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Thoughts on Frog Lady, her eggs and those Ice Spiders:
Din is an orphan taking care of an orphan, who’s been tasked with ensuring the survival of another species to play up to his grand quest of honoring his adoptive culture & protecting a foundling.
Din is an orphan taking care of an orphan, who’s been tasked with ensuring the survival of another species to play up to his grand quest of honoring his adoptive culture & protecting a foundling.
Yodito is a baby with the typical issue most babies have, putting things in their mouth that don’t belong there. However the troubling thing about his characterization in this episode? They’re treating him like a puppy rather than a child. Because puppies eat EVERYTHING.
We know that the Frog Woman and her eggs are of vital importance because, she’s literally introduced to us via “I vouch for her on my life” as a narrative way of saying this is serious not to mention UPON INTRODUCTION THE STAKES ARE GIVEN. This is her LAST CHANCE AT KIDS.
Din is typically distrustful of others and especially bringing them around his ward, but there was plenty of room for a FOUNDLING with IDENTITY ISSUES, to have empathy towards a mother struggling to get THE LAST OF HER KIND into the world safely.
The fact that she has to explain this to Din later is already toeing a line but I’ll allow it in the name of desperation. The entire episode is meant to play on Din’s sense of honor and duty, while juxtaposing Frog Mom and Mama Krykna’s (the spider) defense of their young.
Having Yodito repeatedly consume eggs like a wild animal is already knocking him down from the sentient child we saw last season in the wrong direction.
Having the New Republic show up as typical jerkass police officers is another weirdly negative choice.
Having the New Republic show up as typical jerkass police officers is another weirdly negative choice.
So why are people mad at it? Because when a character has pretty much yelled it from the highest mountain that her kids are endangered, having your deuteragonist eat them is bad humor. The intention was for us to be like “haha, bad baby” but that doesn’t work here.
It was easy enough to just say, hey we threw in an angry Mother Spider as a cautionary plot device to teach Yodito right from wrong when it comes to eating other people’s kids.
But deciding to encourage harassment against female fans who find it unfunny is too fucking far.
But deciding to encourage harassment against female fans who find it unfunny is too fucking far.
When you as a content curator or creator decide to only engage negatively with the same fan base that has already given you stress for that negative input before, it sends the message that you aren’t interested in keeping them as fans which is honestly bad business.
But it’s worse when you consider that you’re only antagonizing this portion of the fan base based on your own bias and the biased feedback coming from your own industry peers, most of whom would rather be silent than risk ruining business relationships.
Your echo chamber lies.
Your echo chamber lies.
And when you believe those lies and punch down on the same people your life’s work is meant to give hope to, it kills the message that your predecessors tried to bake into the DNA of the very thing you’re now fighting to defend from its intended audience.
That’s whack.
That’s whack.
TL:Dr, it takes way less energy to just be nice to folks. It’s even smart business sense to listen to the people who care enough about your product TO BE MAD ABOUT IT PUBLICLY. If women/femmes/ppl with birthing organs/ppl who are infertile are offended by your joke, LISTEN.
