Post-Cringe

“I want to do more than call it cringe and move on. I want to explain why I sink into my seat a little when I watch these clips”

“She isn’t just being flippant, she’s lampshading the artifice of this situation, calling attention to (and dismissing) the absurdity of a sorceress-queen who speaks in rhyme”

“People call this type of dialog Whedon-esque a lot, though the Marvel example I think of the most is that bit in the most recent Spider-Man where MCU Peter and his friends laugh at the idea of someone named “Doctor Otto Octavius.””

“Both of these lines—and a great deal of similar smirking, snarking, wink-at-the-camera style comedy—miss for me in the same way: They feel ashamed of the world that the lines are being spoken in”

“And I get it. I work in “genre” despite having a lot of high-falutin interests. I know the strange feeling of writing about orcs or robots or death gremlins or rhyming sorceress-queens by day, only to spend my free time consuming stories that are grounded and real and which shake my bones free from one another”

“And I also know the other half of this, which is that my work in genre spaces gets looked down on. These are not new types of feelings!”

“But the thing is: When I sign up to go to the mystical world of Athia, ruled by four sorcerous Tantas and cursed by mysterious blight… I’m here for the artifice!”

“It’s that that Frey herself is cringing, and by proxy there is a sense that the writers are doing the same”

“You do not need to ensure the audience that you also get that this stuff isn’t that serious. This shit we do is ascendent. Be fearless! Stick your chest out!”