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Worm and Ward discussion and debate thread

Discussion in 'CW Index' started by OverReactionGuy, Jul 23, 2015.

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  1. Lykaia

    Lykaia Well worn.

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    Huh, those were the parts that had always interested me least in Worm. They're sorta interesting as a background element but I've always preferred the smaller focus of the Warlord Arc and prior.
     
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  2. volantredx

    volantredx Experienced.

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    ...That's exactly my point. Some of those things work in small doses or as background details, but whole sections of Ward, especially toward the end if I've been informed correctly, are all about fighting villains across whole dimensions, dealing with the frankly stupid shard's thing, and giant battles with monsters. Instead of, you know, being about Superheroes in the aftermath of Golden Morning. Honestly, Ward would have worked out better as a sequel of sorts. Set it 10 years after the emergence of Superheroes and be about the founding Wards team or a new branch being set up. Have it be all about the foundations of the cape culture and watch the birth of the world we see in Worm. Having it be set after the end sort of makes the story feel like it's trying too hard to top itself and fails at doing so.
     
  3. Lykaia

    Lykaia Well worn.

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    I'm not disagreeing with you just stating I feel the same way. Eh, at least it'll be more fanfic fodder though I doubt it'll be the same bottle of lightning that Worm was.
     
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  4. volantredx

    volantredx Experienced.

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    Personally I was hoping for more insight into what Victoria and her family were like prior to the whole "Flesh monster" thing, but that doesn't seem abundant in the story.
     
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  5. Sydonai

    Sydonai Versed in the lewd.

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    Except for the-
    Wildbow: "Retcon, Amelia totally raped Victoria a whole bunch instead of healing her, and that's why Amelia couldn't remember how to put her back together properly"
    -part.
    Which, yeah, the entire setting would have been better off without that .
     
  6. Lykaia

    Lykaia Well worn.

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    Damn, who knew that Amelia was so kinky? If that's true wasn't Victoria a Shoggoth-lite at that point in time in terms of appearance.
     
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  7. volantredx

    volantredx Experienced.

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    A lot of Amy's stuff in Ward seems to be WB deliberately trying to make her as unpleasant as possible. Either to justify his earlier writing choice of having her sent to the Birdcage or to piss off fans of her's.
     
  8. Melmar

    Melmar Should probly stop sayin' words

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    Wait, it's already over? Did he ever kill off Pana-history'sgreatestmonster-cea or does she get to live?
     
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  9. nick012000

    nick012000 Gone for Good

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    She’s still alive. She got hit by some falling rocks during the fight with the Simurgh that Victoria might or might not have pushed on her (Victoria was hallucinating and went through the same scene twice), but she survived that.

    Also, I think that Victoria winds up forgiving her at the end, or at least dismissing her as irrelevant and moving on. Ward is ultimately a story about healing from trauma and mental illness. There’s a thematic reason why all of its main villains have mind control powers.
     
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  10. Melmar

    Melmar Should probly stop sayin' words

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    Wasn't she a rapey, attempted world conquering psycho in Ward? I wouldn't call that irrelevant. Kinda seems like letting her go isn't a very good idea.
     
  11. nick012000

    nick012000 Gone for Good

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    I mean more along the lines of “I’ve moved on from the horrible things you did to me; I don’t care about you anymore.”
     
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  12. Melmar

    Melmar Should probly stop sayin' words

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    I mean, did they imprison her? Did someone else kill her? From what I've heard, she genuinely shouldn't be allowed to roam free because she'd become a complete monster.
     
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  13. nick012000

    nick012000 Gone for Good

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    She got sent to the Wardens for therapy, and the Wardens are likely to arrest her if she doesn’t give it an honest try. That’s why she was in the Wardens’ base during the Simurgh attack.
     
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  14. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    While also ignoring the fact that he literally wrote things so fate utterly shits on her in order to get her to breakdown and said any other path in canon would have lead to her dying at the hands of the Nine (by refusing to break her rules) or having a gradual breakdown and committing suicide years into the future (If the Nine/Leviathan never attacked BB leading to the original status quo continuing) so Amy becoming an idiotic supervillain Rapist was the "best outcome" for her.........

    Also the fact that in worm Amy came off as a massive drama queen overreacting to not being a perfect saint who tirelessly heals everyone so her moaning about being a "monster" seemed more like an actually relatable "everyone needs help, you aren't obligated to sacrifice your own welfare just for being able to heal people" theme instead of "No I'm totally super evil and it's just waiting to come out!".

    Whereas in Ward Amy is proven totally and utterly accurate in her mid-breakdown self-assessment as well as a massive fuckup who literally can't do anything right without bodyhorroring people.

    Also Vicky is totally right and never at fault and there was no accidental aura-induced brainwashing despite previous WOG heavily hinting at it.

    OH! Also "Vicky's friend Sveta with a triple digit body count deserves hugs and friendship but Amy deserves none, she's just a bitch who was totally responsible for all her crimes".

    And instead of anything like Amy learning to use her power responsibly she just vows to "never use it again" so fuck anyone it could help I guess? WB can't let Amy do anything right.

    It's unintentionally proving Brandish was right in her shitty parenting for blaming a fucking 6 year old for who her father was

    /rant
     
    Last edited: Apr 20, 2020
  15. volantredx

    volantredx Experienced.

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    Amy being evil does sort of unintentionally hint at the idea of morality being genetic.
     
  16. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    Also Brandiah sympathising with Amy and trying to be a better mother AFTER the flesh blob incident looks pretty fucked up in hindsight now after the rape clarification.
     
  17. kamenhero25

    kamenhero25 The Masked Writer

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    Wildbow totally disregarding implications, continuity, and meaning for the sake of whatever gratuitous and totally nonsensical suffering he's decided to force into his story this week?

    Must be Tuesday.
     
  18. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    Baaaah.

    WoG or no, in Worm itself Wildbow quite failed to write Amy as someone who was just intrinsically, inevitably on the path to evil. Regarding what actually happened, in Worm it looks like all the circumstances converged to produce the worst possible situation for her, and if she'd had any decent environment to live in she'd have turned out just fine. (One reason why she's such a popular fix-fic target.)

    The idea that even her canon Worm path was "the best outcome" for her is just more gratuitous grimdark that should be ignored.
     
  19. Melmar

    Melmar Should probly stop sayin' words

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    It just seems kinda bizarre that he made the whole thing about moving beyond trauma but, he made one of the characters that actually seemed to be moving past her own trauma at the end of Worm retroactively into a rapey monster. Why is that how he chose to play it? It actually makes Brandish's realization and character growth seem like a mistake. Not that you can blame her for not picking up on the subtle but totally there no really you guys rape confession. I struggle to think of a reason why he'd do that beyond the "herpa berp it's all grimderp" explanation.

    Honestly, I wish they'd both carked it and we had someone more interesting, and not even Dallon family adjacent, to follow as the protagonist. Mighta made it past the first four arcs then cuz Vicky's dull as dishwater and the Dallon family drama suuuuuuucks. :V
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
  20. Sinnerlust

    Sinnerlust The bastard

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    I'm only going argue the aura thing the rest I agree, bow admited that aura only paid a small part in affecting amy. Because if it was all the aura fault her whole family would want to fuck her by now fanon exaggerated the aura so I can see why he ignored it fans didn't look for any thing else but blame Victoria. It's also very obvious bow reads worm fanfics and Amy faults arecso massively downplayed. He probably grew resentful.
     
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  21. Sinnerlust

    Sinnerlust The bastard

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    Yeah ward is stupid for alot of characters. Which I hate because I like Vicky and was excited at first but wildbow goes for grimderp.
     
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  22. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    Except Amy was obviously in a worse headspace thanks to shitty and neglectful parenting plus the way she was adopted so the aura would logically have a much more severe/different effect on her as opposed to the other members.

    Wildbow even said somewhere that Amy's previous sexuality didn't matter any more because it was overwritten by her current vickysexual one IIRC.
     
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  23. Sinnerlust

    Sinnerlust The bastard

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    I'm going by wildbow statements if he contradicts himself . That's on him but I will say her situation would make the aura worse. Brandish is shit show of a mother and ward made her more fucked up.
     
    Last edited: Apr 17, 2020
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  24. alethiophile

    alethiophile Shadowed Philosopher Administrator

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    It's reasonable to guess that the aura had a stronger effect on Amy than it did on anyone else in New Wave, because she was the only one who was heavily exposed to it throughout her adolescence. Exactly how much was aura, and how much was codependency born of Victoria being the only person Amy had any positive relationship with, is pretty ambiguous.

    In either case, though, you've got the same problem where Amy has precisely one positive relationship with anyone and that relationship is driving her into self-loathing because she can't control her attraction. Literally any family situation other than that would have given her a better outcome.
     
  25. Enohthree

    Enohthree Versed in the lewd.

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    It's fun to remember that Amy's balking idea of 'seriously increasing her workload' that she didn't want to do during her pre-Leviathan time involved visiting the hospital a whooping... couple hours a day every day.
    Which means that her issues at the time about not being able to heal everyone in the world were happening while she was going there after school only once or twice a week, and then leaving before a normal non-powered volunteer would.
     
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  26. volantredx

    volantredx Experienced.

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    IIRC the conversation between Amy and Gallant has Amy describe her issues not as a desire to do more to help people, but a sense of helplessness and pointlessness to her actions and that she doesn't really want to help people anymore but feels forced to do so.
     
  27. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    Like the ONLY other person on which I'd even expect the aura to have a similar effect on as Amy would be Brandish and that's entirely down to the fact that Brandish has massive issues regarding trusting anyone not related to her by blood.
     
  28. Coiler

    Coiler I trust you know where the happy button is?

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    First, I tried to read it from the start. Like all of Wildbow's serials, I gave it a sincere chance but ended up dropping it a few updates in because of the flat prose and the bad, zigzagging pacing. I saw he wasn't improving nearly enough and put it aside. When it concluded, I looked back, and saw that it had inherited many of Worm's problems beyond those. Escalation-creep, plot-powers, writing into a corner and getting out via contrivances, which leads to getting into another corner, and probably more, but those are the biggest I could see in both.
     
  29. 1986ctcel

    1986ctcel Connoisseur.

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    Well it ended, I guess we can at least be grateful for the fact that it PROBABLY isn't as fucked up as Twig's "happy ending" was underneath Wildbow's attempt at focusing on "happy protagonists for once".
     
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  30. Sinnerlust

    Sinnerlust The bastard

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    So how about them Titan's