Some idiot on tvtropes
Here's the review
We Don't Need Another Garth Ennis
Ok picture this scenario:
It's a story about a team of Anti-heroes who do what they will with whatever morally-ambiguous means necessary to get the job done at stopping crime, while at the same time complain that the Superheroes who do exist suck at their job and that what they do is actually the better way, especially sense the story is written so that they're always right.
Now from that assessment, am I talking about
The Authority,
The Boys, or Worm? Because they're really all have the same premise. Which makes this web series already contrived from the start. Yet it only gets worse from there. In fact, I would wager even Garth would think this story goes too far.
This series is beyond dark. Not just dark in it's setting or it's characters or even in their morality. It's in the utter doom and gloom that seems to start with bullying incidents towards Taylor, all the way to what amounts to bullying that she does as a supervillain. Put simply, the big problem with the story I have is that, I honestly do not care what happens to these people. The trope
Darkness Induced Audience Apathy was made for this series. None of the characters come off as sympathetic or even likable in the end as they all carry shades of evil or jerkass. They do all sorts of despicable actions from mutilation, torture and even
Rape. All of which they consider justified. If the characters come off as utter assholes, then why should I care what happens to them? Not to mention that how the story just keeps on ramping up the sheer amount of deaths in order to keep up with its
Loads and Loads of Characters it's not so much a harsh crapsack world but more like a contest seeing if you can guess who'll be killed next.
What's just as worse is the style of writing the author has chosen, It can best be described as first person/stream of consciousness. Events and actions go by so fast, I have no clue what I just read and then the story will just carry on like I had any clue about what was just said. The story carries on, and I just lose interest because it prefers to practically say how excellent it is without worrying if the audience thinks it really is.
I seriously don't recommend this series. Avoid at all costs if you can.
Eh, I would never have thought of Worm from that description - it stops having anything to do with the story after "anti-heroes".
You're most surely not supposed to consider certain acts justified as you read the story, you're supposed to pity the characters who get put into situations when they have no good choice to make by forces beyond their control, and hope they manage to get free from those forces to actually do the right thing, instead of the wrong thing they're forced into. And in the end, that's exactly what happens - those forces are removed, and people can finally do what's right, which is why the story ends happily.
Worm is not about anti-heroes imposing their kind of justice at all, it's about villians, how villains are people too, and how in a climate where villains
can be (but not always are) good people in bad circumstances and heroes
can be (but not always are) bad people who just had a lucky draw, sometimes a villain can be more effective of an hero at helping people out. And in the end, the one person who can truly save the world is the one who has seen both sides of the divide, and can find the humanity in even the most inhuman villain, only to turn that very same humanity against them, by knowing the weaknesses that being a human carries all too well.
Self-sacrifice is a strong theme of the work, too - you can only get what you want if you're willing to pay the price, those who try to take shortcuts all end up failing in one way or another. Whereas any time somebody make a huge sacrifice - even one imposed on them by others - they always end up for the better.
I'm also not sure where people are seeing this "race for people to get killed" - in fact, one of the main complaints I've heard spoken about Worm, one I can see a good deal of truth into, is that after about Arc 8 it becomes impossible to feel worry for the main characters because they never dies. As in, the low number of deaths is considered a weakness by many, and while I personally think that's exaggerate, I actually can see where people are coming from when they make that remark - not so with the comment on people dying. If anything, the amount of things people in the wormverse survive is one of the elements that strains the suspension of disbelief the most.
The only passages I would consider "grim" are the ones where the Slaughterhouse Nine show up... and honestly, with the S9 being horror show monsters, I would say that's kinda their whole point.
I would not reccomend Worm to people who can be triggered by descriptions of bullying or torture, to ones who dislike villain protagonists and moral ambiguity, and warn people who like action that this is not thoughtless action narrative but rather a more complex kind, so it's not for light reading, it requires consideration and to think about the material as you read. I'd also specify that it's a six books long saga with detailed internal monologues, so one who dislike long and detailed description of people's state of minds, or side-chracters having whole chapters of backstory dedicated to themselves (these are things I love, by the way), then they're unlikely to enjoy the story.
To everybody else, I do would reccomend it, particolarly on the strenght of the worldbuilding which is nothing short of amazing, with the caveat that, if you don't like it afer the end of arc 8, then you can safely give it up.
I do think all of this is nearly off topic though, isn't it? I mean, we've moved from discussing the OP read of Worm to discussing Worm itself. Does that still count as being on topic, or is it a derail?
