#its been fun to take the magical girl archetype and twist it to fit a horror setting

[astral-dragons]

may or may not be joining a DIFFERENT cos campaign as a player. but we'll see :D

[anthurak]

I’ve been thinking recently about how a key aspect of Steven Universe is that Steven is placed in the narrative position of what might normally be filled by a standard fantasy-hero-shounen-protagonist-guy, while EVERYTHING about Steven as a character is all about going in basically the exact OPPOSITE direction of that archetype. To the point where the one time he actually TRIES acting like some typical shounen-protag to solve his problems in Future, it’s presented as this gross, twisted perversion of his character that goes horribly, HORRIBLY wrong. Basically, the show makes it clear that Steven trying to act like your standard ‘cool, badass anime hero guy’ is very much a BAD and WRONG thing. Like in anime terms, Steven is essentially a Magical Girl placed in a position that was meant for a Shounen Hero. Or in a more specific reference building off of the show’s numerous references to Dragon Ball Z, Steven essentially represents a take on Gohan who’s kindness and pacifism are ultimately allowed to be presented and emphasized as a strength rather than a weakness.

Yet the flipside of all this is that even in their few appearances, has anyone else noticed that Stevonnie shows quite a few of these ‘cool, badass anime hero guy’ traits? They have a cool sword, they race cars, they fight space battles in a starfighter, they get badass fight scenes like getting to 1v1 Jasper and get to say cool one-liners. And the funny thing is, NONE of these are ever presented as somehow ‘wrong’ for the character. Heck, going off of the same references to Dragon Ball Z, Stevonnie has a bunch of design similarities to Future Trunks of all characters, one of THE iconic ‘cool, badass anime hero guys’.

And I think that’s really interesting.

Like in-universe, it says some interesting things about how Fusion works. That Steven himself trying to act like a cool, badass anime hero guy is a BAD thing because it leads him to start rejecting many of the core aspects of who he is as a person, namely his kindness and empathy.

Whereas Stevonnie is their OWN person, distinct from Steven and can exhibit these traits just fine because they clearly got them from Connie. They clearly haven’t abandoned or rejected any of the core aspects of Steven such as his kindness and empathy, they just ALSO have all this other stuff from Connie as well and can exhibit these traits without actually losing anything. They are after all, everything from Steven and Connie and more.

And narratively, I think it makes for a fun inversion. Steven represents this big subversive take on the typical fantasy hero archetype by being this young BOY with a big, heroic destiny who is defined by his kindness, empathy, emotions, a general disdain for solving problems through fighting and generally rejecting the typical ‘cool, badass, anime hero guy’ traits.

So it’s actually rather fitting that it is the non-binary, intersex, very-much-NOT-cisgender-male, fusion Stevonnie who ends up getting to do more traditional ‘cool, badass, anime hero guy’ stuff. Who in turn got much of those traits NOT from Steven, but from his best-friend/partner/girlfriend Connie.

And I just think that’s pretty cool, you know? Particularly when imagining a permafused Stevonnie. Like I think its fun to imagine an alternate take on the later seasons of the show, or just post-series, with a permafused Stevonnie doing more traditional anime-protagonist stuff that would otherwise feel out of place with Steven, but doesn’t feel out of place with them.

For example, Steven never went through any kind of big ‘training arc’ like so many anime heroes because that just doesn’t fit who he is. Steven is not a ‘fighter’, he always tries to talk things out before things turn to combat. So it makes sense that he wouldn’t directly pursue training to become a better fighter on his own.

But Connie DID. And of course that wasn’t presented in and of itself a bad thing. Which as an aside, is interesting for Steven as his joining was more to support Connie rather being presented as something he needed to do himself.

And speaking of fighting, this is another place where the differences between Steven and Connie make Stevonnie in turn all the more INTERESTING. Because whereas Steven isn’t a fighter, Connie very much IS. The symbolic sword to Steven’s shield.

Now where this gets interesting is that in practice, Connie generally follows Steven’s lead. We see a number of instances wherein Connie likely wants to or even is full-on about to launch into a fight, but backs down because Steven wants to talk things out. Connie may be a fighter, but she also generally defers to Steven.

But what happens when these two aspects are coexisting in the same person? What happens when Connie’s preference towards fighting isn’t deferring to Steven’s preference towards non-violence, but is rather exhibited right alongside it? And because of that is seen by Stevonnie as a much more valid option?

What does Stevonnie’s response to conflict look like when they’re much more of a fighter like Connie, while still retaining Steven’s intrinsic kindness and empathy?

Personally, I imagine Stevonnie actually being a fair bit like Ruby Rose, ie; someone who often tries to talk things out, while also not hesitating to jump into a fight if people aren’t willing to negotiate. Perhaps even reading the situation/people enough to get a preemptive strike off.

And all that is just one aspect of what I think makes Stevonnie so compelling as a character.

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[thetypedwriter]

A Curse So Dark and Lonely Book Review

A Curse So Dark and Lonely Book Review by Brigid Kemmerer

My gosh, I feel like I have enormous feelings about this book. 

So, I had seen this book for awhile bestow the shelves at Barnes & Noble and while it drew the eye, it also didn’t entice me right away. I must have read snippets of the backside summary a dozen times before I finally succumbed and purchased it when the store was having a buy one, get one 50% off deal. 

Lame, I know. 

That being said, A Curse So Dark and Lonely surprised me in a lot of pleasant ways and at the end of the experience it was a book I genuinely enjoyed reading, despite the flaws throughout. 

First off, somehow, in ways that I don’t even fully understand, I did not realize that this was a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. 

You might ask, seeing the title, the reviews on the back literally calling it a retelling of a classic fairytale, the summary itself, and the basic premise, how did I not realize what the true nature of this book was?

I genuinely have no idea. 

I really don’t. 

It’s so flabbergasting that I don’t even have a proper answer for you other than Beauty and the Beast was not my favorite Disney movie growing up and that I probably should have spent more time checking out what bargain books to buy before I laid down the cash. 

Oh well.

That being said, retellings of classic fairy tales has been a fairly popular phenomenon in the YA literature scene (and popular culture as a whole, really) for the last couple of years and while I can see the appeal, it was never something that beckoned me. 

I’m not a huge fairytale fan to begin with so a retelling of the original doesn’t hold much sway in terms of intrigue and buy-in. 

If I had known what A Curse So Dark and Lonely truly was, I never would have bought it. Frankly, it’s a little sad because I genuinely would have missed out on a very fun and engaging read. Fortunately enough, however, my dumb actions actually paid off in good luck this time around. 

The whole premise is exactly what you’ve probably surmised up to this point: an enumeration of Beauty and the Beast with some modern fanfare and twists and turns along the way. 

Rhen is the current Crown Prince of Emberall, a country in some parallel world to the one that you and I currently exist in. With a series of twists, the main protagonist, Harper, is unwillingly hoisted from her homeland of Washington D.C. to the magical world of Emberfall, which unfortunately is not all that magical with a looming war on the horizon involving a neighboring nation, rumors of a savage beast that has wreaked havoc on the country, and a wicked witch that delights in torment and carnage to sadistic glee.  

Soon enough, a high school dropout with cerebral palsy soon finds herself in the imaginary role as the Princess of Disi, an allying nation that has promised aid and troops to Emberfall and potentially betrothed to the Crown Prince, Rhen. 

To make matters more complicated, Harper finds herself often in the company of Grey, the lone soldier of the Royal Guard and Rhen’s constant shadow, a figure she soon begins to trust despite herself. 

With a war on the horizon, the ever-present threat of the witch Lillith, the haunting promise of the beast’s return, and evolving feelings, A Curse So Dark and Lonely is a lovely concoction of both fast-paced action, romance, humor, and fantasy. This whole book gave me a pleasant buzz from start to finish. 

The plot itself, while recycled at its core, is fresh enough with the modern flare of Harper being from D.C. (Disi-this still makes me laugh), representation in the form of a character with a disability like cerebral palsy, interesting and complex relationships, and opposing enough with the threat of Lillith and future battles that it never seemed pithy or banal. 

While the world building is...mediocre, I don’t think it was amazing nor do I think it’s awful, it’s a useful enough background for the characters and their emotions to take place, which honestly is the real focus throughout the entire novel (although the author did take some liberties by inputting in things like the castle automatically regenerating food-how much more deus ex machina can you get?). 

  Kemmerer’s writing style is also fine. Nothing groundbreaking, but also not writing I find abhorrent or even unlikeable. She comes across as a typical YA author to me in terms of her vocabulary, her figurative language, and her writing style. 

The real focus, if you haven’t caught on by now, are the characters. 

I genuinely like all three main characters quite a bit, which, if you regularly read my reviews, is quite the anomaly. 

Rhen I find to be strangely complex. While he fits the mold of the brooding, arrogant prince that actually cares deeply for his people and his country quite well, I also found him more interesting than just the archetype of the royal son. 

He’s surly, dark, and quite temperamental. While he does care deeply about his people, he’s often selfish and petty. Honestly, he shouldn’t be very likable at all, but it’s for that reason alone that I do like him. 

I like that while he might be a good ruler he’s not necessarily a good person and I like the dichotomy and the conflict that implicitly comes with that struggle, a struggle often shown to the readers and the two other characters he’s closest with: Harper and Grey. 

In addition, often in YA I feel like authors constantly feel pressured to make romantic love interests “perfect” which to me, translates to being stereotypical and boring. Very often my favorite characters are the ones who are flawed and complicated-just like Rhen. 

Grey is also a character that I thought would be more simple than he actually turned out to be. I originally thought Grey was going to be the stoic, soldier type and while he is, I also really enjoyed seeing his lighter side, his sense of humor, his love for children, and the deadly loyalty that binds him not because of a curse or a spell, but because of his own stubbornness and dedication to the decision that he made and the refusal to break it.

I found this honor code fascinating and his adherence to it almost obsessive. His loyalty to Rhen is both baffling and intriguing and often it was the best part of the novel for me. 

Which brings me to my next point: Rhen and Grey’s relationship is hand’s down the best part of this book. It’s a complicated relationship and, therefore, really fascinating to read about it. They have a serpentine history involving Grey being the one to let Lillith into Rhen’s chambers which sets off the whole curse business in the first place. 

However, as Rhen says later on in the book, it was his choice to keep Lillith overnight and to pursue romance, not Grey’s. 

There is guilt, blame, affection, loyalty, ownership, friendship, frustration, anger, sacrifice and more to their relationship. Their history stops them from being true friends, as do their roles as prince and guard, yet they are the only companion the other has for seasons upon seasons. 

At the end of the day, Grey is all Rhen had for a very long time and it shows. 

Their relationship was always so engrossing to read about due to its complications and its nuances. Very few YA relationships, especially that of platonic male friendship, gets even near the level of depth and grey (I couldn’t help this pun) area shown between Grey and Rhen. Their relationship alone is a huge draw for why I found this novel so captivating. 

I did wonder for a while if perhaps there were more than platonic feelings involved, but I could never quite put my finger on the true nature of their relationship or their feelings towards each other, which I find absolutely amazing. Their relationship is messy and complicated, just like real life relationships are. 

That leaves the third piece of the puzzle: Harper. 

Out of the three main characters, I like Harper the least, but I do still like her. I like that she’s strong and tenacious, not in spite of her cerebral palsy, but in addition to her already present bravery and ferocity. She’s headstrong, stubborn, kind, merciful, and compassionate. 

My dislike from Harper stems from the fact that she’s a little too perfect, especially compared to Rhen and Grey, who I found to be much more convoluted characters. 

Again, harping (hahah) back to stereotypical YA, other than her cerebral palsy, I don’t think there’s anything in particular about Harper that makes her complicated, flawed, or especially interesting. 

She’s a good girl willing to give it all up for a country she’s only known for a few weeks even though her mother’s dying at home and her brother is most likely involved in some kind of gang violence. 

The best scenes with Harper are the scenes were she is struggling to choose between the two worlds and weighing her options, as at some points it does depict her as selfish and wanting to go home, even though she knows it would doom thousands of people. 

But of course, this is all taken care of later when she realizes D.C. isn’t her true home any more and that Emberfall has become where her heart lies. 

Lame. 

Kemmerer made Harper just a little too pristine for my liking, which is why she ranks lower than both Rhen and Grey when on paper she is by far the best in terms of personality and character traits. 

This especially grates on me when Kemmerer tells us that Harper is fantastic instead of letting us glean that for ourselves. I really dislike when an author tells me instead of shows me that someone is brave or kind or amazing or whatnot and I feel like there were enough instances of Harper being all of those things without having needed Rhen or Grey to point it out all of the time. 

I also do feel like there is some weird shaming regarding things typically seen as “feminine” in relation to Harper and why that makes her “better.” For example, Rhen talks often about how no girl ever has ever done what Harper has done, like attacking him. 

I’m sorry? You’re telling me that Grey has kidnapped hundreds of girls and not one of them before Harper tried to attack them? In any form? Really? 

I find that preposterous. 

Other instances of Harper being unique in this fashion is also sprinkled in, like how most girls apparently only care about the dresses and the jewels in the castle, but not Harper. Or how most girls would be crying from a scar on their cheek, but Harper is just upset that she misses her target.

 I get what Kemmerer is going for, but these force-fed characterizations really bothered me and were the most irritating thing about the book. 

Being feminine or caring about stereotypically feminine things like jewelry or dresses does not mean that someone can’t also be strong and brave and fierce. I dislike a lot of the subliminal messages in the novel in regards to that. 

In terms of romance, again I have to ask myself when the trope of the love triangle will die. Perhaps it never will. Perhaps it will live on for eternity, forever immortal and present in nearly 90% of YA literature. 

The love triangle between Grey, Rhen, and Harper doesn’t bother me so much in this novel as I feel like it isn’t truly focused on very much, which I appreciate. I understand that Harper has feelings for both Grey and Rhen, but her feelings make sense. I don’t feel like Kemmerer is just foisting a love triangle onto the readers for the sake of having a love triangle. 

It felt somehow...natural. 

In addition, most love triangles suck as they’re very one sided, usually in terms of the female’s POV. 

In this case however, the love triangle is influenced by Grey and Rhen’s relationship, where the lines are very blurry and for a good portion of the book I thought perhaps they were in love with each other and Harper. 

Frankly, I would have been ecstatic if this was the route Kemmerer had taken. Not many YA authors go down this route, but examples like Mark/Cristina/Keiran from The Infernal Devices and Niall/Irial/Leslie from Ink Exchange are actually the only examples I know from YA literature so this would have been so welcome and anticipated. 

If Kemmerer had gone down the route of looking into a polyamorous relationship I would have been over the moon. I don’t think she is sadly, but polyamrous relationships are still so few and far between in YA that it would have been utterly captivating, especially as she has all the ingredients to do so. 

Or, I thought she did. 

Until it’s revealed at the very end that Rhen and Grey are brothers. Or, at least half-brothers. 

Yeah. 

It’s super unfortunate. 

I’m genuinely disappointed that this is the route Kemmerer decided to take it as it seems so grossly safe. It’s almost like an intense male/male relationship can’t exist unless it’s romantic or they’re brothers and I despise that. 

Hence, why I have also decided that I won’t be reading A Heart so Fierce and Broken. I want to keep the memory and the interesting relationships between the three characters as it is: interesting.

 I have a very strong feeling that if I read the sequel that will all be shattered. 

When all is said and done, I really enjoyed this book. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to reading it and I wasn’t expecting very much, but it met all of my expectations and more. 

I am sad that I won’t be finishing the series as a whole, but I know that the direction it's going will only make me frustrated and annoyed and I would rather preserve the positive emotions attached to A Curse So Dark and Lonely than ruin it with a sequel that I know won’t meet the expectations I have. 

Perhaps that’s unfair to say, and rightly so, but I know myself and I can see where the sequel is going and I’m almost certain that I won’t like it. 

So in this case, I’m going to quit while I’m ahead and savor the moments I had reading this novel in all its fairy-telling glory. 

Recommendation: If you love Beauty and the Beast, fairytales with a modern twist, interesting characters and interesting relationships set in a fantasy world where the music never stops playing and a savage beast runs rampant, than this book is calling for you.

 I didn’t know that I needed this novel in my life and now I’m so glad that it is. Captivating from beginning to end, if you’re anything like me and a sucker for interesting romance and strong, nuanced characters you won’t be able to put this down either. 

Score: 7/10 

[kendrixtermina]

The Team Dynamics of the Three Houses

Essay time! =D

Part One: Team Makeup and Thematic Framework Blue Lions

Overarching Theme: Classic basic fantasy archetypes but with a dark twist (We have Prince Charming/ Guilt-ridden softboy standard-issue JRPG protagonist, Handsome Lech/Idiot Friend, Standoffish Rival, Gentleman Thief, Lady Knight, Sweet nice healer, Adorable spellcaster Girl, the Gentle Giant etc. )

Composition: Has the most people with crests, and the one guy with a naturally occurring major crest. Foreshadows how the crest obsession is particularly bad here, due to Faerghus’ harsh environment and a society that’s both religious and has a serious element of hero worship

History: Notably the most tight-knit group. Everyone knows each other already. It’s basically Dimitri, Dimitri’s longtime best friends, the daughter of Dimitri’s former instructor who heard lots of stories about him and her super nice BFF who gets along with everyone... and Ashe, who didn’t know the others until the academy, but since he is a honest sweety who loves cooking and knight stories, he hits it off with the others right away. 

Atmosphere: Everyone has kind of the same hobbies (cooking, handicrafts, weapons collecting, knight stuff) and a lot of history, some posters have remarked on missing the “family ambiente” in the other routes but since the bonds are stronger they’re also more charged, it’s also been said that it’s the group with the most inter-team drama, especially when you feature in their relatives - You have Dimitri’s whole character arc, all the family drama between the Fraldariuses and the Dominics, Ingrid’s hangups regarding poor Dedue etc.

As expected if you recruit any of them they’ll kinda have a hard time going after their old home, even the tsundere ones. 

The Leader’s position: For all that Dimitri’s friends refuse to drop his honorifics they really are his friends. They’re just all kinda polite with the obvious exception of Felix, and he’s largely tsundere. Despite the afore mentioned drama we see plenty of Dimitri just hanging out with his friends and even coming to them for help, he’s really just one of the bunch . 

Since Faerghus is in chaos everyone’s pinning a lot of hopes on Dimitri and it’s not like he’s completely unaware of that or doesn’t have the corresponding sense of duty, he’s always torn between that and his revenge plan which eventually just takes over. He pursues this entirely on his own, too, with not even Dedue knowing what he’s sneaking around the library for. 

How this “flavors” part one: Gives it a very “personal” touch. Faerghus, it’s culture, recent past and current state of chaos are fleshed out a lot (we learn plenty about the Alliance and the Empire but Claude and Edelgard have greater scope plans) and since a lot of the part I missions concern the instabilities in the kingdom they affect the characters directly. Basically since they’re more “regular” fantasy protagonists we gotta hit em all with the Drama hammer to keep things fresh. And that’s how it continues - They follow Dimitri because of personal loyalty (both toward him specifically, and because it’s in their culture), and Dimitri just wants to protect (or avenge) the people he cares about. 

How this Ties into The Themes: The Kingdom route eventually becomes very much a Power of Friendship story where they all stick it out with Dimitri in his time of need because he’s their friend and they want to be there for him and that makes a lot more sense if there was a big emphasis on friendship/ found family before that, and of course their friendship is what eventually helps him turn his life around. 

How does Byleth fit into this: Dimitri, like Hubert and Leonie, can be filed into the box of those who aren’t immediately awed by their heroic charisma. He doesn’t really get people who aren’t as outwardly expressive as him (eg. Edelgard) But unlike, say, Leonie, Dimitri has no settings between crushkilldestroy and stilted politeness and seldom expresses or responds to overt hostility most of the time. On the one hand there’s a side to him that’s a bit judgemental and vindictive, but that extends to himself too so he’s very ashamed of his flaws and is afraid that he won’t be accepted, so he projects outward that same acceptance that he likes to receive.

So the end result is that he goes out of his way to befriend Byleth, he encourages everyone to speak with them in a familiar manner, insists that they join the victory celebrations etc. Then of course he gets to see that they’re actually quite supportive and so in time they become, as Dimitri puts it “the heart of the group”.

By the time they find out that Dimitri ever disliked them, that’s long past. He’s a very high-empathy, emotional person so once he likes you he really likes you and will regard your troubles like his own. Some ppl might say that maybe the bond feels more special since it took longer to “earn”. He’s practically ready to swear a blood oath with them once Jeralt dies.  There’s an unappreciated Symmetry here like he goes through the trouble to ‘defrost’ them, and then they return the favor by supporting him through his difficult times when they perhaps get to see the ugliest side of him.

Further Dynamic Notes:

So you have a dynamic of working past/ understanding and accepting each other despite one’s flaws and differences. (whereas Claude and Edelgard are interested in Byleth right away, because they’re unusual, but in slightly different ways - Claude can kinda relate to the experience of sticking out itself but is still stumped by being unable to read them, whereas Edelgard sticks out in the same way  so you’re actually on the same wavelenght to begin with)

“opposites attract” specifically in the way that they balance each other out. A cool steadfast leader type certainly has a grounding effect on Dimitri as a very reactive person, but he also pulls them into the ‘normal’ world a bit after they spend all this time just wandering the world like all places are the same to them. They basically put the magic destiny on the backburner to help him out. They still become archbishop and all to fit the standard fantasy look of it all but not like full messiah like on the church route

Even after the timeskip Byleth kinda plays the mentor role or at least that of the dominant person/ big spoon in the relationship (though Dimitri ends up waaay taler than them especially fem Byleth), “Excuse me this is my emotional support mercenary”

If you go the platonic route you very much stay at „mentor“, Byleth is basically the brains of the operation post timeskip ‘cause the old Mitya can‘t come to the phone right now and Gilbert and Rodrigue would follow him off a cliff

Plot wise, their contribution is to stop the revenge trip when it gets to be a too obvious kamikaze stunt, which they, as a relative outsider to Faerghus and experienced, pragmatic fighter, would do when someone like Gilbert would not

Character journey wise, they refuse to give up on Dimitri and still see the good in him so that he eventually comes to a point where he could envision his own redemption/ come to accept/forgive himself and learn that its okay to move on and live his own life

Byleth can be said to somewhat even out the flaws in everyone‘s leadership styles (while the house leaders help Byleth find their own direction – i didnt come up with this alone there was a brilliant post a while ago that i cant find rn) – In Dimitri‘s case, he has authority/credibility/integrity („Pathos“), being the rightful king with many loyal followers,  and emotional/ personal leadership as an emphatetic person who inspired respect for his character („Ethos“) but is lacking in plans („Logos“)

Golden Deer

Overarching Theme:  Ragtag Bunch of misfits /Unlikely Heroes (let’s see, we have trickster turned lying politician, upper-class twit turned opportunistic conservative, lazy rich girl,  shy glasses boy and his best friend dumb muscle, cursed werewolf girl, stuckup teen genius and the mean money obsessed one )

Composition: Has the most honest-to-goodness commoners - and they largely got in on their own merits, too, while almost all the others had connections. You have a few peeps from the Alliance’s prominent merchant class and one completely ordinary village person whose father was a simple hunter. 

History: Bar the two merchant kids none of them know each other and even they’ve been a little estranged since the demise of Rafael’s parents. There are a few backstory connections (Such as Lorenz’ dad basically having murdered everybody’s dead relatives, or Leonie’s village being in his territory) but they’re largely indirect. They come from a range of different backgrounds and life experiences. Even Claude just showed up the year before and doesn’t know anybody. Of course this is all so you can watch them grow into a team on-screen all leading up to Claude’s epic speech about how they got along despite being from different backgrounds (or be surprised if they show up as one post-timeskip)  

Unlike Dedue or Hubert, Hilda can still be napped early on because she doesn’t really become Claude’s right-hand person until halfway through part oneIf you recruit any of the deer they’ll say that they didn’t have that much ties to their homeland anyways. 

Atmosphere: These are definitely Garreg Magh’s party animals.  Or like a bunch of theatre kids. They’re tremendous fun. “Less complicated” as Claude puts it though some have missed the intensity/drama of the other bunches. The Alliance itself might be full of political intrigues but this younger generation is fairly chill with the important exceptions that are Leonie and Lysithea but Leonie’s lack of chill is largely Byleth-specific, she’s plenty chill in her other supports, and though Lysithea probably donated all the extra chill for the other deer and hence doesn’t have any left, the others  love her anyways wether she wants to or not because try as she might she can’t really get an argument out of them. 

This certainly jives well with Claude’s “friendly surface level extrovert” gimmick they all get along on a surface level and you’ll be hard-pressed to find an ounce of social skills in the Black Eagle house, and the Lions have the Drama Moments, but some have also perceived the deer as not quite as open. 

At the same time they’re not superficial. We have a large abundance of Artsy Ones, we have Ignatz, Claude and Lorenz both write poetry, Leonie isn’t good at it but she does draw etc There’s enough insightful ones for depht and insight to be a significant undercurrent in the group dynamics. They all have different sortts of insight - Hilda can read people well, Ignatz has this sort of intuuitive thoughtful understanding, Lysithea is observant and logically astute, Leonie has street smarts etc. 

The Leader’s position: Precarious. No one knows him, no one trusts him. He just showed up one day, very suspicious timing, not long after his uncle dropped dead (that was Lorenz’ dad but it’s not like anyone knows) and then he’s a shifty weirdo who cannot help being slightly unnerving despite his friendly extroverted demeanor. 

Still he’s a big believer in teamwork, appreciates the value in everyone’s perspective and he can do the friendly extroverted charm well enough to eventually win over most people based on that, though its not until waay after the timeskip that he even considers letting anyone past the soft outer layer.  (In Recruited, Raphael remembers him mainly a lover of feats and merriment)

The longer the story goes on the more the Deer transition to being “Claude’s jolly detective bureau” in which he pulls on all their individual insight for maximum info collection. 

How this “flavors” part one:  It’s taken up largely by Claude’s search for information with the various events being seen in that light.

Claude’s first reaction is often to ask questions and be curious with the emotional response hitting him somewhat later, though it’s definitely also that he keeps up a cheerful face for the team. 

Ironically he’s the only one who came to Garreg Magh for it’s intended purpose: To get a ruler’s education and do networking. Dimitri and Edelgard were already onto Thales courtesy of his having killed their families, him searching on his own, her making preparations for her takeover, and Claude doesn’t know - it’s probably a game balance thing because Claude is the smartest person in the game and if he started out with all the info there would be no plot. 

How this Ties into The Themes: It all builds towards Claude’s big speech about people from different backgrounds coming together. It’s like a microcosm for what he wants to do with the world, to bring people from different places and backgrounds together and have them understand each other.

Lorenz takes until halfway through part II to come around, but come around he does. (markedly, this happens only on Claude’s route, otherwise he sticks with the empire out of self-preservation and opportunism, though he gladly jumps ship to join the kingdom. )

How does Byleth fit into this:  Now I‘ve seen some people saying that Claude initially didn‘t like Byleth or just wanted to use them, but I don‘t think that‘s true. I do think he actually liked them, found them interesting and wanted to befriend them. But Claude, on principle, doesn‘t trust easily, and will in any interaction look at how he can use it.

It‘s a habit born out of both natural curiosity and intelligence (What the 12type eneagramm calls a „Mercury“ Personality type) and the need to survive in a hostile environment where people tried to kill him as a child, and as such it‘s automatic second nature. He has a strong overruling self-preservation instinct.  Claude is suspicious and will interogate people completely independent of how much he likes them. No amount of like makes him trust implicitly.

He doesn‘t have a bad impression like Dimitri, but he doesn‘t immediately click like Edelgard and the curve is pretty nonlinear: With Dimitri we have a clear progression from dislike to like and then the reversal where Dimitri had defrosted Byleth and now Byleth must defrost Dimitri. With Edelgard she likes them immediately out of similarity (like Felix likes Byleth, or like Edelgard likes Lysithea and Petra), and the difficulty/drama only comes later when Byleth‘s connection to the church and Edelgard‘s plots become apparent, but mostly she‘s sad that she‘s „destined“ to be enemies with this person she likes, her level of like never goes down. Claude meanwhile – you might compare him with Dorothea. He‘s used to being able to charm people as well as read them, and Byleth is not only a brick wall, but remains one upon closer examination. They really don‘t know about their past – but Claude takes that as evasions and becomes more and more suspicious.

A big turning point here is the Jeralt situation, where Byleth finally opens up and tells him everything, and Claude realizes they‘re not hiding. And that‘s something I really love about their dynamic – Byleth tells him all and Claude is so interested in them and looks out for them.

Though you could assign each of the three a „turning point“ after which they open up - The diary for Claude (which shows him that Byleth really isn‘t hiding anything) Flayn‘s dissapearance for Dimitri (which convinces him that Byleth cares) and the holy tomb scene for Edelgard (which shows her that Byleth won‘t betray her)

Further Dynamic Notes:

Claude and Byleth relate because they both stick out, but it‘s notably about the experience of sticking out in and of itself, whereas in Edelgard‘s case they stick out in the same way. They’re also alike in that they only found out some secrets about themselves when they were already young adults, Byleth’s magical destiny, and Claude finding out he was related to the ruling house. From how he mentions “not being raised in the lap of luxury” and how his royal connections in Almyra are also “distant”, he might in fact have been raised in a normal village and not known he was the king’s bastard son for some time, though once the secret was out he definitely got some princely instruction like training with Nader. 

The dynamic both interpersonally and as an action duo is very much a complementary one. Dimitri is very different and has that sorta morality chain dynamic going on. And though they each have their specialties that the other is lowkey jelly of Edelgard and Byleth actually fill a fairly similar niche as the charismatic superhumanly powerful field commander. Meanwhile with Claude there’s a division of labor: Claude’s the planner and Byleth’s the enforcer. He repeatedly observes that his plans would be way less effective without someone of Byleth’s caliber to carry them out.

Out of the three lords Claude is the only one where you get the sense that Byleth works for Claude post-timeskip or that Byleth becomes his subordinate. Dimitri’s lost without them, and while Edelgard offers them a formal position as royal advisor after the mock battle and gets this line about how they can’t yell orders at her in public now that she’s the emperor, but it’s phrased in such a way to suggest that she just wants them to yell orders at her discreetly. They certainly balance out Claude’s presentability/trustworthyness problem the way that Hubert quickly puts them in charge of morale to patch Edelgard’s PR shortcomings, but Hubert pretty much says this to Byleth’s face whereas Claude is the only one who knows where the ship is going for the majority of verdant wind. And in the end he’s like “Babysit fodlan for me while I finish world peace” He’s also the dominant one on an interpersonal level, he gives Byleth this speech about how they should use their position more confidently and promise to detective out their mysterious past for them. He also tries dropping hints that maybe Rhea’s not to be trusted though Byleth’s dialogue options are written to suggest that they bought her maternal act and want her back – some ppl said but this way really expositions that „well meaning deception“ aspect of Claude‘s character. He frequently steers ppl toward something they don‘t want but with the hope that they‘ll want it eventually. Perhaps he could be said to have a very fluid/dynamic view of things and people; The other two lords view them more as fixed, hence „I respectfully disagree… lets settle this by stabbing each other“ 

The platonic end result is your basic Epic Friendship, tell each other everything, very supportive, look out for each other, take down a zombie warrior together in an epic team attack, what more could you want I think I‘ve made a whole post about what a good friendo Claude is, initial ulterior motives nonwithstanding… He certainly had strategic advantages in the back of his mind but I don‘t think he ever faked liking Byleth

Plot wise, having The Messiah on his team gives Claude a bargaining chip to seize control of the church with its greater influence. On the other routes, he wisely refuses to touch that particular hot potato with a ten foot pole.

Character wise Byleth‘s influence largely serves to mitigate his jaded cynism. He starts to actually believe his far-flung dreams might happen, so he plays far less defensively than on the other routes.

Claude is smart and charismatic („Logos“ and „Ethos“), his main problem is that nobody trusts him. This is a bit more dimensional than just a flaw though, because he hides his real goals (though they are not truly sinister) both to avoid fights with people who would oppose these goals (contrast Edelgard who declares her intentions openly and deals with the fallout, so she has to fight the knights whereas claude manipulates them) and get the chance to gradually convince them and reveal the truth once ppl agree, also he‘s more a tactician than a strategist and often changes his plans in accordance with what he thinks is doable under the circumstances, and not telling what his plans are gives him the freedom to do that – either way, a downside of that is that no one trusts him. He lacks credibility and, having shown up out of nowhere, has less loyalty and support. Byleth, as a chrch-sanctioned charismatic figurehead, naturally mitigates that.

Black Eagles 

Overarching Theme: Subverted Villain tropes. We have Emperor Evulz / mad science supersoldier, Black Mage classic,  Seditious Chancellor Junior, Sexy Mage, Eccentric Scholar, Pretty Barbarian, Fighting Obsessed Blood Knight and Antisocial Sniper

Composition: It‘s nobles all the way down, even the one commoner used to be famous and is from the capital where all the wealthy ppl live (as opposed to the decentralied alliance and the very spartan kingdom nobles) – The capital‘s a heaven for culture and sophistication but you also see the evident elitism/corruption/inequality problem going on. In keeping with Adrestia being more secular, Ferdinand‘s the only one who‘s explicitly stated to be a believer (in the Marianne support) and he‘s not even super devout

One should also appreciate the irony that the side with the ‚saintly‘ crests is now against the church whereas Faerghus, ruled by the descendants of Nemesis‘ former allies and where he used to have his stronghold are now fighting for the church. But should you go with the church route it also makes a kind of sense as they‘d be goig back to the empire‘s distant origins in a sense.

History:  They all vaguely know/ have heard of each other due to their parents being co-workers or living in the same town, many have at least met each other but at the same time they‘re not BFF like the Lions and many take a bit to warm up to each other.

Another thing of note is that while many of the Lions‘ families were also friends and have been associates since the days of Nemesis, many of the backstory connections for the adrestian studenrs would seem to predispose them to being foes rather than friends, half their dads‘ essentially dethroned Edelgard‘s and are various degrees of complicit in what happened to her siblings, Petra was basically taken hostage by the previous administration, Dorothea has good reason to have beef with the local rich people etc

Atmosphere: I‘ve seen some ppl who played the other routes first say things like how they were struck by how individualistic they are and how there‘s far less team cohesion, or how they „all seem to hate each other“ - I don‘t think that‘s correct assesment but they definitely are quirky, independent-minded or both. They scamper off in all directions when introduced and definitely don‘t bother with formal politeness or friendly facades, if they‘re annoyed with you most of them will probably say so. Even Bernie gives Ferdinand a lecture once XD They‘re basically goth. Though I do think it‘s sorely underappreciated that there definitely IS friendship and admiration between them esp. later in the story, admiration & appreciation being key factors especially since they‘re none too easily impressed.

Of course being independent minded makes it likely that they wouldn‘t blindly follow a leader who‘s up to no good, but it would make them just as suitable to participate in a rebellion

Another thing of note is that while the Kingdom nobles all learned to hold sharp objects in the nusery and many of the deer have street smarts or survival experience having had to live through tough circumstances most of the Eagles are complete greenhorns when you first deploy them – sure many have seen their share of effed up stuff but not in a warlike setting. And you have many of the sensitive/reluctant ones like Bernie, Linny and Dorothea. This of course could either make you think twice about the church sending them on missions or predispose you toward Flayns brand of pacifism.

Of course this just leads to Hubert and Edelgard (and to a lesser extent Petra) to clearly stand out as the experienced ones. El-chan and Hubie dear have most definitely killed a man before. The rest of them will definitely have to measure up to pick up the slack after the two of them leave.

The trajectory certainly goes differently, in CF they all return notably more confident after the timeskip (most notably with Bernie) perhaps in keeping with how Edelgard believes in & promotes self-reliance whereas in Silver Snow they never quite stop being like „AAAAA“ though I suppose the point is that they get their act together and do the deed regardless.

The Leader’s position: Absolute both in terms of power (sorry Ferdie) and dynamics. Definite ‚student council president‘ vibe, she largely interacts with them as a taskmaster/ to make them do their homework. She markedly doesn‘t like this and would like to be one of the bunch but genuinely finds it hard to step out of boss mode.

She does try her best to cultivate an equal atmosphere and for what it‘s worth most do drop the honorifics and tell her when they disagree.  

How this “flavors” part one: The emphasis is certainly on expositioning how much everything in the setting sucks especially on the church‘s horribleness, I mean in the end if she‘s essentially like „We‘ve all seen it this past year“ but of course there‘s also definite foreshadowing that sHE is up to something, there‘s certainly peeps who picked her ‚cause she‘s pretty and she looked more put-together/less obviously dodgy than the others but then didn‘t personal taste wise jive with her character. The whole scene after Jeralt‘s death is definitely a point where you either decide you hate her or love her forever; You get both „WTF“ and „I get it“ type of dialogue options.  

How this Ties into The Themes:

No matter what route yo pick you essentially get a story about going your own way and putting right what the previous generations done fucked up – wether they do this by leading Adrestia back to its holy origins, or by backing Edelgard‘s revolution.

On a political level they either go against their homeland or the previous administration, and personally they‘re all sorta expected to take over their parents‘s job and follow these expectations of proper nobility that they have no interest in and many of them renounce their titles or cut ties with their folks. Only Ferdinand particularly wants his fathers job and even them he means to do it very differently. The happy ending, for most of the eagles, is getting to choose their own paths

How does Byleth fit into this: 

Mostly, they shift the team dynamics from Edelgard as the absolute leader in a lofty, distanced position to her coming closer to being „one of the group“ working under Byleth.

There‘s a reason she later names her elite troop the „Black Eagle Strike force“ in honor of their time at the academy. This is almost the bigger difference, because Byleth isn‘t there for the timeskip. The big change is caused by creating this situation where all the black eagles leave with Edelgard, so she knows she can trust them and having real allies needs the slithers less.

It‘s very hard for her to step out of boss mode for reasons ranging from her personality, backstory, monarch obligations and fear of vulnerability, but having Byleth be the boss for once helps. Some of her most formative experiences were a) Her family betrayed by almost all its allies including her own uncle b) being helplessly dragged around as a hostage. She wants to avoid being helpless ever again at all costs and thus grew to be a very proactive decisive adult which is mostly a good thing but can cause her tome come off blunt and unyielding at times. I mean when she‘s worried that Hubert, her best friend, is hiding some worrysome secret from her she‘s like „Tell me that‘s an order!“ and when he expertly sidesteps that (since he knows her well and understands that she wouldn‘t actually force it out of him) she‘s stumped and doesn‘t know how to tell him that she‘s worried about him – and this is a guy she knows since forever. With the other eagles she really looks out for them but can only really show it through her „leader“ persona, she has this one trick, and when it doesn‘t work (like with Caspar or Linhardt who don‘t really want anyone to boss them around or talk politics) she‘s stumped.

This is hugely mitigated when another person of her caliber shows up with whom she can share the responsibility or even leave it to them so she learns to allow herself to be soft and do stuff like admit her doubts, this starts with Byleth but also radiates into the other relationships. See Caspar and Linhard revising their bad first impressions of her later in the support chains

Further dynamics notes:

A recurring theme is being misunderstood (outright stated in the introduction and that one quote by ladislava – and also in the church route dialogues where Seteth says that „the people will never understand her ideals“ ) and finding someone who understands, which is different from Claude and Dimitri who ultimately want the world at large to understand and accept them. Edelgard has given up on that long ago - her version of the „pep talk“ scene implies she thinks its impossible to truly understand anothers sorrow – I like to think that after her siblings died she found great comfort in Hubert being „not much for condolences“ and talking plans rather than sympathies while everyone else was showing pity for something they couldnt understand. Dimitri is basically traumatized (he relates to Dedue about losing everything and thats why they‘re so tight knit), Claude is basically an outcast and relates to all that dont quite fit in, but Edelgard… yes her family‘s dead much like Dimitri‘s, but in addition to that, she has been through an indescribable science fiction fantasy thing that no one has any context for. She views herself as so altered that she considers herself a whole different person and her past self basically dead. Hence someone like Byleth or Lysithea who could relate to all that is very, very tempting to her – we‘re not told if that‘s the truth or just her perception though, Hubert doesn‘t note her being extremly different, and later on she kinda admids that she herself distanced herself from other people.

Likewise the ship dynamic is ‚birds of a feather‘. Edelgard tells you right away: She feels that she and Byleth are similar and is drawn to them because of that. It‘s not just the mad science background,  both are stoic natural leaders with a bit of a dorky side. This goes both ways – While others are often mildly stumped by Byleth, she can read them pretty well and gets a lot of dialoue like „wow you‘re telling the truth“ or „I can tell you‘re lying“ - that happens so often that it‘s even used to hint that she‘s the flame emperor.

If you had to name a dominant person it would probably be Byleth but overall this combination is disntinguished by being relatively equal and balanced. She likes having Byleth‘s support but repeatedly mentions wanting to support Byleth as well  - As she says after the big mock battle, „sometimes its better to have someone to rely on to support each other through the darkness“. Team dynamics wise they feel a similar niche – the abnormally powerful, stoic charismatic leader who inspires many followers and is a gifted field commander. When they‘re not allies they are foils after all. But as pointed out in their A support despite their similarities each of them have their own particular strenghts that the other envies – Byleth is a better tactician and ultimately better at moral support (though their time powers help). On the flipside, Edelgard is more proactive whereas Byleth struggles with that, and at least her 22 year old self probably has more raw strenght (judging by her stats total and how they‘re evenly matched in the church route reunion cinematic though she isn‘t using her preferred weapon)

If you don‘t marry her then the note the A support ends on would suggest that Byleth sorta gets adopted as a honorary big sister/brother with how El asks them to use her childhood nickname and just lampshading the sense of kinship between them – the platonic outcome is a family bond, which buils as much on similarity and alikeness as their romantic outcome

Plot wise, Byleth‘s presence gives Edelgard something that she wouldn‘t otherwise have: Reliable allies. This means not just Byleth themselves, but the other Black Eagles whom she feels are more firmly on her side as they never defended Garreg Mach from her assault. As she puts it when she tries to recruit you as the „Flame Emperor“, the slighterers will go around causinga strocities but with the sword of the creator on her side she could courttail that better and generally has less need to coorperate even for purely pragmatic reasons so she is free to weaken them ahead of time, kills Cornelia right away rather than work with her etc. Interestingly this is why the front lines are actually further back when Byleth returns than they are in the other routes, but then the war ends the quickest.  

Character journey wise, Edelgard goes from being convinced that she has to give up everything to be a tough leader to allowing herself to just be a person, cummulating in the ending where she pulls a washington/cincinatus, abdicates and gets a normal life.

In terms of leadership style, Edelgard has „Logos“ and „Pathos“ to spare, she‘s described as a remarkable leader who inspires remarkable devotion and has a cause/ rationale – but she‘s got her weakness with inspiring loyalty on an interpersonal level. The followers are loyal to the cause – Edelgard herself is perceived as unapproachable and shady/unsavory, see Dimitri‘s rant about how she‘s „strong“, or statements by herself and Ladislava that people tend to misunderstand her. As a superhuman science experiment she is by definition not a „relatable“ leader. So once Byleth proves trustworthy Hubert immediately puts them in charge of morale and of support/pep talking the reluctant recruits.

(In part II we‘ll get into decision making processes but I think here we have to separate by route rather than house since it’s most evident post-timeskip and dependent on plot events.)

Team Dynamics and Decisionmaking

Empire Route

Here, there is a very clear distinction between inner circle and outer circle. Edelgard and Hubert have their own thing going on and once you prove loyal, you’re in, and you get to see a whole different side to both of them, Edelgard lets down her guard, Hubert acts polite and sympathetic where he was previously suspicious and mocking, and they basically tell Byleth everything, including the unsavory pursuits that they keep secret from everyone else – but overall the secrecy, maintained for realpolitik reasons, never truly stops. Basically those three make all the decisions.

Notable is that if you’ve recruited Lysithea she hovers on the threshold between inner and outer circle. She was fed the cover story of the nuke being a church weapon (though she did’t buy it) but WAS told about the secret assault on Arianrhod. This is prolly cause Edelgard likes her, she can become her main advisor in their paired ending.

Kingdom Route

Dimitri describes himself as as someone who thinks change should come from the people and that the leadership should serve them, for all that he prefers to uphold the basic order of society, and this is reflected in his leadership style – though this also reflects that he is a ‚people person‘ rather than a planner, so the plans are left to his advisors like Byleth, Gilbert and Rodrigue. He is more the emotional/ spiritual lynchpin than the mind or will of the group.

In Azure Moon, especially later on, the decisions are really made by the entire group and you see them considering their next step together. Dimitri spills the backstory as soon as it comes up, telling everyone about his relationship with Edelgard for example.

In early part 2 this is at an extreme in that Byleth, Rodrigue and Gilbert are de facto making the decisions and Dimitri is at best a grumpy figurehead that they‘re putting up because they need him as a symbol, but at the same time he doesn‘t really compromise on his revenge obsession and is just dragging the whole team along/ not really reacting to how they are making him the lynchpin for their hopes. (though it is important to note that he didn‘t ask him too either – they decide to follow him out of friendship or loyalty to his house) yet inwardly Dimitri too is blindly following what he believes are his obligations.

A huge turning point is when he returns after the whole rain conversation and Byleth gets to ask him some variety of „What do you want to do“ in which Dimitri makes a step toward both inner and outer self-directedness, but precisely because of that becomes are more complete/better consensus leader.

I also want to stress that Claude and Edelgard LOVE togetherness and cooperation and equality as concepts every bit as much as Dimitri does they want to be one of the team but they find it difficult. And of course Dimitri’s style has its own flaws too

Alliance Route

While the Blue Lions decide everything together and either variation of the Black Eagles setup has an „inner circle“ that makes the decisions, in the Golden Dear that inner circle is basically just Claude.

Even Byleth doesn‘t find out his plans until part two, and it‘s later still till he comes clear with the team (and still doesn‘t reveal all but points to Cyril as a stand-in) Hilda and Lysithea are discernable as preferred right hand people, and Byleth and Marianne as special confidants, but in the end Claude rarely shows his real self and only he knows the plan. If Hilda and Lysithea pick up alot about him and his true self it‘s because of how observant THEY are and how much Hilda is basically a lot like him.

Claude does all the thinking and motivates followers (from Lorenz to the random merchans who support him) by promising them things they want – because even if he can‘t trust peopöle, he can trust their self-interest.

Church Route

Since you are with the church that is ideally a sort of benevolent parental authority under the supposition that people need guidance and that‘s a good thing it is perhaps fitting that though Byleth winds up the nominal leader, this is actually the route where they are more of a follower. They do watch Seteth says, who is doing what he believes is his duty and mission, and we have Flayn as an innocent, pacifistic voice.

They lost their dad, and the Nabateans are a sort of surrogate family. (wether its one that youre born into or marry into, the wiord „family“ is stressed) – they are the „inner circle“ making the decision and the empire kids, ragtag misfits estranged from their homes, follow. On the one hand they‘re going against their home country on the other they have the saint‘s blood and Adrestia USED to be church aligned so it also makes a kind of sense.

Among the Adrestian kids themselves, Ferdinand and Petra get a chance to shine as the ostensible leaders. They are stalward, competent leader-like people in CF too , but there they are more overshadowed by the much more experienced Hubert and Edelgard.  - Though when you think about it they are like „pure hero“ versions of them who were never forced to become as cold and pragmatic. Ferdinand, like Hubert, is a nobleman from a storied family who is proud of it but wants to fix its tarnished reputation from his corrupt father. Petra, like Edelgard, is a former political hostage who experienced hardship at a young age and worked her way up all on her own, being very serious and competent despite her young age. I prefer the version where they stay buds rly.

It‘s worth noting that Seteth, ‚Heir of Purpose‘, sees it as their families duty to protect Fodlan and is the only one really doing that – his brothers noped out, and Rhea, uneknowst to him, twisted „protect“ into „rule/subjugate“. One might question who gives him the right to decide things because his mom is magic but on the other hand he really is 100% benevolent and I see no sign that he has any greedy intentions especially in in Silver Snow, all the countries collapse and someone needs to keep order, he doesn‘t understand what the empire‘s doing and why just sees their agression and really is rising to the challenge of upholding peace because something needs to do something about the violence. He had withdrawn to protect his daughter but then in the end he‘s the last one who is really doing what Sothis would have wanted. He looks most like her too having the slightly darker, ‚spikier‘ hair.

Further Thoughts

I’m curious to see how Yuri, the Ashen Wolves, and Cindered Shadows compare/contrast to this and i theyll manage to make the dynamics sufficiently different so that its neither a carbon copy or a blabk mary sue ish superlative. 

I mean the other routes are so interesting to dissect because its a tradeof and all have their own flavor so really CS would do better to try to be “different” or, better yet,  “complementary” than “better” or “cooler”

[the-backspin-alchemist]

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power - Final Verdict

Alright, so, this show was something that had a lot of things stacked against it.

It was the second attempt by Dreamworks to reboot an 80s series that was almost completely toy-driven during its early days, which was initially marketed towards 8-year-old girls at the time (which means that the source material was susceptible to even more Kids Are Idiots™ mentality than normal, and also meant all of the names involved are ridiculous). It not only had to live all of the initial baggage down of She-Ra being She-Ra (who, again, was conceived of as Let’s Make He-Man But For Girls™), but also the fact that Dreamworks had just completely ruined what was for a good four seasons an almost impeccable 80s reboot (RIP Voltron, you started going downhill after Season 4, and crashed and burned after Season 6, you had so much potential, but holy shit the writers got bored really quickly and it showed).

Also I had to get past the fact that a lot of the characters had a lot of really dumb names (Netossa?! Because her power is tossing magic nets at people?! Seriously?!)

Despite ALL OF THAT being stacked against it, this series blew me away.

The characters are all insanely complex and well-written. I’ve not seen this much consistency in a cartoon since maybe Fullmetal Alchemist or Durarara!!, and that’s saying a LOT.

Adora’s journey, about becoming the Selfless Hero and then what happens when you lean too far into that role to the point where it becomes self-destructive is something that’s so often glossed over the with Selfless Hero archetype. Only other time I’ve seen it covered is in the ufotable adaptation of Fate/Stay Night: Unlimited Blade Works with Shirou Emiya, and even then, it’s still something he ends up leaning into and is portrayed as tragic. Here, it’s something Adora learns, and steps back from, learning to take care of herself alongside her friends. She learns that she matters just as much as everyone else. That’s groundbreaking.

Glimmer’s journey about growing up and stepping into the responsibilities of a new generation (and all the twists and turns and burdens and hard choices that entails) is immensely compelling. I don’t think I need to dig into why that resonates with a lot of folks right now, but boy did they pull that off really well.

Bow’s character was many times showing that, yeah, relationships take work. They take a lot of work, of hard work. That’s just a reality of life, you need to get used to that if you’re going to commit to any relationship, be that romantic or platonic.

Every other side character has had a worthwhile character arc. Huntara, Perfuma, Frosta, even Lonnie/Kyle/Rogelio (whose name I have apparently been spelling wrong this whole time, I know, I’m sorry) all have worthwhile character arcs.

And the villains!

This show has some of the best-written antagonists I’ve ever seen!

The Horde (before Prime shows up) are just shown as people. They have no idea what they’re doing and why it’s evil, but the rank and file folks are just people.

And the bigger villains have complex motivations and are also completely terrifying!

Shadow Weaver is a master manipulator, and watching her gaslight the crap out of Catra and Adora and Glimmer and twist their goals to her own ends was terrifying, but she had a backstory that showed how she got to be the way that she was and how someone formerly as respected as she was became the way that she is now.

Hordak is a lost man (in more than one way) fighting for a cause he is clinging to in the hopes it will give him identity and personal worth, without realizing that the cause he is fighting for not only has completely cast him aside, but will erase him completely if he steps out of line from it. Also, he proves terrifyingly powerful when he’s set on a given goal.

Catra’s entire story arc is about what abuse does to people. How it messes people up, how it perpetuates more abuse, how difficult it is to break out of that cycle and recover, but how it’s still possible.

Also: Entrapta. Enough said.

And this isn’t even getting into a lot of the fun bits. The humor is highly amusing, the awesome moments are epic, and it manages to play with established conventions in really creative ways.

This show, was masterfully executed.

Shockingly enough, this reboot of an awful cartoon meant to sell knock-off He-Man action figures to girls in the 80s managed to shake off all of the baggage of its original legacy, and is probably one of my favorite shows of the decade.

(Or perhaps that’s not so shocking, given that one of my favorite character types is Honorable Blonde Lady With Cool Weapon That Refuses To Bend To The Darkness Through Sheer Force Of Will, and that fits Adora to a T, so...)

Easily recommended to anyone willing to give it a go and get past the ridiculous 80s cartoon names the show is saddled with (and also the not-that-great theme song, but that’s me being a stickler for music production quality, I think).

[ryanmeft]

Captain Marvel Movie Review

*This review contains heavy spoilers* The tagline of the latest Marvel solo outing, “Higher. Further. Faster,” implies some kind of quantum leap in superhero movies, as does the very feminist-focused marketing surrounding it. This is mostly hype; the actual movie delivered by directors Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden is firmly a product of the Marvel/Disney studio machine, breaking very little new ground and offering no serious change to the formula. The question is whether that harms the movie. It does not. It’s an enjoyable sci-fi action flick that will please everyone and offend no one. That is both its strength and its weakness.

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is a member of an ill-defined alien race called the Kree; some are blue and some are entirely human-looking. Their enemy, the shape-shifting Skrull, are more consistent; their heads look kind of like pickles with faces. They are determined to infiltrate the Kree homeworld, and are opposed by crack commando teams like the one Danvers is on. It is led by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), the no-nonsense military man who rescued Carol when she showed up six years ago with no memory. After being captured and escaping from a passing Skrull ship, Danvers crash-lands in a Blockbuster and meets a young Nick Fury (a digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson), whose help she enlists against a Skrull invasion of earth. To do that, she needs to find a secret technology that was being developed by a scientist named Lawson (Annette Bening).

All is not as it seems, and the movie has a few twists that are definitely spoiler-territory. Initially, we think S.H.I.E.L.D. (translation: it does not matter) has been subverted by Talos, a Skrull leader whose human disguise is Ben Mendelsohn. As things progress, we learn that the Kree are actually the greedy imperials, determined to wipe out the Skrull for not bowing to their rule. This could be the plot fodder for something on the scale of a Star Wars trilogy, but at least for now it serves mostly as background to Danvers’ story. The main benefit of this war for those of us who are comic book apostates (or never-believers) is the addition of three of our most excellent actors to the Marvel franchise. Law has one of those faces where, even if you don’t trust him, you believe him. He turns out to be the film’s central antagonist, yet even then, I was fully convinced he believes in what he is doing; he comes across not as bloodthirsty but as a soldier doing a job for his homeland. Like many soldiers, he seems to regard the ethical questions around that job as being above his pay grade. Mendelsohn is someone every person in the theatre should know but does not, as he lacks either the perfect looks or comedy bonafides needed to make him a household name. He spends most of the movie in a suit, but unlike the crimes against cinema that befell Ciaran Hinds in Justice League or Oscar Isaac in X-Men: Apocalypse, even behind a green pickle mask his talents help his character immensely. Perhaps no newcomer has more fun with their role, though, than Annette Bening. She’s pretty straight-forward while playing Danvers’s actual mentor, but there’s a scene where she gets to be the embodiment of a scheming A.I., which is drawing the image from Danvers’s own head, that is the best single exchange in the film.

The center of this particular story is what amounts to a buddy movie starring Larson and Jackson. It’s set in 1995, before the Fury character took a full-time job saying cryptic things in badly-lit rooms, and Jackson has been de-aged to match this. To my everlasting surprise, it works. Jackson does not look like his modern self with a bad coat of CG paint. I’m notably opposed to resurrecting dead actors with the ghoulish black magic of computers, as was done to poor Peter Cushing in the unworthy spin off Rogue One. Computers as a fountain of youth is a more agreeable use. He’s also a more relaxed and less serious version of the character, cracking actual jokes instead of spooky pronouncements and taking an immediate liking to a cat named Goose who, you might have quickly deduced, is not an actual cat. Larson fits her role well, which is good, because we’ll probably be seeing that role quite often over the next few years. She’s always been capable of striking a note somewhere between power and pain, seen to stupendous effect in her Oscar-winning role in Room. This talent seems to be why she was chosen, for Captain Marvel is a bit of a mercy. Many “strong female characters” are just male movie archetypes with the gender swapped. CM feels mostly like her own person, even if she never does escape or transcend the shallow demands of the genre. An ace fighter pilot in her lost human life, she is strong enough to casually kick alien butt and thoughtful enough to come up with non-butt-kicking solutions. If you ever see any films not made by Disney, she won’t be too surprising. It is only fair, however, to judge her by the standards she is set against, and she successfully fills a role the MCU has had trouble with in the past. Other fine actors get walk-on roles, including Clark Gregg, Djimon Hounsou, Gemma Chan and Lee Pace, though it is sisters Akira and Azari Akbar who, playing the daughter of Danvers’s best friend (Lashanna Lynch) at different ages, get the real power moments, a clear call-out to the little girls in the audience.

Yet for everything it does right, the film will not go down as one of Marvel’s most memorable (at least, if you are an adult). It follows the pattern exactly: the hero has doubts, the hero discovers who they really are, the hero saves the world in a bang-up finale. That finale is typical, and ends up enjoyable mostly because it knows when to stop. In some MCU films, particularly Avengers: Age of Ultron and Black Panther, the wow finish drags on and on and on, until all but the most patient or comatose of the audience are tapping their armrests impatiently. Here, there’s no excess; the last fight does what it needs to do and lets us get on to dinner. The entire film, in fact, feels quick and easily digestable, perhaps as a mercy; after all, next month’s Avengers entry is almost certain to be a bit too complex for its own good. Boden, Fleck and fellow writers Geneva Robinson-Dworet, Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve have chosen expediency over flash, conciseness over complexity. While Boden and Fleck’s unique directorial style (for the love of cinema, please run right out and find a copy of their last film, Mississippi Grind) is entirely devoured by the hungry maw of Marvel’s marketing monstrosity, this is still a fun, if non-essential, little tights caper whose cultural cachet is greater than the thing itself.

Verdict: Recommended  

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

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[raincoastgamer]

Anime Ramble: Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Magical Girl anime have this tendency to provoke a binary reaction. Either you see Magical Girls on the promo material and want to watch the show, or else you don’t. So, I’d like to preface this bout of gushing-about-a-show-that-I-watched by saying that your initial reaction to seeing the below poster should be discarded and you should just watch this show.

No, really, I think it’s safe to say that if you have an initial gut reaction of “I’m not interested” then you are probably going to appreciate this show quite a bit, while those who are avid fans of the Magical Girl genre might actually end up being put off by their expectations. Not because of what this show is, but rather by what this show isn’t.

In the same way that everyone knows that Darth Vader is Luke’s father or that a certain noble from the North loses their head, there are some story twists which percolate into the general cultural consciousness due to sheer popularity and end up becoming common knowledge. Puella Magi Madoka Magica is a series which blew up to such popularity in 2011 that you’ve probably seen the characters somewhere before even if you don’t watch a lot of anime. You’ve probably also seen this little guy

around, often in the context of memes in which either 1) he tries to get people to make a contract or 2) people inflict violence on him and his smug little face never changes.

So while I want to say that Madoka Magica will surprise you when it pulls a left turn into darkness and despair, not only have I just ruined that specific surprise for you but the internet at large more than likely already did that job for me. Not only was this show popular, which translates into a more widespread awareness of its overall tone and some of its twists, other more recent shows have pulled a similar deception. Only last year did we have Made in Abyss, which I haven’t seen yet but which I understand exists for the sole purpose of having cute kids set off on an exciting adventure only to be eaten alive by Uncle Lovecraft’s Happy Fun Time Cave. If you’ve been around the anime niches of the internet or, like me, have a former otaku for a sister then you know from the onset that this show is far more than meets the eye based on reputation alone.

To start with, take a good look at the promotional material for this show, such as the trailer. The production team did their damndest to ensure that from the outside the show would look like the most derivative Magical Girl show ever made, up to and including keeping Gen Urobuchi’s involvement in the production a secret. Gen Urobuchi (aka ButchGen aka The Urobutcher) is a writer who is known for being a bit of a downer, having been involved in projects such as Fate/Zero and Psycho-Pass. He’s very outspoken when it comes to his distaste for heroic archetypes played straight and his tendency to drag his characters through the mud, so his presence as the show’s writer was what you might call a dead giveaway.

So what happens when a writer like this tackles a genre known for being all about hope, courage, and the power of friendship and love? There are many people who argue that Madoka Magica deconstructs the Magical Girl anime (Magical Girl Warrior subgenre) as codified by Sailor Moon or Cardcaptor Sakura. Some even say it’s the Neon Genesis Evangelion of the Magical Girl genre. As NGE showed us just how psychologically messed up a Giant Robot show would be if populated by actual human beings, Madoka Magica is about how having child combatants fight monsters in an urban environment with no support network does not make a well-adjusted childhood.

The effects of this kind of pressure and isolation on a bunch of adolescents is one of the elements of Madoka Magica, but fighting monsters with magic isn’t the only thing that makes a Magical Girl story. They’re traditionally as much coming-of-age stories as they are stories about definitions of femininity and self-determination. Madoka Magica has the trappings of a MG show: an all-loving protagonist, a dark and aloof rival, a tomboy friend, a non-magical friend, transformation sequences, fighting against the manifestations of dark emotions, and a cute(?) mascot. It’s talking the talk, but at its heart this is not a story about Magical Girl stories in the same way NGE was about Giant Robot anime (that’s what Revolutionary Girl Utena is for). It certainly plays with many common elements of the Magical Girl anime, but at its heart Madoka Magica is about hope, despair, idealism and selfishness. It’s a psychological drama and grand tragedy. It just happens to be wearing a Magical Girl outfit.

Which is not to say that one is superior to the other, of course. Just set your expectations accordingly if you’re already a Magical Girl fan. If you’re not, well, you might be in luck...

Twelve episodes isn’t a whole lot of time and Madoka Magica does a lot in those twelve episodes, so while I’m willing to spoil the tone of the story discussing the plot itself is a bit trickier. Kaname Madoka is our pink-haired milquetoast protagonist who doesn’t think she’s anything special, and just wants to make friends with everyone. We’re introduced to her via dream sequence, where she witnesses a dark-haired girl fighting against an enemy ravaging the city. A strange white bunny-cat creature asks Madoka to make a contract and become a magical girl, and then she wakes up. It turns out that when not dreaming of plot foreshadowing, Madoka has a pretty good life; a cool mom, a loving dad and good friends. But today it turns out the new transfer student at school - Akemi Homura - is the same girl from her dream. Homura warns Madoka to never change, to stay exactly as she is if she doesn’t want to lose her friends, family, everything she has ever loved. We wouldn’t have much of a story if Madoka never changed, though, so it isn’t long before the bunny-cat creature from the dream crashes into the narrative as well and introduces himself as Kyubey.

Kyubey offers Madoka and her best friend Sayaka an opportunity: make a contract with him and he will grant a single wish, any wish. In return the wisher receives magic powers and must now fight Witches. Not the pointed-hat, broomstick-riding variety, but rather strange, eldritch beings which bring about despair, death and suicide among ordinary humans. It sounds like a good deal: get magic powers and a superhero job on top of a wish? Who wouldn’t want that? But the catch is that this job is for life. If you’re spending all your free time saving the world, you’re not spending time with friends, getting a boyfriend, even just having fun. Is your wish worth dedicating your life to?

This story has a lot to say about good intentions. Our characters are living pretty good lives, so is there really anything worth giving that up for? Perhaps the wish is better spent on someone who needs it. But, remember, make a wish and you’re essentially fighting on behalf of that wish for the rest of your life. Is what you wish for really what you want, or do you really want some other outcome? Say you wish for a dying friend to heal; do you actually want them healed, or do you really want their eternal gratitude? All the characters in this story have the best intentions, but there’s a gap between intention and execution. If you don’t know what you really want, all the idealism in the world isn’t going to save you from your own regrets.

The phrase “I just wanted what was best” is a damning one. It's key to remember that the characters are adolescent girls, with all the contradictory vulnerability and immovable self-righteousness which comes at that age. It's the age at which ideas of how the world should be collide rudely with how the world actually is, and a person can either deal with it by changing themselves and developing coping mechanisms - healthy or unhealthy - or else break themselves on the impossibility of making their ideals fit with the system. Then again, it might be possible to change the system itself... but that’s a long shot.

At one point Madoka’s mother gives her a piece of advice: if you see your friend hurting themselves while trying to to the right thing, maybe the best thing to do is to do the wrong thing for them to break them out of their self-destructive cycle. After all, they’re all still young, they’re at an age where recovering from mistakes is supposed to be easier than when you’re an adult. But this advice happens to come at the wrong time, because these kids are stuck in a situation where a mistake can cost one’s life.

As it happens the relationship between Madoka and her mother is one of the highlights in the series. Mom is a career-chasing businesswoman who still takes the time to talk to her daughter, and though she may not be working her dream job she’s living life on her own terms and is obviously an inspiration for Madoka. Her relationship with Madoka plays a surprisingly important role in the story, which is a refreshing change since parents are usually a non-factor or killed off for backstory purposes. The rest of the characters fit much more neatly into standard archetypes. Madoka herself has a big heart and wants everyone to get along, while her much more outgoing friend Sayaka is the go-getter who will take on problems head-first. We’re introduced early on to a much more experienced magical girl named Tomoe Mami, and she ends up taking a sort of big sister mentor role. All three of these girls believe in helping and protecting others, though each has their own take on the best way of doing so. Homura on the other hand is the dark and mysterious loner who for some reason is fixated on Madoka. We feel like she’s an antagonist, but another character who enters the story later turns out to be even more hostile. The red to Sayaka’s idealistic blue, this new magical girl feels like the antithesis to the magical girl ideals we’re used to: selfish, violent and hedonistic.

As elemental as each of these characters is, by the end of the story each one ends up in a very different place than where they started - or else had their starting position shifted altogether. Not everyone is what they seem. Homura’s backstory in particular hits like a truck when it finally arrives and ends up being key to the resolution of the plot. That said, Madoka Magica is not a story that goes in for particularly complex characterization. Its twelve-episode runtime forces a fast buildup and resolution. Friendships and other relationships don’t really have the time to mature on screen, and a lot has to be left to subtext or inference. Each character’s arc takes them where they need to go for the story to progress, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing. Some of these character arcs are desperately tragic tales of misunderstandings and misplaced idealism, but in the end these are still archetypal characters, though perhaps not the archetype you expected. Ultimately, they serve more as conflicting views on the show’s central themes than as the driving force of the story itself. The short length of the show is a weakness, keeping the story from being able to develop the cast as much as would have been ideal.

On the other hand, the show’s compact twelve episode structure is also its strength, and the ‘realism’ of the characters is much less important than what each one represents in the story as a whole. It’s hard to say whether or not Puella Magi Madoka Magica would’ve been able to hit as hard as it does if was any longer. This is a story very much focused on building its plot and keeping a steady pace, layering the tone and atmosphere and absolutely killing it in the aesthetics department. It is a straightforward story when all’s said and done, but it is densely constructed and cohesive. Every element of the show works as part of a whole and builds on the others, the visuals, the cinematography, the music, and even in the way the plot is structured. It’s got no time for cheap fanservice, it makes full use of every moment, and it only gets better on repeat viewings. This isn’t a show that supports casual viewing, and it expects you to be paying as much attention to the way a character is being framed in a shot as to what’s being said (or not said) in the dialogue. This is ultimately a simple story, yes, but it’s dense and constantly being told on multiple layers.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s ace in the hole is its mixed-media action scenes. Whenever our characters are fighting a Witch the show pulls a Terry Gilliam and starts doing very strange things with the animation. The medium of the art itself changes, with our cel-animated characters fighting against and among stop-motion objects. Paper cutouts and cotton balls. Lace and embroidery. The effect is unnerving and psychedelic and sometimes overwhelming. It can be difficult to follow the action whenever this happens, but then again these are supposed to be things that aren’t quite in sync with reality, beings which practically run on magic. The fact that these unreal things and spaces are being represented with real-world objects intruding into the animation is a clever touch. It’s an effect that I’ve rarely seen used in anime, and never in an action-heavy context.

(Author’s addendum: I’m aware that director Akiyuki Shinbo’s thing is this mix of visual styles. I do think its usage in Madoka Magica is still notable, if only because it works really well here.)

Even when it’s being more conventional Madoka Magica is visually accomplished. Even though the wide-faced character designs threw me for a loop at first (so wide!) they did eventually grow on me. There’s something about how the eyes look almost penciled-in which keeps them from straying into overly-cutesy territory. The cinematography is likewise superb. Strong, stylized color work drives home tone and emotion. The setting often dwarfs people within vast, empty cityscapes, the background itself being a reflection of the characters’ emotions and the series’ tone. In dialogue-heavy scenes we get momentary flashes of expression and action illustrating what’s happening inside a character’s head, and the framing of characters in a scene tells you everything you need to know about their relationships without saying a word. Whatever else you might think about Madoka Magica, it looks beautiful and tells much of its story visually through color, framing, light and shadow.

Going further than that, the structure of the plot is beautifully constructed as well. You could divide the story into four arcs of three episodes, each following the development of a different character, or else three arcs of four episodes, each one ending with a new point of no return. The third and tenth episodes mirror each other as well, each one shifting the stakes and giving us new context for everything which came before. The reason why this show shines so much brighter on a rewatch is because things that seemed like inconsequential melodrama or lazy writing the first time around take on a whole new meaning once backstory and motivation are revealed. It’s for this reason that I’m not terribly concerned about revealing Puella Magi Madoka Magica’s swerve into darkness; high stakes and dark subject matter are not the only secrets that this series has got up its sleeve. By the end of the story we’re not only dissecting the intentions and desires of our characters, we’re asking hard questions about why this story had to happen the way it did at all, questions which lead to what might be one of the most satisfying conclusions to an anime I’ve ever seen.

That is perhaps what makes Madoka Magica the show that it is. Though the ultimate shape of the story is straightforward, we journey there through layers of twisting color and twisting plot. Though we have our perspective on the events of the story constantly re-contextualized about once an episode, it’s always building to a conclusion that both feels inevitable and yet less likely the closer we get. And when the end does arrive, it takes everything that has happened so far, every mistake, every hope, every good intention gone wrong and it makes them matter. Though the ending is theoretically open ended, it’s entirely self-contained. It has introduced us to a new world, revealed the lies underlying this world, and has shown us what these characters do about it. It raises questions, and in the end tells us what it’s been saying all along. Few shows, anime or otherwise, use such a cohesive combination of visuals, narrative, and music to deliver a message. Beautiful to look at, beautiful to listen to, and beautiful in how it unfolds.

As it turned out, a sequel movie was made anyways. I refuse to provide any comprehensive thoughts on Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Rebellion for now, because doing so runs the risk of being flayed alive by the fandom no matter your take. Suffice it to say that it’s incredibly self-indulgent, visually stunning, and it will make you regret wishing that the ending of the original series could have been happier.

Puella Magi Madoka Magica is beautiful, and you really should watch it.

- Taihus, the wish-granting @raincoastgamer​

(And I somehow manage to write all of this without actually discussing the soundtrack. The thing is, I don’t really know how to critique a soundtrack. It’s good, its use of leitmotifs is masterful and actually brought me to tears in episode 8, Magia represents the show’s true face behind the pleasant pink facade, and I’ve still got Sis Puella Magica stuck in my head.)

[jellybi]

Let’s Rate the Ayakashi Sisters!

I’ll be rating the Ayakashi Sisters as a unit because I’m not their biggest fan and it took me so darn long to get through their arc that the ones who stand out to me less have almost entirely faded from my memories. I know they come back near the end of the series, but I’m going to rate them now before I completely forget the things I still have in mind!

Personality:  ★ ★     I could probably only tell you the personalities of Berthier and Petz -- not to say the other two had nothing going on, but their personalities didn’t resonate with me enough to stick. I liked Berthier and Petz for opposite reasons -- Berthier has a pretty common personality archetype: sweet and delicate about things as a thin veneer of cuteness over blatant ruthlessness and cynicism. It’s overdone, perhaps, but I really enjoy it! With Petz, I liked her hard edges. She’s played as the older, bitter, angrier one, and there’s an enjoyable lack of delicacy to her. For Koan, I felt like her personality shift was way too extreme and uninspired. She went from Generic Wicked Witch we mainly see menacing a child to a saccharine-sweet victim -- the tragic innocent maiden whose pure love was used against her. If there was connective tissue between the two, I missed it in the length between episodes in my rewatch. Calavaras -- I honestly don’t even remember what Moments she might have had that showed character, except that I enjoyed her reaction to two of her sisters changing sides -- sort of a fearful curiosity and doubt while trying to pay lip service to unquestioning loyalty.

In the early episodes, maybe as a placeholder before anything more specific got thought up, all the sisters except Petz seem to have a shared personality trait--obsession with beauty and makeup with a lot of infighting about it. This was kind of... boring and unfortunate and not enjoyable to me, but I did appreciate that they got to keep the beauty obsession when they were made ‘good’ -- since they otherwise became pretty bland and it would have made kind of a sexist statement if goodness had “cured” them of their love of makeup.

Style:  The sisters all have very different styles and I’m going to rate them independently. The ratings are complicated because I have complicated feelings. Koan:  -★  I have invented a negative star for Koan because I hate her style so much that I am pretty sure it has unfairly impacted my impression of her as a character. The full-body feathery tutu with thin vertical stripes and high heels. The incongruous, absurd cat-ears that make no physical sense! I just want someone to go in and fix it all! I even find her attack animations to be awkward and weird-looking. Whatever they were trying to do with her didn’t work with me at all, unless they were trying to make her absurd and off-putting. I think the cat ears were actually a 90′s anime mistake of sorts based on manga image ambiguity and that the cat ears are supposed to be triangular odangos. Triangular odangos would be 100% legit and totally suited to the show. But the idea that she had whipped her hair into peaks like a meringue and then wandered around lecturing strangers about the importance of taking care of your appearance just caused my brain to reject her and all the weird aesthetic sensibility she stands for.  Berthier:  ★ ★ ★ This outfit is fine. It’s basically a monochrome swimsuit with boots and gloves, so it’s on the boring side, but given that Koan is so over-the-top, understated is probably a good direction to go in for other members of the group. She does a good job adhering to her ice theme in dress, personality and manner, while also being asymmetrical from the others in doing this (I couldn’t tell you the others’ elemental themes offhand), which is satisfying and makes her feel unique. Calavaras:  ★ ★ There’s nothing strictly wrong with Calavaras’s outfit. It seems to be inspired by a roman soldier uniform, except with a little skirt and what may be an armored bow. But why? Galaxia’s outfit is similar, but is in harmony with Galaxia’s personality, which is cold, commanding, and militant. Calavaras’s personality is cutesy and feminine, but her aesthetic is severe... with a bow on it. It winds up giving her an Ugly Stepsister vibe like Koan -- someone vain and looks-obsessed who is nonetheless Doing it Wrong by taking her look to weird extremes for the audience to side-eye. Petz:  ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ / ★ ★ If you just took the fricking eyeballs off her boobs this would be one of my favorite female villain costumes in the series. But... but.... the eyeball boobs. They break my heart. They remind me of the weird gimmicky sexual stuff going on with the youma. Does anyone ever talk about the youma and their weird boob cannons and such?  If we pretend for a moment that she doesn’t have eyeball boobs, I love the  shoulder feathers, the short hair/updo thing she has going on, the sleekness, and the dark color scheme. She has kind of an ominous, mysterious, regal style that seems to bolster her forbidding personality.  I don’t even think the colored boob highlights looks bad in themselves, just don’t literally put eyes on them, what is wrong with you guys. Civilian Costumes:  ★ ★ ★ ★ When they turn into good guys or are in disguise, the sisters all look great and the costumes do a much better job of selling them as image-obsessed! I feel like the fact that they were designed to die so swiftly in the original manga led to some goofy costume experimentation that the anime showrunners felt compelled to be faithful to (although they were faithful to nothing else). When allowed to improvise, they made decisions that seemed to fit better with the personalities the Sisters had been given. Backstory: ★ ★ What even is their backstory? They used to be regular women until Rubeus recruited them... maybe? Or maybe not. Did they grow up brainwashed by Wiseman’s magic? Is everyone on their planet/moon whatever brainwashed? Some of these questions might be answered later in the season. Petz has a history with Sapphir that is probably the best-foreshadowed thing in the series -- they throw it in so many episodes in advance of the reveal that I can’t help wondering if it was an accident or coincidence. If nothing else, maybe the reference to an ex spurred the pairing idea, not the other way around. But knowing about it in advance doesn’t seem to add anything to it (it’s not like she gives early hints about Sapphir, or even the relationship’s specifics), so I still feel like this is a low-star situation. Hero Relationships: ★ ★ ★ I love villain heel-turns. This is a weird case where they gave me all I might have dreamed of and I didn’t appreciate it. The writing in the Rei/Koan episode was just so inconsistent and confusing. What were they even talking about? What lesson were they teaching one another? Why did Koan’s situation move Rei’s heart in particular, besides the fact that it was a Rei feature episode and Rei happened to be there?  Ami and Berthier going head-to-head as rivals was less emotionally driven, but more narratively satisfying. Their extremely brief connection made me contemplate What Could Have Been -- imagine if Ami had gotten to have a smart, sweet, yet competitive and slightly conniving friend.  Villain Relationships: ★ ★ ★ While overall I didn’t find their relationships that compelling or memorable, they did have some nice moments. I loved that the show broke its symmetry to have Koan reach out to Berthier rather than having the inner senshi line up and each convert a sister to goodness. It was also interesting to see the show cop to and address the toxic infighting of the group as something that was actually kind of tragic for all of them and should be fixed. No one had to really learn any lessons of course, because it was treated as something caused by an invisible evil force, but it was nice to have the show step back and be like “actually it’s kind of super sad that the only people this lady has in the world are snarking about how she might fail at her mission and die.” That’s a level of self-awareness I always yearned for in the DK arc and ended up having to inject into it via fanfic. Likeable/Love to Hate:  ★ ★ ★ There were variable levels for each of the sisters, so I’ll round them out to a “satisfactory.” As I mentioned above, I found Berthier and Petz to be the most likeable, and disliked Koan in a non-fun way. Although I maintain a regretful curiosity about her because I feel like the show LOVED her and treated her emotions with a lot of reverence toward the end of her arc and sometimes I wish I “got” it so I could appreciate something that obvious love and effort was put into.   Resolution: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ If I am willing to take the Sisters as they are, I couldn’t have asked for much more from the show than to redeem them, keep them around and participating in the senshi’s lives and storyline for multiple episodes, and even bring them back for an encore episode long after the audience thinks they’ve been discarded, for a surprise tie-in with another character’s tragic death. Well -- okay, actually, I could. Make the redemption deeper (don’t just turn them into generic Nice Sweet Girls in a flash of light) and commit to keeping them around long term to deepen their connections to the senshi. But to really dig into that, I think they’d have needed to focus on just ONE character to do it with (Berthier would have been my choice).  But I give it five stars because it’s probably the most ambitious villain redemption the show ever attempts and I think it exceeded anyone’s expectations for continuity in a monster-of-the-day, villain-of-the-week show. Overall: ★ ★   Eh... fairly or not, these guys were one of my least favorite villain groups. I always spend their arc kind of waiting for the show to get on with it. Their aesthetic seems deliberately unsettling, and mixes poorly with their group identity as beauty experts. The twists some of them take from scary to sweet seem a little cheap, and I wind up wishing that their redemption arc had gone to other characters. On the other hand, NOT dying tragically means they never had a chance to wring the kind of audience pity that makes one wish for second chances and alternate plotlines. Maybe if they had died I’d be in here writing about how I have this brilliant idea, wouldn’t it have been great if they’d gotten to live and peacefully sell makeup as offscreen BFFs to the senshi, maybe even cameo at the end of the season... I guess you never know how you’d feel about a plot if it had gone differently.