“I’m just not loving this as much as everyone else. I LIKE it, but I don’t LOVE it. Which is why I’ll start part one of
Pete’s Overly-Detailed Explanation of Why He Doesn’t Love Saga, Which Nobody Asked For
Part One: Narration
I think the idea of the kid narrating the story works in that it provides another texture to the story. It’s a good way for a character to step out of the story and use some of those helpful phrases like, “I didn’t know it then,” or “What they didn’t know was” or “My mom always said.”
Buuuuut I think it only works if you don’t think about it too much.
For one, there’s a lot of stuff that she probably wouldn’t know. I mean, all the various things that happen in the subplots, I’m skeptical about that stuff.
There’s a volume coming up where Hazel’s in a box, but most of what we see is what’s happening outside the box. That doesn’t really make sense.
It’s picky, I know. But it’s not like I told Brian K. Vaughan that he had to use the premise. That was his idea.
It’s like The Office. The premise was that it was all being filmed as a reality show, but as the seasons wore on the premise was mostly dropped. They would still do confessional scenes, but there would be things that don’t really make sense to be filmed. For example, the scene where Dwight tricks Angela into marrying him. They talk about it after, and that seems like a conversation they’d take pains to keep private.
Just like the Office, you don’t really notice when Hazel’s narration doesn’t make sense because it’s simply not there. It’s there when we need it, but it fades out when we don’t. Just like in the Office, some stories are worth telling in a way that violates the premise because the premise will survive, and the story is too good to skip or narrating it through Hazel is too much gymnastics to make it work.
Picky? Fuck yeah. But I’m a picky dude. “