselves to any place. They are hidden in the forest and surrounded? It’s okay, they can immediately teleport an army to the Red Paladins’ castle.

Nimue is in the caves, hidden? No worries, she can immediately reach Arthur who is in another place, when she needs to.

Gawain is wandering the forest? The Weeping Monk is right there!

h) If you’re a secondary character you die

Unless you have an important arthurian name (and unless you are Kaze), then the character is dead. Ambushes will happen, the main characters will always survive.

2. CHARACTERS

Name dropping

I want to start with something that really annoyed me because of the over use. The name dropping.

The show did this at least four times, if not more. A character would be introduced with a name (ex. here is the Green Knight!) and then the character or the narration would rectify it by giving us a new name (”He is Gawain!”), with a long pause that leaves us (the audience) the time to GASP IN SHOCK BECAUSE “I KNOW THAT NAME”.

It just seemed.... too much, after the first time.

Gawain

Alright, let me start with Gawain because he literally came out of nowhere. It almost felt like the show introduced him at the beginning (Gawain is supposed to be Nimue’s dearest friend) but then they edited out the scenes so when we meet Gawain we are supposed to be shocked by we are not.

A part from this, he really grew on me. He is the Green Knight, the hero of the hidden fae, and he hates humans (somehow all the main fae, Nimue and Gawain, look like humans). His character arc is well done, because he learns to trust Arthur and that is basically his character growth.

Morgana

HANDS ON, BEST CHARACTER EVER. Morgana’s journey was amazing, also because of what we know of her arthurian character. She starts in a convent, using the family name Igraine, and having Celia as her lover.

I wasn’t too impressed by the fact that the show seemed to use her being wlw as a way to show how progressive and different Nimue is. Still, at least we have our first tv wlw Morgana! She fights for the fae and helps them escape, which shows her sense of justice, even if it is never really explained why she would do this, or even how she started to relate to the fae.

Still, she was soon set to the path of her personal pain when she lost Celia (I’ll talk more about them down in relationships), and the show is never cruel to her pain. We see that she wants revenge (when she writes the letter! Amazing! Stunning!) AND justice most of all, but she accepts the deal with the demon when she sees Celia again, when she is offered something she really desires. Love THIS FOR HER. I am sure her journey will be more and more interesting by episode.

Nimue

I wasn’t too impressed with Nimue. She feels like a character who needs to be there to forward the plot, but I was also sad when the scene moved from other characters to return to her. I understand the need for her character, but I was not too invested in her character arc? I don’t want to sound cruel, I understand the need for her character development and how she had to discover herself and her destiny, but it was all very guidebook and very expected.

At episode 8, Nimue becomes queen of the Fae and conquers the Red Paladins and allies with the Red Spear? This... happens so fast. Nothing had really happened before this point, no plan, no showing us how the Paladins were in one place only... there is really no sense in it. It was just so fast, as if the show didn’t want to spend too much time investing in grand battles or showing us things.

Pym and the Red Spear

Pym is the comic relief of the show. She miraculously escape the massacre and ends up with the Red Spear and her raiding ship. Honestly, they were the best characters. I wish they had had more screen, more than comedic relief. They just conveniently are at the right spot at the right moment (somehow the Red Paladins don’t kill them? After normally slaughtering everyone they find, they are just captured) and thus are thrown back in Nimue’s main plot line, but I am afraid that because of this they will just disappear from the show??

Arthur

Arthur is a mixed bag for me. I really enjoyed how his character arc revolved around honor. He felt like he lost honor and had to reclaim it. But when he steals the Sword we never see him regretting it, which was disappointing, as that would have been part of his arc. Also, he somehow ends up working with the fae but he never shows any emotional investment in justice because the show is too occupied to show us how Arthur and Nimue are falling in love.

I think he shines the most in the episodes where he works with Gawain. We see how he is smart, strategic, and a good fighter, but also able to lead (he saves Gawain with a sacrifice) even when surrounded by people who distrusts him. I truly enjoyed it.

I think his character loses when he is in the same scenes with Nimue.

Kaze

KAZE WAS SUPPOSED to be Nimue’s right hand, giving her advice. And her character is shown to have both advice for Nimue but also being wiser than her. Nimue needs her counsel. Still, when Nimue actually takes the throne, Kaze is not really seen counselling her, as the show needs to immediately pass to the next plot point, and only shows us Nimue and Arthur.

Merlin

Merlin’s plot started strong and then... sort of got lost. He starts being Uther’s witty advisor. He doesn’t really care about Uther, but wants to use his need for the Sword to also get the Sword for himself (to get his magic back?). He doesn’t have magic anymore, and his character arc shows us how he goes from being selfish (he wants the Sword to get his magic back) to selfless when he finds out Nimue is his daughter.

Still, many parts of his plot were...??? He steals fire from the Beggar King (supposedly to destroy the Sword) and this leads to the Fisherman being hired to kill him? But this whole Fisherman subplot was a bit out of nowhere.

He allies with the Vikings (sorry, I forget the name of the king) because their king also wants the Sword... and against Uther... but Uther is literally doing nothing worthy and he could easily manipulate Uther, but ends up losing any upper hand against the Viking king? What was the point of all that?

3. .Romance? Relationships?

Nimue and Arthur? Nope. Their relationship just happens. I have nothing to say about it, a part from the fact that I always found Nimue and Arthur more interesting when they were interacting with other characters because those were the moments where we got characterizations. Arthur with Gawain? We see Arthur’s ability to lead, and the way he reclaims his honor. Nimue with Kaze? We see her insecurities and her hope for the fae.

DOF AND PYM? Yes please. They were just so cute, and Dof’s death was useless.

Morgana and Celia? Yes? But here we are again with the “buried gay” trope, because we cannot have a happy wlw. I understand that she is Morgana and she is not supposed to be happy, so I am not too annoyed at it, especially if Morgana’s love for Celia is used to give conflict to Morgana.

#morgana #gawain #cursed netflix #cursed #nimue #arthur #review #netflix cursed #spoilers

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nyerus · 5 years ago

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MDZS vs. The Untamed

Differences between “Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation” (Mó Dào Zǔ Shī - 魔道祖师) and its live drama adaptation “The Untamed” (Chén Qíng Lìng - 陈情令)

(If you want to skip right to the differences, please see below the cut!)

I’ve recently fallen into the MXTX fandom by crying through TGCF and I’ve been delighted to see that I’m not the only one who’s been newly inducted. I've been seeing so much of the live action adaptation of MDZS, i.e. CQL, on my dash, and I'm so happy about it. After watching it, I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to make a post cataloging the differences between CQL and MDZS for those interested. (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ The goal of this post is for two reasons: First, to help people who are totally new to MDZS and are starting out with CQL as their entry, and then reading the novel (or going to the donghua/manhua). This will hopefully help them get their bearings in regards to the fandom, so that they won't be confused when coming across certain content that isn't in the live drama. Second, this is to help folks who have already read the novel/etc to understand what's different in the live action, so when/if they choose to watch CQL, they aren't caught off-guard by any changes. (I won't get into the manhua/donghua in this post because it's already too long as it is.) Hopefully, this will also help bridge the gap between fans, so that we can have a fun and shared experienced over this incredible world brought to us by MXTX! This post is split into two distinct sections: one without any major spoilers, and one with spoilers. If you want to be as unspoiled as possible and just want to know the big differences between the novel and drama, please read only the first portion. The second //spoiler-filled// portion is divided into other major and minor differences, and is mainly intended for people who have experienced at least one version already. Additionally, if you are completely new to MDZS, there are things which may seem like spoilers to you, but happen in like the first page of the novel/in the summary itself (or in the first 10mins of the first episode), and will not be treated as such. I will do what I can to keep actual spoilers out of the first section….

Before jumping right into it though, I think it’s time to say that many of the differences in CQL are in large part due to the strict censorship laws that China has. Unfortunately, we just have to live with this fact. Thankfully for us, the creators of CQL have earnestly tried their best in keeping the major points and themes of MDZS in tact, and have really stuck to the spirit of the series. Kudos to them and the actors for their hard work!

SPOILER-FREE DIFFERENCES

There is no explicit romance between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji in CQL. They are literally called soulmates right in the CQL summary, and there are very obvious romantic undertones to their relationship in the drama—but there is nothing explicit on-screen. Naturally, due to censorship. While the novel has the two in an intimate (and very explicit) relationship where they end up literally married, the show tones this down to something more subtle. It’s still pretty obvious that they’re in love though. (Especially in the 20-episode wangxian special edition.) Also, they always seem to be sharing a room with one bed….

The plot is modified for CQL. In the novel, the plot revolves around Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji following an aggrieved spirit as they uncover the truth of what’s going on. In CQL, this was changed from the dismembered arm of said spirit to a sword, but it serves virtually the same purpose as it does in the novel. The other real major difference with the plot is that something known as “Yin Iron” is what drives a majority of the past’s plot. It has its origins tied to demonic cultivation, which I will explain more below. It doesn’t drastically change the actual plot itself, but does change some motivations, etc. This is not present in the novel.

Wei Wuxian is not the founder of demonic cultivation in the drama. Yes I know this seems whack. After all, the original novel is literally called Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/Founder of Diabolism. But due to censorship laws, they had to change this. Wei Wuxian still uses demonic cultivation, and still invents many things (the compass, the spirit flags, the amulet, etc). He’s still shown as a prodigy—but demonic cultivation is a thing that’s been around long before the story takes place; it’s just that no one uses it except Wei Wuxian. The reason is the existence of the Yin Iron. It was something that was found and revered long ago, and is a source of dark power. Hence, why demonic cultivation already exists, but also why no one follows that path. The necromancy angle is also downplayed in CQL.

Wei Wuxian’s morality is somewhat different. Again, due to censorship restrictions. In the novel, Wei Wuxian is far more of a gray character who does some questionable things. He makes mistakes, there are things which are definitely his fault, and he has many things which he regrets. However in CQL, he is shown more as a victim of circumstance. He’s portrayed as a much more innocent character, who happens to be doing what’s right, and is just continually fucked over. He still does plenty of questionable things, but it’s less so than in the novel. In both versions, he is still Chaotic Good, just the novel emphasizes chaotic, and the drama emphasizes good. Also, CQL doesn’t really portray Wei Wuxian’s breakdown or deteriorating mental health before his death too deeply.

Wei Wuxian’s death in the beginning of the story is different. The novel is much more vague in this regard, and it is more drawn-out. I will return to this point later as well, in regards to spoilers. The live drama has a more… “peaceful” and quick type of death for Wei Wuxian, and given how it’s the very first scene that you see in the show, it may catch novel fans off guard. Still absolutely heart-wrenching though, especially when you see it play out in full later on.

The structure of the live drama’s narrative is different. While MDZS intersperses its main story in the present timeline with flashbacks (as do the donghua and manhua), CQL goes about it differently. After episode 2, CQL takes the viewer all the way to the past and goes through the entire timeline of events which happen leading up to Wei Wuxian’s death as seen in the first few scenes. From episode 3 to episode 33, you are firmly in the past only. Novel readers may find that this causes many things to be revealed quite early on. The change in structure is probably the biggest difference. From episode 33 and onwards, you are back to the present.

Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji’s relationship in the present timeline is different to start out with. The novel has Wei Wuxian first operating under the assumption that Lan Wangji doesn’t like him. This eventually turns around, and deepens into a romantic relationship between the two. CQL on the other hand, has present-timeline!Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji having a much more tender relationship from the moment they meet again.

Wei Wuxian’s appearance remains the same after he is resurrected in the drama. While in the novel and other adaptations, Wei Wuxian takes on the appearance of Mo Xuanyu (who happens to look similar to a younger him, luckily enough), this does not happen in the drama. Probably done for convenience’s sake. It is never properly explained other than the fact that along with the soul-summoning spell, Mo Xuanyu did some other things to ensure that Wei Wuxian returned to what looked like his old body. (Some body parts snatching might’ve been involved.) Thus, Wei Wuxian hides his identity by wearing a mask.

Everyone looks the same as they did when they were teenagers. Again, probably just for convenience’s sake. They spend a lot of time in the flashbacks so getting viewers used to one set of faces, and then changing everything would be jarring—and also expensive to swap out actors. So despite a 16 year gap, everyone looks the same with no aging. #cultivatingimmortality

The time gap between Wei Wuxian’s death and resurrection is slightly longer in the drama. It’s 16 years versus 13 years in the novel. Unsure of why the change, as it doesn’t change much apart from serving to make some of the kids older. Some kids’ ages are also slightly altered. It’s not a huge difference and it plays virtually no difference in plot. Also, I can’t confirm it, but everyone seems to start out older as well.

Xiao Xingchen, Song Lan, and Xue Yang are encountered much earlier in the drama. Before Wei Wuxian’s death, the three of them are encountered in Yueyang before the start of the Sunshot Campaign. The rest of their story plays out after Wei Wuxian’s resurrection.

Jiang Yanli, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning attend the classes at Cloud Recesses. This gives them a lot more screen time. Elaborated in spoilers below.

Wen Qing’s relationship with Wen Ruohan is more antagonistic from the start. Just like how Wei Wuxian is shown more as a victim of circumstance, so is Wen Qing (and by extension Wen Ning). Elaborated below.

The next section is spoiler-filled. It’s divided into two parts: major and minor differences. Turn back now if you don’t want serious spoilers for either CQL or MDZS!!!

SPOILER-FILLED MAJOR DIFFERENCES

After the dancing statue/Dafan Mountain incident — Wei Wuxian passed out, and wakes up in Cloud Recesses in Lan Wangji’s room. Both of them know™ already. Thus, Wei Wuxian doesn’t even try to pretend that he’s Mo Xuanyu in front of Lan Wangji, but he keeps up the appearance for other people until he’s figured out. This allows the two of them to have a very private relationship with each other.

Also lending to this, Wei Wuxian dies in a much different way in the drama, and dies knowing that Lan Wangji cares deeply about him. Thus why their relationship on his resurrection is so soft. He knew that Lan Wangji protected him and tried to save him until the very end, and is far more affectionate as a result.

Speaking of his death…. In CQL, Wei Wuxian chooses to basically swan dive off a cliff after seeing the horrors in front of him. It has a very lucid finality to it, and feels as though he has decided that only his death can bring peace, and so he falls back off a cliff—only to be caught momentarily by Lan Wangji. He eventually wrests himself from Lan Wangji’s grasp and falls to his death as Lan Wangji (and Jiang Cheng) watches in horror. The novel is far more vague and hints that he met a more gruesome end.

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian essentially make up at the end of the drama—or at least end on decent terms by agreeing to put their past behind them and move on. Wei Wuxian wipes away a stray tear as Jiang Cheng cries in front of him in the temple. After everything is said and done, Jiang Cheng privately and quietly wishes Wei Wuxian well as he leaves with Lan Wangji.

Lan Xichen does not go into seclusion at the end of the drama. Despite his trauma, he’s relatively okay as compared to the novel. The drama doesn’t really comment on this aspect, to be honest.

In CQL, Jiang Yanli attends the classes at Cloud Recesses with her brothers. She is given extra interaction with Jin Zixuan during this. Yanli is in general given way more screen time in CQL. She is present during the destruction of Lotus Pier (she appears with Jiang Fengmian), and escapes with Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng to Yiling.

Similarly, Wen Ning and Wen Qing are also present for the classes at Cloud Recesses. This is where they first meet Wei Wuxian (and Jiang Cheng), instead of Wen Ning and Wei Wuxian meeting in Qishan later. This gives all of them a pre-existing relationship before the events at Lotus Pier. Jiang Cheng also harbors a tiny crush on Wen Qing for a little bit. #same

Wen Qing is handled with much more suspicion by Wen Ruohan and Wen Chao, and during the Sunshot Campaign, she is even locked up. She’s saved by Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, but goes her separate way until Wei Wuxian encounters her again after becoming the Yiling Patriarch proper.

Mianmian is shown to be a part of the Jin sect in CQL, and is close to Jin Zixuan. She renounces her ties to Lanling Jin after everyone starts hating on Wei Wuxian.

Mianmian is also encountered in episode 1. She and her family replace the random farmer family they meet once they leave Gusu (for the second time) on their way to the Burial Mounds. The timing of this may also be different. This is because there is no real “epilogue” that takes 3 months later, like the final chapter of MDZS.

Mo Xuanyu was not ostracized for the same reasons as in the novel. In the novel, he’s also thought to be insane, but was thrown out because he supposedly “harassed” Meng Yao (i.e. had romantic feelings for him which were found out and he was driven out of Lanling). In CQL, he was thrown out for “harassing” Qin Su, but in actuality was only trying to reveal the truth about her husband, and was thrown out as an excuse to get rid of him before he became troublesome.

During the hunt in Phoenix Mountain, Lan Wangji and Wei Wuxian have a heart-to-heart, and establish that they do, in fact, care for one another. (I’m pretty sure they use the word soulmate here, but the subs are like “lifelong confidante” lol.)

The origins of the bunnies is different in CQL, and is tied to Lan Yi—an ancestor of the Lan clan (the one who invented Cord Assassination). Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji find a cave in Gusu during their classmate days, which holds the spirit of Lan Yi. There, she reveals information about the Yin Iron and that she is guarding one piece of it. After all this, Wei Wuxian looks after the bunnies after taking them out of the cave, and as he leaves Cloud Recesses, he leaves them in the care of Lan Wangji.

The Gusu Lan sect is less rekt in CQL, as many of them are able to hide away in the aforementioned cave during the destruction of Cloud Recesses. Su She, then a disciple of Gusu Lan, betrays them by telling Wen Chao that the others are hiding in the cave. He’s summarily kicked out. In the novel, he’s the one that tries to rat out Mianmian when they’re facing the Tortoise of Slaughter. (He is still the one who casts the hundred holes spell on Jin Zixun.)

SPOILER-FILLED MINOR DIFFERENCES

In CQL, after his 33 lashes, Lan Wangji goes into forced seclusion for 3 years first. And then his 13 years of playing Inquiry start. Extra depressing, but it doesn’t change anything else.

The ghost baby that Wang LingJiao sees is replaced with a dismembered eye. Still gory. Don’t really know which one is worse…….. Her death is definitely less gory in CQL, though.

The Stygian Tiger Amulet was made of the strange weapon found in the Tortoise of Slaughter in both the novel and drama, but in CQL, said weapon was actually a fragment of the Yin Iron.

CQL shows a few scenes of Wei Wuxian when he first gets tossed into the Burial Mounds.

Lan Qiren is the head of the Gusu Lan sect, all the way through the story in CQL, including the end. Lan Xichen is never referred to as the sect leader.

Gusu Lan's rules are a little less strict in CQL. And co-ed classmates and cultivators seem to be the norm.

This post is certainly not 100% complete, as it’s just what I managed to pick up as I watched/read and remembered to note down. But if you have questions or comments, please reach out to me and I’ll do my best to answer! I hope this is as accurate as possible, but since I’m flying off memory... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Take care, all! Feel free to drop into my DMs and scream with me! ଘ(੭ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ✩‧₊˚

#mdzs #the untamed #cql #mo dao zu shi #mdzs live action #long post #nyerus.txt #oh my god i dont know how many mistakes ive made in this #if there are any im so sorry i tried my best #but ive been working on this so long im not even sure whats real anymore #my eyes are glazing over i gotta just yeet this out there

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