Current Events Do Unearned Powerups Destroy Tension In Storytelling?

Ass Pull Powerups in One Piece Are:


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So I apologize for posting just text with little/no pictures. I wanted to briefly articulate why solving every problem by handing your characters unearned power ups destroys conflict and tension in a story. I’ll bring up a point I made a few weeks back:



At the end of the day, the one thing that any story should get right, is it’s conflict. The ability of a fictional story to get you to suspend your disbelief and not know whether or not the characters you’re rooting for can actually succeed or fail. This is the source of tension and ultimately what makes triumphs feel memorable. A story that cannot get this right, is a story that fundamentally has no meaning.

If I can run at 100 miles per hour, and I run a race where in order to win, I only need to run 80 miles per hour, there is not much tension because everyone knows what the outcome will be.

If I can run a race at 100 miles per hour, and I race an opponent who can also run 100 miles per hour…well now we have actual tension, because nobody really knows who is going to win and who is going to lose, or if there’s going to be a tie. The tension comes from the idea that we don’t know what is going to happen.

But if I can run 100 miles per hour, and I’m facing an opponent that can run 200 miles per hour, and half way through the race I suddenly unlock ability that allows me to run at 400 miles per hour in spite of the fact that I’ve been training for years and never discovered this ability before…then ladies and gentlemen, there is no longer any conflict in my story. My win was completely unearned because I was simply handed the ability to win for free, having done nothing myself to earn that win. I was faced with an impossible scenario to begin with, but I still won because the plot just handed me a win for no good reason.

This is not about Sanji, he may be the victim of this discussion as the most recent Ass Pull powerup in One Piece was handed to him this week, but this speaks to a greater trend and problem in Oda’s writing:

There is straight up no tension in One Piece anymore. There is no question of “can Sanji actually beat Queen?” Now the question is “what ability will Oda hand Sanji for free that wins the fight for him?”

Sanji is not the only culprit here. Every mid-arc powerup Zoro has ever unlocked has been an ass pull powerup as well. Every single one. From arbitrarily discovering the unexplained “breath of all things powerup”, to manifesting the completely unexplained Asura powerup from the depths of his ass hole against Kaku, to being handed Oden’s sword completely for free, every big powerup greenboi was handed has come at no personal cost or reward. Descendant of Ryuma amirite?

Luffy is the most heinous offender in the manga but I’ve discussed him at length in the past. The only thing I’ll say here is that it should be as clear as day to everyone, that the “Haki blooms under extreme conditions” bullshit that Oda fed us during the Katakuri fight, is the biggest ass pull line of dialogue in Shonen history, as no other character has ever had a Haki bloom in the middle of battle whereas Luffy has so far had 2.

Sanji unlocking his exoskeleton during the Queen fight is far from the only ass pull powerup that we’ve ever seen in this manga full of ass pull power ups. There is no longer any tension in the OP story when every character will simply be handed the power ups required to win their conflicts by Oda no matter how unearned or nonsensical they may seem.

Discuss your opinions on the state of ass pull power ups in One Piss.

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So much salt in this post that my blood pressure skyrocketed, but I will try to be serious.

First off you have to define what an "unearned" power truly is, and for it to be an actual problem imo it has to A) completely kill tension by actually giving a free win to the protagonist or B) Go against the themes previously established in the story. A good example for A would be the powerups in dragon ball super and for B it would be the 7 quirks fron Boku no hero or the final power up from Naruto shippuden. I'll assume that what you mean with "unearned power up" is a power that the character didnt work to get, and though you could be right I ask you: was one piece AS A WHOLE a story about training or developing your might? Luffy did train in both of his timeskips, yes, but his weapon was always his versatility and his will, not how many push ups he does daily, and Sanji goes in a similar direction, even if we spent a bunch of chapters focused on them training or even have timeskip after timeskip that would still not change the fact that this isnt how Luffy wins his battles

There is a reason why Oda made the equivalent of Ki in one piece "haki", wich literally means will/ambition, and why haki blooms and conquerors growing only through battle are a thing, because that was the theme with Luffy from the get go, so if the character is following the in universe stablished ways of how the power works and is following the thematic to a teeth can you really call it unearned hust because it doesnt follow what you belive to be the proper process? In Sanji's case his power up goes completely in hand with his storyline that began back in Zou, with him desperately trying to cut ties with his family but never being able to do so because he is what he is, a Vinsmoke, and that was never properly closed off during whole cake and the lastest chapter confirms that its truly not over yet

And since then, even through their mutual hatred, Sanji and his family have been getting somewhat closer, with them saving him and Luffy and him inheriting their tech and powers, hell I cant even see them awakening their emotions next time we see then just like Sanji awakened his powers,this isnt just an excuse for a power up this is a character arc.

So again, Sanji is following the themes established in his story, so I cant see how thats unearned because he didnt do a bunch of squats. Theres only 1 character in the SHs that have the whole " I have to constantly train my body to achieve my goal"

Thats one of the reasons he is so loved, because thats HIS thing, and so far he has been true to his theme. The moment he pulls a Shimotsuki bloodline power up THEN you can bitch about unearned power, and before anyone says it, Enma doesnt count as unearned because the quality of blades have always been a factor to swordsmanship, and he got Enma by earning Hyori's trust and exchanging Shisui for it, and he had to train to master it, even if briefly.

So in conclusion: It depends, but I would argue that one piece hasnt truly gone down that route yet anyway
 
Thats one of the reasons he is so loved, because thats HIS thing, and so far he has been true to his theme. The moment he pulls a Shimotsuki bloodline power up THEN you can bitch about unearned power, and before anyone says it, Enma doesnt count as unearned because the quality of blades have always been a factor to swordsmanship, and he got Enma by earning Hyori's trust and exchanging Shisui for it, and he had to train to master it, even if briefly.
what about asura?
 
what about asura?
back in enies lobby the headcanon was ashura is like a materialization of zoros' will.....
but it was kinda came out of nowhere as we have 0 background of that back then, and it was not even explained until now.
atm exposition regarding ashura's is even fewer than coc, but I think 1010 kinda hint that ashura could be a branch of coc.
 
It's pretty surprising to me how many people read One Piece for the fights, when it's easily the weakest part of the story. And that's because it's not about the fights.

They are often just a vehicle to progress the plot, a battle of wills more than anything else. There's a reason why even characters who aren't combat oriented (like Usopp, Robin, Nami) end up in fights and get their asses kicked. Then suddenly they shout that they believe in their friends/Luffy will become the pirate king, and somehow come out on top by the end.


It's to show that they have a greater conviction in their dream, and a more righteous goal than their (typically) sleezebag opponent. It's not about who can punch harder or who put in more time training in the hyperbolic time chamber or conjured the perfect nen beast after maintaining Ryou for 16 hours.

Sanji is one of the few combat oriented Strawhats and - what a shocker - even he's just the ship's cook! After we just got an entire arc centered around Sanji's personal conflict and growth, it absolutely blows my mind that people are still expecting some sort of training arc to show how his Diable Jambe got 5 degrees hotter.

Maybe, follow me for a second, this arc isn't just about some war. It's also about the burden of inherited will. Momo being forced to live up to his father's image, when he is a coward and a weakling - having to sacrifice decades of his life just to be useful. Yamato being the daughter of Kaido, wanting to be like Oden but simultaneously not wanting to be the Shogun because that's what her father, Oden's murderer, wants for her. No wonder she got along with Ace, a guy who was executed for being Roger's son - executed for the crime of existing. And Luffy inherited that from him, having to shoulder the burden of an entire country simply because Ace could never return to fulfill his promise. Robin, the Ohara demon, having to come to terms with her past and embrace the image of a demon that people place on her. Was this some asspull, too, just because we didn't watch her train Demonio with the Revs for 10 chapters?


And now Sanji. A guy who hates his family lineage, who doesn't want to be associated with Judge. But in order to save others he is forced to use his raid suit - his father's creation. At every possible turn people refer to him as Stealth Black, one of the Germa, son of Judge. It happened in this exact chapter, where he's even fighting a former colleague of his father's. No matter how much he runs away from it, he benefits from being a Vinsmoke. And now he's truly becoming a monster like his siblings, all because of something completely out of his control.

The whole point of this is that you can't run away from who you are. You can't escape your fate. You have to embrace it and turn it into something positive, make it your own. It's not about some highly intricate kung fu powerup that Sanji spent 2 years learning with the Okama to master. It's about destiny. This was already laid out in plain English right at the beginning of the story, remember?

:cheers::cheers::cheers:
 
I am Ok, with characters withstanding a strong attack and then winning the fights...but I don't like a powerup being added just to withstand it and all. Of course the former has to be understandable. The best example is Ussop...he is super weak but has withstood attacks that should potentially kill him, I guess since he is a weak character and the event is not as bad with storytelling, it feels good/Ok. But the same when happens to Luffy, it seems a bit bad now...for example, his fight with Lucci was Ok, he just used everything desperately in the end and won, the fight was done well even though Lucci seemed to have odds in his side, it was believable for Luffy to win...but now we just see him getting powerups left and right. Both Katakuri and Kaido's fitght...I did not like Luffy.
Zoro actually doesn't have this problem because most of his fights seem believable for his potential. Oda did not make him fight any extreme battle after time skip which made his potential ceiling pretty much unlimited, unlike Luffy.
Sanji sucks, don't care about him. Even oda's writing of him has been bad pretty much most of the time.
 
I miss the all good Super Saiyan Goku transformation. That was earned imo.

Funnily even the zenkai boosts made so much sense cause Saiyans worked like that.
 
It's pretty surprising to me how many people read One Piece for the fights, when it's easily the weakest part of the story. And that's because it's not about the fights.
You're right, it's not about fights, but fights are an essential part of this genre of storytelling, and there's no running form it. The key part of any storytelling is not the ending of it–no matter how much people value it–but the process of reaching to the end, just like the point of life is not its end, cuz the end of life is an inevitable death, but the journey that we go throughout our lives, the stories that we collect, the friendships that we make, and the lessons that we learn. If you have a story where–let's say hypothetically–Luffy comes out and declares that he wants to become the pirate king, and then he immediately becomes one, then nobody would read that story because there's no context, there's not an actual journey to the end goal. And that's what storytelling is all about, it's about the journey and not the ending. It happens to be, that in "shonen" manga, the way to achieve your dreams is by fighting, the "fantasy" genre spiceficly manifests our daily life struggles into physical world where they can take forms of menacing giants that the MC has to take down, symbolising the grandness of struggle and the enormous effort it takes to achieve your dreams, and the bigger the dream the bigger that menacing giant has to be. It's the good old concept of David vs Goliath...

And the way the MC takes down that obstacle in form of a menacing giant, makes the greatest impact on the reader, it is the driving force of the plot. Without struggle, effort and Ingenuity you should not win a battle, there has to be a price for the victory, you cannot win the battle of your life without immense struggle and high price. And that's what lacks post-timskip one piece!
There are six keys to powerful stories: stories trigger emotional responses, put a face on an issue, connect us to deeper issues, humanise us, raise the stakes of the discourse, and go beyond telling to showing. The narratives and incidents described help transcend generic keywords and set us apart.
and almost all of this lacks in post-timskip!
Wano, an arc that was promised to give what post-timskip lacked from the beginning, something that the audience was striving for, the battle against an Emperor that should be the greatest obstacle the strowhats have ever faced, turned out to be amongst the easiest, and you ask them to just move on? Close their eyes as they've been doing for the entirety of the post timskip? No, I think enough is enough at this point, and sales of Wano speak for themselves.
And now Sanji. A guy who hates his family lineage, who doesn't want to be associated with Judge. But in order to save others he is forced to use his raid suit - his father's creation. At every possible turn people refer to him as Stealth Black, one of the Germa, son of Judge. It happened in this exact chapter, where he's even fighting a former colleague of his father's. No matter how much he runs away from it, he benefits from being a Vinsmoke. And now he's truly becoming a monster like his siblings, all because of something completely out of his control.
the Sanji one is completely outrageous... First of all: Robin never really battled against the "demon figure" that the world government was trying to paint her, yes, she might have never wanted it but she never truly rejected it in first place. What she truly fought for–well at least she tried–was the right to live, and that's why her cry in Enies Lobby was so much emotionally impactful because she finally won that decades long battle.

In case of Sanji it's different... Sanji had the right to live since the beginning because Zeff took care of him as his own child, Sanji never had to flee or join criminal organizations just to survive, Zeff raised him as his child since his childhood.

That's why this since is also very impactful if you know what Zeff did for him.

The only battles Sanji ever had were internal, within himself, and he never won even SINGLE battle that he ever faced. And that's the insanity of Sanji's situation. He could never reject the Okama energy (I understand that that's a gag, but that's a very bad gag made to humiliate a character), he could never fight a woman for sake of his crewmembers, he fought against his own captain even though he very well knew it would change nothing, and fanaly after losing every fight in post-timskip he will defeat Queen because of Judge. Whether Oda did it intentionally or not, but he made out of Sanji (a beloved character in pre-timskip) an actual bi*ch. He never won even one Internal conflict he ever faced... the problem is not that Sanji is awakening his Germa powers per say, but when and how he does it. For example, let's say that Sanji awakened it during timskip through his training and willpower, but he never used it because he didn't want to, then after struggling against Queen and seeing his friends in grave danger he decides to use it for sake of his friends, that's not as bad as it is now. But giving Sanji that god damn raid suit that ruins his character and + making him to awaken because of the raid suit, that's just pure hate from the author.
 
I was going to stop responding to you, but your comments somehow keep getting dumber.



What the fuck are you talking about lol? Shin fought Gyou’Un equally who is much, much stronger than Gaku Ei. Shin also fought Gaimou equally two years before, who would slay Gaku Ei easily. You haven’t read Kingdom, don’t lie.



Then how do you know Kingdom is Sun Tzu wank if you haven’t read his work? Lmfao

And I have read the Art of War for the record. An English translation at least. The book is extremely short.



Yes, all of which shit on most other manga in art. Kingdom is among the worst best-manga in art, making it by default better than most manga’s art.

But I’m putting you on ignore now because you’re either a troll or have legit issues.
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Huh? All she did was slice him a few times lol. And even if what you said was true (it’s not), how would that be bad power escalation exactly? Kyoukai has always been freakishly strong lol.



If you look at Shin’s power progression in detail, which I will not reference here, then yes this was perfect power escalation.

Also, Ouki would’ve killed Houken twice when they fought if not for interference. Not sure why you ignored that detail lol.

You even debunked your own criticisms in the same post you made them:
She sliced him a few times... and he lost some of his fingers. So yes, she did life altering damage

Not really? I said the fight was good from a writing standpoint as it truly showed that without “weight” you can’t reach the peak but that doesn’t mean it’s good from a power scaling standpoint

I didn’t ignore that detail I put in my original post that he had help

I think the scaling for that fight was terrible and he jumped up in power far too quickly but we don’t see it the same way ig
 
I think OP concerns are directly related to some of narrative choices of the author. These imo further adds up to what make PU asspulls or bad.
  • First mistake would be Luffy struggles Post Ts. Oda had him go all out against much weaker characters (almost fodders in comparison to what he's up against now)... to fighting WSC in few weeks time. It would have been consistent if it felt like Luffy came out of ts quite strong and some training n Pu make up the difference he needed to fight the Top tiers. Since Rayleigh trained him it made sense, like it does with Zoro.
  • But Luffy had to go to extreme limits, needed blood transfusion, rest for nights after these fights. Alright maybe Oda had to hype all arcs. But what narrative choices legit make Luffy struggle against fodders like Holdem, Monet and Batman??
  • You see even after all that Ryou training and stuff in Udon,.. Oda had Luffy need G4 for Ulti, a F6 group member who in the end were trashed by mid trio SHs in one chapter in questionable anticlimactic manner. How at this rate Oda planned on selling this man can 1vs 1 WSC to his audience? He can't, he was just pushing himself in the corner.
  • Another example... Luffy struggles for dozen hours against SCs.. Fight heated battles for 11 hours against both Cracker n Katakuri preparing himself for Yonkou.... but then you have him get one shot first thing in Wano despite all the growth and development in WCI arc making it all irrelevant.
  • Alright m... Maybe Kaidou was just so strong. But then you have everyone and their mother/son perform well against Kaidou on the Rooftop. I mean wtf Oda's smoking. He's discrediting his own MC so much.
  • Luffy has been piling up PUs on PUs and still managing nothing solid. That gives the impression Luffy was no match for Kaidou without countless PUs against Kaidou.
  • It help hype Kaidou up but destroys the writing. I mean why have him fight the WSC at all before Top Tiers if he wasn't ready at all? This is utter shit writing and make power up look like asspulls to make the MC do the impossible.
I think this conclude my take on Luffy fights n PUs.

For Zoro he seems to just manage everything when he tries to. Be it Advance CoA haki, Ryou, Advance CoC, or fire cutting he can do all like just snapping the finger. Infact he goes on perma scar Kaidou that's like a feat previously only managed by Oden in the Manga. Since he didn't struggle much it feels like Oda's crediting much of his growth to Timeskip training, which do make sense since Mihawk himself trained him. But put it side by side to Luffy it bring out the previous differences more. If one character can manage it well without any big PUs and second despite many PUs manages nothing solid it look bad. Probably why fans don't find Luffy interesting anymore.
And it's just not Zoro. Law also managed it well on the roof despite no visible growth, bt i guess his df make sense. Kid n Killer did too. Even Red Scabbards like Kinnemon were hurting Kaidou and not get one shot like Luffy. That overall look bad honestly.

For Sanji it seems like Oda just manage to take the right bad decisions with his PUs despite taking an arc and family backstory. RS should have never been handed to him, had him awaken Exoskeleton on his own terms that would have been the Best step for the character.
You just summarized the way i feel about Luffy's supposed milestones:steef:
 

Gol D. Roger

ȶɦɛ քɨʀǟȶɛ ӄɨռɢ
@Fleet Admiral Lee Hung I was expecting your usual "troll this fanbase base" or "troll OP threads", but man, this is actually one of those much-needed topics that we should be discussing rn. I don't necessarily agree with everything you've said—I don't think every power that's introduced without an explanation is an asspull, for example. But I completely agree with you that the lack of tension in OP is seriously concerning.

Luffy is the most heinous offender in the manga but I’ve discussed him at length in the past. The only thing I’ll say here is that it should be as clear as day to everyone, that the “Haki blooms under extreme conditions” bullshit that Oda fed us during the Katakuri fight, is the biggest ass pull line of dialogue in Shonen history, as no other character has ever had a Haki bloom in the middle of battle whereas Luffy has so far had 2.
This wasn't something we were introduced to in the Katakuri fight. Zoro awakened COO and COA way back in Alabasta in extreme conditions. Coby awakened COO at MF, and Usopp awakened COO at Dressrossa and both happened when they were in extreme conditions too. I am not saying they're not asspulls or what you call unearned power-ups, but haki-bloom isn't a new concept that was introduced out of nowhere in WCI.
 

nik87

Kitetsu Wanker
Nothing wrong with getting a power-up.
The problem starts when you start getting another one because the previous one, which you just got, wasnt enough.
Or you get knocked out and you wake up with a power-up... That's where Oda messed up.

Sanji's PU is not a big deal, it was expected since WCI and it was basically already obtained in form of the raid suit.
Queen's sword was used as a hype tool, Sanji is far from invincible. He still has to even come close to winning.
Will he win? Of course he will, there was never any doubt if the good guys will win when they were matched with their opponent.

All that Oda needs to do is make it hard to win and not kill the danger of certain attacks like Borobreath by allowing Luffy to bathe in it.
After giving him future sight to avoid BS like that and still double down on the stupidity... I dont see what your issue is with Zoro's PUs, Enma literally did nothing for him. Asura is dope but strongest character ever having a god mode is not that unexpected.
 
How does the 7 quirks go against MHA themes?
It goes from "You can be a hero because you have the heart of one" and working hard just bto even be able to use the one for all to "oh by the way you are the quirk jesus now with a bunch of powers that are also boosted". It was one of the reasons I dropped the series, to me that was really dumb
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IIRC it was described as the manifestation of Zoro's own will once? That would increase the odds Asura = CoC but I want to hope differently too.
If its CoC then its fine imo since its still his own strength, and I doubt Zoro will learn to master his conquerors the same way Luffy did
 
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