#ghost beach

Ghost Beach Goosebumps Book by R.L. Stine

1994

I know I said I was going to make a post regarding my final oc villain, anonymous, but due to recents events, i just dont have the energy to do so. To clear my mind, I've decided to take a break from oc posts and talk about how certain character archetypes from this series are done betger by other shows, movies and books, starting with the league of villains.

For this comparision, I'll be comparing the LOV with a group of villains that actually inspired my oc (ghoulian my beloved) the sadler trio from the goosebumps book "ghost beach"

Is probably what you're thinking. The sadler trio are the ghosts of a trio of immigrant siblings from england who traveled to new england in hopes of a better life. Unfortunately, they ended up dying in cold and have roamed the beach as ghosts for 300 years. They long for companions in death and plan to take their distant cousins jerry and terri to the grave.

Louisa is the girl with the pigtails and velvet dress, sam is the boy with the white hair and black vest, and nat is the boy with the bowl cut and the striped t shirt, remember that now.

The first thing I want to talk about is the family dynamics

The leagues bonds are, for a lack of a better word, shaky. While we do see certain memebers like twice and toga showing genuinely nice moments of friendship, and magne being a well liked and respected member, earning her the title of "big sis mags", other members like shigaraki and dabi contradict the found family dynamic the story and fandom are selling. Shigaraki barely shows any care for his fellow members, when magne died, he was more concerned about staying on top while toga and twice actually wanted to avenge their fallen ally. Shigaraki also doesnt have any reaction to twices death either. Dabi is honestly worse as he refuses to pitch in at times, called spinner a derogetory slur, and then pulled a bruno marcotulli and said he shouldnt get upset about it. Spinners motives also dont align with shigarakis in the slightest, to the point where they straight up had to retcon his motives not once, but twice, just to make shigaraki seem like a good leader. Truth is their motives and personalities clash too hard for their dynamic not to feel forced.

The sadlers on the other hand actually do show genuine care and concern for each other, most notably when nat clings to louisa as a source of comfort when he gets scared and sam being the mediator and voice of reason, showing how they do care for eachother and work cohesively as a group, while the league is more dysfunctional than a 50's sitcom family.

Next is motives, the leagues motives at the end of the day, are to cause destruction and misery to whoever they please with no consequences, I really dont know how else to put it. Shigaraki wants to destroy everything, dabi wants to hurt his father and is willing to drag innocent people into the mix, toga gets off to killing, and the other three are just along for the ride with no qualms about their peers actions. This really doesnt help making them sympathetic when the story tries to shove a bunch of sad backstories in our face and say "please feel bad for them!"

Comparitively, the sadlers motives are far more understandable. At the end of the day, all they want is companionship. Its far more easy to get behind "we were robbed lf a decent life and have lived in solidarity on this beach for centuries with a guy whos been planning our downfall, we desperately want you to stay with us" as opposed to " we are societal outcasts who just want to lash out and makes things worse for everyone else without even trying to combat the societal issues that caused things in the first place."

On top of that, the sadlers actions, which include trying to kill harrison sadler( the ghost hunter) attempting to kill jerry and terri, and eating a dog (dogs can sense ghosts and would give them away.), while morally reprehensible , come from a place of desperation as opposed to malice. The sadler trio never take enjoyment out of their actions. Heck, when its revealed they're ghosts there practically on their hands and knees begging the twins to stay with them.

Thisis unlike the league, who take full pleasure in hurting others to achieve their goals *cough* toga *cough* shigaraki * cough* dabi * cough*.

Lastly is their fates, the sadlers are trpaped in magic cave the essentially sends ghosts to the afterlife and puts them to rest. Makes sense since their motives were from them being stuck in a proverbial limbo.

The leaghes fate is hori hyping up them being saved... and then all die or just get arrested, making their whole arcs feel like a waste of time.

Ghost Beach, Goosebumps #22, is another one I missed entirely in my youth. There's a whole run of these for some reason and...you know what, I was going to make a joke like, "I don't know what I was doing in the summer of '94 but it clearly wasn't reading Goosebumps" except I DO know what I was doing in the summer of '94, come to think of it. THAT was the year my family first spent living off-grid and we dug the septic system by hand and put in a garden so every day I was out doing stuff and we weren't going into town all that much so...yeah, it actually does make sense that I wasn't reading as much that year. lol. That's funny to think about.

ANYWAY none of that is relevant. Let's talk about this book, huh?