South Park was better when the kids acted like kids /u/Putrid-Seaweed111 South Park

I copy and pasted this from r/CharacterRant

One of my gripes with South Park is how the characters (mainly the kids) aren’t really written as people. I watched clips of the CRED special and just went “Okay, I get it, influencers suck, but why should I care?.” The characters felt less like actual people and just vehicles Matt and Trey were using to make a point. And then I realized that South Park has always been like that. Sure, there are some character-driven episodes but those don’t happen often for a reason. The selling point of South Park has always been its social/political commentary, and its characters were always a means to that end.

Now, I will acknowledge the show has always had social commentary, but there were also episodes that shied away from that and focused solely on the kids being kids (Bebe’s Boobs Destroy Society, Raisins, Marjorine, The List, Free Willzyx, Awesom-o, etc.). I like these because we see the characters when they aren’t being used to cover whatever was in the news that week. Unfortunately, we rarely get that.

Nowadays, the kids act more like adults or teenagers more than anything. Plus, characters will just change to suit whatever the plot needs. Season 20 is a perfect example. They wanted to cover the election, but made several big character changes (Gerald becoming irredeemable and Cartman and Butters swapping personalities, to name a few). And they had to hastily rewrite the last 4 episodes because the election didn’t go the way they planned, which the entire season was banking on. So all the unbearable things in this season either got resolved in a shitty way (Gerald getting away with everything) or didn’t get resolved at all (the gender war never got an actual ending in the show and Butters is still a misogynist).

To end things on a positive note, the games are genuinely better in terms of characterization. The plots of Stick Of Truth, The Fractured But Whole and the rest are like the episodes I mentioned in the second paragraph, with the kids being kids without it being some allegory for something in the real world. I found Kyle and Wendy (who I don’t entirely vibe with due to being mouthpieces) so much more fun.

TLDR; South Park is better when the kids act like kids, but Matt and Trey don’t want that

Side Note, but I like how Professor Chaos and Call Girl get along well in TFBW, a complete opposite from the actual show.

I copy and pasted this from r/CharacterRant

One of my gripes with South Park is how the characters (mainly the kids) aren’t really written as people. I watched clips of the CRED special and just went “Okay, I get it, influencers suck, but why should I care?.” The characters felt less like actual people and just vehicles Matt and Trey were using to make a point. And then I realized that South Park has always been like that. Sure, there are some character-driven episodes but those don’t happen often for a reason. The selling point of South Park has always been its social/political commentary, and its characters were always a means to that end.

Now, I will acknowledge the show has always had social commentary, but there were also episodes that shied away from that and focused solely on the kids being kids (Bebe’s Boobs Destroy Society, Raisins, Marjorine, The List, Free Willzyx, Awesom-o, etc.). I like these because we see the characters when they aren’t being used to cover whatever was in the news that week. Unfortunately, we rarely get that.

Nowadays, the kids act more like adults or teenagers more than anything. Plus, characters will just change to suit whatever the plot needs. Season 20 is a perfect example. They wanted to cover the election, but made several big character changes (Gerald becoming irredeemable and Cartman and Butters swapping personalities, to name a few). And they had to hastily rewrite the last 4 episodes because the election didn’t go the way they planned, which the entire season was banking on. So all the unbearable things in this season either got resolved in a shitty way (Gerald getting away with everything) or didn’t get resolved at all (the gender war never got an actual ending in the show and Butters is still a misogynist).

To end things on a positive note, the games are genuinely better in terms of characterization. The plots of Stick Of Truth, The Fractured But Whole and the rest are like the episodes I mentioned in the second paragraph, with the kids being kids without it being some allegory for something in the real world. I found Kyle and Wendy (who I don’t entirely vibe with due to being mouthpieces) so much more fun.

TLDR; South Park is better when the kids act like kids, but Matt and Trey don’t want that

Side Note, but I like how Professor Chaos and Call Girl get along well in TFBW, a complete opposite from the actual show.