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someplace-that-is-else · 3 years

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‘Until We Meet Again: The 100′s Final Season--Wasted Potential or A Fit Ending?’

Editor’s Note: Spoilers for the last season of The 100 as well as past seasons.

I was surprised.

In the closing hours of the sixth season of The 100, the CW announced that it would be getting a seventh season. They also announced that it would be the final season.

What? FINAL season? Really?

The fifth season was a great season for the show with the six-year time jump, ending in another time jump that spanned 125 years and a new planet. The sixth season was an intriguing new world and storyline. It had been a while since it went hardcore sci-fi…A.L.I.E. in the divisive third season…the sixth season did it with ripe possibilities, plot twists, and…as was usual for this show…actual death. Labeled Book 2, I had been curious to see where the creator Jason Rothenberg and the writers would take us given Book 1 took 5 seasons.

But now? Would main characters Clarke and Bellamy (aka Bellarke) end the show together? Would humanity learn any better given they have survived at least TWO apocalypses? Would Octavia (my favorite character who had gone from the girl under the floor to Grounder to Skairippa to lethal Red Queen) get a happy ending?

With 16 episodes announced, there was plenty of time. Plenty of time to close out the story. My co-worker who was a big fan of course was worried. She grew moreso the closer it got to the time when the CW usually promoted. And…NOTHING.

A sign of things to come…or just paranoia?

What’s the Endgame?: The 100’s Serpentine Final Season Plot

I’ll say this much. I was intrigued.

At the end of last season, our main characters revealed to the people of the new planet Sanctum that the leaders they worshipped as gods were not. They used technology to transfer their consciousness into ‘willing’ people. After being that way for centuries, how would these people go on when their belief system had been revealed to be false? Some people were angry at being deceived. Others felt mad at Clarke and friends for revealing the truth, destroying their system of living.

Meanwhile we had Clarke and the others still dealing with the truce between them and the Eligius prisoners that were part of their crew now. Their leader Diyoza was missing, leaving the Eligius adrift. And due to the end of Season Six, Clarke’s own crew were on a slippery slope, thinking her ‘daughter’ Madi was still the Commander.

Four different factions. So many possibilities. They were possibilities that the writers appeared to want to touch on. And there was the question of…could they all get along? Be greater and better than the sum of their parts? Or was the last of humanity doomed to be in constant conflict?

Then there was the disappearance of Bellamy…

Ah! Bellamy. After being a co-leader with Clarke basically for most of the seasons, Bellamy found himself at the center of a new mystery. Moments after his sister Octavia disappeared into mist after being stabbed by new character Hope, Bellamy was full of questions about what had just happened. What he got was knocked out, dragged across the ground by people unseen, and then vanished into the Anomaly, a circle of light that was a mystery left over from last season.

What followed was several different stories. There was Echo, Bellamy’s girlfriend, on the hunt for the vanished Bellamy. There was the mystery of what happened to Octavia. There’s Clarke and Friends chasing after her as well as getting to the bottom of the Bellamy mystery. Meanwhile, there was Madi left behind, dealing with her duty versus a desire for a normal life. There also was the growing tension between the Eligius prisoners and the natives of the new world.

Because that was not enough, there were curveballs. Oh…that crazy Commander from the Flame, the symbol of the tribes united under Clarke? He possessed one of the last False Gods on this world. You had one of Clarke’s group Starscream-que Murphy and his lover Emori…also pretending to be Gods themselves due to a plot thread from last season. Diyoza and Octavia’s whereabouts revealed the origins of new character Hope…and a whole other world Bardo. And behind Bardo…was a loose plot thread that was seeded all the way back in Season Four. Oh, and did we mention there was a lot of time jumping, one prequel tale (aka a backdoor pilot), and world travelling a la SLIDERS.

It was not unusual for The 100 to throw so many ideas at the audience. But so many ideas…INCLUDING THE KITCHEN SINK? In the FINAL season?

Yes, a few of the ideas were intriguing. On their own. But all of them…together?

I could not begin to describe how many times I felt like I needed a cheat sheet to keep up with everything. And even then…there would be weeks where the viewers never saw a set of characters or a plotline. There was one case when one character was gone for weeks aka a long stretch of episodes. Worse given how important that character was to several characters, no one noticed they were missing.

Or the time jumping. There would be a plotline with a plot twist. Then the show would jump back three months. Then it would move a few weeks ahead to show another angle. Or when it decided to explain the whereabouts of Bellamy, it chose an episode where time passed and then it jumped ahead to the present, picking up a storyline from another episode. It was the very definition of whiplash.

At the start of the season, the writers pondered an interesting question. Was the last of humanity doomed to constant conflict…or could they be better than that? While the Bardo plot thread tapped into that theme, the show became style over substance. And that style…was smoke and mirrors. I thought that theme was being tackled with the four factions on Sanctum. Now? The writers gave up on it. Sadly.

By the time the writers revealed the whereabouts of Bellamy, most of the season was over. Worry kicked in. Was there still time to resolve the characters’ stories…or would it be…a rushed ending?

Speaking of which…

The Girl Under the Floor: The 100 and Natural Ends

Clarke. Octavia. Indra. Echo. Madi. Miller. The names go on and on.

Throughout six seasons, viewers have gone through the highs and lows with these characters. Viewers saw Clarke kill her first love Finn. Viewers saw Indra take Octavia under her wing, giving her a mother figure that she missed in her own life. Viewers saw Madi lose her mind. The Conclave. Praimfaya. Mount Weather. A.L.I.E. Characters had been known to go through it on this show. Things happened. People changed.

So near the end of The 100’s run, viewers wanted to know…how would their favorites end up?

What they got…AGAIN…was smoke and mirrors.

The writers appeared to be more focused on new characters than the characters that viewers had gotten to know over six seasons. In some cases, like Bardo native Levitt, it worked because he became involved with a character viewers cared about. In this case Octavia. Others like that Diyoza-lite chick had no connection to the faves, other than being annoying no matter how sympathetic she was written. Or worse, they were like Hope. A rapidly aged child of Diyoza, Hope was more whining annoying brat than a fighter like viewers expected her mother to be. Given more time, she might have become likable, but…there was no time.

And speaking of time…what of the old timers? The characters the audience cared about. So many characters have come and gone. Finn. Lincoln. Lexa. Jaha. Jasper. Clarke’s own mother Abby. Only a handful of the original 100 were left along with well developed supporting characters. With this being the last season, were they coming to a natural end?

Octavia was being dealt with efficiently as the writers highlighted the fact that she was on a path to redemption after two seasons of darkness and introspective healing. But what about Clarke…THE MAIN CHARACTER? After doing what she had to do for her people, what would her happy ending be…at peace with Madi, finding a new love, and/or finding a way for all humanity to live peacefully in such a way that the sacrifices were worth it? Or what of Indra…what end does she deserve as a warrior? What of Madi…would she choose a normal teenager’s life or the life of being a commander of her warrior people?

Off the top of my head, there were two characters who had quite a nice end. First there was Octavia. After the horrors she committed as The Red Queen and trying to make amends, she discovered redemption through the eyes of others who saw her through a different and fresh set of eyes. First, Hope who looked up to her as a mother figure. Then through the eyes of a complete stranger in Levitt who found her inspiring. She found the one thing that she had been looking for throughout the whole series: belonging and acceptance.

The other character was Murphy. The cockroach. From the ‘Starscream’ of the group to showing some sense of right and wrong. And along with Emori, they were the ultimate scheme team. Slowly, but surely there was love. Posing as false gods presented a new challenge for them…what happens when a scheme team is given actual responsibilities for people. And through this challenge, the viewers learned exactly how much Murphy had grown through the series as well as explored layers to Emori that we did not even know she had.

That was not the fate for all the characters we knew and loved.

Madi started off alone in the series, discovering love through her motherly bond with Clarke. And the constant debate of teenage life vs leader life has been a constant with her a la BUFFY lite. She was finally given a taste of what it was like to be a teen…then the plot arc of the Bardo people ended that. Abruptly, I might add. In fact, her fate felt like shock value for value sake given some of the other stories for characters.

Gaia appeared posed to be a long overdue love interest for Clarke. Not to mention that the writers were exploring more of her relationship with her mother Indra. Instead, she became the character who vanished for the majority of the episodes. Worse, NO ONE noticed she was gone.

There were several more instances of this (can we talk about the fact that while Raven got moments, she did not really have ANY endgame developments?), it was the main narrative characters who appeared to get the worst of this.

And nowhere was that clearer than with Bellamy Clarke.

Bait and Switch, or the Strange Case of Bellamy Clarke

I had always heard that you could tell how a TV show felt about a character/actor by how they were written out of a show. A recent example that came to mind was Charisma Carpenter’s character Cordelia Chase during Season 4 of ANGEL by way of a coma when all fans knew she was the heart and soul of that show.

Another example was the character of Professor Maxmillian Arturo (played with wit, humor, and intelligence by John Rhys-Davies) on the sci-fi show SLIDERS. Not only was he stabbed with a syringe that rendered him dumb, but he was shot and his body left on a planet that exploded. All IN THE SAME EPISODE. Yeah, no love lost between the actor and the people in charge during that show’s third season.

Which brings us to Bellamy Clarke…

Bellamy Clarke had been with The 100 since the beginning. A reckless bad boy except for when it came to his sister Octavia, Bellamy went from that to being a frenemy to other main character Clarke to being a good friend and co-leader (birthing the ship name Bellarke) to a capable leader in his own right. Along the way, he made so many mistakes. Bellamy clashed often with others. But he grew. And the time jump saw him get a capable girlfriend in Echo. His bigger drama would always be with his sister Octavia as they clashed as only siblings could clash, but there was always love there. So it made sense that he would want to know the mystery of Hope and how it tied into his sister turning into mist and vanishing.

But…he vanished himself. For the first half of the season, the mystery of his kidnapping was a plot. And then…during a shootout involving Octavia, Bellamy appeared to be blown up in an explosion. Granted, The 100 did not shy away from killing off a main character (Lincoln, Lexa), but it was so jarring to see it happen.

Just as bad as seeing Bellamy later…as a disciple of the Big Bad on Bardo. After a bottle episode involving a man vs nature theme (a theme I do not like and did not like in this case). And time jumping. AGAIN. Can we say whiplash?

And then…Bellamy was SHOT. BY CLARKE. Body…left…bleeding…on…the floor.

Can we say DOUBLE whiplash?

I was aware thanks to the co-worker who got me into The 100 that there was some off-camera drama going on. And because of that, the actor had asked for some personal leave time. So his filming was very, very limited. HOWEVER, I know enough after years of watching tv shows (the situation with the two actresses on THE GOOD WIFE for example) AND soaps to know two things. One…if a writer had an actor for a limited time, you wrote a complete arc. You also filmed as much as possible. And if you needed said actor back at the end of a show and was not sure if they would be available…go ahead and film a scene to insert in the last episode. It was what the fans that have followed a show for years deserves. PERIOD.

Two…the fate of Bellamy could have been written better than that. In fact, the writers were better off having Bellamy die in the Bardo explosion while trying to save his sister. That at least was true to his character and his complete arc on the show. If they had to do the disciple arc at all, there had to be some conflict over his loyalty to Clarke or his loyalty to Bardo. Allow the other characters to be conflicted, something the writers normally did not shy away from. Show, don’t tell the struggle. If Clarke had to shoot Bellamy, it had to make sense.

From what was shown, there was plenty of time for Clarke to get the book of Madi’s memories. There was time to just simply knock Bellamy out. And if Bellamy had to be shot, there was time to write in the fate of his body. To fans’ knowledge, Bellamy’s body was still laying there on the floor, bleeding out. To add insult to injury, FakeRussell…who was in the same scene…was in the next episode with no Bellamy mentions.

So let’s review. Bellamy was blown up in one episode. Bellamy was left on a world to fight nature on another. Bellamy was turned into a brainless disciple on another episode. Finally, Bellamy was shot dead by his best friend (who happened to be his wife IRL. How meta.).

Shows what the writers and creator feel about the actor, don’t you think?

May We Meet Again…?

Regardless of the management of the character of Bellamy, The 100 had another main character to deal with. Clarke Griffin had been the main protagonist since Episode 1. She had lost her first love, lost a great love, and made quite a lot of serious choices for someone so young. And given that the theme of the last season was about humanity and its way of living, it was a sure thing that Clarke would have to make another major decision. But…would Clarke get a happy ending?

Well…this show would not be this show…and Clarke would not be Clarke if she wasn’t put through it. My problem was that up until the end, Clarke was basically a cameo in her own show. That itself was an oddity given that she was the one focused on the hunt for Bellamy.

There was potential. From what to do about Madi to how she was coping with her mother’s death to some vibes between her and Gaia, Clarke had several things spinning in her orbit coming into the last season. And what was surprising was NONE of it was touched on.

And then…Bellamy was shot by her and Madi turned up brain dead in the service of the Bardo arc.

In the end, Clarke was with her friends. And she was happy. But…she was not with her daughter though Madi did wind up in a better place. She was not with anyone though a cameo from the actress who played Lexa in the early seasons was nice. And her mother’s death was not touched on…though that actress also made a cameo in the last episode.

Does Clarke deserve a happy ending? Debatably yes. But this season a happy ending did not at all feel earned. And it would be one thing if there was another season. However, this was the LAST season. Worse, was the central theme of this last season…a main theme of the show itself…answered? Did humanity learn to be better, or would they stay in constant conflict?

In the end…humanity DID learn to be better. Interestingly it took Octavia and Raven going to bat for humanity to make that happen. And that was after Clarke had again failed after making a near fatal decision for the rest of the group. After watching Clarke grow into a capable leader, I was saddened to see that in the end she felt like a footnote. As did Bellamy.

Well…I guess I could look on the bright side…Octavia got a happy ending. And a complete arc. So did Murphy. Raven proved she was also an important character akin to the many times that Bonnie Bennett had to save all the characters on THE VAMPIRE DIARIES constantly, usually at great sacrifice to herself. But Clarke and Bellamy…the actual main characters…well…

For a show to be told they got 16 episodes to wrap up plots that had been going on and characters that have been developed over 7 years, I would say it went out with a whimper. Given other shows with notice like HOW TO GET AWAY WITH MURDER and THE MAGICIANS went out with just about everything wrapped up fittingly and just about all characters serviced almost correctly if not outright perfectly, The 100’s last season looked like patchwork in comparison. Like the writers threw everything at the wall to see what would stick. Or worse…they got so distracted by what was shiny and new, they forgot about the characters that viewers cared about.

In the end, I guess the last season was like a sandcastle. It looked nice, but once the waves come in, it went away. So much potential…washed back into nothing.

#the100 #cw #bellarke #jasonrothenberg #octavia #finalseason #bellamy #clarke #sliders #charismacarpenter #angel #johnrhysdavies #arturo #starscream #buffy #whiplash #thevampirediaries #howtogetawaywithmurder #themagicians

#the 100 #cw #bellarke #jason rothenberg #octavia #finalseason #bellamy #clarke #sliders #charisma carpenter #angel #john rhys-davies #arturo #starscream #buffy #whiplash #the vampire diaries #howtogetawaywithmurder #themagicans

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rosecorcoranwrites · 3 years

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Klaus, El Dorado, and The Liar Revealed

Mediocrity vs. Cliches

Around this time last year, when we were young, innocent, and oblivious of the horrors of 2020, people in internet circles were loosing their minds over a movie called Klaus. You have probably never heard of it, but if you had, it would have been by stumbling across it on Netflix or from hearing a YouTube reviewer singing it's praises.

The main reason people loved it was that it was traditionally animated. In fact, it's director, Sergio Pablos, worked on several Disney Renaissance films, and it shows. The animation is gorgeous. The character designs are stylized and unique. What I found the most pleasing was the color palette, which I would describe as pastel watercolor. The film is set in the Far North, and the dour scenes feel cold and depressing while the heartfelt scenes look warm and cozy. The film was a visual delight.

The story? Eh, it was ok.

The reviewers I watched tended to focus on the beautiful return-to-form animation that we rarely see in the days of 3-D animated films while not noticing, or ignoring, that the story was kind of blah. It was a typical "rich-kid-layabout will get cutoff if he doesn't prove himself", with a heaping helping of "The Liar Revealed", which is one of the most annoying tropes in the history of narrative, but we'll get to that later. There's also a subplot that's basically the Hatfields and McCoys, and a randomly villainous matriarch who decides to keep being the villain because... conflict, I guess? Sure, there were a few original ideas—mostly involving Klaus's wife and the couple's struggle with having children—but overall nothing to write home about. The "feelsy" moments were unearned; I felt nothing.

Now, you'll notice that in the previous paragraph, I described many cliches, but I would not describe Klaus as cliche. I would describe it as mediocre. As I said, it was an ok story, but only ok. The problem was that it took its cliches and painted by numbers, which is why it could never rise above mediocrity. A film that knows how to play with cliches—not even necessarily subverting them, but just getting creative with them—can rise to greater heights.

Cliches as Genre: Road to El Dorado

Let's look at another gorgeously 2-D animated film: The Road to El Dorado. This film, too, is rife with cliches: Europeans being mistaken for gods by a non-western civilization, a witch doctor (basically), going native, the Leyenda Negra, and so on. It also features the cliche of two scoundrels going on what is basically a buddy-comedy adventure. The thing about many of these cliches is that they are part of the genre. That genre is as general as "Adventure fiction", where it's not unusual to encounter witch doctors and native tribes and such, and as precise as "Road to" comedies of Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, which El Dorado is unarguably a pastiche of. Simply read the "running gags" section about these films on Wikipedia and you have a blueprint for El Dorado.

And that's the point. El Dorado follows a number of cliches because those are staples of its genre. Cliches, contrary to popular opinion, are not only not an automatic flaw in, but are often essential to, a work, especially when those cliches are what make a story a recognizable example of the genre in question.

El Dorado, however, plays with it's cliches. Most notably, it portrays the natives as normal human beings, which, lets be honest, a lot of old-timey adventure fiction didn't do. Miguel, one of the two main characters, sees the beauty of the culture he and Tulio, the other lead, find themselves in. The "white men mistaken for gods" trope is also played with in that the chief of the tribe figures out rather quickly (or possibly always knew) that Miguel and Tulio are just normal men like himself.

Thankfully, the film never strays into noble-savage territory, which lesser stories stumble into in their attempt to make up for the racism of the past. The natives have personalities, flaws, and vices. Chel, the female lead, is a floozy and a thief who happily joins the con that Miguel and Tulio are pulling, which she sees through immediately. Tzekel-Kan, a priest of a human-sacrifice-loving religion, is not only a zealot, but also a murderer, in that he sacrifices his own assistant to summon up a Jaguar spirit to hunt down the two false gods (yeah, that happens. Seriously, if you haven't seen this movie, you're missing out!). The characters, both white and POC, are fleshed out and three dimensional.

Finally, there is the story itself, and it's conclusion. Let's compare it to Klaus.

Conclusions

For those who never saw it, Klaus ends with a Liar Revealed scene where the scheme of the main character, Jesper, is revealed, and all his friends frown at him despite him obviously having changed by that point. Then a chase scene happens so Jesper can prove he's really changed, then a reveal that there was no good reason for the chase scene to have happened, then the main character is forgiven for his honestly-not-that-bad previous lies.

The whole story boils down to rich-kid learns a lesson and opens his heart, giving up his richness for the true treasure of generosity. Unfortunately, a lot of that was derailed by the weird Hatfields-McCoys subplot, which felt cartoonish next to the heartfelt-ness the rest of the film was trying (and maybe failing...) to achieve. It felt forced, in that the film needed that subplot so the chase could happen, and they only needed that so the Liar Revealed could make up for his Revealed Lies. Bleh.

El Dorado was more organic. Miguel and Tulio, by the last third of the film, have grudgingly decided to go their separate ways, with Miguel deciding to stay in El Dorado (the city), which he has fallen in love with, and Tulio and Chel going off with a shipful of gold that they presumably sail back to Spain ("And buy Spain!"). These are not happy conclusions, as it means a break in their inseparable friendship.

But then, Cortez, the Big Bad, shows up! Note, unlike the Hatfield-McCoys in Klaus, he is introduced in the beginning of the film as an actual threat, and has an understandable goal: conquest and gold. Miguel and Tulio, knowing this, decide he has to be stopped. That's when Tulio—the objectively more greedy, in-it-for-himself, not-gone-native of the pair—realizes that the only way to save the city is to crash his boat into the columns at the city entrance. It's a good plan, but will mean that he has to sacrifice what he wants: gold. But he makes the sacrifice, because he has become more that just a guy lying about being a god for money.

But then the boat isn't going to make it fast enough because the sail is stuck! It's gonna crash, and not in the way they wanted! Miguel, who had fallen in love with El Dorado and was willing to part ways with his friend and treasure to stay there, as to ride out on his horse and jump onto the mast to unfurl the sail. He knows the ship will then whoosh towards the columns and the only entrance to his beloved city with be destroyed, stopping Cortez, but also blocking him from the city forever. But he makes the sacrifice, because he cares enough about the people in El Dorado to let them go, and enough about his friend to not let him smack into the columns and die.

The Liar Revealed: Why It's Bad

Those were the conclusions to each movie, but not the conclusion to this blog. We still haven't discussed why the liar revealed is so lame, and how to fix it.

First, what is it? Basically, Main Character lies about something—his motives, his identity, etc.—for a large chunk of the story, then somewhere around the third act, his lie is revealed! Usually, this means that all the other characters turn their back on him, literally and figuratively, because they can't imagine how he could do something so terrible. Then, he does something to prove his mettle and his heart, and then everyone forgives him.

And I hate it. I hate it for three particular reasons.

First, it is just a different version of the thing that happens in romcoms where the main couple should declare their love for each other, but because the writer wouldn't know what to do at that point, they introduce a stupid misunderstanding that could be cleared up in two seconds if the leads talked like grown-ups. The Liar Revealed is that stupid, tired trope, but for kids.

Second, the lie is sometimes understandable, or not even that bad. In Klaus, Jesper claimed to be trying to spread hope and good cheer by sending kids presents, but in reality, he was trying to rack up the number of packages/letters he sent to prove to his dad he wasn't a useless layabout. How... despicable? Is it though? And can't he do both? He literally did, and he could have said so, except that the movie pulled a romcom and he got seperated from his friends before being able to explain that it started out mercenary and then quickly grew into the real deal. Even if it hadn't, though, like... is wanting to prove that your not a gutless layabout a bad thing? I don't get it.

Third is when the lie might be bad, but it's too late to care. In A Bug's Life, the colony learns that the so called warriors that Flik brought them are actually circus performers, so they have a reason to be miffed. Then again, they learn this on the eave of the day the grasshoppers will come to murder them all, and as Flik says, his bird doohickey will work. Not only does the colony have no reason to doubt this, they have no better options. Get all frowny and turn your backs on him after you lose the battle tomorrow, cause you have no time for such romcom drama tonight.

The Liar Revealed: When It's Good

Now, just because the Liar Revealed is awful doesn't mean that we can't keep having liars who eventually prove that they've changed in our fiction. But we don't have to follow the same tired trope.

For example, Over the Hedge has the Liar of RJ the Raccoon be Revealed, but saves the fallout between him and the other animals for a later action sequence, with hilarious results. Watch Schaffrillas Productions's video “Why Over the Hedge is Surprisingly Good” for a more detailed explanation of how this trope is dealt with in this film.

Or we have Tangled, where Eugene, by rights, should follow the Liar Revealed trajectory. He starts off scruffy and selfish, then slowly falls for Rapunzel and her good and pure outlook on life. He goes to give the Stabbington brothers the swiped crown that he no longer desires, but gets conked on the head by Gothel, who tells Rapunzel that he left with it cause he was just using her. We have a misunderstanding; we have a Rapunzel sadly walking away from the "liar"; we have the trappings of the last act of a romcom. But then, the real liar is revealed: Mother Gothel! And as soon as Rapunzel knows this, she never doubts Eugene, because that would be boring and nonsensical.

Finally, we have Road to El Dorado, with two liars, Miguel and Tulio, who are pretending to be gods to get wealth and adventure. They change over the course of the film to care about something more. They prove this change in a climactic scene We have all of the Liar Revealed, except for the reveal. There is no scene where everyone in the city frown and turns their backs, because that's not needed. The story isn't about the characters earning the forgiveness of the community like in Klaus, or proving themselves like in A Bug's Life. It's about two dudes who are scoundrelly friends going on an adventure, becoming a little less scoundrelly, and remaining friends. In the end, they both gave up what they wanted, but that's ok, because they have each other. Is it cliche? You bet! But that's way better than being mediocre.

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itsclydebitches · 4 years

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Establishing an Ethical Dilemma: The Clone Wars’ “Downfall of a Droid” vs. RWBY’s “Gravity”

On today’s episode of Metas No One Asked For we’re going to talk about how The Clone Wars’ sixth episode “Downfall of a Droid” managed to do everything RWBY’s seventh season “Gravity” failed at.

(Apologies in advance for the very shitty picture quality.)

In each show we start off with an incredibly difficult situation: if Anakin and his troops leave then the Separatists will gain this area of space. If they stay and fight they’re likely all be killed. If Team RWBY leaves a good portion of a city will perish. If they stay and fight they (including that city) will most likely all be killed. Now, in comparing these episodes we need to acknowledge that RWBY is setting up immediate consequences whereas The Clone Wars is setting up long-term consequences. It feels like Team RWBY has less of an option to retreat because their immediate consequence is that a good portion of Mantle will die. It feels like Anakin has more of an option to retreat because the impact of letting the Separatists gain a foothold won’t be seen until later in the war. Those long-term, mostly invisible consequences simply don’t resonate with us in the same way that the deaths of large swaths of minor characters we’ve seen throughout the volume does. It feels worse for Team RWBY to retreat because we’ve seen the Mantle citizens on screen throughout the season. They feel more real to us than the nameless, faceless people who will die later on if the Separatists gain this advantage. But both situations require sacrifice in order to keep the war going and both situations require sacrifice in order to save the immediate people around you. Ironwood wants to save everyone in Atlas and the people he’s evacuated from Mantle. Obi-Wan wants to save Anakin, Ahsoka, and the who knows how many clones on these ships. Both situations ask the question, “Even if you’re personally willing to take a nonsensical, terrible, borderline impossible risk to save others, how can you doom those around you in the process? The people you’re speaking for - as civilians or as subordinates - do not get to make that choice for themselves. In the name of the unlikely possibility that you’ll save people in the future you’re taking the far more likely risk of killing others here and now.”

Despite taking up only six minutes of screen time (the real emphasis is on losing R2. This battle is just the setup for that) The Clone Wars manages to provide a more complex and balanced account of the ethics of this situation than RWBY managed in multiple episodes. It is made abundantly clear that, despite coming from a noble place, Anakin is in the wrong here. He’s trying to risk too much on the basis of nothing. He’s in the same position Team RWBY was in, just insisting loudly that they have to fight because it’s the right thing to do, and he’s called out for that by the story itself. Obi-Wan, Anakin’s Master and superior, tells him not to go through with this.

Ahsoka, his padawan, agrees. This is how you have a much younger, much less experienced character being better than their elders, by actually allowing them to act as the more mature party in a scene. If Ahsoka, who thus far has been characterized as equally reckless and desperate to push the war as far as she can as fast as she can, thinks this is a dumb move, you know it’s a very dumb move.

“Suicide is not the Jedi way.” We could also say that “Suicide is not the huntsmen way.” Doing the “right thing” means absolutely nothing in the face of your own death and the death of everyone following you. What have you achieved here? Satisfaction of some sort for being a Good Person? Congratulations, you can feel smug about that in the afterlife while ignoring the deaths/detriment to the war weighing on your conscious. Here Anakin’s superior and his subordinate call him out on this selfish behavior. He’s not a bad person for wanting to defend this sector but, as someone in a position of power, he does need to do better. He needs to make the harder choice here, prioritizing the lives he can realistically save over the Happy Ending he wants.

However, in the face of their criticism Anakin just digs in his heels and, to be frank, comes across as delusional at best, downright dangerous at worst. Again, despite this choice defending (some) others, he’s being selfish: “I can’t let them do that.” He’s prioritizing his own conscious over the logic of the situation and the lives of his men. And he’s appropriately called out for that too.

This is a flaw that Anakin needs to work on, not something heroic the audience is meant to praise. So far he’s in nearly an identical position to Team RWBY, insisting on a suicide mission despite everyone else around him laying out precisely why that’s a death wish and, therefore, a very bad move. Emotionally we understand why Anakin wants to fight, but the story reminds us that what we want is not necessarily what we (and everyone else) needs, even if it seems so at first glance. The generalized “defending this sector is a Good Thing” simply can’t hold up against the undeniable danger of choosing to fight. To him. To his men. To his padawan. To the war. Anakin’s noble desires mean nothing in the face of an impossible situation. He simply has no way to win.

The difference between this scene and RWBY’s - the key, crucial, AMAZING difference - is this line right here:

At the very end of the scene we establish that Anakin does have a plan. He’s not risking everyone’s lives on the illogical hope that they’ll win because they’re the good guys, he’s banking on an actual strategy he’s come up with. Now, in a show where this dilemma is more central to the story we’d want to hear precisely what this plan is and weigh it against the established dangers. However, as said this fight only takes up about 5 minutes of screen time in a 7 season show. This dilemma is only setup for the primary conflict of finding R2, so we’re able to skip the explanation and instead have the plan function as a fun reveal for the audience. How will Anakin get them out of this situation? We’ve already established that he can, now it’s just a matter of showing how. Unlike Team RWBY, Anakin is able to justify this choice to everyone around him. The people he’s asking to fight beside him and risk their lives. He’s able to prove that this battle isn’t as impossible as it seems.

Crucially though, even the audience isn’t investing blind trust in Anakin. Later on, his strategic nature is worked into the surrounding plot. We’re shown how good he is at coming up with plans, thus lending support to the audience’s belief that he’s truly come up with a way to beat Grievous here as well as providing in-world support for why others would trust him to this extent. Not only did Anakin provide a concrete, smart, doable plan to justify going on this “suicide mission,” he has a track record of using this sort of strategy successfully in almost every battle. In contrast, the last time Team RWBY implemented a plan was... volumes ago? They don’t use strategy to beat the Ace Ops. They don’t fight together at Haven. They kept hitting Tyrian head-on until they lost. The closest thing we’ve gotten to strategy lately is the Nuckelavee battle which amounted to “Hold him down so we can hit him as opposed to just hitting him.” There’s been very little lately to convince us that Team RWBY can get themselves out of tight situations via intellect like Anakin can. More significantly, Anakin didn’t just rely on his reputation as a smart guy. There was no, “Trust me because I’m just that good” which, again, is what Team RWBY demands of Ironwood: trust us despite our disloyalty and our lack of a plan. Trust us despite everything telling you you shouldn’t. Anakin has been faithful to his allies, proven his ability in the past, and - though it happens off screen - is able to lay out logical reasons for taking this risk. For all his playful arrogance, he knows he’s not going into that battle unless he can provide a persuasive reason as to why he’ll win.

Despite having a plan, despite successfully pulling it off, Anakin still makes mistakes and still needs a great deal of help from others throughout this episode. His impulsive move to go after Grievous means Rex has to rescue him and results in him losing R2, a MAJOR consequence for him. Later on, Anakin needs to be rescued by Ahsoka and Rex again. At no point does the story insist, “Anakin is capable of soloing everything because he’s one of the main characters.” Or worse, show us how much help he needs and then retconning it later (looking at you, “We don’t need adults” scene).

Anakin is not only shown to have flaws but exists in a story that continually calls him out on them, allowing him to grow. In his despair over losing R2 he starts threatening this ship captain. In a story like RWBY that behavior would be excused because the audience knows the captain is a bad guy. AKA, the sort of situation we got with Cordovin: it’s totally fine for Team RWBY to steal from her because she’s racist, attributing a connection between these two actions when, in reality, there is none. Here though, Ahsoka reminds Anakin that he can’t treat people this way simply because he’s upset/doesn’t like them. The captain acting like a slimy asshole does not justify threatening him with a lightsaber, in the same way that being a racist asshole doesn’t justify taking headshots at Cordovin and destroying her city’s primary means of defense. Here, The Clone Wars allows for even main characters to make mistakes and acknowledges those mistakes in a way that neither demonizes them nor acts like those mistakes don’t matter. Or tries to present them as heroic.

At the end of the episode we get to see precisely how much R2′s disappearance is still eating at Anakin,

but crucially he’s not risking his life, the life of his padawan, his subordinates, and the war efforts in order to search for him based on... nothing. Anakin has nothing here. Nothing to go on except his personal belief - “I know it” - that R2 survived and him hearing a droid beep on the ship. Which, as Ahsoka points out, sounded just like any other droid. Logically there’s no reason for anyone to believe that R2 survived and thus no basis for risking so much in order to find him. When Anakin is told to continue the war efforts, he does. He might not like it, but he follows orders. He recognizes that these orders are smart based on their current information. Up until there’s proof of R2′s survival, he can’t drop all his other responsibilities to go on an aimless search for him.

Why is Anakin heroic here? Because he has faith in R2 while likewise continuing his duties as a Jedi/war general. His conflict is that he wants to go looking for R2 yet knows that he can’t. He has a duty to those around him and he’s made promises he has to keep. A less responsible, less mature group - like Team RWBY - would ditch their superiors and follow that hunch of theirs, risking a great deal in the process, which the story would then reward them for by revealing that, of course, the character they assumed had to be alive actually was. But that doesn’t mean they were right to be reckless in the first place. Or that their faith was well-founded and not just denial. In the previous five episodes we have seen Anakin disobey orders, most notably in “Rising Malevolence” when he teaches Ahsoka how to do the things she believes in (like searching for survivors) without outright butting heads with her superiors. They find a middle ground. A compromise, searching for survivors in a pit-stop fashion and then agreeing to catch up with the rest of the fleet when they don’t find anything. It’s only Ahsoka suddenly sensing Plo Koon that changes their minds. Now, with evidence, they have a reason to continue their pursuit, disobeying orders in the process. Even then we end the episode with Anakin joking about how if he’s going to get in trouble for this, so is Ahsoka. Their easy-going banter implies that their superiors are level-headed people - they understand the emotional reasons why they searched for survivors in the first place and are no doubt persuaded by their reasons for staying - but they still disobeyed orders. That comes with consequences and everyone involved will shoulder those consequences together.

We get a similar situation regarding searching for R2 at all. Once again, Anakin’s personal feelings are at the forefront of his decision making. His emotional investment in R2 as an individual blinds him to the larger picture. Indeed, that investment is presented as both a flaw and a strength. Allowing R2 to keep his memory is a HUGE threat to the war effort and (again) Anakin is called out for risking so much. At the same time, Ahsoka establishes that this choice isn’t entirely selfish one - I personally want R2 to stay as he is because he’s my friend, no matter how many lives that risks - but a practical one as well. R2 having that information makes him a great asset, demonstrated beautifully when he’s chucking assassin droids out of airlocks (established as deadly a few minutes earlier) and R3, the newer model with faster computing, can’t even open a door. Admittedly, Goldie’s competence is complicated by him being a traitor. We don’t know how much was a mistake and how much deliberate sabotage. However, Ahsoka is still correct that R2 is far more competent than the average droid and that’s at least partly due to him developing via maintaining his memory. Ahsoka’s words invite Obi-Wan to weigh the pros and the cons here. Is R2′s assistance and his individuality worth more than the threat he poses if they lose him? Obi-Wan, who previously claimed he was “just” a replaceable droid, implies that it is because he doesn’t order Anakin to wipe his memory if he finds him. He may still order R2′s destruction later because, as established, they’re not on a rescue mission, but he is starting to see this droid as more than just a tool. The main take-away though is that the story skillfully creates a situation where, for a time, the same action feeds two different motivations. Obi-Wan wants to find R2 for the Republic’s safety. Anakin wants to find him because R2 is his friend. Here he’s allowed to follow orders while still doing what he feels is right and we get to see how happy that makes him.

Then when the situation changes and Anakin’s orders no longer align with his desires... he puts those desires aside. A least for a time. Because he’s a Jedi. He’s a general. He’s in the middle of a war that’s far bigger than himself. Obviously the story eventually rewards his faith/desires by returning R2 to him, but that’s not because Anakin immediately risked everything else in the process. He took no action until he had evidence that R2 was nearby, very conveniently held in the same place he was ordered to find. The end of “Duel of the Droids” is very explicit about both sides of this debate: Anakin did risk the lives of everyone under his command (indeed, two Clones died) and Ahsoka agrees that he was reckless in disobeying orders, even if it was done under the expectation that they’d finally found R2. Anakin pushes back that R2 is more than just a droid, he’s a friend, and he had faith that Ahsoka would carry the mission without him. We as the viewer can push back further with Ahsoka taking on Grievous alone and nearly dying: she never would have been put in that position if Anakin hadn’t left the mission to find R2. And on and on. They’re both right in regards to some aspects and wrong in regards to others, and still other parts have no “right” answer, providing a complex look at this highly debatable situation and allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions. For all his (uh, rather massive lol) mistakes to come, here and now Anakin is a great protagonist, someone who is heroic while also allowed to be flawed. To me that’s far more compelling than giving us “heroes” who continually harm others in the name of “what’s right” and only get by via the grace of the plot.

TL;DR: I’ve only watched six episodes of this series and already, from a writing perspective, RWBY could only hope to be half of what The Clone Wars is

#RWBY #rwde #the clone wars #TCW #Star Wars #mymetas

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keire-ke · 5 years

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What does Steve want?

tl;dr going back in time fulfills neither Steve’s narrative wants nor needs, because the former are too broad and the latter are negated by foreknowledge.

Aside from other reasons for disliking how Endgame ended, I find Steve's arc narratively unsatisfying, and it comes down to one simple thing: because what Steve wants to do and what he believes is right were always consistently the same thing, I never had the sense Steve wants anything except doing the right thing, and as such the absolute selfishness of leaving everyone to deal with the present and going back in time to get a life comes out of nowhere.

This is not necessarily the wrong narrative choice, but it also isn't one that feels like an ending of an arc that set a character up to face the difficult choice between the right thing and the consequences of the right thing (and never delivered).

Contrast with the beautifully clear and coherent arc for Iron Man: Tony wants to go home to a family and Tony wants to save everyone. We know this about him from very early on, and his story is consistently about navigating between those two wants, so when the choice comes to sacrifice going home versus saving everyone, we feel the gravitas of the moment. This is the culmination of his two warring wants, finally coming to fruition.

What does Steve want? What does Steve sacrifice on the altar of doing the right thing, what has he given up in his quest to fight for the world that he needs to reclaim to grow and be happy?

I honestly don't know.

He loses certain opportunities as a result of his choices, sure (e.g. being with Peggy), but losing things, especially opportunities, that you might have wanted is not the same as consciously sacrificing something, even opportunity, especially when those things are lost to snap decisions. There is no point at which the right thing is in question, versus the desire for something, in no small part because the right thing is always stopping the imminent danger, and not stopping it would likely also take out the thing Steve wants in that moment: in fact it is no choice at all.

Not putting the Valkyrie in the water was not an option because auto-guided missiles were threatening millions right that minute, not stopping Hydra was not an option, because if the war was lost there was nothing left to want, not fighting Bucky meant letting SHIELDra probably have him back and killing millions. Civil War comes closest to presenting an actual dilemma, but there was never a choice between things Steve wants and things Steve thinks are right: not letting Bucky be killed was the right thing to do and also something he wanted, not signing the Accords proved to be the right thing and also what he wanted. Argument can be made about the conflict with Tony, but jury's out on whether their friendship was sufficiently established in the MCU, at least from Steve's end. Steve never seems to have to choose between losing something he wants by doing what's right, or getting it by not doing it: what's right and what he wants are always intertwined.

It ties in with another facet of Steve to contend with, and that is his inability to not make everything his problem. That is a huge factor of how something drastic needed to happen before he stepped down and got a life, it is, in fact, the clearest example of what Steve needs versus what Steve wants. Steve can't seem to walk away from a fight: for all of his life he was doing the right thing because it was the right thing, which mostly meant fighting. This is not sustainable, and Steve needed to stop to some degree, but stop what, that's the question. Stop fighting all the time, certainly. Learn to enjoy victory, build something instead of throwing everything you have at a brick wall all the time. Learn to accept that there are things you cannot change, that you shouldn't change, because other people's freedom fucking sucks. In that light going to the past may be just what he needs, finally giving up control, giving up the illusion that if he just tries hard enough he will save everyone, because all of it already happened. On the surface that works.

However.

Learning a lesson like "you need to not fight sometimes" can't be "remove yourself from the world and all temptation". It is the narrative equivalent of an opium den. Retreat into a world where none of your choices matter, because all choices have already been made.

Leaving the world he saved would have worked, were he forced to sacrifice or lost that which made him fit in along the way, except that never happened. Time and again we are shown that Steve very much belongs in the XXI century, that he has a life there, friends, family. Even as early as the Winter Soldier Steve was shown to be very much at home in the 2010s. Occasionally it was lonely, sure, but so was Tony, so was Bruce, so was Natasha. Missing the people of his past is not the same thing as missing the past itself. Steve needed to make connections, and by the end of CAWS he did: he had Sam and Natasha, and the ball kept rolling. In fact by the end of Egg Steve has more people anchoring him in 2023 then he had in the 1940s.

The last thing is that we are at no point sold the idea that Steve truly wants anything concrete. He doesn't even particularly want to save the world, or at least doesn't view it as an attainable goal (with good reason – the world will always need saving, that is the price of freedom). Steve never seems to want stability, or a nuclear family, or security, or... seriously, what does Steve want from life at any given point? He says in CAWS he wants to do the right thing, but doesn't know what that is anymore, and that is resolved by the end. Steve never wanted to work for SHIELD for the sake of SHIELD, he just wanted to do his part and SHIELD appeared to enable that. That desire doesn't change. He doesn't give anything up, his wants and needs do not change, only the circumstances do, and even then they don't change enough for him to be forced to adjust his perspective.

Steve’s never been shown to be torn between “I want a normal, happy life” vs “I can’t stand by while evil is afoot”. If anything, his dilemmas tended towards “I can’t stand by while evil is afoot” vs “not standing by causes problems” (further weakened because he always ends up justified in choosing the former). Has this been resolved? Has Steve learned to pick his battles, to weigh cost and benefits of engaging depending on the situation? Has Steve learned to accept sacrifices in the great war against evil, or does he still consider sacrifices a personal failing that he needs to fix and or undo?

In the end we don't know, because we are not shown. Or told. All we know is that Steve existed consciously for another century, and either took the opportunity to re-do things that went wrong the first time (not great in terms of accepting and honouring the sacrifices of people who fought the first time, and also not a retirement), or sat back and not only let evil flourish, but watched his beloved wife take pride in building the place where he knew it flourished (…yikes).

…yeah, I'm gonna guess: no. Steve didn't learn.

There is one candidate for want: Egg tries to sell the idea that it’s Peggy, Peggy personally, which... okay, I buy that Peggy was the singular person with whom Steve ever dreamed of being, so being with Peggy, alright. That’s not nothing. That is a very clearly defined want.

(would help if we knew Peggy spent her whole life waiting for Steve to come back because he was the One Man who could make her happy. Nothing weakens that ending quite like the knowledge that the woman has been regressed into the desired prize)

But it’s also not much, considering Steve is never shown to want the things that going back to be with a woman usually represents, like home and stability and “life”. AoU was a golden opportunity to have Steve wistfully look at children running around a farm and be like “ah, that’s the dream”, but he just looks bemused. So the "want" is just Peggy, the specific person, however here is the final kick: Peggy-the-person represented something when Steve knew her in the 40s: she was the kindred spirit that believed in the same things and validated his wants, because those were the same things she wanted. They both believed in doing the right thing no matter the cost, standing up to bullies, being true to yourself. The thing is, all of that is voided by the fact that Steve needs to go back to be with her: going to the past is not the morally right choice, it is a selfish one. By going back Steve negates the entirety of why he wanted Peggy in the first place, and what he gets is just the shadow of Peggy, really, the undefined shape of a beautiful woman at the end of the day. In the end the fulfilling of Steve's apparent want is like cotton candy. It is pretty, well-shaped, sweet, and exactly what you think you want, except once you get it is nothing but a spoonful of empty calories that melts in the sunshine.

The problem with Steve's arc is that for all the talk about always doing the unselfish thing Steve has never done anything he didn't want to do, and that matters, as context. Steve is never conflicted about fighting, Steve is never shown wanting things other than the things he chooses, because the narrative never puts Steve in a position where he needs to choose between what is good for someone, and what he feels is right. We never see him grapple with the consequences of choosing his rigid morality at the expense of other people, which on one hand is fine – this is not necessarily the right genre for the meditation on the nature of selfishness, but on the other that leaves him with little room to grow, so to have an arc it must be one of selfishness, which would be fine, if it didn't play out as a happy ending. It is a deeply unsatisfying thought, that always choosing the right thing is so taxing that to be happy you need to eschew it altogether.

In conclusion: what Steve needs to be happy is to gain the wisdom to know the difference between the things he can change and the things he cannot change, and the serenity to accept the latter. Going into the past gives him the opportunity for none of that, because as mentioned above, depending on interpretation, he will have to either accept all things, or claim the power to change all things.

#avengers: endgame #spoilers #this post is so meta it's practically para #steve we'll see rogers #ON VA VOIR MOTHERFUCKER #MCU: forever salty #Endgame WTF

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itsjustashipperlife · 5 years

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ENDGAME THOUGHTS

So here it is. The longest post I’ll ever write, so bear with me. (I’m not kidding, this is HUGE).

I watched Endgame at 7 pm yesterday… Came back home at 11. And I posted that I would try to sleep and make this post today. You know how many hours I slept? Four. And I finally fell asleep at 3.30 am.

I will try to say all my thoughts on this post, so if I miss something, I’m sorry. (Note: although I like more characters, the IronFam, pepperony, irondad… Will be the main concerns here, so anti Tonys, get the fuck out)

SPOILERS AHEAD

I will try to say things that I liked first, then the ones that I didn’t like, and then we’ll get to the OG6 ends, okay? Okay.

THINGS I LIKED:

The whole movie has that atmosphere that this was it. The Endgame. And it really makes you anxious for the characters.

Clint’s first scene with his family is heartbreaking

Tony being so soft (a dad) with Nebula was fucking everything

Although it was expected, Carol rescuing Tony and Nebula was great. (I guess it’s because the message for Pepper was received… because then why was she waiting there?)

Tony saying “I lost the kid” killed me, and then he finally calms down when Pepper hugs him

Tony’s kiss on Pepper’s cheek

Tony cutting out Steve’s bullshit had me going “Yeah, honey! That’s it”

Seriously, he looks (and feels) like shit. And he gets the strength to get up, rip off his IV, and call him out before his body can’t stand anymore

What’s left of the team trying to fix it all, going to Thanos without second thoughts and killing him once and for all (okay, maybe not “forever”, but you know… Thor finally went for the head)

That “5 years later” gasp, seeing how the world is “moving on” after the decimation

Everyone’s fucking done, and tired, and hopeless (e.g. Nat, Steve, Rocket and Nebula, Rhodey, Clint…)

Nat’s break down, trying to stay positive about Clint, and about everything (also, Rhodey helping her, looking for Clint… Because in this blog, we love and respect Colonel James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes)

Scott getting back from the quantum realm after (for him) 5 hours, to finally reunite with his now grown up daughter

Tony “moving on” (kinda). He has the life he said he wanted since AoU, with Pepper as his wife and his daughter, and living on a beautiful farm, away from everyone

Tony being the BEST DAD the MCU will ever see (no hate on Clint or Scott tho, it’s just my opinion). He loves her so much, and she loves her daddy too (3000

Morgan with the Rescue helmet

Tony kissing it

He carrying her inside to have dinner

The team getting to his house for help, cause he’s the only one that can do it

That shot of Tony pouring drinks for everyone in which we see his wedding band (because, of course, and like RDJ, Tony is that kind of man)

He being selfish about trying what Scott said. He has every right to be. Although Peter’s not there, he has Morgan. And he wants to be there for her. He’s allowing himself to be selfish for the first time in 15 years (being 2023 in the MCU right now… I think… technically…)

But… he’s Tony Stark. The selfless man the world will ever know. He can fix it, and he will

Nat, Scott and Steve talking with Bruce… or Hulk… or Proffesor Hulk (let’s call him Bruce)

Tony being domestic: doing the dishes, tucking his daughter in, the “I love you 3000″, and him being so cute with Morgan like… “whoa, honey, that’s a lot… that’s more than ‘tons’"

Him resolving the problems of the “time-travels” in a couple of hours… I stan one man… Also, Morgan seeing her daddy work and getting ice-cream before going to sleep. Again, the best dad

Once again, Tony being domestic talking with Pep (aka his wife, aka the love of his life, aka the mother of his daughter, aka his goddess, boss and queen), asking her what should he do, and Pepper, like always, being his voice of reason

Scott and Bruce trying to work with the quantum realm

Tony driving to the compound like the badass he is (also, while being a badass, still being a dad and putting toys and a teddy bear out the way of Cap’s shield)

Bruce and Rocket looking for Thor, the appereance of Valkyrie, Korg and Miek, and Thor playing Fortnite. (I found all of Thor’s scenes very funny, but at the same time I didn’t feel like it was okay to laugh about it. He’s clearly depressed during the whole film, and every character-like every person- deal with depression and ways to cope in different ways… so I don’t think that laughing at Fat Thor was nearly okay)

Clint being a badass

His scene with Nat, holding hands

Rhodey with the best fucking idea of the movie (go back in time to baby Thanos, and… you know the rest). Again, I love this man

Bruce freaking out about it. And explaining the way the MOVIE works

Clint being succesful on the first try

The WHOLE scenes of the “domestic” team, getting up ideas of how they’re going to recollect the stones (Loved every single one of them, and I would gladly watch a film that was all about Nat, Tony and Bruce lying on a table and talking)

Jane Foster making a come-back (kinda)… Also, Thor is me when I’m doing a presentation

Rocket calling Scott “puppy”

The team prepared. The whole “you know your teams, you know your missions” speech

The “unseen” parts of Avengers 1, after they got Loki

Scott giving 2012-Tony a heart attack and 2012-Thor helping with Mjolnir. All while actual-Tony gets the tesseract (for a while)

All of Rocket-Thor scenes in Asgard

Rhodey and Nebula laughing at Quill

2012-Cap vs actual-Cap (+America’s Ass), and the elevator scene

The ancient one and Bruce conversation

The whole thing with past and present Nebula

Stan Lee’s cameo

Tony and Steve going to 1970. Tony (aka Howard Potts… I died when his wife’s name is the first one that comes to his mind) talking to Howard Stark, having a dad to dad conversation, and Edwin Jarvis cameo. Meanwhile, Steve seeing Peggy.

Nat sacrifice for Clint. Clint crying afterwards…

The team decided to not let her sacrifice be in vain (+Bruce’s reaction)

Bruce undoing the snap

Past-Gamora helping actual-Nebula (+killing old-Nebula)

Thor, Steve and Tony fight with Thanos (while the rest of the team is trying to get the gauntlet)… (+THAT scene of Steve and Mjolnir)

THAT FUCKING SCENE WHERE ALL OF THE FALLEN AVENGERS COME BACK (+RESCUE!!) AND STEVE FINALLY SAYS “AVENGERS ASSEMBLE”

SERIOUSLY, THAT WHOLE SCENE

Rescue and Iron Man fighting back to back like the power couple they are

Rescue-Mom giving Spiderman and the gauntlet a ride

Tony and Peter reunion *sobbing* (+Groot and Rocket, +Hope and Scott, +Quill and Gamora)

THAT SCENE WITH ALL THE WOMEN FIGHTING TOGETHER (Pepper being the badass she fucking is!!)… The only woman I missed was Nat… *sobbing again*

TONY’S “I AM IRON MAN”

PEPPER’S “ITS OKAY… YOU CAN REST NOW”

PETER SOBBING. PEPPER SOBBING. RHODEY HOLDING PETER

PETER GOING BACK TO NED AND MAY

THE VIDEO. “I LOVE YOU 3000″

THE FUNERAL WITH ALL THE TEAM (+HARLEY)

RHODEY AND HAPPY COMFORTING EACH OTHER BEHIND MORGAN AND PEP

“PROOF THAT TONY STARK HAS A HEART”

UNCLE HAPPY AND THE FUCKING CHEESEBURGUERS

Thor going with the Guardians (+Quill looking for Gamora)

Clint with his fam

Scott with his fam

Steve giving the shield to Sam

(this is kinda)-> Steve going to Peggy

In conclusion: MY HEART IS FUCKING BROKEN FOR THIS MOVIE, but nontheless I “loved” it

Okay… so now that we are done… Let’s talk about what I didn’t like:

I needed more Pepper/Tony moments, and more Pepper “mommy” moments

Uncle Happy was great… BUT WHAT ABOUT UNCLE RHODEY!

Steve, get out of the fucking way! Tony doesn’t need you now (at the begining of the movie). He needs Pepper, and Rhodey, and food, water and sleep

Rhodey not getting a hug with Tony at the begining of the movie

Not May/Tony conflict/crying over their ‘son’

I don’t know if I like Howard’s and Tony’s talk… I do like it, but idk. I guess that in the movies he wasn’t physically abusing to him… But at least he gets to talk with his dad and he realizes he’s a very good dad with Morgan (aka, his “little girl” *sobs*)

TONY DESERVES BETTER. THE WHOLE IRONFAM DESERVES BETTER. MORGAN, PEPPER, RHODEY, HAPPY, PETER… MY GOSH, EVEN THE BOTS AND FRIDAY (I can’t talk about him in past tense, I’m sorry. I’m just in denial)

THAT FUCKING CHEESEBURGUER LINE (I swear, I will never get over that fucking line)

Steve getting to live his “endgame” with Peggy, leaving everyone behind (aka Bucky and Sam, but mostly Bucky) and being FUCKING SELFISH (in my eyes… and for what I’ve read, in a lot of actual Cap’s fans too)

How come that “the man who lays in the wire” is the one that leaves, and “the man who would cut the wire” is the one that fucking LAYS ON IT (again)

Alright. Now I’m going to talk about the OG6 ends. Although I have leave my points of view up… But I still want to talk about it more thoroughly:

Clint: Finally, Clint got his protagonism in the team. He’s going to do “whatever it takes” (and he means WHATEVER) to bring his family back. I liked his end, there’s nothing more to discuss about it.

Bruce: Yeah, Bruce finally got the best of both worlds, the mind and the strength… But what’s he going to do now?

Thor: Thor’s end was okay (IMO)… He doesn’t have the strength to be the king anymore… But Valkyrie does. And he has great chemistry with the Guardians, so I didn’t mind him going with them.

Nat: Nat’s ending was great. Let me explain. I didnt like that she died. But I felt it very on character… She has no family, her family are the avengers. And she wants to bring them back. Clint is like her brother (I’m a little into Clintasha tbh, but I accept that they give them that brother/sister relationship long ago. It proofs that not all the male/female friendships have to end in a romantic relationship), and she did anything she could to undo the snap during 5 fucking years.

Steve: Hated it (him). Yeah, you “loved” Peggy… Whatever. (The Russos trying to put Steggy as the Royal ship when everyone KNOWS that that title belongs, AND WILL ALWAYS BELONG, to Pepper and Tony). He’s just looking at the past, he has never moved on, and he never will. He let Tony gave up his family (at the age of 53… god, he had a lot to live for) and then he left Bucky behind (and the whole Hydra mess too), when he always was so nuisance about him all these years…

Tony: Hate/Love it. I love it because it’s the way of fully close the circle of this whole journey, and he’s the SAVIOR of the fucking MCU, now and always. Haters can shut their mouths now after what he did…

I hate it because… He’s my baby. He finally had the life he craved for all these years. Married to Pep, with his baby girl; trophy husband, doting father… and now he’s… gone. He’ll never see Morgan grow up (her first day at college, her first bf/gf, her graduation, her wedding, his grand-kids… any of it), he’ll never see Peter go to college either. Pepper will see all of that alone (not completely, because Happy and Rhodey will always be there, but someone will be always missing). Morgan won’t ever doubt that her daddy loves her, but still he won’t be there to kiss her goodnight, nor to tell her shitty bed time stories. (God, I’m crying again… and I really want to say I am joking, but I’m not).

Tony fucking DESERVED BETTER.

The whole IRONFAM DESERVED BETTER.

Rhodey hold his head and pet his hair, with tears in his eyes that he refuses to let out. Peter calling him Tony for the first time ever… “We won”

Also, Pepper is the STRONGEST WOMAN IN THE MCU. No one will EVER change my mind. She went into battlefield to help her husband, to protect their kid, and she hates violence. She fought beside him, helped defeat Thanos… And, when Tony (her Tony) was dying… She kneeled next to him, to reassure him that they would be okay, that he “can rest now”. And she didn’t break until he was gone. So the last thing he would see was her being the calm, competent person he knows she is. SHE FUCKING WAITS TILL HE’S GONE. SHE HOLDS HER TEARS AND HER SOBS SO HE WOULD FEEL OKAY. SO THAT HE COULD REST. And then, when the light of his arc reactor is out, and his hand is no longer in hers, she let it all out. She kissed his cheek one last time and sobs with her face buried in his neck… And I can’t deal with it.

Tony’s last message… “I love you 3000″ is another heartbreak. And the “Proof that Tony Stark has a heart” is the best… But the fucking cheeseburguers… If I weren’t sobbing and trembling during all that, the cheeseburguer was the charm that made me explode. It was over. It was really over. And that line made it true.

And the point is… I can’t read fanfics now. Nor see fanarts, fanvids, edits, you name it. Hell, I don’t think I’ll be able to watch any movie with Tony in it with the same eyes anymore… Any of the Iron Man movies, Homecoming, Civil War… It’s just too much. I won’t be able to watch Iron Man 1 again the same as I did before… with the cheeseburguer, and Pepper tears because she “hates job hunting”, Yinsen and his question about family, or the first time Tony flies out of his garage, with that huge, happy smile on his face.

Every time that I see 3000, I get fucking sad. And I was crying when I got home yesterday. When I calmed down a bit, I entered Instagram and Robert posted that photo of him and Jimmy Rich “holding” the A of Avengers and the tag #iloveyou #3000 and I fucking cried again… Fuck, I’ve been crying while writing all of this post.

I’m not even able to read some fluff fanfic from a couple of years ago… Pre-Infiniry war era to cheer me up. It just makes me sadden.

And… I think that’s it… I hope someone will read aaaaall my rant, but I can’t sum anything up.

TONY STARK, I LOVE YOU 3000 (ALWAYS WILL)

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rayegunn · 4 years

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Thor ramble

Preview for Thor is out: https://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com/2020/03/06/marvel-preview-thor-4-2/ I felt the need to ramble about it. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good ramble here.

First off, to Sif Bifrosting Mjolnir away.... hehehehe... good trick. And Thor deserves it right now. He needs to have his toys taken away until he behaves, I don't give a damn if he's king, he’s being an ass. Not that he will, probably, looks like he's about to throw a tantrum there, but still. I mean look at that, he's already beaten a close friend of his to a pulp and destroyed his hammer, and now Sif, his ex lover and current friend, and now guardian of the Bifrost, shows up to defend Bill and repeat what should be a uncontroversial opinion, that helping Galactus to destroy inhabited planets, and beating up your friends, is wrong, and his response is to hurl the hammer at her head. I mean I thought Thor was being a dick when he threw it at Loki, despite Loki's past, but THIS? Much worse. I get that he feels the fate of the universe is on the line, and that sacrifices need to be made towards that end, which mitigates it some, but... there has to be a better way to resolve this conflict than with violence. Thor has been acting all hyper-aggressive and, well, toxic from issue 1, and just seems to be getting worse. I see a lot of Thor fans glad that he's like, really powerful and kicking ass, and I don't get it. Is him being powerful worth it if he loses his soul and sacrifices his morals in the process? tho I have never gotten the obsession some fans with characters being powerful, it's always been much more important to me that they are interesting characters first and foremost, and that usually means they have flaws and weaknesses and can't just steamroll everything. I do think a story exploring power vs morals with Thor, where he sacrifices his morals for power in order to achieve a greater good could be interesting and could end up adding more depth to the character, so I am not saying the story is bad... but it is still sad to see him possibly fall from grace, same as it would be for any character in that position, and all the power in the universe doesn't make up for that. In Aaron's run, his unworthyness wasn't really a fault of his character, it was a technicality. He was still the same guy, morally, as he was before (tho he did go through a rough patch due to depression) it was just he lost the whole 'knowing you're unworthy but trying anyway' thing that apparently is a major box that needs to be ticked for Mjolnir to allow itself to be lifted. This though, I am seeing what he's doing, and I think to myself that it's no wonder the hammer is getting heavier, because this really is the sort of 'doing evil things for a greater good' deal that I could see Loki doing rather than Thor. If Loki was doing this, it would still be a very murky situation, but it would be in line with his past actions and morals. But for Thor, it's a fall, and that kind of makes his actions feel worse. I'm more upset at him doing these things than I would be if it were Loki, because Loki has already done this kind of shit before. Recently, even. Maybe not on quite the same scale, I can't think of any planets Loki has blown up off the top of my head, (in the present/past, not counting King Thor) but same sort of morally questionable tactics, so it would not be that unexpected for him.

I'm betting that Thor will successfully deal with the Black Winter using these tactics, despite various characters, such as Bill and Sif here, standing against him, and that will make him feel everything he did was just and right, he will feel vindicated. And yeah, you could make an argument for that, depending on what he does, I mean, the universe continuing to exist when it otherwise would have died is a bit hard to argue with. And many fans will support his actions because the ultimate outcome was good. But... it may be the start of a slippery slope that he slides downwards on. If these tactics worked out here, why not in a different situation with lower stakes? Will the justification he needs to do these things become less with time? And he will fall, not like Aaron's run where he was unworthy but not immoral, an actual fall from grace where he loses his way. And he, and many fans, may not even realize it until it's too late. Hell, some fans will NEVER get it if he goes bad. I mean, I’m not saying people have to stop liking him as a character, but you can like a character while acknowledging they are not the most morally upstanding person. Liking Punisher doesn't necessarily mean you support gun toting vigilantes wandering the streets, right? I hope, anyway. Like, I think lots of things Loki has done have been pretty scummy, even recently, but that doesn't make him an uninteresting character, I still really like him as a character even if i disagree with some of his actions. Though Loki's trajectory is good right now, while he is still prone to morally murky actions, he's moving in the right direction, his actions right now are comparatively better than they used to be, so I am hopeful he can continue to improve. But Thor’s trajectory, if this trend continues, is not good, his actions right now are comparatively worse than he has been previously. It's kind of funny, or sad, that as Loki is moving away from these 'bad acts for a greater good' methods, Thor is embracing them, and they may end up still as antagonists, but on opposite sides. (I want them to be friends tho :( ) But some fans (of lots of things, not just Thor) really seem to have a lot of trouble understanding that the protagonist is not always right by default, and they think anyone who stands in the protagonist's way is the bad guy, even if it is clearly a villain protagonist, (see: Breaking Bad) which is bizarre to me. And I suspect the same will happen with Thor, even if he does not go THAT bad, and just... gray. Comics have long had a bit of a problem with fans completely missing the point when it comes to the morality the books are trying to get across; you somehow have some overtly bigoted X-Men fans, and alt-right Cap fans, etc. it's bizarre sometimes how completely some readers/viewers can miss a critique of something in a work, and the same thing will likely happen here, where the point may be that he’s losing his way, but fans think he’s in the right.

Where did she send Mjolnir, though, i wonder? I have long suspected Thor would have to give up Mjolnir, but because he is all-Father now. Aaron set up a situation with roles that need to be filled, and several other characters have stepped into new ones, Jane is Valkyrie, Sif took Heimdall’s role, Balder is King of the Norns, it looks as though Tyr is going to take Loki’s place as God of Chaos, (though it may be Loki’s solo series was more of a spoiler than most people thought, where Thor was the big bad at the end of time, trying to destroy the Earth, and Thor goes full on bad guy instead, though i am holding out hope for merely gray which he can rebound from after learning a lesson) Loki is King of Jotunheim (tho i suspect there is something more in store for him, given all the teases with him and Mjolnir) and I really like this. I know some people find comfort in an unchanging status quo, but I have always found it boring, and one of the reasons I have been all over Loki the past 10 years or so is that he has been undergoing character development and changing, and I find that interesting. So to have it suddenly applied to Asgard as a whole, where everything is shuffled around and characters are in new roles is something I find very interesting, and I want to see where it leads, and I hope it doesn’t all just revert to the old default status quo. But Thor stepped into his role as king, but didn’t want to give up his old role, and I think that has to give at some point. He has to choose, even if he was not doing some morally dubious shit, All-Father OR hero of the realms, can’t do both at the same time. After last issue, i thought Bill might, at least temporarily, take Mjolnir from Thor, (though, since he has no ties to Earth 99% of the time, I don't think he is right fit to fill Thor's old role permanently) but now it's who knows where, so maybe not. But he's still had Stormbreaker destroyed. :-/ anyway, it has to be really far away, or Thor's just going to call it back in like 2 seconds, not quite sure how far away they are relative to Asgard/Earth, so sending it back there may be far enough... or maybe Jotunheim? Though not sure why Sif would do that. But it could turn the scene with Loki in issue 1 into foreshadowing, if it pops out of the Bifrost coming for his head and stops again. May also be a catalyst to have Thor attack Jotunheim, even tho Loki had nothing to do with this. But it may also be too easy for him to find in those locations, if she really wants to keep it from him until he calms down, it would be better to send it to some dusty moon orbiting an uninhabited world around a distant star. Though with Sif controlling the Bifrost, she could simply refuse to send him anywhere near it, regardless of it's location. He may be king, but she has the power in this situation. Also, I wonder how it's trajectory works. Will it carry on with just the momentum it has on the other side of the Bifrost, eventually falling to the ground or hitting something on the other side, or will it try to continue towards his intended target? Though I suppose it doesn't matter too much, if he can summon it no matter how far away it is, so it will be on it's way back to them either way. Though it may be that it is out of range, he may not be able to call it if he doesn't know it's location, (he asked where it was, so he doesn't seem to be able to sense it) or if it's just too far away.

#ramble #comics #marvel #thor #loki #sif

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jedimaesteryoda · 5 years

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Batman: Mask of the Phantasm

I am going to talk about my favorite Batman film of all time, and some have even argued it to be the best Batman film out there. This Batman movie showed what many DC fans agree to be the best Joker and one of the best Batman performances. It has an excellent story that draws the viewer in, and a great film score courtesy of Shirley Walker. No, I am not talking about Nolan’s The Dark Knight, or even Tim Burton’s Batman, as great as those films were. I am talking about Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. It’s a direct-to-video film based on Batman: the Animated Series, the first show of the DC Animated Universe that to this day is acclaimed by critics and fans alike. It came out the same year as Schumacher’s Batman Forever, yet didn’t get as much attention due to not just being overshadowed by the live-action film, but lack of advertising on the part of Warner Bros. Of course, a number of critics agree that between the two films, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm was arguably the superior film. Bat nipples aside, what made the Mask of the Phantasm superior to Forever in some ways was the story, the love interest and of course, the way Batman was portrayed.

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD:

If you haven’t seen it yet, I advise you see it first before you read this essay. If you choose to read ahead anyway, and don’t plan on seeing the film then that’s a shame. Seriously, just watch the film, and I guarantee you won’t be disappointed.

Plot

A shadowy figure appears going around murdering mob: the Phantasm. Batman is mistaken as the culprit, and is trying to figure out who this mysterious figure is, and the connection to the murders. The Phantasm isn’t the only arrival, so is Andrea Beaumont, an old flame from Bruce’s past. We get to see glimpses of their relationship in flashbacks, and learn that Bruce once had a chance at a normal life. And of course, it wouldn’t be a classic Batman film without the Joker, who is also drawn into the story in a way that works.

One thing you will notice about the plot that separates it from most Batman films and every live-action film is that it is a detective story. We never get to see him solve a mystery on-screen, or rather solve a mystery the audience doesn’t already know the answer to. We so often associate Batman with his sobriquet “The Dark Knight” to the point that it is in the title of two Batman films, and often forget his other sobriquet, “the World’s Greatest Detective,” even though his character was first introduced in the DC series, Detective Comics.

Batman’s story is also straight out of noir: organized crime, corrupt politicians who deal with them and the protagonist being a single man, usually a detective, who is psychologically wounded and might appear morally ambiguous or compromised, but generally adheres to his own personal code of ethics.

Setting and Tone

The setting comes straight out of the original comics with the style being late 1940s from the cars and clothes to the Tommy guns. In contrast to a lot of Batman films, you see actual blood from the wounds as well as teeth getting knocked out, which helps to convey a better feeling of the violence. The animation used is what the producers called “Dark Deco,” Art Deco combined with noir imagery. It helps to give the film a dark atmosphere not seen in a few of the live-action films (Nolan’s), and while I’m not saying dark = better, as Snyder proved that with his Superman films, it works perfectly with a dark character like Batman. There is a tragic, melancholy tone to the whole film with the exception of the flashbacks. The dark overtone of the present scenes contrast nicely with the much brighter and more colorful past scenes of a young Bruce and Andrea’s blossoming relationship, giving the past scenes a nostalgic feel and reflecting a happier time in Bruce Wayne’s life. It only helps to emphasize the tragedy of the couple’s story.

Characters and Acting

Bruce Wayne/Batman

Kevin Conroy, himself a Shakespearean actor, does an excellent job as the voice of Bruce Wayne/Batman. He manages to convey different sides of the character from the dark, tough Batman to the friendly Bruce Wayne seen at social events and the more vulnerable, younger Bruce Wayne in the flashbacks. I remember seeing him live at New York Comic Con 2018 for a panel promoting the Blu-ray The New Batman Adventures; he said regarding the character: “Batman is his true identity, and Bruce Wayne is the performance.” Batman’s serious, commanding voice is present when he is wearing the mask or unmasked with Alfred, his most trusted confidant, but changes when he’s in public as Bruce Wayne with a more warm, friendly tone. This is opposed to Christian Bale’s Batman who used his Batman voice only when in the suit, and otherwise, used his Bruce Wayne voice, even with Alfred present.

We get the Batman we expect with his first scene being knocking a mob meeting, and beating up the mobsters. Likewise, we first see Bruce Wayne (excluding when he’s in the Batcave with his costume off) hosting a black tie party at Wayne Manor surrounded by a group of female admirers as well as a young, pre-Batman Bruce Wayne in the flashbacks. William Faulkner in his Nobel Prize speech said that there is nothing worth writing about more than the heart in conflict with itself, and we see this with Bruce Wayne’s dilemma between becoming Batman and wanting a normal life. This helps to give a kind of complexity to the character, and shows the personal sacrifices that came with being Batman.

Andrea Beaumont

Dana Delany is good as Andrea Beaumont. Andrea is Bruce’s ex-girlfriend, and practically the only person he ever had a chance of a future with. She managed to pull Bruce out of his dark solitude, and provide him a kind of happiness that likely had been missing in his life since his parents died. She also is a femme fatale straight out of a hardboiled detective fiction novel: intelligent, beautiful and harboring dark secrets. However, to the filmmakers’ credit, Andrea wasn’t a one note character, as in just a manic pixie dream girl who teaches a broodingly soulful young man to embrace life, a femme fatale out to fulfill her personal ambitions, or even a passive damsel in distress who always needs saving by her hero, but a layered character with agency.

Joker

Mark Hamill is legendary for being the voice of the Joker, and he is consistently rated by fans as the best Joker. They borrow from Jack Nicholson’s Joker, and Hamill’s experience in the play Amadeus was incorporated into the Joker’s laugh, which he made into a song. This adaptation of the Joker fits the sobriquet of “the Clown Prince of Crime,” with a flower on his suit that squirts acid, and a laugh combined with his unsettling smile that manages to be chilling. On the surface, he has the friendly, funny demeanor one would expect from a clown, but you also get the sense that beneath that lies the heart of a nihilistic, murderous psychopath. He manages to be both funny and terrifying, the ultimate scary clown.

Alfred Pennyworth

Clive Revill does a decent job as the usually dry, proper Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred is the stoic British butler with a stiff upper lip, not without his own dry sense of humor (“What rot, sir! Why, you're the very model of sanity. Oh, by the way, I pressed your tights and put away your exploding gas balls”) except for two moments in this film. The first moment is when he sees Bruce don the cowl for the first time, and one sees the horror on Alfred’s face. The second is at the end when to comfort Bruce, Alfred drops the whole butler schtick for a moment calling him not his usual “Master Wayne” but “Bruce” to connect with him on a more personal level, and speak to the boy he knew. Giving him emotional support during his time of sorrow in that scene demonstrates how much Alfred is a father figure to Bruce.

Arthur Reeves

I know this is just a minor character, but Hart Bochner also does an excellent job as City Councilman Arthur Reeves. Just by listening to his voice, you can feel this guy practically oozing a sleazy politician. Reeves calls for a special police force to capture Batman after the murders, and you can tell how much of an opportunistic, vain man he is. He also plays a quiet, minor role in Andrea’s story.

The Promise vs Falling in Love: The Tragedy of Batman

Through flashbacks, we follow a young Bruce Wayne becoming Batman alongside pursuing a relationship with Andrea. You see his future hinted in the background whenever he is with her, with wishes of optimism and hope waiting to be crushed by an inevitable dark fate. Bruce meets Andrea at the cemetery as he was visiting his parents’ grave while Andrea was visiting her mother’s grave, and yes, that’s the most Batman way of a first meeting. We see his first attempt at crimefighting when he stops a robbery, and he wears just all black with a ski mask. He stops the robbery, but he mentions afterwards that the issue was the thieves didn’t fear him when they saw him. Andrea arrives just right after he mentions that. They have some playfighting, and surprisingly, he laughs, and they share their first kiss. He also sees the precursor for the Batmobile on their date, and bats appear from what would become the Batcave right after he proposes to her.

It all comes to a head while on their date at a theme park, Bruce tries and fails to stop some bikers from robbing a man. He is later in his manor trying to design a costume for his superhero persona, and talks to Alfred about his internal conflict over his promise to become Batman alongside wanting a future with Andrea. Conflicted and confused, he goes to his parents’ grave.

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Now, what this film does a great job doing is displaying Batman’s dark psyche. Look at all the Batman films, and Bruce Wayne’s decision to become Batman is treated as a reasonable decision with Bruce in Batman Begins saying “People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy. I can’t do that as Bruce Wayne. As a man, I’m flesh and blood. I can be ignored, destroyed. But as a symbol . . . as a symbol I can be incorruptible. I can be everlasting . . . Something elemental, something terrifying.” He becomes Batman to become a symbol that could do things he couldn’t do as Bruce Wayne, and motivate the people of Gotham into taking action against the corruption and crime of the city. Compare that to Bruce Wayne’s decision to become Batman in Mask of the Phantasm in this scene.

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Bruce Wayne is at his parents’ grave, begging for a way out of his promise to be a crime fighter, and apologizing for falling in love and wanting happiness. He is losing a reasonable argument to the dead over a promise they never agreed to, and as any person would have told him, would have wanted him to be happy and be with the person he loves. His decision to become Batman isn’t portrayed as a healthy, rational decision at all, but a delusion. It isn’t largely driven by a personal desire to motivate the citizens of Gotham into combatting the problems of the city, but by childhood trauma and an obsession with vengeance for the deaths of his parents. For all of Nolan’s attempts to make his Batman as realistic as possible as opposed to the Mask of the Phantasm of the DCAU going for the more comic book feel, Mask of the Phantasm’s portrayal of the man who chose to don the cowl is, in my opinion, more realistic than anything we’ve seen in any Batman film.

It makes it all the more tragic as his words “It just doesn’t hurt so bad anymore” show that his relationship with Andrea managed to provide a way for him to finally move on from his parents’ deaths. In their final scene together in their past relationship, we see Bruce finally propose to her, leaving behind his decision to become a vigilante crime fighter, and instead choosing a chance at happiness. Sadly, he gets the ring back the next day with a note telling him that she rescinded his proposal and he should forget about her.

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This is one of my favorite scenes. Batman first donning the mask combined with great musical direction by the late Shirley Walker captures both how epic and how tragic this scene is. It is epic seeing him put on the mask for the first time, and see only Batman’s eyes as he gives the famous Bat-glare, something that hasn’t been able to be replicated on live-action films. However, as scriptwriter for the film Michael Reeves stated: “When Bruce puts on the mask for the first time, and Alfred says 'My God!' he's reacting in horror, because he's watching this man he's helped raise from childhood, this man who has let the desire for vengeance and retribution consume his life, at last embrace the unspeakable." Alfred sees the Bruce Wayne he knew is gone, replaced by Batman. Bruce donning the mask isn’t portrayed as a happy event that the story had built up excitement for, but a tragic one as Bruce, having lost his one chance at happiness, sees becoming Batman as the only thing left for him.

The Ending (MAJOR SPOILERS):

The Phantasm is unmasked, and revealed to be Andrea. She comes to the theme park to kill the last of Valestra’s old gang, Jack Napier AKA the Joker. Unmasked Andrea and Batman, whom she figured out is Bruce earlier on, are at the theme park where they had their date in a flashback. The park was named “World of the Future,” and it symbolized the bright and hopeful promised future Bruce had with Andrea. Now, it was abandoned, dark and decrepit, occupied only by the Joker, Valestra’s ex-hitman who killed Andrea’s father. It represented not just the state of Bruce and Andrea’s relationship, but the people they had become. Andrea’s story by the end is revealed to be so much similar to Bruce’s. She is motivated by the murder of a parent, lost out on a chance for happiness and with seemingly nothing left, donned a dark visage to carve out a path of vengeance. (These two are perfect for each other.) As opposed to fighting criminals and super-villains to defend Gotham’s citizens, she decides to murder all the mobsters involved in her father’s murder. Her path is more vengeful, and shows what Batman could have become were it nor for his own code. The park is later destroyed by the bombs the Joker placed around it, symbolizing the end of their relationship, as it is the last time Batman sees her (on-screen at least) with her final words being “Goodbye, my love.” Andrea is later on a cruise ship, and when asked if she wants to be alone, replies sadly: “I am.” Batman in the final scene is standing on a skyscraper looking up at the sky with the Bat signal, and just fires a grappling hook as his mission goes on with his life unchanging. These two people who are practically made for each other are destined by fate to never be together, but spend the rest of their lives apart and alone.

As is typical in noir fiction, the story ends in a lose-lose situation for the protagonist. Every other Batman film ends on a happy note, or at least with some optimism with the most pessimistic ending being The Dark Knight with Batman taking the blame for Dent’s murders and Dent’s death himself, and Rachel is dead after deciding to choose Dent over Bruce, but he at least won some victory as he stopped the Joker, and achieved his aim of preventing Dent’s case from being dismissed and the mob being set free. In Mask of the Phantasm, one doesn’t get the feeling that Batman won anything: no criminals were put away, and no overarching goal was achieved with even the unmasking of the Phantasm not feeling like a win. The only thing that could be seen as a victory is Andrea ending her quest for vengeance, but Bruce is still left heartbroken. The real tragedy of Batman is the price he pays to be him, his personal life is unchanging and he is never able to enjoy any peace or anything resembling a healthy, normal life.

MOTP manages to be everything I think a Batman film should be: dark, action-packed, intelligent, entertaining and surprisingly, emotional. This will always be my top recommendation for a Batman film.

#batman #dc comics #batman the animated series #bruce wayne #joker #mark hamill #kevin conroy #bruce timm #dcau #dc animated series #dc animation #dc animated movies

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nayleaharvez97 · 4 years

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How To Stop Emotional Abuse After Divorce Blindsiding Cool Tips

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#How To Stop Emotional Abuse After Divorce Blindsiding Cool Tips #How 2 Save Marriage

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motionpictures-movingwords-blog · 6 years

Text

Thoughts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi

(Assume that anything and everything will be spoiled ahead)

Overcoming the Star Wars Cult

At a certain point, the insistence on focusing on lore begins to inhibit the possibility for a film to be made and not leave privileged fans (the expanded universe seems to offer answers to just about any question regarding any character, no matter how trivial) disappointed. I’ve come across many debates concerning the identity of Snoke and the identities of Rey’s parents since the release of The Force Awakens. I imagine those who had placed a great deal of weight into those plot points will have been terribly disappointed, though I am pretty damn satisfied with how the film handled these issues.

1. Snoke not being given much of a backstory or identity

Does it really matter? I don’t believe so and for a couple of reasons. The first is that his key characteristics are made plenty clear enough from what we are shown, therefore eliminating the need for exposition about his past. His similarity to the Emperor from the original trilogy is great enough that I would think many viewers would be able to apply the same legacy and associations to Snoke. I already heard plenty of similar connections made between the new films and the old following The Force Awakens: “Poe is kinda like Han, right?”, “Han is the new Ben Kenobi”, etc. There isn’t a great deal of mental gymnastics required to arrive at a similar conclusion with Snoke being the new version of the Emperor. Both:

Have a strange power over a conflicted member of the dark side who is perceived by the rest of the film’s character

Hold a great deal of power with the force themselves., though they use it sparingly

Appear as holograms at first, only to later appear physically in their throne rooms

Are old and wrinkled

Are eventually killed by their conflicted apprentice

That’s enough evidence for me as a viewer.

One might wonder what his path to power was and how it differed from the Emperor’s, but the truth is that we didn’t know much about how the Emperor had gained power until the prequels were released. That gap in the audience’s knowledge didn’t prevent the original trilogy from being beloved. It was mostly through the release of the prequels that the development of backstories for many characters occurred. It feels a bit spoiled to require in-depth knowledge about each character. Development of his backstory would be a divergence from what this film (or its predecessor) is otherwise about and would therefore be a distraction. One might argue that it would make his death more impactful if we knew more about him. I will admit that this is true, but I would also argue that his death isn’t supposed to impact us. Killing him serves to imbue Ren with absolute power over the Empire and is the result of Ren deciding not to kill Rey – the relationship between Rey and Ren had been focused on far more than any other throughout the film.

2. Rey’s parents (being insignificant) This could easily change since the only “proof” is a conversation between Ben (I’ll probably never pick a name that I feel like sticking with for him) and Rey, but I’d be happy if they stuck with it. It would be refreshing to see a character that doesn’t have some tie to some prior character. Making her the daughter of a significant character would feel a bit excessive and making her the daughter of an insignificant character would be little more than fan service. Keeping her current heritage would also be consistent with the film’s theme that greatness does not need to come from prior greatness (see the humble beginnings of Rose and Finn).

Managing Dialectical Tensions There is a scene in the film in which Rey and Luke collectively describe the force as being the balance between basically everything. While the listing off of each thing she sees and the blatant juxtapositions in this listing are a bit much, I like this description of the force. The film also investigates a lot of tensions and some balances. I like how the idea of the force enters into the film’s story more in this way.

Light Side vs. Dark Side (duh)

Epitome: Kylo Ren vs. Rey/Luke

Legacy-focused heroism vs. Unselfish heroism

Epitome: Poe vs. those who sacrifice themselves

Glamour vs. Concerns about exploitation

Epitome: Canto Bight (Finn’s excitement vs. Rose’s harsh memories of the city)

Class Tensions (maybe racial?)

Epitome: Canto Bight, again

I want to check to see how many different species we see in its casino. In a conversation I had after the movie, it was mentioned that there didn’t seem to be as many new alien races in this film and I wonder if that’s tied to the classes being presented in the film. The Empire is completely human while the resistance features other alien species in addition to the humans.

Paving one’s own path vs. Focusing on what came before

Epitome: Rey’s conflicting needs to work with Luke and help the resistance

Also seen with Luke and the destruction of the Jedi tree and books

Humble/Insignificant Beginnings vs. “Heirs”

Epitome: Rey, Finn, Poe(?) vs. Luke, Leia, Kylo Ren

Despite the split, it seems like both Ben and Rey feel like they have something to prove because of their backgrounds. Rey seems to need to overcome the heritage which she seems a bit ashamed of, meanwhile Ben has to separate from his notable background in order to solidify his place on the dark side and pursue the legacy left by Vader.

It would have been nice if some of these went unspoken, but I’ll take what I can get.

But why that final scene?

The final scene felt a bit heavy-handed while also being unnecessary. On its own the scene could say a few things:

There are other force-sensitive individuals

There are individuals wanting to help/join the resistance

These individuals may be restrained/hidden by their position in society

But we have already seen all of this throughout the movie. The film features three key characters who were restrained/hidden by their place in society, one of them being force-sensitive. Inevitably the next film will involve the resistance trying to gather enough support to overcome the Empire and First Order, so if that’s the purpose of this final scene, it’s superfluous considering what will happen anyways. You don’t need to open that door now. And if that’s not a part of the next film, then the scene doesn’t need to say it, eliminating a reason for it to stay in the film.

Some Other Lingering Thoughts

The direction style resembles The Force Awakens much more than it does the original trilogy. Biggest difference is the camera movement. The original trilogy had pretty limited movement, mostly using pans and tilts when the camera did move (probably modeled after Kurosawa considering his other influences on Lucas in making Star Wars) while the newer films have kept the camera moving in just about every way, but pushes are the most prominent in my mind. Also the pace of editing , though that’s reflective of greater trends in filmmaking. There is no objectively superior method of filmmaking, but I believe the older style allowed more individual images to be cemented into our minds. I can’t think of a shot that is remotely similar to the static, 15-second long shot of Luke looking at the “Binary Sunset” and I also can’t think of a shot that sticks with me like that one. It’s a shot that requires some patience, but not all that much. Not too much for 2017 anyways. Not too much for an audience that will sit through literally anything Star Wars related.

Not a complaint, but I’ve realized that the main two ships basically stay in the same place for the 90% of the film. It kind of cockteases us with the suggestion of a bunch of light speed jumps, then only one happens for the rest of the film between the two main ships.

Leia’s Poppins-esque flight back to the cruiser seemed a bit ridiculous. I’m happy to have her begin to use the force. I’m happy to accept that she isn’t dead after that explosion. Felt bizarre to have her suddenly wake up and use the force in that substantial of a way.

In Summary I was surprised and pleased by Star Wars: The Last Jedi because it was willing to sacrifice pandering to the desires of fandom in order to center on the film’s ongoing conflicts.

#star wars #the last jedi #film #movies #rian johnson #rey #kylo ren #luke skywalker

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kane-and-griffin · 7 years

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This is so horrific kabby mom and I feel horrible for even thinking this but if Abby knew that it wouldn't work was that her tondc moment?

I don’t think that scene was about Abby knowing it wouldn’t work. I think it was about Abby being genuinely hopeful, once they discovered that they had to remove that additive, that it would work; but once it was Clarke going on the table, Abby’s mama-bear protectiveness and the hallucination/vision she had made her terrified that something would happen to Clarke specifically. Remember, she may possibly be experiencing some of the same brain issues that Raven is, where the vision is partially but not entirely accurate, so it’s a bit of a reach to say that she had any kind of concrete information either way. She was already on edge and distraught enough about what they were doing that she couldn’t bring herself to do it to Emori, or even to watch Clarke do it; that combined with exhaustion, stress, worry, the visible reaction we could see her having to Murphy’s screams, the possibility of brain issues happening, that hallucination, and her absolute panic of something happening to her child caused her to snap.

It is certainly true that everyone there pushed past their own ethical lines when they collectively agreed to test Not!Bayless; Raven was pretty harsh in her judgments, but didn’t offer an alternative solution, and she was very ready to sacrifice Grounders when it was a matter of rationed medicine a few episodes earlier, so what we’re seeing is that this new situation has all of them rattled and pretty freaked out. And Luna, of course, disapproves, but she also didn’t stop them when it was Not!Bayless, only when it was Emori. The episode begins with everyone kind of going around the circle and voting “yes” on Not!Bayless, so they proceed. I think keeping in mind that this was a collective decision is important perspective.

Also, remember that Abby had that vision of Clarke before the idea of testing the Nightblood was ever on the table; so when we hear her process with Kane all the moral questions of what she’s doing, with full knowledge of the complexity of it and the risks involved, the vision of Clarke has already happened. That means I don’t think we’re meant to assume that she interprets that vision as proof that Nightblood won’t work. With the Tondc bombs, Clarke and Lexa absolutely knew that people were going to die; they also believed that there genuinely was no other way to keep Bellamy safe and keep their plan from being discovered by Mt. Weather if they evacuated the town. I think in a big-picture “few lives to save many” thematic way, you can perhaps link them, but the difference is hope vs. certainty. Abby has tested this solution from every angle and is as sure as she can be that it will work, both times; there’s risk involved because there’s always risk involved with medical experimentation, which is why she’s so morally conflicted; but especially with Emori, once they’ve realized what went wrong with Not!Bayless, I think she’s as confident in her abilities as it’s possible to be. And Clarke is too, which is why she tells Abby “I trust you.”

So the thing that makes her snap isn’t “wait fuck Clarke called my bluff, all along there was a solid chance Emori was gonna die but now that it’s Clarke I can’t go through with it, better smash this shit up to selfishly save my child”; the thing that makes her snap is that the combination of radiation plus Clarke specifically is when it all clicks and she realizes, what if that wasn’t just a bad dream, what if she has the same brain thing Raven has, and what if this vision, like Raven’s, is at least partially true? I think we’re watching that moment of realization happen right there, in front of us.

I think it’s important to be careful of the language we use with the big sticky messy “Abby Griffin + medical ethics” stuff because I think there are some big important moral questions to dig into here that tie really beautifully into the arcs of the whole season - is it right to sacrifice one person to save the many? does that answer change when you can no longer convince yourself he was a “bad” person and you now have to realize it was an innocent person? how about when it’s someone you know? how about when it’s your child? how about when you only have ten days and no other options? how about when you’re really, really sure there’s a chance this will work? how about when everyone is looking to you to find a magical solution and yet second-guessing every solution you present because there isn’t an option that is not in some way awful? - but I think it matters a lot to make sure we’re clear on what Abby did and didn’t do, what Abby was and wasn’t responsible for, and the lines between what happened onscreen vs. how things are interpreted based on how much you do or don’t like Abby. If you love her as a character, it’s easy to dial down the fact that she knows and likes Emori and yet was willing to sacrifice her life; if you hate her as a character, it’s easy to dial down the fact that she ultimately couldn’t go through with it, or watch Clarke go through with it, even though in that moment it is literally the only option she can think of to save the whole human race. She doesn’t stop Clarke from doing it - none of them do, not Raven, not Jackson, not Miller, not Roan. Luna tries, and gets sedated for it. Luna is the only one who protests what they’re doing to Emori, but Luna’s rigidly inflexible morals are not always necessarily intended for the audience to view her as “right” or that hers is the “best” way; it’s simply the way she is. So yes, it’s true that Abby’s growing affection for Murphy, and the fact that Emori is a real human being she cannot depersonalize, don’t stop her from consenting to the experiment, and that’s important. But it’s equally important that she cannot live with being the person who actually does the deed herself. Both those things are simultaneously true.

Anyway, I’ve seen a lot of Abby discourse floating around the tag and I think a good deal of it oversimplifies the complexity of what was going on in that scene and assumes that Abby’s vision gave her a high level of certainty that Emori would probably die, implying a level of calculating ruthlessness that isn’t in character at all. I think if you look at it as though Abby thinks that vision was a bad dream until Clarke shoots herself up with Nightblood and says “okay, put me in the radiation chamber” and then Abby realizes that 1) she can’t hide anymore from the fact that she might be sick, and 2) if her vision is the same as Raven’s vision, then at least in some abstract way it might be partially true. That doesn’t mean Nightblood won’t work, it just means it’s the last straw that pushes an already-on-the-brink Abby completely over the edge with Mom panic.

#Anonymous #From the Inbox #Abby Griffin #Paige Turco #The 100 #metas and headcanons #the 100 meta #the 100 spoilers #the 100 speculation #the 100

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leeran · 7 years

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About Natsu's (lack of) character arc

So, there are a lot of posts criticizing Fairy Tail thanks to this recent arc. I'm sure there's someone out there talking about this exact same issue, but I admit I haven't found that person yet… And in any case, I want to say my own piece about this subject. It's been awhile since I wrote some sort of analysis here, but this is probably going to be long anyway.

I want to clarify something: I'm trying to be objective here. While my opinions and tastes will show up, what I'm going to focus here is on writing and structure. I want to talk about why Mashima's writing is so ineffective lately, and why so many people call Natsu a Mary Sue or plainly dislike him. I'm not here to defend Natsu; I love him, sure, but he's been a victim of terrible, awful writing. I 100% understand why people dislike him or even hate him. They have VERY good reasons to do so. What I want to do is explain why this happens.

Alright, now let's start.

→ Inability to change.

At the start of the latest time skip I saw the first sign that I should drop any tiny bit of hope that I had for Natsu's character. I was stupid and I kept that hope alive, sadly, but I really should've seen it coming.

Remember when he came back of the one-year-trip he took after Igneel's death? How he had his long hair, and many people wanted him to keep it that way, but in the next chapter he came back to his usual look?

It may seem silly, but to me this was a sign of a bigger problem. Usually, when there's a time skip it's expected that character designs change. Not only because it keeps things interesting, but also because people change with time. A change in design tends to reflect this. And I know it sounds stupid to worry about something so “insignificant”, but remember: manga is a visual medium just as much as it is a written one. Visual elements are as important here to tell the story as any other. For example: Lucy, the character who's allowed to change the most throughout the story, gets a slight change in her design after this time skip. By contrast, Natsu doesn't.

Following that small sign, we discover that Natsu's personality hasn't changed. Like, at all. A year has passed, and he hasn't changed. Worse than that: He lost Igneel. And. He. Hasn’t. Changed. At. All.

Natsu's motivation was established in the beginning of the manga: He wanted to find his adoptive father, Igneel, after he disappeared 7 years prior to the start of the story. That motivation was fulfilled in the Tartaros' arc, followed by Igneel’s death. In one day, Natsu fulfilled a dream he spent seven years (or fourteen, I guess) pursuing… and then he had to see one of his worst fears come true. This is a pretty big thing for any person, but it's also the culmination for a character arc. The character is at his lowest point, so he's forced to grow in some way (whether it's positive or negative).

But… we don't see Natsu grow. Sure, we see him grieve for… a couple of panels, but that's all. The chapter before the time skip, we see Natsu smiling and barely reacting to what happened, besides deciding that he has to become stronger.

We don't get much insight into him. And after that? A year passes and we don't get to see Natsu's struggles or his process of growth. What's worse: when he comes back, he's acting like he always acted. And there's no insight that shows us that no, he changed, he's just ACTING. We have nothing like that, he just… got better. And we don't get to see it.

Look, this isn't about his coping mechanisms or anything. It's not about whether a person, in real life, can go through a situation like that and appear unchanged by all that happened. No, this is about the writing choices made for a character being utterly ineffective and incompetent. It's not like we need much, honestly. We don't need to have Natsu ranting in his thoughts about all the suffering he went through and how he changed. Small changes would've been enough. Maybe having Natsu smiling less, or showing sad smiles. Or maybe have him lose some of his will for fighting, at least when it comes to the reckless fights he does for fun. Those things are small, but they are effective.

But, what is Natsu's character arc anyway? What did Mashima intend for him at the beginning of the story (or what he seemed to intend)? In my opinion, there are two major themes to what should've been Natsu's character arc: Choosing between Igneel and Fairy Tail, and learning to deal with loss. Both of these themes should've culminated at the end of the Tartaros arc, but Mashima accidentally destroyed all the moments that lead to this.

→ Igneel vs Fairy Tail.

So, the most basic character arc you see in stories usually is about what a character wants vs what a character needs. As I said, Natsu's motivation was established in the first chapter of the manga: He's looking for his adoptive father. However, as the story advances we start to understand how important Fairy Tail is for Natsu. It is his new family, and he can't abandon them. But what happens when Natsu finds Igneel? Will he leave with him and quit the guild? Or will he stay in Fairy Tail and say goodbye to his father? These questions are never properly addressed in the manga at any point, which I think was the first problem when it comes to establishing Natsu's character arc.

However, we do get at least one moment when we see a glimpse of what should've been his arc. This happens at the beginning of Edolas: Natsu and Wendy need to go to another world to save their friends, but there's a very strong chance of them being unable to return to Earthland once this is all over. Natsu says that he doesn't have anything tying him to Earthland if his friends aren't there… besides Igneel. However, he still makes the choice to go to Edolas. He basically chose the guild over Igneel, knowing fully well that he might have to give up his search for him.

While he makes this choice with a smile, his attitude during this arc seems a bit off comparing to previous arcs, at least until they reunite with Lucy. He smiles all the time, but not in a defying or devilish manner, like he usually does. It might be just my interpretation, but it did seem like he was swallowing up his feelings on the matter (not only when it came to giving up his search for Igneel, but also about what happened to his entire guild). Showing a bit more about him, about his feelings and thoughts at this time could've helped to build a real arc for him. Especially when we had a brilliant set up only a couple of chapters before, with him speaking to Gildarts about Igneel and Lisanna, which showed us that Natsu couldn’t just give up his search for Igneel. Except he did! Only a couple of chapters after that! And he barely shows any conflicting feelings about it! See why I say the writing is really incompetent?

The ideal progression would've been to see Natsu grow to understand that he already chose Fairy Tail over his search for Igneel. The manga deals a lot with themes of family and friendship. Having Natsu grow closer to the guild (more than ever before) thanks to Lucy joining in was the perfect set up for a character arc about about something REALLY difficult: choosing between your past and your present. That is, choosing to move on.

This leads us to the second theme of Natsu's (hypothetical) character arc:

→ Learning to deal with loss and moving on.

Natsu is established very early in the story as someone who can't deal with loss at all. He can't accept the possible death of his friends. We see his reactions to Gray's attempt to sacrifice himself. We see how he would've reacted to Erza's death, and how he even tells her that he can't deal with the thought of losing her.

And, more importantly, we see it when Lisanna's death is mentioned:

When it comes to death and loss, Natsu can't move on. He can't accept Igneel disappearance, and he can't accept Lisanna's death. And here's the thing: Lisanna's death was a perfect parallel to his loss of Igneel. It was a minor arc that could’ve help him learn to move on after losing someone.

But then Mashima decided to revive Lisanna and he screw it up.

Am I saying that Lisanna should've stayed dead? YES. Look, I don't like the idea of more female characters getting fridged. She was dead just to give her brothers (and Natsu) Pain and Suffering (™), honestly. However, after she was brought back, Mashima never did anything for her. She has literally no character arc. She barely appears, and is usually there to make either Elfman or Mirajane suffer. And her relationship with Natsu is completely dropped after Edolas. She serves no purpose in the story at all. And I want to like her! I think the concept for her is really interesting! But Mashima did nothing for her as character. (And this is a failing of him as writer, NOT a question of whether Lisanna is an interesting character or not. I don’t hate her, I want to make that clear).

In a better written story, Lisanna's death would've served to start a character arc about accepting loss and moving on. We had three different characters dealing with this death, and all of them were unable to move on. But instead of forcing the characters to confront this loss and finally accept it, we have the author rewarding their lack of growth by bringing back the character from the death. That right there is bad writing.

And this ties to a bigger arc, which comes back to the whole Igneel vs Fairy Tail thing. Natsu choosing Fairy Tail over Igneel would've been him finally moving on. Yes, Igneel disappeared, I can tell you how much different is having someone disappear instead of simply just die: It eats you up your whole life, even if you assume they're dead. But even so, accepting the loss of Igneel and moving on with the new family he found would've been the growth Natsu needed. It would've meant that he learned how to deal with death. It would've meant that he became an adult, in some senses. Again: Want vs Need. What Natsu wanted was to find Igneel, but what he needed was to move on.

As you see, Natsu's character arc was established in the beginning of the story. We had several arcs prior to Edolas showing us his inability to deal with grief and loss, as well as the importance Fairy Tail had gained in his life. We even had a chapter just at the beginning of Edolas reminding us of both Igneel and Lisanna, and how Natsu was unable to move on after both of these losses.

We had all the elements set-up in the story… But then it went nowhere.

Had these element been well established, Igneel's death in Tartaros would've been so much more powerful than it ended up being. And more importantly: Natsu would've been forced to change. As it is, we leave Tartaros, the culmination point for Natsu's character arc, without being able to see him truly grow.

What's worse is that Mashima tries to establish another character arc (related to E.N.D. and Zeref) at the end of Tartaros, after failing to finish the first character arc. So when we arrive to the recent chapters and we have Natsu face the choice between becoming a demon and becoming a dragon, that scene falls so tremendously flat that most of the fandom was pissed off.

That arc, the arc about Natsu questioning his own identity after finding out the truth about his past, was so poorly established that I can barely say it was established at all. I mean, sure, some of the scenes are there. Natsu finds out about all of this, but he barely seems to react to it. He barely seems to struggle with all this. HAPPY is struggling more than Natsu is. And the thing is: when you failed to execute the bigger and most important arc for the character, how can you hope to follow it up with something else? Natsu never learned the things he should've learned. He never grew, he only became physically stronger. That's all.

When you have a character with a sad backstory, who has flaws but neither the story nor the characters around him force him to recognize and confront them, and who only grows stronger and stronger physically speaking, how can you not expect people to call him a Mary Sue? I've said time and time again that I HATE that term, but people have every right to use it in this particular case, although I prefer to talk about bad writing, since it places the responsibility where it belongs: in the author.

Natsu keeps fighting the battles of other characters, and it serves no purpose to the story or his character arc. He just does it because he's the main character, but the story gains nothing from it. OF COURSE people are going to be pissed off. What else could you expect? That’s poor writing.

So there it is. This is one of the many, many flaws Fairy Tail has, but I think it’s an important one. When you can't get invested in one of the main characters it's very difficult to keep reading a story. And when the plot also shows the same sort of poor writing in the latest arcs, what else do you have to care for in the manga?

#fairy tail #natsu dragneel #anti fairy tail #negativity ?#writing criticism /#yeah i'm tagging this #because i'm not blindly hating on the manga #i'm providing criticism about the story #and i'm doing this because i LOVE natsu #that is exactly why i'm so disappointed #long post #possible spoilers

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whatwouldgeraltdo-blog · 7 years

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The Sword Of Destiny

The second book in the Witcher series is another collection of short stories. Where The Last Wish was, broadly, an examination of witchers and their purpose, their Path, The Sword Of Destiny begins to introduce the broad themes and characters that will become so familiar in the saga of novels. Because of that, this book is less about Geralt himself, and more about his relationship with those around him, the world, and Destiny itself.

The Bounds Of Reason

Three Jackdaws attempts to draw Geralt into a conversation about Order and Chaos, and the witcher's place in that battle. Geralt flatly rejects the idea that he stands on any clearly defined side, citing the fact that he doesn't kill dragons, who "without a doubt, represent Chaos." Yet again, he refuses to be drawn into any kind of binary conflict, whether it's a simple sorcerer vs killer (The Lesser Evil, from The Last Wish) or an abstract concept like the one presented by Three Jackdaws.

When discussing the fate of mutants - sterilization - Geralt seems to be frustrated, and a little upset. Whether this is because he resents this aspect of himself, or because he simply doesn't enjoy talking about it, is unclear. I am inclined towards frustration. He says that mutants "differed too much to endure." As he has referred to himself as a mutant many times, it's clear that he is equally talking about himself as much as golden dragons.

Interesting note - Geralt shows what could be considered an above-average knowledge of the boundaries of kingdoms and rulers, knowing where Barefield's territory ends and Caingorn's begins.

The White Wolf continues to expresses exasperation and frustration with flowery, unnecessary speech. When Dandelion protests, insisting that he isn't lying, merely embellishing, and there's a difference between the two, Geralt responds with "not much of one."

Geralt does not go to the dragon-hunting party to hunt the dragon. He goes solely to see Yennefer. He approaches her, hoping for a reconciliation, but is denied by Yennefer's (arguably righteous) anger at him for leaving her, insisting that she will never forgive him. Later, when asked why he remains with the party despite his lack of involvement or willingness to hunt the dragon, Geralt says traveling with a party is all the same to him. At least there's company, and he has nowhere else to be - "I don't have a destination at the end of the road." That's the real explanation he gives, anyway - he also sarcastically replies that he follows as a "servile golem", upset at having been called that by Yennefer earlier.

When the bridge collapses, Geralt risks his life to save Yennefer, despite her anger at him, and the slightly petty insults she had thrown his way only minutes earlier. When it looks like the two of them may die, he asks for her forgiveness. She refuses. However, he refuses to kill the dragon when she asks, and she offers her forgiveness, he declines, saying it no longer matters to him. She seems genuinely upset by that, and he regrets his words. This sums up their relationship. They both care deeply for one another, but rarely at the same time.

Geralt joins Dorregaray in trying to prevent the rest of the assembled crews from killing the golden dragon. During this fight, he attempts to use a Sign before being incapacitated by a spell.

After Yennefer is tied up by the Reavers and Yarpen's gang, Boholt threatens to rape her. Geralt threatens to kill him - "I'll follow you to the ends of the world."

After Three Jackdaws has revealed himself to be Villentretenmerth, the golden dragon, and Geralt has freed Yennefer with the Igni sign to allow her to aid the dragon, the witcher and sorceress reconcile, only to be told by Villentretenmerth that "you two were made for each other... but nothing will come of it."

A Shard Of Ice

Purely a Geralt/Yennefer story, with little of substance in Geralt's character development, beyond further development of the tempestuous relationship between the two, full of jealousy, lust, passion, anger, and love. He refuses to concede her to Istredd, despite the fact she has been sleeping with him. She refuses to give him a straight answer. Neither will tell the other that they love each other, she because she doesn't know, and he because he thinks the word means nothing coming from an emotionless witcher, however much we all know that isn't true. The two men decide to fight each other for her. Geralt won't be bribed out of doing so. Finally, the witcher won't fight Istredd, telling him to kill himself on his own if he really wants to. The decision is Yennefer's.

Geralt took several potions before the zeugl fight that opens the story, as referred to by Yennefer retroactively.

The first mention of The Wild Hunt. Geralt claims to have been offered money to deal with them before, but insists that there is no dealing with them.

Cats don't like witchers.

Geralt defends himself when attacked by Cicada, but doesn't kill him. He just wanted to know who would win in a fight, and was no threat to anyone else, so Geralt gives him his answer.

Eternal Flame

Introduction of Dudu the doppler. When the question of Geralt killing said doppler comes up, he refuses. Dopplers, he says, are an "intelligent race", and therefore different from the monsters he kills. The witcher consistently protects Dudu from the... Fervor of the Eternal Fire followers and priests, who would undoubtedly kill him if discovered. However, when Chappelle implies that finding and killing the doppler may be the only way Geralt and his friends leave Novigrad alive, he begrudgingly admits that he would be prepared to go through with it - despite the fact that, as revealed by Dudu later when he briefly takes over the witcher's thoughts while assuming his form, "the thought of killing [him] in cold blood fills [him] with disgust." As we've seen before - Geralt will go to great lengths to protect those that he cares for.

A Little Sacrifice

When Geralt and Dandelion find themselves short on money, the witcher takes on a job that involves no fighting or protection of anyone, simply acting as a translator to try and clear up a spat between a human and a mermaid couple.

Later on, he takes a more conventional job involving a mysteriously bloodied ship out beyond a certain part of the coast, during which he does his best to protect Dandelion and himself from the masses of creatures coming from what Dandelion calls the sunken city of Ys (most likely Vodyanoi, although they are not named in the story). Surprised, he uses Signs during the fight, having been unable to prepare and take potions, and escapes rather than wins. Agloval, the head of the village and the human part of the aforementioned couple, asks him to stay, to continue protecting his village's fishing vessels and pearl divers from the creatures, but Geralt refuses, stating that he considers "waging war against other races idiocy."

Geralt's fling with Essi Daven is interesting. Danelion believes that, having been warped by Yennefer and unable to understand a normal woman, Geralt simply tries to take advantage of her morbid interest in him, but Essi is too intelligent to fall for it. Geralt, for his part, seems genuinely taken by the bard, but his attentions are diverted during his fight on the beach, when his thoughts turn to Yennefer. He feels that the sorceress must feel the way he does towards Essi now, guilty with the knowledge that he is unable to give her what she wants - just like Yennefer. Geralt cannot find it within himself to love Essi, even for a night, because "Essi is not Yennefer."

Having said that, the line "and then, by the Gods, they did it, she and he," seems to imply that they do later have sex, as a way of resolving the tension between them.

The witcher tries to play up the emotionless killer angle with Essi, when talking about the job, but she rightly sees through it, pointing out that "if you were the heartless professional you pretend to be, you would have tried to push up the price. But you didn't say a word about your fee." This comes after Agloval talks about the women and children being affected by the deaths of their husbands and fathers at the hands of the monsters. Essi is right. Geralt does, on occasion, act with compassion to protect those less able to protect themselves (The Lesser Evil from The Last Wish).

Nonetheless, the witcher's code is explored in more detail in this story. When it is suggested that Agloval's jilted mermaid may be responsible, Essi tries to talk Geralt out of killing her. The witcher responds that he wouldn't kill her anyway, regardless of any justification or lack thereof, "because the code forbids him." As seen in The Bounds Of Reason and Eternal Flame in this book, a witcher won't kill a member of an intelligent race. It's simply not their job. He will, however, investigate the case as per his employer's instructions.

The Sword Of Destiny

This is a simple story, albeit an important one, concerning the first time Geralt and Ciri meet, after she flees an arranged marriage to Brokilon, the forest of the dryads. Geralt has history with the dryads, and knows their ways, as they know him. He had been sent on a 'diplomatic mission' by the ruler of a neighboring human region, and finds a scene of massacre - humans cut down by dryad arrows as they entered the forest.

Geralt knows one of the survivors, a man called Frexinet, and convinces the dryads to save his life. More because he knows their leader, Lady Eithne, than any persuasion skills of Geralt's. Frexinet used to be a baron, and Geralt lifted a curse from him that had turned him into a bird. Later on, he quizzes him about any recurances. Ever the professional.

Interesting note - while Braenn guides Geralt to the dyrad's captial, Duen Canell, he quizzes the young dryad about her past. He realizes that she has no dryad blood in her, and instead was a human child, taken to Brokilon to be turned into a dryad. This, of course, is essentially the life of a witcher. This doesn't escape Geralt.

Geralt and Braenn save the young Ciri's life, at which point the princess is rude, stubborn, and arrogant. Geralt gives as good as he gets - their relationship doesn't get off to a friendly start. But Geralt, being the good-hearted mutant that he is, knows that he needs to get Ciri back to her home - not least because she's the reason Frexinet was nearly killed. So he uses a little reverse-psychology to convince the girl to accompany him. The two spar - Geralt threatens her when she complains, she tells him a little about her, he at least tries to tell her a little about the real world. How she came so close to death. The witcher even begins to joke with her.

Some geopolitics with Lady Eithne, as Geralt's employer is appealing to her to concede parts of Brokilon to him - parts of Brokilon that were deforested and made useless to the dryads a hundreds years ago. Much like the elves that we learned about in The Edge Of The World from The Last Wish, the dryads are too proud to admit that the world has changed beyond them. Geralt again preaches that "only those who assimilate with humans will survive," but his words fall on deaf ears.

Of course, it now emerges that Ciri is the daughter of Duny and Pavetta - the couple that appeared in the story A Question Of Price from The Last Wish. There, Geralt invoked the Law of Surprise after saving Duny's life. Pavetta's child was to become a Witcher. However, not only did the child turn out to be a female, she is also a Child of the Elder Blood, as realized by Lady Eithne. Because of the Law of Surprise, she is forever tied to Geralt by destiny, however much the witcher tries to deny that. That is why Lady Eithne allows her to leave with him, rather than turning the young girl into a dryad.

Geralt leaves Ciri behind. Throughout this story, he is referred to as the first edge on the sword of destiny - he believes the second edge to be death, and does not want to expose Ciri to that.

Something More

The coda to The Sword Of Destiny opens with Geralt finding a crashed cart on a bridge in Temeria, with a single merchant hiding underneath it. The ravine underneath the bridge is filled with bones, the remains of those who attempted to cross this bridge before. The area has been infested by monsters since the war arrived in this area of the world, and it is those monsters that have accounted for the bones underneath the bridge, and will account for the merchant once darkness falls.

Yurga, the merchant, implores Geralt to help him. The witcher invokes the Law of Surprise yet again, and prepares for the oncoming fight, readying his silver blade and drinking a potion. The attack comes - an army of small monsters (perhaps Nekkers, although they are not named in the book), and Geralt is able to fight them off, sustaining serious wounds in the process.

While unconscious, Geralt dreams. No prizes for guessing who he dreams of. In the dream, he and Yennefer come together again, acknowledging that they have hurt each other, and will continue to do so - because their love will continue, and that's just the way the two of them are.

Upon waking, Geralt finds himself in Sodden, still wounded, but being cared for. He dreams again, this time remembering his visit to Cintra, six years after the events of A Question Of Price from The Last Wish, hoping to retrieve that which was promised to him - Duny and Pavetta's son. Queen Calanthe refuses to hand the child over, saying that it matters not which child Geralt takes. They will all be stuffed with herbs, mutagens, and magic to become a witcher. Geralt refuses, saying that witchers specifically seek out children of destiny, those born through the Law of Surprise, because those children will not require the intense training of the Trials. Nonetheless, Geralt refuses to take a child, renouncing destiny because he does not believe in it. Or so he insists - we know, from the events of The Sword Of Destiny, that he does.

Interesting note - Geralt reveals that he is not a Child of Destiny, instead a common foundling, the unwanted bastard of a woman he doesn't remember. But he knows who she is. A sorceress. That alone makes Geralt an oddity - sorceresses, as Yennefer well knows, are barren. It also raises an interesting point about Geralt's... Fondness for sorcerers. They say women date their fathers, and clearly our hero is looking for his mother.

When Geralt wakes, he is being healed by a sorceress. A sorceress whose name he knows, because Vesemir told him. Destiny? Or chance? Either way, Geralt's mother disappears come morning.

Soon, Geralt arrives with Yurga in Upper Sodden, specifically Riverdell. Here, he learns about the second Battle of Sodden, and the deaths of the Fourteen sorcerers and sorceresses that died to beat back the Nilfgaardian advance. Geralt attempts to climb to the stone that commemorates them, having known several of the Fourteen - including Triss Merigold. Weak, Geralt collapses and dreams again. This time he meets the force that dogs his footsteps, the second edge of destiny's sword - Death. Geralt insists that he is no longer afraid of death. The woman counters that he looks afraid, and challenges him to speak the fourteenth name - Yennefer. She believes he is afraid to hear that name, afraid that Yennefer is dead. He asks her to take him now, but she refuses, and Geralt wakes up. Yurga tells him the fourteenth name, and it is not Yennefer's.

Soon, Geralt and Yurga arrive at the banks of the Yaruga river, where Geralt slips into yet another dream. In this one, Dandelion is attempting to cross with a horde of others, all fleeing from the Nilfgaarian army. Dandelion is afraid, asking Geralt not to leave him. The witcher, of course, insists that he would never leave the bard. Dandelion then tells Geralt of Nilfgaard's new warfare, of scorched earth, of death and total destruction - including Cintra, Geralt's destination. Believing Ciri to be dead, Geralt muses that destiny is not enough, and 'something more' is needed. Without Ciri, he will never know what that 'something more' is.

Finally, Geralt and Yurga reach the merchant's home. Yurga insists in respecting Geralt's request on the bridge - to give Geralt that which he finds at home, but does not expect. What he finds is Ciri. Ciri, alive after fleeing the sack of Cintra, taken in by this merchant's family. She is what Yurga did not expect. She is what was promised to Geralt. Ciri, yet again, is comes to Geralt through the Law of Surprise. Through Destiny.

"It's like they said! Geralt! It's like they said! Am I your destiny? Say it! Am I Your destiny?"

"You're more than that, Ciri. Much more."

#the witcher #geralt of rivia #the witcher 2 #the witcher 3 #the sword of destiny #assassins of kings #the wild hunt #what would Geralt do?

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wandacrivello-blog · 7 years

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BUS 309 Week 10 Quiz – Strayer

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Quiz 9 Chapter 10

Moral Choices Facing Employees

MULTIPLE CHOICE

1. Based on guidelines of employer/employee relations, which statement is true?

company loyalty is an outmoded, illegitimate concept that employees today reject

the traditional law of agency obliges employees to act loyally and in good faith and to carry out lawful instructions

an employee's work contract is irrelevant to his or her moral obligations

no value is more important than loyalty, whether to a person or an organization

2. Conflicts of interest

have become less frequent today.

always involve personal financial gain.

are morally worrisome only when the employee acts to the detriment of the company.

occur when employees' private interests are substantial enough to potentially interfere with their job duties.

3. According to the Supreme Court,

there is nothing improper about an outsider’s using information, as long as the information is not obtained from an insider who breaches a legal duty to the corporation’s shareholders.

anyone buying/selling stock based on nonpublic information is guilty of inside trading.

insider trading violates the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution.

it should be left up to the company, not the government, to decide whether or not to prohibit insider trading.

4. A "trade secret"

is legally equivalent to a patent or copyright.

need not be treated confidentially by the company in order to be protected.

can become part of an employee's technical knowledge, experience, and skill.

is a narrow, precise concept that the law defines in great detail.

5. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)

doesn't apply to countries where bribery is common.

is alleged by its critics to put American companies at a disadvantage.

carefully distinguishes bribery from extortion payments.

outlaws "grease payments".

6. In determining the morality of giving and receiving gifts in a business situation, which of the following factors is MOSTrelevant?

the purpose of the gift

the size of the business

amount of the cash

whether the company is privately held or publicly held

7. A whistle-blower

doesn't have to be a past or present member of the organization.

doesn't have to report activity that is illegal, immoral, or harmful.

is any employer who spreads gossip.

far from being disloyal, may be acting in the best interest of the organization.

8. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

makes it easier to fire whistle blowers.

reduces the law's protection of employees who disclose securities fraud.

makes it illegal for executives to retaliate against employees who report possible violations of federal law.

provides penalties for blowing the whistle illegitimately or maliciously.

9. According to Professor Norman Bowie, which of the following factors is relevant to determining the morality of blowing the whistle?

the whistle blower's motive

whether internal channels have been exhausted

whether the whistle blowing has some chance of success

all of the above

10. In discussing the case of the truck stop cashier who is asked to write up phony chits or receipts, the text argues that

there is nothing wrong with writing up the chits.

she should resign immediately.

she may be justified in "going along," at least temporarily.

morality never requires us to sacrifice our own interests.

11. In the 1997 case of U.S. v. Hagan, the Supreme Court found that Hagan

had been discriminated against because of whistle blowing.

was innocent of insider trading.

violated the FCPA despite never having gone overseas.

had misappropriated confidential information.

12. The Donald Wohlgemuth case shows that

trade secrets can be patented.

trade secrets often become an integral part of an employee's total job skills and capabilities.

employees need to divest themselves of any skill acquired while handling trade secrets.

"noncompete" or "nondisclosure" contracts are always legally valid.

13. Some writers deny that employees have any obligation of loyalty to the company, because

companies are not the kind of things that are properly objects of loyalty.

you cannot trust anyone.

it’s every man for himself.

companies just aren’t the same any more.

14. When an employee’s interests are likely to interfere with the employee’s ability to exercise proper judgment on behalf of the organization, what exists?

a golden opportunity

a balance of power

a conflict of interest

a disaster

15. Insider trading is

the buying or selling of stocks (or other financial securities) by business “insiders” on the basis of information that has not yet been made public and is likely to affect the price of the stock.

a corporate merger.

knowing when to make the best buy.

giving great advice on a deal.

16. Inside traders ordinarily defend their actions by claiming that they don’t injure

the boss.

their family.

the President.

anyone.

17. Shaw and Barry mention three arguments for legally protecting trade secrets. Which of these is one of them?

Trade secrets are the intellectual property of the employee who developed them.

Employees who disclose trade secrets

violate the confidentiality owed to their employers

Trade secrets are patented.

Trade secrets are trademarked.

18. U.S. companies have a history of paying off foreign officials for business favors. Such acts were declared illegal by

the U.S. Customs department.

the Vice President.

the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977.

the United Nations.

19. To resolve difficult moral dilemmas, the better we understand the exact ramifications of the

alternatives—the more likely we are

to make a sound moral decision.

to be a success.

to drive the boss crazy.

to go to jail.

20. Whistle-blowing involves exposing activities that are

sports related.

too close to call.

immoral or illegal.

boring and need some excitement.

21. Whistle-blowers are only human beings, not saints, and they sometimes have their own

salary.

bandwagon.

self-serving agenda.

office.

22. Which act provides sweeping new legal protection for employees who report possible securities fraud, making it unlawful for companies to “discharge, demote, suspend, threaten, harass, or in any other manner discriminate against” them?

Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002

Economic Espionage Act

Foreign Corruption Act

U.S. vs. O’Hagan

23. Conflicts of interest may exist when employees have financial investments

in suppliers, customers, or distributors with whom their organizations do business.

in sports teams.

and question the wisdom of the deal.

that lead to office romance.

24. The use of one’s official position for what always raises moral concerns and questions?

power trips

stepping stones to success

egos

personal gain

25. Experimental studies suggest that when informed that the advice they’re receiving may be biased because of a conflict of interest,

those who disclose a conflict of interest rarely end up giving more biased advice than those who do not disclose

those who disclose a conflict of interest always end up giving more biased advice than those who do not disclose

People tend to fail to discount the advice as much as they should.

people tend to discount the advice as much as they should.

TRUE/FALSE

1. An employee can have a conflict of interest even if he or she doesn't act to the detriment of the organization.

2. Insider trading is the buying or selling of stocks by insiders on the basis of information attained by an “insider” that has not yet been made public and is likely to affect the price of the stock.

3. The law precisely defines the concept of a trade secret, just as it does patents and copyrights.

4. A kickback is a kind of bribe.

5. By definition, whistle-blowing can only be done by a past or present member of the organization.

6. Prudential reasons are reasons that refer to the interests of others and the demands of morality.

7. All gifts are bribes.

8. According to Norman Bowie, whistle blowing can never be justified because it involves violating one's duties to the organization.

9. A bribe is remuneration for the performance of an act that's inconsistent with the work contract or the nature of the work one has been hired to perform.

10. The Supreme Court has rejected the idea that inside trading involves "misappropriating" confidential information.

11. A conflict of interest arises when an employee has private interests that are substantial enough to potentially interfere with his or her job duties.

12. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) outlaws grease payments.

13. A common argument against the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act is that it illegitimately imposes parochial American standards on foreign countries.

14. Employees have no obligations to people with whom they have no business relations.

15. As a general rule, if the contents of the work agreement that exists between the employee and the employer are legal and if the employee freely consents to them, then the employee is under an obligation to fulfill the terms of the agreement.

16. Sometimes companies require employees to sign contracts restricting their ability to get a job with, or start, a competing company. Because they can conflict with freedom of employment, not all such “noncompete” or “nondisclosure” contracts are legally valid.

17. Justice Ginsberg and Arthur Levitt suggest that allowing insider trading could lead to a widespread perception that “the game is rigged.”

18. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 forbids companies to pay kickbacks in the United States, but permits them to pay kickbacks to companies outside the United States.

19. Employees have certain general duties to their employers, and because of the specific business, professional, or organizational responsibilities they have assumed, they may have other more precise role-based obligations.

20. When faced with a moral decision, employees should follow the two-step procedure of identifying the relevant obligations, ideals, and effects; and then decide where the emphasis should lie among these considerations.

21. According to one expert's definition, whistle blowing is conceptually restricted to reporting on activities that are harmful to third parties, violations of human rights, or contrary to the public purpose and legitimate goals of the organization.

22. According to Norman Bowie, a discussion of whistle blowing in the 1990s parallels the discussion of civil disobedience in the 1960s.

23. Prudential reasons are those moral reasons that are separate from self-interest.

24. According to Jennifer Moore the real reason insider trading should be prohibited is that it undermines the fiduciary relationship that is at the heart of business management.

25. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act weakened legal protections for whistle blowers.

SHORT ANSWER

1. When does a conflict of interest arise?

2. What is insider trading?

3. Name an argument that's given against legalizing insider trading?

4. How do trade secrets differ from information that is patented or copyrighted?

5. What are the main features of the 1977 Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA)?

6. Name an argument given against foreign forms of bribery.

7. There are at least seven factors to take into consideration in determining the morality of giving and receiving gifts in a business situation. Explain three of them.

8. What is whistle-blowing, and what motivates whistle-blowers?

9. According to Norman Bowie, whistle-blowing is morally justified only if five criteria are met. What are these five criteria?

10. What is a key lesson to be learned from the example of the cashier at a truck stop who is asked by her manager to provide the truckers with phony chits so they can get a larger reimbursement from their companies?

ESSAY

1. How do we know when whistle-blowing is morally right or wrong? Justify your answer.

2. Consider Coleen Rowley who blew the whistle against the FBI. How could we justify the fact that she did the right thing? Consider at least two different moral theories.

3. When, if ever, are employees overly disloyal for getting a job for a competing organization? Justify your answer.

4. If all the other businesses in a foreign country are providing a “grease payment” for border patrol. Is it all right and ethical to do that? State and defend your answer.

5. Provide an example of an abuse of an official position. Justify your answer.

#BUS 309 Week 10 Quiz – Strayer

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scrumptiouslyclevergalaxy-blog1 · 7 years