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With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Thread Twelve)

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RichardWhereat said:
Then tell us your plan. In order to be fair, you get 8 months to come up with it.
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Valiran said:
Speaking as someone who hasn't noticed any of this, could you please elaborate? Or if you already did, point me to where that was?
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Bob Saget said:
Potentially using his demons is just one example of the avenues Paul could've used to stage the fight better. I'm sure Zoat's made reasons or will make reasons why he didn't use or think to use various ideas, but that's a good part of the problem.

He could have potentially made combat drones, possibly with mithril armor, with combat VI's/protocols designed specifically for this fight. Or forgotten the VI's and just have Paul control them directly when he's in accelerated mode. Large combat drones or small combat drones or both, would have made great distractions/chaff that Nabu would have needed to cut through.

He could have potentially constructed hidden turrets with unusual (non-lethal) payloads like freezing effects or etc., programmed to fire or fire at a given signal if Nabu wasn't near anyone else who might get caught in the effect.

He could have potentially seeded the area at strategic points with scry warded debilitating bombs of some various non-lethal nature, that only detonate at OL's discretion.

He could have potentially set up forcefield generators around the area to momentarily contain Nabu when it was called for.

He could have potentially used the Ophidian.

And those are just potential avenues listed off spontaneously. Paul has many, many tools at his disposal, having the best tool in the galaxy on his finger. And it's often ignored, in these instances, so the plot can continue along the constructed outline.
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The few ideas here took a couple of minutes to come up with, and fifteen to flesh out in coherent form. The many, many tools and strategies Paul didn't use could easily fill up an entire essay. I might even be inclined to write such an essay, if there was a decent chance it would change anything.

Unfortunately most all indicators show Zoat doesn't want to write the protagonist astutely using a significant fraction of everything at his current disposal, so it would be a waste of my time. This story seems to be more about character interaction, and has cast aside a lot of the resourceful/intelligent decision making.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
A) It serves no good purpose storytelling-wise. The peak of the climax is skipped entirely. The falling action is skipped entirely. Much of the resolution is also skipped. This is terrible storytelling. When you cut out entire parts of the narrative structure, you better have good reasons for it. I cannot see any reason for it, here.
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Or, alternatively, you have misunderstood the structure of the story. Your entire argument is invalid if the Nabu fight was not the actual climax, but a false climax -- a part of the rising action. There was no falling action because it's not time for it yet. This is a false sense of security. Chekhov's gun is polished and shiny, right there over the fireplace where it belongs.

Did you ever stop to consider that the feelings you're having right now may be exactly the intended effect?
 
Need a O_O button. Meh. This suffices.

Hm. Yeah. So, basically, Nabu's been reduced to mindless, or nearly so, and... what, John picked up the LOO chunk in the helmet? But, shouldn't he be able to ease up a bit by removing it? Or is it different now somehow? To me, this seems more like, OL didn't manage to succeed, but rather, didn't quite manage a failure. And almost failing is sort of like succeeding, if you don't sweat the small stuff.

Huh. I wonder if they will bluff that Nabu - or at least a 'doctor Fate' is still alive, and pass it as getting a new host. Because, OL just lobotomized (was involved in a conspiracy to, potato, tomato) a sophont, after getting one human rights.

Coda said:
Or, alternatively, you have misunderstood the structure of the story. Your entire argument is invalid if the Nabu fight was not the actual climax, but a false climax -- a part of the rising action. There was no falling action because it's not time for it yet. This is a false sense of security. Chekhov's gun is polished and shiny, right there over the fireplace where it belongs.

Did you ever stop to consider that the feelings you're having right now may be exactly the intended effect?
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Or, or. It could be an artifact, or cost of doing business, for posting a chapter every day. Try to get something done, that you can't write, or skip to the bit you can. The scene can still appear, in a flashback of some sort, but the structure is already messed up.

Arguing for purposefulness would be more convincing, if the chapter hadn't also, via a Deus Ex Constantine, resolved MOST of what happened, sans the fallout.
 
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Overall I like the chapter. This is how a episode feels when the point of view isn't on the main character. Basically if this was a episode of a TV show normally we would watch using Zatanna as the protagonist but since WTR is show from Paul perspective it makes sense to lose conscience in the middle of a fight. In these kind of episode Zatanna and John are the only ones that really last all the fight.
 
If you want sweet climatic fights, Grayven's your man. For Paul, the real story will be how many friends he'll lose.
1: Teekl is dead.
2: Siskin is dead.
3: John told Paul to leave. Their relationship/partnership is over.
4+: ?

There's a reason the fight happened at the beginning of the episode and not the end; because the fight was not the climax of this episode. The fight was never important; what's important is how his other friends and allies will react.

Also, his lack of rings could be a very bad sign.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
B) It serves no purpose plot-wise. There was literally no need to OL to suddenly, instantly lose consciousness in the middle of the fight. It wasn't that Nabu was targeting him (he wasn't), it wasn't highlighting some weakness that OL didn't know he had (he isn't weak to magic anymore, and hasn't been for a while now. But suddenly, he's rendered instantly unconscious by a mana explosion minor enough to not kill the guy whose face was literally in front of it? Or injure anyone else? Through all of his multi-layered defenses, including his spelleaters, which are extremely effective at flat-out absorbing magic? How was he even rendered unconscious instantly, when nothing else ever has when he's had any kind of defenses up at all? If the mana-explosion was really that tremendous, why did it simply speed up the mana-absorbtion process up even faster? What actually knocked OL out? It can't have been the blast wave, since he's protected against that very thoroughly, and no one else was affected. Was it the massive amounts of mana? But what about the defenses and spelleaters, and how on Earth was it instantaneous? There should have been at least a second for the spelleaters trying to handle the strain before failing. And, again, no one else was affected, even the guy who was literally trying to kill himself with the explosion and was right next to the blast's origin.)

C) It does not make things more realistic. If anything, it's jarring at how unrealistic it is. This isn't some weakness OL has, or some new vulnerability. It's something he's dealt with numerous times before suddenly affecting him in a way that's completely different from all those other times, despite him being better prepared for it.
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This was mentioned by Zoat, Paul suffered severe magic overload. As shown with his fight against the ocean titan he could still be effected by it and a bolt from him instantly overloaded his spell eater, went thourgh his lantern defenses, his armor and nearly killed him with one bolt. Giovanin the guy who was point blank range has been noted to be worse off then Paul. So considering that one of the worlds best mages was taken out by mana over load you really can't complain about that.

Jack Stargazer said:
The unconsciousness was just a method to put him in that bed without the rings. Like, it doesn't make any sense otherwise - all of the League's healing talents are instant. He could have been fixed on the battlefield if that was the goal, either by draining the excess mana or Accomplished Perfect Physician fixing whatever biological issue it caused. Hell, wake him up and he can fix himself.
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Note, Rob was hit by Nabu with an unknown effect and using magic on a guy with magic overload seems like a poor idea.
 
vali said:
If you want sweet climatic fights, Grayven's your man. For Paul, the real story will be how many friends he'll lose.
1: Teekl is dead.
2: Siskin is dead.
3: John told Paul to leave. Their relationship/partnership is over.
4+: ?

There's a reason the fight happened at the beginning of the episode and not the end; because the fight was not the climax of this episode. The fight was never important; what's important is how his other friends and allies will react.

Also, his lack of rings could be a very bad sign.
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No. John told Paul to put him on The Bench for the time being while he sorts himself out. Quite different.

I'm assuming Batman or Diana are holding onto his rings or something, that there will be some argument regarding his irresponsibility, Paul will summon his rings back to him in a fit and leave the planet. Maybe Guy will possibly talk him down from a ledge on the flight out or something but he will still be salty af about the League not trusting him enough a posteri to give him the rings back.
 
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Senevri said:
Or, or. It could be an artifact, or cost of doing business, for posting a chapter every day. Try to get something done, that you can't write, or skip to the bit you can. The scene can still appear, in a flashback of some sort, but the structure is already messed up.

Arguing for purposefulness would be more convincing, if the chapter hadn't also, via a Deus Ex Constantine, resolved MOST of what happened, sans the fallout.
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As has been mentioned, this is the beginning of the episode, not the end. You can't meaningfully analyze the structure of a story arc before the story arc has been resolved. You might be right. Or you might not be. We'll know within a few days, but to categorically state now that it's definitely bad is premature.
 
SaltyWaffles said:
You are completely, utterly misunderstanding my criticism.

Like, I do not care that it wasn't a clean win. Hell, it makes complete sense that it wasn't. That isn't my problem at all.

What I am criticizing is the writing. The storytelling. The logic, the consistency, or lack thereof.
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Not only did this update move the climax offscreen, it moved the most emotionally important part of the falling action offscreen. It meant that we can't see Zatanna finally getting to hug her father again. We didn't get to see Giovanni's reaction to OL eliminating Nabu.

A better way: OL goes down, then we have another character's point of view as the next update. It still shifts the focus of the story, which isn't the best here -- incapacitating him but letting him watch would probably be better still.

This update was so jarring that we'd mostly prefer to believe it's not true and we still have a climax ahead of us. Which is not what an author usually wants, though sometimes it can be used to good effect.

There's still a fair bit more to go, so we'll see what happens. I'm inclined to trust someone who's written 1.7 million words of this story.
 
Senevri said:
Huh. I wonder if they will bluff that Nabu - or at least a 'doctor Fate' is still alive, and pass it as getting a new host. Because, OL just lobotomized (was involved in a conspiracy to, potato, tomato) a sophont, after getting one human rights.
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Not necessarily; he was acting as an officer of the law and Nabu was resisting arrest after steadfastly refusing to surrender a hostage. Sophonts get killed resisting arrest all the time.
 
dhasenan said:
Not only did this update move the climax offscreen, it moved the most emotionally important part of the falling action offscreen. It meant that we can't see Zatanna finally getting to hug her father again. We didn't get to see Giovanni's reaction to OL eliminating Nabu.
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Giovanni is in the worse condition than Paul. This means he likely hasn't woken up yet. Hell, he might be in a permanent coma.
 
I have a theory.

Over the course of the fic, Paul has basically become one of John's closest friends and allies. Hellblazer is canon for a reason, after all. Throughout, they have given him several upgrades, and this latest one makes Constantine incredibly powerful. Paul told Constantine first about his metaknowledge.

What if we have slowly, from near the beginning of the fic, been watching Zoat build up the fic's ultimate big bad?
 
Coda said:
As has been mentioned, this is the beginning of the episode, not the end. You can't meaningfully analyze the structure of a story arc before the story arc has been resolved. You might be right. Or you might not be. We'll know within a few days, but to categorically state now that it's definitely bad is premature.
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The "let's plot to kill Nabu" story arc started way, way before the start of the previous episode, though. Like, you're not wrong, I'm just not sure if your point applies.

If you're just analyzing the "Death of Nabu" story arc IE this episode, then sure we're still near the beginning and can't judge it yet. If you're looking at the entire "Let's Get Zatanna Her Father Back" story arc, well that started ages and ages ago.
 
dhasenan said:
Not only did this update move the climax offscreen, it moved the most emotionally important part of the falling action offscreen. It meant that we can't see Zatanna finally getting to hug her father again. We didn't get to see Giovanni's reaction to OL eliminating Nabu.

A better way: OL goes down, then we have another character's point of view as the next update. It still shifts the focus of the story, which isn't the best here -- incapacitating him but letting him watch would probably be better still.

This update was so jarring that we'd mostly prefer to believe it's not true and we still have a climax ahead of us. Which is not what an author usually wants, though sometimes it can be used to good effect.

There's still a fair bit more to go, so we'll see what happens. I'm inclined to trust someone who's written 1.7 million words of this story.
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I'm surprised so many people think that the fight against Nabu was ever supposed to be the climax of this storyline.

The fight against Nabu was righteous face punching, something Zoat shows his deep abiding respect for by calling it righteous face punching.

Just like in Renegade the climax was not Grayven defeating the Light, but having Jade rip his heart and and doing a paso doble on it and then getting mindraped for at least a week by daddy dearest.

The important part will be how the League and the Team deal with Paul conspiring against one of their own behind their backs for months.
 
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