My UserPage - Mugiwra (up304934)

to repeat myself i'm not sure if we have slipped in a universe where this actually exists or if we actually are on the correct side of things and look at everyone as they eat shit

Lots of things can be said about what counts as good writing, and one of the less important ones is the lack of convenience. For something to feel real, it has to flow in a way that feels natural. My Hero Academia has no such thing, since it’s overflowing with plot conveniences that favor the protagonist on every step of the way. You obviously need a few conveniences for the plot to start rolling, but not to the point where everything happens by luck instead of skill or planning. Victories mean nothing when you constantly win through flukes. Where is the satisfaction in that?

Let me explain what I mean in the first episodes. The protagonist is attacked by a villain and, from all the people in the world, is conveniently saved by his favorite hero, who conveniently happened to be around there. So far, this is acceptable, since as I said we need something for the plot to start rolling. It’s after this point where things get shitty.

Almight conveniently forgets to take the villain to custody, something which contradicts his personality as the greatest hero of them all. This is not a mistake the best of the best would have done. It’s just done so the plot we already got rolling, can keep rolling in favor of the protagonist.

The villain is conveniently freed by complete accident, conveniently after only a few minutes, by, from all the people in the world, the very person who bullies the protagonist in school. Can you calculate the odds of such a thing happening? They are astronomical. This is not natural at all. It was done so the protagonist will conveniently try to save the bully, something which is a can of worms on its own, and have Almight be impressed at a time when he is conveniently looking for a successor.

And it doesn’t stop there. Every single event is full of such conveniences with astronomically improbable odds that always favor the protagonist.
- He wouldn’t get in the academy if someone wasn’t conveniently in need to be rescued.
- He wouldn’t be able to break the mind control during the sport festival if the powers weren’t conveniently rewritten in a way that his quirk could counter.
- He wouldn’t defeat Stain if his blood type wasn’t conveniently immune to the villain’s powers.

Deku is not worthy of any of these victories. He is just being constantly favored by the plot, making it as a cheap copout as the power of friendship was in Fairy Tail. You can’t defend it as a well written series. It doesn’t even have the average quality of a mediocre shonen. And don’t give me the usual excuse of “it makes sense not to make sense because it’s a shonen.” Not every shonen is equally badly written. You can say it’s doing a pretty good job at pandering the insecurities of hyper sensitive beta male millennials, but you can’t deny its writing being pure garbage. And this is not the result of the series being a shonen. Just because it’s empowerment fantasy does not excuse being horribly written like this.

Something I hear a lot lately, is that something is not plot armor or plot convenience if it’s established to be part of the setting from the very beginning.
- Shiro is not plot armored because he has Avalon from the very beginning
- Naruto is not plot armored because he has Nine Tails from the very beginning
- The Eagles are not plot armor because they exist from the very beginning
- The resurrection of John Snow is not plot armor because it exists from the very beginning

The ones saying that, confuse the term asspull with the term plot convenience. An asspull is a lazy cop-out, thrown in the story without justifying its existence. It is a form of plot convenience but it’s also not the only form.
- All asspulls are plot conveniences
- Not all plot conveniences are asspulls

Even if something is excused to exist within a fictional setting, it is not automatically free of blame. Many elements are created from the very inception of a story, just so they can give an unfair advantage to major characters. If the sole purpose of an element is to create convenience, and has otherwise no other functions or purpose of existing, it’s still plot convenience.
- Kirito’s dual wielding
- Saiyans’ zenkai
- Ichigo’s half of everything
- Luffy’s heritage