[three characters looking awfully bland] The protagonists:
- Annoying goody two shoes leader who’s a paragon of virtue
- Nerdy scientist with no backstory who keeps doing poor puns
- Super bland dude who’s an obvious self insert for the writer
- People die because they’re “good” and refuse to break the rules
- They win battles through plot armor and the power of friendship
[a cool looking grizzled character smokes a cigar in a spaceship interior, a foot up on the controls, while a spaceship blasts a mega laser outside in space] The super evil antagonist:
- Played by the most charismatic actor available on the market
- Keeps doing the coolest looking things (but you must hate it)
- Has the coolest secret lair and his henchmen love him
- Is named Adolf McMurder and genocides with a smile
- Says an awesome one liner before murdering an orphan
[a nerdy dude in flannel points at a storyboard of the two previous images] The naive screenwriter:
- At least this time he’s not writing women, phew
- Has too much trust in his audience’s media literacy - About to give the super evil antagonist yet another zingy one liner
- Surely if we show him killing an orphan the audience will hate him
- Right, guys?… Right??…
Honestly this is where good Trek shines. Picard is the rebel bad boy who understands the weight of his responsibility and agrees with the mission and foundational rules of the Federation. He understands that the rules are there for a reason and weighs breaking them against that. Meanwhile the villains are less cool at their coolest.
I’m begging writers to have more heroes who are good because it’s ultimately to their and everyone else’s benefits for the world to be better, for their complexity to be between their instincts and emotions and their knowledge of consequences and costs. For heroes who are neither fascist propaganda by being big strong hero who breaks the rules nor by being the weenie standing next to the big strong villain who breaks the rules. More Picard, more Aang, more Tiffany Aching [or any other Pratchett hero]
Sisko is totally fine with terrorism if it’s used for good.
As defined by Sisko
You also have different kinds of stories being shown. 90’s Trek typically tells stories from the point of view of various governments trying to interact to get what they want. It isn’t just the heroes who have power structures, but also the villains.
I’m reading The Farseer Trilogy right now and this fits the mc painfully well. It’s really heartbreaking seeing him do what he believes is right despite everything else going on in his life
save yourself the pain of read the later stuff with Bee
the pain of the Farseeir trilogy, or the pain of the stuff with Bee? idk what u mean
i just read the first trilogy a month or so ago tho and it’s peak, it’s incredible how much she gets you to care about the characters
very much agree
but she has two broad groups of main characters
suffers but takes action
suffers and spends his time wallowing in self loathing
first 6 books are great
broader world building is great but some of the other MCs are the second case
last 3 books are a combo of the second case and hitting all the nostalgia points and its sad
Ah Fitz, you’re the best of us.
You’ve got a fantastic journey ahead of you by the way, there’s like 3 more trilogies directly following on from that one, and together they make up my favourite books of all time <3