I haven't watched very much television over the last few years. Not because I consider myself above it, but because grad school and work have kept me busy, and what little free time I have is squandered elsewhere. Usually the internet. The only new television shows I've given a chance over the last few years have been Arrow, which I like, The Walking Dead, which I like when the writing team actually tries, and Rick and Morty, which has blown me away with its creative world-building, humor that ranges from unrelentingly dark to unapologetically goofy, and existentialist undertones that make us question what it is to be human. Only two seasons in, this show has already joined Futurama and The Boondocks as my favorite episodic* shows of all time.
An entire book could be written about the brilliance of Rick and Morty, but like I did with Hayao Miyazaki movies before, this post will focus specifically on conflict. In this case we'll look at the way this show approaches conflict, and how this approach gives it tremendous opportunities for thematic exploration in a way that most other TV shows could only dream of.
"Hiiiii, I'm a creative representation of the crushing despair
that comes with being unable to fulfill one's purpose on life! Look at me!"
Regardless of medium, conflict is usually thought of as the driving force of any story. Most plotlines can be boiled down to a character, or characters, facing adversity and finishing somewhere on the spectrum between success and failure. The underlying idea is that you're watching characters face challenges and respond to them in an engaging way. Sometimes they succeed in their goals, sometimes they don't. Sometimes their goals change. There are tons of different ways to structure and carry out a story, but what pushes everything forward is the conflict that challenges the character(s).
Rick and Morty takes that concept in creative, thought-provoking directions. In an unhinged sci-fi universe with aliens, alternate dimensions, and technology far beyond our own, there are plenty of chances for titular characters Rick and Morty to face serious external danger. And they do. The interesting thing about this show, though, is that we often don't feel like the main characters are in serious danger when Rick is around. Usually, with his trademark IDGAF attitude, he whips out some crazy invention that takes care of their problems. The conflict comes not from their external circumstances but from more human, internal sources when everyone is trying to deal with the way Rick "solved" the problem.
Take the above clip, a seemingly normal pre-opening credits scene that many television comedies use for quick throwaway gags. Here we have a simple conflict: Rick wants butter, but it's across the table from him. In a lesser sci-fi comedy scene, we might see Rick invent some sort of makeshift robot arm to reach across the table. The humor would come from the fact that, for a super genius, creating a complex tool is preferable to simply reaching over to get some butter.
Instead, Rick creates a self-aware robot that isn't entirely sure of its purpose in life. It passes the butter for Rick, then learns that this is the entire reason for its existence. Looking down at its robotic arms after this revelation, it mutters "oh my God" in despair, crushed by the realization that all it will ever be is a tool to fetch butter. Rick nonchalantly responds "welcome to the club", implying that human existence isn't much more meaningful either.
This is all done as an opening gag. Many TV shows will never reach the thematic complexity in the entirety of their run time.
Now, of course this is only a response to an insignificant conflict, not a major conflict that drives the episode. But this little intro serves as a perfect microcosm to what often happens in this show: a problem emerges, Rick solves it with an incredible gadget, and we're left dealing with the moral consequences of Rick's actions. To see what I mean, let's look at one of my favorite episodes, Big Trouble in Little Sanchez. Of course, THIS MEANS SPOILERS.
TINY SPOILERS!
The initial driving conflict of this episode is that a vampire is loose somewhere in the high school of Morty and Summer, Rick's grandkids. Rick transfers his consciousness into the body of a younger clone of himself in order to help Morty and Summer track down said vampire. Together, Tiny Rick and his grandkids hunt down this threat before it claims the lives of any more people.
If Rick and Morty followed a more conventional format, the entire episode would be about them trying to take out the monster while trying to keep Rick's secret, who would of course have trouble fitting in. Instead, Rick gains the approval of the school's kids instantly. About five minutes into the episode the group has already taken out the vampire (who is never even seen in the episode) and less than five minutes after that Morty casually mentions the secret identity of his grandpa, to zero consequence. The usual external conflicts that would normally drive this sort of episode are completely dropped by the wayside.
So what conflict drives the story after Rick and company breeze right through these external conflicts? Well, Tiny Rick is a teenage clone of Rick, and that clone's brain has trouble completely absorbing some of the heavier/darker thoughts. As Summer puts it: "when you put your mind into this body's young brain, it did what young brains do: it shoved the bad thoughts into the back and put a wall around them. But those bad thoughts are the real Rick. The fact that you're old, the fact that we're all going to die one day, the fact that the universe is so big that nothing in it matters, those facts are who you are. So you're trapped in there, and you can only come out in the form of Tiny Rick's teen angst!"
On second thought, nevermind, this sounds totally healthy.
As Tiny Rick pushes back the dark thoughts that permeate normal Rick's mind, Summer tries to get him back. Morty initially tries to avoid the problem because of how many points Tiny Ricky scores for his popularity with his crush, Jessica. Eventually he acknowledges that Rick needs help and the two of them confront Rick. The climax of the episode comes when they make him face his buried existential angst so that he can come to his senses and return to his old body.
What makes this direction for the episode noteworthy is that it forces us as viewers to grapple with our own lives, our own existential angst and personal demons. Not by ham-fisted monologues about how we need to confront these issues, but by Rick having a small meltdown as soon as he acknowledges he has been hiding from these questions as a teenager. As Rick despairs over his own mortality and all the uncertainty that comes with life, we as the audience are challenged to consider these questions ourselves in a direct and poignant way.
This is what happens more often with stories that are driven by more internal conflicts: we can take a moment to examine, and even confront, certain parts of our own feelings and thoughts as we watch fictional characters do the same on screen. This post is not to say that all conflict should be internal or asking deeply human questions about who we are, that would be just as limiting as having only external, action-oriented conflict. There's a full range of issues we face as human beings and a full spectrum of ways to represent that in the stories we tell. But it's nice to see a show daring to be different, structured in a way uncommon for its genre, and asking these sorts of questions that aren't often asked, due in large part to how it structures its conflict.
Thanks for reading!
*"Episodic" shows meaning shows where each episode has its own standalone plot, as compared to serial shows where every episode is following a grand, overarching plot.
As I've mentioned before on this blog, I write fiction in addition to blog posts. Some of the settings I write are "realistic" in the sense that everything operates in the same way that everyday life does in the real world. There are no mystical elements involved in these stories. Others involve crafting new worlds, worlds with their own internal logic and creatures that inhabit it.
When discussing works of fiction that take place in worlds more fantastic than our own, criticism of certain plot points someone finds nonsensical is often met with the response "of course it doesn't make sense, it's a movie/video game/TV show/etc." This post will be about unpacking that statement; I think it is mostly a cop out, but there is also some truth to it.
As I alluded to in the first paragraph, creating worlds different from our own involve creating a new set of rules. No matter what type of world you're creating- a fantasy land of magic and mythic creatures, a science fiction space adventure, an alternative universe where United States foreign policy actually gives a shit about democracy- a fictional universe needs its own set of governing rules that dictate how everything operates. Let's take Fullmetal Alchemist, an easy example.
A universe where perfectly coiffed hair curls can withstand anything.
In Fullmetal Alchemist, the show emphasizes the principle of "equivalent exchange"- the idea that in order to obtain anything, something of equal value must be given in turn. In other words, alchemists can transform and modify objects in that world, but they can't simply make something out of nothing. When you see Edward make his staff, he's transforming the materials in the ground into his signature weapon.
If someone in that show were suddenly able to make objects materialize out of nothing, then you'd want an explanation for how that happened. Yes, alchemy is basically magic and defies our laws of physics, but the world of Fullmetal Alchemist still has its own set of rules that it is expected to follow. Hell, if someone were to suddenly bust out an iPad when the technology of that world is about equivalent to the technology of the early 20th Century, you'd want an explanation.
And that is where the "it's a _____, of course it's not realistic!" idea falls apart. Yes, we shouldn't hold our entertainment to our own laws of reality. But fictional works need to hold up to their laws of reality, otherwise that is inconsistent writing, even if other elements of the story are awesome.
A big example of this sort of inconsistency from a work I like (I prefer to pick apart works I like so that it's more analysis than complaint) is from The Walking Dead. As this article tells us, one of the main rules about zombies is that their eyesight is poor and their sense of smell is strong. We see that confirmed when Rick decides to cover himself and his pals in zombie remains to walk through the streets... but then we see it broken later when they avoid zombies by hiding under cars.
Then Daryl does something badass and all is forgiven.
A common response to this criticism is that the walkers spot the humans first, and then they use the ol' sniffers to track out whether they are human or not. But that goes against the rule mentioned above, which specifically says their eyesight is "poor" but they have a "strong" sense of smell. That would mean that their smelling ability is stronger than their sight (unless the meaning of those words have changed recently), and therefore the hiding trick they used shouldn't have worked. It's a vague, inconsistent trait that helps kill the believability of their world- again, not because it is "unrealistic" by our terms, but by the terms the show sets up for itself.
These inconsistencies can make us feel less like we're watching something unfold in a different world and more like we're watching something unfold in a clearly fictional one. Now, different inconsistencies bother people to different degrees, and what some people consider plot holes others don't. For instance, I find a lot of the so-called plot inconsistencies everyone usually brings up about The Dark Knight Rises to be unfounded, and a lot of the actual inconsistencies didn't bother me much.
"No one noticed Bruce Wayne in the European cafe!" Oh, right, because a billionaire who is well known in his own town will definitely be globally recognized. Just like how you would totally recognize the CEO of Walmart or Target if they walked by you right now!
So, yes, some things take some people out of the movies, while those same things don't take others out. Some aren't taken out of the experience because they don't think the inconsistency is a big deal, while others don't think it's an inconsistency at all. That's fine, because we all interact with fictional worlds in our own ways.
The main problem with saying "it's a [comic book/fantasy/sci fi/etc] [movie/game/TV show/etc], don't think about it" is that it's dismissing the fact that these types of works have the ability to be immersive and take people to a different world. A well crafted world with consistency is a fantastic thing. When you say "don't think about it" you're encouraging people to not immerse themselves, to not critically engage with what they enjoy.
Now, that all being said, not everything needs an explicit explanation. A movie that comes to mind is the movie Midnight in Paris from a few years back.
They never once explain how Owen Wilson keeps finding work!
In the movie, Owen Wilson is a writer who is visiting Paris with his fiance. He loves it there, particularly because it was the home of many ex-patriot US writers during the modernist era of the 1920s. One night, while on a walk, he ends up transported to 1920s-era Paris and gets to meet Ernest Hemingway, F Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali, and others from that time period. There is never an explanation given as to why Wilson (and, later, someone sent to track him) are able to travel back in time.
The thing is, the movie is still establishing a set of rules. The movie shows us early on that time travel is possible in that universe, but everything else about it is realistic. No one shows up with a light saber, or mind reading abilities, or a positive opinion of any M Night Shyamalan movies. That is a universe that permits time travel in certain vehicles to the past, and the movie never adds extra fastballs into the mix.
So an explanation isn't always necessary. In the original Star Wars trilogy, they established how the force functioned as a power, but not what it actually was "scientifically" speaking. Everyone loved the movies, and then the prequels came up with a sci-fi explanation as to what the force was. It wasn't a bad explanation, but it wasn't an answer people were clamoring for to make further sense of the universe.
So, in the end, what is arguably most important is establishing a clear
set of rules that the works within that universe follow consistently. Analyzing and picking apart fiction can be fun, and certainly helpful to anyone trying to create their own. Critiquing and contemplating entertainment can help give us a deeper understanding of it- or at least that's what I tell myself to justify all the time I spend over-analyzing pop culture.
In my previous blog post about poignant moments in video games, I talked about how one of my writing classes at UC Irvine taught us to read stories from the perspective of a writer. We were told to go through and think about narrative choices the authors made, and how those choices added to their stories. The underlying idea was that we would develop the ability to analyze fiction to understand what made it work, and then be able to take different writing decisions we liked to apply to our own stories in ways that worked for us.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the best written television shows I have ever watched. Like with the television show The Walking Dead, I was reluctant to watch it until a combination of my friends and my sister eventually persuaded me to, insisting I would really like it. I enjoy The Walking Dead and follow the series, but I was absolutely blown away by how fantastic The Last Airbender was (this will be the only pun here, I promise). Or not.
The deceptively simple world everything takes place in.
Since then, two full seasons of Legend of Korra have come out to positive, but not glowing, reviews. The consensus seems to be that they are still good, but don't live up to the quality of The Last Airbender. So far for season three, however, the reviews have been better, and people are calling this season a "return to form" for the writers. Why is this the case? Some people have said the lighter tone and returning to an open world
adventure are what have made the difference, but here I will make the
argument that it goes a lot deeper than that. In this post I am going to analyze the writing of The Last Airbender, then analyze what Korra did differently, and finally discuss what this new series does that harkens back to the first series.
I'd also like to take a quick moment to thank all my friends whom I've discussed this show with. You've all helped me see things I wouldn't have otherwise noticed and given me some fantastic insights.
Avatar: The Last Bender
In the first series, Avatar Aang awakens after a hundred years to find that the Fire Nation has wiped out his people, the Air Nomads, and colonized the Earth Kingdom. Through the course of sixty one episodes, Aang has to learn how to bend the other three elements, build a resistance against the Fire Nation, and ultimately defeat the Father Lord... err, Fire Lord.
In a narrative sense, that sounds simple, right? Well, yes, it is. It is a simple template for a story, and it never truly deviates from this path. A lot happens in between Aang becoming unfrozen and defeating the Fire Lord, and certainly the stakes are raised as the plot progresses, but the show never actually deviates from this overarching goal. The plot, at the end of the day, is simply another grandoise good versus evil plot.
This actually ends up helping the show, however, rather than hindering it. Because the overarching narrative never changes, the writers are able to focus more on creating compelling characters and exploring some complex ideas in seemingly simple concepts.
I could talk a lot about any of the characters on the show. Aang, who has to cope with the genocide of his people while still trying to find the strength to both fulfill his role as the Avatar and remain optimistic in the face of everything standing in front of him. Katara, who will always be there for a loved one and would never hesitate to help a stranger, but will go scorched earth if you betray her. Sokka, who is sarcastic and wacky on the outside, but on the inside is a very intelligent person who sometimes struggles with the fact he is the only non-bender on the team. None of these characters are done justice by a single sentence summary, and thats a testament to how much depth they gain from all the time we spend with them.
There are two characters I do quickly want to focus on, however, as they are my two favorite. The first is Toph Beifong.
Melon Lord ain't nothin' ta fuck with
What is great about Toph is that she is a well written badass. Making a character a badass isn't too hard, all you have to do is give them some "tough" characteristics- in Toph's case, an IDGAF attitude and a lone wolf personality, not to mention top notch bending skills. But the writers manager to do two things with her: explain these "tough" traits she is given, and give her human vulnerabilities.
The personality traits I mentioned before are there because her parents tried to shelter her, so she had to sneak away to the earth bending tournaments to really find a place to spread her wings. There, she fought as the Blind Bandit, where acting tough and winning fights was what mattered. She still had to keep her distance, though, lest people find out who she really is.
A lot of writers who write "badass" characters don't give them real vulnerabilities out of fear that people will no longer think of them as badass anymore. Toph, however, is given real vulnerabilities. One of them is her struggle with her femininity. In Tales of Ba Sing Se, she talks about not being able to see how she looks or having no clue about make up does make her feel insecure sometimes, even if she keeps a tough front. The only way she knows how to be feminine is the "proper" way her parents tried to force on her, but that just isn't who she is. She therefore has to struggle to find it on her own terms.
Speaking of struggle, my other favorite character from the show is Zuko.
Hello, Zuko here!
Zuko is a classic villain to antihero to good guy character. Like with Toph as a badass, he is a well written version of a timeless character archetype. His transformation feels so believable because they had a lot of time to work with it and let it happen without feeling forced. When he is introduced, he is ruthless, but not in a cartoonishly villainous sort of way. He makes good on his word when he invades the Southern Water Tribe in the beginning to spare the village if the Avatar is handed over. He isn't the type of villain who kicks puppies for fun, he just wants to get Aang and get back home.
As the story unfolds, his transformation is gradual, which helps make it more believable. Characters don't just suddenly realize they've been wrong the whole time, unless something drastic happens. Zuko's adventures throughout the Earth Kingdom begin to open his eyes to how much his nation has hurt the world. He begins to question things, then at the end of book two seems ready to switch sides. Except, when the critical time comes, he chooses to side with the Fire Nation and attempts to capture Aang.
This is a milestone moment. It would have been easy to have him side with Aang after all the build up, but instead he chooses to go with the Fire Lord, because at the end of the day he is still a fourteen year old who desperately wants the approval of his dad that has been denied to him all of his life. When he gets that and realizes it is not enough, his decision to rebel after that means he can join the Avatar team without any regret or uncertainty. He knows what his father has to offer, and he doesn't want it.
He is also plagued with guilt when he joins, particularly about betraying his uncle. Considering we see how Iroh was the father figure to Zuko that his own father never was, we agree. But having seen everything Zuko went through, both in his back story and everything that transpires throughout the series, we also see where Zuko is coming from. Ultimately, it all pays off in an incredibly rewarding reunion towards the very end of the show.
I'm sure I'm with other Avatar fans when I wonder aloud, "why are my allergies suddenly acting up?"
They also are able to explore complex wrinkles in seemingly straightforward situations. They do this by taking these simple situations and asking questions about how the characters react to them. Defeating the Fire Lord sounds simple enough, in the sense that it is a clear goal without much moral ambiguity... but what do they do afterward? He's the most powerful bender in the entire world, after all. Aang has to struggle with this for a while before arriving at an answer, and it involves his overwhelming desire to never murder anyone conflicting with that of his group and even past versions of himself.
The show asks plenty of these questions. Should the team stop to help different groups of people or villages when they are in a hurry? How does one balance their anger at injustices done by the Fire Nation without becoming consumed by hatred and revenge? How about these henchmen, who are working for the empire but are revealed to be actual human beings who crack jokes and make small talk and have their own lives? These questions about how the characters will interact with the world and others in it add depth to a simple premise.
What I do want to point out, though, is that these questions are personal. They're not asking any big questions about society or the world, other than taking safe stands like women in the Northern Water Tribe should be considered equals or Fire Nations should be governed by peace. Even the heaviest issue in the series, the genocide of the Air Nomads, is personalized through Aang. It is him who has to struggle with having lost his home, cope with having no one else who comes from his same culture, and try to figure out how he can be preserve it as the last remaining Air Nomad. This personalization of struggle, of course, also adds to the characterization of each person on the show.
The Legend of Korra
When Legend of Korra was announced, I was excited. As details leaked, I became even more excited. Set in an early 1920s-esque steam punk setting? A city free of any particular nation that is about peaceful coexistence between different benders? A bending-stealing villain who actually has a good point, that their society benefits benders far more than it does non-benders? Holy shit!
I watched beginning of Book 1 and adored it. The plot moved at such a fast pace, and they did a fantastic job of showing some of the ways in which non-benders were marginalized. Amon was legitimately scary, which is hard to do when the protagonist is the Avatar and the villain is a guy who allegedly can't even bend. In the appropriately titled "When Extremes Meet", where Tarrlok ascends to power and acts fascist about catching Amon, we see even further manifestations of benders keeping non-benders down. Shit was about to go down!
But then, after that episode, the theme is basically dropped. After Tarrlok is revealed to be Amon's brother, and Amon is revealed to be a blood bender, we don't hear much about how non-benders are treated anymore. At the end of the series, when they get their bending back and everyone is all happy, there isn't a single mention about what to do about all the ways non-benders are marginalized. It switches back to the simple "bad guy defeated, happy ending!" storyline that the writers are more comfortable with.
In the end, the only commentary they left was the very safe and very lazy "both extremes are bad!" message. That would be fine if the theme were a side detail, but when it is part of the thematic foundation of the entire season, it is less forgivable.
Now, even though I didn't love that part, I still liked a lot about the show. We didn't have a lot of time with the new characters, but we still saw them go through a lot and saw them grow by the end of the series. Sometimes the story was a bit too plot driven, focusing on twists and turns that didn't always do much other than take away time from the characters. Still, they were solid characters. We also got callbacks to the first series, which was a treat for us fans of the first show.
There was also this moment, where Ikki taught us to hate (something the internet definitely doesn't do enough).
When the next season was announced, I was hopeful still. I liked the first season overall, and this new season promised some more interesting ideas to tackle. The first book offered only 12 episodes. This one offered 14, but then an additional 26. That meant that now things would be less rushed and we'd have more time to flesh everything out. Not only that, but the main antagonist from this season was Korra's uncle, who wants to preserve a lot of the old ways and retain his spirituality in an increasingly modern world. How is the show going to explore a balance of old vs new and spirituality vs secularism in this increasingly "modern" world?
The answer was, not very well. This was another case of "villain begins the show with a good point, ends up as another unambiguously evil character by the end." In the season finale, she is literally fighting the manifestation of chaos itself, which threatens to destroy the entire world. That would be fine if that was what they had promised us, but what they had been building towards earlier was about conflict between the old and the new.
Now, this one at least is answered somewhat, by erasing the gap between the spirit world and the human world. A solution that makes sense in that world, but doesn't translate very well to social commentary about a similar struggle in our world, where opening spirit portals is not a possibility (as far as we know).
But at least we got to bond with the characters, right? Unfortunately, it seemed that the characters from the previous season didn't seem to grow much. Korra's hot-headedness got in the way in the same ways it did last time, right down to her siding with a villain over Tenzin and later realizing the error of her ways. Tenzin himself didn't seem to learn from the first season that he is often overbearing. A lot of other characters are simply written with less depth, like Bolin transforming from lovable scamp to complete idiot and Lin Beifong becoming the same stubborn police chief you see in every cop movie ever: the one who can't see the truth until its too late.
Personally, when I watched this season, the characters I liked the most were Tenzin's siblings and Jinora, because they all both felt like real people and avoided rehashing personal struggles from a previous season. The absolute highlight for me came when we saw Iroh, a character we had grown to care about from the previous series. The two part episode covering the origins of the Avatar was also a highlight, partially because there were no false promises or rehashes in those episodes.
Having covered the first two seasons, lets look at the new one. I mentioned before some might think that the lighter tone and around the world adventure are what is drawing people back, and maybe that is the case for some people. But it also calls back to the original show in a few other ways, and I think that deserves recognition.
First and foremost, there are no more false promises being made about answering complex questions about large, difficult issues. The villains haven't given away their motives, so we aren't being fed anything about large social problems that need addressing only to be swept under the rug later The villains are powerful and trying to get to Korra, and that is all we need to know for now.
With these villains in the background and no big social issue to tackle, we have been given more time with the characters, and its been nice. We've gotten to learn more about each one, as well as see that they have actually grown. Korra, for instance, is a lot calmer than she used to be. She has remained bold, but is no longer always short tempered and quick to jump the gun the way she was last season. Tenzin seems to have learned, too, being more lenient with Jinora. I could go on, but it seems like the characters are now growing, and being handled better in general.
We're all happy this new season is better, Jinora.
In terms of the plot, like the original series, we see a complex issue that is personalized, instead of a wide societal issue. Tenzin is trying to figure out how he can get people to join the Air Nomad order, and I'm sure later a central struggle will be him trying to figure out how to mix Air Nomad tradition with a world that is much different than the last time they were around, and with people who weren't raised as Air Nomads. What will stay? What will go? Who else will he consult in these decisions? These are questions he will have to face, and I look forward to seeing them answered.
As for everything else happening, like going around the world to help recruit for Tenzin and freeing air benders from the Earth Queen, the plot has been the decision of the characters. Until they learned about the escaped group of villains, they had no antagonists immediately pushing the action, and that gave us a chance to see what good they would do in their down time. Even when they learn about the villains, they make ready, but don't make it their number one priority. This also shows character growth: old Korra would have immediately left everyone and walked around with a neon sign saying "I'M THE AVATAR, FIGHT ME YOU FUCKERS!" Instead, she is preparing to defend herself if she needs to, but wants to remain focused on what is more important.
There is so much more I could talk about in every section of this blog: what The Last Airbender did right (hell, I could probably write an entire essay about Toph or Zuko Alone), where Korra's first two seasons went wrong (though to be fair, they were still quite good), and where this season promises to go back to focusing on characterization and finding tough personal questions in seemingly straight forward situations. Hopefully this can, at the very least, serve as a launching point for people to think about why certain parts of a show can be considered hit or miss.
