Post by Random on Jun 28, 2018 2:37:34 GMT -6
Jun 27, 2018 11:22:30 GMT -6 @deltaoak said:
I don't want this post to be a callout and I don't want any of the cast members to feel responsible for anything I just said, it's simply my own opinion and I'm certainly in the minority.I'm sure that's true for everybody voicing negative feelings about this season, because there would be no need to bring up these things in the first place if Dice Funk wasn't important to us.
Jun 27, 2018 11:22:30 GMT -6 @deltaoak said:
I just wanted to put my opinions out there without having to worry about being attacked on the discord server. I did not feel safe putting this there, but I feel if I put it here, we can have a civil and respectful discussion, where other's opinions are respected.I get what you mean, thank you for sharing your thoughts here.
I agree with almost all the points made so far. Contrary to most people though, I don't mind a dark setting at all. I don't mind protagonists getting wrecked along the way, if it adds to a story, and maybe, like in Dice Funk's case, is mixed with humour.
The setting lends itself nicely to a lot of possibilities, and even though Austin, as he stated above, clearly has certain things to say he wanted to bring into it, it's still DnD and anything could have happened. The entire tone could have been different, depending on how the crew wants to tackle the issues.
My issues are almost entirely with the characters and their choices. (I guess it bears repeating: NOT the players)
I felt like they were extremely limited in what they could do within such a grand setting by their personal motivations and responsibilities (Mostly Frank with his family, and Ed with his arcade). It's important for character to have flavour, but imo, they were weighed down by theirs more than anything else, and had basically no wiggle room to go interesting places.
I also, and this is probably where I am in a very small minority, wasn't super interested in listening to characters who, for the longest time, tried to escape any possible emerging plot, instead of engaging. It seemed to me they were almost exclusively concerned with dealing with their personal issues and activities while the bigger plot was sort of happening to/around them. At times, it felt like a soap opera. Which is a valid choice, that I'm sure a lot of people are into.
And then something wonderful happened. Catarina snapped. And suddenly, there was someone I could get behind. She was pissed off, ready to fight the world, to kick this corrupt system over and shoot it in the face. Sure, it was a wildly impractical plan that wouldn't realistically do anything to fix anything, but... I'm not here for realism. I'm not here for drama or seeing characters worry about how they're gonna pay their bills or take care of their families. Catarina was a power fantasy, taking on this big, oppressive force, refusing to play by their rules, and looking damn cool doing it. She was tough, she was clever, she provided a bunch of fun action set pieces to offset the bleakness of everything else.
And then she died. Maybe it was her fault. Goading Frank like that was a dick move. I don't know, but when Cat died, a piece of me died with her. The fantasy died. All that was left was the bleakness, the crushing despair of a group of dinguses who seemed like they'd be forever trapped in this horrible system, the system that breaks everyone in time.
This 100%. Cat took an incredibly interesting route, proactive and bold, although perhaps not executed to perfection. She was a legit reason to look forward to every episode. Chris has played her dark but hilarious at the same time, which is really hard.
The in-game justification for the rest of the team to absolutely start hating her (killing Nucky) never really sat well with me. I don't think the team ever really made an effort to understand each other on a more complex level than their most obvious traits.
In an instant, all of them turned against her, and, over time, tried their darndest to get rid of her, without any doubts, which just felt unnatural to me. Out-of-game talk, she was the character with the most freedom and motivation to pursue different, interesting routes, having nothing to lose. She was an huge loss.
I've given it another go after I'd heard Reese was getting a revolution together, but stopped for good around 5 weeks ago, so forgive me if anything I said is totally turned on it's head during that time.
I'll definitely be back for season 5.
I just want to mention some good things too. There are some really great NPCs again this season. Aeron, Ash and Graves are great additions to the setting. Mentioning something like that always gets you counterarguments, but I never base my enjoyment of a character on whether or not they're a good person, but purely on whether or not they're interesting and enjoyable.
Thank you, Austin, for doing your best, in Dice Funk, and in life.