Totally with you on the Chosen One and monarchical restoration. What even is this anymore? Last year one of my favorite books I read was Melina Marchetta's Finnikin of the Rock, which to its credit is largely a thoughtful meditation on diaspora, home, and community, in a way I very rarely encounter. And yet the only way to Go Back Home is to reinstall the rightful ruler to the throne. In fantasy it seems that "the rightful ruler" is shorthand for balance in all citizens' lives, a benevolent trickling down of power, and case by case that may be true (e.g. Fire Lord Zuko -- but ATLA takes pains to show how not just the entire world, but the regular citizens of the Fire Nation suffers under Ozai's leadership) but overall it's really quite gross.
I, hahaha, can't really talk enough smack about BSG, so you won't get any disagreement from me there. The idea that BSG was TOO morally complex is frankly hilarious to me. The show is the very epitome of "the appearance of moral ambiguity, but not actual moral ambiguity"! Every time a human rose up against the narrative's heroes, they were painted as a mustache-twirling supervillain -- the irredeemable for no reason Tom Zarek, the overzealous Admiral Cain -- and every time a human fought against the monolith that had committed MASSIVE GENOCIDE they were painted to really be the ~worse than the Cylons who got off scott free with everything. A narrative having NO moral position is not at all the same as a COMPLEX moral position. Likewise "everybody is a horrible asshole" doesn't really prove anything other than that the show isn't fun to watch anymore. So while I agree with the io9 premise, I think it's proven by BSG's success, not its "fault" -- it certainly managed to win hordes of fanboy masses in a way that, say, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles never did, was honored by the friggin' UN, and is now onto its second prequel. Some failure.
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I, hahaha, can't really talk enough smack about BSG, so you won't get any disagreement from me there. The idea that BSG was TOO morally complex is frankly hilarious to me. The show is the very epitome of "the appearance of moral ambiguity, but not actual moral ambiguity"! Every time a human rose up against the narrative's heroes, they were painted as a mustache-twirling supervillain -- the irredeemable for no reason Tom Zarek, the overzealous Admiral Cain -- and every time a human fought against the monolith that had committed MASSIVE GENOCIDE they were painted to really be the ~worse than the Cylons who got off scott free with everything. A narrative having NO moral position is not at all the same as a COMPLEX moral position. Likewise "everybody is a horrible asshole" doesn't really prove anything other than that the show isn't fun to watch anymore. So while I agree with the io9 premise, I think it's proven by BSG's success, not its "fault" -- it certainly managed to win hordes of fanboy masses in a way that, say, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles never did, was honored by the friggin' UN, and is now onto its second prequel. Some failure.