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bonesingerofyme-loc · 1 year

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Scorch the earth like phosphex, son

In light of The End and the Death Part I being right around the corner and Garro: Knight of Grey having just released, here’s a repost of some thoughts on how moronic deluded irrational incapable of reading some Chaos fans are, here at the end.

There is a significant amount of what appears to be refusal among Chaos/traitor fans in accepting what Chaos is, even though it's been evident since pretty much forever.

The Horus Heresy, since it was just a couple paragraphs, was pretty clearly about how the traitors were duped, used, and dumped by the chaos gods all in the name of fucking up the Emperor and ruining the Imperium. Horus was abandoned by the Four at the last critical moment because it didn't matter anymore. They'd won the game. The Emperor would be a ruined husk, the Imperium would wither on the vine and turn into a bloated, monstrous husk that would feed them anyway.

The entire Heresy has been a manipulation by gods of hell. Nothing about this is debatable or even subtext. From the start, it was the Four wanting to fuck up the Emperor and everyone were tools.

It's a riot when the meme 'traitors losing, per usual' comes up in every Heresy and Siege of Terra novel. What the fuck is a win for the traitors? They're sworn to Chaos. They are being puppeteered by daemons. This isn't a clash of ideologies, this isn't a civil war, this is an extinction event for an entire species orchestrated by Great Old Ones from beyond the veil. This isn't fucking Grant vs Lee. Any win is a loss by definition - the end goal of chaos is to obliterate the materium and devour everyone.

There are no ideals to traitors. Lotara Sarrin, queen that she is, said it best in this book: she followed Horus because she wanted to. All of them dress up their reasoning in flimsy justifications, but it all boils down to, basically, fear and petulance. Fear of death or ignominy, or petulance at not getting what they want.

The traitors wanted to tear down the Imperium over a complete and utter lie, perpetuated by everyone, and hey, they fucking succeeded. The Imperium is dead and its corpse will live for 10,000 years. Horus said let the galaxy burn, and burn it did. They wanted to destroy the Emperor's dream and they did. They wanted to kill Terra and they did. They wanted to break the Legions and they did. They wanted to strangle the Imperium's concept of enlightenment and they did. The traitors achieved all of their goals, save one, which was conquering the galaxy itself, which wouldn't have lasted anyway because they all fucking hated each other and it would've fallen into internecine war immediately. The Cabal were really stupid, but that they got right.

It's a riot when 'traitors losing, per usual' comes up when the Heresy has been 58 books of the traitors running absolutely amok over the loyalists, massacring named characters left and right while getting off scot-free because of the imbalance of named characters in 40k. They spent 58 books tearing down the Imperium with barely any rebuke, and then have spent 7 novels murdering Terra and inexorably crushing every last point of resistance before them.

But because your favorite Chaos Champion didn't get do a sick ollie and blow up the Palace all by themselves, they keep losing, per usual.

I guess people just want bolter porn? Maybe that's what I'm missing? I don't know. I don't get it.

In the end, it's amusing when 'traitors losing, per usual', has been the expected canonical outcome in a pragmatic sense since Warhammer was Rogue Trader. Kind of the whole reason 40k exists is because the traitors ultimately did lose the material side of the conflict. Horus dies. The daemon primarchs are banished. The Scouring drives them all into the Eye.

But remember - even if the loyalists manage to eke out a brutal, pyrrhic, slogging victory, it's a stupid, nonsensical, totally lopsided loss for the traitors. I mean, Magnus only killed Vulkan hundreds of times and then shredded him into a semi-lucid skeletal thing with questionable cognition while Vulkan managed to banish Magnus for a period of time but hey, Magnus went down like an absolute chump. Sanguinius only was beaten to shit and back, skewered, strangled, and left barely able to stand while he banished Angron back to the warp for a time, but you know - total chump.

It's funny because by definition, the traitor primarchs can't lose. They are immortal. They last forever. They've had endless victories through the Heresy, driven by fate because their future is already written. But when Jaghatai sacrifices himself for a momentary victory over Mortarion, at the cost of his life and the loyalists losing a massive asset - Mortarion went out like a chump.

It's a funny kind of perspective, because it reminds me of the in-universe mentality of these characters, always complaining they didn't get enough attention and love, all while being actual immortal demigod superhumans with infinite power at their fingertips. Or like chaos fans, complaining they don't win all the time even though the whole series is about them winning nonstop for seven in-universe years until an 11th hour, barely worth it, catastrophic conclusion that is essentially a chaos win, anyway.

#warhammer #warhammer 30k #warhammer 40k #the horus heresy #the siege of terra #echoes of eternity #warhawk #saturnine #mortis #chaos #a novel is more than a sequence of events with appended tags to inform you of who is doing what #learn to fucking read #christ alive

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 1 year

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here

if(it == water){

Drink(this);

}

#stargate #stargate atlantis #teyla emmagan #i will not elaborate

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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still not apologizing

#house of the dragon #hotd 1.10 #hotd 1x10 #aemond #lucerys velaryon #vhagar #arrax #this scene was so fucking funny though

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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youtube

i do not apologize

#house of the dragon #hotd 1x10 #aemond targaryen #lucerys velaryon #vhagar #arrax #asoiaf #arrax deserved better #mid or feed #league of legends #get fucked moron #oh yeah spoilers i guess #shouldn't be on tumblr if you didn't watch it smh

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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if i had a nickel

for every time a queen with a dragon got a hair up her ass about BUT ITS MY KINGDOM(S) THOUGH and then fucked EVERYTHING UP i’d have three nickels

which isn’t a lot, but it’s notable it happened three times

it’s also apparently a trope i’m very into

#asoiaf #memory of flames #silver kings #house of the dragon #rhaenyra #daenerys #her holiness queen zafir of the harvest realm the silver city and speaker of the nine realms #george rr martin #stephen deas #lol you fucked up seven kingdoms? try nine new high score gottem #it wasn't her fault she caused the apocalypse #only mostly

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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I don’t really care about inefficient methods of making chainmail or how much attention they put into making sure they used the right thread counts for Aragorn’s underwear when they had none of that same apparent care and attention to detail when it came to the *actual content they were adapting*. Congratulations, you had a spectacularly dedicated art department and it was wasted on a film that fails to even satisfy the basic premise of being a *film*, let alone an adaptation.

Sounds like most movies people complain about, actually. All flash, no substance.

If you want to know what I mean by ‘can’t satisfy the basic premise of being a film’, I mean that they have little to no character development, establishment, or motivations, they drop plotlines left and right and change focus and attention rapidly and fail to deliver an actual satisfying journey for anyone. This I’ll go into detail on when I reply again to the above poster, which is taking a hot minute because there’s a lot to write about and substantiate.

I’d also note I don’t hate Jackson’s films entirely. While I certainly don’t like them as Lord of the Rings properties nor how they have dominated the public consciousness and I know they’re absymal as films, I do have a soft spot for them and I’ve watched them about once a year for my entire life. A human being does have the capacity for nuance, you know. If there’s anything I actively dislike or hate with a strength, it’s when people unthinkingly and uncritically give Jackson’s films a free pass that they would never be so charitable to any other film for. To be clearer: I mislike when people are not consistent, which ends up being the central point of my, and Djem’s, point. Consistency and unbiased applicability is what I aim for. Nothing is sacred. If something is bad in A, then when done just the same in B, it is still bad.

Okay, so controversial opinion, but the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies were absolutely terrible. Particularly as adaptations. Like, completely butchered characters and theme in every way that mattered. But they also played a huge role in my childhood/teens, and it makes me feel some type of way.

Like many, I was young when the LotR movies came out, and like many, they fill me with warm feelings of nostalgia. I still feel something when I hear the Breaking of the Fellowship, I still feel soft when I hear Concerning Hobbits. I still love Arwen’s dresses, and the Ride of the Rohirrim still gives me a rush. That Jackson pulled off something previously thought undoable goes without saying. And many of the elements were fantastic. The costumes, most of the armor, many of the set pieces, the music. Watching Fellowship will always make me feel warm.

But that doesn’t excuse the fact that, no matter how warm and safe those movies make you feel, they were terrible adaptations. The mere fact that they didn’t include the Scouring of the Shire shows that they completely misinterpreted the entire theme and purpose of the story. Add to that making Aragorn and Gandalf the main characters (they gave Aragorn this entirely weird and unnecessary story arc because he didn’t really have one in the books, which is like yeah, because he is not the main character and we are already at the end of his story), the fact that they spent the entirety of the Two Towers on Helm’s Deep and the way they turned most of the “creeping horror” scenes into “let’s drop 80 billion skulls from the ceiling bc it’s spooky right” and I’d argue it’s hard to disagree that the films pretty much butchered LotR.

Now, bear in mind that I’m not saying you shouldn’t like them. I suspect that most people who love them do so for two reason (or both)–either they bring up warm memories of a younger you experiencing the joy of a beloved story come to life on screen and the viewing of them now evokes warm feelings, or it was baby’s first fantasy (like the absolutely atrocious Game of Thrones for many a modern watcher) and it was just like wow. Whatever the reason, liking the movies isn’t inherently a bad thing. As I’ve said many a time before–just because you like a bad thing doesn’t make it a character flaw against you. But, and this is important, even Tolkien would agree that the Jackson movies were terrible adaptations–and we know this from letters written before his death, where he literally (and perhaps somewhat presciently) described scenes and adaptation choices he disagreed with (many of which mirror choices Jackson made verbatim–for example, he describes one script he read with the Weathertop scene (a near exact replica of Jackson’s, only many, many years before) and how it completely butchers the tone and feeling he was trying to evoke. He also says that if pressed for time, removing Helm’s Deep would be acceptable, bc it’s sort of a skippable battle that could likely just be mentioned in passing to focus on the parts that matter.)

So whether or not you like the trilogy is sort of irrelevant. Your liking of it doesn’t mean it was good. And to be clear, I still enjoy watching watching. I found most of his choices (casting, costuming, music) to be solid (though there are a few casting headscratchers) but his characterization is mostly awful, as are his changes. But I would never claim “this feels like Tolkien” because it fundamentally does not. Just read Book 1 of Lord of the Rings, and the difference is already astounding, tonally. And that is to say nothing of the way the themes of the story are sort of universally thrown aside.

But lately the primary comments I have seen from people who ~loved~ Rings of Power are three-fold: either people are haters bc they miss the PJ version of Middle-Earth, people are haters because they are racist incel men, or that haters don’t matter bc the good Sir John Tolkien himself would have cried in rapturous glee to see his works so loving captured and beautifully rendered onscreen. And they are all wrong.

Look, are there racists who hate it? I mean yeah I have no doubt, but I’ll also say that as someone who has been following this disaster from the get go, I find far more people talking about evil racists than…actual racist remarks. I’m not saying they don’t exist (those sort of people certainly do) but I also think it was a way of shutting down haters “people only hate bc they are racist”. Are there people who are disappointed that they didn’t deep fake Young Huge Weaving a la Tony Stark and make him play younger Elrond whilst hiring a virtually unchanged Cate Blanchett to reprise her role while they flitted around in long wigs and velvet gowns? I’m almost certain.

But by and large, I think people who are “haters” are haters bc either it was crappily done, or are haters because, and this is important, it’s not Tolkien. It’s a fanfic of a fanfic, and a poorly done one at that. It’s an AU if Middle Earth was a DnD land.

Rings of Power (love it or hate) is an abysmal adaptation of Tolkien. And it’s not just because they don’t have rights to 98% of what they need to make this story viable, it’s because once again, they fundamentally do not understand the underlying theme and vibes of Tolkien. Galadriel not being a Commander is important. The Hobbits (I know they are Harfoots, fuck off, they should be Fallowhides anyway per the source material they actually do have the rights to) are not. Gandalf if not even a minor player, Celeborn is a major one. Sauron isn’t a spooky serial killer haunting their dreams (although given they have no rights to Annatar I guess Steve the gym rat serial killer was the best choice). Elves keeping humans in permanent open air prison camps for generations never happened. Elrond would not have been dismissed from any council for not being a lord (given, you know, his parentage), Gil-Galad could never have even offered Galadriel a chance to the return to the homeland, and Findrod died in defense of Beren. Also, you know, the second age wasn’t about funny sit-com dwarves (a truly bizarre interpretation that everyone loves but I can’t figure out where it comes from since Tolkien dwarves are not even close to being comedic buffoons), bird’s nest wearing hobbit types, and weirdly blond Elrond being an architect and gal pals with his future mother in law.

So you can like it, it can make you feel all warm and fuzzy and yadda yadda, but please, for the love of god, stop trying to claim it feels like Tolkien. “Oh they used flowerly language” okay, so did Spartacus but I’m not out here claiming that Claudius Glaber made me think about Fingolfin. This is not, and will never be Tolkien. This is an antithesis of quite literally everything he would have imagined for this. Stop trying to justify liking it with fabricated claims. If you like it, like it, but lying to yourself helps no one. I’ve said this before (and I realize the irony coming on the heels of a post entirely about justifying why I hate something but you know)–not everything has to be justified. Maybe you watched RoP and it made your heart tingle. Maybe you watched it and made you want to vomit. (The latter seems more likely). But Tolkien it aint, and I think that people have a right to feel justifiably upset at what they did to the material, to the fact that this show is clearly a part of a larger Hollywood thinktank designed to print money and generate talking points, and worry about the long term impact on public perception of Tolkien. Because, and again, perhaps this is a controversial opinion, but the vast majority of people are going to know Tolkien via the movies, not the books. I literally know someone who was doing a podcast about their favorite stories and did an entire episode about Lord of the Rings, but only the movies because they had never been able to get through the books. That is a problem because while the books will always be there, public perception and knowledge of them will always be superseded by the alternate public perception. The Jackson Trilogy is proof of that.

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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when @djemsostylist hits me up to argue about the lotr movies b/c she’s far too busy with school and cough cough house of the dragon to give a shit

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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Oh, I’m cracking my knuckles. I was born for this.

So, not to appear too biased, I’ll refrain from calling PJ’s movies anything like ‘dogwater, awful, fucking abysmal or insults to the very concept of cinematic storytelling’. You can kind of just insert those as you go.

The first thing to note, is that @djemsostylist did not at any point recommend removing Saruman from Two Towers. At all. Not once. She voiced the same sentiments as Tolkien, which was that Helm’s Deep ought be cut if pressed for time.

To address this particular point, though, from your framing, which is to assume ‘cut Helm’s Deep’ is actually saying ‘Remove Saruman entirely from Two Towers’, let’s actually examine the role Helm’s Deep played in both works, movie and books. In the novel, Helm’s Deep was the focus of the selfsame titled Chapter 7: Helm’s Deep. It is also only that Chapter. 12 pages of a 248 page novel. 5% of the book. This is even including them heading to Helm’s Deep, so the battle itself is even less.

In the films, Helm’s Deep (including the travel to it) runs for an hour and thirty minutes, or approximately half the entire runtime of the film.

The argument might be made that Helm’s Deep was important enough to elevate to take up 1/2 of an entire film, except that it clearly was not, else Tolkien would not have recommended removing it entirely. Practically, it served to demonstrate the breaking of Saruman’s forces and his removal from the board, but practically this could have been accomplished any number of other ways.

The fall of Isengard itself is important, wherein a host of uruk hai could’ve been present and drowned by the Ents, halving the forces of Isengard. The other half could have been defeated on the field by Eomer, Erkenbrand and Theoden, instead of having a fucking warg fight that drug on for almost twenty minutes. This would efficiently accomplish the purpose Helm’s Deep fulfilled, narratively, without ballooning it into this titanic boondoggle that swallowed half a film, stepped on the battle of pelennor, and ate up screen time.

This is not an all-or-nothing game. This is making an adaptation, which Jackson failed at entirely. He set out to make a ‘best hits of fan-favorite moments of the Lord of the Rings movies’ and hey, I’d say he succeeded. But 12 hours of disjointed clipshows do not make good films or a good story.

Ironically, Helm’s Deep shows Jackson’s inherent clumsiness at film-making. As the middle movie of a three part series, a well-trod cliche is to have the middle film be something of a suspense or low point for the protagonists. This isn’t always necessary, but it can be a useful narrative tool going into the finale. Instead, Two Towers is entirely hopeful at the end. Gandalf and Eomer crushed the forces of Isengard. Saruman is defeated. Sam and Frodo broke through to Faramir’s better nature and set off, free and clear.

How does Two Towers the novel end? Frodo is captured by the Enemy and Sam is left alone. Pippin saw Sauron directly and everyone is leery about the coming war in Gondor. Even with the victory in Rohan over Isengard, the sense of celebration or success is muted.

A far better way to conclude Two Towers as a film was with Frodo taken to the Cirith Ungol and the looming battle of Pelennor over everyone’s heads. If not potentially even having the battle already begun and the gate about to break.

An adaptation should adapt, keeping the intention and feel of the story, the characters, and the overall pacing.

is a bit different than… [...] ... obsesed over the looming shadow and wanting to aimlessly stab things

Would it perhaps be something like turning a mature and middle aged man raised by an elven lord and groomed to be the King to redeem his family line, who was secure in himself and his purpose, ready to reveal his return to the world into an insecure, ridiculed and derided not-adopted son, who fled from his responsibilities, turned away from his purpose and, apparently, spent eighty-eight fucking years just twiddling his thumbs in the wildnerness?

That would be pretty stupid, wouldn’t it?

As would making said entirely changed character into effectively the deuteragonist of the story, thoroughly supplanting the actually important characters by scraping together a half-assed character arc that got mostly abandoned halfway through the second film, even though the withered remains of it still incongruously take up dozens of minutes of screentime?

You gotta point out why and how PJ was actually better.

It would be worth doing that, if it was true.

Instead, Jackson was just as bad as RoP, but in different ways. He ripped apart the character of Aragorn to shoehorn him into a lead role, even though that was never Aragorn’s purpose. He shunted Gimli into the farting charicature of a dwarf straight out of Faerûn. Legolas...well, Legolas wasn’t really a character in the books either. Sam was turned into a simple-minded yes-man whose defining characteristic was ‘the stupid, fat hobbit.’ Merry and Pippin were reduced to wisecracking morons who occasionally flirted with vague seriousness but without any intentions to actually commit.

He turned the hobbits (both main cast and them as a people) into cartoonish buffoons that check all the boxes of diminutive, offensive caricatures of the working man, which is weepingly hilarious because jesus, that is so fucking offensive to the point of Tolkien’s works and his view of the world.

Jackson glorified mindless violence, he luxuriated in nonsensical spectacle and he had absolutely no regard for any of the themes or meanings in Lord of the Rings.

Rings of Power is absolutely no different, it just accomplishes these offenses in different ways, tricking the viewer into believing it is some new scale.

Let me ask you this, as a summary of how butchered on the block of eyes-wide-substanceless-shit that the Jackson films were.

What was Sam’s relation to Frodo?

What was Sam to Frodo, and vice versa?

It’s a rhetorical question. The answer is nothing. There is nothing given for why Sam is so devoted to Frodo. He just...is. They speak once in fifty minutes of film in Fellowship, and this is passing exchange about Rosie Cotton. They speak twice in fifty minutes of film in the extended editions, and this is still about Rosie Cotton.

Do you know when we first find out that Sam is Frodo’s gardener, a fact that makes their entire ride-or-die relationship even more confounding? Two fucking Towers. Most of the way through.

Jackson’s films are absolutely barren of any character development, interactions, or motives. They are NPCs driven by the demands of the plot, shuffled from point to point as required for the spectacles to occur and then dutifully shuffled along to the next point. They aren’t real people. They’re props.

If anything, Rings of Power might get credit for actually giving motives to their characters, as idiotic as those motives might be.

How sad that is to say.

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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absolute state of the rop defense force

There have been two episodes - why are you complaining about the fact that they haven’t like, had Gil-Galad randomly remind Elrond of everything that’s ever happened to him?

I...what?

#rings of power #amazon #spicy dumpster fire

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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All true that we don’t know for sure these things

But my counter is the Awoken. They got a whole universe of safety for themselves, courtesy of Mara-the-actual-God, but still Mara and her followers chose to leave behind safety and immortality for the scrap of a chance at saving the human race because it was the right thing to do, even though they had no real idea of what they would find after leaving the Distributary. They knew they’d have no return and that it was a one way trip, but they took it anyway.

Secondly, the only way Neomuna and the Last City would be able to not know about each other is if Neomuna never ranged beyond it’s boundaries. Guardians and the Vanguard have been active for ~600-700 years and while the trans-jovian system is still mysterious and rarely travelled, you need only peek past Jupiter to see plenty of signs of life in the inner system. Not only that, but from a practical sense, with Golden Age technology that Neomuna is implied to have, it’d be a cinch to use a telescope to look at Earth or to see the system traffic of jumpships and Reef vessels. High albedo, energy-emitting hulls zipping around should be simple to sight with the wundertech that we know the Golden Age had.

Even if Nefele Stronghold == Neomuna and Rasputin wiped info about it, that only lasts so long as the info Rasputin has is the only time Neomuna has been recorded, meaning that they don’t ever step beyond their boundaries.

So yeah, any of those instances don’t really invalidate what I’m saying. The first premise is only possible if Neomuna never looked beyond themselves or ranged beyond their city - thus, still being insular little cowards who huddled in their clouds without a thought or care for anything beyond it. Second: it would mean that the Neomuna population and Cloudstriders are agonizingly uncurious and unthinkingly adherent to whatever this shadow cabal of government officials feeds them. Which would still mean that they are insular and never stepped beyond their clouds or really cared about the rest of the system. And third, again, can only work if Neomuna stayed completely hidden.

In all those cases, it still comes down to a behavior of shocking incuriousness, potential callousness toward the rest of the species, unconcern for history, apathy, and introverted naval-gazing.

I can’t think of a scenario that paints Neomuna in a good light, really. Manipulated by their own government? Pretty bad look. Stayed twiddling their thumbs at home? Pretty bad look. Trapped by the Darkness? Pretty big ass-pull, because thats both a: under the noses of the Nine and b: would be hard for the Vanguard to miss a Darkness manipulation of that scale. Knew about everything going on and turned inward out of fear of danger? Pretty bad look. Somehow came to believe that Neptune was the only place in the solar system? Pretty bad look for basic astrophysics comprehension.

It all reads to me like Bungie has a really cool new idea and is going to go with it, full bore, and isn’t really going to think through the logical effects of it. Wouldn’t be the first time, really, given the GIANT PYRAMID just chilling on the Moon in an open-to-the-sky canyon, the whole-ass pristine space station orbiting Europa, etc.

TL;DR Cloudstriders more like lamestriders amirite gottem haha burn

It’s an opportunity

for Guardians to learn from Cloudstriders, from their philosophy.

What philosophy is that, I wonder? The philosophy of hiding and watching the rest of the human race burn?

The philosophy of enjoying the technology and benefits of an intact Golden Age city while the rest of your species scrapes a living from ruins?

The philosophy of standing idly by while powers vie for the end of existence itself?

Go fuck yourselves, Cloudstriders. Guardians fought and Guardians died for the human race while you huddled in your clouds.

#destiny #destiny 2 #lightfall

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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XXXIV: MORE BEAUTIFUL TO KNOW

CALUS OVERRATED

SIVA OUTDATED

LONG WE HAVE WAITED

HIVE ACTIVATED

#destiny #destiny 2 #season of plunder #destiny 2 season of plunder #king's fall #oryx #the hive #we've woken the #hive #destiny 2 king's fall

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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It’s an opportunity

for Guardians to learn from Cloudstriders, from their philosophy.

What philosophy is that, I wonder? The philosophy of hiding and watching the rest of the human race burn?

The philosophy of enjoying the technology and benefits of an intact Golden Age city while the rest of your species scrapes a living from ruins?

The philosophy of standing idly by while powers vie for the end of existence itself?

Go fuck yourselves, Cloudstriders. Guardians fought and Guardians died for the human race while you huddled in your clouds.

#destiny #destiny 2 #lightfall #destiny 2 lightfall #cloudstriders #bungie #lightfall reveal

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bonesingerofyme-loc · 2 years

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There is a belief, I think, when it comes to consuming media, that a thing must be good to be enjoyed. And I think this is a fundamentally flawed way of looking at things.

A thing does not have to be good for it to be enjoyable, and a good thing does not have to be enjoyable. I think a lot of it is tied up in feelings; "If the thing I like is not good then what does that say about me and my taste? Likewise, if I don't like a thing which is good then what does that say about my intelligence?"

I'm of the opinion that most of the time, you don't have to justify a reason why you do or do not like a thing. Taste is subjective and arbitrary, and it really isn't a thing which you should have to explain. It also means, that while you are allowed to have your own opinion, it doesn't mean that it's right.

A thing may be both enjoyable and popular--that is consumed, watched, and discussed by many people--and still not be good. A good thing is a thing which is well written (be it movie, book, or tv show) and I think there are hallmarks of good writing.

It must have a plot that makes sense. I don't mean in a nitpicky "no plotholes allowed" way, I mean in that when you engage in the work, the story is clear from the outset, the plot progresses in a way which comes from a natural start to a natural end, and that when you reach the end and look back, you can understand how you got to where you are from where you started. A shock or twist should be able, upon to reflection, to have been seen coming, now that you have all the facts. Scenes or moments should not merely be written to make us feel an emotion if the previous scenes do not justify it. I should be moved to anger, or fear, or sadness, or joy and not feel like the author is sitting beside me, elbowing me in the ribs and waiting for me to "get" what they are going for.

It must have characters. Not a collection of traits, but characters which feel and act and behave like real people. Suspension of disbelief does not mean "it's just a tv show, don't think about it". Within the bounds of the world created, and within our own understanding of how people work, a character's actions should make sense, even if we do not agree with them. Their story and arcs progress naturally, again, from the beginning to the end. A character should not be changed on a whim in order to make a plot work.

The thing is, you could say "well all of those things are subjective" but I don't think they are. And I don't always think that the "popular opinion" is a correct one.

Harry Potter is a perfect example. I love Harry Potter. Probably always will. But Harry Potter is not good. Her worldbuilding is nonexistent, her characters are inconsistent, and it's clear that she didn't know where she was going to end up when she started.

Now, this doesn't mean Harry Potter isn't enjoyable. It is. And this doesn't mean people who enjoy it and talk about it and analyze it and write/read fanfiction or fanart about it should be ashamed of liking it. We like what we like, and if Harry Potter brings you joy, then cool. Have your joy.

But I do think we need to acknowledge when things are not good and why, and this isn't saying you need to justify yourself. But critical thinking and analysis is an important skill that is useful for far more than deciding whether or not a show is good or not. It's a way of critically examining news and history. And this is why I'd argue that it's important to have a balance of things which bring us joy and things that are good, if only because analysis and critical thinking are so terribly important.

This might lead into a long series on both writing and consuming media, but I'll leave with this. There are right and wrong takes on media. You may like something, but that doesn't mean that your interpretation is correct, and I think it's a mistake we make when teaching literature in high school sometimes. "Well, everyone has a different take on things, and as long as you can justify your answer..." No. Sometimes, there is only one right way to analyze something, and sometimes your view is wrong. It just is. It doesn't mean you can't like it, you certainly can, nor should you have to justify your enjoyment of it to anyone. Simply saying "I love this thing" is enough. But it also means acknowledging the flaws in things sometimes, and I think that's a good thing. Finding flaws doesn't always mean destroying a thing, but it does mean taking a deeper look at things.

But it also helps to look at the media we consume and say "Is it good, is it enjoyable, or is both" because they are not all the same thing. And I think it's important to know the distinction, and to have a mix in our daily lives.

#media #fandom #critical analysis #subjective vs objective

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