noahspud

With the Wicked movie coming out, it'd be nice to see an analysis of how wildly different the Broadway musical is from the novel it's loosely based on.
Compare characters and their arcs. For example, Fiyero in the musical is like a Disney prince, while the book version was much more serious.
Compare plot details. The musical's ending is quite different from the book's.
Compare themes. The book goes deep into political and ethical questions; does the musical do these ideas justice?

In stories where some characters are immortal – i.e. living for a very long time without aging – the subject of romance can be a touchy topic. It is hard to find people with shared life experience when everyone else measures life in decades rather than centuries. There is often a question of power imbalance when one side of a relationship is so much older than the other.
On the other hand, an immortal character finding romance with a regular mortal is an example of love bridging gaps. It means the immortal has chosen to care about people, even though he will outlive all of them.
Examine arguments for and against these age-gap romances. Examples include Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Twilight, the Immortal and Dupli-Kate from Invincible, Thor and Jane Foster from Marvel, and more.

Many Star Wars fans consider Anakin Skywalker effectively a different character from Darth Vader. However, analyzing Anakin's character progression from Jedi to Sith can be very interesting, especially depending on viewing order. For fans of the original trilogy, the prequels' portrayal of Anakin may have been startling. On the other hand, a chronological viewing, especially one that includes the Clone Wars series, may depict a slow but steady character arc for young Skywalker with a tragic but inevitable conclusion.

Compare and contrast the two characters. What traits of Anakin's remain in Darth Vader, and how are they portrayed differently? Where do we see traits of Darth Vader peeking through in Anakin during the prequel era? Does this change how we see other heroes and villains, like Luke Skywalker or Kylo Ren, and even characters from other franchises?

Superhero stories are filled with fantasy tropes: wizards, knights in shining armor, dragons and other monsters, gods of various mythologies, and so on. Meanwhile, many superhero and supervillain origin stories seem like science fiction premises (mutated DNA, aliens, and so on). Most superpowers, even the ones that are supposedly based on science, defy science to the point where they would be indistinguishable from magic in a fantasy setting.
Consider the characteristics that differentiate the Fantasy Genre from the Science Fiction Genre. Then consider the central characteristics of superhero stories – Marvel, DC Comics, Invincible, pick your favorite – and analyze whether they fall more on one side or the other. If some superheroes belong to one genre and some belong to another, what happens when those superheroes team up with each other?
What are the implications of which genre superheroes "belong to"? Does this affect the future of superhero stories?

In the CW's Arrow, before Oliver Queen got stuck on Trauma Island, he was a stereotypical Billionaire Playboy. When he got back, he spent a lot of time pretending he was still the same person, in order to cover up who he had really become: a vigilante on a quest for justice. Oliver pretended his five years of trauma hadn't dramatically changed him.
This was part of Oliver's strategy for recovering from his trauma. While he worked on becoming a healthier (less angry and murderous) person with the help of his trusted friends, he pretended he had already recovered.
An article on this topic could analyze the progress Oliver makes on his trauma recovery over the course of the show.

An interesting trend in mystery fiction is the "outsider" nature of the classic detective. These characters – Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes, Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, Scooby Doo, etc – seem to exist for the purpose of helping other people's stories reach resolution. Although they are often the perspective characters in their stories, it can be argued that the main characters are the victims and the perpetrators of the crimes being investigated. Those are the characters who are causing events to happen and having events happen to them.
Consider the stories where a detective finds themselves in the middle of a mysterious situation they were not hired to investigate, and yet they decide to root out the who, how, and why for the net benefit of everyone else.
An article on this topic could explore why detective characters are so often written this way. Why does this affect the mystery genre in particular? Is this a net benefit or problem with the genre?

Fantastic Racism is the term for writers creating a non-human race – aliens from outer space, vampires, werewolves, mutants, elves, orcs, etc. – and then using that race as a metaphor for real-world demographics that are the target of prejudice. The strength of this metaphor is that it can potentially be used in place of any minority group.

In the world of X-Men, mutants have served as a metaphor for various real-world minorities over the decades, from Jewish people to Black people to LGBT's.

In many fantasy worlds, orcs are seen as barbaric, monstrous outsiders. A plot requiring humans and orcs to put aside their differences – such as the film Warcraft – can be used as a metaphor for international conflicts as well as domestic diversity. Meanwhile, in Max Landis' urban fantasy world of Bright, orcs become a metaphor for any group with an antagonistic relationship with the police, due to poverty, ethnicity, or culture.

Other examples include Skyrim, Supergirl, True Blood, and even Harry Potter. Analyze these and other examples of Fantastic Racism. Do some work better as metaphors than others? Can we learn different lessons from these stories that we may not see in stories about real-world human minority groups?

In the Urban Fantasy genre – Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, etc. – magic and magical creatures exist alongside humans, but humans don't know about them.
The Cosmic Horror genre – i.e. H.P. Lovecraft – has a similar rule, except if humans see "past the veil," what they see is usually terrifying and even madness-inducing.
Meanwhile, in the Percy Jackson series, a demigod can see monsters just fine, but looking at a god or titan's true divine form is hazardous to their health. This seems to be an overlap between Urban Fantasy and Cosmic Horror. Similarly, the existence of Squibs and Obscurials in Fantastic Beasts lore sometimes approaches Cosmic Horror territory.
Compare and contrast the two genres. What other overlap exists between them? Where do world-builders and storytellers make distinctions between the genres and why? Do interesting themes and lessons emerge when you consider Urban Fantasy from a Cosmic Horror perspective or vice versa?