I'm not one to post a rant, but this happened in a show I'm watching and today I'm finding it frustrating.
The show is the anime Levius, about boxers who use steam-powered metal parts to augment their attacks and armor. The enemy doesn't feel pain, so the only way to bring her down is to land a perfect strike and disable the steam parts so she can't move. The MCs come up with a plan, and master clear but difficult techniques, and the fight begins. Everything goes according to plan, the MC breaks her steam part, the villain goes down for the KO.....
Then she just gets back up....!
Is it necessary to find contrived ways to escalate the tension? I know that plan failure is so ingrained into story structure that we're at the point where just letting the good guys' plan work would be a huge (and in this case satisfying) surprise, but still, shouldn't we foreshadow and set up the bad guys' saving graces just like we need to do for the good guys?
They strategized, they trained, they pulled it off. They did all the things we want the good guys to do but never actually do. Can't that just be enough once in a while?
The show is the anime Levius, about boxers who use steam-powered metal parts to augment their attacks and armor. The enemy doesn't feel pain, so the only way to bring her down is to land a perfect strike and disable the steam parts so she can't move. The MCs come up with a plan, and master clear but difficult techniques, and the fight begins. Everything goes according to plan, the MC breaks her steam part, the villain goes down for the KO.....
Then she just gets back up....!
Is it necessary to find contrived ways to escalate the tension? I know that plan failure is so ingrained into story structure that we're at the point where just letting the good guys' plan work would be a huge (and in this case satisfying) surprise, but still, shouldn't we foreshadow and set up the bad guys' saving graces just like we need to do for the good guys?
They strategized, they trained, they pulled it off. They did all the things we want the good guys to do but never actually do. Can't that just be enough once in a while?