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rwdestuffs · 5 years

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Done dirty: Semblances

Gee, I wonder where I’ve heard the whole “Powers as a reflection of your soul” thing before…

In all honesty, the writers should have made the powerset extremely clear, or made it so that the characters’ semblances were set from the start so that they would have to write conflicts around the powers rather than write powers around the conflict. It’s fine to quietly drop overpowered aspects of the ability (See: Kakyoin no longer using the possession that he demonstrated in his first appearance), but make sure that the powers are set, and that they don’t change.

Changing the powers of a character is jarring. It’s like if Crazy Diamond (Shining Diamond for you Dub-Only watchers) suddenly got the ability to shoot star-shaped lasers.

This is more or less what happened with Ruby. Because so many other characters kept outspeeding the girl whose semblance was stated to be speed by Pyrrha (and there was no correction offered) and Nora in volume 5 (Again, no correction is mentioned), this makes it feel like a retcon. Not necessarily quietly forgetting a power that would break the story, but just forgetting the power entirely and replacing it with something else.

Imagine if Avdol suddenly got the power over ice instead of his previously established powers over fire.- That’s how Ruby’s semblance retcon feels.

This is how semblances should be used. Insofar, only Velvet’s weapon has been explicitly stated to have been made with her semblance in mind. Other characters kinda force their semblance to work with their weapon.

Take Blake, for instance. Her semblance is those shadow clones, but she rarely uses them in conjunction with her weapon until she gets the dust upgrade. And even then, she rarely uses it to their fullest potential (Hell! Sun and Ghira didn’t use it to their advantage when the Albain brothers were trapped).

(Someone want to tell me when Blake got invincibility frames when using her semblance?)

Look, the idea behind semblances isn’t inherently bad. But when your only way to make Yang’s OP semblance less potent is to simply have her not use it, it creates several problems. One of which being the problem of “This situation would have been easier if Tai wasn’t an insensitive fuck and called her semblance a ‘temper tantrum’“

Speaking of, anyone else find it messed up that Tai called the manifestation of his daughter’s soul a temper tantrum?

This wouldn’t have been a problem if they had just not said anything about that, or if the writers had been smart and realized the implications of a character having the manifestation of their soul be called a temper tantrum.

Hey, if that’s the case, can I call the manifestation of Ren’s soul a Deus Ex Machina?- Because that’s basically what his semblance is. It’s a specific power that applies only in specific situations and doesn’t help in any other scenario. Or how about Jaune’s?- I can call his semblance a physical manifestation of how he has to always be near important characters so that other characters can go on about how useful he is, right?

(For those of you wondering, yes. I’m still bitter that Jaune can charge Cinder and unlock his semblance while Yang charging Adam is met with her arm being cut off, PTSD, and being victim blamed for it).

Semblances should reflect the user. For example, back when Ruby’s semblance was still super speed, you could make the argument that it’s because she wants to be fast enough to save everyone. Blake referred to hers as a means of running away, and Weiss…

Okay, the Schnees are an exception because they decided to be the exception to the rules and have hereditary semblances instead.

The idea that semblances are reflections of the soul or personality isn’t a bad idea. But when you say that it might not be the case…

It creates the idea that semblances and personality connections aren’t important. It devaluates the idea of unique semblances. It devaluates the idea of semblances being special.

The reason this works well in Jojo is because it’s sometimes spelled out why certain Stands have certain abilities.

In this scene, we have Jotaro commenting on how the world is cruel, but that Joskue is kindhearted despite all that. It plays into Crazy Diamond’s abilities, in how despite it’s ability for great damage, it still heals others. Because that’s what Joskue would do. If he can fix something, he would do it. But if he has to fight, he’ll fight.

It would be really awesome if semblances had the same thought, time, and care put into them. Instead, the writers treat them with the thoughts of “How can I put more tension into this fight?” and “How can I make this character or fight seem cooler?”

The characters don’t even use their semblance’s limitations as a means of getting creative either. The battle plan is always “Keep punching, shooting, stabbing, and slashing the problem until it goes away.” They don’t do similar things with their weapons, and it’s a real shame too because the idea of semblances being reflections of the soul is interesting (as we’ve just discussed). But the lack of thought and care put into them makes it really hard to get invested in them, and how they would reflect the user’s personality or goals.

#rwde #done dirty #semblance crit

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