"Marcus is uninteresting, unnuanced, unlikeable, and undeveloped." Begins video showing Marcus giving a eulogy mourning his fellow officers and showing love to his daughter. Like, he couldn't even be bothered to show one of the scenes of Marcus being an asshole to line up with what he's saying. He chose to pick one of the scenes where he was at his most interesting, nuanced, likeable, and developed.
Marcus is not mean to everyone, he's mean to everyone in the undercity, because he's a classist (e.g. the scene where he raids The Last Drop and assumes everyone there is complicit in crime and therefore bad). That is an unlikable trait about Marcus. But one unlikable trait doesn't make a character unlikable. In fact, it makes them _more_ likable when they aren't just perfect.
I think that's an unfortunate effect of alot of audience expectations, idk if it's the MCU effect or what, but it seems like people have a lot more difficulty getting behind flawed characters nowadays. For example, I liked Tony Stark way more than Steve Rogers because he had alot of faults that he had to overcome over many films, meanwhile Steve had his principles challenged at times but was always proven to be correct in his assumptions every time. He's more of an ideal than a character.
@@gman7497late with reply but I feel like you could make an argument for Steve Rogers that he is a flawed character,he’s so wrapped up into “doing the right thing” he misses the bigger picture,he’s “good” to a fault. I think MCU up until endgame did well with fleshing out at least their main characters,with exception of Thor,I also think that people still like nuanced characters,it’s just the producers,writers and studios prefer one dimensional characters,it’s easier to write,doesn’t give people the idea that people with different views and life experience can also have a point,politics play a big role in that,and lastly,maybe they just can’t write.
I dunno if classism makes a character more *likeable*. XD But it does make them far more interesting than if they had no meaningful flaws whatsoever, so I get what you mean.
I see this a lot in the warhammer community, where people dislike factions because they’re designed to be assholes. But… that’s the appeal? The arrogant elves are fun because they’re arrogant. People seem to be unable to divorce in universe from out of universe traits.
Marcus savings Vi and being frozen at least momentarily when aiming at Cait... He's not spineless. Pragmatic and lucidly caught in a no-win situation, maybe, but not spineless. Just shooting Ekko was doable for Marcus because he was stuck in waiting for them, possibly for days, even if not on the bridge until that night. One random person? Yes, he thought about his daughter and pulled the trigger. Cait was just a person he knew too much about. He was looking for excuses and even though he might've, he didn't pull the trigger in time for anyone to be correct when saying he's spineless. He literally had the nerve to shoot a person, yet his mind couldn't let him deny what shooting Cait would mean as an act. Ekko himself froze when about to finish off Jinx. Ain't that a weird coincidink...
@@amanibob1416 lol thats my bad, its sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around how the state of online discussion at this point is so fucked that my comment isnt easily picked up as satire, yeah i was just doing it for the meme
@@ClobberingSocks Nah-nah-nah, don't think me being tired as fawk is your sh1t to shovel around. I member the video, so yes, I get it, so 100% my bad, don't think none more 'bout my tism and have a nice day. Seriously, with chronic insomnia, (woke three days ago), I just keep from guessing if I can translate both my thoughts *and* a comment I gotta translate into my first tongue with my brain on the fizzle. It's like a: "pee, then flush, then wash hands" level of understanding for me now, so obviously, it ain't your fault. Longoid done.
As a wise grape once said, the hardest choices require the strongest wills. Marcus is the perfect example of a will that isn't strong enough to deal with arguably the most difficult choices that Arcane presents to any of its characters, relative to their degree of agency.
This is why I wouldn’t call him spineless. He isn’t lacking spine he just doesn’t have one strong enough to contend with the serious and damaging circumstances he found himself in.
I don’t really have a problem with saying Marcus represents passive evil. If you think about it, he never actually decides to do something evil on his own. Silco is always the mastermind behind the evil action. Silco decides Marcus is going to turn a blind eye to the shimmer smuggling. Silco decides Marcus is going to frame the Firelights. Silco decides Marcus is going to kill Cait and Vi and take back the gemstone. The only decision Marcus makes is not to say no to Silco.
He is the archetype character who physically embodies "For evil to prevail, good men need only to do nothing." Saying he is a bad character is nonsense.
I mean... He kept the truce going close to a decade longer than you'd expect, plus his reaction at the death of only six of his units does show how little of a sh1t he gives about going all up in Silco's face, until needs be. Good guy? Maybe not, but "evil" would've let things deteriorate far sooner and turned a blind eye to waaaay more stuff than what Marcus seemed okay with. Don't let his men die, keep things moderately peaceful, protect Piltover, (from his side of things). He did good, despite his flaws. Remember, everyone was at "boiling point" level and he never used VI to settle the score, so Marcus got Piltover to back down, the Under-city to chill da' fawk out and even managed to stay relatively out of Silco's pocket, (it did take several years for either men to even consider ending their "deal", yet, again, Marcus wasn't afraid to voice his displeasure if a line was crossed).
@@amanibob1416 Was keeping the truce even Marcus' doing? It seems it was in silco's interests to keep the peace up while he built up his riches and his shimmer-fueled army (while slowly falling into the same slump Vander had fallen into). Marcus' aggressive behavior to Silco is basically brass without sound. silco looks utterly unimpressed by Marcus' anger, showing he doesn't fear or respect the man in the least. And sure, he may feel sad about those enforcers dying, but in the end he didn't seek justice for them, he pinned the blame on innocents at the behest of Silco. Marcus hated what he was doing, wanted to be better, tried now and then to push back, but ultimately his good intentions were meaningless, because he didn't have the spine to back any of it up. TL;DR Saving Vi and being sad that people he knew died does not make Markus' passivity and corruption any less damning.
@@atreides213 Eh, if you don't want to see things clearly, plus of course, if you actually want to pretend *Silco was keeping the peace* more than fawking Vander, or even Marcus would've... Lol, you do you. Ps: "Silco the peacekeeping softie", kek
Edit: These are your thoughts, with your words, "Silco was keeping the peace". I don't wanna argue, but Silco almost drowning the Under-city in Shimmer literally does the opposite of "keeping the peace". Didn't see that one coming, sorry if I came out a bit too brash.
This guy has definitely, on more than one occasion, gotten a “see me after class” grade on his writing essays because the teachers are so fascinated with how insane his conclusions are that they have to make sure he understood the assignment.
1:16:40 My brain exploded! Marcus' ark and decisions are intertwined with his love for his daughter. He never wanted to be the corrupt cop, just a better life for the 2 of them. In the end her life was threatened and he had to decide between his honor and life or hers. Even his last thoughts were about protecting her... If that's not nuanced, I don't know what is.. For a fckin side character
I thought his daughter was born after the timeskip? That would mean he became corrupt before he had a daughter. But who knows, perhaps before he had his daughter Silco threatened Markus' wife instead. But I think the series could have given at least a line or two regarding that.
Undeveloped? He had many conflicts and decision points during the story and chose not to break out of his role. He is a tragic character in that he sees things getting worse and worse and does not do anything against it, costing him his life in the end. You can argue how he does not want to make the hard decision that will deviate his path because of how it went when he chose such a path before, leading to the death of his mentor.
Marcus battles with a rare thing that is the "consequences of doing the right thing". He is traumatized by the last time he did what he thought was right and best, conflicted by his duty, his obligation, his deal with Silco and the safety of Piltover and his daughter. He is caught in a beast of his own making and the only way he sees to keep it from killing him and ruining his life is by continuing to play along.
"Marcus was fridged, which sent him STRAIGHT TO HELL, which makes him a martyr, which is fine because he's racist, which juxtaposes him being a single dad being the anti-passive evil' - Badbonius Charaggins
I never cared for Marcus but it didn't have to do with his writing as a character. The writing for him is done well and Marcus is important to the plot, speaking that he plays a huge role in what Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes, Marcus is needed in this story. The only reason I didn't care for him is that in the grand scheme of the show and what is happening with other characters, like Vi and Jinx and Silco and Vander and Mel and Jayce, his level of importance and engagement/immersion as a character isn't on the same level as the other characters I named off. Which I think is a huge compliment to the show in my eyes, that when it comes to "low" level characters like Marcus, he's still extremely important to the story while also still being engaging. Taking him out of the story or complaining about the poor writing of his character is just fucking stupid.
I guess the problem about writing advice is that, unless someone comes to you with a specific set up they want your opinion on, all advice boils down to "if you write it well, it will be good," why are static characters bad? One would generally say they're "boring," because they don't change in response to the events of the story it might make it hard for a consumer to relate to them or invest their emotions into the story. In Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (sorry for being a weeb) the main character, Alpha, is essentially unchanging; but, she "works" in the story because she serves as a marker against which we measure the rapidly changing world around her. Samurai Jack is a good example as well. so Static characters are "bad" in traditional narratives because they can't arc but work if they're constantly being put in fish-out-of-water scenarios or have a group of characters that are arcing rotate around them.
tl;dr tropes and characters are tools in a story. don't say your Phillips-head screwdriver is a bad tool because your trying to use it on flat-head screws, and maybe more importantly, when you see someone using a Phillips-head screwdriver correctly, don't point at it and say it's a bad tool because you couldn't make it work
@@megapixzel "tl;dr tropes and characters are tools in a story." Characters aren't tools in a story, that's dehumanizing lololol (even though you're really just talking about the stories in the discussion) but honestly though it's case by case whether or not that works which is probably even more concise. Idk "trope speak" is kinda cringe. Also you can just edit your comments btw.
@@lel1103 fictional characters are literally just tools in a story... they only exist to facilitate the telling of a story, nothing more. There is no 'case by case' basis in this equation... you can't dehumanize what was never actually a human in the first place.... this is just.... bizarre...
I'm pretty sure an excellent static character example is Geralt from The Witcher games. Massively popular and famous choose-your-path RPG where the main character has a well-established and fairly static nature. Regardless of what you choose, he will remain a broody, jaded veteran mercenary who kills for money and has no strong ideals. He'll always have some lines he won't cross, but he'll never truly be heroic or care about people he doesn't know.
Weirdly enough, I can kind of understand not thinking Arcane's ending is a cliffhanger. It didn't feel like much of a cliffhanger to me and I think it's because Jinx blowing up the Council chamber is a very decisive conclusion to the story. Yeah, which characters live or die is left up in the air, but that means it's the fallout of the climax that is left out, not the climax itself. I don't know if that makes sense. I dunno. When I think of cliffhangers, I think of endings where the decisions/actions of the characters and how they resolve the final conflict is still left unknown. Arcane's ending is pretty clear in what happened. It's conflict was resolved (albeit not in a very happy way).
3:48:30 The guy is explaining HOW TO FIX MARCUS and his fix is... "I don't really know. Change something about Grayson." What the fuck, dude? Are you serious, right now? You're going to tell us that Marcus even needs fixed in the first place, then say you're going to tell us how, then say to just change something, it doesn't really matter what. Goddamn. I watched a couple of the guy's other videos and the one I checked out are better than this one. Mel's one of my favorite characters and he makes a lot of good observations about her that people seem to overlook in writing her off. But, he also says that she's barely a character that doesn't do anything meaningful until her mom shows up, which is just kinda crazy talk.
On the Enforcer's individuality, take the scene near the start when Caitlin gets punished with the midnight shift. Her coworkers are ragging on her for being privileged, and the guys even look doofy and thuggish, but they all run to help when Caitlin sees the fire. The guys we thought were goons even ran into the fire when they thought they heard a little kid. Just a look at each other, a nod, and running in. That's when Jinx kills the 6 cops, so even they got some characterization before being sacrificed for the script.
With the opposite of Marcus thing, I was sure he was gonna go with Caitlyn until he said wants war, then I was sure it was gonna be Greyson, because she was the perfect example of someone who embodies the opposite of his worst character traits, she's strong-willed, wants nothing but peace between the underground and topside, and is incredibly patient
I have to say I think it's pretty obvious what Marcus fails at. Dude doesn't manage to do a single thing he could be proud of. He knows exactly who he thinks would be better if he was, and he consistently fails at being that person.
Is Marcus even really a corrupt cop? He inherited the situation from Greyson which he tried to keep going even though it goes completely against his natural inclinations of using force and just beating the people into obedience. That was what made him interesting for the short amount of time he was on screen. They even had that great view into his head when he's trying to negotiate a peaceful solution, but all he wants to do it pull the pin on the grenade and kill them all. His sacrifice of what he wants in order to try and keep the peace was great in my mind.
He's a man who stuck in a beast of someone else's making that he interfered with and made worse. He feels indebted to Grayson to try and consider her legacy, which causes him to lose his conviction of his own morals and foundations. It allows him to be pushed around more by Silco.
I think the Martyr angle with a Silko was drawn from his conversation with Vander in ep. 3. "You're willing to fight for a cause, but not die for one." Not exactly sure that really is enough to solidify Silko's perspective as being a martyr later in however, moreso once he has developed his bond with Jynx, which very likely has changed his mindset even in ways Silko wasn't ready for, specifically in reference to the final few episodes.
(Bully + Wants War)×(Hates the Undercity)^3 - (Trusting Vi + Releasing her) _________________________________________ (Being a Father) The Anti-Cait Equation
You forgot almost the biggest part of this equation (Bully + Wants War)*(Hates the Undercity)^3 - (Trusting Vi + Releasing her) ------------------- (Being dad) x (SINGLE)^Locked up Vi
I remember playing this video in the background so I wasn’t paying attention to what specifically this guy said and how he elaborated. Didn’t expect you guys to cover it but now that you did I see quite a lot of flaws...…in this guy’s logic.
“Your guard needs work. Wish I could say it gets easier, but I’d be lying. She needs you they all do. Whaddya say wanna go another round, and remember JUST KEEP PUNCHING!”- Vander-Man
So... I didn't watch _Arcane,_ but even I can tell that this guy is full of shit... I mean he says that the writers of the show worked well with him, even if he is a bad character... Yet, the writers are the guys who decided what to do with him. So saying that he is a bad character and they use him perfect, would mean that he isn't a bad character since he was what he was needed to be. Or he just doesn't undestand that he makes no sense at all... Yeah, I think that it is.
I’m late,but just curious,have you watched the show already? If not, then know that I wasn’t interested in it too, but got around to watching it and my god,it’s a great show,highly recommend!
4:18:00 “The work of generations is completed! The Great Error corrected! This is the day of victory! The day of revenge! The day…of the Length!” -Longbo MauL-patine
2:55:24 "Sending both of them to hell is the right decision" Is this guy suggesting that the author should act like judgemental God against his own characters? Why does it sound like he's projecting his hatred of the characters on the author who should, in his eyes, punish them for being evil, corrupt, bad, whatever? And this is the guy who thinks he should be giving writing advice or fixing characters lmao
In short to him, Marcus is a terrible character that plays pivotal parts in building every other characters in making them and their story make sense. This makes sense somehow.. This guy reminds me of my friends that saw this and hated Marcus. They think of him as a chess piece rather than a character in this world. I think the issue is that he saw Marcus, didn't like him and the community not liking him. Saw Marcus didn't fit into any writers rules boxes and went from there. I say this because the video doesn't makes sense. He keeps bouncing between calling Marcus weak literally and metaphorical. He attributes all of Marcus' "good moments" and sticks them on othere people while saying Marcus has nothing. Even the intro makes no sense. "Arcane made a weak character, instead of changing him they build around him". Why would anyone set out to make a bad character? I think the issue with Marcus which the initial efap discussion helped me appreciate is that he the most human out of everyone. He doesn't do anything grand or like the other inspire any great emotion, if anything he's depressing to watch. He works his boring 9 to 5 and gets pushed around. As Fringy put is well. "He wants to do good, he just finds it hard". Putting himself in a situation where doing good will cost him everything. While I don't think anyone has been in asituation like him. I think many people can understand him and have been in a situation like his where their powerless to whay goes on around him. Hes just a guy that made a bad choice with good intentions and found himself in a worst situation.
2:55:25 🔥 Send them both to *HELL!* 🔥 3:04:48 Silco : *“Don’t cry. This is fine”* 😐 3:30:53 *“NOOOOOOOOOUGH!!!”* 3:43:36 Marcus : *”I can’t shoot you, I’m too racist!”* 4:18:00 OMG TFA PT4 TRAILER! I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT! 👏
In regards to the "It's not a cliffhanger" video, iirc he argues that the entire story was a buildup to Jinx nuking the council as a conclusion to Jinx and Zaun's plotlines. The actual result with who dies and who survives not being important.
@@govind.m86 Jinx bombing the Council being a natural conclusion of that storyline does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that it doesn’t matter who lived or died
@@govind.m86 why would it be important which characters die or not? It’s kind of self-explanatory. These characters matter in their own right, not just as a facet of Jinx’s story, and whether they live or die will massively affect how the story will progress in the future. For example, Mel dies or is critically injured, then the last person who might be able to prevent a war will be out of the way.
At first I was super baffled at everything in this video. But then I understood what's wrong with it. He didn't redraft or even consider redrafting anything. This reeks of 'first take, good enough, upload it'. Man fucking forgot how to say humanity ffs and didn't bother re-editing or re-recording anything. But the main problem I think is even more fundamental. He just doesnt know what the word flaw means, so the video turns into gibberish from the outset.
“He looks like a man” I guess? Honestly wouldn’t put behind this guys when he described Marcus unique that he is a single dad in a show where arguable the biggest players where single dads…
@@arturzinurov4781 yeah... it's pretty sad when he says that being a single dad is unique in a show with 3 single dads... Edit: wait no, there's 4 single dads. How TF did this guy pump out so many Arcane videos and still forget that there's 4 single dads?
"marcus couldn't shoot cait because his tribalist bigotry is just too strong." The things we criticise other people for, can be a window into our own mindset and problems. I wonder who's the real bigot is here, throwing away everything marcus does or struggles to do as "bigotry" and dismissing his accomplishes under the gutwrenching circumstances.
I've never seen Arcane, so originally I wasn't really planning on watching this EFAP. So glad I changed my mind I almost missed out on so much gdelb lore!
This video is VERY revealing of what this guy thinks of the people in piltover. Very much decided one side is good and one side is bad. Despite, I would say, the pretty clear messages of the show
2:21:46 This is probably my least favorite EFAP. My name is now associated with a badly written character archetype that is shallow and only used as a tool. I am now perpetually offended. Kick Jay.
I'd reckon you could make the fix work. You would just need to have Marcus hand over the sheriff medal to Caitlyn and say "There must be an asian on top" thereby reinforcing his bigotry and making the decision to not shoot her that much more valid. I could see that working
I'm not sure that's fair. This video just sounds to me like a random tangent you'd see in a Twitter thread or a Reddit argument. Not well formulated and not well thought out, but this dude decided to send it anyways. Since this guy is known for RUclips shorts, he makes a living on throwing out half-baked takes and not really dwelling on them too long. It's basically the opposite of long form essays and breaking down an entire show from beginning to end. He sees a problem, throws out a solution and calls it good. He is not doing the deep dive of figuring out exactly where it all fits in and then forming his argument from there. I'm sure he watched through the show maybe even multiple times, but just hadn't broken it all down into its component parts before throwing out his takes. Or he is doing the sensory overload approach of "here's a whole bunch of ideas and let's see what sticks." Basically what you'd see from someone who is analyzing a storyline in real time as they are watching it play out. Our current short-term attention span society just seems to love this sort of approach though and that's why his videos gained any sort of traction. Just dropping bread crumbs for people to use in future arguments so they don't have to do any real thinking or digesting on their end. Just goes to show that if you're going to take the time to make a video and deliver your critiques through this medium, maybe take advantage of the medium and use it to form a solid script and deliver a coherent point. Don't just throw ideas at the wall and say "ok that's my impressions, tell me what you guys think :)"
Why was 6 afraid of 7? It's a fairly common question, mostly because when people see 6 and 7 next to each other, it doesn't really make sense. 6 is large, muscled, and trained in multiple martial arts, while 7 is fairly average, physically, and short. However, 6's fear of 7 has its roots in childhood. See, 6 and 7 grew up together, and for a few years, they were best friends. But then 6 kissed 3, and they became childhood sweethearts. 7 secretly had feelings for 3, so 7 decided he needed to destroy 6 to win 3's affection. He started subtly, undermining 6 whenever possible with passive aggressive comments and compli-sults. But over time, things got much more insidious. 7 started messing with 6's performance in school, bringing down his grades and turning teachers against him. Even worse, 7 became great friends with 6's parents and slowly turned them against their own offspring. At night, 7 would sneak into 6's bedroom, and whisper depressing and hopeless things into his ears. Every time 3 was around, 7 would pants 6 and make fun of his genitalia, or try to body shame him in other ways. However, 3 was both smart and compassionate, and saw through 7's schemes, sticking with 6, trying to counter 7's psychological tear-down with compliments and friendship. Finally, 7 decided that he would never be able to win 3, so he drugged both 6 and 3, taking them to an abandoned cobbler's hut on the edge of town. There, he proceeded to torture and maim 3, forcing 6 to watch in horror, unable to do anything to save his sweetheart. 7 didn't kill 3, but instead, put her in a semi-vegetative state. 7 cleaned the scene of his prescence, then called the cops, having 6 blamed for 3's condition. 6 was sent to prison, believing 6 was guilty, 6's parents fell into a deep depression, eventually committing suicide over what they believed 6 had done. After serving 17 years of a 30 year sentence, and getting out on good behaviour, 6, now muscled and skilled as a fighter, thought he might get revenge on 7. But when he finally tracked down 7, he found out that 7 had installed a micro-bomb into 3's body, and should he be killed, the bomb would automatically go off and kill 3 as well. And though she was still in a mostly fugue state, 6 couldn't bring himself to hurt her any further, and decided to try and move on with his life. However, being an ex-con, it was difficult for him to get a job. 6 finally found employment at a diner, which 7 then bought, and proceeded to again undermine and toy with 6 at every turn. 6 tried to find employment elsewhere, but 7 contacted any potential employer and soured them against 6. 6 finally realized that no matter what he did, 7 was going to try and ruin his life, and he resigned himself to living as a broken, lonely man, never able to stand up to the depraved, amoral 7.
Maybe you guys should check out Young Defiant's vid on Arcane. It may be a troll but it would be an interesting discussion regarding using tropes. Since the biggest critiques of Arcane that it follows tropes and loses good storytelling because of it.
That’s doesn’t sound like a valid position to have “tropes are bad and take away from story”. First off how can a trope in a story take away the story? Anything in the story can destroy a story but never take away from it. For example I can have a scene where pretty much everybody who died in Arcane came back and Jinx becomes powder again, that ruins the show but it wouldn’t take away from what happened before. Secondly tropes are in every story, humanity in all of our existence wrote about 7 stories over and over again so everything in any story can be classified as a trope but it doesn’t mean it’s bad or unoriginal. It’s all about execution.
@@za-ir5ni the universal truth of storytelling as with basically everything in storytelling, what really matters is the execution tropes tend to have staying power because they resonate with the average person. Seeing them as inherently good or inherently bad totally misses the point of them. Yes, you can criticize a badly done or simply lazy trope.... but the problem is they're lazy or badly done, not just that it's a trope.
A character is interesting due to the conflicts they deal with. I would assume a “writer” would understand the basics in that conflict drives characters and therefore the story. Just saying “the character has juxtapositions, isn’t that interesting?” isn’t enough.
When you boil Marcus' function in the plot (post-time skip anyway) down to the basics, it's to be the reason Piltover doesn't know about Silco's position in the Undercity, and thus can't take measures against him. In other words, he's a sheriff feeding the council false info on Silco's orders. His whole personality could be changed to simply be 'me like munies' and he'd function the same in the story overall. Everything more than that is narrative flourish to make him a character in his own right rather than a simple writing tool, like the usual corrupt superior trope you see in a lot of police films and the like. But no, Marcus is undeveloped.
i would sort of agree he's under-developed as a character, since even by the end we know little about him beyond he's got a daughter.... but that in and of itself is not a strong criticism, or really a criticism from me at all. Not every character needs to be fully fleshed out so long as they play their role in the story well enough and a lot of stories get bogged down in spending too much time trying to develop peripheral characters. i would also argue he's the dark mirror to Grayson, and every significant character in this series has that mirror, which is a theme i really quite like. There are many paths to the same destination.
Just pointing out: His first change is to make his daughter like him more, while his second change is to make him a worse dad to his daughter... which would most likely result in her liking him less... making his changes conflict literally making the show worse off overall.
"Ah man, I got this weak and poorly developed character that's just totally bogging down my world, it clashes with the fiction and makes the characters around them less by contrast. I really don't like how I've written them, and now I need to address how to triage this problem I'm totally stuck with. How do I find tricks and tips to work this bad character through the narrative in order to provide some purpose, offset how poorly written it is, and use the weak writing to spotlight the other, better written characters? This might take a while..." "Dude, maybe just like... re-write the character so it's not bad?" Insanity.
How to fix Marcus summarized 1. Make his daughter a Hitler Youth 2. Have Marcus make Kaitlyn sherif because of her powerful Arian traits Make Marcus Racist Again… Weird fix but ok.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm constantly exposed to so many accents, but I see how someone could mistake Fringy as American. There's something about the way he speaks that could let me believe he lived here, even if he wasn't from here. Probably from speaking to so many Americans online. After a couple years together, my Norwegian ex sounded pretty distinctly American, but he never fully lost his accent. I'm not sure what it is that gives that impression in how he and Fringy speak, but I hear it.
3:39:25 MauLer: Why do we have to make him a failure as a father, anyway? Why would you want that to be your goal?" Because it's funny. Hhhaaaaaa. Hhhaaaaaa. Hhhaaaaaa.
I don't understand how or why this video was written. I was going to try and be funny and write a small list of the few things he said that were actually true, but honestly, there's only one way to sum up this video: "Amazing. Every word of what you just said... was wrong."
3:45:00 This sequence from the video solidified in my mind this guy modeled his videos and scripts from Moviebob Talking so fast that he hopes to mask his nonsensical ideas and critiques. Just like Moviebob lol 😆
I don't agree at all that you have to have some good in you to want to have a child. There could be plenty of reasons to have one that are selfish. Maybe you need an heir, maybe you want to sell it after it's born, maybe it's to force your significant other to commit to you. I'm sure most people do have good in them when they want a child, but it's not an absolute.
Do you guys understand what Marcus's original deal with Silco was (the one that got Grayson killed) ? When Grayson and Benzo die, Marcus complains about the deal being altered and receives money from Silco. But what was Silco buying exactly? As far as I can tell the only thing Marcus could give him was the time and place of Vi's arrest. But why would Silco care about that? It seems what he really wanted was to kidnap Vander. Not only does he have shimmer, which gives him the strongest soldiers in the undercity thus allowing him to easily kidnap Vander in broad daylight should he want to, but we see in ep2 that the last drop is empty at times (the scene with powder and Vander at the bar where Vander realizes Vi is trying to give herself up). So why bother paying Marcus? What was his angle exactly? That's my only problem with Marcus and I guess Silco : the exact nature of their original deal doesn't make sense to me. Otherwise he's fine. Good even. Shame he's asian though...
I know I'm months behind on this conversation but just recently watched Arcane. I would guess the deal was that Marcus would keep his ear to the ground and notify Silco of any potential involvement with the enforcers in the Undercity. Probably with the implicit suggestion that "when the time is right we will replace Grayson and you will be the number one guy instead." This would speak a lot to an ambitious young person with shady morals who wants a bit of power. Grayson arresting Vi/Vander doesn't change the power balance. If she arrests Vander then Vi takes over in his place and because of Vander and Grayson's close connection, Grayson could probably convince the council to let him out after a few months of cooling off. If Grayson arrests Vi, it's the same scenario but with a worse factor in play - Vander is still running the Undercity. Also once Grayson has leverage over Vander he could be potentially convinced to "flip" in order to gain his or his daughter's freedom. He very well might be willing to sell out Silco and his entire gang in order for an exchange. Silco can't take that chance. So acting on Marcus' tip he sees a way to rebalance the scales completely in his favor. The Undercity knows that the enforcers are looking to punish someone for what happened in Piltover, and if that person happens to "leave town" along with all of their kids at the same time, Silco can convince his supporters (and many still on the fence) that they fled their morals and abandoned the Undercity when they were needed most. All at the same time that he gets to replace the sheriff with someone more aligned with his interests and secure a bigger piece of the pie. I just think it was probably a standing arrangement with Silco telling Marcus "just tip me off to what's going on upstairs and soon you will get more power/become the sheriff." Marcus probably didn't understand this necessarily means replacing Grayson, and he doesn't understand Silco well enough to know that "replacing Grayson" means killing her. It likely wasn't a deal like the kind we see between Lando and Vader in ESB, IE, do these exact things and these exact things will be your reward. Moreso it falls on Marcus' youth and naivety that he bought into a plan that meant something entirely different from what he envisioned. Or even possibly Marcus bartered to become sheriff and one of his haggling points was to keep Grayson alive, and Silco decided that just wasn't a good enough idea to follow through with. As for the fact that Silco has his own super soldier serum and the potential to take out Vander at any point, I think we see through the time gap that Silco isn't willing to utilize his super soldiers in such a brutal fashion. He doesn't want carnage and chaos, and using your soldiers to wrest control of the Undercity from a well-beloved leader does him no favors. Also it still leaves Grayson in the mix and she is steadfast in her morals and purpose. She will not buy the excuse that Vander fled, and would likely bring the hammer down even harder on whoever takes his place since she would suspect that some kind of battle for power in the Undercity is going on and she can't be having that under her charge.
@@aw7400 If we assume that Silco wanted Vander and Vi out of the picture without having Zaun turn on him, then I think it makes sense. The thing that confuses me is that later Silco says to Vi, I think, that he used to think she was the more interesting sister out of the 2, kind of low key implying that he wanted to recruit her to his side. And if he did that, then surely Zaun would have questions about his narrative as to Vander's disappearance. Although all of this is left vague, I think we have enough elements to infer something that works. It would just be nice to have some kind of solid confirmation as to what he was trying to achieve. Appreciate your taking the time to write your answer though :d
Silco is a tactician and understands people. Vandar had power and influence in the Undercity, and if Silco made a move on him, it would cause the Undercity to eat itself. If, however, Silco could make Vandar a martyr, and the Enforcers look like aggressors, then it would allow him to cleanly and easily amass power for himself, and prepare better for his new war with Piltover. As for Vi being “the more interesting one,” he could see Vi had leadership potential, just like Vandar did. With her under his thumb, he’d have a useful mob runner to help keep control of Zaun, and to reaffirm people’s commitment with the loss of Vandar (something Jinx can’t really do). Instead he had to rely on Sevika, who is no slouch, but doesn’t have the same kind of raw talent and leadership capacity Vi does.
The point about not getting an explanation about why Marcus loves his daughter is brief but very strange . It reminded me of God of War when Kratos put his arm in a trolls mouth so it couldn't get to Atreus. There doesn't need to be exposition for why a father loves his child. But like with Kratos and Marcus it's more valuable to show what they are willing to for their kid.
I absolutely love arcane, it has so much about it that is just superb. However, if I had to find a large flaw in the series objectively, my one issue is the Medarda's. I really hope they clarify in season 2 how they are not rulers, but merely influential supporters to the ruling family. If Mel was a member of a royal family given a station on the council, I would reject her thoroughly as there would be a strong likelihood that she would be influenced by the politics of her home region, which almost ends up being the case. The show seems to tell us that not only does her mother have control over some portion of the armed forces but also dictates some piece of whether or not they go to war, and even offers her daughter a throne, even metaphorically. I pray that they fix this to make it clear that she is not the leader, but merely the source of power behind the throne because otherwise it would make no sense that anyone would let Mel be in piltover's legislative governing body.
Lots of people have control over parts of the armed forces. Noxus is aggressive and expansionist, as well as individualistic, so being a general in Noxus means she's free to raid and wage war and try to gain glory for Noxus in basically any way she sees fit. As well as the million other generals Noxus has doing the same thing.
@@chucklebouf5379 Yeah I get that she is a general but if generals are as important to their government as she suggests and I would think is true, then Mel being on the council wouldn't be allowed. That's all I am saying :) Again though, one of my favorite series
The video essay they are analyzing seems like it was written in the exact same way I've written every essay I've ever been forced to write; bullshit everything until it's the required length.
The only "poorly written" character in Arcane is Ekko, and that's only because he undermines the show's themes and erringly portrays utopian revolutionaries as being distinct from the cynical, bloodthirsty ones. The truth is that the Silcos of the world are just what happens when the Ekkos of the world come into power. He is the only character in the entire show who can be said to lack any serious flaws, and the idyllic nature of his community and how it's organized betrays the unrealistic notions of the writers' ideals in that respect. In that sense, it's not even that he's poorly written insofar as his character's personality or general identity, but rather that his presence and presentation have a parasitic effect on the moral layers behind Silco's organization simply by suggesting everything he does and how he does it is superfluous.
That's not really the case, Ekkos ambitions and his workings towards them are more humble. He works less towards a total overhaul of the system and more to building his enclave in a comfortable space in it, like Vander. Silco sees himself as forced into his actions because of his (righteous?) ambitions. Ekko isn't, there's nothing really parasitic here.
@@w84Drito I disagree. Ekko's ambition is greater than his means. Given his way, he would destroy Silco entirely. He was fully ready to consider the hex-gem as a means of war against Piltover, and ultimately it's only because he believes a diplomatic resolution is possible that he determines to do otherwise. I don't think it's a fair characterization to say that Vander's goals and Ekko's are identical. Ekko is a prodigy. A genius. He is actively trying to disrupt the shimmer trade abroad, and when he speaks about Silco, he makes very clear that he holds Silco responsible for the vast majority of suffering in his life. He might not be as big as Silco, but he is running an active insurgency against him. He helps Vi and Caitlyn out of an interest in seeing Silco condemned, which would in turn give Ekko greater power. Vander notably didn't have a plan. He was just playing it by ear, doing what he felt was right in his heart. Ekko also follows his heart, but he's also tactically minded and far more proactive. He isn't anti-war. It's because Ekko's gang have a way of doing things that is portrayed as a tactical, empathetic, thriving alternative to Silco's conduct that he fulfills the role of being the "right" kind of revolutionary, whereas Silco is the "wrong" kind. Ekko offers the audience and the writers a "way out" so to speak. You can support Zaun and its independence without moral quandary by rooting for Ekko. If he didn't exist, then it would be Silco or nothing. Vi's choice between Piltover and Zaun would be more tragic. Jinx's commitment to Zaun would be highlighted. Silco's dedication to freedom at any cost vs Piltover's dedication to prosperity by any means. All of these things are present and compelling, and all of them would be heightened if Ekko's idyllic third option didn't exist.
@@DastardlyDistaste I don't think Ekko ever really considered using the gemstone as a weapon against _Piltover._ I think he saw it as a weapon against _Silco._ Ekko was mistrustful of Piltover and was very antagonistic against the Enforcers, but only because they were acting as an extension of Silco's power. Sure, there was the long history that all of the undercity shared of the Enforcers oppressing them, but this did not seem to be Ekko's primary concern by the time we're in the second act. Ekko is very focused on resisting Silco and establishing his own little colony within the undercity for his people. He does not seem to have any higher ambitions to gain power for himself or to even lead any sort of revolution against Piltover. The impression I get is that he wants to fight against people he sees as an active threat (Silco, the Chembarons, and their ilk) and then be left alone. He doesn't like or trust Piltover to act in the best interests of the undercity and especially of his own people, but if Silco were not using the Piltover police to hunt down the Firelights, then I don't think that Piltover would really even be on Ekko's mind. His enemy is _Silco,_ and Piltover (outside the Enforcers) just represents a group of people whom he knows better than to rely upon for help or sympathy.
@@Kevin-jb2pv They had an entire scene between Ekko and Caitlyn where he made his animosity towards Piltover known, and oppenly questioned why he would turn the hexgem over to Piltover instead of using it against them. I'm sure Ekko's priority is fighting Silco, but he is likely smart enough to realizs that the Enforcers are not merely an extension of Silco's power. They are an extent problem of Piltover's power. Without the oppression and neglect of Piltover, there would be no Silco. And speaking of Silco- Without him, there would be nobody controlling patrols or insulating resistance against Piltover on a political basis. The wealth gap between the two cities would widen as Silco feared, and Ekko would be forced to confront the reality that SOMETHING must be done about the state of his people. His treehouse utopia is not an answer for the entire city. It's not even really an answer at all. He's free to only concern himself with being left alone because Silco is concerning himself with ensuring that Zaun isn't left behind. As soon as that responsibility is solely in Ekko's hands, and it's the wider community of Zaun rather than just his commune of orphans and outcasts to watch after, the sooner he'd realize how little room for diplomacy actually exists. And once he realizes that, he's in Silco's shoes.
Gonna throw out a bit of a cringe anti-nitpick. The video being criticized uses the word ‘humanness,’ which isn’t an incorrect word to go to. They suggest replacing it with ‘humanity,’ which draws more on the state of human beings as a whole. Humanness is more specific to the experience of a human through the lens of the individual.
3:14:05 Escanor is a "satisfying" character. Only character I can think of fitting that description, though. Sounds like an extremely poor word choice.
On the debate about the meaning of "opposite", one of the issue is a dichotomy between mathematical opposite and a logic opposite. In maths, "-1" is the opposite of "1", in logic, "not 1" is. So the opposite of "love" would be "hate" if considering a scale of passion. But logically, "not love" is the opposite of "love", it includes "indifference" (the null/void emotion) and all other things like "having the same dream", "having opposite dreams", "hate", "envy", "mild interest", "friendship"... In discourse, if required to infer a particular kind of "not love", it would be interpreted as "indifference" in absence of additional context which would be needed to specify the kind of "not love".
This EFAP episode taught me that all the single dads in Arcane, die with their daughters on their mind...
The trinity of -bitches- baddy-daddies
Dark
And both because of.. the same one
@@ComradeCommissarYuri All three
@@notarealperson8956I doubt Marcus was thinking about Jinx as he died
That day on the bridge, one man's rampant bigotry saved a life.
He is such a bigot that he doesn’t kill women because he knows there is nothing worse to do to a woman then to let her live.
3:43:40
I didn't know PewDiePie saying the N word saved anyone
@@liamcooper8451 it saved ME.
"Marcus is uninteresting, unnuanced, unlikeable, and undeveloped."
Begins video showing Marcus giving a eulogy mourning his fellow officers and showing love to his daughter. Like, he couldn't even be bothered to show one of the scenes of Marcus being an asshole to line up with what he's saying. He chose to pick one of the scenes where he was at his most interesting, nuanced, likeable, and developed.
I've seen people press F in the twitch chat a billion times. Literally uninteresting, unnuanced, unlikable and based.
Marcus is not mean to everyone, he's mean to everyone in the undercity, because he's a classist (e.g. the scene where he raids The Last Drop and assumes everyone there is complicit in crime and therefore bad). That is an unlikable trait about Marcus. But one unlikable trait doesn't make a character unlikable. In fact, it makes them _more_ likable when they aren't just perfect.
I think that's an unfortunate effect of alot of audience expectations, idk if it's the MCU effect or what, but it seems like people have a lot more difficulty getting behind flawed characters nowadays. For example, I liked Tony Stark way more than Steve Rogers because he had alot of faults that he had to overcome over many films, meanwhile Steve had his principles challenged at times but was always proven to be correct in his assumptions every time. He's more of an ideal than a character.
Also people have been poisoned to think likeability and relateability is what makes a good character
@@gman7497late with reply but I feel like you could make an argument for Steve Rogers that he is a flawed character,he’s so wrapped up into “doing the right thing” he misses the bigger picture,he’s “good” to a fault. I think MCU up until endgame did well with fleshing out at least their main characters,with exception of Thor,I also think that people still like nuanced characters,it’s just the producers,writers and studios prefer one dimensional characters,it’s easier to write,doesn’t give people the idea that people with different views and life experience can also have a point,politics play a big role in that,and lastly,maybe they just can’t write.
I dunno if classism makes a character more *likeable*. XD
But it does make them far more interesting than if they had no meaningful flaws whatsoever, so I get what you mean.
I see this a lot in the warhammer community, where people dislike factions because they’re designed to be assholes.
But… that’s the appeal? The arrogant elves are fun because they’re arrogant. People seem to be unable to divorce in universe from out of universe traits.
Marcus savings Vi and being frozen at least momentarily when aiming at Cait... He's not spineless.
Pragmatic and lucidly caught in a no-win situation, maybe, but not spineless.
Just shooting Ekko was doable for Marcus because he was stuck in waiting for them, possibly for days, even if not on the bridge until that night.
One random person?
Yes, he thought about his daughter and pulled the trigger.
Cait was just a person he knew too much about. He was looking for excuses and even though he might've, he didn't pull the trigger in time for anyone to be correct when saying he's spineless.
He literally had the nerve to shoot a person, yet his mind couldn't let him deny what shooting Cait would mean as an act.
Ekko himself froze when about to finish off Jinx. Ain't that a weird coincidink...
wow so much copium, just admit you only care about him because he has a name and you have a shallow understanding of media
@@ClobberingSocks
Uh... If it's a meme, good try, but if not, still, I guess "nice but you do you" is my reply.
Tired, I legit can't tell.
@@amanibob1416 lol thats my bad, its sometimes hard for me to wrap my head around how the state of online discussion at this point is so fucked that my comment isnt easily picked up as satire, yeah i was just doing it for the meme
@@ClobberingSocks
Nah-nah-nah, don't think me being tired as fawk is your sh1t to shovel around.
I member the video, so yes, I get it, so 100% my bad, don't think none more 'bout my tism and have a nice day.
Seriously, with chronic insomnia, (woke three days ago), I just keep from guessing if I can translate both my thoughts *and* a comment I gotta translate into my first tongue with my brain on the fizzle.
It's like a: "pee, then flush, then wash hands" level of understanding for me now, so obviously, it ain't your fault.
Longoid done.
As a wise grape once said, the hardest choices require the strongest wills. Marcus is the perfect example of a will that isn't strong enough to deal with arguably the most difficult choices that Arcane presents to any of its characters, relative to their degree of agency.
This is why I wouldn’t call him spineless. He isn’t lacking spine he just doesn’t have one strong enough to contend with the serious and damaging circumstances he found himself in.
I don’t really have a problem with saying Marcus represents passive evil. If you think about it, he never actually decides to do something evil on his own. Silco is always the mastermind behind the evil action. Silco decides Marcus is going to turn a blind eye to the shimmer smuggling. Silco decides Marcus is going to frame the Firelights. Silco decides Marcus is going to kill Cait and Vi and take back the gemstone. The only decision Marcus makes is not to say no to Silco.
He is the archetype character who physically embodies "For evil to prevail, good men need only to do nothing."
Saying he is a bad character is nonsense.
I mean...
He kept the truce going close to a decade longer than you'd expect, plus his reaction at the death of only six of his units does show how little of a sh1t he gives about going all up in Silco's face, until needs be.
Good guy? Maybe not, but "evil" would've let things deteriorate far sooner and turned a blind eye to waaaay more stuff than what Marcus seemed okay with.
Don't let his men die, keep things moderately peaceful, protect Piltover, (from his side of things).
He did good, despite his flaws.
Remember, everyone was at "boiling point" level and he never used VI to settle the score, so Marcus got Piltover to back down, the Under-city to chill da' fawk out and even managed to stay relatively out of Silco's pocket, (it did take several years for either men to even consider ending their "deal", yet, again, Marcus wasn't afraid to voice his displeasure if a line was crossed).
@@amanibob1416 Was keeping the truce even Marcus' doing? It seems it was in silco's interests to keep the peace up while he built up his riches and his shimmer-fueled army (while slowly falling into the same slump Vander had fallen into). Marcus' aggressive behavior to Silco is basically brass without sound. silco looks utterly unimpressed by Marcus' anger, showing he doesn't fear or respect the man in the least.
And sure, he may feel sad about those enforcers dying, but in the end he didn't seek justice for them, he pinned the blame on innocents at the behest of Silco. Marcus hated what he was doing, wanted to be better, tried now and then to push back, but ultimately his good intentions were meaningless, because he didn't have the spine to back any of it up.
TL;DR Saving Vi and being sad that people he knew died does not make Markus' passivity and corruption any less damning.
@@atreides213
Eh, if you don't want to see things clearly, plus of course, if you actually want to pretend *Silco was keeping the peace* more than fawking Vander, or even Marcus would've...
Lol, you do you.
Ps: "Silco the peacekeeping softie", kek
Edit: These are your thoughts, with your words, "Silco was keeping the peace". I don't wanna argue, but Silco almost drowning the Under-city in Shimmer literally does the opposite of "keeping the peace".
Didn't see that one coming, sorry if I came out a bit too brash.
This guy has definitely, on more than one occasion, gotten a “see me after class” grade on his writing essays because the teachers are so fascinated with how insane his conclusions are that they have to make sure he understood the assignment.
The end of the Arcane arc? There's no other bad takes out there to cover? Oh, well. I would be happy to hear another 24 hours talking about Arcane.
1:16:40 My brain exploded!
Marcus' ark and decisions are intertwined with his love for his daughter. He never wanted to be the corrupt cop, just a better life for the 2 of them. In the end her life was threatened and he had to decide between his honor and life or hers.
Even his last thoughts were about protecting her...
If that's not nuanced, I don't know what is.. For a fckin side character
>arc with a k
Is that you Remarkable Repulican?
I thought his daughter was born after the timeskip? That would mean he became corrupt before he had a daughter. But who knows, perhaps before he had his daughter Silco threatened Markus' wife instead. But I think the series could have given at least a line or two regarding that.
Even fucking Silco doesn't want war.
3:43:00 This guy clearly grew up without a father...it's a show written completely about fathers and their daughters...
Undeveloped? He had many conflicts and decision points during the story and chose not to break out of his role. He is a tragic character in that he sees things getting worse and worse and does not do anything against it, costing him his life in the end. You can argue how he does not want to make the hard decision that will deviate his path because of how it went when he chose such a path before, leading to the death of his mentor.
Marcus battles with a rare thing that is the "consequences of doing the right thing". He is traumatized by the last time he did what he thought was right and best, conflicted by his duty, his obligation, his deal with Silco and the safety of Piltover and his daughter. He is caught in a beast of his own making and the only way he sees to keep it from killing him and ruining his life is by continuing to play along.
Marcus is the person that we wish we aren’t
"Marcus was fridged, which sent him STRAIGHT TO HELL, which makes him a martyr, which is fine because he's racist, which juxtaposes him being a single dad being the anti-passive evil' - Badbonius Charaggins
I never cared for Marcus but it didn't have to do with his writing as a character. The writing for him is done well and Marcus is important to the plot, speaking that he plays a huge role in what Vi's and Jinx's relationship becomes, Marcus is needed in this story. The only reason I didn't care for him is that in the grand scheme of the show and what is happening with other characters, like Vi and Jinx and Silco and Vander and Mel and Jayce, his level of importance and engagement/immersion as a character isn't on the same level as the other characters I named off. Which I think is a huge compliment to the show in my eyes, that when it comes to "low" level characters like Marcus, he's still extremely important to the story while also still being engaging. Taking him out of the story or complaining about the poor writing of his character is just fucking stupid.
I guess the problem about writing advice is that, unless someone comes to you with a specific set up they want your opinion on, all advice boils down to "if you write it well, it will be good,"
why are static characters bad? One would generally say they're "boring," because they don't change in response to the events of the story it might make it hard for a consumer to relate to them or invest their emotions into the story. In Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō (sorry for being a weeb) the main character, Alpha, is essentially unchanging; but, she "works" in the story because she serves as a marker against which we measure the rapidly changing world around her. Samurai Jack is a good example as well. so Static characters are "bad" in traditional narratives because they can't arc but work if they're constantly being put in fish-out-of-water scenarios or have a group of characters that are arcing rotate around them.
tl;dr tropes and characters are tools in a story. don't say your Phillips-head screwdriver is a bad tool because your trying to use it on flat-head screws, and maybe more importantly, when you see someone using a Phillips-head screwdriver correctly, don't point at it and say it's a bad tool because you couldn't make it work
@@megapixzel "tl;dr tropes and characters are tools in a story." Characters aren't tools in a story, that's dehumanizing lololol (even though you're really just talking about the stories in the discussion) but honestly though it's case by case whether or not that works which is probably even more concise.
Idk "trope speak" is kinda cringe.
Also you can just edit your comments btw.
@@lel1103 fictional characters aren't real so how is it dehumanizing? And i added my tldr as a new comment so it would be easier to see.
@@lel1103 fictional characters are literally just tools in a story... they only exist to facilitate the telling of a story, nothing more. There is no 'case by case' basis in this equation...
you can't dehumanize what was never actually a human in the first place....
this is just.... bizarre...
I'm pretty sure an excellent static character example is Geralt from The Witcher games. Massively popular and famous choose-your-path RPG where the main character has a well-established and fairly static nature. Regardless of what you choose, he will remain a broody, jaded veteran mercenary who kills for money and has no strong ideals. He'll always have some lines he won't cross, but he'll never truly be heroic or care about people he doesn't know.
"We are what they grow beyond" is actually a really good description of Vander and Vi's relationship and Silco and Jinx.
Weirdly enough, I can kind of understand not thinking Arcane's ending is a cliffhanger. It didn't feel like much of a cliffhanger to me and I think it's because Jinx blowing up the Council chamber is a very decisive conclusion to the story. Yeah, which characters live or die is left up in the air, but that means it's the fallout of the climax that is left out, not the climax itself. I don't know if that makes sense. I dunno. When I think of cliffhangers, I think of endings where the decisions/actions of the characters and how they resolve the final conflict is still left unknown. Arcane's ending is pretty clear in what happened. It's conflict was resolved (albeit not in a very happy way).
3:48:30 The guy is explaining HOW TO FIX MARCUS and his fix is... "I don't really know. Change something about Grayson."
What the fuck, dude? Are you serious, right now? You're going to tell us that Marcus even needs fixed in the first place, then say you're going to tell us how, then say to just change something, it doesn't really matter what. Goddamn.
I watched a couple of the guy's other videos and the one I checked out are better than this one. Mel's one of my favorite characters and he makes a lot of good observations about her that people seem to overlook in writing her off. But, he also says that she's barely a character that doesn't do anything meaningful until her mom shows up, which is just kinda crazy talk.
Tf? Mel kick-starts the hextech plot by positioning herself as a co-benefactor in the fledgling technology.
3:02:29
Lelouch vi Britannia: I'm thinking 5 dimensions ahead of you.
On the Enforcer's individuality, take the scene near the start when Caitlin gets punished with the midnight shift.
Her coworkers are ragging on her for being privileged, and the guys even look doofy and thuggish, but they all run to help when Caitlin sees the fire. The guys we thought were goons even ran into the fire when they thought they heard a little kid. Just a look at each other, a nod, and running in.
That's when Jinx kills the 6 cops, so even they got some characterization before being sacrificed for the script.
The one interesting thing about Palpatine... he was a single dad.
Unless ALL THE SITH count as spouses.
Turns out the Sith wasn't actually a race nor a cult it was just a harem
With the opposite of Marcus thing, I was sure he was gonna go with Caitlyn until he said wants war, then I was sure it was gonna be Greyson, because she was the perfect example of someone who embodies the opposite of his worst character traits, she's strong-willed, wants nothing but peace between the underground and topside, and is incredibly patient
5:41:27 Monogatari
5:52:26 Monogatari 2&3
5:55:29 Monogatari 4
5:56:02 Jay reacts
6:02:23 Monogatari 5
6:03:53 Monogatari final
Dude thank you so much
I have to say I think it's pretty obvious what Marcus fails at. Dude doesn't manage to do a single thing he could be proud of. He knows exactly who he thinks would be better if he was, and he consistently fails at being that person.
this is a textbook example of bending facts to fit a theory instead of crafting a theory around the facts. And why you should never do that....
So, it sounds like this guy doesn’t understand “side characters”, and also….really gives some insight into the current state of “storytelling” today…
Is Marcus even really a corrupt cop? He inherited the situation from Greyson which he tried to keep going even though it goes completely against his natural inclinations of using force and just beating the people into obedience. That was what made him interesting for the short amount of time he was on screen. They even had that great view into his head when he's trying to negotiate a peaceful solution, but all he wants to do it pull the pin on the grenade and kill them all. His sacrifice of what he wants in order to try and keep the peace was great in my mind.
He's a man who stuck in a beast of someone else's making that he interfered with and made worse. He feels indebted to Grayson to try and consider her legacy, which causes him to lose his conviction of his own morals and foundations. It allows him to be pushed around more by Silco.
I think the Martyr angle with a Silko was drawn from his conversation with Vander in ep. 3.
"You're willing to fight for a cause, but not die for one."
Not exactly sure that really is enough to solidify Silko's perspective as being a martyr later in however, moreso once he has developed his bond with Jynx, which very likely has changed his mindset even in ways Silko wasn't ready for, specifically in reference to the final few episodes.
the quote is backwards, he chides Vander for being willing to die for a cause but not fight for it.
"he works hard and he's almost dead" fuck dude i feel that
(Bully + Wants War)×(Hates the Undercity)^3 - (Trusting Vi + Releasing her)
_________________________________________
(Being a Father)
The Anti-Cait Equation
You forgot almost the biggest part of this equation
(Bully + Wants War)*(Hates the Undercity)^3 - (Trusting Vi + Releasing her) -------------------
(Being dad) x (SINGLE)^Locked up Vi
I remember playing this video in the background so I wasn’t paying attention to what specifically this guy said and how he elaborated. Didn’t expect you guys to cover it but now that you did I see quite a lot of flaws...…in this guy’s logic.
“Your guard needs work. Wish I could say it gets easier, but I’d be lying. She needs you they all do. Whaddya say wanna go another round, and remember JUST KEEP PUNCHING!”- Vander-Man
Very pacifist
Homelander would be so proud.
So... I didn't watch _Arcane,_ but even I can tell that this guy is full of shit...
I mean he says that the writers of the show worked well with him, even if he is a bad character... Yet, the writers are the guys who decided what to do with him. So saying that he is a bad character and they use him perfect, would mean that he isn't a bad character since he was what he was needed to be.
Or he just doesn't undestand that he makes no sense at all... Yeah, I think that it is.
I’m late,but just curious,have you watched the show already? If not, then know that I wasn’t interested in it too, but got around to watching it and my god,it’s a great show,highly recommend!
This video broke me. Marcus is one of my top 3 characters.
4:18:00
“The work of generations is completed!
The Great Error corrected!
This is the day of victory!
The day of revenge!
The day…of the Length!” -Longbo MauL-patine
2:55:24
"Sending both of them to hell is the right decision"
Is this guy suggesting that the author should act like judgemental God against his own characters? Why does it sound like he's projecting his hatred of the characters on the author who should, in his eyes, punish them for being evil, corrupt, bad, whatever? And this is the guy who thinks he should be giving writing advice or fixing characters lmao
In short to him, Marcus is a terrible character that plays pivotal parts in building every other characters in making them and their story make sense. This makes sense somehow..
This guy reminds me of my friends that saw this and hated Marcus. They think of him as a chess piece rather than a character in this world.
I think the issue is that he saw Marcus, didn't like him and the community not liking him. Saw Marcus didn't fit into any writers rules boxes and went from there.
I say this because the video doesn't makes sense. He keeps bouncing between calling Marcus weak literally and metaphorical. He attributes all of Marcus' "good moments" and sticks them on othere people while saying Marcus has nothing. Even the intro makes no sense. "Arcane made a weak character, instead of changing him they build around him". Why would anyone set out to make a bad character?
I think the issue with Marcus which the initial efap discussion helped me appreciate is that he the most human out of everyone. He doesn't do anything grand or like the other inspire any great emotion, if anything he's depressing to watch. He works his boring 9 to 5 and gets pushed around.
As Fringy put is well. "He wants to do good, he just finds it hard". Putting himself in a situation where doing good will cost him everything. While I don't think anyone has been in asituation like him. I think many people can understand him and have been in a situation like his where their powerless to whay goes on around him. Hes just a guy that made a bad choice with good intentions and found himself in a worst situation.
2:55:25 🔥 Send them both to *HELL!* 🔥
3:04:48 Silco : *“Don’t cry. This is fine”* 😐
3:30:53 *“NOOOOOOOOOUGH!!!”*
3:43:36 Marcus : *”I can’t shoot you, I’m too racist!”*
4:18:00 OMG TFA PT4 TRAILER! I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT! 👏
Don bless you mini timestamp man
Lol "I clapped when I saw it"
You beautiful massive
"Don't cry, I'm perfect"
- Jericho
In regards to the "It's not a cliffhanger" video, iirc he argues that the entire story was a buildup to Jinx nuking the council as a conclusion to Jinx and Zaun's plotlines. The actual result with who dies and who survives not being important.
That first statement doesn’t prove the second.
@@mrdropkicker1 What do you mean by that?
@@govind.m86 Jinx bombing the Council being a natural conclusion of that storyline does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that it doesn’t matter who lived or died
@@mrdropkicker1 Okay but why would it be important either? I'm assuming you chose to comment because you strongly feel otherwise.
@@govind.m86 why would it be important which characters die or not? It’s kind of self-explanatory. These characters matter in their own right, not just as a facet of Jinx’s story, and whether they live or die will massively affect how the story will progress in the future. For example, Mel dies or is critically injured, then the last person who might be able to prevent a war will be out of the way.
At first I was super baffled at everything in this video. But then I understood what's wrong with it.
He didn't redraft or even consider redrafting anything. This reeks of 'first take, good enough, upload it'.
Man fucking forgot how to say humanity ffs and didn't bother re-editing or re-recording anything.
But the main problem I think is even more fundamental. He just doesnt know what the word flaw means, so the video turns into gibberish from the outset.
This man is a true disciple of Cinema Roberto!
I'm kinda sad we did not get more Arcane content
31:57 rags just tosses out a deep TNG cut lmao
Even after watching the video multiple times, I have no idea what he meant when he described Marcus as "Not Unisex."
“He looks like a man” I guess? Honestly wouldn’t put behind this guys when he described Marcus unique that he is a single dad in a show where arguable the biggest players where single dads…
@@arturzinurov4781 yeah... it's pretty sad when he says that being a single dad is unique in a show with 3 single dads...
Edit: wait no, there's 4 single dads. How TF did this guy pump out so many Arcane videos and still forget that there's 4 single dads?
I'm pretty sure the last few words of that list are a joke.
"marcus couldn't shoot cait because his tribalist bigotry is just too strong."
The things we criticise other people for, can be a window into our own mindset and problems. I wonder who's the real bigot is here, throwing away everything marcus does or struggles to do as "bigotry" and dismissing his accomplishes under the gutwrenching circumstances.
I've never seen Arcane, so originally I wasn't really planning on watching this EFAP. So glad I changed my mind I almost missed out on so much gdelb lore!
“Almost dead” is the new “Wilford Brimley[Alive], Alive”
This video is VERY revealing of what this guy thinks of the people in piltover. Very much decided one side is good and one side is bad. Despite, I would say, the pretty clear messages of the show
2:21:46 This is probably my least favorite EFAP. My name is now associated with a badly written character archetype that is shallow and only used as a tool. I am now perpetually offended. Kick Jay.
Well, maybe if you weren't acting like such a Dylan 🙄
At least you have the consolation that Arnie tells your name on Predator.
They can never take that one from ya
1:02:43
"Neither does Victor"
"Maybe he will one day though..."
*The Rumble of Scientific Triumph starts playing*
3:56:40 The advice that he is giving is really good advice if you are writing fan fiction that no one will read.
Rags on Master Chief- "His perspectives are iron sights." haha XD
No I agree, I found Marcus quite lacking in the humanness, in personosity, and in beingtisms.
I'd reckon you could make the fix work. You would just need to have Marcus hand over the sheriff medal to Caitlyn and say "There must be an asian on top" thereby reinforcing his bigotry and making the decision to not shoot her that much more valid. I could see that working
Pretty sure this guy had the show playing on his phone, but like, the screen face down, while he played games online while in a discord call
I'm not sure that's fair. This video just sounds to me like a random tangent you'd see in a Twitter thread or a Reddit argument. Not well formulated and not well thought out, but this dude decided to send it anyways. Since this guy is known for RUclips shorts, he makes a living on throwing out half-baked takes and not really dwelling on them too long.
It's basically the opposite of long form essays and breaking down an entire show from beginning to end. He sees a problem, throws out a solution and calls it good. He is not doing the deep dive of figuring out exactly where it all fits in and then forming his argument from there. I'm sure he watched through the show maybe even multiple times, but just hadn't broken it all down into its component parts before throwing out his takes. Or he is doing the sensory overload approach of "here's a whole bunch of ideas and let's see what sticks." Basically what you'd see from someone who is analyzing a storyline in real time as they are watching it play out. Our current short-term attention span society just seems to love this sort of approach though and that's why his videos gained any sort of traction. Just dropping bread crumbs for people to use in future arguments so they don't have to do any real thinking or digesting on their end.
Just goes to show that if you're going to take the time to make a video and deliver your critiques through this medium, maybe take advantage of the medium and use it to form a solid script and deliver a coherent point. Don't just throw ideas at the wall and say "ok that's my impressions, tell me what you guys think :)"
Why was 6 afraid of 7? It's a fairly common question, mostly because when people see 6 and 7 next to each other, it doesn't really make sense. 6 is large, muscled, and trained in multiple martial arts, while 7 is fairly average, physically, and short. However, 6's fear of 7 has its roots in childhood. See, 6 and 7 grew up together, and for a few years, they were best friends. But then 6 kissed 3, and they became childhood sweethearts. 7 secretly had feelings for 3, so 7 decided he needed to destroy 6 to win 3's affection. He started subtly, undermining 6 whenever possible with passive aggressive comments and compli-sults. But over time, things got much more insidious. 7 started messing with 6's performance in school, bringing down his grades and turning teachers against him. Even worse, 7 became great friends with 6's parents and slowly turned them against their own offspring. At night, 7 would sneak into 6's bedroom, and whisper depressing and hopeless things into his ears. Every time 3 was around, 7 would pants 6 and make fun of his genitalia, or try to body shame him in other ways. However, 3 was both smart and compassionate, and saw through 7's schemes, sticking with 6, trying to counter 7's psychological tear-down with compliments and friendship. Finally, 7 decided that he would never be able to win 3, so he drugged both 6 and 3, taking them to an abandoned cobbler's hut on the edge of town. There, he proceeded to torture and maim 3, forcing 6 to watch in horror, unable to do anything to save his sweetheart. 7 didn't kill 3, but instead, put her in a semi-vegetative state. 7 cleaned the scene of his prescence, then called the cops, having 6 blamed for 3's condition. 6 was sent to prison, believing 6 was guilty, 6's parents fell into a deep depression, eventually committing suicide over what they believed 6 had done. After serving 17 years of a 30 year sentence, and getting out on good behaviour, 6, now muscled and skilled as a fighter, thought he might get revenge on 7. But when he finally tracked down 7, he found out that 7 had installed a micro-bomb into 3's body, and should he be killed, the bomb would automatically go off and kill 3 as well. And though she was still in a mostly fugue state, 6 couldn't bring himself to hurt her any further, and decided to try and move on with his life. However, being an ex-con, it was difficult for him to get a job. 6 finally found employment at a diner, which 7 then bought, and proceeded to again undermine and toy with 6 at every turn. 6 tried to find employment elsewhere, but 7 contacted any potential employer and soured them against 6. 6 finally realized that no matter what he did, 7 was going to try and ruin his life, and he resigned himself to living as a broken, lonely man, never able to stand up to the depraved, amoral 7.
Maybe you guys should check out Young Defiant's vid on Arcane. It may be a troll but it would be an interesting discussion regarding using tropes. Since the biggest critiques of Arcane that it follows tropes and loses good storytelling because of it.
That’s doesn’t sound like a valid position to have “tropes are bad and take away from story”. First off how can a trope in a story take away the story? Anything in the story can destroy a story but never take away from it. For example I can have a scene where pretty much everybody who died in Arcane came back and Jinx becomes powder again, that ruins the show but it wouldn’t take away from what happened before. Secondly tropes are in every story, humanity in all of our existence wrote about 7 stories over and over again so everything in any story can be classified as a trope but it doesn’t mean it’s bad or unoriginal. It’s all about execution.
And it’s a stupid critique as if everything doesn’t use tropes
Literally every story has tropes
@@za-ir5ni the universal truth of storytelling
as with basically everything in storytelling, what really matters is the execution
tropes tend to have staying power because they resonate with the average person. Seeing them as inherently good or inherently bad totally misses the point of them. Yes, you can criticize a badly done or simply lazy trope.... but the problem is they're lazy or badly done, not just that it's a trope.
"You were friends with Zack Snyder when you were 11?" Rags, +100 cocktails, sir!!
A character is interesting due to the conflicts they deal with. I would assume a “writer” would understand the basics in that conflict drives characters and therefore the story. Just saying “the character has juxtapositions, isn’t that interesting?” isn’t enough.
Every Frame Arcane.
An anti-mustache is a soul patch
2:12:40 Markus is a bad character, because he failed to kill himself 🤣🤣🤣🤣
Tony stark failed alot.. Is he a badly written underdeveloped character?
Coming in 2024, Lever: A Star Wars Story.
5:55:29 I love Das' outburst here XD
Why was Jay shocked you can Google Moviebob memes? I can't imagine "Moviebob mountain dew chicken" would lead you to something else first.
When you boil Marcus' function in the plot (post-time skip anyway) down to the basics, it's to be the reason Piltover doesn't know about Silco's position in the Undercity, and thus can't take measures against him. In other words, he's a sheriff feeding the council false info on Silco's orders. His whole personality could be changed to simply be 'me like munies' and he'd function the same in the story overall. Everything more than that is narrative flourish to make him a character in his own right rather than a simple writing tool, like the usual corrupt superior trope you see in a lot of police films and the like.
But no, Marcus is undeveloped.
i would sort of agree he's under-developed as a character, since even by the end we know little about him beyond he's got a daughter.... but that in and of itself is not a strong criticism, or really a criticism from me at all. Not every character needs to be fully fleshed out so long as they play their role in the story well enough and a lot of stories get bogged down in spending too much time trying to develop peripheral characters.
i would also argue he's the dark mirror to Grayson, and every significant character in this series has that mirror, which is a theme i really quite like. There are many paths to the same destination.
Just pointing out:
His first change is to make his daughter like him more, while his second change is to make him a worse dad to his daughter... which would most likely result in her liking him less... making his changes conflict literally making the show worse off overall.
He says that people like Marcus because he has a name.
How’s that for juxtaposition? The reality is that this RUclipsr disliked him because ‘ACAB’
"Ah man, I got this weak and poorly developed character that's just totally bogging down my world, it clashes with the fiction and makes the characters around them less by contrast. I really don't like how I've written them, and now I need to address how to triage this problem I'm totally stuck with. How do I find tricks and tips to work this bad character through the narrative in order to provide some purpose, offset how poorly written it is, and use the weak writing to spotlight the other, better written characters? This might take a while..."
"Dude, maybe just like... re-write the character so it's not bad?"
Insanity.
Poor innocent EFAP crew never heard of onnahole...
Arcane EFAP Part IV was awesome. Can't wait for part V.
How to fix Marcus summarized
1. Make his daughter a Hitler Youth
2. Have Marcus make Kaitlyn sherif because of her powerful Arian traits
Make Marcus Racist Again… Weird fix but ok.
I'm not sure if it's because I'm constantly exposed to so many accents, but I see how someone could mistake Fringy as American.
There's something about the way he speaks that could let me believe he lived here, even if he wasn't from here. Probably from speaking to so many Americans online. After a couple years together, my Norwegian ex sounded pretty distinctly American, but he never fully lost his accent. I'm not sure what it is that gives that impression in how he and Fringy speak, but I hear it.
3:39:25 MauLer: Why do we have to make him a failure as a father, anyway? Why would you want that to be your goal?"
Because it's funny. Hhhaaaaaa. Hhhaaaaaa. Hhhaaaaaa.
4:17:20 The TFA Critique Part 4 Announcement
Finally!
@@Red-zh7vq ruclips.net/video/_J6-3l3hCm0/видео.html
Marcus' daughter was dishwashered. This a a dumb term I came up with for a character being fridged but not dying.
4:59:30 Lol at Fringy enjoying his bowl of ice cream
I don't understand how or why this video was written. I was going to try and be funny and write a small list of the few things he said that were actually true, but honestly, there's only one way to sum up this video: "Amazing. Every word of what you just said... was wrong."
Marcus failed to murder maskless antivaxers for endangering piltovers grandma's.
3:45:00
This sequence from the video solidified in my mind this guy modeled his videos and scripts from Moviebob
Talking so fast that he hopes to mask his nonsensical ideas and critiques. Just like Moviebob lol 😆
I don't agree at all that you have to have some good in you to want to have a child. There could be plenty of reasons to have one that are selfish. Maybe you need an heir, maybe you want to sell it after it's born, maybe it's to force your significant other to commit to you.
I'm sure most people do have good in them when they want a child, but it's not an absolute.
As a programmer, earing 0 is not the opposite of 1 when not paying to much attention did trigger me a little bit.
Do you guys understand what Marcus's original deal with Silco was (the one that got Grayson killed) ?
When Grayson and Benzo die, Marcus complains about the deal being altered and receives money from Silco.
But what was Silco buying exactly? As far as I can tell the only thing Marcus could give him was the time and place of Vi's arrest. But why would Silco care about that?
It seems what he really wanted was to kidnap Vander. Not only does he have shimmer, which gives him the strongest soldiers in the undercity thus allowing him to easily kidnap Vander in broad daylight should he want to, but we see in ep2 that the last drop is empty at times (the scene with powder and Vander at the bar where Vander realizes Vi is trying to give herself up). So why bother paying Marcus? What was his angle exactly?
That's my only problem with Marcus and I guess Silco : the exact nature of their original deal doesn't make sense to me.
Otherwise he's fine. Good even. Shame he's asian though...
I know I'm months behind on this conversation but just recently watched Arcane.
I would guess the deal was that Marcus would keep his ear to the ground and notify Silco of any potential involvement with the enforcers in the Undercity. Probably with the implicit suggestion that "when the time is right we will replace Grayson and you will be the number one guy instead." This would speak a lot to an ambitious young person with shady morals who wants a bit of power.
Grayson arresting Vi/Vander doesn't change the power balance. If she arrests Vander then Vi takes over in his place and because of Vander and Grayson's close connection, Grayson could probably convince the council to let him out after a few months of cooling off. If Grayson arrests Vi, it's the same scenario but with a worse factor in play - Vander is still running the Undercity. Also once Grayson has leverage over Vander he could be potentially convinced to "flip" in order to gain his or his daughter's freedom. He very well might be willing to sell out Silco and his entire gang in order for an exchange. Silco can't take that chance.
So acting on Marcus' tip he sees a way to rebalance the scales completely in his favor. The Undercity knows that the enforcers are looking to punish someone for what happened in Piltover, and if that person happens to "leave town" along with all of their kids at the same time, Silco can convince his supporters (and many still on the fence) that they fled their morals and abandoned the Undercity when they were needed most. All at the same time that he gets to replace the sheriff with someone more aligned with his interests and secure a bigger piece of the pie.
I just think it was probably a standing arrangement with Silco telling Marcus "just tip me off to what's going on upstairs and soon you will get more power/become the sheriff." Marcus probably didn't understand this necessarily means replacing Grayson, and he doesn't understand Silco well enough to know that "replacing Grayson" means killing her. It likely wasn't a deal like the kind we see between Lando and Vader in ESB, IE, do these exact things and these exact things will be your reward. Moreso it falls on Marcus' youth and naivety that he bought into a plan that meant something entirely different from what he envisioned. Or even possibly Marcus bartered to become sheriff and one of his haggling points was to keep Grayson alive, and Silco decided that just wasn't a good enough idea to follow through with.
As for the fact that Silco has his own super soldier serum and the potential to take out Vander at any point, I think we see through the time gap that Silco isn't willing to utilize his super soldiers in such a brutal fashion. He doesn't want carnage and chaos, and using your soldiers to wrest control of the Undercity from a well-beloved leader does him no favors. Also it still leaves Grayson in the mix and she is steadfast in her morals and purpose. She will not buy the excuse that Vander fled, and would likely bring the hammer down even harder on whoever takes his place since she would suspect that some kind of battle for power in the Undercity is going on and she can't be having that under her charge.
@@aw7400 If we assume that Silco wanted Vander and Vi out of the picture without having Zaun turn on him, then I think it makes sense.
The thing that confuses me is that later Silco says to Vi, I think, that he used to think she was the more interesting sister out of the 2, kind of low key implying that he wanted to recruit her to his side. And if he did that, then surely Zaun would have questions about his narrative as to Vander's disappearance.
Although all of this is left vague, I think we have enough elements to infer something that works. It would just be nice to have some kind of solid confirmation as to what he was trying to achieve.
Appreciate your taking the time to write your answer though :d
Silco is a tactician and understands people. Vandar had power and influence in the Undercity, and if Silco made a move on him, it would cause the Undercity to eat itself. If, however, Silco could make Vandar a martyr, and the Enforcers look like aggressors, then it would allow him to cleanly and easily amass power for himself, and prepare better for his new war with Piltover.
As for Vi being “the more interesting one,” he could see Vi had leadership potential, just like Vandar did. With her under his thumb, he’d have a useful mob runner to help keep control of Zaun, and to reaffirm people’s commitment with the loss of Vandar (something Jinx can’t really do). Instead he had to rely on Sevika, who is no slouch, but doesn’t have the same kind of raw talent and leadership capacity Vi does.
I thought a long time about growing an anti - mustache
48:10 Cinema Robert and his atrocity he calls fine dining.
One man's Marcus is another man's Silco
The point about not getting an explanation about why Marcus loves his daughter is brief but very strange . It reminded me of God of War when Kratos put his arm in a trolls mouth so it couldn't get to Atreus. There doesn't need to be exposition for why a father loves his child. But like with Kratos and Marcus it's more valuable to show what they are willing to for their kid.
Silco is fine with it
I died
the opposite of something is the negation of it. "the opposite of a cup, is not a cup."... the opposite of love is not love.
I feel betrayed. I watched many of Schnee's (this guy's) arcane analyses, and they were so great!!! What happened here?
I absolutely love arcane, it has so much about it that is just superb. However, if I had to find a large flaw in the series objectively, my one issue is the Medarda's. I really hope they clarify in season 2 how they are not rulers, but merely influential supporters to the ruling family. If Mel was a member of a royal family given a station on the council, I would reject her thoroughly as there would be a strong likelihood that she would be influenced by the politics of her home region, which almost ends up being the case.
The show seems to tell us that not only does her mother have control over some portion of the armed forces but also dictates some piece of whether or not they go to war, and even offers her daughter a throne, even metaphorically. I pray that they fix this to make it clear that she is not the leader, but merely the source of power behind the throne because otherwise it would make no sense that anyone would let Mel be in piltover's legislative governing body.
Lots of people have control over parts of the armed forces. Noxus is aggressive and expansionist, as well as individualistic, so being a general in Noxus means she's free to raid and wage war and try to gain glory for Noxus in basically any way she sees fit. As well as the million other generals Noxus has doing the same thing.
@@chucklebouf5379 Yeah I get that she is a general but if generals are as important to their government as she suggests and I would think is true, then Mel being on the council wouldn't be allowed. That's all I am saying :)
Again though, one of my favorite series
3:47:37 "I can't pull the trigger I am too racist" XD
The video essay they are analyzing seems like it was written in the exact same way I've written every essay I've ever been forced to write; bullshit everything until it's the required length.
The only "poorly written" character in Arcane is Ekko, and that's only because he undermines the show's themes and erringly portrays utopian revolutionaries as being distinct from the cynical, bloodthirsty ones. The truth is that the Silcos of the world are just what happens when the Ekkos of the world come into power. He is the only character in the entire show who can be said to lack any serious flaws, and the idyllic nature of his community and how it's organized betrays the unrealistic notions of the writers' ideals in that respect. In that sense, it's not even that he's poorly written insofar as his character's personality or general identity, but rather that his presence and presentation have a parasitic effect on the moral layers behind Silco's organization simply by suggesting everything he does and how he does it is superfluous.
That's not really the case, Ekkos ambitions and his workings towards them are more humble. He works less towards a total overhaul of the system and more to building his enclave in a comfortable space in it, like Vander. Silco sees himself as forced into his actions because of his (righteous?) ambitions. Ekko isn't, there's nothing really parasitic here.
@@w84Drito I disagree. Ekko's ambition is greater than his means. Given his way, he would destroy Silco entirely. He was fully ready to consider the hex-gem as a means of war against Piltover, and ultimately it's only because he believes a diplomatic resolution is possible that he determines to do otherwise. I don't think it's a fair characterization to say that Vander's goals and Ekko's are identical. Ekko is a prodigy. A genius. He is actively trying to disrupt the shimmer trade abroad, and when he speaks about Silco, he makes very clear that he holds Silco responsible for the vast majority of suffering in his life. He might not be as big as Silco, but he is running an active insurgency against him. He helps Vi and Caitlyn out of an interest in seeing Silco condemned, which would in turn give Ekko greater power.
Vander notably didn't have a plan. He was just playing it by ear, doing what he felt was right in his heart. Ekko also follows his heart, but he's also tactically minded and far more proactive. He isn't anti-war. It's because Ekko's gang have a way of doing things that is portrayed as a tactical, empathetic, thriving alternative to Silco's conduct that he fulfills the role of being the "right" kind of revolutionary, whereas Silco is the "wrong" kind. Ekko offers the audience and the writers a "way out" so to speak. You can support Zaun and its independence without moral quandary by rooting for Ekko. If he didn't exist, then it would be Silco or nothing. Vi's choice between Piltover and Zaun would be more tragic. Jinx's commitment to Zaun would be highlighted. Silco's dedication to freedom at any cost vs Piltover's dedication to prosperity by any means. All of these things are present and compelling, and all of them would be heightened if Ekko's idyllic third option didn't exist.
@@DastardlyDistaste I don't think Ekko ever really considered using the gemstone as a weapon against _Piltover._ I think he saw it as a weapon against _Silco._ Ekko was mistrustful of Piltover and was very antagonistic against the Enforcers, but only because they were acting as an extension of Silco's power. Sure, there was the long history that all of the undercity shared of the Enforcers oppressing them, but this did not seem to be Ekko's primary concern by the time we're in the second act.
Ekko is very focused on resisting Silco and establishing his own little colony within the undercity for his people. He does not seem to have any higher ambitions to gain power for himself or to even lead any sort of revolution against Piltover. The impression I get is that he wants to fight against people he sees as an active threat (Silco, the Chembarons, and their ilk) and then be left alone. He doesn't like or trust Piltover to act in the best interests of the undercity and especially of his own people, but if Silco were not using the Piltover police to hunt down the Firelights, then I don't think that Piltover would really even be on Ekko's mind. His enemy is _Silco,_ and Piltover (outside the Enforcers) just represents a group of people whom he knows better than to rely upon for help or sympathy.
@@Kevin-jb2pv They had an entire scene between Ekko and Caitlyn where he made his animosity towards Piltover known, and oppenly questioned why he would turn the hexgem over to Piltover instead of using it against them.
I'm sure Ekko's priority is fighting Silco, but he is likely smart enough to realizs that the Enforcers are not merely an extension of Silco's power. They are an extent problem of Piltover's power. Without the oppression and neglect of Piltover, there would be no Silco.
And speaking of Silco- Without him, there would be nobody controlling patrols or insulating resistance against Piltover on a political basis. The wealth gap between the two cities would widen as Silco feared, and Ekko would be forced to confront the reality that SOMETHING must be done about the state of his people. His treehouse utopia is not an answer for the entire city. It's not even really an answer at all. He's free to only concern himself with being left alone because Silco is concerning himself with ensuring that Zaun isn't left behind.
As soon as that responsibility is solely in Ekko's hands, and it's the wider community of Zaun rather than just his commune of orphans and outcasts to watch after, the sooner he'd realize how little room for diplomacy actually exists.
And once he realizes that, he's in Silco's shoes.
Gonna throw out a bit of a cringe anti-nitpick.
The video being criticized uses the word ‘humanness,’ which isn’t an incorrect word to go to.
They suggest replacing it with ‘humanity,’ which draws more on the state of human beings as a whole.
Humanness is more specific to the experience of a human through the lens of the individual.
3:14:05 Escanor is a "satisfying" character. Only character I can think of fitting that description, though. Sounds like an extremely poor word choice.
Time to rewatch the TFA series, let's goooooo
On the debate about the meaning of "opposite", one of the issue is a dichotomy between mathematical opposite and a logic opposite. In maths, "-1" is the opposite of "1", in logic, "not 1" is.
So the opposite of "love" would be "hate" if considering a scale of passion. But logically, "not love" is the opposite of "love", it includes "indifference" (the null/void emotion) and all other things like "having the same dream", "having opposite dreams", "hate", "envy", "mild interest", "friendship"...
In discourse, if required to infer a particular kind of "not love", it would be interpreted as "indifference" in absence of additional context which would be needed to specify the kind of "not love".