WanderingKalosan
Lv1 Author (Writer Wannabe)
- Joined
- May 19, 2018
- Messages
- 41
- Reaction score
- 38
Cross posting my serebii review of Act 3 (let me know if you'd prefer just one post):
As usual let's start with the good stuff, and then move on to criticizing bits.
I liked training scenes and interactions in the early Act3 chapters. As before you did great job with Matheus. He is likable and fun to read, and quickly becomes my favorite character in your story.
Another thing I liked were the short flashbacks to Lawrence's past at the beginning of each chapter. We know at this point where Cassia and Grom come from, but we didn't know what happened to Lawrence prior Unova. Now we are getting it, gradually, and it explains Lawrence's inward conflict and his opinions at the beginning of the story.
Lawrence & Cassia's relationship: I like how you didn't let their love story become the main focus, it would fit the story anyway, but it has its purpose (power of friendship/love - which is good choice for the classic Good vs. Evil story). I also like how it has vibes of teenage love despite them being young adults (it took them long to realize the feelings and they are still sort of awkward around each other and joking about it). This is because they actually are the youngest of the main characters afaik, so it is fitting.
Gardner's character development: Mostly liked that one. It is always interesting to see villainous character start doubting themselves and eventually realize they are unhappy and need to change their lives (it has been done thousand times before, but this is one cliche I will never mind or get tired of). However it felt a bit forced too. So Gardner really has been flawless servant for almost two decades, and only then he f*cked up? Also, he never encountered a ghost type begging for a bit of Life during all those long years (to take pity on)? That is kinda hard to believe.
As I said I liked it happening tho. It also allowed for us to see Arceus is indeed personally engaged in this conflict, even if s/he doesn't show up themselves officially.
And finally,Johto Journeys! Eh, I mean, Equivos Journeys!: This one was originally going to be a negative point, but Chapter 20 retroactively justified it. Let me explain what I mean here.
Most of the Act 3 has this feel of episodic show; we go through several places and meet many one off characters (including the villains). Yes, important things do happen - acquiring Aura, Hoopa exposition, Arthus learning who is enemies are (and what important little item they have), and him working on outsmarting the heroes in several ways. However we didn't need specifically water/rock village nor ice/fire community with insane Delibird and murderous Avalugg for that. Replace them with any other one off characters and the plot will remain basically the same.
Because of this it had the feel of a filler, but it turns out it served another (almost meta) purpose. The seemingly lower stakes ensured the showdown with Arthus in ch20 would be more tense and had a better impact on the audience.
Was this intentional?
And now, the things that didn't work for me.
Arthus' behavior: This guy suffers from what some call "villain decay" or "badass decay." He was introduced as completely ruthless, and and some points you let him kill others for merely speaking what he didn't want to hear. Gardner should have been killed three times by now (and he does much more than speaking up). Instead Arthus doesn't even punish the guy (not in his supposedly ruthless fashion, anyway) and just whines "How dare you!", multiple times - be very careful with this, it greatly undermines the image of cruel warrior villain. It is very difficult to see him as brutal killer after displaying such weakness.
Of course there is this excuse which Arthus always remembers to say aloud "If I didn't need you..." and variants of that. But that will only work if you prove that is the case and you better do so as soon as possible. Instead Arthus never needed Gardner at all (every important action during Act3 has been done by Arthus himself, with Gardner basically tagging along and refusing to obey an occasional order while insulting his boss... why is he alive again?).
I am serious about this, in a an analytic way: Exactly what couldn't Arthus do himself that warranted Gardner alive?
There was no place that only ghost types could enter; no obstacle that needed exclusively ghost type move/attack; no secret Hoopa-bottle-opening-artifact which would require an eye of Dusknoir to be created (sorry that sounds silly, it was just random stuff from the top of my head).
I feel like something like this should have come up, because now it looks like Arthus spared Gardner just so he could have his little redemption arc. Either that or kill Gardner off outright, which would send immediate message to the readers that Arthus means business kidz.
And nope, his off-screen kills and destruction of Virona don't really count, sorry :/ Those characters didn't even have names and existed in exactly one paragraph for the sole purpose of being killed anyway. Very hard to cry for them. I was moved more by that tiny Duskull (who was killed after Gardner was kind to it) than by entire Virona.
Killing nameless characters with no relevance to the plot is easy, but doesn't have much of an impact. And refusing to kill important character when their death would be actually plausible smells of Plot armor.
One last thing, nope Arthus didn't need Gardner even for the final trap/battle in ch20 because Arthus could have easily replace him with anyone else who is a capable fighter. Heroes were the ones who needed Gardner there (to betray Arthus). This makes Arthus' choices rather questionable, especially since he already knew he couldn't rely on Gardner's loyalty at this point.
Arthus' actions: This is basically related to above, but I noticed some plot holes as a result of Arthus' plan to get the Hoopa bottle:
As for plot holes, that is even more challenging. Not sure how much plot relevance will Hoopa have after this point; if none, you could perhaps change how their deal goes if you wanted to. No idea if there is other way for Arthus to obtain the bottle, or even if you would like to commit to the rewrite of that in the first place.
At any rate, thanks for fun read! Arthus disappointed a bit this time around, but I liked everything else you did, especially the chemistry and relationships among the protagonists. See you in Act 4!
As usual let's start with the good stuff, and then move on to criticizing bits.
I liked training scenes and interactions in the early Act3 chapters. As before you did great job with Matheus. He is likable and fun to read, and quickly becomes my favorite character in your story.
I love this guy.“Well that’s hardly fair. Aren’t you supposed to be teaching me instead of punishing me?”
Matheus shrugged. “There’s all sorts of teaching methods. This one happens to be mine.”
Another thing I liked were the short flashbacks to Lawrence's past at the beginning of each chapter. We know at this point where Cassia and Grom come from, but we didn't know what happened to Lawrence prior Unova. Now we are getting it, gradually, and it explains Lawrence's inward conflict and his opinions at the beginning of the story.
Lawrence & Cassia's relationship: I like how you didn't let their love story become the main focus, it would fit the story anyway, but it has its purpose (power of friendship/love - which is good choice for the classic Good vs. Evil story). I also like how it has vibes of teenage love despite them being young adults (it took them long to realize the feelings and they are still sort of awkward around each other and joking about it). This is because they actually are the youngest of the main characters afaik, so it is fitting.
Gardner's character development: Mostly liked that one. It is always interesting to see villainous character start doubting themselves and eventually realize they are unhappy and need to change their lives (it has been done thousand times before, but this is one cliche I will never mind or get tired of). However it felt a bit forced too. So Gardner really has been flawless servant for almost two decades, and only then he f*cked up? Also, he never encountered a ghost type begging for a bit of Life during all those long years (to take pity on)? That is kinda hard to believe.
As I said I liked it happening tho. It also allowed for us to see Arceus is indeed personally engaged in this conflict, even if s/he doesn't show up themselves officially.
And finally,
Most of the Act 3 has this feel of episodic show; we go through several places and meet many one off characters (including the villains). Yes, important things do happen - acquiring Aura, Hoopa exposition, Arthus learning who is enemies are (and what important little item they have), and him working on outsmarting the heroes in several ways. However we didn't need specifically water/rock village nor ice/fire community with insane Delibird and murderous Avalugg for that. Replace them with any other one off characters and the plot will remain basically the same.
Because of this it had the feel of a filler, but it turns out it served another (almost meta) purpose. The seemingly lower stakes ensured the showdown with Arthus in ch20 would be more tense and had a better impact on the audience.
Was this intentional?
And now, the things that didn't work for me.
Arthus' behavior: This guy suffers from what some call "villain decay" or "badass decay." He was introduced as completely ruthless, and and some points you let him kill others for merely speaking what he didn't want to hear. Gardner should have been killed three times by now (and he does much more than speaking up). Instead Arthus doesn't even punish the guy (not in his supposedly ruthless fashion, anyway) and just whines "How dare you!", multiple times - be very careful with this, it greatly undermines the image of cruel warrior villain. It is very difficult to see him as brutal killer after displaying such weakness.
Of course there is this excuse which Arthus always remembers to say aloud "If I didn't need you..." and variants of that. But that will only work if you prove that is the case and you better do so as soon as possible. Instead Arthus never needed Gardner at all (every important action during Act3 has been done by Arthus himself, with Gardner basically tagging along and refusing to obey an occasional order while insulting his boss... why is he alive again?).
I am serious about this, in a an analytic way: Exactly what couldn't Arthus do himself that warranted Gardner alive?
There was no place that only ghost types could enter; no obstacle that needed exclusively ghost type move/attack; no secret Hoopa-bottle-opening-artifact which would require an eye of Dusknoir to be created (sorry that sounds silly, it was just random stuff from the top of my head).
I feel like something like this should have come up, because now it looks like Arthus spared Gardner just so he could have his little redemption arc. Either that or kill Gardner off outright, which would send immediate message to the readers that Arthus means business kidz.
And nope, his off-screen kills and destruction of Virona don't really count, sorry :/ Those characters didn't even have names and existed in exactly one paragraph for the sole purpose of being killed anyway. Very hard to cry for them. I was moved more by that tiny Duskull (who was killed after Gardner was kind to it) than by entire Virona.
Killing nameless characters with no relevance to the plot is easy, but doesn't have much of an impact. And refusing to kill important character when their death would be actually plausible smells of Plot armor.
One last thing, nope Arthus didn't need Gardner even for the final trap/battle in ch20 because Arthus could have easily replace him with anyone else who is a capable fighter. Heroes were the ones who needed Gardner there (to betray Arthus). This makes Arthus' choices rather questionable, especially since he already knew he couldn't rely on Gardner's loyalty at this point.
Arthus' actions: This is basically related to above, but I noticed some plot holes as a result of Arthus' plan to get the Hoopa bottle:
- took the bottle when Matheus was asleep - why didn't he kill them all and take Cassia if he had this opportunity? Then he could have fixed the Seal without giving the protagonists a chance to foil his plans (also why not take the Illusion stone at this point? Why bother with the whole Xatu act?)
- double crossing Hoopa - why? What does he gain by this? This threatens his only means of restoring the Seal (even if Hoopa bluffed, why take such a huge risk? he is only one step from fulfilling his dream)
- the whole Seal restoration while battling the heroes reminds me of Bond villains (even if he really wanted to confront them - he should have restored the Seal first undisturbed, and only then when invincible, finally go meet them)
As for plot holes, that is even more challenging. Not sure how much plot relevance will Hoopa have after this point; if none, you could perhaps change how their deal goes if you wanted to. No idea if there is other way for Arthus to obtain the bottle, or even if you would like to commit to the rewrite of that in the first place.
At any rate, thanks for fun read! Arthus disappointed a bit this time around, but I liked everything else you did, especially the chemistry and relationships among the protagonists. See you in Act 4!