Asklemmy

I so feel this!

We're watching Ragnarok (Netflix) which is a Norwegian series that ran for four seasons. The lead character is flawed and unlikeable in a lot of ways we'd never intentionally do in an American production. And there's this character arc where one of villains is slowly turning good, while the hero begins to betray his morals. I don't know if I'm giving the producers too much credit, but I see a lot of subtlety in the characters I don't notice in US shows - behaviors which are infuriating but make sense in the context of the character's core persona.

A shame it didn't do well in Norway; one of the reviews bitingly said that it was bad and "felt more like a Danish series." We've been really enjoying it as a breath of fresh air in the superhero genre, and just finished season 2. It got only 3 seasons.

As a postfix, yes, I've seen Heroes, and yes it's a hard divergence from the typical genre. But I feel it mostly aims for shock value, and just took a trope and switched the premise - it didn't substantially add character depth.

Here are two examples: in Ragnarok, we're told repeatedly by a mother that her son has always had a strong sense of law and justice. Later, when the authority figures around him are telling him to do things and he's just passively following their orders, it was infuriating until I realized: well, what do we expect him to do? Rebel? The second example is that the hero is not a deep thinker. He's not clever, he doesn't have witty one-liners... he's literally a mouth-breather - he spends much of the show mutely standing there with his mouth open, until there's a situation where he can be violent. But he's Thor, and not American Thor. He's not a figure known for his cleverness. I can't think of a case in American film & TV where the leading protagonist is so flawed, in unattractive, un-sexy ways.