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So I figure I ought to write more about One Piece. The ratio of time spent thinking about it to time spent discussing it is much higher than it should be, and much higher than most other things I think about it.

Here's one specific thing that I was thinking about:

Arbitrary Plot Devices in Shonen Manga

If you're running with a continued story, especially one set in a fantasy universe, you usually have to make some decisions about how you want the universe of your story to operate. Ideally, if you want your universe to be cohesive, logical and immersing, you want to limit these sort of decisions to a few fundamental rules that everything else can organically follow from. This is true for all aspects of design, from character personalities to physical laws. When you're first creating something, everything you do is inherently arbitrary as there's no framework to base these decisions off of, but that doesn't mean they can avoid being "sensible". Likewise, when you do have an established framework of operating rules, be they for a character or an entire world, you don't want to seriously disrupt these. This doesn't necessarily mean "retconning" or straight up defying your own canon, it's usually more subtle things like plots hinging on someone being out of character or simply things just randomly happening for no reason. That's really what I mean by an "arbitrary" plot device - it doesn't strictly go against established rules, but it doesn't quite fit within them either. It's like if someone playing soccer started crawling around head butting the ball - yeah, that's totally alright by the rules, but it just seems... wrong, and pointless. That's also a great source of entertainment, though.

Isn't this post about One Piece?

Let me give you a "bad example" first. Recently in Naruto - well, not that recently, but it seems recently as Naruto has been so terrible these last few years that it's blended into a horrible haze whenever I think about it - they had a meeting of "The five Kages". Now, most of these characters were new. Not too much wrong with that. Most of them had also come from countries that had been mentioned before. That's cool. What seemed really arbitrary to me was that this meeting was set in this previously unmentioned country owned by samurai, not ninja. What's up with that? Now, what's interesting, is although the canonical explanation of this location is totally weak, the "Kishimoto is lazy and panders to fans" explanation of this location is can be completely extrapolated from the text and is quite interesting.

Let's start with the single assumption that Kishimoto needed a place for this meeting to happen. Like I said before, when you want to create a logical world. or in this case, a logical explanation for an illogical world, you should try to make as few and as simple assumptions as possible in the beginning. This assumption isn't entirely arbitrary, as one can assume he wanted to write this meeting and not the inverse (he wanted to make a new country and needed something to happen in it). Running with that assumption, we realize that he would probably want to put it somewhere "neutral" - this makes sense in the context of the story. Now, he also knew at the time there'd be this fight between Sasuke and some of the Kages, but he knew that all the Kages and their companions should be strong characters and he needed some "fodder" for Sasuke to wipe out (because the fangirls don't like it when Sasuke keeps losing). Hence the samurai - they were explained in the manga to be a "mediating force", but the manga itself shows how useless they would be in that instance as none of them seem to be able to do anything in terms of combat. The reason they become Samurai is twofold: one, Kishimoto needed some excuse for why they didn't do anything during the old Ninja Wars and two, I suspect he got a bunch of 8-year olds asking for Samurai.

So, that's his arbitrary plot device: there's suddenly this remote country that's never interfered with any of the previous plot, and they're going to mediate this meeting. So why is this a "bad example" of an arbitrary plot device? Well, it's because it doesn't pay off. The only way this sort of thing is excusable is if it leads to a more entertaining story later, and this simply didn't. There are no notable Samurai characters. No Samurai characters do anything interesting. The location itself is uninteresting. There is no resolution to how the events affected this area. Stuff happens there, the story shifts away from the area, and the reader is left with a sense of "what was the point of that place?"

Now, the astute reader might bring up the fact that the Samurai are now helping the allied war effort. That is true, and that is an effort. However, their involvement in the war, and the war itself, is so maddeningly illogical (no one on the "good" side knows anything about this zombie army, what the hell do they think they're going to war with???) that I cannot acknowledge this as a good thing. I'd go more into this but I already spent way too long talking about things I dislike in Naruto in a post about things I do like in One Piece.

Luffy Makes a Satisfying Dish for a Snake: How to Get Your Money's Worth with Arbitrary Plot Devices

I was rereading some of the Skypiea arc when I realized for the first time just how long Luffy spends inside the giant snake's stomach. It's over two volumes, and in terms of plot, it goes from around the beginning of the survival game until there's two members remaining. That's a space of a few hours in the story, but for readers, that was over half a year's worth of chapters with the protagonist in the belly of a snake. Weird, right? And it's worth remembering how bizarre that scene is - Luffy is fighting Wiper, and suddenly he's fallen into the snake. Yup. That's it. One panel and he and Wiper are preparing to fight again, next panel he's falling into an undetermined void. Pretty arbitrary. I think TVTropes even has a section on how bizarre and random it was, but if I check, I will not finish this blog post. You know how it is.

Like Kishimoto's Samurai country, the motivation behind Luffy being eaten by a snake (I think it's funny just to say it) is explorable and I think pretty interesting. However, I'll argue that it has more to do with Oda being clever and resourceful than lazy and pandering. It's probably easier to just list the results of this plot device than try to sequentially break down how the decision was reached.

1. Oda needed Luffy to be out of the action for other characters to shine - A common problem in shonen manga is explaining why the weaker protagonists are fighting when the main protagonist could "take care of everything". Oda I find is quite good at this. Sure, he didn't start very subtly, and this itself doesn't rank too high on the scale in that metric, but he addresses it at least. And, of course, the moment where Luffy finally gets free is all the more triumphant.

2. The snake had to become more involved with the story - As the next few volumes reveal, the snake is a very important part of the history of Skypiea, and another link between the Skypiea of the day and that of Noland's time. Because of that relevancy, it had to matter to the readers beyond "a scary monster" and it had to do so even before that link was established. Luffy's dilemma made that possible. The snake sticking around also allowed Oda all sorts of other nice things - another character in the big showdown on the top tier ruins, another factor in the fall of Giant Jack, another reason to hate Enel when he blasts it, a place for the Straw Hats to finally get their gold, etc, etc.

3. It resolved his fight against Wiper - Luffy vs. Wiper needed to happen. With Zoro taking out one of his top lieutenants, and the rest of the crew seeing some amount of action early on, Luffy needed to fight someone major, and soon. Plus, Wiper needed to be established as a real threat, and sending him up against Luffy was the best way to prove that, as Luffy's strength is the most established of anyone. However, Oda couldn't have Wiper get hurt too badly, as he needed him for other things, and Luffy couldn't just lose, that wouldn't make any sense at all. He couldn't downplay the tension between the Straw Hats and the Shandorians yet, as that needed a more definitive and absolute resolution later and Wiper needed to be an enemy to Zoro later for added excitement in the ensuing brawls. Neither of them can walk away from the fight - that's way too out of character. So what do you do? Have one guy get eaten by a snake.

4. It was just plain funny. - This is the most important part. The snake wasn't just an excuse for all these things, it was an entertaining plot all on its own. Without it, Skypiea would have had some splotches with no comedic relief and not enough plots to follow that would have seriously disrupted the timing and tone.

So that, I think, was worth his money. Yes, Luffy just got arbitrarily eaten by a snake and stayed there for like 30 or so chapters. Sounds lame on paper, but when it was over, you're not left with a sense of "what was the point of that?", but "oh man, that whole snake deal was hilarious". I feel this is true for a lot of the more arbitrary things in One Piece. I remember at first thinking the whole "Devil Fruit users can't swim" deal was a little much when I first read it and couldn't see the point, but his continual expanding and application of the concept has made it seem reasonable and smart in retrospect. Even things where characters act completely illogically and their decisions form the basis for the plot of pretty much the whole arc (i.e. why didn't CP9 just throw the keys in the ocean?) at least motivate an entertaining plot that would be impossible to do otherwise (i.e. why would they bother fighting all of CP9 if they just wanted Robin?) and fit within the personalities of the character (everyone in CP9 likes to fight).

This is something I think is very interesting to look for in any sort of story. Pretty much every one will have coincidences, or freak occurrences, or baseless rules, or other such arbitrary things, but the observer is unlikely to notice them if they're woven into a story where their skepticism of the event or rule is outweighed by the value it adds to the plot. Since the strength of skepticism varies from person to person and varies then by their attitude towards the story, I think this is one of the big reasons people can disagree so wildly about their opinion of a movie even though they have basically the same "taste". For example, I went into Inception all hyped up and with my skepticism at full blast and barely tolerated it while all my friends, who have basically the same taste as me, loved it. It was partially because I expected too much out of all the little rules they spent time explaining when really they only existed to "add flavor" (i.e. try to overwhelm the audience by throwing a bunch of information at them) or cause an equally arbitrary and pointless event later. There were many other things I didn't like about Inception, but I think that subject is better saved for later, or rather I'll bring it up in dozens of unrelated posts without ever giving it a full review since every time I try to do so I end up rambling endlessly.

Speaking of which, this post is pretty long for one focusing on one minor aspect of how stories are told. This is why I find it difficult to write about One Piece.

Progress with Things

Writing the novel has been hard as I have been busy. I'm hoping this weekend will prove fruitful, as right now, I am hella behind.

Same with the game, sort of. I have started collaborating more with a friend. It has definitely helped in terms of content, ideas, etc, but he's also raised a lot of valid issues that I'd been happy to ignore otherwise. Tedious stuff. Framework stuff. In short, ugh. So productivity's gone downhill there.

So yeah, this weekend. It looks like I'll have the house to myself for large periods of time, which is good for productivity. I find I work better if I'm alone. Or rather, I don't necessarily have to be alone, I just need to not have people moving around in the room I'm in. That screws me up for inexplicable reasons. If everyone's sitting still, like in an office or whatever, I can work fine. Unfortunately, if I'm at home, and I have nothing to do besides work on things, that means my dad's most likely free to do whatever he wants, which is also work on things, which means that he'll probably be moving around. Which, in turn, will screw me up in terms of actually getting into a productive mindset.

So, having the house to myself helps. My plan is to listen to this, probably over and over, and probably sing along to every song. It will be a weekend of excess.

GOING TO START ON THAT NOW BRB WEEKEND.