DISCLAIMER: I say she's terrible, not the worst, just terrible, there are plenty worse villains out there.
So I had a lot more to say about Teen Titans that I forgot to add in my initial post, but since it got more comments than what I usually get, I figured a sequel wouldn't be so... well, out of the blue. I figured this would be a great time to tear into a certain brand of villain.
The sociopathic plank.
A sociopathic plank is a villain with no aspects beyond being evil, and are otherwise bland. Basically a white flag erected by the writers. An example of this is Azula from Avatar, but if I talked about her it'd just be twenty paragraphs of me saying she's bland over and over again.
But while on that topic, for as complex as fans of the show claim it to be, they did a horrible job establishing Azula, three dimensional characterization is a must for good writing, here, she was evil from the youngest we saw her, we don't see Ozai abusing her, driving her to the ways of the Fire Nation, hell, we don't even get the idea she's doing all of this out of nationalistic pride, which would add some dimensions to her character because she's only doing this out of the love for her nation. No, she's just a bland sociopath. And don't give me that "Well it's implied-" bullshit, that's the oldest copout in the book.
I wanna focus on BlackFire though, because I really meant to include it in my WIDL Teen Titans entry, but then again I'd spent a huge chunk of it dissecting her two most prominent appearances.
So let's do that right now
BlackFire is StarFire's evil sister, nothing more, nothing less, and that's actually a legit summary, that's all she is. Only thing mildly interesting about BlackFire is that she looks like she's perpetually stoned. The droopy eyelids look stupid, it looks like she's perpetually stoned. But maybe that's why she's like that, she smoked a lot of Tamaranian weed which removes your personality and makes you a sociopath.
On her first appearance, even in the first few minutes of her appearance you could make out what she really is right away. The only time they try to throw anyone off is when they throw in a mcguffin villain.
Stop me if you heard this one before, villain goes after a smaller individual, heroes stop it, the saved turns out to be evil but we come to that conclusion in different ways. Xiaolin Showdown, Krypto the Superdog, The Thing. This seems to be a favorite plotline for shows by Warner Bros. Television Animation, had it not been for the differences in progression I'd say this would be another unholy cliche.
So, BlackFire arrives without notice and chums it up with the other titans, and if there's one thing I learned, is that 9 times out of 10 the new arrivals would turn out to be different extents of evil. Smart viewers could easily tell that something is wrong, not because the premise is cliche, but because BlackFire is so insufferably bland that she doesn't even make the effort to sell the farce further than needed.
If Billie Eilish came out at this time, Bad Guy would be BlackFire's lemotif.
They try to make her first few minutes seem as harmless as possible, with friendly introductions as well as a gift. This would work if you're a kid who can't perceive what's obvious, but if you can read through the lines and piece together everything that has happened before, you may've cracked the mystery faster than the episode itself.
So, the obvious- I mean that incredibly surprising twist is that BlackFire framed StarFire for stealing a valued artifact. Aside from the fact that BlackFire already established herself as an overly-extroverted partier who tried to weasel herself and etch Star out and just so happened to turn up around the same time the mcguffin did, this was a clever twist.
I would've been fine if it was a one-off, but no, we got another appearance from her and it's not even interesting to talk about, or at least to go in as much detail as the previous one.
The only interesting thing about this episode is that it basically shows just how bland of a villain BlackFire is. Near verbatim, she says "I got bored, so I took Tamaran over for kicks." You know, making your villains bland implies a lack of faith in how people perceive the protagonists.
This would've been an interesting time to really establish Tamaran proper, perhaps give proper perspective as to why BlackFire is such a plank, perhaps she was corrupted... damn, nothing can salvage this. Are Tamaranians this inept at evolution? StarFire never evolved when it came to her vocabulary, and hell, Tamaranians are only a slight notch above primates if their appearance and eating habits are anything to go by.
Hell, that could've been a point to that oh-so deep episode on racism, where that douche would see Tamaranians are unwilling to evolve and abiding to negative stereotypes, anything.
But Why?
Now you're probably thinking "Well no wonder this guy keeps sperging about Enter, he's taking a cartoon too seriously." and to that I say... I concede, aside from not exhibiting anger, but wait a minute that's basically animation criticism in general. You could hold me up to the frequent use of ellipses.
I have a bunch of reasons why I'm taking this show so seriously, why I complain about it so much.
First up, I actually did grow up with this show, it made up many a good afternoon of cartoons, and I frequently watched the show when I visited my grand uncle before he lost his mind. Whether you'd believe it or not at this point, this show was a decent part of my childhood.
So why'd I give it up? Well yeah, the Teen Titans Go hate got to me. A reason why I don't hop aboard the anti-Trump train and a reason why I hopped off the anti-Enter train is because those, and the anti Teen Titans Go crowd are insufferable. So insufferable that when they name drop something they support in opposition, I'd automatically have to hold it to a high standard, only something that good could explain such rampant idiocy.
As a result, I found myself falling out of love with Teen Titans, I became open to flaws either not seen or intentionally ignored by fans. Basically, the show wasn't as good as everyone made it out to be, certainly not enough to launch an entire campaign against a braindead comedy.
At its core, Teen Titans was full of missed opportunities, poor writing, an inconsistent art style and equally inconsistent tones, and get this, this show is technically a kiddied version of the comics, something people are too happy to forget about.
Think that covers my grievances with Teen Titans, hopefully.
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