u/MomomTheBlack

I see alot of very imbalanced coverage of the Super League war, and how "it was all about Pay TV", etc. Obviously, the 2 moguls on either side were motivated by money, whether it was Packer or Murdoch, but in terms of what was best for the game it's hard to argue change wasn't necessary.

Back in the mid-90s players were getting jobbed on the amount of salary they received. You hear that from the players. The Johns brothers were on 15k and 20k a year. All of a sudden, Matthew Johns could have gotten a million a year from Super League, and the ARL and Packer all of a sudden had hundreds of thousands of dollars they could pay him. Players almost all had part-time jobs, even stars. It was basically a pub sport. Stars like Bradley Clyde would go work as landscapers in the morning, then play Rugby in the evening. There was no insurance for players. Contracts weren't guaranteed. If you got hurt, the club could just cut you the next day with no pay out. Today this kind of thing is taken for granted thanks to Super League forcing the game to become more professional, but at the time the players union had gotten nowhere in talks with the ARL over many years.

The situation was basically like World Series cricket, except this time Packer was on the side of the status quo, and of course he was. As the monopoly holder he was getting away with paying a fraction of the value of the TV rights, because he had a relationship with the old boys club who were unreceptive to a more progressive league. John Quayle, former ARL CEO, will talk about how tough it was to get more money, and how the ARL was already expanding, but reality shows otherwise. As soon as Murdoch arrived, Packer changed his tune about how much the broadcast rights were worth, and spent fiercely to try and retain them. This is what happens when a mom and pop shop of amateurs tries to negotiate with a media mogul, instead of having a professional corporate group like today's administrators.

As for the game already expanding; yes, it was, but it was trying to expand a mom and pop pub sport (which is easy), not a professional league. A professional league needs to expand in an intelligent way, and yes that means examining if your league really needs so many Sydney clubs. In effect, the big markets were subsidising impoverished clubs, which you can't do in the multi-billion dollar league we have today. Super League had the right idea, trying to get clubs into the right markets, and then consider expanding from there, which is what has happened.

We still have too many Sydney clubs truth be told, but at least some of the dregs were removed or merged. I think it was a mistake to try and get rid of South Sydney as it happens, they had alot of fan support, but come on the game doesn't miss the Western Magpies or North Sydney Bears. St George should be the next to go; move them to Wollongong full time, and in the future rethink teams like the Sharks. It makes no sense for there to be 9 teams in Sydney, but only 2 in Brisbane (which is Rugby mad). It was only 4 years ago we got a 2nd Brisbane team, and we're only now getting new teams in NZ and PNG. The expansion to such newer markets, and the massively increased international exposure on Pay TV and Vegas, is something that would never have happened under the ARL. Crowd attendance at many of these Sydney games is tiny, and it's because fan support is split over too many teams. Today's game makes it's money primarily from broadcasting anyway, which again begs the question of what value these perpetual loser teams like the Tigers or Dragons are bringing. I'd rather a team in London or Japan.

The rules became more modernised thanks to the Super League War too, with many of the innovations Super League pioneered becoming mainstays of today's game, from the video referee through to cleaning up scrums. It would have been nice if all these innovations and improvements could have happened without a huge fight and league split, but it now seems obvious that was impossible. The nepotistic old boys club that ran things were never going to seriously consider changes until they had no choice, and now the game is so much better off for it.

I've been seeing alot of strange takes about how such and such is the biggest genius, and so and so is a terrible strategist, so I felt like it would be useful to provide a thread that ranks characters into competency tiers based on their ability to play the game of thrones.

I have broken the tiers up into 6 categories:

God Tier

This is the tier for players who understand the hidden turnings that shape the world, including the deepest secrets, gods, magic, etc. They know so much, the author can't show us their perspectives yet, because it would be too plot breaking. These are the only true players, and everyone is their puppet even if they don't know it. The only stakes they play for involve the destruction or dominance of the entire world.

Examples: Future Bran, Littlefinger, The Children of the Forrest, Euron, Gerion Lannister the Shrouded Lord.

Those who are casual fans are probably baffled by this list, and TV fans probably don't understand why Littlefinger is on this list. In the novels Littlefinger is basically a god. The idea of him needing someone else, like he does in the show, is comical. It's implied he understands how the gods work and is manipulating them, possibly is using magic and Valyrian candles to manipulate people, is controlling events on a global scale, etc. He clearly doesn't even care about pitiful prizes like the Vale or the Riverlands, because his ambitions are far grander than just the throne.

Demi-god Tier

These are the elite schemers, limited to the world of men. They have some, limited knowledge of the deeper mysteries of the world, but primarily focus on petty matters like who will be King and creating their ideal system of governance.

Examples: Varys, Doran Martell, the Maesters. In time, characters like Tyrion have the potential to hit their tier, though he is a long way off that still.

Elite Tier

These are the cream of the crop for political scheming. Those in this tier have no real concept of the deeper mysteries and can't see further than the old school real politiks of old families fighting each other for more prestige.

Examples: Tywin Lannister, the Redwynes.

Secondary schemers

These guys play the same games as the elite tier but are merely good at it as opposed to being elite. Tend to make more good moves than bad.

Examples: Tyrells, Boltons, Yronwood.

Pawns

These are the predictable characters, who tend to be motivated by factors like honor and loyalty. They would be bad at scheming if they ever tried, but they mostly don't even consider it. Although they are pawns, they have many strengths that allow them to influence the outcome of the game at the direction of the unseen hands that are moving them.

Examples: Ned Stark, Stannis, Brienne, Umbers, etc. I could have named dozens of characters or houses here.

Incompetent pawns

These are characters who either lack the strength to even be useful pawns, or even worse try to scheme (which invariably fails). Worse than useless.

Examples: Cersei, Viserys.

For years I have been baffled by the unadulterated love that this show gets. It's ok, perfectly watchable mostly, but I have it firmly in the mid-tier of anime, to the point that I often refer to it as Midzero; not as a term of disrespect, but as the anime that defines a good mid-tier product. I'm not some huge shonen fan either, I find stuff like One Piece and MHA to be boring and poorly written. when I talk about top tier anime, I think of things like Frieren, 86, Attack on Titan, Vinland, Erased, Mushoku Tensei, maybe Demon Slayer, etc. I'm not even sure I'd rank ReZero in the top of the mid-tier, as I have it squarly behind shows like Konosuba, Apothecary Diaries, Spy Family, Link Click (almost a top tier pick tbh), etc.

I am always told "you're not mature enough to get it", which seems ridiculous given the anime I tend to like. Maybe it's a case where the light novel is much better, like with Lord of the Mysteries, but I'm just not seeing the depth in the anime.

Firstly, the protagonist is annoying. That's not a deal breaker, lots of great anime have annoying protagonists, e.g. Evangelion. It's more than that. However, I will say it isn't helping. People keep telling me how much Subaru grows and learns, but it really does just feel as though people are confusing a character dying and suffering alot with character growth. The 'lessons' Subaru seems to take under his belt are things that even a barely functional human being should know without being told; e.g. 'you're not the center of everything' and 'try to be a tiny bit less inconsiderate of others'. He doesn't fully learn these lessons either, but to the extent I can observe any growth from him, this seems to be the crux of it.

More than the annoying protagonist though, the plot is just not handled well. The show reminds me alot of Lost, and not in a good way. For younger readers, Lost was a show where they would keep introducing new mysteries and tangents, before ever resolving the old ones, and would try to distract the audience from this by having everything happen at a hectic pace. It was deeply unsatisfying though, because so many tensions wouldn't exist if the characters just sat down and had some reasonable conversations, and for no logically explainable reason they would never do that; instead they would just get agitated and react blindly. That basically describes Subaru.

What do I mean by the plot problems? Well, for starters, how about 'why is anyone doing any of this?' Why should I care and be invested in the stakes, when nothing is explained and nobody is bothering to explain it. Some of these core plot points would be:

- What's the deal with this dragon? What's it's role, and why does Roswell want to kill it? Why does the pink haired maid want to kill it?

- Why does the Kingdom even need a ruler? The council has seemingly been ruling for years now with no issues, what benefits does a Queen/Princess give you?

- How did they even identify these Princesses? Like, yes, I understand there is an insignia that reacts if you are a candidate, but did they get every maiden in the land to touch it to see if it would glow?

- What is the criteria to be selected as the new ruler? Like, surely this should be discussed by some of the characters at some point. We're now 4 seasons in, and I have no idea how they are being selected, and literal years have passed.

- What's the deal with the witch, and witches cult? None of this stuff is really given a proper explanation at any stage, and given how important it is to the plot is feels absurd that the characters haven't sat down at some point to discuss the history of the witches/cult, and what their deal is.

- How exactly does magic work in this world? What's the magic system?

- What's the geopolitical situation?

- How do the physics of this world operate? I gather Reinhart got kicked to the moon and back? Seems like this should have some story implications, but absolutely nothing about it is explained.

You don't have to reveal every mystery right away, but you should be building foundational knowledge, which then becomes something the main characters build on to further unfurl the plot. Instead, the story is often driven by seemingly random or arbitrary choices.

While the plot is confusing, the pacing is often worse. Some episodes, the pacing is very good. Other episodes, it really is not. There are also so many throwaway characters that the show should be prosecuted for littering. I feel like I know more about the characters in a lighthearted show like Konosuba over a few seasons (or even just 1 season) than I do about most of the characters in ReZero after 4 seasons. In the last season I was wondering who some of these reanimated characters were, and why I should care. Even among the royal selection candidates, I feel like I know very little about their characters, so why do I care which waifu is ultimately successful? It doesn't seem like it would have any impact on this country, which seems to have been running itself just fine for years without a ruler.

Coming back to the characters being annoying, it's not just Subaru. Many, many characters are just tough to listen to, in particular every member of the witches cult. I get that they're supposed to be deranged, but I'm listening to long, long rants from these witch cultists which are basically a bunch of gobbledygook. Subaru also is just tough to listen to; take episode 13 of season 1. Subaru just rants and rants in annoying monologues that are frankly hard to listen to. It's the opposite of "show don't tell". There are so, so many of these monologues from characters, often while their enemies are just standing around listening. It's not really satisfying to see Subaru rant a litle less in later seasons, because he's only evolved slightly from an incel neet. It's also hard to see why most of the characters like him so much. He frankly does little to deserve it, even if from their point of view he is oddly effective. Blue haired maid being in love with him really comes off as insufficiently justified. Again, I grant that it may be better explained in the light novel.

Probably the best Isekai I've seen is Mushoku Tensei. It also has a protagonist who starts off as very problematic, but you see actual and believable growth from that character to the point that he becomes a good (if still flawed) human being. The protagonist in MT goes from a shut-in who has given up on life and is psychologically unable to leave home, to an adventuring family man who wants to be a better example for his sisters and children. We also understand the reason Rudeus (and other characters in the show) are so messed up; because of their own past trauma. In the case of the protagonist, he is himself a victim of SA and abuse. With Subaru, I have no idea what I'm supposed to be impressed with.

In MT, Rudeus coming from another world is also central to the plot. It impacts every aspect of the story. In ReZero, it's largely irrelevant. Subaru could be a kid from an island off the coast that nobody knows about, and the plot would be unchanged. All you'd need to do is make superficial changes to the story, e.g. instead of using the stars from his world for certain puzzles, just use a star that can only be seen from his island. We often see this failing in mediocre isekai, like that Appraisal skill anime, and not in good stories like Lord of the Mysteries or Konosuba.

I don't think much of the dialogue either most of the time. Like, there are some good episodes, but also plenty of bad ones. So, rant over. What am I missing?