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Pendleton Ward explicitly states that he wishes to give the setting mechanics some consistency in lieu of allowing it to be lenient with its magic.
Also, I feel that this statement
is missing out on the context I discussed his crown's powers in. It was a Who Would Win scenario: of course I had to discuss it to some extent! How else would I be able to know if he could beat Howl?
Or that episode where Tree Trunks turned into a crystal queen, which would not have made sense had the viewers not watched a previous episode.
Or Finn's demon blood sword.
Or the storyboarders remembering the Lich-possessed snail in every episode after the possession itself happened.
Or...yeah, see my point?
I think you're rather missing his point though.
His point is that by examining the mechanics of Adventure Time (specifically Ice King's powers), I am "thinking too hard" about it, because examining its mechanics is based on the allegedly false premise that there are any mechanics at all. There are.
It seems to me that he is saying that you are thinking too hard about it because the setting does not really care. There is some level of internal consistency, but that's about it.
For example:
That is not what magical realism is. Magical realism refers to a type of story in which the magical elements are an organic part of an otherwise mundane setting. They are different focuses.
But then, the hell do I know. I'll bow down to your superior knowledge.
A link that illustrates my point better.
The writers do care about maintaining logic in the setting.
I just wanted to clarify, since my earlier statement was a bit obtuse.
I'm clearly on Eel's side with this, having watched all of the series. It REALLY does display a consistent logic with things, and I don't think he was thinking too hard about it, especially in the context of a Who Would Win.
Just look at the Enchiridion. It has more consistency than many things, from it's first appearance, to the reveal of it's purpose.
In a past episode of Adventure Time, Marceline and the Ice King met up, and we learned that Simon took care of Marceline. That's kind of a big deal. And the newest episode is going to be a Simon and Marcy half-hour special.
It is very unfair to compare Adventure Time to a show like say, Spongebob, which has NO consistency besides the setting, and even that changes the fuck up all the time, because I still don't know if the Krusty Krab is to the right of Spongebob's house, or the left.
I think the problem is that while there are quite many fans in quite many fandoms who make their franchise out to be very much more serious than it is (of course, Bronies are most notorious for that), there are in my estimation also quite many people who, maybe getting defensive due to that, really abhor the thought a certain franchise might be taken too serious. You know, people who throw around "it's just for fun" or "it's just a show" like those sentences will run out of style tomorrow.
That's also the point I made in that thread about how dark franchises oughta be... often times the 'conflict' about that is more about how serious the franchise should be taken (not that I say you need to make a show to dark to have it be serious, but still, that's IMO often what such discussions are about in the end).
It's not that there aren't mechanics, nor that there shouldn't be mechanics. I just feel like, in the past, you've made a big deal out of those mechanics existing.
On the one hand, I guess I did forget the context, and on the other, this ties into why I dislike Who Would Win discussions in the first place.
In this case, I'll freely shift my contention towards the writers. It's not as if they're infallible (see: "What Was Missing" and Ward's slapstick vs. Magical Realism comment).
How early do other examples become present, and how often would they necessitate a nuclear apocalypse in order to have come about?
I apologize if I came off as condescending, but I don't know if these serious moments really gel with the majority of the show, and I admit that I have no interest in the larger plot of this series, so on that note I suppose I might as well bow out because I've already used more words than I would've liked. :V
This is part of what I was hoping to put across. You can make a tense plot in this sort of show without straying too far from the basic tone, or putting a different sort of tone across weirdly by framing it within the majority content.
But the thing is, the whole point of GLaDOS is that she's a parody of SHODAN. It simply doesn't work for her to be a carbon-copy of her. I mean...why would you want that when you could have a much more interesting take on the whole "Evil AI" thing.
I know, and my problem is that you're criticizing us for having interest in the larger plot.
A plot point in the Susan Strong episodes is Finn being the last human on Earth, which was brought about by a nuclear apocalypse. The Susan Strong episodes are in the second season.
That's what Adventure Time does. In the very same episode where the Ice King-Simon dynamic is introduced, we have Ice King dressing up as Marceline and acting like a teenage girl.
Very well, although I fail to see how continuing this conversation will do anything towards this. On that note, I might as well stop too.
What isn't interesting about SHODAN? Think about it: she's a nigh-omnipotent entity who has complete control over the environment you are residing in, and she hates you. That is, to me, extremely terrifying.
and hot
That's pretty much every evil computer ever though.
Well, considering my last post here was six days ago, I had figured the conversation was already pretty well stopped. :P Though I'll grant that I'll need to watch more of the show to fully form my opinion on the plot bits, even if I don't ever end up watching the show in full or in order.
Umm... I'm going to have to side with Saturn and Eelektross here. Adventure Time is definitely more on the silly end of things, but the show does have some really dark undercurrents to it, even in the lightest episodes. It's part of the appeal: The show is genuinely weird. Being kind of dark and creepy yet goofy and fluffy at the same time is essential to that weirdness. The Ice King's backstory is one of those darker elements, and it is treated fairly seriously. That said, he's still a comic character for the most part, if ultimately a sympathetic one.
Yo I already conceded that I'm incompletely-informed in the post above yours. :P
I also saw the Simon and Marceline episode (or, caught what seemed like the important bits), and I do think that they handled it about as well as possible. I hope Ice King gets a happy ending.
The show definitely has a creepy-weird vibe going on, and it does have compelling characters by virtue of being a competently made show... But I don't really buy into the whole "it's a subtle coming of age story" angle some fans seem to take. I feel that it's stretching too thin the fact that Finn has a great deal of innocence and sense of wonder (because what's the point if the main character doesn't like going on Adventures).
> > she's a nigh-omnipotent entity who has complete control over the environment you are residing in, and she hates you. That is, to me, extremely terrifying.
> That's pretty much every evil computer ever though.
I think I can understand some of where Eelektross is coming from.
For example, I really appreciate Exdeath as a villain. Especially in the RPGe translation, where he's really taken quite seriously.
That's because, for all his stereotypicalness, he's just cast very, very, effectively. He is hammy as all hell, and he has the strength to back up that hamminess with actually effective and intimidating pwnage.
Is that what you're thinking, @Eelektross?
What I mean to say is that SHODAN may or may not be interesting (Haven't played either SS game, even though I've tried, but neither copy ever worked on my old computers), but a SHODAN knock-off is pretty much just a character who tries to be SHODAN but isn't really SHODAN. So why would you want that?
I mean, that's kinda like asking the Joker to be Lex Luthor, in my opinion. It's not that either character is more compelling than the other, it's just that both characters work on different levels and trying to deviate from those levels tends to water the stuff they do right down.
That's kind of like how I view Ganondorf. Ganondorf is a stereotypical evil overlord at a glance, but once you've played enough Zelda games you find out he's something much more threatening.
Think about it. He holds the literal Power of the Gods, is an incarnation of a god of evil/demon overlord's hatred, is canonically worshipped as a god (TP and I think FSA), and at one point ruled an entire dimension.
Uh... those are all really generic evil overlord things.
Like... I'm having a hard time thinking of fantasy video games where the villain isn't similar.
ITT - Eelektross tries to justify his villain crushes and spends a lot of time talking in circles.
What makes villains good is pretty much never their raw power alone. The classic "evil king" schtick is particularly good in a post-feudal audience context, for instance, because it provides an example of how a system and familiarity can allow people to take various kinds of abuse without a second thought. An evil king's power doesn't primarily come through his skill with weapons, his armies, his occasional ability to blow things up with magic or anything along those lines -- his power is derived from collective belief in the system that supports him. Blood ties don't have any objective meaning in politics, but because the feudal system based its hierarchies around them and powerful people organised themselves into families that bred together systematically, we get a system that has no way of holding its kings or queens accountable for their actions (except retroactively).
So what is really compelling about the evil king concept, before any specific characterisation comes into it, is the power relationships in play on the basis of faith in a system. You can add all the fireballs and dark summonings you like to it, and it's fine with or without, but the core power of that concept is the system at work.
Pretty much all great villains derive their power from much more than their capacity to blow stuff up or not get blown up. Even in Alien, one of the best films of the 20th century and certainly among the very very best horror films ever, the villain isn't ultimately the creature itself. The villain is the Weyland-Yutani corporation, who are willing to sacrifice their own employees in order to derive research from the Alien creature. It's the capitalist version of the evil king thing above.
Another thing to keep in mind is that what can happen isn't necessarily that important -- what does happen is most of what matters in both real life and fiction. It's on that basis that, say, Gollum is the best villain in LotR. He's pathetic, and just about anyone who knows where he is could put the poor guy out of his misery, but he struggles with the corrupting force of the Ring and Frodo's unexpected compassion for him. There's a great deal of meaning to his character that makes him both more threatening and sympathetic than Sauron, whose threat is distant. But anyone can become Gollum, if taken over by compulsive obsession, and people who are too familiar with cruelty can be taken off guard by an act of compassion. Gollum isn't a threat to any great warrior, any army, or any practitioner of magic. He is, however, a threat to our sense of security as an audience, and he shakes our faith in Frodo.
That's good villain stuff. Blowing stuff up on top of that kind of thing is fantastic, but it's superficial and continuously fails to resonate with audiences over a long period of time.
Can't we just chalk it up to him liking the classic villain archetype?
I mean, there's nothing wrong with appreciating it.
Some stories are more effective when details are left out. Not all stories require all the details to be there.
Sorry Glenn, I've just been waiting a long time to have an excuse to toss that at you.
I admit, I lol'd
^^^But that doesn't mean he needs to go on about that in such length and repeat his points over and over again without being provoked to. That's just getting... awkward. You know how we discussed cringe comedies? Yeah, like that
"goes on about [thing they like] in such length and repeats [their] points over and over again" describes the vast majority of the people on this site.