Quote:
Originally Posted by Marcus H.
And yeah, still on a tangent. Anyone, feel free to steer us back.
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Yeah, it's probably fine to talk about anything other then re:zero as an example, since it's ongoing and too "hot" that it will just derail the thread. I'm more then happy just to pretend it doesn't exist (while it's still ongoing) for the sake of having a meaningful discussion on the actual topic (there's plenty of fish in the sea).
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Here's my problem the currently trendy "I don't like characters that are good at what they do" angle.
It feels like its people noticing there's a problem, but pointing the finger (on mass) at the completely wrong thing.
If we discount the "surprise" endings and satires, which are always fun, these stories can only really go in a few
combinations...
- the World shits on the Protagonist, but the Protagonist is a badass
I'll admit I'm a sucker for these, not so much because I like watching a badass do badass things (though that's fun too) but because I like seing the World the protagonist relies on either getting wooped, deconstructed and sometimes even the "big Brother" figure getting smashed to the ground. It's easier to appreciate the complexity of something when it's broken into pieces. A lot of the times, even when the Protagonist gets a greater then life image associated with him in time, the story doesn't really diverge too much from aspects which make the Protagonist look like "the little guy," which is core to the fun of these types of stories as well.
Many people seems to despise this formula recently.
- the Protagnist is a dumbass, but the World will make sure the eventually he gets his way
This is basically the same as 1 but flipped. I generally don't like these very much because instead of watching a deconstruction of the world we get a deconstruction of the character. In a way that can be good, and I don't mean that in the meaningless literature critic jargon wagon way, but actually legitimately fun experience. The problem, for me at least, is that most of the time the character is a depressing wreck, by simple definition of the formula. I have to say I'm far more indifferent to depressing worlds then depressing characters. Watching a character be a clueless idiot forever is just not my cup of tea.
My biggest complain though is that fundamentally the formula ends up looking from a certain angle like a puzzle that solves itself. Or like a game where the only element to it is LUCK. Neighter of which I like, at all. Yes if you have a badass character that in a sense is also like a self fulfilling prophecy but I can more easily accept a character being the deus ex machina rather then the entire world being a giant deus ex machina; and it's obvious there's gonna be at least 1 deus ex machina anyway so take your pick.
- the World shits on the Protagonist and the Protagonist is a dumbass BUT the Protagonist becomes badass though some trails or training
This is more or less just a basic variation of wiggling case 2 then swaping in case 1, maybe even cycle it a bit where you revert to case 2 once in a while.
Personally I find it dumb if it goes overboard with the cycles after the first one. It's okey to do it as many times as the story feels like it, but I think it makes the formula very weak when it resets the stage to essentially square 0 every so often instead of just tacking a few steps back while maintaining what it achieved so far.
- the World shits on the Protagonist, the Protagonist is a dumbass, THEN then Protagonist gets badass-powerup but is still SHIT; the World only really loses to the Protagonist in the last moment of the story after a random lucky event or change of hearth
This one usually gets either endless bitching into the ground OR praises to high heavens for it's [insert fantasy interpretation and artificial enthusiasm]. It all depends on luck. It's also commonly (and very annoyingly I might add) confused or associated with case 1, but unfortunately it doesn't have any of the good points, it's usually just an angst fest of the MC and the world is often very shallow since the focus is usually on the MC as the terrible idiot with powers.
This formula for me is the antithesis of a realistic story, the byproduct of misinterpreting the idea of "well he has to also lose to be realistic." A loser-Protagonist losing doesn't really harmonize with anything; it's like in speech repeating yourself several times. And also, "always losing" is logically just as unrealistic as "always winning" if we want to go with the literal interpretation.
From my experience the theme and just about everything else (sound and visuals etc) has to be spectacular, since otherwise at best series like this only have "its different" when compared to the first 3 cases; which due to being fairly common failstory pattern don't really have that going for them either.
Pretty sure it's safe to say this is the formula with the fewest fans.
- the World likes the Protagonist and the Protagonist is a badass or semi-badass
This is kind of what I see in most of the moe versions. Usually the people of the other world have animal features or are all cute. Because why not right? everything is all rainbow and sunshine anyway, and disputes are all misunderstandings.
Essentially this is usually a pure and peaceful world deconstruction. Like a slice of life shows.
They're fun in small chunks but I feel they most of the time drag on far too long for their own good. Again, just like slice of life shows.
- the World shits on the Protagonist, and the Protagonist is kind of shit or bellow average; the Protagonist might become average at best
This is like 3, yet another hybrid of 1 and 2. I placed it lower since it's very niche and rarely seen IMO. Think Grimgar is the only one in recent memory. The basic idea is that just like case 1 you have heavy focus on the world but instead of the whole world you just take a very precise slice of it, and instead of having the characters (antagonists included) be supreme experts you just lower the bar enough where what would be otherwise grunts are now boss-level problems. This fundamentally solves issues with case 2 as well, since the powers involved are much easier to reason with, and the solutions can be very simple and "realistic." At least in Grimgar's case this feels like it does the best job at establishing a connection between the viewer and the characters.
I'm kind of biased towards supreme expert level characters since I want the story to be forced in exploring the entire world it created not just a small little slice, but this formula works well enough for me to be happy—it's also hard to complain about character deconstruction when the spectrum goes from the more down to earth incompetent-to-competent instead of dumbass-to-instantjesus.
- The World is random and the ending is usually also random.
This usually means the characters are a sidenote, the show is all big "promise for greatness" or full of cliffhangers.
My assesment of these shows is that characters might as well be elements of the scenary or non-existent, and exist generally only to give the impression of a direction. So it doesn't really matter what and how they are. Though if the show is to have any hope you'd hope they're strong enough to carry the show on their shoulders. But...
I generally don't like these betrayal-of-expectations shows, so no further comment.
(writing the list took a bit more space then I intended but ohwell)
Okey so...
It all boils down to case 1 or 2, since 3 and 6 are just 1 & 2, and 4 & 7 are too different to matter.
If we're looking at it from purely the perspective of "too powerfull" you're basically looking at two sides of the same coin. You basically have the World on one side, and the Protagonist on the other. Yes they're like apples and oranges but while I may have a preference for either apples or oranges they're not as different as water and fine wine (or whatever expensive alcohol you like).
If either case 1 or case 2 is bad, it's because they're bad at what they try to achieve, either world building or character deconstruction, whichever you're preferred poison is. They're fundamentally not bad due to the formula, the formula is just preference. And you can't blame a series going for character deconstruction for shit world building or a series going for world deconstruction for having characters that can actually achieve the world shattering events required to deconstruct the world. It's like complaining why salt isn't sweet or sugar salty.
It pains me to see people complain that a show is bad because the character was "too powerful" when really the problem is
the world wasn't interesting enough to support that character. Having a more bland character in a boring world is not gonna suddenly make it any better. If a character being too powerful would be an instant fail then shows like Dragon Ball, One Punch Man, Guren Lagann, etc would have never been enjoyable.
Another divergent problem I see is that,
People seem to take this to the logical next step of "I don't like characters that are excellent at something." To give a recent example, in the series Alderamin on the Sky the main character, which is from the words of the story itself foreshadowed to become a great general, is apparently in the opinion of a many devoid of the right to be one. Because obviously if he has achievement and doesn't have "MENTAL problems" (war PTSD or whatever) it's never gonna be good.
God forbid the
heroes of the story be actual you know "heroes."
I know I'm repeating myself but I want to emphasize as bluntly as possible: a LOT of people have a apparently very strong opinion that Mental/Psychological Problems are some kind of "key" feature of good characterization. It's extremely silly and unhealthy.