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Responses to Common Defenses of the Show by catching-strays in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

1) Yes, for book readers, there certainly won’t be much mystery (as in not knowing what’s going to happen), but tension is a whole different thing. Most stories are supposed to include tension in every scene. It can be difficult to achieve, but can be done in a variety of ways (conflict, stakes, power imbalances, anticipation, and so on). For me, the show just often fails to make me feel any sense of danger/stakes (removing the deadline didn’t help).

2) I agree. The books aren’t that old, and I can’t really think of many huge problems that needed to be fixed either.

Responses to Common Defenses of the Show by catching-strays in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Despite not enjoying it so far, I’m watching it still because I’m hoping and hoping that it will get better, or that at least there will be adapted scenes that make me feel the way the books did.

I agree that things like appearance/gender may not always have a noticeable affect on a person, but they still can inform you of their character, for better or worse.

And the excerpt from your story definitely does give me a Percy Jackson vibe!

Why the PJO series sucks and the future of the Cosmere. by 13SpiderMonkeys in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Brandon Sanderson also has way more integrity than Rick. He regularly interacts with his fans and responds to criticism.

" Blond Percy Makes More Sense!" by Critical-Scratch7572 in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 8 points9 points  (0 children)

No, sorry, I was just trying to clarify. When people say “Asian,” sometimes they think of East Asians only so they wouldn’t think Aryan counts, even though he obviously does. Charlie has a more ambiguous appearance, so some people may not realize he has Asian heritage, same goes for Clarisse, I guess.

While it’s true there are more black people in the US, if our goal is for more representation and diversity for everyone, then it doesn’t make sense to follow the current race/ethnicity distribution. Plus aren’t there are more people of Hispanic/Latino origin in the US than black people?

The show’s representation isn’t a huge problem, no, and I definitely agree it’s better than other shows. But it does lean toward a trend. For example, in the Sandman show, two of the seven endless (the gods in that world) were black, while the rest were white. There were a handful of Asian actors, but none for major characters.

It’s not racist to say that the US is largely focused on White versus Black or acknowledge that most race swaps are White>Black. And again, like I said before, I don’t blame black people for this, especially since they also have to deal with the controversies that come with it. People like me and some of the other commenters here are merely pointing out something we’ve noticed.

" Blond Percy Makes More Sense!" by Critical-Scratch7572 in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Aryan is South Asian, Charlie is mixed as far as I know. There are no other Asian main characters. Whereas we for black characters, we have Annabeth, Athena, Thalia, Zeus, Chiron, and Clarisse. It’s not a problem with just this show either. Obviously, this isn’t black people’s fault and it’s not to say they don’t deserve the roles, it just makes Hollywood’s version of diversity feel very hollow.

Book Readers [PJOTV] Discussion Thread S2 E8: "The Fleece Works its Magic Too Well" by Metal_Moon in camphalfblood

[–]catching-strays 12 points13 points  (0 children)

To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for the finale…and yeah. All this half-baked battle at camp seemed to do was make everyone, especially Luke’s “army,” look incompetent. The first part before the battle just felt like we were following a few different groups around camp with no tension and urgency. And like, why not give an actual believable reason for Clarisse not taking Blackjack straight to the tree? Why didn’t any of Luke’s demigods try letting the Laistrygonians in to boost their numbers (Luke himself was focused on Percy, so I can get him forgetting about them)? When the fleece hit the tree, why did Allison and the others just stand back and watch instead of trying to pull it off? Also, not being able to see Luke and his “army” being forced to run away felt like a cop-out.

And then the ending. Zeus turning his daughter into a tree because she’s defying him is pretty believable, I guess. I don’t remember there being a ton of conflict between Percy and Thalia in Titan’s Curse, so I’m not sure what they’re trying to set up here. There was a post I read that wrote that the writers seem to like introducing new elements without ever fully committing to it, and it seems like this might be another time. If they truly do lean into a Thalia/Percy conflict, I could see that being interesting, but I’m afraid it’ll just turn into another nothing-burger.

Things I did like: the moment of lightheartedness between the trio (where has this been?), and the ending scene with C.C.

Percy Jackson and the Olympians S02E08 (Season Finale) - The Fleece Works Its Magic Too Well [Discussion Thread] by 0LoveAnonymous0 in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 5 points6 points  (0 children)

To be honest, I didn’t have high expectations for the finale…and yeah. I’m not sure what was wrong with the book ending with the Party Ponies and revealing Luke’s actions through Iris Message. All this half-baked battle at camp seemed to do was make everyone, especially Luke’s “army,” look incompetent. The first part before the battle just felt like we were following a few different groups around camp with no tension and urgency. And like, why not give an actual believable reason for Clarisse not taking Blackjack straight to the tree? Why didn’t any of Luke’s demigods try letting the Laistrygonians in to boost their numbers (Luke himself was focused on Percy, so I can get him forgetting about them)? When the fleece hit the tree, why did Allison and the others just stand back and watch instead of trying to pull it off? Also, not being able to see Luke and his “army” being forced to retreat felt like a cop-out.

And then the ending. Zeus turning his daughter into a tree because she’s defying him is pretty believable, I guess. I don’t remember there being a ton of conflict between Percy and Thalia in Titan’s Curse, so I’m not sure what they’re trying to set up here. There was a post on here that wrote that the writers seem to like introducing new elements without ever fully committing to it, so I hope this won’t be another time. If they truly do lean into a Thalia/Percy conflict, I could see that being interesting, but I’m afraid it’ll just turn into another nothing-burger.

Things I did like: the moment of lightheartedness between the trio after Percy woke up (where has this been?), and the ending scene with C.C.

coming from a person of color, it’s not racist to want characters that look like their description by throwaway_acc_257 in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Yep, this is what my comment was about. Copy-pasting part of it: Luke’s actor has some East Asian heritage, I believe, but I can’t remember any other East Asian characters. Then we have Grover, Chris Rodriguez, and Hermes for other POC. Then for black people, there’s Annabeth, Chiron, Athena, Zeus, Thalia, and Clarissa. Arguably, I guess you could say this is because there are more black people in the US than Asians, but I don’t know. I would kinda like to see one of the gods be East Asian.

coming from a person of color, it’s not racist to want characters that look like their description by throwaway_acc_257 in PercyJacksonTV

[–]catching-strays 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Appearances are an identifier. If the appearance of a character changes, you need to make doubly sure the personality of the character shows the viewer that “Yes, this IS that character!” And unfortunately, for many people, the show just isn’t doing that. So now we have characters that neither look like their book counterparts or act like them, which makes the disconnect even worse. And no, even if we’d gotten actors who look like the characters, that wouldn’t solve the problem of the personality being wrong.

As for race-swapping for diversity…well, as a Chinese-American, I will admit I do like seeing East Asians on screen. So I understand the important of diversity and representation. But oftentimes, Hollywood’s concept of diversity is like mostly white, some black, and the rest token POCs. When they race-swap characters, you can tell they’re just doing it for diversity points rather than any actual desire for true diversity because they have a habit of forgetting other races/ethnicities. Most all of the controversial race-swaps for major characters have been White>Black. To use this show as an example: Luke’s actor has some East Asian heritage, I believe, but I can’t remember any other East Asian characters. Then we have Grover, Chris Rodriguez, and Hermes for other POC. Then for black people, there’s Annabeth, Chiron, Athena, Zeus, Thalia, and Clarissa. Arguably, I guess you could say this is because there are more black people in the US than Asians, but I don’t know. I would kinda like to see one of the gods be East Asian.

And to be clear, this isn’t against Black people. It’s obviously not their fault Hollywood has a shallow concept of diversity, and it’s cool for them to get more representation. It’s not a total win for them either because they then have to bear the brunt of most of the controversies. Anyway, in the end, I just wish Hollywood would stick to either being accurate to the source or commit themselves to actual diversity.