#words cannot describe how happy i got when i saw him in s1

[melliejellybellybean]

Yall I am all for the batch leaving Cid and finding peace and happiness but WHAT ABOUT AZI?!!!!! HES STILL OVER THERE!!!!!

[gins-potter]

Casting Thoughts

Yes, I did a long post when the rumours first dropped but hey now it’s confirmed plus we have characters descriptions, and I’m bored so let’s do this all over again people.  Under the cut because it got long

Sisi Stringer as Rose Hathaway

I said this in my other post but I’m pretty happy with Sisi as Rose.

Visually I think she’s a great fit, I love that they casted a WoC in the main role, and I think if she can bring Rose’s humour and sarcasm to the role, she’s going to do great.

The character description mentions Rose being “fiery and outspoken”, happy to jump into the action, and the strongest fighter in her class but struggling to toe the line, which is all very Rose-esque, especially in the first book.  It sounds to me like they have a good grasp on her character.

I’m a little disappointed we didn’t hear more about Rose as a character since she is the lead - it felt like the descriptions for Lissa and Dimitri both gave us a little more to go on - but it is only a very preliminary description so I’m happy to wait for more.

Daniela Nieves as Lissa Dragomir

Daniele is another one who I was happy with straight away.

She’s probably not what I imagined for Lissa visually but that’s not a bad thing either; I will be interested to see if they dye her hair a lighter colour (like a caramel-blonde) but personally that’s not something I need to see for her to be a great fit for Lissa.

I think she has a very sweet face which works well for a character like Lissa but I think she’s also going to be able to stand up in Lissa’s more fiercer moments which is nice to see as well.

The character descriptions mentions her as being “carefree and kind-hearted” who “coasts” through life until a death in the family thrusts her into a new role.  That sounds a lot like pre-series Lissa so I wonder if we’re going to see a bit of that in the show before Andre (and her parents??) die and see that change.  

It’s curious though that she’s described as the younger sister of the heir apparent - which would be Andre - so it sounds like they’ve changed it so Andre was supposed to be King.  Obviously a deviation from the books but I don’t hate it?  I don’t think it would change Lissa’s arc all that much because obviously she was always going to grow up to be an influential royal figure, this just slightly changes the dynamics of it.

The description also specifically mentions that she’s uninterested in “political machinations” and the “hypocrisy of the moroi royal society” which sounds very accurate to book!lissa as well.

All in all I’m very happy with what they’re doing with Lissa.

Keiron Moore as Dimitri Belikov

This is one who’s really grown on me since the rumoured cast list started circulating.  At first I was kind of eh about him but I can really see him as Dimitri now.

I will be curious to see if he grows out his hair or not though.

As far as I know Keiron is not Russian, there’s not a lot about him online, but there’s some instagram activity on his account linking him to UK based companies so that would be my guess as to where he’s from.  They’ve kept Dimitri’s incredibly Russian name so I guess we’re to assume Keiron might be doing an accent and they’re keeping Dimitri’s backstory relatively the same?  I’m not gonna be super mad if they change it just because I think it’s doable for him not to be Russian (I know, I know a whole book is set in Russia but lbr here they could make him from anywhere and just send Rose there in that book).

The biggest thing for me will be his chemistry with Sisi, Danila and Zoey had great chemistry (imo anyway) which saved the move a little for me, so it’ll be important that Sisi and Keiron do as well.  They’ve interacted a few times online which is cute so I’m hoping they were able to do some chemistry reads and that will translate on screen.

The character description mentions Dimitri as being “lethal, disciplined, discreet, and totally committed” as well as living by “a deep moral code” but with more going on “beneath his stoic, watchful surface” which sounds exactly like book!Dimitri to me.

They don’t really specify what his role at St Vlad’s is going to be but they do mention that he is a guardian so I’m assuming they’re keeping some sort of age gap between him and Rose.  They also don’t mention anything about their relationship in the description, be it student/teacher, platonic, romantic, whatever, but they do say he has “an expansive spirit that could threaten to expose the underlying tension between his sense of what’s right and his formal duty to the Moroi.” which seems like a nod to their relationship.

Andre Dae-Kim as Christian Ozera

This was one of my favourite casting choices from the original rumoured cast list and I still love it.

The idea of a non-white Christian makes a lot of sense to me and I think Andre could do a great job of Christian’s aloofness (in the first book) as well as his sarcasm and growing confidence across the other books.

His character description confuses me a bit though: “Intelligent and thoughtful, Christian is the pariah of the school and royal court, due to his parents’ unforgivable societal sins.” sounds accurate enough to the book (although idk if thoughtful is quite the word I’d use for Christian - maybe they mean it in the sense that he’s quiet and keeps to himself?).

Even “Well-read and hungry for knowledge” doesn’t sound that far off, idk if he was *that* particularly studious in the books, but it doesn’t necessarily not make sense either you know?

But “he searches for faith-based answers and discovers a kindred spirit who is also looking for the truth” ??? My cynical, irreverent asshole Christian is now a man of faith? I’m assuming Lissa is the “kindred spirit” (again weird word choice but maybe they mean she’s feeling lost because of the death of her family?) but I just cannot see Christian as being particularly religious.

I’m trying to keep an open mind about these changes because you never know they might play out totally different on screen, but I really hope they didn’t make these changes, particularly that Christian is studious and religious, just because they cast an Asian actor as him (because they feel a little like Asian stereotypes).

J August Richards as Victor Dashkov

This is one that didn’t appear on the original rumoured cast list (as far as I saw) and it’s so different to his description in the books that I kind of don’t have an opinion about it as a casting choice.

I’ve never seen him in anything before so purely on a visual level I think he could be a great fit for Victor, I just think it’ll really come down to how he plays it.

As for this character description: “Victor is a Moroi noble vampire with a heart of gold who’s highly regarded for his role as advisor and political strategist to Moroi dignitaries.” as well as mentioning that he has intelligence and influence, sounds pretty accurate to the book.  Obviously if Andre was the heir to the throne, Victor had to be shifted out of that role, but I think his book 1 arc could still work if they wanted it to.

The “heart of gold” bit obviously made me chuckle and I really hope they threw it in there as a kind of decoy to throw non-book-readers off the fact that he’s actually the villain in book 1/s1.

As for giving him a husband and two daughters, my thoughts are: why the fuck not? He didn’t have a love interest in the original books and I’m always down for more lgbtq+ rep.  My only concern is it maybe playing into the trope of evil/villain characters being queer-coded.  And as for having two daughters, well as long as one of them is Natalie I don’t mind.

Anita-Joy Uwajeh as Tatiana Vogel

Okay this is the most bizarre one imo, not because of the casting, but just the character description.

I mean “Tatiana is a Moroi vampire and political underdog who slowly takes the royal court by storm. Motivated by love and a sense of justice, Tatiana has a unique skill of making herself seem of no consequence until we realize much too late that she was always the one to watch.” sounds extremely Tasha Ozera to me, so like why not just make this character Tasha?  Nothing about this sounds like Tatiana, and Tatiana wasn’t even a Vogel anyway (well Vogel wasn’t even one of the 12 royal families), she was an Ivashkov.

In terms of Anita-Joy herself, well I mean we don’t really have a character to compare her to, is she supposed to be more like Tasha or Tatiana?  She looks fairly young, so my guess is actually on Tasha, but we’ll have to wait to see I guess.

Mia McKenna-Bruce as Mia Karp

This is another one that I was instantly a fan of.

I was so not a fan of Mia’s casting in the movie (I can’t even remember who played her tbh but I really didn’t like it) so this Mia is a lot closer to how I imagine her.

I think she’ll be able to carry Mia’s transformation from bratty social-climber to badass fighter really well.

The character description is interesting though.  “Witty, cutting, and just the right kind of ruthless when necessary, non-Royal Mia has a long-term plan to social climb her way into the ranks of royalty, with all the privilege and freedom that entails.” sound pretty bang on to Mia in the first book.

“A plan complicated by her instant chemistry with Meredith, a Guardian-in-training, as Mia struggles to reconcile her attraction to Meredith with her lowly status.” is an obvious deviation though, and one I kind of love???  Give me all the queer rep, and if we get to see Mia confront the issue of comp-het I’m so here for it.  

It’s kind of funny though because I’ve seen theories that Meredith is a replacement for Eddie and Mia/Eddie has always been my sort of rarepair ship.

The last name Karp is weird af though.  Is she supposed to be Sonya’s daughter?  And if that’s the case I wonder if we’re going to actually see Sonya turn Strigoi in the show’s first season or something and that triggers the change in Mia?  Interesting concept but I’m not sure how the timeline will work.

Rhian Blundell as Meredith

So this is another new one, and tbh I hadn’t given Meredith *that* much though in the past but she’s probably close to how I would have pictured her which is cool.

The elephant in the room with this casting is that Meredith’s role in the books was relatively minor - she was just kind of that character that got brought up whenever R.M needed a dhampir who wasn’t Rose/Dimitri/Mason/Eddie.  So clearly she’s going to have a bigger role in the tv show which I don’t mind but I do wonder if we’re going to lose a character - probably Eddie lbr - in order to have her.  They haven’t casted an Eddie yet as far as we know, but I have seen it pointed out that Eddie’s role in book 1 was pretty small so maybe they just aren’t announcing it.  But there’s also the possibility that maybe Meredith will sort of replace Eddie and be the third part of Rose and Mason’s friendship.

I’m very interested by this part of her character description though, “She has little patience for Rose’s volatility or Mia’s elitism, and regularly calls both of them out.”

Jonetta Kaiser as Sonya Karp

I don’t necessarily dislike Jonetta as Sonya but I am confused by this choice.  She looks fairly young, which tbf Sonya was young-ish I guess, but if Mia is supposed to be her daughter she doesn’t look old enough to have a teenaged daughter.  So maybe Sonya and Mia are sisters? Cousins? Just have each other’s last names for no reason? I really don’t know.  They also look nothing alike.

Other than that, I don’t really have an opinion about Jonetta as Sonya.  Obviously looks nothing like how Sonya was described but that’s not new nor a massive concern for me.  

I can’t really tell just from looking at her, and I haven’t seen her in anything, if she would play a good Sonya.  I think with a lot of the characters it’s going to come down to the personality they bring to the part and the writing.

I looooooove her character description though:  “Quiet, careful and decidedly odd, Sonya is not of royal bloodline and sits out on the fringe of Moroi society, preferring to spend her time in the library or her gardens. Not a person who likes a scene, nonetheless she has a quiet but profound power of her own. She is taken by surprise when a Dhampir Guardian named Mikhail shows interest in her, a relationship that will expose both the brightest and darkest parts of her heart.”  It’s everything I would probably want from a description of Sonya and I’m more and more convinced that we’re going to see Sonya’s descent into madness and transformation into a Strigoi play out in maybe the first season which I am so curious how they’re going to work into the timeline.

Andrew Liner as Mason Ashford

Our last one and another one who doesn’t look remotely like his description but again? Not a surprise and not a problem for me.  He looks like he could play Mason’s goofiness really well as well as be a solid contender for a love interest for Rose.

“Charming, loyal and popular, Mason is Rose’s main competition in the quest to become the No. 1 Guardian-in-training. Though their relationship is casual on her side, he is hopeful she will finally look at him and see him as something more.” His character description makes a lot of sense, maybe him being Rose’s main competition is a bit of a deviation? But I think that’s more an indication that he’s supposed to be a strong fighter which isn’t inaccurate to the books.  The rest sounds great.

Other Thoughts

Descriptions of the show specifically mention friendship and classism as major themes which I am very happy to hear about because those are the two parts of VA that I love the most.

Am a little more worried about it being described as “sexy” though, if they shove a whole bunch of meaningless sex scenes in it just because it’s a YA show I’m not gonna be happy.

Seen the show compared to “Game of Thrones” and “Bridgerton” which at first had me like oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck not good not good not good.  But thinking about it more and trying to understand where Plec’s coming from with that description I wonder if means similar to GoT as in the cut-throat nature of the Moroi/Dhampir society cause I can kind of see that.  And as for Bridgerton I wonder if she’s referring to the kind of social-climbing aspects of it, because again that makes sense and it seems like a theme she really wants to concentrate on.  I hope that’s what she means by those comparisons, or that she just wants to compare it to popular shows to get people to watch it.  The worst would be if she tries to throw in a lot of unnecessary sex scenes to make it like those shows, because I hate when they do that, especially when the characters are teenagers.

Interesting to hear that Plec has known about the series since before Twilight or TVD - not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Seems like it’s actually mostly (or all??) written by Marguerite MacIntyre which is interesting because I know people were worried about Julie Plec - I’ve never watched anything by either of them so I’m neutral at this point.

[sol1056]

character arcs as questions, followup

I’m going to quote only some of the responses (and break a few up to separate out the topics), since a lot of them overlap. 

a note about Yuuri on Ice 

truth and lies character arcs

the difference in the midpoint

learning lessons: Yuri, Hunk, Lance

the need for agency

Behind the cut. 

a note about Yuuri on Ice

@jeannettegray @cristak and the anon who sent me the two-parter about Yuuri all had various observations: Yuuri didn’t need the gold, his story isn’t over yet, his anxiety was secondary to his romance. For a more thorough meta on Yuuri’s arc, I’ll send you to @caramelcheese​​. Her meta goes deep, and maps pretty close to how I see that story. 

I used YoI as an example because structurally, Yuuri’s story is not a change arc. He’s not all that much different at the end from who he was at the start; he began as one of the top six in the world, and ended there (unreliable narrator issues aside). As someone raised in a loving and supportive family, he's new to romance but love itself is not a wholly unfamiliar experience. 

You can debate the exact nature of his question, if you like. Structurally, his story still isn’t a change arc, and that was my point. 

truth and lies in character arcs

another anon:

...you gotta think of your characters stories from a want vs. need perspective as well. Maybe. Our character wants to win something, but importantly, needs to learn something and the external validation/reward is less important than self-validation/growth...

If you’re writing a change arc, then yes. That type centers on the conflict between the lie the character believes (influencing what they want), and the truth they must learn (what they need to do or be).

That lie is really just a coping mechanism. It’s something they learned would keep them safe, and it did --- until the instigating event pushes them into new world. Now, what once helped becomes their greatest harm. 

The longer they cling to those lies, the greater the narrative punishes them (the try/fail cycle). Their dark night of the soul is when they must let go of their lies and face their truth. Doing so will change them, often radically, as they become their authentic selves. 

But that’s not the only kind of arc you can write. 

I’ve talked about the different kinds of character arcs before. I didn’t go that much into flat arcs, but I did call out two: 

In a maturity arc, external factors force the character to overcome doubts or disadvantages, which in turn are the key to victory. Wonder Woman being temporarily overwhelmed at the magnitude of the fight she’s taken on is a midpoint of a flat arc. She fights her demons, reaffirms her truth, and gets back in the fight.

In an alteration arc, the character has a change of perspective. A corporate successful attorney sees the damage they helped cause, and their midpoint is a re-evaluation. The second half of their story, they’ll fight using the same tools, but now in a different direction. Other than that shift in their view, they’re still mostly the same.

Any arc can be posed as a question, of course. A maturity arc is just the easiest, because it really is a yes/no question: can the character do X? With their truth already in hand, the try/fail cycle doesn’t punish the character for clinging to a lie. It punishes the character for refusing to let go of that truth. 

Yoon-Hee has to get through the civil exams undiscovered, survive dorm life among boys, and evade a professor who knew her father. Yuuri has to run a gauntlet of competitions to re-establish himself, effectively starting from scratch all over again. Shiro is tortured, tormented, forcibly ejected from his lion, brutally wounded, and loses potential allies too soon; even his own lion seems to be working against him.  

None of these three ever really question whether their goal is good; instead, they doubt their ability or worthiness to achieve the goal. They ask: how much longer can I keep this up? What if I’m not up to this? Can I really do this? 

Kim Weiland describes it as: “In short, they have a Doubt—and it keeps them seeking throughout the story, even as the undeniable power of their conviction in the Truth transforms other characters around them.”

The character holds their truth in defiance of the world’s lies, and in the end, the character doesn’t change all that much. Instead, they change the world. 

Unless, of course, the answer is no.

the difference in the midpoint

If the dark night is resolved with the realization they’ve been going about this all wrong-headed and need to try something new, it’s a change arc. If the dark night pivots on self-doubt over whether they’re able or enough, it’s a flat arc.

If Yoon-Hee had hit the midpoint and realized she’d been believing a lie that said education is the only measure of worth, and then threw herself into finding a husband, that’d signal a change arc. When she picks herself up, determined to work harder towards her goal, that confirms she’s got a flat arc.

If we say Yuuri’s midpoint is his breakdown in the parking garage, a change arc would dictate he must realize he’s been believing a lie. That doesn’t happen; his midpoint revolves around believing in his own ability, and his need for Victor to be there when Yuuri falters. It’s a high-stakes and intense moment, not a brooding midpoint like Captain America often gets. But it’s still a clear flat-arc style of midpoint.

Shiro’s midpoint is more complex than the other two examples, as he arguably goes through it twice. One dark night begins at the end of S1 and continues to the middle of S2; the other covers S3 to the end of S6. In at least the first case, Shiro’s choice is to double down, fight Zarkon, and end up bonded stronger with Black. In S2, Shiro regains his certainty, confident that his answer will be yes, as long as he stays true to himself. 

learning lessons: Yuri, Hunk, Lance

from another anon:

let’s say ... the main character is very self-centered but needs to learn to become part of a team ... what’s more satisfying, getting the gold medal in the end or getting a strong team/friends and seeing that external rewards don’t matter as much as personal/interpersonal ones?

Any arc can create a satisfying story, so long as the arc is brought to its natural conclusion. It really depends on the character, and what kind of story the writer wants that character to experience. 

In YoI, the younger Yuri has a classic change arc. He believes a lie in which a gold medal would validate his self-worth. The best instigating events are ones that appear to satisfy the lie so thoroughly that the character simply cannot refuse, but at the same time, sets the character on a path towards that midpoint realization. 

A chance to use Victor’s routine is exactly that, wrapped up in one gold-medal package. But like every good instigating event, there’s a stinger in the tale: the routine assigned requires Yuri be true to himself --- expressing selfless agape --- rather than cling to the persona he desperately wishes were true. In that, Yuri’s arc is also a failure: he doesn’t change. He clings to the lie he believes, and the story hands him a gold for the effort. 

on the previous question-arc post, @speakswords commented:

Lance and Hunk have questions, they've just been abandoned by the storyline. Hunk’s was something like 'can he step up to plate to do a job that must be done even if he doesn't want to?' Lance's was something like 'can he prove his worth.' ... Lance's question has answered with a resounding no, despite the narrative setting up and providing all the necessary pieces to give Lance's arc a yes answer. 

Hmm. I think what muddies those examples is that fear (Hunk) and insecurity (Lance) can also be expressions of self-doubt. After pondering it, I can’t actually tell. If either ever got a clear outline for their development, that outline got tossed or watered down. I won’t say bad writing so much as... well, an ensemble’s tough to write well. Sometimes characters get handed shortcuts instead of actual arcs. 

What I’m thinking happened to their arcs is they got switched mid-stream from a change arc to a flat arc. That would take as many words to explain as I’ve already written, so if you want me to keep going on that, send an ask. I’ll put it on the list and tackle it as its own post. 

the need for agency

on my post about Shiro’s arc, @gundamgirl17 commented:

While I disagree that withholding agency for Shiro is inherently wrong ... [I want] him to grow and complete his arc and have a happy ending as much as the next person, I don't see anything inherently wrong with the writers making him a tragic character instead.

I respectfully disagree in the strongest possible terms: withholding agency is absolutely wrong by every storytelling measure. 

Chuck Wendig (as usual) puts it best: 

Character agency is, to me, a demonstration of the character’s ability to make decisions and affect the story. This character has motivations all her own. She is active more than she is reactive. She pushes on the plot more than the plot pushes on her. Even better, the plot exists as a direct result of the character’s actions.

A story that negates a character's choice, or blocks the character from acting on that choice, is a bad story. I don’t mean bad/good in the sense of message or morals. I mean bad writing, plain and simple.

We never saw the crucial decision points onscreen: when and why did Keith accept his role after so long being reluctant? When and why did Shiro stop being a paladin? When and why did Allura decide she returns Lance’s feelings? When and why did Lance set aside his easy-going perspective and turn so grim? The one time we saw a character grapple with anything --- when Hunk decided to rescue his family --- the story never let him follow through. If he had anything to do with his family’s rescue, we never saw it.  

I am totally sympathetic with those fans who seek the silver lining, who say Shiro’s pride in Atlas is a sign he’s moved on, has a new place, and will do well there. But I never saw him choose that. 

Shiro’s arc began as a question. At the end of S2, the story answered, and said no. Shiro had fought and struggled and tried, and in the end, he paid for his convictions with his life.  

Whatever he’d learned in the time since, the story didn’t let him act upon it. Whatever he might’ve seen as his options, the story didn’t give him a chance to consider or decide. Whatever he might’ve felt in regret or hope, the story refused to show. The story required he fill a specific space, the plot required that he be happy about it, and the writing hollowed him out to make it so. 

The most common complaint I’ve gotten post-S7 --- beyond representation, plot logic, or shipping --- has been about S7′s lack of heart. Some of S7′s lingering hurt comes from a sense of those broken arcs, and the way that brokenness turns every win into a loss from another angle.

What broke those arcs, though, was the story reducing the characters to puppets, pushed around by the story. It turned a complicated narrative into a recitation of events, play-acted by empty characters. I have my theories on what sent everything in this direction, but I’ll leave that for another post.