Fables (Volumes #20-22)
Nov. 2nd, 2015 09:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroFables finally ends, on a number of bittersweet notes. These three final volumes tell how.
Talk about breaking all the toys so they no one can use them again. Seriously, after his previous attempts to end the series, this was Willingham going, “I am DONE DONE DONE. No more. Everybody’s either dead or had their ‘final’ story told. No more, I mean it.”
It's interesting that, of all the major confrontations that are built up to over the course of the series, virtually none of them resolve with the fight you’d expect them to. Everything ends with either a twist or a trick. Deus ex Machina—often in the form of a powerful character who previously wouldn’t get involved or didn’t realize their strength—takes down virtually every noteworthy opponent. Jethrien noted to me that this was rather keeping with fairy tales: Those are pretty much always won via cleverness and trickery rather than brute strength.
I enjoyed Fables in general, but it really should have ended back around issue #75. The bits noting what really “destroyed” Fabletown in these volumes are accurate: Fabletown was created because the fables couldn’t go home. The destruction of the Empire meant they could. All the puttering about setting up new enemies who die via Deus ex Machina or general letdown could have been ignored. The “Cubs In Toyland” story was the strongest one in 50 issues, and that was basically because it ignored all the existing characters and stood on its own.
Also, the last bit with Snow and Rose becoming mega-powerful because of the witch-family-lineage that had never come up before? Total ass-pull. I was willing to believe that Rose got new superpowers by leveraging her Avatar of Hope-ness and casting herself as King Arthur (and thereby absorbing the popularity power of the Arthurian legend), but it just super-escalated too quickly.
Overall: Fables was a great series, but I’d generally only recommend the first half of it. I mean, if you love it, you’ll never want for material even with it ended.
Talk about breaking all the toys so they no one can use them again. Seriously, after his previous attempts to end the series, this was Willingham going, “I am DONE DONE DONE. No more. Everybody’s either dead or had their ‘final’ story told. No more, I mean it.”
It's interesting that, of all the major confrontations that are built up to over the course of the series, virtually none of them resolve with the fight you’d expect them to. Everything ends with either a twist or a trick. Deus ex Machina—often in the form of a powerful character who previously wouldn’t get involved or didn’t realize their strength—takes down virtually every noteworthy opponent. Jethrien noted to me that this was rather keeping with fairy tales: Those are pretty much always won via cleverness and trickery rather than brute strength.
I enjoyed Fables in general, but it really should have ended back around issue #75. The bits noting what really “destroyed” Fabletown in these volumes are accurate: Fabletown was created because the fables couldn’t go home. The destruction of the Empire meant they could. All the puttering about setting up new enemies who die via Deus ex Machina or general letdown could have been ignored. The “Cubs In Toyland” story was the strongest one in 50 issues, and that was basically because it ignored all the existing characters and stood on its own.
Also, the last bit with Snow and Rose becoming mega-powerful because of the witch-family-lineage that had never come up before? Total ass-pull. I was willing to believe that Rose got new superpowers by leveraging her Avatar of Hope-ness and casting herself as King Arthur (and thereby absorbing the popularity power of the Arthurian legend), but it just super-escalated too quickly.
Overall: Fables was a great series, but I’d generally only recommend the first half of it. I mean, if you love it, you’ll never want for material even with it ended.
