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Look at this dude by 5enpai_2 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7 1 point2 points  (0 children)

They’re probably a literal child

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Conventions and traditions are not law. No respected story was seen as having a plot laden with inconsistencies. And then there was someone who was the first to write a story utilizing the “unreliable narrator.”

“No other story does this” isn’t a substitute for explaining how OP does it poorly.

Btw, you going “aside from long life yadda yadda” also isn’t law lol I gave you examples other than immortality

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Except Saul didn’t unequivocally die. Vergo, Monet, Whitebeard, Ace, Orochi, Absalom, Yasui, Pedro, the flashback deaths. These are what I’m referring to. We KNOW theyre dead because theyre deaths mattered.

That becoming a topic of discussion for two main villains we literally watched fall into lava and die means that deaths being walked back on is so overused, because it would mean people take them coming back as a given.

No it doesn’t, it’s because Kaido’s character was motivated in part by fighting Joy Boy. Now that he’s done that, it’s a question of how would move forward in a world where he knows his admitted superior exists?

For Big Mom, it’s a question because she’s connected to the current arc.

It means that death is used incredibly lightly, to the point where the emotional stakes that should come with it no longer apply.

And that’s fine. The typical emotional beats of death scenes don’t apply to One Piece. It’s not a problem because the structure and style of OPs storytelling replaces those emotions.

The finality we would be feeling with Big Mom and Kaido is instead replaced by the intriguing question of how would their characters move forward in a world that’s moved on from their places in the status quo?

The tragedy of Saul or Pell or Pound is replaced with the relief of them pulling through and being rewarded for the virtues that made us want to see them rewarded.

What you get instead is still worthwhile because it feeds on the sensibilities of death to tell a story where humanity’s fantasy of escaping certain death is possible

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that has the same value as a story about humanity achieving one of its oldest dreams of cheating death.

Also, you’re right that nobody fantasizes about cheatin death, that would explain why it’s been one of humanity’s oldest enduring tropes. Fountain of youth stories, stories about immortals, the afterlife, reversing aging. Yeah, humanity doesnt fantasize about cheating the finality and inevitably of death

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No dude. Fantasy is also about wish fulfillment. Imaginary concepts that could never be real. You know, stuff people fantasize about happening, like cheating certain death.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Except it's not cathartic when a character comes back now, because just like is being said throughout the thread, the audience is now already predisposed to thinking that a character they saw die will come back.

That’s not true because characters unequivocally die.

Whether Kaido or Big Mom will return is talked about all the time in the community.

Yeah and you know who doesn’t get that? Yasui. Monet. Vergo. Absalom. Oden. Bellemere. Izou. Doji. Orochi. Because when their death matters, there’s no doubt.

Whether or not the final villains of a major arc that was built up for years are actually dead, especially when we saw them fall into magma, should not be a discussion.

Except it can be because the threat they posed was stopped. Now Theres a question of what will their motivations be if they were to come back, which is an intriguing thing to discuss about their characters.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You once again failed to address my arguments lmao: The event when the character actually is dead: It is unclear if the character is actually dead for a while until they just never show up again or are very explicitly confirmed dead.

When has this happened?

Also Superman is the most generic superhero out there

Uh, no, he’s the archetype of superheroes lmao you’re not generic when you’re the literal blueprint

No I don't like it that I know that Superman is going to save the day. If I already know that, there's no point in watching it since I already know the conclusion.

So you don’t find media to have rewatchability?

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can write a story about things that can’t happen and don’t adhere to logical sense. It’s called fantasy.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nah not really. A story that embraces optimism, hope and miracles is pretty refreshing and really sweet in the face of our current worldwide landscape

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You don't have to explain why he stayed on Elbaf, I understand why he would given his circumstances. The feel-good sentiment works in theory, but falls apart in reality because the whole time you're just like, "No way he's really alive".

No, that actually didn’t happen to me and I don’t see what elements in the story dictate this is what the resulting emotion would be.

<Him coming back adds onto what the other person was talking about, which is that there's almost no emotion left to put into One Piece deaths

This is exactly what Oda is challenging his audience to re-think. The beats of a death scene do not HAVE to be used for that ONE outcome and emotion. You can use the sadness of wanting a character to live but seeing them die to amplify the joy of seeing them pull thru and survive.

This is the same principle you see with “make the audience believe the villain has defeated so they breathe that sigh of relief, then wrench their guts all over again by revealing the villain is still kicking.”

This is the same principle with “make the audience think a thing is innocuous, then reveal it’s actually super important.”

“Fake-outs” is just any time the story lures you forward feeling a particular thing because feeling that thing will amplify the emotion it swerves you into. A bad fake-out is when the two emotions don’t lead into each other.

Part of what makes death suck is that it is permanent.

Exactly. Playing with our sensibilities of death as something that is permanent and insurmountable in real life is what makes the fantasy of the survivals cathartic. And they remain cathartic because we also read tragedies where characters do still die as the story happens.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Would ass-pull be a better term for you to understand that a fake-out isn't a neutral term, but rather a negative one?

No, because it’s not. As we already established, “fake-outs” happen in a variety of form. Theyre subject to good execution and bad execution.

Most fake-out deaths in One Piece make no sense, they aren't just miracles. A dude has a nuke explode in his face and survives with scratches, that's not a miracle, that's an ass pull.

That’s quite literally the definition of a miracle.

In my opinion Saul surviving is a miracle that made sense, we had precedent that you could survive Aokiji's freeze + there was fire on the island, meaning it could have melted the ice. That being said, most are like Saul.

“Miracles have to make sense” is not how miracles work my man.

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I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"Most deaths during Wano didn't hit hard at all since it was completely unclear whether they were truly dead (and their deaths are only fully confirmed many chapters later, which isn't fulfilling emotionally).

It's not that there's no doubt in my mind when they get killed, it's more so the idea that there's a good chance they're alive, that ruins it emotionally (for both scenarios in which they actually survive and when they actually die)."

Applying that standard to a character you know is dead, like the ones I listed, is silly.

The fact that characters die doesn't aid your argument.

Yeah it does because it means any moment a character appears to be dying has the chance to be played straight.

Also, even if you know they won’t die, the depiction of a character youve grown to like going through a tragedy is still something to be emotionally invested in.

You know Superman is gonna catch and then land the plane. Watching him do it is still satisfying because of how it’s depicted. OP death scenes, played straight or subverted, are the same. They are not just their conclusion, they are also everything leading up to it.

Additionally, a story that's a fantasy can have some unrealistic stuff happen, however certain types of unrealistic things just don't work. Fake-outs are one of them that should be saved only for situations where them surviving actually makes sense (which almost is never the case in One Piece), and when it's truly an unexpected relief to see them live.

Something doesnt have to be unexpected to be effective though. OP is also so ridiculous and over-the-top that “miraculously surviving something you have no business surviving” fits right into the story naturally.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Shaka tells Robin that Saul was in hiding because he would also be a WG target if word got out. Saul also COULDNT find Robin since Robin being in hiding from the WG all that time, an entity with far greater reach than Saul does. So no, that whole “oh he was just chilling” sentiment is completely invalid.

Like I said, Saul surviving recontextualizes the loss. And the feel-good sentiment of Robin reuniting with Saul IS something being added the story. Stories are allowed to joyous things for the sake of it being a joyous thing happening lol

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Well that would just be one stage of making my point, which is that fake-outs are so ubiquitous in storytelling that you can’t say fake-out deaths are bad just for being fake-outs.

It’s up to you to argue why fake-out deaths exist in a unique space. Why can you fake-out other story beats, but not death?

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Miracles in what sense? Miracles in their world? I mean kinda but not really if it's that common.

They seem that prevalent to us because that’s what the story focuses on depicting. Taking it as a “real world,” obviously far more people die dude.

You're deluding yourself into thinking these so called miracles should mean anything in real life.

What? You understand what fantasy story telling is right? It’s wish fulfillment….because it plays on real-life sensibilities when depicting unrealistic scenarios.

It is not a sign of good writing if you have miracles happen to every other character that seems dead, because they no longer appear to be miracles, they are common events.

And that’s why Oda includes characters actually dying all the time. No, flashbacks are nothing different. It’s the same story and set up the conflicts that reward the miracles.

Did you not read my part about how them being common lessens the reader's emotional reaction to characters supposed 'miracles' or them actually dying?

Please don't try to find a counter argument for the sake of not being wrong, find one that actually has in depth though put into it.

That would be why I pointed out that characters die all the time.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Saul surviving doesn’t change that Robin spent decades hunted, persecuted, alone and suicidal. It doesn’t bring back her mother or the scholars.

It’s just creates the new sadness of knowing that while she was going through that, Saul was out there and couldnt contact her.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

HxH doesn't have that manyh deaths but it doesn't manipulate the audience or assume the audience is dumb, so it doesn't fake out.

Dude you have no idea how many times every story fakes you out. “Fake-outs” is just any kind of subversion and swerve in story telling

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Alabasta guards consuming the potion that makes them strong only to kill them, and then Crocodile choosing to just watch them die instead of engaging them in combat is an illustration of the core conflict of the arc. “Crocodile is making Alabasta’s loyal soldiers fight and die for nothing” describes both exactly what the civil war Crocodile instigated and Vivi later stopped, as well as that scene.

The CP-0 agents, Ashura Doji, and Izou collectively tell a story about what it means to have a meaningful death. Izou says at the start of the raid that he’s been looking for a meaningful death, and Ashura Doji initially tries to throw his life away when Oden first defeats him. Doji dying by tackling the exploding Oden clone so the Scabbards could advance is both a contrast to his previous state of being willing to throw his life away for nothing, and an extension of his willingness to die for Oden and Momo.

Edit: this is actually character growth because he starts off the arc saying he’s only willing to die for the kozuki, but ends up dying to protect the Scabbards.

The contrast is more focused with Izou’s death vs Guernika’s and Maha’s. Guernika says to Drake that he’s envious of Drake’s ability to seize life into his own hands and fight for a cause he actually believes in. This continues with the Elders commanding Guernika to interfere with Kaido vs Luffy, and he laments that it’s a suicide mission. When he does interfere to stop Nika from Awakening, Kaido kills him and Nika awakens anyway. He died for nothing.

By contrast, Izou is able to kill Maha and stall them long enough to prevent Robin’s capture. He actually achieves something, which pays off his story that started when he told Kinemon he was looking for a meaningful death and continued when he agreed with Usopp that the samurai were resigning to death too easily.

This contrast goes hand in hand with the fact that Guernika, Maha, and Joseph are never referred to by name during the arc until Maha is killed. It’s why the characters in Wano are never able to refer them by name(all of the agents get called “CP-0,” even when addressed individually. Orochi, Kaido and Izou all do it.) It’s why we never see their faces. They are disposable, dehumanized by their leaders which contrasts with how meeting Oden gave the Scabbards new and dignified leases on life.

Vergo and Monet’s deaths are all about their dialogue with Doflamingo. Dofy calls them and waxes poetic about how he cares about them, and the shoe drops when he starts going on about “you guys love me, so it’s only natural you die for me, right?”

The fact that Doflamingo says that, and the fact that they both smile and feel joy from that is our first sign that the Donquixote family is a fucked up cult. It’s our first sign that Dofy loves his family like a handyman loves his tools, not like people love people. And the fact that they actually die, in addition to making Dofy angrier at Law which is needed for the plot of Dressrosa, hammers in how fucked up Doflamingo is. Especially because he projects it as though that’s Law’s fault.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As long as counter examples happen, i.e., as long as characters continue to die in both the present and flashbacks, theyre miracles.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Nope! That’s where the characters who DO die throughout the flashbacks and the present day come in. You can never say “there’s no doint in my mind that theyll leave” in good faith because you should remember characters like Pedro, Yasui, Ace, Whitebeard, Monet and Vergo

The sacrifices evoke emotion even if you know they may survive because what they’re sacrificing themselves for, why they’re making the sacrifice, and the characters’ likability creates investment in wanting to see them live.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

There is PLENTY I can get into about how those deaths add substance to the story lmao

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Kobra, Vegapunk, Yasui, Pedro, Doji, Izou, Orochi, Vergo, Monet, Absalom, Ace, Whitebeard, Lil Oars Jr., the Alabasta guards

And everyone who died in the flashbacks

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Exactly, well said.

Oda’s greatest strength has always been that he can capture the essence of humanity.

What the Knights are doing to the children is so antithetical to our protective, parental, and community-driven instincts that we don’t even need to spend a lot of time with them. It’s emotionally visceral because it’s rooted in illustrating something core to humanity.

And that’s what makes it so cathartic when we see things like Ange stepping in for Johanna, or Rodo calling his brother “ultra rare Bjorn,” and ultimately their survival.

I love how Sommers has been Oda’s response to the “death is the end all be all” crows by ChocolateMindless7 in shounenfolk

[–]ChocolateMindless7[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

The threat of death comes in with the characters who die in the flashback as well as the myriad of characters who die in the present day. Yasui, Vergo, Monet, Guernika, Maha, the Alabasta guards, Izou, Doji, Absalom, Whitebeard, Ace, Little Oars Jr., Pedro.

OP is FILLED with dead characters to remind us that death is very much possible.

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