#graphic novel taako die 100000000 deaths

[somelazyassartist]

I'm. Not going to go into a huge ramble right now because I've done it before and I'll probably do it again later but I am running off of zero sleep and a sonic the hedgehog g fuel so if I talk a lot now it WILL end up incomprehensible but. Just a tiny post since I am thinking about it.

[Edit: it became a huge incomprehensible ramble anyways. It's under the cut if you want to see opinions on the TAZ graphic novel (and sorta the fanon) versions of Taako. But please dear Istus do not think I'm talking about the entire fandom it is just one specific brand of fanon-interpretation I'm talking about, NOT the fandom as a whole please I know enough about Tumblr's reading comprehension to know I should probably put a warning here now that I am talking about a specific trend and not an entire group of people who all have different opinions and also that this is ALSO just my own opinion myself. Oh and also this isn't meant to be like an attack on anyone it's just a personal peeve so if I sound frustrated that's just a Me Thing not me being like mad at anyone in particular Thank you very much genuinely for reading this and understanding]

But like,,,, does it bother anyone else or is it just me that the fandom's perception of Taako has become like. WAY more of a stuck-up ass than he ever really was in the podcast ever since the graphic novels came out? Like don't get me wrong he is a dick but he's never been, like, cruel for the most part.

But like, putting on HtbG (podcast) and then putting him next to the gn version of him is like.... Almost not the same character to me? It's like most people forget podcast Taako started out as the "dumb but sweet joke character" who was constantly slow to pick up on social cues and who the other characters repeatedly would take pity on and make fun of for being "the idiot of the group". And again he is a dick but he's not, like, Seriously a Mean Person!!

Also a decent chunk of the "antagonistic" stuff later on is still a continuation of him not getting social cues like in the beginning (for example, his bit where he threatens Angus for potentially becoming a better wizard than he is, realizing afterwards that his tone didn't come across the way he intended and that Angus interpreted that as being serious, and backtracked to try to clear up that he didn't mean to come off as serious and only meant it as a joke. And also says very explicitly in the same episode that he intends for most of his "mean" behavior throughout the series to come off as joking between equals and he doesn't mean for other people to take it seriously. He just says that.).

And he has, like, unspoken morality about what "harmful" things he does too, especially when it comes to like stealing stuff. If you listen to the podcast he (with very VERY VERY few exceptions) only ever steals from people who are dead- who will no longer be using those items and would be letting them go to waste unmoved- and people who have directly wronged him or his loved ones from his point of view. He actively tries to stop the other two from stealing from innocent people!! There's a whole scene where he establishes he isn't comfortable taking from people who don't deserve it and who need that money!! And then you go into the exact same scene in the graphic novel and.... He's exclaiming that he's going to steal a bunch of shit. Not just any shit, the exact shit he was trying to STOP the others from stealing in the podcast.

Which just doesn't feel like Taako at all!! In fact when he stole and sold Angus' grandfather's silverware and realized Angus really didn't deserve that, he felt guilty about it and tried giving some of it back for him and making up for the rest with quality time and magic lessons! but now when I look at fandom stuff (at least what I've come across) it seems a lot more people lean towards the more kleptomania-fueled dickhead Taako than the much tamer original version, and I have to say I prefer the original more!! He has so much more dimension to me in the podcast- not even because there's more time to flesh him out there than in the gn- but because while he is rude and foul-mouthed at times he has pretty explicit limits and will get upset if people try to force him to cross it! (Also seen with his elevator-related PTSD and him having a very reasonable breakdown when his emotional limits were repeatedly crossed with fair warning from him he'd freak out if forced into going in there..... which got cut from the graphic novels as well because of course it did).

And going forward, with gn Taako being so much more selfish and inhospitable than the original version, I feel like they might cut out his "I'm not a piece of meat" scene in TSG, because if they DO keep it in there's no way to me personally that it'll feel earned in any regard- tell me when in the graphic novels has he pretty much ever shown the genuine humility that the original version carries under his standoffish persona. I don't see it, and I don't think whatever happens between Crystal Kingdom's gn and The Suffering Game's gn will be enough to make that scene feel genuine to me. I really, honestly believe that.

Of course there's some things I do like about the graphic novels and I'm more than willing to give the next ones a fair shot (Crystal Kingdom was a lot better than I expected it to be!) but I really, really, REALLY don't like how the graphic novels (and to a small extent, the fandom) really over-emphasize how mean he is to people when if you listen back to the original in a lot of cases he's much more mellow and kind or is just not picking up on other people's tones/social cues and is being misinterpreted (both by other characters in-fiction and/or certain listeners) because it's established in the text he's bad at picking up that sort of thing