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I remember when I first finished Worm, as an exercise I sketched out how I would recommend editing it down. When you actually sit down and lay out where the big plot beats are and how the macro- and micro arcs intersect, there are some massive structural issues that I didn't notice when I was reading it for fun. My brain always vividly remembers the run-up to Leviathan and the S9 stuff, but until I laid everything out it completely escaped me that what felt like the final arc (aliens, oh noes, let's shoot a toddler and also save the world) occupied a solid 50% of the story's length. I remember feeling that it got a little long-winded near the end, but I think the format itself was largely responsible for me remaining engaged and enjoying it in spite of the structural problems. (It still blows my mind that Taylor spent years with the wards and months with the Undersiders; due to the way that worked out, my recollection of the story will always be "The Undersiders ran around doing things, then in the very end Taylor left and did some world-savey stuff.") On the flip side, I wonder if Twig wouldn't have benefited more from embracing the serial format. (Big ol', massive spoilers for Twig follow; please give it a read if you haven't, I really enjoyed that one.) For me, the bits where the story shined were in the early arcs when the five of them were doing monster-of-the-week adventures that were high in espionage/intelligence gathering, moderate on combat, and very occasionally threw in a sliver of plot. The more the story started to tie grand antagonists into a big conspiracy the less I was interested, and I always viewed the back half of the story where Sylvester leaves the lambs, starts a big, dumb revolution, and just kinda idles around for several years as the weaker half. I don't know if it would've been possible to tell a complete, satisfying story while sticking to the early format, but I thought "Five rear end in a top hat experiment kids run around having adventures" was a great idea that deserved more time in the spotlight.
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Feb 24, 2018 04:51
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Ytlaya posted:Honestly Worm (and wildbow's writing in general) has always been very obviously flawed, so I don't see much of a point in getting defensive about it in most cases. I've seen a couple criticisms I think are wrong (like people who claim there's authorial intent to portray Taylor in a positive light), but most are usually pretty accurate. I still enjoy the heck out of his stuff (it's very well suited to the "compel the reader to keep reading" model that works well for web serials), but there are definite problems. I wholeheartedly agree on all of these points. WB's stuff is just fantastic in the serial format, whether it's calculated or just fly-by-the-pants, he's really good at nailing that model. A lot of my criticisms stem from viewing serials as novels and not serials, but they're entirely different mediums, really. There's a lot more to be said about the conclusions in the second paragraph, although I think those two points are correct. I'm in a rush, but, in summary. The audience thing is a big one, and I've been told that I should 'work in' certain elements to get that audience more on-side. Some of these elements include a first-person perspective, 'rationalfic', 'systems mastery', and so on. The webfiction arena is very much tied up with the LitRPG and rationalfic genres/fanbases, alongside the isekai and xianxan ones in particular. RoyalRoad, despite having a pretty large audience, is almost exclusively people trying to chase these trends. As far as truly good writing goes... I don't have the time to go into detail right now, but all I can really sum it up as is that all you need to do is compare a novel to a serial. Look at how a novel frames a chapter to how a serial frames an update, for example. Consider that a fairly standard novel might be 100k words and consider that a serial might drop a 6k-10k update which is not nearly as consequential as the equivalent of that same length in a novel. On one hand, this is a unique advantage of the serial format -- you're not limited by paper! But on the other hand, I feel it's something that comes from a lack of real oversight, unlimited resources, and access to a heap of positive feedback. I read a lot more now than I did when I first got into Worm and other serials, which is why a lot of the flaws feel more glaring. I suppose stylistic conventions would be better, but I see them as flaws. Omi no Kami posted:I remember when I first finished Worm, as an exercise I sketched out how I would recommend editing it down. When you actually sit down and lay out where the big plot beats are and how the macro- and micro arcs intersect, there are some massive structural issues that I didn't notice when I was reading it for fun. My brain always vividly remembers the run-up to Leviathan and the S9 stuff, but until I laid everything out it completely escaped me that what felt like the final arc (aliens, oh noes, let's shoot a toddler and also save the world) occupied a solid 50% of the story's length. I remember feeling that it got a little long-winded near the end, but I think the format itself was largely responsible for me remaining engaged and enjoying it in spite of the structural problems. (It still blows my mind that Taylor spent years with the wards and months with the Undersiders; due to the way that worked out, my recollection of the story will always be "The Undersiders ran around doing things, then in the very end Taylor left and did some world-savey stuff.") I think Worm's core problem is that it is a million and more words of one whole story. It is ten novels but not structured like ten novels. Consider any book series -- Harry Potter, The Expanse, Dune, whatever -- where each book is a whole but also a component of a greater whole. Even if you did Book 1 of The Worm Series being Act 1 through to Leviathan, which most people say would be a good fit, I honestly think it would feel too much like you're getting a tiny part of a greater whole and it hasn't been brought to a satisfactory conclusion. It wouldn't feel complete. There's not really a full arc or complete character advancement there, not enough for a novel. It gets messier as the story goes on. Editing Worm down into a series of books would be a colossal headache, I think.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:06
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I agree with you that Worm has serious structural issues, but I seriously disagree with you on what they are (I think that roughly the third quarter of the story - roughly Taylor becoming a hero to Scion going bonkers - is way too fast-paced and rushed, whereas you seem to be saying the opposite; I think it basically compresses content equivalent to the entire rest of the story into several big dumb fight arcs and a "Stuff happened offscreen" title card). I guess that probably says something in favor of the author, that even when readers agree that his story has problems, the solutions that they pose are contradictory.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:08
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I think something you seriously need to keep in mind is that we're seeing essentially first or second draft, while a published novel gets pushed through a ton more plus editor action. Editing Worm down to a series of books would be quite a challenge, but I don't agree that it is nearly as rough as you think. By the end of leviathan a ton of poo poo has changed for Taylor, and wrapping up a book with her abandoning her goal of being a hero when faced with the realities of the world is the opposite of 'not enough character advancement for a novel'. Most of the problems I see with Worm seem to be more problems with the genre and how it is published. In terms of actual serials I've read Worm is quite good, and I've read and enjoyed worse books. I think things he does well he does very well, so I'm willing to move past things that are done less well.
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Feb 24, 2018 05:26
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21 Muns posted:I agree with you that Worm has serious structural issues, but I seriously disagree with you on what they are (I think that roughly the third quarter of the story - roughly Taylor becoming a hero to Scion going bonkers - is way too fast-paced and rushed, whereas you seem to be saying the opposite; I think it basically compresses content equivalent to the entire rest of the story into several big dumb fight arcs and a "Stuff happened offscreen" title card). I guess that probably says something in favor of the author, that even when readers agree that his story has problems, the solutions that they pose are contradictory. Yeah, I think my core comment/criticism about Worm's structure is that the origin story/S9 arcs felt tightly-paced and well-organized, but the sections from Echidna onward feel, hmm, not quite bloated, but they feel like a bit more of a chore to get through, with less of a payoff. I haven't read Worm in quite a while, so I may be getting this wrong, but if I recall correctly the core macro arcs after S9 went Echidna, Ward (not that one XP), Slaughterhouse 9000, Scion. I think the reason that half felt so drawn-out to me is because arguably a lot of it wasn't necessary in the long run. Echidna resolved the Coil situation and fleshed out the Travelers, Ward gave Taylor the experience and contacts to make her eventual ascent to apocalypse prevention expert at least slightly believable, S9000 gave us Riley's awesome interlude and Taylor shooting a toddler in the head, but it felt like the meat of those three arcs didn't really build towards anything; they were just kind of necessary to show that time was passing and things were happening. I think if the series was re-edited to novel format, it'd be best-served by condensing the last half into one or two books, so the series as a whole goes Leviathan, S9, Everyone Grows Up, and Rocks Fall, 50% of Humanity Dies. I have no clue how this could've been pulled off, but maybe both your and my criticisms would be addressed if the Scion stuff was spread across two slower books worth of content? The only potential roadblock there is that Scion's arc is very urgent by nature, and I'm not sure how they could make a slower burn fun to read without having 500 pages of him blowing things up in the background. I remember WB vaguely mentioning that one of his alternative plans for the Ward (heh) section was that Taylor would turn herself in, the PRT would immediately arrest her and send her to the birdcage, and Contessa would yoink her on route and explicitly ask her to join Cauldron years earlier. Maybe after the S9 arc, have the Undersiders decide that turning faux-Boston into a feudal dictatorship is not a sustainable business model, they get recruited by Contessa (who reveals the truth much earlier), and the back half is a much more explicit Countdown to Zack Snyder Superman story where they're running around trying to work out better options?
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Feb 24, 2018 05:57
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The Shortest Path posted:I'm gonna finally do a big OP edit, and put together an official spoiler policy. I'm thinking something along the lines of "Anything that's been published in the past two weeks needs to be put in spoiler tags, as well as the entire current arc of Wildbow stories" if that seems fair and reasonable. I'd say just spoiler the current (free/non-Patreon, where applicable) update. Why the heck is someone checking this thread more often than they're reading the story?
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Feb 24, 2018 07:22
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I think my core comment/criticism about Worm's structure is that the origin story/S9 arcs felt tightly-paced and well-organized, but the sections from Echidna onward feel, hmm, not quite bloated, but they feel like a bit more of a chore to get through, with less of a payoff. I haven't read Worm in quite a while, so I may be getting this wrong, but if I recall correctly the core macro arcs after S9 went Echidna, Ward (not that one XP), Slaughterhouse 9000, Scion. I think the reason that half felt so drawn-out to me is because arguably a lot of it wasn't necessary in the long run. Echidna resolved the Coil situation and fleshed out the Travelers, Ward gave Taylor the experience and contacts to make her eventual ascent to apocalypse prevention expert at least slightly believable, S9000 gave us Riley's awesome interlude and Taylor shooting a toddler in the head, but it felt like the meat of those three arcs didn't really build towards anything; they were just kind of necessary to show that time was passing and things were happening. The macro arc after S9 would probably more reasonably be called "Coil" than "Echidna". There are two whole arcs building up Coil, and they're really long; I think it's a bit of a problem that Echidna overshadows Coil whereas she's supposed to be kind of his "last hurrah". Echidna's kind of been a mystery in the background until the actual fight with her, but Coil's the guy we actually hate and want to see defeated, and the primary effect of Echidna's initial appearance is "damnit, Coil ruined his own death". Echidna is ultimately pretty important, though, in that she brings the Cauldron stuff to light and serves as a dramatic presentation of what the Simurgh does. The Coil arcs leading up to Echidna feel really convoluted and rushed to me, and could probably use some more room to breathe, but I wouldn't call that Worm's most serious problem. So the first three books in a Worm series would probably be Leviathan, S9, and Coil/Echidna. The Taylor-in-the-Wards arc is the real problem. It's just kind of a series of things happening, and each thing that happens should be really dramatic but there's way too little in the way of calm moments and lower-key arcs and side-character development to give those dramatic moments weight. It's been pointed out a lot that we see less of Taylor's fellow Wards than we did of the Undersiders because Taylor doesn't care as much about them as she did about the Undersiders, and okay, whatever, that sounds a lot like a post-facto excuse for rushed "we've got to get to the climax of the story already" writing, but okay. This section of the story really needs to be significantly longer to function properly. It'd probably be easier to just restructure the book so that it's cut entirely, but that would lose a lot of great content here. I don't really have any comments on the Slaughterhouse 9000 section except that I consider it to be part of the Taylor-in-the-Wards section and it'd probably benefit a lot from the improvement of the section as a whole. IMO the Scion stuff is great; it could use some polish like the entire story could use some polish, but it's Worm at its best. It's clearly what the entire story has been building up to, and it's good at paying off on that promise, too. The trouble with Worm isn't the end by any means; it's the (later) middle part.
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Feb 24, 2018 07:39
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21 Muns posted:The macro arc after S9 would probably more reasonably be called "Coil" than "Echidna". There are two whole arcs building up Coil, and they're really long; I think it's a bit of a problem that Echidna overshadows Coil whereas she's supposed to be kind of his "last hurrah". Echidna's kind of been a mystery in the background until the actual fight with her, but Coil's the guy we actually hate and want to see defeated, and the primary effect of Echidna's initial appearance is "damnit, Coil ruined his own death". Echidna is ultimately pretty important, though, in that she brings the Cauldron stuff to light and serves as a dramatic presentation of what the Simurgh does. The Coil arcs leading up to Echidna feel really convoluted and rushed to me, and could probably use some more room to breathe, but I wouldn't call that Worm's most serious problem. So the first three books in a Worm series would probably be Leviathan, S9, and Coil/Echidna. Hmm yeah, for the Coil/Echidna arc, I think one issue is that the Travelers really throw the balance off; if I remember correctly, the original storyboard for Parahumans was supposed to follow the Undersiders, Travelers, Guts & Glory, Wards, and Faultline's crew, right? While 4/5 of those groups were pretty fluently mixed into the final story, I think the back half of the Coil arc felt like a Travelers book stuck into the middle of an Undersiders story. They're not bad, but their presence and the extra worldbuilding come out of nowhere and inflate an already long section. I don't want to say it's superfluous, because their backstory is interesting, but I'm fairly sure we could've gotten a satisfying conclusion to that arc with nothing more than "The travelers aren't from around here and Krause means well but is kind of a jerk". For Taylor-in-the-Wards, I'm genuinely not sure how to fix that. I had fun watching her run around and do kinda-sorta Cop Stuff, there were some solid comedy beats inherent in watching Taylor approach hero problems like Skitter and horrify her teammates, and the Taylor/Yamada meeting was great fanservice for all it seemed to (not) help, but for a lot of it I couldn't bring myself to care. In my head, the way to make this more fun would've been to keep the focus more on the Undersiders and either have them work side-by-side, or otherwise remain centrally in the story, then replace the timeskip with a 5-7 volume arc that actually covers those two years, but I think that's more a guide for entertaining me personally than a helpful structural change. I think part of the problem with Taylor + Wards is that the high stakes had already been established, so it felt like a step back to see her waste two years of her life running around a single city busting teenage villains.
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Feb 24, 2018 08:32
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Lone Goat posted:I don't think that's reasonable at all, half the thread will be a wall of black squares. Because they also read other stories and don't keep 100% immediately up to date on everything?
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Feb 24, 2018 09:02
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sunken fleet posted:Because they also read other stories and don't keep 100% immediately up to date on everything? I mean, there's only 3-4 current stories that get regularly discussed here. I'm down for spoilering discussion of the most recent update, but two weeks seems a tad excessive. IMHO if it's going to be a formally codified rule it should probably be something more like 3-5 days, a week at most.
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Feb 24, 2018 10:54
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Okay, that makes sense. Does spoiling the most recent two updates work, then?
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Feb 24, 2018 13:36
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Spoiler tag at least the 2 most recent updates yeah, quite a lot of people are behind on Ward. Also if you note before your tags exactly which you're spoilering, (Shadow 5.1: spoiler ) that helps a lot...
Nettle Soup fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Feb 24, 2018 |
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Feb 24, 2018 14:04
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Read the iron teeth serial. Occasionally very very good! The chapters do drag a bit but i guess that's web serials for you. A little bit too much filling.
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Feb 24, 2018 16:12
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Omi no Kami posted:Yeah, I think my core comment/criticism about Worm's structure is that the origin story/S9 arcs felt tightly-paced and well-organized, but the sections from Echidna onward feel, hmm, not quite bloated, but they feel like a bit more of a chore to get through, with less of a payoff. There's actually one part - when Dragon sends the multiple suits at the Undersiders - where I just flat-out skipped several chapters. I knew she was going to end up figuring out some way to defeat those robots, and I just wanted to get on with the story.
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Feb 24, 2018 20:01
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The Shortest Path posted:Okay, that makes sense. Does spoiling the most recent two updates work, then? That would work for me, at least.
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Feb 25, 2018 00:05
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Taylor becoming Weaver is about when I notice that I am not having as much fun as I was before in the story, honestly.
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Feb 25, 2018 01:24
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Everything from the S9 on is a bit of a blur for me. I'd rate the section from Echidna to Scion going mental as the long low point. With things like the Eidolon clone revealing everything, Alexandria's attempt at interrogation, Teacher killing Dragon, visiting Nilbog, and a few other things as being high points in it. But I mean, does the Traveler arc need to exist?
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Feb 25, 2018 01:39
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the peak of worm is when you realize scion lost his loved one in a car accident because she was texting while driving and his life slowly crumbled until he was bullied to death
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Feb 25, 2018 03:23
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violent sex idiot posted:the peak of worm is when you realize scion lost his loved one in a car accident because she was texting while driving and his life slowly crumbled until he was bullied to death God drat
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Feb 25, 2018 03:44
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While we're discussing the ending, this is probably just a personal thing, but it drives me nuts that the ending was vague. I'd be fine with Taylor alive and happy, dead, or bullet coma-ed in a life support pod under Tattletale's couch (although I'd prefer the first one), but it really bugs me that the story just kinda shrugs and goes "It could be anything, have fun picking your own ending".
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Feb 25, 2018 04:12
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violent sex idiot posted:the peak of worm is when you realize scion lost his loved one in a car accident because she was texting while driving and his life slowly crumbled until he was bullied to death I didn't catch on to the texting while driving analogy until months after I finished the story and when I realized it my brain kinda slowly imploded. His "character arc" being the same as Taylor's pre-trigger development is some meta poo poo and one of the many reasons why I love Wildbow as an author.
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Feb 25, 2018 04:16
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By the way which one of you guys is Matt from the We've Got Worm/Ward podcast? One of the posts here got quoted in a recent episode, which is kinda awesome.
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Feb 25, 2018 04:19
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I'm betting the "mysterious force that is keeping these clowns together" in Ward is going to be Sveta, at least if it's something non-purposeful. If anyone turns out to have a hidden power of keeping people close it'd be her.
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Feb 25, 2018 04:22
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violent sex idiot posted:the peak of worm is when you realize scion lost his loved one in a car accident because she was texting while driving and his life slowly crumbled until he was bullied to death Holy gently caress I never realized this until just now.
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Feb 25, 2018 05:55
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Milky Moor posted:Everything from the S9 on is a bit of a blur for me. I'd rate the section from Echidna to Scion going mental as the long low point. With things like the Eidolon clone revealing everything, Alexandria's attempt at interrogation, Teacher killing Dragon, visiting Nilbog, and a few other things as being high points in it. Teacher didn't kill dragon, that was saint. Saint is involved with teacher like a druggie is with a dealer, but teacher isn't involved with the takedown of dragon. The traveler arc did a really good job of establishing multiple dimensions that aren't all in on the current earth Bet setup, as well as doing setup on stuff with Simurgh and why the way they treat people who interact with simurgh exists, and if that is good/bad is up to the reader. Also expands cauldron, since at that point we don't really know much about them. All in all it turns the travelers from 'coil henchmen' into a group of people who got a poo poo deal and are trying to deal with what they have, and their cavalier attitude towards what happens on Bet makes more sense when you find out they're from a different earth entirely. I think that arc opens up the story to a multiverse, which is something that is only casually mentioned before. Not sure who Matt is on here, but he's referenced the thread a couple times I've noticed. I think currently I find myself thinking they've missed more things than in the we've got worm podcast, which is probably an artifact of Matt subtly steering the conversation before (which I think was done very well, in a manner that avoided spoilers). Overall still a quality listen, and enjoy their reactions to stuff that happens. ward thoughts: I'm really not sure about the influence factor now. It has to be something in play before Victoria was in the group, and based on the last interlude it shouldn't be Rain (mama mather's is chastising him for not thinking of her, and doesn't seem aware of the therapy). If it is Tristin or Byron the other one would put it out there. Ashley isn't subtle enough, and has to be watched enough from the Wardens to prevent her from having shenanigans. That leaves us with Chris/Kenzie/Sveta, or Rain if it is a complete side-effect of his aura. Chris is a near blank which seems a bit too obvious for the story, and Kenzie doesn't seem like she has the powerset to do it all on her own. So I sort of think it is Kenzie or Sveta being convinced by a third party that using <get along better tech> is for the best, or maybe someone like Teacher has his hooks in Chris and an aspect of his power is doing emotional manips on the group. poo poo is building to a head though, and I can't wait to find out how this is going down.
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Feb 25, 2018 06:08
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I can't believe I mixed up Saint and Teacher. I think my first post in the previous thread was even something like gently caress SAINT.
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Feb 25, 2018 08:14
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Teacher definitely influenced Saint to some degree, so that he could recover Dragon's "corpse" and put in the failsafe to keep her from going after him after fixing her up. But it seems likely Saint would have axed Dragon without his influence eventually anyway. Both of those guys are gargantuan pieces of poo poo and I can't wait to see either or both of them get hosed up hilariously in Ward.
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Feb 25, 2018 17:32
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Where did Sveta's new found "control" come from. I mean, yeah, being in a relationship and learning some things and having friends should all help, but help enough that she's walking around in a prosthetic body? The amount of fine control that probably takes...
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Feb 25, 2018 18:06
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It seems awfully suspicious to me that Rain is still going to therapy even under Mama Mathers' influence, like, he doesn't think it's something that would bother her.
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Feb 25, 2018 18:23
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the way it works from my reading is she only knows whats up and can read his mind when hes thinking of her.
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Feb 25, 2018 18:29
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Sveta's control issues back in worm seemed at least in part based on anxiety about hurting people. Being inside a body that keeps her contained probably goes a long way towards helping with that, along with as you mentioned years of therapy and a great relationship. Rain thoughts: We're not sure how much mama mathers can pick up. She is pretty vague and uses speech like you'd expect from fortune tellers. We do know that she can tell when someone is thinking of her, and can have the effects be anywhere from apparitions of her to full on psychological mind breaks (all senses hosed). We know there isn't telepathy, so my guess is the amount of actual info she can get is very limited. Him showing up to the team makes perfect sense, he now has a time limit and literally no one else to turn to. It'll be interesting if he tries to tip them off at all about the issue or hide it.
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Feb 25, 2018 18:50
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ZypherIM posted:We know there isn't telepathy, so my guess is the amount of actual info she can get is very limited. Are we actually sure she can get anything? I should probably re-read that interlude, but my impression was that she and the apparition were pretty heavily separated, and most of her info was gleaned from her real body listening to the one-sided conversation he had with her ghost. On the other hand, from old WoGs we know that she can badly jack up thinkers who happen to find her while scanning the fallen's territory, so the apparition obviously has some form of utility beyond telling her who's thinking about her and scaring the bejesus out of people.
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Feb 26, 2018 01:04
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Omi no Kami posted:Are we actually sure she can get anything? I should probably re-read that interlude, but my impression was that she and the apparition were pretty heavily separated, and most of her info was gleaned from her real body listening to the one-sided conversation he had with her ghost. On the other hand, from old WoGs we know that she can badly jack up thinkers who happen to find her while scanning the fallen's territory, so the apparition obviously has some form of utility beyond telling her who's thinking about her and scaring the bejesus out of people. Well, we know some things, we know what she's claimed, and we can infer some things. She claims to be able to know what the conversation involved, but as you said it could be highly likely that she's using information from what he said and doing cold reading. I think it is safe to say she really can tell when people are thinking of her, because her power lets her know that much. In terms of what else her power gives her, we have no confirmation, though given her lack of knowledge about the therapy group I'd guess she'd get very little of actual info (no way he didn't think of her during therapy ever). Her power is full sensory highjacking. She has sight, sound, touch confirmed, and the rest seem likely. She has control of what appears when you think of her, as you referenced the old 'word of god' bit where he talked about clairvoyants seeing her and being sent to the madhouse for years as the walls bled spiders, so they actively avoid looking at areas they think she could be at.
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Feb 26, 2018 01:26
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Error 404 posted:Holy gently caress I never realized this until just now. Yeah Taylor goes full circle from being wrecked by having her mom's death brought up to killing a god-alien by (in-part literally) throwing the death of the person he's closest to in his face. I completely forgot she told Sveta to do that and it loving owns, gw Taylor and your weird hosed up ideas.
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Feb 26, 2018 02:59
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The Shortest Path posted:Both of those guys are gargantuan pieces of poo poo and I can't wait to see either or both of them get hosed up hilariously in Ward. Saint's already been hosed up by Teacher, as of Worm's epilogue.
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Feb 26, 2018 03:26
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Practical Guide as usual keeps on the escalation schedule. Also caught up on Gods are Bastards and my reaction to the end of the current update is 
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Feb 26, 2018 07:51
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Shout out to the guy in the subreddit who melted down over what a piece of poo poo Byron is the other day, including getting indignant because he said he didn't blame rain for having feelings for erin
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Feb 26, 2018 12:31
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lurksion posted:Practical Guide as usual keeps on the escalation schedule. Yea, the ending of this morning's TGAB was.... not great. In Practical Guide, I was surprised that Catherine sided with Malicia over Black regarding disposal of the weapon. On the one hand, I know that she cares about Callow above all else, so she's grasping at straws to protect it from war. On the other hand, she seems to have bought into Black's preaching about the inevitability of defeat for people who own things like that weapon, so why would she toss aside that core belief right at this moment? To me, Malicia's insistence that simply owning the weapon would prevent war seems hideously short sighted. In the real world, nuclear deterrents work because all sides are rational actors who don't want to end the world. In this fiction, in the minds of the side of Good, they are Evil first and foremost, even if they are a "different breed" of Villain. Why would Procer trust them to not use their nukes? I think possession of the weapon makes war more likely, not less. At least until they use it in defense, and at that point you're basically writing the story of your own defeat. I liked seeing the Bard pop in at the end. Was this moment her end-game all along? In order to get Black to turn on Malicia, she allowed Akua to create her weapon knowing that they would have opposing views on what to do with it.
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Feb 26, 2018 15:43
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Silynt posted:I liked seeing the Bard pop in at the end. Was this moment her end-game all along? In order to get Black to turn on Malicia, she allowed Akua to create her weapon knowing that they would have opposing views on what to do with it. I'm pretty sure this exact moment was the main reason Bard conspired to get Champion killed like she did. That Black so recently witnessed such a powerful villain be defeated by a total nobody of a hero, solely on the strength of narrative weight, certainly didn't do Malicia's argument any favours here.
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Feb 26, 2018 17:11
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Mygna posted:I'm pretty sure this exact moment was the main reason Bard conspired to get Champion killed like she did. That Black so recently witnessed such a powerful villain be defeated by a total nobody of a hero, solely on the strength of narrative weight, certainly didn't do Malicia's argument any favours here.
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Feb 26, 2018 17:15
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