Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1255374-20151111163045/@comment-995426-20160316134333

Hm, I think I found a good way to describe why 2K12's season 3 and 4 have been so unsatisfying. This isn't exactly on topic, but it is loosely related to why I think Splinter shouldn't return to the show, and the reasons I hold characters like Splinter in such esteem.

I think of a good story as like...good food&mdash;food that is nutritious, and sustains you and helps you keep going. It's not always as enjoyable as dessert, but it can be quite enjoyable, and it hits a spot. The first two seasons of 2K12 gave me enough of this feeling with some of their really well-done episodes, and I feel a similar feeling from much of the Mirage, IDW and MNT Gaiden comics I read.

The more recent seasons have more like a diet of little better than junkfood. All dessert and empty calories. Dessert is supposed to punctuate a good meal but not dominate or replace it, and eating too much of those empty calories leaves you feeling malnourished with hyperglycemia.

Light or dark, it's better for a good story to be deep than to be shallow.

You see, moments of extreme satisfaction need to feel earned, like the story took the time and effort to make it work so that the result is a reward for something that was well in the making. If they're delivered on a silver platter for the basest of fanwank wishes, they not only feel phony and sloppy, but quite ridiculous and insulting to one's intelligence and emotional depth. Not everyone cares as much about this depth, but I always have.

To put it another way, fast and easy fanservice is less like literature and more like porno. It's about instant gratification without any semblance of a deeper foundation. Whether that has its place in entertainment is not my argument&mdash;rather, this series initially seemed to promise something more substantial than that. But now it makes me sick, as if someone has dumped a large amount of raw white sugar down my throat and it poisons me from the inside.

"It's just silly stuff for the kids" is only a cop-out. Good literature, even with children expected in the audience, should try to nourish their deeper social awareness rather than just deliver fun and games and empty calories. Because, when done right, literature nourishes this side of you no matter how old you are, and you're always a student of new and different ideas, thoughts and feelings. Bad writing can make you feel jarred and jolted and ruin the experience. And if someone is the kind of person who prefers not to have any real depth, thought or substance in their entertainment, then I really feel sorry for them.