User blog:Corbierr/The Biggest Issue With Season 3

The other day when ranting about Jeroy, I think I cracked a code about why season 3 had so many...er...problems. In fact, this reason can explain most, if not all, of the problems.

It's not plot over character.

It's not all the OOC moments.

It's not that Eddie may have been the only character needed at all.

No, all of these things come back to one single thing. One thing that can never be done right unless the writer is extremely talented or doing it for a specific reason, and even then it takes a lot of skill to pull off.

Here is my theory. Every time something or someone had potential, it was always ignored. Every single time there was a possible subplot, or an arc, or a chance for development, it was wasted. Either they would start off with a bang and just get forgotten in favor of something else, or they wouldn't even be started at all. This is why the plot seemed to matter so much, it's the only thing that actually felt complete. This is why characters came off as OOC a lot, because their real personalities never factored in to anything. This is why Eddie was the only character who actually did anything- he was the protagonist, so he had to save the day, but others weren't as...well...needed. This is why the show seemed to have two halves, two different stories. Instead of following a single plotline through to the end, the writers/producers/whoever was responsible for this mess seemed to be easily distracted. It's like cobbled together fractions of plotlines that were stuck together to try and form a cohesive story. Characters didn't develop because any chances they had were cut before they got started, plots kept falling before they could really pick up steam in order to move onto something else...it's a mess.

But don't take my word for it, let's look at some examples...I'll only do the biggest ones, because it's almost dinner and I don't want to spend too much time nitpicking and rehashing anything I've said before.

- '''Peddie's break-up. '''Yeah, okay, they had some sort of plot where they got back together, but it was almost completely...well...effortless. It was a redo of the same on/off relationship Mickra had, or hell, Peddie themselves had in the second season. Except instead of focusing on the characters trying to make things work, learning to date properly and you know, giving them some form of development, this subplot was just about Patricia being jealous constantly and Eddie having to do all the work to get back together. I don't even consider it a subplot because there was never any real complications, you know what I mean? The only thing that kept them from getting back together right away was that both characters were idiots who didn't want to make the first move...which would make a good plot if it was intentional. Adding onto this,  the break up itself didn't matter! "But Izzy, if they weren't broken up, this whole thing wouldn't have happened!" No, but when did you hear any of them discussing the break up? When did you hear anyone focusing on what happened and why? In other situations, we saw the break up. We didn't need it discussed because we already knew what we had to- Fabina were dealing with the relationship upgrade and couldn't handle it yet; Mickra kept pissing each other off; Amfie just didn't connect right away...but Peddie? We know as much as Jade told us, but that does nothing for the characters. It was never even mentioned, showing that the reason wasn't as important as just cranking out some sort of plot. And without the reason, we lose why we should care, we lose the emotions and the characters involved. There was barely a plot here. It was just break-u p and make-up, with a barely-functioning love triangle in the mix. You have your (sort of) beginning and (sort of) ending, with the middle not even mattering.

''' Tl;dr: The plot was barely a plot, because there was barely any effort put in to make it one. '''

'''- Jerome cheating. '''This seems weird, right? After all, without him cheating, the entire Jeroy plot would have never happened. Well, here's the thing. It wasn't that the plot wasn't...a thing, and it's not that it didn't matter at all, but it was never given an actual conclusion. Once Mara was demonized, we lost the reason behind the revenge. Jerome became the misunderstod one again, and the fact that he cheated was getting glossed over. What could have been an interesting idea with Jerome struggling to fix things and Mara having trouble trusting people again due to this, while also keeping both characters human like they were at the beginning of the season, was turned into Mara the Revengebeast ruining a couple that came out of nowhere...which, wait a minute, Jerome sure falls in love fast now, doesn't he? Jeez, he's still a player after all. Anyways, you get what I mean about the "cobbled together plot loaf" thing, right? Jerome being a cheater was only loosely connected to the revenge plot, because by the time it happened, everyone forgot what Jerome did because Mara was being so much worse. Even with getting revenge for it being her motivation, it felt like a different plot entirely that just happened to follow suit. Am I the only one who feels this way? I can't be, can I?

Tl;dr: It was only barely connected to the revenge plot and nobody learned anything from it.

'''- Benji's whole existance. '''God damn it, Ben, I loved you, but why do you even exist? Why introduce a rival character if they weren't going to actually use him for anything? He had a history with Eddie that was never explored, and when he left he was never mentioned again. All he did was justify the plot point of a dodgeball game. He was a living Big Lipped Aligator Moment (look it up)! The show didn't even attempt to explain him being there, and they missed out on a great opportunity to explain some of Eddie's backstory, make him a foil to our hero, maybe even use him so we could see what the life inside of a different House was like. After all, all great heroes have some sort of rival, right? A minor or major antagonist that lives to challenge the hero to bigger and better things. But no, he was just there for dodgeball. Seriously. What a waste of a character.

'''Tl;dr: Nothing more than a dodgeball game. '''

'''- The two "halves" of the show. '''You know, how one half was about the awakening ceremony and was an actual mystery, and then the second half was about Fromby? Not only were the two halves each an entirely different story, but they didn't do a good job at working together. Couldn't they have just cut out Fromby and made the entire thing about them needing a staff as well as the bracelet  to awaken Ammut, with the descendants as pawns? It feels like they had these ideas but neither could stand alone so they combined them together. Things that were so important in the first half were either forgotten, downplayed, turned into something pointless, or just barely connected to the second half. Like the descendants; an entire chunk of the beginning was dedicated to needing the descendants and finding out who it was, thinking it was KT, etc. Then in the second half, they were used for nothing more than being used to create clues when they didn't want Eddie to have a vision. Heck, with the staff, two of them didn't even get to do their job- Joy's ryhme  was instead given to Willow (another way to screw her over in Sibuna, but that's next) and Patricia's was passed to Piper. Jerome and Alfie having theirs was only glossed over. Besides that, all they did was paint stuff and talk in their sleep. After the eclipse, every plot suddenly was dropped or had giant changes. I already covered Jerome's thing and the descendants, but there were so many others. After this point, Patricia and Eddie suddenly realized "hey, we should actually be doing stuff to get together again". The awesome Team Evil dymanic, including a shockingly badass Mr. Sweet, was dropped in favor of a hammy villain, Victor pointlessly being a sinner, and Sweetie also being a sinner and losing all his recently gained competence.

 Tl;dr: The second half sucks.

 '''- Speaking of the descendants... '''How about Jeroy in Sibuna? I mean, they were given a chance, practically gift wrapped, and ignored it entirely. I don't even care if they forgot. Afterwards, the fact that they just got involved meant ''nothing. Yes Joy, keep complaining that they aren't telling you things- weren't you confused a day ago when your friends were talking about things you were already aware'' of? I mean, first they keep them out of Sibuna in the beginning which is bad enough (especially for Joy, who fucking QUIT so why even have her there at all if she was never going to stay, another example of a wasted plot ?) but keeping them out for no reason at all even after they were revealed as descendants? I mean, the two of them even seemed to care a little after that, so what gives? Would Jerome really just not even care to dig deeper after what happened? Would Joy really not get angry at being left out after getting involved again, whether she quit or not? Not only was it out of character, it begs the question of what the point of the descendants were at all outside of a lame twist? I mean, what if the four descendants plus KT were the ones who had to be sinners due to the curse? That would have been cool! But the entire concept was just a wasted opportunity for all four characters, especially Jeroy, who were stuck with just love drama. Again. Because not like there hasn't been enough of THAT.

<p style="text-align:center;">Tl;dr: Jeroy might as well have been entirely different characters, because thats what they acted like.

<p style="text-align:center;">And there are so many more examples, but, I'm done for now. (Let me make a list of other things I could have said: Willow's "sixth sense", Eddie being a C1 less Osirian, The Sinners, The idea of Frobisher coming back to life, Willow living in Isis House, Fabian learning to be independant, Mara learning to be independant, Patricia learning to be independant, Joy learning to be independant, Any and all of the friendships, Sibuna with an inexperienced leader, Alfie still loving Amber, Mr. Sweet and Eddie's plotline, The Anubis Sisterhood, The actual idea of fighting against a God...and probably more that I'm missing)

<p style="text-align:center;">You guys get the idea now, right? There were just so many plots that were dropped and ideas that never took off. It made Season 3 a sloppy, upsetting mess of things that could have been really amazing if done right, but they weren't. Without these ideas, things would have been able to work just as well. So incorporating them in but then ignoring them later on just really screwed up the season.

<p style="text-align:center;">This is why season 3 was such a disappointing season. This all could have been avoided.

<p style="text-align:center;">My disappointment only grows stronger.

<p style="text-align:center;">Thanks for reading.