User blog:Corbierr/The Friendships of Anubis, and why we should love them (even if the writers didn't)

Yesterday, I ranted about the HOA writers screwing up character development. Today and tomorrow, upon request, I shall rant about a new topic- relationships.

Today is focused on the friendships. You know em, you love em, you just keep wanting more even when the writers decide that one scene an episode is good enough for the fans, and yet all of us know they aren’t good enough.

That said, let's get into our discussion.

1) The importance of friendships in stories (and life)
Firstly, what is it about these friendships that make them so appealing to us? Why do characters need to have strong, platonic relationships? Well, there are many reasons why it’s important for these friendships to exist.

For one thing, they’re realistic. For many people, friendships are big part of their lives. I know that without my friends around, on and offline, life would be a lot harder to get through. So if we were to have a hero without friends, powering through their quests, it makes things seem rather…lonely. More depressing. We start to wonder- is he a loner by choice? Is she ostracized? And just how can we relate to someone who doesn’t have any companions, while we care so much about our friends? That’s another reason to have friends- it makes them seem more human. You can take the most epic fantasy hero you can think of, but that Dragon-slaying-werewolf is going to have a very hard time developing without having any relationships to other characters. It’s easiest to get to know who a character is when they are interacting with others, and giving them a friend is an easy way to get around that. As it is, many people expect these friendships to be relatively drama free, and serves to make the characters seem more human- that demon slayer suddenly seems a lot more interesting, relatable and likable if he has a best friend kicking ass by his side. That gets us to another point, and that is, characters often need the support of others to fulfill their goals. Romances and family can work for these too…so what makes friendships work? Well, let’s face it, friendships are powerful things. All relationships can help to round out a character, and friendships are a huge part of that- a character is bound to have more friends than any other relationship unless there’s a reason why they don’t, and it’s these friends that humanize them more than anything else.

So, my point is, friendships are more than just funny relationships- they have a real, deeper, important meaning in the story, even if that’s not so obvious at first. And how well did the Anubis writers did with this important element? Let's take a look...

2) How the writers did them well
Surprised? Well, for once, I can't just rant. The writers did, in fact, manage to pull off the friendships pretty well in a lot of cases.

Let's look at one of my favorite HOA friendships... Patrina.

For the most part, Patrina can really serve as a good example of how to write a friendship well. I think we all know their story, but for the sake of the blog, let's recap how things went-

In the beginning, Patricia hated Nina, all because of the Joy issue (Note:Joytricia will be covered later on). But as soon as the story picked up, Patricia began to cool down and start playing nice around Nina. They were still rather snarky to each-other, but something was happening. And then it happened- Patricia joined Sibuna, and she and Nina became close friends. A bond was formed, and this development alone counts for something. It was slow enough to show how both characters were growing, but quick enough to make it work and defy any expectations that they would remain as frenemies, if not rivals in the story. But then it went steps further, because within a few episodes, Patricia was kidnapped, and who was at the forefront of rescuing her? Nina, of course. She was the one who got worried, she was the one who convinced Amber they had to do this for their friend, she was the one who managed to open the back door of the truck. For some friendships, this could have been the high point... but as the show goes on, their friendship does not falter. In fact, just look at how they acted in the finale- they were together in a lot of scenes, they even sat together. Now these things many not seem like much, but if you look at the big picture, that's a lot of development just for a friendship. They made foils to each-other without being complete opposites. They developed mutual respect and from that came one of the strongest friendships on the show.

But perhaps the biggest proof of how strong this became was how Patricia defended Nina against Joy. She stood up to her best friend for the person she once hated. And when Nina went checkmate, guess who wanted her back that instant? And earlier, Nina did what she could for Patricia when the latter was blinded, and while that might not seem like too much, it proved that they can be mutually protective and caring about each-other, despite not being best friends. It wasn't as nearly as one sided as many other friendships in this show, it was developed and strong and, in all honesty, it still didn't have enough moments.

What disappointed me was that they didn't remain room-mates, because what a better way to show their development than by showing them living together for the entire show?

Why did this friendship work so well, though? As I said, it was developed, and there was effort on both sides; They brought out the good in each-other; they were good foils, and had some of the best moments; the show didn't smash us over the head with "OMA LOOK AT THESE AWESOME FRIENDS OMA BFFS". No, they simply had their moments happen, and because of all these things, the Patrina friendship was probably the show's best attempt at making a friendship- somehow, despite the characters only acting like it's an average friendship, it made me happier than friendships like Namber did; Opinion, of course, but still.

Other friendships that managed to work as perfect as they could include ones like Mickbian, Pamber, Palfie, Albian, Feddie, Fabicia, and Jelfie.

2) Where things went wrong
.... On the flip side, the writers did seem to have a lot of trouble making the biggest friendships work. For some reason, friendships that weren't as plot important or as heavily focused on, like Patrina (duh) and Mickbian turned out stronger and better than ones like Joytricia or Namber, for various and varying reasons.

Let's start by talking about where Namber went wrong. While these two were clearly best friends, and they had some really good moments and really did make a good pair in general, there was a problem- it was way too one-sided. Okay, so maybe Nina tried to help Amber with stuff once or twice. But let's all be honest here- we all know that, generally speaking, Amber played Nina's guard dog pretty often, and while it makes sense considering what Nina was going through, and the loyalty was heartwarming to see, it also makes one wonder- when will Nina do the same for Amber? Like I said, I kind of get why it had to happen this way, but one-sided friendships just don't work out, because it's not balanced enough. Strong friendships demand mutual effort, and that's what Namber seemed to be lacking. There was too much done for Nina by Amber that, over all, the friendship just fell a bit flat.

Like I said, over all, Namber made an excellent pair- but had Nina put in a bit more effort, it might have put these best friends into the best friendship spots.

However, Namber turned out like a shining star compared to Joytricia. Do I love this pairing with all my heart? Yes. Do I want to hit the writers with an anvil for messing it up so badly? YES.

Now, what makes me go into boiling rage when this pairing is mentioned? If you're Queenie, or if you've heard me rant before, you should know- but I should explain anyways, being that it's the point of the blog and all.

Basically, Joytricia failed because we were promised something glorious, and the writers failed to deliver. After an entire season of Patricia searching for her friend, and the two of them sharing perfect moments whenever they were on screen, I know I was pumped for the best friendship on the show. What we got instead were two friends who only ever spoke about romance and started making me question why they were best friends in the first place. Yes, we know that they know each-other like books and they talked about being really close. Problem was, they gave us little reason to believe it. Outside of their relationship dramas, the two of them never hung out and all the passion and care that the two had for each-other seemed like a forgotten concept. And then there came one of the things that I hate the most-

Joy and Patricia had their fallout. Thing is, this could have been a really important, emotional scene if done well. But it wasn't. It was just Joy deciding that Patricia of all people was being a poor friend, when, in reality, she was being an amazing friend and always had been. Had their been genuine friendship moments between the two that were just about girls hanging out and being friends, this would have been a really powerful scene. Had we seen the two girls slowly, but subtly, falling apart as the season went on until Joy broke them up, and had Joy been shown putting in more effort, it would have been effective. But because all we saw were romantic based conversations, Patricia putting in the effort to stay friends, and Joy acting like she is entitled to Patricia's blind loyalty- when Trix was honestly doing the right thing by being honest with her, something Joy never did around Mara (and look where that ended up?). Of course, this all could have been fine if they made up in the end- if Joy had apologized, and both learned more about friendships and about each-other. But instead, they were just magically bffs again, and it was Patricia doing the pleading. What. I mean... What? Is that really what you want for this best friendship? Is that really how you want to portray their relationship? If you weren't going to make it matter, why have them fall apart in the first place?

And season 3, well, Joytricia's drama was replaced with May drama, where at least they grew up in the end. It needs to be pointed out that Joytricia literally died during this season. It wasn't killed, it just ended, and both girls moved on to new roles because the dumb plot dictated it.

What really angers me is that, the three biggest friendships on the show- Namber, Joytricia and May- were all ruined by being one-sided, having one friend be domninant over the other, either subtly or obviously, and the other being loyal to a fault. And these friendships were portrayed as being more important and meaningful than perfectly good ones, like Patrina. It's more proof that the writers cared more about telling a dramatic story than about the characters involved.

And that, everyone, is why these friendships needed more love- they are unbelievably important for stories like this, and why just giving them a little more effort and care can mean the difference between best friends, and best friendships.

Thanks for reading, romance tomorrow!