long-awaited mid-story payoffs
6 Jul 2010 11:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kaigouNaruto ep167/168 is like the ultimate mid-story payoff example, ever.
Yeah, so I read it in manga-form, and it was a powerful payoff, but when you combine motion, voice, and some pretty deft soundtrack work, it's a damn incredible payoff at the end of ep167... and I haven't been looking forward to next-episode this much since the last innings against Tousei in Oofuri S1.
One thing I adore about a well-done payoff is when it's something that validates both the character getting the payoff and the reader's hopes/expectations. Way back in the early chapters of Naruto, there was already speculation about Naruto's parentage, and (from what I gathered) it was hinted more and more, nearly becoming firm fact for many. The chapters that confirm that suspicion thus merge reader interpretation -- a kind of reward for those readers -- and character.
Plus, it neatly sidesteps the threat of deus ex machina, I think, because it makes sense: if you give an inexperienced driver the keys to a BMW Z3, then you'd want a built-in limiter to keep the driver from hurtling out of all control. (Okay, so I have cars on the brain, seeing how my baby veedub is now in the shop so it's safe to discuss going to look at new cars tomorrow without risk of current car feeling rejected. Wahhh.)
But anyway, bad analogies aside, what I dislike about deus ex machina is that too often it's almost like, dude, if you knew it was going to get this bad -- or you had any clue that it might -- why'd you wait until this last minute to step in? When I see gods (or near-gods) show up in books/movies at the final moment, I always want to ask if they were stuck in heavenly traffic or something, because hello, what is the definition of a god if not someone capable of leap-frogging traffic to be there in time to prevent the worst of it?
This case, though, it's presented not as a "I'm stepping in to solve this," but as a, "I set this up only to bring me into the picture if you got to this point." It has a logic, in that if the character never got so far along as to destroy himself, then the deus ex limiter need never be applied. It's based on a very specific trigger, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that what powers the trigger is an echo, and not an active consciousness. I mean, if it were a living god/near-god, then you'd think the god would've been aware previously, keeping track... but as a limiter triggered only by a specific event, then there's no "you should've known there'd be traffic" kind of plothole.
This last part of the episode is especially heightened in a strange way by the almost surreal animation of the firat half's fight scenes -- the bizarrely quasi-rotoscoped movement, and the extreme distortion in face/body. Part of that distortion is awfully reminiscent of putting a wide-angle lens on a person from too close up (like that trend in hosting companies for awhile to use stock photo where the person looked like they'd shoved their face right into the camera lens). Somehow that makes the last segment all that more powerful: a contrast between the rapid, jerky movements of the fight and the almost languid, trudging movements of the final segment.
For some reason, though, what strikes me as one instance of really paying attention to the non-verbal characterization is when the Fourth finally appears, and the Kyuubi's eye is visible over the Fourth's shoulder, bright red. Visually, it just delights me to no end, the contrast of the Fourth's face being in almost complete shadow, with the brightness behind him -- and when the Kyuubi speaks, the Fourth simply moves sideways to block the viewer's line of sight to the Kyuubi. It's an easy dismissal of a character that's been a powerful (if dangerous and clearly evil) element in the storyline, and communicates both the Fourth's inherent power (that he could not only turn his back on the Kyuubi but emphasize by his movement that his back is turned) but it also communicates the Fourth's own intent to make himself the focus of the view, and his own focus on what lies in his line of sight -- that he won't allow the Kyuubi to also have that line of sight, as well.
It's also a nice twist on the usual "saving hero is bathed in light and bad guy is in dark" -- since the Kyuubi is in the darkness, but the Fourth in the foreground is shadowed by the light cast from behind him. It's just a few seconds of a segment, but it's really well done, and beautifully powerful in the way only a non-verbal scene can be. Just a split-second on the screen says what would take any writer a good paragraph or more, and risk belaboring what's really a very subtle and wonderful collection of implications.
Plenty of times Kishimoto irks me, but sometimes he also gets it really right.
Yeah, so I read it in manga-form, and it was a powerful payoff, but when you combine motion, voice, and some pretty deft soundtrack work, it's a damn incredible payoff at the end of ep167... and I haven't been looking forward to next-episode this much since the last innings against Tousei in Oofuri S1.
One thing I adore about a well-done payoff is when it's something that validates both the character getting the payoff and the reader's hopes/expectations. Way back in the early chapters of Naruto, there was already speculation about Naruto's parentage, and (from what I gathered) it was hinted more and more, nearly becoming firm fact for many. The chapters that confirm that suspicion thus merge reader interpretation -- a kind of reward for those readers -- and character.
Plus, it neatly sidesteps the threat of deus ex machina, I think, because it makes sense: if you give an inexperienced driver the keys to a BMW Z3, then you'd want a built-in limiter to keep the driver from hurtling out of all control. (Okay, so I have cars on the brain, seeing how my baby veedub is now in the shop so it's safe to discuss going to look at new cars tomorrow without risk of current car feeling rejected. Wahhh.)
But anyway, bad analogies aside, what I dislike about deus ex machina is that too often it's almost like, dude, if you knew it was going to get this bad -- or you had any clue that it might -- why'd you wait until this last minute to step in? When I see gods (or near-gods) show up in books/movies at the final moment, I always want to ask if they were stuck in heavenly traffic or something, because hello, what is the definition of a god if not someone capable of leap-frogging traffic to be there in time to prevent the worst of it?
This case, though, it's presented not as a "I'm stepping in to solve this," but as a, "I set this up only to bring me into the picture if you got to this point." It has a logic, in that if the character never got so far along as to destroy himself, then the deus ex limiter need never be applied. It's based on a very specific trigger, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that what powers the trigger is an echo, and not an active consciousness. I mean, if it were a living god/near-god, then you'd think the god would've been aware previously, keeping track... but as a limiter triggered only by a specific event, then there's no "you should've known there'd be traffic" kind of plothole.
This last part of the episode is especially heightened in a strange way by the almost surreal animation of the firat half's fight scenes -- the bizarrely quasi-rotoscoped movement, and the extreme distortion in face/body. Part of that distortion is awfully reminiscent of putting a wide-angle lens on a person from too close up (like that trend in hosting companies for awhile to use stock photo where the person looked like they'd shoved their face right into the camera lens). Somehow that makes the last segment all that more powerful: a contrast between the rapid, jerky movements of the fight and the almost languid, trudging movements of the final segment.
For some reason, though, what strikes me as one instance of really paying attention to the non-verbal characterization is when the Fourth finally appears, and the Kyuubi's eye is visible over the Fourth's shoulder, bright red. Visually, it just delights me to no end, the contrast of the Fourth's face being in almost complete shadow, with the brightness behind him -- and when the Kyuubi speaks, the Fourth simply moves sideways to block the viewer's line of sight to the Kyuubi. It's an easy dismissal of a character that's been a powerful (if dangerous and clearly evil) element in the storyline, and communicates both the Fourth's inherent power (that he could not only turn his back on the Kyuubi but emphasize by his movement that his back is turned) but it also communicates the Fourth's own intent to make himself the focus of the view, and his own focus on what lies in his line of sight -- that he won't allow the Kyuubi to also have that line of sight, as well.
It's also a nice twist on the usual "saving hero is bathed in light and bad guy is in dark" -- since the Kyuubi is in the darkness, but the Fourth in the foreground is shadowed by the light cast from behind him. It's just a few seconds of a segment, but it's really well done, and beautifully powerful in the way only a non-verbal scene can be. Just a split-second on the screen says what would take any writer a good paragraph or more, and risk belaboring what's really a very subtle and wonderful collection of implications.
Plenty of times Kishimoto irks me, but sometimes he also gets it really right.
no subject
Date: 7 Jul 2010 05:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 7 Jul 2010 05:42 am (UTC)A'course, then I discovered the sql commands for REPLACE('text_body', '[hdf]', '<h3 class="first">') and ran the entire 900-something text_body fields through that and whoosh, all shortcodes replaced with proper html. Like magic!
no subject
Date: 7 Jul 2010 07:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 9 Jul 2010 01:24 am (UTC)