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You think they’re dumb poo people, but wait till one of them puts on a cool scary mask
Oh no, it’s a poopoo rebellion! And this is bad for…reasons. :scared-fash:
I’m loving all these posts about writing.
And I’m pretty ambivalent to any magic system now where you’re born with it or you’re not, or there’s no way to learn magic. Avatar is the exception.
I like how in Avatar it’s basically random on who gets it, also it’s a checkbox. There aren’t people who are just STRONGER at bending in a “they have the pure blood.”
Toph is a strong bender but it’s shown to be due to hard work. Aang is kind of mid as a bender, but can use all 4 and no one has fought an airbender in living memory so that’s his advantage.
Also bending is cool, but not all powerful, you can still get punched.
Aang is kind of mid as a bender,
Aang was a prodigy as an Airbender, he became a master at the age of twelve and invented new techniques. He was mid at the other 3 because he hadn’t had time to practice.
But I do agree with your overall point. Animes are usually good on this trope because they love the idea of training super hard. That has it’s own tropes of bootstrapping, but I love how in the DBZ verse you can just do martial arts hard enough and learn to fly.
Sokka and Suki are regularly shown to be the strongest and smartest of the gang and they are just normal peeps with a boomerang and a tsudnere they stan.
And the dumb Poo People persecute the Specials and resent how special they are! :so-true:
It’s Glorp Shitto!
Arcanum was such a cool setting in this regard since high fantasy magic existed alongside technology but they were mutually exclusive. For example, a wizard would have to ride at the very rear of a train so that their magic wouldn’t interfere with the physical laws which allowed steam to power the engine.
This could have been Harry Potter, if tech actually got a seat at the table.
This is basically the entire plot of The Legend of Korra
But given it’s not hereditary and powder guns and scifi shit was very lethal, it felt balanced. But yes, the Amon situation is never resolved, and highly hinted in the post-comics of AtLA
it is hereditary did you not notice that the people with magic always have at least one magic parent
and for example the fire nation royal family seemed very sure that their kids would have magic
Yes, but bending still pops among non benders and viceversa. But yes, royal families do eugenics
I’m not gonna say incest but I get a feeling if the ATLA was written by a more serious writer the fire nation royal family would be like the Habsburg minus the jaw.
Why leave the jaw out?
Because it’s an anime
Then make the jaw bigger! Jaw that pierces the heavens! Jawgelion!
Idk how else to read Azula’s character
A victim of monarchist brainwashing also. After all, one is not born a noble but made one through the system they are emplaced in.
Hey yall, let’s imagine something different! What would a writer that was interested in more liberatory, justice based, social-istic (at least) themes do for a setting?
Like Xanth, everybody gets a unique talent but most are pretty useless? A story that starts off like the pic, but the pov characters are all the normals and they help lead a revolution to a more just world?
Magic should be presented as universal, with everyone having access. Class position and education may affect your ability to effectively utilize it. In my book I treated it like literacy.
Political power grows out of the gem of a staff
- warlock mao
In my novel nothing stops any character from learning magic (better thought of as being based on chi but I’ve not picked a word) but some of the most powerful characters are able to inscribe chi “shortcuts” into people with no chi practice/ skills allowing them to use magical abilities without any formal understanding or awareness of chi.
or how about magic is taught as something that comes from bloodline but in reality is just something anyone can learn to do
Ooh that’s a good inversion. You could have a magic kropotkin give up the royal secrets ans teach the masses magic lol
If you happen to enjoy lib brainworms, the Mistborn saga from SandersonIndustries™ is something like this. But extremely lib.
The main character in Mistborn is literally the most special special person, tho.
I feel like the answer to this is more The Boys, where normies paramilitarize to confront Magical Corporate Fascists.
Alternatively, if you don’t mind kid drama, The Rescuers Down Under or An American Tale. Or even just 101 Dalmatians.
Stories about little guys and underdogs standing up to old corrupt establishments.
Damn which JRPG is this from? Just kidding, it’s all of them.
Cowboy Bebop Erasure
Also, like, half of Miyazaki
Obviously the difference is purely the medium, since jrpg are very much video game anime a lot of the time, but those are anime, not jrpgs.
