rainwaterspark (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rainwaterspark) wrote2025-05-18 04:10 pm
rainwaterspark) wrote2025-05-18 04:10 pm
To Be Hero X: Episode 7 review
Yeah, I know no one's here for my To Be Hero X thoughts, but Episode 7 made me mad enough that I want to scream into the void, so...here we are.
Before I start, I just want to say that up until this episode, I've LOVED the show. Episode 1 took over my entire brain chemistry and made me so excited to see each new episode, I was barely able to sleep the night before. My only complaint was the Episode 4 ending, but even for that, I was willing to withhold judgment until I saw how the rest of the season played out.
And then Episode 7 came out and...I didn't like it. At all.
The rest under the spoiler cut.
The twist? Not great.
Look, I loved Link Click; up until now, I've been a huge fan of Li Haoling (the director and writer)'s storytelling. But this was the first twist that was a major miss for me. I know some of the female character deaths could be argued to be twists that exist mainly for shock value (and I don't disagree, at least when it comes to Moon's death), but this twist TRULY felt like it exists just for the sake of being a twist, because it made absolutely no sense.
What do you mean, the CEO of a major hero corporation somehow has time to run a bubble tea shop??? Did Yang Cheng never notice when he had to disappear or get urgent phone calls for Mighty Glory-related business???
Also, if Rock's goal was to groom Yang Cheng into becoming the next E-Soul, why run a 16-year gambit? SURELY the CEO of a major hero corporation has better things to do with his time???
Finally, we know from background material that Mr. Shang (of Treeman Group) is himself the son of the Mighty Glory founder. Are we to assume that founder is dead/retired, and that's why he couldn't stop his own employee from assassinating his grandson?
The ableism? A turn-off.
I was extremely disappointed that the protagonist who is portrayed as being depressed and having panic attacks is the one who ends up with the Darth Vader villain arc. That's just...ableist.
Some people experience loss. Some people experience social rejection for one reason or another. Some people just don't have confidence in themselves. Saying those people are more likely to be swayed to evil is just gross.
The blame? Everyone has some.
I don't blame Yang Cheng for hesitating and not saving Shang Chao. That's not a character flaw; that's a real human moment. But others could have stopped him from heading down a dark path, and no one did.
OG E-Soul? I blame him for agreeing to fight Yang Cheng in the first place. Like, why? I couldn't admire the spectacle of their fight at all because I just didn't understand why it was happening. Sure, OG E-Soul is pressured into doing it to save his Trust Value, but he'd already been letting his Trust Value tank for years, so why would he care? Why would he listen to his manager telling him to use Lightning Slash? It doesn't make sense.
Xia Qing? I mean, I don't generally think it's a woman's job to save a man. But she could have straight-up told Yang Cheng how she felt about him, instead of dropping hints and waiting for him to make the first move. This isn't the 1700s; a woman doesn't have to wait for a man to ask her out first, for god's sake. She could've told him "I don't blame you for not being able to save Shang Chao." She could've told him "I don't care if you have zero Trust Value. You're still an amazing person to me." Any of those statements might have swayed Yang Cheng's choices.
The tragic storytelling? Rushed and uncompelling.
I know people are defending this episode by saying it's meant to be a tragedy. It's meant to show the evilness of the hero corporations, the tragedy of Yang Cheng losing himself because he was manipulated by the person he thought he could trust, blah blah blah.
The thing that I often get frustrated with is that tragedies are supposed to be foreshadowed. Open any Shakespearean tragedy, and the opening chorus literally tells you what's going to happen. It's to set your expectations correctly, because most people don't like a sad ending that comes out of nowhere.
Episode 5 was one of the most hype episodes of the show. It gets you rooting for Yang Cheng, an even bigger underdog than Lin Ling was. There was nothing foreshadowing his turn to the dark side. Even his inability to confess his feelings to Xia Qing, which is clearly held up as his character flaw, isn't a true inability; he's literally interrupted several times while he's trying to confess.
The tragic arc still could have worked if this story wasn't rushed into 3 episodes. For example, if Xia Qing confessed her feelings for Yang Cheng and he still chose revenge over her, that would've been a clearer sign of a character flaw that is understandably setting up for a dark turn. If we got more of OG E-Soul's feelings, that could've made the final battle more compelling; instead, he barely has any dialogue this episode.
And why DOES Yang Cheng care about being a top ten-ranked hero by the end? He only fights E-Soul out of a misguided sense of revenge. After that, then what? We have no idea.
The logic? Where was it??
Okay, but HOW does the ending make sense? Yang Cheng gained Trust Value at a meteoric rate because people liked that he showed his face and was a different version of E-Soul. But now he's just...become the OG E-Soul. Who had been losing popularity. What??? Seriously, doesn't this violate everything we were shown about Trust Value during the Nice/Lin Ling arc???
Before I start, I just want to say that up until this episode, I've LOVED the show. Episode 1 took over my entire brain chemistry and made me so excited to see each new episode, I was barely able to sleep the night before. My only complaint was the Episode 4 ending, but even for that, I was willing to withhold judgment until I saw how the rest of the season played out.
And then Episode 7 came out and...I didn't like it. At all.
The rest under the spoiler cut.
The twist? Not great.
Look, I loved Link Click; up until now, I've been a huge fan of Li Haoling (the director and writer)'s storytelling. But this was the first twist that was a major miss for me. I know some of the female character deaths could be argued to be twists that exist mainly for shock value (and I don't disagree, at least when it comes to Moon's death), but this twist TRULY felt like it exists just for the sake of being a twist, because it made absolutely no sense.
What do you mean, the CEO of a major hero corporation somehow has time to run a bubble tea shop??? Did Yang Cheng never notice when he had to disappear or get urgent phone calls for Mighty Glory-related business???
Also, if Rock's goal was to groom Yang Cheng into becoming the next E-Soul, why run a 16-year gambit? SURELY the CEO of a major hero corporation has better things to do with his time???
Finally, we know from background material that Mr. Shang (of Treeman Group) is himself the son of the Mighty Glory founder. Are we to assume that founder is dead/retired, and that's why he couldn't stop his own employee from assassinating his grandson?
The ableism? A turn-off.
I was extremely disappointed that the protagonist who is portrayed as being depressed and having panic attacks is the one who ends up with the Darth Vader villain arc. That's just...ableist.
Some people experience loss. Some people experience social rejection for one reason or another. Some people just don't have confidence in themselves. Saying those people are more likely to be swayed to evil is just gross.
The blame? Everyone has some.
I don't blame Yang Cheng for hesitating and not saving Shang Chao. That's not a character flaw; that's a real human moment. But others could have stopped him from heading down a dark path, and no one did.
OG E-Soul? I blame him for agreeing to fight Yang Cheng in the first place. Like, why? I couldn't admire the spectacle of their fight at all because I just didn't understand why it was happening. Sure, OG E-Soul is pressured into doing it to save his Trust Value, but he'd already been letting his Trust Value tank for years, so why would he care? Why would he listen to his manager telling him to use Lightning Slash? It doesn't make sense.
Xia Qing? I mean, I don't generally think it's a woman's job to save a man. But she could have straight-up told Yang Cheng how she felt about him, instead of dropping hints and waiting for him to make the first move. This isn't the 1700s; a woman doesn't have to wait for a man to ask her out first, for god's sake. She could've told him "I don't blame you for not being able to save Shang Chao." She could've told him "I don't care if you have zero Trust Value. You're still an amazing person to me." Any of those statements might have swayed Yang Cheng's choices.
The tragic storytelling? Rushed and uncompelling.
I know people are defending this episode by saying it's meant to be a tragedy. It's meant to show the evilness of the hero corporations, the tragedy of Yang Cheng losing himself because he was manipulated by the person he thought he could trust, blah blah blah.
The thing that I often get frustrated with is that tragedies are supposed to be foreshadowed. Open any Shakespearean tragedy, and the opening chorus literally tells you what's going to happen. It's to set your expectations correctly, because most people don't like a sad ending that comes out of nowhere.
Episode 5 was one of the most hype episodes of the show. It gets you rooting for Yang Cheng, an even bigger underdog than Lin Ling was. There was nothing foreshadowing his turn to the dark side. Even his inability to confess his feelings to Xia Qing, which is clearly held up as his character flaw, isn't a true inability; he's literally interrupted several times while he's trying to confess.
The tragic arc still could have worked if this story wasn't rushed into 3 episodes. For example, if Xia Qing confessed her feelings for Yang Cheng and he still chose revenge over her, that would've been a clearer sign of a character flaw that is understandably setting up for a dark turn. If we got more of OG E-Soul's feelings, that could've made the final battle more compelling; instead, he barely has any dialogue this episode.
And why DOES Yang Cheng care about being a top ten-ranked hero by the end? He only fights E-Soul out of a misguided sense of revenge. After that, then what? We have no idea.
The logic? Where was it??
Okay, but HOW does the ending make sense? Yang Cheng gained Trust Value at a meteoric rate because people liked that he showed his face and was a different version of E-Soul. But now he's just...become the OG E-Soul. Who had been losing popularity. What??? Seriously, doesn't this violate everything we were shown about Trust Value during the Nice/Lin Ling arc???