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 Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Marble Hornets
Trosephim Reddit AMA
Moderators: Giskard, JKatkina, Zarggg
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Lithp
I Have No Life


Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058
420Goku wrote:
Lithp wrote:
Marble Hornets had an okay surface level plot that it tried to make seem deep & complicated by not explaining shit about it.


seriously dude this isn't a dostoevsky novel this is a horror web series it's just supposed to be spoopy what is wrong with you whhat did you guys think would happen in this series


If you want to tell a simple, straightforward narrative, then tell a simple, straightforward narrative. If you want to have a deep, mysterious plot, then put a loooooot of work into the writing.

Don't try to do some half-assed in between state.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:01 pm
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ReverendJ
Unfettered


Joined: 04 Aug 2011
Posts: 558
Lithp wrote:
Don't try to do some half-assed in between state.
This type of comment is what gets you the negative attention...just for future reference.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 4:31 pm
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Lithp
I Have No Life


Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058
ReverendJ wrote:
Lithp wrote:
Don't try to do some half-assed in between state.
This type of comment is what gets you the negative attention...just for future reference.


Yes, I agree, the type of comment that you just showed, where someone completely sidesteps the context of my argument & complains about lines or phrasings that they didn't like, is what gives me negative attention.

Fortunately, only a minority of people do this.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:18 pm
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DHawk314
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Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087

 		I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think the ambiguous way the story was told was cliche, and I think there was a surface plot having to do with Jay, Tim, and Alex's characters which balanced out the more ambiguous parts of the series fine.

I don't think they needed to go in depth about the Brian/Hoody transformation. I think they went very in depth about Tim and Alex's conditions, I think a whole arc about Brian going crazy probably would have been redundant. I think his motives were perfectly clear, he wanted Alex dead for leading him and Tim to the hospital, plus killing Seth and Sarah, which is probably what led to the Operator transforming him in the first place. And frankly, I think in terms of how he found the YouTube channel, that whatever exposition used to explain that would have probably been more distracting and detracting from the atmosphere than it would have advanced anything significant. Also, I just don't think that's nearly as unlikely or contrived as you do.

But really, I think we've reached serious agree to disagree territory at this point. I'm perfectly willing to talk about Tim breaking off from totheark and saving Jessica though. Mostly, in that I think that never happened. What we see is Jessica gets teleported somewhere by the Operator and Tim waking up in Rosswood. I know some people think Tim actually saved Jessica there and edited the video to trick Jay, but they asked Trosephim in the AMA how Tim got in touch with Jessica, and what they said was that they lived in the same area and attended the same mental health clinic. Since the area was established to be a really small town, and they both live there, that makes sense to me.

And Tim's regular self never knew who Hoody was, and was never involved with him. And on the occasions he relapsed into being Masky, they started working together again. Honestly, this whole thing falls into the category of a fan theory that doesn't really connect to the narrative, which you're complaining didn't get expanded upon in the narrative. I understand you think Tim might have remembered things, but that's not really hinted at in the story.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:19 pm
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420Goku
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Joined: 19 Sep 2013
Posts: 109
Lithp wrote:
ReverendJ wrote:
Lithp wrote:
Don't try to do some half-assed in between state.
This type of comment is what gets you the negative attention...just for future reference.


Yes, I agree, the type of comment that you just showed, where someone completely sidesteps the context of my argument & complains about lines or phrasings that they didn't like, is what gives me negative attention.

Fortunately, only a minority of people do this.


I have 100% only been attacking your real opinions.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:32 pm
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DHawk314
Entrenched


Joined: 17 May 2011
Posts: 1087

 		Can I just say that I don't think anybody should attack anyone ever, verbally or otherwise?
_________________
I was just lurking around the forums and i have no idea who MH is

I'm in here sometimes: http://tinychat.com/thehoodyhub

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:37 pm
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Lithp
I Have No Life


Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

 		Tim saved Jessica by keeping her off of Jay's, Alex's, & presumably Hoody's respective radars. Jay, well, he was probably just stupid, but Tim still had to do something about the other 2. Plus, he had to think of something to say or do to get her to start going on these pills.

This was just dropping a twist in our laps & then going, "Nothing to see here, everything is fine."

My phrasing wasn't the clearest, but I'm pretty sure that I posted that bit about Tim & Jessica living in the same area, back when I was reporting things that I saw in the AMA. And if I didn't, I meant to, but forgot about it.

As far as "breaking off from Totheark" goes, even if Regular Tim didn't know Hoody, Brian surely knew how all of this shit worked. What the Hell was he doing trying to set Tim & Jay up to work together? Nothing, apparently, "He's just crazy."

Quote:
I understand you think Tim might have remembered things, but that's not really hinted at in the story.


No, I don't think they properly explained Tim's situation. I was just fine with this amnesia business until they said, "Lol actually Tim knows way more than he's letting on."

"Wait, then which parts are the truth?"

"Everything is fine."

"Well, if that's how you're going to be, then I don't even care."

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:40 pm
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420Goku
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Joined: 19 Sep 2013
Posts: 109
DHawk314 wrote:
Can I just say that I don't think anybody should attack anyone ever, verbally or otherwise?


well I'm not sure if I've attacked lithp himself/herself. I could though, seeing as there's definitely something wrong with a dude who doesn't like the basis of a series, can't pay attention to its vids and doesn't remember them, continuing to try to argue about them on an internet forum.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 5:49 pm
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DHawk314
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Joined: 17 May 2011
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 		Hoody, as far as I can tell, knew where Jessica was. He kept calling Tim a liar about it, one of the totheark codes even said "She's still out there".

Entry #86 suggests Alex thought Jessica was dead. Why would he be looking for her?

Jessica met Tim at the doctor's office, she didn't start attending because of him. The doctors provided the pills, so of course she's taking them, she and Tim have the same issue.

I don't see anything suggesting Tim did anything to keep her off anyone's trail, just that he knew her before he met up with Jay again, and decided not to tell him about her, for the sake of her protection. As far as I can tell, that's the only Tim/ Jessica plot point, and he explains why he doesn't think Jay should go near Jessica in Entry #77.

I'm not even sure what you mean with Brian. Tim starts controlling being Masky with the pills, so he was no longer going around with him. Even if he knew how this shit worked, which I'm not certain he actually did, I don't see a how this implies he and Tim had some sort of falling out.

As for the amnesia thing, the only hint that Tim knew more than what he was letting on is that he's "keeping secrets" and that turns out to have to do with Jessica. I don't see any implication that has for the Tim/Masky amnesia plot line. Just cause he lies about something, he might be lying about everything, so how dare they not explicitly clarify that he wasn't?

Once again, it seems like you've just inserted a bunch of stuff into the story that isn't there, and then gotten upset that those aspect weren't explained enough. How can you expect nonexistent plot points to have expansion?

420Goku wrote:
DHawk314 wrote:
Can I just say that I don't think anybody should attack anyone ever, verbally or otherwise?


well I'm not sure if I've attacked lithp himself/herself. I could though, seeing as there's definitely something wrong with a dude who doesn't like the basis of a series, can't pay attention to its vids and doesn't remember them, continuing to try to argue about them on an internet forum.


I don't think it's necessary to attack his person. Except that I said he was being a dick earlier. But, I think the way he was speaking was condescending and disrespectful to those who disagreed with him, and that he was masking that with that his opinion was the "objective truth". I'd like people to disagree with each other but also respect each other and each other's views about fictional internet content. But in the that same vain, I don't think anyone should "attack" each other.
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 6:05 pm
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MascaraSnake
Boot

Joined: 12 Oct 2011
Posts: 22
Lithp wrote:
This doesn't make sense. How is "deliberate decisions" mutually exclusive with incompetence or laziness?

Maybe I didn't phrase that as well as I thought. Let me try again: You categorize many of the things that people actively enjoyed about the series as objective flaws. That generally doesn't sit too well with those people. They feel like you brand them as an "incompetent viewer" who can't tell a good story from a bad one. Whether or not those people are justified in that reaction is a whole other can of worms.

The appeal of Marble Hornets for many people is that what you see on the tapes needs to be interpreted and put into context by the viewer. We don't have a full outline of what happened, even now that the series is over, but we can infer a lot about what we don't know from what we do know. Our knowledge is fragmentary and excludes key events that we have to speculate about, but what if not that is the appeal of the whole found footage genre?

Essentially this entire argument boils down to a difference in taste, and I think that was made extremely obvious by a conversation a few posts back about how Brian/totheark found Jay:
Lithp wrote:
Quote:
I mean seriously, this is not a hard plotpoint to imagine happening.


Then why didn't Trosephim simply think it up & put it into the script? Not even a simple Tweet, like, "You know, I found MH with Google, so maybe they just did that." At least SOME kind of effort at an explanation.

An explanation like that adds nothing to our understanding of the story, since we could already infer that from the information we had. What a lot of people (myself included) liked about Marble Hornets is that when it did reveal something we didn't know before, it usually made us interpret what we had seen before a little differently. What you're asking for is that the story explains every relevant plot point even if it doesn't contribute to our understanding, for clarity's sake. But clarity is exactly not what Marble Hornets was shooting for, and for many that was a huge positive. Maybe for you it wasn't, but what you're doing is holding the series to a standard that doesn't apply to what it was trying to do. You're not criticizing it inside of the paradigm it chose for itself, you're criticizing the paradigm. Which is fine and all, but you should realize that this means you're outside of the series' target group.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:00 pm
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Lithp
I Have No Life


Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

 		Guys, don't fight over me, my heart belongs to another.

Quote:
Hoody, as far as I can tell, knew where Jessica was. He kept calling Tim a liar about it, one of the totheark codes even said "She's still out there".


So if he wants Jay to know so damn bad, why doesn't he do more?

Quote:
Entry #86 suggests Alex thought Jessica was dead. Why would he be looking for her?


The better question is why he thinks she's dead in the 1st place.

Quote:
Jessica met Tim at the doctor's office, she didn't start attending because of him. The doctors provided the pills, so of course she's taking them, she and Tim have the same issue.


Fair enough.

Quote:
I'm not even sure what you mean with Brian. Tim starts controlling being Masky with the pills, so he was no longer going around with him. Even if he knew how this shit worked, which I'm not certain he actually did, I don't see a how this implies he and Tim had some sort of falling out.


Brian is the person who set Tim & Jay up to work together in the 1st place & gave Jay this tape. Why?

Also, wait, you're saying that he doesn't know what the pills do?

Quote:
As for the amnesia thing, the only hint that Tim knew more than what he was letting on is that he's "keeping secrets" and that turns out to have to do with Jessica. I don't see any implication that has for the Tim/Masky amnesia plot line. Just cause he lies about something, he might be lying about everything, so how dare they not explicitly clarify that he wasn't?


I don't know why you're acting like this is crazy. All of the information about Masky comes from Tim, so there's basically nothing reliable. You're acting like it's weird not to trust a character who lied out of his ass for months (years?) & already fooled us once. Twice, since he not only knew about Jessica, but that she's alive.

I didn't drop that into the plot, I was not the one who decided that it was absolutely imperative to sweep the rug out from under the audience with the twist that Tim isn't a reliable source. I wanted them to answer the numerous questions they already raised.

Quote:
An explanation like that adds nothing to our understanding of the story, since we could already infer that from the information we had


Earlier, someone accused me of "arguing for the sake of arguing." Well, I think this is "defense for the sake of defense." I think it's ridiculous that Totheark found Jay by randomly Googling with him, but that's the explanation that you guys gave me. So I try to work within that & say, "Why didn't they just explain that detail?" & you guys say it's an explanation that adds nothing.

I know. That's why I don't like it to begin with.

Same thing about this "paradigm" of yours. It's basically indistinguishable from just not bothering to write a plot. So it seems that, no matter what happens, it can be turned in support of the story.

And you know, as much as I've been accused of closed mindedness, I'm pretty sure I've conceded more points. I attribute this to having an argument that is actually falsifiable, where I can't just fall back on "the answers are out there" or "that plot point doesn't matter" basically whenever.

Quote:
Which is fine and all, but you should realize that this means you're outside of the series' target group.


This is another thing that pisses me off. Those 3 strung people along with promises of answers, then at the end want to say that "wasn't the point," & now I get shit for not wanting to play by those rules. Well, if they'd told me to begin with that they basically didn't have a plot, then no, I wouldn't have continued watching & we wouldn't be having this argument, regardless of whether or not this writing style is valid.

So I guess we're both stuck in a loop of unhappiness.

Anyway, if Trosephim's next series shows that they don't want the 30+% of fans who didn't like this stunt that they pulled, maybe they'll get their wish & we can see how that goes.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:23 pm
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lonsumtravlr
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Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England
Lithp wrote:
I think it's ridiculous that Totheark found Jay by randomly Googling with him, but that's the explanation that you guys gave me.


That isn't so implausible, but it is a bit absurd. I was wondering what the fuck had been going on in the three years between Tim, Brian, and Jay given what had been meant as a one-way ticket to Oppytown but turned out to be a round trip, and Jay finding the tapes. Especially as Entry #26 can be interpreted as (obliquely) suggesting that the camcorder was planted at Alex's home. (By whom I dunno. Skully, that wild card?) Did something jog Jay's memory of the tapes and spur him to look at them again and start posting (or did someone plant the tapes on him and somehow draw his attention with an imperfect "memory" of the night captured in Entry #71)? If so, was Brian waiting till there was activity--and was he behind this? This seems to require the suspension of a bit too much disbelief--unless you accept that Brian was not only crazy but laser guided crazy and on a mission and also was trying to get everyone together some how in some sort of apocalyptic event that was The Ark (if I read some of the trio's comments properly, or maybe I'm conflating those with the comments from some redditers)... I don't think that's so implausible, though it's a stretch. I sorta like to throw up my hands and accept the noirish mystery here. But that's not for everyone.

I'm not sure it's really random googling either, as Brian became Hoody: Psycho Ninja Sleuth after Oppy fucked him over. Tim's the one who (says he) did a search for Marble Hornets after the events of Entry #58.

I'd love to know what happened to Jay and to Brian in those three years... It's not necessary to the plot, but a little fleshing out coulda helped without sacrificing the more expressionistic and artistic storytelling devices that the trio opted for (and I think largely did well).

I'd also love to know whether the tape with Amy was really recorded in April 4 at 4:04. Film students such as Jay, Alex, Brian, etc. would know how to change a timestamp. If unreliable narrators are a theme and a trope, then (rhetorical question here) why accept everything that Jay posted, even if he didn't alter it himself? If Alex may have doctored the tapes that Jay received (Entry #14, as suggested in the TTA "Program" response and apparently cracked by CaffeinatedCivet) and was apparently using the search for Amy to enlist Jay to control him and ultimately kill him, then why wouldn't he alter a tape to make himself look even more like a victim? But I'm just spewing out thoughts here, which I maybe shouldn't do.

Some edits, as I think faster than I write, lol.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 7:53 pm
Last edited by lonsumtravlr on Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:06 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Bulb
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Joined: 24 Jun 2014
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Location: Bedside Lamp
420Goku wrote:
I have 100% only been attacking your real opinions.


420Goku wrote:
well I'm not sure if I've attacked lithp himself/herself. I could though, seeing as there's definitely something wrong with a dude who doesn't like the basis of a series, can't pay attention to its vids and doesn't remember them, continuing to try to argue about them on an internet forum.


Son Goku would not approve of this boy's attitude towards others Sad

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:02 pm
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SilentMedusa
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Joined: 04 Jul 2013
Posts: 904

 		I'm going to come at this from a different angle.

You know how some folks are saying that for their next series they hope Trosephim listens to their fans more? I think part of the problem here is that they did.

See, as I understand, at some point they were going to drop the entire TTA subplot completely. The reason they didn't was because there was such an outcry from the fandom. So, maybe they didn't do such a good job resolving that because they didn't really want to deal with it at all? Or I'm full of shit; that's always possible Very Happy.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:07 pm
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lonsumtravlr
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Joined: 23 Mar 2014
Posts: 1009
Location: The Great Continent of New England
SilentMedusa wrote:
I'm going to come at this from a different angle.

You know how some folks are saying that for their next series they hope Trosephim listens to their fans more? I think part of the problem here is that they did.

See, as I understand, at some point they were going to drop the entire TTA subplot completely. The reason they didn't was because there was such an outcry from the fandom. So, maybe they didn't do such a good job resolving that because they didn't really want to deal with it at all? Or I'm full of shit; that's always possible Very Happy.


No, your point's well made and well taken. They need to know how to evaluate fan feedback.

My guess is the whole MH experience taught them a lot. I'm expecting a much more polished product in the next two series.

PostPosted: Mon Jul 21, 2014 8:08 pm
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