[ SECRET POST #5159 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5159 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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07. https://i.imgur.com/TefpZnN.png
[OP warned for nudity, Watchmen (the TV series on HBO)]


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08. [SPOILERS for Steven Universe, Infinity Train, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts]



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09. [WARNING for mention of pedophilia]



































Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #738.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

08. [SPOILERS for Steven Universe, Infinity Train, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts]
https://i.imgur.com/agKArPu.png

[(Anonymous)]

Given that part of the premise of Gummi Bears was that the title characters were very possibly the last surviving members of their race, it's safe to assume the horrible deaths all happened off-screen.

[morieris]

I honestly thought the image with the frogs was some sort of Meet The Robinsons Fan art.

Also what part is that from SU???

[(Anonymous)]

Not OP, but looks like one of the forced fusions/cluster experiments.

[(Anonymous)]

I was going to agree but I looked closer and it looks more like fanart of the Crystal Gems in the same style as that first cluster experiment we saw in the Kindergarten, not an actual image from the show.

[(Anonymous)]

it looks to me like one of the mini clusters from Keeping It Together, in season 2?

[(Anonymous)]

The frogs are from KIPO: Age of the Wonderbeasts

...where they are covered in molten gold and turned into statues.

[(Anonymous)]

Ever watch Animals of Farthing Wood? It's back to back horrible animal deaths. Death in cartoons isn't new, there were a lot in the 80s. Every kid watching the Transformers movie was shocked at Primes death.

[(Anonymous)]

Hah! I commented just below you, and also immediately flashed back to Animals of Farthing Wood! Ah, I loved that show.

[(Anonymous)]

Heh! Mind twins. It was a brilliant show. Never pulled it punches. God I'm still not over the hedgehogs deaths. And everything poor Bold goes through. I still own the books.

[(Anonymous)]

I can't speak to the Gummi Bears, but speaking as someone who grew up watching Animals of Farthing Wood ... have we seen anyone's cooked corpse on a kitchen table yet? A couple dozen bodies impaled on a hedge? Have we watched anyone die old and senile and confusedly talking to a kid as if he's his deceased father?

I don't think this is a particularly new thing. Maybe it depended on your country? Though Don Bluth was also a thing, so maybe not.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh, Don Bluth. Possibly more kids were traumatized by Secret of NIMH because of the creepy artwork and needles, but also An American Tail literally starts with a pogrom.

[(Anonymous)]

And All Dogs Go To Heaven starts with the premise that he's dead and trying to come back and also avoid the horrifying skyscraper tall hell dog hunting him down.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, character death and hyper violence has certainly always been a thing. Looney Tunes being the gold standard and Fleischer Studios being an early pioneer.

Anime has had some pretty gnarly kid deaths for decades.

[greghousesgf]

who died in Looney Tunes other than "kiww the wabbit" fake deaths played for laughs? The only Looney Tune that scared the shit out of me as a kid was the one with Porky Pig and Sylvester being terrorized by evil psycho mice in some weird abandoned house and Porky is even denser than usual and Sylvester has to hit him in the head so they can leave and the evil mice are hiding in their car as they drive away. And nobody really died in that one, it was all threats.

[(Anonymous)]

GODDAMNIT NOW I HAVE THE GUMMI BEARS THEME SONG STUCK IN MY HEAD

[(Anonymous)]

I mean, another big difference is that the intended age group for Gummi Bears was several years younger than for the shows you're talking about. Character deaths on serial cartoons aimed at 6 year olds tend to either be off-screen or fake-out deaths. So many fake-out deaths in '80s cartoons...

[(Anonymous)]

Somebody never watched Watership Down when they were a kid.

[(Anonymous)]

They're not all cartoons but may I also mention the gruesome death and violence in Animorphs, the swamp scene in Neverending story, Watership Down, the list goes on. This doesn't even include the many many horrible and tragic fates from classic stories, folk tales, fairy tales, and myths.

I would say that it's only recently that the idea of making things friendly for children has been a thing. As awful as it is, violence and death are a part of our world. Children end up exposed to it no matter what we do, and many kids make violence into play. Hitting things with sticks, "pew-pew!" shooting bad guys, drama and mystery and betrayal murder with toys and dolls.

People use stories to experience things that are outside their ability to, or to engage with emotions, experiences, or peril in a safe and controlled way. In the end, you can always put a story down and take your time to process it before returning, never return to it, or choose to not engage in the first place. In the end, people crave experiences, and whether they want to push their boundaries or make themselves a safe and comforting place, it's all valid.

I'm not saying that kid's media needs to have violence or death, or that it should. Everyone needs safety and comfort, and everyone should have the choice to push outside of it if they so desire.

From my personal experience, Animorphs stuck out at me because it was grittier than a lot of other childrens' media. It didn't dumb down the drama, the intensity, or the fact that violence and battle are horrible and scarring and traumatizing. It doesn't talk down to the readers, or justify and glorify atrocity; a war to save your loved ones is still a war. Your enemies can be justified, and your allies can end up doing shameful things. It presents it honestly and with a full spectrum of moral greys, and I appreciated that when I read it as a kid.

[(Anonymous)]

This. I grew up watching Don Bluth movies and reading stuff like the Redwall series, both of which had plenty of dark and brutal things/death. And that was seen as totally normal? Like, almost everyone in my class had read Redwall, it wasn't considered to be something that was too "intense" for 8- and 9-year-olds. Like you said, I feel like it's only been recently that the idea that things need to be sanitized for children has become a thing.

[(Anonymous)]

*SPOILERS FOR INFINITY TRAIN*

That third season of Infinity Train was extremely metal. Two on screen deaths and one graphic. Both with extremely high emotional stakes.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of the stuff people are naming is British. I feel like that’s a relevant point somehow.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

A lot of the British stuff was shown and a popular in the US and other countries. Though may depend where and when. The deaths in the new Netflix Watership Down animation are tame compared to the old one.

People are mentioning stuff like Don Bluth and animorths that are US. Also Mufasa's death in the Lion King, The Shoe in who Framed Roger Rabbit, Little Foots Mom in Land before time, Morth in X-men, Carlotte in Charlotte's Web, The Little Toaster, Animal Farm, David the Gnome there are lots.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

More non-British examples: Disney’s Atlantis had one of the main characters, a teenage girl, have to seal bulkheads on a crippled submarine leaving crew to drown on the other side. Ratigan in Great Mouse Detective had one of his minions eaten alive, and while he didn’t actually manage to kill anyone in the ending, seeing him go completely psychotic and try to tear Basil apart with his bare hands was an experience. In The Last Unicorn, a lovely-looking unicorn movie, an evil old woman is killed and then fairly visibly eaten by a three-breasted harpy who glows red with every partially-obscured bite. In the 2003 version of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, one of the turtles is flung to a dystopic future and has to watch all his scarred and maimed brothers die before he can come back (I adore that episode). I think Captain Planet had a similar episode as well. And Galaxy Rangers, which is an incredibly cheesy 80s show, had some fates in it that were so bad I’d pick death, including using one of the main characters' wife as a core for a slaver robot to be psychically tormented for the rest of her existence (and she can be linked to him to do the same).

The 80s/90s, even early 00s, were a fun time in kid’s animation, and I’m not saying that sarcastically. I loved pretty much all of those old shows and movies.

[(Anonymous)]

Watership Down, The Secret of Nimh, Coraline... there’ve always been some dark animated shows/films. I don’t think it’s anything new.