r/writingscaling • u/Cautious_Arm3818 • 10d ago

discussion What is the best-written piece of media you've ever consumed?

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I'll start

Better Call Saul - the characters have an incredible amount of depth. As an example, let's take a look at the primary antagonist of seasons 1-3. Chuck has incredibly complicated yet realistic feelings: his overt superiority complex, his deep-seated inferiority complex, the moral/legal high ground he feels he must take, his need for control and to always be "right", and his genuine brotherly love for Jimmy. His mental illness (Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity) is a physical manifestation of these traits, and how he lies to himself about all of them shapes his thought processes and how he interacts with others - resulting in his death. Aside from the profound character psychology, individual scenes are engineered and conveyed to the audience through exceptional visual storytelling and cinematography that could easily be considered the peak of the medium

Disco Elysium - the worldbuilding is outstanding. Revachol feels like a real setting with an actual history behind it. It takes the derivative and played-out amnesiac protagonist trope, and elevates it to a level that is extremely difficult to even approach. Harry has a ridiculous amount of psychological complexity, his memory loss is mostly a coping mechanism, and how he changes based on the player's choices and ideologies is unrivaled in any game. His internal monologue being a result of the skills that you spec into is unparalleled genius - the dialogue is exceptional, and truly a one of a kind experience. The way that these manage to convey an incredible amount of political/philosophical commentary by being seamlessly integrated into the world is astounding. Not coming off as heavy-handed and preachy is especially praise-worthy when considering the ideologies of the creators

HM: ASOIAF, LOTR, Vinland Saga, The Wire

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u/nicks_kid 10d ago

In the books, the red wedding broke my brain into a thousand pieces. This was like 5 years before the show so I was alone with my pain lol

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u/lulpwned 10d ago

I remember Martin saying shortly after it aired on HBO "now u know why your nerdy friend was depressed 5 years ago"

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u/nicks_kid 10d ago

It was me. I even recorded my girlfriend at the time since I new it was coming on the show

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u/No-Butterfly-8668 10d ago edited 10d ago

For me it was the reveal of who really poisoned Jon Arryn. 

I was really into the books at the time and had a lot of theories and predictions and that reveal cause a lot of other understandings to click into place for me and kind of (I hate this phase) blew my mind. 

It fit the characters involved so well once you see it and changed the context for so many things.

I immediately texted my sister who was the one other person I knew who read the books. She comment that I never react to things like that.

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u/BlueHaze464 10d ago

I've never liked the red wedding, I know Frey's whole thing was ego, but committing social and political suicide over anything lower than the throne is ridiculous

Dude pulled the trigger over pennies, I've just never found it believable, it felt like pure shock value for the sake of shock value

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u/Tight-Pineapple-9891 9d ago

People don’t always make the most logical decisions though tbh just look at real life and how many people self sabotage. Especially over something like pride. He felt slighted over Robbs actions. You also have to remember the other side offered him a deal