Content material warning: blood, nudity, non-consensual kissing
What’s it about? Guideau has a witch’s curse on her neck and a thirst for violence. Ashaf has a field on his again and an everlasting cigarette in his mouth. These two are hunters for the Order of Magical Resonance. When you want a witch’s punch, you name them.
The witch and the beast performs with numerous themes and concepts that make it a beast to take care of. There’s loads to unpack simply from the primary episode of this gritty and classy fantasy. Witch burnings! Ritual sacrifice! Difficult gender points! A shark Kaiju!
Let’s rigorously break this aside and first discuss what I favored about this premiere, as a result of truthfully, as a lot because it made me a bit of giddy, I discovered components of this fairly entertaining. It has a powerful aesthetic. The pacing is good and clipped, and it depends largely on ‘displaying’ moderately than ‘telling’, leaving a compelling sense of thriller surrounding its personal protagonists. There is a good spectrum of characterization within the feminine characters: Guideau is rowdy, loud, and able to combat God at any second, and has the bodily power to again up this angle. The episode’s antagonist, Ione, is a crafty, vengeful witch, conceited and harmful otherwise than Guideau; whereas her assistant is golden-hearted and naive.
It is good to see this type of vary, and it is also refreshing to have a boy-girl crew the place she has the ability. The digicam additionally does not leer on the ladies, even when there may be nudity for ritual sacrificial functions. Guideau’s garments are torn to shreds as she fights, however the impact is extra “2007 modern pre-torn skinny denims” than “ooh, attractive battle injury.”
Though… I am left with a couple of questions on Guideau and gender, and I am undecided if it is even correct or applicable to explain or analyze Guideau as a “feminine character.” Within the climactic battle, her physique is destroyed and her ‘true kind’ emerges from Ashaf’s coffin. Her beastly kind is humanoid, though pale yellow and monstrous, and above all seems to be and sounds way more masculine. The character continues to be known as “her” on this scene, however it could prove that Guideau doesn’t essentially determine that approach and easily makes use of the blonde, woman-shaped human physique as a proxy for sensible causes. It’s unclear at this stage. I am intrigued to search out out what precisely is happening in that regard. I am at all times cautiously fascinated by a narrative that makes use of its fantasy parts to play with gender. It is also totally attainable that the main points of this can by no means emerge, or that the entire thing might be dealt with in a wildly cheesy approach, however hey, we’ll see.
We can even should see how The witch and the beast addresses the seemingly central themes of prejudice and energy. The icon of the witch has many various makes use of in popular culture and can be utilized to play with many various threads of social criticism. As a result of witches are usually ladies in a social function that’s stigmatized in patriarchal societies, that is at all times a considerably dangerous matter that advantages from being dealt with with nuance by way of each the characterization and world-building surrounding these characters.
If all of the villains/targets on this present are witches, is your complete sequence about our protagonists kicking the ass of maligned ladies? Or will there be a deeper critique that challenges this assumption that witches are universally evil? Possibly not all witches are the identical, perhaps the Order is a shadowy group; the ethical ambiguity of our bounty hunter protagonists provides me some hope that the tales right here will not be totally black and white. However once more, it is exhausting to say for positive at this level.
The makers to have has made the choice that “kissing a witch” is without doubt one of the three clauses that may undo a curse, which means that Guideau’s ending transfer (earlier than switching into her monster physique) is forcibly planting a hug on Ione. Are we going to see that in each combat scene? Will non-consensual kissing be the best way our all-female villains are defeated each week? What are the deeper implications of this if Guideau is in actual fact simply “pretending” to be a lady and forcing herself on ladies? I stated I used to be fascinated by fantasy with a problem of the sexes, however that is true not right here for fantasy that builds transphobic stereotypes, nevertheless metaphorical, into the story and the magical system.
Once more, there’s room for all of this to turn into one thing fascinating, and there is room for all of this to show right into a horrible, insulting mess. I am tentatively fascinated by giving this one a three-episode run, as I’ve a gentle spot for trendy city fantasy, however I stay very cautious of the precarious approach it balances some heavy subjects and themes.
