Good TV

Roz · Apr 21, 2019, 1:58 AM

@Roz said in Good TV:

@Aria said in Good TV:

@surreality said in Good TV:

@Aria Same.

There is a message it sends that I also am really not at all cool with, that I don't think they intend, and it's especially heartbreaking to me, and I just... can't.

Yeah. Yeeeeeeeeeeah. Coupled with the end of 'Crazy Ex-Girlfriend', which is not at all their responsibility because those shows aren't even the same parent company, let alone the same network....

Aw man, I loved the finale of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend.

I did, too. My point was more that with the timing of it ending and the season finale of The Magicians, there seems to be a sudden gap of representation of characters of -- ahhh, a particular type, which is all I think I can say without ZOMG SPOILERS -- who have positive relationships, rich emotional ranges, and are able to create meaning their lives despite the thing as opposed to their usual portrayal. Which is generally depicted as burdensome to others, horrific/a warning, a joke, or villainous. I find this deeply upsetting.

OH! You mean that you're now missing that representation because they're both off the air now. I misread earlier!

Aria · Apr 21, 2019, 2:16 AM

@Roz Yep. Especially because while I would say that the character's arc in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend ended on a positive note, I absolutely would not say that about the season finale of The Magicians.

Sparks · Apr 21, 2019, 3:44 AM

@Aria said in Good TV:

And JFC, I am having a major feel. Yes, it was beautifully done. And yes, the character in question asking what they did at the end totally makes sense for them and their mental process. But I am legitimately really upset about it in a "representation matters" kind of way, and not just because of the specific trope @Sparks is referring to.

Yeah. There's the one trope I'm a bit upset about, and then a second representational issue which doesn't match a named trope that I know of but which I'm also a bit upset about. I suspect what you're referencing is the second of my blargh factors.

But god, I have to give them credit for execution. Despite my issues with it, it was beautiful in the most awfully painful way. I'm gonna freaking cry every time I hear that song now, I just know it.

@Aria said in Good TV:

I want to have a conversation about this but don't want to post spoilers to the board.

I think I also need a hug.

I have had a couple of private-message conversations about that finale on here because I have many feels, both narratively and otherwise.

deicidalbeing · Apr 21, 2019, 5:30 AM

@surreality I can't either

Ghost · Apr 22, 2019, 1:41 AM

I didn't really have an representational issues with the season finale, but god damn that fire pit scene about broke me in half and gave me a People's Elbow in the feels.

Well done, and one thing I am grateful for is that they announced that they'd be back for another season next year.

Great show.

surreality · Apr 22, 2019, 2:29 AM

@Ghost My main gripe has nothing to do with representation, actually. I'm 100% on board with irritation regarding the two brought up by Sparks and Aria, though, and how.

AeriaNyx · Apr 23, 2019, 4:22 PM

Doom Patrol and the Beard Hunter. That shit was insanity. Amazing, dry-heave inducing insanity. And when I wasn't shutting my eyes and trying not to hurl, I loved it.

Rinel · Apr 24, 2019, 4:36 AM

I don't really feel the Magicians finale fits the trope. I'm going to steal from a reddit comment that summarized how I felt about it much better than I could:

HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE AND ALSO A LOT OF WORDS:

***SERIOUSLY THESE ARE BIG SPOILERS***

click to show

There is this new found idea that any queer, mentally ill, whatever-isn’t-a-straight-white-absolutely neurotypical-dudebro characters can NEVER die or have anythingtoo bad can happen to them. That’s not how it works and it’s not how it should work. For writers and creators no character should be immortal or untouchable. People have created this notion that “well this character was important to me and I related to them because of this or that so you cannot touch them because now my representation is gone and you’re evil for it”.

Every character in fiction is going to resonate with you or a group of people somewhere for some reason. The more limitations we put on creators for who they can and cannot kill the less of those characters we are going to get. Think about it seriously. Out of the main group who could they kill without backlash? Stella who is Native American? Hale who is openly queer? Arjun who has dual citizenship in America and India? Summer who is Hispanic and Indian? Jade who is part Israeli? Yes, Quentin was queer and had a romantic relationship with Eliot. That’s canon. The fandom cannot swoon over A Life in the Day and say how beautiful and perfect it was and then when Q dies it’s no longer a good thing- it’s queerbaiting. In the finale the pain between Eliot and Q is the most obvious. Even above Alice! Q is devastated when he see Eliot. It might not be the conclusion you wanted, but it’s a really touching one if you think about it. Bury Your Gays is a little more complicated than what fandom seems to think it means. According to TVTropes.org, Bury Your Gays is, “the presentation of deaths of LGBT characters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances.” Quentin, in no way, is what anyone considered more expendable than the other characters especially because he isn’t the only queer character. So are we not touching anyone because creators cannot kill anyone? We can’t beg and plead for more representation and then have a show with a really diverse cast and then have fandom freak out if one of these diverse characters is killed.

Regarding the mental health issues:

Okay. This is pretty serious. A huge part of who Q is is someone who struggles with mental illness. He’s tried to kill himself, been instituted, meds, therapy, everything. Having him ask Penny40 if he just finally found a way to kill himself was what pissed me of the most. Then I rewatched that scene over and over. Secrets Taken to the Grave is there to let people process all those feelings. Quentin’s ultimate question was “am I a hero or am I just suicidal?” Penny40 takes him to show what a major impact he made on his love ones. He was a mentally ill hero. That’s who Quentin was. He showed us you can be both. Isn’t that amazing? To know that your mental illness doesn’t have to be “cured” for you to be a hero and to have positively changed so many people’s lives? That’s amazing. Another thing I want to touch on with this issue is something I noticed really early on in the series. They are NO JOKE about giving viewers crisis hotlines. 13 Reasons Why is an entire show about suicide and they didn’t put anything about it until there was major backlash. Syfy has handled difficult storylines with the class to put crisis information after many of their episodes. They wouldn’t have done all of that for the past 4 years if they didn’t care about their fans. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, you are valid. You have every right to be affected by anything you consume. Music, books, movies, TV shows, whatever. You do not have to explain or feel bad about it. You can be mentally ill and be a positive force in this world. As someone with Bipolar I and horrible panic attacks, I was actually touched because sometimes I think everything I touch is tainted because how can anything I do be good when I don’t even feel like I’m good enough to be alive?

Auspice · Apr 24, 2019, 5:09 AM

@Rinel said in Good TV:

I don't really feel the Magicians finale fits the trope. I'm going to steal from a reddit comment that summarized how I felt about it much better than I could:

HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FINALE AND ALSO A LOT OF WORDS:

***SERIOUSLY THESE ARE BIG SPOILERS***
click to show

There is this new found idea that any queer, mentally ill, whatever-isn’t-a-straight-white-absolutely neurotypical-dudebro characters can NEVER die or have anythingtoo bad can happen to them. That’s not how it works and it’s not how it should work. For writers and creators no character should be immortal or untouchable. People have created this notion that “well this character was important to me and I related to them because of this or that so you cannot touch them because now my representation is gone and you’re evil for it”.

Every character in fiction is going to resonate with you or a group of people somewhere for some reason. The more limitations we put on creators for who they can and cannot kill the less of those characters we are going to get. Think about it seriously. Out of the main group who could they kill without backlash? Stella who is Native American? Hale who is openly queer? Arjun who has dual citizenship in America and India? Summer who is Hispanic and Indian? Jade who is part Israeli? Yes, Quentin was queer and had a romantic relationship with Eliot. That’s canon. The fandom cannot swoon over A Life in the Day and say how beautiful and perfect it was and then when Q dies it’s no longer a good thing- it’s queerbaiting. In the finale the pain between Eliot and Q is the most obvious. Even above Alice! Q is devastated when he see Eliot. It might not be the conclusion you wanted, but it’s a really touching one if you think about it. Bury Your Gays is a little more complicated than what fandom seems to think it means. According to TVTropes.org, Bury Your Gays is, “the presentation of deaths of LGBT characters where these characters are nominally able to be viewed as more expendable than their heteronormative counterparts. In this way, the death is treated as exceptional in its circumstances.” Quentin, in no way, is what anyone considered more expendable than the other characters especially because he isn’t the only queer character. So are we not touching anyone because creators cannot kill anyone? We can’t beg and plead for more representation and then have a show with a really diverse cast and then have fandom freak out if one of these diverse characters is killed.

Regarding the mental health issues:

Okay. This is pretty serious. A huge part of who Q is is someone who struggles with mental illness. He’s tried to kill himself, been instituted, meds, therapy, everything. Having him ask Penny40 if he just finally found a way to kill himself was what pissed me of the most. Then I rewatched that scene over and over. Secrets Taken to the Grave is there to let people process all those feelings. Quentin’s ultimate question was “am I a hero or am I just suicidal?” Penny40 takes him to show what a major impact he made on his love ones. He was a mentally ill hero. That’s who Quentin was. He showed us you can be both. Isn’t that amazing? To know that your mental illness doesn’t have to be “cured” for you to be a hero and to have positively changed so many people’s lives? That’s amazing. Another thing I want to touch on with this issue is something I noticed really early on in the series. They are NO JOKE about giving viewers crisis hotlines. 13 Reasons Why is an entire show about suicide and they didn’t put anything about it until there was major backlash. Syfy has handled difficult storylines with the class to put crisis information after many of their episodes. They wouldn’t have done all of that for the past 4 years if they didn’t care about their fans. If you are suffering from any mental health issues, you are valid. You have every right to be affected by anything you consume. Music, books, movies, TV shows, whatever. You do not have to explain or feel bad about it. You can be mentally ill and be a positive force in this world. As someone with Bipolar I and horrible panic attacks, I was actually touched because sometimes I think everything I touch is tainted because how can anything I do be good when I don’t even feel like I’m good enough to be alive?

***=Ok, so, my thoughts in this vein More spoilers for Magicians follow...***

click to show

As someone who went through REALLY GRUELING CLASSES (seriously, they were some of the hardest, some of the ones that made me cry, and the ones where I fucking hated the professor because he was so hard on us) on TV writing...

I get where it stands a lot of the time. And one thing was obvious with season 4 of Magicians: someone had to die. It was at "that stage" in the story. Stories have 'beats' they have to hit. A death was needed. And breaking it down, it had to be Quentin or Margot.

Penny already died once.
So did Alice, after a fashion.
Josh wouldn't have as much of an 'impact.'
Kady, even more than Q, wanted to die: she had to live to find her place in hedge society.
Julia was just rescued as part of the finale.
Elliot, they spent the whole season trying to save.

It had to be one of the two. Maybe they could've written a story in which Margot sacrificed herself to save Elliot at the end of the day, but what about the discovery she just made that she can love Josh? Also, I think the community would've been more upset to lose her.

The whole, entire cast is 'broken' in some way. It's kind of the whole point of the series. It's a book(/tv) series about broken people finding this 'reason' they're broken and coming together because of it. And a lot of them are queer or neurodivergent in some way (multiple ways in the latter, tbh).

I also found the ending... cathartic, in a sense. The way Penny talked to Q when he was struggling with that question. The way he said okay, we're gonna have to go the other route for this. Because as someone else who has been suicidal before and someone who goes through those bouts (many, many of them; in fact the vast majority of my life is spent in a constant state of it) of feeling like no one cares about me, no one would miss me, and I have utterly no impact on anyone ever... that was a powerful moment. I did not see what Q did as suicidal. Q used his power. His dinky, little, stupid specialty. The one that he felt was absolutely pointless, probably (think about it: think about how he looked at people like Alice or his rival Penny and their specialties and then he finds out oh, I have minor mending)... He used his little dorky power to save the world.

And where most people would think 'fuck yeah, I saved the world, I saved the people I cared about: it was worth it' he thought: '...maybe I only did it because I wanted to die.'

He didn't commit suicide. He was heroic, but his mental illness downplayed it. And Penny helped him see past it because Penny couldn't tell him to see past it. That's not Penny's role.

I can understand why people are hurt and upset by it, but I don't want writers to feel like they 'aren't allowed' to do anything bad to non-white-cis-straight characters. It'd be unrealistic.

Also, one thing we know: in the Magicians world, death isn't the end.

And for my part... I had really wondered how they'd use Q's power to really make an impact. It was the end of the books when it happened. And I kind of wonder if that 'ending' might still crop up. I'm excited to see.

Rinel · Apr 24, 2019, 5:35 AM

@Auspice

I agree one hundred percent with you. I know this is what upvotes are for, but I don't think upvotes are enough.

Sparks · Apr 24, 2019, 6:29 AM

@Auspice @Rinel

For the record, my issue with the trope is not quite the same one you're describing.

***=SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SO MANY SPOILERS***

click to show

Wretched · Apr 24, 2019, 10:04 AM

BONDiNG is amazing.

Ghost · Apr 24, 2019, 2:05 PM

@Sparks said in Good TV:

@Auspice @Rinel

For the record, my issue with the trope is not quite the same one you're describing.

***=SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SO MANY SPOILERS***
click to show

My issue is not with Q's death specifically, but the end of Quelliot. The show has plenty of diversity and representation in the characters; they're superb at that. (Plus, I suspect about half of the characters are at the very least bi-curious.)

But in a show that feels chock-a-block with different relationships, the Quelliot ship was the only one I can think of among major characters that was not the 'default' of a heterosexual relationship between two people. So this still feels a little like the 'kill your gays' trope, just with a relationship instead of a character.

I know that's not what they were going for. And narratively, killing off Q made sense. The death was handled incredibly well, both in the writing and execution of the episode, and everything leading up to it this season. All of that is why I'm just a little upset/annoyed over this particular aspect of it, rather than actually angry in any meaningful manner.

But the problem, as always, is that if you have a cast or story dominated by one particular thing (mostly white folks, mostly dudes, etc.) then the one odd-thing-out ends up becoming a proxy for that entire class of thing. If you have a show that has a cast that's, say, 8 guys and 1 woman, then if you kill off that woman it ends up coming across way worse than if the show had 6 guys and 4 women and you killed one of the women off. If you have a cast that has 7 white folks and 1 black guy, then if you kill off that one black guy it comes across way worse than it might otherwise. Etc.

And if you only have one relationship on the entire show that's anything other than what people think of as the 'default', then if you torpedo that one relationship it's likely going to come across worse than you probably intended.