Roller - Blog Posts
Gay Men Flag Colorpicked from This Bird
Indian Roller (Coracias benghalensis), family Coraciidae, order Coraciiformes, Karnataka, India
photograph by Kmb Prasad
I finished mtmte/ll recently and as much as I absolutely adored the series, I do have some complaints/questions.
That final arc felt generally kinda weak, but some things really stuck out:
Most glaring to me was Nightbeat's death. I didn't even realize what was going on when I read it. I fully believed he was just getting up to more hijinks on his own, finally make his own discovery, then the series ends and I realized he actually fully died? It was so anticlimactic and honestly unnecessary I didn't even register it was supposed to be a permanent death until I saw he was one of the figurines of dead characters on the table. Why no one even give a fuck either the crew never brings it up 😭
On the note of dead characters, Skids. I know plenty of people bring this up as a complaint but yeah, I see why. One of the best characters in the series killed off in an (questionably necessary) incredibly depressing scene, with no one ever reaching true closure or having good discussions about it. I have a lot of thoughts about his death that I gotta think through first, but Im just unsatisfied with it. It feels like the series relied on everything just ending up okay, like with Tailgate mysteriously living. Cd/rewind and cyclonus/Tg both had plenty of moments were character death is resolved by some miracle because they completely rely on each other to not fall apart, and it would be incredibly depressing for that to happen to a character. And that's completely okay, but then it just feels weird that to avoid that kind of plot, they have the characters closest to Skids just move on, hardly acknowledging it. At that point just being him back as well, because his platonic relationships were as strong as those romantic ones. Or at least have his friends acknowledge it, literally anything. (I do find it really interesting that his first words in the series were his last, calling himself scum. Sad, but a fun idea, that makes his death feel even worse too me. He died thinking he was a horrible person and because of his lack of revival, it's an extremely depressing almost up out of pocket way to end of his character in a series that never had this type of hopeless vibe.) Maybe they wanted the DJD to be a full threat, by actually killing off a character. But it wasn't really them who did it, at least not directly so I don't really think so.
This is more of a question, what was the point of Roller? Don't get me wrong I adored him probably way to much for a guy who didn't really do much. But seriously, what did he do. After the flashback we're he is introduced, it feels like he's supposed to be something of a Skids replacement, as in he's filling in the spot of a charismatic kind guy that's kinda the more down to earth member of the crew to compliment that wacky personalities. I think he was supposed to be a Red Herring in making you think he was Tarn before becoming Tarn (because of his need to be useful and his head shape)? But it was so underbaked I didn't even catch that until after Tarn died and was revealed to be Glitch instead. And now this is getting into more personal opinions/ideas, but I feel like he would have been more interesting if he was Tarn. But I get that just doesn't work because he was a disappeared person, and clearly Tarn isn't disappeared. But considering the loop holes this series gets into to make stuff happen (which again isn't a bad thing I think it makes it more charming) it could have plausibly happened, considering he changed his identity completely to become Tarn. I might make a post going into this idea further, but it would have probably made Tarn too sympathetic (which I also have thoughts about) so I understand why they wouldn't.
Sorry this got to way too long, I might mention more later when I can fully retrospect. Again tho, I really enjoyed this series, no series can be perfect and there were probably time constraints.