>>119514903>>119515225Batman has that line about how “Not every story has a happy ending” near the end, was that the “point”? Did they just make an episode centered around making you take pity on a scared little girl and then have her die horrifically at the end just to send kids the message of “shitty things happen lol”? After watching the episode it seems apparent that the writers intend for you to see Annie as real, regardless of how little sense that makes. This is the kind of CRAAAWWWLING IIIIIINNN MYYY SKIIIIIINNN story you’d expect to find on Archive of Our Own.
>>119527489I think that’s legitimately the reason this episode is remembered fondly. The story is retarded (lol clayface is back because of fuck-you-chemicals even though you literally saw him dissolve into nothing in his last appearance and also lost parts of himself can create new life now that then forget that they were ever part of him and have no idea that they’re actually made of clay haha brrrrrr) but all it actually set out to do was provoke an emotional reaction, which it clearly did succeed at. There’s plenty of forum posts online about how this episode messed people up for days when they were kids.
Downer endings like Heart of Ice or Mask of the Phantasm are great because they actually have, as
>>119514903 said, thematic relevance. They’re actually saying something meaningful, in these cases about the morality of vengeance and how grief can drive a good person down a path of darkness. All Growing Pains seems interested in saying is, as mentioned above, “yeah life is unfair and shit sometimes lol”, which is surprisingly vapid for BTAS.
