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So this was released over the weekend and since I powered through it because I'm a fantasy fiend. This is going to be long, because there's so fucking much to unpack in the eight episodes its crazy.
Setting:
The premise is rather interesting. At least it begins that way. The fae lands exist, and there are two Victorian Era Empires fighting over them: 'The Pact' (Generally unexplained, but clearly representing World War 2 Germany despite the WWI/Victorian Aesthetic) with war crimes and human experimentation. And the Bruge Army, which we see is generally sympathetic to the fae. The Bruge largely represents the United Kingdom's forces and character. Both are portrayed as Imperialistic, but we really aren't informed of why they're doing what they're doing, except for 'The Pact' (sometimes literally) just being faceless plunderers. Its largely implied the Bruge (which seems to be a city-state more than a country) allied with the main Fae Empire, which collapsed. 'The Pact' seems to have their own fae as well, but we're never really told if they were rebels against the fae government or what, despite their proclivity to mass murder them and most fae we see being fierce nationalists. Nor do we see any of 'The Pact' fae, either. The problem is we have no insight to the dynamic between any of the factions. We don't really know how (or where) 'The Pact' relates to the Bruge. We're introduced to them as the fae's 'mortal enemies', while it would seem that the Bruge and The Pact have conflicting goals, we don't really know Bruge's goals at all. They're only talked about by the fae, who aren't reliable narrators and understandably bitter that Bruge got their asses kicked. 'The Pact' are just 'generic German Imperialists', there's nothing really there story-wise and they're in it for a microsecond. We know 'The Pact' like killing fae and putting them into camps (implied rape camps actually, but the show doesn't have the balls to say it), but its also implied they have a faction of fae working with them. I guess akin to the Jews working the death camps? I don't know. Its really all sort of glossed over and 'The Pact's only function is to make the Fae Homeland a wartorn hell.
The problem is the story really doesn't know what it wants the fae to represent. Does it want to resemble the Imperialization of Africa? The Conquest of the Native Americans? Colonization in general? It mashes all these concepts together and really can't decide who the fae are as a people. They're implied to be primitive compared to the humans who invade. But we really only see a sliver of the fae homeland and no fae soldiers. We get one flashback episode where its basically set in a monastery, which doesn't give us a view of their culture as a whole. So we ourselves can't say 'yes, fae culture is magic and beautiful' because we just barely see that. We're only told this through the eyes of racists.
The problem is that their culture is whatever the show needs it to be an allegory for. It mashes mythologies together to suit its theme for the episode. There's really no 'composite' among them and feels like throwing Satyrs (Pucks), Faeries, Centaurs and all these fantastical creatures and monsters together without any sort of distinction. Basically, thematically, they're treated as all one race, which again, has large problems. My feeling this is more of a modern throwback to how people don't distinguish Mexican from African refugees, etc. In the eight episode running time, the show really doesn't flesh it out and does world building in starts and fits. And the World Building only seems to push a modern narrative, not one representative of the setting itself.
In the end, the Bruge lose the war and its seven years later. Except basically the entirety of Bruge society seems to be racist and hate them. Why? Many of their men fought, died and bled with these peoples. It hasn't even been a decade. There's nowhere near enough time to forget the war. Its veterans would be everywhere. This is in, my opinion, the biggest problem with the show and is basically the catalyst for forcing a modern narrative into a largely fantasy show extraordinarily badly. We don't know why the society is racist, we're just supposed to figure a nation fighting for their liberation and sided with their main government absolutely is. Bruge's involvement is a mystery. Also as to WHAT the Bruge is. Its all very nebulous and you get these rattling off of city names and shit like that. We get no real focus on the distance of say, the fae homeland to Bruge or where the Pact is. Again, we have to use inference and the fae are transported on boats much like the African Slave Trade as indentured servants to a culture that hates them yet was willing to fight and die with them. Its confusing to say the least. You would think they wouldn't have fought with them at all.
Why the show's setting falls apart is that there's no modern comparison to the situation, yet the show wants to make modern comparisons. They can't both exist, so you're left with a nonsensical world. The intro narration also implies the fae lands were very recently found and we're early on in their discovery. The bitterness shown in the first episode conflicts vastly with this notion, and the anti-immigration rhetoric is eye-rolling in the least. All that its missing from it is 'build a wall'. It basically wants to desperately say that Bruge (UK/America) is responsible for getting involved with fae Vietnam and created its own problems (and wants to apply this label DESPERATELY to modern society). However, seven years in fantasy land is not equivalent to 200-300+ in the real world. So it frankly creates this very bizarre situation where you have an empire that discovered them, sympathized enough to fight and die for their government and then is basically horribly, horribly racist for no reason given in the show. You basically have to come up reasons for yourself, nothing is ever explicitly shown as to why (the war bankrupted the country, huge numbers of men died for the fae, it was unpopular to begin with, anything) but all you really get is the modern narrative of 'DEY TOOK OUR JYBS', Which doesn't make sense. Its also implied the humans out-breed the fae races, so them taking over the country makes little sense. The writers in the writing room are definitely, DEFINITELY not students of history and can't really work out why a good reason as to why Bruge is racist, just that it is.
tl;dr: The Witcher did a far, far better job of exploring fantasy races mixing with human society. Problem is 'The Witcher' was more nuanced, had less political baggage and used allegorical representation and had centuries upon centuries of racial hatred instead of basically like 7 years and new discovery. It would have been far more sensical to have Bruge be a neutral country like Switzerland or a small place not involved in the fae war at all, yet forced to take in thousands of refugees against its will. The problem is, this is a complicated narrative where the show explicitly wants no room for nuance, so it cannot be sympathetic to the nation at large. It wants all racism, all the time, with no explanations.
Story:
Oh my God, it wants to be Game of Thrones. So. fucking. badly. It even has a brother-sister, chaotic evil, neutral evil incest where you can see the brother will eventually learn the error of his ways. The thing is you can't do Game of Thrones in eight episodes. That world has to be built. So its sort of this frenzy to build up these political machinations in which they're forced to tie back to the main plot.
It doesn't really give Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne enough time to breath. Initially, it teases you with this Lovecraftian stuff, but drops that very quickly, much to my disappointment. My feeling it would have been a much tighter show if it focused on the Lovecraftian Elements (Actual Lovecraftian) and centered around Bloom and Delevingne. The problem is the show's character writing is bad. I mean the shit that the two of them have to say is forced out of a bad romance novel. Bloom isn't the best actor in the world, but I swore I could feel the physical pain emanating out him on TV at some of the shit he has to say. But their relationship wants to be the crux of the show. Much like 'The Fountain', you get the sense that the writers wanted their love to transcend time and be inescapable. But its really never allowed to grow because its distracted with ten thousand plot elements along with 'world building'. They devote one episode to building it in a flashback episode, which is largely centered on them. But in the current day, its got scattered scenes with them together focusing on their past relationship, typically in very short bursts and aren't really working together for any sort of common goal.
A lot of the time Delevingne and Bloom and the murder mystery aspect is side-lined for politics which have to be basically boiled down to 'immigrant/anti-immigrant' and you basically have to pretend that Bruges never fought a war allied with the fae at all. It seems like the war they fought were centuries ago. But it was literally seven years ago. Its definitely the problem of the writers who are incredibly fucking myopic and to whom seven years may as well be five decades ago, but time and politics don't really work like that. Especially in a world where information travels by telegraph, so everything moves much slower. But you have to forget all about this in order for the political stuff to work. Which....is why it really doesn't. indira Varma basically reprises her role from 'Game of Thrones', so much now I think she's going to be typecast forever as that character.
There's also a side plot with ablack man moving into a white neighborhood black Satyr moving into a white neighborhood who is clearly an allegory for slavery. I mean, the shit he's given to say and the fact that they cast the blackest dude to say it pretty much gives it all away. But honestly, he was one of the better characters because he was a rich dude that didn't give a FUCK. Like, 'I'll embarrass all of you and make you uncomfortable. Fuck you'. Its probably the best part of the show, but really, his story essentially has nothing to do with the political aspect nor the murder mystery aspect. And while the character is fun and interesting, mainly, its just more world-building and a side thread like you'd see in 'Game of Thrones', tangentially, but not really related to the main plot. Like think Arya but less relevant. Fun and interesting character, not really relevant to the shit going on. So, kind of a waste.
tl;dr:
Basically, major, major let down. It teases you that it might actually be some sort of Gothic Horror in gritty Fantasy UK, but in actuality it wants to be Game of Thrones with this huge sprawling setting, but really lacks the writing chops to get it done. It needed to be far more character focused as well as having a laser focused plot, which it didn't. It didn't feel like Bloom and Delevingne were center stage at all as the show progressed, they just sort of gradually get more and more pushed to the side, with the exception of the very, very end and even then, it replaces them for yet more political bullshit. It almost felt like they were too expensive and sort of pushed them to the side, even though they were simply pushed aside by the uncontrollable plot bloat.
Visuals:
Oh this show is CHEAP. Yeah, you can tell. A lot of things just look straight like a set. The monster work is made effective by using the old trick of only really showing your monster in shadow, not giving the audience time to get a good look at the cheap monster you made. Which is a good thing. It works like that for a reason. It kind of blew money on cast and basically tightened the purse strings for everything else. The fae wings are mixed in quality. Its basically passable. But yeah, you know its cheap. Which is OK. It doesn't hurt the show all that much and you can basically overlook it. The cheapness is the very least of its problem and I'd rate it as acceptable for a fantasy show on a streaming service.
Overall:
The show suffers vastly from wanting to be politically relevant and yet at the same time to be Game of Thrones. The politics are uninteresting compared to the magic of the fae, and even that is vastly downplayed. The romance angle remains woefully neglected and is only available in short, sporadic bursts. And the quality of writing lends it almost to be a fantasy romance novel that tries too hard and transitions into Game of Thrones to sell. I know I'm making a lot of GoT comparisons, but with the politics, a lot of the characters and events...its really trying hard to be that type of thing. The world-building is basically done to cater to modern allegories and really fails to stand on its own. Worse, the world-building shifts what allegory is referring to and doesn't really know what it wants to be. Its hard to escape into this fantasy when you can see through to modern day politics and immigration debate, which really harms it, story-wise.
Weeb Warning: Laughably, it reminded me of a worse version of the anime 'Cop Craft'. A portal opens in the Pacific to the land of the faeries and there's a city founded on a US Naval Testing island that acts as its entryway into Earth. Funnily enough, even though its not the best by far and is largely a fantasy-focused throwback to 1980s cop flicks (I mean, it even has the 'angry black police captain' trope which is hilarious), it does world-building and characterization better. It even makes sense that not all the humans are racist, since they seem to be enraptured by this new culture. There's immigrant fears, sure, but that seems to be a minority opinion where people are like 'FUCK MAGIC IS REAL HOLY SHIT'. I just found it funny that an anime based on a light novel does the idea better than a highly produced, Western Drama with two (relatively) big stars.
Final Verdict:
Western entertainment, get your fucking shit together. Everyone is tired of Game of Thrones and modern allegories in escapist shows. Also hire better writers and at least keep track of what modern allegory from what time-period you use, because you can't throw them all in, otherwise you have a mess.
Setting:
The premise is rather interesting. At least it begins that way. The fae lands exist, and there are two Victorian Era Empires fighting over them: 'The Pact' (Generally unexplained, but clearly representing World War 2 Germany despite the WWI/Victorian Aesthetic) with war crimes and human experimentation. And the Bruge Army, which we see is generally sympathetic to the fae. The Bruge largely represents the United Kingdom's forces and character. Both are portrayed as Imperialistic, but we really aren't informed of why they're doing what they're doing, except for 'The Pact' (sometimes literally) just being faceless plunderers. Its largely implied the Bruge (which seems to be a city-state more than a country) allied with the main Fae Empire, which collapsed. 'The Pact' seems to have their own fae as well, but we're never really told if they were rebels against the fae government or what, despite their proclivity to mass murder them and most fae we see being fierce nationalists. Nor do we see any of 'The Pact' fae, either. The problem is we have no insight to the dynamic between any of the factions. We don't really know how (or where) 'The Pact' relates to the Bruge. We're introduced to them as the fae's 'mortal enemies', while it would seem that the Bruge and The Pact have conflicting goals, we don't really know Bruge's goals at all. They're only talked about by the fae, who aren't reliable narrators and understandably bitter that Bruge got their asses kicked. 'The Pact' are just 'generic German Imperialists', there's nothing really there story-wise and they're in it for a microsecond. We know 'The Pact' like killing fae and putting them into camps (implied rape camps actually, but the show doesn't have the balls to say it), but its also implied they have a faction of fae working with them. I guess akin to the Jews working the death camps? I don't know. Its really all sort of glossed over and 'The Pact's only function is to make the Fae Homeland a wartorn hell.
The problem is the story really doesn't know what it wants the fae to represent. Does it want to resemble the Imperialization of Africa? The Conquest of the Native Americans? Colonization in general? It mashes all these concepts together and really can't decide who the fae are as a people. They're implied to be primitive compared to the humans who invade. But we really only see a sliver of the fae homeland and no fae soldiers. We get one flashback episode where its basically set in a monastery, which doesn't give us a view of their culture as a whole. So we ourselves can't say 'yes, fae culture is magic and beautiful' because we just barely see that. We're only told this through the eyes of racists.
The problem is that their culture is whatever the show needs it to be an allegory for. It mashes mythologies together to suit its theme for the episode. There's really no 'composite' among them and feels like throwing Satyrs (Pucks), Faeries, Centaurs and all these fantastical creatures and monsters together without any sort of distinction. Basically, thematically, they're treated as all one race, which again, has large problems. My feeling this is more of a modern throwback to how people don't distinguish Mexican from African refugees, etc. In the eight episode running time, the show really doesn't flesh it out and does world building in starts and fits. And the World Building only seems to push a modern narrative, not one representative of the setting itself.
In the end, the Bruge lose the war and its seven years later. Except basically the entirety of Bruge society seems to be racist and hate them. Why? Many of their men fought, died and bled with these peoples. It hasn't even been a decade. There's nowhere near enough time to forget the war. Its veterans would be everywhere. This is in, my opinion, the biggest problem with the show and is basically the catalyst for forcing a modern narrative into a largely fantasy show extraordinarily badly. We don't know why the society is racist, we're just supposed to figure a nation fighting for their liberation and sided with their main government absolutely is. Bruge's involvement is a mystery. Also as to WHAT the Bruge is. Its all very nebulous and you get these rattling off of city names and shit like that. We get no real focus on the distance of say, the fae homeland to Bruge or where the Pact is. Again, we have to use inference and the fae are transported on boats much like the African Slave Trade as indentured servants to a culture that hates them yet was willing to fight and die with them. Its confusing to say the least. You would think they wouldn't have fought with them at all.
Why the show's setting falls apart is that there's no modern comparison to the situation, yet the show wants to make modern comparisons. They can't both exist, so you're left with a nonsensical world. The intro narration also implies the fae lands were very recently found and we're early on in their discovery. The bitterness shown in the first episode conflicts vastly with this notion, and the anti-immigration rhetoric is eye-rolling in the least. All that its missing from it is 'build a wall'. It basically wants to desperately say that Bruge (UK/America) is responsible for getting involved with fae Vietnam and created its own problems (and wants to apply this label DESPERATELY to modern society). However, seven years in fantasy land is not equivalent to 200-300+ in the real world. So it frankly creates this very bizarre situation where you have an empire that discovered them, sympathized enough to fight and die for their government and then is basically horribly, horribly racist for no reason given in the show. You basically have to come up reasons for yourself, nothing is ever explicitly shown as to why (the war bankrupted the country, huge numbers of men died for the fae, it was unpopular to begin with, anything) but all you really get is the modern narrative of 'DEY TOOK OUR JYBS', Which doesn't make sense. Its also implied the humans out-breed the fae races, so them taking over the country makes little sense. The writers in the writing room are definitely, DEFINITELY not students of history and can't really work out why a good reason as to why Bruge is racist, just that it is.
tl;dr: The Witcher did a far, far better job of exploring fantasy races mixing with human society. Problem is 'The Witcher' was more nuanced, had less political baggage and used allegorical representation and had centuries upon centuries of racial hatred instead of basically like 7 years and new discovery. It would have been far more sensical to have Bruge be a neutral country like Switzerland or a small place not involved in the fae war at all, yet forced to take in thousands of refugees against its will. The problem is, this is a complicated narrative where the show explicitly wants no room for nuance, so it cannot be sympathetic to the nation at large. It wants all racism, all the time, with no explanations.
Story:
Oh my God, it wants to be Game of Thrones. So. fucking. badly. It even has a brother-sister, chaotic evil, neutral evil incest where you can see the brother will eventually learn the error of his ways. The thing is you can't do Game of Thrones in eight episodes. That world has to be built. So its sort of this frenzy to build up these political machinations in which they're forced to tie back to the main plot.
It doesn't really give Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne enough time to breath. Initially, it teases you with this Lovecraftian stuff, but drops that very quickly, much to my disappointment. My feeling it would have been a much tighter show if it focused on the Lovecraftian Elements (Actual Lovecraftian) and centered around Bloom and Delevingne. The problem is the show's character writing is bad. I mean the shit that the two of them have to say is forced out of a bad romance novel. Bloom isn't the best actor in the world, but I swore I could feel the physical pain emanating out him on TV at some of the shit he has to say. But their relationship wants to be the crux of the show. Much like 'The Fountain', you get the sense that the writers wanted their love to transcend time and be inescapable. But its really never allowed to grow because its distracted with ten thousand plot elements along with 'world building'. They devote one episode to building it in a flashback episode, which is largely centered on them. But in the current day, its got scattered scenes with them together focusing on their past relationship, typically in very short bursts and aren't really working together for any sort of common goal.
A lot of the time Delevingne and Bloom and the murder mystery aspect is side-lined for politics which have to be basically boiled down to 'immigrant/anti-immigrant' and you basically have to pretend that Bruges never fought a war allied with the fae at all. It seems like the war they fought were centuries ago. But it was literally seven years ago. Its definitely the problem of the writers who are incredibly fucking myopic and to whom seven years may as well be five decades ago, but time and politics don't really work like that. Especially in a world where information travels by telegraph, so everything moves much slower. But you have to forget all about this in order for the political stuff to work. Which....is why it really doesn't. indira Varma basically reprises her role from 'Game of Thrones', so much now I think she's going to be typecast forever as that character.
There's also a side plot with a
tl;dr:
Basically, major, major let down. It teases you that it might actually be some sort of Gothic Horror in gritty Fantasy UK, but in actuality it wants to be Game of Thrones with this huge sprawling setting, but really lacks the writing chops to get it done. It needed to be far more character focused as well as having a laser focused plot, which it didn't. It didn't feel like Bloom and Delevingne were center stage at all as the show progressed, they just sort of gradually get more and more pushed to the side, with the exception of the very, very end and even then, it replaces them for yet more political bullshit. It almost felt like they were too expensive and sort of pushed them to the side, even though they were simply pushed aside by the uncontrollable plot bloat.
Visuals:
Oh this show is CHEAP. Yeah, you can tell. A lot of things just look straight like a set. The monster work is made effective by using the old trick of only really showing your monster in shadow, not giving the audience time to get a good look at the cheap monster you made. Which is a good thing. It works like that for a reason. It kind of blew money on cast and basically tightened the purse strings for everything else. The fae wings are mixed in quality. Its basically passable. But yeah, you know its cheap. Which is OK. It doesn't hurt the show all that much and you can basically overlook it. The cheapness is the very least of its problem and I'd rate it as acceptable for a fantasy show on a streaming service.
Overall:
The show suffers vastly from wanting to be politically relevant and yet at the same time to be Game of Thrones. The politics are uninteresting compared to the magic of the fae, and even that is vastly downplayed. The romance angle remains woefully neglected and is only available in short, sporadic bursts. And the quality of writing lends it almost to be a fantasy romance novel that tries too hard and transitions into Game of Thrones to sell. I know I'm making a lot of GoT comparisons, but with the politics, a lot of the characters and events...its really trying hard to be that type of thing. The world-building is basically done to cater to modern allegories and really fails to stand on its own. Worse, the world-building shifts what allegory is referring to and doesn't really know what it wants to be. Its hard to escape into this fantasy when you can see through to modern day politics and immigration debate, which really harms it, story-wise.
Weeb Warning: Laughably, it reminded me of a worse version of the anime 'Cop Craft'. A portal opens in the Pacific to the land of the faeries and there's a city founded on a US Naval Testing island that acts as its entryway into Earth. Funnily enough, even though its not the best by far and is largely a fantasy-focused throwback to 1980s cop flicks (I mean, it even has the 'angry black police captain' trope which is hilarious), it does world-building and characterization better. It even makes sense that not all the humans are racist, since they seem to be enraptured by this new culture. There's immigrant fears, sure, but that seems to be a minority opinion where people are like 'FUCK MAGIC IS REAL HOLY SHIT'. I just found it funny that an anime based on a light novel does the idea better than a highly produced, Western Drama with two (relatively) big stars.
Final Verdict:
Western entertainment, get your fucking shit together. Everyone is tired of Game of Thrones and modern allegories in escapist shows. Also hire better writers and at least keep track of what modern allegory from what time-period you use, because you can't throw them all in, otherwise you have a mess.
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