Justice for Stagnate.

I’ll get to the meat of this week’s episode (which to be honest, I had some pretty big problems with) in a minute.  But I want first to loop back to something I briefly alluded to in last week’s post, and that’s Stagnate.  More specifically, why he should get labeled as a “third-rate villain” here.  The more I’ve thought about this the more I’m convinced – Stagnate got screwed pretty good.  He basically saved the world in exchange for payment (Blood and Mary’s eternal service), and he kept his end of the deal.  Then when it came time to collect, they cheated him out of his compensation for services rendered.

Look, I don’t blame Will for raging against the dying of the light.  He didn’t make the deal, he loves his mummy and dad (and gramps), and he’s going to fight to keep them around.  But what exactly did Stagnate do wrong here?  I know Gus remarked on “a contract made under duress” not being valid, but hey – Stagnate didn’t have to act at all.  And if he did, he didn’t have to offer what I think any reasonable person would say are very fair terms.  Mary and Blood made a choice, they got what they needed, and then they refused to pay.  And where were all the so-called “good” Gods and Goddesses when the Demon King was destroying the world?  Stagnate was the only one who cared enough to lend a hand.

Be that as etc. etc., it’s done now.  As for this episode. it really should have been a big emotional payoff but honestly I thought it fell pretty flat apart from the last few minutes and the epilogue.  First big problem – the narrative was extremely clumsy.  Basically the first ten minutes was Will inner monologuing over every moment, a stream of patter which never gave us a rest.  Stop explaining everything and show me what’s happening for cripes’ sake.

Then, we have Will’s non-stop whinging about how sad everything is.  I get that – it’s a sad time.  But – and you’ll have to pardon me for beating what’s for this writer a very dead horse – this all represents a fundamental flaw of almost every light novel (and adaptation).  There’s no trust in the audience – exposition has to be spelled out in encyclopedic dialogical exposition, and emotional moments are used as sledgehammers rather than allowed to speak for themselves.  Saihate no Paladin has been better than most in this respect but the genes showed through here, and it just seems to be a systemic flaw in the medium.

The moments after Mary and Blood passed on, when Will was bantering with Gus, were better.  And the postscript with the flashback to the parents’ final days as humans had a nicely understated elegiac tone to it, and provided a satisfying close to their story.  The first 17 minutes, not so good.  But the main story basically starts from here, so I’ll see where Will & Grace go from here – the first four eps, while hardly stellar, showed me enough to cover the debts incurred by the fifth.