so like could you tell us why strickler deserved to die
Lol I was not expecting someone to ask about that tag!
Boy oh boy ask and you shall recieve
(I did not intend for the reply to be this long but like here’s another essay length meta)
I don’t think Strickler as a character deserved to die, he’s far from the most heinous character in TH. But from a storytelling standpoint, I think killing him off in the s3 finale would have improved Trollhunters as a whole. For that point to make sense I’m gonna need to explain a few things first:
~1700 words under the cut
1) It is more or less an unspoken rule that if an action/adventure oriented story (be it a show, film, book, etc) wants to feel like it has real stakes, a character needs to die. Not just any character, but a main character or an important side character. This isn’t always the case, and I personally don’t think that there needs to be a death to make a story feel more real (No one died in ATLA’s finale), but that’s the trend and is often the easiest, most basic way to things. If utilized right, it can have a huge impact (Ned Stark in game of thrones, Boromir in fellowship)
2) A good finale/climax of a story wraps up the story’s themes and emotional core. It emphasizes it in some way, or offers commentary on it. IMHO a lot of TV and comic book finales can fall short because this. And its not necessarily the creators’ faults, its simply the structure of the industry. Often times a tv finale will be made before the creative team knows whether or not there will be a next season, or they’ll only be given a handful of episodes to wrap up the series. Same with comics. Good climaxes that incorporate a story’s theme off the top of my head are TAZ Balance, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Rocky.
3) A character death needs to mean something, either as a way to complete their character arc, or to comment on some overarching theme, or even to further another character’s development. (Boromir again, Gamora in Infinity War - yes I know she’s coming back - all the fucks that die in Last Stand of the Wreckers)
4) Positive actions should have payoffs. This is kind of cynical, but narratively, if a story wants to say that something is good, there should be a tangential positive effect for that action. For example, in TAZ balance, the theme is that you should choose love and that the bonds we build in life are just like really awesome man, and in the finale those bonds were actively used as a positive game mechanic which helped the heroes to defeat the enemy. Even if the story’s message is that we should do good even if it doesn’t benefit us, there’s still a positive effect to doing good that needs to be portrayed, for instance it could be “gets you into heaven” “makes you happy“ or “helps other people”.
Okay so that out of the way, I’m going to look at all of this through the lens of Trollhunters as a standalone series, instead of a trilogy. I know that there might be reasons the creative team decided to kill off some characters and not others that’ll be made apparent in Wizards. But since Wizards is a separate tv show from TH, its quality and the quality of Trollhunters should be looked at both individually as well as together. And since Wizards ain’t out I’m looking at TH on its own.
Oki Doki so, onto the meat of it. Trollhunters doesn’t really have any overarching theme or message. Bravery and becoming a hero could be contenders but imo that’s kinda lukewarm. I think an unrealized theme that could’ve been is that of redemption, and the idea that people can change if motivated to do so or offered a chance. One of the things that makes Tollhunters interesting and unique is its sheer amount of redeemed villains. We have Draal in the first six episodes, then Strickler, NotEnrique, Nomura, and Angor Rot. Not to mention Steve, and Aaarrrgghh, whose redemption arc happened before the show started. There are more redeemed villains than villains that stay villains.
And then there’s the people that change but not for the better, like Merlin, who apparently was once a pure and ideal heart, and potentially Morgana.
And then there’s Jim, who is remarkable because of his heart. He gives people chances, offers them friendship where other Trollhunters would have antagonized them. The theme would be basically give people a chance/the benefit of the doubt, reach out an olive branch, it might just make them friends. (And if they don’t take the opportunity to improve murder their faces.)
The TH climax was adequate, it wrapped up the plot, set up for a sequel, and had a decent escalation of action. But honestly, I personally thought the build up to the finale was much better than the finale itself. Though this is just like my opinion man, and if anyone thought it was great, cool.
The character that dies in the finale is Angor Rot. He changes sides and sacrifices himself helping the team battle Morgana. And, like, I always found it just kind of… meh? Like I’m sad that he died he was a great character but his death scene seems so pointless (like Draal’s). As I mentioned on point 3, Angor’s death doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t further another character, comment on a theme, and it’s an okay I guess conclusion to his redemption arc. The issue I have with it is that it’s not the natural conclusion to an arc for a character like him to have. We are never told that Angor Rot fears death. He died once and was miffed about it, but we never see an aversion to dying again. No, we see that Angor’s greatest fears are Morgana, and fading away or some shit. If the creators wanted to really write Angor off the show what they should have done was have him be the one to tackle Morgana into the shadow realm and never come back, thus facing an eternity with the one he fears most, the person who stole his soul and turned him into a slave.
BUT IF SOMEONE HAS TO DIE I think an even better death that would have been even better for the show, would be if Strickler sacrificed himself instead and Angor Rot was used to parallel Draal at the beginning of season 1. This would ultimately bring the show full circle and tie the finale in with the rest of the show, and helped realize a theme about redemption.
Strickler would have to sacrifice himself at some other conveniently point that relates to his character more, and the whole finale would have to be restructured, but here’s why I think it would’ve been better:
Strickler is a character who is introduced in the very beginning of the show and remains a constant throughout. He has the most nuanced and prolonged redemption arc of all the characters. He starts out as a self-serving Starscream trope who looks out for himself above all else. Throughout the show, he falls in love with someone and forms a father/son bond with Jim. If you follow the sort of character arc of someone who starts off cowardly and selfish and then learns to care about others to its logical conclusion, you find yourself at the point where the character must sacrifice something in order to prove their change, usually what they originally value most. Throughout the show we see Strickler try so hard and do so much to preserve his own life. What Strickler at the beginning of TH values most is obviously his own life. This is a man who greatly fears death. I’m sure you see where I’m going with this.
It would have been a great conclusion to his character if he sacrificed himself in order to save Barbara and/or Jim. Also it would show that positive payoff to Jim choosing to trust Strickler. If Jim hypothetically didn’t trust Strickler and give him a chance to redeem himself, then hypothetically Strickler wouldn’t be able to sacrifice himself and thus Barbara would hypothetically die.
But who knows, Strickler could die in wizards ;)
Strickler dying would also leave room for Angor Rot surviving. And Angor Rot surviving if done right, could be used to further development with Jim and reinforce that he still has his heart despite sacrificing his humanity. It could also give a reason to Draal’s pointless death (further Jim’s and Angor’s developement).
Here’s what I propose could’ve been done with Angor Rot if he didn’t die: He can turn on Morgana and maybe even appear like he’s going to die. Jim is given a choice of whether or not to save Angor Rot, and maybe at this point or sometime previous in the finale reiterate that Angor killed Draal and Jim’s mad about it. Jim is half troll now, he’s different, angrier and less forgiving, maybe all of its getting to him and the audience is made to wonder if Jim might become more like Merlin (who was once like Jim but became crueler) or if he still has the heart that made him so great in the first place. He’s at a crossroads deciding which path he’s going to go down. And then Jim saves Angor. Have it mirror in some way when Jim spared Draal that first time. Have Angor react similarly, being confused about it and be like “but I killed your buddy, you should let me die as revenge”, and maybe have Jim say something about how that’s not how he does it.
And then, and now I’m just going off and doing that whole “what I would’ve done” thing, but like and then as positive payoff to the good action of choosing to save Angor what if there’s one last scene at the end and it’s in Merlin’s tomb. We see Draal’s stony corpse, and then before it is a cauldron like how we saw with Aaarrrgghh, and it’s all steaming. And Angor’s hand stirs it. Then there’s a wide shot and we see Angor Rot standing before Draal’s corpse as it starts to fade back to living stone. Then Draal opens his eyes. And then cut to black credits role.
But like all of this just my opinion man. My rambling overly critical opinion that would get me weird looks if I talked about it irl lol
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