Fandom Friday-Red Vs Blue and Tonal Changes

At long last, it is time for a Fandom Friday on Red vs. Blue. My absolute favorite web series, I started watching the show about two bases in the middle of a box-canyon sometime around the summer of 2006, just before entering high school. Yes, it was quite inappropriate for me at that age.

Just in case you haven't taken the time to watch this decades-old web series, it was one of the first machinima series: a show filmed using a video game, using players as voice actors and cameramen while their characters are what appeared on-screen.

The story begins following two squads in a civil war manning bases on an alien planet in the Halo universe. Don't worry, you don't need to know anything about Halo to enjoy Red vs Blue. It starts off as a comedy series, full of silly characters bouncing off each other with amazing dialogue.

As the seasons go on, the plot overtakes the comedy, and by season 6, Reconstruction, the series's tone permanently changes for the more dramatic, while still generally keeping it's sense of humor.

For this editorial, I'll do my best not to directly spoil anything from the show, but I do heavily recommend watching the first ten seasons of the show before continuing with the reading of this article.

The best way Red vs Blue ratcheted up the tension and ably altered the tone was through what TvTropes calls Wham Lines. These are lines of dialogue that either reveal something unexpected, radically reinterpret past events, or redirects the series in a new direction. There are multiple Wham Lines in Reconstruction, but the most powerful and impactful of which was from a line at the end of episode 16, said from newer character Agent Washington to a main character.

When I first started watching Red vs Blue, the show had barely started it's fifth season, and once I was caught up I stayed up to date. When the aforementioned Wham Line hit, it radically altered my perspective of the first five seasons, and caused a great deal of theorizing in the fandom.

The line was also a retcon. Roosterteeth had started the series as a Sci-Fi Comedy, and only after it had attained massive success over five seasons did their thoughts turn to really making the show into something deeper and more focused. By that point, however, the continuity of the series was full of silly ridiculous nonsense there for telling jokes that could seriously hamper any amount of seriousness going forward. This one line immediately reframed what came before, and left the viewer in a tighter, more legitimate science fiction universe.

The other major (I mean really major) tonal shift happens in one of the last scenes of Season 10. It isn't even a line, this time. Two seasons of storyline, and more, are completely altered with a shot, one look between two characters.

This one visual makes a rewatch of Seasons 9 and 10 into an entirely new experience, a new story that is far more interesting than the already good story is seemed before. The dynamic between characters is instantly reframed.

What also makes this scene different from Reconstruction's line is that this is clearly not a retcon. Seasons 9 and 10, possibly earlier seasons as well, were crafted with this reveal in mind. This allows every scene with those characters to purposely be read in two different ways, and for each of those ways to make sense and be narratively satisfying.

A lot of people fail to give Web Series credit for the work put into them. Red vs Blue, on the whole, is just as good as some of the best television comedies, nit at its deepest points the series doubles as excellent character drama and fantastic science fiction. If you haven't given a try yet, you really should. Next week I'll be looking at something I found in my closet.

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