OP, I want to counter this attitude from a genuine perspective of respect for this show, its audience, and its author. Contrary to what someone might assume if they only looked at my most recent analysis of Malevolent, I adore this podcast. In fact, you can track through all my analysis posts and see how excited and thrilled I was over the writing of the show for the first 3-4 seasons, and even several positive analyses over the remaining seasons. I love Malevolent, and I want to make that clear before going further into these points you've brought up.
1.) Art made by a single artist is not above negative critique, nor is it unworthy of positive critique. If it were, then there would have been pushback to the negative critique of Lore Olympus as work made and published by a single person. However, we all understand that that comic was worthy of genuine analytical discussion, so the critique was allowed to keep happening. Similarly, Van Gogh's paintings were made by one person without any teams of editors or producers. That fact does not make his artwork suddenly less worthy of analysis or critique, and we all understand that, too. Why should Malevolent be any different?
Further on this point, if we followed the logic that a 'one man show' artwork is undeserving of introspection and negative critique, we then take away the power of the audience to form positive critique. If I cannot analyze what makes the flaws of an artwork, how am I able to analyze what makes the strengths of an artwork? We can't reduce the power of the audience for one half of analysis because real, genuine analysis needs to be nuanced, it needs to consider multiple perspectives, it needs to have the opportunity to fully acknowledge the bad and the good as necessary.
2.) What Guthrie posts every week is not a work-in-progress draft before future refinement; what Guthrie posts every week is a final product. It is what he publishes for others to listen to, read, and discuss. If he wanted to edit his writing further and create another draft, he would. There are no upper management teams or secondary shareholders forcing his hand. Guthrie has the power to publish whatever he wants whenever he wants. That's one of the benefits of being a 'one man show' artists: he is only beholden to his own creative decisions. And if the creative decision he makes is to publish his first draft as a final product with no further development, then he as the author has to accept that that version of his writing is what represents his artistic ability.
Consider an analogy where I were to mix batter for banana bread, start to bake it, and then pull it out of the oven less than halfway through the baking time and deliver it to your house. When you bite into a slice and realize that my final product is half-baked, I tell you that I decided that I had to give this bread to you at 5pm, instead of 6:30pm, because I wanted to give it to you as soon as possible. How would you respond? Would you completely disregard any decisions I made that led to the lesser quality of my final product because it's unfair to judge me on something that's incomplete and not my best work? Or would you feel frustrated, disappointed, confused, or underwhelmed?
Guthrie is wholly in control of his schedule, and therefore in control of what he can publish and in what timeframe he can publish it. When he publishes it, it is no longer a draft. Therefore, it is fully within the right of the audience to analyze it as they would any other piece of public art. The author must take responsibility for what they create, otherwise they should refrain from sharing it until they are ready to do so. The author must, also, be willing to accept critique on what is not their best work if they choose to publish and share that quality of work with the audience.
3.) Yes, Guthrie doesn't have to create and publish his work in this specific manner. But that detail is not a straw man-- that is unequivocally the fact of the matter. It is not an exaggeration, it's not unrelated to the writing. We all understand that the writing quality suffers because of the self-made constraints Guthrie has on his timeframe, you yourself, OP, have pointed that out. It's not unfair to bring up this fact when analyzing the writing because they are directly correlated. It is, as you also point out, not the only thing to discuss when it comes to critiquing the show's writing. However, if you look through all the positive and negative analysis of the show, you will see that people discuss the other factors that affect the show's writing, too. There are discussions about the research, allusions, themes, plot direction, and all the other writing choices that Guthrie makes beyond his personal timeline, and how each of those benefits or damages the quality of his writing.
For that last point you make, about how it's unfair to critique any of the metatextual information about the podcast, it seems that you are reducing the argument to one aspect, when there are multiple facets to it. As I've already discussed, part of Guthrie's problem is his self-imposed deadlines, where he forces himself to publish the first draft as the final draft despite knowing that the writing would be of higher quality if he spent more time editing. I don't personally don't have an issue with Guthrie doing all the acting and writing, and so I don't usually do negative analysis on those facets. However, that doesn't mean that I won't critique his choice to rush publication, because it is a separate aspect to the issue than the acting and writing are, and one that has a direct connection to the quality of the final product.
4.) Maybe the 'point' of Malevolent isn't to have extremely detailed, well-researched, high quality, edited, and refined plot, pacing, characters, and themes. But if that were true, then maybe Guthrie himself should have communicated that from the beginning. Maybe he shouldn't have fostered an environment around himself where his closest friends on the official server praise the writing as deep and complex. Maybe he shouldn't do Q&As and interviews and streams where he hints at having some intricate well-written plot just waiting around the corner if people wait one more episode, one more season, one more show. Maybe he should commit to weak, flat writing and own that creative choice, or put in the work and make the hard decisions that would help him create the art he actually wants.
I genuinely love this show, its characters, its settings, its concepts, its community and creativity. And I don't think it's fair to tell all the people who love this show to stop taking it seriously, to stop caring, to reduce its meaning to us and treat it with the flippancy of a It's not that deep attitude. All art is worthy of care, and it's unfair to tell people that they can't put effort into their love and care of something. I want the people, things, and art I love to make progress and to grow. Art can't grow if we take away the right to analyze it in its entirety, the good, the bad, and the ugly.
As a final challenge to OP, I want to ask you whether you are bringing in the care and effort that you value for Malevolent. Are you fostering the kind of analysis that you believe is important, or are you arguing for the removal of analysis that you disagree with? What kind of conversations do you want to be a part of, and are you putting in the effort and care to build, participate in, and support those conversations? Art belongs to us the audience as much as it does the author. What is each of us doing to continue the stories that matter most to us?
