Your First Love Song is Perfect

The 5th is Cheesy

There’s a common phenomena that your first [Love Song] really hits home. In middle school and I heard Bruno Mar’s “Grenade”

I’d catch a grenade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
Throw my hand on a blade for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
I’d jump in front of a train for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)
You know I’d do anything for ya (yeah, yeah, yeah)

Ooh, oh, I would go through all this pain
Take a bullet straight through my brain
Yes, I would die for you, baby
But you won’t do the same
No, no, no, no

Which to me, was perfect. Doing the utmost for love, plus the unfairness of it not being reciprocated? It was a favorite song for a year.

Now I consider it exaggerated and “Bruno, you need to get out of that relationship, man”

Cyberpunk: Edgerunners

I watched cyberpunk, and it was initially good! (Spoilers until next section).

It was classic, tragic-background kid who was in-the-right-place-at-the-right-time, but an extra element of “it’s extremely dangerous” which is apparently common in the genre.

I didn’t like the ending.

I’m fine w/ everyone dying, but not dying because the main characters didn’t talk! That’s just too lazy of a trope.

But the first few times you see that trope, it is fine. The 5th, not so much.

However, lots of folks did indeed like the whole show. Several mentioned how the genre generally ends in tragedy and they like how the show honored that. I’m unsure if they’d change there mind if they noticed the trope more (or realized how much it cheapens the plot).

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33

Clair Obscur is a pretty amazing RPG, which (spoilers until next section) was very well written until the end, imo.

Not going into too many details, the endings were both tragic in a way that fit some french genre, which was controversial, but some folks still loved.

They’re wrong to love it of course, but where did they go wrong?

In abstract details, it seemed tragic just to be tragic. It ignored any human cleverness and ignored the first half of the game. Locally it made sense if you bought into the characters and scenes, sure, but that’s it.

Is it Just the Youth?

I’m unsure if it’s just a lack of experience (or a lack of noticing tropes) that allow folks to enjoy those parts. This does affect me since some reviews can be very good, but I need to think about “Is this just this person’s first love song?”.

Maybe Ignorance is Bliss?

One time, I decided to actually taste what a zebra cake tasted like:

It wasn’t good. The frosting tasted like wax. It ruined it for me!

But maybe ignorance is bliss?

In the same way, “Biggest plot is not communicating well” does, once paid attention to, cheapens the plot. What if you just didn’t pay attention?

Or in general, you can buy into the scene they’re selling you, ignoring all other details, in order to experience the scene as intended.

The alternative is “not buying in”. If the last episode of your favorite show has the best friend say “I’m evil now”, then cue all the emotional issues that come up, then it might be hard to take it seriously.

Are We Mixing Up Goals?

If you just want to be moved emotionally, irrespective of goals, you can have electrodes stuck in your brain to create that emotion. But I don’t think I’d like that.

Is there an opposite extreme? I think so.

Having too many constraints that media needs to satisfy for you to feel good about it is a recipe for never feeling good. There’s usual a “suspension of disbelief” required.

Some media is really good at comedy, but not realism. Or emotional moments, but not complex characters. I believe you can focus on what it’s good at, can help eg “Oh, it’s a romantic comedy, so I’m not expecting great one-shot action scenes”.

But it seems like the more pattern-matchy you are, the more constraints you add, the less satisfied you’ll be.

I’m currently quite confused on this!