power in contrast
26 Oct 2007 12:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouBeen thinking about strong/weak character representation: erm, not sure how to put it. It's something I look for in dynamics, and get annoyed when the mangaka is unbalanced at it, or purposefully throws off the balance, to achieve a set goal. It's not quite a deus ex machina (manga ex machina?) but it has similarities; it's when the mangaka wants you to see that A is particularly strong, but having written B, C, and D as strong, the manga must then weaken and/or distort B, C, and D, so that A can remain the strongest. This especially shows up in shonen series, where A is the lead character and his development is the focus of the story.
Any decent storyteller knows that you want A's environment/competition -- B, C, and D -- not to be weak. If the environment/counterparts in the story are weak, then A being strong can come across as contrived ("well, he's Superman, who could possibly beat Superman in a fight?"). Or, it can come across as hollow, in that A doesn't really have anything pushing him upwards because he's already the strongest of the lot. There's a big emphasis on rivalry and competition as positive, in Japanese fiction, it seems, while much of the western fiction/media I've seen/read treats competition as divisive. (Although the exception is possibly the sports-related and/or team-related stories, in which a divisive, highly competitive set of individuals comes together to form a cohesive unit, but the divisiveness itself is a leading conflict-generator that keeps the tension in the story.)
Anyway, been thinking about Bleach and the mangaka's use of the female characters as plot devices. He writes what are effectively female characters with a great deal of potential... and then has to knock them down, neutralize them, in some way (and often for a good deal of time). Rukia starts right off as a strong-willed, powerful fighter who loses her ability and is trapped in a failing gigai, and if that weren't enough, her arc is capped with her spending the last twenty-something episodes trapped in a high tower waiting for Ichigo & his gang to rescue her. Or to not be rescued, and put to death instead, but regardless, she just sits around for a long period of time. (Shades of Rapunzel, if you ask me.)
Orehime, in the latest arc, is described as having 'god-like powers' unmatched by anyone else, in human or shinigami world, and yet she spends most of the opening of the arc waffling over whether she can fight as well as Ichigo, let alone defend her friends. Then abruptly she's kidnapped -- more like, willingly allows herself to be kidnapped, that is -- and off she goes. I presume another long wait is in store before she has any active role; meanwhile, Ichigo and his friends are reunited and off to save her.
I get that Bleach is Ichigo's story, effectively, but I disagree that to make him appear strong, that characters around him must be weakened in some way. I also dislike that although he's only been training/aware of Shinigami for what, a year in the storyline now?, he's already strong enough to take on -- and survive -- several of the captains. That makes him so phenomenally strong, within the story's context, that it's almost ridiculous to feel the need to knock any strong female characters down several pegs: if the captains can't compete, why would a viewer expect anyone else to, as well? Can't they all be strong in their own right, and not have this taken as detracting from the main character's charm?
This is one reason I really, really adore Naruto. Although it, too, focuses mostly on a single character's development (though like Bleach will go off into tangents of development for side characters), and Naruto himself is ridiculously powerful on a fundamental level that blows away all competition except for possibly Gaara... this doesn't mean he has any finesse. And, in Naruto's world, fists and brawn only get you so far; skilled control is shown, at times, to actually be more effective despite less power, than even the most powerful fist. Too, Naruto's contemporaries each have abilities in their own right, and although the girls seem to get less screen time (shonen series, duh), it really only seems to be Sakura who agonizes over being 'less strong' than her team-mates -- but then, she's on a team with Sasuke, the amazinglyobsessed dedicated boy-genius, and Naruto, the walking qi powerhouse. Anyone would feel at least slightly inadequate alongside those two.
At first I expected Naruto and his teammates to be prodigies, if in different ways; I waited for the moment when we'd see them each kicking a teacher's ass -- the usual shonen-variant of "wow! look! he's so strong!" The young-boy wish-fulfillment, really. But that never showed up, although the student-characters did, at times, manage to startle or surprise their teachers with some inventive or quick thinking... but not to the point of actually surpassing them. Hell, in the first eighty or so episodes, I can't recall a student ever beating any of the teachers in a head-on spar.
In fact, the point where I stepped back with something of an amazed (if delighted) respect for the mangaka was somewhere in the middle of the first major arc. The student-teams have been sent out as backup (the explanation for this potential hole is that the village's ninja ranks were thinned badly by a long and devastating war, and thus recruitment has had to reach into lower age-groups to fill necessary positions). One of the student teams meets up with a set of bad guys, and while they seem to be holding their own, they're managing it only barely.
From the viewer's POV, the students appear to be pretty impressive. Here are these random bad-guy ninja, and the student-team is working together to hold their own... but the students are tiring, the bad guys still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Just as things turn for the worse, three of the teacher-level ninja show up.
And they proceed to pretty much wipe the forest floor with the bad guys.
See, now, that, to me, is a contrast in power, done very well. The students are shown to be strong, dedicated, intelligent, inventive, and yet... they're just pipsqueaks compared to their teachers. At no point does the mangaka ever imply, nor does any character within the story ever appear to imply, that the students are 'weak' because they're not as strong as upper-level ninja. In fact, when Naruto and his peers end up in a worse-than-estimated situation and somehow come out of it in one piece, the adults are amazed, pleased, gratified, and sometimes dismayed by the students' hotheadedness even if also impressed. The kids are alright.
To make Naruto the 'hero' of the piece, Kishimoto didn't truly dumb anyone else down (though some characters come across as less intimidating or impressive, but later are often shown -- or grow into -- quite scary folks), nor did he make the teachers inept fools. (Even one teacher who gets a lot of abuse from Naruto for being a total perv... is revealed to be one seriously bad-ass ninja and no one to mess with in a dark alley -- even if the rest of the time he's a total anal-retentive twit.) In fact, by making Naruto and his peers so much lower than their teachers and upper-level ninja peers, he's able to demonstrate progress and development via attained skills.
That is, when we see Naruto work as hard as he can on what seems like a complex operation like controlling his chakra to a fine enough degree to run straight up a tree-trunk -- and we see how much effort he and Sasuke have to put into learning the skill -- it means that later, when Naruto 'goes away for training' and returns with a handful of new skills, we can infer that these, too, must've taken a lot of hard work to learn. Because the mangaka didn't skimp that first time on demonstrating that new skill = lots of hard work, we know that in this world, no one has a 'natural skill' or 'innate talent' that just immediately flares to life and smooths a speedy addition to the skill set.
Yes, there are instances in Naruto where our hero catches onto a skill faster than most might... but with the perspective of the story's opening arc where Naruto is shown having to work twice as hard to 'get' what comes easily to many of his peers -- and the knowledge that he is an energy powerhouse -- the mangaka often inserts teacher-observations like the notion that Naruto's making such progress only at the risk of burning himself out. (I seem to recall that a few times he's shown collapsing from wearing himself out completely, and that this is not seen as a Good Thing by his fellow ninja or teachers.) In fact, when Naruto comes up with shortcuts, we can applaud his ingenuity while recognizing that he's advanced a step only by cutting corners -- which implies, in turn, that those who can do the skill fully and properly, put even more work into it than Naruto did. That, in turn, implies their power.
Really, I guess it comes down to: if you want your main character to be seen as powerful, you must make sure to create a powerful opponent. But if your powerful protagonist is surrounded by weak allies, this is possibly as detrimental to conflict/development as a weak opponent might be. Worse, even, in some stories -- because why would I want to waste time watching/reading about the oh-so-helpless/weak allies, if all they can manage is to get caught and require rescuing? For that matter, why would the hero waste his time with a bunch of no-goods who do nothing but distract him from the main conflict?
All that aside, major grrrr on making female characters into plot devices.
Any decent storyteller knows that you want A's environment/competition -- B, C, and D -- not to be weak. If the environment/counterparts in the story are weak, then A being strong can come across as contrived ("well, he's Superman, who could possibly beat Superman in a fight?"). Or, it can come across as hollow, in that A doesn't really have anything pushing him upwards because he's already the strongest of the lot. There's a big emphasis on rivalry and competition as positive, in Japanese fiction, it seems, while much of the western fiction/media I've seen/read treats competition as divisive. (Although the exception is possibly the sports-related and/or team-related stories, in which a divisive, highly competitive set of individuals comes together to form a cohesive unit, but the divisiveness itself is a leading conflict-generator that keeps the tension in the story.)
Anyway, been thinking about Bleach and the mangaka's use of the female characters as plot devices. He writes what are effectively female characters with a great deal of potential... and then has to knock them down, neutralize them, in some way (and often for a good deal of time). Rukia starts right off as a strong-willed, powerful fighter who loses her ability and is trapped in a failing gigai, and if that weren't enough, her arc is capped with her spending the last twenty-something episodes trapped in a high tower waiting for Ichigo & his gang to rescue her. Or to not be rescued, and put to death instead, but regardless, she just sits around for a long period of time. (Shades of Rapunzel, if you ask me.)
Orehime, in the latest arc, is described as having 'god-like powers' unmatched by anyone else, in human or shinigami world, and yet she spends most of the opening of the arc waffling over whether she can fight as well as Ichigo, let alone defend her friends. Then abruptly she's kidnapped -- more like, willingly allows herself to be kidnapped, that is -- and off she goes. I presume another long wait is in store before she has any active role; meanwhile, Ichigo and his friends are reunited and off to save her.
I get that Bleach is Ichigo's story, effectively, but I disagree that to make him appear strong, that characters around him must be weakened in some way. I also dislike that although he's only been training/aware of Shinigami for what, a year in the storyline now?, he's already strong enough to take on -- and survive -- several of the captains. That makes him so phenomenally strong, within the story's context, that it's almost ridiculous to feel the need to knock any strong female characters down several pegs: if the captains can't compete, why would a viewer expect anyone else to, as well? Can't they all be strong in their own right, and not have this taken as detracting from the main character's charm?
This is one reason I really, really adore Naruto. Although it, too, focuses mostly on a single character's development (though like Bleach will go off into tangents of development for side characters), and Naruto himself is ridiculously powerful on a fundamental level that blows away all competition except for possibly Gaara... this doesn't mean he has any finesse. And, in Naruto's world, fists and brawn only get you so far; skilled control is shown, at times, to actually be more effective despite less power, than even the most powerful fist. Too, Naruto's contemporaries each have abilities in their own right, and although the girls seem to get less screen time (shonen series, duh), it really only seems to be Sakura who agonizes over being 'less strong' than her team-mates -- but then, she's on a team with Sasuke, the amazingly
At first I expected Naruto and his teammates to be prodigies, if in different ways; I waited for the moment when we'd see them each kicking a teacher's ass -- the usual shonen-variant of "wow! look! he's so strong!" The young-boy wish-fulfillment, really. But that never showed up, although the student-characters did, at times, manage to startle or surprise their teachers with some inventive or quick thinking... but not to the point of actually surpassing them. Hell, in the first eighty or so episodes, I can't recall a student ever beating any of the teachers in a head-on spar.
In fact, the point where I stepped back with something of an amazed (if delighted) respect for the mangaka was somewhere in the middle of the first major arc. The student-teams have been sent out as backup (the explanation for this potential hole is that the village's ninja ranks were thinned badly by a long and devastating war, and thus recruitment has had to reach into lower age-groups to fill necessary positions). One of the student teams meets up with a set of bad guys, and while they seem to be holding their own, they're managing it only barely.
From the viewer's POV, the students appear to be pretty impressive. Here are these random bad-guy ninja, and the student-team is working together to hold their own... but the students are tiring, the bad guys still have a few tricks up their sleeves. Just as things turn for the worse, three of the teacher-level ninja show up.
And they proceed to pretty much wipe the forest floor with the bad guys.
See, now, that, to me, is a contrast in power, done very well. The students are shown to be strong, dedicated, intelligent, inventive, and yet... they're just pipsqueaks compared to their teachers. At no point does the mangaka ever imply, nor does any character within the story ever appear to imply, that the students are 'weak' because they're not as strong as upper-level ninja. In fact, when Naruto and his peers end up in a worse-than-estimated situation and somehow come out of it in one piece, the adults are amazed, pleased, gratified, and sometimes dismayed by the students' hotheadedness even if also impressed. The kids are alright.
To make Naruto the 'hero' of the piece, Kishimoto didn't truly dumb anyone else down (though some characters come across as less intimidating or impressive, but later are often shown -- or grow into -- quite scary folks), nor did he make the teachers inept fools. (Even one teacher who gets a lot of abuse from Naruto for being a total perv... is revealed to be one seriously bad-ass ninja and no one to mess with in a dark alley -- even if the rest of the time he's a total anal-retentive twit.) In fact, by making Naruto and his peers so much lower than their teachers and upper-level ninja peers, he's able to demonstrate progress and development via attained skills.
That is, when we see Naruto work as hard as he can on what seems like a complex operation like controlling his chakra to a fine enough degree to run straight up a tree-trunk -- and we see how much effort he and Sasuke have to put into learning the skill -- it means that later, when Naruto 'goes away for training' and returns with a handful of new skills, we can infer that these, too, must've taken a lot of hard work to learn. Because the mangaka didn't skimp that first time on demonstrating that new skill = lots of hard work, we know that in this world, no one has a 'natural skill' or 'innate talent' that just immediately flares to life and smooths a speedy addition to the skill set.
Yes, there are instances in Naruto where our hero catches onto a skill faster than most might... but with the perspective of the story's opening arc where Naruto is shown having to work twice as hard to 'get' what comes easily to many of his peers -- and the knowledge that he is an energy powerhouse -- the mangaka often inserts teacher-observations like the notion that Naruto's making such progress only at the risk of burning himself out. (I seem to recall that a few times he's shown collapsing from wearing himself out completely, and that this is not seen as a Good Thing by his fellow ninja or teachers.) In fact, when Naruto comes up with shortcuts, we can applaud his ingenuity while recognizing that he's advanced a step only by cutting corners -- which implies, in turn, that those who can do the skill fully and properly, put even more work into it than Naruto did. That, in turn, implies their power.
Really, I guess it comes down to: if you want your main character to be seen as powerful, you must make sure to create a powerful opponent. But if your powerful protagonist is surrounded by weak allies, this is possibly as detrimental to conflict/development as a weak opponent might be. Worse, even, in some stories -- because why would I want to waste time watching/reading about the oh-so-helpless/weak allies, if all they can manage is to get caught and require rescuing? For that matter, why would the hero waste his time with a bunch of no-goods who do nothing but distract him from the main conflict?
All that aside, major grrrr on making female characters into plot devices.
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Date: 22 May 2008 08:19 pm (UTC)