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augustinius 42 points ago +47 / -5

Everyone should go watch The Expanse. Excellent show that’s almost devoid of SJWism.

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deleted 41 points ago +41 / -0
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augustinius 22 points ago +24 / -2

Yeah maybe “almost devoid” is a bit of a stretch, but even just to have a show that doesn’t actively try to shame you is enough to qualify as watchable at least.

It’s also very well executed and VERY well written.

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deleted 8 points ago +10 / -2
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Thrasymachus 17 points ago +17 / -0

Well, without putting too fine a point on it, you can read his character as severely traumatized (possibly sexually) as a child, with the associated sexual identity problems often associated with said trauma. I don't know if that's specifically how Wes Chatham is playing the role, but it certainly seems that way to me. Which is, in effect, quite accurate to the observed effects of sexual trauma on male children.

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augustinius 7 points ago +7 / -0

Did you watch the last season? He definitely is not...

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doodaddy 4 points ago +4 / -0

who dat? I don't remember a gay bad guy. I think this show is a low on the SJW as it can be. Not all conflict or bad guys excusing their own behaviour is SJW.

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MustafaJones 9 points ago +9 / -0

There’s some SJW moments but I don’t recall it being particularly jarring. It’s well done and the politics make sense given the setting. The books are a good read as well.

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ManyDirt 5 points ago +5 / -0

The Amazon season was very SJW. Hell, most of the belter shit is. Many of them are uneducated terrorists who commit acts of wanton violence and are expected to be forgiven because they're victims of imperialism/oppression. Fuck that, they kill innocent people.

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Trump2011 1 point ago +1 / -0

Isn't that the point though? Earth in general are the protagonists - big government, high poverty and massive social inequality. Belters are the communists - no respect for people, full of hate, ignorant and prioritize culture over humanity. Mars are the freedom loving pioneers, innovative, paranoid and willing to fight to be free.

We'll see if Amazon tries to keep up this version of making the Belt the heroes in the story. The first 2 seasons it really felt like Mars were the heroes to me.

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HuggableBear 0 points ago +1 / -1

You must not have watched this last season. Any ideas you had of good guys/bad guys are out the door.

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HuggableBear 0 points ago +1 / -1

It's about as good as you can get from modern TV, though. They don't point it out, it just is what it is.

Last season was getting worse, though.

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deleted 1 point ago +1 / -0
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deleted 20 points ago +21 / -1
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I_like_eggs 5 points ago +6 / -1

The books are even more so. At times it seems like literally everybody in the entire universe, other than our main characters, is something other than straight.

Love the hell out of the books and show anyway tho.

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Thrasymachus 7 points ago +7 / -0

I give both authors a pass, though, because of [my interpretation of] the context of it all. In The Expanse, the UN is a small group of meddling bureaucrats playing with the lives of billions while taking personal payouts from unhinged globalist corporate hacks, while the "dole" on Earth is a preponderance of pathetic, drugged bums on UBI. Sexuality is, of course, a disastrous spectrum. It actually sounds a lot like a plausible What Happens If We Lose situation to me, and neither the books nor the show throw their lot in support or endorsement of this arrangement.

I don't know if either author is based, but at least one of them probably is. As for the showrunners, I can't tell if they were dodging controversy or patting themselves on the back for featuring so many gay characters without realizing their own setting condemns it as the result of decades of disastrous social policy and cultural degradation. As for the current showrunner (Naren Shankar), who knows. Four was the worst book (let's take our space opera and reset it on a single shitty planet; same problem Scalzi had eventually with Old Man's War book 3), but the season was still pretty watchable, so they did a decent job with it.

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I_like_eggs 4 points ago +4 / -0

They are not. They are both famously liberal. Its evident if you listen to the Expanse podcast.

I don’t know if they’re full on leftist, but I suspect they are.

That said, they’re both fantastic writers and I love the world they’ve created. I can separate the art from the artist, same as other writers I love, like Stephen King.

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HuggableBear 0 points ago +1 / -1

Frankly that's just sci-fi, man. Always has been. One of the central themes in a lot of classic sci-fi is destruction of all societal norms as we progress.

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wrathofdog 4 points ago +5 / -1

It's a show I literally stopped watching due to the SJWism.

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bejeavis 5 points ago +6 / -1

Naomi is why I had to give it up. She started as a dynamic believable character, by the time I quit watching (somewhere in season 4) the female empowerment was completely over the top and incessant. She was a literal cactus impossible to relate to or appreciate. Similar thing with Avasarala. Took a completely mesmerizing character and reduced her to lol swearz mcpantsuit.

"I am that guy" is where the show peaked IMO.

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Trump2011 3 points ago +3 / -0

So true. SJW's had no idea how amazingly complex and inspiring these female characters were so they just turn them into brain-dead unlike-able feminist clichés and destroyed all their layers of beauty in exchange for a dumbed-down stereotypical "power female".

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deleted 2 points ago +2 / -0
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augustinius 1 point ago +1 / -0

Thanks for telling me about the books. I’ve been wanting to read them but maybe not so much now...

Would you recommend it regardless?

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deleted 3 points ago +3 / -0
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IlIlIlIlIl 2 points ago +2 / -0

Agree on 7. I thought the books peaked at book 5. If they stop the tv adaptation after the 5th season, I wouldn’t mind.

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deleted 2 points ago +3 / -1
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Phil_Selway 1 point ago +1 / -0

Well crap. I watched the show and the pandering was annoying, so I started on the books trying to escape the bullshit. I'm about to finish the first one and now I'm very disappointed.

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Somniac 7 points ago +7 / -0

Oh, there is definitely some and the books get progressively worse with it. But, the excellence of the rest of the show/books pretty much nullifies it.

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deleted 6 points ago +6 / -0
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deleted 6 points ago +6 / -0
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deleted 4 points ago +4 / -0
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Frog_Anne 3 points ago +3 / -0

I've even had to give up some period dramas because some idiot director thinks people that watch them like to see "realism," which is just filth and unnecessary misery just for the sake of adding dirt.

I'm in the minority, but I couldn't even get into Downton Abbey. It just turned my stomach - nearly everyone was vicious and cruel, even to their own sisters or to the crippled valet. The costumes and sets were beautiful, but I couldn't stand to see so many awful people.

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N7fury 6 points ago +6 / -0

Second this.. Highly recommend the Expanse. There is definitely some tribalism and social justice type undertones with Earth being viewed as Imperialists and oppresors and tries to force you to sympathize with the belters. It is a great sci-fi though and well written. Amos and Alex are by far the best characters imo. Naomi and Holden are annoying as fuck. Thomas Jane's character is also good.

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Thrasymachus 2 points ago +2 / -0

Holden was definitely a brazen casting choice. Not even remotely how I pictured him, though I suspect the casting directors might have been more right about what the authors intended (both because they had access to said authors, and also are, you know, professional casting directors) than I was. Thomas Jane was great; that dysfunctional role seems to have suited him better than virtually anything else he's been in.

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N7fury 1 point ago +1 / -0

That could definitely have a big impact on the character. Maybe, I'm being a bit harsh and I think Holden does have some redeeming qualities. He just tries to too hard or something and always gets on this moral high horse for lack of a better word.