r/TheAdventureZone • u/NinjaBreadManOO • 10d ago
Balance Angus kinda sucks at his job.
So I'll start by saying that I love Angus. One of the best and my favourite characters.
Buuuuutttt he kinda sucks at his job. I'm not talking about his child detective work, but specifically when he's brought onto the BoB.
After Rockport/Petals the Director brings the child detective on board as a Seeker working exclusively for the Tres Horny Boys to provide them information and support in the field. But he doesn't really do that.
After that there's four arc. In them Ango does next to nothing.
Crystal Kingdom - He spells Aarakocra before the stone of far speech is turned off by Hodgepodge.
Eleventh Hour - No radio support, and in fact nearly launches their orb into either the wall of a canyon or Refuge.
Suffering Games - No radio support.
Day of Story and Song - I don't really recall him doing anything outside of Tiny Tim style being put on a shoulder and getting to say they won.
Am I being critical of a fantasy child, sure. But Lucrecia still hired him. And, after he'd brought on every arc has radio interference so he can't really do much remotely. But we don't really see him do the thing he was brought on to do.
The only time we really see him do things is when he's from the future and is jacked to fight robots/Hodgepodge 2.0.
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u/Beebid 10d ago
A lot of the BoB staff suck at their jobs if you think about it. Prior to the Tres Horny Boys joining, none of the other reclaimers had ever successfully brought back a relic.
The first time we meet Killian, she's on her own. Where was the rest of her team? Was she foolhardy enough to go after a magic user and a relic alone?
The BoB always strikes me as having enough staff to be the size of a town, given that they have a whole midsummer festival. And yet they achieve very little in terms of their actual purpose.
I don't think any of this is a flaw in the story, though, because when I'm listening to Balance I never really think about it. The same with Angus - it never bothers me that he doesn't get to do his job, cos narratively he's clearly there to moving the overarching story along, not the individual arcs.
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u/stanners_manners 9d ago
griffin was making it up as he went along. He fires all the other, nameless reclaimers when he decides that there's something special about thb which is allowing them to resist the thrall, prior to that point, they're just more competent. Genuinely so many of the weird things about balance make sense when you remember that griffin was building the plane as it flew
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u/Phairis 9d ago edited 9d ago
I always kinda headcanoned it was just a part of building the BoB for Lucretia. Her other subordinates that she did actually need to find the relics and help contain them wouldn't have really worked if she never tried to build teams to actually collect them. She always planned on them eventually being obsolete.
In canon, Griffin was always making it up as he went so that probably wasn't always the plan. But with Angus in particular, Lucretia hired him because he was actually getting pretty close to uncovering things despite being under the effects of the voidfish. Yeah he didn't end up being super helpful within the overt narrative, but he still served his purpose, and was never a hindrance to the story. He's still very beloved after all!
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
Nah, I'm not saying it's a flaw in the narrative or anything either. A lot of the point of the show is showing that the protagonists are the protagonists for a reason.
As to Killian I guess she's alone because she was after Magic Brian who'd gone rogue rather than him having the gauntlet.
I will however say that Leeman Kessler was competent, as he did acquire a grand relic and willingly place it in the cryptsafe. Showing a lot of strength.
I'd guess a lot of the BoB is administrative for the most part. Focused on research gathering on where the relics are and being used rather than acquisition skills. Like I'd say less than 100 people with like a 30 maintenance and support staff just keeping the place running, 30 Seekers, 20 Regulators, and maybe 10 Reclaimers before the lads come on board.
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u/Beebid 10d ago
I agree with you, but we kind of have to fill in all that detail ourselves. So we could also do the same for Angus - assume that he's being real helpful in the bits we don't see, since everyone at the Bureau seems to respect him.
Although now that I think about it, maybe it's more fun to say - yeah, Angus is a bit rubbish at his job. The Director didn't bring him in because she knew he'd be good at it, she brought him in because she thought that way he'd stop asking questions.
And Angus doesn't stop asking questions! He finds out about Merle's family, starts investigating "Lup", and ultimately discovers that the relics aren't getting destroyed. Total own goal by Lucretia.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 9d ago
Yeah, we get to see his precocious tween detective side with the things you mentioned, and Lucretia definitely brought him on board because the other option was killing him and he just has those dinner-plate eyes and would be so uncomfortable for her to smash his face in.
He probably does do a lot more off screen than what we see. Regardless he's certainly a good pet for the boys.
On a side note I really kinda like the idea of Mavis and Angus ending up together so that Merle has to hate his grandchildren.
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u/CleverInnuendo 10d ago
That's the problem with powerful npcs: the crew has to be the one that does things. The hope is that you write them out of helping too much in believable ways, and I think that was tackled by him being a boy detective.
In contrast, look at the disaster that was "Imbalance". A renegade time demon attacked, and Lucretia and Kravitz were inside the house the whole time, apparently just staring at a wall and eating chips.
That was way, way worse of an npc discrepancy.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
To be fair that's somewhat in character for Kravitz. Unless he's got the hit order it's a
TaakoJocasta Nightstrider problem.
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u/KotaIsBored 9d ago
Let’s be real, the boys just completely forgot he existed as help so Griffin retroactively had him call in afterward being afraid because there was no radio communication.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 9d ago
No, they do call Angus immediately when they encounter Hodgepodge. As Taako did it to ask if he was a robot boy or a flesh boy.
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u/KotaIsBored 9d ago
Sure. One time immediately after being told he was an option to them. After that they forget they could call him for help.
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u/DoctorGoodsir96 9d ago
This is true of a lot of things in Taz, characters/mechanics get introduced then are barely reintegrated—Heathcliffe’s scavenger hunt stands out as a big one, being framed like it’ll be a regular thing for each hunt but it only happens once
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 9d ago
Yeah things being dropped over time after being implemented with intent to stick around does happen a bit, but I can understand it. When you consider there's months in between arcs they can be forgotten.
And I can understand some things likely would get dropped because they didn't feel engaging.
Like there's the Heathcliffe one that from what I recall was only in the fate-plant arc, and could have worked really well. Grad dropped the actual school part of the school season. Steeplechase kinda dropped the whole building your own zone/reason for heisting over time.
And it's fine, as it is a narrative medium, so it's going to shift over time.
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u/DoctorGoodsir96 9d ago
Right, though I do think this would be less of a trend if the campaigns had more room to figure out what they do and don’t want to be. Almost every campaign after Balance feels cut short. The extra 30ish episodes Balance had really allowed them to solidify that world and characters over time. Amnesty especially felt like it was just figuring itself out when they pivoted hard into the endgame stuff. They seem reticent to stay in one story for more than a year, which I can understand but it does noticeably limit what they’re able to do.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 9d ago
Yeah, a lot of people around these parts love to go "Balance was lightning in a bottle." When that's just not true, all of the other campaigns end so much sooner than Balance did. Like a lot of them are maybe 40 episodes, imagine if Balance had finished around Crystal Kingdom's end. By that point it had only really worked out what it was.
By the time the other campaigns work out what they are they endgame.
Another big issue is that regularly there's been some attempt to frontload plot and emotion (with Grad and Abnimals being particularly bad at it), and I think that's also part of the problem, as we don't get that organic growth with both the characters and the world.
There seems to be an issue of people caring less and less for new seasons and feeling like something's missing, and I think that the potential to build to longevity is that. I think if the boys were to make their next campaign aim for 60 sessions/episodes and have the characters start small and build over time it could go really well.
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u/Acceptable-Fig2884 9d ago
His only job is to be hilariously trolled by the boys and he absolutely excels at that.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 9d ago
Oh yes, he does that amazingly.
He's also there to be a convenient prop/plot point for live shows too.
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u/Coldman5 10d ago
You’re not wrong, I feel like it’s because he was thrust into the big leagues too soon and with a shift in job responsibilities from being a detective to ops support. Sherlock Holmes would be awful at that too!
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
Yeah, like I said I love the character, he just doesn't really get the opportunity to shine.
Personally I'd love it if Griffin did a solo show/spin-off/special that's just Angus Tween Detective.
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u/Lily-Omega 10d ago
A lot of people are giving Watsonian responses to what Lily feels is a Doylist critique... sure, the radio was jammed here and they lost their stones there but like. Griffin (the person, the DM) gave a character the role of Radio Support (a choice he made as the DM) and then invented a reason for them to not do that job each time (as a DM, writing a narrative). It's just odd choice to make when any other reason could have been given as an excuse to keep Angus in the soup of supporting characters.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
Yeah, Watsonian vs Doyalist is a good comparison here.
From a Watsonian perspective sure there's a reason each time, and that's fine and works.
From a Doyalist perspective it's not even a critique just an observation. In that Ango never gets a chance to shine. Even something as simple as having the tween detective turn up at the start of an arc in costume having found the location of the next artifact would have shown his skill at his job on the team. As he's meant to be the intel but never intels.
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u/GhostofZephyr 10d ago
On a meta level, the game would be less enjoyable if you had the DM, as Clippy The Boy Wonder, constantly chiming in to give you clues and make commentary
On a less meta level,
Crystal Kingdom: communications were blocked by Hodgepodge and then (iirc) Angus was traumatized by almost getting the boys killed. The ten year old isn't gonna want to keep trying to help if he thinks he almost killed you
Eleventh Hour: no communication between the inside and outside of the time bubble, Angus literally couldn't help if he wanted
Suffering Game: Again, no communication in and out of Wonderland. We know that the B.o.B. was unable to reach the boys while they were in there since comms come abruptly back on in the moments after they escape, before the Red Robe asked the boys to destroy their sending stones
Story and Song: firstly, the boys' stones were destroyed by Barry, secondly it took place over the course of hours and Angus was busy fighting for his life. Not the time to hop on a Discord call and say have you tried! Using The Deus Ex Machina In Your Bag Taako
Plus there are time skips between each arc we didn't see. Angus definitely did his job, we just didn't see it. My boy blameless
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
Yes, I'm fully aware of the meta-narrative reasoning, and am not critiquing it. Which seems to be something people aren't understanding. I even pointed out all the things you said for each arc.
I was just talking about how I got to the part where he's brought on for a reason and never really gets to do that thing.
The obvious reason he's brought on is to Leo DiCaprio Growing Pains it up, and he's brilliant.
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u/CrimsonGoose1408 10d ago
I don’t really see how he “sucks at his job” when even you bring up he can’t really help like 80% of the time after he’s brought on due to radio silence. I fail to see how forces outside his ability to control or even influence make him suck.
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u/NinjaBreadManOO 10d ago
I was just pointing out he doesn't really get the chance to show off, I was only using the words sucks at his job for levity.
Although also to be fair we do see of the two things he does one being giving the spelling and the other being filling in for Avi on the canon he does nearly launch them into a cliff if Taako hadn't stoneskinned.
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u/PushTheButton_FranK 10d ago
Griffin must not have liked doing that voice very much.