I don't know about Shiki but saying that Johan's psychology isn't complex is kinda weird. First off the fundamental idea of his character doesn't follow nihilism. It follows his ontological insecurity because of feeling unwanted by the world. The crossdressing also caused him identity issues and made him believe that he and his sister are the same. These are what resulted in his nihilistic nature. And then he becomes an emotionless Monster by absorbing his sister's memories and believing them to be his own which adds another psychological layer to him. And there's a lot more with him wanting to live a normal life deep down and feeling guilt for his actions and whatnot.
Well no, not really. Because fundamentally the antagonist only needs to serve the purpose of opposing the protagonist to be a good character. The protagonist has to do more. But even putting that aside, you have to take into account the types of characters that are being portrayed here.
I didn't say that it's fleshed out because of that. It's fleshed out because it completely recontextualizes his character and develops him to drastic degrees.
I said an antagonist doesn't need to change. I also said that Johan does change anyway. The point is that development doesn't quite apply in the same way, though it absolutely is there. Bro went from the nameless monster to troubled human searching for an identity to lost person trying to fulfill his perfect suicide to finally someone who regained his sense of identity. That's actual development.
I did. I named several qualities as to why. How is motivation being compared dishonest. Johan's is more interesting. The entire point of monster is to figure it out. Unless it somehow underwhelmed you, which it didn't according to you, then this whole thing is useless.
He is not a reference to the ubermensch lmfao. The ubermensch is treated as if its form of morality is somehow not wrong at all lmfao. The ubermensch is the ideal human being (Johan automatically doesn't qualify) who doesn't obey conventional morality and follows his own morality and can't be defined under conventional morality (again, Johan isn't really freed from this). Hell, Johan's entire thing is that he enforces his nihilism onto others, therefore meaning he can't be an ubermensch.
That was a bit of a stretch by me. Besides, even taking that, I said "almost". Not much of a contradiction anyway. Your argument is the equivalent of saying that a character is good in all aspects while not excelling at one particular one, while another is god tier in several but lacking in others due to how his character is constructed, is somehow a better character. Not a totally accurate analogy, but you get the main point. Saying she's more universal and therefore better is dumb.
You quite literally did not elaborate on a single point you made apart from making a bunch of false ones on Johan lol. Nobody's asking you to write a thousand word essay. Just elaborate a bit lmao.
If they don't need to develop then why is development a factor in deciding who is better than the other. We aren't talking about why we prefer one character over the other. We're talking about why one character is written better. Meaning we'd be using some sort of objective metric in order to decide that. By agreeing that development is not at all necessary in this comparison, it's a non-argument to use it to begin with.
I just said that it was the execution. Complex yet simple is a weird way of saying that his motivations fundamentally can be dumbed down to being simple yet are executed in a way where it's complex.
Idk how you can measure objective writing without taking development into account. It's definitely an important aspect. Although whether the development makes the character better or not is definitely a subjective topic.
What does me not liking or enjoying Umineko have to do with being a meat head shounen lover? Umineko fanboys smh
I was mostly talking about the "made for battleboarding" thing. It's definitely ok to have bad taste.
Can you read? When did I ever say Umineko was meant for battleboarding? Wasn't I only referring to DkD?
Idk you didn't refer to any of them in particular so I assumed it referred to both of them. Though even mentioning Umineko and DKD in the same sentence is an insult tbh. One of them is one of the best weeb media ever written while the other one is average light novel regurgitated diarrhoea.
Idrc if you think they can't be compared together. I found both pretty much boring and I snoozed on both while reading them hence they are both snoozefest material.
Yeah I don't think calling something snoozefest when comparing it to Nasu is something you wanna do since from what I heard many Nasu VNs are also considered snoozefests.
The only VN that could probably be a snoozefest is the old FSN. I've never seen anyone claim Nasu's VN are boring in the slightest.
Well if you don't read what I said that's not really my problem :
That's the function of an antagonist, yes, but that doesn't mean that talking about character journey or emotional depth is irrelevant to an antagonist because clearly they can follow these criteria (by mirroring or paralleling the main character for instance). As for the types of characters, I agree, and this is why I'm saying the whole comparison falls apart if you don't take that into account.
Then explain why it does and how it specifically means it is more fleshed out than Shiki.
Then what is the relevance of saying that an antagonist doesn't need to change ? This isn't even countering my initial point to begin with.
This... falls into what I've explained concerning narrative deconstruction of the Ubermensch, which was there from the beginning of the story (starting from what Johan has experienced in the Kinderheim 511). And again, I don't see how you will argue any objective superiority anyways, since their roles are not the same at all.
Naming qualities isn't nearly enough to explain why he is better, so yeah elaborate on that unless you don't want to drop an extensively long character analysis which would have no relevance anyways because it fails to adress the point (being the comparison between both characters itself).
Uh yeah well I know that.
It is very often ideal, not everytime. In Monster, the Kinderheim 511 was supposed to psychologically manipulate children so that they become some sort of warriors. It was called "transformation of human beings", and Johan emerged as the only survivor of this experience. One of the guy who was directing the experience even called him "something more than a simple human being, he was also nearly a monster" and was "born to lead" like he was some kind of superior life form (which is supported by, like, almost the whole narrative and plot). He even finished his explanation by this quote "at the end of the world, there will be only one". So, yeah, it is a critique of that concept when applied under the prism of nihilism, idk what you're talking about.
It does though, as it was what explained his actions. And his motivations/actions are also what enforce nihilism on people, but was deconstructed by the narrative through Tenma for example. But that's not really relevant anyways.
Um, yeah it is. Because if you admit that certain things aren't comparable because of different character roles, then almost everything falls apart due to how different both characters are. Also, I didn't say she is better because of that specifically, but it does tie with my other points about her complexity and how much she is layered.
I'll ignore that accusation because you're clearly just being disigenuous about what I said, and you didn't elaborate much either so that's not a very relevant thing to say. If I don't go in deep details (which I will not do anyways), simply elaborating on her character will be pointless because I assume you should know the character enough and also because it will not establish a definite superiority in any case since it doesn't adress the core point of this discussion, being how to compare both characters and which one is better.
... huh ? Because either you admit it is a relevant criteria and that Shiki gets the point, or you don't adress it because it is not relevant to Johan (which you seem to argue it is, so, decide ?). The second choice leading to the conclusion that both characters are fundamentally different and the "objective" comparison isn't even possible to begin with.
Most of the time, static characters are either symbols, or don't need to change because of their role in the narrative. Humans are subject to emotional depth and existential journey. So, if the character is already "feeling" human at the beginning of the film and there is no change, no plot or ways to develop the narrative and the character(s), then just don't make a film about that and call it a day, because it is useless and meaningless. Or, if you want to be very specific, it can be a work of fiction that reflects on what makes the character in question already "feeling" human, but it would be very picky to argue that applies to the general concept of a "human" character.
Refer to my above points.
Once again, this fails to adress why it would be more complex than Shiki, especially if it's a matter of narration itself. So I don't see the need of saying all of that anyways.
This is what you said :
You just vaguely talked about contrast between Johan's premise and conclusion and immediately jumped to say it was done better than her. So, no, I fail to see the relevance in saying this regarding how Shiki does things, and I also don't see where you explained anything implying superiority which would lead to that conclusive statement.
That's clearly not what you said in the section I replied to. You said he isn't a deeply layered psychological character with plenty of nuances which isn't exactly true.
And... I didn't say he wasn't complex, anyways, so that doesn't matter. Actually, I've said :
Which was already my argument from the beginning. Johan's role in Monster isn't to be deeply explored psychologically speaking or whatever that is, or at least not as much as Tarang seems to imply (bolding the part where I said this). My bad if I didn't properly explained what I meant here, but it seemed understandable to me.
Ah ok. Johan's character has a lot of psychological depth and aspects but none of it is explored in great detail so that's a fair take. Most of it is just told to us.
due to nasu being nasu, everything is vague and only implied. But
Archetype cannot take on Void Shiki. She would die. Archetype has an even lower connection to the root than base Shiki. Void Shiki is the root itself. She could do just that if she so willfully wanted to disconnect Archetype from the Root. Every interaction Arc had with Shiki was not against Void. Void only ever appeared in KnK and Fgo(Saber Shiki kinda). Shiki has an archetype as well but as the origin of nothingness.
Again, the Archetype>void shiki is an argument used mostly by the older nasu fans who follow tsukihime/Knk/melty blood and other older stuff going on (fate is modern nasuverse), so they should know better then me. unfortunately, it seems they left the wiki. bruh
It doesn't really matter who knows more. The fact remains the same.
She's not the root tho alright
Huhhhhhhhhh aye aye aye aye aye holdon for a second do we just throw apophasis around now
She's not the root tho? If you're an avatar of a higher dimensional being does that mean you're actually higher dimensional even when you're portrayed to be a lower dimensional avatar of that higher dimensional being?
Okay!!!! That's not apophasis the word shouldn't be thrown around like this, it's getting ridiculous.
What? She never did **** is blud on
Void doesn't even exist in melty blood what?
Non of what you said makes them apophatic
This argument is purely ridiculous by this argument regular "nothingness" is apophatic
Isn't this applies to the root too?
I said in a vacuum. The context into account would throw that into the trash. I'm just saying that in a vacuum it could work.Huhhhhhhhhh aye aye aye aye aye holdon for a second do we just throw apophasis around now
Then why are people literally saying that she is the root rather than just some manifestation of it.
Is it because it's not stated that even describing them doesn't work?
That's kind of on you. Don't group together DKD and Umineko. Like, if you want to keep any credibility at all don't do it. DKD is usually considered to be really bad. Same can't be said for Umineko. Best advice I can give you is to check Umineko out again and be patient with it
Admittedly, I do have a bad habit of being very impatient when it comes to animanga or LN with very slow starts. That's one of the reasons I can never get past episode 15 of One Piece. Umineko was very weird for me from the start and tbh, I started the VN at a very wrong time so I had no patience on it. I would give it a try later one day. DkD on the other hand is just irredeemable for me. No amount of convincing would ever allow me to complete it.
Eh, One Piece is a different brand of stupid. It's a great story, but it's so god damn long that I don't blame anyone for dropping it. Umineko imo definitely does need patience and an open mind cause going in expecting some masterpiece will definitely leave you disappointed with how long it takes to get truly interesting for some viewers.
Huh? No it doesn't lel
Wait then how exactly does she scale to the same tier as the Root?
Then why?
She's connected to something apophatic, it's not a contradiction to something Apopathic, if she was Apopathic it would be a contradiction.
I just explained the ineffability paradox issues and how not having the ineffability thesis means you're not apophatic.
Isn't everything in the verse connected to the root? Why exactly is she any different apart from having a stronger connection than anyone else?
Actually not connected but originate. Meanwhile Shiki is the Root.
This
