None of them
I like their designs but outside of that there's nothing going for any of them as their all unlikable, flat, and show zero development or growth as characters to feel like actual people who've earned a place in my autistic heart
Honestly, I'd say Tessa is probably the only one I didn't hate in some way. I mean, it's hard to hate an abused and neglected child.
Which kinda makes it all the more fucked up that her entire purpose for existing was to explain why Cyn is wearing human skin leatherface style.
Honestly I don't think people bring that up enough how incredibly edgy that comes off as looking back, you have this kid who has no friends and her parents are rich assholes who don't give a shit about her so her only friends are these robots she's rescuing from the dump. But then her parents get pissed and tell her she needs to throw them out.
Then for whatever reason one of those robots decides to just kill EVERYBODY including her for the lols and then proceeds to destroy the entire earth, for the lols.
Jesus, Cyn/The Solver was just not a compelling villain in the slightest. Like okay, if her plan was to consume the entire universe because it's her nature or whatever then I feel like Liam should've learned more into that and made her this actually scary force of nature type of villain rather than this silly, hehe haha please laugh whenever I speak, character. Instead she's somehow just edgy as fuck but without any actual bite. Like she does these arguably pretty dark and horrid things but it's impossible to take any of it seriously because of every time she opens her mouth. Typically you would have an antagonist do something like skinning a child and wearing their skin to sort've cement how abhorrently evil they are. But with how Cyn was presented it just didn't work.
Now that we are talking about the cast, I realized I may have talked too much about the secondary characters, don't get me wrong there are a lot of problems with them too, but in hindsight they dont NEED to be particularly fleshed out, their purpose is primarily to serve some type role in the plot (but we can debate as to how well they served that role), nothing else, it's okay if they remained flat the whole way.
Murder Drones only really wants you to care about 4 people:
- Uzi Doorman
- SD-N
- SD-V
- Cyn/Absolute Solver
The problem is, all of them just fucking suck, they're not that funny when they crack out the jokes, it doesn't hit hard when a super dramatic moment happens, all of them are varying degrees of psychopaths with very little remorse for their actions, I feel nothing whatever happens to these people, I don't root for the protagonist or don't feel satisfied when antagonist gets "defeated".
I think I now get why people still get attached to these characters despite how terribly written they are, cartoon characters in general just tend to be incredibly shallow and one-note, even the main characters, depth was never a requirement for them to still be entertaining, so audience has been conditioned to have an incredibly low standard when it comes to character writing.
HOWEVER, a lot of animated media can get away with shallow characters, because one, they are usually aimed for younger audiences who might not get the nuances of the people they are looking at, and two, they are often episodic, which requires the cast to often stay flat and predictable.
Murder Drones does not fall into these categories, it is a serialized plot-driven show with continuity, and story that still kinda(?) wants you, the audience, to get engaged with, and that does not work with these kinds of characters at all.
Then again, how much of this is actually a mistake, or just because LVs style of writing?, the tricky thing we have to tread in when criticizing MD is we have to consider that his way of writing stuff massively deviates from traditional storytelling, far too many times I just get countered with
>You just don't get it, FILTERED
When trying to discuss the flaws, this is why I tend to try being as objective as I can instead of relying on "How I feel" nowadays, simply pointing to things that happened, its far less easy to use that argument on me.
Honestly I don't think people bring that up enough how incredibly edgy that comes off as looking back, you have this kid who has no friends and her parents are rich assholes who don't give a shit about her so her only friends are these robots she's rescuing from the dump. But then her parents get pissed and tell her she needs to throw them out.
Then for whatever reason one of those robots decides to just kill EVERYBODY including her for the lols and then proceeds to destroy the entire earth, for the lols.
Jesus, Cyn/The Solver was just not a compelling villain in the slightest. Like okay, if her plan was to consume the entire universe because it's her nature or whatever then I feel like Liam should've learned more into that and made her this actually scary force of nature type of villain rather than this silly, hehe haha please laugh whenever I speak, character. Instead she's somehow just edgy as fuck but without any actual bite. Like she does these arguably pretty dark and horrid things but it's impossible to take any of it seriously because of every time she opens her mouth. Typically you would have an antagonist do something like skinning a child and wearing their skin to sort've cement how abhorrently evil they are. But with how Cyn was presented it just didn't work.
I'm not sure if it WAS the intention for Cyn to be a particularly compelling villain at all, the fandom will agree with you that its not going to scare anyone in anyway (They call it "The Silly" in their circles for this reason lmao).
This is yet another result of mixing memes and uber-serious storytelling, speculating from Liam's mind here, I think he was trying to do the "endearing, but threatening" archetype, and he just didn't do it right.
I'm not sure if it WAS the intention for Cyn to be a particularly compelling villain at all, the fandom will agree with you that its not going to scare anyone in anyway (They call it "The Silly" in their circles for this reason lmao).
This is yet another result of mixing memes and uber-serious storytelling, speculating from Liam's mind here, I think he was trying to do the "endearing, but threatening" archetype, and he just didn't do it right.
Yeah the MCs are shit J is the best character overall
also ontopic with the discussion going on here; i agree liam is actual dogshit at writing, MD's universe is fairly interesting but liam somehow managed to throw it all in the bin with his wattpad-tier writing "skills"
That's pretty much exactly what frustrates me the most and like minded people. There was a fair amount of potential here, if the series were in any one else's hands.
Part of why I find them saying they might do something with MD's universe in the future to be an interesting prospect but I don't think if Liam is still going to be writing it I can have any faith in whatever they plan to do with the IP.
Plus, it's already tarnished and ruined to begin with. I really don't know how they could salvage this mess of a story Liam left them with, if they have the balls to try it at all.
surprising, so they really are a vocal minority in the board huh
Have I told people here about this?, guess I'll state it in case I didn't, but /co/ has (or had, they dont seem to be as prominent as they used to be, not sure why) a subset of Murder Drones fans that just absolutely defend the show from anyone shit talking about it and genuinely think it's one of the best things to come out of indie animation, they will usually state the following responses:
"Filtered."
"You just don't get the LV-style eldritch abomination kino."
"Speedwatcher."
"Don't binge watch it faggot, you HAVE to analyze it."
In their defense, when I do see a lot of people who hate on MD, they tend to misunderstand the plot in some way, earning ridicule, even here, I see you people do it sometimes.
Listen, because I know some of them are lurking this thread, just because you like the general style and aura of MD shouldn't automatically mean it's a good show when it fails doing basic storytelling over and over again, learn to bypass your personal tastes and actually start looking at it objectively.
Why do you like J anyway?, she's such a nothing character that at best is a mild thorn on the protagonists, she has no personality outside of the corpo-slave gimmick.
Unless you say because she's hot then fine, I'll concede on that point.
Well, I would have to counter that by asking... whose fault is it that the plot is so hard to understand in the first place for a lot of people?
In my opinion I'd say it's the writer's job to convey their plot to the viewer, not the other way around.
Sure, sometimes people can just be retarded but even then I've seen so many people say they had to rewatch episodes multiple times to understand what was going on.
It also doesn't help the series is full of red herrings, intentionally or not. Random shit you think is, or was going to be important only for Liam to go "lol, retard. You thought that was gonna be something? lmao even."
Why is do you like J anyway?, she's such a nothing character that at best is a mild thorn on the protagonists, she has no personality outside of the corpo-slave gimmick.
Unless you say because she's hot then fine, I'll concede on that point.
That probably wouldn't be the case if she weren't so horribly underused. The same can be said about a lot of the characters; the vast majority of them are wasted potential, e.g Cyn/the Solver who could've been a great character was castrated by plot armour and has an autistic worker drone with less than a month of solver experience defeat it, an all-consuming cosmic horror that has reality-bending abilities.
Even so, I find her a lot more tolerable than the rest of the protagonists and as I said, I feel like she could've been a great character if she wasn't missed potential as is the case with Cyn and (to an extent) Tessa.
Although I really struggled to find any care for characters, I did like N. The only reason I liked N was he reminded me of my partner who's just as clueless and goofy like the little dude. Other than that, I almost liked Cyn and Tessa. If everything wasn't rushed or character had more than minimum actions, there could have been a lot more care for specific characters but that wasn't the case with that.
Personally, I had a lot of issues with Cyn and Tessa as mentioned before as character. There was just a lot of rushed antics and edgy humor that didn't fit with their whole deal either.
If they really wanted to make Cyn a good villian and give Tessa a good death, I honestly do not understand why they didn't make the absolute solver into something bigger. Imagine if it was hooked up into a mass of technology that snaked and coiled it up like a big lumpy mass. Make it into this big, super technology comprised being that puppets drones in a more horrific manner. Then, it could make its move on humanity and become a bigger threat than what Cyn was portrayed as. This would give more horror. More details. Less confusion. Give Cyn a chance to be Cyn without this whole 'hehe silly edgy!' persona to it. Make Cyn a character who CAN be feared because if she is being a puppet to virus controlling other drones, it can push more possibilities and give better storytelling to the viewer on what absolute fuck is happening. Not only that, You could give Tessa an actual honorable death if thats what Liam wanted and make it horrific to know what the solver does towards non robotic beings. I do not like the skinning idea but imagine if this super computer virus being managed to gain access to her space suit while she was trying to help the others? Would that not be a more horror element given the fact space horror usually has that fear implied? I do not know if any of this sperging will TRULY help fix this rushed confusion either.
Tbf there is no actual distinction from my understanding. She just eats everything. Robot or not. Her entire goal was to eat the universe. What the plan was after that? Who knows, it's le cosmic horror we don't need explanations or plans here.
The DDs are the only exception. My guess with Tessa is she kept the skin and just ate everything else. Though I'm unsure why it cared to keep the skin in the first place other than to be edgy. From what I gather it just devours matter. In general though Cyn and the Solver's abilities are really inconsistent and nonsensical just like the character itself. I never understood for instance why a creature whose entire purpose is to basically destroy the universe was weirdly sentimental for these retard robots. Tbh, that entire explanation about how it wanted them to keep their original personalities felt like some kind of cope since the series demonstrates the solver can basically brainwash and or directly control drones whenever it pleases. There was basically no reason at all to not just completely rewrite their personalities to make them loyal little slaves. Wipe all their memories ect.
I know some people will just cope and probably say something like "Yeah! But V's deal with Cyn!" and sure okay fine. Maybe it WAS going to do that originally but like... what was even the point of humoring such a deal even? From where I'm sitting Cyn should be this frightening incomprehensibly evil being yet is written like an actual retard.
I know I keep saying I'm done but, yeah I can't help myself. Again, for whatever reason this is the only place I will see people genuinely criticize the show's flaws and not just ignore them or tell me I'm nitpicking whenever I bring this shit up.
. Again, for whatever reason this is the only place I will see people genuinely criticize the show's flaws and not just ignore them or tell me I'm nitpicking whenever I bring this shit up.
I believe they don't actually care about the show plot itself. It's all about the character and the interactions they can get out of it. If they can warp the character around their own little personality they make for them, it's easier to ignore the whole fast paced shit plot that they come from.
If we're on the topic of characters that could of been favorites if the potential wasn't thrown away, i'd say for me it's doll
I always had a thing for the edgy quiet loner characters and with doll they really started her out interesting, like an exact rival to uzi and could of been so much more
I thought she was going to be a main antag and rival figure, they had her set up like that, both needing to figure out their problem, both of a similar background in being outcasts with uzi more "heroic" and doll more villainous and willing to use whatever means necessary with her revenge desire and killing bystanders, maybe even teaming up with J to give her a purpose and role again
it could of been a kamen rider dynamic, primary rider whose more heroic and secondary rider who starts out as an outright villain or anti hero then mellows out over time(sometimes working for the villain indirectly)
and i'd even argue she would of made a much more interesting and compelling antagonist than cyn
but instead like everything in this series, it's wasted despite the setup being already there and instead of edgy goth loner that could of gone from ruthless and coldhearted to more understanding and heroic or indirectly caused the solver to manifest itself, we instead get...evil robot ai thing that's evil for the sake of it, which would of been forgiven more if they did go that route as that's usually how it works in horror stuff where the main monster/entity is playing the main characters and shows itself at the end, it's so straightforward and hard to do wrong
Also thinking about doll again
anyone else find it a little fucked how the one character who arguably had the most reasonable cause for being a mental nutcase, is the only who truly dies, and in quite a gruesome way at that and is just done dirty
uzi feels "remorseful" I suppose about her actions
v is a sadist who took pleasure in it and nothing happened to her
N has a case of just following orders and didn't seem to enjoy it
J is just a tool
don't even get me started on cyn
yet the one character who arguably had the most valid reason to be a psychotic cunt is just done dirty and worse than every other character who is just as bad if not worse in some cases
maybe i'm just thinking too much into it but it doesn't feel right and like it was deliberate
also if i remember correctly, doesn't her best friend lizzy turn against her too to go befriend the very person who killed doll's parents?
again, what the fuck
anyone else find it a little fucked how the one character who arguably had the most reasonable cause for being a mental nutcase, is the only who truly dies, and in quite a gruesome way at that and is just done dirty
Yeah, it's really weird. I also don't understand what the point of the cut to her corpse in the epilogue even was. It's super bizarre because nobody acknowledges her or talks about her at all. Again, it's like even the characters don't even care that she exists. She is pretty much immediately forgotten the second she's off screen.
It's made all the more bizarre considering she's Yeva's daughter, who was implied to be Nori's friend but yet even Nori doesn't seem to give a damn. It's part of why I'm starting to think that Season 2 was originally planned to be real but then something happened behind the scenes and either Liam decided or he was told "Sorry, no Season 2. Whatever you're writing you need to wrap it up by the end of these 8 episodes." so the thing I heard about the season 2 plot being extremely condensed into the final few episodes is feeling more legit the more I think about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if originally Doll was actually meant to be more of a long standing rival character but pretty much all of it ended up being cut when Season 2 was axed. I think when that happened Liam actually just didn't know what to do with her which is why she kind of just exists, until she doesn't, because Liam didn't know how to do whatever he originally wanted to do in such a short timespan.
Yeah, it's really weird. I also don't understand what the point of the cut to her corpse in the epilogue even was. It's super bizarre because nobody acknowledges her or talks about her at all. Again, it's like even the characters don't even care that she exists. She is pretty much immediately forgotten the second she's off screen.
It's made all the more bizarre considering she's Yeva's daughter, who was implied to be Nori's friend but yet even Nori doesn't seem to give a damn. It's part of why I'm starting to think that Season 2 was originally planned to be real but then something happened behind the scenes and either Liam decided or he was told "Sorry, no Season 2. Whatever you're writing you need to wrap it up by the end of these 8 episodes." so the thing I heard about the season 2 plot being extremely condensed into the final few episodes is feeling more legit the more I think about it.
I wouldn't be surprised if originally Doll was actually meant to be more of a long standing rival character but pretty much all of it ended up being cut when Season 2 was axed. I think when that happened Liam actually just didn't know what to do with her which is why she kind of just exists, until she doesn't, because Liam didn't know how to do whatever he originally wanted to do in such a short timespan.
Makes me wonder if how treated like shit doll was was liam's way of venting about stuff behind the scenes
a season 2 or things being much different does seem like it was meant to happen and when told early on that's not happening, he kinda just chose her of all characters to take out frustration, i know some writers do that stuff
this also reminds me i think murder drones has a problem of character bloat as a lot don't do anything or feel unnecessary and goes back to what i said earlier about how I think the main antags should of just been J and Doll working together maybe with Tessa too, whereas Uzi, V, and N were the main trio, that's what it feels like it was setting itself up to and would be the typical cartoon dynamic
Well, it kind of was. If the old reddit AmA thing is real, the show was originally meant to be a slice of life series with action and lore sprinkled in, which also meant it was probably intended to be longer. But then while writing episode 2 I guess something happened and it was instead decided to completely scrap the original plan for episode 2 and the series as a whole and instead it got reworked into what we have now. Then, I assume at some other point in the future Liam still planned a second season and in general likely planned for the plot to be more expansive before another thing happened which resulted in this second season also being axed because again there are so many things that are seemingly set up and then never come up again.
And for whatever reason I assume Liam decided to keep the entire cast from the original slice of life version in the new version of the show which is why there are so many unnecessary characters who don't really do much of anything.
The series to me just seems like a series of very ill advised decisions.
As much as we can say Doll was wasted, she cant really do much with only 8 episodes to be fair, I'd argue she should have been killed off permanently in episode 3, when she was actually contributing to the plot the most, then let the cast figure out more of the solver by exploring more about her post-mortem, that way she can be an actually relevant character despite not showing up too much.
The 8 episode limit was a genuinely hard limiting factor and is one of the root causes to why the plot is shit, but how do YOU make a comprehensive lore-driven plot in that short of a time frame?, That format is just too restrictive at that scale.
Tessa is the only character in the show that I don't hate, in a cast and universe where people are written to be as obnoxious as much as possible, she's oddly relatively reserved and normal in the one episode she actually appears in, makes it all worse when she's the one that got the worst fate while the main cast and the villain just get to live on, I legit have a grudge on LV for this, we can all laugh at plot and worldbuilding inconsistencies, bad tonal whiplashes, or whatever, but this part just leaves a bad taste on my mouth no matter what.
As for Cyn, the problem isn't just about the character, (I can argue that antagonists don't need to be fleshed out to still work, especially of the Cosmic Horror type) the most I can say is its not that funny at all, it's just discount GLaDOS, I think in the current state, it could still work, maybe tone down the shitty gags but that's a personal preference, no, the real problem is the protagonists are extremely underdeveloped and aren't fleshed out as much as they needed to, and from what we do know, they are innately, terribly violent people, why the fuck should I care if they win if THESE are supposed to be "the good guys", now i'm not saying they should be squeaky clean classical superman-esque heroes, I prefer anti-heroes myself, but there's very little redeeming qualities about them that make me care about them as people, which is the key to making shitty people still come out as someone to still be rooted for.
If one side of the conflict is just, "universe eating", and the other side is shallow, irredeemable psychopaths, its over.
There's this trope in a certain website named 'Too Bleak, Stopped Caring", that perfectly describes how I feel about Murder Drones, there is NOTHING worth getting attached to in this fictional world.
