To me it feels like if they redid the Star Wars prequels and instead of Anakin being a pretty good Jedi with some dark leanings before he was pushed over the edge and became Vader, he was a colossal monster. He waged the Clone Wars for conquest instead of defending the Republic, killed Wookies because they got in his way and turned them into rugs, and was already plotting the eradication of the Jedi Order. He went as far as to personally seek out Darth Sidius solely for purposes of becoming a Darth. And after arrangements for becoming a Sith Lord are being made Palpatine says "Hey, kill the Jedi right now and I'll save Padme." And Vader responded with, "Sure, it's already on my to-do list. I'll just move it to the top."
Anakin's story was horrible. Lucas' writing was horrible. Having it be nothing more than backstory that Vader was once a great and noble Jedi who fell to the dark side because he had a lot of unresolved issues was okay. Not great, but okay. When it was actually written out? It was horrible. Bad people killed my mom! I'll use my great power to murder them! Bad people may kill my wife in the future! I'll use my great power to kill everyone! It was whiny, pathetic, and just downright bad. I'd be MUCH happeier if they rewrote Anakin to be a bad-guy from the start!
Anakin: lowly child was raised as a slave but was too old and too angry for Jedi training. At some point he discovered his latent force abilities and used them to seek revenge against those who had imprisoned him and his mother and harmed all his poor-kid friends. But soon the mob bosses and criminals who supported those slavers wanted revenge in turn and Anakin's powerful force abilities attracted "Dark Powers" who trained him in even more exceptionally deadly dark arts! Soon Anakin took charge of these many criminal organizations and allied himself with the Trade Federation, being tricked by the "Dark Lord" into thinking that everything that happened to him was a result of the failure of the Jedi and the Republic to protect his backwater planet! A great war broke out! Anakin was a merciless warlord! He met this hot chick who wasn't that interested in him, but he thought if he became powerful enough, she'd love him! It didn't work! Soon Anakin was killing for the sake of killing! His love betrayed him and lured him into a fight with Old-Guy Man! Old-Guy Man nearly killed Anakin, but the Dark Powers saved his crispy bacon! With the Dark Powers plot revealed, the new Darth Vader laid waste to the Jedi and became right-hand-man of the new Emperor!
See, much better. No more twerpy emofest. No more angst-ridden writer insert. Still keeps the important parts, but wraps them up into a much more believable, much more reasonable story than "Angry emo kid goes crazy 'cause not-girlfriend doesn't go for him."
Or, to pick an example that is less auto-disliked, it's would be akin to Romeo and Juliet if they were both terminally ill and going to die anyway. It still might be sad and a bummer, but it's no longer a tragedy. There's never a point in the story where things could change and become a comedy, no turning point where the protagonist shifts from hero to villain.
Lets try again!
Romeo, the poor kid from the wrong side of town falls for Juliet, the rich girl with all the right curves! But alas! It is not meant to be! So Romeo dedicates himself to becoming rich and powerful so that her family might respect him. Alas all he knows is crime, but he sure does know his crime, so Romeo becomes a powerful crime boss! He spends years of his life moving up the ranks and soon he is rich and powerful, even moreso than Juliet's family, but alas they are old money and see him as new money, unworthy of their bloodline. Angered by this, Romeo seeks aid from the Dark Powers to twist the fates and make it appear that he is indeed Old Money. But alas it is not enough, for Juliet does not love him! Instead she has fallen for his humble brother, who owns nothing more than a farm. Romeo has everything! Money! Power! But now the one thing he wants is beyond his reach forever! In a fit of rage he destroy's Juliet's family, his
own family, even his brother and Juliet! Saddened by his loss he strikes a new deal with the Dark Powers so that Juliet may live forever and one day love him!
See, the love is a good sort of background motivator for the character. It drives him. It moves him. It underlies his very existence! But at the same time, his descent into madness is slow and painful and the more powerful and more depraved he becomes, the more his Love is pushed away from him. He is obsessed, but singleminded. The loss of his love is the straw that broke the camel's back, not the sudden turning point in his life where he went from flowers and puppies to violence and depravity.
That's what I dislike. There's no tragedy in Strahd anymore, which sucks ALL the drama out of events because there was never a choice, never a moment where he could have decided to take a different path. There's no emotion because the fall is a foregone conclusion. Which is one of the big themes of Gothic literature and horror: people making the wrong decision and the loss that follows. Gothic literature very much IS emo. Strahd was very much playing to a trope of the genre. And moving away from that diminishes Strahd from a tragic villain who fell for love to just another generic capital-E Evil monster to be killed. He's generic. Just another vampire.
Gothic literature is also very much about inescapable fate. We, the reader know what is going to happen, but we keep reading because Strahd
doesn't and if he does (say, via a card reading) he ignores it! His chances to change his ways show up over and over and
over again and each time he dismisses them because magic or because he is so close or because he has great power. We want to see Strahd succeed as much as we want to see Strahd fail.
Personally, I don't see the original telling of Strahd as being a very good representation of gothic writing or even a very good representation of writing at all. It's VERY Anakin. Couple rough points in his life and suddenly has a vision of doom and decides to save the Evil Emperor for no good raisin and then every bad thing he saw coming happens because it's all his fault. Okay, that last part I actually like.
But I don't really much care for characters who "suddenly snap". It's fine for psychos, guys who go around murdering teenagers once a year with chainsaws. It's not really that good for
villains.
EX: I just watched Jessica Jones, their portrayal of Kilgrave varied
greatly from the original (where he was kinda lame, powerful, but not a real great character) and they made him into someone who was absolutely depraved, but all of his depravity stemmed from two things: he could get anything he wanted...except the one thing he
really wanted. And he just completely lacked any sort of moral compass on how to get it so he just went with what he knew. That's Strahd right there. The guy who has everything and wants the one thing he can't have, but will do
anything to get it, and the harder he tries to get it, the more it slips through his fingers.
The thing is, regardless of which you like better (or how much you hated the prequels) one is already canon. It's possible to retcon and rewrite unpopular canon or "fix" things, but that's tricky and shouldn't be done lightly.
As a rule, writers should respect the IP they're hired to update and not make changes without reason. Writers are the stewards of the IP, and they change to accommodate canon, not the other way round.
This is a reoccurring problem with WotC and the current team. Like how the entire modus operandi of the Cult of the Dragon changed and contorted to fit the Tyranny of Dragons storyline.
*shrug* as a long-time comic book reader you have one of two choices when dealing with retcons:
A: Deal and keep reading, knowing it will likely change again, and again, and
again in the future.
B: Stop reading.
I choose A.
