User blog comment:Baghead11/The Bagheaded Critic— The Rival and The Hero/@comment-30307603-20200125045334

Hey there! It’s always nice to see others create their own analytical pieces about the show. I am all for keeping discussion lively, and given the infamy these episodes have acquired over the years, this article certainly makes for an interesting discussion. Personally speaking, I find “The Rival” to be a perfectly serviceable episode with some fun macabre humor and “The Hero” to be one of the most flawed episodes the show has aired. However, rather than delve into my opinions on that, I would rather touch on something else.

While I would really love to get a feel for where you stand with these episodes and why you feel they are underrated, I, unfortunately, feel that this article did not convey much information to me. Far too much of this was a simple recap of the episodes themselves and not enough of it was your own analysis and opinions.

That’s okay! Honestly, writing stuff like this can be difficult, and trying to articulate your thoughts on something a show like Gumball can be a challenge because it’s so hard to know where to even start. While I’m not an expert writer or somebody who specializes in comedic writing and analysis by any stretch of the imagination, I have been writing my own analysis blog posts for quite some time now, and in that time, I’ve learned quite a few lessons about how to go about these writings, and I would like to share them with as helpful tips of sorts!


 * The Golden Rule: always assume that your audience has watched the episode(s)! Whenever I write a blog post, I always write it under the assumption that anybody reading it is already caught up with whatever it’s talking about and that they don’t need a detailed plot synopsis of what happened. I find that writing with this mentality forces me to be less reliant on just stating the events of the episode and more focused on what I personally took away from the said episode. If people wanted a summary of the episode, they would either pull up the Wiki page or just go and watch the episode themselves. People want to read your takeaway from the episode! Perhaps a sentence or two of brief at the beginning as a refresher, but anything more than that is just not necessary.
 * All analysis requires recap to some extent, but not all recap is analysis. When you’re expressing your opinions about an episode or analyzing a certain bit, you will naturally have to refer to specific parts of the said episode to substantiate your claims. There will be points where you will have to recap to some extent to complete the piece, but whenever it comes to this, be sure that said recap will actually help demonstrate your point and isn’t just filler and that your own personal interjection makes up the majority of that point, not the recap. There is a difference between saying
 * “Gumball and Darwin then find out that Alan lost his faith because Gumball hates him. Then Gumball tries to comfort him but fails, so Darwin tells him to stop. Then Gumball tells Alan that life isn’t perfect and starts singing about it,”
 * and “Gumball and Darwin then find out that Alan lost his faith because Gumball hates him, further demonstrating the episode’s theme that everybody matters to somebody and that our actions have an effect on other people.”
 * When expressing an opinion, it’s good to substantiate. Don’t just say that “I think the ending is really heartwarming;” point out all the elements that personally resonates with you and why they all work together to make the ending heartwarming.

Hopefully, all of these comments useful! It’s a learning process— I’m still learning and experimenting with every new thing I write— but these are tips that have definitely helped me in the past, so I think they should serve you well!