r/CharacterRant

Look, if I see one more boys rant im a scream

If you've been on the internet this past week, discussion of these two shows, Planetronika and Gameoverse, has been inescapable. Subs like r/hatethissmug have reached r/BatmanArkham levels of insanity over these two indie pilots. Not because of plot, or characterization, or animation quality, but because of the age-old debate that is by no means beating a dead horse and that you guys are not tired of:

"Is this show goonbait?"

You're already probably typing up a response. You're ready to tell me about how these shows are directly pandering to the male gaze and objectify the women in them, or how they're not sexualized at all and how every one of us needs to stop being so puritanical. You've seen all these arguments. You've probably lost brain cells reading them. You hate this discussion, like any of us.

So I'm taking this discussion in a different direction.

For the r/mendrawingwomen crowd, the ones who complain about gooners ruining the internet, etc., you guys are absolutely, completely correct about one thing. The designs of these women *are* sexualized. When a camera focuses on a woman's round and defined ass, or when a woman is shown in a bikini with lingering shots on her body, I don't know what else to say other than, that is definitely sexualization. It was drawn and shot with the express purpose of being hot and fanservicey. I know the response is "Yeah but it's a callback to childhood crush characters from the 2000's," okay well guess what those characters were trying to do. They were sexualized too. I think trying to deny that is only sending this discourse in circles, and I think the anti-puritan argument needs to at least acknowledge this truth.

Now, I'm a Nikke fan. So you probably know which side of the debate I fall on.

Which is that I see this sexualization, this fanservice, and my immediate thought is, "Hell yeah." I don't know why I'd oppose it. I like looking at sexy women, and I think everyone who's in support of this sort of thing does too. No, I don't think there needs to be a reason for fanservice scenes. I don't think it needs to justify itself. If it isn't clashing with the tone, or used to strip agency and characterization from somebody, I couldn't really care less. Nikke is largely known for women with huge backsides sticking their butts in your direction so you can watch the generous jiggle physics. And guess what, it has one of my all time favorite stories, in any piece of media. I see the fanservice as the cherry on top.

I want to emphasize, you are allowed to be uncomfortable with sexualization as a whole. And some aspects receiving criticism I think should be touched upon. I think we do need more sexualized men and more fanservice aimed at women, actually. I'm bisexual so I love that shit. I do actually think it's missed potential when every woman has the exact same body type and men get these diverse body shapes. What can I say, I think a talented artist should be able to draw varying body shapes.

As for the other side, yeah I completely get being defensive when people call a show or game or whatnot "goonbait". That's just a very extreme word that starts more discourse than it ends. Trust me, I'm a Nikke fan. I know what goonbait is. People are allowed to like media for reasons other than the TnA, and if that's all you're talking about... Aren't you objectifying the characters too? Like. There's so much to discuss when it comes to the writing, the characterization, the animation. When all we discuss is whether a bikini scene is goonbait, I think a lot is lost in the discussion.

TL;DR This goonbait drama is so damn tiring and I just wish we could acknowledge that maybe this situation isn't as black and white as it sounds. Sexualization does happen in media, and IMO, it's not really that much of a problem, at least theoretically.

EDIT: Okay nobody take this essay seriously. I used the word "preface" in the middle of it like a fucking idiot.

A common criticism of the show in the later seasons is that it went off the rails by trying to make itself reflect Trump and the MAGA movement.

Now, say what you want about politics in entertainment, but it's my opinion that if they had the guts to make it reflect MAGA accurately and make Homelander reflect Trump accurately, we would have gotten a far more interesting plot.

The thing about Homelander is he's not good enough a villain to carry five seasons by himself - but Vought is.

Homelander is not Superman. He has not demonstrated any real power or threat level onscreen that makes it seem like it would be impossible for a bunch of organized supes or even some well-equipped military to take him on if it comes to that.

The Vought takeover by Homelander should not have happened. Instead Vought itself deciding to steer Homelander into the take over the world path under the belief they can control him.

With Trump, everyone who pays attention to politics know that he's more the symptom than the cause. He's in power not because of any ability of his own at this point - in 2016 he had some charisma to pull people, but now the man is literally senile - but because he's being propped up by powerful people who wants to use him as a figurehead to profit.

Imagine Homelander using Compound V or Temp V or maybe an altered V1 compound to make himself stronger, but it ends up damaging his brain and body.

So we have a Homelander who is clearly deteriorating in mind and body, Vought handlers desperately trying to cover up - helped by fans who cheerfully deny the evidence of their own eyes and keep claiming he's the most powerful supe in the world even when he can barely walk on his own.

Homelander ranting nonsensically or going off on tangents that make no sense because his brain is turning to pudding while the mainstream media keeps sanewashing him partly because of Vought influence, partly because they also stand to profit by the ratings.

Instead of the billionaires going against Homelanders' plans, them openly professing great admiration while working with Vought to make their profits from the scheme.

This could also lead to the ideological split between the Boys - Butcher, in his revenge obsession, being so focused on Homelander that he can't accept Homelander is no longer the real danger, can't accept his chance for revenge was taken instead by his enemy's own idiocy and nature itself.

The rest of the Boys wanting to focus more on taking down Vought, which is being run by regular humans who create supes, while Butcher grows increasingly obsessed with eliminating supes in general and Homelander in particular even after it is clear they're the symptom and simply removing supes won't solve the actual danger.

Homelander stops being the main villain long before the end - he's being humored and handled, and he is still dangerous in a way someone with his powers, an army of obsessed fans and a deteriorating mind can be, but he's not the main villain.

It can also explain the Boys surviving this long - Vought can take them out if they can focus on them or send out competent supes or agents to handle them, but Homelander is obsessed with getting them himself. Vought hampered by having to keep their figurehead god-emperor pacified enough while stopping him from making an attempt himself that would reveal how badly off he actually is.

Vought and Homelander, along with Homelander fans who, unlike Vought handlers, really believe he's perfectly fine and playing 5D chess, getting in each others' way enough that Vought isn't able to spend as much effort as they would like on the Boys - possibly dismissing them as lower priority.

Homelander's actual death either of natural causes from the V effects or when Butcher finally gets to him he is too pathetic and addled that Butcher can't even get any satisfaction from killing him - or maybe Butcher treating it as a great triumph while the rest of the team think of it as more like putting down a rabid dog and knowing the ones who set it loose in the first place is still out there.

No joke, the Prequels are the worst because Lucas didn't do anything for those 20 years.

Look, I get that the Prequels are bad. They are. It's fucking legendary that they're bad in all the ways you summarize them. In my opinion, Rise of Skywalker has more watchability than Revenge of the Sith mainly because Hayden is Hayden, and Daisy is an actor.

But every single goddamn time I see people slander Lucas's work on A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi, I lose my shit so fucking hard.

His ex-wife Marcia Lucas literally said it was his imagination despite being involved with making it work. George Lucas wasn't just a film nerd who had respect from the big shots, he made things like American Graffiti and THX 1138 alongside her, and these films are...

...I never actually want to watch either of it because Ahsoka's design during his time. And Maron. But he helped make Indiana Jones! Yes he can a horn-dog and not that great in dialogue before, but he was capable of making Star Wars because he had it. And gathering and listening is also a part of his instincts.

But my point is that this is disturbingly obvious that Lucas lost a lot of that skill during the 20 years he did nothing related to the craft of films. He didn't do any film editing, didn't try to bounce onto shows until Clone Wars which was after the Prequels.

Like, imagine something as intensive as directing, and deciding to not work on that skill despite being a film nerd for 2 whole decades.

In the original Alien, the company wants a Xenomorph because genuine alien life is priceless. Makes sense, imagine the profits from synthesizing its turbo acid blood alone. 

Then the writers said nuh uh and now everyone at Weyland-Yutani wants to turn xenomorphs into attack dogs. Which is awful for more than two reasons but here’s two:

1. Aliens suck. Yes they are good for terror tactics / psychological warfare but when it comes to regular warfare you can just shoot them. 
2. Androids exist.

Point 2 is just downright hilarious to me. 

“We want a spooky 100% loyal killing machine that can infiltrate enemy lines.” Oh you mean the robots with super strength you already have access to? 

Ash passed as a human for what, months? He lived in close contact with space truckers and they thought he was, at worst, a reclusive jerk. Maybe he’s too expensive to mass produce for war. I don’t actually know or care how much a milk-powered Ian Holm robot costs, but it has to be less than 1/10th of the money-eating black hole that is the xenomorph domestication project. 

“Corporations are dumb.” “Satire and such.”

Yes I get it. But at some point you have to ask yourself, how silly is too silly? Speaking of camp…

I’m reminded of Resident Evil and Umbrella Corp. They had the same game plan of: 

1. Make monsters 
2. Kill civilians without destroying infrastructure 
3. ??? 
4. Profit

Except at least Umbrella was just selling lizard monsters as a side gig so they could fund their passion project of immortality or whatever. 

Weyland-Yutani seems interested in xenomorphs not as a means to an end but as the end itself. 

Conclusion: Make more milk robots you morons

Stan Edgar spent a whole monologue explaining to M.M and Us how capitalism is the problem not the supes.

So you would think after deciding to not commit supe genocide cause it's unnecessary to kill supes if something else comes to replace it, it would mean Hughie would now work to cut the infection from its roots but no no no instead of helping the government deal with vought and capitalism he rejects the offer and builds his own bloody private company.

For the uninitiated, great man theory is essentially a way of contextualizing historical events as the consequences of the actions of 'great men,' influential and powerful political figures. For example, this theory would examine WW2 as caused by the actions of Hitler and his cronies, instead of the systemic consequences of the Versailles Treaty, hyperinflation in Germany, and the effect of military propaganda. The theory is complete bullshit and unscientific, but it is very popular in the modern world - where events like Israel's genocide in Gaza are explained as the actions and policies of Benjamin Netanyahu, and the rise of fascism in America and much of the West is due to Donald Trump, Giorgia Meloni, Viktor Orban, etc. It is much more comforting for the common people to think that the shitshow in their countries is caused by individuals, and that electoral politics is effective because it gives them a chance to vote out the individuals from office. The fact that institutional corruption and systemic bigotry is the actual reason for a nation's failings is a much harder pill to swallow.

Homelander in the first few seasons of The Boys, was not a caricature or a parody of any singular political figure. His actions were simply extrapolations and often recreations of US imperialism in the Middle East and Global South and nationalistic propaganda within the US. Assassinations and blackmailing of politicians unfriendly to corporate interests, funding and arming terrorists in foreign countries, glorification of the military as liberators - all of these things are something that every US president since the end of the Korean War has done. Unlike the comics, where he is a parody of George Bush, or the later seasons, where he is a parody of Donald Trump, Homelander wasn't a stand-in for some political leader, and he was as much a victim of Vought's predatory corporate greed as any other character in the show. He was raised in a lab by people with no empathy, treated as a guinea pig to be turned into a weapon of mass destruction, given a false childhood and parents to throw up as a facade to the public. He grew up yearning for love from the people he idolized, and love from the people he was shown to be protecting. Essentially, an unloved child.

The first few seasons were also scathing critiques of capitalism, racism, and the US government itself. Season 2 devoted a lot of time to examining how capitalism consumes and bastardizes criticism of itself, through the way Starlight's status as a victim of sexual assault is turned into a vehicle for the 'girlboss feminism' parroted by Vought through Starlight, Maeve, and Stormfront. Stormfront herself is a character that examines the Nazism still bubbling beneath the surface of the country, she and Dr. Vought were brought to the US through Operation Paperclip along with dozens of other scientists and intelligence officers of Germany. How neo-Nazis like Stormfront radicalize seemingly harmless and non-prejudiced people through propaganda is brilliantly shown in the cold open of one of the episodes, a man shoots and kills an innocent cashier seemingly on the suspicion that he is a Supe in hiding, and a threat to the people, because of the bullshit Stormfront spews on social media.

All of this depth and subtlety is completely gone Season 4 and onwards. The writers, wanting to capitalize on the shitshow that the Trump administration and the MAGA movement had turned into, decide to turn Vought and Homelander into a parody of Trump and MAGA. Vought had initially been a deeply embedded corporation with Senators and Congressmen on their payroll and near complete control of the media, but now it is an insane Supe company on the fringes of the political spectrum, and it spews evangelical talking points. Homelander, an actually competent and somewhat intelligent villain initially, now cannot figure out any of the Boys' plans, and needs to recruit Sister Sage to help him. During Neumann's campaign, a Homelander who was unconcerned with intra-human bigotry and racism because he believed himself to be above the entire human race is suddenly concerned with gay marriage and abortion and trans people. Neumann, initially a deliberate play on pseudo-progressive politicians like AOC, now becomes just an average Republican.

The reason that Seasons 4 and 5 feel like there are no stakes to the story is because the writers are hell bent on making Homelander a giant man-baby like Trump who cannot do anything properly and is way too concerned with theme parks and films and TV shows about him. While he was a man-child in the first few seasons, he had characters like Stan Edgar and Stillwell and Vogelbaum who he had actual conversations with that revealed more about his past and his character. When there is no foil for him to bounce off of, he should not be as calm and composed as he is in that time, when he knows that the Boys are still planning on actively killing him. There is no reason he should be concerned at all about the presidential campaign.

The Season 5 finale is the best example of how this show had abandoned everything that made it compelling at first. The mission Butcher and the Boys had undertaken since the very first season was bringing down Vought AND Homelander. In the first season itself, their immediate plan was exposing Compound V and unleashing the CIA on Vought to expose all the dirty laundry. Only after that plan fails does Butcher kidnap Stilwell and try to kill Homelander. In the second season as well, most of their efforts are focused on bringing down Vought through other means. Killing Homelander was never the main focus of the story, because Homelander is simply a symptom of the problem, not the entire problem itself. In the finale, after Homelander dies, Vought goes back to normal, there are no consequences for their horrifying crimes in the interim, and somehow the Boys are happy and enjoying drinks and cigarettes, as if their job is done. Even Butcher, someone whose single minded focus was on ending Supes as a concept, seems satisfied until Ryan tells him to fuck off and Terror dies (from natural fucking causes, atleast have his death be caused by a Supe to make Butcher going off the deep end more believable). The climax is Hughie telling Butcher that killing all Supes is not a good thing to do, when the only good Supes we've seen in 5 whole seasons were a redeemed A-Train and Starlight. The incident that caused Hughie to join the team, A-Train killing Robin, was also a consequence of Vought's tentacles entrenched in every aspect of the country's institutions, if not the death of all Supes, then atleast the downfall of Vought should be something that he wants too.

The writers fell victim to the great man theory, just the death of Homelander is shown as solving all the problems the world has, and Hughie declines the offer to join the Bureau of Supe Affairs, when that should be something all the Boys want to do because they did not achieve their goal at all. Kripke apparently wants the audience to believe that if we just kill of fascist leaders, fascism disappears overnight and the country goes back to sunshine and rainbows overnight.

With the atrocious scaling of the final fight, though thematically appropriate, realistically should have Homelander fuck off at Mach 3 with no trouble, I believe the V1 gave Homelander to supercharge his powers for a short burst in exchange for debuffing him temporarily or even permanently.

The laser blast he let off at the end of episode 6 was orders of magnitude stronger than his usual beams, with the in-universe voughtintl post positing it to extend to the stratosphere and expand in width, and his subsequent laser beams lacked any kind of heat toward them.

He chokes out Soldier Boy with no difficulty but struggles to throw his teenage son who he ragdolled previously, break furniture or even make butcher bleed.

And lastly, he supercharged his speed and flight completely unnecessarily to throw knockoff Elon Musk into space, leaving him slower than Maeve doing her jumps in the first episode. Ironically, if he hadn't murdered Celon Tusk, he probably could have bounced pretty easily.

This is the most plausible explanation I can harebrain from the last 3 episodes, before Kripke hurls all over this in his next interview.

The discussion around The Boys being way too on the nose about Trump and Trumpism is just obnoxious. It’s either way too political or pandering for the sake of pandering. Like first of all the original comic book that the show is based on clearly had Homelander as an obvious political allegory for George Bush. Everyone thought of George Bush as a massive dumbass so the writer also made Homelander also a massive dumbass who’s equally as dumb as a piece of rock. 

Then there’s also comic book superhero characters such as Captain America punching Hitler in the face in his first ever comic book appearance. Some people would argue “Well it’s old history and Hitler wasn’t as relevant when the comic was written”. Like for some reason the vast majority of people seem to have a collective psyche that the first ever comic book appearance of Captain America punching Hitler in the face happened 100 years after World War 2 happened.  Yeah, here's the thing is that World War 2 was literally still heating up when Captain America was first published in 1941. D-DAY hasn’t even happened yet in 1944. Adolf Hitler was still alive and kicking before offing himself in 1945 which meant that the first ever publication of the Captain America comic happened 4 years before his death. In other words Captain America was super political for its time and had a clear message against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. They weren’t doing that shit when they had to make a fictional organization loosely based on the Nazis like Cobra or Hydra to be more suitable for the kids and the general public. It was just Captain America fighting Hitler and his Nazi regime. 

I really do hate this talking point that every fictional media out there are only justified with their political allegories if they’re only basing it off “old history” and not new or recent history. Like every fictional media out there, they always had to talk about the current political events that was happening during their time. Back then it was World War 2 before moving on to the Vietnam War. After the Vietnam war the vast majority of people then moved on to the Bush era and the Iraq War. What was relevant for their time is obviously going to be given the most attention than the ones from the past. So in our current era Trump and Trumpism is the number one issue of the day because it’s literally happening right now. 

So, I’ve been seeing this statement go around that Gameoverse was “a bad episode 1, but it’s only a pilot episode, and it’s a good pilot episode”. Technically, I’ve been seeing this statement since the Homestuck pilot came out, and it’s just staging a resurgence now, but it didn’t really make sense to me then and it still doesn’t now. Not because I don’t understand the logic behind the argument — I can very easily picture what a good pilot but bad episode 1 looks like — but because I just don’t think it’s correct. Like, in my head a pilot is a decently specific thing with some very particular goals; if I had to compare it to anything, it’s just a slice of the show. Not the first slice, or any particular slice, but just *a* slice. You try and get a little bit of everything in there so that investors and publishers know generally what, on average, they’re gonna be supporting. It doesn’t have to be the best episode and knock their socks off or anything, but it really just needs to get its ideas across. Thus, I want to establish that this isn’t purely debating on the quality of this or that, but specifically saying that, if I were to imagine myself as a hypothetical investor or studio head, this pilot doesn’t confidently convey exactly what I’m getting if I were to support this.

PREFACE

Just to declare my relationship with the show immediately, I did not like it, but I reckon my arguments are based enough in fact and the objective reality of what happens in the episode that this isn’t purely a product of my biases.

I should also say, I’m not certain I blame myself or the show for our incompatibility: it is simply possible that I am not in its target audience, and that’s fine. I will only say it’s possible because I’m not certain on what the target demographic actually is, which is in and of itself one of my larger gripes with the series. As a younger fella who grew up with games, theoretically I should be well-equipped to receive this series, but I found the writing juvenile, unimpressive and frankly quite poor. Alright, so it’s a show for teenagers, right? And we leave it at that, it just wasn’t made for me. 

But like, let’s actually look at the contents of the show for a second, particularly its portrayal of games and gaming. Its references to various tropes of games, or just games as a whole, are very clear to me, it’s very distinctly discussing the kinds of games I grew up with. Of course, it’s just episode 1 so there’ll be more variety later, but I think it’s a bold choice nonetheless to market to teens with, like, slightly millennial-core platformer references? I mean, Kit is based on Mega Man as an example, but how many teenagers *actually* care at all about Mega Man enough to get that reference? The latest game was in 2018, which was more recent than I was expecting tbh, but it’s still hardly a cultural touchstone that’s likely to earn much interest.

In fact, I can kinda act as a gauge on this, albeit one with a limited sample size, as I work with kids, and have spoken with kids in multiple places and around multiple age brackets, and as a younger fella they often try to guess what games I play when I say I do in fact play games. Here is a decent comprehensive on the most popular guesses:

• Fortnite — This is without fail always the first one that teenage boys will ask you about.
• Rust — This intriguingly is always brought up, usually one of the first ones. It’s reminiscent of when a boy asked me specifically “what do you grind?” when asking me about games; as though the idea of the linear game is slowly becoming extinct in favour of the infinite content generator in the minds of these kids.
• Lethal Company — This one comes up often and it’s kinda funny, cuz it implies the idea of a “Lethal Company player” has sort of solidified into a specific kind of guy to most kids. Like, not the idea of someone who *has played* Lethal Company, but someone who *actively plays* it as, like, his main thing. Do they imagine I play it solo or with friends? I’ve never thought to ask.
• Roblox and GTA — Not much to say with these ones, as it’s pretty evident why each of these would be guessed, and it doesn’t really say much about the way kids see games nowadays, except I guess the fact that Roblox isn’t ‘cringe’ anymore, and is natural enough to kids that they don’t baulk at the idea that an adult would play it.
• I’m not shitting you with this one, but Tetris — Yes, when kids run out of the first, like, five most immediate options, they will instantly assume you have emerged from a primordial era entirely separate to them and say the oldest thing they can think of, which is rightfully Tetris.

It is interesting to note that they never really ask about linear single-player games. The best anyone did was, after about twenty questions as a group of older boys and girls, someone guessing that I had, in fact, played Elden Ring. But, like, that’s not really a massive achievement is it? To have guessed I did indeed play one of the biggest games of this decade. You know, games like Mario and Sonic or Mega Man or even Pokemon aren’t really as embedded in the zeitgeist anymore — now obviously it’s not like these are failing franchises or anything, they still make tons of money, but they just don’t seem nearly as prevalent anymore. And, I mean, looking at the games they rattle off when trying to guess what I play, it’s not hard to see an emerging pattern: these games are all either free, free-adjacent, relatively cheap, or specifically GTA for some reason. Everything else is pretty accessible. Gaming is a pretty expensive interest nowadays: the consoles are only getting more expensive, and 8-year-old Mason’s parents might not wanna shell out $100AUD for the latest Mario game when they can just give him a $20 Fortnite gift card and make sure he can never access the credit card.

Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I think the target audience feels confused because O’Donovan is creating a show for *himself* as a teenager instead of actual teenagers, and so the show kinda lands in this uncanny valley demographic of, and I promise I tried to phrase this as diplomatically and gently as possible, adults who still mostly like stuff for teenagers.

Also, if I ever need to refer to the creatives behind the show, or personify the show, I’m just gonna credit that as O’Donovan. I know it’s not a one-man project, but he’s sort of gonna serve as the placeholder for the amalgamation of everyone in the writer’s room, even though I really don’t think I’m gonna be bringing the creators up especially often throughout this. I see most people refer to him as just Ross, but, like, I ain’t know him like that; it would be like if I just said “oh man I love Virginia’s ‘Mrs. Dalloway’” or “you should really read some of Thomas’ poetry”. Like, it’s weird, right?

Anyway anyway, that’s my preface, so upcoming is, like, the actual stuff relevant to the title of the post.

INTRO

Honestly, after having finally forced myself through it, it’s a pretty shitty excuse for a pilot as well.

The appeal and utility of the pilot is that you can use it to design, in essence, the nuclear episode. This is because it is designed for essentially investors, and so it needs to advertise “if you invest in this show, you’ll be getting something along these lines”. It’s not necessarily designed to be the *best* episode, or have a lot of super important moments, because these are things that don’t, and probably shouldn’t, happen in every episode.

Thus, a pilot is intentionally crafted to say overtly:

- “The show will look kinda like this”

- “An average episode might go something like this”

- “The overall tone of the show will end up being similar to this”

- “The show might have characters like this, this and this”

- “Those characters might interact with each other like this and this”

- And, in the kind of show where this is IMMEDIATELY necessary, “episodes may contain advancements to an ongoing plot like this, and those advancements may come in the form of this”, but that can be alluded to in very small things, like, I dunno, any reference to or minor demonstration of the idea of a looming threat that the protagonists are trying to overcome.

My issue with the pilot is… well, a lot of things. But I think its biggest failure as specifically a pilot is that it actually does a really poor job at establishing to the viewer, or potential investor, what the average episode of Gameoverse could look like. I’ve chalked the main issues up to being matters of structure, events and characters. None of these are perfect descriptors to define the exact ideas and phenomena I’m discussing, but they’re the best one-word subtitles I could give myself so that I had specific, concrete ideas to ground this discussion.

STRUCTURE - WHAT AN EPISODE LOOKS LIKE

As an example, this episode is split between an A plot, a B plot and a C plot. The C plot is Kaboodle training Snappers. To foreshadow a later argument, I can’t rightfully tell distinguish which narrative thread, between Syntax and Flappers progressing through the game and Kit and Gobbles doing whatever it is they do, is supposed to be the A plot or the B plot. One could argue that with a basic understanding of narrative structure, progression and tropes, it should be obvious our protagonists are the A plot, but I’ll discuss that later. 

So, the core issue with this structure is that it makes it difficult to discern as the viewer whether we should be expecting Syntax, or specifically these two, to be showing up and sharing half the episode *every* time or not. Because, like, that’s a huge time investment, and we’re *already* seeing the consequences of that, which I’ll touch on later. It’s one thing for the pilot to show us “here are our antagonists”, but it’s another thing entirely for the pilot to have given them the level of attention and focus that it did. I mean, I think they had equivalent screen time to our protagonists, which is frankly going to be way too much to manage in terms of the actual product, considering we have to balance that with our party of about four protagonists PLUS the context of whatever’s going on with whatever world they’re inhabiting per episode.

And again, this confuses the expectations of what the average episode is going to look like and contain. It would have been wiser to cut back on everything we saw of Syntax — for instance, don’t show us their perspective, save for the final scene where you want to establish their larger threat and goal, and keep them mainly in just the two main skirmishes in the village and Snappers’ lair, as this is still sufficient to establish their function and personalities. This will stop their established significance from ballooning and from it seeming like Fold and Miss Information are going to be vital to the flow of every episode, especially since it looks like Syntax is quite a big group and they’d likely want to use others in it for some episodes, e.g. Kit’s nemesis whose name I can’t remember being established.

EVENTS - WHAT ARE PEOPLE ACTUALLY DOING THROUGHOUT AN EPISODE

Then there’s the issue wherein the pilot also does a terrible job of establishing what the protagonist’s goals look like and how they achieve them. 

We’ll go back to my difficulties distinguishing which plot was the A plot and which plot was the B plot for this. The show gives us a very detailed and concrete explanation for what Syntax does: basically use the lil robots to pre-play the game, leak the best strategies to the hero in a friendly and innocuous way, beat the final boss. This logic is supported by the fact that “beat the game” is an easy to understand concept. However, on the point of “what our protagonists do in an average episode”, we have no real idea what to expect, and the pilot does a poor job of informing us. Part of this is that it’s unclear what the game-state they’re trying to create looks like — are the game characters just meant to live in suboptimal, villain-ruled conditions forever?

But there’s also the fact that, rather than the pilot showing us what our protagonists do to achieve their goals, the pilot instead shows us Kit and Gobbles doing *fucking nothing*. I am not kidding in the slightest, it is entirely up to Syntax to progress the plot, whereas Kit just shuffles between different panic attacks and Gobbles talks to a brick wall. Upon finally trying to do something by, like, two-thirds of the way through the episode, Kit and Gobbles both clearly have no idea what to do and, after trying nothing and being out of ideas, Kit just does the only thing that will probably get them all killed. After that they slowly make their way to where the plot is actually happening, do nothing of note, then they fail and leave. This is not me saying that characters being incompetent is a writing flaw, but that the writing flaw is that the show demonstrates exceptional conditions before establishing what the regular conditions are. I say exceptional to mean that I think Kit being paralysed by panic attacks is an exception to the norm, and that we should have seen the norm instead, i.e. what a mission looks like when it goes smoothly.

This is because the pilot tells tells me nothing about what I should actually expect the protagonists to do each episode, or what an average episode even looks like. The closest thing we have to a wincon is that Kaboodle trains Snappers, but the plot invests so little time and care into it that it strikes as tertiary and not the main thing we should be expecting to happen in an episode. Consequently, it can be argued that the pilot struggles to establish what the protagonists actually do and accomplish on a per episode basis, which, like, is kinda the most important thing for it to do? I think this would have been ameliorated by having the pilot be on a random other planet, and the protagonists succeeding by doing whatever standard protocol is for this thing, as they are, you know, an entire fictional organisation with logically some kind of fictional standards, training and routines. Just showing us what by the books looks like so you can subvert it or complicate it later would be fine.

CHARACTERS - WHAT DO YOU DO AROUND HERE EXACTLY?

Finally, it also does a poor job of establishing the characters and how they function in the plot of an episode and in the cast as a whole. The two biggest victims of this are Kit and Miss Information (boy I wonder what those two have in common), but Flappers and Gobbles also suffer from this. 

We’ve already touched on Kit but just as a summary of everything: taken at face value, the pilot tells us that Kit’s main function and personality trait in the show is to be traumatised. I am not even joking when I say that I think every scene of Kit, from when we cut to her to when we cut away to focus on someone in a different place, has at least one mention or allusion to her trauma, usually delivered in as clumsy and childish a manner as possible, such as the expository nightmare or the “KIT I MADE A PIZZA!!!” scene, which was so stupid and terrible that it felt like someone slid a YTP into the scene by mistake and single-handedly lowered my opinion of O’Donovan as a creator of any product. Like, I’m not even kidding, if I ever had to express my approval of him as a writer in a percentage, that scene alone would have resulted in a loss of at least one percent. If I had to list his pros and cons just that scene would be one of the points under the cons, it was that bad. But aside from that tangent, Kit demonstrates no real noteworthy characteristics beyond a standard “is nice and wants to save people” and having trauma, and she also seems to possess no real competence or skills in her job, to the extent that Gobbles is already running laps around her in that department despite it seeming like they picked him up, like, twenty minutes ago. She just, frankly, seems kind of annoying with her constant clumsily-handled panic attacks and is evidently bad at her job, so I’m left wondering why she’s our protagonist, and the pilot doesn’t care enough to give me a reason to be invested in her. An especially weird point is that it’s iterated, like, four separate times that Kit is only intimidating because of Kaboodle, and he’s actually the real threat. Like, I’m not the only one that thinks it’s weird to downplay the main protagonist this many times, right?

As aforementioned, Miss Information is the other biggest victim of the pilot. I said earlier that what Syntax does was well established, but I should amend that: it was well established what Fold and the little robots do. Miss Information on the other hand is entirely purposeless and vestigial, to the extent that there’s an entire joke about how she’s exhausted from just walking from place to place. That’s all she does. The robots get the information, Fold delivers the information, and she… tells Fold the information that the robots got? Why does he need her to look for him, why can’t he just do it himself? She has the vibes of the person on the radio back at base, except she’s on-site for some reason. I think they should have let her actually meet Flappers before the confrontation and have her participate in coaching Flappers in the montage (e.g. show her pointing out the obvious weak points or targets like a tutorial character would) so that she feels less aimless. Even in the big fight scene, she does absolutely and very genuinely literally nothing (except get tied up for one frame before she’s just standing around again), and she’s just a lady in a swimsuit so I don’t really have anything to go off of to imagine what she’d do in a fight. At least Kit has a gun arm, so I could imagine how she’d fight even if I didn’t see it. Is Miss Information even a combatant? And I’m not hard to please or skeptical about a woman as a fighter; if she kicked Gobbles really hard, like, once, I’d say “oh, she’s a good melee CQC fighter” or something and be instantly satisfied. Or you could give her a controller and say she’s controlling those little robots, and I’d say “well those robots are pretty important and so obviously she’s crucial to the mission”. Again, I’d accept anything, the pilot just gives me nothing. Now, technically, this could be an accurate reflection of the show, and Miss Information truly has no relevance beyond having a bit of a dynamic with Fold every now and then, but, like, well that’s a bit disappointing, isn’t it? I’m not gonna watch more of the show, but I still hope that’s not the case.

I also wanna touch on the point we’ve likely all seen about the costuming here. I don’t think it alone is evidence that the show is sexist or anything, but it is kinda boring, disappointing, and noticeable that *only* the girls have to change, and they *both* get swimsuits. Like, come on, dress everyone else up too. Gobbles visibly can’t swim so give him some little floaties on his arms or something. Make a joke about needing to laminate Fold so he doesn’t get damaged by the water. I dunno, you can do fun little things so it feels like everyone gets a beach theme instead of it just feeling like you wanted to make the girls show some skin. And don’t forget, costuming is an aspect of characterisation, or can be used for other things such as setting or comedy. Both the girls ending up in swimsuits dilutes the effect, so it says more about the creators than it does the characters. But imagine if, after seeing Kit change into a swimsuit, Fold turns around expecting the same of Miss Information, but instead she’s in a giant fish costume, because unlike Kit she’s a professional, and a human woman is going to stick out in a world full of fish regardless of whether they’re wearing beach-appropriate attire or not. And maybe she’s begrudging about it, or maybe she’s actually visibly quite satisfied with her goofy fish costume and gets really in character to ensure success — this would even characterise her as having something of a dorky charm. If you’re so insistent in not letting her fight, this could even justify that — have you ever tried fighting someone in a fish costume? It’s not fuckin easy. This tangent is just to say that the swimsuits aren’t, like, the reason why the show’s gonna fail or anything, but it was kinda the most boring and generic thing they coulda done.

Anyway, back to the characters, Gobbles also suffers from the pilot in that it fails to set the precedent of what exactly we should be expecting from Gobbles from now on. At the start he’s a juice-suckling moron baby who’s scared and can’t do anything right. Within our next two scenes of seeing him, he’s undergone a character arc and now *he’s* the one supporting *Kit*, and is a competent voice of reason and heart of the team. So, like, those are two pretty different archetypes, so I’m wondering which one of those is going to be the status quo. This is likely why no one has ever thought it would be a good idea to shake things up in the pilot before, because now I don’t know whether to expect things to unshake or they’re just like this now. And since a pilot is supposed to sort of be the standard, archetypal episode, is Gobbles going to have a character arc in every episode? Is Gobbles gonna turn to the camera and say “you know, I learned something today, sharing really *is* caring” after each episode? I dunno, it does a poor job of establishing what I’m supposed to anticipate in the future of when this is an actual series. My guess is that he’s just gonna be a normal guy now, and occasionally regress back to baby mode for the sake of the odd joke here and there, but that’s solely speculation.

I’ll also say his speech sucks, for a myriad of reasons you are likely aware of, but also for one that I don’t see many people bring up: the fact that, in isolation, it’s actually a really good and moving idea. Imagine, it’s way later in the series, the conflict is at its most dire, Kit is at her lowest, and Gobbles gives her his speech (hopefully with better dialogue this time), she asks him where he learned to do that, and he says from her. Framed like this, this would be essentially the culmination of the entire series, a reflection of all the ways Kit has (presumably) uplifted and supported the people around her, becoming a formative part of Gobbles character arc and maturation as he applies her same kindness and heroism back to her in her time of need. It would be satisfying and potentially touching. A real heart-of-the-show moment. But we can’t do that now, because we already did it, but worse and without substantiation. Technically, if this were a true pilot, this wouldn’t be an issue, as it would never see the light of day and wouldn’t be able to affect our perception of the actual product. Except this is a public pilot and probably also episode 1, so it’ll very obviously be reheated leftovers and the impact will be stolen if they were to try it again. It also just doesn’t make sense as is: Gobbles says he learned from Kit, but all she’s done is be stupid, ignore him, have panic attacks, nearly get them all killed and give up in that order, so I’m not really sure where he got inspiring speeches from that.

Flappers also struggles as a result of the pilot, but at least in a pretty simple way to grasp. As a later addition, he doesn’t really get to demonstrate his utility to or dynamic with the party. He still feels separate to them. This is the downside of being bound by the chronological events of the story. If the pilot was a hypothetical random episode, they could just create a situation where the gang’s all here, and can show us how they interact and function as a group. There’s also a bit of an issue in that it’s unclear how big the group’s gonna get. Like, is every episode gonna end with failure and then we recruit the hero? Or is this it? Like, I’m not the only one that feels it should be bigger, right? Like, the whole point is video game crossovers, and the best you could think of was a kid’s edutainment game, a kid’s platformer, and two characters from the same kid’s action-platformer? It just seems a bit uninspired and bland IMO. Like, does the whole universe take place specifically in someone’s Nintendo Gameboy? 

CONCLUSION

Anyway yeah, it’s a bad pilot too: Poorly establishes what the actual structure of the typical episode might be (unless this *is* the structure of the typical episode, which is worse); gives us no real indication of what our protagonists are supposed to do or how they will progress their goal in future episodes; struggles to inform us of what characters will do with their screentime in the future or how they will behave.

And, like, these aren’t nitpicks. These aren’t small natural flaws of a somewhat incomplete sample product, like “the voice acting is choppy” (which it is) or “I don’t know how everything works yet” (which, depending on the immediate relevance of the information, you don’t have to) or “I don’t like this character’s design”, it’s way more fundamental issues like “it’s unclear what the protagonists are even supposed to do” and “you forgot to make the main character do anything but freak out”.

I also wanna say that, while I think the pilot/episode 1 amalgam is kinda a bad idea conceptually, I don’t think it’s *impossible* to pull off. Like, I think I’ve noticed a tide shift recently in the perception of The Amazing Digital Circus, and be that as it may, I’m not gonna pin that on specifically the functionality of episode 1; while a more refined episode 1 would have been lovely, it is simultaneously capable of covering the setup of what an episode 1 would necessitate whilst not leaving me with any questions or concerns that a pilot would have addressed. So I don’t think it was doomed from the start or anything, but I do think it would be wise to start from a separate, proper episode 1 if the option is available.

TLDR:

Any comments about this being too long, any one word responses such as “ok” or “cool”, or any rants about how this is, like, the fourth day of this being a mildly relevant discourse and you’re already sick of it, entitles me to immediately destroy your balls. Sorry, I don’t make the rules. If you want an actual TLDR, it’s the conclusion section just above this; that’s more or less what a conclusion is after all.

To those who aren't caught up, the ending for The Amazing Digital Circus was recently leaked. At first, it was just the first 15 min and the ending scene. But no, as of late, the ENTIRE ending was leaked online. I ended up watching it... and yeah, it was horrible. To clarify, its not the SOMA being confirmed that I care about, I always felt it was obvious they were never going to escape the circus. It was nice we got to hear their real names and figure out what they're doing in the real world.

The problem is ding ding Jax. Its amazing how Gooseworx managed to write an ending for the character that will leave both fans AND haters disappointed. Since the 2 years I've been apart of this fandom, Jax has been my favorite character. Ever since he showed that expression of sadness before Kaufmo's funeral, I was so interested in where his story could go. Especially with him being the only one Pomni didn't envision grabbing her hand at the end too. After episode 6, I was especially more interested in what his character. Everyone thought he'd be the next to abstract and it very nearly did in Beach Episode, only for him to get saved at the last second. Episode 8 seemingly has him start to change for the better, as he accepts the group do care about him when Zooble accepts him and is willing to let Caine torture him as a distraction, as well as finally admitting how everything is "real"

And then episode 9 renders this ALL for nothing. Because he abstracts in the first 10 minutes, OFFSCREEN. Then the majority of the finale is Pomni going through his mind to try and help him, and it ends... with him abstracting anyways. Genuinely, what was even the point of him getting saved back in episode 7 if he just abstracts anyways? Moments like Pomni inviting him to join the group (which Michael Kovach confirmed saved him), Zooble refusing to let him wander off alone and abstract, Pomni's "Be here later", all of those mean nothing. What were little moments that beautifully portrayed how small acts of kindness can save a suicidal, struggling person now mean nothing because he just abstracts anyways. If the message of Jax was meant to show "you can only save those who want to be saved" then 1. We could've udnerstood that perfectly by him abstracting in episode 7 when he rejected Pomni and Zooble's attempts to reach out 2. Caine could have shown it perfectly with his ending.

But no, this is the 3rd popular show after Arcane and Stranger Things that ends with the suicidal main character ending their life in the finale and unlike the other two, there's no implication of a fake-out either, they just turn him into a dog and put him in a tent in the middle of the circus. The scene of him smiling as he was about to literally join his dead friends, the way he suffered horrific torture by getting skinned alive by Caine due to fear of showing his real self, all for nothing. Not only did Gooseworx confirm the Jax haters compalints of it being "The Jax show" but she also didn't even give the character a well-written ending for the fans. Just goes the predictable, generic route of "the character who spent the series running from his problems gets to take the easy way out". Most Jax haters said they wished he'd be confronted and held accountable for his actions rather than abstract and fans obviously wished for redemption. Instead of developing the other cast, most of the finale is spent learning off Jax's backstory AFTER he is already gone.

Even wore, this episode pretty much renders episode 8, hell episodes 2-8, useless because Caine, somehow, just returns at the end. And in the end, he realizes he was wrong about how he treated the players and chooses to give them powers to have control over the circus. And it ends with the cast eating together like at the end of episode 1. With the sole exception of Jax's fate, pretty much nothing has changed if we end in episode 1. Caine WAS capable of growth and improvement all along. All that had to happen was he do this and the start and we don't even get the series.

AGAIN, SPOILERS FOR THE BOYS

I’m not saying this is necessarily “bad”, just that I don’t like it. It might be bad, but maybe it’s been done well in something I haven’t seen, so I won’t make that claim.

YOU CAN SKIP THIS CHUNK IF YOU JUST WANT MY MAIN POINT ABOUT THE BOYS. I’ll put a Bold heading before the tldr/important part.

Some villains are just an evil bastard. They’re evil just cause they’re evil. That’s great! You can use them as just an obstacle, they can be a threat, or they can be a vehicle for themes.

Sauron is just evil. Palpatine is just evil. In both cases, they just serve as the thing to fight against. That’s great.
The Joker (typically) doesn’t have any sympathetic backstory. He’s just a crazy motherfucker. He’s terrifying and engaging and it works great.
Umbridge is less evil than those examples, but she’s still super easy to hate and isn’t sympathetic at all.

On the other hand, sympathetic villains can work great. Maybe they have a point, or maybe they are just tragic. Either works.

Killmonger has a point in Black Panther. He straight up convinces our hero. Magneto is sometimes just a nutso mutant supremacist, but he’s often portrayed as being right about humanity, even if he is too extreme about it. Thanos is wrong, but he thinks he is saving people.
On the other hand, you’ve got Darth Vader, or Macbeth, or Two Face. They are villains, but the tragedy of it is a fundamental part of their character. And, maybe they get redeemed, maybe they never get redeemed and that is tragic, or their fall is thematically important.

THE BOYS/My actual point

Homelander is not a redeemable character. He does unforgivable stuff (rape is more impactful than blowing up a planet in fiction), and it is a core storyline of the show of trying to kill Homelander.
But even so, he falls in the “sympathetic” side.
He is shown a couple times to have moments of “doubt”. Maybe it’s not significant, maybe it isn’t even proper remorse, but it is something. We get shown his backstory. We see an actual shot of a baby sitting in an underground sterile cell. We find out he was basically getting tortured/experimented on for his entire childhood.

Even if you don’t feel bad for Homelander, you should feel bad for the kid getting abused and tortured. Just like most sympathetic villains. You don’t need to feel bad for Vader, he did blow up a planet. But you should feel bad that his life went the way it did. You don’t need to forgive Magneto for like, idk, trying to blow up Manhattan, but you should feel bad that his life went the way it did.

And in the case of The Boys, this sympathy for Homelander is fundamental to the original themes of the show. Vought is the villain. Homelander is just a particularly dangerous product of the corporation. I mean, they literally have a “I was just following orders” moment.
Maybe if “John” had gotten to grow up like a normal person, he could’ve been more like Clark Kent. His son, Ryan, is set up as a direct foil to this. He had a mom who loved him, so he is strong enough to be good.

But the show just tosses that aside. Vought survives the finale, the big triumphant moment is killing the tragic manchild, and we forget all about the kid being tortured by the corporation.

If you don’t want me to be thinking about how sad it is that Homelanders life went the way it did, don’t show me it.
If you want to use the tragedy of it for something, great. But don’t just throw in a sympathetic/tragic villain for no reason.

This post is mostly just an endorsement for the show because - if you're anything like me - that title immediately made you think of a horny, male-focused story with a bland MMC and generic "waifu" FMC.

That second part especially, "Girl With the Short Skirt," (along with anime's general wierdness) made me assume 90% of the budget would be focused on upskirts. Imagine my surprise when I wasn't greeted with a single panty shot throughout the entire show... even if that's not a high bar.

In reality, the story's FMC is the main character, and it is actually an extremely cute story all together. It's primary themes (and it does have themes) seem to revolve around family, and as such, the main characters' families actually play a large role in the story. That's probably my favorite aspect of the show, and the title gives no indication that it's the case. At least the title "You and I are Polar Opposites" (despite being similarly generic) give an impression of the overall themes and conflict.

Honestly, I don't have much else to say. If the title turned you off as much as it did me, give it a shot. Also, what are some other cases of similar cases? Cases of titles giving you the completely wrong idea?

As an aside, the author generally has some odd titles seeing as his (arguably) most popular manga is called "Molester Man." No clue what it's about, but I'd be remiss if I didn't include that fun fact.

Naturally shows are going to generate more discourse while they’re airing, but the entire subreddit gets filled with posts about the pretty much the same few complaints. Just like the main subreddits for these IPs use megathreads to streamline discussion and insulate spoilers, r/CharacterRant should anticipate major releases based on prior activity to avoid this kind of scheduled over-saturation.

Okay so first off: I litterally haven't watched since Season 3 and only watched The Finale just because I wanted to see Homelander's death for myself. All of my context for the past two seasons has been second-hand spoilers and mostly complaints.

The result of this? The finale was incredibly enjoyable and a solid 7 out of 10, no major complaints. I didn't have a stake in it so Homelander never really going Scorched Earth was fine.

Butcher crowbarring Homelanders head open was very satisfying and Terror passing in his sleep, alone and without Butcher tugged on a random heartstring.

THAT ALL BEING SAID

The single thing that really made me go 'huh?' was the very last moment, the nice full-circle scene where Hughie has opened a radio-shack and him and Anne are having a baby was really sweet. But Anne flying while Pregnant did break my immersion.

The Boys universe has always had a certain practical 'realism' to its superpowers. A-Train can't dodge people, shrinking man expodes inside man's penis, homelander can't lift a plane

So you're telling me *flying* while pregnant, let alone full on Superhero-ing is going to be fine with no major consequences? It's a nice moment and would be really cute in The Big 2 universes (hell ATSV has a similar thing with Jessica Drew) but in The Boys?

That baby is D e a d.

The fallout show completely destroyed the setting of the West Coast in the franchise. People will say that it's been fifteen years since New Vegas, and that fans of the game, and the older games in general(1,2,3) don't actually want the setting to change. That's true actually, they don't like it when things that have been built up over nearly twenty years and multiple entries in the franchise are destroyed for spectacle, and shallow fan service.

The most obvious point of this is the fact that the Great Khans are still around fifteen years after the events of New Vegas. In NV, the Great Khans were essentially on their last legs and way past their prime as a force in the Mojave. They lost the Battle of New Vegas to the newly formed Three Families and House's securitrons, and got chased down and nearly wiped out at Bitter Springs by the NCR. In New Vegas they are stuck essentially in Red Rock Canyon as a proxy force for Caesar’s Legion, and the main supplier of drugs for the Fiends. Also, the Great Khans in most of their endings besides one where they leave the Mojave for Wyoming, they either assimilate into the Legion and lose their identity, side with the NCR and put on a reservation, die either through a speech check by the Courier saying that they never had honor or glory, or just dying out due to being on the losing side of the war in the Mojave. So why are they still around, and in Novac of all places? Red Rock Canyon is more defensible than Novac since it literally has one entrance most people would know about. And in addition, I guess they also turned the Dinky around too, since they can’t use that as a sniper's nest. And to add insult to injury they are stated to be in Shady Sands, but we see Shady Sands in season 1 and there isn't even a memento of Khans there. In fact apparently the Khans are such a threat that Lacerta Legate counts them as threats to the Legion alongside the NCR and Brotherhood of Steel. The only reason why the showrunners did this was to dangle a faction from the game to the audience and do a very cynical in house joke about the Khans nearly being wiped out by the fallout protagonist(The Vault Dweller, Chosen One, Courier Six and now Lucy and The Ghoul) but ultimately surviving by the skin of their teeth. On a minor note, they didn't even do the joke right, the Great Khans would be known by a different name just how their name evolves from the Khans/Khans of New California to the New Khans to the Great Khans.

Another example of this is the NCR. Throughout season one and two until the final episode its main very clear that the NCR hasn't functioned as a nation state ever since their capital got nuked, and that new settlements like Filly, and groups like the Knights of San Fernando are operating in core NCR territory with impunity and even wipe out Griffith Observatory's NCR remnants led Moldaver, and this defeat was framed as the last hurrah of the NCR. There is no mention of their other cities or territories like Arroyo, New Reno or Redding. Maximus in season one when at Shady Sands says “it didn't work out.”  In season two during a meeting between Quintus and Maximus a map of the West Coast can be seen, and it outlines the territories of the major players in the region. The two warring Legion factions and each of the Brotherhood chapters are on the map, but the NCR is not. And the Ghoul when talking to the NCR soldier and Ranger seen in season 2, tells them off and says it's been fifteen years when the NCR soldiers tried to appeal to the good the NCR represents and does. When the Ghoul goes to Camp Golf, it's clearly abandoned and left in ruins. But then during the finale, a magical battalion comes in and saves Maximus from being killed by the deathclaws. The problem comes in where the battalion is stated to be from the east, which is Legion territory. And if the Legion is still at war with the NCR they would fight this battalion and or make mention of them, and not be surprised by the Ghoul telling them that the two NCR soldiers are still the Mojave. Also how are they being resupplied, how are they maintaining their firearms and other gear. Whose paying them? The NCR isn't some holistic army, nor are they fantical like the Legion, so how was this battalion still a functioning unit after fifteen years without pay and resupply? Only Ymir Knows.

The Brotherhood of Steel has been reduced to the meme of them stealing toasters and pulleys for being too advanced for the average wastelanders and being hysterical morons. The Western Brotherhood is supposed to be a rigid, declining power whose traditions are killing them slowly while new powers like the NCR, Legion and Vegas are replacing and beating them. In juxtaposition to the Western Brotherhood is the Eastern and Midwestern who are largely successful in representing an evolution of the Brotherhood's ideology. The Eastern Brotherhood does allow outsiders to join their organization and will destroy technology they find to be too dangerous. The Midwestern Brotherhood does much the same to a more “liberal” extent by accepting anything with a pulse in their ranks, and forming a neo feudal empire in the Midwest. In New Vegas in Veronica's companion quest, no matter the Elder or the technology shown to this Elder, they never accept Veronica's idea of evolving, citing the Codex. Veronica says “we'll die” and the Elder will either say “I know.” or seethe about HELIOS ONE. Now with a fifteen year gap, and the NCR's decline, it makes sense for the Western Brotherhood to make a “comeback”. 

And it even makes sense for a chapter like the Knights of San Fernando to exist. But the show doesn't do anything too interesting with them, in fact it makes them comically stupid with them playing with LIVE grenades or not knowing what sex is. This chapter is supposed to lean more into the quasi religious reverence the Brotherhood has for technology, with their scribes being Clerics and Knights having Catholic and pagan influenced rituals prior to battles and being promoted to knighthood. But they allow a pristine car to be destroyed for shits and giggles. It would be one thing if the other schismatic chapters did that, and the Knights of San Fernando objected to it. But they did not. “Oh it's supposed to show how far the BoS has fallen” The Brotherhood outside of 3 were never inherently good guys, and only did good things out of what would be good for them. Even in 3 the Brotherhood shoots ghouls on sight, and wipes out most of the Pitt(which is fair enough). It would just make the most logical sense for a radical Western chapter of the Brotherhood like the Knights of San Fernando to care about technology. The other Brotherhood chapters are insanely childish in their beliefs(atheists essentially in comparison to San Fernando, robot fuckers and misogynists). The funny thing about the Coronado chapter is that their entire belief in not allowing women in their chapter is made fun of in Tactics. After the Brahmin Wood mission a tribal tries to convince his sister not to join the Brotherhood and lies to her saying that they only accept men. Also when Quintus summons the other West Coast chapters to plot against the Eastern BoS  the Lost Hills, the Mojave and Montana chapters are all absent. And apparently they have the manpower and intelligence to attempt to build their own liberty prime, have their Prydwens and wear T-60 PA cause I guess Brotherhood chapters having their own aesthetic is a no go. How is it the Eastern BoS from 4 needs cold fusion to fight their mystery enemy in the Commonwealth when in their ending the Institute and Railroad are both destroyed, and the Minutemen are led by Nate, who's also a Sentinel in the Brotherhood in their ending. So I guess the raiders with pipe pistols got upscaled.

For Caesar’s Legion, and Mr House/Vegas in general, they are essentially there for fan service more so than anything. The Legion is there for Hank to explain his idiotic ideology to Lucy and for Lucy to espouse the writer’s incest fetish(Imagine walking into a Roman larper camp where they are torturing people openly and arguing about who’s gonna get the rights to marriage with you, and you mention the fact you had sex with your cousins), and to set up for season 3’s conflict with the NCR. Though the problem lies in the fact that in the state the Legion is in, they shouldn't even be a threat really, they were playing King of the Hill over Caesar’s corpse for 15 years. Which is an entirely separate issue since Caesar dies in his bed after suffering from his brain tumor, and in which Lanius becomes Caesar. So where does that leave the succession crisis as portrayed in the show? Why is Caesar’s corpse in a ditch when he died surrounded by the praetorian guards and Vulpes? It would be one thing if the civil war was ignited by Lanius trying to get rid of the Frumentarii, since he has a disdain for their tactics, and Vulpes, being a snake and opportunist, revolts. But it's a general succession crisis that should lead to basically a warring states period for the Legion realistically. For House and Vegas, I don’t even know why he was brought back. He died "multiple times” to presumably the Courier which shouldn’t be possible unless the House in the show is Yes Man, but that would be completely dumb(since Victor is still up and running, and Yes Man wouldn’t need to larp as House lol). The Independent and House endings in Vegas hinge on the upgraded securitron army to be able to project force against the NCR. But it's very obvious that the securitron army is destroyed and not relevant since the Platinum chip isn’t mentioned, nor is Hoover Dam in season 2. Also the Strip is in ruins and House’s whole plan wouldn’t be able to put into motion, and since the larger NCR is seemingly also destroyed, which is another integral part of his plan for a better future. 

So at the end of season 2, the whole fifteen years cope falls apart since we are essentially repeating the events of New Vegas and I would also argue 3. Except this time the Enclave returned, since it's what Clara would have wanted. In another one of their super secret base in Colorado. The Brotherhood again is rebuilding a Liberty Prime, and will obviously be the one to fight the Enclave for a “Bad Meets Evil” moment in season 3. There will be a third battle of Vegas but without any of the actual reasonings for it like the last time. How would House project power and influence without Freeside’s support(who support the NCR for some reason even though they were basically a foreign power abusing them), and no securitron army? Why would the NCR care about the Mojave when their homeland is in ruins and they would logically have more support there(the NCR had a million citizens by the time of NV). So the only one with an actual reason to conquer Vegas is the Legion due to them wanting to honor the previous Caesar, and for Lacerta to gain legitimacy, but honestly that's just me writing for the writers. The show runners legitimately just agree with The Master on how there’s no hope for the wasteland, and threw away interesting ideas for easy fan service, and spectacle.

Christopher Nolan for better or worse is a director who makes movies with very grounded tones. When he made Batman movies he wanted to make the character as plausible and grounded in reality as possible and removed all fantastical elements from the Batman world (I’m personally not a fan of this approach but that’s another thing)

he has made science fiction movies (inception, interstellar) but they are hard science fiction.

All of this is why I am completely baffled that he would even want to adapt a story like the odyssey.

The odyssey is a fantastical story involving gods and monsters and is far from grounded, gritty and realistic (words I associate with Nolan)

Nolan is not a bad director, he has made good movies in the past but he is not the right person to direct an adaptation of the odyssey. This is the guy who wouldn’t even let joker have bleached skin

I just don’t think a fantasy story is his wheelhouse.

Game of Thrones was the defining TV drama zeitgeist of the 21st Century, so far. At its peak, it completely dominated pop culture in a way that very few pieces of media ever have. But its fall from grace was just as dramatic, going from the center of every conversation (at school, at work) to feeling almost nonexistent overnight.

At least, spin-offs like House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms have brought some life back to the IP, but it still hasn’t reached the cultural highs it had in the late 2010s.

What interests me most is the butterfly effect that finale may have had on modern television. The ending was so controversial that I think it fundamentally changed how studios and writers approach finales for massive mainstream shows.

Before GOT ending, we used to get bold, risky, divisive endings in shows like The Sopranos, Hannibal, The Americans, or even Dexter. Some worked, some didn’t, but they took swings.

Now it feels like a lot of mega-hit shows are terrified of upsetting their audience, so they default to “safe” endings instead.

We saw this with Stranger Things. The finale felt so safe and formulaic that half the internet convinced itself there had to be a secret twist episode somewhere (Conformity Gate). The band was literally fighting interdimensional beings, yet almost everyone walked away largely unscathed. Even Eleven, who was written as the sacrificial lamb of the story, probably ends up surviving. It feels like the writers just can’t fully commit to major consequences anymore because they’re too afraid of upsetting fans.

On the opposite end, The Boys recently wrapped up, and while the final season did kill off characters, it still never truly felt like there were major stakes at play. For a series that spent years presenting itself as unpredictable and anti-formula, the finale of The Boys ended up feeling surprisingly cookie-cutter and exactly like what everyone expected would happen.

I genuinely think the reaction to Game of Thrones scared studios away from ambitious finales. Writers don’t want to risk delivering an ending that gets hated for years online, so instead, we’re getting endings designed to offend as few people as possible.

I know we’ve still had some great finales in the 2020s, like Snowfall and Succession, but it feels like the truly massive, mega-hit shows that dominate mainstream attention are increasingly choosing to play things safe.

Spoilers for the finale.

Overall, the finale was incredibly rushed. I was shocked and awed when Homelander was killed and there were still 25 minutes left to do the Butcher Genocide storyline. Each half of the episode definitely needed to be its own episode. And they somehow rushed the episode without even using the Gen V cast, who somehow had to help the people from the prior episode even though they can drive themselves? Even the Peak’s death, while appropriate and what he deserved, was rushed. He went out too easily, when he can survive traveling that fast into the beach or severe water pressure.

It definitely felt like the season was anchored by the Vought Rising setup, and overall budget issues tied with the 8 episode limit.

They spent 2.5 episodes setting up Vought Rising, at the detriment of the season. If Bombsight was a legitimate hero who was grizzled by the world, and was tied into the main plot more such as helping to fight supes with Geisha with the Boys and then dying to Butcher’s final plan, then it would be fine. Instead, he is not or barely even mentioned after getting depowered. The tie in wasn’t a bad idea, but so horribly executed that it hurts the perception of the thing they tried to tie into. They could have made the Vought Rising tie in be the same episode as the Supernatural reunion, by having Marathon Man and Malchemical work with the Boys to find the V1.

If there had been 13 episodes, most of the issues in the season could have been fixed because there would have been more time to cover every storyline. While the Peak, Homelander, Frenchie, and Kimiko (might be contentious but I was fine with it) finished their arcs well, MM’s was abandoned entirely after episode 2, Butcher and Soldier Boy let flip flopping too much, and Hughie’s arc of not becoming like Butcher despite everything was only semi-explored.

MM’s whole story with Soldier Boy is to show how Butcher is going too far, that he is willing to work with MM’s Homelander. Soldier Boy is now sealed back into ice, not by MM, but by Homelander in a weird scene that felt like it undercut the potential tie in to Boys Mexico they’re planning. What’s the point of having the penultimate episode be called “the Frenchman the female and the man called mothers milk” if he’s the only one who doesn’t finish his arc (Kimiko became the ultimate weapon and Frenchie saved lives and got to tell Homelander the truth).

Butcher’s writing (Karl Urban cooked with every scene) feels like the one of the greatest disappointments with this season. Despite becoming Kessler at the end of the last season, he still shows signs of empathy. If he’s doing that, he should be dying from the tumor. They should have had his only moment of empathy be when he sees Lenny in UE and lets him shoot, and let every other moment in the season be his manipulations to kill Homelander or all supes. It’s also terrible that his genocide plan, which had been built up to since season 4 and his decaying morals since season 2, was resolved in less time then it took me to write this entire post.

But perhaps the greatest disappointment is how they tied into Gen V. They really didn’t even bother to make sure they got the third season before writing for them in this one. They set up Marie as one of the few who could fight Homelander, and she doesn’t even fight. Cate doesn’t even show up all season (except maybe as a cameo???) even though her powers don’t require CGI. They should have had more supes on Homelander’s side for Gen V to fight in the final episode, and explain that Marie can’t harm him that easily because of the V1, but her support allows everybody to be healed while fighting him and severely limits his speed to escape the fight. Why did they spend so much time on the Vought Rising tie in instead of utilizing the existing tie in?

The Boys season 5 had better moments then season 4 all throughout, a more consistent plotline. But it’s severely hampered by its episode count and its writing. I don’t know if Amazon or Kripke or both are the main reason why this happened, but if feels like they got the recipe to a killer Mac and cheese, but they used the microwave instead of the stove, changed the recipe so it can be used in a future recipe rather then using good cheese from a previous recipe, and then only used some salt for flavoring.

It’s not so bad it ruins the overall show, but I do feel like it will damage the reputation of the show and all future spinoffs. How can we be excited for Vought Rising? It can be as peak as Centuria or Land of the Lustrous, but we will only know that came at the cost of the main show.

A pushback against criticisms of controversial media that I hear a lot is some variation of "(x) controversial plot point fits the themes of the story" and while I respect the attention to the themes of a given work, most of the times this defense is tried it doesn't really hold up.

See while having themes are important to story's, they aren't the only thing a story requires. A story needs consistent and enjoyable characterization, it needs good pacing, it needs some tension, and it needs a basic respect for the audience's time and investment. Sacrificing everything else for poorly executed themes is like burning a forest to save a tree.

Now since I hate Vague posting here are some examples...

While there are many essays going over how CSM's ending lines up with its themes, I will just go ahead and say no matter what thematic point was trying to be achieve, it will never be satisfying to have your MC's entire story (the one readers spent years and hours of their life invested in) basically get erased from existence and rendered moot. To add salt on the wounds, this wasn't even Denji's choice, he just gets forced this ending without any in-put.

For the Last Skywalker, I get they wanted to hammer home the idea of failure being the greatest teacher, but they did it in the worst way possible. The Last Jedi took a beloved hero who was known to never give up when his friends lives were in danger and the symbol of what it means to be a Jedi and turned him into a failure that runs away from his mistakes. A story more befitting the theme was not worth destroying your 2nd most iconic character.

For Steven Univiverse, I get the main theme was redemption and Steven wasn't going to turn into the punisher, I get that and I actually love many kindhearted characters that want to see the good in others like Superman and Luz Noceda. The problem is that they had the 3 big bad main antagonists, that ruled over an authoritarian nightmare state that attempts mass genocide on the regular, and who created a superweapon out of the shattered souls fused together, completely switch their entire worldview in the span of like 3 conversations with minimal pushback. Imagine if Ozai, Bill Cipher, Belos, Voldemort, or Darkseid became good guys after a quick chat. Petty antagonists and bullies often need seasons of development to have them turning over a new leaf make sense and feel earned.

So while Themes are very important to writing, they are just a part of the building, and a plot point fitting thematically doesn't make it automatically good. When making a puzzle, a piece has to fit into the entire hole, not just part of it. Or for a cooking explanation, having the correct ingredients on paper doesn't mean anything if you burn it to a crisp while cooking it.