I just realized that the big climactic fight scene at the end of an action movie is meant to be cathartic - it’s meant to be releasing all the anxiety and pain and hatred and other emotions that the movie has been building up in the audience

it extremely doesn’t for me - it just increases those emotions even more and when the bad guy is defeated it’s like all of the intensity suddenly drops out with no real closure

because the thing is that those climactic fight scenes always emphasize how much of a struggle it is for the protagonist and how much they’re in danger and getting hurt. and I can’t feel catharsis while also worrying about their safety. like I love the first John Wick movie but I have to stop watching at the end because it’s just too much for me. it’s like it just twists the knife for no reason and then unceremoniously ends

this vent inspired by this video

CWs: violence, blood, subjugation, death, sexualized character design

which does an anime thing that I fucking hate which is doing things to hurt me (killing a character and showing the other one enslaved and sent to die) and then going “haha just kidding there were actually no stakes in this story. we just manipulated you into feeling pain for funsies”

@kasdeya sometimes yeah — not always though. often the fight scene is still meant to be part of the story's tension — a moment where the characters give all their effort, do everything they can, and aren't yet certain if they will or won't succeed

you can often tell whether a scene is meant to be part of the tension or part of the payoff by how much time is spent afterwards for "release" — if the big conflict was intended to be a tension climax then there's often a longer epilogue / release / "dénouement" to close out the story, tie up loose plot threads, and give a chance for the audience to come down from the emotional climax they've just been through

(though in more recent storytelling, particularly action movies, there had been a trend of having a high-tension climax and then deliberately shortening the release in favor of holding some of the tension into a cliffhanger tease for the next installment . . . which we have mixed feelings about)