Hey, I'm Alex. Let's talk about fiction and other nonsense.
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I came into the Mass Effect series playing the sequel first. Only because they ported ME2 to the PS3 first. I think they did an adequate job explaining the events of the first game to new players.
Now this is what I love about this channel. Great analysis, more games, please! And I can also say, the way games are made (with many headaches, salt and long nights) and the way cutscenes are designed and written in narrative titles, the dev team absolutely meant to have Atreus stand centre between Kratos and Thor to forehadow his future actions (that he stands slightly closer to Kratos' side is also worth a note). Would definitely enjoy some more God of War analysis.
Don't know if you're already into the series or not, but if it's not too much of an ask, I'd love to see you take a look at Xenoblade Chronicles. It's an RPG. 40 hours if you rush the story (but easily over 120 if you do sidequests). The twists that story deals in are just crazy.
I love your dialogue dives! They provide so much insight into the craft and use media we're familiar with which i find helpful. RU-vid didn't show this in my subscription list so I'm glad I was scrolling through your other videos when I found it! Hope this video picks up traction soon
10:20 This happened once with me, and it was with Darksiders. Never heard or knew about the games until I watched my sister try playing Darksiders 2 when she got her new Xbox 360 (she didn't like the game, so she gave me it instead). I was in awe with the art design and the story that continued from the first game. How they managed to write the game to make me want to know more about why Death seeks to prove War's innocence, that he didn't cause the apocalypse, is beyond me. I'm surprised how much the game pulled me in, making me try to uncover the first game's story with the sequel. Sounds ridiculous, but the experience was amazing. After reading about the story, and then finally playing the first game, it was quite the experience. GoW Ragnarok's an amazing game. Happy you covered it.
You skipped over the "are you a calm and reasonable person" part. Not much to say there but I still think it's worth mentioning because Kratos has never been a calm and reasonable person but is trying very hard to be just that.
22:50 DO WHY I REWATCH ASSASINS CREED 1 ALOT FOR EACH PART!!!!!, the biggening,viewpoints, random investigate missions,assasinations,then running back,hideing,talking at the buru,then al mualim,then out and talk to lucy,then sleep.
In the Norse saga Kratos is 6 4”. Thor is 7 ft and some. Baldur was only 5 11” hence why he’s towered over by everyone, including Freya who’s 6 2”. Pretty sure the shortness came from Odin who’s barely taller than Atreus
This game came with the PS5 I bought and has been sitting on my backlog for a while. I've heard nothing but amazing things about it and have been wanting to play it but have never played a GOW game before. How necessary/recommended is it to play the previous games before this one? Or does this game stand on its own pretty well?
12:25 it's interesting you point this out, now that I'm looking back at it..because it's showing how manipulative/2 faced odin is; He says he wants peace, but drinks from this man's cup, in his own home, after barging in..... 50 shades of disrespectful 20:00 theres alot of undertone to this part of the dialogue that gets missed; odins offer to "get freya off your back" implies that he would've likely hurt freya...and for ppl who have played the previous games...we get to see the honorable side of kratos in that he rejects the offer.. You should REAALLLY look at dialogue videos and what not of the DLC...when you get a chance
Yeah it was how subversion should be done. Thor came in to talk an recovering from his drinking problem while Odin just acts up and is starting the problems
The Arrowverse subverted our expection by introducing a series of legacy superheroes for another decade on TV, only to wither and die with COVID. At least we got Stargirl and Superman & Lois to cap it off. Started strong, started limping, shot in the heart, and still died standing on its feet.
Sure, it's funny, but there's real narrative strength to letting Kratos just say "No." With one word, he made clear to Odin that this is not a negotiation. Nothing he could say or do could possibly get Kratos to trust him. Compare that with Atreus's susceptibility: Letting Odin put a hand on his shoulder, even for a second, shows a momentary lapse of judgment that foreshadows what's to come.
Yesssss! This scene was just magnificent. Such a perfect way to establish all characters involved, especially with Odin and Atreus. Also yes Sb, we love you talking about the good stuff. No matter if it games or books. Writing is writing! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
It’s not just Hollywood, it’s also American/Western fans I believe at large. There’s this very corporate idea of “ originality is a proportion of good story” or changing expectations= good so subversion = good, but no one realized subversion done properly is supposed to be by actually understanding the tropes , and usually with a lot of reverence for them. Also, loved your point about Eastern stories. I noticed as anime fans, we kind of judge stories by a Hollywood standard, of A-B, where B is usually a very big explosive climax where the good guys win, and fans tend to hate when the payoff is something much different. Shonen writers tend to explore characters with more care to detail I feel than a lot of western comic/action stories especially, but never get any of the credit. Even in film movements like Korean New Wave, you get a lot of very subtextual works where it’s about the journey and what’s in between the lines, and then actual ending isn’t really the most powerful point in the story, or the most interesting.
I remember following legend of korra really closley when it was coming out. Watching all sorts of videos about it and about the viewership numbers and everything. The numbers were tanking from what I remember, but I think they already ordered multiple seasons, so they put it online. Not a ton of people were watching it, from what I remember that is why the pulled it off network. I could be miss remembering though
a little extra layer of Mike's "Jesse James" comment for the super history/literature nerds is that Jesse James' killer, Robert Ford, was immortally characterized in a folk song, a novel, and in recent years a movie as a Coward for shooting James while his back was turned
I think Gus's professionalism made him that much more sympathetic. He could be reasoned with, and valued logic and rationality - even from his enemies.
Dune 2, which is the best movie of the year so far that I have seen, is extremely predictable and very well done at the same time. I don't know where this hunger for subversion comes from.
especially since i didnt like Walter as much as i liked Gus. i knew Walt would win in the end but i would catch myself rooting for Gus when they were going head to head.
Batman tas Mr freeze. Dude was thrown to the pits everytime and this shows how both batman and Terry are people that try to help at every end when in Batman beyond we see his final scene. It was tragic. THE batman cartoon probably the riddler. He became a criminal due to revenge on the wrong person when his girlfriend Julie threw it all away for cash and even batman calls her out on his amazing line "when is the villain not the villain" and riddler cries. Video game wise probably most tales of villains. Gaius who is doing things his way and even saves muzet. Van and the god generals who all had messed up back stories. Sometimes I even agree with their pov Better call Saul probably his brother. He has no charisma and people skills while saul does and it really gets to me as I have hard time talking with people. Ones I don't feel for. Aot d note code Geass MC's. They were evil.
please watch the sopranos, you're too big of a fan of good writing to not have watched it. Also 'the wire' and 'the sopranos" have the best endings in TV imo.
I think what had happened with Game of Thrones specifically was that the writers went out of their way to NOT do what the fans were speculating, but unfortunately what they came up with went against logic and coherence because the fans had read context and content clues to make their guesses, and the writers were like "welp... can't have that!" lol
I dont think eastern story telling is a good counter argument to being overly reliant on subversion. Their fundamental plot structure similar to how we have a three act structure uses subversion as one of it's main pillars. Kishotenketsu (Japan's version) goes like this, Introduction ->Development -> Twist -> Conclusion. Maybe having the subversion baked into their plot structure has them give more care to it than the west? Not sure. I feel like the art industry is just suffering from corporatism more than anything at the moment, and that's in every medium. Even anime has become an oversaturated mess of cash grab isekais. I'm just waiting for an indie renaissance at this point.
The way folks react to subversion is relatable to real life. Doubling down is often more respectable. Subversion has to be shocking and satisfying, so it's a risky balance. Also cool ending 🤣.
Back in my days of writing teenage fanfiction, I used to have a storywriting friend who was OBSESSED with writing stuff that was new, fresh and innovative. She seemed to have a perpetual fear of writing anything that had been done before, and the one criticism that would *always* shut her down was 'I already read a story that did something like this'. She'd tie herself into knots subverting this, postmodernly deconstructing that, even if it made no sense to do so - all because of the fear that someone might think she was unoriginal. She liked writing romantic Gothic stuff, but hated being pegged as a Goth. She liked Twilight, but hated anyone seeing that in her work. She resided almost perpetually in the No Man's Land between writing what she wanted to write and being so afraid of being judged as cliche or derivative that she wouldn't write anything. We were teenage fanfiction writers, by our very nature we existed in a perpetual state of derivative cringe and the only way out was to own it, but she'd do anything to avoid being judged. We lost contact a long time ago. I hope she's doing all right.
Yeah Im so tired of the way surprising/shocking the audience with a "twist" no matter how cheap, trifling or out of nowhere has become the priority of so many storytelling media products and a substitute for good writing in some peoples heads.
How do bad writers get into Hollywood? Networking. Bad writers know good directors/producers who put in a good word for them. But honestly that shouldn't be allowed. Hollywood needs real standards. Not "if you know X director you're in." That's toxic for the industry. They need to hire writers who are actually tested and know what they're doing.
