Quote:
Originally Posted by Shining Celebi
Probably because flashbacks in general, as a rule, are bad writing and should be avoided.
That's not to say good stories don't have flashbacks or that all flashbacks are bad.
It's just, especially the way it's used in Naruto, it's incredibly lazy writing and kills the pacing.
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This seems kind of a moot point to me, I don't understand how it could be bad writing if the writer is or was developing characters and ideas as the story advanced (as in the case with Madara and Danzo). Flashbacks occur in almost every media outlet I can think of; manga, anime, American cartoons and live-action TV, I fail to see how it's bad writing when the flashback itself is revealing critical information about a character or plot element at a crucial time.
For example; in the series
Angel and
Buffy most of Angels's - dare I say 'all' of his back story was revealed in the form of flashbacks (his meeting with Darla, then Drusilla, then with Spike and finally his arrival in present Sunnydale), which if it weren't for the informative flash back all we would have been given was a last minute very random and very large "info dump" with the intention of making us feel sympathy for the ineffectual villain.
Personally I'd rather see a flash back and be able to physically see what happened to make these characters turn out the way they did rather than get a lengthy last-minute info dump and be expected to sympathize with a murderous madman when all I got out of it was, "his life sucks, he had a mean dad, and his girlfriend broke up with him just before she died...please feel bad for him" - I'd much rather see how it got to that point.