A small glimmer of hope (and feeling slightly vindicated) ft Lanterns.
Hi all!
For those of who have no idea what I'm talking about, Lanterns is the HBO live action series based on DC's Green Lanterns mythos, with a much more grounded interpretation. My focus today isn't really about the artistic direction or even general narrative of the show, but rather its finale, along with the audience reception to it. Spoilers below!
>!In the finale, the central mystery of who kills Hal Jordan, one of the Green Lanterns who takes on the role of mentor/paternal figure and deuteragonist of the series is finally resolved, and John Stewart, Hal's protege and up-and-coming Green Lantern who had been investigating his murder, decides to let his murderer (who was also Hal's romantic interest) off, citing "Hal [wouldn't have wanted the killer apprehended]". This is all in the context of Hal having just doing a stint of 10 years in jail for taking the fall for casualties caused mainly by the central villain of the story, and Hal's own recklessness (to a much lesser extent).!<
That was just a very surface-level gloss to provide some context, but needless to say a majority of the viewerbase on the Series' sub are rightfully pissed off, at least from what I observed. Even more interesting is the Defenders of the series (after the finale) are weaponising the same rhetoric and insults that us Part II Detractors have grown to known so, so well, such as "[Detractors of the show] are simply lacking in media literacy", "[Detractors] simply lack empathy >!for the murderer !<", "[Detractors] are simply babies who are crying because they didn't get the story they wanted", "the fact that [Detractors] are so worked up and talking about it so much meant that it was a good story."
Let me ask my fellow Part II Detractors this: does any of that look at all familiar to you? I wouldn't be surprised if it does, because I felt like I was watching the same thing unfold right in front of my eyes, except this time, it's directed at Detractors of a similarly divisive narrative decision! But you know what was surprising to me? The amount of ridicule and backlash towards those people who parrot the trite rhetoric spewed by the Stans!
I think I've said this before, but there was a time when I seriously thought, "wait a second, am I really the one who is wrong about how unjust and immoral the story of Part II was?", given how vocal and self-assured Part II Stans usually are, and yet to see Lanterns' (>!keeping in mind Hal's fate wasn't even as divisively written as Joel's!<) reception, where Defenders get mass downvoted and ridiculed for saying something such as the Detractors "lacking in media literacy" to defend bad writing is so fricking cathartic.
It's bittersweet, because Part II Detractors, especially this sub, has been unfairly prejudiced against by disingenous Stans, yet to see a much less divisive creative decision being derided as bad writing by a great number of "the general audience/tv viewers" honestly gives me some semblance of peace and a glimpse of hope.
Are the times when immoral and pretentious narratives masquerading as "high art" or "deep", where the very definition of justice is perverted in the pursuit of trying to paint every villain as "morally grey" or "sympathetic", finally over?
I'm not even sure why I made this post, but I just wanted to get my thoughts out, and I'm also interested in what some of you think, thanks.
TL;DR: S1 finale of the HBO Lanterns series missed the landing, and resulted in an extremely divisive reception (at least on Reddit); cue much of the same discourse (including criticisms and defences) levied at Part II.