Tbh i think this post is a little too one tracked on the matter of what ended up ruining the last couple of seasons.
While yes, the shipping has a very obvious part in what led to a lot of itâs more noticeable mistakes, itâs not the only problem nor one of the biggest the show had.Â
One of the biggest problems is the show constantly foreshadowing serious events or mysteriesâŚthat either end up not meaning anything, or go left unanswered. Itâs a constant problem with the series as a whole, it constantly does all this ominous stuff, makes it audience ask questions and constantly leaves things unanswered or unexplored.
It foreshadows an event we never see or shows off something weâve never seen before and expects us to be fine with never getting a proper answer as to why something happened.
for example. we get this floor scene in S1 for the episode St Oâs, the focus placed on it alludes to it being important. Do we ever get an answer as to what it means? No.
We can make assumptions but thereâs nothing clear connection to this room and anything that happens in the series later on.
You canât even allude it to the blood moon anymore because by the end of the series they say âThe blood moon means nothing, it didnât do anythingâ, so the idea that this would be related to that incident makes even less sense. Itâs got globgorâs army on it, but itâs given no connection to globgor either.
Itâs a random room they focus on so much so that in any other show would mean the room was very important to an upcoming event, but by the time the show ends there really isnât anything about it that fits with any of the conflicts later on.
And this is just one example
Marco gains cheekmarks and a wand in s3 and this is treated like a BIG DEAL, his wand is kinda creepy looking, his cheekmarks are moons for some odd reason (One of the past queens having the same marks), itâs the first time we see a human have markings and control the wand. Itâs one of those scenes that makes you excited for the show to explain in universe how marco could do this or why does he have celenaâs marksâŚ.why is his wand so creepy?
The answer ends up being:
Why are marcoâs marks moons? (No exact reason, even in the AMA they had after the series they make it seem like they picked moons randomly then having an actual reason to have him share marks with a queen)
Why is his wand so creepy? No reason, it just is, and we donât see it again till the series finale.
Why does he have cheek marks at all? Well, in the books they explain with enough magic exposure mewmans can gain markings and use wands, but this isnât explained in the show and only book readers would know. In the show they randomly throw in a tidbit that mewmans are the same as humans, but thatâs not elaborated further on and doesnât really answer much else.
They threw out something as big as marco having the wand and having marks, and then explained none of it and didnât bring it back til the finale, joy.
The show is just full of interesting ideas that donât end up explained or elaborated on:
Marcoâs monster arm never comes back after the first episode despite how much they mention it constantly and foreshadow it
They mention globgor ate shastcan, explain the situation was complicated. We never see what happened and we never find out why the situation was so complicated.
Why was tom left out of the blood moon memory? No reason given, he was left out because the plot demanded it then giving us a reason for him to be missing.
Why are the other kingdoms so against eclipsa and globgor? What kinda vendettaâs do they have against them that make them dislike them so much? Never explained, they mention how hard it would be to convince them but we donât know why or see them make friends with them.
Marco got stabbed in the finale, is this a big problem? No, it never comes back, he walks just fine and it vanishes in the finale.
Whatâs the problem with dark magic? I dunno, it gives you purple veins, and i guess corrupts the magic but we donât really know why and we never saw this before now so whatever.
Tomâs parents are a monster and mewman couple, the only one we see ruling a mewni kingdom, they make some obvious parallels to eclipsaâs family! Do they meet? No. Do we talk about them being a mixed couple? No. Does this come into play at all in the plot? No.
The dark spell that can eat dimensions, oh no ! will it escape and screw everyone over- Nope, it never really comes back tbh.
Star and marco lose their memory in blood moon curse, do they ever- No
oh no, this eclipsa spell got killed! will she try to use it and see that itâs- no
And thereâs so much more, the show constantly brings up things we think will be important and never end up being so and it leaves everyone dissapointed over and over again.
Another problem is how magic works in this show, this show doesnât know how magic works, the audience has no idea how magic works.
The show constantly contradicts itself when it comes to how magic works.
And this becomes a lot more apparent when on SM a lot of Daronâs answers into why something did this or that is simply âMagicâ and not an actual reasonable answer other then that.
Stuff canât simply always be explained with just âmagicâ, magic needs to have rules, otherwise people are going to be unable to take it seriously and will constantly wonder why characters canât just fix things with magic. Every series and movie with magic needs rules and it needs to follow those rules to keep the audience invested and understand this world.
The dragon prince- Humans canât do certain kinds of magic on their own, and doing dark magic requires a lot of unholy means and can physically harm the person using it
Avatar- thereâs only one avatar, a master of all four elements, they are reincarnated after the last one dies in a certain order.
Fairly OddParents (In itâs earlier seasons)- We need our wands to do the magic, we have an entire rulebook dedicated to this matter to explain why in a lot of case the characters rely on quick thinking to get out of a situation then magically fix it.
The portals canât work without magic, but even after we kill magic a portal shows up anyway!
Tomâs magic doesnât go away when magic is killed, except his portals were stopped by hekapoo, and hekapoo died because she was made of magic. So likeâŚ.why was tomâs magic stopped at all if itâs not the same kinda magic?
The ponyheads can still fly, and demons still have magic, all the beings still have their powers, is it explained in the show this stuff was evolved into their being? No. So why does the audience have any reason to believe they have their powers at all?Â
All the spell creatures are dead, except the lazer puppies for some reason despite being a spell creature? Why? No reason, the crew just decided they got spared while everything else like them perished because killing puppies was too awful for them to let be canon even if it breaks consistency.
The blood moon curse is a real thing thatâs imfamous in the underworld and treated as a big deal and itâs something to worry about- and now itâs not, it does nothing expect have a random moon stalk you i guess.
You have to go through mewberty to gain your butterfly form, then learn to dip down to use it again, unless youâre baby meteora in the finale i guess.
pink and green magic have widely different affects on your magic, but only in s2, this thing never comes back after s2.
And again, thereâs more like this as well, star vs doesnât seem to know how magic works in itâs own show and leaves us as an audience confused.
And i almost think this goes hand in hand with the showâs lack of worldbuilding,not to say thereâs none at all. But mewni is relatively unexplored much outside of the butterfly kingdom and it feels wasted in that regard. Which probably makes the ending all the more upsetting since itâs taking a compelling world that we want to know more about, and changes it to an extreme.
Thereâs more we could talk about but i think considering how much this post talks about it, we need to talk about why the romance has such a hindrance on the show. Itâs not as simple as âItâs being dragged outâ, the whole thing has problems because of how it affects itâs characters and how itâs treated comparatively to other plotlines.
The romance is dragged out yes, but what really gets on peopleâs nerves it the entire romance plot is placed over MOST of the other plotlines in the show. Itâs not that itâs just dragged out, itâs that the show focuses way more on it, then the other plot lines.
You know a reason people got so annoyed at the finale? because the finale made star and marcoâs romance one of itâs main focuses. It put almost ALL itâs attention on their romance and them being together.
The biggest problem with killing magic made out by the show? Not that it will separate people forever, or kill others, or cause harmâŚthe problem is star wonât get to be with marco anymore.
Do any of the other relationships matter to star and marco in the finale? the ones they built over these few seasons? No, marco and star in fact never mention their other friends being gone from them, theyâre even willing to ditch them to be together forever.
The show has star kill all magic and force dimensions together, but the situation is treated like a happy end despite what that would entail becauseâŚstar and marco are together so that means everythingâs fine i guess? That was the only thing that mattered?
Daron claims they knew how much time they had and if sheâs telling the truth that means they prioritized their romance over answering the plot holes and questions they left, they prioritized this romance over giving us an end with most of itâs characters having closure.
Most of the main cast doesnât get a proper sendoff, all the relationships we got to know? Who cares i guess, cause star and marco sure donât seem to care, they arenât even conflicted.Â
marco would also lose tom and kelly forever due to the situation, do they bring that up? No, i guess neither of those relationships we spent episodes on were important to mention.
Starâs friends on mewni? No, sheâd ditch them in a heartbeat for marco, who cares right?
The fandom was attached to a lot of elements of this series, the other relationships, the lore, the universe, and all of that gets entirely thrown away by the end. The finale is so disconnected from what wouldâve made the fanbase happy and celebrated everything about the show. If you cares a smidge about any of this stuff the show makes sure to let you know it doesnât care about any of it.
The romance put itself so much in the forefront, but at the end of the day it really wasnât anything special. It was another romance between main leads who get together at the end of a show, itâs pretty basic. And the romance is rather predictable that it was almost hard to take it seriously when you donât really believe for certain star and marco wonât be together.
Not to mention star and marcoâs romance overall lacked a ton of development and became weaker over time in terms of chemistry because not only was marco hanging out with star less in episodes because they shifted so much to starâs story with eclipsa. But they spent so much time giving that development and chemistry to other pairings.
Itâs pretty frustrating to constantly spent so much time dedicated to other relationships for them to abruptly end so we can move on to the next love triangle to get star and marco together.
And then right after said love interests basically get pushed to the background right after because all that relationship development no longer matters after they served their purpose of being there to delay starco.
The show keeps trying to come up with countless red herrings to keep them apart when people arenât buying them. The show tries to pretend this isnât obvious when it is and we waste too much time on something we already knew the answer to.
Star and marco themselves become very selfish because of their romance, prioritizing the lives and feelings of others because of their romance, doing some messed up things to their SO and never apologizing for them because the show makes it out like they donât need to. And it raises the question why do we want them together at all if they both arenât even mature enough to be a good partner?
We go from thinking star deserves better then tom to thinking tom deserves better then star by the end of the series, that should say a lot about how the romance affected star and marco as characters.
And thereâs so much more, we could talk about how many episodes were dedicated to pointless things that didnât end up mattering. We could talk about how the show handles the racism argument, we could talk about how moonâs betrayal in s4 made no sense, we could talk about how they handle the villains, we could talk about how star becomes much less interesting compared to characters like eclipsa or tom as the show goes on.
but all in all, whatever went wrong with this show is not as simple as âIt focused too much on shippingâ, a lot of itâs problems smell of writing and story problems behind the scenes. Even if disney is to blame in some areas, the crew is to blame in others for prioritizing a predictable romance over filling in itâs holes, for not knowing how magic works in itâs universe, for how it handles a lot of itâs characters, ect ect.
And i say this as a fan of the show, i love this show, but i cannot pretend the show didnât have problems down the line.
The show has a cool world set out for itâs fans to retool and probably use to a better extent then the crew ended up using it for, and it has good things in it, and good characters to be invested in (Tom, Eclipsa, Ludo, ect).
But itâs later seasons and ending being a disappointment and betrayal to itâs fans is an understatement, it feels like the people behind it really didnât understand itâs fans and what they loved and wanted at all and itâs depressing.
itâs been 5 months, itâs been enough time for us to come to terms with it being gone.
And i think weâre all pretty happy in a way to be allowed to take whatever is left of this world and rewrite it.
Itâs sad to see this show end up as one of those really cool and interesting shows with a terrible ending, but thereâs nothing much we can do but clean up the dust and start writing our own stories now. Because if the show couldnât be bothered to notice and fix all these mistakes, then all the more freedom to us to write a more cohesive world and better ending for this beloved series.
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