Review: Krapopolis “A Krapwork Orange”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Hippocampus and Stupendous gather up all the annoying orphans around town and start the very first school to try and make the kids more civilized, but it backfires. Meanwhile, Tyrannis deals with a belligerent protestor.

OUR TAKE

Hmmmm. Okay, I think I’m starting to see a bit of an issue here. But before we get to that, let’s talk about the First School subplot with Stu and Hip that I actually kind of like in theory. From what we’ve seen of Hippocampus so far, he’s felt very isolated by his physical condition and how people treat him for it, which has led to him not liking people very much, let alone orphans who throw eggs at him multiple times a week. But here we see him accidentally finding himself in a mentor role and liking it, though for selfish reasons. I guess I expected him to start to enjoy guiding the next generation and sharing knowledge, which would in turn get the orphans to start being more well rounded people, but…instead they actually just turn out to be MORE dangerous, apparently killing a “roc”, a giant legendary bird, in the process. I know the show’s point is NOT to say that allowing for public education leads to horrible destructive orphans, but that does seem to be where it ends up, which is…concerning, to say the least. Maybe this is just first season weirdness and things will shift later on, but who knows.

Equally concerning, if not moreso, is the plot involving Tyrannis meeting Anarkkis the Truth Teller, a protestor who has major criticisms of Tyrannis’ rule. He starts off being genuinely interested in what she has to say and what he can change and work on as a leader, but she uses his chances for dialogue to tie him up and have her followers invade his house, saying that any change he would implement would only be self-serving. Tyrannis turns the tables by loudly declaring her as sharing his opinion, making people skeptical of her and revealing she just liked having her own opinion. All of this seems to lean on the idea that all protestors just want anarchy and don’t come up actual solutions even when given the chance, which feels like it was ripped out of a story mocking Occupy Wall Street from over a decade ago, nevermind that how she’s portrayed here isn’t even how most Anarchists think. So, we have one plot that might be saying knowledge just empowers a barbaric working class and another saying that same class are easily led fools who only want to complain and be different, not actually change or grow. I don’t think I like that and I hope future episodes don’t reflect that same mindset, but we’ll see.