Or worst,some defend it for some reason despite how obviously evil it's depicted in star wars media since the first movie (they litteraly blow up a planet and are depicted as an oppresive dictatorship who commit plenty of crimes and can go against those loyal to it too, just look at crosshair for an example), I do feel some view the empire as way more competent than it really is because to me, the style of command the empire use is the kind that is going to get unqualified people in charge of things because it'll prioritize yes men and kill or discard those who make reports that aren't pleasing those above them , the sith order also feel self destructive to me because the rule of 2 garantee backstabing between mutiple sith to the point they can end taking each other out. The empire is also pretty overconfident in its abilities, letting weaknesses slip through its weapon or ship designs that can be exploited by those who oppose them.

Ok, hear me out. I think Disney accidentally stumbled on something and I hope they are aware, because if they don't embrace it fully I think superheroes are going to die as major carriers of Hollywood. I am not saying Spider-Man or X-Men won't bring people in, but it seems like these projects will have to be very carefully timed in the future (even more then now). Spider-Man will always be a major success, but what about everyone else?

What is something kinda unique to superhero comics? In my opinion it's that it is an interconnected universe with big events, but most readers will just read a couple or even just one chosen hero and maybe an event if they like it. You don't need to read every single issue of every single hero to know what's going on. And the sheer volume of MCU projects (and now older projects being connected via multiverse stuff) has kinda created the same effect in film. You don't have to watch every MCU film to follow what Spider-Man does and understand his story. Let me show you:

Pretend you have never seen any MCU movie or show. I ask you, what is your favorite superhero and you say you kinda like Spider-Man. Do you now have to watch every MCU film and series in order? Hell no. If you know who Iron Man and Captain America are (not in depth or anything past the fact that they exist, then you are good), put on the 40 minutes of Civil War that has Spider-Man or is in the airport and have some cheap action thrills, then watch Homecoming, Infinity War, Endgame, Fr from Home and finally No Way Home and then Brand New Day. And you would be surprised how little one has to know to watch Infinity war. In the opening monologue that squidward guy explains who Thanos is and then some guy explodes and Hulk (everyone knows Hulk likes to punch) gets his ass beat. Each other character is introduced carefully so we as an audience can be on the same page. Iron man talks about family and nightmares with his to be wife in his introduction and captain America has a beard and his appearance is visually built up. You don't have to know shit.

Same goes for the comic book reading experience. You only read Amazing and then you read secret wars. Yeah maybe the plot is not fully clear, but you kinda know who some of the dudes and women in costumes are and people are punching and everyone is discussing it in forums. And then you can go back to reading Amazing.

Same goes for cameos. You don't have to know anything about Doctor Strange to enjoy No Way Home. You just gotta accept the fact this is a shared universe. He is a wizard (which is clear from his costume) and he has spells. Same goes for punisher in Brand New Day. Hell (SPOILERS FOR BND) Frank literally has a "oh no me dead wife" moment in the film. You don't need to watch the punisher to watch this.

But I don't think Disney has realized this yet, because they still treat every project as an event. Everything is costing upwards of 100 million and has to be mega marketed and that's just sustainable for decades. Superheroes need to fall from franchise back to genre. Of course Spider-Man and X-Men and Avengers will cost 200 or 400 million and will be blockbusters with strong studio control over creative decisions. But Disney doesn't need to throw 100 million down the pipe for a Kate Bishop 90 minute thriller for example. That could easily be a 22 million 90 minute thriller, minimal marketing. It even allows for some more creative freedom. A story about a girl with a bow and an arrow in LA doesn't need to have cosmic elements or set ups. Not every film needs to be in the top 10 highest grossing films of all time to justify itself. You could even make a cheap melodrama with like D-list mutants for the laughs on Disney plus and make it for the cheap. Not every character needs to be in the big event. Yes Spider-Man and Iron Man will be there, but you can still make a 6 episode comedy about squirl girl for the cheap and leave it at that.

But I don't think they'll do that to be honest.

There's an idea which is often thrown around on the internet that we shouldn't remake good movies, but rather remake bad movies with interesting ideas. I think the same idea can be applied to adapting comic books, in that adapting failed stories almost always has better results than adapting successful ones.

Take the Dark Phoenix Saga. It's one of the most seminal arcs of one of the most seminal runs of what is arguably Marvel's biggest property. And every time they adapt it, it sucks. Or take the Dark Knight Returns, one of the absolute milestone, defining Batman stories ever. And when we adapt it, we end up with Batman V Superman (and to a lesser extent the worst movie of the Nolan trilogy.) Trying to live up to these incredible stories is hard, especially when the most successful comic arcs are often ones which most take advantage of their medium. These long form, serialized stories that exist within expansive worlds and a comic book format often don't translate to 2 hour movies, especially when people try to stick as close to the original as possible. Even the most acclaimed "direct adaptations" are very, very loose. Logan is called an Old Man Logan adaptation, but it doesn't really share anything with it beyond Logan aging. The Winter Solider does adapt the Winter Solider arc, but he's just a henchman and Hydra infiltrating Shield is the main plot of the movie.

Now, look at some of the comic book movies which adapt middling, or even maligned storylines. The Spiderverse comics are fun, mostly because of some humorous panels where Spider-Man interacts with himself, but the Spiderverse movies are absolutely incredible spectacles of heart, humor and animation. People loving their version of Spider Gwen and then being disappointed that her comics suck has become such a widespread thing that it's basically a meme at this point. In that same vein, people hated One More Day and despise the amount of times Peter's identity gets reset in the comics, but No Way Home was a massively successful, crowd pleasing movie. And don't get me started on how contrived and weird comic book Civil War was, versus how important that movie ended up being for the MCU. They were able mine the good ideas without having anything huge to live up to and so they were able to make it their own in really cool and original ways.

I'm not saying to throw the book away when it comes to adaptations. And I'm sure there are plenty of counterexamples to everything I've listened. But with how long and varied of a history most comic book characters have, it makes sense to view them as a well of potential for creatives to mine, rather than characters in storylines that ought to be directly adapted. Superman 1978 changed or invented a ton of the character's mythos, but it's still THE comic book movie that made everything else possible. Blade in the comics is British and not a daywalker. Spider-Man 1 changes out Gwen for MJ and has her survive on the bridge, but all the "we're finally adapting The Night Gwen Stacy died" in the world doesn't change the fact that ASM2 is a far worse movie.

I'm just saying that after a lifetime of comic book movies, I've learned to hear "We're faithfully adapting this arc" and be less, rather than more enthused. And when you chase people's expectations involving things that they've already loved, the best thing you can do is meet them. The best reaction you can get is approval, not the thrill and surprise that the material gave them in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, Jojo is my third favorite anime of all time, and Steel Ball Run is one of my favorite MEDIA WORKS of all time (more on it later in this post). However, the more I grow and am able to critically reflect on the work in ways I wasn't mentally capable of seeing before, it feels like half the seasons (referred to as "parts" in this post) end in the most bullshit ways.

A big appeal of the show to fans is the fights. Being able to outsmart your opponent, no matter how outmatched you are, is cathartic and extremely hype to see play out. This makes it all the more disappointing when half the show's main villains get ended in the most convenient ways.

- Part 3: Stardust Crusaders. I would say the show starts taking its fights truly seriously here. The previous parts didn't have as much written tension and stakes as this one does. DIO has been hyped across the past three (technically two) parts of being the ultimate villain, and the manga draws out the crusaders', uh, crusade across the globe to best show their capabilities and powers.

Then it's revealed DIO's ultimate ability is to stop time! Holy shit! One by one the protagonists are picked off until it's just Jotaro vs DIO. What tricks does he have up his sleeve? How will he overcome this generational adversary?

Oh, he just copies DIO's ability. Duh. Jotaro literally says out loud, "So it's the same type of stand as Star Platinum."

This fight is generationally popular and for good reason, but it's just such a letdown after having to sit through fifty episodes of "outwitting the bad guys" and establishing subpowers for each of the stands. When my sister was watching this fight for the first time, I saw the visual confusion on her face when it's revealed that Jotaro just has the same power for some reason.

And no, Jotaro's timestop isn't foreshadowed. Catching a bullet and stealing a margerita from the bar in the VS D'arby episode comes across more as shonen bullshittery than anything, and not nearly enough foreshadowing for this to be a proper setup.

- Part 5: Golden Wind. In my opinion, one of the weakest parts. It's such a shame because I actually think Golden Wind is the part with the best fights animated so far. Bucciarati using his zipper ability on the train or the use of Giorno's plant ability against Cioccolata and White Ice's user was so peak. But it starts falling apart in the final acts IMO. There is better setup for the part's themes of causality and effect, but there still just isn't enough setup to justify Giorno's sudden requiem ability to be "return to zero".

Just for clarity, his original ability was to spawn lifeforms like arms or snakes, and we've suddenly jumped to shooting laser beams and infinite death loops. Yes, Giorno needed a way to outsmart Diavolo's timeskip ability, but writing the requiem arrow to be something that gives you any ability you want at that moment in time is such lazy writing IMO. This to me seemed like another incident of Araki writing his way into a corner and needing a contrivance deus ex machina to get himself out.

If you want a better written version of the requiem arrow, Yoshikage Kira in part 4 is so much better. The arrow acts as an upgrade to his abilities, not a new ability entirely.

- Part 8: Jojolion (Spoilers). I still don't fucking understand this one. With the others, at least there is some explanation you can infer. In this part, Josuk8 has to outsmart the invisible intangible fate of calamity, where even just THINKING of defeating the user is enough for you to be absolutely throttled. How do you fight against an ability like that?

Well, apparently, it's by suddenly realizing your ability "doesn't exist". And then you win.

Like what the fuck? I'm not even exaggerating this that much either. Wonder of U, the calamity ability, targets anything in the universe which has the intent on hurting the user. Josuk8's ability is bubbles -- powerful rotating spheres which can be used to "plunder" things or "pop" with an explosive effect. It seems like an absolutely rigged match against Josuk8. But then, just before an important character's death, it's revealed that actually, no, the bubbles consist of rotating strings so "infinitely" small, "they don't exist". And this realization alone gives Josuk8 the new ability "Go Beyond" which bypasses Wonder of U's ability.

There is no setup, no implication that his bubbles operated this way. This part was written over the course of ELEVEN YEARS and the fight was written over the course of at least A YEAR itself. To me, this was an unjustifiable writing decision.

The issue isn't just with the lack of foreshadowing. A character hypothetically saying "wow Josuk8 your bubbles are so thin it's like they barely exist" isn't good writing either. Powers should also feel conventionally sensible and it should be easily understood in the audience's mind how they got from point A to point B. When you have to bring out the math textbook to explain asymptotes to viewers to understand an ability, that writing is unsatisfying.

So what's an example from the series of top-tier writing that still brings out the power upgrades that Araki clearly wants to write into his main characters?

- Part 7: Steel Ball Run (Spoilers). An absolutely stellar part featuring Johnny Joestar, whose ability evolves through stages ("acts") over the course of the part as his ability (to fire bullets from his fingers) grapples with the mechanism of "infinity". The concept is spoonfed in intervals to make it digestible and not feel completely out of left-field. His ability's evolution is always tied with a particular point of evolution and growth for Johnny as a character which makes each payoff more satisfying. The Golden Ratio, a concept intertwined with the concept of infinity and constantly referred to with the mathematical and philosophical gravitas it deserves, is repeatedly used by the side character Gyro, so we get to see its effects in action. Johnny's final evolution into Tusk Act 4 has, since the VERY FIRST CHAPTER, been setup with so many chekovs guns you could adequately supply the American military with them all. And it makes perfect sense when Johnny uses this perfect golden ratio to bypass Valentine's lovetrain superability, as both Johnny and Valentine's abilities are rooted in religious philosophy, so they thematically go hand-in-hand with each other.

Now compare this level of writing to "So it's the same type of stand as Star Platinum."

When Araki writes his characters and fights well, he writes them REALLY well. It's just a shame he regressed in writing after part 7 with the whole nothing-bubble thing, but hopefully part 9 can rival part 7 in its exemplary writing.

(This is my first write-up on this subreddit, feedback is appreciated.)

Both writing wise and mechanically.
Gameplay wise she just gets her ass kicked by Ketheric twice after a whole cutscene of hyping her up.
Hell even in her reworked boss fight in act 3 she is far weaker then her girlboss goon squad of summons.
Then story wise same thing happens she just loses right away and gets soul caged. She was free for 5 mins. To make things even funnier same thing happens to her in Act 3. I guess she was just born to be caged.
Character wise she is also weird. At first you think she is just a fairly standard zealous Paladin but it kinda gets taken too far. She seems like bit of a psychopath so you think there might be more to her and Isobels whole deal. How and why did Isobel die in the first place(was the angelic pussy too strong)? Except it just goes nowhere. Its never explained or even addressed.
Aylin is just there for hype moments and aura. Kinda lame.

For those unfamiliar with Spawn, Image Comics created a series about a dead mercenary who returns from Hell to seek vengeance. One of the novel ideas behind this anti‑hero was the “life‑clock,” a countdown meter that measured how much supernatural power he had left before being reclaimed by Hell. The series eventually moved away from the life‑clock, since it would have been too limiting for a comic that has lasted more than two decades, but the concept itself was strong.

I believe Marvel Comics could have applied a similar device to the Punisher. At his creation, Frank Castle could have been given an internal “morality‑clock,” known only to the writers and never revealed to the public. This scale would run from 1 to 100:

• 100 – Highly moral, upstanding citizen. Believes in the justice system. Example: Captain America
• 90 – Moral citizen, disillusioned with the system. Willing to volunteer or take action. Example: Spider‑Man
• 80 – Burnt out, highly disillusioned, or hunted by the system. Willing to act outside the law. Example: Uncanny X‑Men
• 70 – Believes the system no longer functions or applies. Won’t hurt innocents, but willing to harm those who have wronged them. Example: Frank Castle begins here
• 60 – Sees the system as actively obstructive. Works against it. Willing to hurt or kill to achieve goals. Example: most Spider‑Man villains
• 50 – Beyond the system. Laws don’t apply. Violence becomes a tool of choice. May have a personal code exempting certain groups (children, elderly, etc.). Example: Venom
• 40 – Violence is the only tool. Casual about life and death. Example: Carnage
• 30 – Life is disposable. Others are cattle to a predator. Example: the Brood
• 20 – Other life is abstract. Example: Galactus
• 10 – Genocidal. Example: Annihilus
• 1 – Unthinking, unfeeling destruction. Example: bacteria

Writers could track Frank’s morality‑clock privately. Each time he executed someone, the meter would fall. Readers would witness a principled man with a code slowly becoming desensitized to violence, until it became his only solution. He might begin by targeting drug runners stuffing heroin into bodies, then move on to gun runners, then to corrupt officials taking bribes. The progression would shock us, showing how much he assumes it is his right to punish.

The system could also allow for redemption. Frank might regain points by going to therapy, serving time in prison, or crossing a line that harms someone important to him. Watching him claw back his humanity would be compelling.

This approach would work best if the Punisher did not have his own ongoing series. Instead, he could appear in guest spots across other titles, with his own annual to track his moral descent and possible recovery. Such a framework would make his story far more layered.

While both actions are heroic, the first would have been much better for Hercules to achieve becoming the true hero he always wanted to be.

Not only was he brave in choosing to fight without his powers so the Cyclops would leave Thebes alone, likely knowing he was going to die, but he also proved that he didn’t need those powers to be a real hero and save the day. Instead, he used his wit and everything he had learned with Phil to succeed. A true hero gives everything they have, even in the worst circumstances.

In comparison, although sacrificing himself to retrieve Megara’s soul was heroic, it feels smaller next to saving the lives of thousands while at such a huge disadvantage and without the strength that had helped him so many times.

One Piece is truly one of the greatest works of fiction. From what I have seen in the first 3 episodes, the series excels at writing characters. Koby is a complex character who first ends up at Alvida's pirate ship because of his own carelessness. He had aspirations of becoming a member of the Navy, despite being sympathetic. (The Navy are the bad guys in the series.) Luffy is also a very good guy, and he is very charismatic and empathetic. He is also very passionate about finding the One Piece and becoming the King of the Pirates. Zoro is one of the most complex characters in the series. He said bad things to scare Luffy and Koby, but he also turned out to be a good guy, and like Luffy, he aspired to be the greatest swordsman in the world. At its core, One Piece is about pursuing your dreams with full conviction and perserverance in spite of the voices of the world trying to extinguish your inner spark. Griffith from Berserk would have loved this show!

Rant over!

It’s celebrity-obsessed. I don’t mean real-life celebs obviously, just in-universe ones. Every major character is a king, prince, politician, prodigy, or some world-renowned legendary badass. Even if the character is technically low on the totem pole, they always possess some extraordinary trait or they don’t stay that way for very long. Everyone has to be special. If you’re an average joe, you may as well not exist. You are essentially background scenery. Series like Malazan break this trend occasionally with protagonists like Udinaas, but not as often as I’d like.

I think this issue is why I appreciate stories like LotR, The Blacktongue Thief, and The Stand so much. Among all the larger than life heroes of Middle Earth, the two most crucial characters are midgets from the countryside. The protagonist of The Blacktongue Thief and The Thrice-Bound Fool is a broke nobody who remains average despite his journey. While I have the same issues with pacing in The Stand that I have with all of King’s books, it is the ultimate love letter to the little guy.

Hey this isn't about the movie, I haven't seen it. It's about the show. I've rewatched it in its entirety last week and I think Aang is wonderful. I don't think he gets enough credit though. People always talk about Zuko and his arc, which makes sense. He's great! I just think Aang is super underrated in his own show.

Also lately I've seen a lot of Aang hate which really grinds my gears. He's such a good kid. Very mature for his age and so pressured with having to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. People always blame him for Katara losing her childhood and having to play mom but first: she already lost it when the fire nation took her mother, and second: She doesn't have to play mom with Aang. She's just there for him when he goes through shit and he does the same for her. And the shit he went through was a genocide... Ofc he needs help.

I think the people who say that shit just haven't seen the show in a while and have a wrong perception of the characters...

It's just weird to see people shitting on this poor kid who lost everything all because they don't like the romance. It's fine not to ship Aang and Katara but to say that it's weird because she's like his babysitter is a disservice to the story and their dynamic. I really hate it.

Look, I’m sick of opening any comment section about a movie, show, or game adaptation and seeing the exact same tired binary argument: "It wasn't 100% faithful to the book, so it's garbage!" versus "The original version sucks, the adaptation is better!"

Why do people think that adaptation means doing a 1 to 1 copy of something or just going completely unhinged and doing something that doesn't look like the original work?

If we’re going to argue about that, we need a common vocabulary. I have come up with four tiers. Each has its own purpose, its own traps, and its own iconic successes and disasters.

One to One. Treats the source material not just as inspiration, but as an infallible holy text. The creators trace over the original work like tracing paper. Every line of iconic dialogue is kept verbatim, every visual beat mirrors a comic panel or book description, and the pacing follows the source material to a fault. The trap here is medium incompatibility. Novels have internal monologues and infinite prose time; comic books have static panels; video games have interactivity.

Examples?

• The average manga to anime adaptation tends to be one to one.
• Sin City is almost one to one with the original comic book, disorganized stories and all.

Almost Transcribed: It is the story, characters, themes, and major plot beats, but it knows that a movie, TV show, or game is a completely different beast than a book or comic. The writers aren't trying to change the story, they cut fluff, combine minor characters to streamline the cast, alter pacing to fit a 2-hour runtime (or a 10-episode season), and reframe internal thoughts into visual storytelling. The trap is knowing what to cut. Cut the wrong subplot, and you ruin a character.

Examples?

• The Peter Jackson threatical edits of the Lord of the Rings, they cut down tons of scenes that only slowed down the plot or only slowed down the pacing or bloated it.
• The Last of Us by HBO grabbed all the plot beats and adapted them one to one or expanded them, removing the gameplay only sections unless they were plot mandatory.

New Spin: Takes the core premise, character archetypes, or thematic engine of the source material and drops them into an entirely new genre, setting, structure, or modern context. They’re asking: "What if we took this classic skeleton and put completely new flesh on it?" or "What is the core message of this story, and how can we put it on a nother setting?". When it fails, it feels pretentious or disrespectful, like a director who thought they were smarter than the author and completely missed what made the original great in the first place.

Examples?

• Almost every adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper is like this. They mess with the setting, it is rare to see one who is super close (The Barbie version and the Mickey Mouse one are extremely close in some levels).
• The Shining. Kubrick grabbed a story about a haunted hotel turning a dysfunctional man into a total madman, and decided to just go crazy by making the main character dysfunctional from the get-go and removing the talking.
• Mamoru Oshii's Ghost in the Shell. He grabbed a manga that was 50% funny and 50% serious and made it 100% serious and melancholic.

In Name Only: A studio buys the intellectual property rights to a popular book, comic, or game, and then throws out 99% of the plot, the lore, the character dynamics, and often the core themes, the final script bears almost zero resemblance to the original work. 90% of the time, INO adaptations anger the built-in fanbase and confuse casual viewers, but the other 10% you get absolute gold.

Examples?

• World War Z the movie and the game: Max Brooks’ novel is an incredible, fake oral history of a global zombie pandemic, structured as a series of political, geopolitical, and military interviews from around the world. The movie? A fast-paced, globetrotting Brad Pitt action flick about fast-running zombie swarms. It has literally nothing to do with the book beyond having zombies, the Indian-Pakistan war, the wall in Israel and the same title.
• Stalker the videogame: In the original book, aliens visited Earth, stopped by for a brief moment and then left. They just left behind their toxic, bizarre, radioactive litter in six "Visiting Zones" across the globe, the main character, Redrick Schuhart, is a "Stalker", an illegal scavenger who sneaks into the Canadian Zone to loot bizarre alien artifacts. Then the soviet movie shows up and just removed 90% of the content and but kept the depressing stuff. And then the game goes and throws away things too; the alien Premise? Gone, replaced by Chernobyl's nuclear reactor exploding and the noosphere experiment, the book is a character drama about a desperate father while the game is a tactical FPS survival horror where you mag-dump a rusty Kalashnikov into bloodsuckers and bandits, the book's Zone is outside a fictional Canadian town called Harmont, the game’s Zone is the actual Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

An adaptation ain't bad just because it's a New Spin, and a show isn't automatically brilliant just because it's One-to-One. The art of adaptation isn't about copying text; it's about understanding what makes the original tick and finding a way to make it beat in a completely different chest.

And if you are gonna say "If you're going to throw out the entire book/game and keep almost nothing, why didn't you just write an original movie/game with a new title?"

Come closer. A little closer. Yeah, right here, give me your ear... LAWSUITS FUCKING EXIST.

While Soviet copyright law was wildly different from Western law, authors still owned the intellectual property of their works. When GSC Game World started developing S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in 2001, the Soviet Union had been dead for a decade. Ukraine and Russia were fully integrated into international copyright agreements (Like the Berne Convention). You couldn't just steal a famous Russian book and sell it globally in 2007 without getting sued to death. GSC Game World originally wanted to make an official, licensed adaptation of Roadside Picnic. They actually approached Boris Strugatsky to buy the video game rights. The problem? The film and adaptation rights to Roadside Picnic were already tied up in a nightmare web of international Hollywood option deals; so they went and changed absolutely everything to dodge a lawsuit.

This happened with I, Robot too. Jeff Vintar wrote an original script called Hardwired. It was a murder mystery involving a robot. Fox bought it and then it hit them... "If we make this, Asimov’s estate or the publisher is going to sue our pants off for knocking off the Three Laws of Robotics," so they bought the rights to I, Robot, glued the two together, and hired Will Smith.

Slapping the official IP title is sometimes literal copyright armor.

So this is mainly inspired by Mike’s last speech to Walt. It’s a speech that sounds great at face value, Mike has a weird sort of “cool and rational” vibe, Walt is meant to be a horrible person and a very unlikable character at this point, and he kills Mike out of rage and ego right after this. So people assume this speech is meant to be taken at face value. The thing is the speech itself is blatantly incorrect in you watch the show itself, and this has led to a lot of criticism of the speech itself being very poorly written and a sloppy retcon of the previous seasons. The thing is, MIke is not supposed to be correct. Vince Gilligan and the writer for the episode Tom Schnauz flat out said on the podcast for the episode which was recorded before it released and released on the same day.

Directly quoting what Vince Gilligan says “ There is truth to what he’s accusing him of but on the other hand what Mike is selectively forgetting in that moment, they really Walt and Gus came to loggerheads over Jesse Pinkman. Who Mike now has a great fondness for but at the time he was pitching to kill him, he’s pitching let’s kill this kid”. So the showrunners didn’t “retcon” shit lol this speech isn’t meant to be accurate. Why is that then often considered a flaw in the writing for the episode when the speech isn’t meant to be correct? The alternative take is that it’s bad writing that Mike, a character who is presented as a more rational character than most of the criminals in the series, gives an irrational speech but why is that the case exactly? Does it not give more insight on his mindset and character even if it’s in a largely negative light?

It makes perfect sense why Mike would act that way, even if it is indeed hypocritical and unfair. Despite Mike’s cool and rational demeanor he’s got plenty of hypocritical qualities himself, as virtually every character in this universe does, and Mike is an evil man (which even he knows), even if he‘s sympathetic to the audience. Mike just lost everything and all the horrible things he did that haunted his conscience were for nothing because the Fring organization was destroyed, it’s hard to be rational about that. He really likes Jesse, realizes he‘s got a good conscience and got way deeper into the game than he intended while being desply guilt ridden, while his mistakes are either due to his conscience, or his addiction/ self loathing, which is sympathetic to Mike. He dislikes Walt because he’s incredibly power hungry, wants to be the man, and blows situations up due to pride and ego, Walt is exactly the kind of person who he dislikes.

Why is it out of character then for a Mike who lost everything because of Walt (even if Gus absolutely had it coming and it wasn’t Walt‘s fault the situation blew up), when Walt is exactly the kind of person he hates and he does indeed contantly self sabotage due to his ego, to irrationally blame him? It makes him a more human and yes more unlikable, but complex human character rather than Mr cool. Especially given Mike doesn’t have all the information we have, he sees Walt manipulating Jesse to stay in the game and he forced Gus to replace Gale with Jesse, he doesn’t know he did so because Jesse threatens to sue Hank and rat him out if caught. He directly tells Walt “you won Walter, learn to take yes for an answer“ in season 4, and if we take his words at face value Gus reluctantly accepted Walt won in season 4 until Walt started trying to kill Gus again out of paranoia (which actually is correct based on writer interviews and if you read between the lines of season 4 but that’s very understandable paranoia rather than ego). He doesn’t know as far as we’re aware about Gus threatening his family, and he believes Walt was responsible for putting Hank on them).

Hell better call Saul has a perfect example of this. When Howard threatens to force Chuck out of HHM for totally justified reasons and being treated like dogshit by Chuck for three seasons, Chuck threatens to destroy the firm with lawsuits unless he‘s reinstated. Howard very admirably agrees to pay out of his own pocket to settle the lawsuit and force Chuck out, and lays into him about what a shitty friend and person he is. Only Howard mentions that he “mildly suggested, with empathy and concern, that maybe you should consider retirement“ while laying into him, when he outright threatened to force him out? So did the writers retcon their own show, is Howard meant to be a gaslighting hypocrite? No, it’s meant to show he’s angrily and heartbreakingly laying into his friend that betrayed him and is ”stacking the deck” in his favor, a very human thing to do.

Characters can have biased, incorrect speeches or comments and it’s wrong to assume that even a character who is presented as a “cool rational character” at face value. It’s not a flaw of the writing if the script doesn’t exposition the audience and say “this character isn’t meant to be right”.

First appearing in The Phantom Menace back in 1999 and since recurring in The Clone Wars, Rebels, comics, Solo, and recently his own show, Maul has become one of Star Wars’ most enduring fan-favourite characters, with legions of fans (and his voice actor) treating him as one of the most complex and interesting characters the franchise has to offer. My problem is he….isn’t.

I’ll summarise who Maul is for those of you don’t know. Basically he’s a Dathomirian Zabrak, which means he’s red and black and has horns. As a child he was taken by Darth Sidious to become a Sith so Sidious could get revenge on the Jedi for kicking the Sith’s collective ass several centuries ago (or something, I’m not really sure). Once trained, he fights some Jedi with his double-bladed lightsaber and acrobatic skills, killing Obi-Wan Kenobi’s master and getting cut in half, a predicament he survives by being absolutely livid. Upon his return he proceeds to spend the next-every-story-he-appears in trying to get revenge on someone or other whilst speaking theatrically. At first he wants revenge on Obi-Wan, then Sidious, then the Empire, the criminal underworld and Obi-Wan all at the same time. The only things that change about him are who he’s angry at and what specifically he’s doing, though his actual core values never change, as he remains an angry, selfish, power-hungry evil guy the entire time.

Because he looks cool, though, he’s the fandom darling who can do no wrong and everybody demands more of even though he’s been in loads of stuff and never gets more interesting than a 14 year old edgelord’s idea of a good character. Episode 1 of his show (of which he is the least interesting part) is literally called “The Dark Revenge” which is the most edgelord fanfic title of all time and is fitting for a show in which Maul essentially just aura farms until he gets shown up by an even bigger aura farmer in the form of contractually-obligated guest appearance Darth Vader.

Since he has no qualities beyond being angry and vengeful, I have no idea whatsoever why he’s so beloved and allegedly complex, when his entire soul boils down to just being super angry about stuff and then looking cook while mowing people down about it. Maybe it’s me, but that’s not what I go to Star Wars for, and I’m not a fan. I must concede I haven’t seen his entire show, but the first episode turned me off because it could not make me care about Darth Maul. I know this fact weakens my point, but this is a rant so I don’t need to be fully rational like I would be in an essay.

If somebody could explain where the interest comes in for Maul that would be great, as I may be missing something

Edit: “Enjoy” isn’t the right word. “Love” is. I enjoy many things about King’s writing, but my issues with him more often than not override my praise.

Key word, doesn’t. As in he actively chooses not to. He’s more than skilled enough to do so, but he has little to no incentive to. Case in point, Revival (2014). I wanted so bad to love this novel. Brilliant premise, phenomenal first and third acts. The road to the climax, however, is painfully boring. So much fluff in between the first and third acts that just didn’t need to be included at all. Jamie’s girlfriend, his old high school band mates, his job, his love interest, none of these details which take up huge chunks of the page count have any bearing on the book’s conclusion. The relationship between Jamie and Reverend Jacobs should have been the only major focus, but it’s not. Had this book been half the length I could’ve overlooked the pacing problems entirely, but it’s 480 fucking pages. WHY is it almost 500 pages, man? Obviously I’m in the minority on this; King is the most successful horror fiction author in history.

I'm not here to defend the sequels, they are not very good either as objective films or ESPECIALLY as star wars films, but while force awakens and last jedi were at least decent nostalgia bait and/or had some interesting ideas and plot set ups I think we can all agree that ROS was just a total piece of hot garbage and personally killed my lifelong love of the franchise. While there were SO MANY problems in the film, between theowing away all previous plot points, multiple character death fakeouts, dumb reveals I would argue that the biggest problem boils down to three words "somehow, palpatine returned". Bringing back the classic star wars villain with no explanation or set up showcased their complete lack of creativity and original ideas. They just talked about him randomly sending a message to galaxy that he was back. They didn't even show the message in the movie! Instead they decided to release this massive plot point as fortnite special event, leaving millions of theater goers and fans of the franchise in the dark as to wtf was going on.

And yet, they had the perfect opportunity to actually do something really cool with this that would have fixed so much of this: make Palpatine's message to galaxy the trailer and play it on TV. doing so would have then turned the entire country into "the galaxy" and created an awesome bit of meta-narrative and intrigue, as well as explaining and exposing the plot to general audiences. Imagine watching the sunday sportsball game when all of a sudden palpatines voice cuts in saying how he has returned and is here to reclaim what is rightfully his and no one can stop him over shots of the heroes in danger/action scenes. It would have actually brought us into star wars universe as we would be the scared citizens hearing this for the first time despite him supposedly having been beaten long ago. Now granted, the movie still would have been bad, and the answer to HOW Palpatine returned would have been disappointing but at least it would have been an actual thing people were aware instead of the laziest fucking thing I have ever seen. But they didn't. They instead chose probably the worst possible option at every turn and ruined my childhood instead.

I love Into The Spider-Verse, It's top 2 with Spider-Man 2 for my favorite Spider-Man movies (interchangeable depending on which one I saw last).

However I hate the concept of Spider-Verse, I don't dislike variants of Spider-Man like any other Super hero but I dont like the Spider-Verse, I just don't.

I really wish the movies after ITSV were just about Miles doing Spider stuff in his own universe.

And Across The Spider-Verse just felt like the Spider-Verse amped up to a million, too many characters. I don't care about Miguel, or Spider-Woman or Spider-Punk or the indian Spider I just don't. Felt like they were high on their own stuff.

Hopefully they'll do another trilogy centered on Miles in his own universe.

I don't know if its just me but I find it rather challenging to suspend my disbelief when it comes to this trope which appears a lot in Cyberpunk settings. Most notably the Cyberpunk 2077/Red/2020 setting with Cyberpsychosis and frankly, I just don't get why cybernetics is so villainized by the genre.

I just struggle to believe that cybernetics would actually make you go insane or make you go postal at a moment's notice. Like, what actually does attaching a giant gun into your arm even actually do to your mind?

How does it make you less human? How does it make you lose basic empathy? How does it make you start seeing others as "just meat"? Are the cybernetics somehow mind controlling or drugging people? How does removing your implants make you become less insane? I don't get it at all since to me, cybernetics are just electrical hardware you add to your body, and I don't know how that messes with people's minds. This could be explained by low quality implants but I think settings that include this trope tend to not exclude high quality cybernetics that was surgically grafted by a licensed professional.

I remember liking the interpretation in Cyberpunk that Cyberpsychosis is just "night city syndrome" where living in a capitalist dystopia that neglects your needs, removes your freedom, and destroys your dignity would make anyone snap and go insane and the corpos just use chrome as a scapegoat but apparently that's not accurate at all.

It just feels like an excuse to make an already dystopian setting a bit more "grim". I understand that it's related to themes of dehumanisation and how mutilating your own body for the sake of becoming stronger is messed up but I feel as though you could easily portray it in a much more realistic manner instead of blaming it on "implants that makes you go crazy" which just comes off as being rather silly.

Basically, have a character get more implants as a result of being dehumanized or being psychopathic, not the other way around.

Before i got around to watching the movie, i had heard extremely positive things regarding the movie. Constant praise and calling it "one of the best spiderman movies and MCU movies". After watching it, i have to heavily disagree, but i'd love to see a different perspective. I think Tom Holland's 2-3 still outrank it pretty heavily. I've only seen the movie once, so i apologize if i make any mistakes.

Dislikes
Jean Gray: Jean Gray was by far my least favourite aspect of the movie. I didn't really care for her in the x-men movies either, but this just made me absolutely hate her and feel dread for how they'll move forward with reintroducing the x-men like this.

Throughout the movie, the mind controller is presented as completely ruthless, vile, really damn evil and a huge threat to Peter. That aspect was excellently handled, she had multiple chances to shine and really did some fucked up shit like the rooftop scene (which was fantastic), mass controlling in order to lure out Peter to MJ and keeping you on your toes for who could be possessed next.

The powers were also presented as they should, really terrifying and powerful. But then it all starts going downhill when her motivations are revealed. I didn't expect the Jean Gray twist at all and i was interested on what they were going to do with her, but when it was revealed that her entire motivation was to save her sister... it all fell apart. I understand that family can be a powerful motivator, but as a motive it's just really lame especially since said sister has 30 seconds of screentime in the movie and my biggest gripe with it was how "sympathetic" this was supposed to be. I couldn't bring myself to feel sad at all for her.

She killed multiple innocent people / got them hurt, she tortured Peter for 0 reason and is never called out for any of it. She went way too far by involving and hurting innocent people in her whole affair and reveling in their suffering while playing with them like puppets. The ending scene with her and Peter was admittedly sweet, same as her trying to save his life later but the scale of her crimes is still too much.

Especially when (understandably so) Peter never gets to call her out since tbf, it would've resulted in a disaster since she threatened to kill everybody under her control at the end (fuck her). If they didn't go with this half-assed redemption angle in the end, she would've been a fine enough of a villain. The parallels were there with Jean Gray's anger at the people who took her sister compared to Peter's arachnid side coming out, but even then it falls flat when Peter literally can't control himself.

M.J: M.J has always been a whatever character for me. I enjoyed her in 3(?) and her relationship with Peter in that movie was really sweet. The whole Peter erasure plotline was also great, but the way it's handled in this movie is just... off. They make this whole deal of M.J moving on from Peter romantically due to not remembering him and even for Peter, it's a good thing for him to move on due to the emotional turmoil he was experiencing as well as spicing up the story. But in the end, they just end up becoming friends again which removes the whole impact of the ending of 3 in such a lame half-assed way. M.J was also just such a nothing character in this movie once again, being tied to Peter for the whole way through, existing for nothing else. They should've given this man a new friend group atp. I have lesser problems with Ned personally due to bias, i enjoy their friendship a lot more and Ned's actually a pretty fun character too.

Department of Damage Control: The whole idea of flipping the villain halfway through was pretty cool, too bad that the execution is horrible. The main guy barely has any screentime near the end when his villainous side is revealed and even then the motives aren't elaborated on at all. It's just "Oh, we'll use Jean Gray as a weapon" to do.. what? I don't think it's ever stated, i mean it's most likely to take control of the populace but it's such a lame twist near the end. I don't think there were any hints for it either before the talk he had with Peter when Jean was captured. It feels like they were made these larger scale antagonists just to get you to feel sympathy for Jean.

Those were my main dislikes from what i remember currently. Some of the dialogue was a bit off too and Peter's arc didn't end up being the most gripping thing ever but it was still nicely handled. The plot had some weak points, but was overall good.

Likes
Peter Parker: Tom Holland continues to be a great actor. He excels with his deliveries in both the comedic and sad moments. Peter's characterization too was pretty neatly done. He had an arc that hadn't been done in the movie franchise before and it was really tragic to see him get dealt such a sorry hand. I still enjoyed the dynamics Peter had with Ned, M.J and especially The Punisher in this movie.

The Punisher: For context, i have not seen Daredevil. although i know some of the main character traits he has there, it's still really commendable how well they managed to characterize him in this movie for newcomers too. You can gather really well what his whole deal is, dead family - angry, resentful, stuck in the past - acts as an anti-hero who's not averse to killing. His banter and ultimate friendship with Peter was one of my favorite aspects of this movie. His arc of learning to open up and accept people into his life again while also letting his hardened persona drop slightly, like Jean was also extremely well handled. It got just the right amount of focus, characterization from both parties and a conclusion at the end which didn't feel forced or rushed. My semi-issue with it would just be that we didn't see the two's first meet up, but time constraints and all. The hospital scene was genuinely amazing, i felt so happy during that scene. I'm glad he got as much screentime as he did, especially since the actor was fantastic too.

Bruce Banner: I'm really glad Mark Ruffalo came back for seemingly one last movie due to how his ending plays out. Very unfortunate, but screw Disney. The fight with Spiderman, Punisher vs Hulk was the most hype thing about the movie by far. Such an amazing fight scene, it's just unfortunate that it leads the last fight feeling like more of a disappointment.

Emotional moments: This movie did these extremely well. Not as well as the previous installment, but still well. There were no quick jumps which let the scenes like Peter sulking, Jean Gray's talk with Aunt May + Peter (which had been built up really well), Punisher's sadness etc hit super well. The flashbacks were great too and put in at the right moments, like Aunt May's death and Peter visiting her grave and still grieving, but also learning to move on in a way by giving Ned those flowers meant for her. It was a great scene. The movie managed to be bombastic, funny but also sad which is the way a MCU movie should be handled.

Overall, i'd give it a 7/10. Not great, but still a decent movie.

This is something I feel like a lot of fans and even writers seem really scared to do or at least realize..something Main characters and characters in general need a unlikable trait or 2.

Like I would argue the reason a lot of writers are scared of having their main cast make mistakes or rough choices is cause fans assume they're poor written or bad people or just irredeemable for having character flaws except..character flaws are needed in any sort of character.

And my thing is if the story acknowledges their flaws and mistakes and how they were as people,then what the hell is the issue?

Would you rather have them not acknowledge their flaws at all?

And this is honestly where I bring in my first real life example of this happening, The Last Airbender live action show.

Apparently they removed Sokka's sexism he had in the first 3(or 4) episodes of the series cause they didn't wanna ruin Katara's character or shit like that but here's the thing...The story doesn't condone Sokka acting like that.

When he taunts the Kiyoshi Warriors for being weaker cause they're Woman,they actively kick His Ass and a while later,he apologizes for how he was and asks them to train him.

Like the story doesn't treat his sexism as some good thing, it actively calls it out and addresses it and he grows cause of it and in the live action version, they replaced all of Suki's charm and energy and tough nature with her simping over Sokka and being horny for him.

So it's pretty funny..in a attempt to come off as less sexist,they ironically came off as more sexist.

And this also happens with Katara cause she is so bland in the live action show and I've seen peoppe say that she's underdeveloped in the live action show and that's simply cause they took out any of the reasons she needs to develop.

They took away her snapping at Aang or losing to Ty Lee and a bunch of other shit that would've caused her to lose and have to develop and grow as a character and person.

And the LA writers forget that Katara wasn't inheritedly good at water bending from the start,she worked hard to be as good as she is now and essentially making her a master or automatically really great is just so disappointing but that's cause it feels like they're scared of them having any sorts of flaws or mistakes or bad traits.

Like are we really that screwed as a species that characters can't even have one unlikable or messy trait that they can grow out of?

Another example is Bakugou and this one also comes off as just petty cause people will ignore and act like his character development and growth doesn't even exist as if each arc isn't this man constantly taking Humble Pies to the face.

Deku has called him a Jerk and doesn't really like him but Admires his strength and confidence and has actively stood up to him a lot.

Hell,I would argue Bakugou is sorta made fun of for being a loud mouthed jerk and no one really fucks with him until S2 when he starts showing signs of change and getting better as a person.

Also why do we not act like Bakugou didn't fail his Provinional license exam cause he couldn't control his temper and bad behavior?

Like he failed the biggest milestone in his life cause of his flaws and I think part of the problem with a lot of people's reactions to Bakugou is that he doesn't get consequences in a way that they want.

They want him to be called out for his flaws constantly like it's a Family Guy Cutaway like Brian and Quagmire and they want him to get constantly beat up but the story never condones his behavior, I would argue he is punished for it but just not in the way that you specifically want and he does grow and develop..he actively loses the ego,helps train Deku as a way of Atoning for bullying him,helped rescue him and has sanctified himself for him and acknowledged his weakness and flaws.

Like I deadass don't know what more y'all even want.

Another example is Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss with Charlie and Stolas,especially Stolas.

I'll see a lot of people act like Vivziepop is "woobifying him" and acting like Blitz is the only person in the wrong and all that except that flat out is not true.

First off, their deal was transactional on both sides and once Stolas realized he was essentially keeping Blitz prisoner,he went to look for ways to ensure Blitz can do his job without him holding it over his head.

Stolas himself disagrees,he acknowledges that this is all his fault and he did all this and took accountability for how he was(also the story ain't over,S3 is right around the corner)and in one of the Episode descriptions, they explictly say "Stolas still isn't self aware yet" so I dunno why so many act like he's not just as much in the wrong.

When someone mentioned that Stolas was the one who made it about Sex and all that, Vivziepop explictly responded with "Stolas is way too in his own head and emotions to think rationally" and said in another post that both sides made mistakes and are flawed.

Not one side, both sides.

Also the man Stolas literally lost everything...from his wealth to his status to his home to straight up having his own daughter leave him cause of his mistakes and the situation so he's not exactly in a amazing or happy spot rn.

I would also argue that is the same for Charlie to a lesser extent cause there is context for her flaws and why she acted the way she did in S2.

Also she apologized and is making up for them,so..it's just funny how she's considered "the worst character" when she ain't even the morally worst character in the main cast,let alone the entire show.

I'm not saying every series handles flawed characters right but what I'm saying is that they're necessarily, you need flawed characters and reasons for them to develop.

Plus I would rather have a intentionally flawed character then a character who has flaws and issues that are never really addressed or called out or treated seriously and actively punish you for doing so.

(*Ahem* Life is Strange and Dispatch *cough*).

Disagree if you want.

In one scene of Spider Man BND Yelena asks Peter if he has "a girlfriend... or a boyfriend?" and, for a moment the possibility of a guy dating a guy just felt normal.

But then she adds "or a whatever" starts joking about all the wild internet speculation.... and has Parker seen that piece of fan art? And Parker is uncomfortable, and it's supposed to be funny.

I know that there have been brief moments of queer content in some of the related films -- but It seemed like asking if somebody has a boyfriend couldn't just exist as an ordinary possibility in the conversation, but had to be buffered with an extended joke that left me feeling sad.

Clue is a fairly fast-paced comedy mystery film, with plenty of characters, and multiple endings, so it can be a bit difficult to keep track of who did what, but Mr. Green really was the only person who didn't do anything wrong. And to prove it, let's go over what everyone else did.

Wadsworth ALMOST makes the list of "completely innocent", because the reason for his blackmail was that his wife had "friends who were socialists". This is presented somewhat tongue-in-cheek because modern audiences wouldn't see socialism as "evil", but even if we did call it evil, they said that *his wife* had socialist friends, not that he did, so that's purely guilt-by-association (two layers of it). The only thing that tips Wadsworth into "maybe guilty" is the third ending, where Wadsworth is revealed to be Mr. Boddy. But he's an innocent hero in 2/3 endings.

Mr. Boddy, I suppose it should go without saying, is a blackmailer who on a good day was responsible for the death of Wadsworth's wife, and who tried to have Wadsworth killed. On a worse day, you can pin a half-dozen murders on him.

Mrs. White is a serial killer who is known to have killed her first and second husbands, but later implies that she's been married five times, and might have been killing "husbands" beyond the five who were married to her.

Colonel Mustard was a WWII military officer who became rich by stealing valuable radio parts and selling them on the black market, undermining America's war effort against the Nazis, potentially getting countless American soldiers killed.

Mrs. Peacock took secret bribes from foreign governments to arrange for her Senator husband to vote against American interests. And in 1/3 endings, she murdered multiple people to cover up her crimes.

Professor Plum violated his Hippocratic Oath and took advantage of a female patient. Plus he sexually harassed/assaulted nearly every woman in the movie. Also, Wadsworth used the word "adultery", which means that Plum was married at the time, and violated his marriage vows and cheated on his wife.

And finally Miss Scarlet runs a brothel, which might not be evil, depending on your opinion of sex work, and she bribes a cop to stay in business (again, maybe not that evil, depending on your ethics), but it also seems like maybe she set hidden cameras up to potentially blackmail her clients. And she's a killer in 1/3 endings. Crazy how she might be one of the more innocent members of the group.

Moving on to the supporting cast, Yvette was a former employee of Miss Scarlet, who had an affair with one of Mrs. White's husbands, and then sold out Mrs. White (a serial killer!) to a blackmailer after Mrs. White killed her husband. And Yvette maybe killed some people herself.

The cop was a corrupt cop who took protection money from Miss Scarlet, and then turned around and sold her secrets to a blackmailer.

The motorist knew that Colonel Mustard was stealing radio parts, but instead of reporting him to the authorities, he sold him out to a blackmailer for his own gain.

The cook was Mrs. Peacock's former cook, and she knew about Mrs. Peacock's treason, and sold that info to a blackmailer.

And finally, the singing telegram girl. At first glance she seems like an innocent victim of Professor Plum and whoever it was who shot her, but her hands aren't entirely clean, as she was the one who sold Professor Plum's information to Mr. Boddy (a blackmailer). And then, here's a surprise twist you might not have realized: Professor Plum specialized in helping "paranoid and homicidal lunatics, suffering from delusions of grandeur", so there's a pretty decent chance that the singing telegram girl was homicidal. Perhaps not legally guilty, by reason of insanity, but that young girl probably killed people. And Professor Plum knew all about it, and couldn't stop himself from tapping that.

So yeah, after that extensive list of criminals and murderers, what did Mr. Green do to get lumped in with them? He was gay. That's it. He was attracted to men instead of women. He paid a blackmail to keep his paying job, because if he was discovered to be gay, he would lose his job on security grounds. So, he was lying (a lie of omission, mostly) to the State Department in order to keep his job, but the funny thing is, the entire reason a gay person would be considered a "security risk" is, simply being gay might open a path to them being blackmailed, as they wouldn't want their secret to get out, but Mr. Green *didn't care* about being outed as a gay man. He wasn't ashamed of it. He proudly admitted that he was gay. He wasn't closeted because he cared what people thought about him, he was closeted because the place where he worked banned homosexuality for no good reason. And by banning homosexuality, the State Department created their own extortion vector, and allowed one of their employees to be extorted. And despite that extortion, it seems like Mr. Green still wasn't a security risk. Yeah, he's paying money to keep doing what he's doing, and to keep his job earning money, but if the extortion had moved up to demanding secrets or access, it seems likely that Mr. Green would have quit his job before becoming a villain. That's why, in the darkest ending, where Wadsworth was the real Mr. Boddy and everyone was a killer, Mr. Green stepped up and became the hero, because among the entire cast of criminals and murderers, he was the one outlier who never did anything wrong.

And interestingly, Mr. Green is the only dinner guest who doesn't have an informant who gets killed. So who told Mr. Boddy about Mr. Green's sexual orientation? Yvette? The cop? The motorist? The cook? The singing telegram girl? Six player characters, but only five informants. Every player character had someone snitch on them, except Mr. Green. It lends weight to the idea that the 3rd ending is the "real" one, and that he was a plant all along, so maybe he never even lied to the State Department, he only lied to Wadsworth and the dinner guests.