The Quest for the Legends

Chapter 10: The Mew Hunter (commentary)

This commentary features a lot of me complaining about my own characters being out of character, analyzing things I wrote in light of stuff I realized years later, nostalgic rambling, my amazing original Fangcat art and description, Mark's developing psychic powers, May being the best character, things I managed to make worse in the ILCOE, and ellipses. So many ellipses.

Just out of curiosity - you talk at the end of the commentary about how Mew's appearance didn't do much for the plot narratively hence why it wasn't deus ex machina - sure, I get what you're saying there but I don't think you addressed why Scyther dies and Mew shows up to revive him in the first place?

Scyther dies because killing characters that I like and then resurrecting them is awesome, what are you talking about.

(It also results in the ball disintegrating, hence Scyther being physically able to leave. I'm not 100% sure in what order I thought of all these elements - Scyther being in this ball, Scyther dying, Mew resurrecting him, Scyther joining Mark - but ultimately that's where this logically fits into the chain of events in the final version - he's able to fly out the window there and subsequently join Mark because he died and was resurrected, destroying the modified ball.)

I'm not quite sure if that's what you're asking about, though - maybe clarify? I think Mew's appearance avoids having the deus ex machina feel not exactly because it's unimportant to the narrative but because it isn't what gets the protagonists out of the sticky situation they're in - they successfully get out of it thanks to Scyther switching sides and May and her Pokémon, and then incidentally Mew also appears, rather than them being saved by Mew.

Nah that's basically what I wanted to know. It was something more like, you're arguing Mew showing up isn't deus ex machina, therefore that means Mew has to show up because it seems like otherwise you'd be explaining how you'd redo that in a future revision. Except, Mew doesn't really do much of anything except for revive Scyther, so it seems then like the point was Scyther dies -> Mew resurrects him rather than the POINT of the scene being "I wanted to find a reason to have Mew show up, so I killed Scyther…" so it's like Scyther dying was the more relevant event. Except "the battle could easily have been written so that he DIDN'T die" so that's why I was asking. I know this is overly convoluted but hopefully it helps a bit???

Destroying Rob's control over Scyther makes sense though. And I think I figured "Scyther dying because DEATH" was basically the gist of it anyway :p I just didn't know if there was more of a reason behind the scene than that.

Oh, I wasn't really thinking in terms of what'd be in the next revision there, just my thoughts on the chapter as it stands. But yeah, although theoretically in the next revision I could write this without Scyther's death or Mew's appearance (Scyther doesn't need to be caught in that ball, technically), I don't think I would. For one, I could actually consciously write Mew with an understanding of his issues! And while Mew doesn't save them from this particular situation, it is useful for the Mew Hunter subplot in general that Mew appears there, since it means Mark can no longer tell him anything (Mew makes explicit that he's not going to be staying in the place Mark knew about) - otherwise one would kind of expect the rest of the fic to involve the Mew Hunter trying to kidnap him again, which'd be an unnecessary distraction.

I CANNOT believe I never realized that Rob's name is literally just…. _rob._ All these years…

For all its writing flaws this chapter is still incredibly iconic to me, and as hammy and unfitting as those comedic parts are now, they still make me giggle.