Probably necroing this but sorry, been a crazy few weeks :p.Â
As for the comment on Tony Starks Deus Ex Machina and the sceptor. You don't get to change the rules midway through the game, granted the powers involved were so strong a bump on the head cured Not-Green-Arrow of his ailments but still.Â
During my prolonged absence I got some time to review another season of Dexter, and in this season they're dealing with the Doom's Day Killer. There's at one point a scene where Dexter walks into the church looking to kill Gailer who he assumes is the mastermind. During this scene Travis is either unconscious or tied up or something vaguely contrived and Dexter hears some shuffling on the floor above him. He looks up, see's Gailer see him, goes "He saw me." Then makes a mental note about how stalking him will be harder. Like two episodes later its revealed that Gailer is dead, and has been dead for two years prior which means, that entire scene from that episode 2 episodes prior was total bullshit and upon some investigation Dexter could have learned quiet easily that Travis was the killer the entire time and ended the season.Â
Also since we're talking about story inconsistancies, the amount of times in the MSQ you win because someone knows some never before mentioned character, or they happen to know some spell or whatever deus ex machina happens drives me insane. The most comparable thing I can think to compare it to is like Naurto or Bleach where in both these super long series the main characters never feel in danger. There's always some other new jutsu or upgraded sword thing that they can unlock that has just enough power to win. It feels incredibly cheap to watch something like that happen, its like when a story introduces resurrection and you're like "Well there goes all the stakes."Â
I think of a show like say Full Metal Alchemist which had a few simple rules for how Alchemy worked and then a few forbidden things and then you find out why some things are forbidden and the rest of the world for the most part follows those rules. I think its the same reason why Game of Thrones can be terrifying because when you see someone get stabbed, that's probably it for them. They don't usually survive and because there's no reason to think "oh well maybe they came back!" you have this constant feeling of tension. I feel like the opposite is true with the MSQ, in the times when I'm not the chosen one (which I also hate), someone always know something, or some contrived reason exists that will always bail us out of every solution, and making up Lore based around your contrived solution isn't a good answer. I remember right after HW lost I got in an argument with some dude in /shout in Coerthas Western because I made the comment "Hey this zone has the Northern Lights like every other frozen landscape in every other game." and they were like "Actually its Aether that's been twisted from the Calamity I just ran into an NPC who told me that." And its like, no what happened is they put the Northern Lights into a place that isn't super far North, realized it didn't make any sense because Coerthas used to be lush, then wrote some lore to justify that design choice.
I think as a general nitpicking though, drama/tension/romance in general has gotten to a point where when I'm reading it, it feels like the only reason problems arise is because no one behaves like a normal person. I'll use the movie Hitch as an example, at the end Will Smith walks in on whoever the lead actress was (I know who she is I'm just too lazy to type her name out), and finds a guy sleeping over at her house and assumes she's sleeping with someone else. Prior to their break up like 2 days before, considering everything was all good, I think its reasonable to expect the person you're in a relationship with might have mentioned they were having family over for a wedding sometime soon and this huge sad leaving scene gets totally negated.Â
Another example would be the entire conflict in Man of Steel. Zod shows up demanding Superman and planning on Teraforming the Earth. One, he could just go to fucking Mars and accomplish the same shit without risking conflict with Superman and thus saving the Kryptonian Race. Two the problem with growing up on Earth was the Sun's Radiation. Just because you change the Atmosphere doesn't mean you change the Sun's Radiation. Our atmosphere does not determine the Sun's Radiation. Secondly instead of threatening people if the Kryptonians had just been like "Hey, UN, we need a new place to set up and rebuild our people." They would have probably responded "Well, you don't need oil, so if you'll let us have all the oil in the Middle East, we haven't been able to control that shit in ever, so uh have a ball. Mind sharing some of that space flight stuff? Maybe tell us where we can get your first officer because Damn she's fine." But instead they show up and insist on killing everyone and destroying everything and any intelligent, strategic mind could have handled that better.Â
And finally, Saw One, how the fuck does a dude lie on the floor pretended to be dead for hours and the fucking Doctor in the Room doesn't notice is breathing? This old fucker had cancer, he wasn't exactly fit enough to hold his breath for hours.Â
Hollywood, Writers, get your shit together, come on!
As for the comment on Tony Starks Deus Ex Machina and the sceptor. You don't get to change the rules midway through the game, granted the powers involved were so strong a bump on the head cured Not-Green-Arrow of his ailments but still.Â
During my prolonged absence I got some time to review another season of Dexter, and in this season they're dealing with the Doom's Day Killer. There's at one point a scene where Dexter walks into the church looking to kill Gailer who he assumes is the mastermind. During this scene Travis is either unconscious or tied up or something vaguely contrived and Dexter hears some shuffling on the floor above him. He looks up, see's Gailer see him, goes "He saw me." Then makes a mental note about how stalking him will be harder. Like two episodes later its revealed that Gailer is dead, and has been dead for two years prior which means, that entire scene from that episode 2 episodes prior was total bullshit and upon some investigation Dexter could have learned quiet easily that Travis was the killer the entire time and ended the season.Â
Also since we're talking about story inconsistancies, the amount of times in the MSQ you win because someone knows some never before mentioned character, or they happen to know some spell or whatever deus ex machina happens drives me insane. The most comparable thing I can think to compare it to is like Naurto or Bleach where in both these super long series the main characters never feel in danger. There's always some other new jutsu or upgraded sword thing that they can unlock that has just enough power to win. It feels incredibly cheap to watch something like that happen, its like when a story introduces resurrection and you're like "Well there goes all the stakes."Â
I think of a show like say Full Metal Alchemist which had a few simple rules for how Alchemy worked and then a few forbidden things and then you find out why some things are forbidden and the rest of the world for the most part follows those rules. I think its the same reason why Game of Thrones can be terrifying because when you see someone get stabbed, that's probably it for them. They don't usually survive and because there's no reason to think "oh well maybe they came back!" you have this constant feeling of tension. I feel like the opposite is true with the MSQ, in the times when I'm not the chosen one (which I also hate), someone always know something, or some contrived reason exists that will always bail us out of every solution, and making up Lore based around your contrived solution isn't a good answer. I remember right after HW lost I got in an argument with some dude in /shout in Coerthas Western because I made the comment "Hey this zone has the Northern Lights like every other frozen landscape in every other game." and they were like "Actually its Aether that's been twisted from the Calamity I just ran into an NPC who told me that." And its like, no what happened is they put the Northern Lights into a place that isn't super far North, realized it didn't make any sense because Coerthas used to be lush, then wrote some lore to justify that design choice.
I think as a general nitpicking though, drama/tension/romance in general has gotten to a point where when I'm reading it, it feels like the only reason problems arise is because no one behaves like a normal person. I'll use the movie Hitch as an example, at the end Will Smith walks in on whoever the lead actress was (I know who she is I'm just too lazy to type her name out), and finds a guy sleeping over at her house and assumes she's sleeping with someone else. Prior to their break up like 2 days before, considering everything was all good, I think its reasonable to expect the person you're in a relationship with might have mentioned they were having family over for a wedding sometime soon and this huge sad leaving scene gets totally negated.Â
Another example would be the entire conflict in Man of Steel. Zod shows up demanding Superman and planning on Teraforming the Earth. One, he could just go to fucking Mars and accomplish the same shit without risking conflict with Superman and thus saving the Kryptonian Race. Two the problem with growing up on Earth was the Sun's Radiation. Just because you change the Atmosphere doesn't mean you change the Sun's Radiation. Our atmosphere does not determine the Sun's Radiation. Secondly instead of threatening people if the Kryptonians had just been like "Hey, UN, we need a new place to set up and rebuild our people." They would have probably responded "Well, you don't need oil, so if you'll let us have all the oil in the Middle East, we haven't been able to control that shit in ever, so uh have a ball. Mind sharing some of that space flight stuff? Maybe tell us where we can get your first officer because Damn she's fine." But instead they show up and insist on killing everyone and destroying everything and any intelligent, strategic mind could have handled that better.Â
And finally, Saw One, how the fuck does a dude lie on the floor pretended to be dead for hours and the fucking Doctor in the Room doesn't notice is breathing? This old fucker had cancer, he wasn't exactly fit enough to hold his breath for hours.Â
Hollywood, Writers, get your shit together, come on!
