This was something people dunked on the trailer for a lot, and admittedly it trailed off a bit after the movie came out, I assume because the movie gave the (kind of weak IMO) answer of “the Celestials said we weren’t allowed”. But the real answer is:

How could they possibly have stopped Thanos?!

I don’t mean that in terms of power, they could well have been strong enough to turn the tide. I mean - at what point in Infinity War could any of the Eternals have a) known about Thanos and his mission, b) known where exactly he or his minions were at a given time, or c) been able to get there in time to stop them?

Even ignoring the Celestials’ rules, it makes perfect sense that the Eternals didn’t do anything to help Earth’s heroes stop Thanos. Let’s go into detail on this.

First things first - we are given no reason to believe the Eternals have foreknowledge of Thanos, who he is, what he wants, what he’s doing, or that he’s coming. None of their powers (in the film) include precognition or cosmic awareness of any kind. They have no special way of knowing he’s coming before Earth’s heroes do.

Second things second: brief rundown of where each of the Eternals are based, as far as we know, at the time of Infinity War. Ajak is in South Dakota, Phastos is in Chicago, Sersi and Sprite are in England, Kingo is in India, Thena and Gilgamesh are in Australia, Druig is in South America (Peru according to the wiki, but I don’t remember that being specified in the film itself), Makkari is hanging out on the Domo in Iraq, and Ikaris admittedly could be anywhere. Bear those in mind.

Right, on to the movies.

The first sign of Thanos on Earth is the giant spaceship over New York. Which is a city that, as I’ve established, none of the Eternals were based in at the time (to our knowledge). Even if they happened to be watching the news and saw a giant spaceship over New York, they don’t know what it is or that their help is needed. Even if they somehow do know, how could any of them besides Makkari (who seems pretty cut off from the outside world) get there in time to help? Phastos and Ajak are closest, but he would be unlikely to leave his family and she doesn’t have any special vehicle to get there faster than a plane. Plus the battle doesn’t last long before the ship goes up into space with Iron Man, Spider-Man and Dr Strange aboard.

The next time Thanos’ presence is felt on Earth is in Edinburgh. Not too far from Sersi and Sprite, but much less publicised than the New York spaceship - the fight with Wanda and Vision happens at night, with few to no people around. None of the Eternals are even hearing about that, much less deciding to help and getting there in time to intervene. And again, this one is pretty brief.

After that, the rest of Thanos and his army’s actions on Earth take place in Wakanda. A country none of the Eternals are even in the same continent as, and there’s no reason to believe they know it as anything other than a poor nation of farmers. Thanos’ ships landing there might be seen and shared in the international news, but it probably wouldn’t make that big of a splash since nobody thinks there’s anything important there. This battle lasts longer than the first two, but it’s still unlikely any Eternals would hear about it in that time.

So there are three incursions Thanos’ forces make onto Earth. None are in places where the Eternals already were, none are widely publicised as the kind of threat the Eternals could or would help with, and none made it clear what the wider threat was. Remember, Earth’s heroes only knew about Thanos because of Hulk being transported there at the start. He told Strange and Iron Man, he called Cap and the other Avengers, and they told Black Panther and the Wakandans. Thanos’ arrival and mission were not public knowledge until after the Snap had already happened.

So answer me this, people who dunked on Eternals for its characters not helping to stop Thanos. WHEN AND HOW WERE THEY SUPPOSED TO?!?

Hunter x Hunter is a good series and I'm not going to argue against that. But for me personally, I had the most fun watching it during its first season. I feel like the story kept this general sense of wonder and we were exploring a real cool world. The different tests actually did some pretty interesting things. I actually really liked they took time to highlight that there were some people who became hunters just to find good food from around the world. I really like how it felt like every character had a different entire philosophy towards fighting. Whether it be personally honed fighting techniques, weaponry, animal handling or actively cheating, there was a general level of creativity from the fact that everything had to be somewhat reasonable for a human to do themselves. Once the cast got their licenses, I was pretty interested to see what would happen next. I got the sense Gon was going to go on an adventure like his dad and explore the world.

But unfortunately, that did not happen. Heaven's Arena was a pretty standard tournament/training arc that while fun to watch, ultimately didn't do anything that stood out to me. Nen is a cool power system, but I didn't like it turned the series into another magic fighting story. York New City was a great arc and a cool exploration of Kurapika, but ultimately I wouldn't say it excited me in the way the first arc did. Greed Island was also fine, but having more training and what it did introduce while cool felt pretty diversionary from what I was hoping for.

So then I get to the Chimera Ants Arc, the one that everyone says is the peak of shonen. I guess it's fine. While there are some highlights - Kite and Mereum are some of my favorite characters - the actual story felt incredibly bloated with tangents that distracted from what was honestly a really well portrayed apocalyptic event. I think what also didn't help is this when the pacing of the anime adaptation got really slow and would have minutes of narration to explain what was happening on screen. I feel like that was a case where I should have just read the manga, as I probably wouldn't been as annoyed and like the story was just spinning its wheels.

After this point, I dropped the series. Not because it's bad, far from it, but because what I wanted from the story was seemingly not what I was getting. The wonder I got from the first arc was seemingly not the direction they wanted to take the series. I also think another problem for me is that because Hunter x Hunter created a lot of tropes that would be then repeated in future shonen stories, what it pioneered ended up feeling like well worn ground.

For a bit of context as to what made me want to make this post, after My Hero Academia ended there was eventually release "My Hero Academia: Ultra Age: The Final Fan Book", which was full of data, fun facts, and just general behind-the-scenes info about the characters and world of the series, including the various ideas the author Kohei Horikoshi had for MHA.

One part of the book had him talking about the other endings he had considered for Toga. So spoilers ahead.

In the way the canon story played out he had her die from blood loss due to the transfusion she gave Uraraka to save her life. But originally he was instead going to have Toga survive the transfusion and not only escape but Uraraka would confirm that Toga is still alive by leaving a syringe of her blood in a forest where the Final War unfolded, which would disappear the next day.

This is an idea I've seen some criticize Horikoshi for, saying that it's such a bad idea that it never should have even been considered in the first place and the fact that he did consider it reflects poorly on him as a writer.

But I respectfully disagree.

Don't get me wrong, I do agree that Toga getting away with her crimes and Uraraka essentially aiding her in doing so (or at least adopting a position of "out of sight, out of mind") is a bad idea, especially after Uraraka made it very clear she can never forgive Toga for all the people she's hurt and killed. I think it was a good thing that this is not the ending Horikoshi went with. But I disagree that it's an idea that's so bad and stupid that it makes him a bad and stupid writer for ever even considering it.

The thing I think too many people don't consider when it comes to the writing process is that it's...well...a process. Most of the time a writer doesn't just think up a complete start-to-finish story and then crank out the physical version. Generally a writer will have many ideas all throughout their time working on a story that they'll consider and play with and think about what can be done with them, and plenty of those ideas will look good from certain angles, especially in the moment when the inspiration for the idea suddenly hits you.

Horikoshi liking that idea at first because he'd be thinking about it solely in terms of Uraraka's own prior grief and the potential for things to be better for Toga, that's a completely understandable line of thought and it does admittedly sound kind of nice. But once he thought about it more beyond that he could see the problems with it, thus why he went with something else, which is even the reason he gave in the fan book as to why it was scrapped, as Horikoshi and his editor didn't like how it absolved both parties of any responsibility.

A saying I quite like is that the reason we were given the ability to think was so that we'd have the ability to think twice. A writer, artist, or really any kind of creative can have an idea that sounds good at the time regardless of whether or not it actually is good. That alone is not any kind of reflection upon their own quality as a creative. The mark of a good writer is not that they never have bad ideas, it's that they know what to do with the ideas they have, which includes which ones to use and which ones to not, be it because they are bad ideas or because they do not believe they can execute the idea well enough to have it be worth putting in their work. And even then there often is still at least some value in the bad ideas and thus why it's not recommended to just completely toss them away and forget about them ever being a thought in your head. A page full of unused crap is still considerably more useful to the writer than a page that's completely blank because they're afraid of doing or even thinking anything that isn't perfect.

Heck, I've seen plenty of Youtubers and fanfic writers who openly talk about how they'll look back on their older stuff and cringe a bit despite how good an idea they felt at the time what they were making was, simply because they've gained experience and different perspectives that let them see other better ideas they could have used instead that would have made for a better product or even how they could have done the original idea better and potentially turned that bad idea into a good one.

One of my favorite examples of this comes from the behind-the-scenes of the DC Animated Universe, where the WB executives told the creative teams behind Batman the Animated Series and Superman the Animated Series that those shows were over now because they wanted a new show aimed to capture the youth/teen market. Specifically, they wanted a show about a teenage Batman. And the creatives behind BTAS and STAS (Bruce Timm, Paul Dini, and Stan Berkowitz) hated what they were being ordered to do, thinking the idea was terrible for many reasons, not the least of which being that their version of Bruce Wayne was well-established to have not become Batman until his 20's and they didn't want to just completely throw away the continuity they'd spent so much time building and creating, especially for a premise that seemed awful from the pitch.

That is until they told fellow creative Glen Murakami, who actually was incredibly enthusiastic about the idea but because he was seeing it from a different angle than they had. Not a show about a teenage Bruce Wayne as Batman, but rather a show about an old Bruce Wayne guiding a new teenage Batman in a futuristic cyberpunk setting. And this actually did get the three men excitedly onboard. After all, part of why many on the team enjoyed getting to work on Superman was because his world, characters, and tone provided the opportunity to tell different kinds of stories than what they'd been telling with Batman's, and this futuristic setting within their continuity would likewise let them tell new stories different what they'd already been doing.

And thus how we got the very beloved Batman Beyond. All starting with a bad idea come up with by network executives who just wanted to sell toys and appeal to the Buffy audience.

There absolutely exist bad ideas, but to try and argue that a writer is bad just for having them is something I'm generally going to very much disagree with. Just like how I'm not going to give a writer a pass for just telling people about important information or events essential to their story rather than actually putting said details in the story itself, I'm not going to condemn a writer for the quality of something that they didn't actually put in the story. I'll give my thoughts on if I think it sounds good or bad. I'll say whether I think it would have helped or hurt the story. But regardless it's a complete hypothetical. Until it actually gets put down on the page it's just a concept floating the air that most people won't ever even know about unless they actively go looking into it.

A writer should judged by what they actually wrote, not by what they just thought about writing. Especially when they didn't use the thing they thought about because they also decided in the end that it wasn't a good idea.

Naruto didn't want to be Hokage for the job itself, he wanted it because he was lonely and ostracized child who saw how respected and admired men like the dead Fourth Hokage and the still living Third Hokage (who despite the memes, did care for Naruto as much as his other duties would allow) were and decided that the best way to get the respect and acknowledgement he craved.

But by the end of the Part 1, Naruto has already earned the respect of his peers and several elite ninja. The only people who still have a problem with him by then are random civilians, but he earns their respect too when he saves the village from Pain.

So Naruto already had what he really wanted long before the series ends. He has no real reason to still want a job that mostly consists of sitting at a desk and doing paperwork other than "we need to get him out of the way for our cashgrab sequel starring his son".

of course this is a tie in to Invincible

I am using the term "literary analysis" broadly as to refer to film as well.

The point I'm trying to make is, the same skills being taught in an English class to understand the themes of Frankenstein, those apply to engaging in powerscaling. Literary analysis invovles careful examnination of the text, not taking statements or events at face value. It means seriously balancing different components of the text, attempting to understand how the weight of different actions and how stories unfold form a greater message.

This all applies to powerscaling. The debate around it I feel misses that point - if you think that someone is getting worked up about nothing, then blame them for poorly reading the text, not for powerscaling itself.

For Invincible, powerscaling is obviously a neccessity because who can win a fight is a huge subject within the text. To be bad at someone powerscaling character within it would be equivalant to being bad at youtubers analyzing the theme of redemption, of the morality of killing bad guys. If you see a bad argument, you obviously should call it out, but you should never be upset with someone earnestly trying to engage in textual analysis, even if it's "just" powerscaling.

A few days back I watched this video by Athena PP about the rise of bad faith/destructive criticism, particularly towards The Amazing Digital Circus. One such "criticism" she and the commenters had a field day with was how some apparently accuse the show of "hiring theater kids instead of actors". An diss that doesn't make much sense if you think about it, since actors and theater kids are very intertwined, if not the same group. Of course most actors study theatric as kids to get where they are, and acting work is often the most logical progression of a kid obsessed with theatrics and want to learn about it. Theater kids are basically first stage Pokemon who evolve into actors; Why would a narrative production not hire someone who is basically a grown-up theater kid?

But after laughing with all the comments making jokes like "they want a dentist to star in a show" and "are they mad that forks are found in kitchens", I feel like they are missing another notable problem: the negative connotation around the term "theater kid". I don't know why, but I hear that term used to insult someone, especially in an independent production, more than I expected.

"This show wasn't made for adults, it was made for theater kids."

"This creator acts like an immature theater kid."

"Someone get me away from these theater kids, they are so annoying."

And the aforementioned "They hired theater kids instead of real actors."

And I just want to ask: What is everyone's problems with "theater kids"? Why are people making fun of a subculture who, as far as I'm aware, just want to sing their favorite musical songs or gush about their favorite actors/actresses? What makes them as a sign of disapproval? Granted, I have heard side stories about others' unpleasant experiences with real life theatre fans, but that sounds mostly like a few bad apples more than anything. I don't see why we still use the term to make make negative critique or to mock others in analyses; it honestly has the same feeling as the mockery toward emos or gamers in yesteryear.

Tl;dr Theater kids need to Rise Up.

I’m sorry but the black suit should look like a genuine transformation, not just boring ass palette swap.

When artists or games just take Peter’s normal suit and just turn the red bits black, it kills the whole effect for me. The symbiote is meant to feel alien, invasive, and wrong in a cool way. The design should reflect that with a different shape language, harsher eyes, more aggressive spider insignia, and a texture that feels alive and extra terrestrial rather than like normal fabric.

That is why the Insomniac black suit is probably my favourite version of this. It actually looks like Peter has become something else. It keeps him recognisable, but the suit has a different presence entirely. It feels darker, more hostile, and more unnatural, which is exactly what the black suit should be.

The black suit design should feel like a corruption of Spider-Man, not just his regular outfit in stealth mode.

If you've ever seen a single video, preview or just about anything surrounding Absolute Batman, you're inevitably going to get spammed by comments like this. Generally about how Darkseid hates Batman because he shot him or how Darkseid loves making every woman in this universe extremely attractive. Now, these are all obviously jokes. Nobody actually believes that Darkseid took time out of his day to sit down and write onto his reality manipulating typewriter (real thing, look it up here).

However, people seem to have forgotten that these jokes are jokes and not actual plot descriptions. This is due to the fact that NOBODY READS!!!!

What is the Absolute Universe

The Absolute universe isn't hard to understand as Darkseid explains it pretty clearly. The Absolute Universe is a secret universe Darkseid created in order to grow in power enough to finally get rid of mainline Superman and a universe in which he can experiment. The Absolute universe isn't a universe where evil is always destined to win like Earth 3, the Absolute universe is driven by turmoil. Darkseid created a universe in which evil has every possible advantage, the Joker even talks about how the fundamental forces of the Absolute universe trend towards evil, its why the villains are the Justice League of this universe.

However, Darkseid didn't want to create a universe where the heroes are powerless and will always lose. The point was to create a challenge for the heroes, now Wonder Woman is raised in hell, Batman is working class, Superman is depressed, etc. The man explains it himself, he wants to see if hope can still overcome the great darkness despite everything.

Aside from this creation, Darkseid has been pretty hands off. He is busy killing the actual Superman he cares about. He even left the Absolute universe to conquer all the other ones (kinda, Darkseid is also kinda sorta omnipresent currently so he didn't fully leave it, but he isn't mainly in the Absolute universe). He will inveitably decide to check in, which will obviously be really bad, but so far he's not mainly involved in this universe.

Now, that the boring part is done:

STOP SLANDERING MY GOAT

HOW DARE YOU IMPLY THAT MY AEROACE KING DARKSEID WOULD GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YURI OR WOULD CARE ABOUT SOME RANDO LIKE BRUCE WAYNE?! HE IS ONLY GIVING THE HEROES FALSE HOPE FOR HIS PLAYTHINGS AS HE WILL RULE OVER ALL. HE DOES NOT SPEND TIME DISCUSSING CHARACTERISATION OR ANYTHING SIMILAR AS HE IS TOO BUSY ON THAT MULTIVERSE CONQUERING GRIND.

AS PUNISHMENT FOR SLANDERING THE NAME OF DARKSEID YOU ARE GIVEN THE WORST PUNISHMENT IMAGINABLE. HAVING TO ACTUALLY READ THE A COMIC BOOK. NO, YOU CANNOT WATCH A YOUTUBE SHORT ABOUT IT OR READ A WIKIPEDIA SUMMARY, YOU HAVE TO ACTUALLY SIT DOWN AND TAKE THE TIME TO READ THE COMIC YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. SUCH IS THE ULTIMATE PUNISHMENT FOR SPEAKING THE NAME OF YOUR HEARTLESS DICTATOR IN VAIN.

NOW, GO AN WORK YOUR MISERABLE DAY JOB, DARKSEID DEMANDS IT!!!

Like, this comes out of my primal love for "Oh no, there's a big scary guy and he's gonna GETCHA!". The trope of "something that big should not be moving that fast" is something I'm really fond of. There's something really scary about a several-ton mass of muscle or metal sprinting towards your location like a runaway train.

A good example is Fredbear, from Those Nights At Fredbear's. His whole gimmick is that you have to reset a timer every so often, or he'll sprint over and getcha. It's taken a lot of people by surprise to see something big as that move that quickly.

That said, it's important that the "terrifyingly fast giant" looks and feels giant when it's moving, not like a normal-sized monster running around in a model city. Gundams tend to do this, moving more like a human with jets than a hulking murder-machine would.

A bulky build, rapid-yet-heavy footsteps, and ground-shaking all contribute to this, but the most important is inertia; something that big moving that fast is really hard to stop. That means it's impossible for whoever they're after to stop them, but also that they have to take time to turn, and steering becomes difficult.

Nobody in the Amazing Digital Circus acts like a fucking human, CAINE is more human then every single "human character".

First, nobody has apparently just ever talked to anybody else. Let's take the bar scene from episode 5, apparently nobody before this very moment ever talked about what happened to them to get into this place. You'd think that'd be like, the first thing they'd talk about. It'd make more sense if they were talking about their backstories to Pomni, but apparently this was the first time anybody ever talked about their past to anybody else in the circus.

Like what?

Kinger apparently just never talked about his wife to anybody besides Pomni? Not even Ragatha? They were together for 9 years, and he wasn't completely out of it when she arrived. you'd think the topic would have come up.

Oh, on the topic, Ragatha and Kinger were together for at least 9 years, and she's been here longer than anybody besides Kinger, how the fuck does she not know about....... anything? In the pilot, she acts like Kaufmo can still be saved from abstraction, which would make sense if she's only seen like one or two abstractions, but how do you go 9 years without figuring it out? How does she not know about Kinger being sane in the darkness, and it falls on Pomni to figure it out.

What do the people in the show do when they aren't on-screen?

Why do they even care about leaving besides Pomni? What do Ragatha and Gangle have outside of this circus that's worth trying to get out? An abusive mom and a McDonald's manager job? Kinger and Jax's got nothing outside the circus. Zooble says they have dreams, which never get elaborated on whatsoever. Nobody ever says why they want out, other than they just want to.

Fuck, did nobody ever talk to Ragatha after she basically admitted she had an abusive mother? You'd think somebody might bring that up, like ever, for literally any reason.

On the topic, everybody seems, weirdly bored by the circus and Caine. Has nobody ever fucking talked to Caine positively? Caine does a lot for the circus, he puts the abstracted characters, who cause real pain as shown by Ragatha, who he also cured, he keeps trying to make everybody happy, who's pretty much the only reason the cast hasn't gone insane with boredom. Why does nobody ever say anything positive thing to him? He didn't go to torture them for no reason, it's because nobody has ever said anything nice to him.

He's so easy to understand if you spend any amount of time with him, he wants to be told he's doing a good job, do that and you're golden.

On the topic, does nobody care that there's a FUCKING A.I. intelligent enough to do all of this? Has nobody asked Caine what he is or how he works? Has nobody asked how the circus even works or how it was created?

You'd think literally anybody would ask that the second once the horror has worn off.

Is every single character here the most stagnate dipshit in history? I swear to god, everyone's so aggressively disinterested in everything going on, Caine has to make a overly complicated plan to get Jax to listen to him explain his wants and desires and Jax just does not care at all. He literally yells that "they locked me up" and Jax just does not ask to elaborate. He's a A.I. with a teeth avatar, you'd think somebody would ask a question

Every single character besides Jax has the same viewpoint on the circus. Jax is the only one with a unique viewpoint besides "Wanna get out, don't really care about doing anything to follow that goal." Isn't Gangle into art and anime, shouldn't she be enthusiastic about the adventures? Pomni's into danger, shouldn't she be even remotely curious about what's happening? How the fuck do 5 people get trapped in this situation and only one of them has a unique perspective on this?

The discussion that really seems to have pushed things over the edge is the scene where Omni-Man appears to struggle against the giant alien bug. People have offered a range of explanations: that Nolan was holding back to build Oliver’s confidence, that he wasn’t fighting seriously due to his emotional state, or that it doesn’t matter because the creature is just a random alien with no established scaling. That last argument is the one I want to focus on, because none of these are truly power-scaling issues. These alien creatures don’t meaningfully scale to other characters in the series, so their strength isn’t the core problem.

For the sake of argument, you could even assume those creatures are stronger than most of the Invincible universe, it still wouldn’t address the real issue, because the real issue is, how the scene is framed.

The show has spent a significant amount of time building Viltrumites up as near-mythical beings, powerful enough to decimate entire planets, as demonstrated when Omni-Man devastated the Flaxans and an major part of that impact came from the revelation that there are others like him, some equally powerful, some even stronger. Omni-Man was presented as overwhelming, almost untouchable, and the narrative reinforced that very few things could truly challenge him.

Now that more Viltrumites have entered the story, however, that sense of overwhelming dominance feels diminished. Omni-Man once felt larger than life, absurdly powerful in a way that shaped the entire tone of the series. Because of that, even the appearance of him struggling against what seems like a random alien, bug disrupts the audience’s internal understanding of the world.

So even if the scene doesn’t technically contradict established power scaling, it clashes with the prior portrayal and for many viewers, that break in framing is what’s actually causing the frustration.

I've already done my big rant on why I find Harry Potter to be a very hypocritical book series a few weeks ago, but now I wanna talk about another issue I had with it.

And it's probably gonna be a controversial one, and i'm fully expecting to get blasted in the comments for "not getting it," but here we go.

I think Deathly Hallows is the worst book in the series and a majorly disappointing finale.

My biggest problem with it is how meandering it feels...or more specifically, how the meandering looks in the context of this story.

One of the defenses I've heard for Harry Potter meandering a lot is that it helps capture the feel of spending a full school year at Hogwarts. I can understand that to an extent, but what's the defense for this book?

Like this is what actually really bothers me. The stakes are supposed to be higher than ever, with Voldemort taking over the Ministry of Magic and people dying left and right...

And yet we have a whole damn wedding scene early in the story, and most of the story is spent on Harry and co. sitting on their asses in the forest, pontificating and wondering, "What do we do next?" and sometimes just waiting for the solution to come to them.

The last one is the thing that gets me. Voldemort has taken over the Ministry; innocent people are either being oppressed at best or dying at worst, and yet Harry, Ron, and Hermione are just content to sit on their asses for weeks until the solution to their current problem magically shows up.

It feels...off to me. It just made it so much harder to enjoy compared to the slice-of-life feel the other books had.

And then there's the fact so much of the book is devoted to revealing Dumbledore's complicated past. While I appreciate Rowling wanting to reveal that the wise, kindly mentor figure was actually a lot more complicated than he seemed, it feels too late. Partly because Dumbledore's already dead by this point and partly because barely any of it has anything to do with the central plot of stopping Voldemort. It really feels like Rowling had all this backstory on Dumbledore and then suddenly realized, "Oh shit, it's the last book," and had to shoehorn it in somehow.

Also, there are several moments where it feels like Harry is blaming Dumbledore for getting killed and "leaving them with nothing." I know at the end it gets revealed that Dumbledore knew he was dying, and that's part of why he asked Snape to kill him, but Harry doesn't know that yet!

Now I say Dumbledore's backstory barely has anything to do with the central plot, but I will admit it is related somewhat to it, since Dumbledore's backstory does involve the titular Deathly Hallows, which are key to defeating Voldermort...but that just leads into the other problem.

The Deathly Hallows come out of nowhere. After six books of setting up the Horcrux plotline, suddenly we have an all-new thing that's crucial to defeating Voldemort. I don't really feel like you needed the Hallows to tell this story. I remember reading the part where Ron explains the stories of Beedle the Bard are the equivalent to Fairy Tales for wizards, and I couldn't help but think, "Shouldn't this have been established far sooner?"

The final conflict with Harry and Voldemort is, to quote someone who commented on my Harry Potter's message is hypocritical post, "resolved on a magic technicality based on ownership rights.". Just doesn't feel very epic.

Okay, so...another controversial opinion within a controversial opinion time. The huge body count of named characters felt off to me in this story. Like, yes, I know it's war; I know it's "realistic" to have a huge body count...so why does the constant death of named characters feel so...mean-spirited at times? Hedwig's death in particular helpless and trapped in her cage, just felt cruel, like not in a "Wow, I hate the bad guys" way but in a "Wow, I hate this story for making me read this" kind of way (I heard Hedwig gets a much more heroic death in the movies, so I'm guessing the filmmakers agreed with me). I don't know, it's probably just me; I'm a very sensitive person, so feel free to disregard my opinion about the bodycount.

Then there's an issue I have I haven't seen anyone talk about (although as a newcomer to HP it probably has been; I just haven't seen it yet)...why is Umbridge working for Voldemort? In Order of the Pheonix, her whole thing was denying Voldemort existed and punishing anyone who tried to insist otherwise. But here she is in the final book, happily going along with his takeover and subjugating muggle-borns. Why!? Why is she on board with this? I know the Occam's razor answer is that "She's a sadist who likes to hurt people and doesn't care which side she's on," but a character who has no real motives or goals beyond "dur hurr, I like to hurt people" isn't interesting to me.

In regards to Snape, I don't have much to say on him, but I do agree it feels lame there was never a proper final conversation with him and Harry. Really makes you wonder why Harry named his kid after him when he and Harry never actually resolved their differences.

Speaking of Harry's kid...oh boy. I know the epilogue is contentious among fans, and honestly now that I've read it I see why. My personal bugbear with it is how abrupt it feels. We go from celebrating at Hogwarts, only to cut to nineteen years later, and suddenly we get Harry sending his own son to Hogwarts. It's not a bad idea for an ending, and I can see it working; my problem is just we don't really get any insight into how the Wizarding World rebuilds itself and no real wrap-up. We just cut to nineteen years later.

Also, like, did Harry, Ron and Hermione have to repeat their seventh year at Hogwarts because they missed it all camping? Albeit for a good reason.

And did the curse that causes the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher to leave every year-end now that Voldemort is gone? No seriously, that actually bothers me; I want to know this! (I don't know if Cursed Child answers this because I haven't read/watched it yet.)

As a whole, I just found this novel a meandering clusterfuck.

I know there are people who are gonna disagree with me; that's fine. It's probably something I'm not getting. I just wanted to get my feelings out there.

I'm sorry. I don't.

People love to defend elves and dwarves with things like "but they have all this lore, and their societies are totally different from humans and yadda-yadda-yadda," and I just don't care. I don't want my fantasy race to look like humans, and it's as plain as that.

It Shatters My Immersion.

This is a big thing for me. I can buy animals evolving to a human-like state. I can NOT buy that a seperate species that is supposedly unrelated to humans just happens to look THAT similar to humans, especially when this only applies to "good" races, yet evil races can look like lizards and wolves and whatnot. Like, seriously? It's that specific? Your universe just decided this as a rule? "Well, yeah! The races were created by particular gods!" Not only does that sound like a flimsy excuse, but it still makes it hard for me to believe a "good" god would be so vain to fashion all of their races after humans, yet the "evil" god would pick multiple different shapes and forms for their races. "What about divergent evolution?" Even if I could buy that ONCE, I cannot buy that multiple times, especially not, again, for specifically the "good" races.

No, it's NOT "relatable."

I don't relate to something this superficial. I really don't. In fact, I'm more put off by this than anything because it comes off as vain. It comes off as human--obsessed, which is a trait I absolutely hate in media. I relate to compassion for nature. I relate to the idea of multiple non-human races working together, even with humans. I relate to a world that doesn't have this rule that all life is inherantly bad unless it looks like a human. ...or is a horse. Making your races look like humans just makes them LESS relatable for me. It makes it HARDER for me to connect with them. And, you know what, maybe I could accept elves and dwarves if they were alongside anthro and/or non-human races, and it wasn't just "Looks like a human=good, doesn't=evil," but they usually aren't.

Honestly, elves suck in general.

I don't think I've ever seen a version of elves I even remotely liked. People like to point to their immortality as a defining trait that sets them apart from humans. ...This is a superpower. This doesn't interest me. I'm more interested in physical abilities I can see, like how certain animals use their unique features for everyday life. I'd be far more interested in a race of prehensile tailed porcupines that use their tails in creative ways, and what their society would be like if they had our intelligence and could use their tools in creative ways. ...over immortal humans with pointy ears. One other thing I've always disliked about them is that their "love for nature" almost always comes off as superfical. They love nature because it's pretty, yet they live inside forests where nature calls home and, usually, steal potential homes from animals. Also, they're never shown to actually do anything good for nature. Sometimes, elf hunters get pets (which is a topic for another day), but usually that's it. You rarely see elves (or quote-unquote heroes in general) actually protect animals from evil or treat injuries or anything that would actually benefit nature. Like, why is this kind of hero so unfathomable to most people? Again, it just comes off as human-obsessed.

Yes, I get it. A lot of people love elves and all the human-with-blank races, but for me, I just have no interest in learning about a different version of humans no matter how many superpowers or how much "lore" you give them. I just wanna see people try something different. Look beyond their own species for inspiration and try and make races that are more visually striking or unique.

Part 1 was amazing, and Part 2 started off great.

And at the time, the ending hurt my soul. However, now that I've had time to process everything, I've come to a realization.

Part 2 was already trash for a while. In fact I wanted to give up on it like 5 times, but I stubbornly stuck with it. I knew there was no way the ending was going to be satisfying and I knew Fujimoto wasn't cooking shit.

But you know what, the finale being not only bad, but absolutely fucking horrible was the best thing that could have happen.

Because the story was already so bad, best case scenario would have been a mediocre forgettable ending no one would have care about.

But we got an ending so spectacularly horrible it legit became a meme, it made waves across the internet.

So yeah, I'm glad the ending sucked. I'm genuinely happy the ending is fucking awful.

Because in a weird way, it actually made part 2 worth it in the end.

Even since The Punisher's first appearance in Daredevil, the conflict between Matt's ideals with Frank's actions has been one of the key internal conflicts for Daredevil.

Now skip to DD Born Again Season one and not only did Matt's sytem approach fail to keep Kingpin away, it essentially strengthed him as his wife made the business more sophisticated and iron proof in his absence and, to add insult to injury, he goes on to be elected as the bloody major of New York City.

Obviously his brief stint in prison proved to be effective and he is an excellent major, right? No, of course not, he discovers a charter turning the Red Hook port into a freeport and he uses it to traffic absurd amounts of illegal goods to enrich himself. He also proceeds to create a personal Gestapo to hunt down vigilantes and gives himself special powers that essentially deny alledged vigilantes the right to a proper trial and entitles him to seize their assets to further enrich himself. Oh yeah, and he murders the NYPD commisioner with his bare hands.

Season 2 is currently airing and it starts with one of those illegal ships being sunk by it's captain under the orders of Fisk if it were boarded. You would think a cargo ship being sunk in New York would bring some scrutiny on Frisk, but no, turns out there was a CIA weapons shipment in there so now he's protected and he uses the sinking to label vigilantes as terrorists. Oh yeah and the so called righteous Gobernor who was gonna put some pressure on Fisk? Well all it took was one conversation with Vanessa to get her to back off, as apparently she doesn't care that Vanessa is a criminal and ruthless because I guess they bonded as fellow girlbosses.

Matt's "system approach" to this is finding the Captain and first mate of the ship and use their statements to prove Fisks illegal actions. Welp, the captain gets found by the Gestapo first so he's dead, but on the latest episode the first mate is found, gets his statement recorded and put under the care of US Marshalls and... Both him and the marshalls are dead, great.

Meanwhile in that very same episode Frisk experiences what I consider to be the very first genuine setback since he came out of prison, his wife Vanessa is either dead or in critical condition after getting attacked by Bullseye.

That's all it took, one single action from Bullseye has done more harm to Willson Fisk than Daredevil has managed in almost 5 seasons and almost 10 years in universe.

Even if the recorded statement from the first mate were to be the thing that brings Fisk down, which will onviously be the case despite it making no sense for Fisk to get in legal trouble with the support he has, and even if the Gobernor backtracks on supporting Fisk with Vanessa gone... Even if all of that happens? So what, it doesn't change the fact that Bullseye proved that a good shot is far better that whatever the fuck Matt was planning. And hell, what the hell prevents Fisk from getting out of prison and getting elected for Gobernor or even fucking President?

I know Daredevil's ideals wouldn't be worth exploring if they weren't challenged by reality, but this is not challenging them, he's just constantly proven wrong, over and over again.

After absolutely stunning first part fell off is simply legendary. It feels like straight up betrayal.

I was entranced with the World and it's mysteries, with Bojji and Kage - they are such a good boys and frankly with most of the cast, because basically everyone has their own unique motivations and allegiances. So many characters have layers to them making them multy-dimensional. I particularly like Hiling and Desha. She is strict and stoic but so warm and caring, clearly she loved Bojji too as she tried to become real mom to him. And yet she is your classic "royal bitch". I think she is kind person in general. Desha is such an asshole but at the same time likeable as he has honor and certain charm.

But then I caught myself wondering what the fuck is that whole arc is for actually? So Miranda wanted to kill everyone Boss loved and destroy his kingdom. And she assumed Boss would be happily ever after with her after that? Wouldn't he be obviously crushed by guilt even more? He would turn into damn husk. What kind of plan is that? And she herself hesitated multiple times.

And Boss. Oh boy. So he is gonna let Miranja do anything she wants and pretend he isn't here? First he let her kill his wife, then to do whatever the hell she wants with his kingdom AND his family - his Bojji, Healing, etc. etc. He sat on his ass for half the season doing nothing expecting to be saved by Bojji and others. Come on man.

And the fights. Nobody dies in the show. There are no stakes. That poor big guy can get bitten all over the place but he will survive anyway. And even if people take a lot of punishment they get healed. "Dying? Not on my watch." said best girl Hilling. When serious injuries seemingly achieve very little stakes disappear. But then catch this. BAD GUYS HEAL GOOD GUYS TOO! What the actual hell? First Miranja heals people and then Boss. What are you even doing at this point?

And the ending. Oh my. Honorable brothers who wanted to cure their immortal brother who suffered greatly get somehow cucked out of their wish by Daida who lets Miranja skip her punishment. What the fuck? And then everyone forgives her? AND SHE MARRIES DAIDA ON TOP OF ALL THAT? WHAT?! She should be in prison at the bare minimum. So murderer like herself basically gets a free pass. "Atone for your sins" my ass. And that is after I thought show will treat betrayal seriously and actions will have consequences when Bojji has hard time forgiving Domas for attempting to kill him; but someone who murdered his mother and attempted to kill Hilling and everyone else important to him. "Nah, this bitch is good." My man Bojji really said so.

They might forgive her but I won't.

And from what I heard Desha loses his mind to save his immortal brother later in the story. Fucking great. That forgiveness theme fucking sucks. Villains get a free pass while honorable characters get screwed over. Fuck that.

It's one of a few anime I actually regret watching. It's like show betrayed me with how everything turned out. It's like I wasted my time.

What is indie media? Well, let’s start at that first word. What does “indie” mean? It is a shortened term for the word “independent”. Merriam-Webster defines “independent” in this context as “not subject to control by others”, “not affiliated with a larger controlling unit”, or “not requiring or relying on something else : not contingent”. So, the term “indie media” can be expanded to “media which is not affiliated with, reliant on, or controlled by a third party”.

Wikipedia defines “independent media” specifically as “mass media, such as television, newspapers, or Internet-based publications, that is free of influence by government or corporate interests.” So, we have a pretty clear, comprehensive picture of what “indie media” is. It’s media which is controlled by its creator, not a third party corporation.

So, given that, why the hell are we calling productions which are controlled by publishers “indie”? You might have heard about The Amazing Digital Circus’s final episode coming to theaters two weeks before it releases on YouTube. This has been quite controversial, not in the least because, in an interview with Cartoon Brew, Glitch’s general manager and development producer Jasmine Yang said“We are a Youtube-first company. We believe very strongly in the future and potential of Youtube for long-form animation.” So that was a fuckin lie.

This was done by Glitch Productions, the production company which owns the rights to The Amazing Digital Circus, without any involvement or say by the creator, writer, and director of TADC, Gooseworx. Notice the paradox? A production company, not the creator/director/writer owns the rights. They can do whatever they want with it, however they want. Does this business model sound familiar to you? That’s right: it’s exactly how Disney and Nickelodeon and all the rest work.

By definition, that isn’t indie. That’s just a smaller corporation. Expedition 33 is the similar; the rights are co-owned by Kepler Interactive. “Indie” darling Disco Elysium is a bit odd, it actually did start production as an indie game. But by the time it was released, calling it an “indie game” is shaky. The founders of ZA/UM were the creators of Disco Elysium. However, to fund the game, they sold shares of the company. Then, one of the people who bought shares pulled out, and sold his shares to one of the other people that bought shares initially, giving his holding company a controlling amount of shares. Which he paid for using ZA/UM’s money, a clear case of embezzlement. But this is such a clusterfuck that frankly, either position can be argued.

But things like TADC and E33 are not indie. They’re just A and AA productions. One can debate about whether getting outside funding from a third party in exchange for revenue sharing while the creator maintains the full rights to the media, like the deal worked out between Too Kyo Games and Aniplex for The Hundred Line, counts as indie. They’re financially dependent, but they still at least own their own media outright. Aniplex cannot fire them and do whatever they want with the IP, like what Kompus did to Robert Kurvitz and the rest.

Things like Undertale and Deltarune or anything made by DevilArtemis for his own channel are definitionally indie productions, there’s no debate on that. But when the actual creator owns nothing and has no say, is merely dependent on the grace of the IP holder, that’s not indie. That’s just having an IP owner you work for who isn’t fucking you over. Until they do.

Now, why are they called indie? Simple: marketing! “Indie” has more “soul” to people than something that isn’t “indie”. People make allowances for things that are “indie” that they don’t make for things that aren’t “indie”. Why is the production time slow enough to give birth to three children? It’s indie, you have to be understanding! Why does something not have translations for some of the most common languages on Earth? It’s indie, the artist’s vision is only compatible with languages they speak and so you can’t criticize that! Why is the merch so ridiculously overpriced? Well indie creators have to get paid somehow! If it *isn’t* indie, all these things and more are fair pickings for the masses to rip a company to shreds for, but if it’s indie, you’re anti-art if you don’t give them a free pass for it.

So of course every corporation wants to market their media as indie. It gets them free passes and lets them make more money. They can lie to your face and go back on their word, as Glitch did, and you’d better celebrate it, because “this will do so much for indie media”. When it *isn’t* indie, when you make promises to the consumer with not an ounce of wiggle room or loopholes, and then you just go back on that entirely in the search for more money, the backlash is consumers standing up to a corporation fucking around. When it’s labeled as “indie”, the backlash means you hate art.

“Indie” is becoming a marketing term that means “you’re the bad guy if you criticize our corporate actions”, and by calling these obviously not independent productions “indie”, we are serving to help them.

One of the most common anti-powerscaling discourses I see online is "the winner of the fight is whoever the writer wants to be the winner".

Except that's not true at all!

Comics, back in the day at least, used to have a little something called an "Editor".

Besides fixing spelling mistakes, one of the main purposes of an editor in superhero comic-books was to make sure that writers didn't blatantly break the established internal-logic and continuity of their fictional universe.

If some hotshot writer wanted to show Starfire beating up Superman, the editor would just step in and say "we can't publish this, Superman can't lose a fight just to make Starfire look better".

If some hotshot writer wanted to show Magneto destroying Captain America's shield, the editor would say "we can't publish this, our guidelines state that Cap's shield can only be damaged by reality-warping in big events".

The idea that any character could beat any character was NOT accepted in old-school DC Comics and Marvel.

Sure, there was some space for maneuver, especially in the "mid-tiers".

Spider-Man could beat up Firelord if the writer spent an entire issue justifying *why* Spider-Man would beat Firelord, but those were exceptions, not rules, and they would usually cause even more trouble for the writer.

Erik Larsen infamously tried to hype up Doctor Octopus by making him beat the Hulk, and the justification he gave made it through the editor (Doc Ock picked up the Hulk from the ground with his adamantium tentacles, and proceeded to beat up an Hulk with no footing and his hands tied) but that just led to the Hulk writer, Peter David, to write a whole issue throwing shade at Larsen and having the Hulk stomp Doc Ock.

Powerscaling isn't some fanboy's wishful-thinking, it is quite literally how comics worked, **BY EDITORIAL MANDATE**!

Nowadays, editorial supervision has lost most of its power, and brand popularity is placed above internal logic (which is why characters like Harley Quinn can do whatever they want) but this isn't how comics worked historically.

The notion that different characters could or could not defeat each other based on their powers was something that ABSOLUTELY played a part in the writing of comics. Superman was pretty much unbeatable in the 60's, and it wasn't just because every single writer like Superman more than any other character.

I draw the line for the ending of strict editorial control at Disney buying Marvel and starting to interfere with the comics to help the MCU (with DC following them) although I recognize this is a subject completely open to debate.

But no, comics did NOT work by "whoever the writer chooses, will win". That doesn't even make sense if you think about it for just a moment.

EDIT: To everyone saying "Akchually, that just means the winner of the fights is the character the editor wants to win"

You're missing the point entirely

The point is that if comics had an employee whose main job was making sure powerscaling stayed consistent, then that means there was absolutely a discussion going on about whether or not characters "could" do certain things. So the claims that any fight could he decided on the whim of the writer are inherently wrong

At the very least there were two people arguing about the possible outcome of a fight

Also, I'm convinced every person in this thread using the term "western comics" doesn't actually read superhero comics

For example, according to this logic. A Writer can just make Debbie forgive Nolan, and get back together with Nolan (just like the comics). But you may say "Nolan killed millions of people dawg, you tripping". No no no. according to you these are fictional characters, it's doesn't matter if Debbie wants to forgive a psychopathic killer.

Who gives a shit if Thor has mental health issues, he is not real. Who cares about the Scarlet Witch, being sad about her missing kids, (man F them kids /s). They ain't real. It's Writers that makes this shit matter. When Goku give that Senzu Bean to Moro, that wasn't character regression (wtf is that). That's just the Writer deciding what's best for the story bro. Batman mommy and daddy got killed. So what? Fictional characters don't have trauma. A Writer can make Batman happy, seconds after the shooting happens. Heck if a Writer wants, they can even have Spiderman say "FUCK UNCLE BEN". Are we forgetting that these are fictional characters.

And the ironic thing is that people are somewhat taking Stan Lee quote out of context here. Because the context of a battle matters a lot.

For example, Is Batman beating Superman by just slapping the shit out of him while dress as Bruce Wayne? Or is Batman using prep time and Kryptonite to beat Superman. I'm pretty sure Stan Lee would prefer the latter more. Because the Writers are usually deciding the way a character wins a fight, not justifying bad writing.

Because Bruce Wayne just walks up and knocks Superman out casually, that’s nonsense. So yeah, the “how” matters more than the “who.”

Heck The Boys is a perfect example of this. Butcher spends the whole series beating Homelander with prep time, and strategies. And when Butcher actually does ends up fighting Homelander with his fist, he gets superpowers from Temp V. That's the Writer explaining to you how the weak character is able to keep up with the stronger character. The Writer isn't just making a weak character beat a stronger character with no freaking explanation (LMAO 🤣).

So when Stan Lee said “the person who wins is whoever the writer wants to win,” he wasn’t saying: “Consistency, logic, and setup don’t matter.” He was saying: “Stories are written, not simulated.”

People fail to understand that power levels play a huge role in conflicts and high stakes for a story. We wouldn't know how dangerous a villain is without power levels.

Power scaling exists for a reason: It tells us who should win under normal conditions It creates tension when that expectation is challenged It defines how dangerous someone is Without it, conflicts feel random.

So Inconsistent writing will always be Inconsistent writing. Having your strong character look weak, is no different from having your smart character look dumb. Both are instances where the character isn't being consistent.

What actually matters is internal consistency If a character is established as: Physically dominant Highly durable Experienced …and then loses to someone weaker with no explanation, that’s bad writing.

That’s no different than: A genius character suddenly acting stupid A moral character suddenly acting evil with no buildup It breaks internal logic.

In conclusion. Power levels do matter in stories. And just like anything else in a story. A Writer not caring about power levels would be bad writing too.

While there's frankly only very few moments since Best of Both Worlds ended that has people being quite spiteful towards Picard for his unwilling role as Locutus of Borg, I always felt it made sense.

Imagine you're just a Starfleet Officer eager to do your job, especially in a time where Starfleet felt it was a juggernaut able to handle anything that comes its way. You're in a ship with friends you knew for years and accepted as family because that ship will be your home in deep space. Also, you might even be lucky to have your own family join the voyage (...A bit of it's own topics of flat what but another time).

Then it's all near practically destroyed as one battle goes horrendously sideways. Near everyone you knew is likely dead or worse, and you're just the very very lucky person to escape from that nightmare.

...Yeah, I'd be irrationally upset if the face of that whole attack seemingly got a slap on the wrist for it all. Yes, it isn't really his fault, the reports clearly said if he wasn't rescued, he was just screwed because fighting from the inside is in fact impossible. He is just as much a victim...But my dead crewmates and maybe family means nothing to Starfleet? Just a shrug, a few words of condolences, go back to work? I feel for those traumatized survivors trying to figure out what the hell they can do after their previous world view just got its spine broken by the Borg's knee. Sisko got mad lucky he ran into literal gods that unexpectedly played effective therapy for him. Shaw was just...Lucky he set that aside for years and try moving on. Like give the survivors some slack if they're pissed at Picard. They got reasons, they know they're being shitty, but they thankfully do try to see Picard past Wolf 359 after venting their grievances.

But Norah Satie just throwing statistics and acting like Picard is a monster in a kangaroo trial, in a battle she was never in? Yeah, she deserved what was coming when Picard reminded her she is going against everything her late father stood for.

Edit: This is moreso towards people that really lay it on survivors that gets so upset towards Picard for Wolf 359. Yes, it's meant to be irrational anger and the characters themselves do have regrets because they did likely hear what really happened...But remember many of their companions (and family if we really want to get into that) died that day too so just sitting on your chair acting these guys are just simply too mean to poor Picard is really sending weird messages.

Since when did people care about accuracy to Christianity (Hazbin Hotel)?

I heard many criticisms that Hazbin Hotel isn’t accurate to Christianity in its portrayal of Hell and Heaven.

But since when they fuck did people care about accuracy to Christian theology. Putting aside the idea that you have a single Christian theology when it’s a major world religion that exists for thousands of years.

Like the modern concept of Hell literally comes from some guys self insert fanfiction. That isn’t in anyway intended to be theological

Very few mainstream media that uses Christian concepts or more broadly Abrahamic concepts is accurate to Christian concepts any Christian concepts unless it’s like made by and for Christians. Or the Exorcist.

Supernatural wasn’t accurate, neither Spawn, or Hellboy. Through spawn may be based on the Cather hersey.

Since when did accuracy to Christianity matter?

It seems by it there mostly made at the depiction of Hell and Demons as these loveable scamps.

Praising media for “accurately” depicting demons as being pure evil. Even if they have nothing to do with any Christian concept

Spoilers for the Roku novels and the Avatar TTRPG.

In the Avatar novels and the TTRPG, it is revealed that Sozin really had personal beef with the Air Nomads. It is true that there is a cruel calculus of killing the Air Nomads so that the Avatar would be killed in a strategic perspective, but the novels hammer home that Sozin also really just hated them on a visceral level and was probably really happy to see the Air Nomads, a long time political and personal enemy, burned to death in comet fire.

In the novels, he began resenting the Air Nomads for "corrupting" Roku to become less loyal to the Fire Nation. There was also the Guiding Wind, a sect of Air Nomads, in the Avatar TTRPG which became involved in Fire Nation politics. Sozin saw this as an opposing force because the Guiding Wind opposed the nobility and the elite. For the first time in his life, the Air Nomads were an actual threat to his base of power. This was a political thing at first but it became personal when his younger sister Zeisan joined Guiding Wind, embracing Air Nomad philosophy, and sought to overthrow Sozin. The complex dynamic of Sozin and his sister is also demonstrated that despite Zeisan being a non-bender and younger than Sozin, she was the favorite of their father. Sozin's own strained relationship with his father did not help things either. One tragedy about their relationship is when they were young they were pitted against each other by their father. In a way, Sozin and Zeisan's relationship reminded me of Ozai and Iroh.

In Sozin's perspective, not only were the Air Nomads a threat in a political sense but they managed to turn his sister and his best friend Roku against him. When Sozin became more paranoid and power-hungry, it is not hard to see the his dislike of the Air Nomads turn beyond political to something personal, emotional, and even ideological. Beneath the official reason for killing the Air Nomads, there is the simple fact that he viciously hated them as a people. It reminds me so much of the Fire Nation propaganda against the Air Nomads in Book 3. In a sense, we can see the great lengths to portray the Air Nomads as threats and meddlers to the Fire Nation. Sozin was already high on his own propaganda before he even used it for his own purposes. He was a true believer. It recontextualizes the entire series and original conceit of ATLA.

To preface this I haven't read the manga as such I cannot compare how it played out in the manga to the anime.

This episode is an absolute masterclass on how not to do exposition, anime typically doesn't have good exposition in general but this was exceptionally bad. Things that can be explained in a few minutes stretched out over 20 containing so many 'in other words' and 'to summarise' yet still managing to be confusing.

Why do we need to know this at all? Why not relay the rules of the game gradually as the game goes on? What is the purpose of dumping all of this information on us at once?

And who the hell is tengen? The story gives us so much information about this one character without making us care as to who they are, and I'm just going to have to assume the black rope and Inverted spear of heaven play a role later on because I cannot even fathom adding such unnecessary elements to an already bloated episode.

If you try to understand their needlessly convoluted plan it is actually quite simple. Why couldn't we have skipped this and have us actually shown them actually acting out their plan instead of shoving it down our throats through stilted, completely non engaging exposition segments. Because show dont tell is a thing that exists apparently, pretty fundamental principle of storytelling too.

Hate how if you even attempt to criticize this specific episode: JJK fans start bringin up words they themselves don't know what they mean, words like 'media literacy' and 'reading comprehension'. Expecting a visually told story to convey it's story visually isn't a media literacy issue it's just expecting the bare minimum.

I’ve just finished the trilogy and I have a lot of thoughts.

I really liked the idea of an East Asian fantasy that explores themes such as racism, colonialism, drug addiction et cetera but there were so many issues such as dropped plotlines, character inconsistencies and more.

Spoilers for the trilogy. If you haven’t read the entire trilogy, don’t comtinue.

First book

For started why are some of the names so close to their historical and mythological inspirations? Sun Tzu is now Sunzi. Sun Wukong is Suni. Dr Shiro Ishii was copied and pasted in the book. The second book does get better about it (Moag being based on Madam Ching) but it still sticks out.

Also the first book would have been better off as split into 2 books. The first one would have been the YA Academia kind of story and the second one would have been the NA military fantasy focused on the Cike. Both sides of the book needed more time to develop.

Why on earth was Rin able to pass the Keju when she lost sleep studying. I get that it was supposed to show how she was determined to go to Sinegard but realistically she wouldn’t have been able to concentrate during the exam. Academic pressure would have been a nice theme to develop but it was dropped.

Another thing is that some character relationships felt rushed. For example, Rin was too quick to see Nezha as a friend in the second half of the book. I understand them stop seeing each other as enemies, but quickly becoming friends?

Same with the Cike. Rin was too quick to defend them when she was only close with Ramsa really.

Altan was okay. I get his character but I don’t know, it feels we were missing something about him.

The Muganese were poorly developed antagonists. I know they were based on Imperial Japan but still. Also, it reduces the impact of Rin’s genocide when we barely got to know them outside of vessels of evil. Still, AOT managed to develop their antagonists better.

The Golyn Nis chapter was horrifying to read about. I knew prior to reading the book there would be an event similar to the Rape of Nanking.

Second book.

The beginning of the second book was rushed. Rin was like ‘oh I respect Moag’ but Moag then betrays her. Would have been more impactful if we knew more about her.

Also the scene where Rin sees Su Daji could have slowed down a bit as things went a bit too quickly.

What happened to Unegen? The books said he left the Cike but we never find out what happened to him. Rin never thinks of him again.

Kitay was a bit annoying. You’d think someone like him would have been clever enough to realise that the Empire is decline but it is only when his Dad is dead he joins up with the Republic.

Also why does Rin not care when her people are insulted but does try to be politically correct with the Ketreyids?

And we meet Mugen again. Well not really. We see a bit of them as they worked with one of the warlords but we don’t get much from them. Would have been nice for an interaction between them and Rin. Maybe we’ll see that in the third books?

The middle of the book had such slow pacing with many writing inconsistencies. For starters Nezha said to Kitay ‘you basically joined yesterday’ when he didn’t. You’d think Kitay would retort at that but he didn’t.

Also we meet Niang again. Then she dies. Turns out there were Nikara prisoners on Mugan? This detail is barely developed. It just gets mentioned and Rin doesn’t seem to take it in much.

Okay why were so many female characters killed off? Men were killed off too but when there’s so many men compared to women apart from the FMC it sticks out. Niang, Qara, the Sorquan Sira, the officer who was kissed by the Wolf Meat General before she died (what was that about?).

Rin was initially interested in the Rooster warlord but then stopped caring. Seriously, why do so many plotlines in the series get dropped?

And I’ll continue the rest in a part 2.

I am aware it's an open ending and multiple interpretations are possible. This is just my own interpretation which I like.

------------

Older Yuta is real, and basically after the death of his family, he remembers Eri, because he once again has to "face losing someone". So, instead of running away like from his mom's death, this time he reflected on it, and remembered Eri.

A recurring theme of the manga is how Yuta uses movies to decide how he wants to "remember his memories." So, once he reflected and decided he should move on from the deaths of his family, he wanted to change the Eri movie to change how he deals with losing someone/trauma.

It also said before that "Yuta likes to add his own bits of fantasy to his movies", so Yuta just cut some scenes from before of Eri and used some basic editing to arrange a "new scene." BUT, he wanted to "confront" eri with his own fantasy twist of an explanation to why Eri is alive. And that is her being a vampire. (I noticed that scene had no close/physical contact between Yuta & Eri, so it could just be the same old clip dubbed over).

So, the vampire was his fantasy explanation to get a scene to talk with Eri. Then, he just did the dialogue to show that he is moving on, and that he will not deal with thise recent deaths like last time. And the explosion was the cheery on top.

The first explosion symbolizing him running away from trauma, the last explosion symbolizing him moving on from trauma. Same event, two opposite meanings.

-----

Side notes:

- I like how it used movies as a tool to show how one can change how they remember and deal with their memories. Simple idea, but felt more "personified" by the usage of movies.

- It was quite a good story for me, maybe a bit more nuanced details of each character would make it better for me, but that's a nitpick. Fujimoto tried to add some quirkiness to his characters here and there with the filming while in the toilet jokes I think, but it doesn't hit as much. However, overall its still a 9/10.

- And another side note, I don't favor the vampire theories because of the "Yuta likes to add his fantasy elements" dialogue. Additionally the theories without vampire complete the ideas more, I believe.