* Rahul Kohli.
* Daveed Diggs.
* Ramón Rodriguez.
* Nathan Mitchell.
* Aiden Turner, and (stay with me).
* Paul Jonas II.
> From the original verse of "It's criminal how...":
"They threw in my face
my bitter disgrace.
Tried to be sweet, put in my place.
No more nice girl, running this race,
covered red, red, red.
No more Miss Sweet, call the guards,
raise the alarm;
Sweet Queen of Hearts, ripped all apart.
Off with their heads, make 'em feel dread,
Raising red red, red.
...
Done with the sweet, pure affection,
watch my turnaround come.
Poured it on, made it hurt,
tonight I'll pay 'em back for all this dirt.
Wipe the pink, I'll paint this town
red, red, red, red.
...
I won't be the joke that they've always seen,
look into my eyes, see the wrath in me.
Paint it dark till all they see is now
red, red, red, red, red".
I've noticed a resurgence of these kinds of posts lately, talking about the different descendants of the same parent. "When will Hook stop having children?", "Why did they give us another child of Dr. Facilier?", "Yzma already had two children, and they probably won't even be mentioned in Hidden Heroes", "Why are they giving the Genie a new daughter instead of using Jordan?".
I understand where all these comments are coming from, okay? Don't get me wrong. But anyway, my point remains the same***: I feel that when you consider Hook's four known children, or Facilier's three known children, as canon, you're mixing three different canons***.
Before, several people argued with me that having three different canons was too confusing/ridiculous to even consider. But now, it has been canonically demonstrated in Descendants 5 that Descendants is a "multiverse"; that different realities exist, with different children of characters in each one. Not only that, but if the rumors are true, we will have Twisted Travel in the future, which will be a new story with an arc specifically focused on exploring different realities of this multiverse, and different versions of these characters.
So, why do I say that the three Descendants canons are different? Simply because they contradict each other.
So yes, in short, that's what I wanted to say. That's what happens when a universe as large as this one starts drawing material from various sources. In my opinion, the only thing that could truly be considered canon with the main lore of the films is the Royal Wedding short, and maybe the Locker Diaries shorts. The rest? We don't really have to believe that Hook had more than the two children we saw on screen (and even if he didn't, it's not like four children would be completely outlandish).
Having focused this franchise primarily on the children of villains, rather than the children of heroes (the seven new characters introduced in Descendants 2 and 3 were all villains, and none were heroes), it's obvious that at some point the available villains would run out, and the descendants would start to become related. That's the point of why Hidden Heroes will now focus on secondary characters. In my opinion, that's something they should have done a long time ago. But still! Better late than never!
Okay, first of all, I feel obligated to clarify that I DO NOT accept all the changes the show is making, and I'm aware that some of them make absolutely no sense. I know that, we all know that, okay? There's no need to go back to the topic of the shows' writers. Yes, we all know they're terrible, we can all agree on that. I'M NOT DENYING THAT. What I'm saying is something else.
I'm saying that, specifically the Nettles plot, I feel like the show would have wasted a lot of it, but simply because... there isn't much to "take advantage" of it.
And let me explain.
I started reading the book a few months ago, okay? Last year, I'd say. So, yes, I knew about the show first, but I also read the book. And in between (before reading the book), I heard a lot about this character. A LOT. So, when I got to the part about Nettles in the book, I was SUPER excited. Because I still had hopes of either seeing the character in the show, or at least seeing and comparing how they adapted her storyline with Rhaena.
So, in short, what I think is: I feel that the character of Nettles would only have worked as a character in the show for the READERS of the book. Which, when you're making A SHOW, isn't what you want to achieve. The plots of a show should be understandable, and they should stand on their own without needing to refer to the source material to understand them. To give you an idea, I know (I counted them before this) sixteen different people, combining two different groups of friends, who I know watch the show and with whom I usually discuss it every week. Of those sixteen, only four (including me) have read the books.
So, what's the problem with Nettles in the book?
The problem is that, while her character is important to the fact that the Blacks' dragons were claimed by bastards, Nettles herself isn't really important to the overall story. She's truly insignificant, if you think about it. When I read the book, I was very surprised (and disappointed) by how little relevance the character has, after everything I'd heard about her.
In essence, Nettles' storyline serves two purposes:
Now, why doesn't this work IN THE SHOW? Because in Season 2 of the show, we have six out of eight total episodes with Daemon locked up in Harrenhal, in a character arc that culminated with him swearing loyalty and fidelity to his Queen. So it wouldn't make narrative sense (for the show) to simply eliminate that two episodes later, only to send Daemon to Maidenpool for an entire season to take a new underage lover, separate from his Queen, and then simply decide to >!go and die!< when she forces him to show loyalty.
Yes, that IS consistent with Daemon's character.
No, that still doesn't make narrative sense for the show.
Because, as I said, Nettles is a character who would have been practically irrelevant to the show. What do I mean by this? That we have so little information about her in the book that the show would inevitably have had to invent content around her. And that would have generated hate, either towards the character or the writers. To make matters worse, all that hate would be directed at a character only book readers would be interested in.
And I'm speaking from the perspective of one of my groups of friends, with whom we usually get together on Mondays to watch the weekly episodes, and where out of the 7 of us, only 2 have read the book: currently, in Season 3, my friends who haven't read the book are NOT interested in the bastards plot! They're not, even though it's one of the most important plots of the Dance! They don't care about the characters introduced in Season 2 because they're all very poorly written, and none of them had any real development, or ANYTHING that would make non-readers care about them the way they cared about the characters in Season 1. Many non readers still think Rhaenyra/Alicent/Aegon are the leads, and they don't want to see "subplots" that don't concern them. And I mean, yes, they are the leads, but at the same time, watching a plot with Aegon lost in the Riverlands with Larys isn't the most entertaining thing to watch for people who don't know WHERE that character development is headed, or what their purpose is in watching it.
I'll give an example of another character from the show who I feel would be like Nettles, in the show: Sharako Lohar.
In the book, Sharako Lohar is nothing more than the Commander who leads the Triarchy at the Battle of the Gullet. Nothing more than that. However, in the second season, we literally dedicated half an episode to her, introducing her, giving her a storyline that in the book isn't hers or Lannister's, but rather Racallio Ryndoon and Alyn Velaryon's, playing in the mud and gaining the Westerian's trust, and ending the season with this huge, imminent battle where Lohar seemed poised to become a super relevant character... >!and then she literally died..., in the episode that was supposed to be the season 2 finale !< .
So why did we waste time introducing that character? That's what my non-book-reading friends asked me after watching the first episode of season 3. And honestly, I didn't quite know what to tell them, because originally, after reading the book before this season premiered, I thought Lohar's character would expand, incorporating more of Ryndoon's storyline, which, because it takes place in the Regency era, we wouldn't see in the show. But no, >!they just killed her off, and that was it!< .
So I feel like that's what would have happened if they had introduced Nettles: as I said before, the character is too small in her actual storyline in the book, so the writers would have had to invent and borrow plot elements from other sources/characters to expand her, at the expense of developing other main characters in the main story. And in the end, Nettles doesn't play a major role in the Dance. She simply leaves, continues her life the way Rhaena has been living it up to this point in the show, and isn't seen again until about five years after the end of the Dance, in a scene that wouldn't even part of the show, bc is too far in the future.
So, narratively speaking, I DO think it makes much more sense to focus Sheepstealer's plot on a character the audience has known since she was like seven years old in season 1, and who, while we've had her as a secondary character until now, we've seen grow up and is also the daughter of one of the most beloved characters on the show; a character who, by the way, many fans have been complaining about for the past two seasons neglecting his daughters. So it makes sense to put a familiar character in the spotlight rather than spend time introducing a new one who will inevitably disappear sooner rather than later.
Anyway, as I said, I know this post won't be well-received by the most dedicated readers of the book. Many will downvote me without even bothering to read this far. If you did, thank you for that. As I said, I'm not trying to justify many of the creative decisions this show made. No. Many were detrimental. And many of those decisions led to the show not having enough groundwork to introduce Nettles' character by the middle of season 2. It's all a cycle. The point is: with the foundation we had, having Nettles would have been counterproductive. Many are already complaining about Rhaena's storyline the way they handled it. Imagine if they had given this storyline to an unknown character (and a female one, since women are often the most attacked characters by the fandom). They would have simply destroyed her, even more than Rhaena. Because again, many non-readers still think this show is about the characters from Season 1. Many of my friends even argued with me that Fabien "probably decided to leave just like Otto" because of his limited screen time this season and the >!way Crispy died !< (even tho it was practically the same as in the book).
Imagine if this were at the expense of a character non-readers don't even know. It wouldn't work. This show is also for them, you fell me? Not just for the readers.