[TV] Ms. Marvel

**JDL49** · 2022-07-20, 11:49 AM

Originally Posted by Fencers

This is a totally incorrect notion in all drama ever produced by mankind.

Bull manure. NOT. EVERY. DAMN. WEEK. For God's sahe you'll turn it into a joke.

**Fencers** · 2022-07-20, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by JDL49

Bull manure. NOT. EVERY. DAMN. WEEK. For God's sahe you'll turn it into a joke.

All drama is about stakes. Drama exists because of stakes.

No stakes, no drama. No drama, no story.

**Biomega** · 2022-07-20, 12:07 PM

Originally Posted by JDL49

Bull manure. NOT. EVERY. DAMN. WEEK. For God's sahe you'll turn it into a joke.

There's a difference between "we need actual stakes" and "we need EARTH-SHATTERING REALITY-THREATENING stakes".

You can still have significant stakes without it being a Thanos-level threat.

**Shadowferal** · 2022-07-20, 01:09 PM

I'm reminded of an old Buffy episode; The Body. An episode dealing with grief. "It is simply one of the finest pieces of television drama, and the single finest depiction of bereavement in any medium, that I have ever seen."

**MrLachyG** · 2022-07-20, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by Shadowferal

I'm reminded of an old Buffy episode; The Body. An episode dealing with grief. "It is simply one of the finest pieces of television drama, and the single finest depiction of bereavement in any medium, that I have ever seen."

oh that episode is just haunting. it came out of nowhere, like yeah she was sick but it was unexpected. then the seventh season episode where she reappears brings it all up again

**Endus** · 2022-07-20, 08:51 PM

Originally Posted by Fencers

All drama is about stakes. Drama exists because of stakes.

No stakes, no drama. No drama, no story.

It wasn't about whether there should be any stakes, but whether every story needed high stakes, in this context, world-shattering stakes.

Consider some of the world's greatest novels;

Don Quixote, where a central plot theme is that Quixote keeps imagining such stakes, but they do not, in fact, exist; the whole tilting at windmills believing them to be giants thing.

Moby Dick, where the central stakes are about one ship captain and a whale he bears a grudge against. It's metaphorically significant, but the actual stakes are just that.

Pride and Prejudice, where the stakes are about finding marriages for a family of girls that will both save their family financially and, hopefully, not be a burden on those girls emotionally.

A superhero story where the "stakes" were "can Peter get into college and make a successful career out of being a university student and doing some superhero stuff on the side without failing at either" would be a perfectly functional story, even if the superhero shenanigans literally all occurred completely off-screen and the story focused primarily on adapting to college life. There's still stakes there, still conflict, it's just internal conflict, rather than external. It's not that different from a story about a kid from a poor community going to school on a sports scholarship and trying to balance the training demands with their real interest; their education. The core of the story, the conflict, is still the same.

**Fencers** · 2022-07-20, 10:23 PM

Originally Posted by Endus

It wasn't about whether there should be any stakes, but whether every story needed high stakes, in this context, world-shattering stakes.

I know, and intentionally quoted just the part I thought was incorrect. Fundamentally, stakes are necessary for all drama. Whether they are external (environmental, antagonistic, etc) or internal. I don't think the notion narrative should not have high stakes in any regard is valid. It's faulty actually.

Even if those stakes are relatively small, to the audience, they are not to the character(s). It matters a lot what is at stake as Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy progress through the story. Just as much so as a Victorian Thanos having landed his ship in the garden of a Georgian Era estate.

There is commonly something that for the characters involved in the narrative is of tremendous importance- Licorice Pizza, Absalom Absalom, or (sincerely) Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo. That community center is vital, life and death, to the characters in Breakin' 2. Scale and [high] stakes, external or internal, are not necessarily linked.

The 'threat of high stakes' is present in almost all drama.

**Fabinas** · 2022-07-20, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by JDL49

The threat of high stakes should be rare and come with phase end. In the meantime good stories like this one
are great even if the are missing the earth shattering kabooms. YMMV.

Noone talked about high stakes, nor earth shattering kabooms. I wrote about hard choices.

She's a kiddo and it's not so interesting to see kids trying to make adults or other (evil) kids to become friends. I would have preferred if she actually hurt Kamran to stop him from hurting her beloved ones. CHOICES.

- - - Updated - - -

Originally Posted by Biomega

There's a difference between "we need actual stakes" and "we need EARTH-SHATTERING REALITY-THREATENING stakes".

You can still have significant stakes without it being a Thanos-level threat.

Exactly. Even a "who to save now from his death fall" is a stake. We had none of that cause they approached it as a kiddie story.

**JDL49** · 2022-07-21, 07:08 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

Noone talked about high stakes, nor earth shattering kabooms. I wrote about hard choices.

She's a kiddo and it's not so interesting to see kids trying to make adults or other (evil) kids to become friends. I would have preferred if she actually hurt Kamran to stop him from hurting her beloved ones. CHOICES.
- - - Updated - - -

Fair enough.

Exactly. Even a "who to save now from his death fall" is a stake. We had none of that cause they approached it as a kiddie story.

I would characterize the 6 episode run of Ms. M more as a character development and origin story where serious stakes were not appopriate in the time available. Add 3 eps and something more would have been very doable.

One other thing; at this point I don't see her abilities other than embiggen mode as effective for offensive needs and that was obviously close range only and not over-whelming. She was using what she had for improved movement and defense mostly. They may be saving that other sort of arc for later* after she either gets an upgrade or develops something better out of her current powers.

*a movie or a S2.

**Lady Atia** · 2022-07-21, 07:23 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

Noone talked about high stakes, nor earth shattering kabooms. I wrote about hard choices.

She's a kiddo and it's not so interesting to see kids trying to make adults or other (evil) kids to become friends. I would have preferred if she actually hurt Kamran to stop him from hurting her beloved ones. CHOICES.

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. Even a "who to save now from his death fall" is a stake. We had none of that cause they approached it as a kiddie story.

But Kamran wasn't evil? And me as a kid would also have tried to make friends "with adults or the other (older) kid". And not hurting Kamran to protect her loved ones was her choice.

**ati87** · 2022-07-21, 07:24 AM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

Noone talked about high stakes, nor earth shattering kabooms. I wrote about hard choices.

She's a kiddo and it's not so interesting to see kids trying to make adults or other (evil) kids to become friends. I would have preferred if she actually hurt Kamran to stop him from hurting her beloved ones. CHOICES.

- - - Updated - - -

Exactly. Even a "who to save now from his death fall" is a stake. We had none of that cause they approached it as a kiddie story.

A bit to dark for a show that was overal a slice of life story.
Main characters love intrest getting hurt...if needed you can do this with a sequel (either a movie or season 2) but not sooner.

**draynay** · 2022-07-21, 01:27 PM

Moby Dick doesn't have high stakes??
It's a story about whalers on a whaling ship pursuing a whale that kills whalers and destroys whaling ships, how could the stakes be any higher?

**Ivanstone** · 2022-07-21, 01:41 PM

Originally Posted by Fabinas

Exactly. Even a "who to save now from his death fall" is a stake. We had none of that cause they approached it as a kiddie story.

So you missed the part where another reality could've destroyed their own reality?
Or the kid with powers going out of control because of an external stress?

It was a PG story where the genocide of billions was heavily implied.

**MrLachyG** · 2022-07-21, 01:51 PM

Originally Posted by Ivanstone

So you missed the part where another reality could've destroyed their own reality?
Or the kid with powers going out of control because of an external stress?

It was a PG story where the genocide of billions was heavily implied.

um did you not watch Infinity War? remember how that ended, with a genocide that killed trillions of not just people but every single living thing across the universe? so yeah, I think people can handle something that didn't happen if they've watched something that did actually happen and was a lot worse

**Ivanstone** · 2022-07-21, 02:47 PM

Originally Posted by MrLachyG

um did you not watch Infinity War? remember how that ended, with a genocide that killed trillions of not just people but every single living thing across the universe? so yeah, I think people can handle something that didn't happen if they've watched something that did actually happen and was a lot worse

In Infinity War, half of the human race died.
In Ms Marvel, all of the human race could’ve died.

If you’re going to use Infinity War as a metric for “high stakes”, then anything will arguably come up short. However, from the perspective of people who are confined to one planet and are largely ignorant of the universe at large, everyone dying is pretty fucking big.

**MrLachyG** · 2022-07-21, 03:13 PM

Originally Posted by Ivanstone

In Infinity War, half of the human race died.
In Ms Marvel, all of the human race could’ve died.

If you’re going to use Infinity War as a metric for “high stakes”, then anything will arguably come up short. However, from the perspective of people who are confined to one planet and are largely ignorant of the universe at large, everyone dying is pretty fucking big.