Bullet dodged

[sholio]

So today I found out by way of snickfic what happens in the final installment of Trollhunters, and HOMG, I'm glad I dropped out of having feelings for that show a while back.


So basically they went Full Endgame, with a big apocalyptic finale that involves killing a bunch of characters (including Strickler and Nomura, my two favorite redeemed villains) and THEN Jim goes back in time to the very beginning of the show and resets everything so that nothing that happened in canon actually happened.

Well.

Choices were made, for sure.

I mean ... who thinks it's a good idea to cap off a kid's cartoon franchise with a big finale apocalypse and reset button?!

I'm glad in retrospect that my good feelings about the show stopped at the end of the first arc. (Actually slightly before the end of the first arc; I really disliked aspects of the way it wrapped up.) It stands on its own pretty well, so I can just go on having good feelings about that and completely ignore anything that happened after.

Comments

[rachelmanija]

Jim goes back in time to the very beginning of the show and resets everything so that nothing that happened in canon actually happened.

I know nothing about this canon but that is almost never a good idea.

[sholio]

RIGHT?? I'm actually having trouble thinking of a single instance when pushing the reset on the entire canon would actually be a good idea. No wait, I actually thought of one! Dark Tower made it work, I think. I know a lot of people hated that ending, but I didn't; it felt right for the rest of it. You have to have a really unique canon to be able to pull it off, though.

[edenfalling]

Yeah, I think King pulled it off (...ish) because of the repeated "ka is a wheel" thematic element, and also because the ending wasn't quite the same as the beginning, which means everything that happened did matter and wasn't entirely erased; instead, those events were a necessary incremental step toward some unimaginably distant goal.

But that is a really hard and specific mix of preconditions to set up!

[sholio]

Yes!! I was trying to think of why Dark Tower doesn't bother me that way, and that's why, I think, especially the "incremental change pushing you toward an ultimate goal" aspect. It doesn't feel like none of it mattered; it feels like it all happened how it had to, and now will happen again a little differently.

But yeah, you have to set up an extremely specific set of conditions in order for it to work.

SPOILERS FOR DARK TOWER!

[rachelmanija]

I can think of one other, where the entire point of the book was that what we do matters even under the most extreme circumstances - even if it's literally going to vanish into nothing.

Dark Tower worked for me for similar reasons. All else aside, that trolly interjection from King mentions that no one wants a story they love to end, and that ending was a way of making it not end.

[cofax7]

WTF. I watched a bunch of that show (didn't realize there was more) and I am astonished. Guess I don't need to watch the rest. What a bad idea.

[sheron]

"...." is my only reaction to this, with a possible side "well glad I noped out of that early"!

[sholio]

I approve of your owl and also agree with it.

[sheron]

I love this icon!

[actiaslunaris]

Even as a casual fan, that twist, though telegraphed, was not the solution I thought would happen. I seriously question if that's the last of it, too. It's not just a reset! It's a full change to the universe.

[sholio]

Yeah, Toby is the amulet-bearer now, isn't he? Which would actually be pretty neat as a what-if AU, but I'm still kind of boggled that they erased the entire canon retroactively!

[actiaslunaris]

It's so weird!

[sheron]

Wow! I feel like they wanted to write an AU and forgot to actually write it.
The interesting thing about Toby having the amulet is actually seeing Toby wield/deal with the amulet. It's not enough to just GIVE it to him!

[sholio]

Yeah, I think your comment at Snick's journal (I was just over there and saw it) was right on that stopping before the actual AU is exactly what people don't want from a canon-divergent AU!

Edit: Also, seriously, if they're going to go that way, I'd much rather have seen Claire get it.

[alessandriana]

Wow. I guess I won't be finishing it, lol.

[sholio]

Saaaaaame. This is one of those occasions when I'm extremely glad to be spoiled.

[sovay]

and THEN Jim goes back in time to the very beginning of the show and resets everything so that nothing that happened in canon actually happened.

Why would you do that?

[sholio]

I don't even know!!

[madripoor_rose]

I had a needle-scratch moment reading spoilers that a favorite character of mine dies...so the reset button at least fixes that. Very wtf were they thinking about it all. I've seen the Steve/Aja Mpreg clip, so I have no real interest in seeing the rest of the movie now.

[sholio]

Yeah, the reset button fixes the deaths, at least! BUT AT WHAT COST. D:

[xparrot]

...OKAY THEN?? I had mostly forgotten about this canon anyway tbh, as the alien show had some interesting stuff but not enough for me to remember to get back to it (and I think there was another show after that but I don't know anything about it...?) but yeah...whatever I would've wanted, this wasn't it...

[sholio]

Your Karkat icon's expression was basically my (inward) one. LOLOLOL. And you were one of the people I was thinking of when I heard this ...!

Yeah, I watched the first season of the alien show and was really meh about it; it didn't really capture the moral complexity that was what I liked about the first series, as well as most of the characters I was really invested in being elsewhere. I knew there was more and always had a vague inclination to get back to it, but, well ... there are lots of other things to watch, I guess.

(Still really love the Yuletide fic you wrote me for it, though!! ♥)

[xparrot]

Yeah, that's how it's been for me as well, just a general "see it someday"...but maybe not now! I wonder if a reset was the plan all along or if they decided on it when they realized "rocks fall everybody dies" isn't the best ending for a kids' show...

ETA but I'm still very pleased with that fic myself! :D

[pauraque]

Huh. Did it seem like they'd written themselves into a corner and didn't know how to end the thing, or was that the plan all along?

[sholio]

I don't even know!! It's possible they planned it from the beginning, but that doesn't really make it better, just a different sort of bad judgement ...