Discussions don’t neccesarily spiral out of control because of choice of words, but on how the person reacts. Writting “facepalm” is nowhere near using an insultive word. Plus the way I used the term was in more of a personal opinion I didn’t intend to take ay further. And the conversation would’ve most likely spiraled into the abyss had a term much stronger than that, and in a real offensive way, been used as a reply.
Well, this explain alot.
Then I suggest avoiding things like future interviews. People in the Entertaiment industry tend to say alot of thigs they don’t really mean.
Frankly, taking everything literally isn’t a way to go. Specially in today’s world where nothing is really literal anymore and things and terms keep changing.
Why do you think Panthro didn’t have as many fans? That’s not the impression I’ve been getting while floating around the internet; I’ve seen people say that Panthro was their favourite all over the place. I know he was mine, and I don’t think there was anything “meh” about him. The “just meh” character would actually have been Tygra for me (even though new Tygra is my favourite in the new series), who I wanted to like best because he was a tiger, and I liked tigers, but he was just… meh. (Plus I could never get over my secondhand embarrassment after the Garden of Delights, I was very sensitive to things like that as a kid.)
BUT, that does not mean that Tygra was a “meh” character. Just that I personally didn’t find him that interesting.
I do hope that the crew really did make lots of research through surveys and focus groups before doing anything with any of the characters. It would just be lazy and sloppy work not to, and I’d like to hink they were at least trying to make a show that would appeal to as many people as possible.
I guess what I should have said was annoying comedy relief sidekicks. But you’re right, Snarf was WAY more intelligent than a character like Jar Jar, and that he’d be comparatively closer to a character like Threepio.
The thing is, though, that Threepio was never annoying in the same way Snarf could be (even if Threepio annoyed the other characters themselves somewhat). And the point I was trying to make was that Snarf on the OS was one of those characters who somehow managed to cross that line from being an annoyance to the characters, to being an annoyance to the audience in general. And when you’ve got a character who annoys the audience every time he or she appears onscreen, you’ve got a problem.
As writers of fan fiction, Ocelli and I wrestled with the question of how to handle Snarf ourselves. Looking at our story overall, it was difficult for us to find a place for him in it, but we still wanted him to play a significant part. So we decided that from a dramatic and character-building standpoint, we thought there was really only one thing we could do: kill him off.
Now before anyone gets mad at us, I have to stress that we didn’t do it because we didn’t like the character (plenty of writers, particularly in comics, are known for doing that). But we wanted his role to be for something other than just cheap comedy relief. And we felt it might add some depth to him if we gave the character some pathos. So when you see him, he’s gotten fairly old and he’s questioning his usefulness to Lion-O. But at the climax, it’s him who retrieves the Thundercats’ weapons and frees them when they’re captured by Slithor. And later when Slithor tries to shoot Lion-O, he sacrifices himself by jumping in front of him and taking the shot. And in the epilogue, we show that he joins Jaga and Claudus in the Astral Plane. The whole idea was to give the character a death scene that was as worthy and respectful as something like the death of Spock in Star Trek II; which is pretty much the gold standard when it comes to killing off a beloved character.
From a character standpoint for Lion-O, it’s also significant, because Lion-O has been his friend all his life. And his initial reaction is to fly into a blind rage. Later he comes to terms with his death, and his marriage to Ocelli represents a symbolic maturing for the character, as he replaces a companion from childhood for one that’s more befitting of an adult. So we didn’t enter into the matter lightly and gave it a lot of thought.
I’ve just realized I’ve spent way more time on this post than I intended to, but I just wanted to express my thoughts on the character.
I meant to say that I -personally- haven’t met many people who were that passionate about Panthro as they could have been about the others (Lion-o, Tygra, Cheetara and the kittens). Might be something cultural that varies from one country to another? Many people here and in Latin America loved Tygra, while it seems he wasn’t that much loved in the US
I said Pantrho did have fans, and maybe many people found him teh best character ever in the TCs universe, but I think other characters were more “polarizing”, like igniting more passionate debates around them.
I’ve hardly found someone that had told me that Panthro was a character with a growing potential, or that they were intrigued about him (unlike Cheetara and Tygra who had these powers -sixth sense and mind power respectively- and were more quiet, so people think they could have been explored more; with Panthto I always got the imrpession that all about him was already set). Also, many people consider Cheetara or Tygra’s episodes some of the best, while Panthro’s episodes are considered kind of boring.
You found Tygra not interesting, and many people could have found him “meh”; others would have got that impression about Lion-O and Cheetara, but I think these 3 had also some of the most rabid defenders… I -personally- have never seen that about Panthro. Maybe because I’ve never seen people actually hating him, just don’t caring about him, which could be worse from one point of view.
Again, all this in the culture I live… and I do think different societies, becuase of their history and experiences, might unconsiously and collectively identify and prefer a specific character.
I never found Snarf annoying. I did find C-3PO annoying in the Episodes 1, 2, and 3. I’m sorry, but I loathed his line in Episode 2, “This is such a drag!” Seriously, Lucas needed to lay off the stupid cliches.
You could have changed his personality. Did Lion-O take it hard? Did he think of Snarf more as a friend or a mentor or a pet?
Oh, well now I’m steaming mad!!! Joking. I really don’t care what people want to do in fan fiction. It’s what makes fan fiction, fan fiction.
Not if you really want to respect the source material. Thats one reason I hated Cheetara in the Wildstorm comics. The Cheetara from the show would have never blamed Lion-O for what happened, much less slapped him.
Lion-O takes it VERY hard. In fact, he flies into a blind berserker rage and starts killing every Reptilian in sight. It’s so violent that it manages to even freak Slithor out, and he and his forces flee in retreat.
He always thought of Snarf as his best friend throughout his life. The person he could confide in when no one else would understand. He wants to mourn him, but it’s difficult with the war on. This actually helps facilitate the deepening of his relationship with Ocelli, as she is there to help him come to terms with his death. And it changes what at first was a marriage of political convenience (she offered herself to him in marriage as a way of convincing the other refugees with her on Avia to return to New Thundera) into a true romantic relationship. So in that way, he also functions as the catalyst for that relationship to grow.
I always considered Snarf more of a parent to Lion-o.
Lion-o for all intents and purposes WAS Snarf’s son. Claudus might have given him the genes but Snarf was the one that actually raised him. You saw that played out in the orginal series again and again.
I never thought of Snarf as a parent. He really didn’t have all that much authority over Lion-O. Snarf would warn Lion-O against something, but Lion-O still did whatever he wanted and Snarf could do nothing about it. With a parent there would’ve been repercussions for going against what he said.
This will probably make most of u LOL, but for the longest time as kid I thought Snarf was female!! being a nanny and all that (no sexism intended)…I didn’t get to see much of the end of season 1 either let alone season 2 where snarfer obviously referred to him sa uncle etc…I finally clocked it when Lion-O referred to snarf as a ‘he’ which I’m sure he said many times, but I mnaged to catch it that prticular time!
Snart could send Lion-o ‘the look’ that had him stopped in his tracks, looking down at his shoes and scratching his mane. The only other person in the series that managed that was Jaga.
Okay… I take that back. Possibly Pathro after Lion-o trashed one of his machines again.
I suppose it’s how you define parent. Is the person that changed your diapers, fed you, wiped your nose, read the bed time stories, and cleaned up the skin knees qualifty to you as as a parent? If that fits your defination than Snarf is more than in the running for the role.
I always got the impression Claudus was a great King. Father on the other hand you could debate that.
Well that kinda debunks balgus saying you can’t change character’s personality as Lion-O wouldn’t have done that, but Lion-O never actually killed anybody in the OS. But that is one of the beauties of fan fiction, being able to deepen characters and make them more, human, and therefore more understandable and relatable, than a cartoon does.
I never thought of it in that way since we never really saw what Lion-O’s life was like on 3rd Earth. Snarf reminded me more of Nana from Disney’s Peter Pan. I would like to know whatever happened to his mom.
I always knew Snarf was a boy. It would have been a very different dynamic if they had made that character female. If it had acted more motherly and didn’t feel the need to tag along with Lion-O all the time, that would have been such a very different dynamic. In fact, I’m liking the idea the more I think about it. If this female Snarf character was an anchor for the rest of the ThunderCats to turn to for wisdom and advice. Anyhoo…
We never really know what his life with his father was like, but I’d guess you to be close on that because we never saw Lion-O show any sadness for losing his father. He felt sadness for losing Jaga, but we never saw it in regards to his father.
There’s a difference between writing someone to have believable reactions and completely changing a character’s personality. Though I agree that having Lion-O slaughter a bunch of mutants, even out of grief, is writing him completely out of character. If Lion-O was going to kill, he would ONLY kill the one responsible for the death, not all of them. He’s not Anakin Skywalker. But shrugs that’s just my opinion. And that’s also one reason I stay far, far away from fanfiction. I hate it when they make people do things that are out of character.
Besides wouldn’t slaughtering mutants make Lion-o unfit to be Lord? Thundercats do not kill. That was one of the major themes of the show.
Totally different T-cats in this series.
The ‘no killing’ issue seems to be moot.
Tygra, you could tell, wanted a few lizards dead in Peddlers.
One reason I’m wondering how this whole ‘uniting the animals’ thing is going to work. You’re talking the lizards too. I can’t see Tygra going along with that happily.
Back to what you define as ‘parent’. In some cases you could argue that the nanny is more of a parent to the kid and the actual parents are. That’s what I’m arguing in Lion-o’s case.
What I kind of found interesting is Lion-o really wasn’t raised like traditional royalty in a lot of ways. Yeah, he had the ‘I’m Lord of the Thundercats’ thing going for a while but if you judged him by his favorite foods-- All commoner fare. Stew for example is something traditionally from the common classes because it’s designed to stretch meat to go further.
One reason I always thought Snarf had much more of a hand in raising Lion-o when he was very young.
You might argue that if Lion-o is another version of King Arthur Claudus could have sent him away with Jaga and Snarf for his own safety. It might tie in to how Lion-o was completely in the dark about some customs, traditions, ect.
I always got the impression later in the series the Snarfs actually remembered Lion-o better as a baby than the nobles did. Didn’t one of Snarf’s cousins announce he remembered Lion-o toddling around or something?
True, but the only reason why I thought Lion-O never really killed anyone was because it was primarily a children’s show, and at the time they weren’t really allowed to depict violence, let alone the consequences of it. But since I’m not writing for a kids’ audience, I figure I can get away with that stuff more and allow the story to be as violent as it needs to be. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not writing a gorefest. But if you’ve got a story where characters are using melee weapons primarily (or any weapons for that matter) plus it’s about a war, people are going to die…or get hurt very badly at the very least. The violence level in the story is pretty much on the same level as your average Star Wars flick or Wrath of Khan.
I figure any character - when pushed enough - will break. And in Lion-O’s case, the sudden and violent death of his oldest friend at the hands of a would-be tyrant in an act of self-sacrifice would be enough of a trauma to cause the kid gloves to come off. And it also to the reader raises the stakes in this story, sending a message that no one is safe. As I mentioned in other posts, quite a few characters get killed-off in the story: Mumm-Ra is eliminated early on, as are most of the Mutants and Lunataks, Mandora and even Lynx-O. Snarf, though, is the most significant, and his death carries the most emotional weight.
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If it was, I was never aware of it. I don’t ever remember the Thundercats saying they had a no-killing policy like, say, Batman. At least, I don’t recall it ever being hard-coded into the OS. Again, the only reason why I don’t think they ever did that was because of restrictions on kids’ programming. If they didn’t have that problem (like in the NS), they wouldn’t have tried to bend over backwards to get around it.
Joking. 
I really don’t care what people want to do in fan fiction. It’s what makes fan fiction, fan fiction.
