User blog:Corbierr/The biggest thing the writers did wrong

Heyyy guys, time for another blog where I pretend to be a genius and discuss things that a majority of you probably don’t care about unless you happen to be Queenie (in which case, I’m hoping you were thrilled BT :P) but you all pretend to care to please me. :3

So, what am I discussing today you might ask?

Character development, and how the writers screwed it up.

Now, let start by saying, what exactly is good development? Good development does not mean when a character turns into a better person over a period of time, although it certainly counts; good development is when you can clearly see the character changing over the story because of the trials they face and because of growing and learning from the world around them. They can become a genuinely good person who started as a jerkass, or someone who slowly loses their sanity until they become batshit insane. Point is, they have to grow over time.

I’m sure we can all think of characters in Anubis who did change and develop like they should; but even more examples of character development being ruined by none other than… THE PLOT.

Dun dun dun….

I’m serious. You guys might be saying, “What is Izzy saying? That plot is a bad thing?”

Well, of course not. Every good story needs a plot, but the plot should not become more important than the characters; actually, the characters should be the ones controlling the plot with their actions and development. Not that the HOA characters are by any means tossed around by the story, they are quite active. But what I am saying is, the plots often turned the characters into things they previously were not for the sake of the story.

What do I mean? Let’s use Joy as an example.

To put it as simply as possible, in season 1 she came off as, IMO, a genuinely cool girl who just happened to have a crush on Fabian and was going through a very tough situation and ultimately took the chance and played an active role in the story. Good character right there. And yes, I know we didn’t see her too much, but who did we see? Patricia, and because we knew Patricia, and because we knew that Joytricia was a thing, it meant that there had to be some reason Joy was so close to her, or rather, a reason she was so close to Joy. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to build off this information and see her the way I did.

Season 2 changed that because the plot dictated that Joy’s new role become Nina’s rival and that she’d have to lose. Now, imagine you have never seen season 2. Pretend you had no idea what happened in it. Pretend you didn’t even know who Joy was, and only knew what I had told you above. Chances are, you’d imagine her plot to be based around her trying to win Fabian’s affections and failing, while only turning harsher about it as time went on. We’d have seen her being the character we knew in season 1, and seen her with Patricia, and seen her trying to win Fabian’s heart on the side, but eventually getting sick of rejection and developing her spotlight obsession and then turning on her morals in hopes of winning. Instead, Joy automatically started doing sneaky tricks to try and get close to Fabian. She spent little time with Patricia and the only thing Joytricia was used for was to stir up a bit more with romance stuff. What I’m getting at is, Joy’s character changed rather quickly to fit the demands of the plot.

And then when Fabian wanted her on Sibuna? BAM! The plot now demand that she shall be awesome and heroic and redeemable because that’s what would move the story along. Tell me I’m wrong, and that it wasn’t a sudden shift when she joined the team. Now, I understand that sometimes you’d see her acting like that before joining Sibuna, but even then, she was still bossy, only hung out with Patricia for romance plot reasons, and still rather obsessed with Fabian.

What I’m trying to get at is, Joy’s character in season 2 was rather… mutable to the whims of the plot.

Let’s see what could have happened if it were her own personality that dictated how things went.

In my version, she’d have been a normal girl, adjusting to life back at Anubis, and who has a desperate and hopeless crush on Fabian. She’d have made attempts, but would not have been demonized and would not have written the article, turned on Patricia, or even made the kiss- until further in the story, when she was really desperate. This would have tied into her need for attention; she would have honestly felt like she were now the outsider and wanted something to make her feel like she really belonged. Fabian’s attention would have been that something. In the end, when she joined Sibuna, it wouldn’t have been a sudden leap to her suddenly being greatly heroic and merely needing attention despite her flaws- that’s how she’d have been the entire story, until she developed into realizing that she does belong in Anubis and would have gained more confidence.

See? Things like this aren’t hard if you just let the characters themselves control what happens to them. That’s all without mentioning her gloriously messy plot in season 3, which was better overall following season 3 but still leads to some problems, notably in her leaving Sibuna and her becoming a bit submissive to Mara for the sake of the plot.

<p class="MsoNormal">Now, what effects do these things have on the story overall? Let’s look at another example in Mabian.

<p class="MsoNormal">Okay, first, for those of you that really dislike Mabian, why? Is it because you disliked Mara, who herself is a perfect example of the problem I was talking about? Possibly, but let’s be honest, you guys didn’t hate Mara. You hated what she became. You hated what the plot turned her into. If there was no Jeroy plot, or if she wasn’t the designated villain of said plot, she’d have been the same Mara we all knew and liked. I could be wrong, you could have disliked Mara anyways. But I think we all agree that she was much more likable before the events of the third season.

<p class="MsoNormal">But even if we had to keep that plot-destroyed version of Mara, Mabian still failed because of it’s existence as merely being a random twist so that Fabian and Mara could end up together, because heaven forbid Mara grow more confident and not date for a season. Because the other big reason people tend to dislike Mabian isn’t because it’s replacing Fabina or because you didn’t like Mara; it’s because it came out of nowhere and the characters were suddenly forced to act like they always belonged together despite never talking. Mabian could have been done perfectly during season 3- what if Fabian and Mara began to talk this season? What if they began to like each-other gradually, but didn’t realize it until TOR?

<p class="MsoNormal">What if Mara wasn’t turned into a witch and was just simply angry at Jerome and worried about Joy dating him, as well as secretly still in love with him? What if instead of doing horrible things just because the plot wanted her to, what if she had expressed guilt over these things, but felt she had to do them, or was emotionally conflicted because she was terrified of falling for Jerome again ever and felt the need to lower him to make herself feel safer, but in the process became a witch? And what if these things had consequences, for example, an idea shamelessly stolen from Queenie- what if Mara’s grades started dropping? You know, those things that are really important to her? And what if, in between plotting against Jerome and dealing with her personal conflicts, Fabian was helping her to get her grades up? And what if that turned to love?

<p class="MsoNormal">See? Thinking of it in that context suddenly makes Mabian more bearable, doesn’t it?

<p class="MsoNormal">And it’s not that I think every character was ruined because of plots. That’s not it. But I know we all have tons of examples of characters being forced to act differently- unusually mean, oddly submissive, suddenly scared of telling people how they feel (Looking at you Patty)- for any period of time, to fill a plot role.

<p class="MsoNormal">My point?

<p class="MsoNormal">Characters should always be more important than the plot. If nothing else, they should be equally. Season 1 did well with that, but then the writers made the plots more complex at the expense of characters and their former personalities. These changes can be giant, or subtle, but they definitely happened because the story needed it to, not because the characters themselves developed and acted in ways that they would have done without influence.

<p class="MsoNormal">Do you guys understand what I’m saying?

<p class="MsoNormal">That’s the big thing the writers screwed up on- most of their problems can be attributed to valuing the story and the needed drama over the characters doing the actions. The writers weren’t horrible, mind you, no matter what I say or do- if they were, we wouldn’t be here on this wiki at all. They just thought that they needed to get these plots done to keep us entertained, and I won’t lie and say that the plots didn’t keep me glued to the show.

<p class="MsoNormal">But despite how interesting the plots are, if you think that the characters can be used as tools to get the story done, and not as catalysts for the story itself, then you’re going to have a few frustrated fans on your hands, and that, my friends, is what the writers didn’t realize.

<p class="MsoNormal">Thanks for reading, everyone ~