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There is a common issue with most manipulation abilities in fiction, especially well-known ones like death manipulation. The problem is related to the different methods and mechanisms used to obtain a certain ability in a character profile; the method and its potency vary depending on how that manipulation is achieved. However, the real issue arises when it comes to resistance itself.
For example, Death Manipulation: Yagami Light has death manipulation through the Death Note, allowing him to kill humans by writing their names and causing heart attacks. But let’s assume Light uses the Death Note on someone who does not die from heart attacks and is unaffected, because heart attacks do not work on them. In that case, even after writing their name, they would not die, perhaps due to having Type 1 or Type 2 immortality.
Similarly, characters like Anos Voldigoad, who can survive without a heart, would technically resist that form of death manipulation, since they resist the Death Note specifically. However, this becomes misleading.
The key issue is that methods differ. Just because a character resists Light Yagami’s form of death manipulation and gains “resistance to death manipulation” does not mean they can resist all forms of death manipulation in a general sense, even without considering tiers or layers. This is because different forms of death manipulation vary in mechanism and power.
For instance, the same character who survives the Death Note could still be killed by another character who uses a completely different type of death manipulation, such as direct death induction—like directly killing the soul, causing instant termination, or a deeper form of erasure. In such a case, the target would not survive or resist it, because it is fundamentally different from the Death Note’s mechanism.
In short, this applies to all abilities: their effectiveness depends on their method of application, and those methods vary in nature and potency. I get frustrated when I see people claim that because a character resists one form of an ability, they automatically resist all similar abilities. This is incorrect for the reasons explained above, and it is one of the most illogical aspects I see in these debates; it genuinely makes the discussions inconsistent and often contradictory.
Even fire manipulation follows the same issue. A character might resist fire manipulation from a normal mage who uses basic fire spells, and thus gain “fire manipulation resistance,” while in another verse a character may use fire that erases everything it touches from existence. Comparing resistance to ordinary fire with resistance to conceptual or existence-erasing fire makes no sense at all.
In other words, the logic is fundamentally inconsistent.
For example, Death Manipulation: Yagami Light has death manipulation through the Death Note, allowing him to kill humans by writing their names and causing heart attacks. But let’s assume Light uses the Death Note on someone who does not die from heart attacks and is unaffected, because heart attacks do not work on them. In that case, even after writing their name, they would not die, perhaps due to having Type 1 or Type 2 immortality.
Similarly, characters like Anos Voldigoad, who can survive without a heart, would technically resist that form of death manipulation, since they resist the Death Note specifically. However, this becomes misleading.
The key issue is that methods differ. Just because a character resists Light Yagami’s form of death manipulation and gains “resistance to death manipulation” does not mean they can resist all forms of death manipulation in a general sense, even without considering tiers or layers. This is because different forms of death manipulation vary in mechanism and power.
For instance, the same character who survives the Death Note could still be killed by another character who uses a completely different type of death manipulation, such as direct death induction—like directly killing the soul, causing instant termination, or a deeper form of erasure. In such a case, the target would not survive or resist it, because it is fundamentally different from the Death Note’s mechanism.
In short, this applies to all abilities: their effectiveness depends on their method of application, and those methods vary in nature and potency. I get frustrated when I see people claim that because a character resists one form of an ability, they automatically resist all similar abilities. This is incorrect for the reasons explained above, and it is one of the most illogical aspects I see in these debates; it genuinely makes the discussions inconsistent and often contradictory.
Even fire manipulation follows the same issue. A character might resist fire manipulation from a normal mage who uses basic fire spells, and thus gain “fire manipulation resistance,” while in another verse a character may use fire that erases everything it touches from existence. Comparing resistance to ordinary fire with resistance to conceptual or existence-erasing fire makes no sense at all.
In other words, the logic is fundamentally inconsistent.
