The Spiteful Ghost
Danny loved space, and loved exploring it almost as much as he loved the Realms (yes, apparently he had made a home there, and learned to love its quirkiness, who could knew right?). The problem was that over the years the halfa acquired another characteristic: He hated heroes.
It might seem ironic, considering his teenager years but he just couldn't stand the concept of heroism (he never chosed to be one), not after all he had been through. Not after losing his family and ending up with more than deep wounds, not after humanity called him a villain for protecting the ghosts, not after the world chosed to sacrifice him after all he did for them (Amity was his world, and the city handed him over on a silver platter to save itself, they forced him to take drastic measures, actions he should never have taken, but when you're alone it turns out that no one can stop you)
They say that rancor can change you, the halfa can confirm. The point is, Danny hated heroes (he hated what they had to go through, hated that adult heroes weren't there for him, hated what it took to be a hero, leaving everything for the world was absurd, why would you accept something like that?). When the ghosts told him about the DC dimension he didn't take it exactly well. Although at least those heroes had a base in space.
Clockwork forbade him to go for a few months (he understood his grudge, quite personal, but he didn't want it to destroy him, he didn't want him to destroy himself), but when he saw him lost and depressed he allowed it, probably because he knew it would cheer him up for a while. Maybe he saw some future where he reconciled with the "profession", or maybe he thought he needed it (the halfa wasn't evil, Clockwork knew he wouldn't hurt anyone).
So, Danny arrived in the hero dimension and set out to be the world's biggest nuisance: moved chairs, ate their snacks, disappeared their stuff. He wasn't doing anything exceptionally big until he overheard an argument between the Red Hood and Batman.
After that, Batman ran out of gadgets in no time and Red Hood found little desserts everywhere. By the time they called JLD, it was pretty obvious they had an invader (the invader strangely loved Young Justice, and anti-heroes, seemed to hate Batman thought).
John Constantine entered feeling that he was walking to his funeral, why the hell had the Ghost King installed himself in a hero base, if it was rumored that he hated them to death?
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Actually you know what I need to rant about this: while literati is technically a good girl x bad boy dynamic it is written so incredibly well and avoids so many pitfalls and stereotypes that it makes a good girl x bad boy hater like myself (I’m only half joking — I don’t think any trope is inherently good or bad but I tend to dislike most pairings with this dynamic) fall head over heels for their story and relationship.
So much of what makes the two of them work is the contrast between how others perceive them and how they truly are. Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of people who understand who Rory is as a person (Lorelai, Lane, Paris, Richard and Emily to a certain degree for starters), but she's constantly met with the expectation that she just does good and is supposed to make everyone proud 24/7. Stars Hollow as a group especially are big on this, as seen f. ex. through how Taylor takes Rory's one comment about an inappropriate DVD and twists the whole thing into a censorship crusade and makes Rory its poster-child even though she wants nothing to do with it and tells him so repeatedly. But instead of hearing Rory disagree with him (like he would Lorelai and Luke) he assumes that she actually agrees with him - and why shouldn't she when she's the perfect sunshine paragon of good who would never disagree with her elders? Also her grandparents treat her as incredibly fragile and childlike, like she must be too innocent to ever do anything wrong and so whenever she does something it has to be somebody else's fault (usually Lorelai, but occasionally Jess or whoever else was present). Time and time again Rory is treated like something innocent and naive and weak — but not by Jess. He sees her as a person.
And it obviously goes the other way too. Jess is treated like shit by pretty much everyone else. Either people hate him unprovoked or very much provoked (he did do a lot of pranks in his first few weeks and while I'm a Dean-hater I'm not blind to how much Jess picked fights with him), or they’ve simply given up on him. He tells Rory himself that every authority figure he had back in New York gave up on him too, from teachers to principals to his very own mother. But Rory doesn’t treat him like a lost cause, she treats him like the smart, brilliant and asshole-ish teen that he is. By having faith in him she also often holds him more accountable than others. Where f. ex. Lorelai or the other adults just roll their eyes, Rory physically drags Jess into doing his shifts at the diner. While others write him off, Rory chews Jess’ ear out for not helping Luke more and for willfully making enemies out of the Stars Hollow adults.
They don't put each other on pedestals or below each other. Jess doesn’t try to make a sinner out of Rory and she doesn’t try to make a saint out of him. There’s genuine respect between them. They expect each other to have integrity and treat others with kindness and honesty, and the rest is good old chemistry and common interests.
I particularly love how in so many of their scenes (especially pre-relationship) when they spend time alone they just get to be these goofy nerdy kids. They argue about controversial authors and dig through records shops and eat hot dogs and make fun of each other and try to make each other laugh. It’s not just sexual chemistry as it too often is in a dynamic like this (and often uncomfortably sexual when writing teenagers - looking at you Gossip Girl), and not just well written intellectual chemistry — they have platonic chemistry too. A hell of a lot of it actually.
While I don’t think ASP wrote them through a purely deconstructionist lens on the good girl x bad boy dynamic (if she did plan on writing the dynamic at all), there is something to be said about how where many around them treat them like stereotypes they treat each other like people. To so many people, Rory is a perfect small town princess, a little miss sunshine with booksmarts for days but too delicate and sweet for anything with grit and weight. To a lot of the same people and many more Jess is a pathetic brutish and maniacal lost cause, hell personified in a chainsmoking leather-wearing teenager. But to each other they are actual human beings. Kind and mean and flirtatious and scared and reckless and smart. Rory really thinks that with the right motivation and mindset Jess can be the kind who does (and at the end wrote) incredible things. Jess really believes that with a little more practice and support to step out of her comfort zone she can be the amazing journalist she wishes to be.
They don’t have this stupid «we’re so bad for each other but we can’t stay away» thing that too many trope users rely on and don’t even justify in the plot. Everyone else might think they’re not fit for each other, but they knew they were each other’s person from the very first day.
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Seeing people hate on bnha’s ending for not being a utopia and claiming that nothing about their society has changed, and I just don’t agree with that.
Even if it’s not perfect, their society did change for the better. Crime still exists, but has gone down to the point that less heroes are needed. There’s less idolization on the pro-heroes career - in Deku’s teenage years the ideal job was pro-hero and only pro-hero, but in the epilogue other career tracks such as healthcare and technology are given equal recognition and value to the pro-hero career track. Therapy used to be viewed as a threat and something to be kept hidden because it is shameful to admit that you needed it, and in Toga’s case used outdated practices that did more harm than help - in the epilogue it’s instead seen as something regular and helpful, and that needing help is nothing to be ashamed about, and more up to date and effective at actually helping others, as seen by the therapy programs Uraraka and co created being talked about on tv. Society is shown (I’m mainly thinking about the old granny and the kid) to be less apathetic to those in need. Things have changed for the better.
It’s not a utopia. Crime still exists. Heroes are still needed. But they’re no longer the sole bandage for the gaping wound that used to be their society. Other people from other careers help serves as bandages too, and all of that ultimately helps society function in a way that benefits everyone better. If utopia is the top of the stairs and the society shown in the story’s beginning is at the bottom of the stairs, the society shown in the epilogue is on the step that is halfway up to the top. Not perfect, but improving, and one that is working on continuing their improvement so that they don’t fall stagnant and backslide back to the bottom of the stairs where they used to be.
(Ngl if I want to be more specific it’s that the beginning of the manga has them in the lower parts of the steps solely because All Might and his Symbol of Peace carried them there, but it’ll muddy the metaphor too much lol)
But anyways. BNHA’s ending does something I find much more interesting than ‘they’ve created a crime-free utopia where everyone is happy’. The ending goes ‘things aren’t perfect but they’re improving, and will continue to improve so long as everyone puts in the effort’. It acknowledges imperfections, and the beauty and importance of small steps that lead up to big changes. It promotes gradual growth as important and crucial, and that’s a message I find much more relatable than a crime-free utopia.
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I finally got why I love so much the "dragons are gone" ending in the books while I hate it in the movies:
The books set the dragons free.
The movies simply sent them away.
That's basically the idea but I had a vision yesterday at 3am so I will be getting into detail below the cut.
The books have a very strong message about slavery. Some would say that it is a concept that is only important within the context of the last five or four books, but the ones that have been paying attention to the saga as a whole knows that there are things happening in the background. You know, stuff like
People eating dragons
People stealing dragons from their families so
The dragons can serve the vikings
And they're expected to obey because
People threaten to turn them into bags.
That's mostly the first book.
Dragons are constantly showed as unsatisfied with the status quo trough out the books, some more annoyed with the vikings than others. We have complete monologues from different dragons before the war is even a possibility. Sincerely, when it happens, it feels natural.
The idea of freeing the dragons is not one that comes up in the last book, not even close. The first time it is considered an option is in book 9 (I think), and, by the time being, we've already stablish lots of concepts as slavery within human beings, the dangers of a war, how this could lead to the end of all and freeing the dragons is the only option.
It is fatalist to say the least, but it's not going out of nowhere. There is a lot of worldbuilding (more on that later), but it is also the right thing to do. By the time Hiccup is presenting the option, Cowell has made us root for the dragons to be free and wild and do whatever they want, even if what they want is to hide under sea for thousands of years. Or if they don't want, or if the want to but just not in that moment, they can do it.
Oh, yes, because they leave GRADUALLY.
It is a sad ending, but still manages to get as satisfactory because, yet again, we know this happens and the books remind us this will happen eventually every time they can. “There were dragons when I was a boy” is literally the first phrase in the saga.
And then we got the movies.
The movies never followed the books. Like, not very much. The writers decided that they wanted to tell a story of a broken relationship between a father and a son while using dragons, the heroic and prophetic aspects of the books were getting on the way of that and they scrapped the idea. So, no, you can't tell me the movies actually follow the books.
However, if you're very technical, you know the Hiccup we see in the movies resembles Hiccup I, the one that stopped the war between vikings and dragons in the books, stablishing an equal relation between the two races. And this idea of the movies being a prequel can work for the second and specially the first movie, disregarding the fact that there are no prophetic or magical elements at all.
But THW exist and... Exist.
Suddenly the writers and producers decide that they want to follow the books and want to get rid of the dragons, something that is completely against the message of the other two movies.
(I am just talking about the movies, the shows-books relationship is very different and I will someday make a post ranting about it)
The movies do NOT talk about the dangers of dragons being with vikings or how the vikings mistreat the dragons or how bad is slavery or anything like that. The second movie does, yes, but the second movie also sends a message about how people benefit of being with dragons. They have their dragons and they're strong because of that friendship. Being at war with one another only brings loss and suffering for both bands while being together promises an actual future. A bright future that no one imagined before the first movie and that now they cling to.
Dragons and vikings are friends and together cand do basically anything.
That's a very strong message, you know?
And you know what? The third movie decided that such a strong and important message about friendship should leave the franchise completely.
“Free the dragons” it's a concept that doesn't fit with the movies. They're not slaved, they're not away from wildness and, most importantly, they CHOOSE to be with the vikings in the first place. They are already equals, they can do what they want and, you know, they are with the vikings because they want to.
But no, let's do a movie about letting friends go as if it could actually fit in the saga.
(I know it could actually fit but the execution was terrible).
As I said before, the movies resembles Hiccup I befriending dragons and we know how it ends. And someone who has never read the books will go and say "well, it was bound to end that way, why are you mad?” I tell you the difference right now: there's 1000 years of difference between the befriending and the parting in the book, 1000 years in wich we witness the deterioration of said friendship (from being friends and equals to being slaves). That's no what happens in the movies. The films give us 6 years and the only deterioration is within Toothless' character and how they made him a horny dog.
The dragons shouldn't have leave. This was a whim from the writers that thought that ending both stories the same way would be cool. It isn't. At all.
Long story short, it doesn't fit thematically. The movies and the books have different themes with different concepts and different characterizations of the dragons. While the books got story building and present the theme's since the beginning, the movies get it out of no where ignoring the themes in previous works.
Anyways, go read the books they're jewels and the ending isn't as shitty as thw make it look
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