User blog:Katapultman/My Take On "The Hero". An analysis of its downfall.

Intro
Hello there,my name is Katapultman.I started watching 'The Amazing World Of Gumball' in the begining of July this year and I've finished Season 2 as of the time of this being published.I was encouraged by some great people on this wiki to write my own analysis on an episode.Now, for anyone who is interested in reading it should keep in mind that this is my first analysis and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated ! And with that short intro in mind, onto the analysis !

The Prologue
"The Hero" is a sort-of experiment for the writing staff of "The Amazing World of Gumball" to try and create an episode that expands the most on characters like Richard(even though he's been expanded already in "The Job" ; "The Treasure", but I'll get to that later) and to give some much needed insight into the father-son relationship between Gumball/Darwin and Richard. It tries, and it doesn't completely fail,but it has some huge problems that, as far as I've heard, have been fixed in the later seasons. For a first go at writing an emotional episode, they didn't do that bad, but now to see why they didn't succeed in their endeavor fully.

The Direction
From the very beginning of the episode, you can tell it is going to be a "feels-ey" episode that  explores Richard's character like it has never been explored before: On a serious outlook. The premesis is good, but the direction in which the episode was going was a shamble of jokes and emotional scenes.Though not ruining the episode,it creates a mixture of uncertain emotions.This problem, along with some borderline cruel actions from some of the characters leave the viewers wondering who to support.Of course the writers made Richard a target for sympathy in order to remedy that,but after overanalyzing I came to the conclusion that they made too much of an effort for us to root for Richard, by that meaning it painted the main characters in colours we've never seen before(this will be further explained below).That bring down the entirety of the episode. The constant actions,partaken by some of them to instigate sympathy towards Richard, are borderline unnecessary and go completely against their personalities.

It would've made for a much better episode had Gumball not been acting like the complete opposite of his character until the end of the episode.Don't get me wrong, sometimes Gumball does push the limits, but at least there is somebody to stop him,or it has some sort of a comedic twist/lesson(Example: Gumball and Darwin's many misadventures that almost always end in them recoinciling, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.).In "The Hero",it has neither of those to create a character balance.And that brings me to the second problem..

The Characters
The characters throughout the episode behave simply: Their most negative traits have been put up-front and common sense is thrown out the door.Almost every single character is a portrayed in a bad light,which in turn leaves some of the episode's jokes being plain awkward.The jokes themselves were funny,but with their execution, the direction was diverged, so it made for a sort-of weird unbalanced mess.

I'll try and do my best to dissect each character, providing adequate and correct feedback.

1.Gumball, the main protagonist, although shown to be an optimistic, imaginative, and good-spirited kid, is the complete opposite throughout "The Hero".A complete 360 degree turn on his character, per say.

Now think about this.

Why is Gumball shown to adopt such an inexplicable style throughout the episode, why is he made out to be so unrelatable and selfish, as if though without any feeling of remorse towards his deeds?

The in-universe explanation to this is: Gumball's ego.

Some people might say even though Gumball has a huge ego, he still cares about his family throughout "The Hero". And those people are partially right, because as an example, as soon as Richard seems to be plummenting to his "death" in the episode, Gumball's instinctive reaction is to mourn for him.Good, now time for the reconciliation part, right ? How about we just play it off for a joke, eh ?

And there lays the problem that has stuck with me ever since I watched that scene for the first time.I'll be using it as an example, considering it contains almost all of my issues with Gumball's character and the episode as a whole. I'll be dividing this part into two seperate segments(one that covers Gumball before the scene and one that covers the aftermath/the finale).

Segment 1:

As said by many before me, the major gripe with the episode is Gumball and his straight up cruel behaviour. That is correct on its own, but this cruelty stems from(as said above), Gumball's obnoxiously large ego.I think that the writers have hyperbolized this evident flaw in Gumball's character to a point where he's unrecognisable.Think about it, would Gumball really forsake his father's love just for his own pride, after all the things the family as a whole has been through ? I may have watched S1 and S2 only once but I think that this seems highly improbable.

A fair counterpoint to this would still be that Gumball may not have assesed the seriousness of the situation at hand,although not false, the major point still stands: Gumball's personality flaws in the episode have been exaggerated to the point that they've overcome his identity as a character just to make Richard even more as a target to empathize with, which makes Gumball a much less likeable character in this instance(as first pointed out above).

Segment 2:

In this section, I'd like to talk about my reaction to Gumball's personality drifts,along with the finale of the episode.As said above,the second after Richard states he's alive, Gumball reverts back to his old self. Of course this is played off for a joke, but in my opinion it could've been an oppurtunity for an earlier recoincilation,rather than dragging the episode along.Not only that,but the joke didn't seem to be needed at all,considering the situation at hand.Maybe I'm being too critical towards this point(probably because I've written them all in different timeframes), but I still think Gumball is the main drag of the episode,my point being proven in Section 1.

The finale is one of the saving graces of the episode.It's the ultimate test of trust between Richard and Gumball,which was executed simply, but perfectly.The climax of a broken father-son relationship mended by the echoing sounds of a once simple past that incited an unprofound level of determination.That,accompanied with the eerie presence of a life-threatening situation that makes the impact even more powerful  is the most outstanding moment in the epiode for me.The message got clear in the end,but the culmination to it was admittedly misdirected.At first viewing of the episode, it was heartwarming,and to my suprise, even after being so cynical towards the episode,it still is and it is my favourite moment in the series so far.Ironically in an episode that is hated by so many.

2.Darwin, the "sidekick" to Gumball's misadventures and shenanigans,is shown to be the most empathetic out of all the Wattersons, which in of itself makes him the most relatable one.Not much can be said about Darwin in this episode, apart from the fact that he bridges the conflict between Gumball and Richard.Although one interesting shot I found was this one, for which I have two possible explanations for:

First of all, the dialouge leading up to the shot was Gumball saying how Richard had reached his limit "a long time ago". Taking that into consideration, this screenshot could be pointing either towards Darwin questioning his own judgement, or to him being in disbelief as to what Gumball is saying.Although nothing special, I thought I'd at least include something original in the Darwin section.

3.Anais, the sort-of tritagonist of the series.The "kid who happens to be a genius" as TheGuy456 has explained and pointed out.For the little screen time Anais gets in the episode, she manages to create quite the impact on it.For starters, she is furious with Darwin and Gumball when she realizes they hurt their dad's feelings, but why is this ? Doesn't Anais herself also criticize Richard often ?

Well, Anais, like her mother, was too quick to jump to conclusions. While the reason why Gumball and Darwin made a mockery out of Richard was purely out of peer pressure, their stubborness to apologise is what I think made Anais mad the most.I strongly believe even if Anais was in Gumball and Darwin's position, she'd still defend her father's dignity in some sort of way,mainly because she doesn't seem like the type of person that would succumb to the effects of the everyday problem of peer pressure like Gumball and Darwin.

4.Nicole, the mother figure of the Wattersons gets as much screen time as Anais, but doesn't have the same effect as her.Though Anais may have been annoying towards Gumball & Darwin, Nicole is on another level.Throughout many episodes of Season 2, Nicole's agression has exaggerated for comedic effect like in "The Limits".In "The Hero" though, she may haven't made such a visual spectacle, but you can sense her rage in her drastic actions towards Gumball and Darwin.It's weird seeing Nicole all happy at the end of the episode when at one point she was willing to literally starve out her children.

5.Richard, the "father" figure of the Wattersons, is shown to be inept in almost every task he partakes in.That leaves a window of opportunity for ridicule against him, but as it is shown to be in episodes like "The Castle", Richard isn't being actually mocked. Sometimes there may be a sigh from Nicole, or a disappointed face from Anais, but nothing too drastic or mean-spirited. So it's an interesting turn for the show when it decides to explore Richard's feeling of worthlessness, and that's the beauty of this show and mainly Season 2. It adds a lot more depth and realism to characters you would have expected to be portrayed in a one-sided manner.

Richard's song is one of the most heartwarming scenes of the show for me. It perfectly shows that his family is his greatest achievement, his reason for living. All of the episodes that were about expanding Richard as if though were all pointing to this song, his climax. He has been living a sheltered life,which has stripped him of all traces of common sense, can't hold a job due to the laws of the Universe not allowing him, and has possibly rid his family of a great and carefree life but the thing that keeps him up every time is his family's unbound love for him. Even though he may not be the best role model,when push comes to shove, they accept him for who he is.After the first scene in "The Hero", Richard doesn't go out on a limb and get angry or bitter, he's just saddened that his life has been leading up to nothing but disappointments. That goes to show in of itself how much of a mature person he is, and is genius hidden development on the writer's part(even though it may be unintentional).So in the end, that is why making the characters act like lunatics was ultimately useless.

Final Thoughts/Notes
So, here we are, at the final part.It's been a wild ride for me to write this analysis, but in the end, I think it turned out fine(except for the fact that I keep repeating myself in a lot of my segments, for which I apologise). As a first one, it may not be the best,but it's still not horrid. A special thanks goes to TheGuy456 for his unrelenting help.I've never written something that has required this much thought to be put into it in my life, so this analysis was also a journey of self-discovery that taught me to be more observant, or that even the simplest things on the surface may hide unimaginable depth.Anyway, if you've come this far, I'd like to sincerely thank you for reading my analysis, and if you've enjoyed it (or disliked it-I can already see why), it'd be helpful to my own work ethic if you leave a comment.But that's all from me, cheers !