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Post by Neptz on May 7, 2016 23:02:25 GMT
I feel like the retcon reset was necessary (Literally everyone was dead in the GO timeline or was about to die. Vriska could kill Lord English still, but it just would be a very bitter ending and I don't think Hussie was going for that) but completely ignoring everyone's problems like that... yeah.
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Post by Gab on May 9, 2016 19:07:13 GMT
I think the largest problem I have with it is that, the way it turned out, the retcon felt like cheating. It's not that it wasn't complex enough mechanics-wise, it's that it doesn't feel like the heroes truly paid for their victory. The "cost" that was paid (retjohn! Roxy and John's deaths) didn't feel like it meant anything; the heroes didn't care once the replacements showed up, and then we got that "all selves are connected" speech from Davepeta that undercut it further. The thing about victory though is that it is not a commodity for sale, so what cost should be paid is really unclear. And neptz I think makes a good point (sorry if this comes off like I'm hijacking your argument for my purposes), a version of victory where some or all of our heroes are forced to suffer a lifetime's worth of misery to justify what feels like an easy solution is just sucky. This is the hardest thing for me to respond to, because what characters and their arcs mean to different people can vary and what justifies a lack of content in that regard can be really tricky to pin down too. All I can say is that I personally feel the issue is not as severe as you think it is. That on some level, these things needed to be subdued for the sake of the mission, and that to another extent, all these problems remain. Just because they don't matter to the story any more doesn't mean they don't matter to the characters. Which means we don't get to see where that goes, yes. We don't get to see whether Karkat proves himself as a leader to his kind or not, whether Jake finds peace in solitude or learns to connect with his friends again or what, and maybe that feels unsatisfactory as a matter of storytelling, and I'd agree. But that kind of thing is what makes me wonder if there's not a silver lining to that, if refusing to close the book properly can be a good thing in some respects, keeping these wonderful little bastards in our minds that much longer wondering how things turn out for them. And while it doesn't match the theme of facing new challenges and growing stronger from them, there has also been a theme of things just not being even possible for them in the first place. Bec Noir is introduced with the term "unbeatable boss" and anyone who wants to face him prior to Act 6 is rightly chewed out as a suicidal idiot. Their entire session is just too dysfunctional to ever bear fruit and their only option is to blow it all up and start from scratch. Though I know deferring to this comparison is tricky business since it entails not actually losing out on everything that was worked up to that point. But I argue that's not the case with the retcon either. We see like 99% of events happen almost identically on either side of the changes. Nothing of value was really lost. But for some reason most people choose to create this very clear divide between the pre-retcon version of the cast and their post-retcon counterparts, which I think is unfair, and it seems like the story doesn't want this to be the case either, with all the work it does to show that not only are the two very similar, but that the experiences of the game over crew are not erased and forgotten at all. I think I understand what you mean. There's definitely something surprising about how, at the very end, it seemed the goal was not to win the big battle, but avoid it as much as possible. And really, we probably should have seen this coming, the way Lord English, despite the hype and power behind him, never personally stood in the way of the objective of the comic. And this is punctuated by the fact we don't see what happens to him, and the characters facing him are the most removed from the story possible. The irrelevant dead in the afterlife, Vriska who has essentially cut all ties and abandoned everything in her life to be the star of "the bigger story" and even the main four, who we never directly see getting to this point. Which is why I keep cutting things down to their base elements, to try and make sense of what the true focal point of the story was, and it always comes back to Sburb. It seems like our journey, at its core, was learning about Sburb, including some of the most bizarre, messed up sessions ever completed. All the characters, no matter how lovable, were just our friends along for the ride like us. Some of them hit the end of their arcs well before the story was over, and some still haven't now, but it's time for us to get off either way. Anyway, coming up with new ways to look at it all is more fun for me than getting all angry at the comic, which I don't know how to do. I mean, not like I don't understand why getting cheated out of resolving character arcs sucks, but I have better to do than lambaste the comic over it. Like figure out why a guy who knows what he is doing when he writes a comic for seven years would choose to do that, knowing how people would react to it.
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Post by obsidalicious on May 9, 2016 20:54:02 GMT
I think the largest problem I have with it is that, the way it turned out, the retcon felt like cheating. It's not that it wasn't complex enough mechanics-wise, it's that it doesn't feel like the heroes truly paid for their victory. The "cost" that was paid (retjohn! Roxy and John's deaths) didn't feel like it meant anything; the heroes didn't care once the replacements showed up, and then we got that "all selves are connected" speech from Davepeta that undercut it further. The thing about victory though is that it is not a commodity for sale, so what cost should be paid is really unclear. And neptz I think makes a good point (sorry if this comes off like I'm hijacking your argument for my purposes), a version of victory where some or all of our heroes are forced to suffer a lifetime's worth of misery to justify what feels like an easy solution is just sucky. You forget that all of this happens after character!Hussie has his big speech about why gaining rewards without challenge is a bad thing. So while the concept of getting these benefits without jumping through so many hoops might work in another story, every time Homestuck did it towards the end(which it did a lot), it seems to be basically spitting in the face of its own author.
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Post by Gab on May 13, 2016 14:01:32 GMT
I was trying to argue that these two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. It's clear the kids aren't handed their victory on a silver platter, there still were obstacles and hardships along the way, all those bad guys to deal with. Sure, it's easier compared to a situation they completely couldn't win, but that doesn't mean they cheated themselves out of some understanding or development they ONLY would have gotten if they refused to alter the timeline significantly, does it? Because I don't see that at all.
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Post by alleywaycreeper on May 14, 2016 5:59:43 GMT
I was trying to argue that these two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. It's clear the kids aren't handed their victory on a silver platter, there still were obstacles and hardships along the way, all those bad guys to deal with. Sure, it's easier compared to a situation they completely couldn't win, but that doesn't mean they cheated themselves out of some understanding or development they ONLY would have gotten if they refused to alter the timeline significantly, does it? Because I don't see that at all. Were the fights easy physically? Absolutely not. But with one big exception, (the last moments of Dave and Dirk's fight with the Jacks, which funnily enough was a problem given to two characters who'd actually been given the opportunity to work out some of their issues) were they easy emotionally and intellectually? Hell yes. There was no growing as people required, no need to use their brains to figure out a solution to a hard situation, no emotional roadblocks to work through. Just hit the things until they die. Compared to the challenges they'd faced since the start of the comic, which didn't just challenge them physically but emotionally and intellectually, the last fights were pretty damn easy overall.
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Post by melonlord on May 17, 2016 18:35:19 GMT
There was no growing as people required, no need to use their brains to figure out a solution to a hard situation, no emotional roadblocks to work through. Just hit the things until they die. Compared to the challenges they'd faced since the start of the comic, which didn't just challenge them physically but emotionally and intellectually, the last fights were pretty damn easy overall. I think this highlights another problem I had with Collide and the endgame, that I just now figured out how to put into words. A lot of the characters in the fights ended up feeling rather...generic, and out of place. Take Rose, for example. In most of the endgame fight, you could replace Rose with, say, Nepeta, and little actually changes. She's got about the same amount of motivation to be there. There's nothing in the fight that's a major arc or character moment for Rose. And Rose never uses any of her Seer of Light tactical abilities, insights or planning skills. Even in the buildup to the fight, it's all Vriska, rather than the one canonically stated to be the best planner. Rose is reduced to flashy aspect-themed attacks, which is a problem, because "hitting the things until they die" is, for lack of a better term, out of character. The same holds true for Terezi and Karkat; their respective manipulation and leadership skills are never brought into play. Just generic RPG attacks. (And I'll be honest, I straight-up forgot Kanaya was there until just now.) Compare that to Dave and Dirk, whose skills actually ARE "hit things until they die", and who have a personal character moment where Dave is forced to deal with death. Compare that to Jane, who contributes to the fight, but in a way that matches up with her role and skillset. Compare that to Jade, who exploited her relationship to the becs and her own powers rather than, say, hitting them with a glowing Space symbol. Roxy was also reduced to "hit things with aspect-themed attacks", but at least she had a very personal stake in the fight and a moment of validation at the end. A lot of Collide is basically a giant RPG battle. The problem is that the characters are more complex than RPG characters.
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