I had planned to do a Vlog about my thoughts on Tragedy of Eclipso, but this’ll have to do. A number of you have expressed that you’ve liked Tragedy of Eclipso and said you were confused as to why I called it a “disaster.”…well I think if I described what I wanted in the first place maybe you’d see the differences. On it’s own Tragedy of Eclipso has problems and plot holes that I am not going to defend because I wrote myself in a corner in many areas.
On a character aspect you follow Eclipso and he’s the one that is most developed. I think Eclipso is probably the best character in the episode…and the others have some or no development at all. Rigalo is probably the least developed and it’s cringing to me that you really don’t know a thing about Rigalo. I didn’t give Rigalo a proper backstory which I regret and a few reasons for that is I’m not sure if his heritage is worth telling or if it would even make sense if I made a proper episode. Zelda’s also another character that you know little about, I made one of the same mistakes some of the Zelda games make as far as a strong and really fleshed out character. You know very little about her and there’s no answers to the basic questions of writing 101.
“Who are they?” “Why does Eclipso like Zelda?” “Why does Zelda like Rigalo?” “What are their interests and personalities?”
As far as good writing it’s the little touches and details that really define who and what a character is. As for the others I feel they’re also underdeveloped and some of that was on purpose of course, I kept Mudora and Daphnes with not much to see as far as their characters. Impa I think should have had more development as well, but again that’s my fault for not giving her the time for the audience to get to know her as a person.
Let’s talk about the things I cut.
In Part 3 I cut all dialogue between Zelda and Impa. Their conversation didn’t really add anything to the story except maybe minor development and also Impa introduced the sealing arrows with one line. I realized Impa having just one line to introduce the arrows was a mistake so I added the scene where the Wise Men give Eclipso the Master Sword and arrows and you see them in use.
I cut a lot of Eclipso and Zelda’s dialogue at the end because it was getting repetitive and too wordy and even too preachy in some aspects. There were also animation segments I wanted to do, and I tried many different ways to animate certain things like the horses and different angles, but they didn’t satisfy me so I cut my losses on that.
I cut a few things after Eclipso gets sealed, there was suppose to be a few lines from Zelda and Daphnes showed up on a horse at the end to have two lines…I felt it was better to just end there…and at the same time it felt like it just ends without much of a wrap up at all so I knew it was a risk and I just decided to really end it there with nothing said.
The plot holes.
Someone asked me “Why did he take her away from the castle?” and my answer was so they would have time to talk without being interrupted, but yeah he could have just locked the door or something.
Eclipso tries to kill Rigalo at the very end of the episode and there’s not much of a motivation for him to do this, however the blunt reason for this was Zelda had to shoot Eclipso and seal him…so I’d consider that a plot hole. You can argue that Eclipso just snaps from all the things that have happened to him and he just didn’t care anymore.
Thardus and Pegasus were the Unicorns that appeared or mentioned in Coolo Eclipso are not shown anywhere in the episode.
Now the message of the Episode.
The reason I wanted to do this episode was I thought the idea was interesting and to me it was an age old question of what happens after a Zelda game is over. What happens to Link and Zelda? Do they enter in a relationship? Does it grow or does it work? Does it end in disaster? It’s a scenario I wanted to explore and open up. I think that Tragedy of Eclipso is a realistic version of the romantic version of the story. The romantic version is they lived happily ever after and everything is flowers and singing birds, ect. And the realistic version is not exactly the Disney happy version where just because they were involved in saving the world together would they just get together. Another question I wanted to ask at the time is what exactly is a understandable reward for a hero who saved everyone’s lives? Was Eclipso wrong or was he right? I wanted there to be a discussion of what exactly happened and whose fault was it? I’m not sure if I accomplished the goals that it set out to be other than it being “Tragic” and it was a “Tragedy” in the Shakespeare sense…Not that I’m comparing this to shakespear at all…But I was going for a tragic element and in the majority and even in Episode 24 and 25 you see what happens to everyone and it is a “tragedy” what happens to most these characters.
To end this I think Tragedy of Eclipso isn’t as bad as I thought. It has a ton of problems with me personally because I felt I could do much better than this…This was no-where near the Masterpiece I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be one of my best of the best and most famous works and…it’s just not. My hopes I created for myself were FAR too high to be realistic expectations. I think that’s all I can really say.
Thank you for reading all this. If you don’t agree and think this episode is better than I give it credit for…tell me why. Explain why you feel that way so we can discuss it.
Thanks again.
Have a good year.
