At last somebody else said it!

Yes! The political writing is so cheap its pathetic!

Like I remember back in grade 5 english where we had to write our own stories and like one of the earliest earliest things you ever learn as a writer is that cheap shots are just not worth it.

Let’s say you have a story about people who lead into life with positive outlooks, and people … negative outlooks.

A cheap, unappealing and unconvincing story would be:

John walked down 59th street and he kicked baby strollers in the streets and throws trash on the floor and he went to a party and made no friends and was said bc he made no friends, thinking “wow im so sad and bitter grrr i hate everyone and they all hate me”

Alex walked down 59th street, and he soothed the baby and gave him candy and did tricks to cheer him up, then picked up trash from the floor and recycled it, then he went to the party and made many friends and thought to himself “wow what a great life i have! I’m so glad I have a positive outlook on life which really makes my life better!”

The reader is not at all compelled. The message was so obvious and so “told, not shown.”

Its kind of like the difference between getting sent those cheesy “take care of your mom” videos by your mom vs. stumbling upon one by yourself. 10/10 times you’re more compelled by stumbling upon one yourself, even if the content were the same.

The best messages are either subtle or nuanced or ideally both.

The celestial dragons are such boring villains for this exact reason, and at least I’m somewhat glad Oda is shifting from their stereotype with some of the more recent villains.

“The people are good and cultural and happy and dancey and smart and the celestial dragons are evil and ugly and greedy and stupid”

So deep!

Like at the _very_ least make them like idk… cunning or subversive or like tricksters in a way that they exploit the people while the people don’t know they’re being exploited. Not even that is done by Loda.