u/sreisnyjr

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vQNYjgxfQLXGP3I6q8cdgFAfzybpxG3EadTY6Mro2rW97\_4LSiw1fcTfILhHbB5U45\_joyQfheaxYn8/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=60000

I wasn’t expecting an ARAM classic-ish mode to begin with so anything additional that Riot is giving is always appreciated, however I feel like they kind of dropped the ball in a way I wasn’t expecting.

I’m fine with the mayhem augments, as a matter of fact I like that addition to make it more diverse and casual, the map is interesting although I haven’t seen anyone utilize the different pathways, I’m sure that’ll change with time and I’m happy we get classic items.

My issue is that were are restricted to using classic champs but with their modern tool kits. We can’t even use the classic skins in the classic aram mode which is strange to me. I’m assuming we can use classic skins if we unlock them, but if it’s default in classic normals I also feel they should be default in any classic mode.

But my main gripe is the champ kits. By making us use the modern champ kits, it ends up just feeling like a slightly modified version of modern Aram mayhem instead of giving us a ton of new possibilities and interesting interactions with augmentations with the old kits.

I also understand that this is a temporary game mode but it would be cool if this or something like it stuck around permanently in classic, however without the classic kits, I don’t see many people opting to play this instead of normal classic or modern aram/aram mayhem honestly.

JJ Abram’s once gave a Ted Talk where he described his writing philosophy of creating what he calls a “mystery box”. It essentially boils down to this, people are going to be intrigued and engaged with a story if you simply provide a mystery to them. What the resolution is to that mystery is less significant than the feeling of curiosity or wonder you have when thinking about the mystery you are presented. Therefore, in his mind, a good show is one that focuses on creating these mystery boxes, and the actual solution or answer to the mystery is less important than having a mystery itself.

This philosophy of writing blew up most notably in episodic television with Abram’s’ Lost. Lost is of course an infamous show for this, whereby they presented mysteries that seemed like they were leading somewhere significant, and then the end of the show revealed itself to never having any plan of where it was going, ultimately creating a show which while the experience of watching it in the moment feels good and engaging, its ending and evident lack of care/logical resolution, retroactively makes the rest of the show worthless.

Due to its success however for its runtime, this philosophy was adopted by many writers and producers in television and movies. It infected films with Abram’s paws touching Star Wars, setting up mystery’s with the force awakens, and when Rian Johnson asked the producers what the plan was for the trilogy so he could make sure that his entry followed some sort of narrative consistency, they told him that they had none, so he made a pseudo-anti movie I believe as subliminal protest against this writing practice. Then they brought JJ Abram’s in for the last one and we know how much of a mess that was.

Most recently in television, we got Stranger Things season 5. While seasons 1-3 were obviously done on the fly, each season was decently self contained and built opin each other season well enough. It provided some answers to things previous and introduced new mysteries that were built upon. Season 4 is where they got ready for their conclusion. Season 4 introduced Vecna, and a whole bunch of new and exciting mysteries, potential answers to previous questions, and felt as though it had a much more deliberate direction for where it was going to go in season 5. Everyone was excited for 5 because of 4 and what it had promised us, but once 5 rolled around, almost immediately it was clear that they had no plans for what the answers to those mysteries would be when writing 4. To the point where there was numerous on the fly important story moments filmed as per the documentary, evidence that they were using ChatGPT for the writing and retroactively made the stage play canon to the story, which the Duffer Brothers had nothing to do with, haphazardly making it a part of their story. I don’t believe Netflix forced them to do that, they chose to do it, I think, because they couldn’t think of anything themselves.

From is now the current biggest property that is following this writing philosophy and I believe will ultimately come to the same failings those aforementioned properties did. While the show is not yet over and there is still much that can be done to address a lot of the unanswered questions or story beats, it’s very clear upon reflection that many things that have been introduced in the show will have no way of being properly addressed in a cohesive manner unless they hand waive it with a broad “it was all a dream” or “random manifestation” explanation, or even just flat out ignoring it.

I think it took 7 episodes this season for the writers to remember that Boyd had Parkinson’s. I don’t believe that Jasper was ever mentioned once this season so far. The ballerina? Who knows. Who or what was the Kimono woman and why did it only appear for Elgin? Who cares. How is it that past hallucinations by residents not require the blood of the man in yellow (who if I understand correctly, was never originally planned as a main antagonist), but now hallucinations do require the person to inject the man in yellows blood. All of this becomes a problem and more apparent as significant storytelling issues the more you think about the show. Let’s take for example the kimono woman.

The kimono woman has not been expanded upon in the slightest this season. She completely disappeared following the conclusion of season 3. If I remember right, there was some camera that could see the kimono woman or seemed related to her. Never heard about that camera again. But anyway, the kimono woman was a character that was presented to have some significance. She only appeared to Elgin, and played a seemingly significant role of the person ensuring that rebirth occurs for the creatures. Ok, great. But nothing related to her character or why she appears the way she does or why only appearing to Elgin, has been touched since her appearance. Now, the show sort of tried to do a general hand waive for any creature or occurrence on the show recently with the dolls by saying that when people die in fromville, the forest manifests their fears and makes it real. Ok, sure. So was there someone who died in Fromville who was really frightened by a shogun mummy antagonist in a Japanese knockoff of Rosemarys Baby? Or let’s just say that it’s a manifestation made by the forest to manipulate the residents into doing certain things, ok. Why then wouldn’t the forest try to manifest let’s say the spirit of Elgins grandmother or something to do this instead of a creepy kimono woman? That would make more sense if it was a baseless that didn’t need to be based off anything particularly and whose only objective was to convince a resident to do something. So the only conclusion I can come to with this character, is that they wanted to set her up as a creepy character, creepy and foreign look, creepy connection with the camera, creepy that only Elgin saw her, and said that they’d come up with an explanation for her later on. But when it came to writing season 4, they just kept putting it off or forgot about her. That’s a shitty way to write a story.

I’m sure there’s a lot more stuff I’m forgetting too, but throngs like that make it so that rewatching the show, or thinking about the show, becomes more of a frustrating experience. It also drives the fan base insane. You have people on subreddits making the most absurd connections to things that have little to no meaning, stringing together possible connections when they’re most likely things such as limited prop and wardrobe selection with like a painting in the background in two areas, while ignoring the glaring issues that have been unaddressed or forgotten like the aforementioned plot lines/events. I’m not asking for perfection here, but this idea that we can just introduce mysteries to engage people and then forget about them later so long as we provide new mysteries is disrespectful to everyone else working on the show and the audience themselves. The only reason I would rewatch From so far, is to pick out all of these inconsistencies, not to see how information learned from later seasons recontextualizes previous events or plot points. These shows cost tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars, thousands of hours of labor go into making it, the least they can do is have even the most basic planning of how things will go. You end up feeling like you’re not consuming art, but a product and that really sucks because I like almost everything else about the show.