Wdym Claude was doomed by the writing and not narrative I'm curious to see how that differe
You seem nice enough, so I assume you’re not here to tell me that I’m shit at using words, and for that I’m grateful. 😅
(After posting this I’m going to go back to posts which I reference/would give further explanation to my ramblings, so if by chance you read this before all the links are added, I’d recommend coming back.)
Actually, what I mean by that is that Claude’s character (general consensus thereof aside, being: flat, unreactive, dispassionate, etc., especially in contrast to Alois and, especially, Sebastian) is quite inconsistent.
In fact, from what I remember, episode one and six appear to have the most consistent Claude in comparison to the rest of the season (oh god, including “the derailment” in episode nine but that’s to be expected—but more on that in a minute).
That being said, episode six then had a minutely different Alois/undertone to episode one (episode one being the “set up” episode that I refer back to for my darling, darling sliver of the endangered “Soft Claude”), with Alois referencing “punishing Claude” when prior to and even after this it’s never brought up at all, and the esteem in which Alois holds Claude anyway disallows him from ever “punishing” him, anyway, so it feels quite out of character in that regard.
Episode nine is the blood tasting episode, if I recall correctly (or, perhaps that is at the very end of episode eight?) is, what I call, “the derailment”, for the whole series and plot completely shifts tonally and so does the characterisation of Claude.
Claude was eventually the scapegoat for the writers trying to get back on track from the “set up of recurring characters” they’d had in practice to the “season exclusive arc” they had on paper. For that, Claude’s characterisation suffered.
Hashtag Flanderisation, am I right, gamers? (Please don’t sue me.)
It wasn’t even flanderisation, technically, either! Because most of the attributes inflated (ie. “creepiness” and “perverseness”) post-blood tasting weren’t present let alone even hinted to in prior episodes, inconsistent characterisation of all season-exclusive parties aside!
I’m a big advocate for “Claude’s characterisation deserved better” (then with the immediate clarification of “not his character—just his characterisation”).
In fact, it was @indigoipsum that brought to light the popular hypothesis that each episode was written by a different writing team, hence the inconsistencies (some of which were exclusive to an episode each, like Claude’s “soft moment” in episode one or Alois’ mentions of punishing Claude in episode six, to name some, but there are more). An idea which none of us have gone back to check the season’s credits to prove, and so it just floats in the air, unproven, and we’re okay with that.
(It’s also an idea that made me a bit upset, for whatever reason, because I’d become quite attached to the “Soft Claude” scene in episode one, as I’d rewatched the episode to analyse Claude and Alois for a fic. For the record I’d pumped out like a billion bullet points after going frame by frame analysing anything I could.)
I go into further detail of it here, a post that was prompted by Indigo telling me the aforementioned theory.
As far as season two goes, someone with a better recollection than me would be @nullb1rdbones, who tends to rewatch it all on the near-daily, it seems, so off I send you for further in-detail questions about the season, and not Claude / ramblings about the writing (of which you are more than welcome to come back to me whenever you feel you must).
So I guess, what I mean by what you’re asking, is that the “narrative” would be the perspective of which he’d been put into the story (I don’t doubt he was always meant to be the season villain, but in the beginning it certainly wasn’t delivered as thoroughly as what it was later on), but the writing was… the writing made it worse, I guess is what I’m trying to say.
Hopefully, that clears some of the confusion (explaining myself is hard).
And, hopefully, I do these characters more justice than the canon ever did (and what they deserve because not believing that good writing is what they deserve makes me sad. Fuck you, estrogen 🖕) in my upcoming fic, Claudetails.
I doubt it will be hard, though. The badness of writing makes it so easy to trump it. (And yet so, so difficult.)
Thanks for the ask, anon! Hope you come again soon.
