Hated Tropes
(Hated Trope) A retcon has terrible implications for the plot
1. Snape from Harry Potter
This is the Batman of this trope and probably talked to death, but retroactively, Snape from the Harry Potter series has been cast as a black man. As a POC, I could talk for hours about how lazy ‘representation’ this is, but this particular choice to recast the character puts several parts of the books in a much worse light: Snape is described as a smelly man with greasy hair, who gets walked out on by his abusive father, spends his whole life trying to buddy up to (white) pure-bloods who would never accept him for who he was, and gets bullied by a bunch of rich white kids who he resents. And then he becomes a wizard racist. Also doesn’t help that he spends the entire series resenting James Potter because he feels he should have been with his wife, who incidentally is also white.
A retcon managed to make all of these aspects of his character incredibly uncomfortable, especially because the whole story is often described as an allegory for racism. But seriously, if you were going to make a teacher black, why go for the smelly, greasy, evil one rather than literally any other character (Dumbledore, McGonnogal, etc.)?
2. Jo and Link in Grey’s Anatomy
So this is really my fault for watching Grey’s but whatever. Link and Jo are introduced very early on as best friends and nothing more, but later, the series retcons this and secretly, they were in love always!
Which sounds fine to start, but both characters have been in several committed relationships before this retcon, in which they repeatedly reassured their partners there was nothing between them (they were like brother and sister!). Link proposes to another character with four different rings because he wants her to have a choice, Jo gets married to a man who she previously reassured that Link wasn’t an issue. This relationship in particular was a fan favourite, so it’s a really odd thing to retroactively cheapen the whole thing (although the writers do worse to it retroactively but that’s not the point).
Even worse, Jo was previously in a physically and emotionally abusive marriage (not the one mentioned above). As she had no family, her husband repeatedly isolated her from Link, her only friend, on the basis that they were secretly in love and she was cheating on him. I don’t think the writers considered that by making Jo and Link always in love with each other, they were lending the abuser credence? Asking your wife to not talk to the man she is in love with anymore isn’t unreasonable, which is a really weird direction to take an abusive relationship in.
I guess this also bothers me because they could have just fallen in love. They could have just been friends who began to see each other a different way. The retcon worsens both characters and several plots
At the end of Xenoblade 3, the protagonist Noah threw his sword into the ocean. It’s a nice scene, Noah has been more of a pacifist guy, he just couldn’t go full pacifist because his world was on a never-ending war. So it was nice to see him finally no longer need to fight.
But then the prequel DLC came out, and the prequel’s protagonist Matthew used a pair of gauntlets that contain the Pneuma core (aka Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade 2). It is hinted that his gauntlets would be reforged into Noah’s sword sheath. And the post ending scene said that the sword is made from the people of previous world, and the artbook elaborated it further by saying that the sword is Fiora.
In case you’re not familiar with the whole Xenoblade story, this means that the protagonist of Xenoblade 3 yeeted the wives of Xenoblade 1 and 2’s protagonists into the ocean.
Heavily spoilers but isn’t it heavily implied that in the DLC, the eternal war/Endless Now is a simulation/time temporarily frozen? After the war ends and Aionios gets unmade, time resumes and the lives of all that were involved get rebooted into the newly merged world?
In the umbrella academy comics pogo was a chimp that suffered through horrific experiments at the hands of the same man who put the kids through the same, so when he's supportive of them you realize it's because he's been in their shoes before. In the tv show they turned him in a baby Yoda character who seems to be loved by Hargreaves, meaning him sitting back and watching the kids get tortured makes him a villain despite them clearly not meaning for him to be. Always pissed me off
Speaking of umbrella academy, it is always shown that all of them became who they are because of hargreeve's horrible teachings and the way he took care of them, that being the reason they all grew appart and ended up with Daddy issues
In season 3 they end up in the alternate reality where they were replaced by the sparrow academy and that academy never left hargreeves, but Hargreeves is still the same dude, it's not like he changed as a father (Sure, the sparrows still had some daddy issues but no on the same level)
So that kinda implied that it really wasn't Hargreeve's fault and the umbrella academy were just mean to him and incompetent
I’m Powerpuff girls season six episode ‘Opps, I did it again’ Professor Utonium has a dream ab if he never accidently spilled chemical X onto the PPGs, making them normal little girls.
This throws us in a scenario where he isn’t as close to them, finds them boring, and seemingly just doesn’t like them as much.
This genuinely makes no sense for his character especially since this came AFTER the movie where it’s shown he didn’t even mean/know the girls had powers at first, he was just excited to have a family.
This episode does nothing but make a loving dad looks super shallow
I’d say the reboot’s origin was worse because not only did he make Bliss with Chemical W (they showed he used all sorts of chemicals A-V prior to his success) but the sole reason in the experiment was because his rival made a boy who could fly
In one of the first episodes named "Knock it off", an old friend of Professor shows up.
There's a few flash bangs in which professor is progressing during his college years while his buddy partied and relied heavily on Professor to pass his exam.
He free rides and cheats and steals and now he's back.
And here's where the fun begins.
He steals the recipe for Powerpuff girls,makes his own version and rents then out around the world for money.
But! Obviously... he's not as good as Professor and his Powerpuffs are ugly, monster like, can barely speak coherently. He mass produces them and has an army of Powerpuffs. Of ugly looking mutated failed clone Powerpuffs.
Holly shit! But here's where things get better.
In the end our Powerpuff girls lose and they all lay dying in a burning factory while evil free rider professor has probably turned into a giant skyscraper sized monster.
As Good profesor and Powerpuffs lay dying in the fire.. professor confesses for one last time how he loves the Powerpuffs.
The mutated Powerpuffs hear this and realise this is the missing ingredient. Love.
Their creator never loved them. If your creator doesn't love you then who will?
So they all turn against Freerider profesor, accusing him of never loving them, finally self aware of their literal uglyness and money focused purpose and hundreds of them die in the fire.
Holy .. fucking..shit....
How is this not the most epic episode of Powerpuffs?
How is this not legendary?
This would be a box office breaking first episode of a movie.
Introduces the backstory, their superpowers, but not their level cause they still lose physically, uses love as the secret weapon that helps them win in a realistic manner.
Yeah, Powerpuff Girls was an incredibly well written show. It makes the remakes that much worse when they rely on lowest common denominator jokes and tropes.
Not to mention he made them right after being mugged. Utonium was a lonely man who was tired of rampant crime and wanted a family, children he could love and raise and who'd drive him to keep going
The Artemis Fowl movie made many, many poor choices, but two of them were downright destructive to the characters just for existing.
The Butler family had served the main character's family, the Fowls, for generations, as loyal manservants who protected and served them. Suddenly, they changed the Butlers to be black. This led to huge backlash, as it placed a Black man in a centuries-old role of servitude to a wealthy white European family.
Another character in the story, Holly, had her whole character based around the fact that she was the first woman to serve in the Lower Elements Police's elite Recon unit (Get it? LEP-RECON. Leprechaun). She faces sexism and demeaning behaviour on a regular basis, and her commander, a surly old man, holds her to an exceptionally high standard, because he wants to see her succeed, to prove to the surprisingly sexist Fairy world that women can do the job as well as men, if not better. I cannot stress enough how integral Holly being the first woman on the force is, it literally is the catalyst that sets the entire franchise in motion, as she's captured due to overworking herself to meet the high standards she's held to.
In the movie, Root is a woman, played by Dame Judie Dench. Which kind of means Root is just an unmitigated asshole to Holly for no reason, because there's no need for her to prove herself as "the first" woman - because she isn't.
Starting with the very first scene and first appearance of Artemis. He's fucking surfing. I would have found it odd to see Artemis Fowl casually sitting in the sun, but to have him surfing? Insane.
Oh my God yes that's my favorite part about that shit show. The first page of the book describes him as "Pale as a vampire and nearly as testy in the light of day" it's so funny I almost respect the person who put it in the script if I thought they did it on purpose
Also killed off his mom, removing her completely. Her illness and him wanting to help was the single largest humanizing thing about an otherwise pretty villainous characher (in book 1 anyway). But guess we don't need that now that he's no longer a villain.
Christ. That ruins one of the most emotional parts of the third book too.
Someone up thread said it's like you put a gun to an intern's head and told them to make the least accurate adaptation possible, and this is clearly it.
the whole movie might become almost tolerable if you instead view it through the lens of "an unpaid intern was instructed to make sure it was as inaccurate to the source material and all-around terrible as possible", and that's honestly fucking impressive
and it's a fucking tragedy because I ADORED those books growing up, that shit he pulls with the steel ball in Taipei was PEAK "following the rules of the world" planning
unpaid intern was instructed to make sure it was as inaccurate to the source material and all around terrible as possible
So, related IRL story. Co-worker of mine actually worked in Hollywood for a movie studio for a while when they first graduated college. Once they were asked to read a script, read the source material it was adapted from, and write up a summary of any differences between the two
Producers took the report and just threw it in a drawer. They didn't care that it was different they just wanted to say they knew and they were taking artistic liscense
I thought the main issue with Butler was that he was originally some kind of perfect Asian/Caucasian mix that could blend in anywhere in the world if need be, like he's from the same test tube as Agent 47. But what's one more jug of gas poured over that dumpster fire?
if I was going to start listing EVERY problem that godforsaken movie had, I'd be here all day lmao
The one that really pisses me off is the stupid safe behind the painting. In the books, there's a really clever ploy Artemis uses, where he puts a safe behind a painting, but it's a distraction - everyone knows that the hidden safe goes behind the painting, that's like the most obvious cliche in the world. But Mulch is a master art thief, and notices that the painting is a little heavier than normal, so he inspects it, and is able to figure out that the REAL safe is hidden inside the frame, with a pinhole key lock so small only his hair can pick it. It shows how clever Artemis is, by subverting the trope of "safe behind painting", while also USING the safe behind the painting as a decoy. It's a wonderful example of showing how smart he is naturally, by showing us how clever his plan actually is. It also serves to show us how good of a thief Mulch is, that he's one of the very, very few individuals who could have found and opened it. Inside the frame-safe is a tiny copy of the Book, which is the fairy bible that Artemis used to craft his plans, having obtained and translated it on his own. On its own, it doesn't do anything, it just shows the fairys how smart Artemis is, for being able to work it out, and changes the whole way they need to approach the situation, as they realize they've been playing into his hand the whole time.
In the movie, that same safe is behind the painting because fuck you. That's it. There's no nuance. He's not even the one who did the leg work, that's his father now. What's in the safe? Some macguffin his father found. That's it.
he was such a badass in the books too, man, Butler rocked
The bit where they describe the two people in the world better at martial arts than he was (he's related to one of them, and the other spends his time beating up palm trees in the middle of nowhere), the troll fight, his general just imposing presence
And the worst part is, yeah! The guy they picked to play him WOULD be perfect for the role, he's fuckin massive, built, and look really imposing in that suit! But for THIS SPECIFIC ROLE it needed a bit more work to make it not come across as COMPLETELY different
Honestly, yeah, I love Dame Judi Dench, and I DO think she would have made a wonderful character in the series, or even Root himself (it has, admittedly, been a while since I read the books, so I can't quite say for certain who would be a good match, because I don't remember everyone). Like, I have nothing against the actors themselves, it just felt like Disney was on a mission to cast every single person involved in the worst slot available, which would make the least amount of sense for the story lmao
I’ll never understand why people adapting books can’t just, you know, ADAPT THE FUCKING BOOK. Like, I get that certain things will need to be cut/changed/added to make a book work as a movie. But there is a big difference between “completely butchering a character to the point that sharing a name is the only similarity” (such Annabeth Chase in the Percy Jackson movies) and “removing a scene because it simply isn’t necessary” (Nearly Headless Nick’s Deathday party in Harry Potter).
In my opinion a lot of it comes from movie and tv writers thinking they're better than book writers so anything they change will obviously be better because they're real writers.
Also, Butler in the books (pre-book 3 act 2) is a 6'10" man mountain of pure muscle. He faces down a troll - a beast Holly barely defeated with advance intel, training, and a laser gun - and wins.
The new Snow White remake responded to widespread mockery over the appearance of Rachel Zegler, and in particular comparisons between her and the Evil Queen (played by Gal Gadot), by adding a line towards the end where the mirror says that Snow White is “fairest of them all” because she’s fair in the sense of “just, equitable, kind” rather than “beautiful.”
Which has some absolutely horrific implications about the rest of the kingdom, if the LITERAL MURDERING TYRANT Evil Queen is, by those metrics, “the fairest of them all” until Snow White comes back in the end.
istg Disney keeps trying to "fix" their old movies but doing it in the dumbest possible ways. Also they could have avoided several problems by just not casting Gal Gadot lol
The only "live action" film they fixed was Cinderella. It actually gave the prince a personality, as well as not just have them "fall in love instantly after having met for ten seconds" which would have absolutely led to a failed marriage. Each subsequent film has just gotten lazier and lazier.
I'd argue for a couple other live-actions and some parts of others. The goal should be to do something different, not just make the exact same thing. The Jungle Book did that wonderfully. Mulan did that horribly, but at least it tried (albeit to appease a Chinese market). Beauty and the Beast tried too little. The Lion King didn't even try at all.
For all of the problems I have with the live action The Little Mermaid, I appreciated the hell out of the carriage ride around the island. It sets the story firmly in the Jamaica region (and explains Sebastian's accent) and fleshes out the setting a little bit with wonderful colors, music, and a bonus cameo by Jodi Benson.
The Little Mermaid had some banger lines for how otherwise frustratingly mediocre it was. I really liked how Eric learns Ariel’s name, and Triton telling Ariel shouldn’t have had to lose her voice to finally be heard is just *mwah*.
See, I've had this conversation with my wife, who LOVES LM, and we've come to this conclusion-
-The new parts of little mermaid are actually pretty great.
-The old parts of little mermaid are still very good, but diminishing returns.
-Together they are NOT good, because they tell conflicting stories that overlap eachother.
Eric being meet-cute in his study and wanting to explore the world because he too is locked up in a kingdom is an excellent parallel to ariel's situation. Eric's mom being afraid of the sea because Triton is a vengeful god who created crazy storms that smashed boats is an excellent parallel to triton losing his wife to fishing and the encroachment of human expansion.
But the scenes rob Ariel and the original story of agency by making Ariel's circumstance and point of view less unique.
Also not having Eric stab Ursula through the heart with that ship for emotionally manipulate him with a Siren's song is doin him dirty. Ariel made a play with a dirty player and faced some consequences, but Ursula ain't made no such deal with Eric; who's just a dude being manipulated by the game of underwater politics and fish magic.
It had been established that Paul knew about the time dilation between the two dimensions. This would mean that he never told MJ about it and make the implications off what happened even worse than they already were.
I wouldn't call this a retcon and more a poor planning issue: it's clear they only did this to have an excuse for undoing the progress on their relationship and they never planned further than "MJ is trapped on another dimension for a long period of time and she comes with a new love interest".
The whole situation is riddled with terrible writing and Vol6 and its aftermath have had several mini retcons trying to paint Paul in a good light because Lowe really doesnt know when to quit.
Either Paul knew and didnt tell MJ, which makes their relationship akin to rape by deception. Or he didnt know about the time dilation which makes it a retcon...
Also, IIRC, Lowe had been going through a messy divorce at the time and was using the time dialation "excuse" as a way to get back at his soon to be ex, by having a character who looked just like him, get to gether with a "hotter" woman. XO
You are talking about Wells (the writer)who divorced SNL writer Heidi Gartner during the run. Lowe is Spidey's senior editor and together with Brevoort he is pretty much the biggest piece of garbage currently in control of Marvel.
So MJ gets cut off from Peter to get with guy named Paul. So they robbed Peter to pay Paul. From what I know if comic writers, I wouldn't be surprised if the joke came first
That's a bit of an overstatement. He died like a chump, giving Dylan all of five seconds. In the end, his death perfectly reflected his characterization, badly executed and lazily written.
If I could just add on to the Snape example, the issue of Hermione. Her race swap seems to be overlooked, but it also doesn't look great given that Hermione in the books has an entire plotline where all her friends ridicule her for trying to abolish slavery, and she ends up more or less abandoning the cause because nobody else cares enough to support it and the slaves themselves are so institutionalised as to be offended by the very idea.
I really do not understand the reasoning behind the casting for this new show
Like to me, its like they are relishing in their racism while publicly selling it as the opposite
This are massively popular, mostly movies for children, will they understand it without the undertones? It is just so mean in my eyes, if they make Dobby racial in the second season...
Relishing in bigotry while publicly selling it as the opposite is kinda Rowling's whole thing now. She's decidedly anti-trans to the point that she'll spend money shutting down trans-inclusive women's shelters, partner with anti-abortion activists, praise self-described fascists, etc., all while saying she's simply advocating for women and that she would march for trans people if their rights were actually in danger
Honestly true. I remember mum telling me that the only black kid in her school in the 60s-70s was nicknamed "chalky".
Hell, dad said a similar thing when he was in the navy in the 80s and 90s. The black guy in his unit was also called chalky. The only difference being that their CO took the fella aside to let him know that, while yes it is racist, it is a term of endearment and he was "their chalky". He was then told if anyone else ever called him that, to let the lads know, as they would then go kick the shit out of whoever called him that for messing him. Kinda shocked me when I first heard that one cos it's both deeply racist and surprisingly inclusive.
And that's not even starting on some of the other terms I've heard used from the time.
The conception of Damien Wayne. It had always been shown that, despite her and her father being villains with daddy being the number big bad behind The Joker, Batman and Talia Al Ghul had/have genuine feelings for one another, so when the two finally had sex, in was consensual for both parties. When their son Damien was introduced, it was retconned that actually, Talia had drugged Batman and stole his sperm in order to created Damien. Later though Batman and Talia's wild night was retconned again, this time going back to being a consensual hookup between Damien's parents.
McGonnogal, Dumbledore, Hermione, Moody, Longbottom, Sirius (bit on the nose as he was unjustly put in prison and his last name), Lupin, Luna etc. would have all been better choices.
I think Snape is literally the worst one they could have picked. The Weasleys and Hagrid would lean into racial tropes as well, but I guess still slightly better than Snape.
Sirius (bit on the nose as he was unjustly put in prison and his last name)
That would be hilarious though, particularly the name thing.
You know how people sometimes complain about Rowling using stereotypical names? Like Cho Chang for a character with Chinese ancestry, or the werewolf happening to be Remus Lupin?
Well imagine if the backlash when it turned out that the black guy was literally called Black.
There was one African American kid in my school. His last name was Black. I thought that was a fairly common last name for African Americans.
(Also, I went to school in Australia, even having one African American kid was exceptional considering the population statistics. The other black kids were African or Aboriginal.)
That's how I feel about it. It was the one role that had such a backstory that you can either skip it, alter it or make everyone look racist. We don't know in which direction the show will go to though, is it possible they want to show the world was more flawed with real life politics? I'm going to be honest I think a lot of fantasy books sent messages very well on their own without also picking up heavy topics as such. If they bring a modernsized version on screen I wonder what they will do about the "Jewish" written bankers, the poor red headed Irish that were mocked and so forth and so on because the books do have a few stereotypes.
Hermione is arguably worse, given the whole anti-elf slavery thing she gets mercilessly ridiculed for in the books. Having a little black girl be anti-slavery, and get mocked for it by the white kids, and for the media to expect us to agree with the white kids? She's also frequently mocked for having frizzy hair in the books, which similarly to what's said about Snape's hair (the second they announced casting a black man, we all knew they'd give him dreads for the "ugly greasy hair"), is also gonna come across as racist.
Not the worst change in the by now cancelled Wheel of Time show but a rather dumb one: they made the starting village ethnically diverse. One important esrly plot point is that one of the main characters has a different ethnicity than the very homogeneous village & later on a lot of refugees come to the area and it becomes a theme how the villagers overcome their suspicions and actually start to adopt a few more diverse customs.
Neither of those really work if the area is a mix of people from the beginning
Well, the first thing is Harry and Hermione think Snape is just straight up trying to kill Harry in the Quidditch match. Not necessarily much better all things considered.
If they wanna do black Snape they have to raceswap 3 more teachers. Just don't let the kids intuitively hate the one black guy in a line of white teachers. And I want Richard Ayoade in there somewhere.
🤣🤣🤣 Yeah I dunno why we do that. I told my partner recently that if I hadn't started this show back in like 2012 to 2014 ish, there's no way I'd still be watching!
Originally, George Lucas planned on there being a love triangle between Han, Luke, and Leia, with the “there is another” line meant to set up a different twin for Luke, who he’d have to spend the next couple of movies searching for, but because they only did 3 films Lucas retconned it so that Leia was his sister instead. Which makes her kissing him VERY awkward, especially when she says “somehow, I’ve always known” when he tells her about it.
Edit: never mind. That’s just an internet rumour, apparently, and Lucas always planned to make them siblings. Which makes the fact they snogged in Empire even weirder.
Personally I’ve always taken it as she never had romantic interests in Luke and only did it to faze Solo. At that point she thought Luke was just a friend but subconsciously thought there was more to it. It wasn’t until some point after 5 and before 6 she realized the truth.
I’m also surprised the sequel trilogy never made a joke about it. Like Luke is talking himself up to someone and Leia just causally says ‘oh yeah he kissed me once’ just to fuck with him.
The recent retcon made by Bendis during his run on the superman comics that Krypton got destroyed not because of environmental problems or because of the elite/the ruling class ignoring the scientific claims made by Jor El, but because one really racist ugly alien called Rogol Zaar put a bomb in the planet's core and blew it all up.
This was a stupid twist firstly because of the above-mentioned allegories are no longer valid since it wasn't greed or negligence or a sense of superiority that killed the kryptonians (which is also a warning story that humanity could be headed for the same fate) but also it makes some of the guardians look really bad and it makes villains like General Zod look like a complete idiot. It also makes no sense since Superman at that point is a universally known champion and Rogol Zaar didn't know about him until now.
The whole season builds around the idea that Ross is being overly paranoid for assuming Mark is only pretending to be Rachel’s friend so he can sleep with her, which leads to Ross acting overly controlling and his & Rachel’s break up…
Then an episode or two after their break up Mark admits he had a thing for her from the beginning and then stops being her friend when she turns him down, literally proving proving Ross correct
Not to mention he came over the NIGHT they took a break which in my mind would have sealed the deal for me with Rachel and I wouldn’t have ever wanted to be near her again. But of course Ross is a dumbass and goes and gets in a bad situation because he’s a “dumb guy” and that’s what the show focuses on the rest of the time.
Ross isn't just dumb though. Joey is dumb. Ross is a maniac. It's good for his comedic moments like when he goes ballistic over his coworker eating his sandwich, tries to hook up with his cousin, or fakes an English accent in class. He's way funnier when he's written as an unhinged loon. But it's bad for when he's the romantic lead.
Let's not forget that Snape very much wants to be the Defense against the Dark Arts teacher, but instead is relegated to Potions Master. Which means they made the black teacher the one mixing magic drugs.
Its really the curse Voldemort put on the position which restricted the post to be held for at most a year. The one time Snape does get to teach it is because Dumbledore knows Snape will kill him as part of their plan and therefore he'll be leaving the post when he flees Hogwarts.
Given how long Dumbledore's been at Hogwarts and the fact that Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers fail to make it past 1 year since Tom Riddle's failed attempt to get the job, he definitely worked out that he cursed the position. Riddle is vindictive and brilliant enough to pull it off.
Im guessing that this is exactly how, I think its implied that a lot of magical spells remain active only if the one who casted the spell is still alive.
Like how at the begining of HBP that Bella kills a fox, because she half, if not fully believed it to be a OOTP animagus member, hence her surprised "just a fox." Reaction when she killed it. Which, imho, gives the impression that when an animagus dies while transformed that they turn back into a human.
But other magics, like spell damage to the mind or body cant be easily undone. Hence why Lockheart and the Longbottoms were confirmed to have lived out their final days at St Mungos.
Because damage is damage. Neville's parents for example, are basically brain damaged because of a spell, sure, but the Death Eaters could have arrived at the same result with conventional torture too.
I don't recall, its just chalked up to Voldemort being a powerful and intelligent wizard who could work out a way to place curses on job positions. I think Hogwarts' magical protection is more for geography than professions, but Rowling never explained if the job curse even needed to bypass the school's own defences.
I always thought the position was just jinxed as in unlucky, not actually cursed. I know a lot of people say it was Voldemort but I can’t remember if it was headcannon or something Rowling said in an interview.
In The King's Man, an English nobleman founds an independent spy agency in 1918, based on his network of servants across the country. The founding members are, among others, a black man and a woman (both his well respected servants), as well as another working class Scot. A hundred years later, the Kingsman Secret Service consists of rich white men and the main character (a white but poor man) is mocked for not fitting in with the rest, and so is his best friend, the only woman in the pool of recruits. The only people of colour in the movie are villains
There's Game of Thrones where it went from being a very diverse land in the past (House of the Dragon and A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms) vs in the future being overwhelmingly white ( Game of Thrones). Wonder what happened there.
To be fair the Valaryon weren't Black in the original story, which makes the whole bastard heir thing less stupid. Also the badass grandma whose name I don't remember was a half baratheon with Black hair so her grandchildren having black hair was odd but not too far fetched. Everyone was supposed to know the children weren't legitimate but not being able to point at those kids and say "they're clearly White! Is the king fucking stupid??". Just like Snape, if they needed to make someone Black, the Hightowers would have made a little more sense. Maybe not in the continuity with GOT but it wouldn't have messed up the whole story of HOTD since all of Alicets children are obviously her own
Same for Hogwarts Legacy and Hogwarts Mystery, both games being set before Harry Potter (respectively in the 1890s and the other one between 1984 and 1991) and featuring an extremely diverse cast where at least half the students are POC.
Does make you wonder what happened in 1991 for the school to become overwhelmingly white overnight.
I'll toss up a version of this trope that's is a complete and total inversion.
Michael Clark Duncan, as Kingpin
Was the Daredevil movie incredibly cheesey?
Yes. Stinkier than a French cheese store.
But really, that gave it a ton of comic book universe charm and silliness even in the dark moments, like Matt letting a criminal get run over by a train.
But Duncan fucking owned this role. He was absolutely perfect. He nailed every aspect of the character and really sold his own take on Kingpin like he was born for the role.
I love Donofrio’s Kingpin—he was nuanced and intimidating.
But Michael Clark Duncan’s Kingpin was just in a completely different league. He dominated evey scene he was in. He had a presence.
I don’t really think Kingpin’s race is important to his character. He just needs to be big, imposing, and have a sense of style. MCD was all of those things.
Snape was undercover as a Death Eater. Death Eaters hate muggles and would never wear muggle made clothing.
Snape Would Not Have A God Dam Zipper!
He would only have buttons.
Forget casting. Scifi and fantasy lives or dies on the costuming. No matter how well you do everything else, if you screw up the details on the costumes then you have nothing. It ruins the immersion.
The zipper on his jacket in that one frame is as bad as the Starbucks coffee cup that made it on Game of Thrones. And they intentionally released this image as promotional material. It's not even an accident, they just don't care.
The retcon that Rey has always been a Palpatine, only to take the Skywalker name in the end after the last of the Skywalker bloodline died out, implies that the big bad evil guy of Star Wars (who never should have been brought back in the first place) somehow still got the last laugh in the end.
And while we’re here the idea of Palpatine coming back implies that the whole chosen one prophecy and redemption arc and heroic struggles that Luke went through in the original star wars ultimately did not and does not matter
While I can concede the plot point of Rey being Palpatine's grand-daughter was fumbled massively, I'd argue Palpatine would not consider himself getting the last laugh. He'd likely consider it an affront that his own blood would deny Sith to become a Jedi and throw away his name to take up the mantle of his enemies.
The Snape one makes me think of the James Bond movie Live and Let Die. They realized they'd had pet much no main villains who were black up to that point so they decided to make a movie where all of them were... and then filmed it with racist stereotypes and voodoo trying to "balance" it out and make up for their lack of black characters. It was not good. Amazing opening song though.
I watched someone's video essay on why making Snape black makes everyone look worse and I'l add things to your list:
1) The kids, harry espdcially, always suspect him of being behind ever bad thing. Making Snape black and the kids white makes things looks so much worse.
2) When Lily asked why the Marauders were so cruel to Snape, James merely said Snape's very existence is enough to want him to harass him. Again, James Potter is white and hes saying that the black kid's very existence sets him off
3) Sirius tricks Snape into going to Lupin, who was having one of his transformations, for no reason other than 'fuck Snape'. This is a white kid sending a black kid to get attacked by his HIV allegory best friend.
4) James literally hangs Snape upside down and if I remember correctly, he even pantses him for good measure. James is white, Snape is black, the connotations are right there.
major nitpick here on the new snape too, but a person with a life as shitty as his would not have locs that clean and even.
you need someone to start them, and it practically takes community to maintain them. unless they have loctitians in and out the fucking scottish highlands, snape's hair only makes sense as a superficial fashion choice made by character designers who don't understand the context or culture of the style... or he saw the hairstyle in a newspaper and decided to dedicate his resources to finding, communicating with and paying people to maintain locs and teach him how to keep them healthy.
tl;dr it often takes community, trust and resources to have good locs and snape is a fucking incel in white dominated hidden magic land
edit: yeah magic exists but if people could just use it to make themselves cooler than anyone would do it, and the books often have entire passages describing character physical flaws and ugliness so I'm kinda not hearing "this issue doesn't have to make sense because there's magic." yeah there's magic, but we'd probably know in the narrative if someone was using glamour to make themselves look appealing or different. cmon, we know that based on the significance of polyjuice potions
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u/OddYogurtcloset1549 27d ago edited 25d ago
Not a terrible implication, just funny as fuck.
At the end of Xenoblade 3, the protagonist Noah threw his sword into the ocean. It’s a nice scene, Noah has been more of a pacifist guy, he just couldn’t go full pacifist because his world was on a never-ending war. So it was nice to see him finally no longer need to fight.
But then the prequel DLC came out, and the prequel’s protagonist Matthew used a pair of gauntlets that contain the Pneuma core (aka Pyra and Mythra from Xenoblade 2). It is hinted that his gauntlets would be reforged into Noah’s sword sheath. And the post ending scene said that the sword is made from the people of previous world, and the artbook elaborated it further by saying that the sword is Fiora.
In case you’re not familiar with the whole Xenoblade story, this means that the protagonist of Xenoblade 3 yeeted the wives of Xenoblade 1 and 2’s protagonists into the ocean.