The new forums will be named Coin Return (based on the most recent
vote)! You can check on the status and timeline of the transition to the new forums
here.
We now return to our regularly scheduled PA Forums. Please let me (Hahnsoo1) know if something isn't working. The Holiday Forum will remain up until January 10, 2025.
Ledo And Ix go to town and get dissected by first year film students.
Posts
Pollock was just a drunk puking paint on a canvas.
(As a serious aside, I didn't "get" Pollock until I saw an exhibit of his work in person. Tiny jpegs on a screen will never do his pieces justice)
I get the sense that this person is or personally knows the author
That is a pretty unfair assumption.
It's working off the basis that someone can not have an overly positive opinion of the piece without the benefit of bias.
I'm a fan. I like how the classic RPG tropes are used as a way to show character instead of pulling punchlines (though humour is certainly involved). I like how quiet it is. I like how it lets me project character based on my experiences with old rpgs, instead of explicitly showing me what they're like in great detail. I like the sense of aimless yet unwavering adventure. Most of all, I like its mix of whimsy/melancholy mixed with nostalgia.
But that's just me.
Also, once again, NaS and Druhim know what's up.
Perhaps you also could chill out
NAS: it's not just the very positive opinion. Part of it is the confidence with which the content is "understood". We've seen two entries so far, and we can't really be sure what way this is going to go. Maybe next time they will just be confused about their inventory space - where are they keeping all this stuff??? But between these two episodes we've already arrived at "one of those things that can't be explained in terms of purpose", which says to me maybe they know more about it. Another part is the word choice - I feel like this is someone who would describe the series as "using the visual vocabulary of RPGs etc etc". Also the low post count, and the kind of offense taken at everyone "not getting it".
So, I get the sense that this person is the author or knows the author.
I know it's only been two episodes, so judging the work as a whole is pretty impossible. But I do know that in stories of all kinds that rely on that sort of vague, 'what's it all about?' ways of doing introduction, only works for so long before not somehow explaining to the reader, or listener, or viewer, what the hell they're reading/listening/watching stops being enticing and starts being annoying
Wow seriously?
The confidence I have that I "understand" this is that I do. I mean, everything I've talked about is just right there in the videos. It just is. The thing that frustrates me is that so many don't even see it.
Of course we don't know what the next video is going to be about, but the fact that you are fixated on it being jokes about game architecture tropes like inventory space is just... I mean... it's just clear you are looking at the thing and just not seeing it at all. Just plain not seeing it.
Yes, between the two episodes we've seen I've come to it's "one of those things that can't be explained in terms of purpose". Just the first episode was enough. You are fixated on there being some kind of clear story and that is not what this is primarily about. I know it because I know this kind of thing. The thing I don't know is how to explain it to you in a way that allows you to see it. I don't have any special knowledge of this series or anyone involved in making it. I'm just watching it.
I probably would use language similar to that used by the people who made this. That's likely because we'd both be getting what this is doing, and that probably means we have similar approaches to thinking about this kind of thing.
The low post count you can attribute to the fact that I am new. Sometimes people join forums who weren't there when the forum started. It's a thing that happens in the world sometimes.
I've been reading PA and lurking the forums for years. I joined a few months ago to post some Bayeux Tapestry macros that were mostly Beastie Boys and Lebowski jokes. I posted a couple of drawings over in the art forum, and got involved in the Tron Legacy and True Grit threads (where I also tripped over an attempt to explain why I liked something being read as pretentious). That's about it. Post count is likely to remain low as I really don't enjoy having to be so careful about the way I say things.
So, you know, your powers of deduction are uncanny, Holmes!
I did not make these videos, and I have no connection of any kind to the people who did. I just like them, and tried to explain that.
One thing I did that I think is unfair is I characterized this thread as continuously negative. Re-reading it I see that is not the case, there are a decent number of people who seem to like it. What is depressing is that the conversation can never get beyond people saying they like it or they don't. In as much as I've been giving oxygen to that I regret it and I'm stepping away from it.
I share this concern:
I'd hate to see that happen, because I love these and am surprised in a good way to find them here, so different in tone from the regular content (which I also like).
You can like it and say you see some deep beauty or meaning in it, but I don't see it. And stating that you know it's there because you know it's there is about as circular as logic can get.
I have also heard people talk that way about things - but rarely so enthusiastically after reading only the first 3 pages of a book or the intro of a game.
It was just a feeling that I got. Obviously I was mistaken. Welcome back, oddbill.
Just as we may not be "seeing it", it's also just as possible that you're reading in a lot more into these videos than what is there. Or, because you have possibly similar approaches, you can make leaps across failings in execution without realizing it, something many of the rest of us can't do. Maybe it's somewhere in between, who knows. It'd be cool to get the creators in here to weigh in.
Regardless of what it is, it's that high horse, "it's so obvious" attitude that is garnering you such negative reactions and accusations of bias in response to your posts.
It's not a high horse. I've gone to a lot of effort in every post I've made to describe this - it's a gulf I can't figure out how to bridge.
I'm not the only one here. There are a few others that see a lovely and subtle character piece. There seem to be a lot more who just look at it and come away with "jokes aren't funny" or "nothing happens" or "I don't know what I'm looking at".
I have no idea how to explain what these videos are doing to people who have those reactions. But what they are doing isn't hidden or some great puzzle, it's just there.
I think if you feel I'm on some kind of a high horse you should maybe consider that when someone claims to see something clearly that you can't see at all, that person is not actually saying anything judgmental about you.
What if you don't know this kind of thing? That is what I was saying with the inventory space remark. The first episode we got was kind of interesting, setting the tone for the rest of the series, can't wait to see where this leads us. Second episode, townsfolk in rpgs only have that one line to say, would you like to buy a sword or brain fungus cure.
So what if the next episode really is just talking about more game tropes? Are you going to be disappointed that the series didn't live up to your idea of what it could be? That is where some of us are, right now!
You're obviously confident that it's not going to go down that road, because you can tell that the series is really good, somehow. But it's this leap that you can't explain to us because of an "unbridgeable gulf" in our understanding or whatever it was that gave me the feeling that you knew more than you were letting on.
I'm not sure why it's so important to you for others to see this the same way you do, but really just let it go man. Others not enjoying it doesn't limit your ability to enjoy it in any way. Ain't a big deal, man.
It's so obvious, right?
You sure are stepping away there, Oddbill.
It's ok though, he said he wasn't being judgmental, so that means it's totally cool.
It's the way even the first episode was written. Things like the glitch, which Ledo is excited to confront as some kind of challenge or cosmic mystery, she is clearly thrilled to rush headlong into it, while at the sme time wants Ix to stay behind, because she is protective of him, and also doesn't think he can handle things like that.
So they go to the glitch, and it turns out to be just a glitch, a shortcut, no monsters, no cosmic revelation (a cosmic revelation would be something the darkness, light and music all set us up to anticipate) - and Ledo is so disappointed. They leave and she lingers a little, then her head droops. She really wanted the unknown, and all that happened was a cheap shortcut.
Then, later at night, in camp, she gets up and wanders off. That this happens after the glitch encounter shows she is still restless with a desire to confront the unknown. But in wandering off she leaves Ix, who wakes up, seeming to sense she is gone, which in itself shows how much he depends on her, and how finely tuned he is to her presence. He panics. She comes running back, showing how deeply she is also attached to him, though in ways we have just been shown he holds her back from where her nature wants to go.
It is a beautifully described relationship, done with such little strokes. Just right there in episode one. I'm not reading that into it, that's what was written into it.
Anyone who can write something like that, in that way, with those tools (8bit art, no spoken dialog, very few words, and music) is doing a thing I am happy to watch and go with. I don't expect anything from it. What it already is is enough, and I'm with it for as long as it goes. Frankly, even if it was just that first episode, that would have totally worked for me as a whole and complete thing.
Sure, they could ruin it with future episodes, but I think that's very unlikely, given the skill with which they pulled off the first two.
The difference between where I am and where you are in your disappointment that this is not living up to what you want it to be is that you want it to be something it never was to begin with, and you don't actually see the thing it is.
Again, that is not judging you. You just aren't seeing what it is, and are disappointed that it's not something that it was never meant to be. I'm describing the things I see that it is. You'll suggest that I'm reading into it things that aren't there but I'm telling you I'm not, it's there.
You are basically saying that the only way you can dislike this is if you "don't see what it is"
Can you not see how incredibly condescending that is? (This is a rhetorical question, so please don't make a 3-paragraph post explaining how it's not)
You have to acknowledge that people just might be able to see what this thing is trying to be, and still not enjoy or care for it
This
only without as much overwrought detail as oddbill has inserted.
Still, did not really do anything for me. Hell, I'm more inclined to go along with what Javen said about it being more comedic than anything else, even if it didn't intend to be.
I'm just responding at this point to being accused of elitism.
Look, this is a classic internet forum trap I've fallen into. A discussion about some kind of art, a story or a movie or a comic or something. People have different reactions, they try to describe their reactions and end up arguing.
Then someone says, "hey, chill, it's just a movie/story/comic".
Well sure, but then why talk about it at all? Does it matter in some kind of fundamental way that one person gets something and another doesn't? No, of course not. Of course it's not a big deal.
But this isn't the debate floor in the Senate, it's the Social Entropy++ forum of PA. It's where these sorts of trivial things are talked about.
I keep getting pulled back in here because now, beyond the initial talk about the video and what's in it and what people do or don't see in it, I'm getting accused of somehow looking down on people by saying I don't know how to explain something to them that I clearly can't explain to them because I've tried at least 3 times now and not succeeded. Doesn't matter that I've made clear that I'm not being judgmental, it's still being interpreted that way.
So that's the second trap: trying to step away from a pointless argument, but not leave the impression of being some kind of snob.
So okay - you all win. Nothing means anything and it isn't worth discussing. No matter what I say, it's meant to put you down. I'll just go an project invented meaning onto failed jokes elsewhere in the world now.
My first impression of this series was that it was kind of shitty. This was pretty much solely from the poor quality of the art assets. Like I was reminded of all those "custom sprite" sub-comics from the old megaman sprite comic bob and george. But I was earnestly surprised by the content of the first episode - coupled with the fact that the PA guys are putting it up really got my hopes up.
But then this second episode... I think for sure they were trying to be funny here. Like the whole "waiting for pie, straight man is exasperated" bit at the beginning. Brain fungus is a funny sounding thing. And then the whole npc thing. Super let down on all counts. I think someone else mentioned being let down like this in more detail. I'm going to go and look for it and edit it in after this! You'll see!
edit: ok here it is
I am on board with this post!
Ix trying to get the old woman to say something different is me talking to you in this thread.
My last post was the equivalent of Ix throwing himself on his face with the chickens.
Episode Described!
Ok I guess you are zinging me pretty hard here and maybe I deserve it for saying that I felt like you were the author. So I am pretty sorry about that.
Earlier you were complaining about people not discussing the content and merely saying that they liked or disliked it, and now here I am all discussing it and you are responding with pure sass.
Do you really think that this second episode lived up to the promise of the first?
Jesus christ, you fucking people
"It's right there, guys! It's totally obvious! You must be blind to not see it."
Considering teaching as a new career. You still might not be able to impart any knowledge, but your students won't be able to call you on it when you talk down to them.
Yes, you've assured everybody that you're definitely not being judgmental.
Maybe you should ask yourself what it is about the way you're communicating (or not) that's causing you to be interpreted that way?
I think it's safe to stop worrying about that one.
So far, yes. This is a "part 1", so it's less self contained than the last one. I think it's all set up.
We do get more of Ledo kind of mothering Ix, and Ix being contrary in ways that feel a lot like he's doing it just because it makes Ledo pay attention to him. ("I bet you wish you were the boss of me!")
Then the Brain Fungus/Village, which I agree with Cambiata about:
also I wonder if the automatic behavior of the villagers isn't going to turn out to be caused by the brain fungus, and this sequence of the story some kind of riff on a twilight zonish sort of thing.
Then, at the end, Ledo seems to have to make a decision about whether to buy a super powerful weapon which costs basically all the money she has, and will be good for her adventuring self, or to buy a bunch of brain fungus cure, which would be the thing to do if she needs to care for Ix, especially if it turns out this town is actually suffering from brain fungus...
I don't know that's what's going on, it's what I'm guessing at from what we've got.
Plus, that bit with Ix trying to get the old woman to talk, and closing his eyes, with the music and the brief three dimensional shift, was beautiful.
Well he gave a pretty good writeup of the first episode to be honest and he obviously really likes this series.
I was prepared to like the series but was really let down by the second episode. However since we have this pretty eloquent, if unintentionally abrasive, guy here who is still liking the series I was hoping to get him to write up the second episode and maybe I will see it in a new light, because I actually would like to like this.
What is your problem
Yeah I also was thinking that it could wind up like this- I mentioned earlier that instead of the village maybe they went to the brain fungus spot. Presumably these characters have been questing together for a while so you'd think this wouldn't be their first town.
I think the difference between us is that you're reading into things as if the series is good and I'm doing the opposite.
Yeah, I think you've hit it there.
Another thing I'm thinking is, you know, the 8bit art and the video game tropes thing is not as close to my heart as it is to you, probably. So I'm probably being a lot more forgiving of that while digging on the character stuff.
The comparison could be science fiction tropes. I've read an enormous amount of science fiction spanning the whole genre's history, so when people who haven't got the same familiarity appropriate science fiction tropes to make artistic points in ways that demonstrate they don't really know the genre that well, it does put me off, even if the thing they are doing is otherwise pretty good.
I imagine that is happening here, and I'm probably blind to it.
Anyway, hey! This was a heartwarming thread of reconciliation and understanding after all. :P
and he told me that I need to calm down
let them be though
they obviously just want to yell past each other
I think maybe y'all are projecting some kind of tone onto this that isn't there
This thread is now reconciliation and heartwarming central, try to keep up