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9- Again I’m loving this show so much, and I get the AI message but I feel like writing an amalgamation of humanity as sanded down and measured is missing out on the fun you could have with a character who is maximally human. For example if this humanitarian streak came out of self love or they were vegetarian specifically because they’ve grown up Hindu for cumulative billions of years.

Okay but what was the non virus solution to this? Because that seemed to be a pretty good call in the end. The show really doesn't seem interested in the logistics of the problems it's discussing (or existing in the wider doctor who universe but that's a different problem entirely). But just within the scope of these 5 episodes, the sea devils show up to the world basically unannounced and complain about something that's clearly been an ongoing issue for at least a century and demand rapid action when they could have mentioned this earlier. They don't actually offer to help, despite having a lot of tech that would clearly be very useful. They just do the lawful evil thing where they ask humanity if they really care about cleaning the oceans and use humanity saying yes as pretext to go about cleaning the oceans in the worst way possible. There's no time for the death toll associated with throwing boats into population centres, which isn't even a solution because it's not like the land and sea are parallel dimensions they're pretty connected. It also doesn't seem interested in treating either of the entire civilisations it's supposedly about as nuanced groups outside of the few people it thinks are interesting because they might have sex. The sea devils have to be malicious and stupid for there to be drama apparently. They can't actually be fully fledged characters with personalities outside of the issues they represent (unless they're fuckable?). So we can't have sea devils interested in educating the humans or human conservation or any of the many diverse opinions they could have. They have to be a monolith to force conflict because there's a metaphor for the climate crisis which is a threat that can't be negotiated with or seduced. Genuinely the one thing in the episode I liked was the possibility that Salt was behind the deaths of the Sea Devils and that Accord was her plan when she saw how unreasonable her people were. Acord is one of those solutions that doesn't have to be thought about because it was never going to happen. We don't need to consider that Salt's actual plan was the synthesis ending from mass effect, forcing a massive change in biology on humanity and a massive logistical challenge. As if move everyone into the sea is simpler than fixing the land. Oh also Berkley was there. (I just checked and it's actually Barclay)

First, I don't think money is the apple, I think the apple is the desire to preserve the image of the church. The belief that all of the evil the church does can't be exposed because that would compromise the good the church can do, which just perpetuates the bad and lets it fester. This leads me to my larger thought. I think keeping the jewel hidden is a selfish choice. Keeping something that you could use to help people inside a symbol of sacrifice as a masturbatory statement of how pious you are, for an audience of one, is just wasteful and a dick move. The story does a decent job of predicting this complaint, setting up that the church would be audited if they made any large donations. But it's weird none of the characters, even Blanc, raises the possibility of a scheme. Even if it was only for another character to shoot it down. As it's stands it's taking a threat from an antagonist who has been established to be pretty easy to outsmart as insurmountable. It's part of a wider issue with treating the pursuit of money in and of itself as evil. Assuming there are only selfish reason to want the jewel (like for a visual metaphor of your own character arc) ignores that there are good uses for money. Like feeding the hungry or providing shelter. A deontologist might argue that theft in and of itself is always wrong, but when that purity comes at the cost of letting people go hungry I think that's a useless ethical system, and calling a list of dos and don'ts a system is generous. You could also say this is justifying theft by saying you can use stolen money to do good, but I'd say that is a justification. Yes rampant theft is a net negative, but that doesn't mean theft can't be a tool. Like if someone has all the insulin and is extorting people for it, then stealing the insulin to distribute it more fairly is the right move. This is a minor point, in the context of a film that has so many valid and nuanced things to say about what good people can do adjacent to faith and how faith can be used for evil just as much. But it's interesting in the context of the wider series. It reminds me of the closing image of Knives Out, Marta looking down at people who have treated her awfully, in a house that's now entirely hers, it make me wonder what justice would mean in that situation, are the bad rich family now homeless? Is that a good thing?

As soon as Mel talked to past Zagreus, I assumed there was going to be a twist where we ended up causing the main events of the story in a bootstrap paradox. For example, Mel tells Zag Chronos is coming and a threat. Because of Mels' warning, Zag goes looking for Chronos and accidently brings the pieces of Chronos together to the place they need to be to reassemble and Zag hunting him is all the reason he needs to overthrow Hades. Chronos is a threat because he's perceived as one, he needs to do his pre-emptive strike before their pre-emptive strike and it's pre-emptive strikes all the way down. Which doesn't mean Chronos isn't also a massive dick in his own right and can't have been cruel. I have mixed feelings about the ending we got, and a lot of the conclusions we didn't get. I think the reason I assumed the twist I did (apart from it being a classic time travel gag that I can't get enough of) is because the story of the game feels like a set up for a tragedy. Even aside from how right Prometheus is about how mortals are treated, just within the personal family dynamics, this feels like a story that gets so close to saying something powerful and then feints. This is why in other comments I've pitched a different conclusion. I think Mel should go to far. When Chronos is defenceless Mel should attack him, with the full force of the gods and her family behind her, Mel should bring Death to Chronos. She just has to get through Zag first. Side note, but I love Zag trying to be peaceful, and think that his role is the story is totally consistent with Hades 1. Have Zag be the reluctant final boss (because at this point we've killed Chronos enough times that it's routine even with his Rival bonuses). Then when Chronos is dead, everything that would go wrong with Killing time can happen. Mel falls down a time hole and she's left to wander, until she arrives at an empty crossroads and finds a baby she's going to raise to correct her mistakes. You even get to keep the final epilogue twist which I think is pretty neat but would have loved to play through. That way, the second time the final final boss fight happens the player who is now their older wiser self can step in and make peace. Place the reveal of which people are the same person before the final choice. Then it's not about Mel forgiving Chronos at all, it's about her realising that her solution wouldn't help and would only get her back to where she already was. This could also address the weird feeling where Zag makes the final decision narratively and Mel has to accept it. This way Mel has agency to make the wrong choice and proves she could keep making the wrong choice for as long as she wants, but decides to stop. This would even loop back round to the end of Bastion, which does a fantastic job of tying it's endings into it's narrative. In Bastion the choices are to undo a horrific event and learn nothing (by the way have you considered a new game plus run) or move on from that event.