the problem with making axel and zara too overpowered (OP) in part 2 of cobra kai.
going into part 2 my biggest worry was that they were going to make axel and zara too OP- like never losing a fight in the tournament, and unfortunately that’s exactly what happened.
the issue with making them too OP is that it messes with the balance of our existing characters. when you introduce new characters and have them win every fight without losing not even one it cheapens the tournament and it also screws over our existing characters.
axel and zara could have been strong, shown as threatening without the need to make them bulldoze throughout all of their matches.
by never letting them lose, it sets up absolute annoying and ridiculous discourse like this:
‘it doesn’t make sense for this person to beat this person’
‘they were nerfed’
‘they only won because of plot armour’
and let’s be honest. the ‘plot armour’ discourse is fucking stupid. every character in the show has plot to some extent. if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have made it this far in the show. but also, why would they have 2 characters who were introduced in part 2 of the last season win over sam, miguel and robby who have been here since season 1 and tory who has been here since season 2. that literally wouldn’t make any sense.
moving on, if our existing characters had lost to the new characters that wouldn’t been fine. like that is not the issue here. the issue is that axel and zara completely dominated the tournament. it should have been balanced.
axel and zara should have been shown to be beatable by actually losing matches in the tournament. and if the writers didn’t want them losing matches, the least they could’ve down was allow them to take hits in their matches. here’s how:
1. zara vs another competitor in different dojo (like tiger strike or redentores) in an early round OR vs tory or sam | let zara lose a match to one of them but come back stronger later in the tournament, showing she can adapt easy from a loss.
2. axel vs competitor | have axel lose a match against the competitor in a very close match, only after giving the person he is fighting against a really tough time, pushing his competitor to his limits.
3. injures and exhaustion playing a role here | show them both struggling with fatigue, and having minor injuries, proving that they aren’t fucking invincible and the tournament is tough for everyone involved.
but instead, we got axel and zara just bulldozing their way through the tournament like it was nothing. the big brawl too. in the big brawl, no one landed a hit on axel. zara beat tory in the opening fight with cobra kai vs iron dragons and in the big brawl tory only managed to land one kick on zara before zara regained control. it’s sooo frustrating that they were made out to be so untouchable and invincible.
what makes this worse is learning that choreography was cut that actually showed them both taking hits. i’ve posted this on my blog here a bit ago but there was choreo cut in which tory was getting the upper hand on zara but that didn’t make the cut.
zara was also supposed to take hits in the semi finals against maria. this comes from the woman who plays maria (jewels) in an interview on youtube.
and axel was also meant to take hits from kwon in the big brawl. this also came from an interview with brandon who plays kwon.
like.. that’s still not ideal but it’s at least better than making them untouchable.
this has been sitting in my drafts for a while now and i’m posting this ahead of part 3 since that drops in a few days, also the fact that we know someone is gonna be beating axel and zara in the sekai taikai.
i can’t believe i have to sit through ‘axel/zara was nerfed’ and ‘it doesn’t make sense for zara/axel to loose to..’ ‘… beating axel/zara is unrealistic’
like dude cobra kai was never a realistic show in the first place, don’t piss me off. ‘in reality this character would win’ no shit dude. like that argument is so stupid and irrelevant. like thank you so much for pointing out the obvious ??
as if those people who say this aren’t insufferable enough they’re gonna be even more insufferable now that they’ve basically been given the ammo to say all of this shit.
like i’m truly so annoyed about it, but hey. what can you doooo?
cobra kai writers you had ONE JOB! ONE!
big big sigh.
well.. lmao i love this image. johnny is there for everyone else’s child but not his own flesh and blood.
after six seasons, johnny lawrence still the worst fuckin father ever. jesus christ. just tragic.
So minimal school spirits fandom that I now know exists, what do we think about the theory that this whole thing started bc of a science experiment gone wrong?
(I could be misremembering here so correct me if I am) Mr. Martin and Janet died in a fire in what is now the fallout shelter, and in one of the articles they found another student in the class was blaming Mr. Martin for starting the fire and bringing Janet in there with him.
what if
stay with me here
what if, they were doing some kind of research experiment together (hence the chemical formulas in the beginning of Janet's notebook, and the shorthand) that went wrong, and what they'd done of that experiment plus them dying in the room in the fire with it, trapped their souls there.
which raises the question, when Mr. Martin locked her in that room, was it with the watch? was she experiencing that freaking red room thing relieving that day over and over for months? is that what they were arguing about right before Maddie found them? was he making her relive that to try and figure out where the mistake was in their experiment, because he wanted to try and redo or reverse it and that's why Mr. Martin was trying to force her to tell him what she saw?
as far as we know date wise Janet and Mr. Martin are the oldest ghosts, they've been there longest, they could very well be the start of it all.
i see the opinion that ‘writers favour tory over sam’ A LOT, and i dislike this take. it’s genuinely so dumb to me
i could debate it but i just can’t be asked, i’ll be honest.
i don’t believe that writers have shown favouritism towards tory, for sam literally ever. so in season 6, the last season if they’re giving tory more attention than sam (if that’s why you think) then so be it. seriously.
like maybe i’m bias cause tory is my favourite, but truly, i don’t see the favouritism that they’re seeing? like point me too it right now 😂😂
ik this an unpopular opinion most folk are gonna disagree with but idc #SPEAKINGMYTRUTH
seeing tory hate already becasue of the first 5 minutes of part 2.. TORY NICHOLS MY PRINCESS GET BEHIND MEEEEE!!
they could NEVER make me hate her!
like her MOTHER just died, she’s grieving. probably going through an AWFUL lot and there’s hate because she ignored robby? give my girl a break omg
anyways omg robby and tory my bearssss. trust, they will make it through this little angst era they’re going through.
tory looks so lost, miserable and sad all around. please need my girl happy at some point in part 2 🙏🙏
tory really watched her mum die in front of her, few months/ weeks later her teammate died in front of her???
GIVE HER A BREAK!
atp she needs a damn blunt cs wtf !!
as always, justice for tory and robby
daniel and johnny didn't even try to talk to tory. they argue about how the other's stance regarding her fighting for captaincy made her go back to kreese but if only they could recognize that it was really because they never made any effort with her before then. if they made even one attempt to talk to her and tory clearly didn't want to hear it then they wouldn't look like they still just didn't gaf. it wouldn't look like they cared more about her allegiance as a fighter than her well-being as a young girl grieving the loss of her mother and who chose a maniac over them because he actually paid attention to her.
but there's really no hope for johnny being there for tory when he can't even do it for his own son. where's this support for robby that you speak of, johnny. we've been waiting. robby understandably doesn't have his head in the game because of tory and miguel has a right to be pissed. but miguel had to be told by johnny that robby has no other future prospects for him to stop trying to maliciously shame robby into handing over captaincy. which makes miguel seem insincere when he tells robby that he believes in him as their leader.
besides the fact that their broken relationship is still mending, i think part of the reason why johnny has such a hard time connecting with robby is because robby has always been an outcast (applies to tory as well). the dynamics johnny's character type has with underdogs, daniel + most of their students, are pretty straightforward. johnny and miguel have a natural back and forth with each other, but with robby it's more complex, and johnny doesn't do well with complexity. so unless johnny makes the effort to really try and understand him robby will always feel 2nd to miguel. unfortunately with johnny's track record it's not looking good
SCHOOL SPIRITS (2023-) S02E02―Field of Screams
barely surviving 𑁍just existing 𖣘current obsession: alice in borderland🃏♣️she/her𖣔multifandom᯾
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