u/Sensitive-Hotel-9871

I was a manga purist when I first heard about FMA 2003 and Brotherhood so I decided to only watch Brotherhood. Since then I have gotten more open minded about changes from the source material and have grown more accepting of anime making changes (I have learned that Yu-Gi-Oh made a lot of changes that were for the better). Hell I learned after watching Brotherhood that Issac was actually an invention of the anime. I bring this up since I did watch the 2003 anime before my rewatch of Brotherhood.

While Issac is only around for one episode, his attempt to destroy Central Command puts future events in a different light. He proclaims that Bradley is a monster who needs to die for the horrors he inflicted on the Ishvalans, and nobody provides Issac with any kind of rebuttal. That's practically saying out of the gate that Issac is right. And the glimpses we get of Father, and the actions of the Homunculi in episode 3 tells us that Issac was onto something, there is a great evil threatening the land, it just takes our heroes a long time to figure out what it is and what the danger is. When Edward later uncovers Father's plan, he sees that Issac really was really trying to save Amestris.

It is a common and really annoying trope in superhero stories that civilians suck, especially in Marvel. So much so that in a comic crossover with the Justice League and the Avengers, the Marvel heroes thought the DC universe supporting its heroes was a sign of an evil plot.

Either the civilians are just assholes or they easily turn on the heroes at the first possibility while we see very few who give them the benefit of the doubt. Worst-case scenario, they blame heroes for damage caused by the villains. I am not saying it is unrealistic for people to not turn on a hero but the typical execution of civilians turning on them makes it seem like people who won't line up with torches and pitchforks are the exception to the rule.

So it was great at the end of Daredevil: Born Again's second season that we see a huge gathering of New Yorkers who are using Daredevil as a symbol of defiance march against the Kingpin. Kingpin had been trying to ruin Daredevil's reputation but all the efforts the Devil of Hell's Kitchen had made in standing up to the tyrant, especially breaking out who had been wrongfully imprisoned by Fisk's ICE unit, meant that Daredevil had supporters who recognized him for the hero he is.

The only part I found unrealistic was that Daredevil was able to talk his supporters out of killing Fisk, especially when the evil mastermind had just beaten so many of them to death. But hey, I would rather suspend my disbelief over that than something annoyingly cynical.

When ranting about Garth Ennis' writing, a common defense I have seen is that characters like the Punisher and Billy Butcher aren't power fantasies because they are evil people.

A line of thought that these arguments seem built around is that just because a character is shown to be evil, that they aren't a power fantasy. Evil characters can absolutely be a power fantasy. Helldivers 2, while a satire of right wing American politics, is still a video game that is foremost designed to be a fun power fantasy. Warhammer 40,000 claims to be satire and makes it clear the Imperium of Man is evil, but stories revolving around the Imperium of Man, especially its iconic Space Marines, are very much designed to be a power fantasy with the flashy action setpieces that Warhammer fans like to call "bolter porn."

Star Wars is built around the heroic rebels defeating space fascists, but that doesn't stop the villains from being a power fantasy. Darth Vader, the face of the franchise, makes appearances that are clearly designed around the power fantasy of him being a badass villain.

Outside of Darth Vader, there are Star Wars video games where the story is built around playing as the villains like TIE Fighter and 2005's Battlefront 2, which people find awesome, myself included. The villains in Star Wars are cool and even if their perspective reminds us that we are the bad guys in these games it doesn't mean there isn't a power fantasy to being the villains. TIE Fighter, in particular, has a power fantasy from the overpowered ships created for the game that are so broken they don't appear in its sequel.

Or for something really extreme, there is Baki the Grappler with its main villain, Yujiro Hanma. At a certain point, the mangaka clearly took way too much of a liking to this guy, so at a point where it would have been the logical end for the series to have Baki defeat him, Yujiro wins the fight, the series keeps going, and we have attempts to humanize him. All the while, Yujiro continues to terrorize the world, with no one able to stop him, because he will only lose when the series concludes. Among other things, Yujiro terrorizes whoever the current president of the United States is.

That last point is what leads us into Garth Ennis' works. The Punisher in his runs is noted to be a horrible person, and he also goes around killing the worst people in the world, including human traffickers and a cabal of corrupt army generals modeled after particular generals Ennis doesn't like.

Which, of course, brings us to The Boys. A point I often see brought up against the argument about the comic being a power fantasy is that Billy Butcher becomes the final villain. The thing is critics of the comic know about this part and we see it as a strike against Butcher since he kills all the protagonists except Hughie. Butcher is only defeated because Hughie appeals to his humanity (something that is not done with other antagonists), and he still gets the last laugh by tricking Hughie into killing him so he doesn't face any consequences for his actions. Even after Butcher is dead, Hughie remarks that Butcher is probably taking Hell over rather than suffering for his sins.

That is not the kind of thing a story says when condemning a villain as a monster; it is the type of thing that happens when it is glorifying him as the ultimate badass, especially when supes are criticized as "bad products." Ennis might claim this was supposed to be a power fantasy, but we are talking about a comic where his main characters walk around in black coats trying to look cool, easily brutalize people who represent the worst scum in the world, which includes a literal Nazi and caricatures of American Christian fundamentalism.

Fun fact, Garth Ennis is an atheist with a low opinion of religion. This is why you have fundamentalist Christian villains in a story that is supposed to be commenting on superheroes, even though there is no basis for it in the genre and never was. Very few superheroes have ever been religious, the only reason to have the comic mock religion is for the same reason as Family Guy's satire of religion, so the creator can say religion is dumb.

And to top it all off, the comic spends a lot of time commenting on the horrors of the military industrial complex just to throw it out when the supes attack Washington, and get killed by the US military. Because Ennis loves to lionize military men even if they have been known to do things just as bad or worse than celebrities and get away with them. Not saying everyone who joins the military is like this but it sadly does happen.

Ennis claimed that the idea for evil protagonists in The Boys was inspired by The Sopranos and The Shield. Both of these shows ended with their villain protagonists losing. Not losing because they allowed it like Butcher. They straight up lost. Spoilers for both if you want to watch them.

>!Tony Soprano survives the gang at the end of The Sopranos, but most of the top earners in his crime family are dead. The FBI is also building a stronger case against Tony with the implication that he won't luck his way out this time. The final scene ends so abruptly with the hint that Tony was unceremoniously killed, even if he wasn't, it was clear that whatever end his life in the mafia had would lead to an ignomious end. For the record, the show's creator did eventually confirm Tony died, over a decade after the show ended.!<

>!The Shield ended with its villain protagonist, Vic Mackey, cutting a deal to escape prosecution for his many evil actions, which he used his authority as a cop to get away with. He sold out his entire team to ensure the safety of himself and his family, and it was all for nothing. Vic's wife learned about his crimes and went into witness protection, where he would never see them again. Meanwhile, Vic thought his deal would protect him, but he was stuck in a soul-crushing desk job that robbed him of any power, so he may as well have been in prison. And if he stepped out of line, he was going to jail for real.!<

Not sure if this is a hot topic or not, but I feel Mai was close enough to Yugi and friends that she should have joined the group. She honestly felt closer to them than Duke ever did.

I did just about everything aside from missing a few Mighty Crystals and Heart Pieces which I didn't need anyway, especially since I fully upgraded the energy, sword and bow well before I got the bombs, and I barely used the bombs since by the time I got them, I had echoes that could do the same thing without using up my energy meter.

The finale excited me a lot more than I expected it to. I have watched walkthroughs to a lot of games, but I have frequently found that reaching the end of the story is always more satisfying when you do it yourself.

In this case, just seeing that final Stilled World was creepy with all the consumed locations from across the game and Null's massive body.

Echo Zelda was a pushover given her role in the story, granted I did max out most everything and the Lynel echo. My Lynel couldn't reach her, but it made short work of her echoes while I spammed arrows at her since the enemies' dropping energy meant I didn't need to conserve it. I had already looked up that you give Link his weapons back so it's not like I needed to save energy for anything.

The inside of Null's body is just creepy. It's loaded with various objects from the world. Then right before the boss fight, Null eats Echo Zelda. I assumed that the echoes Null creates are extensions of him, but Echo Zelda is explicitly shown to be a distinct entity. And she was fully intending to sacrifice herself to a monster that saw his creation as little more than sustenance.

In a game that gives you a lot of freedom in the ways you can progress and defeat enemies, it is fitting that as a final boss, there isn't really a right or wrong way to fight Null. I assumed that I was supposed to bind his limbs so Link could slice them off. As the fight progressed, I realized that was just the easy way, and Link actually finished Null off without my help. I am sure that for lulz, someone has uploaded runs of the boss fight where all they do is avoid attacks and let Link kill the boss since as far as can tell, Link cannot die in this dungeon.

Regardless, I still found bind Null's limbs to be the fun way since once you do, Link stops whatever he is doing unless Zelda is under attack to kill the limb with a spin attack. It gives the best feeling of him and Zelda working together. In all, having Link as a help in the final dungeon was worth giving up the weapons I had so much fun using. Especially since he gets good moments in the fight. When Zelda is separated from him, Link's reaction to the limbs Nulls feels like he would channel Asura to say "COME ON!" if he could still speak, and after Zelda returns to him, we see the hero doesn't have a scratch on him.

I wish Zelda got a full speaking role in this game but even if she did, I wouldn't change how she and Link use the Triforce to destroy Null without saying a word. The abomination is making demands of them, and the look on the heroes' faces says that they feel Null's ineffective demands are worth acknowledging.

Tri's departure wasn't as sad as parting with Midna, but it was still an emotional scene as Zelda sees the companion who saved her life and helped save her kingdom and the entire planet go. Even with the more limited expressions on the less detailed sprites.

Echoes of Wisdom is a huge change from the typical Zelda formula, but it as made it all work. I hope Nintendo gives the princess another starring role in the future, or at least that we get a game where you can play as Link and Zelda together.