@insectostrich4407
Personally, I’m glad they didn’t make Annie the typical Evil-kid. You really got the sense in this story that she was just a little girl who was misunderstood and couldn’t control her powers, but you also understood the mum’s perspective, which I can’t wait to see expanded on in Arcane. The only problem is her story is a bit similar to Jinx’s, but I think there are enough differences and I’m confident the writers will figure it out.
@samhiltz1107
The only quibble I have is calling Annie a "monster" or "evil" - nothing in this short justifies either classification. We put those labels on based on our preconceived understanding of the character and character type. She is a young child - a pre-teen - 8n a traumatic (but common) situation, reacting EXACTLY the way a pre-teen is expected to react. Except she has fire powers and a teddy bear that can protect her. And every time these are used, it is in response to an action taken against Annie - pure self defense in two cases (vs Daisy), arguable self defense (end with the step mother) and the alluded to emotional attack by the step mother. There is nothing really evil or monstrous- we simply interpret it that way based on our knowledge of storytelling tropes. In other words, this short does a great job tricking us into seeing things that might not actually be there.
@halodarkry77
I never really felt like I could write anything compelling before I started watching your videos. You have a great way of taking facts about a work that I might have known subconsciously, and letting me consciously chew on them so I might be able to use them on my own later. I’m really grateful, and I hope doing these videos brings you the same kind of joy I have when I watch them!
@coreyloucks4865
I think the Curse of the Sad Mummy was a really good one that pulled at the heart strings and really touches on the sadness of being alone.
@hbm7350
What’s so cool about animation is it can do things that live action just can’t get away with as well, look at arcane, every frame of animation is art. Annie; it really puts you in a dream state, that is what is so interesting to me, how the animation is like looking at a moving painting, and how it has those interesting transitions, I felt like I was dreaming while watching it and when it ended it was like waking up.
@CalvinKalisto
As an amateur writer, subscribing to you was the best choice I made.
@princeollie1022
I think there's a confusion about children. With Characters like Annie, they're not evil, they're amoral. They don't understand what they do & even what is evil or not. Children don't develop their theory of mind (the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes if you will) before the age of 3 or 4 & some have it developed later if the environment is not encouraging for it to develop (in abusive situations for example, where the child has to be in constant survival mode). Children also are growing into this world. They don't have a moral code built-in. They have to learn it. So in this short origin story, I personally saw Annie as an amoral person because she is a child & her stepmom was constantly suspicious of her. Instead of seeing that maybe the drawings had to be investigated, she jumped to the conclusion that Annie was evil. When her daughter died, she right away accused Annie. I think Annie was being neglected by her & psychologically abused. It can't be good for a child to be treated that way. So her becoming "evil" is a result of that abuse that she endured. She's on survival mode. When her dad died, she had lost EVERYTHING & the only remaining parent started abusing her right away. As an amoral child with fire/fire teddy bear powers, she abused of her powers because nobody taught her how to use it with restraint & control. So yeah I don't think she's evil, just amoral. She's the best characterisation of a chaotic neutral. And before someone tries to excuse the mother's behavior, she is the adult. She's supposed to know better. It certainly wasn't Annie's job to tell her to stop the abuse or to stop being suspicious. Maybe the dad should've, but then again, maybe he did we don't know. In any case, that STILL doesn't excuse her behavior. Like yeah sure she was grieving, but that's not a good way to express grief. You don't go around & bully a child just because you're sad that not acceptable!
@siddhantsingh903
actually, annie's lore was updated sometime ago. There's a short story about her real Mom which explains how got her powers.' to summarise it, Her mom somewhere in noxus, in place for special or magical people where she was infested by a powerful fire demon by a secret organisation either directly or indirectly either called 'the black rose'. She somehow was able to flee, taking the fire demon with her. On her run she met a man, had annie. [ I don't remember annie's story exactly but it goes something like this. "After annie was born she and her father fell sick with annie's body being too hot to even touch, one day when her woke from his sleep he found annie completely heathy but without her mother" ] The common theory is, since the fire demon could not be split into two bodies her mother sacrificed herself for annie
@I.Simmonds
Jhin "Stay in school Annie, you'll make something of yourself yet." Annie "I did, fire!"
@juliankanzuki2013
Fiddlesticks voice: "Annie... don't let go..." Fiddlesticks is a fear demon, the fact he uses the moment of Daisy's death to torment Annie shows that was a moment of true fear. She did love her sister, and that moment broke her.
@ericschwegler7514
Hollywood cant scare me in a 2 hour horror film but the 1:20 long fiddlesticks cinematic gives me chills every time
@sakurap95
I remember when the RWBY shorts came out. All of them had ways that defied my expectations as a viewer. I don’t have a favorite, but I remember a moment in White that surprised me and raised the stakes. When Weis was standing up to face her opponent again and the shot revealed that she had a bleeding wound above her eye. Typically, when the hero is shot down, they are immediately shown what injury they sustained. But this twist surprised me and made her standing up again to her opponent all the more impressive.
@fiishe333
one again, a compelling and thorough breakdown of a complicated piece of fiction without repeating yourself unnecessarily. too often in video essays people will have only one or two things to say and just repeat those points over and over for ten plus minutes. its incredible how schnee gives us nothing but quality content and no filler every video. keep up the good work
@littlestarshepherd
Maybe because I know what it's like to be so different and growing up having people reminding you of that difference every day, I didn't see a monster in Annie at all, and I still don't. I see people who made her a monster because they couldn't just respect and embrace who she was (respect her boundaries, trust/accept/love her, etc.). Annie is also very reminiscent of Stephen King's Carrie and I'm surprised you didn't make the parallel between the two stories.
@synderthmc
I thought the choppy frame rate was as to make it look like a a picture book, i mean the art style already looks like a Christmas book. That's the type of warmness it exudes.
@Adonna2424
Curse of the Sad Mummy - breaks my fucking heart so much. The song is a wonder vehicle (understatement), the lyrics fill you in on the backstory, the art style is fantasy art deco-ish paper feeling (?) in contrast to the fluid smoke-like shadows (his doubts/the curse) that plague Amumu on his journey, the transitions (moon to flower etc) give a sense of travel/fantasy/distance and the ending (screaming lyrics, black/white, chaos) just horrific, slowly fading out into a sense of loneliness, bland sand/grays colors, emptiness, the violins long death string petering out. By far, this cinematic and song are SO UNDERAPPRECIATED! Could you do a vid on it? 😭
@clueso_
Yeah, this crayon artstyle with an emphasis on darkness / shadows / blackness and medium saturated brighter colors is actually my favorite kind of art.
@rabbitadventurous9441
Great analysis and I especially love how you connected to Arcane! I think wouldn't call Annie a monster or evil though, just a girl with some kind of power she didn't have full control of and mishaps will happen in a family of normies who wouldn't understand her. At 3:35, she was just smiling because she won her bear back with the "serves you right" mindset, because her stepsister started it first. idk if that makes sense...
@justhumani8475
You can check out the "Curse of the sad mummy" which was also directed by Christian Linke (Arcane Director).
@reno9821