New DuckTales Animated Series

That's hopefully how it'll be. He'll be threatening when actively attacking or antagonizing others, but the butt of jokes when the tables turn and his plans are thwarted.

And I stand corrected.

Given the gravitas they gave his introduction, I think it's extremely unlikely that they're going to abruptly turn Negaduck incompetent in between appearances.

Negaduck, to be precise, is Overlord of the Negaverse, but evidently finds it boring as he never spends any of his time there except when laying low.

In the latter episode, he didn't exactly have a criminal organization. He rallied the criminals of St. Canard after he ruined Darkwing's reputation with false promises, but when he (naturally) didn't deliver they eventually beat the stuffing out of him.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 18th 2019 at 11:42:06 AM

Well, he is nominally overlord, but he seems to be mainly interested in keeping it a Crapsack World.

I wonder if Negaduck had his own team of Injustice Ducks at some point in his own dimension. I can't see him suffering a rivalry with Nega Gizmoduck without one destroying the other.

Surprisingly, NegaGizmoduck and Negaduck get along better than Darkwing and Gizmoduck proper.

@Dragonfire5000 I can think of one occasion where this show attempted to actually deconstruct a villain: "The Ballad of Duke Baloney!" deconstructed The Rival and Evil Counterpart for Glomgold. It is explored that his single-minded mission to one-up Scrooge makes Glomgold miserable and he'd be much happier if he stopped, and him being an Evil Counterpart to Scrooge isn't just a coincidence but completely intentional on Glomgold's behalf (exploring perhaps not the consequences, but the causes of the trope).

A lot of that is based on the original comics characterization of Glomgold, tho. Where his motivations are more or less the same. So it's more like the show took that concept from the comics and went further into it's consequences and causes.

I remember Magica from the 87 series actually being kinda pathetic.

Isn't that what Deconstruction means? Taking a trope (which was already a major part of Glomgold's character) an exploring its causes and consequences in more depth?

Another example I can think of is Don Karnage deconstructing the trope Villain Song. We see the pirates actually rehearsing singing and dancing so that they get the moves right in action, and the other characters are confused by the sheer absurdity of a villain singing while attacking.

That's how I remember as well. If anything, she's sort of like the version in the reboot's Season 2.

Edited by Snicka on Oct 19th 2019 at 3:51:18 PM

My understanding of Deconstruction is that it explores what would happen if a given trope or set of tropes or what have you were to occur in real life.

So in your example, the Villain Song Deconstruction would be if we saw them doing it while scared out of their wits about doing it all while flying and/or dancing on aircraft or having someone fall during a song and having out treated as the tragedy it would be vs a cartoon "he fell from an absurd height" gag.

To quote our own page:

So the bit about the villain song mentioned would not be a deconstruction; that's a villain song played for laughs. A deconstruction would probably focus on exploring why real-life people might sing while doing villainous deeds (To hype themselves up? To intimidate others?).

I'm not sure that's a deconstruction of a villain song. It could be a deconstruction of certain gags used in cartoons, but villain song? Probably not.

Probably. To be honest I've never been entirely clear on what qualifies as a Deconstruction myself. It's always seemed like the thing being deconstrcted being taken completely seriously, hence what would happen if it were really happening being my definition.

My idea was how the situation of the villain song might be done in such a way. Though you may be right in that it's not deconstructing the song itself.

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:32:21 AM

"Being taken seriously" is not necessarily all a deconstruction is. A lot of deconstruction certainly seems that way, but it depends on what tropes are being deconstructed.

Thinking about it, I think I tend to, rightly or wrongly, get hung up on the contrast between Neon Genesis Evangelion (perhaps the most famous Deconstruction in anime) and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (a Reconstruction of the same genre).

Evangelion is a giant monster and mecha anime in an otherwise grounded in reality world, with much of the plot dedicated to how that situation affects the characters, such as how being made to pilot a giant robot at are fourteen might actually impact the fourteen year-olds caught up in it.

Gurren Lagan is a giant monster and mecha anime that goes all in on the fantastical elements and cranks them into overdrive, with the characters literally breaking reality to succeed in their goals. For all that it does have drama, it's not as big a focus at it would be in a more deconstructive setting.

"Deconstruction" just means as far as this site goes "apply scrutiny to tropes." So, how the reboot handled Glomgold would count in that:

A. It shows what kind of man would knowingly designate himself as another man's nemesis or "dark mirror"

B. What toll a life of obsession with his "archenemy" takes

With this noted, I figure the reboot's version of Negaduck counts too and will become more obvious once he's in the spotlight again.

Edited by Maljen on Oct 19th 2019 at 8:46:59 AM

No, it doesn't just mean "scrutiny of tropes." "Scrutiny of tropes" is way too broad a statement. Deconstruction is a specific type of scrutiny, specifically one that examines tropes in regards to real life. "Deconstruction just means 'scrutinizing tropes'" would be misuse of the term.

In regards to Glomgold, a deconstruction of his being an Evil Counterpart to Scrooge would probably explore the real-life and non-narrative reasons why he would pattern himself after Scrooge if he hated Scrooge so much. Is it because deep down there is a bit of respect and acknowledgement that Scrooge is good at what he does? Is it because Glomgold's self-confidence isn't as great as he thought, so he turns towards more successful people as inspiration, even if said successful person is someone he despises?

Also, nothing about this version of Negaduck counts as a deconstruction as of now. Unless you use the Internet's idiotic misused definition...

I should also mention that having real-life consequences happen to characters does not automatically equal a deconstruction.

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:14:14 AM

Edited by sgamer82 on Oct 19th 2019 at 10:32:35 AM

Well, if deconstruction was a simple concept, scholars wouldn't be writing libraries full of books about it, right? And sometimes these scholars disagree on what it is as well.

I think it is misleading to think of deconstruction as relating to a comparison to real life. Magic, for instance, has no real life counterpart (as far as we can prove, anyway), but you can certainly deconstruct magic in a certain work or genre.

A deconstruction of magic in Harry Potter, for instance, could look at what the implications would be of living in a society where mind control and memory altering spells are readily available to every wizard. How would it affect society at large, and interpersonal relationships? How would it affect trust, justice, law enforcement, the concept of truth? A reconstruction would be to create a society that takes all these questions into account.

In that sense, a better definition would be that a deconstruction is a deeper exploration of the consequences and interactions of tropes in a given work or genre, be it realistic or fictional.

Edited by Redmess on Oct 19th 2019 at 6:47:52 PM

Hilariously enough, tropers also misuse Reality Ensues to the point that we needed a cleanup thread for it.

Your Harry Potter example is still examining possible real-life consequences of the existence of magic, so the "scrutiny under the lens of real life" aspect is still there, so it isn't just "a deeper probe into consequences and interactions."

Edited by dragonfire5000 on Oct 19th 2019 at 9:51:32 AM

What I meant is that deconstruction is not necessarily a rejection of unrealistic elements.

Deconstruction is not about being realistic, per se, its about dissecting the tropes involved and exposing (if not sometimes lampooning) how they're ultimately just tenuous connections to a narrative. Reconstructing then in involves taking those dissected tropes and showing why they needed to exist in the first place.

Playing tropes realistically is one way to do it, but it's not the only way, and being played realistically does not inherently make a trope deconstructed. Invoking a trope can be a way to do it, but not always. Heavily lampshading tropes can be another, but not always. And so on an so forth.

At the Glomgold example, he's an Evil Counterpart of Scrooge, but I'd argue the only time he ever approaches being a deconstruction of it is in the Duke Baloney episode, where we find out he deliberately tailored himself and everything about his persona in order to be that counterpart - turning him from "an evil but incompetent double of Scrooge" into "this is what it looks like when someone specifically tries to be an evil double of someone," redefining the slipshod nature of that persona that we've already come to know.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Oct 19th 2019 at 11:05:22 AM

I kinda want to ask if "exploring whether the Necessary Weasels are truly necessary" is even close to what the definition is Deconstruction is?

It dosent help that the page itselft almost said if you do to a entire work it count as desconstruction.

But yeah, desconstruction can be two things: exploration of how X thing would be and is logical consequence and B) apply "real worlds" rule to it.

To take two of most descontructive work out there, evangelion and watchmen, the first examinate the implication of mechas and now sociaty prepare to fight the angel with a big city, escape routes, etc,etc, the second show how superhero violence let to lost of trust and anti super hero, hell people dont even use the term in universe.

The second is in thing like "I did thirty minute ago" in watchman or how asuka tsundere are not charming because they are think in universe rather than to charm the public.

The third defintion and the one most people remenber as "desconstruction is super serious" is pretty much "take the charm of a trope", which is why most work are seen as dark or downright mean.

Deconstruction is, sadly, misused a lot on this site. I remember seeing the term several years ago and falling into the trap of thinking it meant "darker and more cynical."

Then I went to college and learned that that definition was way off the mark.

To me, Watchmen is probably one of the most definitive examples of how to do a deconstruction. Yes, it's Darker and Edgier, but that wasn't the point. It was to show what would happen if comics became so focused on trying to be more realistic and serious (which was the trend at the time,) that it forgot what made them special in the first place. As such, everything is taken to its' most coldly logical conclusion, specifically to show why doing so should be avoided at all costs.

(Of course, the industry misinterpreted the message so badly that it became more of a self fulfilling prophecy, but that's neither here nor there.)

Edited by kkhohoho on Oct 19th 2019 at 3:20:32 AM