* Credits: Ever After High Series
*Warning: spoilers for Ever After High: The Storybook of Legends book and the Ever After High Legacy Day special.
Some time ago, I saw a video by the Youtuber "Schnee" on what makes an iconic scene through analyzing Arcane's "Guns for Hire" scene. In his video, he establishes nine levels of emotional power that, as you scale up, make the scene more powerful. And I recently read the first Ever After High book, The Storybook of Legends, which has a great scene at the end that raises the tensions between the characters. It's the scene where Raven Queen, the protagonist, decides to rebel against her destiny and create her own Happily Ever After. I wondered how it could be so powerful and emotionally moving. So when I revisited the iconic scene video, I realized that the scene most likely utilized eight of the nine levels to make a beautiful tapestry of climax. But before I go over how they are used in Ever After High, we first need to understand WHAT the levels are and how they are used in ANY story. The nine levels, along with a brief description, are as follows:
- Level 1 - Steady EmotionShow a character feeling one emotion steadily through one scene. This makes the audience feel sympathy for the character.
- Level 2 - Neutral to an emotional extreme. The character starts neutral, then shifts into emotion. Showing the shift makes the emotion feel realistic.
- Level 3 - Extreme to extreme. Show the character feeling one emotion, then make them change into feeling another emotion. A shift is just a slight movement, while change transforms. Example - Happy to Sad
-Level 4 - Concentration of the change (time)Instead of the emotional change taking a few minutes, make it last 10 seconds to emphasize the weight of the change. It is concentrated faster. Example - Happy for 2 min to sad for 2 minutes. There is a 10-second changing time.
- Level 5 - Concretization of the change (space). The large change in emotion happens from one small agent. It could be something that someone concentrates all their emotions into. Examples - wedding rings, flags, and crowns.
Level 6 - Build up. Build up the emotional scene with other scenes that all culminate in one moment.
Level 7 - Embellishing the Change. Instead of having just one change with the emotional change of the character, have secondary emotional shifts to demonstrate the weight and stakes of the scene. It should support the ultimate emotional change.
Level 8 - Atmospheric overload. Support the change with additional elements like music and sensory symbolism that immerse the audience into the scene.
Level 9 - Thematic Montage. Show how this emotional change affects all the characters and their arcs built up within the story - make it about everything and everyone.
Now that you know all the levels and how they support an emotional scene, let's see how they're used in the Legacy Day scene. For this, I will use both the "Legacy Day" arc from the Ever After High animated series and The Storybook of Legends book because they both add a lot to the scene. Though, I do like this scene better in the book.
Levels 1-3:
First off, I can confidently say that this scene is at least at level three from how Raven's emotions change (levels 1-2). At the start of the scene, she feels lost and unsure of herself. Her entire book journey followed her trying to prove to Apple, the daughter of Snow White and Milton Grimm, Ever After High's headmaster, that rejecting your predestined fate wouldn't cause everyone in the story to disappear. In her exploration, she discovers The Tale of Two Sisters, which is a tale about two sisters, one beautiful but cruel and one ugly but kind. The beautiful sister drowns the ugly one in the river one day, but the ghosts of the butterflies that always follow her ugly sister drown her as revenge. Bella Sister, the sister meant to play the role of the Cruel Beautiful Sister, wants to reject that awful destiny with her sister, Brutta who is meant to play the Ugly Sister. It is later revealed that Bella created a magical portal that would help her and her sister escape Ever After before Legacy Day. Though, it's unknown if they made it out alive.
YOU ARE READING
Media Rants
General FictionThis is a multi-fandom collection of reviews, analyses, and, like the title implies, rants about different shows, movies, and books that I watched/read and enjoyed. I hope that I can a little more value to what you know about characters/themes in yo...
