Hey guys, This video is about a year in the making. I planned on making it about four months ago but decided not to as I expected a ton of negative backlash (which I sort of am getting, but to a much lesser degree than I expected). So this comment is really a preemptive response to those calling me out for political commentary. Enjoy :) To any and all would-be commenters allow me to retort to your allegations that my channel has suddenly become political: it hasn't. You will notice how at no point in this video do I endorse or oppose any political ideology. You will notice I speak about trump, but never once imply that he is either good or bad. This video is as unbiased as it is humanly possible to get. What I find really rather funny is there are people in these comments calling me a leftist, yet also other people are calling me a rightist at the same time. I'm not sure which of them I should believe, but UA-cam comments are never wrong so I guess I'm both ;D I hope this comment did well to persuade you I have no intentions, and I have not acted in a way that suggests my own political bias. This channel is all about the art of storytelling, not anything more or less than that. Have a great day, - Henry
The Closer Look Tbh, people from either side are likely to complain, because doctor who is so controversial with this new season. Don’t let that dissuade you from mankind videos like this, since they’re so interesting to listen to.
Fantastic video. This topic would be difficult to tackle in any way at all, and the fact that you chose to speak on it in the first place shows how important you feel that it is. Thank you!
The pollution maybe symbolic of toxic Masculinity, and suffocating spider may represent women under this type pollution. I didnt see why his billionaire didnt see this spider as profit. The billionaire comment after shooting the spider, leads me to believe this. How is killing a spider lead to a presidential election??
@@CurtisAlfeld More accurately, people, when taken by emotion and self-righteousness, can't portray nuances. It just so happens that this is the way much writing is because we generally don't like to associate with those with opposite opinions to ours, so there is no real example of an opposing side, which leads to straw arguments. It's not easy to face the other side and admit the correct observations it makes. Writers are people as well, and we all generally take the easier but not necessarily correct path in life.
Yes, I agree. I thought the topics themselves were fine. But, when the characters are facing no conflict within themselves and are just so PC that they don't need to learn anything, it just makes for boring content. I think it's great to talk about racism and sexism and other topics, and Doctor Who tackled those in the past. But, the writers here have no idea how to write a good story. That feels harsh saying, but I would much rather they take the criticism given to them and make a better season.
I love how nobody (in Doctor Who) addresses the fact, that shooting a giant spider which is slowly dying from asphyxiation, granting a swift and relatively painless death, is actually the merciful thing to do.
Also that the species is literally indiscriminate, violent killers. Killing them isn't a bad thing. We killed all the wolves out of England because they kept killing livestock, why wouldn't we kill all the giant evil spiders that kill people? It's the weirdest thing in the world where I'm meant to be on the side of supporting a species of violent killers because "but they look sad when they're dying uwu"
@@Winasaurus To be fair, I could see an argument for why all life deserves to live, even giant evil spiders. I myself am a pacifist, and would prefer to avoid the death of any animal, unless necessary. But the spider was already going to die, it was a question of how much it had to suffer first.
@@Corlwow Yeah but it depicted as an overtly evil phrase, with the thrilling music and all. The fact that it actually was a mercy killing that allowed the spider to die quicker, rather than slowly and in pain, in never brought up in any meaningful way.
aj withnoname I would agree with that to some degree as someone who isn’t a professional critic is likely to post a biased review as the main character is female but a difference of 71% is just too great to claim that it’s just down to biased reviews.
I feel like the Bloody Baron was a good example of a hateable character. I myself, am a victim of abuse, my father was an alcoholic, and he would beat me, so I could easily sympathize with Anna and Tamara. But as I played that quest, seeing the Baron trying his best, despite his flaws. I hated him the same way I hate my father, but the Baron changed, unlike my father, and did what he could to redeem himself, and when I saw him hanging there, I felt so sad. I almost considered reloading my save to keep the Baron from killing himself, but I decided not to. If he was just a one sided, two dimensional character, it would've ruined his part of the story entirely
I might be remembering it incorrectly, but there's a path that lets his family go, or makes a charm to protect them, and he's so invested in it that he only questions you a few times, and never when results are being seen. He wants to do good despite his past.
@@cgkase6210 I really would've chosen the path that saved the Baron and his family, but I really couldn't bring myself to kill those children Like, I know it's just a game, but I'm not gonna kill kids, even if they're just video game characters
@@hairlessgrizzly559 that's the whole beauty of role playing games, consequences! For me personally accepting failures seems way more immersive and interesting ( though witcher barely fits my definition of an rpg, still amazing)
Funnily enough, when an author (or screenwriter) tries to say "this is good" and "this is bad," people are more than willing to find bad things about what may be "good" and good things about what may be "bad"
@Captain McDog I don't remember Rorschach being extremely right-wing as most people claim, not sure what part of his character makes people think that of him.
And that's exactly why I loved the Dark Knight. Because the moral is left ambiguous. Batman thinks we can chose to over come or weaknesses and do what's right (and all of those criminals that had the opportunity to survive by blowing up innocent civilians but independently chose to throw away the detonator), while Joker thinks anyone can go crazy, everyone has a bit of selfishness, and that even the purest of us can fall, (that last one actually being proven correct). Which is correct? That's up to you. Instead of thinking Batman won, Gordan says "If Harvy fell anyone can" but we all know that a bunch of criminals were okay with dying knowing they saved women and children.
This is why my favourite movie is “a silent voice”. Yes it’s an anime but it deals with the sensitive topic of bullying, depression, and social anxiety. It never tells you who a bad person is, or who a good person is. It lets you figure that out for yourself. They never tell us “so yeah the bad character is good now” it shows us through the way they interact with people and lets us decide for ourselves if they are worth forgiving.
@@shammybarn I know this is like 4 months later lmao, but it's not the actual movie calling them bad, it's the main character, he is the narrator, he thinks people are bad, but that doesn't mean they are.
I'm surprised how you didn't bring up that the bloody baron's wife also was pregnant and then the unborn child became a creature that the Witcher had to give proper funeral for. Just made the story all the more sadder, because the baron thought a new baby would give him a chance and yet he ended up being the main cause of it's death.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“ -Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism. 2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved. Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’. Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
I spent absurd amounts of time contemplating my decisions in Witcher 3, weighing the pros and cons and deciding what I, as a human, believed. Even on tiny-ass side-quests (like the Lynch Mob side-quest) I would stop and just think. And that's what stories ought to do. Make me think.
hello friend! For me the hardest was the Where the Cat and Wolf Play after the Beast of Honorton quest - a proper moral dilemma. LOOL, at the start of my second walk through I decided to try to do the 'evil choices' run - but failed miserably when I realised there were no good/evil choices to start with - everyone always died anyway :D (except for selling Ciri of course)
The quest where you need to put a baby in the oven and turns out shes tricking you to get unpossesed really fucked me up. Also the one where the guy has a torture fetish and you find a bunch of naked women with their throats slit and whipped and beaten maaan it was super fucked. Impactful ass game.
Audiences are alienated when they are told how, rather than invited, to think. Inviting/trusting them to think makes for enlightenment. Tell a good story (which would mean you were prizing audience enjoyment over audience education), then drop a message in (if you must). Chariots don't move on their own, so don't set them in front of the horse. Your rider gets no where, and the crowd is bored.
I agree with you RNS. But letting your audience explore and figure it out for themselves (or not) is still more valuable. Especially when you consider that you're force feeding others your own viewpoint not presenting a scenario and inviting them to figure it out. A correct moral opinion should rise to the surface especially if the presentation accurately reflects the topic.
The best tip I've ever come across when it comes to creating antagonists with depth is to remember that someone out there loves that antagonist, or did. Whether it's a family member, lover, or neighbor, _someone_ loves them. So you ask yourself, what is it? What is it about this person that is loved? And you use it.
Another thing to remember is that most people don’t turn “bad” irl because of nothing. Most people have some kind of motivation, even if it’s a shitty one. They have a reason, something has to happen, even if that motivation stems out of paranoia or self-deception. Of course, for the sake of storytelling, choose something that will work for your storyline, because trust me, I’ve accidentally turned into a manipulative person once due to the fact that I felt that everyone hated me (when they didn’t), and it mostly stemmed from the fact that I was so hyper focused onto my problems and unwilling to see the good in the people around me. Another thing was also that I was very full of myself and thought that I was a movie character. But even then, that’s still character “motivation” .
@@demonic6042 Yes, irl, protagonist syndrome can be such a big problem and we all recognize it, but you never really see the issue translate over to written media. it's a shame because it could be really helpful to have an audience explore, on top of being entertaining and good writing.
I respectfully disagree, but still see where you're coming from. I think what you mean is that the antagonist has an admirable quality, something that might make you love them if they weren't so bad in general. An antagonist--or even protagonist--that was never loved by anyone could make for an interesting character, as it is a great foundation for possible motivations. Maybe, that character will do anything for others in order to seek their love, only to later on realize that the first step is loving themself. Perhaps the character has developed a deep-seated hatred for everyone around them, as a result of having never experienced warmth, love, and kindness from anyone during their upbringing.
@@SirEschaton Nah, keep him sponsored with NordVPN. Half the youtube is sposnored by VPN providers, let them be. I don't want to turn off my pesky adblock.
OOOoooh... I don't know about that. If Express picked him up, it might not be so dark. AND while I don't have the "nuts and bolts" details all together on any of them, Express was tested and I have it on pretty good authority, ALL their servers run the data in RAM, so it physically CAN NOT be backtraced. It's simply impossible, built right in. Not saying Nord isn't doing similar or the same thing... I simply don't know that. I can only say what I've seen of Express... while I was just casually researching what "EXACTLY" a VPN functionally does. ;o)
One thing that really bugged me about the spider episode is that, the giant spider at the end of the episode is dying because of its own sheer size, it’s dying slowly and in pain, and everyone of the main cast is simply standing there, talking about how sad they are, while the creature goes through excruciating pain in the background. Then, when the trump character comes in and shoots it, giving it a quick death and ending its pain, the doctor flies off the handle at him, failing to recognise that she is in the wrong in the situation.
YES. It was going to die either way, so killing it quickly avoided a lot of suffering that would have been pointless. If the spider hadn't been dying already the Doc might have had a point.
Everyone forgets that this is such a difference in character for the doctor. Matt smith's character when he found out a space whale was suffering being driven by the humans of space Britain, elected to kill him to avoid further suffering.
@@MrWatcherish My interpretation of that episode was that he was stopping the torture of the space whale and letting it make up its own mind about weather to leave and destroy Britain or stay with Britain strapped to its back. I also think that it was his companion who did that and not the doctor.
@THISIS THEGIRL I thought it was pretty good honestly. Coming from someone who likes the books and the game it was different but fun, I have my issues (like Triss' casting) but it was still a pretty good watch
@THISIS THEGIRL I like to pretend that the Netflix adaption doesn't exist, to me only the books are completely canon and the games are partially canon, with TW3 being the most canon.
14:30 "This story doesn't try to make you think anything, it simply shows you an unbiased, impartial depiction of what domestic violence can look like." Fully agreed. Not only that, the game also gives the player the choice to slaughter without questions or to ask as much as one might want to to get to the core of this event. Witcher 3 stands out to me as a wonderful storytelling game in that regard.
3:42 CL: “You are going to laugh.” Me: “Yeah, probably not. I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous shit befo-” “DONALD TRUMP.” I literally paused the video and started wheezing for half a minute.
Oh yeah, Bloomberg actually makes sense given the character's behavior. Kind of like the 2000 movie, The Contender, about a woman running for president and the "Republicans" in the movie run a massive smear campaign that ends her entire career. Fast-forward to 2008, when a woman runs for president, and *who* ran a massive smear campaign to end her entire career? (and if you legitimately think Palin was a bad candidate, that just shows how effective the smear campaign was.)
@@ClokworkGremlin is it really a smear campaign if what they said is both true and relevant? I'll bet that for every claim made about Palin during that election that was untrue or irrelevant to the issue of her fitness for office, one could find several claims/portrayals of her that were both true and relevant.
You forgot to mention that hearing the barron's whole story in the first place is a player choice. I was so steadfast in my convictions in the Bloddy Barron, I didn't even hear him out. Now I wish I'd had.
Art(in the broadest sense possible) is a fun way to explore your own convictions. The hardest thing anyone can do is realise that at the end of the day were all human, limited by our own limited human knowledge. Granted, there are always few notable exceptions, but those exceptions are determined by your perception alone. Im no exception to that either, even if I portray my self as a largely open-minded individual. After all, I'm a guy replying to a comment made a year before with my own convictions of open-mindedness and reasonable doubt/devil's advocacy for the sake of argument/open conversation. 🤷♀️ Make of that what you will.
I did the same thing with the vampire in the city quest. I don't remember a ton of specifics but at one point you suspect a local priest (maybe a politician idk) and find him torturing a prostitute in a brothel, so I just killed him. Turns out he wasnt the vampire, just a really fucked up dude and I let the vampire live by killing hin
Hearing his side of the story doesn’t change what he’s done though, so your initial convictions were still accurate. The extra information he provides gives us an _explanation_ as to why he did what he did... but it certainly doesn’t _justify_ what he’s done, and honestly shouldn’t warrant much sympathy either. Him keeping her locked up against her will and repeatedly beating her is FAR worse than her cheating on him. Of course no one is 100% good or bad, but some things are objectively worse than others.
@@blue1584 She didn’t just cheat on him, she cheated on him while he was off to war so he could support them. He was likely suffering from PTSD. Then she tried to take his daughter away from him. Then she tried to kill him. Than she manipulated him into hitting her again. This is not as one sided as you say it is. Don’t mistake me, he did awful things, but to dismiss what she did is a bit silly.
@@elinanyquist8920 I saw the signs and i stoped at the episode were he met a last time with river song (i think it was the Christmas special or so). It was a bittersweet ending that put everything in a full functioning story cycle.
Arachnids in the UK is probably where I lost hope for Chib Nib's season... The American character was so one sided and stereotypical. Don't get me started on The Doctor not wanting him to shoot the spider so it could slowly die because it's more moral....
@@UA-camChannel-dk5xv I said the character was one sided. As in he lacked any depth. An example I remember is that he said something along the lines of "you people are weird you don't like guns" but don't quote me on that. As for killing the spider it was in pain, scared and dying but the Doctor would rather let it die like that rather than put it out of it's misery. We literally do that for dogs whats so wrong about doing it to a spider?
I always thought of strawmen as artificial repusentation of a opposing idea with a weak arguement to tear down. But this Punching bag just seems like a character repusenting an idea/person who is just iredeemable bad and just in the wrong. No argument needed. They shouldn't be defended. Like an anti-marie sue.
Hell! I would have killed the spider! I would have shot at it until my gun was empty! Why? It's a huge god damn spider, dammit! Have you any idea how much one can hate spiders? If i was in a room with a giant spider and hitler, and had a gun with two bullets, id immediately shoot the spider twice. I mean... then I'd probably strangle Hitler, but damn the spider takes priority!
I actually found the way they dealt with the rest of the spiders even worse. They locked thousand of giant spiders that would keep on growing in a very small room to suffocate and eat each other, with no way to get out. That seems way crueller than just shooting them. (not to forget that there is no way they managed to lock up all of the spiders)
@@aaronbarlow4376 After the main story I felt like shit because I never wanted it to end, after Blood and Wine that feeling was exaggerated by a large margin
Propaganda: Telling people what to think. Political commentary: Presenting an issue, then let people decide for themselves what to think. This is a good video, dude. Keep making more.
YOU'RE RIGHT. they should've never forced the south to stop owning slaves, but instead waited for them to adopt humane morals. Sometimes presenting an issue isn't enough, when human beings are incapable of being anything but destructive, shitty pissheads. which is why this explanation of propoganda vs political commentary is complete bullshit
Syzygy It’s not complete bullshit, as you’re talking about laws and real life scenarios versus movies and film. If you’re being told what to think by a film, you won’t listen and may even adopt the opposite viewpoint. If they present each side and let you make the choice, then you will probably make the morally correct one. Simple human psychology, sorry you can’t comprehend it. Your analogy doesn’t even prove why his explanation is bullshit at all. His explanation of the differences is spot on.
@@syzygy2464 You do know the american civil war was not just fought for slaves, there was also state rights and how federal government power should be employed. many in the south fought for state rights, very few of them owned slaves.
I got the ending of the Baron’s quest where his wife survived but was left in a broken, almost catatonic state. He kindly took her back to the castle and lovingly cared for her while she was like that even after everything the two of them had done to one another. That’s also an amazingly told ending to the quest.
@@Madhattersinjeans Yeah, that's a logical fallacy called a suppressed correlative, where you redefine an opponent's term "all things are either A or not A" such that no things are not A. It's a rhetorical sleight of hand, there's no possible way OP's post was using that definition of "propaganda."
As a religious person, I can tell you that the vast majority of Christian movies are crap. They are just terrible. Christian novels are the same way. So you might think, "Well, you just can't weave Christian story themes into a story and tell a good one. It's just too trite." But, if you step back a little you might notice Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables', Dostoevsky's 'Brothers Karamazov', Orson Scott Card's 'Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead', JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings', CS Lewis's 'The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe', Gene Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun', and movies like 'Lilies of the Field', 'Sergeant York', 'Gentle Persuasion', 'Ben Hur', and 'Chariots of Fire'. These are some of the most beloved literature in all of fiction. What gives is exactly what you are talking about here. Having an idea about the moral you want to teach is not the same as having an idea for a story. Stories often have meaning and morals, and can illuminate difficult questions and deep issues of life. But morals and meanings don't have stories. You can't go from one direction to the other. When you set out to have a particular meaning, you just write bad fiction. But when you set out to write good fiction, surprise you end up creating meaning. And this is the problem the SJW's have. They've become like the Christian authors that start from the lesson that they want to teach and try to work backwards, resulting in trite stories that don't earn their endings and don't really speak to anyone not already convinced of both the means and the method.
@@raymints9583 I've never seen it. It's not a Christian movie, but rather a movie which treats Christianity satirically written by and for non-Christians. Unlike say some of the treatment of Christianity satirically in something like 'Oh God' or 'The Simpsons' (the only regular church goers in television), there isn't even any sense from what little I know of the movie that it is or at times can be a respectful satire. It's simply belittlement and mockery. I'm not offended per se, because being offended about this sort of thing goes explicitly against the teachings of Christ, but I do think that it is a very sad movie on several grounds.
The Witcher is really good at dealing with complex topics. It explores a lot about colonialism and racism in the second game. Whilst the game mechanics aren't as good it's worth playing for the story.
When I say that The Witcher game series is very mature, I automatically have people saying "It's not because there are nude women that it's a mature game". Stupid asshats. The games are mature because theyr brush complex topics like racism, sexism, war, and so on... with a lot of nuance, finesse, and without manicheism.
The issue is that political issues aren't treat as if they are complex. They are treat simply and not discussed. Gone are the complex discussions like in the Silurians, Curse or Monster of Peladon.
Well there's your first mistake, the writers aren't left wing in the slightest. I'm a left-winger and even I thought this season of Doctor Who was terrible. This is what happens when people don't pay attention to nuance and get a bunch of egotistical morons writing for a show.
@@Wesleym134 the messages still seem more left wing generally. Right wingers generally don't complain about the environment as an issue or discuss. Arachnids seems to scrutinize Trump and characatures him with no nuance. I hate to repeat the phrase but it seems like the left wing media message in America 'orange man bad'. Rosa also tried to make the point that racism still happens to day and we haven't come far enough. I'm more of a libertarian myself. Don't really see things in terms of left and right wing
Also are we just going to ignore the fact that the "evil man"'s plan was to kill the spiders but then he gets mocked for being immoral and then everyone does the morally right thing. Of instead making them suffocate to death. Like. Yeah.
Also, lets consider, Mutant. Spiders. Just looking the mutating monster away and hope it dies off is, like, what the actual fuck? Just state outright that you are trying to make Sealed Evil in a Can.
Not to mention if the Hotel Manager is Trump, I am pretty sure the spiders are supposed to represent Illegal Aliens or something... makes the whole thing even more twisted.
@@AntProxy Perfectly mirrors life though in that people for open boarders rather immigrants die in the desert trying to cross the boarder illegally than have boarder patrols pick them up. Which the Doctor and her crew just standing there watching the spider slowly die was doing imo. If your going for the whole trump/illegal alien metaphor.
When I did the bloody baron quest I did the same thing where his wife died- I legitimately did not play the game for a month after seeing the consequence of my mistake, that is great storytelling
The other option isn’t much better. If I remember the choice right you save her but she transforms into a water hag with no way to change her back. Also all the kids the witches have end up dying. I did all the extra side quests to try and get the “right” out come and still got a kick in the teeth.
MrJesse1472 There is a third option, the Baron’s wife can be turned back from a Water Hag but, her mind is broken then Baron takes her to a monastery in the mountains to hopefully cure her. Though the land is then under the control of his sadistic guards who are twice as bad when the Baron isn’t leading them.
@@ollikoskiniemi6221 No - they don't know the meaning of politics, period. Such things as gender identity, diversity and ecology are matters of science and philosophy, not politics. "Bill is a lesbian... therefore politics"; "Ryan and Yaz are brown... therefore politics"; "Trump is an idiot... therefore politics"'; "Praxeus is about microplastics pollution... therefore politics"... all wrong! These are NOT political matters.
Not to mention how he is totally right at the end of the episode. They just seal the mine up and let the monsters sufficate. The trump knockoff points out that their could be other exits they could escape from and continue to kill. but doctor brushes him off.
Doc_Ock_Rokc there's a mutant spider suffocating to death and he shoots it. Everyone gets pissed at him. He literally put the thing out of its misery. Like the others were just going to let the thing slowly suffocate to death.
@@captainkronos1016 well orange man bad. Thats all we need to know. And giant spiders suddenly are not the main antagonists of every horrormovie anymore when shot by a bad guy. Then its like you shot an innocent animal like a dog which will glance at you with sad puppy eys as it dies.
@@captainkronos1016 To be fair, the motives behind an action are pretty important, just as much as the consequences. Killing something to put it out of its misery is far different than killing for the sake of killing. Even the legal system takes intent into account. Personally, I would consider a coldblooded murderer a much worse person than a doctor who performs euthanasia on the terminally ill who are in great pain. The legalities or ethics of the latter are irrelevant, because the intent will shape my perspective of both individuals.
Not to mention that the Doctor and her team also went "guns are bad don't kill it" meanwhile they made thousands of spiders suffocate to death in a room.
let's be honest if any of us saw that thing in real life we would probably shoot it too. i don't give a shit if it was begging for mercy or if it had any kids cues fuck spiders
Your "Punching Bag" term actually does have a real counterpart. Typically, it goes by the "Straw Man Argument", and is largely the same definition of your "Punching Bag" that you gave. That said, it was quite an insightful video. Props, OP.
@TheBananaMan777 To be perfectly honest, I always considered the two to be interchangeable. Even with your examples above, at least the way you worded it, to me sounds like you explained the same thing twice, just with different nuance for both examples. Who knows, maybe it's all pedantic anyway. XD
AkemiTheSunbro: A straw man argument is not at all the same as the narrator’s punching bag. The former is misrepresenting the ideas of the other side, whereas the latter is damning their ideas by association. The former is when someone on side A says that people on side B claim (or do) X, and the person on side A refutes X, but people on side B have never claimed (or done) X, they’ve actually claimed Y, and X is a complete misrepresentation of Y. e.g., if someone says that women are statistically shorter than man, and someone else replies: how can you say that every woman is shorter than every man?, the second person presented a straw man argument because they misrepresented the first person‘s claim. The latter is when someone on side A portrays a person on side B as being a bad person, so, consequently, all the ideas held by side B are bad. e.g., from what I’ve heard, Isaac Newton was a cantankerous, miserable, vindictive person (maybe I’ve heard wrong, though). Someone could portray him as mean, and try to convince others that his science was incorrect by pointing out his character flaws. There’s no misrepresentation if he indeed was mean, but it’s damning ideas by association.
@Pinkaugust yeah, it’s all related logical fallacies. Straw man, ad-hominem, punching bag, slippery slope, … are all about attacking an easy target of your choosing while trying to make it look like you’re attacking the argument you want to defeat. They just differ in which way you associate the targeted argument with the personality or replacement argument you actually attack.
@@flying-sheep but conflating them as all the same concept leads people to believe that literally *any* negative trait associated with *any* idea means the author personally must hate that idea. The rich guy isn't a straw man, sorry. But he is a punching bag, and the villain in the story. Not every element in fiction is indicative of the personal views of the writer.
"This episode is about Trump." "That's so interesting! So it's about, like, when a status quo fails and the extremes suddenly become the norm?" "Nah. The villain has funny hair, is a bit of a loudmouth and wants to run for president." I liked the first series of Broadchurch but from what I've seen of these new series the writing is appalling.
The Closer Look why threaten? I understand as a UA-camr it’s daunting to go against a huge corporation, especially the BBC but if all you do is threaten they won’t care. If you actually do sue for a false claim (not sure how it works in the UK) then maybe they’d at least be hesitant when it comes to copyright claiming next time
I'm at 8:33 I definitely agree that the lack of pros is a problem, especially with a Trump parallel, because even though I agree with most of the negative points, Trump actually got into office, and he didn't do it through pure mustach twirling, he did it with speaking to certain people who didn't feel represented by any of the more moderate candidates. There should be a character or two who also hates the spiders, and the guy should be talking to them, saying things like, "don't worry, we'll get it taken care of." Now, I haven't seen the episode, and I'll watch the rest of the video, and see how wrong or right I was.
If they really wanted to portray Trump, even in a negative light, they should have also given him positives. For one, he's charismatic: anyone who's met him can tell you that. He's very good at making you feel important and valued and as if you have his full attention when it's on you. For another, there's multiple stories of him going above and beyond to help someone in need, like the time he flew a sick boy across the country to get him treatment and bought a new house for a family facing foreclosure, or the time he jumped out of his limo to attack a mugger and rescue someone. That's not saying he's a good person, I'm just stating facts. And Doctor Who has even already addressed this before - that villainous characters like Margaret/Blon Slitheen spared a woman she didn't have to simply because she was moved by the woman's sob story, and her acts of kindness and goodness are used by Blon to excuse when she behaves abhorrently. Which is much more accurate than just creating a character with only negative traits. Like, even if they were going for 'bad man Trump' angle and not just an unbiased 'Trump' expy, they should have shown positive sides of him as well. It would frankly be a more powerful overall image to have someone who you can understand and even potentially see as generally good still ultimately be villainous because of his negative aspects. The problem was likely that Chibnall didn't want even the possibility of anyone seeing anything good in him, because he was just *that* determined to push only his view of the situation.
I came to see my negative opinion of the writing in Dr. Who vindicated. I left with a purchase for The Witcher, because I want to play something with this sort of storytelling.
In terms of Bloody Baron and portarying him as a character I think it is also importatnt to notice how the game initially presents him. The name itself indicates he is violent et cetera, when somewhere along the way I remember he tells Geralt that actually his nickname was given by accident. He came out with his hands stained in red paint or something - hence the nickname was given. Throughout time he got gradually more and more brutal, due to the power of suggestion and being called bloody all the time - so eventually he 'lived up' to his nickname.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“ -Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism. 2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved. Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’. Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
Series 11 had a really big issue of patronizing and talking down to people, to preaching at us and acting like the viewers were bad and needed to change how we thought. So I changed alright. I changed the channel.
@Cafe Noir Don't want to evolve? I'm sorry but I've been watching god knows how much stuff and reading who knows how many things, and a lot of them have some sort of "Moral of the Story" And never have I ever felt so "talked down to" as I did with Series 11. Because they handled it badly, very very badly, because the writers are bad.
Can I just say I love how you were building up the transition to talk about the Witcher 3, and before you said the name you already hinted at it by using the music, and hearing that flute bit giving it away purposefully.
8:05 well one of the things that would make him a good person would be the fact that he shot the dying spider instead of standing there while it suffered for longer than necessary. But im pretty sure that the writers didn't mean it to be a good thing.
I'd say that motivation is more important in this case. "I shot it because it'll help my political ambitions" is not the same as "I shot it because it was suffering." Likewise, if the Red Baron had said/thought "I'll take her in and help her recuperate, so the Witcher will owe me a favour", that'd make it an inherently selfish act, instead of an act of selflessness.
@@Squiglypig But considering that the spider is dying regardless, shooting it doesn't really accomplish anything in terms of his selfish desires. He would have to be really fucking stupid to justify that. I haven't watched the episode(and don't plan to) so unless there is some reason that wasn't mentioned here like if the spider gets out the story will go public or something. It seems like both extreme stupidity(and extreme evil) and hidden compassion are plausible within the context of the story. If you took the same plot points and modified even just the tone you could easily make the point of the story that the guy does evil things in the short term so that eventually he can get in a position to do a lot more good as he is able to make the tough decisions that more "compassionate" people struggle with. By example maybe the ridiculously stupid scene where he threatens the girl is actually about being very harsh(thats an understatement) towards her so that she can focus her anger on him instead of internalizing it. Or when he says that this is what will get him in the white house hes actually referring to his ability to think about the big picture. Just to be clear...im not suggesting even for a second that this was something the writers were trying to do. Its a foundation they accidentally laid out by trying way too hard to make someone look evil and relying too much on tone to do it. The guy is just so evil I can't help but think there must be some reason for that but nope...They could have just aired 20 minutes of some guy saying "fuck Trump" over and over and that would still have been more nuanced.
@@Squiglypig do you care if you crush an insect or in this case an arachnoid while walking outside. Why should you care for an enormous monster mutant spider. Just kill this thing out of a nightmare with fire.
I just don't get why are people trying to rationalise not killing a man eating spider, yes i know there programmed to kill and eat people, so there mindless killing machines then like a killer robot. at the end of the day if it is a threat to people it must be stopped, you can't rationalise with it. if these giant spiders where replaced with killer robots would we be having this debate at all, no. I'm sure in the past the Doctor has stooped and even killed creatures like these spiders before to save people.
@@doommaker4000 -buggy as hell -poor main story -not an open world -barren rpg mechanics -overall, bad design -and lastly, I can't stand glitcher 3 circlejerk
@@I_Cunt_Spell It was never as buggy as people like to make it look, and the bugs that DID exist are all patched out of the game... And not a open world? the world is HUGE
_"And that's the thing about propaganda. As it is by its very nature the pinnacle of anti-intellectual. It does all the thinking for you. It tells you what the right opinions are. It tells you what the wong opinions are."_ This is precisely the reality of the mainstream films and tv series of today.
There are plenty of shows and movies that are not propaganda. This comment also pretends like there wasn't mainstream propaganda 50 years ago. It's easy to pretend everything that is mainstream is horrible and think you're special for doing so.
There's a small problem with that statement. EVERYTHING is in some sense propaganda. The difference between what you recognise as such and what you don't isn't a reflection of the media itself, it's a reflection of what you've been indoctrinated with in your life. If you're indoctrinated in a certain way of thinking or looking at the world, that perspective on things starts to become invisible. The goal of overt propaganda is to indoctrinate you with something new. But most media contains a lot of implicit propaganda, not by the deliberate intent of it's creators, but because of the nature of how people think when they are a part of a specific culture and have a specific worldview.
@@TheCloserLook it came to my mind after I saw how the trailer of Star Wars Episode 9 managed to hype up many of the fans even after all the backlash from TLJ and Solo
I totally agree! So many times I've seen misleading trailers that make you think something about the movie, but when you actually watch the movie it's something else entirely. My favourite example (and @TheCloserLook, I'd love if you'll use this as an example in your video) is the trailer for the 2012 movie John Carter, which is a good movie, not a masterpiece, but still very enjoyable. If you watch the trailer you only see boring action sequences and CGI aliens, making you think that it's just another average sci-fi action movie, while the actual movie is so much more.
I love how half of this video is Witcher 3 analysis. The Bloody Baron arc is often used as an ideal example of good storytelling/characterization. Keep up the good work, friend.
The average human is either Lawful Natural, or Chaotic Neutral. Like, 85% of people are inherently LN or CN. Both, equally, give way to evil more often than good. Neutrality is not *neutrality* , but a pathway to evil. Unless a person *ACTIVELY* tries to be *good* , then they will, inherently, drift towards evil.
@@spacecadet35 only a sith deals in abolutes. You can't just generalize the entire human population like that. I for example see myself as a "villain" because I'm generally not a very kind or generous person.
And, the"punching bag" is usually a "straw man" too -- that is, a representation that no one in the real world actually supports/believes. So the propaganda is usually fighting an idea that no one actually holds.
@@zedbee2736 Exactly. Like if you thought all Christians were like the Westboro Baptist Church, when in fact the vast majority of Christians hate them, and want nothing to do with them.
Indeed, but it's even worse than that. It is an accusation that the people they're claiming to represent are indeed like that and anyone who supports that person is the same. It's like when someone automatically resorts to the "racist" label when another person disagrees with them, it allows the first person to discredit the second as less than human not worthy of respect, and lets themself off the hook from actually engaging in any sort of meaningful debate. Mostly because they don't really have an argument and they know it. That is why they create straw men and misattribute ideas and motives of those that disagree with them, because if they were actually honest, their cognitive dissonance would evaporate and their entire worldview would come crashing down.
I agree, whenever I hear someone call something “too political” or the like I know it’s a knee jerk reaction. They just didn’t like the way the subject was broached and handled. They almost never want truly apolitical media, they want media that offers them a way to understand it and decide for themselves. They want thought provoking ideas, not ones that forced. Also, the bloody baron is a phenomenal character, he has so much depth and is genuinely an interesting person, I feel like he is a great example of a game rewarding you for role playing your character well, if you play from a detached emotionless and analytical viewpoint, you get his whole story. If you painstakingly work to see everything you can make your choice fully informed. Also, hearing his story about how he’s called the bloody baron I feel really mirrors Geralt’s own butcher of blaviken title and helps to drive the player to identify with him because he has so many faults. But a genuine and compassionate interior.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“ -Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism. 2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved. Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’. Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
Yea i always thought he is horrible until i get to end. Do i still dislike him for what he does ? Hell yea, but he ain't a hating punching bag and a hate sink like he is for a start.
Last i checked the original Doctor Who was more about the wonders of the limits (or the lack there of) of science fiction. P.S. After watching the video (or at least half of it) when talking politics it should never be blunt, and most importantly, should explore the pros and cons of both sides and be on equal ground. Like a debate.
I would disagree with that. Normally, sci-fi will take one side, and only one side, but explore it using allegories. For instance, there were no arguments for classism in The Time Machine, and no arguments for totalitarianism in 1984.
The Doctor Who character also does a lot of hand gestures like Trump. It's not even an allegory, they just added Trump to Doctor Who so they could bash him.
I wouldn't say it's permanent. Doctor Who as a franchise has gone through some rough patches. It could end up getting the show cancelled, but it could also give rise to a better writer gaining control. Its not dead yet friend, so let's not mourn until it is
Yeah, The Witcher 3 spoiled me a lot in that regard, to the point that I can't put up anymore with many other games. Granted, not all quest lines were that good, but the Bloody Baron was fantastic.
Just to add more to the "Pro Bloody Baron Camp", there is another way to finish that exact same quest. One of the other outcomes besides his wife killing herself, is that she ends up turning into a monster. I mean a grotesque monster, and he could have easily killed the monster himself or had the Witcher kill it, but he doesn't. He tells you that he has found his purpose in life, and he will spend every coin he has, and every day of his life, searching for a way to heal her. The woman that cheated on him, and told him she wanted nothing to do with him, he was willing to give away everything to save her, despite her possibly still wanting nothing to do with him. All his wealth, all his power, everything he earned from fighting in the war, for just the chance to see his ex-wife healed. So he gives you his Castle and leaves with the monster in tow. That ending is a much better interpretation of "Doing what is right despite possibly getting nothing in return".
@@DustinBarlow8P i played the game before but i feel like i wasn't paying attention half the time. I should have been, the re telling of that plot just makes me want to replay it
There's a big difference between having a conversation and being preached at. The only people that want to be preached at are the ones that already completely agree with what is being said.
There is also a difference in being preached at and being manipulated. A seen comes to mind from one of the spider man movies. A character points out that the Washington monument was built by slaves to her teacher. The teacher questions this but the security guard confirms it. It is played as a joke so it doesn't come off as preachy. But it is historically false and is pushing a message just as much as any preachy scenes. In my mind these are far worse.
@@GeneralG1810 Far Cry 5 is a commentary void, what in the good and holy name of fuck are you talking about? Honestly I'd like to insult your intelligence, but I can't even figure out what you're referencing. None of the games, not even 1 or 2, have ever had anything political whatsoever, to the point where they will actively go out of their way to be as neutral as possible. I mean, using the phrase "lefty liberals" is more than enough of a giant neon sign pointing at your head saying "this guy's a fucking moron", but beyond that, you're literally inventing shit just to suit your own weird agenda.
I don't necessarily agree that good art/fiction doesn't have a political message. One of my favorite books is The Things They Carried, written by a Vietnam veteran with a strong anti-war message. The characters in that book have to deal with what fighting a war has done to them (the burdens they carry), and the book is an exploration of that and an argument against war. It still has a political message, of course, but that's WHY it's good. I think if that book was just a series of stories about a guy in Vietnam with no political message, the book wouldn't be nearly as punchy or good. It's still visceral and real and a well-constructed argument filled with introspection, honesty, and the core political message. I think if you WANT to have a political message at the core of the story, it needs to be real and honest and a well-constructed argument that treats your viewers like intelligent human beings. Arachnids was nothing of the sort (like the spiders are fucking ridiculous and unbelievable), but by contast Rosa was a story about REAL and HONEST events, which made it a far better story in my opinion despite both episodes having a core political message. I just don't think it's as simple as "if you're art isn't exploring a topic instead of taking a stance on it, it's not good art." Good art exists (like The Things They Carried) that clearly takes a stance on a politically-charged topic, and taking that stance is arguably what makes it succeed as a work of art in the first place.
I agree with you about good art/fiction being able to have a political message and furthermore if we look at the Witcher example provided in the video it could be taken as a piece of art with a political message. I would assert that it argued against the dehumanization of other people for the sake of living in a more simple, black and white world. Essentially it's saying that though a abuser is a horrible person for what they've done, they are still a human that feels, loves and has good in them, which isn't a bad message for times where there is so much polarizing going on. But that's just my take
Still don't agree with you because plenty of people can read The Things They Carried and not realize the Author is anti-war, Back when I was a sophomore in high school 80% of the class didn't realize the book had a message at all. So I believe The Things They Carried is still written in a way to show just what is and not what is good/bad.
I'm pretty sure that was the point this video was trying to make. A work of art can be a political message but it has to be based in an exploration of reality and not an exploration of unrealistic fiction.
Holy moly f*cking damn. I had absolutely no idea that the Baron questline could end with him hanging himself. That was so incredibly sad that i almost teared up. Heartbreaking. And I haven't played Witcher 3 in a while
if u help the druid during the crone questline, anna dies, else she lives. This is why the witcher 3 is great. its too real. you can save the druid and the children or you can save the baron's family but never both
The Jon Petwee (Third Doctor) series The Green Death covered similar dumping of toxic waste in a Welsh mine, yet it wasn't preachy or woke. In fact, even with the limitations of special effects at the time, it was pretty damn' scary at times.
@@gorgnaxxangrog3183 a strawman is also used for morals, by giving a character no redeemable qualities or moral highground (essentially "weakening" them artificially in that aspect) and then "defeating" them by making everyone think they're a dick.
@@gorgnaxxangrog3183 Well, kinda yeah, but strawman is often presented as dumbed down or taken to the hyperbolic extreme, so you would had easier way convincing others why it's bad. Demonizing it in the process.
At least with a strawman, you are fighting an artificial arguement with it. This punching bag concept seems to lean to being a straight demonization of some one who is supposed to repusent something. To make them just irredeemably jack***'s.
This sounds pretty limiting tbh. What if an artist has had a personal revelation about the world (arrives at an answer) and decides to share that revelation through their art? Or @gododoof, what if the exploration of a question through art leads to an answer? If art ends with questions, that means an artist can never make a definitive statement/conclusion about the world. I don't subscribe to that definition of art.
@@tristanneal9552 Someone's "answer" is just their personal interpretation of the world. And you need to be questioning and challenging the answers you find constantly to grow as a person. Not to mention for the good of art. Never think you have things figured out, that's when you're primed to have the rug pulled out from under you.
@@tristanneal9552 perhaps it's not 'art ends with a question' but 'art produces questions throughout the process, that then informs the creation of the art'.
I really appreciate the section you did on abuse. One thing that can be very difficult for those who’ve survived it is that being in an abusive relationship is seldom 100% horrible. The person will show you love and then hurt you, and that’s why it’s so hard to leave them or to think of them as harmful to you. It’s hard to accept that a person can do good things and bad things, and you can still leave them over the bad ones.
The hamfisted political angle in Doctor Who also resulted in the 'writers' forgetting/not bothering to do even the most basic of research or the backgrounds of their own characters; Under UK law you are perfectly justified in asking/demanding that someone leaves your property. However you are required to give them a reasonable amount of time in which to leave and are not allowed to use or threaten to use force without reason and under no circumstances would the threat of lethal force be justified. The type of firearm seen is outright illegal in the UK. Posession of which comes with an automatic 14 year prison sentence and an unlimited fine. This would not just apply to the bodyguard but also his employer who ordered him to draw said gun without a viable (legal) reason. Using a firearm to threaten someone would not only mean you get the maximum 14 year sentence for having the gun, but also add some 10 years onto that sentence. Carrying a concealed firearm would probably add another 5-10 years onto your sentence. Yaz is a police officer being threatened by an idiot with a gun and in fear of her life. (You remember that Yaz is a police officer? Yeah, neither did the writers). Once she leaves all she has to do is call up her friends, explain what happens and the hotel is going to be raided by a large number of heavily armed police officers. Even in the (highly unlikely) case that a special licence was issued for the guard that licence would be automatically revoked and he, and his employer, would face the full charges. These are not the actions of any kind of successful buisness man or political wanna-be. It's one thing to be 'evil', but this is moronically stupid. That one act in the lobby of the hotel would result in a MINIMUM prison sentence of 4 years just for having the firearm. Threatening someone with that gun, even through a poxy, ensures a maximum sentence especially since one of the people you are threatening happens to be a police officer. So 'Mr Billionare' is likely to get a 15 year prison sentence and be fined millions. His body guard a sentence of some 20 years. Oh and Mr Billionare's illegal dumping of toxic waste is going to come to light, at which point his company is going to be shut down and most of its staff probably joining him in prison for a few years....
@@wallturtle1279 different countries mate. whats working in the us doesnt have to work in the uk and vice versa. i haven´t ever felt the need of carrying a fire arm apart from hunting. besides are you sure you can threaten with a firearm without just cause? it wouldnt surprise me if such behavior was illegal even in the us.
@@ashmonkey2572 I don't personally live in the USA, but I am pretty sure that threatening someone with a firearm in public is very illegal without proper proof that they were endangering you. This gets you charges for "brandishing a firearm.". You actually have to prove you were in danger to be legally exempt. Your house, is where the government draws the line. Someone tries to steal your TV, you probably shoot them. But you can get in a world of shit if they were unarmed. Some states have a castle doctrine. Castle doctrine states that property owners are allowed to shoot and kill intruders, and are pretty much exempt from murder charges if the man you shot and killed is proven to have broken in the house. In the UK, are you allowed to forcefully move the suspect out of your house?
Yu do forget that we are talking about and very rich, very powerful person here. If Jaz "called his buddies" she would be out of her job before she hangs up the phone.
In addition to the problem of making 2D mustache twirlers as our villains just being boring (or patronizing), it makes conflict and drama one-sided. Even in many works where the antagonist turned out to be Literally Hitler(tm), the author usually has some self-control to give good or tragic elements to them so you might even say something like "it is a pity that circumstances have conspired to pit this man against the protagonist, who will surely kill him". Even in genres where killing the antagonist is a foregone conclusion, it gives the possibility that something might be different, and builds the suspense.
I see your point and I think it’s right in a lot of cases but some of the greatest villains of all time don’t have any good in them or any elements that the viewer should be empathizing with. Joker in the dark knight, Calvin Candie in Django, Hans Landa in Inglourious basterds, the emperor in Star Wars, Anton chigurrh in No Country. All those villains really don’t have a single thing that the audience should be empathizing with
@@ZR38315 I agree. Villains need to be interesting or entertaining first and foremost. That might include making them sympathetic or tragic, but isn't necessary. However, if you're using the main conflict of a story to parallel real world issues and problems, then your heroes and villains need to be just as nuanced. Painting them as simple binaries of "this is good" and "this is bad" isn't enough. If it was, then they wouldn't be issues we'd be struggling with today.
"A real artist is not someone who's trying to say anything; rather, they are someone who explores a topic, provides an insightful discussion about the thing, but doesn't explicitly tell the consumer what the correct conclusion is." "Never say that this is bad; never say that this is good. Simply say, this is -- and let the viewer figure out the rest." ......nope, too extreme. Real artists absolutely can show something to be flat-out Evilwrong, in a competent and compelling way. In "Men Without Chests," C. S. Lewis pointed out that part of the role of education is to train the little child brain to have the right reactions to things: to love that which is good, to abhor that which is evil. And that educational systems that ignore this responsibility end up creating the titular "men without chests," or people with intellect (head) and appetites (gut) but no sense of moral courage that rules over the two and bends them in the correct way. As I believe that good art has a role in education, there has to be some reasonable overlap there. In fact, the separation of education from entertainment has led to problems with both. We have educational films made by people who are educators first and have no real skill in film making. We have educational games made by people with no real skill in game making. We have educational songs made by people with no real skill in songwriting or music craft -- and so forth. And so the "educational" pieces of media are rightly derided for being made in a clumsy, unskilled, boring or offensive manner. (By contrast, I learned a lot of war history from Sabaton.) On the flip side, I've heard it posited that the best episodes of Star Trek are the ones with good, strong messages brought across well through the storytelling and the acting. I think it was sfdebris who said that we like Star Trek to be *saying something* -- as opposed to "hitting us over the head with something," but also flying in the face of the supposed wisdom that "if you want to send a message, use Western Union." Art is commonly *about* messages, it's just that good art isn't as flat and shallow as that Doctor Who episode you explored. So we might have an episode where people try to figure out if Data is a person or property, and points to the problems that can be expected if they treat Data as property. Or we might have an episode where the Federation tries to railroad an innocent man into being a scapegoat for a war, simply because of his parentage. How about a film that's about not condemning a teen to death out of prejudice or mere convenience? (12 Angry Men) Or a cartoon episode that takes a stand against rampant censorship? (The Story of Whomps) These all *say something* -- and you could probably boil it down to a very simple message. They're reasonably one-sided messages, too; no one could be expected to walk away from "The Measure of a Man" thinking that Data ought to be treated like property, or finish watching 12 Angry Men and go into jury duty the next day figuring they'll just vote with the group so as to get home in time for the big game. But they're all good art, and they're not *shallow* art. They're aimed at actual bad things, and they explore them in a way that doesn't leave any question that they're bad.
tyy i was looking for a comment that points out that like most or at least many pieces of art have specific points/messages that they wanna make. when he said that line you quoted i was really taken aback.
I am sorry but you misunderstood what was said. Real artist don't tell you to love or hate things. Because it is much easier to have you understand and accept the writers point of view without "showing the strings". When the strings start showing, you focus more on them being puppets and less on the point of view that they want to show the audience. Example- In 12 angry men. We too like the jurors never know if the boy was innocent. This makes it real. Hence the strings that the director is using is invisible.
@@siddharthsingh1994 That isnt what the essayist said. He made a false equivalency to a bad episode of TV, to a good questline in a game, without touching on the obvious messaging in that questline. That entire questline is literally just "social roles bad", they cause misery on both sides, and aristocratic arrangements are generally awful. The game is filled with this message. It's also filled with the message that racism is bad, The Witcher is pretty fucking obvious with that message. The essayist said "good art doesnt tell you what is good or bad, just what is". That's an entirely braindead take, nearly every great novel explicitly tells you something, it just does it with tact. To kill a mockingbird, 1984, grapes of wrath, every Vonnegut book, F451, are ALL explicitly political and have a message the author gets at. The Dr Who episode is bad because it's badly written, not because there's an agenda.
@@A_Short_Kid Yeah this essay bugged the fuck outta me, and comes off as a centrists take on art, a stance taken because he doesn't want his worldview challenged. That DW episode is bad, but because its clumsy, aimless, and only engages in surface level critique, not because it has a message to tell.
@@MrGameSecrets Being political or having a message is not the problem as I had stated. It is that the message does not appear organic. When it is a good novel like 1984, it is very political and message driven. But the thing you misinterpreted is that the revelation are addressed not to the readers but to the characters. When that changes, the strings start to show. You don't want to preached at, hence good stories teach the characters, rather than the audience. The characters learn it by going through tragedy or adventure. It is bad when the political messaging seems to target the audience directly rather than the characters.
Jumping straight to the internet cliche aside, my history teacher addressed your ending point the very first day of class: "Hitler drank water too." Terrible people are terrible. Terrible people are also still people. I remind myself often whether I'm reading today's news or stories from history that while I might not be so terrible I'm still a people too.
My economics teacher used to say "Even dictators will feel desperation when they're stuck on the toilet for 30 minutes because they're constipated AF." He always finished it off with: "Moral of the story: eat fibers, people." 🤦♀️
Not just that, it betrays the show's core premise... To be about the fantastical sci-fi world rather than politics. They explore other worlds, but the heavy-handed writing detracts from that. This has been true is other seasons' episodes, but this season it came out more strongly than ever before. It's exhausting.
This video is painfully faux-intellectual. The example episode of Dr. Who is heavy-handed and without nuance, sure. Besides the handful of parallels to Trump or whatever, the antagonist is explicitly written to be as evil as possible. Nothing more. It seems like the motivation of the writers was to create a character intentionally apolitical to make him as unlikeable as possible. The Witcher example is just baffling. The Bloody Baron is explicitly a domestic abuser. Our brilliant video creator here goes onto explain that it was actually justifiable because his wife cheated. It was okay that the abuser did it. He literally identifies more with the abuser than the victim! This is absolute horseshit. This is everything wrong with the usual narrative around domestic and sexual violence. These two examples have ZERO to do with politicizing an issue or not and everything to do with writing characters with nuance or not. You can understand an evil character's motivations, but that doesn't make the character less evil. This video is pathetic. And I'm unsubscribing.
@@cakcakcak Ok, The Closer Look NEVER ONCE said it was totally justifiable that the man was abusive. He said it was understandable. Relatable. Not justified. He even mentions that the man has done horrible, immoral things -- but he still does good things for the sake of good. He's not one note evil, he's complex. You know, like real life people. Heck, I don't like the man himself -- I like the nuanced writing of his character. I like the thought provoking it does. Literally thousands of "bad guy" fictional characters intrigue audiences BECAUSE of their nuanced writing. Because they are complex. Their motives are relatable, understandable, even if they are immoral and you hate them. That is the whole point of the video, and you've just tried to twist it into something else for whatever reason.
That was one of the things I really appreciated about the depiction of the Bloody Baron; abusive people are very rarely the vicious monsters that create only violence, despair, and terror. Oftentimes, they're kind, generous, and loving, which is why abuse victims are extremely confused and even unwilling to cut that person out of their life. It's easy and clumsy to paint a character as a paragon of virtue or the epitome of evil, but neither of those people really exist. That's why the abused frequently have comforting, happy memories of their abuser alongside the fear and pain.
The bloody baron questline was so thought provoking. On one hand I wanted to screw him over because he was so obviously an abuser but at the same time he seemed repentful, he took care of Ciri a total stranger. I decided to give him a chance to give his side of the story & decided to help him, he isn't a good man but at least at the end he was trying to change & be better
@@jamjam445 pretty much. Though I've just realised I used the word 'straightforward', when I meant 'simplistic' or 'heavy-handed'. Almost sounded like I was praising Season 11 for a moment.
Hey, article 13 being evil is a universal human truth lol In all seriousness though, he was referring to never telling an audience what to think when crafting a story. He wasn't crafting a story. He was giving advice on how to break the law. Which is even better.
I really like how you discuss politics and propaganda here, and yet don't bring them in at all, stressing whether we like Trump or not is NOT the focus of YOUR video. That is fantastic.
Hey guys,
This video is about a year in the making. I planned on making it about four months ago but decided not to as I expected a ton of negative backlash (which I sort of am getting, but to a much lesser degree than I expected).
So this comment is really a preemptive response to those calling me out for political commentary. Enjoy :)
To any and all would-be commenters allow me to retort to your allegations that my channel has suddenly become political: it hasn't. You will notice how at no point in this video do I endorse or oppose any political ideology. You will notice I speak about trump, but never once imply that he is either good or bad. This video is as unbiased as it is humanly possible to get.
What I find really rather funny is there are people in these comments calling me a leftist, yet also other people are calling me a rightist at the same time. I'm not sure which of them I should believe, but UA-cam comments are never wrong so I guess I'm both ;D
I hope this comment did well to persuade you I have no intentions, and I have not acted in a way that suggests my own political bias. This channel is all about the art of storytelling, not anything more or less than that.
Have a great day,
- Henry
You’re genuinely my favorite channel on UA-cam.
The Closer Look Tbh, people from either side are likely to complain, because doctor who is so controversial with this new season. Don’t let that dissuade you from mankind videos like this, since they’re so interesting to listen to.
Fantastic video. This topic would be difficult to tackle in any way at all, and the fact that you chose to speak on it in the first place shows how important you feel that it is. Thank you!
you don't really have to prove yourself to idiots, any reasonable person could see you were unbiased
The Closer Look lmao you are the least political youtuber who delves into this kind of content lmao 😂
kinda stupid that a narcissistic character dumps pollution in his own property
surely theres an orphanage in the city or something
nikko validor He owned the land already, the ideas was that he was lazy and cheep.
YES THANK YOU! That's what me and my group of evil millionaire friends where just saying, while smoking cigars together in this boys club.
The pollution maybe symbolic of toxic Masculinity, and suffocating spider may represent women under this type pollution. I didnt see why his billionaire didnt see this spider as profit. The billionaire comment after shooting the spider, leads me to believe this. How is killing a spider lead to a presidential election??
*criminally* or so such, etc...... lolz, but yeah. . . . . rip.
(not very smart of them I guess?)
hahaha
12:47
"I know most of you watching don't play video games..."
X to doubt
how old does he think his audience is lol
I’m a 38yo mom, and I’m playing a video game right now as I watch this video.
@@nainai6030 Have you vaccinated your children?
Lukas: Prime Edition I sure hope she has.
I watch these videos so I can write game scripts that will be as good as the games I DO play!
The world and its history is soooooo much more nuanced and complicated than some people give it credit for.
Just thinking about it hurts my head
That's is an understatment
Uhh... than everyone* gives it credit for
@@williamheafner2396 Maybe so
Ah..nooo. There are only good politics and evil politics! That's how history lessons work!
"Never say this is bad, never say this is good. Simply say this is." The Closer Look.
This is a wendy's.
@@InertiaEffect we’ll never know if you like or dislike Wendy’s now 😂
@@InertiaEffect That comment is art. Is art good? Did I do a propaganda?
Never say it's bad unless its bad
This is Patrick.
Difficult topics are totally fine. The annoying part is being lectured to in a condescending manner.
Difficult topics are difficult to handle, maturely. Unfortunately, many writers aren't very mature.
@@CurtisAlfeld More accurately, people, when taken by emotion and self-righteousness, can't portray nuances. It just so happens that this is the way much writing is because we generally don't like to associate with those with opposite opinions to ours, so there is no real example of an opposing side, which leads to straw arguments. It's not easy to face the other side and admit the correct observations it makes. Writers are people as well, and we all generally take the easier but not necessarily correct path in life.
UlcerMaximus it tends to try and turn massive problems into one dimensional and ultimately simple speed bumps on a characters story line
Yes, I agree. I thought the topics themselves were fine. But, when the characters are facing no conflict within themselves and are just so PC that they don't need to learn anything, it just makes for boring content. I think it's great to talk about racism and sexism and other topics, and Doctor Who tackled those in the past. But, the writers here have no idea how to write a good story. That feels harsh saying, but I would much rather they take the criticism given to them and make a better season.
@milster That's pretty heartless. You want political messages that appeal to you? Do you think before writing?
I love how nobody (in Doctor Who) addresses the fact, that shooting a giant spider which is slowly dying from asphyxiation, granting a swift and relatively painless death, is actually the merciful thing to do.
Also that the species is literally indiscriminate, violent killers. Killing them isn't a bad thing. We killed all the wolves out of England because they kept killing livestock, why wouldn't we kill all the giant evil spiders that kill people?
It's the weirdest thing in the world where I'm meant to be on the side of supporting a species of violent killers because "but they look sad when they're dying uwu"
@@Winasaurus To be fair, I could see an argument for why all life deserves to live, even giant evil spiders. I myself am a pacifist, and would prefer to avoid the death of any animal, unless necessary. But the spider was already going to die, it was a question of how much it had to suffer first.
I think the hotel owner says its a mercy killing after he shoots it.
@@Corlwow Yeah but it depicted as an overtly evil phrase, with the thrilling music and all. The fact that it actually was a mercy killing that allowed the spider to die quicker, rather than slowly and in pain, in never brought up in any meaningful way.
@@LadyDoomsinger I'd murder every last one of them if they were real. Wouldn't bat an eye
Rotten tomatoes:
Critic score - 94%
Audience score - 21%
*seems legit*
That's when you know nowadays when a movie is shit. If it's praised for critics, doubt immediatly. If it's praised by audience, give it a try.
Cant wait for Rotten Tomatoes to get rid of audience reviews
But then you’re forgetting that a lot of audience critiques are just insipid. Not all, but a lot.
aj withnoname I would agree with that to some degree as someone who isn’t a professional critic is likely to post a biased review as the main character is female but a difference of 71% is just too great to claim that it’s just down to biased reviews.
@@omgitsabean15 Funny you should say that... I just looked on RT and no audience scores exist for the episode
I feel like the Bloody Baron was a good example of a hateable character. I myself, am a victim of abuse, my father was an alcoholic, and he would beat me, so I could easily sympathize with Anna and Tamara. But as I played that quest, seeing the Baron trying his best, despite his flaws. I hated him the same way I hate my father, but the Baron changed, unlike my father, and did what he could to redeem himself, and when I saw him hanging there, I felt so sad. I almost considered reloading my save to keep the Baron from killing himself, but I decided not to. If he was just a one sided, two dimensional character, it would've ruined his part of the story entirely
That’s the best kind of character: not black or white, but grey
I might be remembering it incorrectly, but there's a path that lets his family go, or makes a charm to protect them, and he's so invested in it that he only questions you a few times, and never when results are being seen. He wants to do good despite his past.
@@cgkase6210 I really would've chosen the path that saved the Baron and his family, but I really couldn't bring myself to kill those children
Like, I know it's just a game, but I'm not gonna kill kids, even if they're just video game characters
@@hairlessgrizzly559 that's the whole beauty of role playing games, consequences! For me personally accepting failures seems way more immersive and interesting ( though witcher barely fits my definition of an rpg, still amazing)
I'm not mad you talked about politics.
I'm mad that you referred to a spider as an "insect".
Especially given the title of the episode as well.
As Spider-Man often says to people who refer to him as an insect...
"ARACHNID!!!"
Absolutely.
Lobster
He is confirmed as a Spider-Man villain
Funnily enough, when an author (or screenwriter) tries to say "this is good" and "this is bad," people are more than willing to find bad things about what may be "good" and good things about what may be "bad"
Yrs, it is more convincing to be just s little more nuanced.
@Captain McDog I don't remember Rorschach being extremely right-wing as most people claim, not sure what part of his character makes people think that of him.
Sounds like you just described what birthed the concept of Johnny Lawrence/Daniel LaRusso and Cobra Kai.
Skeletor anyone
And that's exactly why I loved the Dark Knight. Because the moral is left ambiguous. Batman thinks we can chose to over come or weaknesses and do what's right (and all of those criminals that had the opportunity to survive by blowing up innocent civilians but independently chose to throw away the detonator), while Joker thinks anyone can go crazy, everyone has a bit of selfishness, and that even the purest of us can fall, (that last one actually being proven correct).
Which is correct? That's up to you. Instead of thinking Batman won, Gordan says "If Harvy fell anyone can" but we all know that a bunch of criminals were okay with dying knowing they saved women and children.
7:41
How dare you! How _dare_ you! You have gone too far, Closer Look! This completely crosses the line!
That is clearly an _arachnid,_ not an insect!
The Closer Look is secretly Thanos.
I wish I could like this 1000 times.
ahahaha, i was looking for this, thank you
Expectations successfully subverted.
Its in the fucking title of the episode
Someone once said "the entertainment system has to entertain me, not lecture me" and I felt that
“Murderers are not monsters, they're men. And that's the most frightening thing about them.”
― Alice Sebold,
Satori sama not sure if you are endorsing it
That work in the RTD era, but not in Doctor Who.
Men meaning the human race? Or men, men
@@TarfuLuke human race. You know, "mankind" and all that.
"both swords are for monsters"
- Geralt of Rivea
This is why my favourite movie is “a silent voice”. Yes it’s an anime but it deals with the sensitive topic of bullying, depression, and social anxiety. It never tells you who a bad person is, or who a good person is. It lets you figure that out for yourself. They never tell us “so yeah the bad character is good now” it shows us through the way they interact with people and lets us decide for ourselves if they are worth forgiving.
Ending was sht though, manga did it better. But overall a stunning film.
uh actually no many times they out right call specific characters bad etc
Felt it was more of forgiveness or redemption. If people can become better and if society will let them become better
@@shammybarn I know this is like 4 months later lmao, but it's not the actual movie calling them bad, it's the main character, he is the narrator, he thinks people are bad, but that doesn't mean they are.
Just watched this movie yesterday.. loved it.. they handled it well
I'm surprised how you didn't bring up that the bloody baron's wife also was pregnant and then the unborn child became a creature that the Witcher had to give proper funeral for. Just made the story all the more sadder, because the baron thought a new baby would give him a chance and yet he ended up being the main cause of it's death.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“
-Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism.
2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved.
Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’.
Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
@@nenmaster5218 Did you mean to post this to a different thread or somethin’? Not sure where Hbomberguy is related in OP’s comment lol
talks about true art: passionate
talks about Bloody Baron dying: very passionate
talks about NordVPN: GODLIKE SERVICE
@Carbon Knight He doesn't have to die though...
I spent absurd amounts of time contemplating my decisions in Witcher 3, weighing the pros and cons and deciding what I, as a human, believed. Even on tiny-ass side-quests (like the Lynch Mob side-quest) I would stop and just think. And that's what stories ought to do. Make me think.
hello friend! For me the hardest was the Where the Cat and Wolf Play after the Beast of Honorton quest - a proper moral dilemma. LOOL, at the start of my second walk through I decided to try to do the 'evil choices' run - but failed miserably when I realised there were no good/evil choices to start with - everyone always died anyway :D (except for selling Ciri of course)
When I played the witcher 3 I slept with the blonde lady then laughed when I realized that you could actually kill her 10 mins later
I would constantly get lost trying to decide what to do. When I finished my first playthrough, I had already spent 145 hours in game
@@ponternal haha me too
The quest where you need to put a baby in the oven and turns out shes tricking you to get unpossesed really fucked me up. Also the one where the guy has a torture fetish and you find a bunch of naked women with their throats slit and whipped and beaten maaan it was super fucked. Impactful ass game.
Audiences are alienated when they are told how, rather than invited, to think. Inviting/trusting them to think makes for enlightenment. Tell a good story (which would mean you were prizing audience enjoyment over audience education), then drop a message in (if you must). Chariots don't move on their own, so don't set them in front of the horse. Your rider gets no where, and the crowd is bored.
Told vs invited is a good short way to explain it. Especially if the topic is controversial in some way.
Good metaphor, never heard that one before
@The SNES Man
tbf origin stories can be done well
@The Wolf Link I think a lot of things that get thrown as moral gray areas are just waffling and a lack of strong principles
I agree with you RNS. But letting your audience explore and figure it out for themselves (or not) is still more valuable. Especially when you consider that you're force feeding others your own viewpoint not presenting a scenario and inviting them to figure it out. A correct moral opinion should rise to the surface especially if the presentation accurately reflects the topic.
The best tip I've ever come across when it comes to creating antagonists with depth is to remember that someone out there loves that antagonist, or did. Whether it's a family member, lover, or neighbor, _someone_ loves them. So you ask yourself, what is it? What is it about this person that is loved? And you use it.
Another thing to remember is that most people don’t turn “bad” irl because of nothing. Most people have some kind of motivation, even if it’s a shitty one. They have a reason, something has to happen, even if that motivation stems out of paranoia or self-deception. Of course, for the sake of storytelling, choose something that will work for your storyline, because trust me, I’ve accidentally turned into a manipulative person once due to the fact that I felt that everyone hated me (when they didn’t), and it mostly stemmed from the fact that I was so hyper focused onto my problems and unwilling to see the good in the people around me. Another thing was also that I was very full of myself and thought that I was a movie character. But even then, that’s still character “motivation” .
@@demonic6042 Yes, irl, protagonist syndrome can be such a big problem and we all recognize it, but you never really see the issue translate over to written media. it's a shame because it could be really helpful to have an audience explore, on top of being entertaining and good writing.
That's true, so long as you're not writing for an Antagonist like The Gravemind from Halo lol
@@demonic6042 "Ah, you see, I burnt down these 2 banks...because the owners had created a faulty door that had ripped my favourite shirt."
I respectfully disagree, but still see where you're coming from. I think what you mean is that the antagonist has an admirable quality, something that might make you love them if they weren't so bad in general.
An antagonist--or even protagonist--that was never loved by anyone could make for an interesting character, as it is a great foundation for possible motivations. Maybe, that character will do anything for others in order to seek their love, only to later on realize that the first step is loving themself. Perhaps the character has developed a deep-seated hatred for everyone around them, as a result of having never experienced warmth, love, and kindness from anyone during their upbringing.
It'll be a dark day when A Closer Look video is not sponsored by Nord VPN
We'll need to take a closer look if that's the case.
They'll never take away my nord :)
It'll be a beautiful day when A Closer Look video does not NEED to be sponsored by Nord VPN.
@@SirEschaton Nah, keep him sponsored with NordVPN. Half the youtube is sposnored by VPN providers, let them be. I don't want to turn off my pesky adblock.
OOOoooh... I don't know about that. If Express picked him up, it might not be so dark.
AND while I don't have the "nuts and bolts" details all together on any of them, Express was tested and I have it on pretty good authority, ALL their servers run the data in RAM, so it physically CAN NOT be backtraced. It's simply impossible, built right in.
Not saying Nord isn't doing similar or the same thing... I simply don't know that. I can only say what I've seen of Express... while I was just casually researching what "EXACTLY" a VPN functionally does. ;o)
One thing that really bugged me about the spider episode is that, the giant spider at the end of the episode is dying because of its own sheer size, it’s dying slowly and in pain, and everyone of the main cast is simply standing there, talking about how sad they are, while the creature goes through excruciating pain in the background. Then, when the trump character comes in and shoots it, giving it a quick death and ending its pain, the doctor flies off the handle at him, failing to recognise that she is in the wrong in the situation.
YES. It was going to die either way, so killing it quickly avoided a lot of suffering that would have been pointless. If the spider hadn't been dying already the Doc might have had a point.
I think you have a point, but the characters motivation wasn't empathy, thus doing something that can be considered right for all the wrong reasons.
Exactly what I was thinking when I saw that scene.
Everyone forgets that this is such a difference in character for the doctor. Matt smith's character when he found out a space whale was suffering being driven by the humans of space Britain, elected to kill him to avoid further suffering.
@@MrWatcherish My interpretation of that episode was that he was stopping the torture of the space whale and letting it make up its own mind about weather to leave and destroy Britain or stay with Britain strapped to its back. I also think that it was his companion who did that and not the doctor.
"But what makes for great art?"
*Witcher 3 music starts playing* OH MY GOD YESSSSS
Same
@THISIS THEGIRL I thought it was pretty good honestly. Coming from someone who likes the books and the game it was different but fun, I have my issues (like Triss' casting) but it was still a pretty good watch
@THISIS THEGIRL I like to pretend that the Netflix adaption doesn't exist, to me only the books are completely canon and the games are partially canon, with TW3 being the most canon.
14:30 "This story doesn't try to make you think anything, it simply shows you an unbiased, impartial depiction of what domestic violence can look like."
Fully agreed. Not only that, the game also gives the player the choice to slaughter without questions or to ask as much as one might want to to get to the core of this event.
Witcher 3 stands out to me as a wonderful storytelling game in that regard.
3:42
CL: “You are going to laugh.”
Me: “Yeah, probably not. I’ve heard some pretty ridiculous shit befo-”
“DONALD TRUMP.”
I literally paused the video and started wheezing for half a minute.
I predicted "Orange man bad?" RIGHT AWAY, Trump's picture pops up on screen.
@@ClokworkGremlin Lol what a great line, he is above reproach now!
Oh yeah, Bloomberg actually makes sense given the character's behavior.
Kind of like the 2000 movie, The Contender, about a woman running for president and the "Republicans" in the movie run a massive smear campaign that ends her entire career. Fast-forward to 2008, when a woman runs for president, and *who* ran a massive smear campaign to end her entire career? (and if you legitimately think Palin was a bad candidate, that just shows how effective the smear campaign was.)
@@ClokworkGremlin is it really a smear campaign if what they said is both true and relevant? I'll bet that for every claim made about Palin during that election that was untrue or irrelevant to the issue of her fitness for office, one could find several claims/portrayals of her that were both true and relevant.
@@ClokworkGremlin Did you really just assume his gender?? RAPP0RT!!1!ONE!
You forgot to mention that hearing the barron's whole story in the first place is a player choice. I was so steadfast in my convictions in the Bloddy Barron, I didn't even hear him out. Now I wish I'd had.
The great thing about that whole story line is there is NO "good" outcome and NO ONE is "good" or "morally right".
Art(in the broadest sense possible) is a fun way to explore your own convictions. The hardest thing anyone can do is realise that at the end of the day were all human, limited by our own limited human knowledge. Granted, there are always few notable exceptions, but those exceptions are determined by your perception alone. Im no exception to that either, even if I portray my self as a largely open-minded individual. After all, I'm a guy replying to a comment made a year before with my own convictions of open-mindedness and reasonable doubt/devil's advocacy for the sake of argument/open conversation. 🤷♀️ Make of that what you will.
I did the same thing with the vampire in the city quest. I don't remember a ton of specifics but at one point you suspect a local priest (maybe a politician idk) and find him torturing a prostitute in a brothel, so I just killed him. Turns out he wasnt the vampire, just a really fucked up dude and I let the vampire live by killing hin
Hearing his side of the story doesn’t change what he’s done though, so your initial convictions were still accurate. The extra information he provides gives us an _explanation_ as to why he did what he did... but it certainly doesn’t _justify_ what he’s done, and honestly shouldn’t warrant much sympathy either. Him keeping her locked up against her will and repeatedly beating her is FAR worse than her cheating on him. Of course no one is 100% good or bad, but some things are objectively worse than others.
@@blue1584 She didn’t just cheat on him, she cheated on him while he was off to war so he could support them. He was likely suffering from PTSD. Then she tried to take his daughter away from him. Then she tried to kill him. Than she manipulated him into hitting her again.
This is not as one sided as you say it is. Don’t mistake me, he did awful things, but to dismiss what she did is a bit silly.
Giant hecking spider: *kills people*
People: oh no don't kill it!!!!
Conclusion: ???
Conclusion: be the better man? You kill one killer and the number of killers in the world remains the same????
@@halley8105 so the solution is to kill multiple killers?
My exact thought.
астцаллу тнгс шас а меме а чеш моитнс васк
We're gonna need a bigger glass....
Jodie calling her companions ''fam'' was enough to alienate me.
Hard same.
I feel so bad for anyone who kept watching dw after Capaldi left...my heart goes out to all of you oh my god
@@elinanyquist8920 I watched just the 11th season. Didn't even care for the New Year Special after that lol.
@@elinanyquist8920 I saw the signs and i stoped at the episode were he met a last time with river song (i think it was the Christmas special or so). It was a bittersweet ending that put everything in a full functioning story cycle.
While I’d rather they not call their companions “fam”, the writers could’ve at least not brought attention to how cringy it is.
Arachnids in the UK is probably where I lost hope for Chib Nib's season... The American character was so one sided and stereotypical. Don't get me started on The Doctor not wanting him to shoot the spider so it could slowly die because it's more moral....
@@UA-camChannel-dk5xv I said the character was one sided. As in he lacked any depth. An example I remember is that he said something along the lines of "you people are weird you don't like guns" but don't quote me on that.
As for killing the spider it was in pain, scared and dying but the Doctor would rather let it die like that rather than put it out of it's misery. We literally do that for dogs whats so wrong about doing it to a spider?
@@UA-camChannel-dk5xv okay sorry my bad. I would like to hear your opinion on why killing the spider was a bad thing though.
I always thought of strawmen as artificial repusentation of a opposing idea with a weak arguement to tear down.
But this Punching bag just seems like a character repusenting an idea/person who is just iredeemable bad and just in the wrong. No argument needed. They shouldn't be defended.
Like an anti-marie sue.
Hell! I would have killed the spider! I would have shot at it until my gun was empty! Why? It's a huge god damn spider, dammit! Have you any idea how much one can hate spiders?
If i was in a room with a giant spider and hitler, and had a gun with two bullets, id immediately shoot the spider twice. I mean... then I'd probably strangle Hitler, but damn the spider takes priority!
I actually found the way they dealt with the rest of the spiders even worse. They locked thousand of giant spiders that would keep on growing in a very small room to suffocate and eat each other, with no way to get out. That seems way crueller than just shooting them. (not to forget that there is no way they managed to lock up all of the spiders)
*Witcher 3 soundtrack plays*
Me: wait, is that, Witcher 3 music?
*Uses W3 as an example of great storytelling*
Me: yep, sounds about right
Okay, But how fucking great was the witcher 3's soundtrack.
Dakota hodgkins fucking beautiful
@@dakotahodgkins4642 The only downside of that game is the fact that it's so damn good it distracts you from reality
@@mreknijn A major downside is that it ends. I remember the end of blood and wine DLC sitting around the campfire with Regis and not wanting to exit.
@@aaronbarlow4376 After the main story I felt like shit because I never wanted it to end, after Blood and Wine that feeling was exaggerated by a large margin
Propaganda: Telling people what to think.
Political commentary: Presenting an issue, then let people decide for themselves what to think.
This is a good video, dude. Keep making more.
YOU'RE RIGHT. they should've never forced the south to stop owning slaves, but instead waited for them to adopt humane morals. Sometimes presenting an issue isn't enough, when human beings are incapable of being anything but destructive, shitty pissheads. which is why this explanation of propoganda vs political commentary is complete bullshit
Syzygy It’s not complete bullshit, as you’re talking about laws and real life scenarios versus movies and film. If you’re being told what to think by a film, you won’t listen and may even adopt the opposite viewpoint. If they present each side and let you make the choice, then you will probably make the morally correct one. Simple human psychology, sorry you can’t comprehend it. Your analogy doesn’t even prove why his explanation is bullshit at all. His explanation of the differences is spot on.
What? Neutrally presenting an issue isn’t “political commentary”. To comment on an issue, you have to take a stance.
@@syzygy2464 You do know the american civil war was not just fought for slaves, there was also state rights and how federal government power should be employed. many in the south fought for state rights, very few of them owned slaves.
@L3- -37 "telling people what to think is wrong" as he's trying to tell people that not thinking like him is wrong. The hypocrisy is real.
I got the ending of the Baron’s quest where his wife survived but was left in a broken, almost catatonic state. He kindly took her back to the castle and lovingly cared for her while she was like that even after everything the two of them had done to one another. That’s also an amazingly told ending to the quest.
Art makes you think, propaganda tells you what to think
@@Madhattersinjeans
Yeah, that's a logical fallacy called a suppressed correlative, where you redefine an opponent's term "all things are either A or not A" such that no things are not A. It's a rhetorical sleight of hand, there's no possible way OP's post was using that definition of "propaganda."
Artists are not immune to propaganda
Is there a third, the artist/creator expressing their view? That isn't necessarily propaganda, if done in a sophisticated way of course.
@mc finn therefor i give the middle finger.
@mc finn An android... like the rest of the world :(
As a religious person, I can tell you that the vast majority of Christian movies are crap. They are just terrible. Christian novels are the same way. So you might think, "Well, you just can't weave Christian story themes into a story and tell a good one. It's just too trite." But, if you step back a little you might notice Victor Hugo's 'Les Miserables', Dostoevsky's 'Brothers Karamazov', Orson Scott Card's 'Ender's Game/Speaker for the Dead', JRR Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings', CS Lewis's 'The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe', Gene Wolfe's 'Book of the New Sun', and movies like 'Lilies of the Field', 'Sergeant York', 'Gentle Persuasion', 'Ben Hur', and 'Chariots of Fire'. These are some of the most beloved literature in all of fiction.
What gives is exactly what you are talking about here. Having an idea about the moral you want to teach is not the same as having an idea for a story. Stories often have meaning and morals, and can illuminate difficult questions and deep issues of life. But morals and meanings don't have stories. You can't go from one direction to the other. When you set out to have a particular meaning, you just write bad fiction. But when you set out to write good fiction, surprise you end up creating meaning. And this is the problem the SJW's have. They've become like the Christian authors that start from the lesson that they want to teach and try to work backwards, resulting in trite stories that don't earn their endings and don't really speak to anyone not already convinced of both the means and the method.
Don't forget Ben Hur! One of the greatest films of all time and the novel is magnificent too!
This is so true.
It's really interesting to me, so please answer.
What do you think about "Monty Python's Life of Brian"?
@@raymints9583 I've never seen it. It's not a Christian movie, but rather a movie which treats Christianity satirically written by and for non-Christians. Unlike say some of the treatment of Christianity satirically in something like 'Oh God' or 'The Simpsons' (the only regular church goers in television), there isn't even any sense from what little I know of the movie that it is or at times can be a respectful satire. It's simply belittlement and mockery. I'm not offended per se, because being offended about this sort of thing goes explicitly against the teachings of Christ, but I do think that it is a very sad movie on several grounds.
@@celebrim1 ok. Thanks for the answer.
I haven't usually commented, but Henry, I really and truly appreciate the nuance you brought to this topic.
Ah thanks man. I like your stuff too :)
Hello to both of you. You guys are two of my favourite UA-camrs. Keep up the great work!
Maybe dyslexia?
I'm a grammar Nazi but my dyslexia makes me look illiterate.
#HelloFutureMe I love your stuff too. I love seeing content creators supporting each other. It's great!
Hey Tim! Two of my favorite UA-camrs on writing and storytelling!
The Witcher is really good at dealing with complex topics. It explores a lot about colonialism and racism in the second game. Whilst the game mechanics aren't as good it's worth playing for the story.
Witcher 2 is a gem
When I say that The Witcher game series is very mature, I automatically have people saying "It's not because there are nude women that it's a mature game". Stupid asshats.
The games are mature because theyr brush complex topics like racism, sexism, war, and so on... with a lot of nuance, finesse, and without manicheism.
The issue is that political issues aren't treat as if they are complex. They are treat simply and not discussed. Gone are the complex discussions like in the Silurians, Curse or Monster of Peladon.
Ofc. we need to make sure everyone knows the right are bad, and the left are good! No place for nuance here!
Well there's your first mistake, the writers aren't left wing in the slightest.
I'm a left-winger and even I thought this season of Doctor Who was terrible. This is what happens when people don't pay attention to nuance and get a bunch of egotistical morons writing for a show.
@@Wesleym134 They ARE left wing. WAY too left wing. I'm left wing myself as well, the thing is, we aren't as extreme as these people are.
@@Wesleym134 And ofc the fact that they're just bad, and too busy trying to push and agenda, instead of trying to write a good show.
@@Wesleym134 the messages still seem more left wing generally. Right wingers generally don't complain about the environment as an issue or discuss. Arachnids seems to scrutinize Trump and characatures him with no nuance. I hate to repeat the phrase but it seems like the left wing media message in America 'orange man bad'. Rosa also tried to make the point that racism still happens to day and we haven't come far enough. I'm more of a libertarian myself. Don't really see things in terms of left and right wing
15:49 Yeah, After all, as C.S. Lewis said, “Everybody feels benevolent if nothing happens to be bothering them at the moment.”
Also are we just going to ignore the fact that the "evil man"'s plan was to kill the spiders but then he gets mocked for being immoral and then everyone does the morally right thing.
Of instead making them suffocate to death.
Like.
Yeah.
Also, lets consider, Mutant. Spiders. Just looking the mutating monster away and hope it dies off is, like, what the actual fuck? Just state outright that you are trying to make Sealed Evil in a Can.
Not to mention if the Hotel Manager is Trump, I am pretty sure the spiders are supposed to represent Illegal Aliens or something... makes the whole thing even more twisted.
YES! This is exactly what I was thinking when I saw this episode. He put the poor thing out of its misery and that was somehow bad?
Edit: spelling
@@AntProxy Perfectly mirrors life though in that people for open boarders rather immigrants die in the desert trying to cross the boarder illegally than have boarder patrols pick them up. Which the Doctor and her crew just standing there watching the spider slowly die was doing imo. If your going for the whole trump/illegal alien metaphor.
@@JustaGuy_Gaming do....do you think that's what open borders means?
"Great art is above all else ... honest." - sir I would like to say that I think you nailed it right there.
When I did the bloody baron quest I did the same thing where his wife died- I legitimately did not play the game for a month after seeing the consequence of my mistake, that is great storytelling
The other option isn’t much better. If I remember the choice right you save her but she transforms into a water hag with no way to change her back. Also all the kids the witches have end up dying. I did all the extra side quests to try and get the “right” out come and still got a kick in the teeth.
@@MrJesse1472 What's the Star Trek quote? "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
@@nativechatter999 Well... shit
MrJesse1472 There is a third option, the Baron’s wife can be turned back from a Water Hag but, her mind is broken then Baron takes her to a monastery in the mountains to hopefully cure her.
Though the land is then under the control of his sadistic guards who are twice as bad when the Baron isn’t leading them.
@@1vandread Actually there is a way to save the wife but it means that you have to kill the evil spirit instead of releasing it in an earlier quest.
This episode dissapointed me so much that my arachnophobia didn't even kick in.
Lmao
With enough disappointment all phobias cancels out.
When you hitting it hard but it’s so used up that your fear of tight spaces doesn’t even kick in.
@@felobatirmoheb4884 so there’s a way for me to cancel out my mom’s fear of heights?
@@francisthegreat2517 Yeah, be dissapointing (or more dissapointing, depends on your view on yourself)
"Insect"
"INSECT"
"InSEcT"
"I N S E C T"
*screams in arachnid*
It's even in the title for god's sake!
How the fuck do people keep mistaking arthropod names? There aren't even that many important ones. What's so difficult about saying "arachnid"?
things are heating up in the arthropod fanbase...
Is something bugging you?
@@Keihryon *Angrily clenches spider fist*
Saying something is "too political" means "over simplified propaganda" or even "transparent attempt at brainwashing".
Exactly, though saying those things straight like they are can definetly sound unreasonable, no matter how true they are.
I've noticed that many people who say that something is "too political" know diddly-squat about politics.
@@ftumschk don't know or just don't agree with you?
@@ollikoskiniemi6221 No - they don't know the meaning of politics, period. Such things as gender identity, diversity and ecology are matters of science and philosophy, not politics. "Bill is a lesbian... therefore politics"; "Ryan and Yaz are brown... therefore politics"; "Trump is an idiot... therefore politics"'; "Praxeus is about microplastics pollution... therefore politics"... all wrong! These are NOT political matters.
@@ftumschk I agree with you, however those are the people who make everything political instead of complaining about politics being everywhere.
"I know that most of you watching don't play video games"
Excuse me?
When he said that, I just heard J. Jonah Jameson:
_"HaHaHaHaHaHa! ..... You're serious?"_
@Hobarth McShane don't talk shite :D
man i play enough games for half of the people who dont 😂
@@woojinjang8077 wha... Okay?
Seriously why DOES he say that?
Not to mention how he is totally right at the end of the episode. They just seal the mine up and let the monsters sufficate. The trump knockoff points out that their could be other exits they could escape from and continue to kill. but doctor brushes him off.
Doc_Ock_Rokc there's a mutant spider suffocating to death and he shoots it. Everyone gets pissed at him. He literally put the thing out of its misery. Like the others were just going to let the thing slowly suffocate to death.
@@captainkronos1016 well orange man bad. Thats all we need to know.
And giant spiders suddenly are not the main antagonists of every horrormovie anymore when shot by a bad guy. Then its like you shot an innocent animal like a dog which will glance at you with sad puppy eys as it dies.
@@captainkronos1016 To be fair, the motives behind an action are pretty important, just as much as the consequences. Killing something to put it out of its misery is far different than killing for the sake of killing. Even the legal system takes intent into account. Personally, I would consider a coldblooded murderer a much worse person than a doctor who performs euthanasia on the terminally ill who are in great pain. The legalities or ethics of the latter are irrelevant, because the intent will shape my perspective of both individuals.
Not to mention that the Doctor and her team also went "guns are bad don't kill it" meanwhile they made thousands of spiders suffocate to death in a room.
The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon.
(C) Brandon Sanderson
More specifically, Hoid... full of quotes, isn't he.
My man Sando
A good story tells you all about the characters.
A bad story tells you all about the author.
🤔
Good stories can still tell you something about the author. Just look at the Lord of the rings trilogy.
Im so happy you picked the Bloody Baron he really is an amazingly well written character
Best sidequest in any game ever, for me at least.
@@fabiankehrer3645 I wouldn't call it a sidequest, it was an integral part of first act of the game.
Fabian Kehrer uh I wouldn’t call him a side quest you need him to look for Ciri and his quest is the main part of that area
@@Condratovitzsch technically is though since at some point you don't have to continue his mission.
"he shot a scared Insect in the back"
ME: INSECT!?
me: ARACHNIDS AREN'T INSECTS
let's be honest if any of us saw that thing in real life we would probably shoot it too. i don't give a shit if it was begging for mercy or if it had any kids cues fuck spiders
@nortan, you completely missed the point.
@@muffetmissulena6540 I got the point I just don't like spider especially big fucking ones
nortan spiders are evil.
Your "Punching Bag" term actually does have a real counterpart.
Typically, it goes by the "Straw Man Argument", and is largely the same definition of your "Punching Bag" that you gave.
That said, it was quite an insightful video. Props, OP.
@TheBananaMan777 To be perfectly honest, I always considered the two to be interchangeable. Even with your examples above, at least the way you worded it, to me sounds like you explained the same thing twice, just with different nuance for both examples.
Who knows, maybe it's all pedantic anyway. XD
AkemiTheSunbro: A straw man argument is not at all the same as the narrator’s punching bag.
The former is misrepresenting the ideas of the other side, whereas the latter is damning their ideas by association.
The former is when someone on side A says that people on side B claim (or do) X, and the person on side A refutes X, but people on side B have never claimed (or done) X, they’ve actually claimed Y, and X is a complete misrepresentation of Y. e.g., if someone says that women are statistically shorter than man, and someone else replies: how can you say that every woman is shorter than every man?, the second person presented a straw man argument because they misrepresented the first person‘s claim.
The latter is when someone on side A portrays a person on side B as being a bad person, so, consequently, all the ideas held by side B are bad. e.g., from what I’ve heard, Isaac Newton was a cantankerous, miserable, vindictive person (maybe I’ve heard wrong, though). Someone could portray him as mean, and try to convince others that his science was incorrect by pointing out his character flaws. There’s no misrepresentation if he indeed was mean, but it’s damning ideas by association.
@@abbaa711 Thank you for typing all that out so I don't have to.
@Pinkaugust yeah, it’s all related logical fallacies. Straw man, ad-hominem, punching bag, slippery slope, … are all about attacking an easy target of your choosing while trying to make it look like you’re attacking the argument you want to defeat. They just differ in which way you associate the targeted argument with the personality or replacement argument you actually attack.
@@flying-sheep but conflating them as all the same concept leads people to believe that literally *any* negative trait associated with *any* idea means the author personally must hate that idea.
The rich guy isn't a straw man, sorry. But he is a punching bag, and the villain in the story. Not every element in fiction is indicative of the personal views of the writer.
"This episode is about Trump."
"That's so interesting! So it's about, like, when a status quo fails and the extremes suddenly become the norm?"
"Nah. The villain has funny hair, is a bit of a loudmouth and wants to run for president."
I liked the first series of Broadchurch but from what I've seen of these new series the writing is appalling.
in b4 BBC throws a butthurt copyright strike
BBC
@@sauravs6602 I tried :"v
No joke I 100% expect this video to be slapped down in the next few days, I'll probably just threaten to sue them unless they release it ;)
it wouldn't be the first time I see them do it
they usually end up losing, but either way, good luck
bythewayohmygodyourepliedIcandiehappynow
The Closer Look why threaten?
I understand as a UA-camr it’s daunting to go against a huge corporation, especially the BBC but if all you do is threaten they won’t care. If you actually do sue for a false claim (not sure how it works in the UK) then maybe they’d at least be hesitant when it comes to copyright claiming next time
I'm at 8:33 I definitely agree that the lack of pros is a problem, especially with a Trump parallel, because even though I agree with most of the negative points, Trump actually got into office, and he didn't do it through pure mustach twirling, he did it with speaking to certain people who didn't feel represented by any of the more moderate candidates.
There should be a character or two who also hates the spiders, and the guy should be talking to them, saying things like, "don't worry, we'll get it taken care of."
Now, I haven't seen the episode, and I'll watch the rest of the video, and see how wrong or right I was.
If they really wanted to portray Trump, even in a negative light, they should have also given him positives. For one, he's charismatic: anyone who's met him can tell you that. He's very good at making you feel important and valued and as if you have his full attention when it's on you. For another, there's multiple stories of him going above and beyond to help someone in need, like the time he flew a sick boy across the country to get him treatment and bought a new house for a family facing foreclosure, or the time he jumped out of his limo to attack a mugger and rescue someone. That's not saying he's a good person, I'm just stating facts. And Doctor Who has even already addressed this before - that villainous characters like Margaret/Blon Slitheen spared a woman she didn't have to simply because she was moved by the woman's sob story, and her acts of kindness and goodness are used by Blon to excuse when she behaves abhorrently. Which is much more accurate than just creating a character with only negative traits.
Like, even if they were going for 'bad man Trump' angle and not just an unbiased 'Trump' expy, they should have shown positive sides of him as well. It would frankly be a more powerful overall image to have someone who you can understand and even potentially see as generally good still ultimately be villainous because of his negative aspects. The problem was likely that Chibnall didn't want even the possibility of anyone seeing anything good in him, because he was just *that* determined to push only his view of the situation.
I came to see my negative opinion of the writing in Dr. Who vindicated.
I left with a purchase for The Witcher, because I want to play something with this sort of storytelling.
Enjoy, the Witcher is absolutely amazing... Just make sure you don't forget to sleep.
@@reksie7816 still waiting for Cyberpunk 2077!
WOLVEN we are all waiting for cyberpunk 2077 it looks super hype
Not gonna regret it. If you enjoy it Ican’t recommend the expansions enough
you should try Spec Ops: The Line too. Very different gameplay, but it is the kind of game that make you ask the right questions
In terms of Bloody Baron and portarying him as a character I think it is also importatnt to notice how the game initially presents him. The name itself indicates he is violent et cetera, when somewhere along the way I remember he tells Geralt that actually his nickname was given by accident. He came out with his hands stained in red paint or something - hence the nickname was given. Throughout time he got gradually more and more brutal, due to the power of suggestion and being called bloody all the time - so eventually he 'lived up' to his nickname.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“
-Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism.
2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved.
Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’.
Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
Video is titled "How To **Alienate** Your Audience"
Talks about Doctor Who
I saw what you did there ;-)
1 year later*...........oh I get it * laughing intensifies * 😊
Series 11 had a really big issue of patronizing and talking down to people, to preaching at us and acting like the viewers were bad and needed to change how we thought.
So I changed alright.
I changed the channel.
@Cafe Noir
Don't want to evolve?
I'm sorry but I've been watching god knows how much stuff and reading who knows how many things, and a lot of them have some sort of "Moral of the Story"
And never have I ever felt so "talked down to" as I did with Series 11. Because they handled it badly, very very badly, because the writers are bad.
@Cafe Noir The Matrix already has you.......
@Cafe Noir Stay woke beep boop
@Cafe Noir yeah, that's the problem, lol
Cafe Noir i just wanna give you a qoute from Big Madafaca "Art makes you think, propaganda tells you what to think".
"This example is of course The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt."
Now we're talking.
ValiantAtlas stolen
Can I just say I love how you were building up the transition to talk about the Witcher 3, and before you said the name you already hinted at it by using the music, and hearing that flute bit giving it away purposefully.
I never played TW3 but I felt so sad after you told the story of the Bloody Baron that's great writing right there. Great video man
I recommend you play it! This ONE character he explains is only one of many in the amazing game.
And thats only a fragment of the funny, doubtful, incredibly touching and sad stuff for the Bloody Baron only.
8:05
well one of the things that would make him a good person would be the fact that he shot the dying spider instead of standing there while it suffered for longer than necessary. But im pretty sure that the writers didn't mean it to be a good thing.
I'd say that motivation is more important in this case.
"I shot it because it'll help my political ambitions" is not the same as "I shot it because it was suffering."
Likewise, if the Red Baron had said/thought "I'll take her in and help her recuperate, so the Witcher will owe me a favour", that'd make it an inherently selfish act, instead of an act of selflessness.
@@Squiglypig But considering that the spider is dying regardless, shooting it doesn't really accomplish anything in terms of his selfish desires. He would have to be really fucking stupid to justify that.
I haven't watched the episode(and don't plan to) so unless there is some reason that wasn't mentioned here like if the spider gets out the story will go public or something. It seems like both extreme stupidity(and extreme evil) and hidden compassion are plausible within the context of the story.
If you took the same plot points and modified even just the tone you could easily make the point of the story that the guy does evil things in the short term so that eventually he can get in a position to do a lot more good as he is able to make the tough decisions that more "compassionate" people struggle with.
By example maybe the ridiculously stupid scene where he threatens the girl is actually about being very harsh(thats an understatement) towards her so that she can focus her anger on him instead of internalizing it. Or when he says that this is what will get him in the white house hes actually referring to his ability to think about the big picture.
Just to be clear...im not suggesting even for a second that this was something the writers were trying to do. Its a foundation they accidentally laid out by trying way too hard to make someone look evil and relying too much on tone to do it. The guy is just so evil I can't help but think there must be some reason for that but nope...They could have just aired 20 minutes of some guy saying "fuck Trump" over and over and that would still have been more nuanced.
@@Squiglypig do you care if you crush an insect or in this case an arachnoid while walking outside. Why should you care for an enormous monster mutant spider. Just kill this thing out of a nightmare with fire.
I just don't get why are people trying to rationalise not killing a man eating spider, yes i know there programmed to kill and eat people, so there mindless killing machines then like a killer robot. at the end of the day if it is a threat to people it must be stopped, you can't rationalise with it. if these giant spiders where replaced with killer robots would we be having this debate at all, no.
I'm sure in the past the Doctor has stooped and even killed creatures like these spiders before to save people.
In conclusion, I need to play Witcher 3.
Garbage game. Overrated as hell.
Placeholder34 I had a lot of fun with it but I will tell you. Don’t play on easy or combat is just mash square
@@I_Cunt_Spell Care to elaborate?
@@doommaker4000
-buggy as hell
-poor main story
-not an open world
-barren rpg mechanics
-overall, bad design
-and lastly, I can't stand glitcher 3 circlejerk
@@I_Cunt_Spell It was never as buggy as people like to make it look, and the bugs that DID exist are all patched out of the game... And not a open world? the world is HUGE
The bloody baron was one of my favorite quest lines. Heart of Stone made me cry buckets
_"And that's the thing about propaganda. As it is by its very nature the pinnacle of anti-intellectual. It does all the thinking for you. It tells you what the right opinions are. It tells you what the wong opinions are."_
This is precisely the reality of the mainstream films and tv series of today.
Oh yeah, anything that criticizes trump is propaganda these days.
In what way? There’s really a lot out there to which this could apply, so wondering where you’re coming from.
There are plenty of shows and movies that are not propaganda. This comment also pretends like there wasn't mainstream propaganda 50 years ago. It's easy to pretend everything that is mainstream is horrible and think you're special for doing so.
There's a small problem with that statement.
EVERYTHING is in some sense propaganda.
The difference between what you recognise as such and what you don't isn't a reflection of the media itself, it's a reflection of what you've been indoctrinated with in your life.
If you're indoctrinated in a certain way of thinking or looking at the world, that perspective on things starts to become invisible.
The goal of overt propaganda is to indoctrinate you with something new.
But most media contains a lot of implicit propaganda, not by the deliberate intent of it's creators, but because of the nature of how people think when they are a part of a specific culture and have a specific worldview.
and all of history .
spoilers: art usually embodies the values of the creator .
could you make a video on how to make a good trailer?
Thanks for the suggestion, that's actually quite a good one. I'll have to write that down.
@@TheCloserLook it came to my mind after I saw how the trailer of Star Wars Episode 9 managed to hype up many of the fans even after all the backlash from TLJ and Solo
I totally agree! So many times I've seen misleading trailers that make you think something about the movie, but when you actually watch the movie it's something else entirely. My favourite example (and @TheCloserLook, I'd love if you'll use this as an example in your video) is the trailer for the 2012 movie John Carter, which is a good movie, not a masterpiece, but still very enjoyable. If you watch the trailer you only see boring action sequences and CGI aliens, making you think that it's just another average sci-fi action movie, while the actual movie is so much more.
Are you doing a level media because that is one of the tasks you can take as an option
@@cynical4503 i guess im the only one who didn't get hype, star war dead in my opinion
yes it’s been soooo long, Im happy to see my favorite youtuber
Thanks :D
I love how half of this video is Witcher 3 analysis. The Bloody Baron arc is often used as an ideal example of good storytelling/characterization. Keep up the good work, friend.
We dehumanize villains so much we forget regular everyday people can be just as sinister
Usually everyday people ARE more sinister.
The average human is either Lawful Natural, or Chaotic Neutral.
Like, 85% of people are inherently LN or CN.
Both, equally, give way to evil more often than good.
Neutrality is not *neutrality* , but a pathway to evil.
Unless a person *ACTIVELY* tries to be *good* , then they will, inherently, drift towards evil.
Just remember; everybody thinks that they are the hero. According to them, you are the villain.
@@spacecadet35 only a sith deals in abolutes. You can't just generalize the entire human population like that. I for example see myself as a "villain" because I'm generally not a very kind or generous person.
You make it sound like there aren't selfish assholes out there.
‘Arachnids in the UK’. More like ‘Spiders in Sheffield’.
And, the"punching bag" is usually a "straw man" too -- that is, a representation that no one in the real world actually supports/believes. So the propaganda is usually fighting an idea that no one actually holds.
Or at least such a radical idea that a tiny minority of people believe it and are already looked at as crazy folks
@@zedbee2736 Exactly. Like if you thought all Christians were like the Westboro Baptist Church, when in fact the vast majority of Christians hate them, and want nothing to do with them.
Indeed, but it's even worse than that. It is an accusation that the people they're claiming to represent are indeed like that and anyone who supports that person is the same.
It's like when someone automatically resorts to the "racist" label when another person disagrees with them, it allows the first person to discredit the second as less than human not worthy of respect, and lets themself off the hook from actually engaging in any sort of meaningful debate. Mostly because they don't really have an argument and they know it.
That is why they create straw men and misattribute ideas and motives of those that disagree with them, because if they were actually honest, their cognitive dissonance would evaporate and their entire worldview would come crashing down.
@@ryan4327 Exactly! They need to present them as being the most vile type of person imaginable for their argument to hold any kind of water.
so false accusations basically?
I agree, whenever I hear someone call something “too political” or the like I know it’s a knee jerk reaction. They just didn’t like the way the subject was broached and handled. They almost never want truly apolitical media, they want media that offers them a way to understand it and decide for themselves. They want thought provoking ideas, not ones that forced. Also, the bloody baron is a phenomenal character, he has so much depth and is genuinely an interesting person, I feel like he is a great example of a game rewarding you for role playing your character well, if you play from a detached emotionless and analytical viewpoint, you get his whole story. If you painstakingly work to see everything you can make your choice fully informed. Also, hearing his story about how he’s called the bloody baron I feel really mirrors Geralt’s own butcher of blaviken title and helps to drive the player to identify with him because he has so many faults. But a genuine and compassionate interior.
„I’m all for harsh Criticism of Trump… i wished there was some of it in here. But no.“
-Jay Exci in his critically acalimed Good-Faith-Criticism.
2 Years after this video here came out, i proudly proclaim that Good-Faith-Criticism, especially in Big-Video-Form has become quite popular and has nicely evolved.
Some have become so good at this that numerous comments of different Users say variants of ‚The Time flew by’ and more importantly also ‚I did NOT needed to know this Show at all to enjoy this video here!?!’.
Hbomberguy, Madvocate, Jay Exci, i can only recommend those for entertaining with Criticism-Essays.
Big love for the bloody baron there are to few characters that have made me feel guilty for jumping to assumptions.
I have been scrolling through trying to find a angry NPC rambling about the Baron... What a pleasure is to not fine one
Yea i always thought he is horrible until i get to end. Do i still dislike him for what he does ? Hell yea, but he ain't a hating punching bag and a hate sink like he is for a start.
omg, I know exactly how you feel...
Yes that single story line drew me so deep into that game i couldn't put it down for days. Such good writing.
Wait am I missing something? Didn't he murder someone and held her wife captive? Is that like okay these days?
Last i checked the original Doctor Who was more about the wonders of the limits (or the lack there of) of science fiction.
P.S. After watching the video (or at least half of it) when talking politics it should never be blunt, and most importantly, should explore the pros and cons of both sides and be on equal ground. Like a debate.
Yea, that was exactly the point I was trying to make :)
@@TheCloserLook ayy thanks do i get a cookie now?
@@jpmccabe2246 Yes, all of the cookies are in the mail ;D
I would disagree with that. Normally, sci-fi will take one side, and only one side, but explore it using allegories. For instance, there were no arguments for classism in The Time Machine, and no arguments for totalitarianism in 1984.
Between black and white. The grey areas have the most color.
The Doctor Who character also does a lot of hand gestures like Trump. It's not even an allegory, they just added Trump to Doctor Who so they could bash him.
Endless Waffles what is an allegory
It’s funny how they manage to make him so bad - is that how they see Trump? I don’t love the guy but he’s NOWHERE NEAR this bad.
That shit is why I stopped reading Marvel.
@Space AIDs those two have nothing in common
@Space AIDs choke on space AIDS and die. :)
I’m so sad about what Doctor who has become... they have permanently destroyed one of the best works of fiction EVER
I wouldn't say it's permanent. Doctor Who as a franchise has gone through some rough patches. It could end up getting the show cancelled, but it could also give rise to a better writer gaining control. Its not dead yet friend, so let's not mourn until it is
"they have permanently destroyed one of the best works of fiction EVER"
Don't watch the BBC version of War of the Worlds then!
@@bobthemouse6668 Hell, it did already, and then (after about 15 years) came back really well.
It can rebounce if they hire a good writer and learned their lesson
"Stop, rewind, reset, regen, play..."
Doctor Who will get the retcon and reboot as it always has, and always will.
The Arachnids in the UK episode is out right stolen from the plot of Eight Legged Freaks movie, I can't be the only one to noticed this
The kerblam episode ripped off the Postman Pat movie.
I was going to comment this but thought "wait, what if someone else noticed?" THANK YOU GOOD SIR.
It's a ripoff of The Green Death, an older doctor who episode. Chibnall has no originality
Key difrence: the pollution in 'Eight Legged Freaks' was accidental
And Eight Lagged Freaks stole from old giant vermin movies, that’s how stories take inspiration.
Thank you for referencing The Witcher :)
No problem, it's a fantastic game :)
In my playthrough they both lived lmao #feelsbadman
Great books too. Just got started with the first three.
aka THE BEST GAME EVER MADE
Yeah, The Witcher 3 spoiled me a lot in that regard, to the point that I can't put up anymore with many other games. Granted, not all quest lines were that good, but the Bloody Baron was fantastic.
I actually couldn't help myself by shed a tear when I saw the husband hanging in this video. And I've not played the game. Just your retelling did it.
Just to add more to the "Pro Bloody Baron Camp", there is another way to finish that exact same quest. One of the other outcomes besides his wife killing herself, is that she ends up turning into a monster. I mean a grotesque monster, and he could have easily killed the monster himself or had the Witcher kill it, but he doesn't.
He tells you that he has found his purpose in life, and he will spend every coin he has, and every day of his life, searching for a way to heal her. The woman that cheated on him, and told him she wanted nothing to do with him, he was willing to give away everything to save her, despite her possibly still wanting nothing to do with him. All his wealth, all his power, everything he earned from fighting in the war, for just the chance to see his ex-wife healed.
So he gives you his Castle and leaves with the monster in tow. That ending is a much better interpretation of "Doing what is right despite possibly getting nothing in return".
@@DustinBarlow8P i played the game before but i feel like i wasn't paying attention half the time. I should have been, the re telling of that plot just makes me want to replay it
There's a big difference between having a conversation and being preached at. The only people that want to be preached at are the ones that already completely agree with what is being said.
And those people don't even feel like they're being preached at, they feel like they're co-preachers (or candle holders)
There is also a difference in being preached at and being manipulated.
A seen comes to mind from one of the spider man movies. A character points out that the Washington monument was built by slaves to her teacher. The teacher questions this but the security guard confirms it. It is played as a joke so it doesn't come off as preachy. But it is historically false and is pushing a message just as much as any preachy scenes.
In my mind these are far worse.
most of the people watching don't play games? really? most of the best stories are being told in video games now
Oh yeah man you have things like killzone and resistance that have some good story or horizon zero dawn
i'm pretty sure that was sarcasm.
@Chase Moore Far cry has basically given the lefty liberals the finger
@@GeneralG1810 Far Cry 5 is a commentary void, what in the good and holy name of fuck are you talking about? Honestly I'd like to insult your intelligence, but I can't even figure out what you're referencing. None of the games, not even 1 or 2, have ever had anything political whatsoever, to the point where they will actively go out of their way to be as neutral as possible. I mean, using the phrase "lefty liberals" is more than enough of a giant neon sign pointing at your head saying "this guy's a fucking moron", but beyond that, you're literally inventing shit just to suit your own weird agenda.
But all games are just you being a Ultimate Mary Sue with no death or wrong answers
I don't necessarily agree that good art/fiction doesn't have a political message. One of my favorite books is The Things They Carried, written by a Vietnam veteran with a strong anti-war message. The characters in that book have to deal with what fighting a war has done to them (the burdens they carry), and the book is an exploration of that and an argument against war. It still has a political message, of course, but that's WHY it's good. I think if that book was just a series of stories about a guy in Vietnam with no political message, the book wouldn't be nearly as punchy or good. It's still visceral and real and a well-constructed argument filled with introspection, honesty, and the core political message.
I think if you WANT to have a political message at the core of the story, it needs to be real and honest and a well-constructed argument that treats your viewers like intelligent human beings. Arachnids was nothing of the sort (like the spiders are fucking ridiculous and unbelievable), but by contast Rosa was a story about REAL and HONEST events, which made it a far better story in my opinion despite both episodes having a core political message. I just don't think it's as simple as "if you're art isn't exploring a topic instead of taking a stance on it, it's not good art." Good art exists (like The Things They Carried) that clearly takes a stance on a politically-charged topic, and taking that stance is arguably what makes it succeed as a work of art in the first place.
Picasso's Guernica
I agree with you about good art/fiction being able to have a political message and furthermore if we look at the Witcher example provided in the video it could be taken as a piece of art with a political message. I would assert that it argued against the dehumanization of other people for the sake of living in a more simple, black and white world. Essentially it's saying that though a abuser is a horrible person for what they've done, they are still a human that feels, loves and has good in them, which isn't a bad message for times where there is so much polarizing going on. But that's just my take
Still don't agree with you because plenty of people can read The Things They Carried and not realize the Author is anti-war, Back when I was a sophomore in high school 80% of the class didn't realize the book had a message at all. So I believe The Things They Carried is still written in a way to show just what is and not what is good/bad.
I'm pretty sure that was the point this video was trying to make. A work of art can be a political message but it has to be based in an exploration of reality and not an exploration of unrealistic fiction.
@@ahvin4764 Yup, I agree 100%. I just think the video segments with the guy saying "an artist doesn't know what he wants to say" was a bit misleading.
Holy moly f*cking damn. I had absolutely no idea that the Baron questline could end with him hanging himself. That was so incredibly sad that i almost teared up. Heartbreaking. And I haven't played Witcher 3 in a while
if u help the druid during the crone questline, anna dies, else she lives. This is why the witcher 3 is great. its too real. you can save the druid and the children or you can save the baron's family but never both
It has like 4 different main finales.
Closerlook: "I know the most of you don't play video games"
Comments: I beg to differ..
The Jon Petwee (Third Doctor) series The Green Death covered similar dumping of toxic waste in a Welsh mine, yet it wasn't preachy or woke. In fact, even with the limitations of special effects at the time, it was pretty damn' scary at times.
And the seaweed/foam in Patrick Troughton run.
So a "Punching Bag" is just a strawman.
@@gorgnaxxangrog3183 a strawman is also used for morals, by giving a character no redeemable qualities or moral highground (essentially "weakening" them artificially in that aspect) and then "defeating" them by making everyone think they're a dick.
@@gorgnaxxangrog3183 Well, kinda yeah, but strawman is often presented as dumbed down or taken to the hyperbolic extreme, so you would had easier way convincing others why it's bad. Demonizing it in the process.
it's a more specific version, with slightly different connotations.
At least with a strawman, you are fighting an artificial arguement with it. This punching bag concept seems to lean to being a straight demonization of some one who is supposed to repusent something. To make them just irredeemably jack***'s.
Similar but not close
Good art starts with questions, not answers
And ends with questions.
"Good" art
This sounds pretty limiting tbh. What if an artist has had a personal revelation about the world (arrives at an answer) and decides to share that revelation through their art? Or @gododoof, what if the exploration of a question through art leads to an answer? If art ends with questions, that means an artist can never make a definitive statement/conclusion about the world. I don't subscribe to that definition of art.
@@tristanneal9552 Someone's "answer" is just their personal interpretation of the world. And you need to be questioning and challenging the answers you find constantly to grow as a person. Not to mention for the good of art. Never think you have things figured out, that's when you're primed to have the rug pulled out from under you.
@@tristanneal9552 perhaps it's not 'art ends with a question' but 'art produces questions throughout the process, that then informs the creation of the art'.
I really appreciate the section you did on abuse. One thing that can be very difficult for those who’ve survived it is that being in an abusive relationship is seldom 100% horrible. The person will show you love and then hurt you, and that’s why it’s so hard to leave them or to think of them as harmful to you. It’s hard to accept that a person can do good things and bad things, and you can still leave them over the bad ones.
The hamfisted political angle in Doctor Who also resulted in the 'writers' forgetting/not bothering to do even the most basic of research or the backgrounds of their own characters;
Under UK law you are perfectly justified in asking/demanding that someone leaves your property. However you are required to give them a reasonable amount of time in which to leave and are not allowed to use or threaten to use force without reason and under no circumstances would the threat of lethal force be justified.
The type of firearm seen is outright illegal in the UK. Posession of which comes with an automatic 14 year prison sentence and an unlimited fine. This would not just apply to the bodyguard but also his employer who ordered him to draw said gun without a viable (legal) reason.
Using a firearm to threaten someone would not only mean you get the maximum 14 year sentence for having the gun, but also add some 10 years onto that sentence.
Carrying a concealed firearm would probably add another 5-10 years onto your sentence.
Yaz is a police officer being threatened by an idiot with a gun and in fear of her life. (You remember that Yaz is a police officer? Yeah, neither did the writers). Once she leaves all she has to do is call up her friends, explain what happens and the hotel is going to be raided by a large number of heavily armed police officers.
Even in the (highly unlikely) case that a special licence was issued for the guard that licence would be automatically revoked and he, and his employer, would face the full charges.
These are not the actions of any kind of successful buisness man or political wanna-be. It's one thing to be 'evil', but this is moronically stupid. That one act in the lobby of the hotel would result in a MINIMUM prison sentence of 4 years just for having the firearm. Threatening someone with that gun, even through a poxy, ensures a maximum sentence especially since one of the people you are threatening happens to be a police officer.
So 'Mr Billionare' is likely to get a 15 year prison sentence and be fined millions. His body guard a sentence of some 20 years.
Oh and Mr Billionare's illegal dumping of toxic waste is going to come to light, at which point his company is going to be shut down and most of its staff probably joining him in prison for a few years....
You're asking too much from a tv series that has just breaking the glass ceiling with a first ever female Doctor Who: the only thing that matters.
Wow, your laws are fucked. Have you considered moving?
@@wallturtle1279 different countries mate. whats working in the us doesnt have to work in the uk and vice versa. i haven´t ever felt the need of carrying a fire arm apart from hunting.
besides are you sure you can threaten with a firearm without just cause? it wouldnt surprise me if such behavior was illegal even in the us.
@@ashmonkey2572 I don't personally live in the USA, but I am pretty sure that threatening someone with a firearm in public is very illegal without proper proof that they were endangering you. This gets you charges for "brandishing a firearm.". You actually have to prove you were in danger to be legally exempt. Your house, is where the government draws the line. Someone tries to steal your TV, you probably shoot them. But you can get in a world of shit if they were unarmed. Some states have a castle doctrine. Castle doctrine states that property owners are allowed to shoot and kill intruders, and are pretty much exempt from murder charges if the man you shot and killed is proven to have broken in the house. In the UK, are you allowed to forcefully move the suspect out of your house?
Yu do forget that we are talking about and very rich, very powerful person here. If Jaz "called his buddies" she would be out of her job before she hangs up the phone.
In addition to the problem of making 2D mustache twirlers as our villains just being boring (or patronizing), it makes conflict and drama one-sided.
Even in many works where the antagonist turned out to be Literally Hitler(tm), the author usually has some self-control to give good or tragic elements to them so you might even say something like "it is a pity that circumstances have conspired to pit this man against the protagonist, who will surely kill him".
Even in genres where killing the antagonist is a foregone conclusion, it gives the possibility that something might be different, and builds the suspense.
I see your point and I think it’s right in a lot of cases but some of the greatest villains of all time don’t have any good in them or any elements that the viewer should be empathizing with. Joker in the dark knight, Calvin Candie in Django, Hans Landa in Inglourious basterds, the emperor in Star Wars, Anton chigurrh in No Country. All those villains really don’t have a single thing that the audience should be empathizing with
@@ZR38315 I agree. Villains need to be interesting or entertaining first and foremost. That might include making them sympathetic or tragic, but isn't necessary. However, if you're using the main conflict of a story to parallel real world issues and problems, then your heroes and villains need to be just as nuanced. Painting them as simple binaries of "this is good" and "this is bad" isn't enough. If it was, then they wouldn't be issues we'd be struggling with today.
"A real artist is not someone who's trying to say anything; rather, they are someone who explores a topic, provides an insightful discussion about the thing, but doesn't explicitly tell the consumer what the correct conclusion is."
"Never say that this is bad; never say that this is good. Simply say, this is -- and let the viewer figure out the rest."
......nope, too extreme. Real artists absolutely can show something to be flat-out Evilwrong, in a competent and compelling way.
In "Men Without Chests," C. S. Lewis pointed out that part of the role of education is to train the little child brain to have the right reactions to things: to love that which is good, to abhor that which is evil. And that educational systems that ignore this responsibility end up creating the titular "men without chests," or people with intellect (head) and appetites (gut) but no sense of moral courage that rules over the two and bends them in the correct way. As I believe that good art has a role in education, there has to be some reasonable overlap there.
In fact, the separation of education from entertainment has led to problems with both. We have educational films made by people who are educators first and have no real skill in film making. We have educational games made by people with no real skill in game making. We have educational songs made by people with no real skill in songwriting or music craft -- and so forth. And so the "educational" pieces of media are rightly derided for being made in a clumsy, unskilled, boring or offensive manner. (By contrast, I learned a lot of war history from Sabaton.)
On the flip side, I've heard it posited that the best episodes of Star Trek are the ones with good, strong messages brought across well through the storytelling and the acting. I think it was sfdebris who said that we like Star Trek to be *saying something* -- as opposed to "hitting us over the head with something," but also flying in the face of the supposed wisdom that "if you want to send a message, use Western Union." Art is commonly *about* messages, it's just that good art isn't as flat and shallow as that Doctor Who episode you explored.
So we might have an episode where people try to figure out if Data is a person or property, and points to the problems that can be expected if they treat Data as property. Or we might have an episode where the Federation tries to railroad an innocent man into being a scapegoat for a war, simply because of his parentage. How about a film that's about not condemning a teen to death out of prejudice or mere convenience? (12 Angry Men) Or a cartoon episode that takes a stand against rampant censorship? (The Story of Whomps)
These all *say something* -- and you could probably boil it down to a very simple message. They're reasonably one-sided messages, too; no one could be expected to walk away from "The Measure of a Man" thinking that Data ought to be treated like property, or finish watching 12 Angry Men and go into jury duty the next day figuring they'll just vote with the group so as to get home in time for the big game. But they're all good art, and they're not *shallow* art. They're aimed at actual bad things, and they explore them in a way that doesn't leave any question that they're bad.
tyy i was looking for a comment that points out that like most or at least many pieces of art have specific points/messages that they wanna make. when he said that line you quoted i was really taken aback.
I am sorry but you misunderstood what was said. Real artist don't tell you to love or hate things. Because it is much easier to have you understand and accept the writers point of view without "showing the strings". When the strings start showing, you focus more on them being puppets and less on the point of view that they want to show the audience. Example- In 12 angry men. We too like the jurors never know if the boy was innocent. This makes it real. Hence the strings that the director is using is invisible.
@@siddharthsingh1994 That isnt what the essayist said. He made a false equivalency to a bad episode of TV, to a good questline in a game, without touching on the obvious messaging in that questline. That entire questline is literally just "social roles bad", they cause misery on both sides, and aristocratic arrangements are generally awful. The game is filled with this message. It's also filled with the message that racism is bad, The Witcher is pretty fucking obvious with that message.
The essayist said "good art doesnt tell you what is good or bad, just what is". That's an entirely braindead take, nearly every great novel explicitly tells you something, it just does it with tact. To kill a mockingbird, 1984, grapes of wrath, every Vonnegut book, F451, are ALL explicitly political and have a message the author gets at. The Dr Who episode is bad because it's badly written, not because there's an agenda.
@@A_Short_Kid Yeah this essay bugged the fuck outta me, and comes off as a centrists take on art, a stance taken because he doesn't want his worldview challenged. That DW episode is bad, but because its clumsy, aimless, and only engages in surface level critique, not because it has a message to tell.
@@MrGameSecrets Being political or having a message is not the problem as I had stated. It is that the message does not appear organic. When it is a good novel like 1984, it is very political and message driven. But the thing you misinterpreted is that the revelation are addressed not to the readers but to the characters. When that changes, the strings start to show. You don't want to preached at, hence good stories teach the characters, rather than the audience. The characters learn it by going through tragedy or adventure. It is bad when the political messaging seems to target the audience directly rather than the characters.
Jumping straight to the internet cliche aside, my history teacher addressed your ending point the very first day of class:
"Hitler drank water too."
Terrible people are terrible. Terrible people are also still people. I remind myself often whether I'm reading today's news or stories from history that while I might not be so terrible I'm still a people too.
There are two sorts I don't trust. Clowns and people who don't eat meat.
My economics teacher used to say
"Even dictators will feel desperation when they're stuck on the toilet for 30 minutes because they're constipated AF."
He always finished it off with: "Moral of the story: eat fibers, people." 🤦♀️
>episode about giant spiders
>created by toxins mutating the spiders
What is this? Eight Legged Freaks?
No to mention there is a coal mine!!!! Also thank you for recognizing the similarities to Eight Legged Freaks
That was the first thing that came to my mind!
@Mijinx
I'm surprised someone remembers Eight Legged Freaks...
Surely it is a reference to the Green Death.
God I remember that movie. I think it's a part of the reason I have a fear of spiders.
So basically it's just bad heavyhanded writing with no nuance.
Not just that, it betrays the show's core premise... To be about the fantastical sci-fi world rather than politics. They explore other worlds, but the heavy-handed writing detracts from that.
This has been true is other seasons' episodes, but this season it came out more strongly than ever before. It's exhausting.
It has about the same amount of nuance as other time Doctor Who did commentary.
This video is painfully faux-intellectual. The example episode of Dr. Who is heavy-handed and without nuance, sure. Besides the handful of parallels to Trump or whatever, the antagonist is explicitly written to be as evil as possible. Nothing more. It seems like the motivation of the writers was to create a character intentionally apolitical to make him as unlikeable as possible.
The Witcher example is just baffling. The Bloody Baron is explicitly a domestic abuser. Our brilliant video creator here goes onto explain that it was actually justifiable because his wife cheated. It was okay that the abuser did it. He literally identifies more with the abuser than the victim! This is absolute horseshit. This is everything wrong with the usual narrative around domestic and sexual violence.
These two examples have ZERO to do with politicizing an issue or not and everything to do with writing characters with nuance or not. You can understand an evil character's motivations, but that doesn't make the character less evil.
This video is pathetic. And I'm unsubscribing.
@@mega17 Sci-fi has always been political. You just don't know what you're talking about.
@@cakcakcak
Ok, The Closer Look NEVER ONCE said it was totally justifiable that the man was abusive.
He said it was understandable. Relatable. Not justified.
He even mentions that the man has done horrible, immoral things -- but he still does good things for the sake of good. He's not one note evil, he's complex.
You know, like real life people.
Heck, I don't like the man himself -- I like the nuanced writing of his character. I like the thought provoking it does.
Literally thousands of "bad guy" fictional characters intrigue audiences BECAUSE of their nuanced writing. Because they are complex. Their motives are relatable, understandable, even if they are immoral and you hate them.
That is the whole point of the video, and you've just tried to twist it into something else for whatever reason.
That was one of the things I really appreciated about the depiction of the Bloody Baron; abusive people are very rarely the vicious monsters that create only violence, despair, and terror. Oftentimes, they're kind, generous, and loving, which is why abuse victims are extremely confused and even unwilling to cut that person out of their life. It's easy and clumsy to paint a character as a paragon of virtue or the epitome of evil, but neither of those people really exist. That's why the abused frequently have comforting, happy memories of their abuser alongside the fear and pain.
“Just becuase someone loves you, doesn’t mean they’re good for you. And likewise, just because you love someone, doesn’t mean your good for them.”
The bloody baron questline was so thought provoking. On one hand I wanted to screw him over because he was so obviously an abuser but at the same time he seemed repentful, he took care of Ciri a total stranger. I decided to give him a chance to give his side of the story & decided to help him, he isn't a good man but at least at the end he was trying to change & be better
The politics in this run of Doctor Who are preachy. That's what separates Who from other Fiction that explores politics.
There was politics from Season 1 onwards, as well as in Classic Who. Just never as obviously straightforward as in season 11
@@klop4228 subtle is good. What season 11 did wasn't
@@jamjam445 pretty much. Though I've just realised I used the word 'straightforward', when I meant 'simplistic' or 'heavy-handed'. Almost sounded like I was praising Season 11 for a moment.
EU: Article 13 is activated, you will never be able to see the internet again.
NordVPN: *I'm about to end this man's whole career.*
Unless the E.U stops you from paying NordVPN, you still have to pay them via your home country.
@@jerrell1169 Let's hope they won't do this. I don't know about other european countries, but youTube Germany sucks.
@@jerrell1169 there are other forms of currency and other vpns you can use....
@@jerrell1169 unless you're clever and can create Tor+Vpn connection.
The EU wants to be the Soviet Union so bad
17:50 never say if a topic is good or bad, let the viewer decide
*Literally a few seconds later:*
Article 13 has passed and it is horrible
Ad are propaganda you know, that's why you don't get to think or decide
I mean article 13 bans memes. So it's evil
Hey, article 13 being evil is a universal human truth lol
In all seriousness though, he was referring to never telling an audience what to think when crafting a story. He wasn't crafting a story. He was giving advice on how to break the law. Which is even better.
I really like how you discuss politics and propaganda here, and yet don't bring them in at all, stressing whether we like Trump or not is NOT the focus of YOUR video. That is fantastic.
?
Can you into abstract thinking?
When the Barron died, I actually reverted a save just so I could save his wife.