User blog:Corbierr/Character Analysis- Joy

'''Hello, Humanoids! How’s it going? I hope you are all actually reading this, because last night tragedy struck as I was writing it for the first time- and everything was erased! I was pissed and depressed, so I had dinner and gave up for the night knowing I wouldn’t be able to get it done before bed. But I’m trying again now! So without further ado… it’s time to dive deep into the one, the only…Joy Mercer!'''

Season 1- I'd have a funny title, but I just got kidnapped!
Despite rarely seeing Joy in season one, we could get a good idea of her personality. She was a badass.

...We maybe need to back it up a bit, don't we?

Beginning of the season- the premier. Joy was...she existed, that's all we needed to know. I'm serious. We did get a few ideas about who she was, but honestly, all that mattered was that Patricia wanted her back. Any deep look into who she was...would have been superfluous to the plot at this time. We didn't need to know her, because Nina didn't know her. Making us know Joy would have risked us not sympathizing with her when she was kidnapped, if we didn't like her personality. It could have, though, had the effect of making us actually care about her when she was gone. But with such a short window of time, they didn't have any reason to tell us anything about Joy, they just needed her out of there.

For the next few episodes, we learn very little about our missing friend. Tiny, random details given out by people in conversation. Telling, not showing, leading us to just think, "I guess so," rather than, "That's so true" or, "That's so not true". We don't actually get to see these things in action, so we just need to trust the characters when they are saying these things. Unfortunately, a depressingly small amount of info about Joy came from Patricia herself. That's disappointing. I mean, who better to teach us about Joy than the girl who is spending all this time trying to find her? Hearing details from Trixie would have not only convinced us these traits are true- Patricia knows Joy better than anyone- but it would have made us learn more about Joytricia and Patricia's mission. A perfect way to have had this happen would have been Nina asking Patricia about Joy. We'd get Patrina bonding at the same time the audience and Nina learn about Joy!

Anyways, time skip to the play, and seeing Joy in the audience, when we finally get to start knowing her as a character. Due to her only appearing about five times and her role/personality remaining basically the same, we don't have too much more to say. So let's continue onward! Finally we see her personality begin to shine. She's sneaky enough to get out of her house, loyal enough to protect Patricia (and to want to see her at all), but mostly...she's a girl. She's an average girl forced into a bad situation. Instead of the Sibuna guys, who all seem relatively well adjusted to the mystery so far and are surrounded by friends that can help them, Joy is alone and stuck, and it shows. She's attempting to work around it, but she does get caught and outsmarted. Her role is probably more representative of how an average person would deal with situations like this. They would not be able to sneak out for too long, and because they don't know everything, they'd be outsmarted as well, and the isolation would get to them as well. These things show up with Joy! She's pretty dang human for a person who barely shows up in these episodes...

But one thing I must say is that, oddly enough, Joy angsts the least in this season compared to the others! IK I'm not supposed to bring the other topics up. But, I don't believe that the relationship drama she goes through in 2 and 3 is as tear-worthy as what happens in this season. Jesus, the girl gets kidnapped by her dad, lied to, forced to lie to her best friend, completely isolated from the outside world, and probably had no idea if her friends even cared about her being gone or not for the longest time! You're telling me that being rejected by Fabian (who is smoking hot, but even then) is worse than all of that? I CALL B.S. You may be saying that when she was alone for the first few days/weeks, she probably cried a lot and was finally getting over it and around to fixing it. This is possible. But let me say this as a rebuttal- the night when Patricia managed to get a secret chat with her, she sounded exhausted and annoyed. She did SAY she was upset about being the C1 and wanted to be normal, but she just kind of sounded resigned at that point. Now, the isolation she got probably did allow her to be emotional a lot in quiet, I admit that. But one thing to think about is the fact that this is the first time she can talk to anyone she trusts about the problem. She was in a state where she could finally discuss her situation, even if just for a limited time, considering before she was forced to lie about these things. You're expecting me to believe that she wouldn't get emotional? She wouldn't cry at ALL when she's finally having to talk about her situation? I don't buy that! This was the first season she had an actual excuse to be a drama queen, and she didn't even ‘’cry? ‘’

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised, considering she hardly mentioned it in...

Season 2- Welcome home! Level up! New skills gained: Irrationality and Jealousy! Well done!
Anyone else feel their blood boil when I mentioned season 2? If so, good, this’ll be fun…

Now, people have different reasons to be ticked off about this. Fabina fans for obvious reasons; Joy fans because of how it didn’t work out like it could have…me, because, regardless of shipping reasons, Season 2 took a character with so much promise and ultimately failed to bring her to her full potential…

So in the beginning of the season, Joy was portrayed as a normal girl who was confused and a bit naïve about how things had changed. This is… okay, as I appreciate the effort put in by the writers to make this work. But I must be honest; it doesn’t do it for me. No tat all. Why? LET’S SEE SHALL WE?


 * 1) Joy’s “confusion” was only about Nina’s existence- Admittedly, this was more for conservation of details than an actual character issue, but I want to bring it up anyways. For all her “not being used to” the way things had become, all she really didn’t understand was Nina’s presence. She caught on to Mickra almost instantly, being behind in school work was brought up by Miss Andrews, not Joy herself, she didn’t seem at all surprised at Patricia being close friends with people like Nina and Amber…you know, small details that normal people, who had been gone for a long time, would be confused about? Even just a tiny bit? Let’s face it. Joy caught onto everything almost immediately, all she didn’t realize was that Fabian was now Nina’s. No, not that she didn’t realize it, she was in denial even then, too! And for all her being new to the way things have become, she sure didn’t seem to have any trouble adjusting at all to being back at Anubis! Which brings me to my second point…
 * 2) JOY MERCER IS NOT A NORMAL GIRL LIKE THEY PORTRAYED HER.- I’m not referring to the Chosen One thing. Obviously in that regard, she’s a normal girl. But she’s NOT normal based on all the shit she went through in season one. Based on what Joy went through, she should be having nightmares. Flashbacks. Maybe even mild PTSD. She should NOT just transfer back into Anubis smoothly as she did. I do not even buy that she could have gotten over her problems during the summer, as she most likely stayed with her DAD since we don’t know her mom and she obviously was not with another Anubis resident. Spending time with a relative you have issues with is bad enough, but if that parent did what Joy’s dad did? Staying with him over summer, and having to act like it was normal would have been bad enough. Returning to Anubis, where Victor and the teachers are, would have been even worse! By all accounts, this girl should have desperately needed to talk to Patricia (or whoever but Patricia makes the most sense) about these things and get some help to get over what happened. Patricia had gotten nightmares after one night of being with Rufus. Joy seriously wouldn’t even be a bit more nervous after all of season one? Are you kidding me? If they wanted her to be a normal girl, we should have seen her getting to this process. That should have been part of season two’s plot for her. I cannot just accept that she is perfectly fine with what happened (until the plot demands she suddenly care, and even then it seemed more like an excuse to join Sibuna than anything), that she is a totally normal girl, or that her whole drama should be about Fabian. SHE SHOULD HAVE AT LEAST BEEN SEEN TALKING ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TO HER! IT’S CALLED FUCKING DEVELOPMENT. LOOK IT UP WRITERS. JEEZ!

I may have gotten a little bit excited there, but there you have it, the reasons why I refuse to accept this as a good beginning for her in the first season. But that’s story wise. Personality wise? Yeah, she wasn’t too bad. A bit annoying, but otherwise fine…

Now we get to one of the juicy parts. The dance…the kiss. Let me take a minute to say, Fabina shippers, cool your tits. I won’t be bringing my Fabina bias into this. But what I will say is that I still do hate what she did. But not because of my shipping…because it totally screwed with her character! Are you expecting me to believe that she could transition from someone who seemed like a genuinely normal person at first, with just a small crush, into someone who will stoop to deceit and tricks to get a kiss? Umm I’m not sure that’s how it works. Maybe it is, I could be wrong here, but it’s my blog so I’m not and shut up. Anyways. My point/problem is, before this, while Joy was jealous and over-eager about spending time with Fabian, she was not sneaky about anything. It just frustrates me that they’d make her do something like that out of nowhere for practically no reason other than to stir drama. I’m serious. It did nothing else! Joy herself moved on from it almost immediately (and don’t say she felt bad or some B.S. because she was clearly not sorry for what happened) and returned to being “normal” for a majority of episodes after this. It only made Fabina have drama for like 3 episodes. Big whoop! The kiss was pointless, Joy’s action made no sense, and I’m already sick of plot-driven actions and it’s only been one example so far! *Slams head into keyboard*

Onto that long period where Joy continuously flopped between sympathetic and not-so-sympathetic. This was when she signed up for the blog, went on an awkward movie date with a boy who somehow ‘’accepted a date’’ while attempting to tell her “back off”, helped Patricia with Eddie issues, and made Nina feel jealous despite clearly not being a threat to her. She was either over-bearing and control-freaky, sympathetic and in love, or just kinda there. There was not much consistency with her personality if you look at the season as a whole, or much consistency with earlier/later episodes as well. She did very little to influence the actual plot and was mostly there for romance “drama” or the blog. Not very important or notable during these episodes, and with her personality being all over the place, it’s hard to pin down exactly who she was too. But let’s move on to what everyone REALLY wants to hear about…

Jack Jackal scandal time! Whoo boy. Umm, where should I begin? Let me just say that I hate this. Absolutely despise it! Why? Similar to the kiss, it came out of nowhere and completely pulled Joy’s character in another new direction! But this one is worse… say what you will about Nina’s personality, but what Joy did was completely undeserved. I’d give it a little leeway if it were revenge for an actual action Nina could have done, but petty bullying for a completely irrational reason? WHAT THE HELL, JOY? And yes, “Irrational”, because any person with any common sense would be aware that Fabian’s lack of romantic feelings for her was not because of Nina, it was because he just didn’t like her! Getting rid of Nina would not only leave him depressed, it’d leave him PISSED OFF AT JACK JACKAL and most certainly not ready to date someone else! If she wanted to fix her problem, she should have either tried to get over Fabian or changed her attitude! DEVELOPMENT! VFHVFGQFCARCRAJCUAY. Nina had done nothing to her at all during this season. She mostly stayed out of Joy’s way. Okay, there was making Fabian manipulate her into dropping the ghost article, but Joy didn’t KNOW Nina had anything to do with what happened so that’s not an excuse. And Joy had no idea what was really happening with Nina, she just slapped some negative “facts” together and said it was an article! But believe it or not, this was not where I feel Joy realllly fell through the holes in season 2.

That’s saved for how she responded to her situation afterwards. Once she started getting consequences, she pulled out the long expired victim card and suddenly began whining about how everything was different, and how everyone was turning on her! That’s not how real-life works, and if she had actually wanted to make people like her and to feel accepted, it should have started with apologizing and actually trying to repent, not by barely saying sorry and then feeling like she deserved to be respected despite acting like a little bratty kid! I can’t find sympathy for her despite her kind-of-sad situation, because she deals with it in a way that makes her come off immature and melodramatic. Rather than learn from her mistakes, grow up and try to over-come her problems that apparently exist now, she chose to start taking her anger out on innocent friends then crying victim after getting in trouble for it. Joy was just being self-centered…and I feel like these problems demonstrate themselves quite well when we look at Joytricia’s fallout.

I won’t spend too much time on this, because I plan to blog about Joytricia later anyways. So basically Patricia spent a lot of time doing her best to keep Joy from doing what she did. She warned her over and over that Fabian was not interested. She then told her in a way that was, maybe too blunt but certainly honest and well-meaning, that if she continued doing what she’d do she’d drive everyone away! And Patricia should know- she went through it the beginning of season 1! Joy should have trusted her friend’s judgment and at least acknowledge the advice she was being given, but instead she chose to kick Patricia out instead. Which was completely unwarranted and not at all fair. Honesty can hurt at times but Joy even said about the Nina article that “it’s not my fault if the truth hurts.” She should at least understand the point of the blunt honesty she was being given. If Patricia said it any differently, it’d have only come off as a gentle warning. She was trying to stop her friend from ruining their life by hurting others, it was NOT a time to be soft with her! And it just leaves a bad taste when Joy turns on the friend who had proven to be the most loyal to her. It’s one thing to do what she did to Nina, who she barely knew, but turning on Patricia was just unfair...but on another note, she never apologized to Patricia either. In the end, when she was redeemed, they just left it at, “Oh, she’s good now, so everything is okay.” That’s…no! If you want to make the two besties fight go ahead, but don’t do it in a way that comes off as another pointless drama starter and has no effect on the development of Joy or Patricia because that development does not exist.

…-Deep breath- we’re almost done with season two hold on now guys last paragraph of the section coming.

So the redemption…I didn’t like it. To try and be brief, because I want to get on with season 3, basically it was played as if joining Sibuna was now synonymous with being a good person, at least in Joy’s case, as the minute she accepted to help Fabian suddenly she was a perfect and misunderstood hero. Amber, the only Sibuna to have any issue with her joining, was suddenly portrayed as a bitch for still not accepting her, despite the fact that Joy never apologized for any of what she had done. I don’t get why she gets so much credit for simply helping when it was only an episode ago that she was being a villain of the show. I’d have accepted it if she’d apologized to Sibuna and was honestly shown trying to repent. I’d have accepted it if she had to convince Fabian to LET her help, rather than him just turning to her when there were other options (also the chess thing was never shown, correct me if I’m wrong, and only mentioned offhandedly once which also kind of sucks because Jerome was shown on-screen to be good and ugh). I just don’t appreciate the way she was being shown in a great light when before she had done things worthy of, at least, an apology. I understand the idea that she was genuinely a good person who wanted to be accepted, I just don’t like it because the reason she wasn’t “accepted” was because she was pushing everyone away, NOT because of everyone else pushing HER away. And again, the whole “not used to the new system” thing was never even a thing until the end of the season, so that’s not a good excuse either.

Joy in season 2 was a frustrating ball of inconsistency. She could have been done well, she really had the potential to be one of the best characters in the show, but they botched her up for romance reasons and that just doesn’t work for me…

Season 3- Personal makeovers: Personality change included, no extra charge
OKAY WE ARE IN OUR FINAL SECTION LET’S DO THIS EVERYONE. I’LL TRY AND KEEP IT SHORT AND SIMPLE.

So Joy in the beginning was pretty much fine. She kept her “development” from season 2 and I do appreciate her being civil about her crush on Fabian, as well as her being a good friend to both Joy and Mara for a while. So in the first few episodes, she was genuinely okay. Not perfect, but I’ve stopped expecting perfection long ago with HOA.

Then the rejection, and then she quit Sibuna, and then starts the chain reaction that ultimately sours her character in season 3 for me. Can I be brief on this? She basically got so heartbroken over a rejection she probably knew would happen anyways that she had to quit Sibuna. Now…I honestly take issue with this. I take issue with the fact that after a full season of wanting to be on the team, that she has suddenly lost so much self-confidence she couldn’t even be bothered to stay with the group. And honestly, this could have been fine. I’d be okay with this, if they had done it differently. One of those ways could be showing her to have been incompetent or at least too naïve to do anything very well, which would have made her leaving sting less than it did in canon, where she was a genuinely helpful member. Another way would be to have her leave for a bit to focus on herself, have her makeover and gain her confidence again, then come back to help her friends or at least get back into the mystery on her own agenda, maybe with Jerome as a partner. The way they did it in the show, having her quit and then never return- and forgetting halfway through the season- just feels like a serious slap in the face for all of us fans who were rooting for Joy to be a Sibuna member.

But, moving on. With the mystery plot out of the way, let’s focus on Joy in romance! Her early rivalry with Jerome was really entertaining and personally I'd have prefered that to continue throughout the season. No romance plot, just the two of them butting heads and refusing to admit it when they do truly become friends. I'd have also prefered her dating Alfie...but anyways, what we got was her involvement in Operation Jerome and the subsequent heartbreak. We all know how it went, so let's waste no time explaining my feelings. Umm...how should I put this? The romance itself was freaking adorable. But Joy's plot? For one thing, she and Mara switched roles, with JOY now being the victimized best friend. Umm...no. And then, in order to help Mara out, she got herself in the middle of the drama and because this is HOA, romance and heartbreak ensued. While I like her personality and characterization much better this season than the last, Operation Jerome just turned me off to Mara, Jerome AND Joy for how the romance plot turned each of them into people they aren't. In Joy's case, she became submissive to Mara and lost her stubborn-ness that would have allowed her to stand up for herself. SHE became the new doormat now that Fabian became a badass. And there was just so much development potential thrown out the window...

And let us never speak of TOR.

Consensus / What I'd Have Done
My consensus on Joy is that she was always a genuinely interesting and promising character who was just used in all the wrong ways. She had many chances for plots and all were done poorly. She was also inconsistent a lot. She could have been done well, but just wasn't.

I'd have kept season one exactly the same, except I'd have made her cry when talking to Patricia on video chat. Season two...she'd have been struggling to adjust to a normal life with both her friends having moved on and her scars from the year before. She'd have still liked Fabian, but wouldn't have let it consume her at first. Maybe as time goes on she starts genuinely being desperate for her "normal" life and that's what leads her to being clingy with Fabian- she needs him back to have that life. And she'd have still been a genuinely good friend to Patricia. Oh, and she'd have joined Sibuna much earlier... or have gone rogue like Jerome. Season three? She'd have remained in Sibuna, only have been rivals with Jerome, and would have dated Alfie.

-

''Thanks for reading, guys! You have no idea how long this took me, especially if you count last night's tragedy as well! Two more things before you go...

One, I want to know how many people actually read these things... Would you "vote" now that you read it, even if you don't plan on replying? Read it!

Thanks so much! Oh, and next week, I plan to talk about a guy. Who should I do?

Who should it be? Fabian Alfie Jerome Mick Eddie

Again, thanks guys! Tomorrow I'll try and post some SSSOS. Tuesday, I'll post my next episode analysis!''