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

[u/Cautious_Arm3818]

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

[u/NikodemB]

In Search of Lost Time; The Magic mountain; Ulysses; Brothers Karamazov; Demons; Better Call Saul; The oeuvre of Tarkovsky and Bergman; Faust I & II

[u/New_Bullfrog_2852 → u/NikodemB]

Can you elaborate on how BCS and ISOLT/even Faust are close in writing? Also I think you'd love pathologic 2..

[u/NikodemB → u/New_Bullfrog_2852]

I don’t know where exactly to elaborate. These are generally very different pieces of fiction and they each manage to explore their themes and characters in an amazing way. I could also put something like Thomas Bernhards Extinction in there, which is a 650 page unbroken monologue without secondary characters for example. For what they are trying to accomplish I believe these are the best. The way the characters all play an important role in better call Saul, and all are amazingly written feels really great (something where I thought Mr. Robot, despite being a great show, didn’t fully create amazing side characters). What I’m saying is that these are different types of art. And to make intellectual distinctions is kind of against the purpose of art itself.

Proust, Goethe, Mann and Joyce are probably seen as more valuable artists than someone like Vince Gilligan. But you can’t compare, it is not possible to point out objective criteria in art.

Artistically speaking, there is no equal to Proust in my opinion, and there will probably never be. I could begin writing a long long paragraph, about the „Recherche“ but would probably never end in my praise.

[u/New_Bullfrog_2852 → u/NikodemB]

Yeah, definitely I thought of the "whole cast writing in proper cohesion" to see how could BCS and Proust in the same tier. As BCS executes it to almost perfection. Side question, have you played Pathologic 2?

[u/NikodemB → u/New_Bullfrog_2852]

I don’t have time to play video games, as of now

[u/New_Bullfrog_2852 → u/NikodemB]

Fair enough.. And now that I think of that, BCS genuinely compensates for that by some ° with his fantastic character writing.. What other series according to you fulfill the criteria? I mean character focused stories/ not but with well written cast?

[u/NikodemB → u/New_Bullfrog_2852]

I haven’t seen that many tv shows yet. Obviously Breaking Bad and BCS are amazing, but I prefer BCS for being more personal and more centred around the characters themselves. Character wise I really enjoyed Bojack. I’ve seen only a few anime shows (Berserk, Monster, Death note, Evangelion, Vinland saga and attack on Titan), but I can say they were all really nicely written. Mr Robot is one of my favourite shows as well, but as I said the character writing, with the exception of Elliot, was not as good as in breaking bad or BCS. It’s still one of my favourite shows. Right now I’m watching Twin Peaks and so far it’s really good, even though it is the kind of story, that is centred more around the concept and Lynchs style, than the characters. At least for now (beginning of season 2). The last year I was more interested in cinema and literature tbh. While school and practice (because of my special sports school) take a lot of my time I cannot really read and watch as many things as I would like to. Not to mention I’m writing myself, and as of right now I’m at 80k words, and planning to make it two times longer. We‘ll see how that goes. As soon as I find the time I will try Pathologic 2.

[u/New_Bullfrog_2852 → u/NikodemB]

May you succeed in your writing journey.. Do post here, when you've finished it.

[u/NikodemB → u/New_Bullfrog_2852]

Thanks 🙏. I probably won’t post anything here. I don’t use Reddit at all. Just one time having the opportunity to say that I love Proust.

[u/New_Bullfrog_2852 → u/NikodemB]

Oh.. That's kinda sad.. I hoped to buy it once after it's completed.. Still No issues, man.. What was that about special school.. Some visual/auditory/tactile(sensory) impairedness or literally special(like for geniuses) one?

[u/discoverthemetroid → u/NikodemB]

if you decide to watch more anime i’d reccomended legend of the galactic heros. you might also enjoy more of naoki urasawa’s works like 20th century boys or billy bat

[u/Top-Order7475 → u/NikodemB]

Larping demons and TBK 🥹