#serial escalation

Organized crime in real life was always violent, but even at the height of Prohibition there weren’t double-digit massacres and gun-battles on a regular basis.  The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which is one of the most infamous events of the Chicago gang wars and is popularly viewed as being what turned public sentiment against Al Capone (Although that’s not quite accurate), had seven victims.  The biggest gunfight in the entire six-season run of The Sopranos was the failed poker game robbery in season three, which had a total of three deaths (And one wounding).  In the first season of Boardwalk Empire, the death of four men in a hijacking was front-page news and was part of a monumental shift in the structure of organized crime in New Jersey, New York, and Chicago.

In "Blue Bell Boy" in season three, Gyp Rosetti and his gang gun down sixteen members of Nucky’s operation when they hijack a shipment of booze.  Rosetti and his gang have functionally conquered a New Jersey town (the fictional “Tabor Heights”), after they murdered the Sheriff and then bribed the next Sheriff to join up and participate in the aforementioned hijacking/gunfight.

I don’t see how they can cover this up.  That’s not something that can be covered up.  Not and still retain any level of realism in the series.  This kind of bloodshed will get competent government agents in the area, with proper resources and funding, instead of the overworked, understaffed, and underpaid Prohibition Agents whose universal incompetence and corruption allows the bootleggers to operate with near impunity.  Heck, this might get the Army involved, to put down an armed rebellion.

1.  A Demon.  Basically a department head?  Like, he has free range to do whatever he wants with the blood kids and there’s people reporting to him, but he’s by no means in charge of Hell.

2. Lilith, the First Demon Ever.  Because regular demons are old hat by now.

3. An Angel.  Again, Zachariah is just a middle manager.

4. Archangels.  Because regular angels aren’t scary enough.  Michael is removed from the picture at the end of Season 5, Raphael gets offed in Season 6.

5.  The Devil Himself.  Big Bad of Season 5, reappears sporadically in flashbacks/hallucinations, comes back in Season 11 as an ally or something, betrays everybody, removed from the plot again in Season 13.

6.  Their Own Bad Choices.  This one’s a recurring theme, but its’ especially obvious in Season 6.

7.  Eve, the Mother of Monsters.

8.  Leviathans: Older than Angels and Even Harder to Kill.

9.  The King of Hell (although half the time they’re on the same side)

10. Abbadon, a Special Super Demon that can’t be killed by conventional means.  Like Archangels, but for demons.

11. The Scribe of God, because why not.

12. The Entire Heavenly Host.

13. The King of Hell’s Mother, who is still alive and also a witch.

14. Cain, the Original Murderer.

15.  Death.  Might not have been an antagonist but they sure did kill him.

16.  God’s Evil Sister.

17.  At one time or another, Everyone They Have Ever Cared About (due to mind control, possession, brainwashing, hallucinations, loss of soul...)

Our characters are, by any measure, as close to the cream of the combat crop as you can get.  The two top bounty hunters in the galaxy, the most notorious hitwoman, a former elite guerilla soldier, and two Mandalorians who have spent decades fighting an ongoing war against the Empire.  The thought that Stormtroopers -- any number of Stormtroopers -- could pose any sort of threat to them when they have the initiative is almost laughable, and the show treated it that way.  Their invasion of Gideon’s ship was a steamroll.  They were never pinned down, never outflanked or surprised, never so much as inconvenienced by the opposition as they made their way to the bridge.  When Cara Dune’s gun jammed all she did was beat people with it until she got it working, and even that didn’t actually stop their progress.

I heartily approve of this because anything else would have smacked of cheap drama.  With what we’ve already seen these same characters do in previous episodes, I wouldn’t have believed any real difficulty.  I would have rolled my eyes and maybe glanced at my phone because an attempt to wring drama out of “Oh no, will the 32nd stormtrooper they face somehow do a better job than all the rest they’ve already killed?”  I know they’re going to win, and since the show doesn’t pretend otherwise I get to enjoy the characterization and choreography of their fight.

But then came the Dark Troopers, who were sold as solid menace.  Their startup sequence was imposing, the soundtrack malevolent, and since we’d never actually fought them before (And therefore never seen them defeated) we think “Okay, these guys can play”.  Their slow, steady motion also really helped sell their presentation as unstoppable juggernauts.  They don’t need to rush or run, because it doesn’t matter.  We see the one Trooper beat the hell out of Din as the others methodically beat down the doors with their bare hands.  Din just barely managing to flush them into space before they breach shows his desperation, but also his cleverness, and doesn’t turn them into sudden canon fodder after the one single tough fight.

Then, once the Dark Troopers have been dealt with, we return to an enemy that we know is going to lose.  Moff Gideon may have the Darksaber and be eeeeeeevilll, but he’s also a sixty year old desk jokey.  We’ve never seen anything to indicate that he’s a Secret Ninja Master or Former SpecOp, so when he faced off against Din he was good, and it was a good fight (Very well done), but again there was never a moment of “OH NO HOW WILL DIN POSSIBLY SURVIVE THIS ONE?”  With Din’s experience and motivation, combined with his armor which actually blocks lightsabers, we knew Din was gonna win.  Which is why this wasn’t the climax of the episode, because this victory doesn’t serve as the capstone of the episode.

Because that’s when the Dark Troopers return, and again it is solid menace.  No wisecracks, no clever plans, the characters just bunker down and are clearly expecting to die in minutes.  Again, the Troopers move slowly, methodically, and as a benefit of being droids they also do it in complete silence except for the thump of their feet and the bang of their fists on the blast doors.  It all sells the thought that this is it.  And now we’re not saying “Of course the good guys are going to win,” we’re wondering “How can the good guys possibly win?”

And that is when Luke Skywalker walks in and changes the fucking game.  Because for Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, these tinpots are less of a threat than the Stormtroopers were for the main characters.  Like I said in another post, he walks through them.  Barely even needing to make an effort.  And because of how well the Dark Troopers had been presented, how clearly we saw that they were death on two feet, that makes his effortless victory so much more impactful.  Now we see just how it is that the Jedi have so often held the fate of the galaxy in their hands.

Hazel, Hazel’s Summoning Ritual: 2 small sprites, 3 big ones, one walking sprite

Emerald/Carol, Mysterious Thief Emerald: 10 sprites, 5 faces for 2 identities

Cinderella/Lavinia, Cinderella and the Prince’s Heart: 13 sprites, 9 normal 4 ballroom, all unique; the only one so far to have face variations on cgs

Seems they go too big for the villain plot every generation, becoming more destructive and more ambitious and more unrelatable.

I noticed this pretty danged quick in DPP, which is saying something since that was only Gen 4. But there's something pretty weird going on.

You have a criminal organization that just wants money and power in Gen 1, pretty ordinary.

Then said organization trying to get the band back together in Gen 2, no big deal.

In the Gen 3 we start having plots that directly tie to legendaries in a way that's pretty much inescapable and becomes the norm from then on. But the villains are understandable enough, ecoterrorists basically. They're barely trying to take over the world or even a township, they just think they know what environment is best for people.

Then we get to Galactic in Gen 4. The worst offenders. They are not only guilty of too much too far, but having the greatest dissonance of bosses and henchmen. The grunts in Galactic are the stupidest ones to date (I've barely started Moon yet so I'm not definite in them yet). They seem to be part of the organization for no discernible reason, have the least amount of idea of what they're doing and why and to what end, and just sort of do it.

Oh and their boss wants to annihilate all of reality because...? It's been years? I forget? I think it was depression...?

The point was this was the worst.

Team Plasma are a tad over-ambitious and pretentious but they make at least a modicum of sense as an organization trying to take power and rule under the guise of being PETA.

And this whole rant is because I'm finishing up the main plot of Pokémon Y and, well... we're back to Cyrus levels of nonsense again. Lysandre is a freaking trip. He wants to commit genocide on the nation of Kalos because he didn't like poor people. At least how I'm getting it. He wants to create a beautiful world, #aesthetic, by killing off tons of people and Pokemon because of overpopulation or people suck or some nonsense. To be honest, this guy is probably the worst in terms of motives and how that interacts with his team theme.

Team Flare are the #aesthetic team, basically a bunch of self-absorbed ninnies that paid their way into being a Flare grunt. These are exactly the sorts of people that turned Lysandre against the world but he's keeping them alive and by his side in the new world? How? Why?

This is getting too much. This is going too far. We are rapidly running out of reasons for the bad guys to do what they do. I miss my original perception of Flare before the game was released when I thought we were going back to basics and they were just a mob like Team Rocket.