Forgot to mention, instead of taking boats to mermaid territory they should have just made dretch portal them there. And once they got there they should have used their teleportation powers to warp the dragon far away since carraway could teleport a giant squid mech with ease.
You missed a huge character inconsistency regarding Sage who, back in the cave, killed a dragon intentionally and had zero emotional reaction to it, yet is wracked with guilt and grief here when she accidentally injures a dragon to the point that Rosemary puts it down.
I wonder if no one reacted much to the dragon exploding because that's a typical thing in their world 🙁 but they should definitely had one to him turning into a skeleton under them!
@@spacejunk2186 This is why you need a stable set of writers and a plan. That's why shows like Steven U and Adventure Time are so incoherent and random, because so many different ideas are being shoved around and nobody could really so no
The teacher talking to Snapdragon about transition-magic after they admitted to being bullied for liking feminine things as a boy is just incredible. Gotta love how this show tries so hard to be progressive that they come all the way back around to basically say "You can't like feminine things as a boy, feminine things are for girls. If you like feminine things as a boy you're probably actually a girl, you just don't know it yet"
I once told a Chechnian-because he was a Chechnian-he wasn't Christian, he was Muslim and didn't realize it yet. I used the same exact argument in that situation, only I set off a religious war.
Yeah, it would take a lot more skill to actually do trans representation right than this show has. I've had no issue dressing in straight up drag and still feeling like a man(all the way back as a child too), and there are trans people who lean towards androgynous in their style and yet don't feel like the identity they were expected to have fit. It honestly comes off more as a conservative characture of the topic than an actual attempt, considering the "oh you like girly things _have you considered transitioning!"_ is literally how they claim it happens.
The problem with Snapdragon being a girl is that it confirms Sage's words about friendships between girls being deeper. Like, as if Snapdragon had only understood feelings because she is actually a girl.
@@anti-usernamesaltaccount3623 That isn't untrue, but to be equally fair, they don't seem to give a shit about their students getting almost killed any other time so why should one getting his faced punched in be any different?
It is important that Rose Marry's sword is taken away because she is a careless, violent, psychopath who swings her sword around and almost kills people lol
I don't think she's a psychopath, I think she is someone silly and impulsive, who doesn't think things through one bit but definitely needs any dangerous objects removed Because I'm sure she would be capable of causing chaos and she didn't even notice Oh, maybe she realizes too late what she did, because Rosemary is the kind of person who thinks that one thing is very cool in her head, but in reality it's not
Then maybe she shouldn't have been chosen for this mission! Guess she has main character's privilege... (At least they should've given her another weapon! Even a toothpick is better than nothing!)
Technically, regarding them going on suicide missions every episode, them going to classes in High Guardian Academy is already just blatant suicide itself.
That teacher in particular gave off really sus vibes, which given the writing of this show is hard to tell if was intentional or that was their idea of being "eccentric"...seriously between poisoning her class on day one, letting that one girl get her head grabbed by an acid emitting plant, oh and her speel about how new magic is soooooo much better than old magic (with no mention of ANY drawbacks or consequences) if this show had a season two wouldn't be surprised if she turned out to be bad on some level...though again this would be dependant on if the writers had some self-awareness, which is almost the core issue with this series is the writers lacking in an awareness of how badly their characters are coming across.
School - Trains students how to kill, kill and maybe not get killed. Students - Do just that, some even ignoring friendly fire. School - Tests students against squid monster - still use of deadly force. Students - brutally slaughter their target. Also school - sends those students to CAPTURE (not kill) Spyro of large size in the new environment which is underwater. Students - Failed their mission, ending up killing the VIP creature just as they were taught at school. School - Surprised gaze
"Hey guys, let's train a bunch of kids to be merciless, psychotic killers!" "Good idea!" "Let's make them butcher what they think is a living being to train them!" "Brilliant!" "Oh hey, they killed the thing we sent them after." "WHAT?!?"
You forgot to mention the biggest and most blatant inconsistency, the drawback of using new magic. All throughout the series it’s insisted that new is better than old. With Red Bud cackling about how you can do anything with no cost. Then suddenly, turns out you need to be careful when handling the power of a terra-sphere. Budget my ass.
This also makes Anise's and Aloe's talk about Sage's mom's New Magic phase (oof, way too many apostrophes there) look worse in the long run. Yeeeees, the mom was such "a badass" simply because she was trying out what's revealed to be a difficult-to-control spellcasting method...Yeah, I bet a lot of people looked cool trying out GUNS in their younger years, and surely NOTHING regrettable happened for some of them. This just makes me think more and more that the mom's reason for forgoing the New is PTSD from an incident similar to what Sage went through here.
Not to mention new magic can "do anything". Except heal a STILL LIVING albeit badly injured dragon? Not only that, but it's CARRAWAY who's doing the healing, and he's the only one for some reason who can combine BOTH new and old magic into SUPER magic or some bullshit that's never explained. So even ALL THE MAGIC IN THE WORLD for SOME REASON is just completely incapable of healing this fucking dragon. WHY? He even casts a healing spell, and it JUST DOESN'T WORK for no reason at all. He doesn't try it again, he doesn't have the psycho bitch help him, NOTHING. One casting, and just gives up INSTANTLY. Also the ENTIRE time the staff was going ape shit, the blonde mermaid was RIGHT THERE and EXACTLY the moment after the laser finishes carving the dragon, THEN she just grabs the staff and turns it off with ease, which Sage couldn't do for some reason. And of course once again Sage doesn't USE old magic in ANY way despite how much she always lauds how great it is. She had loads of time to cast whatever she wanted with old magic, buuuuuut she did nothing the entire trip. Relying purely on the form of magic she's LESS practiced in. So that mermaid could've saved the dragon, she just..... decided not to. If any of the actual TEACHERS had come along to chaperone this IMPORTANT AND DANGEROUS mission that INEXPERIENCED CHILDREN are doing then this probably wouldn't have happened. This is the kind of incident that would ruin this academy. The mermaids would fucking sue them into oblivion for SUCH incompetence in their duties.
@@j3ssthealien283 nobody knows. There's like ONE tree with Rot at the SCHOOL WHERE NEW MAGIC IS USED DAY IN AND OUT. But in her forest, which is supposedly full of this shit, it's EVERYWHERE.
It's also weird they immediately blame all of this on New Magic, like not the fact Sage is still inexperienced in it and this being one of her first serious missions, no doubt she be at the best mental state of controlling it, and that this isn’t even halfway through the kids first year in this school. Like the show trying all it can to remove any sort of responsibility Sage may have cause, which also ignores the fact the teachers have made the mistake of sending inexperienced children out there too soon.
0:50- imagine this follow up scene. While everyone was distracted, that student grits his teeth while stalking off screen as he transforms back into mandrake, introducing him an episode earlier. The off the cuff assassination was a failure. "Seems not everyone in this school is incompetent" mandrake remarks. At the end of the episode, instead of the sappy snap/amaryllis segment, Caraway checks through the records of all the students currently enrolled in this school and discovers there is no such student. Thus he gets suspicious of this, he felt bad and should have taken this more seriously earlier in the day Mandrake really should have been the main villain from the start, it's actually a no brainer Instead of Sage accelerating the dragon and heartlessly killing it in Episode 7, have it be mandrake who did it. He stole the egg and dropped it into the cursed healing water in order to study it's effects, then the girls see this happening. Mandrake also uses this cursed water as a way to build an army of zombie dragons to attack the academy in the last episode Instead of Sage killing the scypith, Mandrake was the one who killed that dragon so that blood is not on Sage's hands and they have a reason to feel sad about this whole scene
They would still need to fix the inconsistency of the teachers not reacting at all to the assassination attempt (and whether violence is fine or not in general) and Caraway making such a big deal of Snapdragon punching a bully.
Hell, irl mandrakes are poisonous. If they want to do that rot thing so badly... have Mandrake specialise in poison/toxic magic. Have his Terasphere hold the ability to rot organic tissue, to cause decay, to do SOMETHING that ties him to the plot. For the dragon, he can kill it because it’s a failed prototype for the zombie dragons. Have the guy look the main characters in the eyes as he poisons the dragon, before smirking. “Aww, come on. Don’t look at me like that. It’s natural selection. The stupid thing was weak. It was going to die one way or another. If anything, I did it a favour by putting it out of its misery.” It also doesn’t make sense for Rosemary to kill the dragon, since she hasn’t been shown to particularly care about stuff like that. I would actually have Thyme do it, after trying to save the creature. When it’s clear there’s nothing she can do, she sighs, and stands up. She takes an arrow from her quiver, and notches it into her bow. She takes aim. And fires. I wouldn’t have any dialogue after she does this. I would let the moment sit. Let the tragedy and injustice of what the villain just did sit there and really sink in for the characters and the audience. So that the sadness the original scene wanted feels much more deserved and genuine.
That *would* be a better way to handle everything, but the show already has quite a heavy-handed "All cis males are bad and not to be trusted!" message to it.
> This society is technologically advanced enough to have underwater mechs but not cars, guns, cellphones, computers, tvs etc.. > Sage could've just casted a magic bubble to trap the dragon like what she did in episode 5 instead of shooting a laser in its general direction to block the door causing her to "accidentally" kill the thing. > The fact in this episode the triad sends inexperienced trainee guardians on a serious mission instead of senior guardians just emphasizes the suspicious lack of senior guardians in this world. > Once again Snapdragon deserves to be in a better show. > Once again the writers don't know how attraction works, as proven with Snap and Thyme falling with Sage and purple mermaid girl respectively at first sight, even though it betrays these characters' personalities.
@@darkfrost-star6317 considering that his closest friend is a very angry girl who talks about murder, I'd be surprised if they wouldn't be a ship in a series not afraid to have straight couples. Heck, it could even play into the whole girlboss/malewife stuff going around, which they would probably be okay with. Also I still hate how snap reacted to his dad's solid advice. He's going to be a magic knight person, that requires a desire to see your goals through to the end and the strength to defend those ambitions. His dad didn't say "you have to be able to out-punch anybody who talks trash about you." It's not even a guy exclusive thing. TL;DR Snap would be such a great multi-faceted character if the writers tried, but they just made a feminine dude to make the trans talk happen. Edit: me bad at english.
I say it and I say it again, ONE DAY, I'm going to go crazy and rewrite High Guardian spicy by throwing the main four out and replacing them with Amyrilis, Snapdragon, Slime boy and an oc of my own. I'm going to throw away anything that's defective in this drawing and replace it with GREATNESS OF A MAN'S VISION. There will be action, drama and gay romance (because snapdragon makes me bicurious...).
Swords and arrows wouldn’t really be effective underwater, anyway. This should have been a purely magic user mission, unless they were specifically training some guardians in diplomacy.
@kane bekkattla That's what Quest for Glory 5 did. Only spears and daggers underwater. No unarmed, swords, or axes. (I don't remember if you can bonk with the staff, but I know you can cast with it)
Hammers would be USELESS as well. Bows and arrows, swords and hammers would all be USELESS underwater. So just taking her sword makes no sense. If they wanted to be realistic, they'd take all three of their weapons, replace the bow with like a harpoon gun, and probably give the other two spears or tridents if they wanna be fancy. Which of course would ALSO be retarded, because THEY AREN'T TRAINED IN USING SPEARS! Literally the only one there who has a viable weapon is Sage's staff, and she doesn't know how to use it properly because she has specifically been avoiding using new magic FOR THE ENTIRE FUCKING SERIES! That is LITERALLY her one thing aside from being an annoying needy bitch.
The mech suit also doesn't make sense because every time it gets cut you can see that it is made out of flesh and blood. It is only revealed to be a mech suit when it's head pops up, at which point we can see the only metal bits present on the entire mech. The teacher also sets a bad example by saying "nice use of violence."
Maybe only a pod in the top of it is mechanical and the rest is filled with a liquid that the pilot bends with magic. Granted this raises further questions like. Why is the liquid something that could pollut the water instead of just water? Did they kill a tone of salmon and fill the octopus with the blood and use necromancy to work it's limbs? Side note while typing this, undead blood balloons might be a decent DnD monster idea.
Also the fact that they had advance technology mech suit like that but not cars, cellphones etc is kinda bothering though. Because this is like fantasy medieval type of era why would they have that
I feel like a better way they could have handled amaryllis is by having her instead of failing but going on a different team. Since the misson the rest of the gang are going to is a more delicate matter they probably didnt feel like amaryllis would be best suited for this but rather a mission where they do, lets say a infestation of dangerous monsters and she could be as brutal as she wants
Since the incident was said to have started near Witch Country, a surface team (led by Caraway and/or Redbud) could have investigated its shores, maybe have a brief brush with Mandrake (from the shadows).
and then amaryllis discovers something important to the plot and the episode centers mire around her instead of the main 4, it doesn't shows sage injuring the dragon, instead the episode could have some bits of them capturing the dragon and realizing there is no cure, in the end, the girls are crying explaining what happened, and then amaryllis comforts them, thus comproving once again that she is, in fact, the main character
@@Muna-Jlore0997 The indulgent transformation sequence has nothing to do with plot, its a reference to transformation anime like Kamen Rider, Super Sentai, Sailor Moon etc. where the transformation sequences are over embellished and exaggerated to hype up the tension of the scene. In this scenario I want to say it could have been intended to be comedic, like the magic girl transformation sequence of the Kiss band members in that Scooby Doo movie, but it certainly doesn't land as comedic if that was the case. Its just kinda... okay. The mermaid designs are rather bland. Usually transformation sequences are noticeably higher budget animations than the rest of the show but we certainly did not get that in this case. Anyways. Its long because its a reference, not for any plot reason.
@@KuzuTomoki And that's the case for so many things. Just from seeing clips of this show i can tell that half the reason it exists, and half the reason every character, plot point, design, etc... exist is because of "omg i love sailor moon, harry potter/LWA and steven universe, imah mix em all up from their style down to their core and tone, and have an almagation that is painful to watch but because i copy pasted good ideas together, it means i created something even better!"
I think you forgot about one glaring oversight which completely invalidates this episode. The fact that the four of them participated in the test as a group when the other students did this test in pairs, that alone should have disqualified team allspice. How is this fair to the other students in the slightest? What is this test even about, like whoever kills the mech gets selected? They literally came into the battlefield last and fresh, taking all the glory from the earlier students who fought against the mech. And then they get selected anyways because they killed the mech? How is this a balanced assessment of any sort? This episode truly was the worse in terms of incoherence. Chapter 3 is a close one for garbage pacing and chapter 5 is the most forgettable one
And that's without getting into how the training session ends with the students killing the mech... and the students who killed the mech were selected... to go on a mission that involves the *live capture* of an aquatic dragon. No sense between any of these scenes at all.
@@insulttothehumanrace3807 That's right, I had forgot the mission was to capture, but the test got the ones who killed the Mech XD Makes sense why they ended killing the Mech...
I'll say it again. In a world where there's magic that can change one's gender, turn an entire town to stone and to summon underwater mecha the following FF spells couldn't be used on the dragon: Sleep, stop, disable, immobilize, blind, charm, confuse, slow
If he was really aiming for the triad standing behind Caraway, then I think crossbow guy is true hero of this story. He was trying to liberate his fellow guardian students
I always had an issue with Snapdragon beating up Cal in that scene. Because you mean to tell me that Snapdragon, a guy who can barely swing an axe, can push someone, who has more muscle than him and uses a big ass morning star, down and start wailing on them with no retaliation? That’s just a fantasy people have when dealing with a high school bully.
Judging by the looks of the team behind that horrific show, it's guaranteed that they were bullied to all hell and had those fantasies since middle school.
As an unexperienced writer that just started as a hobby; the best and only positive thing to come out of watching this show personally Is analizing what went so wrong, so I can avoid making such obvious massive mistakes like HGS seems to all the time.
Suprised you didn’t mention the old potions teacher just pushing off the main 4 off a cliff I know they have their mermaid transforming item but pushing you’re students off a cliff into water is still a bit dangerous they could’ve landed on something hard like a rock why couldn’t they have walked into shallow waters and thus transform the further they reach the ocean Also Rosemary should’ve died with the seahorse shocking her
True still appalling she does that when this is the same episode where she shows her being sad about the dragon dying and her willing to kill the dragon instead of rosemary
This further proves the plot armour the 4 of them have, even surviving that kind of fall that can break normal human bones. And even if it’s meant to be a survivable fall, I’m surprised they weren’t disoriented and almost drowning first from the pain. I have jumped starfish-shaped from an elevation of 1m, into a swimming pool and it already hurts. (please do not try if you are not a good swimmer) Even if they have magical mermaid rings, these fools would be drowning first because I’m sure they don’t know how to stay afloat safely by the power of life-saving skills. And Rosemary will die because armour IS HEAVY.
Speaking of the octopus mech suit, why couldn't the teachers have just conjured up an octopus construct for the students to fight against? Given how broken magic is in this world, that wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility.
6:35 "Why did they draw Snapdragon's ass like that?" Forget Snapdragon's butt, why is he _draped over the foredeck_ like he's posing for some kind of photoshoot? Setting aside the fact that that may actually be the _least_ traditionally masculine way anyone could possibly sit on a boat and it does absolutely _nothing_ to help keep Cal off his case, if the boat is _disturbed_ in any way by, say, a sudden change in the current for instance, or maybe a _rampaging underwater dragon_ or an out-of control _giant cephalopod mech,_ Snapdragon's going to be the first one thrown into the water.
Thyme experienced love at first sight with the mermaid, even though it's completely out of character, just for the sake of... *"lOoK sHe'S a LeSbIaN!!!111!!1"*
God, the dragon dying really pissed me off. Caraway couldn't heal it? Seriously? 🤦♀️ And why was it ok for Sage to straight up murder a baby dragon in the cave episode, but this is treated as the Worst Thing Ever™?
A good fix I thought of for Thyme's character breaking moment in this episode where she's suddenly and inexplicably flustered by the mermaid girl would be for one of the characters to be snooping in her room for something in a previous episode or scene and discovering, something like naughty fantasy-magazines of mermaids under her bed. It could be played as a humorous awkward moment that shows another side to Thyme's character. (Maybe whoever found the magazines wouldn't know how to act around her now either) This wouldn't really make the most sense in HGS as it is now, but it would fix two problems. It would add something else warranting the mature rating the show has, because as the show is now it's clearly not for adults. An adult joke like that would make sense in an adult cartoon, however. Secondly, it would give some context to her actions in the mermaid episode. 1. She would want to go on the mission simply because she likes mermaids, not because she's one of the four main characters and has to be in the episode. 2. It would make sense why seeing mermaids in person would make her so flustered, its because she has a thing for them. A quick addition in a form of a joke would not only give more characterization, but also consistency and payoff to buildup to not only the story but also to us, the audience, for remembering that detail when its brought back up later.
I'm having a feeling that the reason why Thyme fell for that girl in episode 11 was probably because the writing team wanted Thyme to be a character who is attracted women romantically. But if they wanted to do this, they should of hinted that earlier in the series, not when the first season is almost done. Other than this guess, I don't really know
Here's a wild idea. They put her on an all girl team where she has a specific emotional attachment to ONE girl in particular..... why not just have her develop feelings for HER? Oh right, that'd be like how real relationships formed, and they only know how to do the most cliche bullshit at first sight.
@@haku8135 Hm. Actually... didn’t she quickly warm up to Parsley? If they want that kind of rep for Thyme, they could’ve developed that relationship. I mean- you have Thyme. Someone who’s generally cold and doesn’t open up to others easily. And then you have Parsley, a friendly person who tries her best to be warm and inviting. Opposites attract. Plus ngl I would much rather see a relationship develop between those two than the toxic cesspool that is Sagemary. Hm. Maybe I can make a fan rewrite of this on AO3. Who knows...
@@haku8135 They literally could've just had Thyme oggle at Parsley's mermaid form. Because that's the first time she's seen her with that little clothing on. It really wouldn't have been that hard to shift Thyme's gaze to someone they've already established she gets along with better than everyone else. This show is SO bad with establishing things.
@@lunarrobot9714 Ok. Ngl... that actually could’ve worked. We just see Thyme staring at Parsley with a look of “oh SHI-“ on her face. The beginnings of a blush are there too. I mean... we saw that Thyme warmed up to Parsley WAYYYY quicker than she did to Sage or Rosemary. It really isn’t hard to give her a crush that MAKES SENSE. But no let’s have her crush on a lady who’ll only be in one episode because why the hell not?
It's hilarious how they just went from depressing ending to a hapi outro. I do love when the episodes from actual good shows ends with suspending or sad credits depending on how the episode end. Like Amphibia for example after that one episode ends with a dark moment, it ends with a thrilling and eerie credits making the conflict more eye-catching and darker.
Honestly i don't see the toxic behavior in the father. Rather then putting the older son he sees that his younger sons behavior invites bullying so he teaches his son to fight back and show someback bone with resulting showing how proud he is when he does so.
Yeah its nowhere near as bad as the show is making it out to be. What is bad is the fact that his father is ok with sending him to this deathcamp of an academy which to me is a sign of terrible parenting. The show seems to completely ignore that however
@@guardianHQ I see that as the father genuinely not knowing that the academy is this terrible and was just trying to put his son in so that he learns more fighting skills. As I have high and positive opinions about the father, let's just pretend this is how the story is in the backend. Thank goodness this show doesn't have a season 2, the father's character would definitely be tarnished
They can't have the trans teacher just wear a ring to keep his crossgender transformation active, because they need to send a political message about hormone treatment. If they wanted to just solve the problem, they could've made it a permanent transformation that can only be reversed by another transformation spell, but nooooo, that wouldn't be _topical_ enough for them.
how does his transformation work? i have not watched the show curious so that i can understand what youre trying to say about it being a political message
@@guardianHQ I think,spice girls team would be better if we replace Parsley on Amaryllis.Role of kind,nicey,carring,supportive elder sister/mother figure,what work as a glue of the team must go fully to Sage.Amaryllis could have interesting dynamics with other members of the team,especially with Rosemary,because both of this girls would just hate each other and will constatly bite each other's throats for taking place of the team leader,while Sage will be some kind of peace maker between them.I think,only reason why Parsley was lefted it's "It's fantasy and we need dwarf girl",but Amaryllis it's already very short and how about making something no one did before- mean dwarf girl,what uses magic.
Although I haven't watched the show itself, only various internet videos covering it, I can only assume the reason snapdragon got in trouble for his fight was because his attacks weren't lethal enough. His beating only caused a few bruises and a hurt ego, and if it went on the worst we'd be looking at it maybe a concussion. If snapdragon had pulled out his sword, the teacher probably would have let the fight continue.
So assault is grounds for suspension, but attempted murder is just swept under the rug? Yeah, that logic checks out perfectly fine, as long as you don't think about it.
YOU ARE RIGHT , this episode does not make sense because Amaryllis who is the person who speaks the most in favor of modern magic is not using her terrasphere to launch lightning at the monster as we have seen before , it is not necessary to send first year students to this mission when Carraway can take over with his aquatic ''robot''
So... I'm pretty sure the kid isn't *trying* to kill Callaway. Pretty sure that's a rag over the crossbow meaning he was probably cleaning it while it was loaded. Which makes it 1000 times worse but is 100% in line with how stupid every character in this show has been.
They should have used the mermaid rings as irony for the guy who snapdragon beay up, instead of him just running away. The irony would've been so much better than him just disappearing.
There's something I don't get about the Snapdragon beating up the bully (whos name escapes me and I don't care to figure it out) scene. why does Snap try to make small talk with him in the first place? it's already been established that Snap does not like him at all, even within the same episode when he glares at him during the part where they're getting picked for the mission.
- So...nothing to say on Hemlock (the crone) out of nowhere saying that the Triad is immortal, in what seems to be yet another joke? Who am I kidding, the Triad in general is one big joke - they're not even around during the bigger incidents. - You know, I can't really say anymore that Snapdragon went through "love at first sight" with Sage, since his affection first kicked in when Sage was scolding Amaryllis. Iunno, maybe he thought it was attractive to call Ryll out? Shame Thyme doesn't have as much of an excuse. - Seems like a waste that Olive didn't come across Rosemary's sketch of her and her slashed arm...That would've gotten a nice regretful response from her, but nope, the script just focuses on sword sketches that look like dongs. - Honestly, Hawthorn doesn't seem quite as toxic as the show apparently wants him to look. Neutral, at worst, maybe. But he does stop Yarrow's animal abuse and encourages Snap to stand up for what he wants to protect. - 15:21 Is this supposed to be a face of distress? Because it looks like a face of determination to me. Further proof this show REALLY needs to learn how to draw more varied expressions...
Snap being into femdom could be a chance for some character building and an actual romance arc for a character that almost exclusively has scenes revolving around their sexuality. Think about it: He might see women being confident and realize that his shyness isn't a sign of being mentally female, but rather it's personal excuse for him to run away from something he knows is a problem, but can't seem to fix. Maybe he finds that he just thinks brashness/ being in control is hot in a partner, Another thought I had was having mermaids have a legitimate personal connection to him. Maybe he loved stories about them as a child or his mom was a mermaid who left because she physically couldn't stay with his family, and he joined this deathcamp with the small but determined hope that he might be able to find his mom someday. He finally gets his chance!... and is put on lookout duty. This already pisses him off, and Amaryllis starts prying into his Home life, and he snaps on someone he cares about and gets in a physical fight with her. She would obviously win, and this could, harkening back to my first idea, possibly awaken something in him. She would probably have a heart to heart afterwards, after snap realizes he just hurt his friend just like he hated his brother doing the same to him. Boom, writing Amaryllis out of a HGS episode was a bad idea.
Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but Cal is the only character in this show that has a last name and it's revealed in this episode. I remember that coming out of left field because I don't remember any character in this show having one and suddenly a last name from an irrelevant character
Never mind the fact that the nomenclature in this show is a mixture of fantasy names and normal real-life names. This is a fantasy world where one person is named Snapdragon, and another's name is just Calvin.
What I would have done about the talk between Caraway and Snap is caraway would break up the fight between Cal and Snap, and would pull Snap aside. “Look, you can give me any punishment you want but I don’t don’t regret anything I did to Cal.” “What? Haha, no. I’m not gonna punish you. Kids will scrap with eachother all the time at this school. That’s not the problem. I pulled you aside because you seemed really upset. I’m concerned for you Snap. Are you doing Ok? Do have something you need to talk about?” “Cal… called me something I didn’t like. That’s all.” “That’s all? What did he call you?” “It doesn’t matter.” “If you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but I think it would be better if you did.” “He called me…girly. He said I was the queen of mermaids or whatever.” “And that’s bad?” “Yeah! Of course it is!” “How come?” “Well because… I’m worried he’s right. I don’t feel… at home. In my body, so I put on a mermaid costume and it felt great. I want to feel like that all the time. That’s what scares me.” “You know, I know a bit about what your going through. But there’s always options for people like you and me. And there are ways for you to feel that good all the time. If you ever feel trapped, you can come to me. And can look at options together.”
I know I keep bringing it up, but this single episode reminded me that My Hero Academia did an entire arc similar to this episode, but better. In MHA Deku and some of his classmates were brought in to take down an entire Yakuza group, the Shie Hassaikai, alongside other heroes. The difference is that the reason why they chose these specific first years to go on a dangerous mission WAS due to the fact that they were under the internship of heroes who were a part of the mission and that they had the qualified skills and experience needed for a mission like this. Also, these students were given the option to back out if they wanted to. There is NO real reason for the main characters in High Guardian Spice to be chosen if they just took away Rose's sword.
6:50 Hold on. I just realized something. Ok. So, Cal (is that his name? The jerk with the purple fro teasing Snapdragon) is teasing Snap about "dressing up as a mermaid" back in the costume party episode. If mermaids are a legitimate race of beings in this universe, didn't Snap technically just take part in cultural appropriation? 😕🤔 Not that this question is relevant to this episode, but, I'm curious to hear some thoughts.
I mean, maybe. Then again, it seems to be super easy to just, become a mermaid, which seems like a much bigger insult to the Mermaid culture. Jewelry that lets you turn into a completely different race seems very problematic.
What's even more ridiculous, male mermaid exists in this verse (you can see around 8:40 in this vid) so making this about gender doesn't make sense. It's basically like telling a white that they look asian or smthb.
Nah, there’s a difference between wearing clothes from a different culture and saying that your culture invented said clothes. An eight year old girl wanting a Japanese themed tea party isn’t cultural appropriation. Yes, people really did attack her for that. What Jada Smith did with her Netflix mockumentary Cloepatra is cultural appropriation. She was trying to take a historical and cultural event and icon and lie about it belonging to her. It’s blatant Afrocentrism and actually cultural appropriation.
Considering this was an episode before their “season finale”, I felt that it was wasted potential. We saw some weird half-assed character building. On the side character. Rosemary’s sword was taken without reason. Carraway once again a Trans PSA with no true emotional quotient. I was just brainstorming about the main storyline about what if, just what if, Episode 11 did play out as such, but we have Carraway acting a little suspicious on the expedition. Like when he asks for the sword, he seems to have an ulterior motive behind it. It can be animated as a trick of the light, maybe seeing a cold calculating gaze as he waited for Rosemary to give up the sword, right before Carraway’s warm eyes come back. We can have a chance to use Mandrake as a secret baddie to hint at the ending of this episode, because HE’S A SHAPESHIFTER. This can set up nicely for season finale, where instead of randomly dropping by, he already has an idea and is ever more desperate to get his mission done so that Olive can be put to shame. So Mandrake, knowing Lavender is on their side, knows what Flowering Thorn really does, and taking it from Rosemary is his first attempt at trying to murder Rosemary and hopes she fails her quest and dies without Flowering Thorn by her side. Now the problem is Carraway is already imprisoned somewhere in the school before he was able to set out on the expedition. The reason being Mandrake’s careful planning. He could’ve alr been deployed as a spy after Olive’s failed attempt at trying to convince Rosemary on “friendly terms”. Since he is apparently so capable, he would be meticulous in info-gathering. There would be an additional scene at the very end, where Carraway could be discovered by Dretch, after she heard some movement at a place you normally won’t hear noises at. So that we can have proper tension in the season finale by Dretch herself. Why I mention Dretch? She was also in Carraway’s photobook with Lavender as his dearest friend. Since the show has little substance, I would now say that Dretch is the friend of both Lavender and Carraway. So Dretch finding Carraway would shock her. And because Mandrake is too good a spy, Mandrake had also taken the opportunity to remove Carraway’s terrorsphere to prevent him from going anywhere. But apparentlyc Carraway remembers his glyphs. So he was able to channel enough magic by using his feet to draw glyphs, to just hope that someone can find him so that he can get to action quickly. (Gosh it’s too long, but it’s just a few ideas that I was thinking of considering this show is meant to have darker themes but yet comes off as a kids show in the morning)
Somehow amid all the secondhand exposure to this series, I'm only just now processing that "The primary antagonists turn an entire village to stone and attempt to murder the main cast" is not, in fact, the season finale episode.
you know what would it have been cool? that the purple one would have use the axe as a way to carry her terrasphere and use it like an enchanted weapon of sort. i'm just saying the contrast between bratty princess behavior and the brutality of an axe is not only hilarious but it also establish that the character might be delicate but it also to fear to
Honestly that'd be a great idea. We see already that Terraspheres can be built into near anything. Why not actual weapons when they can be hair pins and earrings?
Ending on a somber note and then doing a happy go lucky ending doesn’t just sound stupid, it’s borderline psychotic. Like having an adorable cutesy character having a killing spree with a smile that goes more and more maniacal and murdery
Wait wait wait this would feed to the school being evil that student KNEW and wanted to off Caroway and THEN when that failed he pulled a "just a prank bro"
that ending reminded me of a transformers G1 episode that was quite dark for a show about fighting robot toys. the ending was that their battle had destroyed a peaceful nature park with one of the autobots going "yeah.....we won" in a somber tone showing that he felt the loss others we missing. then we got the standard victory music and ending credits theme HGS made the mistake an 80s toy commercial did.
Its the worst episode because it does a lot of things: -Ruins Snap's character and demonizes his family. -Old Teacher boasting about New Magic is great and can do anything, but does a sudden 180 and now says that New Magic is dangerous and must be treated seriously. -Cal was deliberately put on that mission just so he can tease Snap and wasn't put there based on skills and merit. -Teachers are idiots because not only they didn't provide help but didn't specify that the sea dragon shouldn't be killed. -The out of nowhere shift in tone. It's been happy go lucky and nice but then suddenly it turns serious as Rosemary needs to mercy kill the sea dragon. -The way Caraway was grooming Snap with the whole transgender talk. -Snap complaining about hating his big hands and broad shoulders (even though he's a thin as a tooth pick) -Cal not fighting back and letting it slide. Its a terrible message that you should hit some one just because they said something you didn't like.
if Snap hit Cal, and Cal didn't fight back, does that mean Cal was superior in this situation? and somehow, surprisingly, Snap still broke his wrist, and the professor realized it just by looking
-The mission was not to kill a sea beast, specifically sending those who approved the mission to kill a sea beast, literally killing it the same way they learned
@@vitorsanches7290 That's what's funny. Cal didn't hit back but still hurt Snap. You got to wonder why Snap is a warrior when he's so frail and wimpy, it would have made more sense if he was a spellcaster like Sage. Snap would have most likely crumbled like a fucking crouton if Cal did hit back. Lol
Another inconsistency I don’t see anyone pointing out is how Thyme was implied to be against people falling in love at first sight like when Rosemary fell in love with Astor, but then she does the exact same thing in this episode with someone she just met.
I like shows that change their outro's depending on the episode, but the emotional whiplash of characters doing or going through traumatic shit only for the credits to pop up with the most poptastical song, and wholesome pictures is just priceless
All I can think is: theyre concerned about the safety of their students enough to test them and find the best 6. Just to ignore it and send them not just 2 people down but also one of them is without the weapon they used for the test!!
You deserve a medal for this. The fact you manage to watch through this show multiple times, break it down, and not die of a massive stroke speaks volumes as to your strength and fortitude. I imagine lesser men would go *mad.*
Wow, what a mess! If they didn't want best girl Amarillys for this mission, they could have made her get hurt during the training (like, by heroically protecting Snapdragon, or by making mistakes due to not being used to her new axe...). (Also, yes, why removing Rose's sword? A bow is ok underwater but the sword isn't?? No replacement weapon? How irresponsible! And why not making Thyme use a harpoon with sleep arrows, like with Neppy Cat? Aaarh! Too many questions!)
Thyme basically fell for Coral (the short haired mermaid) because the latter is basically a combination of all three of her "friends" rolled into one. So not only is Thyme the typical "rival turned into friend" type of character, she's also the typical "tsundre in denial" character (you know the type of character that wants to deny the fact they are falling for the person they used to hate). So Thyme actually has "secret crushes "on Rosemary, Sage, and Parsley & wants to have a polyamorous relationship with them. And Coral just so happens to look like the combo of all three of Thyme's "girlfriends" (pink hair like Rosemary, face like Sage, and stature of Parsley).
6:30 I love how they have this guy making such a big deal about that as if guys never dress up as women on Halloween. It's not exactly uncommon for guys to dress in drag for costume parties. Usually most men do it as a joke. Also given how casual h0mos3xu@l relationships seem to be in this world and the fact that people can use magic to change their gender whenever they want why would this ever be an issue?
Also. If he's making such a giant deal about this. WHY IS HE NOT BEING IMMEDIATELY PUNISHED BY GETTING TURNED INTO A MERMAID?! They have a character be homophobic FOR NO REASON. And the best karmatic justice the writers can come up with is a few punches to the face.
@@metademetra That would have been good writing. Forcing the bigoted character to become whatever they're mocking/hating so they have the opportunity to change their mindset is cliche but it works well. But this is High Guardian Spice we're talking about.
I absolutely lost my shit when Caraway punished Snapdragon. Literally what!? The one time violence against a student is remotely justified, of course that's the one time it's frowned upon. "Nice use of violence"
It rings so much with the sentiment of "No tolerence for violence" in school. Like oh, this kid can harass me, bully me, do all these awful things to me, but the minute I punch him in the face when it gets pushed to far, I'M the one who gets suspended?
The octopus fight is kinda dark when when you think about it, basically they kill creatures extract there brains and pilot them like robots. Also for all we know the octopus could still be a live when the battle happened basically meaning that while the teacher was controlling the creature it was still experiencing pain. Also are these octopuses mass produced for training? Are they clones? I probably thought way to deep into this irrelevant fight.
I sincerely hope it was just a very advanced robot. A robot that can bleed and display emotions when hurt, which is kinda useless, but a robot nonetheless... (Also, robot or not, its sad face made me sad too... =( )
Wait... so the octopus is a mech, meaning it's made of metal. But said metal is easily pierced by arrows (4:22), BLEEDS when it's cut (4:30) (how tf did she do that to metal what), bleeds an entirely different color of blood when hit by magic (4:37- this didn't work earlier for some reason), and the seam where it opens just straight up APPEARS at 4:47? Dang. They really did just write a fully living octopus, then slap in the mech bit after the fact. Probably because if they showed Sage killing an octopus without remorse, they couldn't mope around about the dragon thing?
9:02 They tried to make trans representation by saying "look, this guy has to do the equivalent of testosterone injections!" But they forgot about the world building they had already done.
To be fair, the mech suit did *lose* to the handful of novice guardian students. Perhaps the mech suit just isn't strong enough to be useful for anything other than low level training exercises.
"Hey kid, have you considered trans magic?" He litterally said to Snapdragon after the boy opened up about his feels. So "proper control".. 🙄 i think he meant, "not being a creep to a student and suggesting an irreversible thing".
I'm willing to bet part of the reason snapdragon got punished is to have the underlying message "gay/flamboyant men are oppressed thefore they can get attacked with no repercussion". Which would be a noble intention if executed well. Anyway, i'm not a writer but even i could do better on my own. Inconsistent characters are so god damn annoying. That's why yang pissed me off so much in RWBY after the fourth season or so, and was one of the main reasons i stopped watching.
Okay but is no one going to say about how the requirement to go on this "capture the sea creature" mission was a test where they have to deal fatal damage to a sea creature. Caraway set them up to kill this innocent creature.
My guess is Thyme was attracted to the mermaid because the producers realized they missed a character signaling their lesibianess and so just dropped it in here because none of the other students fit their head cannon on who she should be with. Yes I say head cannon because this whole show is like a bad tumblr fanfic.
That ending was so jarring when it cuts to the overly-cheerful outro and that high-pitched voice singing about such light-hearted stuff. Ik Guardian HQ mentioned it but I can't get how bad that was. This is why I appreciate shows that change their outros when the tone's more serious. TOH (The Owl House) is my main example. Though its outro isn't that cheery, during the second last episode of season 1, after a huge loss for the main characters as one of them is captured -- I won't spoil in case people want to check out the show -- the outro simply shows a scene of the prison where one of the main characters is being held in now, rain falling from the sky, as that's all you can hear after such a tense and shocking ending to an episode as the music would've ruined it. They do the same for the finale of season 2 -- this time the main characters have been separated as the protag and her friends are sent far away when their loved ones are in danger -- with a silent shot of the abandoned house they landed in, again having the rain set the heavy tone as the credits play at the bottom of the scene. If the show was trying to have the cheery music contrast the "dark" scene we just saw with Rosemary killing the sea dragon to show that being a guardian isn't all fun and games like the two main girls had at the start, it didn't work. All it does is prove that nobody there is smart enough to realise that at least changing the outro a bit so it wouldn't be as much of a whiplash to the audience.
11:05 LOL, even the cute mascot knows how messed up is what Rosemary is doing right now! In a better-written fiction work, such thing would cause, at least, a huge diplomatic incident.
They could've averted the lack of budget on the ending, and had characters recoiling privately (or otherwise dealing with) the situation mentally while the credits rolled. Shows skip tone deaf OP/ED or otherwise use missing OP/ED for pivotal and dramatic moments, especially anime, and a show hosted in an anime site really could've benefited from some basic anime tropes. Terrasphere special effects flowing energy from the hands through the device can tether the weapon to fill that plot hole, but as usual HGS wasn't thinking about it, although there's all kinds of weird weapon behaviors such as holding onto one even while it's being dangerous, that... Could have helped. The kid SD beat up really should have been part of the matter, especially since he was harassing, and also was abandoning his mission, they need good client relations, logically, so cold as it is, the assault doesn't really excuse it. Just... So many issues...!
Had t he student managed to kill him then he would have been named a new guardian for successfully killing a current one, completing the ritual and inducting him into the fold. That or it was supposed to be a cute moment were the student already had a bolt in his crossbow and was aiming at the squid and accidentally let it loose after the professor revealed it was a mech but they switched around the order of events in production like dumbasses and didn't care about consistency.
The dumbest part about them taking Rose's sword away is because Caraway says, "You won't need it where you're going" Basically saying the warrior won't need their weapon, but he leaves everyone else with theirs.
The plot reminds me of that one Akazukin ChaCha episode where the main trio end up on a *HUGE* river & going under there, they discover a whole bunch of humans dressed up in komono suits at the Dragon Lord's Palace that are supposedly friendly & eat tons of vegetables. Not gonna go into specifics, but as it turns out, those humans might be a bit, meaner & greener than the they thought... Oh who am I kidding THIS ENTIRE SHOW just reminds me of Akazukin ChaCha! And because it legitimately just takes everything from Akazukin ChaCha & then turns it into absolute crap.
