#have full context- i'm just clarifying the perspective at play here.

[fiapple]

i don't want to get too comprehensive as i'm aware that sanji is a character who is vastly expanded upon in a much later arc than the arc i'm currently reading, but i do want to say i think the invention of the mr. prince was a brilliant choice on oda's part.

seperating sanji from the crew in major ways throughout the saga immediatley following his introduction was a rather bold idea when you think about typical writing conventions, but oda does so in a way that leaves the audience free from any feeling of the character being genuinely side-lined or written thoughtlessly.

the manner in which sanji enacts his narrative role throughout the alabasta saga is a direct result of his growing up in the food service industry, (nodded at when he answers the den den mushi with "hello, welcome to the shitty restaurant." when mr. prince is first utilized as a persona). It also reinforces that he has a high level of social-cognizance even when working on a small amount of information, a trait which is previously shown in how he treated various customers & in his initial affinity for luffy. In mr. prince's first scene alone, oda focuses on depicting this to the audience through sanji's implied senstivity to the facts of: a) baroque works not knowing who he is, b) the likely additional lack of awareness of luffy's crew having more crew members than they think, c) him having enough context to pretend to be a baroque works agent, & d) enough to use that to fake their deaths & get baroque works to stop looking before they find out anything further.

the writing works especially well when you consider that the way sanji thinks would be informed by what he would've needed to succeed in a fast-paced & heavily taxing environment where he continually needs to act in service of others. like it is just a very thoughtful writing choice on the part of oda, & behaviourally very organic for sanji as a character. it allows for the seperation from the rest of the cast to feel justified on a narrative level, & ultimatley ends up adding it's own layer to the intentionally fragmented & chaotic atmosphere created in the climax-chapters of the alabasta arc- with the added bonus of the deux-ex-machina that gets the crew out of crocodile's cage not feeling in the least bit forced.

the thing i saw oda praised above all else for prior to starting one piece was his character-writing, & i can definietly see why.

[silverjojo08]

On video games and writing and Fire Emblem Engage

Mainly just me musing about how I don't think the story is bad. Sorry for being annoying tbh. This is meant for my personal circle of mutuals, but maybe other people can get something out of it. Please be nice to me; I am not a professional reviewer and don't claim to be writing anything objective or anything lol. I'm also not really editing heavily for grammar or anything (if anything I try to keep a bit of order structurally but I love a comma splice idk lol).

This piece has gone through many versions in my head as I try to nail down exactly what puzzles me about the perception of the writing as being "bad".

Initially I think I was going to do a full plot breakdown and point out how logically every moment fits together and how foreshadowing + late reveals enhances certain previous moments. As I write this down, I don't think that I'll be doing that here. I almost considered a deep dive into the themes of motherhood and found family presented in the game. Not sure I'm going to do that either. At one point I also considered fully getting into common complaints (particularly some brought up from one of my folks who I deeply respect, Mr. Forte himself), but also I don't think I'll really do that.

So, what am I writing here? Maybe it's a mix of all of the above. Maybe it is none of the above. I don't really know. But I do want to talk about how this game just really vibes for me; and while I don't intend on necessarily changing anyone's mind, I want to at least provide some perspective on why I personally enjoy it so that others can understand my perspective at the very least.

Perhaps I will succeed in that. Perhaps I will fail. Let's find out together. (Again I'm doing like very minimal editing. Please excuse grammatical errors/typos. If anything is unclear, ask and I'll try to clarify. But I'm bad at tumblr so either tweet at me or send it through an ask please.)

Prologue: Who? What? Why?

To start, I'm in my early 30s. The video game that made me love video games was Super Mario RPG, and my earliest gaming memories include me watching my dad beat up the robot evil Santa at the end (also him playing some NBA game on SNES). FE games I have played start to finish: 8 (Ephraim), 11, 12, 13, 14 (all 3), 15, 16 (all routes), and 17. FE games I have played a bit of but didn't finish for various reasons (mainly I got distracted and forgor 💀): 1, 4, 5, 7, and 9. None of this actually matters that much, but maybe there's a generational and/or fandom divide of some sort and this provides useful context.

I am not a writer by trade nor hobby. Writing is actually one of my least favorite things to do (this is potentially related to OCD brain "just right" stuff), to the point where I chose my college major specifically based on which had the least amount of classes that I could actually complete without having to write essays. I am a math person. I do like consuming and dissecting written fiction though.

This piece is meant to be mostly explanatory. I want to give my perspective as best I can. I decided other writing styles would be too combative for what amounts to something we're consume for enjoyment. I just want to pass on some understanding of how I feel.

I think the best way to do this is generally avoid spoilers, but I will include a specifically marked section where I discuss all spoilery things that come to mind (anything that I intend to come back to in this spoiler section will be marked with a *). Any non-FE games mentioned will not be spoiled beyond kind of a general "a reveal happened in a way that bugged me" type of stuff, if even that is a concern here's a list of the games vaguely mentioned so you can crtl+f: Tales of Zestiria, AI The Somnium Files: Nirvana Initiative, Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney - Dual Destinies. It all happens within two paragraphs, so you can just skip them if needed.

(Also I may accidentally use he/him pronouns for Alear because M Alear was the one I played with first, but I do generally think of FE avatars as the same being regardless of gender and try to use they/them when speaking to things both versions experience, which is like everything besides the hair colors being flipped and class options?)

Chapter I: What Is "Bad Writing" To Me?

Ok if you're reading this I assume you are at least in high school, and for that reason I'm not going to walk anyone through that level of analysis. In no way is this meant to be a lecture and I'm not trying to give any particularly deep literary analysis. That feels kind of like a pretentious thing to do in this situation.

So, bad writing? To me the biggest thing I consider bad writing is when an idea is not communicated well. This could be contradictory messaging, poor delivery, puzzling execution, etc. Obviously this can happen to various degrees of "bad", but I will not consider a story to have bad writing unless the writing breaks the experience in some way.

A broken experience is not the same to me as a negative one. To me a negative experience is just a matter of taste in the end and not a matter of "bad writing". Boring writing is not the same as bad writing even if it makes the experience painful. A broken experience has to be bad to the point where you just do not understand what they were attempting at all.

One game that comes to mind on this is Tales of Zestiria. I loved the characters in that game, and the main story itself is largely logical. But it was written so messily that there's a point where it becomes truly incoherent. To this day I have no idea what was going on with Dezel and Rose's personal histories despite a major climax of that game being built around the moment things get revealed for them. Again, it was overall a fun game, but it was definitely one I would claim had some bad writing.

Another situation that comes to mind that can be a spark for bad writing is when a reveal sours previous experiences. Misleading an audience can work really well in some ways. Ace Attorney 5 (Dual Destinies) has a reveal that has made me not want to replay it at all, but I don't believe the reveal is poorly done. Conversely, Somnium Files 2 (Nirvana Initiative) had one reveal that invalidates a significant part of the playing experience in a way that's hard to describe without going any further, but I think playing with audience expectations can only go so far until you make the audience feel like you've stolen part of the joy of the playing experience by severing an emotional connection.

I've been trying to describe this all in objective terms, but obviously it is very subjective. It's totally a "I know it when I see it" thing in the end. This section might be pointless. I don't know.

(There were too many blocks of text so look at Alfred; he's so nice and funny and good. I will give him the pact ring every time I play as M Alear lol.)

Chapter II: What about Fire Emblem Engage?

I guess this is kind of my point. I don't understand how any of this is applicable to it. The plot is fairly simple especially to start. You go from point A to point B with plenty of easy to follow narrative. Characters behave in logical and understandable ways. There's nothing functionally "wrong" with the story.

I think there are some pacing issues with the last stretch of chapters in that things happen too quickly for the player to properly respond even though the concepts are cool*. There's a lot of infodumps in these last chapters too that feel a little misplaced*. I agree that the tea supports (and shared gimmicks in general among certain groups of characters) are a bit overwhelming to unlock in succession. The DLC sucks* and only small parts of it truly add to the main story's narrative. There's the usual Fire Emblem incest and pedophilia grossness trying to peek its head through*. It's not a perfect game by any means.

I think I need to break up overall story discussion and character usage discussion, so I'm going to do that right now. If you've read to this point you generally get my point maybe on why the writing works fine for me and can stop here if you don't want a full peek into the deepest and most illogical recesses of my mind?

If you're not stopping here, together we ride or something idk did the title for this song come from Smash? Whatever.

Chapter III: The Story

***SPOILER WARNING, SKIP TO THE NEXT PART IF YOU WANT TO AVOID SPOILERS***

Alright so I lied when I said I wouldn't go into this fully dissecting the plot or other people's criticisms. I'll do that a little bit here.

The biggest moment of "controversy" I think that happens early on is the loss of Lumera. What I've seen is that many people feel it didn't land well with them due to the game having not built up the relationship all that well. And I intellectually get that perspective. If a story beat doesn't land well to you then I can't tell anyone they're wrong for feeling a particular way about things. But while I understand people may feel this way, I truly do not understand that viewpoint. That we don't know Lumera is kind of the point. Alear also doesn't know her well at that moment. You're supposed to feel like it came too suddenly and is weird for it. The full gravity of the moment is not clear until later on in the game, and I think it was executed very well because the entire game revolves around this specific concept of chosen motherhood and family.

But maybe I'm moving too quickly. Backing up a bit, another criticism of this early game situation is I've seen people say they don't "have reason to care" how Alear is feeling this early on. And like, I truly don't know how to help you with that. When I start a game I generally don't start at 0 waiting for the game to make me care about the main character. I am already on their side and hoping for the best for them? I went in mainly thinking Alear looked goofy but like a nice kid who deserved nice things and the game did build well on it for me.

I think there are some questions on the nature of the emblems and the rings that go somewhat unanswered. There's a lack of clarity on how the rings function, and how stealing the rings after winning a battle works. Given that we see them levitate at numerous times, I suspect that is mostly the answer. But I do understand if that's a point of contention for some since it's not directly clarified.

The emblems are similarly somewhat explained as kind of heroic essence put to form, which genuinely is enough of an answer to me. But I do understand some may find that lacking. There are also many issues with the writing of the emblems which I sympathize with especially as a comic book fan who hates it when my faves are misrepresented in other titles. That's a genuine flaw that could have been corrected by having people working on the script who cared more about accuracy.

The pacing absolutely becomes an issue in the later chapters of the game. The Zephia and Griss death scene is extremely touching and well-written, but to have a scene that long and that complex in that moment of the game is very awkward. It would have been better suited as a Memory Prism type of bonus scene like FE15 had (for several characters there were scenes that added context but did not exactly fit in the main story such as a flashback discussion with Emperor Rudolf). It is necessary to understand the characters, but there's not a truly comfortable place to put it that doesn't seem insane especially given the length. This deeply ties into how I feel about the DLC as well, which is that Good!Zephia/Zelestia gives crucial insight to the effects of positive nurturing and actively choosing to build bonds, which is perhaps the strongest and most important theme of the game. Every instance of chosen family in this game is framed and shown to be a truly critical event for the individuals, as are the instances of chosen neglect. The usage and execution of this theme to me was extremely powerful in execution and just worked without feeling too cringe or forced. It's good stuff. I love love love what they did here, and I say this as a person who has never wanted to be a mother of any sort.

To go on a bit more about this: Griss (and by extension Gregory, but focusing on Griss here for simplicity) and Alear are such strong reflections of one another. There's some obvious aspects like how Griss is visually edgy and Alear is visually bright, Griss is rude and confident while Alear is kind and doubtful, etc. But the strongest comparisons and contrasts between them involve their mothers, and I think it's just incredibly well done. Comparisons include both of them get their sense of fashion from their moms, get their unit classing from their moms, somewhat blindly follow the words of their moms, had terrible upbringings and cling to their moms as their first emotional support, etc. But the contrasts? Oh baby. Zephia adopts Griss because he's a standout while Lumera adopts Alear because they're a failure (by Sombron's measure, not literally). Griss spends years by Zephia's side learning from her while Alear has to mostly guess at what Lumera had planned for them. And perhaps most starkingly: Griss gets to die alongside Zephia while Alear and Lumera are always mourning one another. Griss is such an incredibly well done rival character. It's no wonder he's the one who gets the special cutscene where he reveals the truth to Alear. Forever my GOAT!

Sadly though it's time to switch gears and talk about the DLC: it truly sucks. I said it on twitter after beating it, but I really think that they messed up on anticipating what would be a compelling scenario for the players to play through while also coaxing themselves into a snafu regarding spoilers. There's some good stuff there, but it's almost directly undercut by necessitating that it can be played early in a playthrough before the player has gotten to the revelations about Alear's biological parentage.

The DLC does attempt to carry over the themes of the main game, but without being able to openly acknowledge that these are some of the last of Alear's siblings (even if not by blood exactly) it becomes hollow. The only real payoff on the theming is the Nel and Veyle support chain where even if they aren't sisters in the traditional sense, Veyle is desperate for that kinship as she is so young and has spent so much time alone. It's very touching and something that could have been touched on with Alear as well if only the writers weren't forced to write a detached arc to avoid spoilers.

Yes this is probably where I should get into the alt Alear being the "twin" of the main one. They needed to either go all in with that and have Alear confirmed as sort of a multiversal set of twins or back up off it and confirm that they're only narrative parallels because doing literally all of this and then having Nel have feelings for the other Alear is gross. They did so well avoiding weirdness with Veyle in the main game, and then completely blew it in regards to Nel. It makes no sense you can romantically S support her and invalidates all the themes about family presented to that point if characters who literally share a father and share similar traumas don't find healthy kinship with one another.

But beyond all that, we don't really get to see enough of Nel and "Nil" to be convinced by their dedication to one another especially in comparison to other familial relationships like between the recruitable royals, Four Hounds, and Four Winds. It feels like things are just happening to happen without feeling the gravity of terror that we are told Sombron caused them. Again, the obvious parallel to Alear being forced to fight Veyle purely due to their father's machinations isn't allowed to be explored due to the spoilers thing. Subtlety can be a structurally clever thing, but this doesn't even feel like the DLC writers were aware of that basic fact. This is the only aspect of the whole game that I feel truly misses the mark for me. It feels like a bland copycat of the main game written by someone who only skimmed a wiki article of the main story. I truly really believe they would have been better served making it a proper postgame arc because then maybe the emotional connections could have been fully explored.

I also almost feel as though they'd have been better served writing a story set in the past around red Alear. I understand that would have made it difficult to have playable units from the DLC in the main campaign, but I would have gladly missed out on them if that meant adding to the main universe instead of mostly meaning nothing in the end besides an edgy boy (and I genuinely like Rafal, he's funny) realizing he isn't as edgy as he thought he was.

Back to the main game though. Alear becoming Corrupted and begging their sister to not give up was extremely cool and dangerous and insane in a GOOD way (though again, the cutscenes were somewhat long but long for the sake of the main characters is different than long for side villains). Then you play the actual chapter and nothing truly significant is happening that makes the experience feel noteworthy. I think the design and gameplay are more of a problem with this than the specifics of the writing itself, but both of those generally work to the benefit of storytelling in this game so to have an obviously contradictory moment like that undercuts the drama of the scenario. It's a great idea done in kind of a "just ok" way. Would have been better off omitting that chapter entirely and just jumping to the emblem-izing of Alear immediately. Maybe the writers were just too ambitious with the idea of using the Corrupted for a good reason, and couldn't bear to cut it out? I don't dislike indulgent writing, but I dislike when I can tell the writers are just doing something because they thought it was cool and no one felt like being the one to say "ok this doesn't quite fit".

Another gameplay and storytelling problem is the final boss fight. Bringing back the other final bosses as evil emblems was brilliant, but to not bring them back as recognizable models, not give them their portraits, and not give them their voice lines (and correct me if I'm wrong, but they all have voice actors from their own games or Heroes) made it difficult to identify who was who without looking up their classes online. That really undercut most of the drama in them being used in that battle. I understand this may have all added costs to the game that they maybe didn't want to pay, but that lack of detail made a very cool inclusion feel kind of middling.

And the boss himself? Sombron is actually an interesting dude to me. But again, all his backstory and evil plans probably should have been dumped in a monologue separate from the final battle. I think this is yet another case, similar to the Zephia and Griss scene, that would have worked better as a memory prism than as just a character telling the audience directly in what sort of feels like an inappropriately detailed explanation. I appreciate that they did not force this into being another story centered around multiversal crossovers in a media landscape that is currently overwhelmed by such stories, especially if the "Zero Emblem" hook has no intention of being followed up on. Though arguably that's yet another thing the DLC needlessly complicated. Is there just an infinite number of Sombrons looking for an infinite number of Zero Emblems? Even more proof that the DLC should not have happened as it did.

Last thing worth addressing in detail is the pedophilia that has been sadly very prevalent in the series and arguably emboldened by the introduction of the S support system. Even if one wants to disregard the internal age data, characters like Anna, Jean, and Hortensia should not have been romanceable in any language. I thank the English localization team for scrubbing out most of this and making them as platonic as possible.

Ok I think that's basically everything about the plot I can think of right now to address directly. Solm royals could have gotten more, but whatever. I thought they were fine as the hyper-competent Batman-like country that's like 5 steps ahead of everyone. I don't have any other things to speak about on the main story events.

*** THE SPOILERS ARE DONE, CONTINUE READING HERE ***

(Your reward for reading all those paragraphs is a nice picture of my daughter Veyle, who is precious and good. I was so worried they would be weird about her and barefeet aside they thankfully were not.)

Chapter IV: The Other Characters

There's a couple of obvious social groups of characters who have largely overlapping gimmicks. Tea time enthusiasts (Celine, Louis, Jean), aesthetic obsessives (Goldmary, Rosado, Hortensia), gym rats (Alfred, Etie, Boucheron sort of). Firene has perhaps the biggest problem of having so many gimmicks done so close together. There is still a lot of depth in those supports still (notably in the A levels after many might have given up, such as Alfred-Etie, Alfred-Celine, Celine-Alear, etc). I don't really have a defense for this, but I do understand why especially early on it would cause people to write off the cast of the game. It didn't bother me much maybe because I benched everyone but Alfred and Louis right away (I needed to keep Clanne and Framme around, they're really funny lol).

But overall I didn't mind any of the characters for their gimmicks besides Seadall (his disordered eating being treated as a joke was just extremely offputting and it was really 50/50 on whether a support might focus on it) and Goldmary (she is just an asshole and to me it wasn't funny, not every joke will land for everyone I suppose).

The cast felt extremely likeable and well-rounded. I will sound like a broken record here, but again they really reminded me of what I enjoyed about the FE8 cast. Just pretty much all likeable and good characters.

Chapter V: Everything Else

Here's like everything else that comes to mind but I don't have enough in my brain to properly write sentences on them and I kind of want to be done with this lmao:

Yes, I think it's a little silly how some characters manage to get away without the game directly stating how. Alear and co are nice and not brutal so you can assume they allowed the escape, but it's still weird at times. Poorly choreographed.

I will never unironically use the term "ludonarrative" (no shade if you do, but it's not me). However the introduction of the Lucina ring bringing back hope to the crew while being a supportive ring for gameplay purposes and all is just really special stuff. It's good. Similarly, the ring you get at the end of chapter 17 is an amazing moment.

I'm not particularly bothered by the rings being former characters. I don't feel they were used poorly or anything. They're wise old heroes helping the new gen, and they serve that purpose well. Only Marth has a bit more to him than that due to his history with Alear, and I think it plays out well without being reliant on prior knowledge. Again very sorry to Eirika fans, I've seen the essays there on the inaccuracies and you're all valid.

The time travel is very clean and properly defined imo. Much more limited than in Three Houses in-universe which is good, however the best explanation for the rewinds will continue to be Mila's Turnwheel (in that there is no time travel, just some premonitions that allow the characters to evade danger).

I love Pandreo and Zelkov so much. Oh my god. They're so funny and just good men. Excellent dudes. Amber, Rosado, YUNAKA. The cast is just lovely. I love them.

Sommie is so cute for real. Just brilliant idea to include a nice pet for your home base. If anything, they should have given it more wigs for the main royals or some of the emblems. Also Sommie is totally the Zero Emblem.

Chapter VI: Conclusion

Let me get TMI here. I do understand that personally I experience and perceive emotions in an unusual way compared to most people. I've not been diagnosed with anything specific to that level of wiring (just OCD and anxiety), and as far as I feel it doesn't seem necessary. But it is what it is, and I am who I am. Maybe all of this is pointless to write and it truly is just a matter of taste and personal emotional expectations. I don't know. I just know I liked the game, and what worked on me really worked. Hope this was fun to read even if it doesn't give any particular insight.

I did not intend to compare any other FEs in this piece mainly because it's not about them. Legit sorry if I inadvertently cause some sort of discourse.

tl;dr It's Peak Fiction™

[notyourmoniker]

hi can i ask why you're not a fan of denna's character arc? i'm just curious :)

Ok so I took forever to respond to this and I apologize. I’ve been incredibly busy and I wanted to get my thoughts in order. Thank you for asking though! Before you read further, be warned! Not only did I basically write an essay, this is one of the few instances that I’m going to contend that the Sword of Truth books handled a character better than the show.

My issue with Denna’s portrayal on Legend of the Seeker basically boils down to two main issues; agency and intention. The show takes a different approach to these features of her character than the books do, affecting her portrayal in my opinion for the worse. That’s not to say I don’t like TV Denna. I do! I just believe she serves a very different and ultimately weaker function.

So to start, I should add a little context. My initial exposure to the show was very sporadic. I watched reruns on ABC, and still being kind of young, I didn’t really have the resources to watch them in order from start to finish. This led to me reading most of the books before completing the television series in full.

This means I read the book version of Denna’s story prior to seeing it enacted on screen.

Her arc in the books, culminating with her death, was for me, extremely powerful.

Here was a character who’s life had been taken from her as a child. She had been broken and made into something intentionally counter to who she had been before. And because of this process her conception of self was dominated by the wills of others and her value to them as a weapon.

However, as she trains Richard (a much longer period of time than in the show) we see this start to change. Though Denna is meant to break Richard, change him to suit her needs, the reality is that their transformation is mutual. The more broken he became the more tenderness, compassion, etc. he showed her. In exchange, she starts to see herself as a person worthy of those things, a person who is more than what she has been told, a person who can take the kindnesses Richard has extended to her and return them to him.

Thus, Denna in the books undergoes a slow return to her humanity, finding redemption and independence in doing so.

While some may attribute her transformation to Richard and her attraction to him, I would argue Denna’s ‘love’ is more like gratitude - a deep respect for being reminded of the humanity and sense of self she had lost in becoming a Mord’Sith.

Her death, to me, solidifies this interpretation. Though she does indeed die to save Richard, how she died was the ultimate declaration of agency. Asking him to kill her was a rejection of everything life had made her. It was redemptive,  a definitive moment in which she becomes more than she had been, more than she had been told she could be. This was not how a Mord’Sith would want to die, but it was how Denna chose to die.

And in killing her, Richard recognizes her autonomy. The anger that turns the blade white is not because of what she had done to him but what the Mord’Sith and Darken Rahl had done to her.

The relationship they had was unique and based upon mutual tragedy, trauma, healing and eventual understanding.

Her death and what she and Richard underwent together serves an important purpose in the books. Besides the obvious things, such as introducing the Mord’Sith, the concept of sincere forgiveness is established, as well as the power of autonomy and the magic that comes when it is acknowledged and lived out. Denna’s life and death is therefore made meaningful because of how she developed, and how Richard changed with and because of her.

None of this is true in the show.

On Legend of the Seeker Denna’s initial plot line is cut short. Rather than having the time and space to truly develop she remains more or less the same. Rather than slowly understanding herself as a person capable of independent thought, compassion, and humanity she remains predominantly antagonistic. She is never really given the opportunity to see herself outside of and independent of the Mord’Sith.

So, when Richard kills her it is not her choice, and therefore is not a declaration of agency, of understanding, or of growth. It is just the hero killing a villain to save himself and the woman he loves. Without the relationship Richard and Denna develop in the books, her story is less impactful and less meaningful in the greater context of the show.

And then they bring her back.

Almost as soon as she’s gone, she’s alive again and nothing about her experience has really altered her character at all.

I understand why she was brought back. Until Nicci could be established as a villain and with Rahl rarely acting as his own muscle Legend of the Seeker needed a recognizable villain. But in choosing Denna to fulfill this role her entire character is made weaker. Her characterization and plot line is shifted about so she can be used when the story demands it - having her play a Madame, even for a short while, is one of the show’s weaker decisions.

And the writer’s seem to realize how much of a departure their character is from the one she is meant to be based on, because right before she dies permanently we gets this touching and sad scene with Zedd. It looks like Denna might be realizing that she doesn’t have to be what other people have made her. But then she gone, and her story is robbed of the redemption and self assertion she is granted in the books.

Though logistically it would have been foolish for the writers to handle Denna’s arc the same way it had been done in the books, I think it still could have been done much better. They could have even maintained her role as an antagonist. Not every character needs a redemption arc. But seeing a character grow, seeing them assert themselves, redefine their conceptions of self, and challenge other’s perspectives of them is what makes interesting stories.

Kahlan is a confessor but more than. Cara is a Mord’Sith but more than. Nicci is a Sister of the Dark but more than. Denna remains in a place where she never quite reaches a significant ‘more than.’

So while in the books Denna grows to show compassion, humanity, and a clarifying sense of agency, TV Denna was never given that chance.