Seriously though, I'm amazed I went from wanting Bellamy and Kane to be killed in the first season, to really liking both characters and finding them fascinating. The writers sort of flipped them, but kept them true to who they were. Same thing happened with Mr. Barrows in Downton Abbey. That's good writing - the ability to make characters complicated and unpredictable.
And they've gotten very good at flipping characters...showing how someone can do horrible and wonderful things depending on the situation.
However, you do bring up a quibble I had with the last two episodes...that arc with the farm group, echo's betrayal and the decision to attack the 300 person army that arrived to protect them, did not work from a plot, character or structural standpoint.
Up to now, most of the arcs have been built up well...with lots of moral ambiguity. But this? It was so contrived and predictable. Also it was out of character a bit for Bellamy, who would have made that decision in S1 (hence the dislike and I'd have been commiserating with you if you posted this in S1), but had learned from it the hard way -- and was the calm voice of reason last year, while Finn was out to kill and did. That also taught Bellamy not to do it -- in fact he's cautioning Jasper at the beginning of S3.1 (Wanheda - which by the way was the best episode so far.) His handling of Jasper -- also indicates that he would not have made this choice.
Granted Gina, his girlfirend, died. But I knew they were going to kill her the moment she popped up. They hadn't bothered to develop her or their romance at all, and they dropped huge anvils. Talk about plot contrivances - Gina was there not as a fully developed character, but a plot device and a horribly cliche one at that.
As opposed to what they did with Jasper and Mia and Clark and Finn, which was slow burn. Fully developing Mia and Finn so both were complex characters in their own rights and not just a plot device to further the arc of Clark and Jasper. That's the trick of killing off characters -- make sure it has power and isn't just a plot device. The audience needs to know the character to care about their death.
Bad writing there or rather lazy. I remember thinking, okay she's dead. In fact, I was sort of poking fun at it. They'll kill her so they can have Bellamy go off the rails, which seriously they need to stop doing -- once is fine, but with EVERY character? It's getting repetitive and predictable = cliche. Not a good idea.
And the Echo thing made no sense. I'd forgotten the character for one thing. And the writers didn't really do a good job of reminding us who she was. A quick flashback would have been nice. It also wasn't clear why she did what she did. Too out of the blue. Which in of itself is forgiveable...but...you sort of knew that now they'd managed to a garner a peace with the grounders, the writers were scrambling to find a way of blowing that up. So instead of it coming organically from the characters -- it came from the writers, and was a bit jarring.
Pike and the Farm group just happen to hate all grounders. They decide to attack the 300 people who show up to protect them -- and everyone in camp goes along with them, without question, except for Abby/Kane and a few others? Really? After what happened over the last two seasons?
And it obviously had to happen so the writers can break the truce and get all the characters to decide to go after Theolonious?
Ugh. And the show had gotten off to such a great start this season. That arc just about killed it.
Yes, go dark. But at least do it with moral ambiguity and good build up. Which they did brillaintly in S2 - the whole Finn bit, and the whole bit with Mount Weather was a work of genius.
Sigh, plots that don't organically derive from the characters, where I can feel the writers playing god -- annoy me. I also have issues with contrived romances in stories. Romance should further character, and come organically from them. Action - from character. Character first, everything else second.
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branchandroot
Ah my problem with S3 so far...
Date: 2016-02-18 03:34 am (UTC)Hee Hee.
Seriously though, I'm amazed I went from wanting Bellamy and Kane to be killed in the first season, to really liking both characters and finding them fascinating. The writers sort of flipped them, but kept them true to who they were. Same thing happened with Mr. Barrows in Downton Abbey.
That's good writing - the ability to make characters complicated and unpredictable.
And they've gotten very good at flipping characters...showing how someone can do horrible and wonderful things depending on the situation.
However, you do bring up a quibble I had with the last two episodes...that arc with the farm group, echo's betrayal and the decision to attack the 300 person army that arrived to protect them, did not work from a plot, character or structural standpoint.
Up to now, most of the arcs have been built up well...with lots of moral ambiguity. But this? It was so contrived and predictable. Also it was out of character a bit for Bellamy, who would have made that decision in S1 (hence the dislike and I'd have been commiserating with you if you posted this in S1), but had learned from it the hard way -- and was the calm voice of reason last year, while Finn was out to kill and did. That also taught Bellamy not to do it -- in fact he's cautioning Jasper at the beginning of S3.1 (Wanheda - which by the way was the best episode so far.) His handling of Jasper -- also indicates that he would not have made this choice.
Granted Gina, his girlfirend, died. But I knew they were going to kill her the moment she popped up. They hadn't bothered to develop her or their romance at all, and they dropped huge anvils. Talk about plot contrivances - Gina was there not as a fully developed character, but a plot device and a horribly cliche one at that.
As opposed to what they did with Jasper and Mia and Clark and Finn, which was slow burn. Fully developing Mia and Finn so both were complex characters in their own rights and not just a plot device to further the arc of Clark and Jasper. That's the trick of killing off characters -- make sure it has power and isn't just a plot device. The audience needs to know the character to care about their death.
Bad writing there or rather lazy. I remember thinking, okay she's dead. In fact, I was sort of poking fun at it. They'll kill her so they can have Bellamy go off the rails, which seriously they need to stop doing -- once is fine, but with EVERY character? It's getting repetitive and predictable = cliche. Not a good idea.
And the Echo thing made no sense. I'd forgotten the character for one thing. And the writers didn't really do a good job of reminding us who she was. A quick flashback would have been nice. It also wasn't clear why she did what she did. Too out of the blue. Which in of itself is forgiveable...but...you sort of knew that now they'd managed to a garner a peace with the grounders, the writers were scrambling to find a way of blowing that up.
So instead of it coming organically from the characters -- it came from the writers, and was a bit jarring.
Pike and the Farm group just happen to hate all grounders. They decide to attack the 300 people who show up to protect them -- and everyone in camp goes along with them, without question, except for Abby/Kane and a few others? Really? After what happened over the last two seasons?
And it obviously had to happen so the writers can break the truce and get all the characters to decide to go after Theolonious?
Ugh. And the show had gotten off to such a great start this season. That arc just about killed it.
Yes, go dark. But at least do it with moral ambiguity and good build up. Which they did brillaintly in S2 - the whole Finn bit, and the whole bit with Mount Weather was a work of genius.
Sigh, plots that don't organically derive from the characters, where I can feel the writers playing god -- annoy me. I also have issues with contrived romances in stories. Romance should further character, and come organically from them. Action - from character. Character first, everything else second.