My UserPage - ickus (up199844)

Lots of things can be said about what counts as good writing, and one of the less important ones is the lack of convenience. For something to feel real, it has to flow in a way that feels natural. My Hero Academia has no such thing, since it’s overflowing with plot conveniences that favor the protagonist on every step of the way. You obviously need a few conveniences for the plot to start rolling, but not to the point where everything happens by luck instead of skill or planning. Victories mean nothing when you constantly win through flukes. Where is the satisfaction in that?

Let me explain what I mean in the first episodes. The protagonist is attacked by a villain and, from all the people in the world, is conveniently saved by his favorite hero, who conveniently happened to be around there. So far, this is acceptable, since as I said we need something for the plot to start rolling. It’s after this point where things get shitty.

Almight conveniently forgets to take the villain to custody, something which contradicts his personality as the greatest hero of them all. This is not a mistake the best of the best would have done. It’s just done so the plot we already got rolling, can keep rolling in favor of the protagonist.

The villain is conveniently freed by complete accident, conveniently after only a few minutes, by, from all the people in the world, the very person who bullies the protagonist in school. Can you calculate the odds of such a thing happening? They are astronomical. This is not natural at all. It was done so the protagonist will conveniently try to save the bully, something which is a can of worms on its own, and have Almight be impressed at a time when he is conveniently looking for a successor.

And it doesn’t stop there. Every single event is full of such conveniences with astronomically improbable odds that always favor the protagonist.
- He wouldn’t get in the academy if someone wasn’t conveniently in need to be rescued.
- He wouldn’t be able to break the mind control during the sport festival if the powers weren’t conveniently rewritten in a way that his quirk could counter.
- He wouldn’t defeat Stain if his blood type wasn’t conveniently immune to the villain’s powers.

Deku is not worthy of any of these victories. He is just being constantly favored by the plot, making it as a cheap copout as the power of friendship was in Fairy Tail. You can’t defend it as a well written series. It doesn’t even have the average quality of a mediocre shonen. And don’t give me the usual excuse of “it makes sense not to make sense because it’s a shonen.” Not every shonen is equally badly written. You can say it’s doing a pretty good job at pandering the insecurities of hyper sensitive beta male millennials, but you can’t deny its writing being pure garbage. And this is not the result of the series being a shonen. Just because it’s empowerment fantasy does not excuse being horribly written like this.

Something I hear a lot lately, is that something is not plot armor or plot convenience if it’s established to be part of the setting from the very beginning.
- Shiro is not plot armored because he has Avalon from the very beginning
- Naruto is not plot armored because he has Nine Tails from the very beginning
- The Eagles are not plot armor because they exist from the very beginning
- The resurrection of John Snow is not plot armor because it exists from the very beginning

The ones saying that, confuse the term asspull with the term plot convenience. An asspull is a lazy cop-out, thrown in the story without justifying its existence. It is a form of plot convenience but it’s also not the only form.
- All asspulls are plot conveniences
- Not all plot conveniences are asspulls

Even if something is excused to exist within a fictional setting, it is not automatically free of blame. Many elements are created from the very inception of a story, just so they can give an unfair advantage to major characters. If the sole purpose of an element is to create convenience, and has otherwise no other functions or purpose of existing, it’s still plot convenience.
- Kirito’s dual wielding
- Saiyans’ zenkai
- Ichigo’s half of everything
- Luffy’s heritage

If there is one term that can sum up everything that can be called bad writing, that would be reality bending. It’s basically the world around a character changing not because of his actions, but rather to support his actions. What can we call an asspull, if not something that came out of nowhere for the sake of plot? Something that has no foreshadowing, brought into existence so things can happen in any way the writer wants them to?

What do call a self insert, if not a character with no specific personality, so the audience can easily identify with, who gets into situations that make him look amazing, despite being boring and unoriginal? What do we call fantasy empowerment, if not a situation where the most unlikely protagonist gets to be a hero when normally he would be treated as a nobody? Circumstances would work in his favor in a way that do not for anyone else, therefore becoming a special snowflake for the audience to cheer.

What do we call fan fiction, if not stories made by fans who are writing themselves in other peoples’ stories and present themselves as gods on earth who can do anything, not by actually being the strongest or brightest, but rather by warping the personalities and powers of everyone else in the story in a way that validates whatever they are doing. And also, because this way they can write about their deviant fetishes of being transgender ponies or some shit.

In a serious story, there is no reality warping. There is a specific set of rules everyone abides to with no exceptions, no asspulls, and no special treatment. Something which not many care about because fiction for most came to mean escapism. Some sociopolitical topics may be addressed in any such story but they come second to hot waifus and big explosions with random powers and constant plot twists. Also, self inserting as a transgender pony.

I mean, is anyone going to lose his sleep over the existential ramifications of the god hierarchy in Dragonball? Of course not; everyone is having dreams about the upcoming tournament arc. Even though as I pointed out in a previous video, it has none of the appeal of tournament arcs. But who cares about that when we get more fighting right after the other tournament arc ended in My Hero Academia. Even though it wasn’t a tournament arc but rather a sports festival.

Reality bending is a very fascinating concept, which is why anything that has to do with time resets, granting wishes, being trapped in videogames, or getting transported to magical worlds is instantly becoming the center of attraction. Most don’t care about the bad writing, they just want to see some damn bankais goddammit, jerk off to beta males fucking their little sisters, get hype for tournament arcs, even though they are not really tournament arcs, and then overthink everything in a shallow attempt to make the crappy writing of the bullshit they are watching to appear better than what it is. But don’t tell them that, or they might lose their shit.

A thing that is usually associated with the maturity of a story is a critique on morality. It’s when the ideals of the people taking part in the main conflict are challenged, something which doesn’t happen in simple stories, where everything has a clear distinction between good and evil. It’s when heroes are flawed and villains have redeeming qualities that blur the gap between right and wrong.

This often makes people defend a character for doing some pretty horrible things, the justification of which is him being the victim of circumstance, instead of a straightforward bad guy who hurts people for personal gain. This has become almost of a meme, where they will say character X did nothing wrong. For example, Adolf Hitler did nothing wrong, he just wanted to create a strong Germany. His intentions were good and the end justifies the means.

Although this can be a very grey zone in the real world, in fiction it’s not because everything there is simplified. There aren’t thousands of variants one must take into account to see the big picture. It often comes down to what is the objective of the main character or the big bad. The society they are living in is more of an afterthought. They may be saying they want to make the world a better place, and the world often becomes a better place at the end because the script wants to validate their selfish desires.

That still doesn’t take away the initial motivation they had, which is pretty obvious to the audience since, as I said, everything in fiction is very simplified in comparison to reality. When his desire is obviously a selfish one then there is excuse for whatever damage he causes to the world around him. And to make this clear, I love protagonists with selfish desires. They are a million times more fun than boy scouts who have no motivation other than helping out people. But I am not going to defend them when they mess up and I am going to expose the bullshit of anyone who claims they did nothing wrong.

A big difference newer series have over older ones, is how louder they are trying to be. Flashier animation, bigger explosions, more extreme character archetypes and so on. You could see it as a natural evolution of technology, allowing animation techniques to be more bombastic, while also newer series being forced to be more dynamic because the average attention span of a viewer has dropped considerably over the years.

Whatever the reason may be, louder is often confused for deeper because the more extreme presentation a scene receives, the more vibrant its point becomes because it attracts your attention with its flashiness. Take the exact same scene, present it with different quality of animation and the emotional response is going to be much different. And here is what most people are fooled by. Making something louder does not make it better. The message would be the same regardless of how it was presented through animation. It’s just more emotional.

The same thing cannot be said about the quality of writing, and by that I mean the choreography, the flow of the dialogue, the consistency of physics, and so on. These are what make a theme deep instead of loud because they focus on how to explore it instead of how to make it bombastic. A well written speech can tell us much more about a character than all the pretty colors in the world.

Of course, we still have to take into account the basic advice of storytelling, which is show it, don’t say it. Actions speak louder than words, which is why you must never rely purely on talking. This is where subtlety comes into play, using cinematics and body language to show what a character feels or what is going on without having someone rubbing it to your face by having to say it.

But there is catch here. Many also confuse symbolism for subtlety. You see something and there is supposed to be a hidden message behind it. Whether it’s done deliberately by the creator or it’s just pretentious overthinking by the viewer, one image can be a thousand words, which without context they can be any words with any meaning. Something which is very easy to happen when the image is vague and open to interpretation.

So, how can something be indirect without becoming pretentious? The answer is quite simple actually. Overthinking comes from judging a scene based on the extra fuss they throw in, or trying to explain something with external to the story information. As long as whatever sounds we hear and images we see come directly from within the setting, then the need to have someone screaming the obvious, or having to make up a meaning, is lessened to a great extend. It’s what we call diegetics, anything that exists in-story and is not added for dramatic effect. A laugh track for example is non-diegetic, it is something that is there just to point out when you are supposed to laugh even if you don’t get the joke.

Now that I explained it, let me clarify how the majority of the audience doesn’t give a shit about subtlety, and loves to overthink everything as a mental exercise. If it’s not easily digestible they are most likely not going to appreciate it, if it doesn’t constantly use mystery boxes with vague symbolism they are not going to talk about it, if it doesn’t have overblown dramatization to make them laugh and cry they are going to ignore it.

For most people, subtlety equals boredom, because it is forcing you to get it on your own and most people cannot do that. They are just reacting to stimulation, so the louder the stimulation, the more extreme their reaction is going to be. Unable to evaluate something on their own, they rely on popularity and hype so they have to be told why they are supposed to be having fun with something, instead of appreciating it for what it is.

I often find people claiming fan service is not part of the narrative, so it can be ignored during your criticism of a title. Which is a lie, since many are watching a title because of the fan service.

Using the same logic, people claim fillers are not part of the plot, so they can be ignored and will not affect your criticism of a title. Which is a lie again, since very few are skipping them. They either watch them because they are too invested, or they give up on a series because nothing happens.

There is also the notion where fan service and fillers are needed as comic relief or points of relaxation between major events. Which narrative-wise are a waste of time, since they do not offer anything, and on top of it they take away from the experience. A well-written story would use relaxation points to flesh out its characters and the world they are living in. Highlights and showdowns are supposed to be the clash of everything we were shown during relaxation points.

If an author is lazy enough to be doing both in the middle of a battle, by having the characters infodumping everything regarding their backdrop and how their powers are working, then he leaves nothing for in-between scenes, besides meaningless slice of nothing.

Same goes with fan service. If that is the only way an author can keep the audience interested during important events, then he knows there isn’t much in terms of themes or interesting presentation. He desperately tries to keep everyone distracted with nonsense that only ends up ridiculing characters and themes. So basically, fan service is in service of bad writing.

With that out of the way, let’s clarify how anything that is resolved in a way that feels like a copout, still damages the narrative despite being in service of it. Plot convenience is bad writing despite not being fan service or filler. It does helps a character to overcome a situation, and it does progress the plot, but when the method used feels undeserved, then it comes off as lazy and disappointing.

Removing convenience makes things harder for the characters and more interesting for the viewer. If a good ending cannot happen because there is no logical way the character can succeed in a specific situation, then you have a bad ending as the only logical conclusion. It will be tragic but at least it won’t be badly written and it will be in service of the narrative.