Uploaded Jul 30, 2022
Summary
The world standing before Green beyond the rightmost portal from King's bastion is a sight to behold, what with all the mobs soaring through the air like happy rockets. What truly impresses him, though, is the natural-born musicality of all of its residents (tellingly, the trees all have note blocks for bark). Not among these sights is Purple, so far ahead in the race against time that Green is flung into a state of sour doubt.
Approached by a posse of local animals, the fighting stick figure attempts to ask them about Purple's whereabouts. Their initial response is one of blank denial. Only when it hits Green that he ought to communicate with tunes do the critters guide him deeper into the hills, knowing that Purple has retreated a good ways away.
The cavern up ahead, ordinarily a lair of limitless peril, houses a quintet of undead who are far more cooperative than what Green is accustomed to. It takes little more than a minute and a note block with a lever for the fivesome to kindly inform him that the other stick figure did indeed pass through this tunnel not long ago.
Once outside, Green attempts to turn on the note block once more; he receives no response. Only when stumbling upon a settlement in a nearby taiga does the block produce chords again. Too bad the thought of tampering with a crucial piece of the universe doesn't sit well with the dancing denizens. Confused at the thought of communicating with the frustrated villagers without a note block, Green is left in a mind's blaze until suddenly, a rhythm emerges from his noggin. The once-tense inhabitants of the hamlet soften themselves at the sight of Green becoming a de-facto Note Blocker, breaking out into a festival of twirls and zips as they direct him to a barren valley just past the edge of the woods.
Hardly anywhere in the lowlands does the desperate adventurer find a trace of life but two llamas and their owner. Hoping to divulge more info from the man, he instead finds himself barraged with offers on useless trinkets: coral, mushrooms, buckets of fish, flower wreaths, and loads more. The agony of pushy salesmanship is just too much for Green to tolerate, who wants nothing more than to confront the stick figure who's dragged him through so much lately. Much to his sheer luck, Green spots his target, ambling in the midst of the clay landscape. He ditches the merchant and his beasts-of-burden as soon as he knows he's hit bullseye.
In the skyward climb that soon unfolds, Green unleashes his newfound musicality to make Purple turn around and question his reprehensibility unto the Stick Gang — to which the latter always replies with rebuttal. Only when he finds he has nowhere left to run does Purple get a chance to reflect on all those mishaps — and tell Green the story of his life.
His younger days were not exactly the most saccharine; his father was a barbaric individual who valued training his son to become a hardened combatant more than being a tried-and-true beacon of inspiration. The disconnect between him and his wife, who saw it fit to foster Purple's emotional well-being, grew so wide the patriarch abandoned his kin altogether. Pink, psychologically shattered by such a move and reduced to a limping wreck, passed away before her son's eyes.
Traumatized by the giant gap left in his mother's wake, the now-grown Purple sought power to try and reconnect with the only remaining piece of his family. It was precisely this twitching desire to see the old indigo man again and earn his respect that turned Green and his friends against him and eventually drove him to seek assistance from King. In helping his new overseer attain ownership of the Master Block, Purple saw an opportunity to help him get close to Dark Blue. When he had been rewarded with trivial ignorance instead, it had become clear that he had been an instrument in King's scheme. It was one more reason to believe his life was crumbling around him, and he currently fears his own crooked behavior might worsen these cracks if he continues.
Gripped by these revelations, Green makes it up to Purple to put aside their grudge, careening through the starry evening. By the time they return to the Nether to exact payback, the sight of Purple walloping his commander and snatching his Ultimate Weapon leaves TSC and the other fighting stick figures in a daze.
Tropes
- Abusive Parents: This is Purple's reasoning as to why he's been such a scumbag to Green and the gang. His father expected a natural-born fighter out of him, only seeing a caterpillar incapable of living up to his expectations. His mistreatment of the youngster broke the family apart and led to his mother's death, in turn driving Purple to search for the dude in hopes of seeing a better side of him.
- Animal Jingoism: Early in the episode, the viewer can see a tamed wolf chasing a feline ocelot in the background, playing off the typical dogs-hate-cats dynamic.
- Armor-Piercing Question: It's subtle since no words are spoken, but Purple gets more worked up each time Green asks him why he did what he did, culminating in Purple's Big "SHUT UP!" when Green asks what his real intentions are.
- Beyond Redemption: Purple seems to think this about himself after lamenting everything he's done to achieve what he now sees was a hopeless goal. Green clearly disagrees.
- Big "SHUT UP!": What you'd probably get if you translated Purple's last musical reaction to Green's pleas, the one that forms an angry face.
- Bizarro Universe: Not only do all of the mobs in the Note Block universe sing in Note Blocks, they also inexplicitly have the ability to fly.
- Broken Pedestal: King, who Purple turned to for coaxing after his father walked out of his life and respected because he believed he could be the key to meeting him again, reached his breaking point when he too treated him as a liability rather than an asset.
- Climbing Climax: The tensest moments of the chase between Green and Purple occur on the peak of a snow-capped mountain, with each of the latter's fire-backs becoming more hostile until he resorts to explaining his unhappy past.
- Canon Discontinuity: Downplayed. Green's pleas to Purple during the pursuit to the summit and Purple's flashback to his life story reference previous episodes where Purple had a significant role but the events of Animation vs. League of Legends are never brought up. Justified in that the Minecraft episodes have the most relevance to the story, chronicling Purple's attempts to seize power in order to prove himself to his father. Whereas Vs. League of Legends amounted to a brief altercation where Purple merely wanted to win a match over the Stick Gang (although Purple's flaws shown here can certainly be traced back to the Vs. Minecraft storyline).
- Covers Always Lie: The premiere thumbnail shows Green holding a note block guitar like in "Note Block Battle"; in reality, he just carries around a note block on its own for the first chunk of the episode, and at most adds a lever to it.
- Crowd Song: Everyone in the Note Block Dimension is constantly singing and dancing together, with their behavior suggesting that this is just how everyone acts in this world.
- Dark and Troubled Past: A combination of his dad's pernicious attitude toward him as a kid and his mother's abrupt passing influenced Purple greatly down the line, driving him to pursue some questionable avenues.
- Disappeared Dad: Purple’s father abandoned his family after declaring his child weak.
- Dramatic Thunder: A variation; once Dark Blue is lifted into the sky on a pillar that Purple has to climb to reach him, a musical note flashes behind him accompanied by a low note being played, reminiscent of this trope.
- Face, Nod, Action: After their reconciliation, Purple and Green nod at each other before Purple takes off flying towards the Nether Portal while hanging on to Green.
- Fantasy-Forbidding Father: Dark Blue valued having a strong child above all else, and walked away on Purple because he felt the lad wasn't putting enough energy into learning self-defense and more into his mother's nurture.
- Fire-Forged Friends: After many bouts of Purple going through Heel–Face Revolving Door with Green and his pals, he finally manages to win the respect of his rival, teaming up to tackle King together.
- Freudian Excuse: Purple's childhood daddy issues and the death of his mother are both key to his fiendish behavior later in life.
- Heel Realization: Cornered and friendless, Purple resorts to explaining why he went through so many bully phases and teamed up with King, only to be discarded like pencil shavings when he needed his help the most. He admits that not only did he fail to achieve what he wanted, but became an enemy to Green and numerous others in the process.
- Honest John's Dealership: This episode plays up how worthless the Wandering Trader's deals are, with him trying to pawn various unimpressive junk like flowers and coral to Green. At one point, he grabs him by the ankle while he's walking away, desperate to get a sale.
- I Am a Monster: As Purple concludes telling Green about his Dark and Troubled Past, he pulls out the Angel and Devil forms Green made earlier, then the Devil's horns and tail attach to him, indicating that Purple believes this about himself.
- Missing Mom: It is revealed in episode 29 of AvM that Purple’s mother died from natural causes after their father left the family.
- Mood Whiplash: The trader scene, occurring immediately before Green's confrontation with Purple, involves him trying his darnedest to sell his goods to Green, all serving to break up the mood before the drama reaches its crux.
- Musical Episode: While the previous note block-centric episodes qualify, this episode definitely does since music makes up 99% of communication.
- Musicalis Interruptus: The Trader scene is abruptly cut off with a Record Needle Scratch as Green spots Purple.
- Musical World Hypotheses: The episode episode takes place in an Alternate Universe where people sing instead of talking.
- Record Needle Scratch: The Trader's song is abruptly cut off by one.
- Serial Escalation: Cements the trend of ever-larger scenarios regarding the note block episodes. Note Blocks is merely Green and co. experimenting with note block combinations and keeping the absurdities to a relative mum. Note Block Battle, while still a friendly affair, kicks it up a notch by having it be a rock duo between himself and the other FSF. Above and beyond is where Note Block Universe reaches in terms of scale: a high-stakes chase scene set in a dimension where everyone has an innate capacity for music and whose day-to-day culture centers around melodies.
- Shown Their Work: Every item the Wandering Trader offers Green, no matter how absurd, is something Wandering Traders can offer in Minecraft proper.
- Split-Screen Reaction: When Purple punches King and takes his staff, every member of the Stick Gang sans Green is shown reacting this way.
- Suddenly Voiced: A variation where Green suddenly gains the ability to speak in note block when he angered the Villagers for relying on an actual Note Block. Purple also learned to do so sometime during his stay as well.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Purple knows his father was hard on him and wedged his family beyond repair, but he's been desperate to meet him again and prove to him he's not the wimp he was all those years ago. Most of his power-hungry actions throughout the series stem from the aforementioned goal.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: After Purple expresses belief that he's truly a monster for everything he's done, Green gives Purple his elytra back and expresses the idea that, while he's certainly no saint, he isn't truly evil either.
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Expanded upon from The Ultimate Weapon; Purple explains that it was King's rejection of helping him find Dark Blue after giving him the Master Block that he realizes that everything he put the protagonists through amounted to naught.
