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So I just watch this series and finished it. I have opinions about it but I think it's pretty good overall it's just that I'm a bit wary of the direction that it's going.
Dota: Dragon's Blood
- Thread starter Opifex-Plebian
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So I just watch this series and finished it. I have opinions about it but I think it's pretty good overall it's just that I'm a bit wary of the direction that it's going.
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Speaking as someone whose played 1000+ hours of Dota but knew virtually nothing about the lore before watching the show, I think Sarcastic Chorus does a pretty good summation of it:
While it was enjoyable as a guilty pleasure sort of thing there are plenty of issues with it. You've got surface level problems like background characters being inanimate still frames because they needed to save their money for the DRAGONS which is admittedly an understandable choice.
However there are deeper issues like how they dump a pile of incoherent irrelevant lore about the underlying forces of the setting on us when all we needed is "demon wants the 8 dragon balls so he can wish the world away" but at the same time when it comes to worldbuilding the only speaking characters are humans, elves, dragons, and the aforementioned demon, with a few others like the red orc people as background characters. In a setting that I know just from the game and brief glimpses in the wiki while looking for stats is bustling with a wide range of species and weirder things like sentient black holes.
The average viewer probably comes away with the idea that this is a generic medieval fantasy setting with occasional suggestions otherwise, which is honestly doing a disservice to what could be done with the setting. My assumption is they started off on the shallow end because they feared going full weird Dota lore would scare people off, but I think they should've gone a little deeper.
While it was enjoyable as a guilty pleasure sort of thing there are plenty of issues with it. You've got surface level problems like background characters being inanimate still frames because they needed to save their money for the DRAGONS which is admittedly an understandable choice.
However there are deeper issues like how they dump a pile of incoherent irrelevant lore about the underlying forces of the setting on us when all we needed is "demon wants the 8 dragon balls so he can wish the world away" but at the same time when it comes to worldbuilding the only speaking characters are humans, elves, dragons, and the aforementioned demon, with a few others like the red orc people as background characters. In a setting that I know just from the game and brief glimpses in the wiki while looking for stats is bustling with a wide range of species and weirder things like sentient black holes.
The average viewer probably comes away with the idea that this is a generic medieval fantasy setting with occasional suggestions otherwise, which is honestly doing a disservice to what could be done with the setting. My assumption is they started off on the shallow end because they feared going full weird Dota lore would scare people off, but I think they should've gone a little deeper.
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Is that big problem to be honest?
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What is DOTA's selling point? Why make it over any other generic medieval fantasy centered on humans and elves? My assumption would be the same thing that makes DOTA the game good, the massive pool of characters, with wildly divergent appearances and abilities. Or put another way:
What I expected said:
What I got said:
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Well I mean I like it and besides if you want to be balls to the wall werid at the first volume. You would make a comic. I know that's your fan of there's original source and I'm not really.
So that you probably feel so different about it
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Season 2 have left me mixed....
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
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The Very French Pangolin-Man was honestly a highlight of season 2.
But honestly Dragon's Blood has felt like off brand Arcane (not in its story really, but in the general thrust of being a show of a champion based game exploring it's background lore)
In general I felt like this show had a bad habit of speedrunning through scenes and plots. And killing both mooks and characters far too quickly and casually for their deaths to have any real impact. Marci's death ended up being the straw that broke the camels back.
For me that felt like a clear cut case of fridging. They even have the main villain literally state out loud that she's only going to die to cause pain for a main character to unlock a power up. And then the somehow managed to both go too fast and too slow through her death scene and it ends up being exactly what happens and the guy dies in a lame anticlimax that's supposed to be dramatic but is too rushed and poorly executed to feel awesome.
And the worst part is that the whole thing was completely pointless. Mirana already had the moment that should have given her the big epic power up needed for the climax, touching the Eye. We already had a better and sadder heroic sacrifice to enable that power up via Auroths death becu she had actual agency in her death while Marci and Mirana were forced to just sit around and wait for Marci to be slowly strangled to death.
It just feels cheap. It's a lazy use of trauma based suoerpowered awakening and a misguided belief that more character death equals more compelling story telling.
But all this did was give a shoddy message that the bad guy was right all along. It would have been far more compelling if Mirana proved the guy was full of shit by unlocking her true power in respons to him threatening Marci instead of having him be right about Marci needing to die. Or better yet, take the very interesting empowerment mechanic they used and make that an interesting part of the story by having Mirana fail to unlock that ability until Marci was threatened and then have that be the key to defeating him.
For me that felt like a clear cut case of fridging. They even have the main villain literally state out loud that she's only going to die to cause pain for a main character to unlock a power up. And then the somehow managed to both go too fast and too slow through her death scene and it ends up being exactly what happens and the guy dies in a lame anticlimax that's supposed to be dramatic but is too rushed and poorly executed to feel awesome.
And the worst part is that the whole thing was completely pointless. Mirana already had the moment that should have given her the big epic power up needed for the climax, touching the Eye. We already had a better and sadder heroic sacrifice to enable that power up via Auroths death becu she had actual agency in her death while Marci and Mirana were forced to just sit around and wait for Marci to be slowly strangled to death.
It just feels cheap. It's a lazy use of trauma based suoerpowered awakening and a misguided belief that more character death equals more compelling story telling.
But all this did was give a shoddy message that the bad guy was right all along. It would have been far more compelling if Mirana proved the guy was full of shit by unlocking her true power in respons to him threatening Marci instead of having him be right about Marci needing to die. Or better yet, take the very interesting empowerment mechanic they used and make that an interesting part of the story by having Mirana fail to unlock that ability until Marci was threatened and then have that be the key to defeating him.
Triggerhappy
Stick with Trigger and You'll Make it Through
- Location
- SoCal
I can at least tilt my head and see this one from the Watsonian perspective. Fym's not exactly in a well grounded and emotionally balanced state what with her people launching a massive and indiscriminate campaign of violence. That's the kind of thing that can create a lot of self doubt and put her in a vulnerable spot to believe things when she ought to know better. Although, I think it would have been better received if it hadn't come along with the rapid succession of other character deaths.
Not to mention I think there was enough pain caused to Mirana learning that Kashurra, essentially the only friend she has left from her childhood aside Marci, had so utterly betrayed her trust. We had enough scenes with the two of them to establish the deep trust and faith Mirana put in the Chancellor.
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