#even protagonists and such should be fundamentally flawed

[yippee-kay-yo]

Yeah, I am guilty probably of the whole weeabo thing but I am trying to get better at characterizing him in my artwork. His character is so much more than that and it’s much more interesting to explore it rather than simplify it. And this goes for any character, really!

Spamton’s Personality and Complex Morality

Incoming autistic tl;dr ramble post while drunk concerning Spamton being woobified to the point of lacking any semblance to the original character.  

For some reason, many people forget or ignore Spamton's more of an “asshole victim” or “evil victim” by the time Kris and the gang met him. It’s interesting how frequent this is too. 

Of course, Spamton is not a woobie. He's not some innocent man caught in circumstance through no action or fault of his own. Neither is he someone who does things for "teh evulz". Spamton's more layered and complex than that imo, even with the limited information.

With that in mind, my interpretation of Spamton's entire being and arc through time has been inspired by several fictional characters I love. Those characters are: Kevin Lomax, Walter White, Seymour Krelborn, and Shou Tucker.

( I swear to god all of them wearing glasses and having themes associated with green was not initially intentional in my selection lmao. )

Currently, there's little to go on concerning Spamton's prior lore and who he was as a person through his actions. All we know is he was determined. He was anxious and desperate concerning the circumstances of this life. Of the lack of success in what it is an addison's meant to do. Those traits are expressed to varying degrees with each referenced character throughout all of Spamton's eras.

Kevin Lomax is a successful small-town lawyer whose innate pride makes it easy for John Milton, Kevin's future benefactor from NY, to exploit through tempting offers. Walter White's a brilliant and prideful chemist humbled by and chained to a more moderate and financially troubled life until given the choice to rejoin his former company or go his own way making meth. Seymour Krelborn's a meek, socially neglected / abused, and impoverished florist longing for a better life whose dreams turn to greed with the influence of Audrey ii. Shou Tucker’s a timid and desperate man who succumbs to harming those he loves to feed into his desperation and pride.

My take on Spamton encompasses all these traits into one little white fluffball. He's neurotic. Forever fearful of his misfortune and how others perceive him. This even extends to his big shot era where, despite his success, Spamton's aware of his incompetence and that the admiration's surface level is thanks to his benefactor. This is a trait and aspect of his arc he shares with Seymour in the 1986 LSoH film. He's a failure at what he does before his benefactor similar to Shou. No matter his attempts, he just can't cut it on his own. Like Walter, Spamton lives in obscurity compared to his peers with financial troubles far beyond his capacity to properly cope. And like Kevin, and later Seymour to some extent, when Spamton does obtain success through his benefactor, he pushes people away and causes strife through his hyper-focus on work and maintaining success.

All four men share aspects of greed and pride alongside Spamton. Kevin is successful on his own. Yet his wife Mary Ann, ironically a car salesman, and Milton both feed into his pride unintentionally ( via Mary Ann ) and intentionally ( via Milton ). Kevin, wanting more and knowing his capacity as a lawyer, accepts. While in NY, Kevin excuses his actions to explain and justify the consequences of them to continue the upward climb. It goes so far at the expense of his wife's life, though entirely unintentional on Kevin's part. Walter's similar, so I won't get into his arc.

Seymour's interesting in that he's also woobified by fans when in reality, he's a greedy and envious person, even if it's subtle. Greed allows Seymour to reluctantly excuse his actions to gain fame. His greed, envy of Orin, and resentment of Mushnik motivate Seymour to do horrible things. And of course, Shou needs little to no explanation. Greed tied with desperation fueled his actions...

I think Spamton's aspects of greed, envy, and pride were more subtle like Seymour's in the beginning. His personality and desperation more akin to Shou's. And honestly, a pinch of pride is good concerning self-esteem, determination, and motivation. It's when it's detrimental to one's self and others that it becomes a disorder.

Once Spamton gains a benefactor and becomes a big shot, his pride and greed metastasize to that of Kevin and Walter.

The other interesting thing of note is Seymour and Kevin both had benefactors giving them free will concerning choice laced with temptation.

Both Seymour and Kevin blame their benefactors for their inevitable misfortunes. When this happens, both benefactors correctly state they, Seymour and Kevin respectfully, made their choices with either clear knowledge of what could happen or knew their prior action's consequences and ignored them anyways.

"You blamin' me for Mary Ann? Oh I hope you're kidding… Mary Ann - you could've saved her any time you liked. All she wanted was love. ... Stop deluding yourself! I told you to take care of your wife! What did I say? 'The world would understand.' Didn't I say that? What did you do? 'You know what scares me, John? I leave the case, she gets better, and then I hate her for it.' Remember?" - John Milton

I think something similar occurred with Spamton and his benefactor. Despite his complaints and awareness of restrained free will, he still had some level of it. Even if he was controlled in a manner akin to Seymour, Spamton chose things that caused him and others harm along with his success. During this time, he also began rubbing his success in the faces of colleagues and friends who doubted or mocked him. Eventually, it got to the point that it caused his closest loved one, Blue, to disengage.

I think Spamton, despite the limited lore, has the potential for rich complexity concerning his more sour traits as a person. Like both games, there are many realities and routes. What you do decides what innate traits grow.

Spamton, to me, is in all paths of the game, corrupt on some level. None of them show a reality in which he is, by all accounts, a good man. And this is to not dismiss the reality that he is a victim of society, best explained here. We don't know much about his big shot era beyond him becoming a bit pompous. But... Wouldn't the best addison be that? A braggart of their wares and a confidence man? But he's also a culprit of his own demise while being potentially exploited by other entities.

With this in mind, Spamton best mirrors Seymour in the totality of his arc.

Both Spamton and Seymour are pathetic men by societal standards. While Seymour has a talent as a self-taught botanist of sorts, he's relegated to a basement at a struggling florist shop. His meekness and apathy are mirrored by his living conditions.

Spamton's similar in a different way. Unlike Seymour, he's determined, but like Seymour, is likely too meek and neurotic to be effective in his goals. Spamton can't keep a clear head nor direct himself convincingly.

Both men are forced into societal roles with limited choice. Seymour by Mushnik is pushed around and then later so by Audrey ii. Spamton, despite his passion to be a salesman, is seemingly limited to that alone based on what he is, an addison. It is likely taboo for an addison to have any passion outside of that. In one of my fics, Spamton was a mailman before attempting to work in sales and admits to loving that job.

Seymour and Spamton have benefactors. Seymour's is Audrey ii. Spamton's the person on the phone.

Both operate under the commands, suggestions, and temptations their benefactors provide. And both find success with their benefactors.

Seymour clearly loses aspects of free will with his due to his meekness and their relationship. I imagine Spamton, on some level, endured something similar. Especially with his theme being the loss of autonomy the more he pursues it.

Both are seen as tools by society and exploited as such; living in poverty in some regard with Spamton becoming homeless.

I think what makes Spamton woobie fodder is the state we find him in. The fact that by all accounts, he did what he was expected to do as an addison. That when he needed help the most, he was neglected and worse still, everyone knew and did nothing.

His friends and colleagues knew where he was as they show up at the end of the battle. They did nothing for years.

And it's this I think that blinds people to the fact that Spamton knowingly sold harmful and useless wares at his shop. That he tried convincing Kris to commit to his delusional murder-suicide pact so they'd both be free. That, in the Snowgrave run, he takes over Cyber City like a virus to the harm of its citizens. That the thorn ring "might sting" instead of "it literally takes away your life" when selling to Kris for Noelle to use.

At the end of the day as a said before, Spamton's more akin to an "asshole victim" than a full-on woobie. But maybe we can get the best of both. He can be the "asshole woobie".

Thanks for coming to my autistic Ted Talk.

[ahsoka-in-a-hood]

I don't. The thing is I am a Star Wars Prequels fan first and foremost, here. I like the original trilogy, it's fine, but that's not what keeps me awake at night.

I don't give a shit about the sith. I don't find them interesting. I was always here for the impossible situations the jedi and the protagonist senators and other kinds of heroes were finding themselves in. The ones without an obvious answer. The ones they could get wrong. The ones they would get wrong because it's a tragedy, and sometimes I like to cry my eyes out over made-up people.

And even after several years of fandom, that's still basically what I want. I want the jedi (and other characters) to be put in the situations. I want them be unsure what the right path is. I like watching them make mistakes.

Some call it nuance, some call it flaws. I'm tempted to just call it being people. That's the sweet spot I'm after: not saints, not devils, just people. People fuck up. People are very varied. They have a culture- does every aspect need to be dissected for faults? Can it not exist even in a state of imperfection?

It can get complicated, maybe. I've encountered plenty the attitude that the jedi are evil because they are humans but are meant to be more than that. I have blocked absolutely relentless commenters of this who would show up on every post with this exact philosophy

… But it can become a subtle distinction. For some time I was blissfully unaware of Filoni's views on the simple basis that the jedi in the clone wars were more real and human than the generic antagonists I tended to see in fanfic.

It is a distinction, though. Human (derogatory) and human (empathetically) are different approaches, which does show up here and there.

The thing about star wars, and the prequels, and the jedi, is that no matter how you try to slice it, the story of a genocide is inextricably woven into a story about jedi. Every one of your #shots fired about their eventual downfall is accompanied by…. a systemic extermination campaign by a nazi allegory……….. and even if that's not something you're willing to contemplate, that's just going to make people uncomfortable. Especially if you start adding talk about a shadowy cabal secretly controlling everything who also steal children etc. Listen, I know that the jedi are fictional. That's not what you should be considering when you say these things.

So you end up with these two fundamentally diametrically opposed stories:

Here's this religious minority who are literally in touch with their divine force. This does not make them gods, so they have flaws, weaknesses, and make mistakes. They are murdered. This is the beginning of an imperial age. (compassion is at the centre of their philosophy. anyone can be compassionate, with or without the force.)

Here's this bunch of corrupt overpowered secret police who hold their position by maintaining a mythology of super-humaness, but psyche! Wealthy elites are also degenerate humans, which is of course forgivable in US, but not THEM. They were supposed to be the model minority. KILL THEM

[h-worksrambles]

Ok, so Episode Aigis dropped, they changed some dialogue and now people are pissed and saying P3 Reload ruined The Answer.

If you want my TLDR, Atlus’ changes (both writing and mechanical) for the DLC are overall small, some good some bad, but they’re ultimately band aids that fail to address the much wider flaws of The Answer as a story.

I think there’s a genuine intent to try and better get across the character’s motivations. And for some characters it works well. I think the new dialogue for Mitsuru is a genuine improvement. I’ve seen some criticise it for focusing more on Mituru’s thoughts towards the protagonist then her (rather queer coded) loyalty to Yukari. But as much as I love my SEES lesbians, I genuinely think giving Mitsuru multiple reasons to side with Yukari rather than just blind loyalty, is much more in character for her than FES’ approach (where she comes across uncharacteristically stupid). But I think by only changing minutia like this it just ends up highlighting the bigger problem.

A lot of people hyper focus on Yukari’s role and talk about how irrational she is here. And now you’ve got people complaining that Reload softens and sanitises her character and makes her storyline weaker. But I feel it’s a case of identifying something doesn’t work but being incorrect as to why.

The thing about the SEES group fight is that it’s fundamentally a really poorly done conflict. It sucked in FES and it sucks here too. There’s not enough meaningful disagreement between the group to make it feel earned. The only one acting out and taking the MC’s death badly, is Yukari. When really if this is the climax they wanted to build to, everyone should have been grieving badly and constantly at each other’s throats. It could have been this building frustration and animosity, until they’re all at odds over what to do with the key and a fight breaks out.

What we get is everyone…mostly being pretty chill, aside from Yukari being kind of petty and jealous at Aigis. And I think the reason people react badly to her (misogyny notwithstanding) is that it’s really weird when she’s the only one having this extreme reaction. Instead of everyone dealing with the MCs death in their own distinct way, it’s only explored with Aigis and Yukari and only somewhat. Hell if you didn’t have such a jarring disconnect, and there was a better variety of reactions and thoughts from across the cast, I think more people would praise Yukari’s writing here. As it stands, when everyone else is almost ridiculously reasonable, it looks very jarring.

And then when the group do fight it feels completely out of nowhere precisely because of how agreeable everyone’s been. Everyone willingly jumps into a pointless fight that could get them all killed, one that only one member of the group even wants. All for a very contrived plot point that was set up five minutes ago. It’s executed in such a sloppy way that it makes the genuinely good scene of Yukari’s breakdown ring hollow. You get the sense that the writers weren’t really interested in exploring Yukari’s grief beyond using it as a plot device to make a dumb, unnecessary punch up scene happen.

I can see what they’re trying to do in Reload. They wanted to make Yukari stick out like less of a sore thumb compared to the rest of the group. But if they were gonna do that, they kinda needed to dial everyone else up, not dial her down. Build the tension between the party further rather than decrease it. Because now, if Yukari, and by extension the rest of the party are way more reasonable, it just begs the question even more of ‘they why are you fighting in the first place?’ It’s slapping on a band aid in a way that just exposes the whole scenario’s weaknesses

I genuinely think Episode Aigis needed to either keep the Answer entirely as is, or overhaul it completely. Making little changes like this won’t win over people who hated The Answer the first time, and will just annoy people who liked it as is. As it stands, The Answer is still a mess of good ideas mired by poor execution and Reload’s take only makes a handful of small changes that are ultimately different, not better.

[seventeendeer]

finished rewatching ATLA so here's my obligatory hot take on the age-old discourse of "should Aang have put on his big boy pants and killed that guy or what"

my perspective is that either choice would have ended the show in a bad place. no, Aang should not have killed that guy; a child being forced to give up his own individuality to become a tool for violence has terrible implications in a story about war that is intended to have a happy ending, and so does the notion that if you just kill the right people the world will be saved. yes, Aaang should have killed that guy; ATLA as a whole has an uncomfortably centrist perspective on the concept of war, and by giving the protagonist an easy way out of having to do anything "too drastic" to save the day, it cements its status as a fundamentally flawed narrative that pussed out of every opportunity to say something meaningful.

in order for ATLA to stick the landing, Ozai would have had to be dead and alive at the same time. there was no way out of this story that wouldn't give the kids watching the wrong idea about the very concepts the writers were trying to introduce them to.

in my opinion, the problems with the ending are not a question of "kill that guy/don't kill that guy", but rather the fact that the writers clearly designed this narrative to make "don't kill that guy" the only reasonable option. the writers chose to have a vulnerable, bright-eyed child protagonist; they chose to have him descend from a group of monks who valued non-confrontation and peace; they chose to center his character around themes like "joy and hope perservering against all odds" and "choosing your own destiny"; they chose to make the central conflict of his character about wishing to resist a destiny that was incompatible with his personal values; they chose to make the goal of his journey "stop a guy who won't stop until he's dead in the ground" - and then render in loving detail how Aang finds a way to avoid putting him in the ground after all.

from my perspective, ATLA is at its core an exercise in bending over backwards to make kids believe violence isn't the answer. it's a centrist's dream. fuck all of those scary people who had to punch a guy or fire a gun or drop a bomb as a last resort to try to save innocent lives - surely they simply weren't trying hard enough to find a morally stainless way to defend themselves and their loved ones from harm ..!

this is why, even though it has some fun elements, I have a bitter disrespect for this show and for bryke. these writers wanted to preach about the virtues of keeping your own hands clean in the face of injustice, and they found some cool "exotic" Asian philosophies to cherry pick ideas from to make their perspective seem deeper and more insightful than it is, slapped all of that together in a blender alongside some "chosen one" power fantasies for little kids who want to be cops, and with some nice art and some elbow grease, they managed to make it into one of the most influential cartoons of all time.

ATLA was always going to pull punches until the bitter end, because as far as bryke is concerned, refusing to punch anything at all is the point of the show.

[longing-for-rain]

What immensely bothers me about the way Kataang was written is that it not only hurt Katara's character, but Aang's character as well.

The writers set up the subplot of Aang needing to let go of his idealistic vision of Katara and then... just completely ignored it throughout the entirety of S3?

While I'm not saying that every ATLA character needed to go through an extensive character development, Aang having little to no development as a person and a leader (I am not talking about his physical training as a bender here) is some extremely disappointing writing, considering he is THE protagonist.

It's actually baffling to me how much the show deliberately dodges most oppurtunities to develop Aang as a character and how much the poor handling of Kataang plays a role in it.

Instead of Aang slowly growing to appreciate Katara as a person with all her flaws and quirks and trying to understand her way of thinking and culture, which culminates in him EARNING his Avatar state, we get the inconsistent mess, full of unresolved arguments and overstepped boundaries, that is S3 Kataang, Aang getting the girl only because he's the Hero™ (even though their last interaction before the kiss was an unresolved argument) and Aang being saved by Deus Ex Machina. TWICE. All of which could have been easily fixed, if the writers actually capitalized on the development that was already set up to happen.

I would be more willing to accept the points "he's literally twelve" and "why are you getting so worked up over which fictional characters are dating", if the writing didn't waste the blatant oportunity to develop the character, and if the ship in question didn't nuke any development its characters recieved.

Like, you don't even have to be a Zutara shipper to see how Kataang basically shat on both Aang and Katara as characters.

Agree with all of this, but I want to focus on this bit right here:

I would be more willing to accept the points "he's literally twelve" and "why are you getting so worked up over which fictional characters are dating", if the writing didn't waste the blatant oportunity to develop the character, and if the ship in question didn't nuke any development its characters recieved.

Here’s the thing. Aang is the protagonist of the show. You know, the one character who absolutely should have a solid arc and experience meaningful growth. I’m not saying he had no growth. But it’s just like you said, there are some pretty glaring plot holes surrounding his story. Could be excusable for a side character, but for the protagonist? Really not great.

And people will also act like romance is no big deal, but I think it really shines a light on how Katara is viewed by the creators and fans in relation to romance. From Aang’s perspective, romance can be treated as a minor add-on at the end because it’s narratively framed as his reward for saving the day. Aang doesn’t have to fundamentally change as a character to enter into that romance. It is written in a way that centers him.

Katara, however, does change. That can be seen in any post-canon material. I know they’ll keep trying to retcon this, but Legend of Korra will always exist to show us how little regard for these people have for female characters they’ve relegated to love interests.

[invested-in-your-future]

Would you say that Jaune's issues were dealt with better than Ruby's, worse or just different?

I think I talked about it before, but I feel like the writers ended up massively misreading what the issue with Jaune is.

So whichever issues they do try to deal with are fundamentally different from the ones they need to deal with.

And in roundabout way, Jaune gets to "deal" with the things Ruby should.

Jaune gets to angst about Pyrrha, having failed her and so on (in spite of being the ONE character in entire cast to have gotten actual moment of closure with her). Ruby gets to watch him angst about Pyrrha instead of having to deal with what happened as after all she was the one who saw it happen and having idolized her as this definition of what a Huntress should be.

Jaune gets to deliver monologues about leadership and how he never asked for this and how he wants to be better and Ruby doesn't - the moment in V4 where Ruby begins to and the show just has Jaune steal the monologue is SEARED into my brain. It's so emblematic of what's wrong with the character.

Jaune gets to worry about failing his teammates. Ruby gets to watch her teammates get saved by Jaune rather than being allowed to deal with the very obvious self-doubts about her leadership that should have arose after her team went all different ways at the end of V3. Which in turn makes her handling of the whole Atlas situation feel ultra unfounded.

JAUNE gets to give Penny "closure". Now that was needless and redundant in the first place, but Penny's end is with Jaune rather than her actual best friend half of whose issues were built on Penny dying. Instead Ruby dealing with that gets OFFSCREENED.

Most of those...aren't really needed for Jaune.

Jaune's issue never was that he just wasn't good enough protector or that people keep dying around him or that he should "man up (and get a Cardin haircut)".

Somehow, somewhere along the way, the showrunners had decided that the main flaw with Jaune is that he just isn't manly tortured hero enough. The the main issue is that he is "too wimpy" and thus needs to "man up" and get a cool haircut and knight aesthetic and be all tortured hero.

Not the inherently toxic attitude he had originally approached being a Huntsman with, where he seemed to have based it around the notion of "respect" and "fame" rather than duty.

Not his initial lack of accountability or inability to understand boundaries.

Not his misguided self-destructive notion that because he's at Beacon he will now be the protagonist hero and has to protect everyone and live up to "being the hero".

Not his subconscious belief that "because he's the nice guy with a family legacy, he must do it and succeed at it"

Not his insecurities and needless toxic attempts to "prove himself".

Not his absolute inability to let himself be vulnerable.

Not the undercurrent of unintentional misogyny that comes from the way he approaches others, especially women (remember when the show celebrated that he kept bugging Weiss after she had said no to him?)

Not the idea of how character is positioned in a position to challenge gender-stereotypes.

Not the undercurrent of misogyny in the writing of the character.

No. He gets to Adam Jensen around with "I never asked for this", while walking through a trail of dead women.

If my doctor had prescribed laxatives to treat my flu, I sure wouldn't go around congratulating them for having prescribed me something even if entirely wrong.

[omegas-reincarnation]

Despite all its flaws (mainly the clunkiest, most zero-subtext "tell not show" script this side of Chris Chibnall's Doctor Who) I am binge-watching the live action atla cos they got Iroh Zuko and Azula so good.

Most all of the protagonists have pretty good characterisation (we don't talk about Bumi) but they are perfect. The increased time we get with Iroh is used to show how deeply and unshakeably his character is rooted in his own perceptions of the world, which aren't quite of the fire nation and aren't quite of the rebellion, but are stronger because they have been developed without seeking to be acceptable to someone else's ideals. His relationship with Zuko, and Zuko's wavering flame of kindness, keeps making me cry, as it should. Zuko's fundamental decency comes across so strongly, even as it battles against his desperation to be loved.

And I am SO glad that my girl Azula is the justice she deserves - the fandom has always been like "Ozai is definitely psychologically abusing her, right? You see that too?" and I'm really pleased they actually show that, and show the impact it's having on her this early on, rather than making her seem unpenetrable till she cracks. She's 14 of course she's not tough enough to cope with being played off against her own brother in the hope that the competition will make one or both of them into the 'perfect' heir.

[takaraphoenix]

On the one hand do I understand latching onto the main character on a show. And I even understand protectiveness over one's favorite character. What I don't understand is the inability to see that not everything is for everyone and with a broad variety of tastes and of other characters available, people may just latch onto someone else.

Especially since main characters are tricky.

Protagonistic main characters always carry this heavy burden of having to be pure of heart and intentions, forgiving and accepting, trying to find the good and right solution. Be good.

In my experience, that's a tightrope to balance.

A character who exclusively stands for everything good and pure and right in the world can easily turn mind-numbingly boring. For various reasons even. Maybe because the audience feels preached to. Maybe because flaws and bad choices give flavor. Maybe because always doing the Good And Right Thing gets too predictable. Maybe because the audience's core-values clash with those of the main character.

Secondary main characters are usually free of these burdens. They get to mess up - sometimes, it is even vital for the story that they mess up specifically so the protagonist has something to fix or gets an opportunity to show their goodness in comparison.

There's edges and roughness and flaw in secondary main characters that too many primary main characters aren't allowed.

Not all! There are plenty titular leads who get to mess up, who get to be mean and rude and make bad choices and be selfish and loud and take up space (looking at you, Buffy Summers, my beloved).

But too many writers are afraid that these "flaws" somehow cut into the goodness and righteousness of their protagonist in some way. When all it really does is show that they're human.

Doesn't mean people can't latch onto the characters who supposedly do everything right, or are overly good, or are shining examples of morality and forgiveness and rainbows and kittens. Heck, sometimes that's even very nice, sometimes I like that too, because it's easy and sometimes, easy is nice. I love Clark Kent, who always holds out his hand to help even those who hurt him and who looks at the world with endless optimism and the fundamental belief that there is good in the people around him (he hopes and forgives because that's his only option because he is too powerful to do anything else, otherwise he'll make himself a god, so he has to believe the good in people will make them make the right choice on their own).

Sometimes, easy is also boring. Sometimes, easy rubs me the wrong way. Sometimes, easy isn't enough.

Because depending on the execution of forgiveness and righteousness and goodness, it makes me bare my teeth and recoil. When it shouldn't be that easy, when it shouldn't be forgiven that easily, when the good and righteous solution isn't satisfying, when the crime deserves a punishment and not a hug and a 'you're part of the team now, bud', when you know that the 'no kill' solution will just inevitably lead to the problem returning and getting worse, when revenge would be so much sweeter than forgiveness.

Because not everything has to be a rainbow colored Saturday morning cartoon with a happy end resolution and I'm not that little girl who wants everyone to always get along anymore.

I'm the vindictive woman who holds grudges and thinks forgiveness shouldn't be handed out like candy on Halloween but should be hard-earned and that redemption and forgiveness don't have to go hand-in-hand, just because they're being redeemed doesn't mean they have to or should be sticking around right here, with the very people they hurt in the past. An eye for an eye is more tantalizing than hugging it out, sometimes.

I like my protagonists flawed. Struggling. Not just struggling with the plot but maybe struggling with themselves, with their own morals, with the decisions they have to make.

If they don't have to fight for it, if it is all handed to them because the writers are too afraid of conflict and don't want to make their protagonist selfish, if they are assigned the high moral compass and the good righteous decisions and if they keep forgiving and giving second chances, even when it's been proven again and again that this route only leads to more problems...

...Well, I'll go ahead and sink my teeth into the broken ones that lash out and want revenge and fuck up along the way and have to fight for what they have, even when it's taken away from them, even when they are forced to lose it or mess up to make the protagonist look better.

[thenationaltreasuregazette]

Book of Secrets Fails As a Sequel: Part 3/?

Where Ben's Arc Went Wrong

Previously, we started our deep dive into Book of Secrets by taking a look at Ben's character arc. Specifically, comparing his flat arc from the first movie to his lack of arc in the second.

And part of what's so frustrating about his lack of a character arc in the sequel is that the pieces are right there to make it happen.

Book of Secrets Ben has flaws! He has negative characteristics that are holding him back and hurting the people around him. We're shown this multiple times and then...poof. Nothing comes of it.

Heroes and Flaws

The way a character arc generally works is that the protagonist is introduced with a flaw. There are multiple names you might see used here and different theories about how to structure this setup—the hero's ghost, their misbelief, their passion taken too far.

In BoS, I'd call Ben's problem a misbelief. That is, a false belief that at one point in the hero's past was true.

Ben's Misbelief

Ben's once-true belief was that he is fundamentally right. He held this conviction about the Templar Treasure for 3/4 of his life, risked life, limb, and a treason conviction to prove it, and he was right.

He was ridiculed by his peers, and his family, and he was right.

The problem is, now that the treasure is found, Ben seems to have displaced this adamant certainty in his own convictions onto...everything. He was right about the treasure, so he must be right about the Booth diary too. He must be right about Thomas Gates and what Abigail wants and what Riley is capable of.

And this is actually fantastic!

Ben's a jackass, and that's great actually

I know, but hear me out: this is the perfect foundation for a character arc in the second movie. It is completely understandable how Ben became such a self-absorbed person after doing something so massively redefining for himself and the world. It would honestly be weirder if there wasn't some kind of emotional fallout from this (and we'll talk about the lack of fallout in other areas in a later edition.)

So the movie starts off by showing us the ways he needs to grow: His assumption that he's always right has imploded his relationship with Abigail.

London

Then the movie keeps pushing on this flaw, as it should. Ben ropes the squad into another dangerous treasure hunt because he has to be right about his great-great-whatever grandfather.

In London, Abigail spells out pretty explicitly what Ben has to learn.

ABIGAIL When you get to a conclusion without asking, and you happen to be right, you got lucky. BEN I get lucky a lot.

And from Ben's perspective, this is correct. Past experience has taught him that his most deeply help convictions are true, even without evidence. Even with mountains of evidence to the contrary!

But the danger of this mindset is reinforced later in the same sequence when:

BEN Hack into the London Police database and get a picture from that traffic cam. RILEY Okey-dokey. BEN You can't do it? RILEY No, I can. I just don't like that you assume that I can. ABIGAIL [laughs] Why, thank you, Riley.

Ben almost loses a critical clue—the clue—because he is going off assumption instead of talking to the two people he's closest to and listening to what they have to say.

So those are the first two 'phases' if you will of dealing with a character's flaw. 1) establish it 2) push on it until

3) it leads to a moment of crisis where the hero can either grow and take the first step towards overcoming this flaw or double down on the consequences

4) in most stories that aren't tragedies the hero will pick the path of growth and learn from their mistakes, repairing the damage they've caused and often finding a solution that will unlock the final problem their plot poses, which they weren't able to see until they let go of their flaw

You many have noticed that the last two steps do not occur in National Treasure Book of Secrets.

As @tentacledwizard put it on the last post

#because like. there were clear opportunities for Ben to have character growth in nat2#i don’t remember the events of the film all that clearly but there was a point where he makes#this kinda wild leap to a conclusion#and i was thinking “oh it’s gonna turn out that he was wrong. he misinterpreted the clue and he needs to admit that he was wrong”#but nope he’s still correct#hes ALWAYS correct and doesn’t experience any growth. he doesn’t have to admit he’s fallible bc he ISNT

Ben doesn't learn to listen to Abigail.

He doesn't make a mistake or draw a wrong conclusion.

He doesn't need to reach out to her, Riley, Emily or anybody else for a different perspective.

He isn't wrong about Riley or another allies abilities. (Or his own!!!)

He's just...right. Ben is always right.

How did we get here?

I can see how this happened. At some point in the development process, somebody decided that the Ben Gates we meet in the sequel had to be the exact same Ben we met in the original movie. And that Ben was fundamentally Right About Things™ so this one must be too.

My guess is this did not come from the writers, at least not from the beginning. The skeleton of what should have been his character arc is just too clear to have not been intentional at some point.

But as the story was worked on by teams of writers and looked at by various executives, somebody decided—maybe intentionally, maybe not—this 'Ben learns his lesson' business had to go.

It's a shame because, at least in my humble opinion, a functioning character arc here is the domino that might have underpinned a very different approach to the movie.

Next time → The sequel reset

[caparrucia]

@garbria replied to your post “(This is assuming you played FFXIII, so if you...”:

Well, now I want to play FF13

​You should! It's available on Steam and on Xbox, I'm pretty sure (I have the collection for Xbox One, because Sony decided it didn't want to port that one to the PS5 and I'm deluding myself to believe that means they're working on a remaster even though the game really doesn't need it.)

XIII suffered a lot of criticism at launch, most of it was a lot of misogyny, a vast majority of the rest is incongruent in the context of the trilogy (but it's fair criticism, because we didn't KNOW it was a trilogy, at launch, or what that trilogy would look like long term) and the smallest remaining is actually fair and valid.

Common criticisms of XIII are:

"It's a hallway!" Which is true, but it is thematically relevant, and only really valid for the first game. It is addressed (beautifully) in XIII-2 and Lightning Returns, because the point of trapping the player and the characters in a hallway is to highlight through gameplay the concept of prophecy and fate as well as to reflect on the player how the characters are acting.

"The story makes no sense!" The story makes perfect sense if you understand it as a god's long term gambit. But specifically the complaint is that the characters are trapped in a situation where killing the big bad will trigger the apocalypse, and after going back and forth about it for twenty hours, they settle in on killing the big bad. People notice, correctly, that this still not really a choice, but they fail to land on the fact nothing in XIII is meant to be a choice. Because it's all ordained and determined by the gods (plural, this is important.)

"The ending is an asspull!" The ending is a literal act of god, yes. There are no consequences in XIII for it, so you can end on a high note if you don't play the rest, but the entirety of XIII-2 and Lightning Returns is a protracted analysis of why "and then God meddled to save our asses" was the worst possible thing that could happen. And also a great example of why we're gonna end up punching The God in the face over it.

"All the story is in the databooks!" This is... a valid complaint! A lot of the lore and history of this world is contained in the datalog, and only briefly or obliquely referenced by the characters. Meaning, if you want to REALLY understand what's going on, you're gonna have to read a lot. The reason, from a game structure perspective is that the story in XIII really isn't about the war between the gods and their gambles and the history of the world: The story of XIII is about grief and loss and refusing to give up on your loved ones, no matter what, and how that fundamentally changes and propels its protagonists (plural! All 6 of them!) into becoming the kind of people who punch God in the face for all his fuckery.

What XIII actually delivers on is one of the most well-rounded and healthy romantic relationships I've ever seen in media, period (should out to Serah and Snow for not being toxic dipshits, either way), a fantastic and nuanced cast full of flawed, complex characters that are trying their best despite the fact there's literally no options and no choice that could possibly fix their situation, and a nuanced, dynamic combat system that is easy to learn and takes time and skill to master but which will allow you to ridiculous shit while also relying on AI that's both distinct per character, but also reliable. Which like. When was the last time you played an RPG where you could trust your AI party members to not fuck you over mid-boss fight?

Also, it looks gorgeous and I love it.

[howtofightwrite]

I've been replaying the Fallout series and it got me thinking. The protagonists of most of the games, 1, 3 and 4 if you go with a female Sole Survivor, are naive newcomers with zero combat experience, yet they go on to slaughter armies and change the fate of the wasteland. I know they're rpgs, but how would you translate a character like that into a believable, linear story? Can it be done?

So, there's two distinctly different cases here.

Fallout 3 and 4 (and really basically everything from Bethesda Games Studio in the last 20 years), are ARPGs. They have more potential for environmental roleplay than games you'd conventionally think of as ARPGs, like Diablo or Path of Exile, but Bethesda's Fallout games are primarily about the combat loop with subsequent looting and loot sorting as preludes to the next fight. While ARPGs can deliver an enjoyable story, they don't tend to travel particularly well outside of the game. To a large extent, the violence is the fun, and without that, you're left with wispy sinews of a story that existed to draw you from set piece to set piece.

The counterpoint to something like Fallout 3 and 4 would probably be Cyberpunk 2077, which, for all its flaws, is basically an ARPG with a strong narrative focus, and as a result, it would hold together a bit better as a linear narrative.

Ironically, one of the strengths in BGS's writing is something that really cannot translate to the page, the reactivity. While it's not frequent, Fallout 4 and Skyrim do a pretty good job of reflecting what the player has done elsewhere in the world when interacting with NPCs. It's not always consistent, but membership in the various factions, and some previously completed quests, do flag for dialog in the future. (When joining the Railroad, it's surprisingly difficult to get Deacon's line without any reactivity.) Unfortunately, there's no way to naturally convey this in a linear narrative because those prior events will always have happened.

In the case of these kinds of open world ARPGs, the actual narrative you could draw from that is more about the specific stories your character(s) experience.

Fallout and Fallout 2 are verydifferent experiences from the later Bethesda titles. (With, New Vegas sitting somewhere between these points.) Critically, these are both games where you can reasonably play a non-combat character. So, with both of the original games, between the Good Natured trait, and the skill tagging system, it's pretty reasonable that your character might not have a combat background. That's not a problem. It is a limitation of the character, but it is not an insurmountable flaw. The fundamental difference between the Black Isle Fallouts and Bethesda's is that there will almost always be alternatives to fighting.

You can play out the story of Fallout as a conventional gruff wasteland gunslinger, wandering through another post apocalypse, or you can take on the role of a charismatic con artist who isn't particularly adept at fighting, but tries to talk their way out of violence as often as possible. Somewhat obviously, this won't always work, and violence may occur anyway (also, a full pacifist run will strongly benefit from foreknowledge of what you're looking at, so that you can avoid quests with mandatory combat, and avoid a few fights that might appear forced but can be avoided through careful preparation.)

I'd argue that the latter is a more interesting story. There are a lot of cases in Fallout and Fallout 2 where the non-combat solution is a lot more interesting and amusing, than simply pulling a gun and starting a combat encounter, even if it can be seriously satisfying to just start carving your way through New Reno.

As for the character's proficiency with combat? Fallout and Fallout 2 will punish you for not speccing into combat, and then getting into fights. Again, this isn't a storytelling problem, if you have a character who starts their story with a deficiency, then it should hamper them for awhile. Eventually, this is something that a character can recover from if they live long enough. It's reasonable to have a character who can't do everything, and that includes being unable to fight. It's also reasonable for them to eventually overcome some of those limitations, through hard work, and commitment.

The original Fallout games were about a post apocalypse that was in the process of rebuilding. There's a lot of lawless territory, and places where petty despots hold sway, but there's also new civilizations getting started, and there are places for socially skilled characters within. It's something that can easily be lost in post apocalyptic narratives that focus on combatant protagonists. I don't think this is a problem, per se, but it's something that Fallout and Fallout 2 considered. You are free to pursue other roles (even if a number of those options in Fallout 2 are a bit... “shallow.”)

As for 3 and 4, the problem isn't so much that the various characters evolve into combat gods, it's how quickly they do so.

A play-through of Fallout 3 will take the player character from being a normal-ish teenager to a battle hardened slayer of men in about six in-game hours. (Which works out to about 18 minutes.) After that, your character will be ready to blast their way through entire camps of borderline feral bandits in pursuit of whatever shiny objects they may be carrying.

Fallout 4 isn't much better. The player character (whichever one you're playing) goes from domestic bliss to casually murdering the locals in less than a day (unless you choose to deliberately procrastinate, and rework Sanctuary into an armed compound, instead of trying to find your son.)

In both cases, like I said, the problem isn't that they become skilled combatants, it's how easy and fast it is to get them there. Again, this is a function of how those games are designed, and not a narrative consideration. The introduction to Fallout 4 already drags enough that most players are going to skip the pre-war and Vault 111 sequences on subsequent playthroughs, just load the exit confirmation save and reconfigure their character, if they want to go again. (Or use an alternate start mod.) And, without any external context, it doesn't make a lot of sense that within hours of touching a handgun for the first time, Nora is blasting her way through entire waves of raiders. The game is built around combat, and that's what we get.

If you want a combat focused, post-apocalyptic RPG sandbox with a more gradual power curve, I'd suggest looking at something like Kenshi. It's not going to give you a lot of dialog to work through, but it does have a real knack for dynamically creating stories as you try to avoid being eaten by bonedogs.

-Starke

This blog is supported through Patreon. Patrons get early access to new posts, and direct access to us through Discord. If you’d like to support us, please consider becoming a Patron.

[justgottafinishthischapter]

Writing Resource: Character Driven Storytelling VS Plot Driven Storytelling

We’re stepping back from romance tropes to talk about a fundamental building block of narrative storytelling. Today, I want to explain the difference between a story that is driven by its Characters, and a story driven by its Plot. Going into this, I wanna make it clear that I have no bias between either. Both forms of storytelling are good. But as we’ll see in my examples, one of them does have a weakness that the other does not. More on that later.

CHARACTER DRIVEN STORYTELLING

In a Character Driven Story, the narrative is used to create avenues to explore the characters. The characters, their relationships, dynamics, and flaws come before the story being told. The characters are the true heart and center of the story. Most Sit-coms and other such comedic stories follow this approach where the characters are used to tell the jokes, while the deeper world or story is used to give these compelling characters a world to inhabit. Daria, Futurama, and Bob’s Burgers are three such examples of excellent comedic shows that are Character Driven. Futurama may have compelling narratives and deeper lore, but it is still a comedy with a cast of lovable characters at the center of the story being told. This is not to say that a character-driven story can’t have an ongoing narrative, but rather that said narrative takes a backseat to the characters. Daria is great at using its characters to explore its themes and ideas. Let’s take an episode of Daria for our example. In the episode Through a Lens Darkly, Daria gets contact lenses. Her change to contacts from her former pair of glasses that seemed almost alienating and off-putting leads to many people complimenting Daria on the change, but the contacts are itchy and irritating. The next day, Daria doesn’t want to wear her glasses, but she also doesn’t want to wear her contacts, and lies about having her contacts in. After causing a mess in the cafeteria, Daria hides in the girl’s room out of shame, and her two closest female friends try to talk to her about what she’s going through. Daria confesses to feeling like a hypocrite, usually mocking the girls who care about their appearances, yet now being guilty of it herself. It’s not until popular girl Brittney comes into the bathroom that the situation improves. Britney tells Daria that knowing that someone as smart and antisocial as Daria cares about her appearance too makes Britney feel less self-conscious about how much SHE cares about her own appearance, and reminded Britney that Daria is a human being just like her. This is enough to finally get Daria to open the stall door and emerge, thanking Britney for her insight. Caring about her appearance doesn’t make Daria a hypocrite, it just makes her human. Daria the show isn’t full of bombastic action scenes or intense steaks, but the really good episodes have some amazing character work at their cores, exploring the identities and values of its cast.

PLOT DRIVEN STORYTELLING

When a story is driven by the Plot, the exact opposite happens. The narrative is the primary focus, while the characters exist to propel the story forward. However, just as a compelling story can exist within a character driven show, so too can compelling characters exist in a story driven show. Unfortunately, sometimes you end up with a story like RWBY, where the characters are only fighting the villains because they just happened to stumble into the larger narrative by accident. None of the characters have any personal steak in defeating the big bad. Most barely have a reason to even be heroes at this point. Blake has effectively completed her character arc, and Ruby is so stupid that another character had to make her sit down and learn about her protagonist super powers. Why are the heroes fighting the villain? Because... Qrow told them to? Hell, the girls now spend about half of every volume sitting around talking about what they should be doing while they wait for orders from Qrow, Oscar, or some other ally. You’d think that Ruby, the protagonist, would be the one leading the group towards the fight with Salem. But no, Ruby is as much a follower as the rest of the main cast while the grown-ups actually make most of the decisions. Does Qrow even need Team RWBY? Well... extra man power doesn’t hurt. That’s about how much Team RWBY specifically needs to be involved in this story. The Characters of RWBY do not exist to give the story shape, but rather, the narrative drags the characters through the story by their nose hairs. The girls have little to no agency. Qrow said go to Mantel, so they went to Mantle. Qrow said go to Atlas, so they go to Atlas. They haven’t been to Vacuo yet, so everyone heads to Vacuo. At this point, the main characters are just passengers in the narrative.

TEEN TITANS

Teen Titans is a perfect example of a character driven action cartoon. Every episode is centered around either nonstop jokes and comedy or a character having an emotional revelation. If one really stops and thinks about the villains of Teen Titans, one may realize how non-entities they all are. Almost every single villain is a two-dimensional bad guy with no redeeming quality, and some barely have a solid motivation. But that’s not why they exist as villains. The villains of Teen Titans are not nuanced people meant to be full characters in their own right. They are plot devices. A source of conflict to drive our heroes to act. Let’s take the episode Car Trouble from Season 1. This is a Cyborg episode. The episode begins with Cyborg showing the rest of the team the super car he built and is super proud of. A mission comes up, and the team gets in the car to thwart the villain, Overload. A couple thugs steal Cyborg’s car, and Cyborg goes crazy looking for it, with Raven questioning why he’s losing his mind over a stupid piece of machinery. The car gets stolen from the thugs by Gizmo, and finally possessed by Overload, who can assimilate into machinery. In order to get the car away from Gizmo and Overload, Cyborg has to destroy the T-Car, and Raven gives a heartfelt speech about how the car is a part of him and how he had to put a piece of himself into it when he built it. She then points out that the super chip of the car survived, and the episode closes on Cyborg rebuilding his car with Raven lending him a hand and giving him a rare and genuine smile as it fades to black. Did you notice how little the villains factored into that episode? Because the episode isn’t about Gizmo, or Overload, or the thugs that stole the car to begin with. It was never about them. The episode was about Raven and Cyborg making a connection. The car being stolen was simply the conflict used to facilitate this heart-to-heart between them. While Teen Titans did have arcing storylines that spanned season-wide arcs like the Terra Arc in season 2, H.Y.V.E. and Brother Blood in season 3, Trigon in season 4, and the Brotherhood of Evil in season 5, the show by large was still episodic, with most episodes featuring on two (or more) characters getting the spotlight as they work on better understanding one another, or realizing they were wrong about something.

VOLTRON: LEGENDARY DEFENDER

Voltron is the exact opposite of Teen Titans. Where Teen Titans uses its narrative to put a spotlight on its characters, Voltron uses its characters to put a spotlight on the narrative. The story is the main focus, with many episodes in a row sometimes carrying on small arcs within each season as ongoing plotpoints. While the story shines in its storytelling (at least in the early seasons), a few characters clearly get neglected in the process. It’s clear the writers liked Keith and Pidge since they get the best storylines and development, but the same cannot be said for Hunk. Hunk has a small arc in season 1 about helping Shae, a Balmeran alien he met. He doesn’t get another real heavy focus again until season 7, when he reminds a group of Galra the cultural significance of ‘Vrepit Sah’, an often repeated verbal salute that the Galra use. Hunk went 6 entire seasons being a background character with little if anything to do. What’s worse, Team Voltron has two tech people. Pidge, who is the hacker softwear specialist, and Hunk, the engineering hardware specialist. But when the warp core needs fixing, does Coran ask the engineer to help him with the engine? No, he asks the hacker to help with ship maintenance. The main thing Hunk should be doing for the team, and it’s handed to Pidge instead because she was clearly a writer’s pet character for the crew. To a lesser extent, this lack of attention from the writers effected many of the characters. Lance never really completes his arc, his friends constantly mock his lack of book smarts, and he gives up on his dreams at the age of 21 to spend the rest of his life pining over a girl he knew for about 4 years, and dated for a maximum of a few months. Allura started off as the effective team leader, telling the Paladins where to go and what to do to keep the ship operational, but once she becomes a Paladin, she’s actually demoted to taking orders from Keith. Also, she repeatedly makes it clear she has no romantic interest in Lance, he keeps persisting despite her telling him to stop, and then they start dating. And Shiro, poor Shiro, once they bring him back to life he has nothing to do. His dynamic with all of the Paladins has completely evaporated, his role in the team is gone, his brotherly bond with Keith has cooled to a highly formal workplace dynamic, and until the Atlas is finished being built, he has nothing to contribute to the team. In most scenes, he’s just ... there. Voltron is so focused on telling a story-driven narrative that it abandons its characters by the side of the road. And by the late seasons, the characters are so disregarded by the show that the story-driven narrative starts to crack and break apart without good characters to hold it together. When most fans talk about why the show isn’t as good later on, it’s because the great character writing from the first few seasons deteriorated. And even a good story is meaningless without compelling characters at the heart of it.

AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER

Avatar is objectively the perfect balance between story-driven and character-driven storytelling. The overarching narrative of Aang needing to defeat Fire Lord Ozai propels the characters through the story, but several episodes take the time to make sure each character has compelling personal storylines as well. Whether it’s Iroh teaching Toph that it’s okay to let people help her, Sokka telling Toph that he can’t remember his mother’s face, Katara and Haru talking about the price of war and the loss of family, or just Zuko’s everything, the characters are the true heart of Avatar, and they get the love and attention that the characters of Voltron never did. I would say that Book 1 is more character-driven as it’s more episodic and light-hearted with occasional plot episodes, while Book 2 is the most plot-driven, as it has several tightly interwoven storylines between the day of black sun, Appa’s kidnapping, the Dai Li, and Azula’s coup, it’s the best season in terms of Avatar firing on all cylinders in the story-telling department. Book 3 is also story-driven, but a little weaker than season 2, as it loosens up on as much of a narrative focus to balance between character and plot. Yes, several important plot points appear in Book 3, but the season also takes several episodes to show Zuko going on friendship field trips with the three main heroes, Aang having a severe anxiety attack about the invasion plans, and The Beach is just a masterclass in character writing. Avatar strikes the perfect balance between Teen Titans’ character-driven action show, and Voltron’s narrative-driven action show to make Avatar an action show driven by both its characters and its narrative in equal measure.

[wildflowers-of-trolberg]

Knowing your opinion on season 3, do you think The Fairy Isle deserves that Annie?

I've gone back and forth on whether I should answer this. The thing is, fundamentally, to me that feels like a weird and honestly bad mindset to have. I do think the Fairy Isle is a bad episode; it's the culmination of everything Season 3 did wrong, ruining Hilda and Johanna with a bad series of retcons in the name of doing a twist, giving focus to Anders (whose very existence undermines the show), and falling back into the trap of making characters less sympathetic than they're supposed to be.

But those are writing decisions, and more than that, they're big-picture writing decisions. As a story about a kid who wanders into a fairy world and meets someone who turns out to be family, it's a great one; it's a story I would love if it the protagonists weren't Hilda and Johanna; and regardless of how I feel about the writing there's an immense amount of effort and heart on display in the animation and music and voice acting. They were trying so hard, the premise was just flawed, and while as a fan that leads me to dislike an episode, objectively the work on display is really good.

I'm not going to say everyone who worked on this episode, who put in all that hard work and really cared about this show, doesn't deserve to be acknowledged just because the writing team messed up. They do deserve that recognition, and even though I don't consider Season 3 to really be Hilda, I'm still happy that this series is getting acknowledged and that all that work is rightfully paying off :))

[dabistits]

it's interesting that bnha attracts many "fandom isn't activism" types (it's a big fandom, so of course they come here) when bnha IS imo very concerned with instilling a sense of ethics within its readers. bnha IS a series where the protagonist is right, the flawed characters on the protagonist's side "get better," the good guys win and the bad guys answer for their crimes. "fandom isn't activism" but good lord bnha is guiding you down the most lawfully sanctioned route.

yes, bnha goes through the trouble of characterizing the bad guys and showing the reasons behind their actions, but it insists that the bad guys should still be held accountable. which is fine, plenty of stories do, but bnha is: (1) really ethically very simple as a story because of that, and (2) stymies its own emotional storytelling because it's fundamentally more concerned with drawing lines in the sand that "good" and "bad" guys can't cross.

for example: good guys can never overly identify with the bad guys or put the harm bad guys have done on the back burner. we have to remember endeavor, natsuo, and shouto are more worried about other people's lives, even as touya is burning to death in front of them. there's no lapses in judgment, no wrong decisions, no selfishness, nothing crazy, no one making insane gambits that put others in the line of fire to save their loved one, no one to say "fuck the world, you're the one i choose." only villains do that.

it's love at its safest and most sanitized for capitalism, love that is only self-sacrificial, love that doesn't interfere with the law, love that doesn't upset the social order, love that never implicates the world. at this point, even deku going berserker mode over bakugou's death would be more interesting, but that impulse is immediately suppressed and he follows the plan to fight shigafo, without even going to bakugou's side. in ten years they'll be married with a child and they'll miss its 13th birthday in a row because they have to bust a trigger smuggling ring. please god it's so fucking bleak.

so, yeah, i believe in the villains' relationships more. they make disruptive, unhinged, terrible decisions out of love and i love that for them. spinner puts the hand back on tomura's face, dabi burns down himiko's house, spinner wants to save tomura by walking into hell with him, himiko wants to pay back twice's death a hundred times over, and she knows what dabi will try to do and she lets him do it. it's fucking unhinged and i am invested!

people really are out here giving takes like "fandom isn't activism so the characters i like aren't really cops, but the LOV make each other worse so they have to be saved from themselves by paw patrol" as though that isn't the most vanilla take on the gotdamn earth... i don't want the shit that's been workshopped by therapists and lawyers for maximum correctness, give me some crazy deranged shit that'll determine the fate of the world.

[ask-team-galactic]

Unpopular opinion: I think Cyrus is more interesting as a character when he isn't redeemed. I understand why the appeal of him seeing the error of his ways is there, especially given how much his traumatic upbringing shaped his philosophies, but I think that many of his incarnations, such as those in the original Gen 4 games, the remakes, the Diamond and Pearl Adventure manga, and the anime (though I dislike his portrayal in the anime) are more interesting as villains. In those incarnations, he shows no sign of doubting or reconsidering his plans- in the anime, he basically opts to kill himself rather than live in the world he despised, while in the games, even during the final confrontation at Spear Pillar/the Distortion World, he insists that he will achieve his ambition, and that the player's intervention is just a minor setback. With that level of belief in his ideals, I don't think redemption would be in character, nor would it be a satisfying outcome to his character arc.

I also find that, in the portrayals where Cyrus is redeemed, it's not done in a way that provides any sort of closure to his character arc. Masters is especially guilty of this- 90% of his "redemption" is Cynthia and the protagonist(s) telling him "you're wrong" with minimal clarification, and he seemingly just decides "okay, I'm wrong" out of the blue. The part with Sophocles was handled very well, and while I could see what the writers were going for with the Commanders talking him out of it, given that he called the entire rest of Team Galactic "uniformly useless and incomplete" in Platinum, I don't exactly buy that he'd be convinced by them, of all people. My big problem with this, and with his portrayal in the Pokespe manga, is that Cyrus was never proven wrong. He was never shown that his vision for the world was going to cause more harm than good. And it would have been easy to do- have any relevant legendary (Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, Arceus, the Lake Guardians- even Darkrai or Hoopa in Masters could work) show the world he would have created, and let him realize that it was a fundamentally flawed concept. If they really wanted to redeem him, that's how I think they should have gone about doing it.

Thank you for the very thoughtful ask and the opportunity to talk about my favourite character! I agree with some parts of this and disagree with other parts of it and I think you make some very good points.

Firstly, to give back a milder version of your controversial opinion, I would totally be down for more iterations where Cyrus isn't redeemed! For one thing, I would love an iteration where the commanders realize he's wrong, try to redeem him, and have to find the strength to turn against him. I think that would be interesting, and I say that as someone who LOVES iterations where Cyrus and the commanders act like friends or found family and where they're a big part of his redemption (the great thing about multiple iterations is that we can have our cake and eat it, too!). And for another thing, I think that Cyrus' absolute conviction is part of what makes him great. I actually first wrote him because I wanted to feel as confident in my own convictions as he does. I love that he's relentless and is willing to do anything- any evil, any personal sacrifice, any effort- to accomplish his goals. I love moments where he shows that, like when he decided to go further into the Distortion World in hopes that it would allow him to fulfill his plans, or when he's bleeding and wielding the red chain in Spe. I like seeing him willing to fight to the last breath.

HOWEVER, I also like iterations where Cyrus is redeemed. I'll explain why further down, but first I'm going to address the part of your analysis that I disagree most with.

I disagree with you that Cyrus needs to be shown that his vision is bad in order to properly redeem him. My reason for that is that I think that at least a part of Cyrus' ironclad determination comes from the fact that he would rather do anything than live out an unaltered lifespan in our universe. In Platinum and the anime short, he'd rather exile himself to the Distortion World. In Spe, he'd rather keep going even as he's battered and bleeding from his eyes. In Masters, he'd rather escape to a dream of utter nothingness and apathy. And as you said, in the anime, he'd rather die.

For that reason, I think you could show him a vision of people and Pokemon languishing in meaningless, empty lives in the world he's planned, and depending on where he's at he might still think that's better because he is suffering to the point where he'd prefer that. In some iterations he thinks that everyone else is also suffering and would be better off that way, too, and in others he just doesn't care about anything but his own relief. And even if such an experience did get him to realize he's wrong and quit, he'd be left utterly hopeless, with no hope for this world or the one he planned to create. That isn't a satisfying conclusion to a character arc, and realistically might still lead him to be destructive- either through senseless lashing out or finding a new villainous plan that gives him hope.

That doesn't mean that I think Cyrus should be portrayed as completely set in his ways, however. Through every iteration, they're actually very consistent with there being one thing that melts Cyrus' conviction like butter: hope for something better.

This isn't always a good thing. In the anime short, Cyrus abandons his goal to live in the Distortion World, convinced that he'll be happier there. In Masters, he abandons his plans to take a permanent nap in the woods so he won't have to feel anymore.

However, sometimes "something better" is of this world, and that's when redemption happens. I like that, because Cyrus isn't scary and dangerous just because his vision sucks. It wouldn't matter at all if he could just have his empty, meaningless world harmlessly in parallel to ours. Cyrus is the antagonist ultimately because the world and our ability to experience it is worth having and would be tragic to lose. I think that him realizing that he could actually be happy is 100% what would get him to choose a better path in life, so I'm glad that's the path we've seen in Spe and Masters. It's nice to see broken things heal, and for Cyrus, healing and redemption are and should be synonymous.

That being said, I do agree with some of your specific complaints on the redemption arcs we've seen. In both Spe and DPA, Cyrus softens on his ideas or outright changes his mind just because he had some time to think. Because it happened twice, I don't think it can be called "out of character," but it's really not my favourite part of his character and I do have a hard time squaring it with him being willing to fight for his beliefs for the 5+ years that Team Galactic existed. So, yeah, I agree with you. I think that Cyrus should have at least taken note of the trio's friendship before his cool-down period in Spe.

As for Masters... well, I only know about Masters through second-hand accounts so I might have some things wrong, but I honestly don't have an issue with the commanders being a big part of why Cyrus changed his mind. There are some iterations (and Platinum is one of them) where there is nothing to suggest that Cyrus has a bond with his commanders, and in others, like Spe and DPA, there's plenty. It seems like in the Masters iteration, Cyrus does care a lot about the commanders and they know that, even though he's far from open about it ("You're tools to me." "Sure, buddy. Let's go be attached at the hip for the rest of Masters"). Given that relationship, I think it's absolutely heartwarming that part of what caused Cyrus to turn around was to see that his commanders still wanted to be there for him even though they saw him at his weakest. I also like that Cyrus is still very dumb when it comes to emotional matters and hasn't solidly changed his mind about anything. He's just put his goal on hold and is looking at his options now that he's feeling a little more hopeful.

I'll end this off by saying that if you want a villain who 100% will never change their mind and will always go down fighting, Lysandre might fit the bill. He's also suffering because of what he's trying to do, and unlike Cyrus, it's unambiguous that he's doing what he's doing for the supposed greater good.

Thanks again for the opportunity to discuss! I hope you got something out my ramble, haha.

[halogenwarrior]

So I’ve seen the Cardinal West xenofiction review video, and how one of the ones he rated very lowly with a lot of people in the comments/etc. agreeing is bad was the Sight by David Clement-Davies, and as someone who was quite attached to it as a teenager I kind of have a relationship with this book of “I have a lot I can criticize it for but Only I can criticize it, because the takes I’m seeing on this site and the video comments don’t seem to understand what it was really Going For in a thematic sense (despite it being not very subtle, perhaps to its detriment, about it), and because of that both criticize aspects that I felt were unique and great and serve the story well and miss its most fundamental and serious flaw that makes it fail to fully accomplish what it is going for.

I feel I can best explain what the book is going for/what its central theme is, by bringing up something I remember reading from Joseph Campbell. He discussed how all existing myths have always been myths for/explaining/about a certain region of the world, and how what is missing is a myth that is for and about the whole planet, that can speak to all of humanity – and to the experience of the nonhuman life all around us. The Sight is fundamentally about tackling this question – can one (both in the meta-sense of the book itself and in the sense that characters in the book actively strive for it) make a myth for the whole earth, that can justify all of the senselessness and suffering of life and give it meaning in more than just a parochial, region-centric or even anthropocentric case? And should we? Even if we could, would it just be a trap that causes more suffering, a self-fulfilling prophecy of doom, when life on its own is beautifully, heartbreakingly enough (but how could life ever be enough? Ecology, after all, only describes a system that creates astronomical amounts of suffering, it does not “justify” or create “meaning” for anything except survival and the circular logic of self-perpetuation, but as Skart points out it’s not all suffering all the time, one shouldn’t be so quick to reject the bare facts of life altogether and look for something more just because some parts are horrifying).

A lot of the aspects I’ve seen the book criticized for were things I actually really appreciated for how they contribute to this overall theme and “vibe”, and contributed to it blowing me away when I read it for the first time at 14 years old, and it honestly affecting a lot of my personality and worldview. The detached writing style I’ve seen criticized as sloppy, but for me it was a perfect match for how it’s supposed to be both about, and telling, a myth; it had the feeling of sitting by a fire on a cold winter night as you were told a story. The tangents about human history never felt meaningless to me, they were thrilling because they underscored how it’s not just a story of a few characters but a story of this earth, attempting to create the sweeping wonder for our own world that many fantasy books do for an imagined one, to make one love the sheer motion, deep history and amount of things happening in the vast world, to love the world with all its terror and tragedy and beauty. And it's definitely missing a lot of what is going on to say the obvious Christianity parallels in the wolves’ myths are just there because the author was unoriginal or wanted to make his protagonist a cliched messiah figure. Even though the story shows in very blatant text that Larka isn’t an unironic Jesus figure but someone whose frustration with life and self-hatred leads her to latch onto the story of a martyrdom that gives meaning to everything. She undertakes the hero’s journey complete with death and rebirth in the fire, the journey to the underworld (the red meadow), etc., and in the end after a whole book of very regional, wolf-specific myths she gets to see that was false and experience the vaster, global, truth that we know of the world through the Vision – of evolution, and humanity’s ultimate impact on the whole world. But again, this just explains survival, it doesn’t justify the monstrous suffering that comes with it, it doesn’t have the true explaining power of a myth. So she refuses to kill all of humanity when she has the chance even if it would endanger that very survival because she believes survival without an explanation is unjustified. And in the end she is so attached to the martyr Jesus-copy story and its potential power to relieve the senselessness of life that she hesitates those crucial seconds to escape her supposed fate, deciding she wants to live after all too late even though she loves life and fears death so much that it hurts.

And I think all of these are interesting and ambitious themes, and the sheer ability to encompass and tell a story for our own world and all that meant captivated me. As well as, having just come off my frustrations of the Warriors arc Power of Three and Omen of the Stars and their inability to resolve the exciting supernatural mysteries they set up, its ability to set up these mysteries and fulfill them all in an epic conclusion. Rereading it the second time when I am older, I still appreciate that ambition and atmosphere, but I see its flaws more clearly – and the one fatal flaw in particular. Yes, there are other big problems with the book, which other people have pointed out. The sometimes-incoherence of its philosophy, the weird showing of bigotry towards scavenger birds only for them to never be anything but villains anyway, the weakness of the main villain’s motivations and the whole misogynistic trope of her being “empty” due to being infertile. But the one that deeply hampers its ability to convey the themes it intends is haphazard mixing of metaphor and reality in terms of animals. On the one hand, the book wants its animals to be metaphors for humans, thus them being heavily anthropomorphized and often inaccurate to their real behavior, and their mythology/religion heavily resembling those of Christianity and other human beliefs rather than being plausible for what another species with no contact with those ideas would come up with, all to serve as a better metaphor for how so much of humanity has turned to the power of the story of Jesus to justify existence. BUT at the same time, it’s fundamental conceit is to be a story of and about this Earth, dealing with animals and their place in the world and trying to fit them into a greater mythology as they literally are, as animals, and the whole reason it is xenofiction instead of focusing on humans is that it’s in this conversation with a global, non-anthropocentric myth. And those two things clash horribly. You can use animals as metaphors for humans in an alternate earth or fantasy world that’s talking about reality in a more distant mirror kind of way, but you can’t make your animals so humanized and distant from real animals when the central conceit of your story is supposed to be that this is our planet, our history, directly making a statement about what stories mean for this world and how you fit in these animals who are so fundamentally different from us humans.

Still, I would love to see someone try their hands at writing a sort of spiritual successor to this book that fixes its issues, attempting to tackle these themes (perhaps from both the point of view of humans and other animals) in a grand fantasy/mythic xenofiction that also clearly sees animals for what they are. I would think such a work could be powerful, and maybe reproduce the same feelings I had when I read this book so long ago…