K-Pop and K-Dramas: Common Misconceptions About BTS Part 2

Photo of Park Jimin during an interview event. Copyright goes to Big Hit Entertainment and BTS.

Hey! Hallie here!

The last time I wrote one of these I promised it would be a series, so here’s the second one! The first post in this series was a bit more serious. I talked mostly about the more negative assumptions made about the boys, or negative thoughts people assume most ARMY’s have before they enter the fandom and find out what it’s like for themselves. With all of that out of the way, I want to talk about a few of the lighter misconceptions people have about the members of BTS. A lot of this is coming from my own experience. My sister was an ARMY several months before I became one, which led to me hearing a lot about them without knowing enough to draw the right conclusions. Some of this is also coming from assumptions a lot of new ARMY’s, or people on the cusp of becoming ARMY’s, make that I’ve heard about recently. Whether or not you’ve believed these things before, hopefully you learn something from this list!

Jimin’s Style is Androgynous: Let me break down what androgynous means in this context. Jimin stylistically is often paired with pastel colors, flowers, and either more flowy or tighter fitting clothing than the rest of the members of BTS. In general, a lot of his style is pinned to be a cross between feminine and masculine styles, and a bit more feminine than the rest of BTS. This isn’t an unfounded assumption either. Jimin has worn clothing on stage and in photo shoots that has reflected this. I think the biggest misconception here is that the looks every member of BTS choose for their stage presences are exactly the style they prefer off-stage. Just like most artists, their stage presences look and feel a bit different from who the BTS boys really are and what they really enjoy. If you look at photos taken of Jimin outside of photo shoots and stage appearances, he likes a lot of black and white. He likes a good leather jacket. He is often found wearing black skinny jeans and some cool sunglasses. Sometimes he likes showing off his tattoos. There are even accounts of himself and Yoongi accidentally wearing outfits that are very similar and having a good laugh about it. While I don’t doubt Jimin likes some nice pastels and some fun flowers, it shouldn’t be mistaken for his entire style preference.

J-Hope isn’t Serious: I see a lot of people assuming J-Hope is the jokester of the group based off of how he interacts with others in interviews. He’s always energetic, willing to get up and dance in front of people when the conversation lulls, and is always ready with a loud response for a lighthearted question. But his energetic and enthusiastic attitude doesn’t mean he can’t be a serious guy. J-Hope is the dance leader for BTS and often contributes to and helps teach the choreography. All of the members of BTS have talked about how serious and sometimes scary Hoseok can be when he’s teaching. Sometimes they’ll even recall messing up a piece of the choreography during a live performance and looking up in time to make eye contact with him. He notices almost every mess up, but he’s also helpful and willing to go through choreography with the members only minutes before performance. Hoseok is also known for checking in with the other members frequently. He does this so often, in fact, that Namjoon has said that he is the honorary second leader. He is known to be one of the most responsible and caring members of the group despite his love of laughter.

Jungkook is Naive: This is a misconception that is mostly given to Jungkook because he’s the youngest member. Some people enjoy babying him, but others genuinely believe that he doesn’t know much or is immature. This idea only circulated more when ‘BTS in the Soop’ showed Taehyung and Jungkook ensuring their relationship wasn’t growing apart after Taehyung expressed how he felt he was changing and maturing. This seemed to make some believe that Jungkook was still immature, and the fact that he and Jin, the oldest member, are said to squabble the most of the group didn’t help the situation. However, Namjoon has spoken about how wise and mature Jungkook can be. Some of the members have even said that he has felt like an older brother to them at times despite the fact that he’s younger than all of them. While Jungkook sometimes likes to act cute and innocent, as many of the members do when they’re joking around, that isn’t his entire personality. He’s shown his wisdom multiple times to fans during interviews, and there are many personality traits he hasn’t shown to fans at all. We shouldn’t assume they aren’t there simply because we can’t see them.

All the Members are Dating/Not Dating: This is actually a pretty hot topic. There’s a lot of back and forth between people who believe the members of BTS are in relationships and the people who are very adamant that they are not. The true answer is we don’t know. All the members of BTS have said that they have no time for relationships, which given how much they do isn’t hard to believe, but they also aren’t allowed to reveal a lot of their personal lives to the public. Big Hit Entertainment is still in charge of their public image, which often benefits from all of them appearing single. That still doesn’t mean that they can’t date or that it’s impossible for them to date. But it’s also incorrect to assume that any one of them is absolutely in a relationship. The simple answer is, anyone who takes any side in this argument is just as in the dark as everyone else. No one has an answer and no one should assume that they have one. This is also personal information BTS doesn’t owe the general public, so it’s best to simply let the topic go.

I’m not done with this series yet, but I’ll leave this post for now. This one is a bit lighter than my last post, but there’s still a lot I hope any ARMY of any type can take from it. The most important take away from this post is simply that we should stop assuming we know everything about these boys. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that we aren’t personally close with them considering how devoted they are to the fans and how much behind the scenes content we get. But none of us truly know them personally. We know the personalities they show the world, but not the traits they keep for the people in their personal lives. They are human beings with multiple facets to their personalities that only their loved ones can completely appreciate. ARMY’s can, however, support them for the kind people they are and appreciate the heartfelt work they put out into the world. Every member of BTS is amazing and they deserve to be appreciated for their complexities just as much as the amazing traits they show to their fans.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Disney: The Rise of Elizabeth Swann

Screenshot of Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Swann in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films.

Hi! It’s Annie!

MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD! YE BE WARNED. I don’t think I’ve quite made it clear yet how much I have an absolute love for Elizabeth Swann from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ franchise. Not only is Keira Knightley one of my favorite actors all of time, but there were few characters as formative to me as Elizabeth Swann was. She was in an action movie and she kicked ass without being shoved to the sidelines or stuck with a lot of tropes. She was a relatable character and a character I dressed up as and pretended to be so many times growing up it’s probably somewhat embarrassing. Then the second movie came out, and though I didn’t actually see the final two until years later, Elizabeth Swann only seemed to be getting better. They actually gave her several stunts in the subsequent movies as well as many sword fighting scenes. Not to mention that they made her Pirate King in the final movie, something that pleasantly shocked me so much I came to actually find a liking for that movie, which was definitely a bit of a mess. And then they made several blunders to her character at the very end of the franchise. The story had ended and I was certain that they had done this character well, and then they messed quite a few things up at the very last minute. And as these blunders somehow continued, the respect for Elizabeth Swann and the demand that she get something better skyrocketed from the female fans.

The Blunders (Fir-ah!):

In the final movie of the original trilogy movies in this franchise, Will Turner dies. Many clever fans have even spotted that he was killed with his own sword, which is actually pretty poetic. This sucks in general, but also for Elizabeth who had just finally been married to Will by a very exasperated Barbossa. Though it seems like all hope is lost, Jack Sparrow saves Will by having him stab the heart of Davy Jones thus making Will the captain of the Flying Dutchman. The problem? Will can only step on land once every ten years. Yep! Ten years! Elizabeth and Will have one day as a married couple before he has to leave and then Elizabeth just…stays on the island. Elizabeth had been made Pirate King not too long before this and now can technically command an entire fleet of ships but they wrote that she just stays on the little island Will leaves her on. Even though Elizabeth has dreamt of adventure all her life and Will only comes to shore once every ten years so it’s not like staying on the island all the time is because he could come back at any second. Instead of doing the right thing, which would have been to give Elizabeth a ship and crew of her own, they left her stranded on an island. Maybe they should have at least given her a pistol with one shot with which to get revenge on the writers.

The Response:

When the last movie in the trilogy came out, most people just accepted that it was bad. And many of them did admit that Elizabeth’s ending was also bad, but it was just as focused on as all the other plot holes and weirdness in the movie. As the movies gained traction again because of announcements of sequels and now the reboot (or more like a different story in the same world) as well, people went back to watch the movies and Elizabeth Swann gained more of a fan-following than she ever has before. Naturally, many of these fans were women who were grateful to see her brand of representation. The revisit of ‘At World’s End’ caused the outcry regarding her ending to become even louder than it ever was. People demanded to know what happened to her, some even found comfort in the idea that maybe she did find a crew and they just didn’t show it.

Pirates 5:

All of the comfort on this part completely ended when Elizabeth Swann was shown in the most recent movie. Her involvement in the movie was announced pretty last minute in comparison to everyone else’s and Keira Knightley wasn’t all that interested in returning to the role. We all knew that all we could expect was a cameo. But there was still this hope that this cameo would be the confirmation of the story everyone wanted. Instead, we saw the confirmation that Elizabeth did actually spend all her time on that island raising her son. She had seen no Pirate adventures since. And she still remained there even after her son grew up and then waited for both her husband and son to get back. Wonderful. I was really hoping for a shot where a giant ship would come into view and all the characters would turn to see Elizabeth at the helm of it, but instead we find her right where we left her. The Pirate King who loved the sea spent the rest of her life waiting for the men in her life to come back.

The Reboot-ish Movie:

When the reboot was first announced and we were told that these movies would no longer focus on Jack Sparrow, I was really skeptical. Johnny Depp is not a great person in the least and the character of Jack Sparrow has lost most of his wit and personality throughout the years; but it’s still difficult to imagine the franchise without Captain Jack Sparrow. There was a giant group of people calling on Disney to put a woman at the helm of the next movies and many of them were even calling for them to make a movie based off of Elizabeth Swann and her adventures while Will was away. Though we haven’t gotten that exactly, we know that the next movies will feature a female pirate played by Margot Robbie. That actually puts me at ease, even though I am tired of reboots. Margot Robbie is another one of my favorite actors of all time and now I’m pretty excited to see what they’ll do, especially because it isn’t a complete reboot. But I’m not sure this would have happened if it wasn’t for the uproar Elizabeth Swann caused about her unfair ending. If Elizabeth Swann hadn’t inspired us all so much, I’m not sure we would be looking at a female lead for the next movies.

Elizabeth Swann deserved so much better, but it looks like the legacy of her character will carry on to do much more good. I, for one, am really excited to finally get a pirate movie focused on a female pirate. But, of course, I am eternally grateful for the Pirate King that shaped me so much growing up and continues to inspire me and so many others. Long may she reign.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Video Games: Final Fantasy VII’s Female Characters Then and Now

Screenshot of Aerith Gainsborough from ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’. Copyright goes to Square Enix.

Hey! Hallie here!

I’ve been thinking a lot about Square Enix and their female representation recently. Earlier this week I made a post about how disappointed I was when I returned to ‘Kingdom Hearts’ after a few years of not playing it. One of the reasons I was so disappointed was because of the female characters. None of them are good. The ‘Final Fantasy’ games haven’t fared much better. While you’ll get a good female character on occasion, the most recent ‘Final Fantasy’ game, ‘Final Fantasy XV’, had four awful female characters that demonstrated just how far Square Enix still has to go. Of the four characters, Lunafreya dies halfway through the game to further the main character’s plot, Cindy is a scantily clad mechanic meant to be eye candy, Iris is a largely useless character who spends every battle healing the main characters (All are male), and Aranea is dressed in armor that is clearly not very functional. When the ‘Final Fantasy VII’ remake was announced, I was kind of on the fence about it. I didn’t have high hopes that Square Enix would change some of the more problematic things that were included in the characterization of the female characters in the first game, nor did I believe Square Enix was going to make any sort of progress on their female characters in general. But I ended up really liking the female characters in this game. Let’s go through the characters and what changed to make them so good.

Tifa:

Let’s get the most glaring thing out of the way first. In the first game, and multiple appearances of the character afterwards, Tifa had a comically large bust. Her entire outfit was also ridiculously designed to call attention to her exaggerated features. She wore a small white crop top, and a black miniskirt to call attention to her long legs. Considering that Tifa is a close combat fighter who’s specialty is boxing, it isn’t hard to realize how absurd her entire outfit is. Her new outfit isn’t completely better, they still wanted to stay true to the original design, but there are significant improvements. Her crop top is given a black underlayer that prevents it from being too thin or showing off her bust. Her bust size has also been made more reasonable. Though the miniskirt is still present, she’s also given long black socks that give her a little more coverage. It isn’t bad considering everything they wanted to do to keep the outfit recognizable. As for Tifa herself, there are definitely some changes. In the first game Tifa stays behind from Avalanche missions for reasons that are pretty unknown. She’s shown as a motherly figure to Marlene who stays behind to watch her. Her entire motivation to leave and join Cloud is more about her affection for Cloud than anything else. In the remake, Tifa stays behind from Avalanche missions because she’s conflicted about the destruction they cause. But she still wholeheartedly believes in what they do and remains ready to fight to protect them and their beliefs. Tifa’s connection to Cloud is still present, but she has other motivations she’s willing to fight for. She also doesn’t bring up his childhood promise to protect her nearly as often, which is a nice change.

Aerith:

Aerith has no major design issues. She does, however, fall neatly into a pretty large stereotype in the first game. While she does fight, she’s pretty clearly the sweet, helpless girl who needs protection. While she playfully gives Cloud the position of her bodyguard in both games, it’s pretty clear that she needs one in the first game. In fact, she mentions to Cloud on multiple occasions how grateful she is to have someone there who will make sure nothing harms her. Aerith also dies to further Cloud’s story. She dies while Cloud has pretty obvious feelings for her so that Cloud can be all angsty about it. In the new game there’s an interaction that you can randomly get before entering a battle that sums up Cloud and Aerith’s relationship pretty well. Cloud says, “I’ll protect you”. Aerith responds with “I’m pretty good at protecting myself, you know”. She doesn’t need the help but she knows that Cloud’s help couldn’t hurt, and that Cloud is pretty messed up and needs someone to understand him. She encourages him to interact with the people of her village, and employs him herself, because she knows that he needs the interaction. She’s pretty badass too. The entire fight between Cloud and Reno she stays on the sidelines, but only to yell at them about how they’re trampling her flowers. She later fights with Cloud against Rude and refuses to let him give her directions. She also competes with Cloud in the arena in Wall Market, a scenario that doesn’t happen in the first game, and is just as highly praised as Cloud. There are even portions of the game where Tifa and Aerith go off on their own, in which case the player takes control of Aerith. On top of all that, it seems her premature death will be completely avoidable in this new continuity.

Jessie:

There isn’t much to say about Jessie in the original game. Jessie’s just one of the members of Avalanche. She has a cool design, and it’s nice that another woman is involved in Avalanche, but she’s given mostly nothing. She’s given the background that she was once an actress and then she dies in the early stages of the game, eliminating one of the only female characters. Jessie is given a personality in the remake. She flirts with Cloud because it’s fun, but she’s pretty clear that it’s mostly playful banter. There’s an entire mission added into the story where you learn about her parents, visit her house, and help her come up with plans for her next bombs. She also struggles with guilt over how much her last bomb destroyed despite her calculations, and claims full responsibility for the entire situation though she isn’t completely at fault. Her death is also implied to be fixable in the new continuity, which would give the series yet another major female character. The remake gave us an entire personality for Jessie that I hope we’ll be able to continue to explore in the future.

Square Enix made some major strides with these characters, especially compared to some of their recent releases. The remake is taking the entire story much more slowly, so it’s pretty natural that the characters are receiving a bit more personality than they had before. But they took care to avoid and contradict some of the harmful aspects of these characters that were present from the first game. I’m excited to see what they do with the other female characters we haven’t seen yet. Particularly Yuffie, who’s considered one of the most annoying video game characters of all time. I’m not completely convinced that Square Enix has changed or that we won’t see more setbacks from them in the future. But I can’t deny how much I appreciate the steps forward they took in ‘Final Fantasy VII Remake’.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Disney: What Was With Frozen 2?

Promotional image for ‘Frozen 2’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Studios.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I just watched ‘Frozen 2’ a couple days ago, yes I know I’m late, and I have a lot of thoughts. I’m going to be completely honest here and say now that I wasn’t the biggest fan of the first ‘Frozen’ film. Sure, I didn’t hate it. It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But I didn’t really connect to Elsa and how much she was pushing others away, nor did I like the idea that love just fixed everything at the end. And yes, I also was one of the people who could not stand ‘Let it Go’. Maybe I would have liked it better if it wasn’t played as much? In the end I really couldn’t understand why this movie gained so much popularity in comparison to movies like ‘Tangled’. Over the past few years I’ve revisited the movie and was able to understand the movie and it’s popularity a bit more. Elsa doesn’t realize what she’s doing is selfish because she’s so much in her own head and in her own depression at that point. How many children’s movies do you see that actually try to tackle mental illness? Though the “love will thaw” thing at the end promotes a pretty bad understanding of mental illness (it’s a process not a sudden epiphany), but at least they did try to tackle it. Also, though this isn’t the only Disney princess film to focus on promoting strong female characters, this is one of the only ones to focus mostly on two strong female characters along with ‘Brave’. Yay for passing the Bechdel test! But this recent movie is a mess, to put it lightly. I saw a lot of people saying that they liked it better than the first one, and really I don’t understand. I appreciate that they went for an original story in the age of reboots and recreating the original, but there were so many things about this movie that were so bad my jaw was literally on the floor in disbelief. So what made this movie so bad? WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS!!!

Elsa:

Just in case you’re worried, I’m not saying that Elsa was bad in this film. In fact, she was one of the only characters with a semi-good and complete feeling story. That doesn’t mean that her part of the story was completely good. When Elsa starts out the movie she hears a voice calling to her that she doesn’t seem to know exactly what it is. This bit in general feels like Disney responding to how bad the “love will thaw” epiphany was and them trying to retcon it, but I digress. When Anna later asks Elsa what happened, Elsa for some reason knows immediately that she woke up the spirits of the forest. She and Anna promise each other that they will stay by each other’s sides during this adventure, which I actually really liked. I thought, at the beginning of this movie, Elsa and Anna’s bond was one of the best and most healthy depictions of a sibling bond I have seen in a long time. But then Elsa pushes Anna and Olaf away again towards the middle of the movie. Isn’t this the lesson we learned in the last movie? Not to push people away? Apparently Elsa hasn’t learned anything! But she’s immediately forgiven when she rejoins the group and, though both Anna and Olaf are angry at her betrayal initially, this note is never touched on again. Pushing people away and finding your own way in the world are not the same thing, and this movie acknowledges that and then treats those two things like they’re exactly the same.

Anna:

What the heck happened to Anna in this movie? She barely has any character growth of her own! In the first movie Anna is caring, brave, and adorable. She’s an endearing character that teaches an important lesson about trusting people too quickly while her sister teaches the opposite lesson of what happens if you don’t trust anyone at all. Anna has none of that here. Her entire character is based around helping Elsa. In the beginning of the movie there’s an entire song about how Anna doesn’t want anything to change, and though it’s a cliché, I though this would be Anna’s lesson throughout the movie. To be accepting of change. Instead this is pretty much never addressed again and Olaf seems to mention the change thing even more than Anna. In fact, a lot of this movie felt like it was struggling to find things for any character but Elsa to do. Also, why the hell was Anna blowing up on Kristoff all the time? I thought that they might be trying to show that Anna now had trauma from the betrayal of Hans, but the movie never touches on it and definitely doesn’t even try to fix the problem. You start wondering if Anna and Kristoff should even be together. Kristoff is supportive of her the entire time and all she ever does in this movie is try to find reasons why Kristoff doesn’t want to be with her. She is not at all the character she is in the first movie, and that might have been fine if they had actually taken a couple seconds to focus on her growth.

Olaf:

I have always liked Olaf and he was one of the only things that remained consistent for me as my opinions on the first movie changed. I liked him even when I thought the movie was bad. Olaf has a few good scenes in this movie and he got a few laughs from me, but it really felt as though the writers were trying too hard to make Olaf funny. So many of his jokes felt forced. Not only that, but it seemed like they were setting up Olaf to have this entire journey in trying to deal with change and growing up. But they only mentioned this a couple times, killed him off, and then brought him back pretty similarly to what happened in the first movie. He never gets to have his own storyline, just like Anna, and he’s really not important to the main plot at all. He’s there to be…well…there. Josh Gad is always amazing, but I couldn’t help but note how much better Olaf was in his own shorts than in this movie.

Kristoff:

Poor Kristoff. They literally leave without him part way through the movie. Throughout this entire movie it feels like Anna doesn’t even care about him. The writers really just didn’t know what the hell to do with his character. Most of the time he’s on screen they do this running joke where he keeps trying to propose to Anna. There really isn’t a good time for this in the movie considering that they’re trying to save several groups of people. Because of Anna leaving him and blowing up on him he has the realization that Anna might be growing apart from him and might not want to be with him. Which, considering her reactions to him, I really don’t blame him for having this thought. And then he appears suddenly at the end of this movie to be his usual supportive self and (say it with me, folks) they never touch on this plotline again. They set up so much in this movie just for them to never use it.

The Music:

It’s not great. It’s really not memorable. I can’t recall half of the songs in the movie. I will say that there are two songs that I like. “Show Yourself’ as well as the lullaby that goes with it are beautiful, though I’m part of the small margin who doesn’t usually enjoy Idina Menzel’s (Adele Dazeem’s) voice, I actually really enjoyed this song. I thought it was beautiful for Elsa’s character and it taught an amazing lesson about becoming the person you are waiting for and expressing yourself. Then the other song that I liked was ‘Lost in the Woods’, a song that does not match with the rest of the movie in the least. Though I love Jonathan Groff’s voice and I thought the rock ballad was hilarious, it didn’t match with the plot or the tone of the movie. I appreciate that they really went for it here, but it just didn’t fit. Though I didn’t like some of the music from the original, I can admit that (barring “Fixer Upper” which was truly terrible) the music was catchy and memorable. This movie has no such luck.

The Ending:

The plot of this entire movie is convoluted and a giant mess with all of it’s loose threads. But nothing made me so mad as the ending of this film. Anna realizes that the only way to break the curse is to break the dam, effectively drowning all of Arendelle. It is evacuated at that point, but it’s a pretty ballsy thing for a Disney movie to do. It’s also pretty clear; they have to get rid of the life that they made by the slaughter of an entire group of people. And they…don’t do it. Elsa saves the day and you’re left wondering how they could have missed the point when a literal tsunami was coming right at them. You are also left wondering what the point of the entire plot was in the first place.

Like I said, I have more of a respect for the original film now. I don’t think it was as bad as I originally thought and Elsa has become much more of an understandable and relatable character in my eyes. There’s a beauty to it, even though it’s not the best Disney film ever created and you still can’t make me like ‘Let it Go’. How did they mess everything and everyone up so badly here except for maybe Elsa? It almost makes you wonder if they actually wanted to make an Elsa movie and then thought that they had to add all of the other characters in. Just like the first film, this should have been split more equally between the characters and really it should have been more concisely written. I wanted to like this movie, I really did. Now I’m just hoping they’ll leave all of the characters alone and not try to bank in a Frozen 3.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

K-Pop and K-Dramas: A Breakdown of the BT21 Characters

Poster art of the BT21 characters as created by BTS. Copyright goes to LINE FRIENDS and Big Hit Entertainment.

Hey! Hallie here!

If you’re a BTS fan you’ve probably seen the cute characters from the photo above. If you don’t know who they are, however, these characters are the BT21 line BTS and LINE FRIENDS collaborated on. Each character was created by a member of BTS with the help of some very talented LINE FRIENDS artists. A good chunk of BTS’s merchandise, especially before the Tiny Tan line dropped, have been based on these guys. Even the band members themselves own pillows, pajamas, and plushies of the characters they created. The members of BTS also sat down to decide on the stories for each character, and the collective storyline for all the characters together. With their ideas in mind, LINE FIRENDS have been releasing shorts depicting all of the things the group discussed. We’ll be heading into more major story arcs for the BT21 characters soon, so, in honor of new content incoming, here’s a master list of all the characters, the members who created them, and their story so far.

Tata:

Tata is an alien who’s head resembles a very large heart. Tata was created by Kim Taehyung, or V. Taehyung prefers unique designs when it comes to character creation. In creating Tata he incorporated stretching limbs and various different contrasting shapes in order to make him extremely different from anything seen anywhere else. Tata’s the leader of BT21. He’s a prince from the planet BT, but dislikes the uncaring ways that his family uses magic. In order to prove that his caring and loving approach is more important, Tata left the planet to spread love on Earth. After seeing a BTS music video, he decides the best way to reach people and spread love is to create a music group. He finds the other members of BT21 is order to complete the music group and attempts to put his plan into action. Unfortunately, his brother doesn’t understand his methods and attempts to thwart his efforts in order to bring him home. Tata’s story is only just starting to get interesting with the introduction AT21, the rival group Tata’s brother joined.

RJ:

RJ is a large, fluffy, alpaca with a scarf. Kim Seokjin is the creator of RJ. Jin’s main goal in creating RJ was to create something fluffy and adorable. He also knew pretty early on that he wanted to create an alpaca because he is sometimes told that he looks like one (Why?). RJ grew up on a small hillside where his family, and all the other alpacas who lived there, would shave themselves and sell their fur for money. On one occasion, when the entire hillside was set to shave their fur, RJ left. He left partly because he didn’t want to shave his fur and partly because he wanted to hide his alter ego. Evidently when RJ gets dirty, he turns into Rolo, an evil version of himself. Rolo himself is in AT21, but RJ hasn’t shown this alternate side to BT21 yet. In fact, he’s so passionate about their cause that he decides to shave his fur and sell it as clothing in order to help their struggling finances. RJ’s story is so ridiculously hilarious, only Jin could come up with it.

Mang:

Mang is a purple horse wearing a blue mask. His creator is Jung Hoseok, or J-Hope. J-Hope was told for most of his school life that he resembled a horse (Once again, why?), and while most of these comments were mean-spirited, he obviously took it in stride. His main idea for his character was a horse in honor of these comments, but most of his initial designs weren’t the adorable style that the rest of the group was going for. With some tweaking by designers, an adorable horse character with a lot of the uniqueness J-Hope wanted was created. Mang is a dancer who finds his joy in competing. While he isn’t confident about his true identity, he feels comfort in wearing a mask that resembles his former teacher. Mang is recruited by Tata for his dancing skills and he uses them to win competitions and cash prizes to help BT21’s finances. Unfortunately, the rival dancer he’s been competing against is part of AT21, and he’s not above cheating in order to win.

Cooky:

Cooky is a pink bunny who’s strangely muscular. He was created by Jeon Jungkook, the resident artist of BTS. Jungkook decided to sketch a bunny almost immediately, and it didn’t take much tweaking to settle on the design we see today. Jungkook also sketched him with a giant body-builder-like body, which the designers incorporated later on as a joke, and created a small best friend for him that was actually a cookie. We’ll get back to the cookie later. Cooky is a boxer who spent most of his time with his boxing friends. Until one of his friends brutally injured the other during a boxing match and then disappeared. Cooky was looking for his absent friend when Tata found him. Cooky uses his boxing abilities to win competitions for money, much like Mang. However, Cooky finally locates his friend at one of the boxing matches and, of course, he’s part of AT21.

Shooky:

Shooky is a small brown cookie with a generally mischievous expression. Shooky was created by Min Yoongi, or Suga. Suga wanted to create a dog character based off of his own dog, but Jimin’s dog design ended up preventing his original designs from being completely accepted. Fortunately, Suga’s sketches were mostly faces with various expressions he related to his dog. Designers took Jungkook’s cookie character and added a face based off of Suga’s design to create Shooky. Shooky is one of many cookie children. He was sent to find a replacement baker to take the place of his grandfather when his grandfather became sick, but hoped to find a cure in the meantime. Around this time was when Tata recruited him. Shooky became fast friends with Cooky and spends most of his time playing pranks on the other members of BT21. But Shooky left behind a cookie sibling who was left burnt and forgotten at the bottom of the oven, and he naturally joined AT21.

Chimmy:

Chimmy is a dog wearing a yellow onesie. Chimmy was created by Park Jimin. Jimin was one of the members who wanted to create something obviously cute, and a puppy was one of the first things that came to mind. He created various different outfits for his dog character, but the designers eventually decided to portray him in the onesie Jimin created for him. Chimmy is a lonely dog who was left behind after various puppies were left in a box for sale on the side of the street. He attempted to create friends out of random objects he found in the street, but none of these attempts ever went well. His only comfort was playing his harmonica. Until Tata found him and brought him into BT21. Chimmy busks for money, and sometimes he’ll take all of the members of BT21 out to play music with him as practice for their future careers. However, he’s unaware that another lonely dog was watching him and had just got up the courage to talk to him when Tata found him. Feeling betrayed, the other dog joined AT21.

Koya:

Koya is a blue koala often showed sleeping. He was created by Kim Namjoon or RM. RM created a few designs. He created both a koala and a crow-tit, unsure which would be a better design. The design team encouraged him to go with the koala, and RM focused his attentions on sketching a koala character. Koya was just a normal koala who’s kindness inspired most of the creatures of the forest. He spent most of his time sleeping, but his abnormally high intelligence earned the attention of Tata, who decided to recruit him. Koya is the only reason why BT21 knows who AT21 is. He managed to track them after the group received a sketchy email. He also now knows about the equally intelligent koala who is responsible for AT21’s formation.

VAN:

VAN is a white and gray robot who’s much larger than the other members of BT21. He was created by the design team as a surprise for BTS. VAN acts as BT21’s bodyguard, and as a representations of ARMY. VAN initially belonged to Tata and is the reason why Tata was able to get to Earth in the first place. He helped Tata locate every member of BT21 and he protects the entire group. Most recently AT21 crashed into him, causing him to break. The repair part he needed was then thrown into a large jug of milk. Shooky jumped into the jug of milk to retrieve it, potentially causing his death. This story has yet to be continued, but obviously Shooky will remain unscathed. Suga was distressed enough when the other boys began considering killing his character off. Hopefully we’ll get a continuation of the crazy plots BTS comes up with soon!

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Netflix Shows: Winx Reboot

Screenshot of the trailer for ‘Fate: The Winx Saga’ starring (from left) Elisha Applebaum, Hannah van der Westhuysen, Abigail Cowen, Precious Mustapha, and Eliot Salt. Copyright goes to Netflix.

Hi! It’s Annie!

Apparently the news for this little reboot has been out for a while and I just haven’t heard about it. Yes, I have in fact been living under a rock. The Winx was definitely one of my absolute favorite shows growing up. I had all the dolls, I watched every episode I could get my hands on, my sister and I would run around in the backyard pretending we were our favorite characters (Flora and Tecna respectively, you can probably guess which one), you get the picture. I loved the pastel world, and I’ve held onto my love of pastel colors, and I wanted to be a fairy flying around with them. I was sure that the Winx series had been forgotten, so imagine my surprise when this was announced. And now I definitely wish that this series had remained in it’s time. I am not one for a dark gritty reboot, but that is the least of the problems here. I hate to tear down a show before it even comes out or without any of us giving this a chance, but there is no excuse for many of the things that happened here.

Whitewashing:

One of the reasons why the original Winx club was so beloved was because of the diversity. Of this six member team, three of the main characters were white. Bloom, Tecna, and Stella. Flora was Latina, Musa was East Asian, and Aisha was Black. This diversity was also reflected in the cast of voice actresses for the characters. Though in this new reboot a Black woman was cast as Aisha, Musa and Flora received no such luck. Musa and Flora are both played by white women. The magic of this show (pun intended) was that anyone could be a fairy or even a princess. It didn’t matter what your race was, and the lineup of fairies testified to that. Aisha was also a princess in the original show, which now has also been revoked. It was actually a pretty big part of her character. Now the only person who can be a princess is Stella, one of the traditionally white characters. This is not only disappointing, it’s downright hurtful. I’ve had friends who watched Winx and were grateful to see a cartoon character that looked like them. Really, all these creators needed to see was the immediate Twitter reaction to their trailer to know that they messed up big time when it came to casting.

Tecna:

Anyone familiar with the original Winx probably automatically noticed the lack of Tecna, the fairy of technology. Though she was another white character, Tecna was really important for a different reason. The fight to make intelligent female characters has always been a difficult one, and the presence of them in new media largely happened due to characters like Hermione Granger becoming popular. But more than that, it’s difficult to find female characters interested in STEM. Tecna was that. She was actually one of the first female characters in media that I saw being extremely interested in STEM. Tecna inspired me to study science more seriously. Instead of having a badass STEM character, they have now combined Musa’s music power and Tecna’s technology power into one power that they have called “mind”. Which is basically just that she’s an empath and has to wear headphones to keep people’s feelings out of her head. So more like neither? At least she will be spared from the reboot treatment.

Terra?:

Why change Flora’s name to Terra? Why? The only reason that I can see is that Flora’s name is too “girly”. Since when has anyone said that femininity is a bad thing? Seriously, what’s the point of this?

Gritty:

I’m really sick of people taking beloved childhood franchises and making them darker (both figuratively and literally). First of all, making the colors and camera work darker takes a lot of the vibrancy of a fantasy world away. The original Winx world was, as I said, bright and pastel. It was that way for a reason, not just to be “girly”. It was that way because the artists were making a fantasy world that you’d want to live in. Really, this show was originally a children’s show for a reason. Leave it alone and come up with another idea if you want gritty. Winx was always a positive and safe world for me to escape to when I was growing up and I don’t think making it a dangerous world now does anything for the story and definitely not for the franchise.

Reboots:

We’re just getting far too much of these anyways. I love many of these franchises and some of them I initially feel excited about seeing again. But the truth of these is that it’s the studios playing it safe. This isn’t the result of people not having any new ideas. People still do, but because reboots are safe those people aren’t seen or heard by studios so much anymore. More than ever it seems like studios are even running out of ideas for reboots as well. Which is why things like Winx are getting pulled back up out of nowhere. I love many of these original franchises, but I can go back and watch them. I want to love new stuff too.

Hopefully the creators will have already learned something from the initial feedback they received on Twitter. We don’t want to see this many reboots, especially not when they are completely whitewashed. Even though this new season will still come out, hopefully this is an example that writers will learn from in the future. Meanwhile, I will go back to watching the original Winx and pretending that this never happened.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Twins in Media: Liv and Maddie vs Zack and Cody

Screenshot of Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse from ‘The Suite Life on Deck’. Copyright goes to It’s a Laugh Productions and Disney Channel.

Hey! Hallie here!

We’re back with Twins in Media! This week I’m looking at the most popular Disney Channel twins, and some of the most popular twins from American television in general. ‘The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’ was one of my favorite shows as a kid. I loved watching it and absolutely didn’t mind the way it represented twins. ‘Liv and Maddie’ was the show my younger cousin watched that made her interested in what it was like for my sister and I to be twins. Both have had some sort of impact on me, but neither are perfect. Let’s put these two sets of twins head-to-head to see which one comes out on top.

Tropes:

Zack and Cody: These two suffer mainly from the Opposites twin trope. Cole is the brain and Zack is the ladies man. Cole attempts to abide by the rules while Zack creates trouble. One of the appeals of the show is how different the two are. But such drastic differences aren’t something you usually see in real twins. Twins are just like regular siblings. We have major differences, but we are in no way total opposites. In fact, many twins have various similarities because of their upbringing in the same household. And, once again, just like any human, twins can have common traits and different traits simply because they are different people. Zack and Cody also suffer from the Mischievous trope we see in a lot of twin characters. I don’t know how twins got the reputation for constantly playing pranks, but most don’t really do that. We don’t even switch places. We would rather others recognize us for who we are than mistake us for each other. That happens enough without us trying at it. Additionally, Zack and Cody have a few small moments where twin telepathy is referenced. There’s even a plot where the two share the same dream, which is implied to have happened because they are twins. Once again, the magical connections twins are rumored to have do not exist. You’d be surprised how many people are convinced of them, or have horrifically tried to prove that one is there.

Liv and Maddie: Once again, this show used the Opposites trope to advertise their main twin characters. Liv is a glamorous actress who is often too selfish to notice what’s happening around her. Maddie is a basketball player who is more introverted and geeky. This trope is even more obvious in the marketing for this show than it is for ‘The Suite Life of Zack and Cody’. It went as far as to have each twin stand on each side of the poster, Maddie in her blue basketball uniform and glasses while Liv wore a sparkly pink dress and heels. It’s heavy-handed, but it’s also the main offence against twins this show makes.

Winner: Liv and Maddie take this one. While the Opposites trope is a bit more obvious for them, the show also wisely stayed away from any twin telepathy plots and didn’t have much in the way of simultaneous speaking. In fact, the major differences between Liv and Maddie seemed to be the reason why the show avoided these tropes. Which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it spared these two from suffering from the amount of tropes Zack and Cody did.

Differences and Similarities:

Zack and Cody: I’ve pretty much already highlighted this above. These two are opposites. They find themselves in similar situations because they spend a lot of time together, but they don’t have much in common. The best I can say about them is that they were played by two different actors who happen to be twins. That difference is an appreciated one. As a twin, I can pretty easily tell most twins apart. When one actor is playing twins it takes more convincing for me to get into a story. To see twins playing twins allows me to better enjoy a story and appreciate the actual differences between the real twins.

Liv and Maddie: They have even more obvious differences though the show does attempt to show similarities in order to demonstrate why the two are so close. The similarities aren’t as large or as often explored, though. Plus, they are played by the same actress. Twins always, always, have physical differences, even if it’s difficult for others to see them. Seeing one person portray two twins is never realistic.

Winner: Zack and Cody take this one. Though the story does less to demonstrate the similarities they share or why they are so close, their differences are at least a little less obvious that Liv and Maddie’s. They are also played by real twins which gives them differences Liv and Maddie can never achieve.

Relationship:

Zack and Cody: Zack and Cody’s relationship is the main draw of the entire show. It’s just a bit questionable sometimes. Zack bullies Cody a lot for being nerdy. Meanwhile Cody often doesn’t appreciate Zack for being reckless. While they always make up after arguments, a lot of their relationship is built off of a sibling rivalry. They compete over most things in the effort to prove their way of life or way of thinking better than their brother’s. It isn’t the healthiest relationship, or the most accurate considering that the sibling rivalry is entirely based on their opposite traits.

Liv and Maddie: These two are very close, much like Zack and Cody, but sibling rivalries are much less of an issue in this show. There’s a quote that gets brought up in this show quite often. “Sisters by chance. Friends by choice.” It isn’t the most poetic quote, it is from a Disney Channel show after all, but it sums up their relationship well. They’re friends despite being opposites, and most of their problems arise from a sometimes misguided desire to help one another overcome personal difficulties. On occasion they get in each other’s way, but they remain close despite it. You never question how much they enjoy spending time together.

Winner: Liv and Maddie win this one. Not only is their sibling relationship healthier, but it also touches on a very annoying assumption most people make about twins. It’s the assumption that because we’re twins, we have to get along. Most people, in fact, talk about how nice it would be to have a twin to like all of the same things they like. But that isn’t a realistic view. Twins, just like regulars siblings, have similarities and differences. We don’t like all of the same things and we don’t always agree. But we have found that we enjoy being friends with one another, and that has nothing to do with any extreme similarities we have because we are twins.

Plot:

Zack and Cody: Zack and Cody have plots both apart and together. They are treated differently by all characters, have different romantic relationships, and often have different scenes that develop their characters individually. This is even more true when it comes to ‘Suite Life on Deck’, where their storylines branched off far more than they did with the first series. Still, a lot of the episodes are based on the mischievous hijinks both twins get up to. It’s nice to see that these two have different relationships with their friends and family and are acknowledged as individuals by all characters, but the show prefers to focus on the stories where the two are constantly together. The focus on the plots that they share prevents them from having as much individual character development as they could have. Twins are bound to share plot lines, but Zack and Cody have far too many shared plot lines for two entire television series.

Liv and Maddie: These two spend a lot of time apart, actually. Because they are interested in two different professions, and have very different hobbies, the show doesn’t feel the need to always show them together. Liv has various plot lines where she is dealing with acting drama that Maddie isn’t a part of. Meanwhile, Maddie’s experience with basketball and her school crush are often separated from Liv. Their storylines often intertwine in the end, that is the point of the show after all, but the show gives just as much time to Liv and Maddie growing as individuals as it does to their relationship as twins. Although Liv and Maddie have more obvious opposite traits, the show uses these opposite interests as a way to show their individuality within the plot as opposed to demonstrating how “fun” their opposite personalities are when they butt heads with one another. They argue, and their opposite personalities do occasionally lead to sibling rivalry plots. But that is by no means the main focus of the show.

Winner: Liv and Maddie. They simply get more time to be themselves as individuals, and that is important in any piece of media where twins are the focus. Establishing their sibling relationship is good, but it’s important to make each character different and complex. ‘Liv and Maddie’ does take the differences too far, but I can’t deny how well it does at establishing these two as complex human beings.

Final Result:

Liv and Maddie win. I actually didn’t expect this result. In my initial posts about both of these sets of twins, I gave Zack and Cody higher praise than Liv and Maddie. Liv and Maddie, after all, suffer from two very bad and very common tactics used for portraying twins. They are complete opposites who are played by the same actress. Zack and Cody’s opposite traits are made less obvious to the audience and they are played by actual twins. But looking into the content of the episodes in each series, Liv and Maddie are much more carefully handled. Zack and Cody get a lot of plot lines where they are mischievous just to be mischievous. And while Cody is much less enthusiastic about causing trouble, the plot depends on him to give in anyways. Meanwhile, Liv and Maddie are given plots that detail the difficulties each of them face daily. The things they do together are given just as much importance as what they do apart. In the end, that format creates much less tropes and gives a much better look into how twins really are.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Star Wars: Ahsoka Tano in the Mandalorian

Screenshot of Rosario Dawson in ‘The Mandalorian’. Copyright goes to Walt Disney Studios, Lucas Films, and Disney +.

Hi! It’s Annie!

I haven’t talked much about Star Wars on this blog yet, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a fan. I love the Star Wars franchise, but no part of the franchise, with a possible exemption for the Original Trilogy, is as important to me as ‘The Clone Wars’. Before we ever saw Rey kicking ass, we saw Ahsoka Tano finally be a main female character to pick up a lightsaber for all of us. I have loved Ahsoka Tano for years now, and I think you could probably already guess that she’s my favorite Star Wars character of all time. So I was absolutely shocked and excited to see that Ahsoka Tano would finally be given the live action treatment and join the larger canon. The casting of Rosario Dawson and the knowledge that Dave Filoni would be writing Ahsoka’s first episode, which would later be revealed to be more or less the pilot to her own spin-off series, made me even more excited. The entire time I was binging The Mandalorian I was annoying my family with my non-stop talk about the inevitable episode. I was fully expecting to cry when I saw her brought to life because I’m an emotional bean. And I came out of the episode thinking it was…fine. I didn’t cry. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it! I just had some serious problems with it. And it has nothing to do with Rosario Dawson who I think acted very well with what she was given. I know a lot of people wanted Ashley Eckstein to play the character, but she’s also very busy and I thought, and still think, that Rosario Dawson would do just as good of a job. My problem mostly had to do with writing, to my complete and utter surprise. But Dave Filoni wrote Ahsoka Tano in the first place! How could he mess it up? Let’s go over why I thought this rendition of Ahsoka Tano didn’t quite work.

“I am no Jedi.”:

This is one of my favorite Ahsoka Tano quotes of all time. For those of you who might be newer to the situation, you should know that Dave Filoni also wrote the cartoon ‘Star Wars Rebels’, which is a show that received largely mixed reviews from fans. No one can really decide whether or not they think it’s good. But one thing that people liked about it was the introduction of Ahsoka Tano as a major player in the final few seasons. She was an older and wiser warrior who was suddenly thrust into helping the main characters deal with Darth Vader. It is in this show that Ahsoka discovers her master, Anakin Skywalker, is now Darth Vader and has turned to the dark side. These episodes are some of the most emotional Star Wars content I’ve ever seen. During a battle with her old master after this realization, Ahsoka attempts to get through to Vader where he retorts that he killed Anakin. Ahsoka then changes her tactic and prepares to fight, saying that she will avenge his death. When Vader tells Ahsoka that this is not the Jedi way, she responds with the line above. It is a chilling and powerful moment. It is also a reminder that Ahsoka no longer ascribes with the way of the Jedi, and really she’s been pretty precise on her status as a non-Jedi both before and especially since. So why does Ahsoka never correct Din every single time he calls her a Jedi and why does she carry herself like one when she isn’t? For much of this episode Ahsoka acts like a stiff Jedi master, which is exactly what Ahsoka didn’t want to be and distanced herself from.

“I cannot train you.”:

Ah, the age old Jedi master saying. A Jedi master has several times found throughout the franchise that a person has too much fear in them and fears what will happen if they give this person training. But here’s the thing, Ahsoka isn’t a Jedi master once again. In fact, Ahsoka left the order in part due to the Jedi council’s lack of trust in her. So why is Ahsoka now pushing those exact views onto a little kid? Did we forget that Ahsoka is just as goofy and playful as she is wise? Ahsoka constantly questioned and rebelled against ideas like that even before she left the council. If the Jedi council thought she had too much emotion in a project they would forbid her to go and she would go anyway. I really never expected this non-Jedi to talk so textbook Jedi council when she never has before and pledged never to again.

The next Darth Vader:

I will give them that they gave Ahsoka an excuse as to why she didn’t want to train little Grogu. She’s afraid that with his fear he’ll end up like her master. This, once again, doesn’t make any sense. Ahsoka, as we saw in Rebels, largely blamed herself for Anakin’s descent into the darkness. She thought that her leaving made him bitter towards the light side. And really, that right there could have been a good excuse. Ahsoka is worried that she fails everyone around her. But that’s not what this is. She’s saying here that she will not train someone who might go to the dark side like Anakin did and blames Grogu’s fear. But Ahsoka knew when she left that Anakin was already struggling, which is why she tells him in Rebels that she won’t leave him again when he’s in need. That’s why she blames herself. Ahsoka and Anakin both knew that the Jedi council was putting too much pressure on Jedi not having emotions and Anakin even expressed the desire to also leave when Ahsoka left. To which she responded with “I know”. There are several reasons that Ahsoka could have had for refusing to train Grogu, but his fear was not a viable one for a non-Jedi.

I love Ahsoka and I love seeing Rosario Dawson in the role, but I wish not all Jedi or ex-Jedi who are not young anymore were treated the same by a writing team. Ahsoka has always had a vibrant personality that, yes, with her trauma might have changed a little bit. But it never would have completely gone from her. Watching Ahsoka here felt a lot like watching Yoda and it really shouldn’t have. Especially because she is no Jedi. Hopefully her spin-off series will be better and we’ll get more of Ahsoka being Ahsoka. And is it too much to also ask for Rex?

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie

Video Games: ‘Kingdom Hearts’ Is Disappointing

Screenshot from the ‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ opening. Copyright goes to Square Enix and Disney.

Hey! Hallie here!

My favorite game growing up was ‘Kingdom Hearts 2’. It was given to my family randomly because we loved Disney and because we had a dusty PS2 that we never used. None of us had played the first ‘Kingdom Hearts’ game. None of us played video games at all. However, it interested me enough that I became the only gamer in my household, and my love of it has fueled a love of video games in general. The current series ended with ‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ back in 2019, with the promise that Square Enix was going to continue the games but leave behind the characters that led the series. Naturally, my excitement led me to play all of the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ games and revisit the series I loved so much. I was disappointed. This isn’t me saying ‘Kingdom Hearts’ is a bad series. Millions of people talking about their excitement for the next ‘Kingdom Hearts’ game despite no official announcements would argue that point. But the series has so many problems that it can’t be considered one of the best things I’ve ever played. I’ve even openly laughed at dramatic scenes, which isn’t necessarily a glowing review. While nostalgia attaches me to these games despite their faults, here are the things that I found disappointing, and sometimes laughable, about the series.

The Dialogue:

This one is a really obvious one. I don’t know about the Japanese dialogue because I have only ever played the English dubs for the games, but the English dialogue is eye-wateringly cringy. None of the characters speak like normal people. Most of the dialogue can’t go two seconds without mentioning “darkness” or “hearts”. At one point, a character watches another character die and proceeds to lament that he doesn’t have anyone else to eat ice cream with. While the line is meant to demonstrate the character’s narrow view of friendship, it’s so absurd that it takes the player out of the scene. It would be one thing if just the dialogue was bad, but most of the voice actors don’t do the dialogue much favors, either. Many of the voice actors have proved to be good actors and voice actors in various other media, which makes the wooden delivery of the dialogue frustrating. Every line is spaced out oddly by every voice actor. Stoic characters sound the same from scene to scene. Excitable characters scream all of their lines. Aqua, who was my favorite character in the series for quite a while, uses the same inflexions for every line, making her emotions difficult to discern. Meanwhile Sora, our main character, is the most over-the-top protagonist I’ve ever encountered in a video game, and it’s because the dialogue and voice actor work together to make every line overly cheesy and loud. This isn’t just a case of cheesy dialogue. It’s disjointed and often hard to understand.

The Plot:

The dialogue deserves some points for confusing the audience, but it’s partly because the plot of the entire series is such a mess. It seems like it would be simple. Final Fantasy-esque characters visit lands based on Disney movies and have fun with the Disney characters. Except Square Enix decided to add an overly complicated plot on top of it that is so convoluted most fans don’t understand it. In the first game Sora somehow absorbs his friend Kairi’s heart when darkness literally starts taking over his hometown, causing her body to disappear. For some reason. Sora realizes that, though this situation has caused him to keep her heart safe, it also is preventing her from returning to her body. So he stabs himself in the heart. He turns into a Heartless, some of the main villains of the game, because the event causes both his heart and Kairi’s to leave his body. Kairi hugs him, though, and he’s magically cured!

Confused yet? Well, the first game does have some confusing parts, but it was somewhat straightforward at least. When humans are consumed by darkness they lose their hearts, becoming Heartless. But the power of hearts can accomplish a lot, which is why several Heartless were after Sora when he had Kairi’s heart. Her heart was strong and, because of that, desirable. Kingdom Hearts 2 is where your brain REALLY starts to hurt. It introduces the idea that people without hearts also develop Nobodies, an alternate version of them without a heart. Except every character we meet who is a Nobody is actually just the original person they were before, just without a heart, like Heartless were in the first game. Except for Sora’s Nobody who is a completely different character from Sora and looks like yet another character Sora has also absorbed. I’m not even going to try to explain that one. And I won’t keep going either because the use of hearts, Nobodies, Heartless, and sometimes even clones becomes so confusing that it’s useless to explain. If they would have continued to develop the rules of the universe they established in the first game, the games might have made more sense. But every game had some new gimmick, leaving the plot almost as useless as if there wasn’t one in the first place.

The Female Characters:

The main female characters in the ‘Kingdom Hearts’ series are a small bunch and none are well handled. Kairi serves as a damsel in distress for the series. The first game is driven by Kairi’s disappearance and the second game sees Kairi captured by several different people. She’s given a keyblade at the end of the second game, but she barely uses it, instead using Riku as a protector. She learns how to use her keyblade at the beginning of the third game, but she barely uses it before she’s taken away again, effectively removing her from all final battles. Namine is, once again, the damsel in distress of her game. She’s also a very brief presence in all games she’s in, either helping Sora or Roxas and then leaving without a trace. The two female characters who get full plots that don’t involve these things are Xion and Aqua. Xion dies to further the character arc of Roxas, and though she does come back, she isn’t in most of the third Kingdom Hearts game. Aqua receives the best treatment. She sacrifices herself for Terra, a male character, but it isn’t to further his plot. If anything it furthers her own and she was given an entire solo game based off of the events that followed. ‘Kingdom Hearts 3’ is what sets her character back. She’s brought to the forefront of the group, as if she will play as big of a role as Sora and Riku, but she is always the first to give up hope and lay down her weapon. Because of this, she ends up in much less of the game than most fans hoped. That, on top of the fact that the amount of main female characters pales in comparison to male main characters (See the two female characters in the Organization XIII plotline consisting of twelve men), isn’t the best look for the female characters in this series.

What kills me about ‘Kingdom Hearts’ are the openings to each game. The openings to every ‘Kingdom Hearts’ game are far superior to any I’ve ever seen. They’re beautiful, and while Disney characters are present, they imply that each game has a very deep meaning. When you get into the games, however, you get cheesy dialogue and a message that sums up to “yay friendship”. This would be okay if the games embraced the Disney silliness you encounter as the main portion of the games. Instead, each game has an extremely confusing plot that attempts to be deep but ends up in the same “friendship” boat as all the other games. As I said before, I’m very nostalgic about this series. I still enjoy playing these games. But a part of me was definitely disappointed when I realized I’d have to turn my brain off to get the most enjoyment out of ‘Kingdom Hearts’.

Don’t do anything fun until I get back!

Hallie

Cartoons: The Warner Sister Dot

Screenshot of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot from ‘Animaniacs’ (2020). Copyright goes to Warner Brothers.

Hi! It’s Annie!

For most of us we already know the Warner brothers and the Warner sister Dot from Animaniacs. I can definitely say I grew up with these adorably witty cartoon characters which only fueled my love for all of the work done by voice actor Rob Paulson (Not only is he a great Yakko and Pinky, he also voiced Raphael and then Donatello in different iterations of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’ as well as PJ from ‘A Goofy Movie’). Despite my love of this show, for some reason I had no idea that there would be a reboot until my family recently got Hulu. I was absolutely delighted. Though Animaniacs doesn’t have some of the bits that I remember, it still had the ones that were most important to me, which were the Warners and Pinky and the Brain. My family laughed through every single episode at the satire that covered everything from reboots, to the presidency, to trying to win Hades. But more than anything else, one specific part of this reboot caught my eye. Ever since the reboot came out, there’s been a bit of controversy surrounding the ever famous Warner sister Dot, who I had pretty early on pinned as my new favorite character of the show. It didn’t take me long to realize why.

“They made her a radical feminist!”:

I was doing research to see what exactly had changed between the original depiction of Dot and the current one when I stumbled on negative reviews for the 2020 reboot. Many of them with this tagline. I can’t say that I was surprised. Dot has always been a present force among the Warners, but she didn’t reference what it was like to be a woman all that much in the original cartoons. She followed after handsome men with heart eyes and was just as wacky as Yakko and Wakko, but Dot never questioned why she was the only woman there most of the time other than Hello Nurse. And I’m not sure I would have expected her to at that time. Dot has come back in 2020 with powerful punches to draw attention to what she hadn’t so much before. Dot is given a few major moments throughout the season that draw specific attention to women, but it’s still done in ways that make sense for kids, and I’m not exactly sure what makes her “radical” or what that’s supposed to mean in the first place. Anyways, let’s go over these moments from the recent show.

The First Ladies:

This song definitely has the accomplishments of women in the forefront, but this happens specifically because Dot uses the segment to teach viewers about the all of the first ladies to have been in the White House. Many critiques of the show argued that Dot painted them all in a good light and that the writers glossed over many of the bad things some of them did, like the war on drugs and the consequences due to that for example. This argument seems a bit on the ridiculous side to me simply because the song is cut for time. That’s a running joke throughout the song. Dot is attempting to teach the audience about every single first lady to ever exist in just about two minutes while her brothers time her. She’s not there to discuss the ramifications of some of their actions. She there to quickly educate on what some of them have done. She doesn’t even get to all of them as at the end of the song she begins to shout out names of first ladies since she doesn’t have time for the history by that point. The writers even accidentally forgot a first lady and wrote in an apology afterwards. She’s also there to satirize. Which didn’t just start in 2020. As Rob Paulson himself has pointed out, Animaniacs has always satirized current politics and it wouldn’t be the same without it. I’m not quite sure what the controversy around this extremely fast song that even manages to poke fun at some of the first ladies has to do with Dot being radical. It’s history.

Mathterpiece theatre:

In Dot’s hilarious rendition of Masterpiece Theatre that is now based off of the math problems you grew up solving, a mother struggles to feed her children. She has five apples, she loses two, how many does she have left? You get the picture. The complaints against this specific short seem to be the simple fact that Dot is telling the story of a rebellious woman running away from a police officer. Yep, that’s pretty much it. I’m not sure why people are angry over Dot telling a comedically serious story about a woman, but I digress.

“Never mansplainy”:

The Animaniacs theme song is iconic and a well appreciated ear worm. I have been known to get the theme song stuck in my head from time to time. One of the unique parts of the theme song is that one of the ending lines changes every episode. At the beginning of one of the 2020 reboot’s episodes this line right before the end of the songs depicts Dot slamming her hands over Yakko and Wakko’s mouths and proclaiming that the Animaniacs would never try to mansplain. Mansplain is a term that has become common because of the trend women have seen in the workplace (and otherwise) for decades where a woman is either interrupted and a man tries to explain her problem instead, or she’s just plain and simple treated like she’s stupid. It’s not a term meant to offend you, it’s a term that was created to bring awareness to the issue and it’s popularization has aided in this problem. Isn’t it a good thing that women aren’t belittled or interrupted? So why is this line so triggering for some people?

Manspreading:

In one of my favorite ending skits of the new season, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are sitting at a movie theater when Dot’s space is largely intruded on by a man sitting next to her manspreading. Yakko tries to explain to Dot what manspreading is and she declares that she doesn’t need him to mansplain manspreading to her. They then spend the rest of the episode trying to manipulate the theater around them so that they can close his legs. I think a lot of people are just under the impression that this problem doesn’t exist, but one of the reasons why I laughed so much was because I had experienced it before. Really, all this is telling you is that you should remember to be conscientious of the people around you. That’s it.

Suffragette:

It is the hundredth anniversary of women getting the right to vote and Dot, of course, has to talk about it! The women’s rights movement wasn’t all good and nice historically as many of the women praised for gaining us the right to vote also thought that white people should be the only ones to vote. But just like the first lady skit, we shouldn’t expect one skit in a thirty minute cartoon to cover the entire history of this event, even though that would be great. I would love to see Dot teach history. But even though that’s at least a reasonable critique, what most people had a problem with in this part of the show was Businesswoman Dot refusing to see anyone she had a meeting with if he was a man but also requested that they send any woman in. People seem to ignore the fact that she said this because it was “perfect timing”. She wasn’t refusing to work with men, she was saying that she was talking about women’s rights regardless of whether or not she had a meeting. This entire skit ended with cartoons getting the right to vote, which I would let Dot vote in any election.

Dot is talking about women’s rights and that’s a good thing! We obviously still need to talk about it with these reviews coming out. And she should probably be given more time to talk about women, anyways! We’ve told the stories of men for so long that I really don’t understand what the issue is in telling the stories of women. Whether it’s the very very brief history of our first ladies, the history of us getting our rights, or a fictionalized story about a woman living in poverty losing two apples so that a cartoon character can solve a math problem. Yes, Dot is feminist. But most women are feminist and it really bugs me that anyone could see that as something that isn’t good. Dot, and skits like hers in other shows, are not there to diminish the experience of men. This isn’t about you. They are there to tell the stories of millions of women who have not been allowed to tell our stories for years. Listen to them and know that this doesn’t have to be about you.

See you across the pond!

Sincerely, Annie