Red and Blue make Purple

Anonymous asked:

i was talking with a friend and dallies and evas kids came up and we couldn't really come to an agreement on how we thought about them. i thought they were cute but she thought they were too much. what do you think about the kids

Aaah, the children of Dofus and Wakfu. How diverse they are, especially when it comes to Wakfu and Dofus as separate sections. I have my own personal thoughts and opinions about Elely and Flopin but if we are going to talk about them, we should talk about the other children as well! It is only fair, no?

I’ll be going by age and the ‘main ’ child characters below the age of ten (with one exception). This is going to be a LONG post with some spoilers and, again, personal opinions and observations. Cue the flood!

First up are the five year old twins of Tristepin and Evangelyne!

Elely. The first of the twins to appear in the OVA episodes, Elely struck me as a hyperactive no-nonsense kind of girl who is a daddy’s girl through and through. She was fun the moment she appeared on screen. While I started to warm up to her instantly, my like for her sizzled and died when she engaged into combat in the (what I call) boiler room of Frigost. My main issue with child characters, especially when so young, is that they aren’t written as young children. They have the speech and the looks but for the rest it is a miniature adult. Elely didn’t start out as such but she became such a character the moment she rushed head first into the fight and (though with the help of Rubilax) actually managed to kick some butt. The events which followed after didn’t really save her anymore for me. She was overpowered in several ways, though no surprise as she is a supposed demigod AND an Iop. If she weren’t so over the top, I would have liked her as a child character of five years old. She is freakin’ cute though and still the better child character Wakfu had to offer (below the age of ten).

But I’ll be honest here… Elely surely wasn’t as bad as Flopin.

Flopin was an instant bore and eyeroller for me the moment he was introduced on screen. He was pictured as a five year old prodigy with his little crossbow, effortlessly hitting every target thrown at him. He even managed to shoot Otomaï from the sky with one single shot and didn’t blink at the fact he just shot a bird right out of the sky. The writers did try to have him come across as a child, but where Elely was hyperactive, Flopin was the opposite. He was the mature one of the twins and boy… was he mature! Yikes. Goodbye inner child, it was nice knowing you… if we ever did.
Now I don’t know if Flopin is a demigod too since mixbreeds don’t exist in the World of Twelve among the Disciples. Because he is (supposedly) Cra through and through, the divinity of his Iop father shouldn’t have an effect on him. If this is the case, I have no logical explanation for Flopin being such a skilled archer at the age of five. I don’t. And I don’t like it. I am sorry. I don’t care how good his mother is or how much she trained him in those five years; every Cra is skilled with a bow, it is their purpose in life. I just find five years to be so very young for the skill Flopin possesses. If he were older, like… eleven, I wouldn’t have had such an issue with it; it is Wakfu, skillful teens are a thing. Because of his unbelievable skill and unchild like maturity for a toddler, Flopin is my number two of ‘Child characters I dislike in Wakfu and Dofus’ list.

Chibi takes first place on this list.

While we didn’t see much of him, first impressions are important and, well… he sure made his first impression by me! While many were gushing over how cute Chibi was in the OVA, I was shaking my head at how spoiled he was. His crying, whimpering and whining were not impressive or cute. He is a year older than Elely and Flopin but surely didn’t act like he was the oldest of the trio. This could be the blame to parenting, I wouldn’t be surprised if so as the Percedals and Alibert both raised their children completely different, but damn… what a brat. He laughed during a moment of mischief, whimpered when rightfully scolded, turned the guilt onto the one scolding him, gloated when he would get something for guilt tripping, cried when his ‘reward’ was taken from him, gloated when he got a replacement without even saying thank you and then (sadistically) watched his dragon brother Grougaloragran devour a demigod which was pleading for help. Class A, Chibi. Class A. You just keep suckling on that raw piece of Gobball meat. Yuck.
Now, this is somewhat more child-like in behavior in comparison to the twins (especially Flopin) because bratty spoiled children do exist, but it was way too much for his introduction. He looked adorable, he truly did, but his personality destroyed the cute factor for me and we only saw him for a very short while to boot. He kind of scared me… Can I have infant Chibi instead?

Onto Dofus and to a young Kerubim!

What I have noticed is that the Dofus franchise is much more true to how children are than Wakfu is. In Wakfu the young characters, even those in their teen years, have tremendous powers and large responsibilities which in turn gives them but a few chances to actually be a child or be written as such. It didn’t help the Wakfu cast didn’t really look their age either before the OVA… Aux trésors de Kerubim/Treasures of Kerub/Kerub’s Bazaar is cut of a whole different block than Wakfu; it is less plot heavy and doesn’t require the characters to go through very life threatening situations. When they do, it is toned down so much that it hardly seemed dangerous from the get-go. It was a show for children and it actually did pretty well with allowing the young viewers to identify themselves with the young cast. Also, the voice acting for child characters was much better in Dofus.

So young/kitten Kerubim (before his rivalry with Indie begins) gets in all sorts of situations which could potentially take his life or even scar him for life (God Ecaflip, you’re a dick) but he is never over the top, he is never overdoing it and never gives off the sense he is overpowered in any way. He stays a child and reacts like a child no matter cheeky and a troublemaker. He is believable and so are most of his childhood friends. Even Bashi feels natural as a kid and he is a freakin’ hammerhead shark! Shower me in your wisdom, Aux trésors writers!

We are staying in the kid friendly world of Dofus a little longer as we turn to the seven year old Jojo.

It is no secret that Joris is my favorite for many reasons, but one of the reasons I adore his seven year old self is simply because he is a child. No matter what he says, thinks or does, it is a child’s reaction; I see a seven year old act the very same way and when you can place a fictional child character in the real world without their behavior making them stand out/look alien, it means it is a well written character. He looks a bit strange and is so very small in size but he is the most believable and natural child character of the whole Krosmoz franchise. I often believe it is because he isn’t facing any life threatening situations that he gets to be like a true kid but then Chibi didn’t really go through anything bad either in the town of Emelka. They both had strange beginnings, they both gone through something as an infant but while growing up their lives were pretty damn peaceful for the family they lived with. And yeah, both are destined for great things.
Anywho, back to Dofus… This opinion of mine may change with the upcoming movie where Joris will be ten years old and will have some nasty stuff happening to him which won’t really allow him to be a child anymore. With the way he was written in Aux trésors, I surely hope that he won’t turn into a ‘Wakfu child character’ where the sudden responsibilities will strip him from that natural child feel he had going for over fifty episodes.

And thus the final child, the exception to the ‘below ten years old’ rule because he is over two hundred years old; Ogrest.

Now this is the child character Wakfu needed. No matter his age, what he is or what he gone through, he is more a child than Elely, Flopin and Chibi combined; he is genuine. Ogrest is unnaturally strong and had a peculiar childhood but he has a heart and mind of a child and never lost it. He is naive, inquisitive and impulsive as a four to five year old would and should be but also cautious, shy, angry or sad at the right moments without going over the top with it (or not enough). Even when knowing he was wronged and having felt unwanted for so many years, he still reacts as a child rather than take on a mature approach (which would be an easy thing to do for a writer because writing for child characters is hard!). Ogrest had a whole special episode devoted to himself, along with a manga and his appearance in the OVA episodes; no matter what, he remained a character which felt true to how a child is like. I honestly like him.

Whew, that was a bit to write after having spent several days stuck in bed. I have several more Asks to answer but I’ll do that later after some rest.

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.