#knight of cerebus

[besttropeveershowdown]

The SECOND Best Trope Ever Showdown: Round 1, Side C, Poll 4

Knight of Cerebus

A new character, usually an antagonist, who marks the transition to a darker tone for the work.

Propaganda:

Because wits super funny whenever the show has a light goofy feel to it and then suddenly this character comes in and completely changes the vibe!

Take a Third Option

A character presented with 2 choices finds a way to choose a third thing instead (or something just a character presented with [x] number of choices finds a way to choose something that hasn't been presented to them as an option]

Propaganda:

I will admit when done badly it can be annoying and feel like a cop out to have a character swerve and make an ending or plot point feel really out of left field, but when well done it can be soooo satisfying, to watch a character think their way out of a seemingly limited situation and/or demonstrate that a false choice has been set before them and take control of their own narrative

[ultraericthered]

A key part of the Anohana experience no matter how many times you have to go through it.

[dynamobooks]

Dave Sim: High Society (1981-1983)

[schniggles]

#this is why he rules #it's why of all the megatrons in the tv shows he's the one that feels Actually Threatening #bc he shows up intermittently wins half the time and is absolutely of the opinion he's Here To Murder #which sticks out so much. god bless. tfa megs is unhinged <3 (via decepti-thots)

Transformers Animated is so funny because specifically Megatron doesn't seem to be aware of the fact that he is in a kids' show. This man is taking everything so seriously. He goes for the kill all the time. He ignores all the 'this show is for kids' things around him. He spends an entire season as a cut off head and tries to kill the main cast at every moment anyway. Starscream betrays him again and he kills him. Starscream keeps coming back from the dead like a cartoon character? Megs kills him again. And again. Dumps his body out and goes back to serious business. Heroes keep attacking him? Fuck you he's bringing out a wholeass sword and a gun and he will use them. Never gonna forget the one time where Optimus saves him and then immediately after Megs picks him up and uses him as a shield. Everyone around him keeps doing and saying silly stuff for the funsies and he ignores them. Amazing. Irredeemable. He does not deal with cartoony stuff and mostly ignores anything that is like a kids show.

Like you could pick him up and plop him into TFP or IDW no problem, he's straight up a genocidal dictator. I love him and his non-silly ass

[piepress]

THERE IS STILL TIME FOR YOU TO MAKE HISTORY! Did you miss out on the LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS: WORDS ONLY Kickstarter campaign? The one that's making history by bringing together some of the most legendary characters and creators of the indie comics era in a book of thrilling prose fiction adventures? Well, this is your lucky day! The LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS project is accepting late pledges, so there's still time for you to leap in, be all historic, and snag some spectacular rewards! Here's the link: http://kck.st/3Y11ZHu

Remember, thanks to the stretch goals, the book will include a DYNAMO JOE story, a SOUTHERN KNIGHTS tale, and black-and-white illustrations to accompany every story! And every backer will get a digital copy of the companion book, LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS: HISTORY AND TRIVIA.

Don't hesitate to jump in and help us make this book the absolute best it can be...all while scooping up fabulous rewards! JOIN THE LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS!

[evilhorse]

Cerebus in Hell? Presents #10

[comicaurora]

Does Bathos ever happen in the other direction? Like, if a scene seems like it's setting up for something silly and frivolous, and then abruptly veers into seriousness instead, is that Bathos?

I'm struggling to come up with examples of this, maybe that part of Mulan where they fun "A Girl Worth Fighting For" song is abruptly cut off by the very real scenes of wartime devastation.

It does, in so many ways it doesn't have a single unified name!

One trope under this umbrella is called "Cerebus Syndrome," where a story that starts off wacky and lighthearted gradually becomes dark and miserable. It's essentially a genre shift. Depending on how it's played it can work very well (reboot season 3) or very badly (almost any story that got Cerebus'd because the writer had some sort of crisis or breakdown.) Has corollary tropes like "Knight of Cerebus", which describes cases where a new character/antagonist is introduced to a formerly lighthearted story who is so thoroughly nightmarish that they significantly darken the story.

Those describe more large-scale shifts to the story, though - the inverse of Bathos would be a little smaller-scale, more of a scene-by-scene thing. For that, you probably want the space of tropes surrounding "Wham Line" and "Wham Shot", a case where a single line of dialogue or change of camera angle radically reframes the scene in a serious direction.

A wham line that reframes a banter scene:

A wham shot that changes the tone:

"Wham Scenes" abruptly interrupt comedic, nonserious situations and force the characters to take them seriously, and in many cases retroactively make earlier silly scenes harsher in hindsight. It reminds the audience and the characters that these characters aren't clowns swatting at each other for our amusement, they're complex emotional beings with depth to their existence, and the way they feel about their story matters, even in the supposedly silly parts.

Of course, Wham Lines are not immune to the danger of accidental bathos.

[swapauanon]

I just had the mental image of Tarn in Earthspark.

Not as a "Knight of Cerebus" but as Megatron's stalker fanboy with far too much free time.

Megatron is just very clearly trying oh so hard not to vaporize this one REALLY annoying fanboy, and then Tarn just breaks down sobbing the first time he hears Dot causally call Megatron "Megs". Just one big whiny fanboy tantrum.

(Only tagging this as "djd tarn" so people know that I'm talking about Tarn the character and not Tarn the polity.)

[picketfurretsartblog]

Spark Gym Leader: Chili Concarne

Finally, we have a design for a character I should have gotten to a LONG time ago, but here's my take on the first gym leader and Knight of Cerebus within A Single Spark, Chili! Be sure to read my Nuzlocke comic here!

Posted using PostyBirb

[besttropeveershowdown]

The Best Trope Ever Showdown: Round 1, Side A

Knight Of Cerebus

Propaganda:

This trope is responsible for some of the most terrifying villains that I have seen including Death from Puss in Boots, Belos from The Owl House and the Lich from Adventure Time

Prophetical Semantics

Made its debut in McBeth, a character is bound by a curse or prophecy and is freed from it by unconventional means, usually due to the specific wording used (no TVTropes link submitted)

Propaganda:

DO YOU FORGET EOWYN’S “I AM NO MAN”?!? Put some respect on her name!!! There are so many fun creative ways to use this trope! Naveen “kissing a princess” by marrying Tiana! “No weapon forged by mortal hands can kill me” and being bludgeoned by a rock! As long as you do the setup, you can twist the plot without it feeling cheap! I love it!

[thepinebox]

the oracle of crowley part three

the foundation of the question is works of the body I am the knight of the body here emerging from the depths hermit's light bright on cerebus' tail the heirophant herald of a new age blocks the way and interference of the mind results leading to a me downed by the power of water out of these depths the knight of fire erupts fire on fire and I will burn unless pull another card you fool do not end it so the goddess arrives stages us one level back to before we went below adjustment leads to victory fire contained in completion

[frauleinandry]

finally finished engage. it was... certainly a game alright. what it did well, it did well, but when it did things badly, it did them badly, and unfortunately, the latter overshadows the former.

tl;dr I’d give it a 6.5/10 overall. the gameplay was solid but had a couple of really irritating aspects that dragged my overall experience down, and the less said about the story, the better.

so, let’s start with the plot, since that’s the worst thing. it’s... bad. very bad. and no, it’s not bad because it’s not a bleak tragedy filled with morally grey characters and interesting ethical conundrums. after three houses (which I love btw), I wanted a stupid, light-hearted game ala awakening. engage’s story also isn’t bad because it was made to be child friendly (although I do find that a dubious decision, given how much the game caters to old-school FE fans, and the typical themes that normally appear in fire emblem games). steven universe is a great example of a show that’s child friendly, yet still tackles some dark content. in fact, while I admit I only watched the first season, she-ra is also a good example of children’s media that handles very similar themes to engage.  

no. engage’s story sucks purely because it’s poorly executed. everything interesting about alear is dropped after like 3 chapters, the pacing is god-awful, none of the lore is utilised to its full potential, the characterisation is all over the place (*cough* zephia *cough*), and the dissonance between the genuinely awful stuff happening (like the near genocide of elusia) and the cartoonish dialogue and characterisation is jarring. for scenes like, say, lumera’s death, the game is trying to make me feel things, but it doesn’t, because there’s absolutely no substance or development behind anything. it’s like IS tried to make a family-friendly story without actually understanding how to do that, and the result is a hot mess.

like. there is a couple of parts that did stand out, such as alear being resurrected as a corrupted, the time travel stuff, sombron’s past, and the way lumera and alear’s adoptive relationship is treated like it’s just as important (if not even more so) than alear’s blood family. most of those elements are completely glossed over though except for the adoptive family stuff (which is one thing I think engage’s story actually gets right). like, sombron’s whole deal with him not caring about elyos because it’s not his homeworld is really interesting! why was it just an off-handed comment in the last chapter instead of a running theme of his character?!

ultimately, I think engage’s story would be significantly better if the game wasn’t trying to be serious. the premise is dumb!! let the game be silly! ditch the war stuff (initially, anyway), and just have it be alear’s goofy misadventures travelling through the kingdoms collecting rings. let ivy and her retainers essentially be team rocket. let the cutscenes be hammy. let lumera be mission control, and actually develop her relationship with amnesiac!alear. then, at around the midpoint of the game, introduce the four hounds, and have them be the knights of cerebus. alear’s almost collected all the rings, but then the hounds take over from ivy (who bore no genuine ill-will towards alear), and lure them into a lethal trap. they take most of the emblems, and lumera sacrifices herself to save the main character. 

*takes a deep breath in* okay, now that that ramble is done with, let’s move on to the characters. they’re... not great, either. most of them are just one trope, and that’s it? sure, fire emblem casts are always going to be a bit tropey, but in engage, 95% of the playable cast has one gimmick which completely defines their every interaction. like, the cast of awakening gets accused of this same thing, but every character also has a bit of something else to them. in engage though, outside of celine, what you see is what you get. like, none of the supports were offensive or anything, and a few were cute/funny, but nearly all of them had no substance. it also really doesn’t help that there’s no paired ending (and ergo no reason to get A-supports), and support grinding in this game is dreadful.

that’s a perfect segway to the next segment - the gameplay. while it’s polished, and there are a lot of things it does really well, it’s got a couple of major flaws which makes engage more of a birthright than it is a conquest. for one, grinding anything, in general, is awful. the game is clearly catered for either iron man runs or for the players to ditch units as they get better ones. while this is subjective, speaking as someone who likes to use all the units they can on a first playthrough to get supports/etc, keeping all my units usable was a pain in the goddamn ass. who on earth thought basing the skirmishes on your highest-level units was a good idea?! the only way to level up weaker units is via the arena, which has very limited uses. the same issues pop up with getting money/supports - since the former requires you to do skirmishes which you can’t complete with your weaker units, it ends up with you getting over levelled (and who wants that?). support points only building from adjacent units was also an awful decision - it was fine in the GBA games when each character could literally only max one support each, but not in a modern title (especially given how bland the cast is - they need all the screentime they can get).

still, outside of that, most of it is pretty good! I was worried the emblems were going to completely destroy the difficulty, but they were balanced perfectly. enough to turn the tides in your favour, but not enough to make everything a cakewalk. emblem ike, lyn, and byleth were probably my MVPS - tanks are a rare luxury in such a player-phase-focused game, and byleth’s utility is just too good. speaking of difficulty, I’ve got to say, this was the first FE game I’ve found genuinely challenging in a while, which is great! i love three houses, but it’s a bit of a cakewalk, especially on a new game plus. engage though consistently kept me on my toes. the map designs were pretty good on the whole too - while they weren’t quite conquest tier, they’re some of the best in the franchise. I admit I still dislike the character art style, but the animations were a huge improvement compared to prior games. the map visuals were neat too - clear, concise, and with none of the murkiness that plagued the 3DS games/three houses.

I do have a couple of other pain points though. I found the somniel infinitely more tedious than the monastery - the rewards are worse, and the way you need to go to it after every map if you want to maximise its potential is a pain in the ass. at least you only really need to visit garreg mach once per month. tbh I think the base camp in three hopes actually did things best - good rewards, a simple layout, and bonus worldbuilding/character stuff that was completely optional. sommie is great though - he’s the best mascot character I’ve seen in a looooooooong time. one of the other dampeners was how player-phase-centric it was. this is purely subjective, but given how many reinforcements appear in this game, I wish there were more than two useful tanks. finally, I think the soundtrack was very generic by fire emblem standards. the music is normally brilliant, but I can’t think of a single song that stuck with me. 

[apieters]

Bathos vs. the Disney Renaissance or How To Have Drastic Mood Shifts Without It Feeling Forced

So a lot of people online have complained about the trend, often attributed to Joss Whedon, of using bathos inappropriately, as typified by his (in)famous quote

"Make it dark, make it grim, make it tough, but then, for the love of God, tell a joke."

—Joss Whedon

Now, having dark and light elements in the same story isn’t a bad thing—in fact, it’s a defining feature of my favorite films of the Disney Renaissance, and of the dramedy genre. But the transitions between serious and comedic elements have to be executed well, or the audience will suffer mood whiplash and will stop being immersed in the story. For example, a sudden snarky joke offered by two characters who have just had a massive, intimately personal argument is probably not going to do the scene any favors.

So if you want to have both light-hearted and dark elements in a story, how do you do it right? One of the best ways to analyze literary techniques is to look at extremes, and one of my favorite of the Disney Renaissance movies has probably the biggest range of moods I’ve ever seen in any movie: Disney’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. A film with wisecracking animated gargoyles and a genocidal villain who literally kills a woman on the steps of a church and attempts to drown a baby in the opening musical number has given itself quite the challenge in navigating the mood shifts between these sets of characters, and I respect those who think the attempt itself was a fool’s errand.

Yet I loved the film as a child and continue to love it as an adult, and the gargoyles continue not to bother me. Why does this movie work for me? What techniques did they use to make the mood shifts work?

Genre Expectations: It’s a kid’s film. Barely a kids film, but it is what it is. The filmmakers knew their genre and knew they could not make the film a 90-minute angst-fest. And the Disney Renaissance had a really good story formula and a stock of tropes, and light-hearted, funny sidekicks were one of those expected tropes. Writers need to know their target audiences and the audience’s expectations of their genre.

Sudden mood shifts from light to dark work to establish character. There is an early scene in which the gargoyles are encouraging Quasimodo to leave the cathedral and attend the Festival of Fools, and Quasimodo is about to do it when he bumps into Frollo. Immediately Quasimodo’s happiness and confidence turns to fear and the cheering gargoyles turn back to stone. The shift is sudden and jarring, but is used deliberately to establish Frollo as a threatening, life-sucking figure in whose presence joy and happiness do not exist because of his personality. This is a technique that is used effectively often enough that it has its own page on TV Tropes.Com—the “Knight of Cerebus.” However, this technique is asymmetric—almost never can you take a dark figure or moment and then suddenly lighten the mood with the sudden appearance of a clownish character. And to its credit, despite the presence of the gargoyles and their antics after serious scenes, The Hunchback of Notre Dame does not actually do this. This is because they use at least two transitioning techniques, which I will detail below:

First, each dramatic interaction is complete before the gargoyles are reintroduced. Around the midpoint of the movie, Quasimodo talks to Esmeralda about gypsies actually being as good a people as anyone else, immediately followed by a quip from the eavesdropping gargoyles. It’s a gag, but Quasimodo and Esmeralda have already finished their conversation. The dramatic conversation scene is complete and uninterrupted, and this is proved by the fact that the next shot is Quasimodo discussing Esmeralda’s escape, a new conversation topic. The quip itself is not as obtuse as it seems, since it serves as a break between conversation topics and gets the readers mind off of realistic discussions about racial equality and redirects it toward more fantastic story elements, which become plot-relevant in the very next scene: Quasimodo parkour’s his way down the cathedral with Esmeralda and the goat Djali in tow, an unrealistic event that is nevertheless critical to the plot.

Another example of completing a dramatic scene before offering a joke: A little later, Quasimodo and Phoebus get into a fight on the stairwell of the bell tower and have a tense stand-off, establishing both their mutual distrust and their shared concern for Esmeralda’s well-being. This is portrayed seriously and dramatically, and the tension is resolved entirely during a close-up shot of the two men facing off. Only after the conversation is wrapped up is there a gag—the scene zooms out to reveal that Phoebus is being held aloft by his collar by Quasimodo. This gag only occurs after the dramatic elements are completely resolved, and it’s not entirely goofy—Quasimodo is revealed to be terrifyingly and dangerously strong, a plot point that becomes critical to the climax of the movie. This dramatic gag then eases the viewer into the next appearance of the gargoyles.

Secondly, there are transitions from silly to serious as well. In the early scene where the gargoyles encourage Quasimodo to leave the cathedral and join the Festival, Quasimodo mentions that Frollo doesn’t allow it, and the gargoyles react with genuine disappointment before trying to circumvent the problem of Frollo being Frollo. This reaction is a toned-down version of the later mood shift that occurs when Frollo appears in person, priming the viewer’s expectations.

The final battle needs the gargoyle’s antics because it is a kid’s film and the violence needs to be brought down to kid-friendly levels—remember, writers need to know their genre and audience. However, when Frollo, the local Knight of Cerebus appears, Quasimodo is on his own. This is its own trope—“Shoo Out the Clowns,” in which comedic characters are not incorporated into dramatic scenes.

In summary, what did Disney do to make their mood shifts work for me? Finish your scenes and build in mood transitions. Structure your gags to be those transitions.

And for goodness sake, know your audience and genre when you write a story.

[markerofthemidnight]

oh no wait. knight of cerebus is still listed as one of his tropes.

eh you can’t win them all.

TOZU’S TVTROPES PAGE GOT UPDATED MY DAY IS MADE

[piepress]

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER! Did you miss out on the LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS: WORDS ONLY Kickstarter campaign that ended last night? No worries! We are still accepting late pledges, so there's still time for you to leap in and snag some spectacular rewards! Here's the link: http://kck.st/3Y11ZHu

Remember, thanks to the stretch goals, the book will include a DYNAMO JOE story, a SOUTHERN KNIGHTS tale, and black-and-white illustrations to accompany every story! And every backer will get a digital copy of the companion book, LEGENDS OF INDIE COMICS: HISTORY AND TRIVIA.

Don't hesitate to jump in and help us make this book the absolute best it can be...all while scooping up fabulous rewards! Long live the legends of indie comics!

[dead-souls-deactivated177013]

All my days were happy, fun and cheerful. I liked that world and peace that we had. In that world, there were only thieves who stole wallets from citizens and we played who would get him first. Funny days. Normal days. School, hanging out with girls and finally beating delinquents. But one day they came. That thing came. They took everything from me. My life and my world. My wife was killed in front of me. My happy world fell into darkness and despair.

Me, after reading this shit