I hate how the fandom sees Alador as this character that didn’t know about his wife’s abuse and as a floozy. I don’t like Alador because not only did he participate in his wife’s abuse, but he neglected his children as well. His redemption was utter nonsense, because it doesn’t make sense. He was an absent father and clearly played favorites like Odalia did. He molded his children to only be work tools and when they weren’t useful, ignored them. His abuse, while not as demeaning as Odalia’s, is still abuse. He needs to have a serious evaluation about himself before even getting close with his children, they don’t really know him either. He also had so many chances to stop her too and didn’t.
This is going to be negative. There’s a few things I actually really dislike here so it is going to be negative. It is going to talk about the negative things I found in Episode Seven: Bully done by characters you’re supposed to like.
Do not click keep reading if that’s not something you want to read.
Actually the more I rewatch, the more I’m annoyed with Tao and Elle. I can understand where Tao is coming from while also being annoyed with him. It’s not mutually exclusive. Also now I’m caught up with the comics, the show did do him dirty. They also did Elle dirty too.
Nick’s still trying to come to terms with who he is. Tao is not owed the information. Especially since he hasn’t been the friendliest to Nick. And yes, I understand where he is coming from. But that doesn’t change the fact he isn’t entitled to that information nor the fact that he hasn’t actually made an effort.
And frankly, if I was in Charlie’s position, I would be wary of telling Tao. Because throughout the season, he as not trusted Charlie. No, he hasn’t actually trusted Charlie which trust goes both way.
The other thing is when Tao confronts Charlie, it is in front of people. Great job, Tao.
Not to mention that Charlie only told Tori. Isaac guessed, Nick told Tara and Darcy and Elle. In that order. And honestly, I wouldn’t blame Nick if he had specifically waited until Tao was away to tell Elle.
Honestly, the more I rewatch, the more I think Tao didn’t just teeter the line between protectiveness and possessiveness, he straight up fell over the line. Comics!Tao is protective. And you know what he was when Charlie told him? Sad. And he ended up pulling away from Charlie because he was sad at himself and was processing that. So the tv show could have kept that damn dramatics of Charlie&Tao’s friendship teetering - just moved it up without it being this.
TV!Tao seems like everyone’s using “I’m/he’s protective” as an excuse.
Now let’s go onto Elle.
Sooo most of the fandom is just going to ignore the fact that Elle outed Nick? Which is apparently okay because she doesn’t really know Nick and Tao’s her friend/crush? She outed someone because she’s closer to that person? She outed someone to a straight person whose fucking response was to confront Charlie in public and yell. Great job Elle. Fucking great job.
No one tell this girl anything important. She can’t be trusted.
Also she did not clarify that Nick was the one to tell her because Charlie didn’t tell anyone. Except for his sister but I doubt Elle knows that Tori knows officially.
Yeah, no. First off, what a disservice to comics!Elle. Full disclosure: I watched the show first (as if you couldn’t tell). And I still cannot picture comics!Elle doing this. I have seen a few people mention this (pretty sure it’s just two but who knows maybe I missed some...hopefully but also bless them) but the majority seems to just gloss over it.
I hate this so much. For multiple reasons, one in which Elle was close to being my favourite character until this fucking moment. Great. Now I just can’t. I just can’t have her as a favourite now.
You know what I also hate? That a part of me thinks the reason so few are talking about this stupid show decision is because the character Elle outed was bisexual. I hate that a part of me reckons that it wouldn’t be glossed over by the fandom if Nick had discovered he was gay instead of bisexual.
And I feel so bad for people who were fans of comics!Elle and comics!Tao and then had to witness the show do them dirty like this. Comics!Elle would never. I adore comics!Elle and comics!Tao. So I at least went upwards with positive feelings.
Okay. Rant over. Hopefully I can go back to posting positive Heartstopper posts now.
I’m gonna go on a bit of a meta rant. I do my best to write every character fairly. Especially ones I don’t like, since I’m more likely to make them unlikeable, but the struggle is fucking real when I think the character design itself is offensive.
I’ve been writing a first year fic and, of course, Hagrid is there and just... Why JKR. I can sort of understand how it happened. His character is an archetype in Middle Grade fantasy: a large, physical imposing person who introduces the protagonist to the magic dujour, but is a fluffy bunny on the inside.
We’ll start with his accent. It’s very thick. It’s very noticeable and, to my dismay, written out how it sounds. This is almost always a recipe for being accidentally offensive, but JKR takes it one step further by using a thick country/rural accent and perpetuating the harmful stereotype that people with that accent have low intelligence, poor hygiene and poor social skills. It’s not as bad as writing him with a thick AAVE dialect, so don’t think I’m completely up in arms about it, but still, we can do better.
Then he’s biracial. Now, this is JKR, we cannot pretend that this is an accidental conflation with how hamfistedly she paints the allegories. Then presenting his mother as particularly bestial in nature? So we have all of the accent problems now also projected onto a biracial person. Then we go one step further into bad writing town by having Madame Maxine be the perfect picture of society, so there’s not even the vellum-thin defense of it just being a result of the non-human blood.
Madame Maxine could have been great. She was a very large woman with influence, a strong personality and confidence to back it up, but then JKR just turns her into nothing more than a love interest for Hagrid. Hagrid is not even considered an adult by wizarding standards because he never completed school. And ignoring wizarding standards, he relies on Dumbledore for everything and has almost from the moment he was expelled. They’re not equals in any area except size and Hagrids awkward attempts at flirting are done for laughs from the audience and the teenage characters. For shame.
It’s reductive to call him stupid because he clearly possesses a great deal of knowledge about magical creatures and the caretaking thereof, but he lacks the, pardon the D&Dism, wisdom to use that knowledge effectively. Someone with average wisdom would not trust a class of 13 year olds to all show respect to hippogryffs. Someone with average wisdom would not respond to the failure of that first lesson by reverting to flobberworms. That’s a childish response and Hagrid is painted as at a loss for what to do. He knows how to hatch and raise a dragon, but not how to fireproof his living space. He lacks the forethought to consider that Norbert(a) will outgrow his hut in short order.
He’s portrayed like Forrest in Forrest Gump, but the audience is expected to mock his attempts at romance with Jenny rather than feel sorry for him or conflicted at best. FG clearly shows that it’s not a relationship of equals and it’s uncomfortable all around, whereas Harry Potter tries to play it off like Hagrid is being a Nice Guy or something. I don’t know. It’s just all bad.
It’s hardly the worst instances of representation in HP, but I’m writing him and he’s just awful. He’s a caricature, not a character and the responsible adults working in and around Hogwarts should have removed him from the grounds because he is a danger to the students.
It’s tricky because my OC professor would not stand for it under any circumstances and would not so easily bend to Dumbledore’s will. I have some things outlined for how to handle it, but it’s just annoying that I have to.
Sigh.
But then again, if I wanted fantastic, diverse canon characters I’d be reading Rick Riordan.
daryl: *does something dumb and impulsive, gets people killed* daryl: *spends the next season upset and regretting doing the dumb thing* daryl the next second: *does something dumb and impulsive, gets people killed*
lainathiel answered your question0 : im playing swtor on republic trooper file and its...
I do love the trooper party, too. The other parties, there are one or two members that drive me bonkers. But the trooper one, even Tanno doesn’t bother me. So, yeah, I’m with you on the trooper party.
Nice B) trooper is getting all the votes (well most of them)
Also which ones drive you bonkers? :P (If u wanna share)
Hello! I stumble upon your blog and I enjoyed reading your critical takes. Sorry if this came super late and I completely understand if you do not want to elaborate on this for whatever reason, but I read that you aren't a fan of Aylin and neither am I. On Tumblr I've never seen anyone who doesn't like Aylin, so I'm curious as to your reasons!
I actually got into a big fight about this once. 😂
It's 3 Things:
She is the self-righteous do-gooder trope. Her dialogue is the way it is because that's how that character type sounds. I believe Larian makes fun of good aligned characters (Selune and Lathander followers) so it's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek overbearing, so this aspect doesn't grind my gears that much. This character used to be extremely prevalent in the 90s and I've always hated characters like that. Some of this self-righteousness are in Ansur and Wyll and the associated quest, and it comes off way cooler. But I think it's a point that it's hammed up in Aylin and M*nsc. I've always preferred villains who tended to have more personality. I also find M*nsc super annoying and never recruit him.
She would be the type of paladin to kill evil aligned monsters on sight. There is controversy behind old school "lawful good" characters because of that fact. It's the assumption that some characters are irredeemably evil no matter what. It's a character type that literally slaughters the possibility of nuance. I tend to play characters from "evil" races (Githyanki, Half-Orcs) or characters who tend to be neutral evil. I'd welcome a scene of Aylin confronting Tav after learning they raided the grove for example. It would be cool if she was like a mini-boss that added more content to the evil route. Her personality is the type to never back down (hence why she smashes Ketheric's head in when you successfully talk him down). So even if you tried to talk her down, she wouldn't give in. Could have interesting dialogue between paladins where you could make her realize that she might have broken her paladin oath for how she is going about eradicating her enemies. I don't know if her subclass is ever defined as some subclasses make this permissible or even demand this. But I doubt Selune would condone it. I feel like the scene of her snapping Lorroakan in two and her reaction afterward could be hinting at a broken oath.
Last most controversial point is that I think Isobel could do better than Aylin. To me, Aylin comes off as a woman with violent anger issues and Isobel will have no choice but to constantly try to heal Aylin. I see Isobel as a woman enmeshed with her father, and may have caretook him. Aylin might repeat that cycle with her. That caretaking dynamic always backfires on the more supportive person. I also wish they explored the complexity of how Isobel's death is part of the cost of an immortal being in a relationship with a mortal. Isobel's character design is supposed to make her look like death. How does Aylin react to that other than being ready to get back to it and smash? It makes it seem superficial. Like there is little else between the two other than sex and a trauma bond.
