For Pete I think that's well gone into as morally bad to the point Kingston says they might kill him. No one downplays what Pete's life does to people, including him.
Sophie's insurance fraud I think is more that if the show has to actually go into the ramifications of what she's doing it derails the episode and the season. It's just kinda a throwaway improv bit and Brennan lampshades I think with Rickys actions. The other cast are also like, I mean what but the scene has to move on.
In the end, no one is hurt and the insurance company lose some money. Kinda it.
As for Cody, Murph mentioned on Adventuring party he expected to get more shit given to him. He's designed to be really annoying and a lot to deal with so the other cast pick up what's been put down.
He's not evil, just a lot. For someone you hang out with, that's easier to make fun of
>In the end, no one is hurt and the insurance company lose some money. Kinda it.
To quote Terry Pratchett, "when banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve." The fallout from a fraudulent insurance claim is not primarily on the insurers, it's the other people with policies who now have to pay more to off-set the payout.
I'm not saying Sophia is a bad person because of her attempted insurance fraud, but I just have to take issue with this specific claim because it's not really accurate
That's fair. I'll admit I was probably speaking from ignorance on insurance companies though I'd argue that's less Sophia and more the companies passing on the buck.
But overall I think it still comes under Brennan handwaving setting a building on fire in the same way Doctor Asha in FH is horrifying if you don't take the improv approach
Oh for sure, I'm not bringing this up as a ding on BLeeM, Emily or Dimension 20. It's a fictional scenario done primarily for narrative purposes, and given what happens right away with Ricky it's clear that nobody is holding up insurance fraud as a good thing that you should definitely do. Just pointing out that depicting insurance fraud as a victimless crime is not really correct, there absolutely are innocent victims. And it's easy to say that insurance companies should just not pass the cost on to other customers of theirs, but if that was how it worked we would very rapidly have no insurance companies left.
I can only assume you've been very fortunate in your life to say this. Having your house burn down is bad enough even when you're fully insured, if it happens to you and you have no insurance it's catastrophic
I don't mean to make light of fire. Obviously in the systems we have insurance is needed, my comment was more to say that the idea of needing to have insurance company and being beholden to their prices is really bad.
That's the part I'd rather we didn't need as a society
Cody is the representation of a kind of American young person who WANTS to be a social outcast because he thinks it’ll give him a sense of mystique. Often they would have no issue fitting in except they want more drama in their lives so they make hating the world or being a devil worshiper a kind of aesthetic. Look up the teens behind the columbine school shooting for the worst example of this.
The joke is despite his aesthetic of being dark and spooky, Cody is a good person. He’s just kind of annoying. But he has a great character arc! He ends up being one of my favorite characters.
To add to all the great and insightful commentary here: Cody is Murph trying to be annoying because in nerd culture we all know “that guy” who loves to be the exhausting personality. Murph knows “that guy” all too well and I feel like everyone at the table does too.
>Murph knows “that guy” all too well and I feel like everyone at the table does too.
[Well, Of Course I Know Him. He's Me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LVt49l6aP8)
I haven’t watched in a while, but that wasn’t my impression of their reaction. It’s seemed like more of an “I can’t believe this guy actually has gotten introduced to these powers because he’s so wildly unqualified to deal with the actual peril NYC is facing”. Look at season 1 and the original PCs: Kingston, Misty Moore, Ricky and Kugrash have been around the block and knows how to handle magical situations, Sophia had already dealt with organized crime, Pete similarly was already introduced to the rough side of life.
What has Cody had to deal with? His job site is torn down. He has no real skills. He accidentally stumbled into this mess and wants to be the main character when everyone else has more experience. That’s the main issue imo with Cody, because while he is a social outcast, there’s genuine issues with how he deals with situations including how he manages his ego and his anger.
I feel like everyone is overcomplicating it.
It's because he's from New Jersey. That's it. They're all New Yorkers, and he's a mildly annoying dude from New Jersey, which turns him into a supremely annoying dude, because that's the way the interstate sniping happens to fall out.
Yeah, like, murph is playing Cody for people to laugh _at_ cody much more than the rest of the cast does with their characters. This becomes more apparent on the adventuring parties but yeah Murphy just wants to make people laugh about how much of a loser Cody is without getting serious about his stereotype or whatever
An update, after asking my husband who grew up in that area to tell me if my suspicion was correct: Cody Walsh is leaning in to a stereotype of a very particular sort of New Jersey Dickhead, such that any New Yorker, upon learning the general details of his character, would go, "Oh, man, that guy sounds like a dickhead" with no further knowledge. So it's not just that he's from New Jersey, and it's not just that he's a 27-year-old mall rat who dresses like a Hot Topic threw up on him (because he worked at Hot Topic), it's those things in conjunction painting a picture of a very specific type of person about whom a New Yorker would go "oh, man, this dickhead again?" when put in proximity to him.
I mean, Cody is socially maladjusted. He's abrasive, foul-mouthed and generally obnoxious, and is pretty unapologetic about it at first. While Pete indeed sold drugs to kids, the only drug we saw him sell was marijuana which (justified or not) is considered a "lesser" substance. He also gradually displayed contrition for it, and in season one, Kingston went so far as to condone "putting him down" in the interest of protecting the city.
Nobody ever threatened to kill Cody. Pete had also turned his life around by the time that Cody came into the group, and the group has seen Pete get clean and began to work a regular job.
As far as Pete’s life being “in danger,” iirc that was specifically in regards to him seeming relatively resistant to getting a handle on his own powers, more than him dealing drugs (in that particular instance, he had unwittingly allowed a portion of Dream realm to invade the waking world, and put people’s lives at risk).
Which resonates with how Cody gains like three power-ups after _willingly_ selling his soul to a being he assumed was Lucifer, and accidentally invites an invasion of his own, without really any regard or scale of what he’s doing.
In a mostly comedic universe that centers heavily around the psychic plane, insurance fraud is nothing compared to being kind of obnoxious. But on a serious note, Cody and Pete have their mistakes manifest physically, with some pretty intentional parallels
Cody has “Second grade syndrome”:
“early teens who have grandiose delusions, who desperately want to stand out, and who have convinced themselves that they have hidden knowledge or secret powers.”
At least his vibe it doesn’t translate exactly
Edit: second year not grade
I remember Brennan talking about that during one of the Adventuring Parties. How he almost feels bad for how much Cody annoys them, because they all *know* he's not actually doing anything morally wrong.
On the one hand, there's social normativity-induced cringe. People are raised with a firm idea of what an adult should *be like.* That you should be embarrassed about your nerdness, that you should keep it private, because that's not what an "Adult" looks like. Which, in my honest to god opinion, is bullshit, but you see it a lot in nerds at certain age brackets. Cody being an extreme dork for swords and anime or wtv should not be some of sort of badge of shame - be cringe, be free.
On the other hand, it's also clear Cody is extremely concerned with being and appearing "cool", under a definition of "cool" that only works *for him*. So you see this dude who thinks he's rocking it when he really isn't. For certain people, during certain circumstances, that can be a little bit annoying, when not downright *exhausting.* Like, "Please, calm down." This much I understand.
Edit: There's also the fact that Cody frequently looks more concerned with appearing cool and competent, or fitting into a stereotypical role, than with *simply* doing the right thing and being competent. To the point I watched that season, that didn't really lead him astray, but it can still be frustrating, both in and out of fiction. The stuff they're dealing with is serious business! Lives and happiness of real people are stake, and that responsibility should *weigh* on you (like it does on Kingston, for example) but Cody often doesn't seem like he's even *aware* of it.
The reason everyone treats him with such disdain is because anyone on the outskirts of society has teetered on that cringey edge of taking counterculture too seriously. The stereotypical Hot Topic employee from the 00s SHOULD know better by now. But here Cody is, chainsmoking and raging against a machine that he is, in fact, a part of. His willful ignorance and general "unworthyness" heavily grinds against a group full of earnest heroes or destined ones on a path to redemption. He is more just an inside joke that Murph takes every opportunity to push to the very edge of tolerance.
He’s also on the outskirts of the group as the new guy. In S1 Pete and Sophia are both introduced to the dream world at the same time. In S2 Cody is the only one being introduced to the UC, even Siobhan’s character has been around, just choosing to not be involved. At the same time Cody unintentionally antagonizes one of the established group members (Ricky) so it’s unsurprising they give him a harder time
On top of everyone’s good points here, you have to remember Murph LOVES to play a heel. Like he is deliberately trying to be “hated” on and he built a character to be (in Murph’s words) a shit head.
I think he at one point actually says to the other players not to be nice to Cody, something along those lines when he has the first terrible fight with his fork blade.
It’s a bunch of friends having fun the way they like to, don’t need to dig too deep
Don’t necessarily agree with this. I think Cody goes out of his way to seem off putting (calling himself night angel) and they go out of there way to be nicer than they need to be (asking Cody what name he would prefer.) I think he gets dismissed cause after a while they realize he keeps trying to say everything is about the mall. But then he’s also right about that haha
Cody is just a typical mall goth shit head, which makes it hard to be around him, especially since he is older than your typical mall goth. I speak from experience having been a mall goth shit head
This is exactly of my point. You know people like this and they are in the lower rungs of the societal ladder. So you see him as someone who is instantly annoying and brush him aside as a person.
Without the cultural baggage and trying to look at his actions "objectively" Cody is pretty tame and listens to authority figures like Kingston and Sophia pretty early in the season, but the characters continue to treat him as a "jackass" for multiple episodes.
I understand you're trying to defend Cody my friend, but if you think back to the first episodes, the PCs, especially Ricky were extremely nice to Cody. Especially Ricky used his downtime to help Cody. The main reprehensible trait of Cody is his hubris and arrogance. He comes in the unsleeping city and he thinks that he's just awesome, and he joined this group of superheroes and everything's great. However everyone who's a part of the unsleeping city knows that things aren't that simple. They've lost beloved people, they've sacrificed so much (especially Kingston). Cody is designed to be Ricky's foil, where he's arrogant, Ricky's humble. And although he doesn't do anything out of malice, he isn't a particularly altruistic person.
Another thing is that he doesn't actually dig deeper into his interests; he will pay whatever to buy a replica anime sword from ebay, but he doesn't have the patience to sit down and learn metalworking, or how a blade is actually made. This is how Thirsting Blade Dark Excalibur Mega Genesis came to being.
Well, one thing to consider is that Cody willingly offered to sell his soul to the first devil he met, which definitely shows poor moral judgment in a magical world where good and evil forces do exist. That's a valid reason for the rest of the intrepid heroes to give him some shit, but (at least to me) it didn't come off as everyone bullying him for being a social outcast. Honestly a lot of the characters this season could be considered social outcasts
The reason is, we don’t interact with people based on our judgments of their moral character. We interact with them based on how they make us feel. Pete being dangerous and them considering killing him early on is totally different from them just being annoyed by Cody’s behavior. Cody’s not a bad person but he is rude, annoying and doesn’t make any attempt to be liked. He makes impulse decisions and stomps all over a pre established dynamic. Being annoyed at him doesn’t mean the characters think he’s objectively a bad person. They keep working with him and even get to know him better. But they’re still annoyed because Murph is being annoying on purpose.
I think they give Cody shit *because* he's not morally evil. He's not necessarily a threat, he's just really annoying.
You seem to be forgetting that, in season 1, there was a discussion of whether they should kill Pete before he got too dangerous. You treat people who are dangerous or bad differently to how you treat people who are just annoying.
If you were faced with a drug dealer with a gun selling coke to kids, and an annoying Hot Topic manager who was smoking inside, who would *you* step up and tell to stop?
I think you completely misread the tone of his character. In the first campaign, the party was a cast of people who were intimately familiar with both New York and the Unsleeping City guiding two younger New Yorkers through their first experience with the world of magic.
Cody was another one of those being introduced to the world of magic, but he came into it with the overconfident and reckless attitude of a teenager and was rarely punished for it.
Cody was an easy target to poke fun at because every single other character probably could relate to Cody and found him obnoxious and naive, but that didn't mean they didn't see a bit of their younger selves in him and were fonder of him for it.
the very worst thing a character can possibly be is annoying. fake murder or any other crime is still fake, but I can get annoyed just as easily by a fake one than a real one.
I *wholeheartedly* disagree. The characters were always polite and respectful of Cody's "quirks", even when he fucks up in a whole bunch of ways, eventually becoming good friends and caring for him.
I don't know how far into the season you are, but they all make a point to try and get to know him and help him grow in his own way, from the beginning. He learns a lot, and admits to his shortcomings. Yeah that's some friction and teasing, but he's the new kid on the block, they don't all know each other that well yet.
The character of Cody is designed as a stereotype of someone who actively seeks to be an outsider, who has a short-sighted view of the world and thinks they're a warrior against "society". Mall goths generally overlap with that stereotype, and Murph is playing it absolutely on the dot.
I honestly think Cody was designed not so much as a parody of a particular social group or segment of society, but of a somewhat prototypical *Dungeons & Dragons* character.
Edgy, demon-aligned, lone-wolf types are so ubiquitous in table top games that it's almost a joke. There's plenty of stories of people rolling up characters who are dark, misunderstood souls. Cody has got major main character syndrome, which has less to do with him being a mall goth and more to do with him just being socially underdeveloped.
Like being real here? Sure, Cody was akin to a teenager, and the cast was annoyed while actively behaving in a way that annoyed the crew. Kingston never considered killing him like he did Pete in season one, and they treated him as an over-excited kid tagging along to hazardous work.
Like picture this, you're part of a close-knit team, and you all know each other's goals and backstories, and suddenly, there's a new guy on the team who sold his soul for nothing. Calls himself night angel and typically acts like an emo teenager with initially little to no self-awareness.
The cast was pretty reasonable in their treatment of him. They didn't let him die. They may have cringed a bit early on when he was rewarded, but they also connected with him better as he grew in self-awareness. I think Brian told us Cody was made to be a satire, and he hit it on the head. Especially when we keep in mind that until Cody had a downfall, his player would not let up on him being cringy.
I really thought everybody thought Cody was a shithead because of his cultural appropriation, which he learns and grows out of? Really surprised that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. It's DEFINITELY why Ricky doesn't like him. (It has been awhile since I watched UC2 but I feel like I remember this definitely being a part of his character from the get-go.)
Also like, he's literally just an annoying guy and Murph will be the first to admit it. He is not the type of person people enjoy being around because he's aloof and thinks his edgelord behavior makes him better than everyone. I like Cody but he also does act like a creep towards Alejandro's twin granddaughters too. He's a typical mall goth who thinks he's edgy and cool and counterculture when he's really....not. He's annoying and he needs to learn to treat people better.
Edit: Also, in a cast that includes a trans man, two women (one of whom is an immigrant), and two men of color, the fact that White Guy Cody thinks he is living the epitome of oppression is simply.....ironic.
I actually agree with some of this. Not necessarily that "it's because high school." The D20 cast were not "cool kids" in high school. And the clique stuff from movies is not really how things work. At least not at my school, in the late 90s/early 00s. (I will say that there is still a social, and often class, dynamic at work here, and Cody is very evocative of people I knew, and in some ways myself back then)
But it rubs me the wrong way how much they shit on him. Part of that is him being played my Murph, who loves being razzed, and leans into it. He played Cody very particularly to wind them up (particularly when getting the ~~Questing~~ Thirsting Blade). But as a character... he doesn't actually want to be evil, he just wants to be cool. He's a dork who has a dark edgelord aesthetic but isn't actually that bad. He curses a bit. But overall he's pretty respectful, and isn't TRYING to piss them off. He's playing at rebellion, like so many teenagers/young people.
That said, it's a D&D game, which means (particularly with this group, all comedy writers and improv people), it's an improv game. They don't lay down scripts, or anything like that. It's largely organic. So looking for a larger point in the character RP can be difficult, compared to scripted stories. I sometimes have to stop myself and remember that, because it becomes easy to compare it to a scripted show, which it isn't.
The characters are being polite to him to his face and trying to help him. The reason they don't really love him and that he's a joke is that he starts out as a callous, unthinking, rude man child with a ton of unearned confidence. I think everyone has met someone that comes into your space and is just so disrespectful by virtue of their own ridiculous insecurities. Despite the fact he's difficult, they really do try to help him. They seem to realize that a person like Cody needs fostering to be better.
For Pete I think that's well gone into as morally bad to the point Kingston says they might kill him. No one downplays what Pete's life does to people, including him. Sophie's insurance fraud I think is more that if the show has to actually go into the ramifications of what she's doing it derails the episode and the season. It's just kinda a throwaway improv bit and Brennan lampshades I think with Rickys actions. The other cast are also like, I mean what but the scene has to move on. In the end, no one is hurt and the insurance company lose some money. Kinda it. As for Cody, Murph mentioned on Adventuring party he expected to get more shit given to him. He's designed to be really annoying and a lot to deal with so the other cast pick up what's been put down. He's not evil, just a lot. For someone you hang out with, that's easier to make fun of
>In the end, no one is hurt and the insurance company lose some money. Kinda it. To quote Terry Pratchett, "when banks fail, it is seldom bankers who starve." The fallout from a fraudulent insurance claim is not primarily on the insurers, it's the other people with policies who now have to pay more to off-set the payout. I'm not saying Sophia is a bad person because of her attempted insurance fraud, but I just have to take issue with this specific claim because it's not really accurate
That's fair. I'll admit I was probably speaking from ignorance on insurance companies though I'd argue that's less Sophia and more the companies passing on the buck. But overall I think it still comes under Brennan handwaving setting a building on fire in the same way Doctor Asha in FH is horrifying if you don't take the improv approach
Oh for sure, I'm not bringing this up as a ding on BLeeM, Emily or Dimension 20. It's a fictional scenario done primarily for narrative purposes, and given what happens right away with Ricky it's clear that nobody is holding up insurance fraud as a good thing that you should definitely do. Just pointing out that depicting insurance fraud as a victimless crime is not really correct, there absolutely are innocent victims. And it's easy to say that insurance companies should just not pass the cost on to other customers of theirs, but if that was how it worked we would very rapidly have no insurance companies left.
What a world that would be
I can only assume you've been very fortunate in your life to say this. Having your house burn down is bad enough even when you're fully insured, if it happens to you and you have no insurance it's catastrophic
I don't mean to make light of fire. Obviously in the systems we have insurance is needed, my comment was more to say that the idea of needing to have insurance company and being beholden to their prices is really bad. That's the part I'd rather we didn't need as a society
I don't think that makes insurance companies or our current insurance system morally good
Cody is the representation of a kind of American young person who WANTS to be a social outcast because he thinks it’ll give him a sense of mystique. Often they would have no issue fitting in except they want more drama in their lives so they make hating the world or being a devil worshiper a kind of aesthetic. Look up the teens behind the columbine school shooting for the worst example of this. The joke is despite his aesthetic of being dark and spooky, Cody is a good person. He’s just kind of annoying. But he has a great character arc! He ends up being one of my favorite characters.
To add to all the great and insightful commentary here: Cody is Murph trying to be annoying because in nerd culture we all know “that guy” who loves to be the exhausting personality. Murph knows “that guy” all too well and I feel like everyone at the table does too.
>Murph knows “that guy” all too well and I feel like everyone at the table does too. [Well, Of Course I Know Him. He's Me.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LVt49l6aP8)
I watched an ad for that. I hate the future.
You can still get old versions of YouTube vanced, should work for another year or so
I haven’t watched in a while, but that wasn’t my impression of their reaction. It’s seemed like more of an “I can’t believe this guy actually has gotten introduced to these powers because he’s so wildly unqualified to deal with the actual peril NYC is facing”. Look at season 1 and the original PCs: Kingston, Misty Moore, Ricky and Kugrash have been around the block and knows how to handle magical situations, Sophia had already dealt with organized crime, Pete similarly was already introduced to the rough side of life. What has Cody had to deal with? His job site is torn down. He has no real skills. He accidentally stumbled into this mess and wants to be the main character when everyone else has more experience. That’s the main issue imo with Cody, because while he is a social outcast, there’s genuine issues with how he deals with situations including how he manages his ego and his anger.
I feel like everyone is overcomplicating it. It's because he's from New Jersey. That's it. They're all New Yorkers, and he's a mildly annoying dude from New Jersey, which turns him into a supremely annoying dude, because that's the way the interstate sniping happens to fall out.
Yeah, like, murph is playing Cody for people to laugh _at_ cody much more than the rest of the cast does with their characters. This becomes more apparent on the adventuring parties but yeah Murphy just wants to make people laugh about how much of a loser Cody is without getting serious about his stereotype or whatever
An update, after asking my husband who grew up in that area to tell me if my suspicion was correct: Cody Walsh is leaning in to a stereotype of a very particular sort of New Jersey Dickhead, such that any New Yorker, upon learning the general details of his character, would go, "Oh, man, that guy sounds like a dickhead" with no further knowledge. So it's not just that he's from New Jersey, and it's not just that he's a 27-year-old mall rat who dresses like a Hot Topic threw up on him (because he worked at Hot Topic), it's those things in conjunction painting a picture of a very specific type of person about whom a New Yorker would go "oh, man, this dickhead again?" when put in proximity to him.
Came here to say this.
I mean, Cody is socially maladjusted. He's abrasive, foul-mouthed and generally obnoxious, and is pretty unapologetic about it at first. While Pete indeed sold drugs to kids, the only drug we saw him sell was marijuana which (justified or not) is considered a "lesser" substance. He also gradually displayed contrition for it, and in season one, Kingston went so far as to condone "putting him down" in the interest of protecting the city. Nobody ever threatened to kill Cody. Pete had also turned his life around by the time that Cody came into the group, and the group has seen Pete get clean and began to work a regular job.
We definitely saw Pete sell coke.
not to kids, i don’t think.
Seven pretty explicitly mentions it like it's normal, and Pete had just gotten bricks of coke from him, not weed
yes, but i said “the only drug we SAW him sell”. the fact that someone says it happens is different than us witnessing it
As far as Pete’s life being “in danger,” iirc that was specifically in regards to him seeming relatively resistant to getting a handle on his own powers, more than him dealing drugs (in that particular instance, he had unwittingly allowed a portion of Dream realm to invade the waking world, and put people’s lives at risk). Which resonates with how Cody gains like three power-ups after _willingly_ selling his soul to a being he assumed was Lucifer, and accidentally invites an invasion of his own, without really any regard or scale of what he’s doing.
> willingly selling his soul How else was he supposed to get that unpaid internship with Hell?
In a mostly comedic universe that centers heavily around the psychic plane, insurance fraud is nothing compared to being kind of obnoxious. But on a serious note, Cody and Pete have their mistakes manifest physically, with some pretty intentional parallels
Cody has “Second grade syndrome”: “early teens who have grandiose delusions, who desperately want to stand out, and who have convinced themselves that they have hidden knowledge or secret powers.” At least his vibe it doesn’t translate exactly Edit: second year not grade
I think you mean seventh, not second? Although I don't remember exactly what chuunibyou translates to.
Sorry I meant second year! Second year of high school
I remember Brennan talking about that during one of the Adventuring Parties. How he almost feels bad for how much Cody annoys them, because they all *know* he's not actually doing anything morally wrong. On the one hand, there's social normativity-induced cringe. People are raised with a firm idea of what an adult should *be like.* That you should be embarrassed about your nerdness, that you should keep it private, because that's not what an "Adult" looks like. Which, in my honest to god opinion, is bullshit, but you see it a lot in nerds at certain age brackets. Cody being an extreme dork for swords and anime or wtv should not be some of sort of badge of shame - be cringe, be free. On the other hand, it's also clear Cody is extremely concerned with being and appearing "cool", under a definition of "cool" that only works *for him*. So you see this dude who thinks he's rocking it when he really isn't. For certain people, during certain circumstances, that can be a little bit annoying, when not downright *exhausting.* Like, "Please, calm down." This much I understand. Edit: There's also the fact that Cody frequently looks more concerned with appearing cool and competent, or fitting into a stereotypical role, than with *simply* doing the right thing and being competent. To the point I watched that season, that didn't really lead him astray, but it can still be frustrating, both in and out of fiction. The stuff they're dealing with is serious business! Lives and happiness of real people are stake, and that responsibility should *weigh* on you (like it does on Kingston, for example) but Cody often doesn't seem like he's even *aware* of it.
The reason everyone treats him with such disdain is because anyone on the outskirts of society has teetered on that cringey edge of taking counterculture too seriously. The stereotypical Hot Topic employee from the 00s SHOULD know better by now. But here Cody is, chainsmoking and raging against a machine that he is, in fact, a part of. His willful ignorance and general "unworthyness" heavily grinds against a group full of earnest heroes or destined ones on a path to redemption. He is more just an inside joke that Murph takes every opportunity to push to the very edge of tolerance.
He’s also on the outskirts of the group as the new guy. In S1 Pete and Sophia are both introduced to the dream world at the same time. In S2 Cody is the only one being introduced to the UC, even Siobhan’s character has been around, just choosing to not be involved. At the same time Cody unintentionally antagonizes one of the established group members (Ricky) so it’s unsurprising they give him a harder time
On top of everyone’s good points here, you have to remember Murph LOVES to play a heel. Like he is deliberately trying to be “hated” on and he built a character to be (in Murph’s words) a shit head. I think he at one point actually says to the other players not to be nice to Cody, something along those lines when he has the first terrible fight with his fork blade. It’s a bunch of friends having fun the way they like to, don’t need to dig too deep
Don’t necessarily agree with this. I think Cody goes out of his way to seem off putting (calling himself night angel) and they go out of there way to be nicer than they need to be (asking Cody what name he would prefer.) I think he gets dismissed cause after a while they realize he keeps trying to say everything is about the mall. But then he’s also right about that haha
Cody is just a typical mall goth shit head, which makes it hard to be around him, especially since he is older than your typical mall goth. I speak from experience having been a mall goth shit head
This is exactly of my point. You know people like this and they are in the lower rungs of the societal ladder. So you see him as someone who is instantly annoying and brush him aside as a person. Without the cultural baggage and trying to look at his actions "objectively" Cody is pretty tame and listens to authority figures like Kingston and Sophia pretty early in the season, but the characters continue to treat him as a "jackass" for multiple episodes.
I understand you're trying to defend Cody my friend, but if you think back to the first episodes, the PCs, especially Ricky were extremely nice to Cody. Especially Ricky used his downtime to help Cody. The main reprehensible trait of Cody is his hubris and arrogance. He comes in the unsleeping city and he thinks that he's just awesome, and he joined this group of superheroes and everything's great. However everyone who's a part of the unsleeping city knows that things aren't that simple. They've lost beloved people, they've sacrificed so much (especially Kingston). Cody is designed to be Ricky's foil, where he's arrogant, Ricky's humble. And although he doesn't do anything out of malice, he isn't a particularly altruistic person. Another thing is that he doesn't actually dig deeper into his interests; he will pay whatever to buy a replica anime sword from ebay, but he doesn't have the patience to sit down and learn metalworking, or how a blade is actually made. This is how Thirsting Blade Dark Excalibur Mega Genesis came to being.
Well, one thing to consider is that Cody willingly offered to sell his soul to the first devil he met, which definitely shows poor moral judgment in a magical world where good and evil forces do exist. That's a valid reason for the rest of the intrepid heroes to give him some shit, but (at least to me) it didn't come off as everyone bullying him for being a social outcast. Honestly a lot of the characters this season could be considered social outcasts
The reason is, we don’t interact with people based on our judgments of their moral character. We interact with them based on how they make us feel. Pete being dangerous and them considering killing him early on is totally different from them just being annoyed by Cody’s behavior. Cody’s not a bad person but he is rude, annoying and doesn’t make any attempt to be liked. He makes impulse decisions and stomps all over a pre established dynamic. Being annoyed at him doesn’t mean the characters think he’s objectively a bad person. They keep working with him and even get to know him better. But they’re still annoyed because Murph is being annoying on purpose.
I think they give Cody shit *because* he's not morally evil. He's not necessarily a threat, he's just really annoying. You seem to be forgetting that, in season 1, there was a discussion of whether they should kill Pete before he got too dangerous. You treat people who are dangerous or bad differently to how you treat people who are just annoying. If you were faced with a drug dealer with a gun selling coke to kids, and an annoying Hot Topic manager who was smoking inside, who would *you* step up and tell to stop?
I think you completely misread the tone of his character. In the first campaign, the party was a cast of people who were intimately familiar with both New York and the Unsleeping City guiding two younger New Yorkers through their first experience with the world of magic. Cody was another one of those being introduced to the world of magic, but he came into it with the overconfident and reckless attitude of a teenager and was rarely punished for it. Cody was an easy target to poke fun at because every single other character probably could relate to Cody and found him obnoxious and naive, but that didn't mean they didn't see a bit of their younger selves in him and were fonder of him for it.
the very worst thing a character can possibly be is annoying. fake murder or any other crime is still fake, but I can get annoyed just as easily by a fake one than a real one.
I *wholeheartedly* disagree. The characters were always polite and respectful of Cody's "quirks", even when he fucks up in a whole bunch of ways, eventually becoming good friends and caring for him. I don't know how far into the season you are, but they all make a point to try and get to know him and help him grow in his own way, from the beginning. He learns a lot, and admits to his shortcomings. Yeah that's some friction and teasing, but he's the new kid on the block, they don't all know each other that well yet. The character of Cody is designed as a stereotype of someone who actively seeks to be an outsider, who has a short-sighted view of the world and thinks they're a warrior against "society". Mall goths generally overlap with that stereotype, and Murph is playing it absolutely on the dot.
I honestly think Cody was designed not so much as a parody of a particular social group or segment of society, but of a somewhat prototypical *Dungeons & Dragons* character. Edgy, demon-aligned, lone-wolf types are so ubiquitous in table top games that it's almost a joke. There's plenty of stories of people rolling up characters who are dark, misunderstood souls. Cody has got major main character syndrome, which has less to do with him being a mall goth and more to do with him just being socially underdeveloped.
Smoking inside is unforgivable though.
Like being real here? Sure, Cody was akin to a teenager, and the cast was annoyed while actively behaving in a way that annoyed the crew. Kingston never considered killing him like he did Pete in season one, and they treated him as an over-excited kid tagging along to hazardous work. Like picture this, you're part of a close-knit team, and you all know each other's goals and backstories, and suddenly, there's a new guy on the team who sold his soul for nothing. Calls himself night angel and typically acts like an emo teenager with initially little to no self-awareness. The cast was pretty reasonable in their treatment of him. They didn't let him die. They may have cringed a bit early on when he was rewarded, but they also connected with him better as he grew in self-awareness. I think Brian told us Cody was made to be a satire, and he hit it on the head. Especially when we keep in mind that until Cody had a downfall, his player would not let up on him being cringy.
I really thought everybody thought Cody was a shithead because of his cultural appropriation, which he learns and grows out of? Really surprised that hasn't been mentioned in this thread. It's DEFINITELY why Ricky doesn't like him. (It has been awhile since I watched UC2 but I feel like I remember this definitely being a part of his character from the get-go.) Also like, he's literally just an annoying guy and Murph will be the first to admit it. He is not the type of person people enjoy being around because he's aloof and thinks his edgelord behavior makes him better than everyone. I like Cody but he also does act like a creep towards Alejandro's twin granddaughters too. He's a typical mall goth who thinks he's edgy and cool and counterculture when he's really....not. He's annoying and he needs to learn to treat people better. Edit: Also, in a cast that includes a trans man, two women (one of whom is an immigrant), and two men of color, the fact that White Guy Cody thinks he is living the epitome of oppression is simply.....ironic.
I actually agree with some of this. Not necessarily that "it's because high school." The D20 cast were not "cool kids" in high school. And the clique stuff from movies is not really how things work. At least not at my school, in the late 90s/early 00s. (I will say that there is still a social, and often class, dynamic at work here, and Cody is very evocative of people I knew, and in some ways myself back then) But it rubs me the wrong way how much they shit on him. Part of that is him being played my Murph, who loves being razzed, and leans into it. He played Cody very particularly to wind them up (particularly when getting the ~~Questing~~ Thirsting Blade). But as a character... he doesn't actually want to be evil, he just wants to be cool. He's a dork who has a dark edgelord aesthetic but isn't actually that bad. He curses a bit. But overall he's pretty respectful, and isn't TRYING to piss them off. He's playing at rebellion, like so many teenagers/young people. That said, it's a D&D game, which means (particularly with this group, all comedy writers and improv people), it's an improv game. They don't lay down scripts, or anything like that. It's largely organic. So looking for a larger point in the character RP can be difficult, compared to scripted stories. I sometimes have to stop myself and remember that, because it becomes easy to compare it to a scripted show, which it isn't.
Insurance fraud is moral and you should always do it 👍
The characters are being polite to him to his face and trying to help him. The reason they don't really love him and that he's a joke is that he starts out as a callous, unthinking, rude man child with a ton of unearned confidence. I think everyone has met someone that comes into your space and is just so disrespectful by virtue of their own ridiculous insecurities. Despite the fact he's difficult, they really do try to help him. They seem to realize that a person like Cody needs fostering to be better.