Theo

> "Theo literally knows everything, and if ever he doesn't come through on that, he's lied to us"
>  - MauLer, EFAP 50
>
>

**TheoTTree**, or simply **Theo**, is a recurring guest on EFAP, as well as a mod in Mauler's Discord server

## History

### **vs Joseph Anderson**

Theo had left a comment on the Joseph Anderson video that the boys were responding to on EFAP 16, and was brought onto the stream after they finished the video, where he used his history major powers to talk about it. He spent the remainder of the stream looking over Joseph Anderson's response to another commenter

### **vs Just Write**

Theo brought his knowledge of philosophy to EFAP 47, where he joined MauLer, Wolf, and Southpaw to take a look at Just Write's video denouncing the idea that art could be judged objectively. Theo prefaced the coverage by pointing out that Kant's *The Critique of Judgment*, which Just Write references in his video, was written 200 years ago, asking the panel if they thought it had gone entirely unchallenged in the time since. Just Write gave the example that using objective facts from the film, one person could interpret *Star Wars* as having the theme of nature vs technology, since Luke foregoes the targeting computer to destroy the technologically-advanced Death Star, while someone else could argue the theme is atheism vs religion, which Theo pointed out does not even contradict the possibility of it being about nature vs technology as well. He explained that while both of those are not influenced by emotions (the definition of objective), they are not objective, since they show their subjective perspectives, to which Theo differentiated these as readings pulling interpretations rather than an analysis of the content itself, and that even amongst interpretations there can be strong and weak interpretations, adding that the media you consumed has to factor in at some point, otherwise why even reference the media.

Just Write went into the difference between Hume and Kant's view of beauty, and Theo already took issue with Just Write's summary of Kant, since Kant was not a literary critic and his critique of art was only a tertiary topic to his much broader views on metaphysics, additionally disagreeing with Kant's claim that someone could judge beauty from a position of disinterest, and countered that what he's seen EFAP try to do is categorize what parts of art that they can under "good" rather than "beautiful," judging how well a story functions the same way one would judge how well a hammer hammers nails. Going off of that topic, Theo argued that there is not much value in saying a painting's purpose is to be a painting or a story's purpose is to be a story, since that doesn't reveal much more than a definition. MauLer responded that the other value of art's purpose being to get an emotional response doesn't give anything to be measured since someone may simply not respond emotionally, and the only standard that could be measured without being subjective is an intrinsic property - an art piece must do a thing to be the thing that it is. For example, a story must show a progression of events or it is not a story, or writing must be readable in order to be writing - those things are not projected onto it, that is what they are. A carpenter wouldn't argue that a joint is subjectively a dovetail joint, even if the term was created by humans you could still apply the term objectively. Theo replied that he'd not heard it put that way before and would have to get back to him on it, and MauLer concurred that it is an ongoing topic, with Theo adding that the debate has existed for some time and each faction gains more nuance to their claim.

Naturally, Just Write related this to *The Last* *Jedi*, defending the design of the bombers in place of the superior Y-wings on the grounds that "most people don't know what a Y-wing is" and noticing the lack of Y-wings would require you to have a certain level of knowledge, to which Theo asked why it is a bad thing for critique of a piece of media to require knowledge of the media. Just Write put forth that plot holes aren't the real reason why people usually dislike a movie, and there are actually deeper reasons why, like pacing, and the roster thanked him for letting them know what people feel. He argued there are deeper reasons why people don't enjoy a movie. He then went into his own view on why there are better ways to analyze film, which he openly admitted was just his subjective opinion. Just Write stated his goal to explore this, which was why this video was the first episode in a series called "History of Arguments" (of which no more episodes were made). Theo was insulted that he would claim knowledge on the topic after how he butchered Hume's and Kant's ideas

### **EFAP 103 & 104 (Return of the Willems), 115 (*Cyberpunk*),** 121 (*Underwater*), 127 (*Batman v Superman*), 133 (Extra Credits)

TBA

### vs Synthetic Man

Theo joined MauLer, Rags, Fringy, Metal, and MarcTheCyborg in EFAP 217, where they took a look at Synthetic Man's takes on *God of War Ragnarok*. MauLer initially checked out Synthetic Man's main video on it as it had been recommended as one of the bigger negative reviews of the game, but ended up going down a rabbithole of takes that included the main review, a response by a YouTuber named ZeroNeedsCoffee, Synthetic Man's followup video addressing such responses, and Synthetic Man's streams playing the game itself, which MauLer compiled into a supercut for the roster to watch. Theo pushed back on Synthetic Man's appeals to player choice, arguing alternatively that sometimes a game limiting the player's choice can be to the benefit of the experience it's trying to provide. He spent the rest of the stream gleafully anticipating each of Synthetic Man's succesive Kanye Moments

## Trivia

* Has a cult of people writing long critique in comments
* Having to choose who he hates the least between MauLer, Rags, and Wolf, he chooses Fringy
* Joined the Nazi Party far before Extra Credits video appeared, they were too late to save him

## Quotes

* "At this point, *The Critique of Judgment*, which is the book by Immanuel Khant that Just Write is gonna reference here, is about 200 years old, so who here thinks that it's gone unchallenged in the field of aesthetics for 200 years?"
 "Well if there's anything that I know about philosophers it's that they love to agree with each other all the time"
 - Theo & Rags, EFAP 47
* "So today I'm going to explain all the many reasons there is no such thing as objective criticism"
 "In 20 minutes"
 - Just Write & Theo, EFAP 47
* "But, y'know, we're not gonna get anymore from *Of The Standard of Taste* in this video, so you'd have to wonder if spending exactly a minute on a book is not a great idea"
 "Well Theo, in his defense, long critique is not deep critique."
 - Theo & Southpaw, EFAP 47
* "One of the worst things about this video is that it's a horrible account of Kant" - EFAP 47
* "Hoo boy! That is a lot of stuff. Kant is literally the most difficult literary critic to figure out"
 "Okay, so, first off, Kant's not a literary critic. Shut up, he's a philosopher."
 - Just Write & Theo, EFAP 47
* "The core blockades that were there are still the core blockades. Even from Kant's time and the idea of the fact-value distinction and defining an art object and the purpose of art and such like, these are all still big hangups. The difference is that people have become more entrenched in their positions as they've become more nuanced. The positions are more intricate than they were before. but they haven't moved forward in any sense. No one's gone, 'right, we've solved it.'" - EFAP 47
* "Support everyone that is not Just Write"
 "I like the idea that in the mission to support everyone who's not Just Write, someone goes and supports Patrick Willems cuz the hardest choices require the strongest will"
 - Wolf and Theo, EFAP 47
* "I didn't know you were racist"
 "Neither did I"
 - MauLer and Theo, EFAP 50
* "I also read *Plato's Republic*"
 "Ugh... ew"
 - MauLer and Theo, EFAP 127
* "Oh, I get i- it's stupid cuz it killed him and he's based" - Theo, applying Synthetic Man's teachings, EFAP 217
* "Player choice, right?"
 "No" -
 Synthetic Man & Theo, EFAP 217
* "Oh no, are you saying Ukraine might not be the good guys? Oh no, the developers can't be saying that, are they? Cancel them on Twitter, guys, come on. I thought Ukraine was- they were always the good guys, they were fighting for the free world"
 "Just let him cook, let him cook"
 - Synthetic Man, somehow talking about *God of War Ragnarok*, and Theo, EFAP 217
* "He's in a fucking labyrinth of Ls now, he's trying to run away down every path but there's just another one waiting"
 "It all leads to L"
 - Theo and Rags on Synthetic Man, EFAP 127