Carnival Row

Lithose said:

I think this is a the best criticism I can walk away with now that I watched it. They very nearly fell into the world building trap that a lot of fantasy shows fall into. I'm pretty biased since I love world building, so I enjoyed the show--but I can totally understand why someone people felt like the plot moved no where. Because world building is not a story, even if its interesting. And this show, the "world" seems like its essential for the plot, so as you said, the entire first arc was spent on it--while a b story plot was used to cobble it together. It all felt like an first act, not a full story.

It was serviceable, but they really skirted close to falling into that hole.





That said. I wouldn't say the show is SJW propaganda, but it does exploit some tiresome tropes SJWs have since made into dogma. But in this show those themes manifest the same way they did in 90s "counter culture" pieces like Dances with Wolves ect. Which I'm fine with, it was subtle enough that its clear the story didn't serve the message, the message was just tossed in whenever they could. Which again, is not nearly as bad watching a story be turned to shit to spout a message (Which is the distinction IMO between this and ideological (Of any type) garbage).

But I do understand why people would get exasperated. Take your police example as the "every-man" perspective. Did you ever feel like the cops have any justification for their anger? Do you get PoV from them where you SEE the reasons why they are so bitter? Like situations where gang warfare or other specifically "immigrant" crime manifestations threaten the police or kill people they care about? Or are their comments chalked up to pure ignorance? Its that kind of bias people can get sick of. There is no attempt to show how the angry cops got that way; meanwhile the story focuses a lot on how the 'immigrants' got to be in the situation they are in. So when those fae creatures do wrong, we sympathize with them--we understand their motivations. When the cops are acting like jerks, we don't, because we have no idea why they are being belligerent assholes.

As said though, I don't think the show is bad because of this. But it does have a view and it pushes it as hard as it can without damaging the story. It sure as shit ain't "The Wire" or some nuanced understanding of all sides. In genuinely great stories, both sides would be developed enough that the conflict would be seen as almost tragic, both sides have their reasons for acting the way they do outside of 'because I'm EVIL!'. In reality, the heuristics which drive these kinds of group conflicts, or even things like bigotry, are complicated and not born totally from ignorance.

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