Diablo IV

[Bacon Bits]

Yeah I'm not taking a run at you, I get it. It just aligns with my world views for a number of reasons that I'm sure nobody cares about really, and so for me dark fantasy, grimdark, cyberpunk, whatever one wants to call it, is simply 'it' for me. Its the best vehicle to convey how I feel about our society.

Yeah see, you get it too.

Yeah, I can sympathize with that, and I know you weren't taking a run or anything. I love the settings and the worlds.

Right now I want my fiction to be an escape, not a vehicle for examination. I'm looking for something to have fun with and maybe not be reminded of the world outside my living room for awhile.

 

[Scribe]

Yeah, I can sympathize with that, and I know you weren't taking a run or anything. I love the settings and the worlds.

Right now I want my fiction to be an escape, not a vehicle for examination. I'm looking for something to have fun with and maybe not be reminded of the world outside my living room for awhile.

My whole problem, is that a not-small part of me is pretty convinced that the beastmen have it right after all and our best course is to just burn it all down.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Is this a prediction or based on an outright statement from the showrunners?

Prediction. The core boys + Eleven from the original season have been imperiled, but never killed or seriously maimed. That's been the job of their supporting cast, including Barb, Bob and everyone else.

I predict that we're going to have an Infinity War situation where everyone but the original core characters (and I'd probably include Joyce and Hopper in this) will be dead or grievously wounded going into the finale two-parter (because of course it'll be a two-parter).

The "deaths" among the core cast will be the death of innocence (Will is still doing his best in that regard) and a farewell to childhood. They will end on a Stand By Me moment, rather than an It moment. (And I bet we get a Stephen King cameo before the end.)

I don't mean any of this as a criticism, but Stranger Things is meant to be 1980s Spielberg crossed with Stephen King, which shapes how the narrative will ultimately go.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Prediction. The core boys + Eleven from the original season have been imperiled, but never killed or seriously maimed. That's been the job of their supporting cast, including Barb, Bob and everyone else.

I predict that we're going to have an Infinity War situation where everyone but the original core characters (and I'd probably include Joyce and Hopper in this) will be dead or grievously wounded going into the finale two-parter (because of course it'll be two-parter).

The "deaths" among the core cast will be the death of innocence (Will is still doing his best in that regard) and a farewell to childhood. They will end on a Stand By Me moment, rather than an It moment. (And I bet we get a Stephen King cameo before the end.)

I don't mean any of this as a criticism, but Stranger Things is meant to be 1980s Spielberg crossed with Stephen King, which shapes how the narrative will ultimately go.

1980s Stephen King would 100% kill one of those kids. But yeah Spielberg wouldn't.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

1980s Stephen King would 100% kill one of those kids. But yeah Spielberg wouldn't.

I do think we are going to get some bad stuff happening to the other kids. Max is probably in for a hell of a ride in the final season, for instance.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I do think we are going to get some bad stuff happening to the other kids. Max is probably in for a hell of a ride in the final season, for instance.

Really? I get the feeling people like that character a lot more than most of the original group at this point, and she's already been through more than most of them. It seems like that'd be a bit of a misstep writing-wise, but then that wouldn't be uncommon in a final season of a successful show, where the writers totally miscalculate something because they're so pleased with themselves lol.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Moreover, I think that one problem that Diablo and other similar franchises* face when it comes to their tone is that when they depict everyone as being just as bad (angels included) then it creates a sense that the world isn't worth saving.

I don't think that necessarily follows - it only works that way if it really is everyone is - i.e. including all or the vast majority of humanity. Just because angels and demons both suck doesn't mean the world does - it means those being do.

I mean, massive spoilers for Supernatural but

Spoiler

both demons and angels are total and utter wankers, and Lucifer is completely awful and God, who initially seems maybe okay, turns out to be a complete and utter wanker too - and his sister? Also a jerk though she kind of has more of an excuse. And yet this works, because you're not rooting for any of those factions, you're rooting for the people, for Sam and Dean, for their friends, and so on. For humanity (and maybe the odd good supernatural being but Supernatural is a bit weird about that). It's a very far from perfect show, but it does manage to do the "angels and demons, god and lucifer, they almost all suck" thing and yet present the world - and the afterlife - as worth saving.

Unfortunately D3 was appallingly badly written (despite having some decent people working on that bit, oddly), and not only reversed what happened in D2 (for the most part), but made the angels and demons boringly equally bad, made the vast majority of humans bad, and made the PCs nephilim, which was dumb as hell as you noted.

 

[Aldarc]

I don't think that necessarily follows - it only works that way if it really is everyone is - i.e. including all or the vast majority of humanity. Just because angels and demons both suck doesn't mean the world does - it means those being do.

Unfortunately D3 was appallingly badly written (despite having some decent people working on that bit, oddly), and not only reversed what happened in D2 (for the most part), but made the angels and demons boringly equally bad, made the vast majority of humans bad, and made the PCs nephilim, which was dumb as hell as you noted.

I can't speak to a TV series I never cared to watch. I hope you understand that I am not necessarily talking in logical terms about what necessarily follows, but instead in more generalized terms as someone who is just talking about trends in the the genre in general.

I'm not really into stories that try to say that angels and demons suck just as much as each other, and I don't think that Diablo makes a compelling case that humanity sucks less than either angels or demons.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Really? I get the feeling people like that character a lot more than most of the original group at this point, and she's already been through more than most of them. It seems like that'd be a bit of a misstep writing-wise, but then that wouldn't be uncommon in a final season of a successful show, where the writers totally miscalculate something because they're so pleased with themselves lol.

Oh, I think the whole purpose of making the audience like someone in a show like this is so you can be mean to them. There's no point doing bad stuff to characters the audience is indifferent to. (This is also how I treat NPCs as a DM, so it's my worldview.)

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Unfortunately D3 was appallingly badly written (despite having some decent people working on that bit, oddly), and not only reversed what happened in D2 (for the most part), but made the angels and demons boringly equally bad, made the vast majority of humans bad, and made the PCs nephilim, which was dumb as hell as you noted.

So far in D4, the argument is that there are bad entities -- both supernatural and mortal -- in power, but there are people worth saving. There's a flawed NPC you meet in Act I whom my wife and I initially hated, then grew to see as a flawed but not terrible guy, and then raged at his fate.

It feels like this story is going to be more humanistic than the last one and maybe groping toward an ending where the forces of Heaven and Hell are locked out of Sanctuary again.