#winx club critical

[sabrina-bee-art]

The Wizards are Sad Pieces of Toast, change my mind.

The Wizards are this seasons big bad villains. Or, the attempt at villains, ig. The way they are introduced, set against all the other villains the Winx have already beaten, it sets the expectation for the audience that the Wizards are even more evil, cruel and dangerous than all the villains that came before. And I guess on paper they are. Theoretically they are responsible for the genocide on the Terrestrial Fairies, which is pretty horrifying. Even Faragonda doesn’t dare speak of them out loud. And initially that’s intriguing. But when we meet them properly, they are just so boring and ineffective in comparison to Valtor or the Trix. Or even Darkar and he mostly hung out in his creepy cave castle.

I like the Wizards entrance, sort of. I like that they initially are after Bloom and want to steal her power (we’ll disregard for a moment the fact we learned in season 1 that a fairy’s power can’t be stolen) and when they realise, she isn’t the one they were looking for, they just yeet her to the side. That’s funny and unexpected. Every other villain before was after Bloom, and now for the first time, she isn’t the main centre of attention. She’ll make herself into that, later. But back to the Wizards.

We quickly realise that the Wizards are just…ridiculous, not menacing. Their actions don’t live up to the expectation set by their introduction and I think that is the main problem I have with them. How am I supposed to take them as a serious threat when the first two thirds of the season, the Wizards spend their time essentially playing pranks on the Winx? All they do in their brief moments of screen time, is to stand around and complain about the Winx. Then they try to ruin the Winx reputation and get so angry over the people of Gardenia liking these girlies. How very high school mean girl of them. It gets to a point where even the Winx are just annoyed when the Wizards show up and treat them more like an inconvenience than the evil final bosses that they end up being. Well, unless the plot demands otherwise.

It doesn’t help that, until the Winx get Believix at the end of the sixth episode, the Wizards could beat them at any point, since they canonically created a spell that renders Fairy Magic basically mute. But they don’t do anything with their advantage. Instead, they are absent for a good chunk of episodes and then only start messing with the Love & Pet shop, for no other reason than that they don’t like the Winx and find them annoying. After Episode 7, when the Winx insta-defeated them, they just sometimes attack randomly, but not with any sort of plan they want to achieve. Even though Roxy is not very protected, like the Winx don’t organise a watch for her or coordinate schedules so that someone is always with her, the Wizards only try to kidnap Roxy once. Unsuccessfully, because they conveniently forget to take her powers that particular time.

At the end, when they reveal themselves to be the Big Evils after all, I couldn’t take them seriously, with all the silly bullshit they pulled. They don’t even have any memorable personalities either. I can’t even recall all their names: there’s Ogron and Duman. Gantlos? And??? I'm sure there's a fourth one, but I couldn't remember his name if you'd held a gun to my head.

Ogron, or more like budget Valtor, in a sad attempt to be the next “charming” villain, monologues all over the place, throwing around threats and sassy lines. When Valtor did it, at least he made his threats reality thus giving his words weight. Ogron just talks shit and then gets jobbed by the Winx.

Another aspect to the detriment of the Wizards is that we don’t really get to spend much time with them. In season one and season three we spend a good chunk of most episodes with the Trix and Valtor and get to know them, their plans, and personalities. That’s why they are so memorable. The Wizards don’t get the same treatment. We barely cut away to see what they are up to, and when we do, they mostly complain about the popularity of the Winx. I’m serious. These are our villains!

We never learn their plans either. Why do they want the Terrestrial Fairies powers so badly? Just to have it? Because that’s an evil villain thing to do? Why did they start the genocide in the first place? What is their end goal now? Why do they want the White Circle? What are they planning? The audience not knowing the villains plan is a problem. That’s our frame of reference for the stakes of the season. Whenever the Winx and Wizards fight, we should clearly know what happens should the Winx lose. When we don’t understand the Wizards ulterior motives, their actions become meaningless and confusing. I would go so far to speculate that there never was a concrete plan for them, writing-wise. They are just a trope, a vessel, a hinderance for the Winx to fill this season with something. They aren’t real characters.

Let’s look at their plan, or lack there-of: At first, they want to steal Roxy’s power, then they leave her alone for a bit, messing with the Winx instead. Then they suddenly forget about Roxy and want the White Circle. Then they play more pranks and inconvenience the Winx some more. And in the end, they want to destroy Tir Na Nog…for some reason??? Because the show needs an evil final boss? With the other villains in previous season, the audience always clearly understood what their next steps would be. That adds suspense and urgency, like “Oh no! The Trix are about to steal a codex, can the Winx stop them in time???” Because we understood, that if Darkar gets all Codex pieces, he would be super powerful and destroy the Magical Dimension, the audience understood the gravity whenever the Trix managed to steal another piece. Now granted, that’s not a particularly original plan, but that’s not the point. The Wizards just randomly show up to fight, not really following any plan, or rather, whatever this episode’s plot requires. They don’t have an overarching plan. I’d argue because they don’t need one, because they will lose at the end regardless, but there not being any really just makes the Wizards seem like nothing more than a mild inconveniences to the Winx. Depending on the episode, of course, and whether we need to bring in artificial tension.

The fact that they don’t even have a proper villain’s lair speaks volumes. The Trix had Cloud Tower in season one. Darkar had his fancy underground castle. Valtor first had his cave on Andros, then Cloud Tower. What do the Wizards get? An unspecified industrial looking area and then…the sewer. They hide out in the sewer. Ewwwww. They don’t have a creepy castle, nothing. They could have had a sort of Tir Na Nog foil, a creepy old castle maybe, or even lived in the Ruins of Tir Na Nog. No. They hide in the sewers of this random Californian town.

I cannot stress enough how the majority of the season the Wizards are just sad pieces of toast and then at the last minute, they are revealed to be the big bad final boss. Their tactic of feigning their surrender could have been interesting, but by that point they already had lost all their intrigue. The Winx had already won against them every time they fought, so why should I feel any sort of threat or danger?

[fancylala4]

I see people are having a mid off between the creators of winx and miraculous ladybug.

We have a guy who whitewashed two of his own characters, allowed racist shit into his show (the infamous making fun of an black hairstyle scene) and made horrible decisions like thinking season 5-8 was good vs a guy who allowed racist shit into his own show(making a black character named ghetto blaster), cries on twitter because he can’t take any criticisms and can’t write a good story to save his own life.

[sophieabigail2021]

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I wouldn't really agree that boys are just arm candy in magical girl shows and only there to look cute. Yeah, sure the girls' friendships are the focus, but the boys are usually very much involved in the plot and most shows do explore their feelings about the odd things that happen due to magical shenanigans even if they aren't in the know (It's why ML baffles me even more with how they screwed up Adren's arc when he's the deuteragonist, when all these boys are supporting cast and get well rounded arcs)

I'm not much of a winx fan, but the specialists were very much not arm candy. Did the girls talk about them being cute? Yes, it's what teenage girls do. Did the narrative suggest they were good looking? Yes, but that's standard for most love interests in any genre. But we still got scenes with them talking amongst themselves about how they themselves feel and they got a fair share of badass fight scenes even if they wield no magic. A large amount of episodes actually included the boys and girls working as a team solving a mystery or fighting a villain. The girls might deal the finishing blow but the boys were still integral to the plot.

I hope this doesn't come across as hate, it definitely wasn't my intention. I'm just a bit too passionate about the magical girl genre.

I do think you have a good point with ML having a problem choosing a genre or blending two genres successfully.

For the CCS fans, I will add though that Cardcaptor Sakura had both Tomoyo and Syaoran serve as sources of motivation for Sakura. And both Sakura and Syaoran collecting cards even if Sakura is the only one who could seal them and yet never made you question whether Syaoran was even necessary for the job the way ml does with Chat.

I wasn't trying to say that boys have no part to play in magical girl team shows or that they're always treated as having no lives beyond the girls, that's why I mentioned that the Winx Club boys - aka, the Specialists - have their own (mostly off screen) lives and occasionally show up help the girls:

the boys are usually off doing their own thing and only occasionally show up for a date or to give the girls a ride on their cool bikes or magical spaceship

Even then, this is certainly a simplification of the roles that they play in the story, but I kind of had to simplify their roles down to their base components for the original post's discussion as I was talking in broad strokes of how these stories are written.

In terms of those broad strokes, the Specialists are absolutely only there for shipping fodder. That's why each one is assigned to a girl from the start and why their main role in the narrative is supporting their assigned love interest or causing relationship-based drama for their assigned love interest. If it weren't for shipping, then the Specialists would not exist.

While the Specialists do have fleshed out characters and may even effect the plot, the execution of those elements is designed around the girls. A really obvious example of this is the character Timmy, who has character development as the boy's tech guy. Why is he into technology? Because he's the designated love interest for the fairy of Technology and we have to show why they're a good match. Along similar lines, the boys don't really get plots that are removed from the girls because this is the girl's show. Every episode features one or more of the Winx, but the boys are optional and often don't appear.

This is because, narratively speaking, the boys are just love interests and that brings us back to Miraculous' big problem. You can't have a show where Adrien is written like a Specialist while also being part of the Winx Club and where Alya is written like she's part of the Winx Club while technically being more of a Specialist in terms of power set and actual narrative role.

I'm was thinking back to my memories of various Winx Club plots to find one that really highlighted what I mean here and I remembered that one of the big dramas in season one was the reveal that Bloom's love interest - Sky - was in an arranged marriage and had just never told her. As it turns out, that's a great example of what I'm talking about re Adrien!

Is that plot line technically based around Sky and letting his life effect the plot? Sure, but the fallout of that reveal revolves around Bloom, not Sky. The story doesn't really care how Sky's feeling as the conflict progresses. Instead, it focuses on how it affects Bloom and her friends because of course it does! She's the main character. It would be really weird if that plot suddenly focused on her side character love interest and his friends during one of her darkest hours/biggest moments.

Think of that and then consider how the ending of season five is written. Notice any similarities? Sure, this is Adrien's family drama, but because he's just a Specialist, the focus isn't on him. It's on Winx Club member Marinette and Adrien only shows up at the end for a kiss. That is the problem. That is what I'm talking about when I say that Miraculous will randomly write him as if we're watching a magical girl team show where Adrien is just the love interest.

In fact, let's really dig into this example because it's a good one.

You can have a look at the transcript for the finale episode of Miraculous season five here and see for yourself that Adrien doesn't even show up on screen until the final scenes when the big drama is over. The Winx Club wiki also has episode transcripts, so I took a look to see what happened in Winx land during the arranged marriage reveal plot (I love that this is a thing. It's so useful for fact checking myself!) This is the script for the episode after Bloom learns the truth. Sky does not appear even though his lies and family drama are the fuel for this episode's events, which are a major part of the season's arc. Note how perfectly that matches Adrien's writing?

Similarly, Sky's dialogue in the reveal episode is all about Bloom. He's worried about her learning the truth and thinking less of him. To match that, here's Adrien's only real dialogue in the penultimate episode of season five (full transcript):

Adrien:(Covers his ears.) I cannot transform... (Looks at his ring and tries taking it off.) Plagg: What are you doing?! Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.)

Switching back to Winx. After Bloom learns the truth about Sky, bad things happen because she's depressed. This results in her and the Winx going off on a journey to learn the truth of who Bloom is. After the girls share this big plot moment and Bloom gets her mojo back, the boys show up to be their ride home and to give Bloom her romance moment where Sky wins her back by declaring that he broke off the arranged married because he loves her.

Sky notably doesn't get an arc about choosing between his arranged marriage and his true love. We don't even know that the marriage is broken off until he tells Bloom because that was never really a conflict as far as the narrative was concerned. Of course he's going to pick Bloom! He's her designated side character love interest! He only exists to be with her. We don't need to treat this as a serious thing for him. The arranged marriage plot was never about him anyway. It was about giving Bloom a reason to have a darkest hour moment that moves the plot forward. Similarly, Sky calling off the marriage is nowhere near as important as him telling Bloom that he's called off the marriage to be with her in a grand romantic gesture.

This perfectly mirrors Miraculous' season five ending where Adrien doesn't appear until after Marinette is done fighting her big girl power fight against his father. As far as the writing is concerned, that fight isn't about him. His connection to the villain only really matters in terms of how it affects Marinette's actions during the final battle. Then, when the battle is over, Adrien shows up to give Marinette her big romance moment because, while the plot may be driven by Adrien's family, he is not a Winx club member. He's just a Specialist. Or, in the words of the head writer:

[image text: She's Barbie, he's Ken. You don't like it. I get it. It won't change. Anything else?] (The full, even more damning context of this tweet can be found here.)

What else can I say other than, "I rest my case."

Oh, and also that I didn't take this as an attack. I just thought it was a good opportunity to really dig into the nuances of this and what I was talking about in that original post as I never know how obvious this stuff is if you don't closely study story telling. As this case study hopefully shows, if a show is about a group of girl friends using the power of friendship, then their love interests may have important roles, but the boys are never going to be more important than the girls and most of the boy's screen time will be focused on romance and how their existence effects the girls because it's ultimately the girls' world. Without them, the show wouldn't exist. Without the boys? Well, then we just wouldn't have a romance plot.

[fairy-dust-trash-can]

I dont trust people who hate literally any of the Winx members

[daystarvoyage]

Hey everyone its the daystar voyage Head LT Kyoko cane here to bring you another good post on my blog, one of my concerned posts on black poc representation in black media

Today in this two part special where gonna discuss about Good hair in animation & how it can define the character and fashion.

i wanted to talk about the topic of hair in animated shows, how it can define the details and proper cultural portrayal of how black people or POC have been represented as a whole (be it of mixed ecthnicity)

Lets get down to it, I feel we need to make a discussion on the Good & bad on proper cultural rep on shows especially when it relates & emotes to viewers & fans, we do have the discussions oof having nothing but our sexuality been made a character define characteer instead of good character, wriitng, physcial features and up holding a beauty standard.

The topic of HAIR Appreciation in animation, Questionable taste in how hair is not styled well for ethnicity.

Example

Luz's hair has so much symbolism of who she is, going to all works of animation, I do feel when she wasn't fully understood at home she acted out very ill-conditioned cause her father pass and moved into a new area, never relating to anyone, So it leads her to not changing her looks be it fashion, which i feel the shows writing shouldve explored more into why she keeps in short and theres a topic ill put in is masculization of black women think about it.

Dear I say it, after rewatching the show, IT feels like A LETDOWN & missed chances at times, with the staff & writers not know how to make great hairstyles to show proper culutral race. (and i have seen alot of fanart who did a great job on giving her better styles that enhnace her physcial features.

i feel this a recurring trope been used since the miles morales hair controversy cause black people or poc presented hair comes in many forms that can gives so much praise. Hers a article on the miles morales hair debut which is a logical standpoint on hair reprenentation, shows we need to have more diverse hairstyles in media or poc characters

NOW

I mean girl this HAIRMET (Fused words hairdo+helmet) and my goodness will never let them down for the outfit choices for luz comparing the femme presented amity and willow which is tasteless at best.

Look down down below on how her hair could’ve made her more feminine and beautiful I blame the masculinity of black women, a topic video you can find on my youtube that contribute to such aspects of how we see poc or black people.

so many missed oppurtunitys Remind yourselfs to draw long hair luz ill be a sucka to buy it which i discuss in my video.

My FAVORITE VIDEO AND PIC on how that did her justice

also another thing, nobody shouldnt have an excuse to brush away fem qualities over sexual orientation , let there design be versatile and not one track (along with the writing of the show.)

The greater aspects of how we should style characters.

Now unlike other media i talked about above whihc have been flawed in design and dont contribute to the chaaracters growth, two shows that did a absolutely great job of showing good ethnic & cultural representation in series such as amphibia & molly mcgee whihc made raw characters come out of theere own with greatness with prominent physical features

While anne boonchy & moon girl lunella had great writing, having there cultural cleebbrated in great execution of proper black hair great with good results, In moon girl we also get in episode where we discuss why we see black people be in love with there selves for there beautiful features including hair along anne boochuy diaspora making a impact.

moon girl video below

Great hair episode that impacts Cultural and ecthinic representation above.

i feel we have a long way to go when it comes for the new gen to desgin well executed characters, instead not having there postive trait of whos orenitation being there great feature.

but i disgress

look at the hairstlyes from the winx club, the long hair on characters as layla (aisha) & flora is PHENOMENAL AND COULD’VE PLAYED A ROLE IN BLACK PEOPLES HAIR BEING BEAUTIFUL FOR VIEWERS

One Great example for hair representation, and also cultural goodness put into it was the Winx club (which had actual fashion designers work on the character concepts and outfits)

Thank you for reading this post hope we can discuss the topic on the comments (that means civilized and dont hate appreciate others critiques and statements)

Thank you for being on the daystar voyage.

[asexualasshat]

Instantly got prettier the second I stopped caring about whether or not men thought I was pretty

[fujosh1dreamer]

Does anyone have any thoughts on the trailer for the Winx club remake?

Casue i do and it's not really anything positive.

Pretty neutral on the animation, I've already come to accept that studios just prefer 3d animation despite how the people watching might feel about it.

The character designs are kinda atrocious, sorry. I like bloom and the trix look amazing but everyone else looks pretty bad. Especially Stella, like gurl are you OK.

Pretty much already decide that this isn't for me and that's ok. If I really need the winx I'll just rewatch the original. Lol.

[stellasolaris]

whatever is the winx equivalent of mango and raspberry ice cream by häagen-dazs is stella's favorite ice cream flavor

[winxrewrite]

brainstorming what kind of classes Alfea would actually offer

[sabrina-bee-art]

Roxy, or The tragedy of being a background character in your own story

Ok, let’stalk about our new “main” girlie. She is sometimes introduced as the seventh Winx and among fans, it is generally agreed, that Roxy gets severely sidelined in the coming seasons and never really becomes part of the main squad. I don’t think that was ever intended for her, especially considering how this season plays out. I think she was supposed to be introduced as a bridge between the OG Winx and a new Alfea group, maybe with the OG characters popping up here and there as cameos.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like Roxy and I like what her character could have been. I don’t personally think it would make sense for her to become the seventh Winx, because she is…well the timeline is unclear, but anywhere between 3 to 5 years younger than the Winx. They already graduated Alfea. Roxy is sixteen and only just this season discovers her powers and has so much yet to learn and to grow, and that’s fine. That is potential right there. Like I said, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that she was supposed to be the main girlie of the new Alfea generation. Alas, that did not happen, so let’s look at what we got this season.

Roxy grew up on Earth, believing she is a normal teenager, and then she suddenly finds out that she is a fairy, and that magic is real. This mirrors Blooms introduction from the first season, but in contrast to Bloom, Roxy is immediately hunted by enormously powerful villains (or at least we think so until they develop their sad piece of toast syndrome). From the first moment, she is drawn into this conflict between ancient fairy hunters and powerful older fairies. My point is, she is thrown into a dangerous and harrowing situation right from the start. She has no time to enjoy or really discover her powers, or the Magical Dimension, before some asshole wants to rip it straight out of her fingers again. Or…straight from her back I guess. All she experiences as a fairy is threats and danger and fear for her life and her loved ones, not really any positives at all, so I think her struggle with this new identity makes sense. She is overwhelmed and scared.

The way it is introduced to us, however, does not work imo. At the point all this happens in Episodes 6 and 7, we don’t know Roxy yet, she just got introduced that episode. Sure, she showed up here and there in little scenes and to the audience it’s clear that she is the last fairy the Winx are looking for, but during these we don’t see her character. We don’t spend any time with her so that, when these big character moments happen, it just doesn’t land. It seems to be coming out of nowhere and they seem almost comical set against new Winx transformations and the villains ridiculous monologuing.

If we contrast Roxy’s introduction with Blooms the difference becomes even more jarring. In the first episode of season 1, we spend a good amount of time with Bloom before she even meets Stella, so we get to know her a little. And it takes yet another few episodes for Bloom to reach a point where she has an internal crisis on the scale that Roxy has right at the start of her arc, and by that time we know Bloom and we care for her. Roxy never gets the same treatment in the writing. I wonder whether it was ever discussed in the development stage of this season, if it wouldn’t be better to tell the story out of Roxy’s perspective. The way I see it, that would make more sense narratively. But I guess they didn’t want to give up the brand recognition of the main six.

So after the initial introduction, Roxy get’s possessed by an evil fairy in Episode 9. That doesn’t make her think favourably of fairies either and I think that makes total sense. After her first transformation, in Episodes 12 and 13, we have the same problem of her experiencing big emotional moments, we don’t really have any context for, because we still haven’t really spent any time with her and gotten to know her. She just seems to fade into the background when she’s not in one of those big moments, because there is so much going on and there’s so much focus on the Winx and their various dramas and the Love & Pet shop and the Rock Band, there’s no time dedicated to getting to know Roxy better and she seemingly gets over these issues as quickly as they came up. Sometimes she’ll have a line like “Maybe I can still be a regular girl while being a fairy.”, which is supposed to remind us of her character conflict and…show progress I guess?

In the last third of the season her struggle is almost completely dropped. Roxy gets telepathic messages from Morgana and it’s uncomfortable for her, and intrusive. And then she has to discover that her ancestors, the people whose culture she shares and that might help her with her new fairy identity, turn out to be genocidal maniacs and want to destroy humanity, her home, her friends and family. And then she also discovers that she is the direct descendent from the leader of these people, the fairy queen. And without any real resolution for her different struggles, at the end, she embraces her identity and that’s just…the end for her.

There’s the illusion of character development, but really it’s just randomly pieced together moments. We lack the connective tissue between the big important beats. So they don’t have the impact they could have because Roxy as a character is still not that important to us. I feel like there should have been way more emphasis on Roxy’s journey, generally this season, but especially in the later third. She is just…sort of there. In the background. While all the action and conflict falls to Bloom. Roxy doesn’t take up centre stage in a conflict, that affects her the most of all the characters. The Wizards are after her, they destroyed her people and try to do so again. Her mother wants to destroy humanity. The Winx should be in the background because the only one with real personal stakes this season is Roxy. I think, if Bloom had taken a back seat, and not been so “uwu I’m the perfectest main protagonist and speech at you to resolve the conflict”, this season could have been really compelling. Bloom should have taken up the role of big sister and mentor for Roxy, like Daphne was for her.

Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I’m annoyed that this wasn’t Roxy’s season right from the start and we still faffed around at Alfea and had to sit through all the other distractions. And I’m annoyed that they didn’t even take Roxy to Magix so she could see what it really means to be part of that world.

[fancylala4]

A stan on here: 4kids version of winx club is trash and everyone who likes it should be beaten up! Even the original creator says it’s trash!!!

Thanks to 4kids, they avoided being dragged for the racist shit the creators put in the show during the time by changing it. Also they treated the series right by regularly showing it on their network unlike Nick.

Plus it’s not like the original creator is some perfect angel who didn’t do anything wrong. He sees no issues with whitewashing flora and Aisha in the later seasons, liked the trash ass Netflix adaptation (that is ten times worse than anything 4kids did. At least 4kids didn’t whitewash musa) so much that he wanted to continue it and thinks that seasons 5-8 were good.. oh yeah and he saw no problem with the racism he put in the show until it was brought up years ago and got the episode banned. If you’re going by what he thinks about the 4kids version then you probably don’t care about the awful things he green light in the show.

[chouchinobake]

i saw this and i absolutely had to-

avalon is stressed palladium slays

[darlenicy]

[lilcetis]

palladium really was gay for avalon because the entirety of s2 it was "we can't go back to pixie village! darkar could follow us!" but the second avalon conveniently gets poisoned by a plant whose antidote is in pixie village... all of a sudden livy HAS to go back, maybe darkar isn't looking right now!

[fandomtrxsh19]

Flora: Sorry I called you "bitch". It was a term of endearment, because thats what happens when I drink. I just get really friendly.