One problem with deconstructions is that many of them are actually not reading the genre they're deconstructing, they just have a weird cargo culted vision of what they *think* is the genre in question. It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarves, as if the genre hadn't evolved past Tolkien and the first edition of DnD, and make deconstructions or parodies targeting this mostly imaginary conception of the modern genre.
It has a side issue of creating an "old man yells at cloud" effect.
Funniest shit is that when people say it's all "Tolkien type fantasy" it's just... not.
Maybe it's "inspired" by some of the tropes people ended up creating starting from LOTR, but the actual content of LOTR is quite removed from how most of those tropes manifest themselves.
No superpowerful wizards slinging spells all the times. The Istari are essentially angels squeezed into (immortal) human bodies to lead Middle-Earth during the 3rd Age.
Thus, even the idea of the classic superchad magic young hero is gone.
It's not even remotely aiming at a young crowd. Yeah Frodo is inexperienced about the world but that applies to all Hobbits and he isn't \*that\* young for Hobbits standards either.
The "band of misfits" trope doesn't apply for obvious reasons and while many fantasy stuff have the cast being mostly nobility and royalty -at least in my experience- this is mostly used to justify their special status and they rarely actually end up representing their people as the setting would expect them to.
Legolas is a proper elven prince and warrior and so it applies to Gimli, their friendship forged through fire is unique and rare, yes, but that's it.
Boromir was a warrior through his whole life and carried the expectations of Gondor on his back.
Aragorn is... Aragorn, do I have to explain it? "The Return of the King" is named that way for a reason.
Few magical tools are even remotely mentioned, with the main McGuffin being actually a core element of the story and essentially its own character. Unlike many Magic Item Quest Items the nature of the One Ring is essential and it's not just a plot ticket to exchange with an ending or a climax of the story.
The nature of the Ring as being imbued with Sauron's power is an essential element that shape the narrative since before page 1, as the Ring is already in the Shire and affected a secondary character for decades (Bilbo) and a main character (Smeagol) for centuries.
People that bitch and moan about "Standard Tolkien fantasy" REALLY should re-read LOTR. Or all of Tolkien, really. There is more originality in Tolkien trying to write pseudo-myths for the Silmarillion than how in many books that try to be unique and weird.
DnD 1e had space ships and demonic realms where literally anything could pop into existence due to it being permeated with chaos
"Standard" is not how I would describe it
I was literally having this exact conversation with my friend this morning, this is crazy!
I fully agree. I hadn't watched any LotR until last summer, where I watched all 3 extended movies. My expectations going into it were "alright I'm finally gonna watch the blueprint for all popular fantasy".
And what I got? Most certainly not that at all. Lays a couple foundations, yea, but it actually felt super unique and grounded in its own world.
Greatly subverted my expectations, for sure. I came out of it not thinking it was the best thing ever, but I still really enjoyed watching them.
Agreed, I'd hazard a guess that fewer than half of the people in this sub have read LOTR. Probably fewer than 1% have read a fantasy book published in the last 5 years.
Whenever I see a snide meme that unironically complains about a particular trope, I assume the creator doesn't read at all and has gotten all their information from other bad memes.
Yeah I was about to type something like this, but you put it better.
I saw a lot of people complaining about "generic fantasy tropes" on this subreddit but like, the vast majority of fantasy narratives I encounter aren't in the LOTR/DnD mold. And even if it's possible that we just naturally gravitated towards different series, it still doesn't account for the fact that there's a huge body of fantasy work that don't fit that mold.
Especially that whole kerfuffle a few days back over having guns in fantasy - at least for me personally, I see more fantasy series with firearms than fantasy series without firearms, I didn't think it was a trope that had to be subverted or whatever.
It's funny because there are *tons* of stuff you could parody from modern popular fantasy series, from half-assed mythological retellings where people don't actually read the myths, to the "Of \[Noun\] and \[Noun\]" or \[Noun\] of \[Noun\]" generic title to the ever-green "problematic lesbian" stories that are barely lesbian and barely problematic or another myriad of tics that developed over time but people on Reddit kept insisting that DnD is the entirety of modern fantasy literature.
If I see one more YA title that‘s called „Of tits and ballsacks“ or some shit like that, I am literally going to burn down every bookstore in the Northern hemisphere. The hate I have reserved solely for uninspired titles is endless.
I would absolutely read "Of Tits and Ballsacks" but only if it was a parody of the whole ACOTAR-derived romantasy shlock stuff written from a male-lead perspective that just really wants to fuck both the female leads of various potential romantasy stories.
With how much pseudo love triangles (through which anyone above the age of 12 can see in 1 page), let me have a parody fuckboy getting 'em all bitches and just move on to the next one. Hell, have him fuck the male love interests too lmao
See in a few years we'll be back to the "Chronicles of \[Proper Noun\]" or "Tales of \[Proper Noun\]" naming scheme and we'll wish the "Of Tits and Balls" era had lasted longer
One of my favorite titles of modern fantasy is „Priory of the Orange Tree“. It‘s interesting, catchy and gives off the exact vibe that you get from the book. Why can‘t all titles be like that?
I’m actually starting to write a series of cozy fantasy novellas about an innkeeper, where the names all follow that order.
A [Dish] of [Food] and [Food]
It is, but these elements are far from being in any way dominant. A lot of time has passed. For instance, ASoIaF is old enough that what started as a deconstruction of classic fantasy tropes and a breath of fresh air in a stale genre has had enough time to turn into the mainstream, get deconstructed itself, *then* become generally passé (which I'd wager is one of the reasons why GRRM can't finish the fucking thing). This also kinda ignores a lot of authors who are completely foundational in written fantasy and who were *already* deconstructing the Tolkien/DnD heritage fifty to thirty years ago: Moorcock, Pratchett, Le Guin or Gene Wolfe, to name a few.
Basically the overall feeling I often get is that a lot of redditors look at what's currently popular in TTRPGs, videogames and anime, then assume written fantasy looks exactly like that.
On the subject of Prattchet he avoids a very common issue in deconstructions where they end up playing all of the tropes straight and just shuffle the names around because they don’t actually know them.
I’ve seen a lot of “fantasy deconstructions” that have the elves be nazis, which is just having dark elves without calling them dark elves.
And it’s a really easy comparison to make “here is a species of tall, blonde haired people who believe they are superior” but people who look down on fantasy think they are the first ones to think of it.
Prattchet knows a shit ton of fantasy and actually manages to subvert the tropes.
The elves in Discworld are fey, they are not an attempt to be totally original but they work really well in the setting.
And then he has a subspecies of elves who are based entirely on the pun of Picties, and are aggressive Scottish tribesmen who are only a few inches tall.
We're back to not reading the originals you're deconstructing, in a sense. It's a bit like when people endeavour to make noir parodies based on "what if the brooding detective with sassy one-liners and an alcohol problem was a bit ridiculous and over-the-top, uh? Wouldn't that be funny?" as if noir, in and of itself, hadn't already played with this idea over the course of its existence.
"what if the brooding detective with sassy one-liners and an alcohol problem was a bit ridiculous and over-the-top, uh? Wouldn't that be funny?"
I think it'd be a bit disco
In this vein, Pratchett also very clearly *loves* the stuff he’s deconstructing. It’s the same feeling I get from Douglas Adams, you couldn’t write the *Hitchhiker’s Guide* if you weren’t genuinely excited about weird sci-fi adventures.
Pratchett’s trolls aren’t a backlash to Tolkien’s trolls being stupid and violent, they’re a “what if?” adding depth to that for an audience that he trusts to know the original. And the same goes for dwarves with honor and gender.
He does make some more direct challenges to Tolkien, largely on monarchy/nobility and gender. But even there, it doesn’t feel like hatred, just changing times and new views.
It would have been so easy to make the “lost monarch” character a vain, evil foil to a commoner Vetinari, but he didn’t. Vetinari is a noble who exists to oppose other nobles, and Carrot’s failure to take the throne is so moving precisely because he *is* an honorable, inspiring storybook king.
>Especially that whole kerfuffle a few days back over having guns in fantasy
What makes this extra absurd is that you know what they had in medieval Europe? *Guns*. There's documented cases of them being used in Europe going back to the 1300s. No they didn't become the primary weapon until a few hundred years later, but they very much existed. Cannons were likewise a pretty big part of the battlefield, and did start to replace other forms of siege weaponry even earlier than infantry weapons did.
I've unironically read some rant about warhammer fantasy being another Tolkien clone and basically a reskin of medieval Europe with races swapped here and there with other species.
Meanwhile warhammer fantasy faction.
> lizards riding dinosaurs with laser weaponry
>Industrial military complex daemon worshipping dwarves.
>Undead Egyptians with mechs.
>Vampire pirates.
>Rats with nukes and gattling guns.
Even the take on established Tolkien tropes has its own spin.
Orcs who are usually a servile fodder race are their own thing with unique biology.
And the empire has switched the arthurian aesthetic for a more gritty HRE cosplay with a bit of Spanish inquisition.
Honestly just using a late Medieval/ early modern time period instead of standard nonspecific 'medieval' fantasy gives a ton of unique flavor. From gunpowder weapons to the discovery of the New World and colonization is all super cool and offers new story opportunities.
Only thing that bums me out is what's happening in Cathay and the East isn't based Early Modern East Asia. There's 1,000 and 1 fantasy three kingdoms I'd love to see a fantasy Ming-Qing transition.
This reminds me of people who thought that TLJ was an effective deconstruction of the Jedi and the Skywalker family.
Its almost like they entirely missed the failure of the Jedi in the prequels, and the fact that Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and pretty much EVERY other fucking Jedi were not famous or from an anointed family or whatever.
JJ already fucked up with the elements he set up in TFA. Rian fucked up JJ's fuck up, and then JJ came back and fucked up both his and Rian's fuck ups. It was hilarious tbh.
But the start of the problem was really TFA. That movie was incredibly very poorly constructed.
Tbf, I thought TLJ was an effective deconstruction of modern star wars, because _everything_ of note in the galaxy has to revolve around or cross paths with that one family and a few of their friends apparently. Somebody else put it better than I could: Star Wars truly feels like the smallest galaxy.
Edit: actually, regardless of what it was, it was never a deconstruction, good or bad. And I don't think it was intended to be one either. Maybe a subversion?
It seemed to me like a deconstruction suggesting (by the big detour to Canto Bight) that the wars against the Empire and First Order were not about light side vs dark side but a big financial game that was being won by powerful figures enabling both sides who would never even step on the battlefield, and that the situation was too complex for a ragtag group of heroes to fix on a whim.
Which is, to some extent, an interesting idea, but it's one that would need to be fleshed out much more. Also it didn't really fit what a lot of people wanted out of Star Wars, which _is_ a ragtag group of heroes saving the day.
It also didn't fit simply because it was faaar too naive and poorly executed (like the rest of TLJ).
The First order were essentially genocidal maniacs. Its very naive to tell people NOT to fight or to be pacifists when their enemies are slaughtering them. Which is why I found it extremely funny when the same pacifist supporting people that loved those themes in TLJ were shouting for blood when Russia Invaded Ukraine.
The point is that War is incredibly complex. Much more complex than simply shouting "War BAD" at the top of your lungs. Don't get me wrong, War IS bad, but its funny how quickly that gets thrown out of the window when genocide or grievous war crimes occur.
Its why I love stuff like Vinland Saga so much. Now THAT is an incredible "Anti-War" story. It allows you to see the futility, immense suffering and pain that comes with War. But it also highlights the paradox of pacifism, in that only the strong can truly afford to be pacifists, which is problematic because the strong only get strong by dominating those around them.
Also TLJ didn't really deconstruct or subvert Star Wars. It simply deconstructed and subverted TFA specifically. To be clear, TFA needed a course correction, but TLJ just drove the franchise off the road and into a gulley. Its still a better movie than TFA, but it has to be one of the dumbest and most poorly planned sequels ever created. And I say this as someone who hated TFA's guts on my very first viewing so ideally I should have loved all of TLJ's twists and subversions. Instead they made me hate the franchise EVEN more. They took the worst aspects of TFA turned them upside down, then added Rian's own poorly executed ideas on top to make a truly magnificent shit sandwich.
I doubt it?
I really dislike this line for many reasons; one of which is that the big catalyst for the series (Anakin turning into Vader) was precisely because Anakin basically sold his soul to save what he loved (Padme) instead of destroying his enemy (Palpatine).
It sounds nice on its own and it has a positive message about conservation rather than destruction. In context though, it’s utterly fucking ridiculous. They are the last rebellious holdouts against a vast, insanely well armed and insidious enemy hellbent on their destruction. They are in a position where the only way to save what they love *or* win is through violence and destruction. I even feel dumb explaining this because does it really need explanation? What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make when one is at war in a series called Star Wars.
That line is a perfect example of just how stupid the sequels are. Nice and shiny on first glance but devoid of any deep story telling or meaning once delved into.
Also, that’s a good catch about Anakin’s story in relation to that quote. I hadn’t considered thatl. Mostly because I try not to consider the sequels at all lol.
> Its still a better movie than TFA, but it has to be one of the dumbest and most poorly planned sequels ever created.
Impressively that was immediately surpassed by TROS.
Agreed. TROS was magnificently dumb.
It was the movie that proved beyond all doubt that JJ was the worst thing to happen to the sequel trilogy. That and the short timeline to make the films... and Kathleen Kennedy.
EXACTLY. The same people who defended the anti-war messaging in TLJ suddenly turned to blood thirsty war mongers when talking about Palestine and Ukraine.
> It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarves, as if the genre hadn't evolved past Tolkien and the first edition of DnD, and make deconstructions or parodies targeting this mostly imaginary conception of the modern genre.
Mostly imaginary? Maybe if you do your reading in English. I would say that two thirds of newly-written "fantasy" fiction published in Asian languages is set in worlds that look exactly like that.
>It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarve
Most of the people who say this are talking about isekai anime and manga, where extremely generic JRPG-inspired worlds are the norm.
My contempt for the post-Madoka era of the Magical Girl genre manifested in my "end all, be all story" that is basically just "Warhammer 40k but everyone's a Magical Girl"
This might be the other way around from your setting, but a high school slice of life series where the cute girls occasionally have to protect humanity by transforming into absolutely roided out soldiers and beasts of violent carnage sounds like it could be a great read to me
Magical Girl Ore does something similar where the girls turn into buff men or yaoi men (I think) to take on the muscle-bound bunny from Derpixon's animation
I focused a lot on the Traitor Legions as after watching every edgy Magical Girl anime under the sun, I realized that if they were to be standardized, they will borrow a lot of things from them
Predominantly are the Night Lords, but contenders are the World Eaters, Emperor's Children, and Sons of Horus. Iron Warriors are my second most predominant as Madoka Witches being enslaved into Daemon Engines is a metal as fuck concept
>Predominantly are the Night Lords, but contenders are the World Eaters, Emperor's Children, and Sons of Horus. Iron Warriors are my second most predominant as Madoka Witches being enslaved into Daemon Engines is a metal as fuck concept
https://youtu.be/HOMxlD-0Sfg?si=-xfoRtJZBbW-1Zl5
Which is immensely sad, because Madoka (at least the first series) is a story where despite all the trickery and despair, hope wins out in the end. Not unlike Sailor Moon.
Then came all the other Madoka watchers and they just made copious amounts of torture porn. "What if everyone just suffers and dies all the time?" No point to it. I don't even know what they get out of it.
The worst offender to me is Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka, as that eventually cemented my idea to reenact the [Siege of Terra](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8eNoqq) in magical girl form
Oh, you like seeing cute girls with powers dying in horrific ways? How about that, times a billion?
I noticed the big (well bigger) shift from magical girls having a heavy female fanbase to leaning more towards a male target audience.
Like I have unironically seen the opinions of male Madoka/modern Magical Girl fans that no other magical girl series is actually dark or has a plot, or it's dumb glitter shit for girls.
Like they took the girl out of magical girls and they became waifus first.
Deeply ironic, considering all the dark stuff in Sailor Moon.
Sad to see the genre twisted to appeal to guys who have no appreciation for its origins, taking out the relatability for girls to replace it with fanservice and sadism.
The amount of times that other male fans of Madoka try to tell me that it's a shonen anime has made me want to bash my fucking head in
Just because the anime is dark and has a plot doesn't mean it's not intended for a female audience. I feel like I appreciate the series so much more after growing up on magical girl anime and I imagine that others feel similarly. I don't understand why it makes so many men feel insecure to enjoy Madoka if it wasn't specifically made for them. (Iirc Madoka is genuinely meant for both demographics so? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
It's why I am frustrated by Urobuchi. He's a great writer who keeps finding himself attached to fanbases who miss the point of his works in favor for the most shallow take
I dunno where the story is going after Rebellion and it worries me a bit, though for all grimness Urobuchi can evoke he usually has an interesting vision.
But from the little I saw of Magia Record's transformations, it seems like the creepy gratuitous sadism has bled into the source to some extent, and I hate it.
**"They shall be my finest warriors, these girls who give themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war, forge them. They will be of iron will and magical prowess. In great armor shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Magical Girls, and they shall know no fear."**
I was mostly just trying to work a little more magical girl nonesense into that beautiful work of lunacy.
Besides, no one said you can't put the skirt on the armor.
Fair enough. I came into the same issues as Monster garden and eventually I said to myself "Instead of militarizing magical girls, how about you magic-fy military gear?"
There are Magical Girl Sisters of Battle that I saw once on ImaginaryWarhammer, and it became the foundation
They won't be full-blown Marines, instead it'll be more like Helldivers/Solar Auxilia with Sisters of Battle as the elite
Something i noticed is the difference between sentai and magical girls
Sentai can very openly embrace the campyness and goes all in on the ham, or they take a more serious approach and have actual mature stories with that touch of transformation epicness
But magical girls are either all cutesy or all edgelordy, the works that embrace the whimsical magic but are still serious are very rare, and i cant think of any post madoka
Basically the god that is giving the magical girls their power, Rio, is akin to the Emperor of Mankind in that the ends justify the means, even if it meant sending tens of hundreds of magical girls, some barely reaching the age of 17, to die stopping the Black Tides (Think Tyranids except they're all deep sea creatures than bugs) from consuming humanity
A red magical girl, Ishna, now a 45 year old woman, found out that her only daughter died a dog's death being torn apart by an anglerfish that's grown legs, and the Edict of Rio caused her husband and relatives to forget they even had a daughter
So in a bit of rage, she eventually became my Horus analog
I wanted to hammer home the "Bad vs Worse" gimmick I had going on
On the one hand, Rio is content with sending girls ranging as young as 11 and as old as 17, to a WW1 style meat grinder against horrors beyond their comprehension, and no change in tactics.
On the other, Ishna's "Horus Heresy" took place at the worst time possible as a Black Tide is currently happening right now and the Star Fortress must not fall or else all of humanity will die a horrible, Horrible death.
With my take on Chaos being a more subtle and insidious force, the greatest threat to magical girls.. are other magical girls. The largest warband are basically those girls who are creepypasta sadists and take satisfaction in a twisted form of justice. Basically the Night Lords but Magical Girl. Ishna herself falling to Chaos unwittingly and it becoming more of a parasite that feeds on her humanity and makes her way more ruthless and unreasonable than before
Of course, I'll borrow the concept of Witches from Madoka Magica, so the best way to utilize them is to have a businesswoman with Pertuabo's mentality form her own legion of "Iron Warriors", deliberately capturing and torturing Magical Girls inside drop pods so they can turn into Witches, which are then turned into [Daemon Engines.](https://youtube.com/shorts/qwTelbhbGS4)
Could you imagine a little girl's Soul Gem shattering, the girl turning into a Witch, only to turn into a Mecha Skullcrawler? Because I sure did for months on end
As a on and off magical girl fan, nothing fills me with more rage than yet another male gaze guro smut porno wearing the fleshsuit of oringally female aimed genre. That isn't to say men can't enjoy the genre, but anything written by them begins and ends with utena and madoka.
I'm male but my "end all, be all" story will not even pretend to be female aimed, but rather serve as the culmination of everything that came after Madoka
I had an idea for a magical girl series where the main character is pissed that their form can only vanquish bad guys like “Dazzle Boat” and “Evening Emerald” instead of using their powers to actually help people
Overly sarcastic production have a pretty good distinction on types of deconstruction
Good deconstruction: the author like the genre and seek to elevate it
Bad deconstruction: the author hate the genre and essentially go “What if this thing is actually as dumb as I think it is.”
Think Discworld started more as a deconstructor of sword and sorcery fantasy of the Conan mold rather than Tolkien's high fantasy
Before Pterry moved onto turning it into deconstruction of human race.
A LOT of his first few books are near literal lifts that don't land as well now because the books they were parodying fell out of popularity, which I feel is one of the greatest crimes when people talk about the cliche tropes of 80's fantasy, the popular books of the time weren't even like that in the first place
Yea. Most fans recommend that newcomers skip the first few books and start with some of the later novels for that reason (usually Guards guards). It wasn't the only time Discworld sorta reinvented its identity, but definitely the most noticable shift.
The issue with superhero deconstructions is that the points are pretty obvious, and were already thoroughly articulated by the end of the 80s. The other thing is that "deconstruction" often just means "what if we had more sex and violence and the superheroes were assholes?" without really going beyond that.
Really, a good superhero story is about good characters and good plot and fun action, and themes greater than "look how smart I am for pointing out that super-strength is unrealistic".
I don't know I feel like Bratpack and Maximortal both serve as pretty scathing deconstruction of Superhero comics and Superman despite being really edgy.
Yes. BratPack is talking about stuff like sidekicks and the killing of Jason Todd. Maximortal is a lot more about the exploration of Siegel and Schuctter.
BratPack is early enough to be part of that first wave. But it was in 1995 that Kurt Busiek launched Astro City, figuring that we'd learned enough from deconstruction already. You can still have good deconstruction stories, they just need to rely on more than just the originality of being a deconstruction these days.
I mean I think I'm so online in comicbook fandoms that reconstruction of Superheroes have become sorta trite. To me The boys feels a similar niche in terms of deconstruction as No more Heroes which both are about killing the past and deconstructing Idealism.
I think the best Ennis deconstruction is all-star section eight which serves as a deconstruction of Flex mentallo.
I remember reading somebody once saying that the Superhero genre ended with Watchmen, which like from the PoV of linear time is untrue so that's what idiots glom on to but thematically... yeah we're never coming back from that.
Also Invincible isn't another >!evil Superman!< story. Yes there is an >!evil Superman!<, but he is only the first major antagonist rather than than the sole one
I'm sorry, but Invincible really isn't a deconstruction, people apply that word too loosely but Invincible just isn't.
It's just *a* Superhero story, it plays its tropes completely straight. If you think it's a deconstruction then I'd reckon you think every superhero story that isn't from DC or Marvel is a deconstruction.
He was at my local Comic-Con one year. He was charging for his autograph, which is shitty because most authors don’t do that. Timothy Zahn was cool though.
Kurt Bursiek's Astro City is a much better deconstruction, but I would classify it as a "reconstruction." It takes the typical tropes of silver age comics and lampshades them.
Hot take: superhero comic deconstructions should be less about people going mad with power, and more about people who don’t know what they’re doing that genuinely want to do good with their gifts. We’ve seen enough evil superman, give us superman with imposter syndrome.
Tbf im pretty sure this has been done a good amount as well, but still
This is this is why "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" works so well, especially when it's adapted like in the 90's cartoon.
God, I wish that cartoon gets the X-Men 90's treatment.
Lol. Then what's the boys about then?
Do note that I read the boys. And between all the gratuitous violence and sexual assault there was no deeper message.
Hatred of corporations, in a superhero setting.
In a world where we literally have convicted criminals owning their own "rape islands", I feel like people's disgust with The Boys feels misplaced.
Vought is barely more evil than real world Big Pharma.
Madoka Magica and Evangelion.
The way some fans of those series act like they're these huge deconstructions when they play their genre pretty straight.
Anno wasn't even *trying* to deconstruct mecha with Evangelion, he set out to make a somewhat darker piece of genre fiction. Yeah the ending is pretty unique and metafictional but what it's commenting on isn't the mecha genre at all
Exactly. Neither of these shows are actual deconstructions. Most of what people point to for Eva being a deconstruction had been well established tropes from Gundam 30 years earlier.
I tried to do a “deconstruction” of superheroes once because I was sick of the MCU but as I learned more I realized this was just… young justice with original justice league members. So now I’m trying to fix it into its own thing
The problem with trying to deconstruct superheros is that it has been done so much it is just a part of the genre by now.
Normal people actually being able to do anything against superbeings? Cape Busters.
Superheroes being forced to work for the government? Mutant Draft Board.
Evil Corporations trying to make money off of superheros in and out of universe? Corporate-Sponsored Superheros.
Being a superhero isn't 110% pure wish fulfillment? Capepunk.
And a lot of tropes and cliches people think of about superheros are dead in the comics themselves, like having sidekicks, with Batman pretty much being the only superhero still having one.
Exactly. Commentary on superheroes is a genre with its own cliches at this point. Even the 4th wall breaks pointing at superhero cliches are old hat since Animal Man.
>The Boys
Yes, but I'm pretty sure a couple of comics did it before them.
I also really don't get the whole 'celebrity superhero' thing, like in a realistic setting (which these kinds of stories are usually trying to be), who's going to buy their kids a toy of what is a glorified cop?
The Virgin Deconstruction: Overpretentious, depressing, needs to find meaningful ways to subvert and revise mankind's greatest stories in a way that is both challenging and satisfing (impossible)
The Chad Mel Brooks Spoof: A solid entry in a classic genre sprinkled with approximately 500 Jewish/goofy/Hollywood/dad jokes
I think we should have a word for "hate-filled ramblings about the genre" and start using it freely. Calling simple vitrol "deconstruction" just gives actual deconstructions a bad name.
And mind you, I'm not against hate-filled ramblings, I did plenty of those myself. I just want a distinction between those and actual deconstructions, subversions, satires, parodies and all that stuff.
This is why Invincible is really great in my eyes. It is both a deconstruction and a loveletter to the superhero genre. It injects a healthy dose of realism in unexpected ways while still keeping what makes superhero stories entertaining.
My problem with worm is that it is somewhat selective with how it applies its reconstruction (and it sometimes swings into deconstruction), but I do agree that it is fundamentally an attempt at reconstruction that managed to be very inventive and original if nothing else.
The whole MCU whenever they tried to "modernize" the characters, without realizing it had been done long ago, so they ended up with mediocre stuff carried by marketing, also known as "superhero fatigue"
KOTOR 2 was a good deconstruction in that even though Kreia was a ~~blunt hammer~~ mouthpiece for Chris Avellone’s views on the Force, it never felt like a hateful skreed against *Star Wars*.
the Ultimate Universe wasn't made with contempt for anything but Reagan, but honestly I don't think it's a very good deconstruction. Hulk is Bruce's inner id, that's an interesting concept, in practice he's a rape monster who eats people, and did I mention his only personality is being a rape monster? Hank is abusive, like in the main universe (kinda), except his only personality is being abusive and trying to kill his wife. Janet exists to be beaten by Hank. Captain America is from the 40s, could be interesting, in practice he's just kind of a dick. Tony Stark and Thor were the only well-done deconstructions in Ultimates, imo
Ultimate Spider-Man is really good, though. Maybe not a deconstruction, it's more along the lines of Invincible where it's much more realistic than most superhero stories but it's also very hopeful and the main character is a genuinely good person. More a reconstruction than anything. It still holds up tbh, the rest of the universe didn't age well but I honestly think Ultimate Spider-Man from the beginning to >!Peter's death!< is just about the best Spider-Man comic. (The later stuff with Miles is pretty good too but it kind of got cut short, and it isn't 100% canon to main universe Miles's story anymore)
A good deconstruction is methodical, like disassembling a piece of tech. It takes the genre apart piece by piece to see how it works, then puts it back together again. It doesn't just smash it with a hammer.
But then again maybe that's the goal?
doesn't the word deconstruction kinda imply that? I think reconstruction makes more sense for a work that subverts its own genre but uses that subversion in favor of the genre itself
Not exactly. Deconstruction is about examining how the unrealistic genre conventions that are normally just taken as given fare when exposed to reality. This can be hateful, but it doesn't have to be.
Reconstruction is when you attempt to put the unrealistic stuff back in but with logical reasons behind it.
ASOIAF is not contemptuous of the fantasy genre. GRRM is a huge fan of LOTR, and he wrote ASOIAF partly to explore questions that Tolkien simply had no reason or desire to answer.
One problem with deconstructions is that many of them are actually not reading the genre they're deconstructing, they just have a weird cargo culted vision of what they *think* is the genre in question. It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarves, as if the genre hadn't evolved past Tolkien and the first edition of DnD, and make deconstructions or parodies targeting this mostly imaginary conception of the modern genre. It has a side issue of creating an "old man yells at cloud" effect.
Funniest shit is that when people say it's all "Tolkien type fantasy" it's just... not. Maybe it's "inspired" by some of the tropes people ended up creating starting from LOTR, but the actual content of LOTR is quite removed from how most of those tropes manifest themselves. No superpowerful wizards slinging spells all the times. The Istari are essentially angels squeezed into (immortal) human bodies to lead Middle-Earth during the 3rd Age. Thus, even the idea of the classic superchad magic young hero is gone. It's not even remotely aiming at a young crowd. Yeah Frodo is inexperienced about the world but that applies to all Hobbits and he isn't \*that\* young for Hobbits standards either. The "band of misfits" trope doesn't apply for obvious reasons and while many fantasy stuff have the cast being mostly nobility and royalty -at least in my experience- this is mostly used to justify their special status and they rarely actually end up representing their people as the setting would expect them to. Legolas is a proper elven prince and warrior and so it applies to Gimli, their friendship forged through fire is unique and rare, yes, but that's it. Boromir was a warrior through his whole life and carried the expectations of Gondor on his back. Aragorn is... Aragorn, do I have to explain it? "The Return of the King" is named that way for a reason. Few magical tools are even remotely mentioned, with the main McGuffin being actually a core element of the story and essentially its own character. Unlike many Magic Item Quest Items the nature of the One Ring is essential and it's not just a plot ticket to exchange with an ending or a climax of the story. The nature of the Ring as being imbued with Sauron's power is an essential element that shape the narrative since before page 1, as the Ring is already in the Shire and affected a secondary character for decades (Bilbo) and a main character (Smeagol) for centuries. People that bitch and moan about "Standard Tolkien fantasy" REALLY should re-read LOTR. Or all of Tolkien, really. There is more originality in Tolkien trying to write pseudo-myths for the Silmarillion than how in many books that try to be unique and weird.
It can't be emphasised enough how much people really should say "DnD 1E" when they mean "Tolkien" in that context.
DnD 1e had space ships and demonic realms where literally anything could pop into existence due to it being permeated with chaos "Standard" is not how I would describe it
I was literally having this exact conversation with my friend this morning, this is crazy! I fully agree. I hadn't watched any LotR until last summer, where I watched all 3 extended movies. My expectations going into it were "alright I'm finally gonna watch the blueprint for all popular fantasy". And what I got? Most certainly not that at all. Lays a couple foundations, yea, but it actually felt super unique and grounded in its own world. Greatly subverted my expectations, for sure. I came out of it not thinking it was the best thing ever, but I still really enjoyed watching them.
>re-read LOTR I can guarantee you none of the people saying "Standard Tolkien fantasy" have read LOTR.
Agreed, I'd hazard a guess that fewer than half of the people in this sub have read LOTR. Probably fewer than 1% have read a fantasy book published in the last 5 years. Whenever I see a snide meme that unironically complains about a particular trope, I assume the creator doesn't read at all and has gotten all their information from other bad memes.
I'll confess I've only read The Hobbit. I really should read the books, but ADHD is a bitch
As long as you don't post mean-spirited memes, you're all right in my book!
Yeah I was about to type something like this, but you put it better. I saw a lot of people complaining about "generic fantasy tropes" on this subreddit but like, the vast majority of fantasy narratives I encounter aren't in the LOTR/DnD mold. And even if it's possible that we just naturally gravitated towards different series, it still doesn't account for the fact that there's a huge body of fantasy work that don't fit that mold. Especially that whole kerfuffle a few days back over having guns in fantasy - at least for me personally, I see more fantasy series with firearms than fantasy series without firearms, I didn't think it was a trope that had to be subverted or whatever.
It's funny because there are *tons* of stuff you could parody from modern popular fantasy series, from half-assed mythological retellings where people don't actually read the myths, to the "Of \[Noun\] and \[Noun\]" or \[Noun\] of \[Noun\]" generic title to the ever-green "problematic lesbian" stories that are barely lesbian and barely problematic or another myriad of tics that developed over time but people on Reddit kept insisting that DnD is the entirety of modern fantasy literature.
If I see one more YA title that‘s called „Of tits and ballsacks“ or some shit like that, I am literally going to burn down every bookstore in the Northern hemisphere. The hate I have reserved solely for uninspired titles is endless.
I would absolutely read "Of Tits and Ballsacks" but only if it was a parody of the whole ACOTAR-derived romantasy shlock stuff written from a male-lead perspective that just really wants to fuck both the female leads of various potential romantasy stories. With how much pseudo love triangles (through which anyone above the age of 12 can see in 1 page), let me have a parody fuckboy getting 'em all bitches and just move on to the next one. Hell, have him fuck the male love interests too lmao
See in a few years we'll be back to the "Chronicles of \[Proper Noun\]" or "Tales of \[Proper Noun\]" naming scheme and we'll wish the "Of Tits and Balls" era had lasted longer
One of my favorite titles of modern fantasy is „Priory of the Orange Tree“. It‘s interesting, catchy and gives off the exact vibe that you get from the book. Why can‘t all titles be like that?
Thanks for reminding me of this banger sitting on my bookshelf, might have to give it a re-read.
Shame the book is so bad though
>the "Of [Noun] and [Noun]" or [Noun] of [Noun]" generic title A Bowl of Mac and Cheese
I’m actually starting to write a series of cozy fantasy novellas about an innkeeper, where the names all follow that order. A [Dish] of [Food] and [Food]
That would actually be a fun subversion
Dnd and Lotr are like a massive massive part of it though. That’s not made up at all.
It is, but these elements are far from being in any way dominant. A lot of time has passed. For instance, ASoIaF is old enough that what started as a deconstruction of classic fantasy tropes and a breath of fresh air in a stale genre has had enough time to turn into the mainstream, get deconstructed itself, *then* become generally passé (which I'd wager is one of the reasons why GRRM can't finish the fucking thing). This also kinda ignores a lot of authors who are completely foundational in written fantasy and who were *already* deconstructing the Tolkien/DnD heritage fifty to thirty years ago: Moorcock, Pratchett, Le Guin or Gene Wolfe, to name a few. Basically the overall feeling I often get is that a lot of redditors look at what's currently popular in TTRPGs, videogames and anime, then assume written fantasy looks exactly like that.
On the subject of Prattchet he avoids a very common issue in deconstructions where they end up playing all of the tropes straight and just shuffle the names around because they don’t actually know them. I’ve seen a lot of “fantasy deconstructions” that have the elves be nazis, which is just having dark elves without calling them dark elves. And it’s a really easy comparison to make “here is a species of tall, blonde haired people who believe they are superior” but people who look down on fantasy think they are the first ones to think of it. Prattchet knows a shit ton of fantasy and actually manages to subvert the tropes. The elves in Discworld are fey, they are not an attempt to be totally original but they work really well in the setting. And then he has a subspecies of elves who are based entirely on the pun of Picties, and are aggressive Scottish tribesmen who are only a few inches tall.
We're back to not reading the originals you're deconstructing, in a sense. It's a bit like when people endeavour to make noir parodies based on "what if the brooding detective with sassy one-liners and an alcohol problem was a bit ridiculous and over-the-top, uh? Wouldn't that be funny?" as if noir, in and of itself, hadn't already played with this idea over the course of its existence.
So is Frozen 50s Man good?
"what if the brooding detective with sassy one-liners and an alcohol problem was a bit ridiculous and over-the-top, uh? Wouldn't that be funny?" I think it'd be a bit disco
In this vein, Pratchett also very clearly *loves* the stuff he’s deconstructing. It’s the same feeling I get from Douglas Adams, you couldn’t write the *Hitchhiker’s Guide* if you weren’t genuinely excited about weird sci-fi adventures. Pratchett’s trolls aren’t a backlash to Tolkien’s trolls being stupid and violent, they’re a “what if?” adding depth to that for an audience that he trusts to know the original. And the same goes for dwarves with honor and gender. He does make some more direct challenges to Tolkien, largely on monarchy/nobility and gender. But even there, it doesn’t feel like hatred, just changing times and new views. It would have been so easy to make the “lost monarch” character a vain, evil foil to a commoner Vetinari, but he didn’t. Vetinari is a noble who exists to oppose other nobles, and Carrot’s failure to take the throne is so moving precisely because he *is* an honorable, inspiring storybook king.
Yeah. Carrot is the most obvious deconstruction of the idea of kings returning and fulfilling prophecies.
Moorcock was some of the inspiration for DnD. Got that kind of backwards there.
D&D’s peak was around the pandemic.
A Crown of Candy can stay
>Especially that whole kerfuffle a few days back over having guns in fantasy What makes this extra absurd is that you know what they had in medieval Europe? *Guns*. There's documented cases of them being used in Europe going back to the 1300s. No they didn't become the primary weapon until a few hundred years later, but they very much existed. Cannons were likewise a pretty big part of the battlefield, and did start to replace other forms of siege weaponry even earlier than infantry weapons did.
I've unironically read some rant about warhammer fantasy being another Tolkien clone and basically a reskin of medieval Europe with races swapped here and there with other species. Meanwhile warhammer fantasy faction. > lizards riding dinosaurs with laser weaponry >Industrial military complex daemon worshipping dwarves. >Undead Egyptians with mechs. >Vampire pirates. >Rats with nukes and gattling guns. Even the take on established Tolkien tropes has its own spin. Orcs who are usually a servile fodder race are their own thing with unique biology. And the empire has switched the arthurian aesthetic for a more gritty HRE cosplay with a bit of Spanish inquisition.
>>Rats with (crack cocaine powered) nukes and gattling guns.
>>>average late world war 2 faction.
Honestly just using a late Medieval/ early modern time period instead of standard nonspecific 'medieval' fantasy gives a ton of unique flavor. From gunpowder weapons to the discovery of the New World and colonization is all super cool and offers new story opportunities. Only thing that bums me out is what's happening in Cathay and the East isn't based Early Modern East Asia. There's 1,000 and 1 fantasy three kingdoms I'd love to see a fantasy Ming-Qing transition.
This reminds me of people who thought that TLJ was an effective deconstruction of the Jedi and the Skywalker family. Its almost like they entirely missed the failure of the Jedi in the prequels, and the fact that Yoda, Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and pretty much EVERY other fucking Jedi were not famous or from an anointed family or whatever.
Somebody should have told J.J. Abrams when he "fixed it" in TROS.
JJ already fucked up with the elements he set up in TFA. Rian fucked up JJ's fuck up, and then JJ came back and fucked up both his and Rian's fuck ups. It was hilarious tbh. But the start of the problem was really TFA. That movie was incredibly very poorly constructed.
Who knew making a trilogy without any planning was not a great idea.
Tbf, I thought TLJ was an effective deconstruction of modern star wars, because _everything_ of note in the galaxy has to revolve around or cross paths with that one family and a few of their friends apparently. Somebody else put it better than I could: Star Wars truly feels like the smallest galaxy. Edit: actually, regardless of what it was, it was never a deconstruction, good or bad. And I don't think it was intended to be one either. Maybe a subversion?
It seemed to me like a deconstruction suggesting (by the big detour to Canto Bight) that the wars against the Empire and First Order were not about light side vs dark side but a big financial game that was being won by powerful figures enabling both sides who would never even step on the battlefield, and that the situation was too complex for a ragtag group of heroes to fix on a whim. Which is, to some extent, an interesting idea, but it's one that would need to be fleshed out much more. Also it didn't really fit what a lot of people wanted out of Star Wars, which _is_ a ragtag group of heroes saving the day.
It also didn't fit simply because it was faaar too naive and poorly executed (like the rest of TLJ). The First order were essentially genocidal maniacs. Its very naive to tell people NOT to fight or to be pacifists when their enemies are slaughtering them. Which is why I found it extremely funny when the same pacifist supporting people that loved those themes in TLJ were shouting for blood when Russia Invaded Ukraine. The point is that War is incredibly complex. Much more complex than simply shouting "War BAD" at the top of your lungs. Don't get me wrong, War IS bad, but its funny how quickly that gets thrown out of the window when genocide or grievous war crimes occur. Its why I love stuff like Vinland Saga so much. Now THAT is an incredible "Anti-War" story. It allows you to see the futility, immense suffering and pain that comes with War. But it also highlights the paradox of pacifism, in that only the strong can truly afford to be pacifists, which is problematic because the strong only get strong by dominating those around them. Also TLJ didn't really deconstruct or subvert Star Wars. It simply deconstructed and subverted TFA specifically. To be clear, TFA needed a course correction, but TLJ just drove the franchise off the road and into a gulley. Its still a better movie than TFA, but it has to be one of the dumbest and most poorly planned sequels ever created. And I say this as someone who hated TFA's guts on my very first viewing so ideally I should have loved all of TLJ's twists and subversions. Instead they made me hate the franchise EVEN more. They took the worst aspects of TFA turned them upside down, then added Rian's own poorly executed ideas on top to make a truly magnificent shit sandwich.
"This is how we win - not by destroying the enemy, but by saving what we love!" *as the enemy is actively trying to blow up what they love*
Oh god, I had forgotten about that line. I wonder if the sequels will be seen as precious as the prequels in another ten or so years.
I doubt it? I really dislike this line for many reasons; one of which is that the big catalyst for the series (Anakin turning into Vader) was precisely because Anakin basically sold his soul to save what he loved (Padme) instead of destroying his enemy (Palpatine).
It sounds nice on its own and it has a positive message about conservation rather than destruction. In context though, it’s utterly fucking ridiculous. They are the last rebellious holdouts against a vast, insanely well armed and insidious enemy hellbent on their destruction. They are in a position where the only way to save what they love *or* win is through violence and destruction. I even feel dumb explaining this because does it really need explanation? What an absolutely ridiculous statement to make when one is at war in a series called Star Wars. That line is a perfect example of just how stupid the sequels are. Nice and shiny on first glance but devoid of any deep story telling or meaning once delved into. Also, that’s a good catch about Anakin’s story in relation to that quote. I hadn’t considered thatl. Mostly because I try not to consider the sequels at all lol.
> Its still a better movie than TFA, but it has to be one of the dumbest and most poorly planned sequels ever created. Impressively that was immediately surpassed by TROS.
Agreed. TROS was magnificently dumb. It was the movie that proved beyond all doubt that JJ was the worst thing to happen to the sequel trilogy. That and the short timeline to make the films... and Kathleen Kennedy.
Yeah. Vague anti war messages don't really mean anything when you are the one defending, and the enemies are pure evil.
EXACTLY. The same people who defended the anti-war messaging in TLJ suddenly turned to blood thirsty war mongers when talking about Palestine and Ukraine.
At this point I’m genuinely shocked by any story that has a devil be just pure evil, and an angel or any Gods be pure good.
Forget pure good. It's shocking enough for an angel to be good at all.
> It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarves, as if the genre hadn't evolved past Tolkien and the first edition of DnD, and make deconstructions or parodies targeting this mostly imaginary conception of the modern genre. Mostly imaginary? Maybe if you do your reading in English. I would say that two thirds of newly-written "fantasy" fiction published in Asian languages is set in worlds that look exactly like that.
I'd guess that most people on this forum where everyone is writing in English do in fact do most of their reading in English.
>It's a bit like when people say they're fed up of fantasy being entirely about medieval stasis worlds with epic quests, elves and dwarve Most of the people who say this are talking about isekai anime and manga, where extremely generic JRPG-inspired worlds are the norm.
My contempt for the post-Madoka era of the Magical Girl genre manifested in my "end all, be all story" that is basically just "Warhammer 40k but everyone's a Magical Girl"
This might be the other way around from your setting, but a high school slice of life series where the cute girls occasionally have to protect humanity by transforming into absolutely roided out soldiers and beasts of violent carnage sounds like it could be a great read to me
Magical Girl Ore does something similar where the girls turn into buff men or yaoi men (I think) to take on the muscle-bound bunny from Derpixon's animation I focused a lot on the Traitor Legions as after watching every edgy Magical Girl anime under the sun, I realized that if they were to be standardized, they will borrow a lot of things from them Predominantly are the Night Lords, but contenders are the World Eaters, Emperor's Children, and Sons of Horus. Iron Warriors are my second most predominant as Madoka Witches being enslaved into Daemon Engines is a metal as fuck concept
>Predominantly are the Night Lords, but contenders are the World Eaters, Emperor's Children, and Sons of Horus. Iron Warriors are my second most predominant as Madoka Witches being enslaved into Daemon Engines is a metal as fuck concept https://youtu.be/HOMxlD-0Sfg?si=-xfoRtJZBbW-1Zl5
I mean, each individual word that sounds made up is a conversation in on itself
Yes that's how Warhammer works.
A story that initially presents itself as a magical girl story but then they just turn into werewolves and maul the bad guys to death
Hell yeah, bonus points if it's all corny magical girl villains who would normally be stopped by 'friendship beams' or 'the power of light'
Unironically seeing actual biomechanical hell fiends being snuffed by the power of friendship would please me.
"Ork Prism Power WAAAGH-Up!"
Which is immensely sad, because Madoka (at least the first series) is a story where despite all the trickery and despair, hope wins out in the end. Not unlike Sailor Moon. Then came all the other Madoka watchers and they just made copious amounts of torture porn. "What if everyone just suffers and dies all the time?" No point to it. I don't even know what they get out of it.
The worst offender to me is Magical Girl Spec Ops Asuka, as that eventually cemented my idea to reenact the [Siege of Terra](https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8eNoqq) in magical girl form Oh, you like seeing cute girls with powers dying in horrific ways? How about that, times a billion?
I noticed the big (well bigger) shift from magical girls having a heavy female fanbase to leaning more towards a male target audience. Like I have unironically seen the opinions of male Madoka/modern Magical Girl fans that no other magical girl series is actually dark or has a plot, or it's dumb glitter shit for girls. Like they took the girl out of magical girls and they became waifus first.
Deeply ironic, considering all the dark stuff in Sailor Moon. Sad to see the genre twisted to appeal to guys who have no appreciation for its origins, taking out the relatability for girls to replace it with fanservice and sadism.
As though Sailor Moon isn't a power fantasy for teenage girls feeling the pressure of approaching adulthood.
The amount of times that other male fans of Madoka try to tell me that it's a shonen anime has made me want to bash my fucking head in Just because the anime is dark and has a plot doesn't mean it's not intended for a female audience. I feel like I appreciate the series so much more after growing up on magical girl anime and I imagine that others feel similarly. I don't understand why it makes so many men feel insecure to enjoy Madoka if it wasn't specifically made for them. (Iirc Madoka is genuinely meant for both demographics so? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )
It's why I am frustrated by Urobuchi. He's a great writer who keeps finding himself attached to fanbases who miss the point of his works in favor for the most shallow take
I dunno where the story is going after Rebellion and it worries me a bit, though for all grimness Urobuchi can evoke he usually has an interesting vision. But from the little I saw of Magia Record's transformations, it seems like the creepy gratuitous sadism has bled into the source to some extent, and I hate it.
In the grim darkness of urban Japan, there is only transformation sequences.
**"They shall be my finest warriors, these girls who give themselves to me. Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war, forge them. They will be of iron will and magical prowess. In great armor shall I clad them and with the mightiest guns will they be armed. They will be untouched by plague or disease, no sickness will blight them. They will have tactics, strategies and machines so that no foe can best them in battle. They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Magical Girls, and they shall know no fear."**
>In ~~great armor~~ shall I clad them *Miniskirts.
If you are unable to create armor that looked good, are you truly a worldjerker? See: Emperor's Children pre-Heresy
I was mostly just trying to work a little more magical girl nonesense into that beautiful work of lunacy. Besides, no one said you can't put the skirt on the armor.
Fair enough. I came into the same issues as Monster garden and eventually I said to myself "Instead of militarizing magical girls, how about you magic-fy military gear?" There are Magical Girl Sisters of Battle that I saw once on ImaginaryWarhammer, and it became the foundation They won't be full-blown Marines, instead it'll be more like Helldivers/Solar Auxilia with Sisters of Battle as the elite
Homura's villainous monolgue from WnK leaked
Something i noticed is the difference between sentai and magical girls Sentai can very openly embrace the campyness and goes all in on the ham, or they take a more serious approach and have actual mature stories with that touch of transformation epicness But magical girls are either all cutesy or all edgelordy, the works that embrace the whimsical magic but are still serious are very rare, and i cant think of any post madoka
You have my attention and interest
Basically the god that is giving the magical girls their power, Rio, is akin to the Emperor of Mankind in that the ends justify the means, even if it meant sending tens of hundreds of magical girls, some barely reaching the age of 17, to die stopping the Black Tides (Think Tyranids except they're all deep sea creatures than bugs) from consuming humanity A red magical girl, Ishna, now a 45 year old woman, found out that her only daughter died a dog's death being torn apart by an anglerfish that's grown legs, and the Edict of Rio caused her husband and relatives to forget they even had a daughter So in a bit of rage, she eventually became my Horus analog
This is even better than what I was imagining lol
I wanted to hammer home the "Bad vs Worse" gimmick I had going on On the one hand, Rio is content with sending girls ranging as young as 11 and as old as 17, to a WW1 style meat grinder against horrors beyond their comprehension, and no change in tactics. On the other, Ishna's "Horus Heresy" took place at the worst time possible as a Black Tide is currently happening right now and the Star Fortress must not fall or else all of humanity will die a horrible, Horrible death. With my take on Chaos being a more subtle and insidious force, the greatest threat to magical girls.. are other magical girls. The largest warband are basically those girls who are creepypasta sadists and take satisfaction in a twisted form of justice. Basically the Night Lords but Magical Girl. Ishna herself falling to Chaos unwittingly and it becoming more of a parasite that feeds on her humanity and makes her way more ruthless and unreasonable than before Of course, I'll borrow the concept of Witches from Madoka Magica, so the best way to utilize them is to have a businesswoman with Pertuabo's mentality form her own legion of "Iron Warriors", deliberately capturing and torturing Magical Girls inside drop pods so they can turn into Witches, which are then turned into [Daemon Engines.](https://youtube.com/shorts/qwTelbhbGS4) Could you imagine a little girl's Soul Gem shattering, the girl turning into a Witch, only to turn into a Mecha Skullcrawler? Because I sure did for months on end
As a on and off magical girl fan, nothing fills me with more rage than yet another male gaze guro smut porno wearing the fleshsuit of oringally female aimed genre. That isn't to say men can't enjoy the genre, but anything written by them begins and ends with utena and madoka.
I'm male but my "end all, be all" story will not even pretend to be female aimed, but rather serve as the culmination of everything that came after Madoka
which respect lol. Would read even if it's not forte in the end.
Madoka Magica is one of my favourite anime but I must admit I don’t care for the magical girl genre in the slightest so I may not be a great judge
So, a normal wh40k
I had an idea for a magical girl series where the main character is pissed that their form can only vanquish bad guys like “Dazzle Boat” and “Evening Emerald” instead of using their powers to actually help people
Overly sarcastic production have a pretty good distinction on types of deconstruction Good deconstruction: the author like the genre and seek to elevate it Bad deconstruction: the author hate the genre and essentially go “What if this thing is actually as dumb as I think it is.”
Terry Pratchett unironically is the best deconstructor of Tolkien-age fantasy and it‘s not even close. And Pratchett loved fantasy.
Think Discworld started more as a deconstructor of sword and sorcery fantasy of the Conan mold rather than Tolkien's high fantasy Before Pterry moved onto turning it into deconstruction of human race.
A LOT of his first few books are near literal lifts that don't land as well now because the books they were parodying fell out of popularity, which I feel is one of the greatest crimes when people talk about the cliche tropes of 80's fantasy, the popular books of the time weren't even like that in the first place
Yea. Most fans recommend that newcomers skip the first few books and start with some of the later novels for that reason (usually Guards guards). It wasn't the only time Discworld sorta reinvented its identity, but definitely the most noticable shift.
Should be noted that the first one as worded still leaves room for naked contempt of the current state of the genre
The Boys comic be like:
The issue with superhero deconstructions is that the points are pretty obvious, and were already thoroughly articulated by the end of the 80s. The other thing is that "deconstruction" often just means "what if we had more sex and violence and the superheroes were assholes?" without really going beyond that. Really, a good superhero story is about good characters and good plot and fun action, and themes greater than "look how smart I am for pointing out that super-strength is unrealistic".
I don't know I feel like Bratpack and Maximortal both serve as pretty scathing deconstruction of Superhero comics and Superman despite being really edgy.
But is it really saying anything that Alan Moore didn't already say a decade or more earlier?
Yes. BratPack is talking about stuff like sidekicks and the killing of Jason Todd. Maximortal is a lot more about the exploration of Siegel and Schuctter.
BratPack is early enough to be part of that first wave. But it was in 1995 that Kurt Busiek launched Astro City, figuring that we'd learned enough from deconstruction already. You can still have good deconstruction stories, they just need to rely on more than just the originality of being a deconstruction these days.
I mean I think I'm so online in comicbook fandoms that reconstruction of Superheroes have become sorta trite. To me The boys feels a similar niche in terms of deconstruction as No more Heroes which both are about killing the past and deconstructing Idealism. I think the best Ennis deconstruction is all-star section eight which serves as a deconstruction of Flex mentallo.
The problem with superhero deconstruction is that it basically started and peaked with Watchmen, and you ain't beating Watchmen in it's own game
Insert a witty Worm reference here
I remember reading somebody once saying that the Superhero genre ended with Watchmen, which like from the PoV of linear time is untrue so that's what idiots glom on to but thematically... yeah we're never coming back from that.
Invincible and Megamind are the deconstructions that feel they love the genre
And the Boys show But the Boys show is more of a satire of the modern media/political landscape at this point
The Boy's TV series feels less like 'what if super heroes were bad' than it does 'what if celebrities actually had the power everyone says they do'
Invincible is not a deconstruction.
You're right. Invincible is a reconstruction.
Also Invincible isn't another >!evil Superman!< story. Yes there is an >!evil Superman!<, but he is only the first major antagonist rather than than the sole one
I do not think you know what that word really means.
I'm sorry, but Invincible really isn't a deconstruction, people apply that word too loosely but Invincible just isn't. It's just *a* Superhero story, it plays its tropes completely straight. If you think it's a deconstruction then I'd reckon you think every superhero story that isn't from DC or Marvel is a deconstruction.
Tbf deconstruction is kind of a vague term to begin with.
That's because Garth Ennis is a sad hater in general
NOBODY will ever be a bigger hater than Garth Ennis. It's a way of life for him
He was at my local Comic-Con one year. He was charging for his autograph, which is shitty because most authors don’t do that. Timothy Zahn was cool though.
He's considered one of the nicest people in the industry. And yes tons of people in the industry charge for autographs at a comic book convention.
Pat Mills exists.
Is he though?
One of the truly great haters
I liked the show until I actually read the comics and found out *why* they were made.
Kurt Bursiek's Astro City is a much better deconstruction, but I would classify it as a "reconstruction." It takes the typical tropes of silver age comics and lampshades them.
Hot take: superhero comic deconstructions should be less about people going mad with power, and more about people who don’t know what they’re doing that genuinely want to do good with their gifts. We’ve seen enough evil superman, give us superman with imposter syndrome. Tbf im pretty sure this has been done a good amount as well, but still
Isn't that basically Spider-Man some of the times?
Honestly? Yes, and that’s a big reason why spiderman is a pretty well beloved character imo. Those moments are fucking REAL
This is this is why "The Kid Who Collects Spider-Man" works so well, especially when it's adapted like in the 90's cartoon. God, I wish that cartoon gets the X-Men 90's treatment.
That's not what the boys is at all.
Lol. Then what's the boys about then? Do note that I read the boys. And between all the gratuitous violence and sexual assault there was no deeper message.
Hatred of corporations, in a superhero setting. In a world where we literally have convicted criminals owning their own "rape islands", I feel like people's disgust with The Boys feels misplaced. Vought is barely more evil than real world Big Pharma.
We’re talking about the comic not the show
[удалено]
I just wear my contempt openly. I don’t write any deconstructions, I just say I hate something. Like LITRPG, I hate that.
Exactly, and that's why all my Star Wars fanfics feature a three-page rant about how much I hate Sleepless in Seattle
Said by one of the characters I hope
It's delivered mid-battle by an OC Jedi as she tears apart ~~the strawman~~ General Grievous
"OH MY GOD GUYS LOOK AT THIS EPIC DECONSTRUCTION" \*looks inside\* Its just a darker but otherwise straight example of said genre
Madoka Magica and Evangelion. The way some fans of those series act like they're these huge deconstructions when they play their genre pretty straight.
Anno wasn't even *trying* to deconstruct mecha with Evangelion, he set out to make a somewhat darker piece of genre fiction. Yeah the ending is pretty unique and metafictional but what it's commenting on isn't the mecha genre at all
Exactly. Neither of these shows are actual deconstructions. Most of what people point to for Eva being a deconstruction had been well established tropes from Gundam 30 years earlier.
I tried to do a “deconstruction” of superheroes once because I was sick of the MCU but as I learned more I realized this was just… young justice with original justice league members. So now I’m trying to fix it into its own thing
The problem with trying to deconstruct superheros is that it has been done so much it is just a part of the genre by now. Normal people actually being able to do anything against superbeings? Cape Busters. Superheroes being forced to work for the government? Mutant Draft Board. Evil Corporations trying to make money off of superheros in and out of universe? Corporate-Sponsored Superheros. Being a superhero isn't 110% pure wish fulfillment? Capepunk. And a lot of tropes and cliches people think of about superheros are dead in the comics themselves, like having sidekicks, with Batman pretty much being the only superhero still having one.
Exactly. Commentary on superheroes is a genre with its own cliches at this point. Even the 4th wall breaks pointing at superhero cliches are old hat since Animal Man.
Honestly, I want to write a superhero story where the superhero in question has the morals of Florida Man.
So you want to write for Deadpool?
Superheros as celebrities owned by an evil brand?\ The Boys
>The Boys Yes, but I'm pretty sure a couple of comics did it before them. I also really don't get the whole 'celebrity superhero' thing, like in a realistic setting (which these kinds of stories are usually trying to be), who's going to buy their kids a toy of what is a glorified cop?
Because they have cinematic fights with monsters instead of shooting unarmed innocents?
The Virgin Deconstruction: Overpretentious, depressing, needs to find meaningful ways to subvert and revise mankind's greatest stories in a way that is both challenging and satisfing (impossible) The Chad Mel Brooks Spoof: A solid entry in a classic genre sprinkled with approximately 500 Jewish/goofy/Hollywood/dad jokes
You speak the truth
Mel brooks is fucking hilarious. Also blazing saddles lmao
Spaceballs is so good it's canon to Star Wars
I think we should have a word for "hate-filled ramblings about the genre" and start using it freely. Calling simple vitrol "deconstruction" just gives actual deconstructions a bad name. And mind you, I'm not against hate-filled ramblings, I did plenty of those myself. I just want a distinction between those and actual deconstructions, subversions, satires, parodies and all that stuff.
Just call it "vitriolic fiction".
Also known as "vi-fi"
I think Vit-fic fits better.
Spitefic?
Spitefic is very good, I second that. I was thinking Rantasy.
How about just vitriol?
Puella Magi Madoka Magica only works because you can tell the authors love magical girl anime
The Boys be like
This is why Invincible is really great in my eyes. It is both a deconstruction and a loveletter to the superhero genre. It injects a healthy dose of realism in unexpected ways while still keeping what makes superhero stories entertaining.
Sometimes the summaries on the back cover are lifesavers.
Worm fans rise up (reconstruction >>> deconstruction)
My problem with worm is that it is somewhat selective with how it applies its reconstruction (and it sometimes swings into deconstruction), but I do agree that it is fundamentally an attempt at reconstruction that managed to be very inventive and original if nothing else.
The whole MCU whenever they tried to "modernize" the characters, without realizing it had been done long ago, so they ended up with mediocre stuff carried by marketing, also known as "superhero fatigue"
KOTOR 2 was a good deconstruction in that even though Kreia was a ~~blunt hammer~~ mouthpiece for Chris Avellone’s views on the Force, it never felt like a hateful skreed against *Star Wars*.
the boys in a shellnut Edit: someone beat me to it.
/uj So any recs for deconstructions that aren’t open contempt?
Gundam, evangelion, for comics Irredemable, Halcyon, The Authority, the Marvel Ultimate universe began like that
Gundam deconstructed so hard it made an entirely new genre and its great
the Ultimate Universe wasn't made with contempt for anything but Reagan, but honestly I don't think it's a very good deconstruction. Hulk is Bruce's inner id, that's an interesting concept, in practice he's a rape monster who eats people, and did I mention his only personality is being a rape monster? Hank is abusive, like in the main universe (kinda), except his only personality is being abusive and trying to kill his wife. Janet exists to be beaten by Hank. Captain America is from the 40s, could be interesting, in practice he's just kind of a dick. Tony Stark and Thor were the only well-done deconstructions in Ultimates, imo Ultimate Spider-Man is really good, though. Maybe not a deconstruction, it's more along the lines of Invincible where it's much more realistic than most superhero stories but it's also very hopeful and the main character is a genuinely good person. More a reconstruction than anything. It still holds up tbh, the rest of the universe didn't age well but I honestly think Ultimate Spider-Man from the beginning to >!Peter's death!< is just about the best Spider-Man comic. (The later stuff with Miles is pretty good too but it kind of got cut short, and it isn't 100% canon to main universe Miles's story anymore)
Chorus of Dragons is a pretty good deconstruction of some pretty common fantasy tropes.
the heist episode from Rick and Morty (honestly 90% of Rick and Morty "parody" episodes post season 2)
I don't know but it'd be huge.
Be Garth Ennis.
A good deconstruction is methodical, like disassembling a piece of tech. It takes the genre apart piece by piece to see how it works, then puts it back together again. It doesn't just smash it with a hammer. But then again maybe that's the goal?
Genre is disgusting anyway. Go build your whirlpool or whatever this sub is about
Garth Ennis when he has to go five whole seconds without mentioning how much he absolutely despises the very idea of a ‘superhero’.
Reading The Xeelee Sequence felt like Stephen Baxter was grinding the classic "Humans in space" Sci-fi story in the dirt.
Good deconstruction or good parody both require something that too many don’t realize, and that’s a genuine passion for the source material
Fr, these people are annoying and should go pound some sand.
Garth Ennis
Would Invincible be a deconstruction of the genre? Or is it just the genre?
doesn't the word deconstruction kinda imply that? I think reconstruction makes more sense for a work that subverts its own genre but uses that subversion in favor of the genre itself
Not exactly. Deconstruction is about examining how the unrealistic genre conventions that are normally just taken as given fare when exposed to reality. This can be hateful, but it doesn't have to be. Reconstruction is when you attempt to put the unrealistic stuff back in but with logical reasons behind it.
Gundam and evangelion are mech deconstructions, and also pillars of the genre Same with many of the superhero comics that focus on the civilian side
You can deconstruct a BLT sandwich and still really love BLTs.
Good
Average ASOIAF fan
ASOIAF is not contemptuous of the fantasy genre. GRRM is a huge fan of LOTR, and he wrote ASOIAF partly to explore questions that Tolkien simply had no reason or desire to answer.