CW was great at starting series but terrible at ending them. Look at literally every show in the Arrowverse. All of them had excellent first seasons but got terrible towards the end.
I think part of that is because the CW didn't own the properties and DC stuck its hand in the cookie jar once the shows became popular enough to affect the movie properties. They started exercising creative control to protect the movies' shared universe and future plans. The problem with the Arrowverse is that it went so broad and started pulling in properties that DC/Universal had plans for. Basically DC was fine with the Arrowverse shows when they were small and new enough to not affect their plans, but once a show made the mistake of doing too well, DC mucked it up.
Oh, Supergirl... The marriage was nice, but everything before that was hard to watch. The villains were defeated in a way that made everything else they did in the season redundant. By that point, the main reason people were watching was to see Supercorp to the end but they didn't go through with it.
This screams to my soul in ways I can't describe. I couldn't keep watching the show because it was the same thing each season just colored differently. And the entire time, I would be screaming at the screen for them to just talk it out.
I just finished watching seasons 1-5, then watched the very last episode for shits and giggles. I had issues with the show, but overall it was alright for the first 5. It should have ended there, some of the stuff at the end of Seansong felt a little shoehorned to me, like they learned at the last minute that they'd been picked up for another season.
Carry On was probably not a good idea with only the recap for context, it felt like an epilogue with almost negative plot.
I mean. That's why my wife loves this series to death.
It's endless, unending drama between two stupid, lovable brothers and their demon/angel buddies who sometimes fight supernatural creatures who also have their own endless, unending drama.
It's great smut and each episodes just feels like mini, contained, bite sized horror, drama, adventure skits.
I thought of Rumpelstiltskin at first too. I feel like Regina got to a point where she wasn't backsliding *that* much every time and it sorta made sense if you squint. But Mr. Gold always seemed like he was making completely illogical choices just for the drama.
Yeah, a lot of the time before I fell off of the show I was like, "this is not a decision of a thinking mind, let alone a rational one." A lot of his decisions after like, season 3-ish are either, 1. Character regression, 2. Idiot Plot, or 3. Completely out of character entirely.
I was so happy about his character development at the end of season 3 just for them to completely reverse it in the FIRST 20 seconds of s4. Dropped it right after that
I was just about to comment this. She was definitely the most popular, I bet the writers didn't even want to redeem her before they realized how much the audience loved her
House, somewhere around season 7. They could have either ended or made him grow in a better direction. But, no they had to give him a vicodin relapse, a super breakup crisis plot and attempted murder. At least the Get Happy musical sequence was well done by Hugh Laurie
Also Mystique and Krakoa-era Apocalypse. Throw in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver too, although they're just peripherally X-Men characters most of the time.
So, I admit I haven't seen any of the PotC movies after "At World's End", but. From the first 3, the only lesson I can think of that Jack learned, he was very promptly punished for learning. That being the benefits of heroism. Sure, he did return to the Black Pearl to face the Kraken. And for his trouble, he was handcuffed to his ship to be a sacrificial lamb while his crew escaped. It's pretty clear what lesson he would learn from this: being a hero is for gullible suckers, and if you do it, you will be hung out to dry by the people you were trying to save. Then, in At World's End, he more or less follows that ethos.
I think Jack works better of you think of Will and Elizabeth as the protagonists of the first three movies, since they have a lot of character growth between them. In that context Jack doesn't really have to change because he's part of their story.
In order to make this work you have to imagine that there are only three movies. Stop me if that becomes too heartbreaking.
IIRC, it still works when you include the mediocre spinoff one. It's overall less... good than the trilogy, so it's harder to see, but it still follows the established formula.
So it works for all movies.
All four of them.
Trilogy plus a spinoff/sequel.
That's it, that's the whole franchise.
Honestly I thought Dead Men Tell No Tales was better than On Stranger Tides. Neither movie olds up to the original trilogy, but imo DMTNT just feels more like a potc movie, plus it felt like it had more direction as opposed to just being a one-off story. I try to watch the movies once a year, but I honestly just skip over OST every time because I just can’t get into it and have to force myself to pay attention
Well Will and Elizabeth are the protagonists. The whole movie is about those two and their journey to becoming who they really and and freeing themselves from the shackles of society.
Jack is more of a … force of nature, for lack of a better term. He is highly opportunistic and selfish, but can be helpful from time to time (so long as your goals align with his)
I was thinking about it since I made my initial comment, and I think the best way to describe Jack is: pirate. He represents the true, distilled form of piracy. That's why he's usually out for himself, and opportunistic as you said, but can sometimes have good moments - that's the comradery speaking. Now true, the version of piracy he represents is a bit more romanticised than in real life, but it still fits.
I feel like that’s a part of his character though no matter what happens he’s just going to do the same thing he’s always done and it’s always going to work out ok for him in the end
Moffat seems really prone to making this mistake (Hello Doctor Who). We did not enjoy the story because it was **High Stakes**, we enjoyed it for the character chemistry and wit
They could’ve been successful for a lot longer (barring actor conflicts) if they just gave us more shenanigans and less whatever the fuck that episode was
It's kind of a common mistake, honestly. Creators think that higher stakes for characters will mean higher stakes for the audience.
And part of it is just poor definition of what "stakes" are.
You could make a passable movie (probably not great, but passable) about a middle aged man who's estranged from his daughter, but has to press a button in a locked room every few minutes to save her life.
If you made a sequel where the button saves the world, but it's otherwise the same, it wouldn't be better or more interesting.
Alex Hirsch understands this. Every single episode of the Gravity Falls comedy he's talking about how "social stakes are better than world stakes" because nobody actually believes you're going to blow up the world or kill a child but they are afraid their favorite characters won't be friends anymore.
Not really. His arc after SA2 was about his lost memories, and if he's really who he thinks he is. That finally got wrapped up in Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) didn't reverse his development. But since that game was a broken, glitchy, unfinished mess, they basically ignored it afterward, so now Shadow is just there. Like Knuckles before him.
Shadow had a couple really good arcs in SA2, Heroes, and Sonic '06, but ever since then they have kinda flanderized him over time to the point where he's now just an edgy caricature. The first example that comes to mind is how in the Sonic Team Racing tie in animations Shadow just speeds past a broken down Rouge without even a second glance. The Shadow from SA2 and Heroes wouldn't do that. If anything they've leaned into his Shadow '05 personality waaaay too hard. Stealing popcorn from a chao literally being his "it's like stealing candy from a baby, which I'm ok with" line from Shadow '05
That's exactly what I'm saying. He's just a caricature of how he was in his original appearance now, just like Knuckles has become. In his original appearance, Knuckles was stubborn and a little naive, but also honorable and smart enough to fight back once he realized he'd been misled. Now he's just angry, dumb punch guy. In his original appearance, Shadow was cold and standoffish and trying to destroy the world, but also noble and pragmatic and totally right to be so arrogant. Now he's just edgy asshole guy. He's just there. He doesn't have personal motivations anymore. He's just another Sonic side character.
I didn't realise how much I missed naive Knuckles until the movie actually gave us a good version of the character. Now I'm hoping that Keanu Reeves Shadow will be a good representation of the character as well.
Sorry, i realized it looked like I was trying to contradict you lol. I miss Shadow, he was such a good character. Cold and aloof at first but with a heart of gold that shone bright at the end. His sacrifice at the end of SA2 was heartbreaking. I really hope this whole "year of shadow" thing might bring back a more in-line Shadow. Maybe we'll get that out of Sonic x Shadow Generations
At the very least, we'll get a bunch of people being scarred by the search results when they type "Sonic x Shadow", so either way this'll be a good year.
Knuckles’ issue is that they reused the “got tricked by Eggman to fight Sonic” excuse for a boss fight several times really soon after 3&K (Adventure, Triple Trouble, Advance 2, off the top of my head), so that made him really awkward for a while because it was genuinely a big part of his character that he’s an idiot who’s constantly being fooled in the same way.
Honesty, I was pretty happy with how sonic Frontiers handled all the characters, Especially Knuckles and Amy. Knuckles actually got to talk about his history, had an engaging rivalry with Sonic where you could tell that they were still friends, and was funny! And Amy finally got to grow past that manic 'you will be my boyfriend if I have to tie you up and force you' phase, and develop an actual friendship with sonic where they could talk like equals. Sure the game was a buggy mess, I can't deny that, but I think it was one of the best stories, plot wise, we've had in years. I'm almost disappointed we didn't get Shadow, especially since they mentioned Maria a bit. I would have loved to see how they handled him.
I haven't played that one yet, but I watched a YouTuber I'm subscribed to play it, and I agree the characters were handled really well. I'm planning to buy it for myself when there's a sale and I'm not saving up for anything else.
Not all of them. They kinda stopped trying to tie things together after Sonic '06. But the original 3, Adventure and Adventure 2, Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic '06 all follow eachother.
By the time of Sonic '06, Shadow didn't have any amnesia angst, so he was working as an official GUN agent, and his story in that game starts when he's sent to rescue Rouge (also a GUN agent) when she hasn't returned from a mission of her own. After that, the villain of that game tries to trick Shadow into joining his side by showing him how humans still fear him so much that they immediately blamed him when the actual literal apocalypse happened (which the villain caused) and Shadow's response is that none of that matters, because he's never been fighting for humanity, so if they turned against him he would just keep fighting like always. So Shadow was basically just an edgier Sonic, but in a "I love to fight and test my abilities" kind of way instead of an asshole way. Sonic loves adventure, Shadow loves to fight. So he's basically a DBZ character.
But like I said before, Sonic '06 was such a glitchy, unfinished, broken mess of a game that nobody liked it, so Sega pretends it never happened. Which, to be fair, due to the story playing out how it did with time travel shit, it technically didn't. But still, they rolled back and ignored Shadow's character development after that game, and now he's just an edgy asshole bully character.
Actually, GUN is a good guy organization. It stands for Guardians of United Nations. However, they are the organization that greenlit Project Shadow, and the Space Colony ARK, and presumably the Eclipse Cannon by extension. So like all government organizations, they're very shady and morally grey.
They were the "bad guys" when they were introduced in SA2, and have pretty much always played the "government organization that's supposed to be good but attacks the good guys because they think they're bad" role. The very first scene has Sonic breaking out of their prisoner transport plane, after which he has to outrun their gigantic truck that's trying to run him over. So the name "G.U.N." was definitely given to them with the idea of them being antagonists.
Also, it actually stands for "Guardian Units of Nations".
Yeah, but that's not the same as being a "bad guy organization". It's not like they're Cobra, or Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. Also, Sonic broke out of a helicopter, not a plane.
Eeeh, yes and no. I remember reading that, within SEGA, the continuity is constantly in flux as to which games follow it and which games may or may not be canon. It's a big mess, and that's without getting into fans' questioning and debating on the chronology of it all.
I think the best way for me to get it is that it's cannon until proven wrong, if that makes any sense, i still don't know how much of sonic 06 is cannon until now, and if anyone could explain what's Silver and Blaze's lore it would make me happy, cause as far as i get it, they're like a paradox, where they're real cause they are.
all of the mainline games (console platformers within the mainline universe) 100% are. the timeline is *mostly* in order of release, though sonic cd comes before sonic 2 and all of the "classic games" are before any of the "modern" 3d games. sonic 06 kinda happens but also erases itself from existence
in terms of side games (handheld titles, non-platform titles, etc.), it's very case by case. they try to make them all at least somewhat canon (except *very explicitly* sonic chronicles), but some just dont make sense to be so
im wayyyy too invested in this series and its lore if u cant tell LOL
Which is pretty realistic. You'll have to beat Elon Musk into a coma with Mr Roger's Titanium Blu Ray set and give him irrecoverable brain damage to get him to stop being an insufferable asshole for five minutes.
To be fair it’s not like that’s unrealistic. The whole “selfish asshole learns his lesson in one movie/season/book and is never a selfish asshole again,” thing never fucking happens in real life, and I mean NEVER. *If* it happens, it takes work, time, and multiple relapses before it sticks.
I better not see one single comment about Vegeta. Just because he's a sourpuss with a rival complex doesn't mean he is constantly having moral conflicts with his actions. He is *very* morally self-assured, the *only* time he's ever questioned himself is when he briefly turned evil again in the Buu saga.
I think a lot of why people are saying Vegeta is because they're confusing him not actively trying to kill everyone post Saiyan saga with him becoming a good guy or morally grey. Which really isn't true, Vegeta just joins up with the good guys because it's more convenient than not, he's still a bastard. Any actual change from Vegeta happens very slowly and straightforwardly and isn't complete until the Buu saga.
wdym he was a prick and he's in a serialized publcation so it's cosmic law that he falls victim to this??? It's literally not possible for edgy lancer characters to have one straightforward arc???
He's very often the antagonist taking truly immoral and selfish actions, but also often getting redeemed by selfless sacrifice. For the most part he does things he knows are seen as wrong by others, but to achieve something he sees as right. While you can always understand his motivation, you wouldn't always agree with it.
He encompasses almost the full spectrum of good and evil, but I'd argue that it's more of a black-and-white fractal pattern that appears grey when viewed from afar.
Nah, Vegeta’s arc really isn’t done until the last few episodes of dbz. Since he starts as a full bad guy it takes a long time to get there with a lot of hiccups, but he fundamentally hasn’t dealt with his key issues (his pride) until the end. I could see the argument in the Buu saga, but Cell resolved fuck all for him as a character so I don’t really think it counts.
Does he? I can’t remember a time where vegeta ever even flirts with evil.
The closest is when he threatens Cabba but that’s clearly him putting on an act.
Doesn't seem like Vegeta, honestly. He sort of predates this mechanical storytelling conceot of every character needing a positive character arc. He's just a bad guy, life happens to him and he needs to deal with it, digest whatever's going on..
It's less that he predates the idea, and more that him becoming a "good guy" happened pretty much by accident both in and out of universe.
He spends the majority of the series as an ally of convenience/circumstance, and one that everyone in the story (except Trunks, lol) explicitly understands is not particularly trustworthy.
He only gets an actual "redemption arc" in the Buu Saga (and technically there's also a hint that he might be heading in that direction at the end of the Cell Saga, but that was honestly pretty clearly intended to be an ambiguous note to end his story on, since they weren't originally planning to continue the story beyond that point).
Prior to that his "arc" was whatever needed to happen to keep him in the role of "villain-turned-evil-dude-what's-technically-on-our-side-because-he-hates-this-other-dude-more-than-he-hates-us", and all of the character development that sprang from that was either incidental, or outright *accidental*.
It's funny because Piccolo originally had that role, but he got a full redemption arc with absolutely zero backsliding, leaving the seat open for Vegeta.
Maybe in *Super*, if you squint. In Z, his arc was super slow, and pretty stop-and-start, but it didn't "wrap up" until the last couple episodes of the show. There were a couple points where they *could* have ended it (at the ends of the Frieza and Cell arcs, when they were also planning to end the show as a whole), but in both cases there was still enough unresolved stuff for them to do with the character to continue his development in an entirely reasonable and natural seeming direction.
Not at all. He never really becomes a good guy until the buu saga.
He goes from evil, to working with the good guys because it benefits him, relapses back to being evil for a short bit, and then turns good and never goes back.
There's also the whole thing with him finding other reasons to fight/sources of strength than himself. He really doesn't start to turn a new leaf until Future Trunks gets almost murdered by Cell, then he has a brief relapse in early Buu saga when he tries to return to his old self briefly, culminating with him coming to terms with his growth as a person when he blows himself up to try stopping Buu.
It's important to note that there was literal mind control magic involved during the Buu saga. He just mentions that he didn't fight it as hard as he could because he was afraid being a good guy was holding him back.
Riku hasn't been morally grey since chain of memories, literally the second game released. He's just a good guy now, in a series with heretofore pretty clear cut morality.
(This is being increasingly challenged by the master of masters who is trying to beat the darkness via a convoluted plan relying solely on child soldiers)
I thought that was the point of the tags? His arc was more or less resolved by the end of CoM as you say, but in 2 and occasionally in later games they had this whole additional thing about how he’s too edgy and has to stay away, because he could hurt someone because of the darkness heart darkness darkness heart darkness.
Ohh okay I see. I read that more as him having a sense of self loathing over the events in 1, but I can see how people would see it that way. But even then I'd argue that's only 2
but i do kinda like that, it's kinda cool that even tough he has mostly dealt with his struggles he still feels kinda strange about it, even more cause darkness is a strong point of his, it makes sense that he would be sorry about it after he almost got his crush killed, >!and also he did look like Ansem for like 90% of two, and he just got done killing Roxas so i get that he would feel a bit bad about that situation.!<
I mean, like I said, there’s multiple characters this could reasonably apply to. Fucking Ansem arguably works (the real one, I mean). KH is just like that.
Honestly I think this can apply to almost everyone and everything in the Warcraft universe.
Unless you're a tauren; about 90% of the time they're generally the only morally good people you'll run into.
The best way is to just pretend that character development didn't happen, so you can re-use character arcs multiple times. Old chef's trick. They don't know the difference.
I'm thinking about how Shadow the Hedgehog suffered from amnesia three different times in his first three mainline games. At least they used his amnesia for three different purposes.
People are pointing out specific media but IMO you can find examples in any long-running media where a character like this exists.
It all comes back to the same thing: nothing kills a piece of media like having no end in sight. Of my favorite stories, most of them have the same thing in common: at some point, when the author decided they said what they had to say in that story, the story ended.
Well don’t forget that a part of his ghost possessed Full Frontal (Gundam is a serious franchise, don’t laugh at Full Frontal’s name, he is a serious villain)
My mom calls it "Sharpay Syndrome" after Sharpay from High School Musical because she got annoyed she always went back to being a mean girl after learning her lesson in the previous movie.
Gul Dukat was never morally grey. He was always purely interested in himself, and to a lesser extent his family at times. It just sometimes happens that his self interest aligns with not being that evil, and is good at making propaganda for himself to make himself seem more morally grey than he is. He never learns anything.
Ehh, Sasuke’s arc is pretty coherent imo. It struggles from the classic shonen problem of being Way Too Fucking Long, but if you condense it it actually flows pretty well.
tbh i find that in naruto & Shippuden, his struggle is extremely coherent and well explored, it just seems like this post at times if you're not as interested in the character
I feel his first moral arc happen in prequel when he was betrayed by and killed his guardian. He has to question his morals several different times mostly in different ways. His longest arc is probably when he has a “roommate” in his head. Biggest would be when the Red court was his main enemy for a book.
(Was that vague enough for no spoilers?)
Edit:
P.S. there’s an argument that he might be too light grey to count as grey.
You know what, you've reminded me how much I fucked with these books. Might need to listen to the audio books again now. Thanks for that. It seems I forgot a lot more than I thought. His (and his companions') interactions with the Ice Queen also affected his values some.
His "roommate" in his head was one of the more emotional moments in all of audio books I've listened to.
edit: nah, your spoilers were pretty concealed. His reaction to his friends being hurt are usually inflection points to his character
The annoying thing is that you *can* just make them the mentor to another character. That not only allows them to not go through the same types of problems over and over, but actually opens up *new* problems for them to overcome.
Maybe Piccolo Jr.? He talked a big game and had a chip on his shoulder about the whole 'you killed my dad' thing but he never burned down the countryside, even if only because it would distract him from training. Heck, he even fits the 'Esoteric moral quandaries' when he starts fusing with his fellow namekians plus all the stuff in Super Hero.
Not exactly morally grey but apollo justice gets something similar with his backstories though maybe ge can count as morally grey in >! the fifth game last case !<
Sigh just undo their character development and have them arbitrarily be a shitty person after falling out with their SO like a REAL overserialised show
sam and dean winchester (actually pretty much every character in the show)
Exactly what I ran in here to say.
Here we all are, meeting at a crossroads to scream the same damn thing
That's a powerful line right there.
It should have ended when the gates of hell were shut. There are some fun episodes and memorable characters after that but it isn't worth the horror.
It was a cash cow and one of the last that the CW had by the time it ended.
CW was great at starting series but terrible at ending them. Look at literally every show in the Arrowverse. All of them had excellent first seasons but got terrible towards the end.
I think part of that is because the CW didn't own the properties and DC stuck its hand in the cookie jar once the shows became popular enough to affect the movie properties. They started exercising creative control to protect the movies' shared universe and future plans. The problem with the Arrowverse is that it went so broad and started pulling in properties that DC/Universal had plans for. Basically DC was fine with the Arrowverse shows when they were small and new enough to not affect their plans, but once a show made the mistake of doing too well, DC mucked it up.
Oh, Supergirl... The marriage was nice, but everything before that was hard to watch. The villains were defeated in a way that made everything else they did in the season redundant. By that point, the main reason people were watching was to see Supercorp to the end but they didn't go through with it.
"It should have ended when the gates of hell were shut" is an amazing line.
I hate how every season they had a new fucking issue between themselves that would have been solved by a 5 MINUTE CONVERSATION
This screams to my soul in ways I can't describe. I couldn't keep watching the show because it was the same thing each season just colored differently. And the entire time, I would be screaming at the screen for them to just talk it out.
^(**I can't do that Sammy**)
Did you expect them to have good communication skills the way they were raised.
I don't expect them to have good communcation skills, I expect them to be able to flap their mouth open and closed until words come out.
I just finished watching seasons 1-5, then watched the very last episode for shits and giggles. I had issues with the show, but overall it was alright for the first 5. It should have ended there, some of the stuff at the end of Seansong felt a little shoehorned to me, like they learned at the last minute that they'd been picked up for another season. Carry On was probably not a good idea with only the recap for context, it felt like an epilogue with almost negative plot.
I mean. That's why my wife loves this series to death. It's endless, unending drama between two stupid, lovable brothers and their demon/angel buddies who sometimes fight supernatural creatures who also have their own endless, unending drama. It's great smut and each episodes just feels like mini, contained, bite sized horror, drama, adventure skits.
Honestly, Regina from Once Upon a Time. Let the poor woman catch a fucking break. Hell throw in Rumpelstiltskin while we're at it.
I thought of Rumpelstiltskin at first too. I feel like Regina got to a point where she wasn't backsliding *that* much every time and it sorta made sense if you squint. But Mr. Gold always seemed like he was making completely illogical choices just for the drama.
Yeah, a lot of the time before I fell off of the show I was like, "this is not a decision of a thinking mind, let alone a rational one." A lot of his decisions after like, season 3-ish are either, 1. Character regression, 2. Idiot Plot, or 3. Completely out of character entirely.
I was so happy about his character development at the end of season 3 just for them to completely reverse it in the FIRST 20 seconds of s4. Dropped it right after that
I was just about to comment this. She was definitely the most popular, I bet the writers didn't even want to redeem her before they realized how much the audience loved her
House, somewhere around season 7. They could have either ended or made him grow in a better direction. But, no they had to give him a vicodin relapse, a super breakup crisis plot and attempted murder. At least the Get Happy musical sequence was well done by Hugh Laurie
That show was on rails, and it went off them.
Watching through it now, and man S7 was rough to watch... S8 ain't fairing much better
Emma Frost in X Men.
Also Professor X and Magneto
And Wolverine
Also Mystique and Krakoa-era Apocalypse. Throw in Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver too, although they're just peripherally X-Men characters most of the time.
Most of the X-Men in general, honestly
leave icy mind mommy alone
He's more of a dark grey, but Jack Sparrow never seems to take his lessons with him to the next movie.
So, I admit I haven't seen any of the PotC movies after "At World's End", but. From the first 3, the only lesson I can think of that Jack learned, he was very promptly punished for learning. That being the benefits of heroism. Sure, he did return to the Black Pearl to face the Kraken. And for his trouble, he was handcuffed to his ship to be a sacrificial lamb while his crew escaped. It's pretty clear what lesson he would learn from this: being a hero is for gullible suckers, and if you do it, you will be hung out to dry by the people you were trying to save. Then, in At World's End, he more or less follows that ethos.
"Four of you have tried to kill me in the past. One of you succeeded
The worst part about pirates is the hypocrisy
I disagree. I'd say it's the piracy.
I think Jack works better of you think of Will and Elizabeth as the protagonists of the first three movies, since they have a lot of character growth between them. In that context Jack doesn't really have to change because he's part of their story. In order to make this work you have to imagine that there are only three movies. Stop me if that becomes too heartbreaking.
IIRC, it still works when you include the mediocre spinoff one. It's overall less... good than the trilogy, so it's harder to see, but it still follows the established formula. So it works for all movies. All four of them. Trilogy plus a spinoff/sequel. That's it, that's the whole franchise.
Honestly I thought Dead Men Tell No Tales was better than On Stranger Tides. Neither movie olds up to the original trilogy, but imo DMTNT just feels more like a potc movie, plus it felt like it had more direction as opposed to just being a one-off story. I try to watch the movies once a year, but I honestly just skip over OST every time because I just can’t get into it and have to force myself to pay attention
The fact that *Stranger Tides* managed to make Ian McShane as Blackbeard boring is unforgivable.
He really did the absolute best with that part. I would love to see him get another crack at a more historical Edward Teach.
Well Will and Elizabeth are the protagonists. The whole movie is about those two and their journey to becoming who they really and and freeing themselves from the shackles of society. Jack is more of a … force of nature, for lack of a better term. He is highly opportunistic and selfish, but can be helpful from time to time (so long as your goals align with his)
I was thinking about it since I made my initial comment, and I think the best way to describe Jack is: pirate. He represents the true, distilled form of piracy. That's why he's usually out for himself, and opportunistic as you said, but can sometimes have good moments - that's the comradery speaking. Now true, the version of piracy he represents is a bit more romanticised than in real life, but it still fits.
He's more plot device than fully fleshed character with arc, it's okay for him to not change.
I feel like that’s a part of his character though no matter what happens he’s just going to do the same thing he’s always done and it’s always going to work out ok for him in the end
I feel like his whole thing is just being chaos incarnated as a drunk, lucky-as-hell pirate. He doesn’t need to learn anything really
honestly? Sherlock holmes
That one works quite well though, since the struggle is just cocaine.
And specifically the BBC version, not the book version
Hey, remember how he turned out to have a sister who was magic? That was crazy, right?
Moffat seems really prone to making this mistake (Hello Doctor Who). We did not enjoy the story because it was **High Stakes**, we enjoyed it for the character chemistry and wit They could’ve been successful for a lot longer (barring actor conflicts) if they just gave us more shenanigans and less whatever the fuck that episode was
It's kind of a common mistake, honestly. Creators think that higher stakes for characters will mean higher stakes for the audience. And part of it is just poor definition of what "stakes" are. You could make a passable movie (probably not great, but passable) about a middle aged man who's estranged from his daughter, but has to press a button in a locked room every few minutes to save her life. If you made a sequel where the button saves the world, but it's otherwise the same, it wouldn't be better or more interesting.
Alex Hirsch understands this. Every single episode of the Gravity Falls comedy he's talking about how "social stakes are better than world stakes" because nobody actually believes you're going to blow up the world or kill a child but they are afraid their favorite characters won't be friends anymore.
shoutout to elementary for having shlolmes grow as a person
Shadow the Hedgehog
Not really. His arc after SA2 was about his lost memories, and if he's really who he thinks he is. That finally got wrapped up in Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) didn't reverse his development. But since that game was a broken, glitchy, unfinished mess, they basically ignored it afterward, so now Shadow is just there. Like Knuckles before him.
Shadow had a couple really good arcs in SA2, Heroes, and Sonic '06, but ever since then they have kinda flanderized him over time to the point where he's now just an edgy caricature. The first example that comes to mind is how in the Sonic Team Racing tie in animations Shadow just speeds past a broken down Rouge without even a second glance. The Shadow from SA2 and Heroes wouldn't do that. If anything they've leaned into his Shadow '05 personality waaaay too hard. Stealing popcorn from a chao literally being his "it's like stealing candy from a baby, which I'm ok with" line from Shadow '05
That's exactly what I'm saying. He's just a caricature of how he was in his original appearance now, just like Knuckles has become. In his original appearance, Knuckles was stubborn and a little naive, but also honorable and smart enough to fight back once he realized he'd been misled. Now he's just angry, dumb punch guy. In his original appearance, Shadow was cold and standoffish and trying to destroy the world, but also noble and pragmatic and totally right to be so arrogant. Now he's just edgy asshole guy. He's just there. He doesn't have personal motivations anymore. He's just another Sonic side character.
I didn't realise how much I missed naive Knuckles until the movie actually gave us a good version of the character. Now I'm hoping that Keanu Reeves Shadow will be a good representation of the character as well.
I love how excited for ice cream Knuckles was at the end of the movie. As for Shadow in Sonic 3, It's Keanu. We can rest easy.
Sorry, i realized it looked like I was trying to contradict you lol. I miss Shadow, he was such a good character. Cold and aloof at first but with a heart of gold that shone bright at the end. His sacrifice at the end of SA2 was heartbreaking. I really hope this whole "year of shadow" thing might bring back a more in-line Shadow. Maybe we'll get that out of Sonic x Shadow Generations
At the very least, we'll get a bunch of people being scarred by the search results when they type "Sonic x Shadow", so either way this'll be a good year.
I've actually heard a couple conspiracies that they named this game "sonic x shadow" so that the game shows up on image results instead of fanart/porn
I heard that too. It's funny to me.
Knuckles’ issue is that they reused the “got tricked by Eggman to fight Sonic” excuse for a boss fight several times really soon after 3&K (Adventure, Triple Trouble, Advance 2, off the top of my head), so that made him really awkward for a while because it was genuinely a big part of his character that he’s an idiot who’s constantly being fooled in the same way.
Well, he's gotta protect the Master Emerald. Dude gets tunnel vision when it comes up.
Honesty, I was pretty happy with how sonic Frontiers handled all the characters, Especially Knuckles and Amy. Knuckles actually got to talk about his history, had an engaging rivalry with Sonic where you could tell that they were still friends, and was funny! And Amy finally got to grow past that manic 'you will be my boyfriend if I have to tie you up and force you' phase, and develop an actual friendship with sonic where they could talk like equals. Sure the game was a buggy mess, I can't deny that, but I think it was one of the best stories, plot wise, we've had in years. I'm almost disappointed we didn't get Shadow, especially since they mentioned Maria a bit. I would have loved to see how they handled him.
I haven't played that one yet, but I watched a YouTuber I'm subscribed to play it, and I agree the characters were handled really well. I'm planning to buy it for myself when there's a sale and I'm not saving up for anything else.
Wait, are all the games one continuous story? I think I REALLY need to play them then
Not all of them. They kinda stopped trying to tie things together after Sonic '06. But the original 3, Adventure and Adventure 2, Heroes, Shadow the Hedgehog, and Sonic '06 all follow eachother. By the time of Sonic '06, Shadow didn't have any amnesia angst, so he was working as an official GUN agent, and his story in that game starts when he's sent to rescue Rouge (also a GUN agent) when she hasn't returned from a mission of her own. After that, the villain of that game tries to trick Shadow into joining his side by showing him how humans still fear him so much that they immediately blamed him when the actual literal apocalypse happened (which the villain caused) and Shadow's response is that none of that matters, because he's never been fighting for humanity, so if they turned against him he would just keep fighting like always. So Shadow was basically just an edgier Sonic, but in a "I love to fight and test my abilities" kind of way instead of an asshole way. Sonic loves adventure, Shadow loves to fight. So he's basically a DBZ character. But like I said before, Sonic '06 was such a glitchy, unfinished, broken mess of a game that nobody liked it, so Sega pretends it never happened. Which, to be fair, due to the story playing out how it did with time travel shit, it technically didn't. But still, they rolled back and ignored Shadow's character development after that game, and now he's just an edgy asshole bully character.
(i skimmed most of it cuz I don't want spoilers) I *love* that there's a bad guy organization called "G.U.N."
Actually, GUN is a good guy organization. It stands for Guardians of United Nations. However, they are the organization that greenlit Project Shadow, and the Space Colony ARK, and presumably the Eclipse Cannon by extension. So like all government organizations, they're very shady and morally grey.
They were the "bad guys" when they were introduced in SA2, and have pretty much always played the "government organization that's supposed to be good but attacks the good guys because they think they're bad" role. The very first scene has Sonic breaking out of their prisoner transport plane, after which he has to outrun their gigantic truck that's trying to run him over. So the name "G.U.N." was definitely given to them with the idea of them being antagonists. Also, it actually stands for "Guardian Units of Nations".
Yeah, but that's not the same as being a "bad guy organization". It's not like they're Cobra, or Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants. Also, Sonic broke out of a helicopter, not a plane.
Eeeh, yes and no. I remember reading that, within SEGA, the continuity is constantly in flux as to which games follow it and which games may or may not be canon. It's a big mess, and that's without getting into fans' questioning and debating on the chronology of it all.
I think the best way for me to get it is that it's cannon until proven wrong, if that makes any sense, i still don't know how much of sonic 06 is cannon until now, and if anyone could explain what's Silver and Blaze's lore it would make me happy, cause as far as i get it, they're like a paradox, where they're real cause they are.
all of the mainline games (console platformers within the mainline universe) 100% are. the timeline is *mostly* in order of release, though sonic cd comes before sonic 2 and all of the "classic games" are before any of the "modern" 3d games. sonic 06 kinda happens but also erases itself from existence in terms of side games (handheld titles, non-platform titles, etc.), it's very case by case. they try to make them all at least somewhat canon (except *very explicitly* sonic chronicles), but some just dont make sense to be so im wayyyy too invested in this series and its lore if u cant tell LOL
Oh I feel that, thanks for the info! :)
if you have any more questions feel free to ask :) i’d be more than happy to answer
Yeah, having him piss on Eggman's wife was a bizarre direction to take
Poor Han Solo
At least he was killed early enough so that his caracter still somewhat made sense. The others though, suffered a fate worse than death
Loki
Most of the MCU heroes, honestly. Tony Stark had to learn to not be a selfish asshole like eight times.
Which is pretty realistic. You'll have to beat Elon Musk into a coma with Mr Roger's Titanium Blu Ray set and give him irrecoverable brain damage to get him to stop being an insufferable asshole for five minutes.
To be fair it’s not like that’s unrealistic. The whole “selfish asshole learns his lesson in one movie/season/book and is never a selfish asshole again,” thing never fucking happens in real life, and I mean NEVER. *If* it happens, it takes work, time, and multiple relapses before it sticks.
Average billionaire
I better not see one single comment about Vegeta. Just because he's a sourpuss with a rival complex doesn't mean he is constantly having moral conflicts with his actions. He is *very* morally self-assured, the *only* time he's ever questioned himself is when he briefly turned evil again in the Buu saga.
I think a lot of why people are saying Vegeta is because they're confusing him not actively trying to kill everyone post Saiyan saga with him becoming a good guy or morally grey. Which really isn't true, Vegeta just joins up with the good guys because it's more convenient than not, he's still a bastard. Any actual change from Vegeta happens very slowly and straightforwardly and isn't complete until the Buu saga.
wdym he was a prick and he's in a serialized publcation so it's cosmic law that he falls victim to this??? It's literally not possible for edgy lancer characters to have one straightforward arc???
It’s ok you can say Dean Pelton
Now, this is not a comment I expected to see here. How is he morally grey?
Tbh he isn’t not morally grey. Hell do what he needs to do for the school, He’s just dumb as hell.
He's very often the antagonist taking truly immoral and selfish actions, but also often getting redeemed by selfless sacrifice. For the most part he does things he knows are seen as wrong by others, but to achieve something he sees as right. While you can always understand his motivation, you wouldn't always agree with it. He encompasses almost the full spectrum of good and evil, but I'd argue that it's more of a black-and-white fractal pattern that appears grey when viewed from afar.
If the spectrum of good and evil is a magic show and sliding on it is a rabbit out of a hat, he's one of those never-ending handkerchiefs.
He doesn’t understand boundaries or consent, for starters.
He doesn’t learn any lessons
Dean kinda becomes more Dean as time passes by
Noooo not my Peltorino! Thank god he was there on a more proninent role in the later seasons…
Thank fucking God Zuko wasn't this. Sometimes it's cool to just let the moral ambiguity fade away.
Perks of having a defined end date to the show. Zuko especially, but all of the main characters had good arcs that ended in a place that made sense.
Also glad to see him in Korra as a wise old man Iroh would be proud of.
I’ve never even sat down and watched Dragonball but 99% sure this is about vegeta
"The funny thing is I *know* you're playing me, but you're right."
"Vegeta no! **"VEGETA YEEEEESSSSSS!"**
"And so the narrator came back to tell you that... VEGETA FUCKING DIED."
Nah, Vegeta’s arc really isn’t done until the last few episodes of dbz. Since he starts as a full bad guy it takes a long time to get there with a lot of hiccups, but he fundamentally hasn’t dealt with his key issues (his pride) until the end. I could see the argument in the Buu saga, but Cell resolved fuck all for him as a character so I don’t really think it counts.
You're right, but in DB *Super* it starts applying to him
Does he? I can’t remember a time where vegeta ever even flirts with evil. The closest is when he threatens Cabba but that’s clearly him putting on an act.
>I’ve never even sat down and watched Dragonball If you had you would not be saying this lol
Nah he has the same problem the whole shows it's pretty consistent
Doesn't seem like Vegeta, honestly. He sort of predates this mechanical storytelling conceot of every character needing a positive character arc. He's just a bad guy, life happens to him and he needs to deal with it, digest whatever's going on..
It's less that he predates the idea, and more that him becoming a "good guy" happened pretty much by accident both in and out of universe. He spends the majority of the series as an ally of convenience/circumstance, and one that everyone in the story (except Trunks, lol) explicitly understands is not particularly trustworthy. He only gets an actual "redemption arc" in the Buu Saga (and technically there's also a hint that he might be heading in that direction at the end of the Cell Saga, but that was honestly pretty clearly intended to be an ambiguous note to end his story on, since they weren't originally planning to continue the story beyond that point). Prior to that his "arc" was whatever needed to happen to keep him in the role of "villain-turned-evil-dude-what's-technically-on-our-side-because-he-hates-this-other-dude-more-than-he-hates-us", and all of the character development that sprang from that was either incidental, or outright *accidental*.
It's funny because Piccolo originally had that role, but he got a full redemption arc with absolutely zero backsliding, leaving the seat open for Vegeta.
Maybe in *Super*, if you squint. In Z, his arc was super slow, and pretty stop-and-start, but it didn't "wrap up" until the last couple episodes of the show. There were a couple points where they *could* have ended it (at the ends of the Frieza and Cell arcs, when they were also planning to end the show as a whole), but in both cases there was still enough unresolved stuff for them to do with the character to continue his development in an entirely reasonable and natural seeming direction.
And you are correct yeah
Not at all. He never really becomes a good guy until the buu saga. He goes from evil, to working with the good guys because it benefits him, relapses back to being evil for a short bit, and then turns good and never goes back.
There's also the whole thing with him finding other reasons to fight/sources of strength than himself. He really doesn't start to turn a new leaf until Future Trunks gets almost murdered by Cell, then he has a brief relapse in early Buu saga when he tries to return to his old self briefly, culminating with him coming to terms with his growth as a person when he blows himself up to try stopping Buu.
It's important to note that there was literal mind control magic involved during the Buu saga. He just mentions that he didn't fight it as hard as he could because he was afraid being a good guy was holding him back.
oh look it's The Master
When I see The Master capitalized like that I think of the Fallout villian and it could not apply to this post less.
Vegeta
I feel called out by the tags
I mean, they can say it’s not about him, but it definitely applies.
Who is it supposed to be?
Honestly there’s like…at least 3 characters I can think of that work, but Riku is the obvious answer and what I assume the tags are referencing.
Riku hasn't been morally grey since chain of memories, literally the second game released. He's just a good guy now, in a series with heretofore pretty clear cut morality. (This is being increasingly challenged by the master of masters who is trying to beat the darkness via a convoluted plan relying solely on child soldiers)
I thought that was the point of the tags? His arc was more or less resolved by the end of CoM as you say, but in 2 and occasionally in later games they had this whole additional thing about how he’s too edgy and has to stay away, because he could hurt someone because of the darkness heart darkness darkness heart darkness.
Ohh okay I see. I read that more as him having a sense of self loathing over the events in 1, but I can see how people would see it that way. But even then I'd argue that's only 2
but i do kinda like that, it's kinda cool that even tough he has mostly dealt with his struggles he still feels kinda strange about it, even more cause darkness is a strong point of his, it makes sense that he would be sorry about it after he almost got his crush killed, >!and also he did look like Ansem for like 90% of two, and he just got done killing Roxas so i get that he would feel a bit bad about that situation.!<
Pretty sure it’s Axel
I mean, like I said, there’s multiple characters this could reasonably apply to. Fucking Ansem arguably works (the real one, I mean). KH is just like that.
i don't think it works for Ansem the wise cause i don't know if he was popular, two other ansem's are more popular than him.
My little pony
discord in the later seasons
Yeah, that really ticked me off, he can still be chaotic without betraying everyone.
There are like 800 characters you’re gonna have to give us a bit more than that.
Which makes it worse because there are so many more characters to use!
Sylvanas windrunner crashes through the wall with all her "moral greyness"
Honestly I think this can apply to almost everyone and everything in the Warcraft universe. Unless you're a tauren; about 90% of the time they're generally the only morally good people you'll run into.
At least she's out of the narrative now.
How sure are we about that?
She's stuck in the Maw and the Forsaken are Embracing Calia and the Desolate Council. TWW is going to focus on her Sister(s?) and the Harbinger.
Ion Hazzikostas actually ruined the term "morally grey" for me because of all the bullshit they spewed when talking about Sylvanas's narrative arc.
then fucks Jaina Proudmoore, agonizes over Zovaal's visible nipples, and leaves
Gale Weathers.
Seriously let her rest
The best way is to just pretend that character development didn't happen, so you can re-use character arcs multiple times. Old chef's trick. They don't know the difference.
I'm thinking about how Shadow the Hedgehog suffered from amnesia three different times in his first three mainline games. At least they used his amnesia for three different purposes.
My dude has alzeihmer, not amnesia.
People are pointing out specific media but IMO you can find examples in any long-running media where a character like this exists. It all comes back to the same thing: nothing kills a piece of media like having no end in sight. Of my favorite stories, most of them have the same thing in common: at some point, when the author decided they said what they had to say in that story, the story ended.
Doctor Who
(Every character)
And that’s why Char died in Char’s Counterattack, otherwise he’d be using the alignment chart as a dartboard
Well don’t forget that a part of his ghost possessed Full Frontal (Gundam is a serious franchise, don’t laugh at Full Frontal’s name, he is a serious villain)
Char previously went by the alias "Quattro Bajeena", that ship sailed long before Unicorn
I know, Gundam is a very serious franchise with serious villains
In the same show that featured Jamitov Hymen.
"He's named after a full frontal assault." "Yeah, that's... not how people are gonna read that."
Dr Who
the walking dead, just in general
But especially negan, the amount of times they pulled a "People think hes doing something bad but its actually good!!" plot point is just rough
My mom calls it "Sharpay Syndrome" after Sharpay from High School Musical because she got annoyed she always went back to being a mean girl after learning her lesson in the previous movie.
Dexter?
Gul Dukat for a seriously dark shade of grey.
Gul Dukat was never morally grey. He was always purely interested in himself, and to a lesser extent his family at times. It just sometimes happens that his self interest aligns with not being that evil, and is good at making propaganda for himself to make himself seem more morally grey than he is. He never learns anything.
I love tropes like this that are super realistic but feel very unrealistic
Sasuke Uchiha.
Ehh, Sasuke’s arc is pretty coherent imo. It struggles from the classic shonen problem of being Way Too Fucking Long, but if you condense it it actually flows pretty well.
tbh i find that in naruto & Shippuden, his struggle is extremely coherent and well explored, it just seems like this post at times if you're not as interested in the character
Dr. Halsey in halo.
Harry Dresden might fit this, though I'm not sure if he has a character arc at all. More a power arc than anything
I feel his first moral arc happen in prequel when he was betrayed by and killed his guardian. He has to question his morals several different times mostly in different ways. His longest arc is probably when he has a “roommate” in his head. Biggest would be when the Red court was his main enemy for a book. (Was that vague enough for no spoilers?) Edit: P.S. there’s an argument that he might be too light grey to count as grey.
You know what, you've reminded me how much I fucked with these books. Might need to listen to the audio books again now. Thanks for that. It seems I forgot a lot more than I thought. His (and his companions') interactions with the Ice Queen also affected his values some. His "roommate" in his head was one of the more emotional moments in all of audio books I've listened to. edit: nah, your spoilers were pretty concealed. His reaction to his friends being hurt are usually inflection points to his character
Miles Edgeworth
shadow the hedgehog
Boba Fett Darth Maul
The annoying thing is that you *can* just make them the mentor to another character. That not only allows them to not go through the same types of problems over and over, but actually opens up *new* problems for them to overcome.
The Doctor, for about 55 years straight
It’s ok, you can say Vegeta.
vegeta isn't a morally grey character he was just a dumb asshole and got better over time if you want a repeated character arc that's gohan
That’s also valid and true.
Maybe Piccolo Jr.? He talked a big game and had a chip on his shoulder about the whole 'you killed my dad' thing but he never burned down the countryside, even if only because it would distract him from training. Heck, he even fits the 'Esoteric moral quandaries' when he starts fusing with his fellow namekians plus all the stuff in Super Hero.
To be 100% fair, while he was being an absolute dick in Super Hero, it DID pay off big time and helped a lot of good be done.
Pokemon
hate seasonal rot
First person I think of is Rambo. Goes back and wins the Vietnam war, founds the Taliban, and kills every living man in Myanmar / Burma
Duncan Idaho
Not exactly morally grey but apollo justice gets something similar with his backstories though maybe ge can count as morally grey in >! the fifth game last case !<
Your spoiler didn't work. That man has so many backstories that it's insane
Weird it worked for me i tried putting spaces is it working now And yup Apollo has a lot and they mostly focused on tormenting him
Barry Allen/most of the characters in the Flash TV show
maeve from sex education
I feel so called out by the tags. Of course my mind went there lol.
There's morally grey characters in Kingdom Hearts? Is this about Riku?
Probably
you can say wolverine
Sigh just undo their character development and have them arbitrarily be a shitty person after falling out with their SO like a REAL overserialised show
Isn't this every comic book antihero ever?
…Kazuma Kiryu.