 ThingInTheCoat 2007-10-02 . chapter 1I read this story over two years ago. After stumbling over it again and being overwhelmed by the endless accolades it has bathed in Caligula-like, I am retroactively reviewing it.
This is quite possibly one of the most -- if not THE most -- overrated stories on
The prose is passable, I'll give you that -- so is the structure, characterization (for the most part, at least), and et cetera -- but the plot... Listen: If you're going to write a retelling of Othello -- even nearly going so far as outright STATING that it's a retelling of Othello, at the very beginning -- then you should try to bring something new to the table, rather than what essentially amounts to a straight adaption set within another universe. Anyone who is familiar with Othello -- heck, anyone who isn't, since your allusion at the beginning perfectly sums up what the story is going to be about -- will be able to predict nearly every plot point in this story, which in fact I did, all the way to the very end. A happy, redemptive spin like the one you applied just doesn't cut it as something even approaching fresh and new, either, I'm afraid, since it was apparent from miles away.
However, this alone might not have been quite as glaring, had you not performed a truly fatal transgression. I mean, Jesus Christ -- Shego. I don't know what I was expecting from a story titled "Shego Rocks!" -- which itself is a handle that is eyebrow-raising -- but it certainly wasn't... this. You took her character, laid her bare on a chopping block, carved her to pieces, and then pieced her back together like a well-intentioned but grotesque Mr. Potato Head. Characters who are virtually perfect -- who are super model-caliber beautiful, professional martial artists, expert piano players, classy fashionistas, and scientific geniuses who in minutes can cobble together a ** computer with spare junk found lying around a high school classroom -- are unrealistic (even in Kim Possible), unlikeable, and just plain uninteresting; everything else in the story suffers by proxy, having this ugliness reflected onto them by such an integral character. A character -- villain or hero -- needs SOME flaws in order to be a person that the audience can take into their hearts, and a tragic backstory where, alas, my boyfriend left me and set me on a downward spiral into villainy, does not itself constitute a flaw and is in fact trite and unimpressive per se. Without these flaws, they are a just another forgettable Mary Sue, even if they have skinned a regular cast member and are wearing their hide like some sort of literary Leatherface.
I won't even address the underwhelming ending.
Why this thing is placed on so high a pedestal, I cannot really guess. I've seen worse -- far worse -- but there is so much better out there. |