#horrible histories screencaps

[elgog]

#ben willbond #horrible histories #screencaps #him looking cold and mildly scruffy #me: rewind screencap rewind screencap #I need to get back to giffing #for my health

[hurremshiv]

This should become a meme.

#horrible histories #my screencaps

[actualbird]

hi zak! I saw the tags you left on a reblogged post about Luke and suffering in relation to catholicism and that made me think. one of my classmates used to mention "the catholic guilt" (particularly about having desire), and I just thought it fits Luke so well. He felt so guilty about loving Rosa (and leaving her alone...) for so long T-T. Also, I'd love to hear more of your thoughts about catholic and filipino luke if you'd like to write about it!

irt to these deranged tags i left on this post abt suffering as salvation and luke forever ago, screencapped below for reference

hello hello! sorry this response took Ages but now im finally down to answer this so....

//steeples hands.....is luke pearce catholic coded? to Me, yes, and ive been casually throwing around this concept ever since 2021 HAHA. the filipino bit is actually just me projecting, so i wont go too much into that, but the religious bit Is something i wanna talk about. and i apologize in advanced for how long this response is gonna end up being

quick disclaimer b4 i start tho: im Not a theologian or an expert in religious theory, im just some guy who went through over a decade of catholic school and lives in the philippines, a primarily catholic country. this whole response is not saying "catholicism bad." it's more the institutions from where we experience catholicism from can twist it into something harmful, and i got to experience that first hand and how it affects one's view of themselves

ANYHOO, LET'S START FROM THE BEGINNING

like....the Beginning beginning

part 1: in the beginning, adam and eve did an oopsie so now we're all saddled with original sin (i swear this is important to luke pearce, bear with me)

quick recap on those who are unfamiliar: in the book of Genesis, god told adam and eve not to eat from the tree of knowledge. and then they did. this was the first ever sin in the history of humankind, and it is inherited by all humans through birth. so like, yay, happy entrance into the world, newly born baby child! you are guilty of sin already. this original sin is most usually absolved though through baptism, so it's not too much of a problem. but what im interested here is less of the nitty gritty semantics and more of the concept this all puts forth:

that under catholicism and similar denominations, a child, somebody who has not done any wrong at all, is inherently tainted by sin

now, the Good reaction to sin or any wrongdoing one has done is to recognize it and to atone for forgiveness. and within the "recognition" part is where guilt lies. functionally, guilt has a purpose. it makes us realize that we had done something wrong, it makes us feel remorseful, and it adds motivation to atone, to turn a new leaf, and to be better. in healthy amounts, guilt is useful and a natural part of being conscious over the things you do. and in unhealthy amounts, guilt is agonizing.

but thats for stuff you actually Did.

if the thing you are guilty for isnt actually something you were responsible over, the guilt cant do anything to make any of it better. you cant be a better person from it, because you didnt even do it. it just sits there, making you feel horrible for something that was out of your control. but because guilt is a Good thing to do, it doesnt matter if it's functional or not. it needs to stay. because it's Good, and the sin youre saddled with (whether or not you were responsible) is Bad

now let's bring in luke

luke's parents died when he was very young. this led him to living with mc's family, and a huge insecurity and fear he had from the beginning was that he felt guilty for burdening them, for stealing the love and care from mc's parents when that shouldve been for mc alone. the story SSR Shape Of You goes into this particular childhood experience extensively (and i highly reccommend it to anyone who hasnt read it yet), and tells us that his guilt was so bad that he wanted to run away and even erase himself from existence.

but luke didnt even do anything wrong

at the time, he was a child. he had no bearing whatsoever in the accident that killed his parents, he had no sway over who wouldve ended up looking after him, he had no control over the situation. like a newborn baby born under catholic doctrine, luke finds himself inherently tainted by and guilty for the circumstances that landed him to where he was.

this kind of pattern is going to follow him for the rest of his life, and the concept of inherent sin and inherent guilt begins to evolve. if luke can find himself guilty for things out of his control, then he can also find himself guilty for things that arent even sins in the first place

key example: love

like you said, luke feels immense guilt over loving mc. but why? love is the opposite of a sin, afterall.

it's just a sin when luke does it. because luke sees himself as inherently bad, and sees mc as inherently good. he sees himself as unworthy of her or someone who will just bring pain into her life, and causing pain someone you love is bad. if love is the knife he uses to hurt someone he loves, then that love is bad. that love should not be realized, and luke should feel guilty for even yearning for her.

by this point i think it's obvious that original concept has become twisted and overly punishing, even cruel. and thats because:

a lot of institutions teach catholic doctrine in an unhealthy and harmful manner. this is why many catholics and lapsed catholics experience The Catholic Guilt(TM). what was originally a pretty reasonable thing gets blown out of proportion from the places we learn these things from, and then getting exposed to this for majority of our lives lets it worm its way into our brain where it'll tend to stay

and if one's brain also has a tendency for self hatred and/or mental illness........well. it all gets worse.

it's clear in canon that luke is uhhhh not the most mentally well individual. his guilt is so overwhelming that it's the driving force in so many of his choices, stories, and experiences. which is big reason #1 for why luke just seems so catholic to me, because of the sheer intensity of his guilt and how he sees himself as inherently bad and unworthy.

but in the roadmap of sin, thats only the beginning. because the process goes:

sin (bad) -> recognition of the bad aided by guilt (good) -> atonement to become better (good)

which leads to big reason #2

part 2: suffering, pain, and misery as atonement

it's important to note that catholicism does not posit that "suffering is good", but there is a clear pattern of veneration for people who endure suffering under noble causes. many, many people in catholic history have been martyred (and many also sainted), one of the biggest examples being jesus himself.

pain is not good, but someone who chooses to take it on for good reasons (self-sacrifice, martyrdom, putting others above one's self) or stays good in spite of all the pain they experienced (unwavering faith, a heart of gold), well, THAT person is good.

however, like a lot of stuff in catholicism, things get twisted into extreme variations because of how it gets taught or experienced. it doesnt take a genius to see how "people who endured pain for good reasons were brave and devoted people" can transform into "to experience pain is inherently noble" when you take into consideration that many sins (like, of the seven deadly sins variety, pride, sloth, lust, etc etc) are variations of indulgence.

specifically over-indulgence, yes, but there's a dichotomy now. here, in the list of Good Stuff are things that feel not-so-good, and over in the list of Bad Stuff are things that do feel good

bad stuff is a sin, and from part 1, sins are things you should be guilty for

and now, to feel good is also bad, so you should be guilty for that. which reinforces the concept that to feel bad is good.

congratulations, you've unintentionally glorified suffering and demonized pleasure! //sad trumpet noises

you can see this kind of thinking pretty clearly in luke pearce. there are the big examples like the previous one i brought up, where he feels so guilty for his feelings for mc. but it appears even in smaller casual situations, like in his 1st birthday event story. this moment was seared into my brain

"can i look forward to this?" is indicative of hesitating in the face of happiness. even something as mundane as anticipating a birthday surprise is something to be approached with caution, feels too good to be true, to be allowed, because feeling good is bad and luke doesnt see himself worthy of it

but okay, we're all guilty now of the horrible sin of enjoying life. what comes next? atonement, becoming better, growing from the bad to become good, right?

and what better way to cleanse one's self from the sin of feeling good but through the nobleness of enduring pain?

luke is guilty over the sin robbing burdening mc and her family -> thats okay he's leaving for college anyway! wont be able to burden them there -> oopsie the NSB happens but hey at least this lone wolf suffering is a great way to atone for his past sin -> oh god the guilt of abandoning mc though -> oh GOD the mission that killed everybody but him -> NEW ACHIEVEMENT: SURVIVOR'S GUILT ON TOP OF THE CATHOLIC GUILT! -> oh GOD he's even guiltier now of his feelings for mc because of his illness, he'll only bring pain to her, how selfish of him to have feelings like this, bad and wrong -> the best way to handle this is to stay away from her to let her live in peace (lacking the pain that luke will bring) and deprive himself of her who brings him joy (inflicting pain of separation onto sinner as punishment) -> the path to salvation (to being good, because only in being Good is someone worthy of love) is through constant suffering and endless self-deprivation

kinda insane how luke's self-perceived sins and self-inflicted sufferings gain compound interest of misery, but his spiral into self-loathing is littered with this kind of nonsensical "because i did [THING], i should deserve pain/NOT deserve happiness"

for luke, suffering became the mode of atonement, it became the solution for sin and guilt.

part 3: conclusion

to wrap this all up, i wanna make it clear that i dont necessarily think luke is like, catholic in the story. nor is even it a headcanon i have. it's more that the intensely self-punishing thought patterns luke has in relation to guilt and suffering are very, very familiar. it resonates in a way that is horridly relatable to people who have experienced these specific catholic experience woes, but it can also resonate in completely different ways to other people as well.

but given that....yeah. based on my own experiences, all this //gestures at too-long response, is why i keep using catholic language and imagery whenever i talk about luke. it's so familiar. he's so familiar. luke would not be out of place in a filipino catholic high school crying during a 3 day retreat

thanks for the ask!!!

#tears of themis #moonstruck-writing #asks #luke pearce #xia yan #tot luke #tears of themis analysis

[beesmygod]

BLOODBORNE LORE Q+A PART 5: BOSSES

part 1

part 2

part 3

part 4

---

THE HUNTER ASKS:

there IS a connection! where queen yharnam can be found, so can her shadows! they're HER shadows, not the shadows of the city. this is a reasonable inference given they have low poly pthumerian faces under the hoods. i brightened the shit out of this screencap to make it easy to see.

the boss version is found right before you run into her (or, really, one of her projections*) in the moonside lake and the others right before we bump into her on our way to deal with mergo.

*this is some speculation but its not without backing. the real queen yharnam can summon two ghostly clones of herself who can be distinguished from the real one because they are not pregnant. the one you meet before mergo poofs like the ones she summons during her fight if you hit her.

they do suck tho. kind of a shitty fight. if youre a confederate and you summon henryk its not even fair. something DID happen in development tho. lance macdonald, who does a lot of bloodborne datamining that whips ass, recently posted a comprehensive history of this bastard: the snake ball

despite the shadows of yharnam sucking ass and being one of the weaker boss fights, i seriously think this looks way worse and it was a good idea to cut it. if i reached the end of this notoriously grueling and miserably boring level full of literally nothing but snakes just to be served another, bigger snake i would become saint patrick irl. at least they pretended it wasnt snakes at first with the current fight lol.

i dont really get the snake infestation thing. like its there and there's the whole madras twins story or whatever. but it doesnt really seem to have any attribution to any outside force. it just seems like its some shit that happens in yharnam. sucks. maybe this is supposed to be another example of the line between man and beast blurring, like the note in byrgenwerth.

THE HUNTER ASKS:

lol i love this question. i have no idea. how tf does he know its name is paarl. it sure as shit didnt tell him. "vacuous rom" at least comes from micolash but i dont know how you would know it before that. how does the hunter know its a spider. how does the hunter know ebrietas is a girl. the insane confidence to decide that mergo's wet nurse is a wet nurse is unfathomable.

i saw someone on reddit call logarius "gary" and i thought that was very disrespectful. does that help.

THE HUNTER ASKS:

i think so! not a lot of info on those guys. i appreciate their existence tho. they have a sick hat you can steal.

i guess i don't really understand how fire works in the bloodborne universe, really. laurence's burning body could be read as metaphorical but none of the fires in yharnam go out easily. old yharnam is still burning, somehow. some pthumerican enemies can cast hadoukens for no reason, for example: the pthumerian elder, those chalice dungeon enemies that look like the chapel dweller, the keeper of the old lords and their horrible dog, the shadows of yharnam............lady maria..........!

the only one i can think of that breaks this pattern are the beast possessed soul and the loran cleric who tries to kill you IRL by lighting your PS4 on fire with his AOE attack. i know i post this all the time but please watch this 30 second clip of this asshole casting nuclear winter on this poor hunter

genuinely no clue on this. fire cleanses or whatever but other than that its a mysterious force in universe that behaves oddly.

THE HUNTER ASKS:

i believe so! she's at least a cainhurst knight if her outfit is anything to go by. its such a good fight. her song on the OST is a waltz and its like they created the fight around keeping time.

---

i should cut this here. next time i can focus entirely on rom/mensis/the one reborn, etc. almost done. that post will probably be long tho.

but everyone is so wrong about what happened so you have to deal with it.

I GOT A LOT OF PROBLEMS WITH YOU PEOPLE

#bloodborne #long post/ #lore #Youtube

[traceofexistence]

I know I’m beating a long dead horse with this, but it came up again in a you tube video released couple of days ago

and it has gotten to a point of no return so here’s my input as an animator (my daily job)

sailor moon crystal 1  and 2, do not have a horrible animation whatsoever, in fact crystal 2 is the best animation sailor moon ever had in it’s history including the recent movies with big money budgets and lonnnnnnng periods in the making.

first lets address the elephant in the room

ART STYLE =/= animation

screencap of a single frame of a 24fps animated sequence =/= animation

slow detailed animation =/= bad animation

MANIPULATING said screencap frame to look worse than it is(a.k.a stretching the image to prove a non existent point) =/= bad animation

example from s01ep08 net release:

this is the actual screencap of that well known giant head “screencap” some crystal hating blogs here have made you to believe.

the meme face from episode 3 has been fixed, and while the episode 3 IS the one with the most noticeable without pausing mistakes, it’s just few scenes not the entire thing. (and both the meme face and the rei face are from that ep)

and the reason of that episode being particularly bad has been explained by an animator: basically Toei gave them the last fixes 3 days before release, and if you know anything about animation you know that 3 days are not NEARLY enough to get animation for 25 minutes + rendering, and post production things.

beyond that one episode, and after they got TV money (around ep 8 it was announces that s2 will be on tv) the animation quality raised significantly to the point of crystal 2 being flawless.

another thing that separates crystal 1-2 from crystal 3, eternal, and the 90s anime is that they do not use copypasta animation outside of the VERY FEW transformation sequences.

in crystal 3 for example you have both long transformations each episodes, and the attacks being copy pasta. I wont even touch on the 90s because about 30% of the episode back then was a repeat animation lol.

on top of not having copypasta, crystal 1-2 had a lot mot animation time, as it included at the beginning and end of every episode new animation, unlike crystal 3 that it had a reduced time due to copy pasta all transformations/attacks, + at the beginning it was a summary of previous ep.

crystal 1-2 was harder to animate because it was more detailed, and they had so many hair flowing animations, while crystal 3 had a simplified moe art style that was easier to animate, but very generic. and still had animation hiccups all over the place. it was just that once the haters got the crystal 1-2 animators fired, and got their moe bs artstyle they stopped tearing it apart frame by frame, so the general public doesn’t know that the animation is worst.

now with all that out of the way, there is one thing that infuriates me to no end

talking bad about the animators

Toei is trash and cheap we all know that, but just because they look for cheaper labour in other counties doesn’t make the animators in those countries “talentless” “lazy“ “bad” or anything else that has come to their way because of few hiccups in ONE episodes of an anime series.

it is extremely condescending to assume that just because animators in less fortunate countries have a cheaper labour, that means they are bad.

in a recent project of creating a 25 seconds animation for a commercial, that took me a week to make, and I was paid 600euros for it. If the client had not outsourced it in my country and had it made in the US where his company is, it would have been double or triple the price or more. does that make my job bad, or make me lazy, or do I suck? because my income is lower than most west europeans/americans in my field?

I’m sure an animator in the Philippines who was to make the exact same animation as me, would have been paid even less than me, because of how their economy works. but it wouldn;t make their work any less good!

all in all

crystal 1-2 was never badly animated,

if you dont know how many long hours animators have to work shut your mouth really. especially the lazy accusation is the biggest bs ever. 

#sailor moon crystal

[brineffxiv]

I am so sorry that I laughed when you fell over, Thancred. I didn't realize someone had just tried (succeeded?) to steal your soul.

Wow, I don't know what just happened! But it sure smells like PLOT! I didn't manage to catch all the lines in my screencaps, but I got most of them? Let's see. Talking about history needing to be changed, a calamity looming. And then the bit about the light... that rings a bell.

Isn't that what happened to uh... the world the Warriors of Darkness were from? The one Minfilia went to save?

So we've got... some sort of time traveler or someone wanting to be a time traveler? Maybe trying to stop whatever happened there? (The Alexander raids have taught me that time travel is a stable loop in this game's universe, so probably not a good idea...) Is the plan the council was discussing going to lead to a horrible calamity!? But why target the Scions for the soul stealing thing? Do we do something bad in the future???

So many possibilities! Ooooh I get what's happening, this is the start of the Plot for the next expansion, like how when Ilberd summoned Shinryu it kicked off the Stormblood plot!

#ffxiv liveblog #rhesh'a tag #thancred waters #baseless speculation

[ellieellieoxenfree]

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both? 

x reader fic is the bane of my fucking existence. going into a tag is always a fucking minefield where i'm not sure if i'm going to have my legs blown off by having to find x reader that talks about the 'warm, gummy walls' of your vagina (real thing i saw the other day) or doom guy/isabelle from animal crossing (real thing i saw tonight in, for some reason, the who framed roger rabbit tag). i have as many variations of it as i can find tumblr saviored and even so, i am still exposed to OP's warm, gummy cooch when just trying to find anime screencaps.

unfortunately i do have a horrible tendency to put OCs as support characters in my fics. i've done it in...well, numerous fandoms, at least four that i can think of offhand (bleach, the flash, That Fucking Show, and kiseki). making characters and their detailed histories has always been super-rewarding to me so even though a lot of the time, they don't make it anywhere into a story i write and just remain as things i swap over DMs in headcanon discussions, i always have a good time doing it. it's kind of a middle ground for me between actually delving more deeply into the original stories that have lurked in my brain for years and just fucking around with fic.

#asks

[oh2e]

Bob Hale - WWI Special

(The beginning of the limerick can be see on the toilet paper and reads 'There once was a girl from Verdun who looked like an old currant bun')

#apologies for the image turning out a bit weird it does that when you've got the subtitles on sometimes. no clue why. #my own post #horrible histories #horrible histories screencaps #screencaps #bob hale #larry rickard #the six idiots

[walkingcontradiction42]

Mary I | Horrible Histories S04 Ep10, requested by anonymous

#horrible histories #sarah hadland #horrible histories s04 ep10 #gif #requested #please move so fast that my screencap can't capture all your movements #this video: yes #the back looks so good tho and the fog

[resplendentmackerelsky]

I recognised a certain green doublet whilst watching Upstart Crow...

Whilst I know that reuse of costumes is common, I certainly wasn't expecting to notice it...

#apologies for the quality of the screencaps... i got excited #bill the movie #bill 2015 #upstart crow #simon farnaby #although i have also noticed the dress Martha wears as Molly also appears several times in horrible histories #if you didn't know - the doublet was made especially to fit simon in bill

[emaya-chan-the-potato-headed]

'You sinful Jezabel!'

'Oh you're gonna burn in hell!'

#horrible histories #historical wife swap #mat baynton #his expression 😆 #slimy stuarts #screencap #katy wix

[dramatichhcaps]

#joan of arc #martha howe douglas #horrible histories #screencap

[lothiriel84]

I got tagged by @mifhortunach to describe myself using 10 pics that I already owned. (I know this doesn't actually describe anything, but, you know *gestures vaguely*)

Not tagging anyone, feel free to play along if you want to.

#ask meme #tag you're it #yep those are my dead (not space) dogs #third pic is a screencap from Horrible Histories #(and yes that's Lawry in it) #bumblebees and cows are paramount

[pinketts]

Historical Figures Horrible Histories Has Caused Me To Find Attractive: Edward VIII

Fun fact about Edward VIII- His private secretary claimed that  "for some hereditary or physiological reason his normal mental development stopped dead when he reached adolescence". Sooo...that kinda checks out.

#horrible histories #mat baynton #mathew baynton #edward viii #i was watching the romance special and felt personally attacked #my screencaps

[ariasb]

#manga #screenplay #end of the age #anime #manga screencap #horror #cosmic horror #junji itō #psychosis #terror #reality #psycology #horror monsters #horrible histories

[renegadewangs]

Van Zieks - the Examination, Part 1

Warnings: SPOILERS for The Great Ace Attorney: Chronicles. Additional warning for racist sentiments uttered by fictional characters (and screencaps to show these sentiments).

Disclaimer: These posts are not meant to be taken as fact. Everything I'm outlining stems from my own views and experiences. I am a 30-something European woman, and therefore may not view the matter from certain angles. That said, I'm always open to more input from others. If you believe that I've missed or misinterpreted something, please let me know so I can edit the post accordingly. If we can make this a team effort, I would love that.

The purpose of these posts is an analysis, nothing more. Please do not come into these posts expecting me to either defend Barok van Zieks from haters, nor expecting me to encourage the hatred. I am of the firm belief that characters are no more than a tool created to serve a narrative purpose, therefore the question I'm posing is whether or not Barok van Zieks serves this purpose. That's all I'm doing here.

I'm using the Western release of The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for these posts, but may refer to the original Japanese dialogue of Dai Gyakuten Saiban if needed to compare what's said. This also means I’m using the localized names and localized romanization of the names to stay consistent.

It doesn't matter one bit to me whether you like Barok van Zieks or dislike him. He's not real anyway, so he can't suffer from it. However, I will ask that everyone who comments refrains from attacking real, actual people. If you know you're morally in the right, there should be no need for insults to begin with. Let's keep this conversation civil and constructive! As the first post in a series, let’s first start by examining the expectations we would have for a character like this. The purpose he was meant to serve.

1: Expectations

As I said in a different Barok-related essay, the main prosecutor of any Ace Attorney game has been, and always will be, an antagonistic force. Not a villain, not even necessarily someone who exhibits immoral traits. (Hi Klavier!) Just someone who impedes the protag’s goal of getting a not-guilty verdict. In order to have an effective antagonist, they need to mirror the protag's weaknesses back at them. Ace Attorney does this quite well, as the prosecutors represent the obstacle/turmoil that the defense needs to overcome. Often times, the prosecutor is also tied to a pivotal moment in the attorney's past, making sure the strife is quite personal.

Considering the game's plot and settings, it would've been difficult for Barok to be tied to Ryunosuke's past. (He is tied to Asogi's past, funnily enough, but that's a matter I also addressed in that other Barok essay.) So instead, Barok represents Ryunosuke's struggle in more of a figurehead capacity. I've seen people dub him the 'CEO of Racism', and I'm not gonna lie, in a way that's correct. Barok was designed to be the mouthpiece of the harmful sentiments Japanese exchange students would have encountered in the 1900s. By extension, since Ryunosuke is an exchange student unfamiliar with the British courts (or even courts in general), the prosecutor would target the fact that Ryunosuke 'does not understand how things are done here'. Which he does- a lot. This makes it all the more satisfying when Ryunosuke proves him wrong by outsmarting him and using Britain's own laws (such as the closing argument) against him. So yes, you may hate Barok for uttering racist sentiments and dismissing Ryunosuke's abilities, but the ultimate goal here is that Barok's defeat is made sweeter as a result. The narrative end-game is Ryunosuke's triumph and validation in the courtroom.

Was there a different personal struggle Barok could have represented? Yes, but also no. Sure, his vendetta could have been strictly with the Asogi family and Ryunosuke could have admitted to carrying Asogi's resolve, not knowing what it meant. Though that would’ve implied very early that Asogi had a history of sorts in Britain and would’ve destroyed some of the surprise we experience in game 2. Alternatively, there was also the 'parallel' antagonist angle. The sort of villain who says the line “we're not so different, you and I.” The antagonist who shows what happens when someone with the same skills or motivations follows the wrong path, which emphasizes the right path for the protagonist. However, I can't see that working in the plot of this game.

A purposeful decision was made by the writers to have prejudice be a central theme of the plot. This is the matter that hits the hardest in an emotional sense. Therefore, having Barok be the centerpiece of this prejudice ensures he leaves the biggest narrative impact.

---

However, another long-running aspect of the AA prosecutor is the redemption arc, so let's turn our attention to that!

I'm not going to put too much effort into explaining this, I just want to talk about the requirements of a redemption arc. We all know these types of arcs, a lot of Ace Attorney prosecutors have them. We see them in fiction all over. Noteworthy examples of redemption arcs done well include Zuko from The Last Airbender, Michael from The Good Place... For argument's sake, let's toss Edgeworth in there too. I'm not saying Edgeworth's arc is done well, but at the very least it is accepted by most as something that served its intended purpose. I've never seen anyone question Edgeworth's transformation.

See, what we have here is a bit of a misnomer when it comes to what people expect to get out of these types of arcs. Redemption in itself is only 'deliverance from sin' or 'being saved from evil'. It's the thought that a horrible person can still see the error of their ways before it's 'too late'. However, when it comes to absorbing media, often a character gaining knowledge that they were in the wrong isn't enough to satisfy the audience. Would Edgeworth have had a satisfying redemption arc if he'd acknowledged his arrogance and dirty tactics, only to retire as a prosecutor? No way. We needed him to return in the following games to give us an update on his status. Standing in court as a defense attorney, at the risk of damaging his reputation, was the moment we knew he'd grown for the better.

What we require for the arc to come to a good conclusion is atonement. The character in question must not only apologize for their actions, but repent in a more active manner to show that they've changed their ways. Following that, the atonement must be acknowledged by others. So for example, Zuko joins the ATLA gang to help them in any way that he can until even the most skeptical of the group, Katara, acknowledges his transformation into a better person. Now add to this the notion that the character's atonement must be virtuous and sincere. The Good Place is a fascinating look into the debate of 'is it ever too late for a person to change?' and the moral complications of changing in the first place. If you're only doing good things because you want to be saved from damnation, are you being a good person or are you being selfish? There's such a thing as corrupt motivation; only doing good because it is expected. For example, does sponsoring a library make Magnus McGilded a good person? It does not, since he's only doing it to boost his own reputation and have people believe he's selfless.

As a final note, I want to ask: Does a redemption arc require a backstory to justify the character's immoral ways? Personally, I don't think that it does. It's good to have, since it allows an audience to empathize with the character and give them more of a reason to root for them. It turns the redemption arc into a tale about overcoming past trauma. However, it can backfire when done badly and lead to frustration. (I'm looking at you, live action Disney movies!) Some characters are evil just for the sake of being evil and even then, they can turn over a new leaf because they realize it is just so much more rewarding to be good. Just look at Michael from The Good Place.

What's more effective than a backstory, in my opinion, is smaller details to humanize a character. Humanization can also lead to empathy, perhaps even relatability, and helps us believe that they're capable of change. We need to be told that a character has their own fears, their own flaws, their own odd little habits which deviate from the norm... Again, I'll point to Michael from The Good Place for this. Another humanization tactic, which we see employed often in Ace Attorney, is to display a prosecutor's likes and hobbies outside the courtroom. Edgeworth's fanboying over the Steel Samurai, Blackquill's love for birds, Nahyuta's willingness to stand in line for hours to get his hands on a delicious burger... I've feel ya, Nahyuta. This tactic is more readily employed in Ace Attorney because it's difficult to place a prosecutor in a position of weakness before the final showdown. You can show them tending to hobbies during Investigation segments, but you can't show them waking up from a nightmare or wondering whether their father loves them. Well, not until case 5 of that game, anyway. By then, it's too late to serve as the sole humanization factor. Did Van Zieks need to be redeemed at all? The way I see it, the only correct answer is yes. What do we want to see in our world? Do we want people who hold racist prejudice to acknowledge their faults and become better, or do we want them to die clinging to their shitty moral compass? Do we want a world where everyone learns to get along, or do we want a world where people continue to be in the wrong and act like assholes until they inevitably get punished by law for something or another? Van Zieks needed to be redeemed in order to teach that valuable lesson that it’s never too late to be a good person and that it pays to be a good person.

So to summarize, what we needed from Barok van Zieks was the following:

1) Present an antagonistic (possibly immoral) force who personifies Ryunosuke's biggest personal obstacle/weakness, in this case racial prejudice. 2) Humanizing traits begin to show. OPTIONAL: A backstory to justify any immorality he has. 3) Over time, Barok has his realization and sees the error of his ways. 4) Barok atones for his immorality, not simply through apology but by taking decisive steps. 5) The cast around him acknowledges his efforts and forgives him.

This leaves us with the question: Does the game deliver on these points? Well, let's boot it up and find out! Stay tuned for The Adventure of the Runaway Room! (as a warning, it’s gonna be LONG)

#dgs #dgs spoilers #tgaa #tgaa spoilers #barok van zieks #oh god here we go #i actually already finished Runaway Room but I need to let it sink in #it was a doozy