Just watched Rise of the Titans… and I have some thoughts.
*please remember that these are just my opinions!
Rise of the Titans. I’ve been looking forward to this conclusion to the Trollhunters series ever since I finished Wizards. I watched it tonight, July 21, the day it premiered on Netflix, and while there were a lot of things I loved about it, I ultimately am refusing to accept it as canon. From a storytelling perspective, the ending simply does not make sense, and it invalidates the entire series. I feel a real, genuine sense of loss after watching it, like the shows I’ve loved for so long ultimately come to nothing, mean nothing. And that is why this movie is not canon to me. (And also why I will be writing a bunch of fanfics in the coming weeks to fix it.)
Warning: spoilers ahead
First, though, let me start off with some things I loved:
The relationships between characters were so well developed, deeper and more believable than ever. To see Jim and Claire go from awkward crushes to a relationship with such depth… beautiful. To see how far Jim and Strictler’s relationship has come was incredible as well.
Eli’s growth spurt caught me completely off guard and was hilarious.
The action was riveting, and the animation and character models have only gotten better. It was a beautiful movie - those Titans were beyond impressive.
The whump did not disappoint. I enjoyed it immensely.
The. Angst. Gosh, one thing I’ve always loved about this show is that it doesn’t majorly sugar coat loss and despair. I think back to the episode “Unbecoming,” and all the hell Jim has been though, all the losses and pain and torture in the Darklands. Overall, this show doesn’t hold back, and I appreciate that. The deaths of Nomura, Strictler, and Toby, as well as the separation of Douxie and Archie, were raw, painful, and gut wrenching. Jim sobbing over Toby’s body hurt in a way that took me off guard. So well done. So powerful. So painful. Excellently handled.
The absolute best part of this movie was Jim’s struggle to be a hero despite no longer having the amulet. His war with himself, the doubt, the identity crisis: “Am I still the Trollhunter?” The realization he was always a hero, continuing to fight when he was beaten to a pulp, going in with his fists against a god when he loses his weapon… this is the hero I have watched from day one. Jim is one of the best characters in fiction to me, and this only solidified that. He is a hero, forged in fire, and he is one whether or not he has an amulet. When he finally gets the amulet back, it feels EARNED…
Which leads me to my main issue with the ending… why, after this EARNED restoration of the Trollhunter, does it all mean nothing?
Here’s the thing: you could argue, on a surface level, that the ending of this movie is poignant. Jim learns that he is a hero whether or not he has an amulet, so he is able to easily pass on the mantle (is it passing on the mantle if it’s just a redo, though?) to Toby in an attempt to fix the timeline. “It’s about being a hero, with or without powers,” you might say. “It’s about giving someone else a shot to be the hero.” And while those are nice sentiments, they make NO. SENSE.
Here are my issues with the time reset and Toby becoming the Trollhunter instead of Jim:
First off, as a storytelling trope/technique, the “time reset” is, in my opinion, a cop-out, very similar to the rarely-successful “it was all a dream” trope. It not only gives the characters an “easy way out” and belittles the sacrifices of the characters who died, but it also invalidates THE ENTIRE STORY up to that point. If time resets and Jim shortcuts his way to a happy ending by messing with the timeline (and this diehard Doctor Who fan isn’t even going to start going into the issues with messing with an established timeline), and ends up giving the mantle to Toby (who did not ask for this, by the way, which makes Jim just as conniving and irresponsible as Merlin for choosing Jim in the first place), then what was the point of all the previous seasons of Trollhunters? Of Three Below? Of Wizards? What we are being told is that the story that we fell in love with, the hero that we have fought and cried and laughed and nearly died with, wasn’t good enough. That all we watched and loved is never going to have happened. It’s an easy way to undo the deaths of major characters. I believe the movie should have either had the balls to let the characters who died stay dead and allow Jim and friends to truly grieve and grow stronger from those losses, or that they should have never died at all. I would have settled for the cliche, miraculous recovery of the comic relief at this point. Anything would have been better than the cheap, rapid pressing of the backspace key. If you are going to kill a character, commit. (Except for Arrrgghh! in the show. I’m glad he’s back, because it actually made sense for them to be able to heal him. Plus, he’s Aaarrrgghh!)
Also, Jim’s decision to let Toby be the Trollhunter this time makes literally NO SENSE. It’s illogical, dangerous, and out of character. What was he thinking? What we the audience are left to infer is that Jim thinks that his being the Trollhunter is the sole reason that any of this happened, that any of his friends died, and that by letting someone else be the Trollhunter everything will be better. Again, this invalidates the entire show.
Plus, the whole show preached about how the amulet called Jim’s name, how he was chosen. How he was meant to be the Trollhunter. Wouldn’t he ALWAYS be the Trollhunter??? Why is this hard reset on the timeline going to change who the amulet called? We know that it didn’t call Jim just because he happened to be there. It WAITED for him. So why is it suddenly calling Toby just because he’s there? It makes NO SENSE.
Also also, actually actually, WHY would Jim, the protective, caring, self-sacrificing friend that he is, willingly pass a mantle to his best friend that has put Jim himself through hell so many times? Jim learned to accept, even love, his role as Trollhunter, but he nearly died so many times. Why would he thrust this upon his friend? And no, it wasn’t because he wanted to keep Toby from dying. You don’t keep your friends out of harm’s way by painting a giant target on their backs. IT MAKES NO SENSE.
And then, why would Toby being Trollhunter change anything at all? Jim would have been much better served to retake the mantle and make as few changes as possible, only those necessary to avert unnecessary death. By giving the amulet to Toby, he’s setting sail on a ship of unknowns, allowing an untrained newbie with no knowledge of the future to come, no battle experience, and no idea what he’s getting himself into, the keys to a kingdom that he’s not ready to lead. And sure, he’d have Jim to guide him. But WHAT IS THE POINT when Jim already knows the burden the amulet is to bear, already has way more battle experience than he did the first time, already knows what needs to change? IT. MAKES. NO. SENSE.
Ultimately, this conclusion comes off as weak, ineffectual, and confusing - and gives off the idea that Jim isn’t trying to avert the painful future but is simply just shifting the burden of responsibility onto someone else’s shoulders so he can have a shot at a semi-normal life. I mean, think about what Blinky tells him before he goes back in time - that he runs the risk of whatever could go wrong being on his shoulders. But wait - if Toby’s the Trollhunter, it’s not Jim’s fault anymore, is it? And that is NOT the Jim Lake we know and love.
All this, of course, is assuming that the time reset isn’t a cheap storytelling technique and that it isn’t a giant cop-out. Which it is on both counts.
Basically, in case you couldn’t tell after all my repeated ire: THE ENDING DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. Logically, it makes no sense. Story-wise, it makes no sense. It’s insulting. It invalidates the entire series. It’s out of character. It’s an easy way out. And it makes me very, very sad because this movie had so much potential for a great ending. But now I’m having to scratch the bad parts out of canon if I want the rest of the show to mean something. I’m clinging to the good points above, and I’m ending the story before the contrived Chronosphere (the only point of which was to cheat a supposed happy ending instead of contributing to the actual plot, which, from a storytelling perspective, is very icky) shows up to save the day. For me, there’s no going back in time. Sadly, this means that Strictler, Nomura, and Toby are dead. But you know what? In real life, people we love die. People make sacrifices. It sucks, and it’s painful. And we don’t have a big red reset button. We have to live with the pain and let it consume us or grow stronger from it. And that, in my very sobering, amended canon, is what Jim is having to do. And because he is a hero, I know he will become stronger for it.
Or, you know, I can just say Tobes never died. But that feels cheap. Either way, I’ve been robbed of a satisfying ending to a series of shows I’ve invested so much of myself into for so long. And that hurts.
*
Beyond the frankly horrendous ending, there were a couple of other complaints I had:
The Mpreg. The alien empregnation. Why, of all tropes, did they go with this one? The tonal shift was appalling, the side plot distracting (not in a good way) and completely unnecessary. It contributed nothing to the story and reverted Steve back to a joke after a season of growth in Wizards.
Both Krel and Douxie were criminally underused. We could have gotten rid of the pregnant Steve side plot and given more time to these two, particularly Krel, who was shuffled aside more than once in Three Below and definitely in Wizards.
But yeah, I’m pissed. If the whole movie had been trash, I would have been annoyed, but at least I could strike the whole thing from canon. But the most infuriating thing is that so much of the movie was good, that it had so much potential, and that it, in the end, failed me. I’m conflicted, disappointed, hurt, and angry that we, the loyal and passionate fans, didn’t get the ending we deserved.
I suppose, though, at the end of the day, there’s always fan-fiction.
And I’m going to be writing a LOT of that in the coming days. Stay tuned. Thanks for reading. I’m going to go start Trollhunters from the beginning and remember that the story does matter, even if the movie says it doesn’t.
I wholeheartedly agree with this post. It is now an hour post-RotT and I am still livid. Like OP, a large chunk of the movie was awesome albeit some weird unnecessary stuff, but the ending killed me. More like backstabbed me. I DID NOT SEE THAT COMING BECAUSE THE SERIES WERE GOOD SO WHAT HAPPENED?!
Personally, I think I understood why the team did a reboot (of sorts). They were most likely trying to echo Jim’s words about who a hero really is. Without the amulet he is still a hero. Despite having the odds against him, he still chose to be one.
Being a hero doesn’t require super powers. Being a hero doesn’t mean you need to be chosen by mythical powers. Being a hero means to just become. You need to believe in yourself. You don’t need validation. You need to do what’s right… or at least do what you think best.
So, passing the torch to Toby is probably a way to show that anyone can be a hero. Whether you choose to shoulder that responsibility or not is up to the individual. Whether you want to rise up to the challenge is up to you. What sort of hero you’ll be you need to dictate it.
Okay, if they’re going with that line of reasoning it is all fine and dandy. But what’s not fine is that TIME TRAVEL AND UNDOING EVERYTHING IS A CHEAP WAY TO GO ABOUT THIS DAMN LESSON. This trope is not all bad, but you need a valid excuse to use it or else it’ll be a cheap cop-out. And RotT failed badly when they pulled this on ToA fans.
RotT, you stripped the characters of their growth. If you cannot bear the thought of leaving them permanently dead then hey, don’t kill them in the first place. Why is this so hard to do? Also, I have issues with Steve. Steve’s growth was amazing, but in RotT you reduced him to comic relief. What’s with the Mpreg plot? I don’t get it.
There’s also the whole “We can undo everything!” plot. Hell, I would prefer it if instead of a Time stone we get a Life stone or something where Jim went to revive Strickler, Toby, and etc. It would be better than this unwarranted time travel reboot nonsense.
The other part that I did not understand is shouldering the burden on Toby. I’m not saying Toby will be a failed Trollhunter, but if I had a friend like Toby I don’t think I would want them to go through the shit that I did let alone think “Hey Tobes, you’re now the chosen one and you get to be a hero!” On top of that, while Jim may be seen as a hero, in my mind “Wingman” Toby was the true hero.
At some point in the movie Toby said “Moral support, hmph the lamest super power” and then proceeded to increase Jim’s probability of winning. Thing is, Toby and everyone need to realise that no one can carry all responsibilities on their own, at least not in a healthy way. You need support from the people around you to help you through. And there are times where those people even take over while you are powerless. In this case, Toby did that. He might not have dealt the death blow but his assistance and his moral support gave Jim the much needed edge to win the battle.
Toby was a hero and RotT stripped him of this. And you know what will be a better ending? A better ending would be for Toby to also realise his worth and believe in himself just like Jim did. Like Jim, Toby chose to be a hearo. He didn’t have to die.
Oh, don’t get me started on Barbara and Strickler. We had 5 minutes of them and then we ended up with a dead-step-father-to-be-and-PAIN-for-Barbara. WHAT. THE. HELL. And what possessed them to think they can slow (let alone defeat) an ice-snow monster by blasting it while the monster was IN AN ENVIRONMENT WHERE ICE AND SNOW WERE ALL OVER THE PLACE?! It could just rebuilt itself. You had a harpoon for the love of everything that is good, can you not just tie the bomb to it and then aim for the monster’s leg? Cut the darn rope afterwards. Why the need from drama? In addition, was Barbara left all alone in Greenland? Did she have a transport to go home?
And with Jim travelling to the past, will that not erase the original timeline? How did he retain his memories? See, this is why you need to validate time travel. I need to rewatch the series to clean myself of this gunk. At least the bad part was the last 10 minutes of the movie.
im thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. Claire had been just there, outside the window, with Shannon and Darci. He blinked as Strickler continued talking.
“Oh, well, I just wanted to call her and talk but a dinner sounds… nice.” The teacher answered, still unsure of how to react about his favorite student arranging what it seemed like a blind date.
“Great. I’ll tell her.” answered Jim.
It was time for him to go to the audition. He said goodbye to Toby, as his friend promised to go check the canals. Jim turned, not sure if he should help Eli that time. But Steve had already let Eli out. That was weird. There was something strange in the air, things he was sure to have seen disappearing in front of his eyes. But the weirdest thing was during his speech. His voice sounded so different in his head. He seemed to be the only one who noticed. He didn’t remember sounding like that.
Claire went to congratulate him. As Jim went to give Eli his sword back, for just one second, he was sure to have seen another sword. Daylight. He handed the boy the cardboard sword. It was the exact moment Toby was taking the Amulet from the debris left by Kanjigar. Jim turned to Claire only to find the room empty. He gasped and then the students were back.
All happened really fast. Merlin didn’t want to fight, since he already knew what was going to happen. After a short combat that left everybody exhausted, he was taken to a chamber where Nari was waiting too.
Jim was unable to react. In less than a week, he had gotten back to that hell. He had been lucky enough to have his armor, even though the Arcane Order had tried to take his Amulet again, and there was no shard of black magic in it.
“I’ve failed again.” he said, crying as soon as Claire made them appear back at his home. “They’re going to summon the Titans.”
Douxie, with a big slash bleeding in his cheek, was determined.
“Merlin said it. Some things are bound to happen. But now we know what mistakes we won’t repeat.”
“W-what?” Jim looked at him.
“We were focused on fixing this timeline…”
“… however, we wanted to consider everything.” Blinky added, taking out a piece of parchment from one of his bags.
Steve’s character arc should have ended in him getting Excalibur and reforming the knights of the round table after what he learned from Lancelot, in this essay I will
Merlin tossed back the Amulet to Jim, who looked at him defiantly. Toby pulled out his Warhammer, rescued and remade thanks to Blinky and a suspecting Vendel. Claire, Douxie and Merlin got their powers ready.
“For the glory of all, Daylight is mine to command!”
Merlin wasn’t happy Jim had made him change the incantation while Douxie and him repaired the Amulet. But Jim was now armored and ready to be the Trollhunter in his own terms.
It wasn’t easy to enter Trollmarket without being noticed. Luckily, Douxie made an invisibility spell. The Trolls were concerned. They didn’t feel safe without a Trollhunter. The team went to the gyre and put the broken pieces of the Amulet in place so they could get to Merlin’s tomb. Douxie didn’t know how to feel. He had already seen that place, centuries ago.
Everything was the same. They did the seed thing to leave the room and this time they recorded all the images in the first cave before going to the crystal labyrinth and taking Merlin’s staff to his tomb. This time, Jim almost chuckled as the wizard swallowed the cobwebs covering his mouth. Merlin’s eyes saw Douxie first.
“Oh, well.” he said. “Hisirdoux, you and your inability to wait. I told you… who are you? Great, you brought your little friends to this sacred place.”
“Still the same jerk.” whispered Toby. Jim stepped in front.
“I’m the Trollhunter and we need to fix this timeline.”
It was a grey afternoon with non-stopping rain. Douxie got to the cafe soaking wet because of the wind, his bangs peeking under the hood. He entered and closed the umbrella, looking for Claire’s table. He finally saw her and sighed, getting closer to the door. She was slouched over her milkshake and held it with both hands. She didn’t look at him as he sat in front of her. It had been a while since he had last seen her and she was still the same, her lifeless hair half white and half dark brown and her eyes with deep black circles. The waitress came over and Douxie needed a few seconds to react.
“Oh, yes, an Earl Grey, please.”
The waitress nodded and left. Douxie sighed again.
“What an awful weather, isn’t it?” he asked with a faint smile.
There was no answer. The waitress brought him the cup, the teapot filled with hot water and the bag of tea, the pitcher of milk and the sugar bowl. Douxie made his tea and gave it a long sip before continuing.
“We miss you, Claire. You should come to the sessions with us. It’s hard, but they actually help.”
She scoffed, her smile more of a grin. She looked at him at last, her eyes red as if she had been crying recently.
“Seriously,” continued Douxie. “or to the movie nights. Or the afternoon tea. I know you want to be alone, but…”
“But what?” she asked, almost defiantly. Douxie mentally went through all he had to say, all that the others had asked him to say if he had the chance.
“… you can’t live like this. It’s been two years.”
They both looked without realizing to the monument of the plaza, almost invisible in the copious rain. It was the same place where Jim had disappeared, the same place Claire hadn’t left in days, months. The same place where she had forced her magic to the limit to create a portal that would bring him back.
Douxie could still remember her, with a shiver, her armor coming apart and her hair getting whiter and whiter as she cried and forced her powers more and more until she had nothing more. The only thing that remained from Merlin’s armor was the mauve stone, distorted and resting over her chest in the shape of a pendant.
“Two years?” she asked, distracted. It had felt like an eternity.
“You were about to go to college, to study Fine Arts.” Douxie sentenced. “We are worried about you, you spend all day in your bedroom.”
“It’s my gap year.” she interrupted him, biting. “I’m painting. I need to be alone.”
Douxie had seen those paintings, self-portraits of Claire and her experiences during the years of being a Trollhunter, everything that happened with Jim. They were creepy and depressing. There was no other way to describe them.
“Also, I went to that Papa Skull concert.” she defended herself.
Douxie nodded. Claire was wearing the t-shirt of the next disc of her favorite group: a new skull over the title ‘Treasure Island’.
“And you had to leave when they played that song.” he reminded her.
She frowned.
“They obviously had to write a song with the name of the main character of that book, my favorite book when I was a child.”
“You locked yourself in the bathroom and your magic created a black smoke that covered the whole auditorium. They had to call the firemen.” continued Douxie. “It wasn’t easy to get you out from there.”
Claire bit her lip. She was grabbing the milkshake strongly. Had the glass been made of plastic, she’d have already crushed it.
“This is why I didn’t want to do this.” she said, standing up. “You’ve just came here to scold me. I don’t need anyone’s help, Douxie.”
“Claire, it’s been two years.” he repeated.
“So what?!” she sputtered. “Two years since the greatest mistake in our lives, two years of being alone, two years of trying to fix this mess of what we can’t even call lives just because nobody dared to stop him!”
Everybody in the cafe looked at them slyly. The so called ‘Heroes of Arcadia’ were like war heroes for them. A black smoke started surrounding Claire, with purple lightning inside.
“I don’t care if you’ve all managed to forget him, because I can’t and I don’t want to do it!”
“We haven’t forgotten him!” Douxie replied, his eyes full of tears. Claire was shocked and the cloud disappeared. Douxie wiped a lonely tear. “Don’t you understand? We all have the same problems. Have you talked to his mother again?” Claire shook her head. “She took up a leave from the hospital. And just now she’s coming back, working a few hours a day. Have you talked to Toby’s grandma? I know you saw her at the funeral. Do you know she’s sick? Nobody believes you can die from sorrow, but she’s fading away. If she hadn’t Varvatos by her side, she wouldn’t be alive.”
Claire had sat, her eyes getting wetter. She spoke with a weak voice:
“No, I…”
“Blinky and AAAARRRGGHH often call us from New Jersey. The new Trollmarket is better than ever. However, they still don’t know what they’re going to do without a Trollhunter. Didn’t Blinky tell you about the idea of a small group of defenders? We’re working on that.”
“I think he said something…”
“Steve and Aja went to Akiridion-5 with their kids.” he made a little pause, as if it was hard to talk about it. “Only two of them have survived. Eli is in college. He got a quite good scholarship. But Krel is alone. Or he’d be without me.”
Claire had started sobbing, covering her face with her hands. Douxie got up and went to sit by her side, hugging her.
“I wanted to do it.” she apologized. “But there’s something that tells me that I can do it, Douxie. Just like when I opened that big portal to save the Trolls from the Gumm-Gumms, just like when I could contact J… his soul and bring him back and break Merlin’s spell. I see him in my dreams sometimes, with that sad smile, and when I try to get closer to him he disappears. If I can’t stop thinking about him it’s probably because there’s a way, any way, to make him come back. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks into months and now they’re two years and I thought you were alright, living your lives, while I desperately try to find that way of contacting him, of making him return.”
Douxie didn’t say anything. He hugged her tightly, feeling tiredness and sadness inside of her.
“Let’s do something.” he said, looking to her eyes. “You’re coming with me this afternoon. Krel and I are going to get a pizza and watch a couple of movies. And tomorrow, you’ll go with me to visit Barbara and Mrs. Domzalski and then we’ll call Steve, Aja and Eli and then Blinky and AAAARRRGGHH. I know you feel lonely, Claire, but you’re not alone. And I know it because I feel the same. That didn’t seem like a victory. There was still too much to do and… Jim,” she sobbed when she heard his name. “reacted the way he could. You reacted the way you could. We all did whatever our body asked us to do in that moment. And some could have waited a little longer…”
“I’m serious, Douxie.” Claire concluded. “I still feel him, as if he were near, as if he could appear at any moment.”
“Who knows.” he said, leaving some coins on the table. “Let’s go step by step. I’m seeing Krel in an hour. He’ll be glad to see you.”
Claire nodded and wiped her tears with the back of her hand. Douxie helped her stand up and took the umbrella, putting his hand on her shoulder.
The rain was still pouring. Claire forced herself not to look to the stone monument with the names of their fallen friends. Douxie and her walked in silence, squeezed under the umbrella. Far from there, in the canal, a shy rainbow started showing its colors.
I’m kinda hoping they have Jim in the movie have a certain moment where he’s surrounded by some of the most important people to him, whether it’s Claire, Toby, his mother, Blinky, or just everyone and says something like:
“No, stop. I was always told I was chosen for something, but it was always for a different reason. I was told at the start I was chosen because of my humanity, then later I was told I was destined to be a half troll, then I turned back to human. Just…all these different things that were supposed to be permanent that don’t even make me sure of who or what I’m supposed to be”.
I’d love to see that said and his loved ones supporting him and comforting him the best they can. It’d be a very sweet (and by this point for Jim, necessary) scene to watch.
I was actually theorizing parts of this, or hoping after everything this poor boy has gone through that some of this is how it would go. Jim’s full arc being explored will most likely be an emotional rollercoaster, so everyone buckle your seatbelts!
Anyone else feel like once they’re watching rott their gonna keep pausing at around the 20-24 minute mark cause their so used to toa being 20-24 minute episode series’s?
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