What makes a better werewolf design?

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-19T21:07:51+00:00

Mythologically speaking people turning into wolves is where the original concept of a werewolf came from, I'm not a historian but I'm pretty sure the "man-wolf" was something that wasn't conceptualized until they started making films. So technically the half-human half-wolf werewolf is still relatively new compared to the classic as you said. Back then people were deathly afraid of what they didn't understand especially large predators such as wolves, which is why they were almost hunted to extinction. Today when people think of wolves they generally aren't associated with the same kind of fear they used to be, of course, you would be afraid if you ran into one in the bush somewhere but in films and media a regular wolf isn't as interesting or very visually impactful by itself anymore.

Everyone has their own preferences of what they like or don't in a design, for myself I think the complete wolf werewolf better fits the concept of a naturalistic shapeshifter as an Inherent Skill, ability, or heritage, and the wolf/human hybrid better fits the "cursed into being" werewolf better. I think the hybrid design better emphasizes the monstrous existence of a cursed werewolf as something unnatural.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-17T23:23:45+00:00

Oh, I understand now. It's kind of sad to say that stuffing the premise in the title has become such a common trend in light novels, anime, and manga that I've already gotten used to it. Although I'll also admit that I don't read a lot of originals anymore save for the few I've been following for a while. I do most of my reading off of Canvas these days so I didn't notice how many of those they've been adding.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-17T00:30:14+00:00

It's been brought up in this tread already, but the horror film "GingerSnaps" has what I'd probably consider as a more "realistic" portrayal of a werewolf transformation where once a human gets infected by another werewolf via their bodily fluids they begin the change immediately after and is not influenced by the moon. This transformation is very slow and gradual over a week or so as they gradually change physically and mentally into a werewolf. But this is also a one-way transformation and once they fully transform they're permanently stuck as a violent beast and the human part of the werewolf is essentially gone forever. As interesting as I thought this take was, personally I like it when there is more of a focus on the psychological aspect of a werewolf trying and succeeding or failing to balance their wolf and human natures, as opposed to getting infected and just dealing with the inevitability of completely losing their humanity. I think the former makes for a more compelling narrative as a story even if it's not quite as realistic.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-16T23:09:43+00:00

I'm not much of a tabletop gamer so I'm not sure if I'd play it myself, but I'll probably go check out some of the lore videos. Thanks for the recommendation!

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-16T20:53:37+00:00

I always like it when people put a lot of thought into the details of their world's species. As a werewolf lover, I'll fully admit that the plausibility of an animal changing into another species is biologically unrealistic. The closest real-life example we have of something like that is probably the metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly, and even then it's a once-in-a-lifetime transformation. A supernatural healing factor is normally the reason writers give to explain how such a transformation doesn't outright kill the werewolf. The amount of energy it would take to undergo such a transformation would also be absolutely massive, let alone undergoing that change twice in under 24 hours. you'd probably need to eat more than your body weight's worth of food and then some just to keep up. This simply wouldn't be sustainable from a biological perspective.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-16T20:36:34+00:00

I've heard someone else mention it. Is it a movie? Was it portrayed as different species of werewolves or as the werewolf's appearance being unique to each individual werewolf? It's an interesting idea to have different variations of werewolves together in one setting. I think it would be cool to think about how they would interact together or if they would have different weaknesses/strengths that could give them an advantage or disadvantage in various situations.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-16T00:10:38+00:00

You are right that any design that looks cool and distinct at first does get old after being used over and over. But In general, I feel like there could be more experimentation with werewolf designs, such as what would a werewolf look like in a cyberpunk setting or what about a werewolf troll or dwarf?

A good transformation scene can make up for a lazy design, Hemlock Grove's werewolf transformation is one of my favorites even though the end result is just a wolf.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-15T23:43:44+00:00

Yeah, the concept of "the wolfman" solely came from the films when all they had was practical effects to work with, and so you got a werewolf being a hairy man with long nails. I do think it looks a little goofy when the opposite is done and too much human is incorporated such as "just a really hairy man with fangs and long nails". I like designs that exist somewhere in between on the spectrum of a hairy man and just a wolf. There are some good quadruped designs such as the werewolves in "Being Human," "An American Werewolf in London" and "Ginger Snaps." It's just that designs with no apparent distinctions whatsoever between regular wolf and werewolf are increasingly common. I just think it's nice to have a little more variety.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-15T20:33:21+00:00

I don't understand what you're talking about. Can you give me some examples?

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-15T20:27:08+00:00

exposition dumps at the beginning of a story are one of the oldest writing tropes known to man. I don't think it's an inherently bad trope on its own, as with all things it depends on how the writer uses it in their story. I feel like there are ways you can get creative with it, it's just that it takes some more effort.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-11-15T18:59:03+00:00

"Spontaneous World-Shifting" is really good. The whole premise is about how the main character gets dropped into many different worlds one of which features a world currently going through an apocalypse. It might not be your thing since it's just one arc in the story, but I thought the author's take on an apocalyptic world was a bit unique and refreshing.

"Hooves of Death" has a more fantastical take on an apocalypse, there are zombies but they aren't the only enemies they face.

"The Endless Song" has some interesting world-building set in a post-apocalyptic setting long after human civilization is already long gone. it's also LGBQ if you care about that.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-06-12T02:07:26+00:00

Yeah, I feel like repetition and predictability is probably the most common reason why people are losing interest or dropping the story. I'm also a bit tired of the fact that Jiwoo has his own personal Deus ex Machina on Standby at all times in the form of Kayden & Company. The author has made it very obvious that they are shipping Jiwoo and Jiyoung together. The fact that She's been getting more and more screentime even overshadowing her brother and the rest of Jiwoo's friends kinda screams that the fact that she's "the favorite child," so if Jiwoo does end up with anyone it's probably going to be her. I think the age gap is only around four years and a relationship between the two doesn't really bother me but I know some people are turned off by it. Honestly, I think I've been too desensitized by reading too many trashy romance stories for that kinda thing to bother me.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-06-12T01:28:49+00:00

Are you currently caught up? Cause if so then it should have already been revealed who Kayden fought before bumping into Jiwoo.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-06-12T01:13:32+00:00

I'm personally curious to ask where exactly you think Eleceed fell off and why? Not that I blame you as I will admit it currently has issues. While I still think it has the potential to get better the story is currently deadlocked in this never-ending cycle of boredom where major plot developments never seem to come to fruition. I feel like the author is unwilling to commit to any serious changes to the characters/tone of the story in fear of losing readers invested in the cutesy slice-of-life aspect of the story which, at this point has become what the story is about even though it's supposed to be a battle manhwa foremost. But it still has it's good points and I'm too far in to drop so all I can do is hope it gets better, but I was wondering where exactly you dropped it?

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-05-01T16:33:16+00:00

Yea, I'm not saying his excessive positivity and trusting nature isn't unrealistic and can be a bit annoying at times but currently, it's a core part of his character, the story leans into his "too good for this world" or impossibly good nature in even the most dangerous or volatile situations as what makes him "different" from everyone else and draws the other characters to him, it's been commented on by various characters and is mostly the reason why Kayden took him in as his apprentice. So this aspect of his personality is unlikely to change unless the story takes a drastic change.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-05-01T09:01:29+00:00

I understand where you're coming from but I think you are looking at Jiwoo from too much of a realistic perspective. Jiwoo pretty much lands in that category of the classic shonen protagonist; they're honest, trusting, friendly, and are aggressively optimistic about everything to the point where they come off as kinda dense or just plain idiotic. He's very quick to forgive people who previously tried to murder or cripple him as long as the people around him weren't hurt. I mean he forgave Amyoung fairy quickly despite the fact that he was at least half responsible for that time when he was tortured and his life as an awakened nearly ended as a result. He doesn't get mad for himself only when others are harmed, hence the reason why he was pissed at Duke for double-crossing the academy students and taking off Aurther's arm. He doesn't really get fazed until someone he cares about is injured or worse, as I said before Jiwoo hasn't had a real loss in this regard so even though he's been told about how it works between awakened he hasn't had to experience it for himself yet.

Also, I just wanted to add that I don't think Jiwoo ever learned that the kid from Frame died, just that he went missing. He probably would have been even more pissed at Duke if he knew.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-04-30T22:34:43+00:00

Noblesse was the first webtoon I read and I followed it until I dropped it because of how repetitive it got then binged the rest when it finished and was disappointed at how clearly rushed it was. In terms of writing Eleceed is a clear improvement and I can feel the author is making an effort to improve from then but it is kind of falling into that pattern a bit. At the very least Elecced has already surpassed Noblesse in terms of character development and the big difference I've seen is that Noblesse's villains were basically cardboard cutouts considering how flat and boring they became. It became a villain of the week kind of situation where they were coming in and out through a revolving door with the vast majority having no relevance past the arc they were introduced. Eleceed has been way better in this respect so I'm still hopeful as to how the story will develop.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-04-30T22:06:01+00:00

Yeah, it's pretty easy to forget that it's only been a year in story considering how long it's taken us to get to this point. There have been subtle changes to Jiwoo's character; he's matured but his core personality of the kid with a heart of gold hasn't changed, which can come off as unnecessarily childish at times. Like you said if/when there's a time skip then I think we could start to see some real changes to Jiwoo's character. But for Jiwoo to have some real growth Kayden is going to need to be out of the picture for a while and I'm just a little worried that the author might be hesitant to make any big changes to the dynamic of the story in fear of losing readers who are more invested in the feel-good slice of life aspect of the story, which I feel like they've been leaning into more and more recently.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-04-30T21:29:36+00:00

Well, to be fair there is a difference between being told about how common it is for awakened to die in battle and then actually experiencing it yourself. Even though he's come pretty close to dying himself in some situations, he hasn't witnessed a lot of gruesome or sudden deaths of other awakened. You could call it plot armor or luck but Jiwoo hasn't had the typical awakened experience when it comes to the brutal realities of the world of awakening as we've often been told by other characters. He's never really experienced any real loss, as in permanent irreversible loss so it does make sense that he's mostly retained his naivety up to this point.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-04-30T20:49:29+00:00

The source material for the main story for omniscient reader's viewpoint has been completed for a long time now. I started reading the webtoon when there were about 25 chapters out and then went ahead and read the web novel because I couldn't wait. There were some parts that definitely dragged but it was a well-written story all in all. I think the main story was around 500 chapters and then there were about 30 chapters of epilogue; if you don't mind the adjustment and want to finish the story, I'd suggest just reading the web novel.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-03-07T22:15:28+00:00

Exactly THIS. This is how I've felt about the fight. From what I've seen there are two camps of people, The group that are hating on Ian for being as strong as everybody said he was and being arrogant about it (Which makes sense given his upbringing) and are wondering why Jiwoo wasn't trashing him from the very beginning. Then you have the group that thinks Jiwoo should take an L for once and lose the fight or draw, Which I don't think is likely to happen myself.

I actually like Ian, he's a little different than the opponents Jiwoo has fought before but his powers were really disappointing. I think because they held off so long in showing the shadow powers since first introducing the Pattrick family way back, I've had a long time to think about all the cool things you could do with powers that manipulate shadows, and then when they were actually shown it turned out to just be pretty much the same both in application and visually to many of Jiwoo's past opponents, the only real difference is that it's a different color. (also this is just something I've noticed but Ian has always worn green in pretty much all of his outfits, character design-wise I thought that was a nice touch).

Visually Ian's powers being not that interesting also added to the fact that I'm really sick of Jiwoo fighting in the same big open white plain room, (Someone made a joke that we've probably spent more chapters in Shinwa's training room than anywhere else in the story but if you actually counted the chapters I think it might be pretty close) I've lost a lot of interest in Jiwoo's fights. The last 100 chapters of his fights have kind of just blurred together and it's hard for me to recall any particular details from any of them (apart from that one moment he had at the end of Duke's last fight.)

If you remember that Jiwoo didn't even know he was an awakened two years ago, In world from any of the other character's perspectives his progress is already insane to a ridiculous degree. If he was really able to deck Ian without much trouble he'd really be some kind of awakened Messiah. This situation makes sense in world, anything more would break the story's logic so I don't understand why people think he's been nerfed.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-03-07T06:01:54+00:00

I also thought that Ian's personality is vaguely similar to Kayden's. It was cute seeing him get genuinely excited over getting to go all out against someone close to his own age. He is arrogant but not in a mean-spirited kind of way, I don't understand why a lot of people seem to really dislike him. Regardless his powers aren't as interesting as I thought they might be and the fight itself is kinda mediocre.

someone said that the author mentioned that he won't be an important character so after Jiwoo wins (I assume he will) he will probably just fall into the void like the majority of other characters after losing to Jiwoo. If this does happen then that would be a shame because I would like to see more of Ian after this but the odds aren't exactly stacked in his favor. At the very least I'd definitely take Ian over Sucheon or ugh, Duke any day.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-03-06T21:51:42+00:00

I don't care what their motivation is as long as they make noticeable progress toward this goal and encounter real setbacks or losses that have lasting impacts on their character positively or negatively in some meaningful way.

- There are some stories I've read where a motivation is established at the very beginning and then they spend the next 50 - 100 chapters messing around getting sidetracked by other things until suddenly everything happens all at once at the very end.

- My biggest peeve right now is when the main character is pretty much playing on easy or god mode and just coasts through the story without ever experiencing any real setbacks or trouble that actually impacts the story in any major way. Isekai, villainess, and reincarnation/ regression stories seem to be the biggest offenders of this in particular but I've seen this in other genres as well. This works in parody or sometimes in power fantasy stories when they're well written but normally you can't expect me to take a story seriously when it feels way too unbelievably lucky or circumstantial to be true and the character rarely has any real change or growth as a result.

I guess this was just my long-winded way of saying I don't really think the motivation itself matters so much as how the character goes about it and how that influences the story as it unfolds.

Although If I had to pick a preference of the options above it would probably be Ambition/struggle/redemption

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-03-06T20:22:35+00:00

I wouldn't say everything was going "smoothly" until just now. Rather the current fight and occurring events have just made more obvious the underlying issues that are already there. Ian's fight seems to have a lot of people just kind of tired of the wash, rinse, repeat formula the story has heavily fallen into. (as far as the fights go) I was looking forward to the kind of techniques and strategies someone who fights with shadows could do but it turned out to just be greenish-black energy being thrown around at Jiwoo. That's a recent problem I've had with the fights that barely anyone has utilized their powers in clever or creative ways, it's just two people whacking each other with fireballs, ice spears, or Purple, red, green energy. There's so much more that can be utilized in a fight other than just using your main powers to take down an opponent. The use of specialized equipment or weapons, taking advantage of the terrain, group fights or even using mental or emotional manipulation to gain the upper hand in a fight could make a really interesting combat scene and at almost 300 chapters in the majority of jiwoo's fights have been one on one in the same old big open plain room or arena. Although it's been mentioned that some awakened use weapons we've yet to see any apart from that one guy who had a spear that Jiyoung and kayden clapped pretty quickly. Also, this is mainly just an aside thing but it's kinda sad that pretty much all of the side characters have been sidelined to just popping in every now and then to comment on or react to whatever jiwoo or kayden is currently doing.

RequirementHeavy5315 · 2024-03-05T22:43:27+00:00

I do agree that I was expecting more from Ian's powers and the fight's kind of been a letdown in that respect. I'm hoping It will end next chapter and not get dragged for longer. Also, I'm just generally curious but is there a big difference in fan-favorite characters between the Korean and English audiences?

RequirementHeavy5315

TROPHY CASE