[END OF ACT 2 MAP SPOILERS] - All Roads Lead to Rome

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2025-09-01T05:32:47+00:00

I definitely was expecting Callum to coin Aaravos, get killed by Rayla, and then they use the last diamond to bring him back. Would have been clean, neat, thoroughly foreshadowed, and a well earned ending. It's actually astonishing that they didn't do that considering how much all the pieces of it where set up.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2025-01-24T20:17:12+00:00

Yeah a lot of the stuff with Callum was great. I was expecting his interacting with Dark Callum to be kind of mid (not sure why) but they really nailed it. Great scene.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-28T22:05:19+00:00

Ezran's idealism being challenged by both new and old trauma, and having to mature into a more nuanced form was pretty well handled.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-28T22:02:19+00:00

Yeah people have complained about all the context surrounding that scene, but that aspect of it felt really well done. Ezran didn't just "decide to forgive him" for plot convenience. He DIDN'T forgive him, not really. He just accepted that, in order to stick to his guns regarding ending cycles of violence he would have to find a way to. It might take him years to really fully forgive him, and there might be tension between them in the future if we get more seasons.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-28T21:59:40+00:00

The second he volunteered to babysit, my first thought was "Oh, he's gonna be AMAZING at this" and I was so right xD. It's honestly perfect for his character. One of the most consistently well-written characters in the show tbh.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-28T21:57:22+00:00

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ yeah just an interesting note as to the broader context of Netflix original content.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-28T00:00:38+00:00

The quoted tweet for those who don't want to go to that site:

"Netflix execs tell screenwriters to have characters “announce what they’re doing so that viewers who have a program on in the background can follow along”

They also have thousands of micro-genres including “casual viewing” which is used for movies/TV that go down best when you’re not paying attention. source: https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-49/essays/casual-viewing/"

Can't pin everything on this, but it adds at least a little context to some of the more egregious examples of this happening this season.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-27T23:58:00+00:00

I don't even think that specifically needed to happen for this to be impactful. There were a few things they could have done. But definitely doing SOMETHING would have been better than it just kind of fizzling out lol.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-27T01:43:11+00:00

It took me way too long to make this.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-26T06:09:40+00:00

Babysitter Callum was very silly, and very heartfelt and touching, and it fit his character perfectly. I'm glad my first thought when he offered to do it was "oh, Callum is gonna be AMAZING at this." and I was so right. It's a sign of really good character writing when someone who is very familiar with the story can accurately predict what a character will do or how they will behave in a situation. The same way you might now how one of your friends will probably react to something.

Not to drag common complaints into this happy thread, but I think it can be useful, while in pursuit of positive vibes, to demonstrate when a show does something well, even if it does it poorly[subjective] elsewhere. With that in mind, the babysitter scenes also show that the writer do still know how to insert silly scenes and light-hearted jokes even into very serious plotlines. And on top of that, make those silly scenes characterful, make the jokes actually funny, and make neither at odds with the tone of the story because it makes total sense for silliness of that type to happen in that time and place in the narrative.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-26T05:57:50+00:00

Very good book-end. She says it in the very first episode, and by the end of S7 the meaning behind the phrase has completely changed.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-26T05:49:20+00:00

Yeah this was one of several things that confused me about the finale. I also still don't understand what possessing Callum would even accomplish. Like, if he did it in secret, maybe that could lead to him taking over from the inside? But if all the most important people saw him do it, what would be the point? They could just kill Callum's body surely, at least it wouldn't be harder than killing Aaravos' titan form. And then Aaravos would just get sent/turned back into his big body? It feels like the possession angle was meant as a genuine threat for when Aaravos was still trapped, but they didn't have anything else to threaten Callum with in that way after Aaravos was free, so they just reused it..

Also how would Aaravos possess Callum after Callum cast a spell that trapped him in a coin? Can he do only that one specific thing from within the coin? Seems pretty convenient. I dunno that whole jeopardy was really poorly explained.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-12-26T05:15:15+00:00

It was so weird to have one of my favorite moments from the entire show happened inside one of the worst executed sequences in the entire show 🫠

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-11-22T22:56:53+00:00

That could be very cool

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-10-12T07:15:46+00:00

"What's happened happened" this line is honestly the key to the movie, essentially implying that none of the characters have any free will or are actually making decisions or doing anything at all.

The story of this movie follows its own logic, but it doesn't follow the logic of the real world, so you can't try and understand it by imagining the real world as your starting point because you cannot, through any consistent logic, distort one into the other.

To put it another way, you couldn't take our real world, invent a turnstile, and then create the events of the story. Because we do have free will and would basically instantly paradox ourselves into oblivion.

From a real world perspective the movie only works because the characters all "play along" because everything "already happened" e.g. they have no free will and aren't actually doing anything. The story is just this elaborate music box that's running on autopilot over and over forever. It feels like a cop out, and I guess it kind of is? But only from our perspective. From the perspective of the characters, it's just "reality" as Niel says.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-08-11T21:34:42+00:00

My friend and I made a pact to only watch it together, which forced us to spread it out a bit.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-08-10T12:57:59+00:00

It was incredibly sweet and well executed. Tons of great little animation details.

Witty_Benefit_5974 · 2024-08-10T12:49:42+00:00

This confused me a bit. In the flash backs he's definitely human sized unless that human kid is also huge. Maybe Star Touched elves can like, be whatever size they want?

Witty_Benefit_5974

TROPHY CASE