One of the most enlightening takes on Malfoid that I've seen so far was a YouTube video I watched today that has since been lost to the aether. At the end of the video he made the point that this kind of story is extremely culturally important for the right. Not because it's conquering a leftist beloved IP or because it reintroduces beauty and romance to storytelling. Not that those aren't fine things. No it does something much bigger. For at least two decades we in the west have been subjected to nothing but deconstructive storytelling. Every expectation and trope is so routinely subverted that we know the story from the start. Its why so much modern media is just... ...boring. Because God forbid the guy actually get the girl, the bad guy be bad and get his comeuppance, or the ending be at all happy. (Aside: I believe this is responsible for the recent rise in eastern media) But I digress. What Malfoid actually is, is an inversion of the deconstruction of media. Its taking a broken story and making it whole. It takes a plot that was ok but flawed, and uses traditional story telling to fill in those gaps and create a recognizable pattern that elevates the whole thing. He doesn't call it this in the video, but I like to think of it as "reconstructive" or "restorative" story telling: the elevation of a story by the inclusion of traditional storytelling methods and tropes so that it speaks to what is true about the human condition. There was one other example he gave that comes, of all places, from Star Wars. While almost all of modern Star Wars under Kathleen Kennedy was deconstructionist crap, one show stood out: The Mandolorian. After the debasement of Luke Skywalker in the ironically name Rise of Skywalker, many people were extremely discouraged. Mark Hamill himself said that he didn't agree with anything that his character was doing and he didn't recognize Luke by the end. In steps Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni, and in the final scene of season 1 of The Mandolorian we get to see Luke Skywalker back in his rightful spot as the Big Damn Hero, doing the Right Thing and Saving The Day. Grown men cried watching that scene; once again seeing their childhood hero back in his rightful roll. It was reconstructive, restorative even, and why the left went all-out attacking the show. I know we all lament the idea of Malfoid fading even if we know it's inevitable. What we should do though is learn from it and take those lessons forward to new projects, be they fanfic or entirely new IPs: - understand that "creative" work is not the domain of the left - avoid deconstruction at all costs and instead speak to the truth of human nature - embrace traditional western storytelling On that last point, I want to remind y'all that not every story is a love story. The western storytelling tradition is rich with different story tropes that each serve a purpose: tragedy (Anakin and Padame in the prequel series), comedy (White Christmas), heroes journey (Dartanian from Three Musketeers), great quest (LoTR), rebirth (Kousko in Emperor's New Groove or the Beast in Beauty and the Beast), rags to riches (Edmond in Count of Monte Cristo). There's more, but you get the idea. Don't be afraid to retell these stories again and again. They resonate so well because they speak to fundamental elements of the human condition. Its tempting to wonder what other stories are out there that might be a tweak or two away from greatness, but I wouldn't get hung up on that. You aren't gonna catch lightning in a bottle twice. Instead I say look forward, using these lessions, and build something great from the ground up, borrowing pieces from the past to build the future.