When beloved and iconic franchises, myths, and legends aren’t being conformed to what Critical Drinker would call

They’re being weighed down by excessive tragedy and darkness for the claim of

“raised stakes, consequences, adversity, and struggle”

Which to me is becoming another brand of bolierplate jibber-jabber to make everything like Game of Thrones, not unlike the the buzzwords

“Diversity, Equity, Inclusions, and Modern Audiences.”

Which used to push for socio-political messaging in franchises.

But to be fair, the former claims still have merit because there’s still more leeway for debate and come with real substantial standards as opposed to the latter upon questioning with the tinest morsel of distaste will get you branded a bigot.

But in my experience, that wiggle room is shrinking and those standards are becoming more legalistic and scrupulous. Mostly for an understandable reaction to the lack of standards and consistency in modern storytelling, especially in regards to the respect of lore and a need to perserve a mythology’s identity.

But the issue I speak of is another trend while not nihilistic in intent which many other critics seem to mistaken, it certinally is the ineveitable result.

Nihilism isn’t the intent, it’s the by-product the real intent is to base hope on pure negatives which is supposedly force the individual to assert themselves into some sort of Ubermensch or Uberfrau and become their own hope, morals, and values, as what I have read of Nietzsche.

And when I mean “Negatives” I don’t mean pessimism or being a doomer, again that is the by- product of this philosophy.

What I mean by “Hope built on Negatives” or to be more accurate, “Hope built on Negation.” is hope that is defined only by negative reinforcement as well as what it negates, sacrifices, who it kills off, and the dissatisfaction it leaves the audience feeling. It seldom define hope what it is and more often than not defines hope by what it is not

Basically,

"What is hope?"

"Well its not this." or "its not that",

“thats not the focus the story so it has to be sacrificed on the altar of hope which isn’t that.”

“Nope, that person can’t live they have to die the greater good of hope which can’t include them.”

“hope cant be shown in thesse kind of ship because their surival would be deterimental to the narrative for some reason which certinaly doesn’t involve them living.”

“Oh your disatisfied and frustrated? Good. Thats the nature of fiction and it will make you grow as a hopeful person which isn’t what you wanted which you obviously had no good reason for wanting.”

its a phenomena The Distributist has dealt with when asking internet Atheists what positive views of the universe can their beliefs produce that are better than theism of any kind, and all they could just harp on “Atheism is a lack of belief” and could only define Atheism by what it negates when not resorting to dishonest response videos to theistic YouTubers

That was the case in my experience with RWBY, when I was sore about Pyrrha and Arkos being tragic, I was met with smug fans saying they weren’t the focus so they had to die and how they themselves embraced that along with the other character deaths V3 because of “so hopeful they were while being aware about the harsh reality of the real world” in other words so hopeful while embracing negation

Then when I tried to scrape by and give RWBY another chance with BlackSun, Iceberg, and Renora, they all got negated, which to be fair Iceberg’s negation didn’t bother me too much, and all got supplanted with ships I felt nothing for like Bumbleby and what might be White Knight(or not idc) and the fact Oscar’s soul was going to be erased by Ozma’s made me sick to my stomach and honestly furious

I was told thats good because “dissatisfaction is the very nature of fiction” and it was “pathetic and sad” for writing AU fanfiction for being disappointed, once again this person using this as an oppertunity to morally grand-stand of being hopeful in spite of the pure negation.

Much like the SJW’s this camp despises so much, they enjoy this trend because it gives them a way to virtue signal and give themselves a sense of cultural, intellectual, and moral superiority over others and justify forcing their way onto others with a complete disregard about the negative effects it has on entertainment, literature and others in general.

and to be fair, the stories they use to push their way aren’t always bad, but its clear they use these stories as weapons of force to attack what others create and enjoy. They often ride on the coattails of other writers and sincere audiences and start locking down concepts, qualites, and what the writer does with them into neat little theories and formulas, arrogantly assume they are the objective end-all-be-all and “interesting”, and rule everything else out as worthless “boring” garbage which then they force onto aspiring writers

But the point is this excessive need to show struggle, pain, and trauma to show fortitude of morality, courage, and hope leads many wearing down overtime to the point of fragility and break down into nihilism and despair. Most people can’t run on fumes forever.

When you use such story beats you need to fill the void left behind with something that while not replace the character, or ship, is similiar enough to remedy the pain and help the audience move on

One Piece for example does this brilliantly with inherited will and dreams being one of it’s major themes. Sabo for this particular case.

When Ace died at the hands of the authoritarian Akainu, Sabo returned from the dead organically to inherit his power, remedy Luffy’s pain from his loss, and filled the void for us fans that Ace’s death had left.

Sabo like Ace is cocky, rougish, witty, has a strong sense of brotherhood, but is also affected by Ace’s death as badly as Luffy as regret and guilt haunts him from regaining his memories in the worst way possible and failing to be with his sworn brothers.

Plus with the vague implications of an afterlife, all of this helps the Audience heal, recover, find peace, and move on from the pain along side Luffy.

Because Sabo being similiar enough to Ace, but not too similiar to the point of being a carbon copy, and Ace’s death affecting Sabo himself just as much as Luffy and now wielding the powers of The Flame-Flame Fruit, Sabo has inherited the role, dreams, and will of Ace in the most respectful way.

But these people who pride themselves on runing on pure tragic hopepunk believes that this inhibits one from moving on for some strange reason. Often calling it “deterimental”

Its like saying The Classic Star Wars Trilogy somehow nullifies the tragedy of the Prequel Trilogy or Fate Unlimited Bladeworks somehow undoes the raised stakes and consequences and suffering of Fate Zero.

Real hopeful people assert themselves in a black hole of negativity apparently.

To be a true warrior of hope and change, you must have nothing to lose all the time, you must be stripped down to a bloody skeleton and force yourself to laugh in spite of the screaming agony and never heal, at least not entirely or else you’ll regress.

Real hope doesnt need any sort of romantic or familiar anchor to be good, it denies itself of any joy to force oneself to be joyful while undergoing nearly constant torment.

And even then, if it seems to be too joyful to the powers-that-be with their nebulous measure of what is “not enough” or “too much”, or what is “interesting” or what is “boring”, that self begotten joy must be negated as well.

“Superheroes are not allowed to have happy personal lives” Thus spake Dan Didio the infalliable former chairman of DC comics

And like the SJWs, these concieted edgelords pretending opposing voices don’t exist except when to blame them, complain about them, insult them, and try to corall them into little pens of restrictive dissent which in this case is often romcoms, sitcoms, slice-of-life anime, or alternatives while are objectively well written, aren’t exactly what they are looking for.

Spy x Family for example is one of their dumping grounds for all dissent. While it is a great show and has some lovable characters and couples to root for, it doesnt always scratch peoples very spefic itches.

Not to mention these snobs treat as “a noble exception” that they “the right people” approve of for nay-sayers because their voices are the only voices that matter while everyone else gets poo-pooed away.

Which turned me off from watching Spy x Family for a while because I felt like I was being herded into a little pen like a sheep by these jerks told to shut up and be content with that. It felt like they wanted to contain and control me, not actually listen to what I wanted and help me find what I was specifically looking for.

And these sophists like the woke see themselves as some sort of resistance to the system, when in reality they are just as part of the system.

Because as many have seen with the New Atheist Movement, when you try to create a vision for the world on a negative idea, it does not lead to an improved set of morals and sense of purpose but rather a sucking vaccum, which is being filled by the very ideology this camp as many others despise and rightfully so.

But either this group is either oblivious to their own contirbution of the problem, or just dont care and still want their niche taste to be the foundation of all epic science fiction and fantasy.

Its like what Critical Hub said in his videos critiqing the Jedi Order by the time of the Clone Wars

They basically taught their padawans emotional supression and feelings and attachments were a disease, even those that were of the very Light Side they were supposed to represent.Then acted shocked when their unhealthy approach to emotions contributed to Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side and turn to Darth Sidious who was the only one to actually adressed what the Jedi Order refused to consider other than “just meditate harder.”

To be fair, I’ve been told my taste and approach to epic sci-fi and fantasy is niche. Fine, maybe it is. But I’m not saying my camp is the majority or minority nor am I trying to claim I a speak for everybody. I’m not trying to hide anything. I’m selective. I like some niche things, and I like some broad things. Everybody does. I am selective when it comes to tragic romance. Sometimes I spare the pairs, my faith influences my writing and worldbuilding and morals. I’m not denying any of this.

All I know with bumping into others online and those liking and rebloging my posts on various social media platforms, I know I am not the only one who feels this way or at least there people who despite their differences with me, can humor me in good faith knowing I do have something to say.

I’m not saying my camp is bigger than the opposing one, I’m just saying it exists and by the looks of it, we’re big enough.

And with the rise of indie content and fanfiction’s positive attention there’s now an oppertunity for people like me to make our voices heard without jumping through beuracratic hoops and abiding restrictive petty limitations of so-called “literary experts” or corporate entertainment overlords.

And these edgelords seem to be complaining a lot about that, that those they disagree with now have just as much as a platform as they do and those on the fence are willing to listen. Mostly because those formats do with concepts and export characters into the stories that Western Mainstream Media has almost completely abandoned for a dialectic of either pure marxism or pure tragic negation which many are now trying to escape.

This group had poisoned the well of fanfiction for years. Lumping it indiscriminately with bad fanfic or the fact it allegedly doesn’t follow “conventional storytelling” and supposedly “too idealistic” in their narratives even when written well, so therefore it ultimately doesn’t count.

As well as indie voices not getting any real attention.

And their discouraging of others from reading fanfiction and indie writers who they didn’t like as well as the dominance of big entertainment allowed them to feel secure.

But thats not the case anymore, and like the Skeptic Community reacting to the resurgance of Christianity and more people questioning the credibility of said community, they have begun spiraling into petty egotistical whining

“How dare these uncultured swine enjoy these frustrating works and not abide to our expertise! We are important figures in pop-culture and literature who they WILL respect!” they ranted

While crying crocodile tears over lovable character’s deaths the trillionth time to prove to themselves and everyone else how much righteous martyrs they are.

It reminds of one of my favorites movies, UHF staring Weird Al Yankovic as the main character. In the movie, the protagonist gets a uhf station from his uncle to start his own local tv shows

and is brushed off by the Channel 6 Station headed by the concieted and egomanical RJ Fletcher who’s crew bullies the other whenever they cross paths.

But once the station starts picking up steam and starts gaining more positive attention of the town, Fletcher is outraged and tries to forcibly buy it off from Weird Al’s uncle who needs to pay off a lost bet. Which in response our hero starts raising money to pay off the debt which with his main star leading the charge.

RJ in one last attempt to stay in power gets his goons to kidnap the star of the station and try to starve off the income. During this time Weird Al’s girlfriend tries to convince RJ to leave the station alone which RJ keeps denying anyone actually enjoying UHF, but when the leading lady keeps insisting otherwise and points out the fact that competition is necessary for a healthy community, RJ finally acknowledges the community’s appreciation for the rival station.

But intstead of doing so to come to terms with this very fact, RJ proceeds to insult that very community that appreciates Al’s station as well as his own.

And later on after the footage is recorded by Weird Al’s friend Dr.Philo and when RJ Fletcher tries to frame UHF is an immoral subversive force within the city.

He then, like the smug RWBY V3 fans I encountered, talks the talk of doing this out of being a concerned and virtous citizen.

But the footage plays over his broadcast and the mask of civility and nobility that he has worn for decades breaks with Fletcher railing against that very community he claims to serve.

and finishing with the only value he sees in this community as a crowd he can bend to his will and elevate his station for his own personal glory and ego.

Of course Weird Al pays off the bet and keeps the station and RJ Fletcher looses his as the price of his own arrogance and cruelty.

This group of militant “Anti-Nihlists” who ride the coattails of writers of hopeful tragedy who’s works they use as weapons to attack others and SJW’s who see franchises as a means to broadcast their utopian vision, both have some things in common with Mr.Fletcher.

They are a pair of people who had managed to make their way to the top and stay in power, they controlled the options for the masses, managed to keep others from listening to opposing voices, they were two dueling monopolies who when not busy ripping each other’s throats out would be gaslightining, bullying and patronizing the masses who they saw as cattle to lord over and heard around.

Because they annointed themselves as the all-knowing, all-seeing arbiters of epic sci-fi and fantasy who as one would say “have it all figured out.”

When the people grew weary and turned to the very people and places these snobs told them to stay away from and actually begin to consider the viewpoints of the supposed crackpots and idiots, these huaghty self-annointed arbiters of epic storytelling began to spiral out of control and started lashing out at the very people they claimed to speak for.

As well as dissident demographics who as I said before they kept insisting were non-existant execept when to complain about them as either unwashed masses of sheep or minority of vermin who shouldn’t ever get what they want.

All justifying their behavior, hypocricy, and boulde standards in morals and logic with the attitude of “we know better than you.”

These two sides while they may despise each other, are willing to put up with each other and even make deals with each other under the table in order to force those in the middle to chose their respective side. As well as their ideologies both about being “subversive” of a common enemy which from my perspective is tradtional Christian values and western values as a whole

which both parties percieve to be blame for everything wrong in the never existed in the first place.

deceptions and mistakes of culture that are supposedly to world, never did any good for anyone, and probably should

and more-sweet-than-bitter stories for making people soft and gets a negative contations now-a-days, or enforcing

The edgelords blaming noblebright
weak and “saccharine” which often
“patriarchal, heternormative, Christo-Fascist values” by the Marxists.

CS Lewis spoke about this dilemma in explaining of how The Devil decieves the world. Old Nick loves to send his lies in pairs of polar opposites. He relies on us to choose one out of our hatred for the other when those of the faith are called to walk the narrow path.

I experinced this with the RWBY Fandom with both those who are unhappy with RWBY and those who were fine they way it was.

I shipped, and still do to this day, Arkos, BlackSun, IceBerg, Renora, and RoseGarden among other few minor ships all of whom I thought should have survived and had a happy ending.

I felt RWBY V3 onward was becomign too dark and aimlessly grim.

Anyone who has seen my RWBY Redux video(a project I decided to cancel due to personal reasons and export these characters and ideas into new stories instead) I had a lot of unorthodx ideas of what RWBY, it’s world, it’s characters, and mythos could have been instead

All of which are based on my own personal tastes and distastes as well as my moral believes, especially my beliefs as a Christian, Roman Catholic to be exact.

In the past during my younger days on social media, I was lectured, patronized, and even berated for this by the unhinged amongst both camps because one side saw me as not dark enough and wanted everything to be all “sunshine and rainbows” or “ice cream and sugarplumb faries” and the other side saw me as not woke enough and was “heternormative”, “homophobic”, and “forcing my religious beliefs onto others”

They both would tell me nobody in the RWBY community, or anyone in the human population of earth for that matter would find my ideas interesting, which again I explained to them that they were given how they were defending RWBY V3 onward from naysayers and while we may not be bigger than themselves, we exist, and we’re big enough.

Which then as I have said before the two camps only acknowledge the existence of the potential audience only to bemoan them, belittle them, and how they should all just shut up and watch Disney or a sticom.

It seemed to me the reason they both hated my values was because they displace these two factions as the measure of all things by something and someone higher than themselves who takes things into account which the other won’t touch with a 50 foot pole and would reasonate with certain demographics of people who these two waring factions both couldn’t stand breathing the same air as them and those who while may disagree us, dare to have reasonable dialogue with us in good faith.

Because as What The Egad has pointed out in his free speech values video, reasonable people live the the uncomfortable space in the grey area due to the fallen, yet redeemable, nature of man, while acknowledging objective morality and values.

Which is ironic because both the radical left and the edgelords will chide others for “seeing things in black and white” while they sort to the same extreme black and white thinking when it suits their agenda because once again, they belive they have the higher knowledge and understanding to do so.