Goku vs Gohan vs Monkey D Luffy vs Naruto

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Sasuke could not heal himself, find a away inside places with ease, or fight off all of Raikage and his forces. In practice, Taka isn't as worthless as they've been thought to be. They did save Sasuke's life twice in one day. And plot-wise, Jugo has a reason to want to be with Sasuke. Karin did but she developed into being more than a Sasuke fangirl. And Suigetsu has an actual goal, which is pretty admirable in its own right.

All of those things can be done without Taka if you just put some thought into it. And I'm not saying anything about their quality as characters, but as to do with their overall achievements. You said that Sasuke and Taka get shit done and I pointed out that Sasuke does everything while Taka's role in the story is highly minimal.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Except stuff happening is rather important. Otherwise we end up with in canon filler.

Importance does not automatically give an arc quality. Look at the Deicide arc. Aizen was the Big Bad and the stakes were massively high. But the arc still sucked donkey dick.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
And no, the quality of the arc should never reflect the quality of the character.

Wrong. The characters are the lifeblood of a story. If you don't care about the characters then you don't care what happens in the story. If you actively hate the characters then the story severely suffers from that. The characters pretty much are the arc. They create the actions, they face the consequences and they are the ones who the audience follows.

In effect, we spend a lot of time with Sasuke doing stuff in Naruto. But I don't care about anything that **** does. If the main character pisses you off then its extremely hard to look past that. I have absolutely no idea how you can think that the quality of the characters has no bareing on an arc. That doesn't make any sense.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Then your problem is with one of the themes. Naruto not wanting Sasuke to be killed is completely in character, as it is for Sakura.

I don't care if its in character. Its in character for Ichigo to try to kill Aizen, but that doesn't magically make the Deicide arc better. Its stupid for Naruto to be so appalled that Sai would dare to try to kill someone who's tried to kill him in the past, turned his back on his villiage and joined with a man who tried to destroy said villiage.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
And Yamato didn't act very pissed(been a while, might be remembering wrong) but if he were, it would be more to Danzo breaking the law than anything else.

Its against the law to try to kill an enemy of the villiage? Lol, no wonder he thinks Konoha would be better off under him.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Well if we're going to hate an arc based on how much of the characters we hate are in it, then I'd absolutely hate Marineford. Objectively, Marineford is one of if not THE BEST arc in One Piece so far.

Who did you hate in the Marineford arc?

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
There is only so much that character likability should factor into determining the quality of the arc. The instances where a character I like saves an arc tie into other dynamics of the arc. For example, if I didn't like Brook, I would wonder why the Straw Hats are even bothering with the arc to begin with.

Obviously there are other elements in determining quality. I shouldn't even have to say that. But there are factors that can override others if they are prominent enough.

Originally posted by Nephthys
All of those things can be done without Taka if you just put some thought into it. And I'm not saying anything about their quality as characters, but as to do with their overall achievements. You said that Sasuke and Taka get shit done and I pointed out that Sasuke does everything while Taka's role in the story is highly minimal.

Sasuke can heal himself after being completely destroyed by Bee? I'll fully admit that Taka doesn't get to play as important a part in the story as they could.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Importance does not automatically give an arc quality. Look at the Deicide arc. Aizen was the Big Bad and the stakes were massively high. But the arc still sucked donkey dick.

Well the reason that arc sucked really has little to do with the characters anyway. The problem with that arc was that it was structurally a piece of dung. Then again, Aizen was probably a problem for some though he honestly does fulfill one important requirement for a villain. Just too well.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Wrong. The characters are the lifeblood of a story. If you don't care about the characters then you don't care what happens in the story. If you actively [b]hate the characters then the story severely suffers from that. The characters pretty much are the arc. They create the actions, they face the consequences and they are the ones who the audience follows.

In effect, we spend a lot of time with Sasuke doing stuff in Naruto. But I don't care about anything that **** does. If the main character pisses you off then its extremely hard to look past that. I have absolutely no idea how you can think that the quality of the characters has no bareing on an arc. That doesn't make any sense.[/B]

Wrong. I could make the most developed most understanding character ever and put him in a story about him taking a crap and it's still him taking a crap. And yes, if one hates the characters the story will suffer if it is not good enough to get by without that.

Your opinion is subjective though. Which is why factoring in quality of the characters with the quality of the arc is hard to do. The reasons you hate a character might be the reasons someone likes the characters. The only way to objectively judge a character is simple. "Are we given reasons, no matter how big or small, to like character A?" "Are we given any reasons why the characters in the story would(n't) like Character A?" And so on.

Originally posted by Nephthys
I don't care if its in character. Its in character for Ichigo to try to kill Aizen, but that doesn't magically make the Deicide arc better. Its stupid for Naruto to be so appalled that Sai would dare to try to kill someone who's tried to kill him in the past, turned his back on his villiage and joined with a man who tried to destroy said villiage.

Ichigo wasn't a problem with the Deicide arc. Aizen arguably wasn't either. The problem with that arc was the pacing. Naruto considers Sasuke to be his friend, something that we can reasonably understand based on what is given in the story, and knows that Sasuke's true goal is to kill an enemy of Konoha.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Its against the law to try to kill an enemy of the villiage? Lol, no wonder he thinks Konoha would be better off under him.

Without the Hokage's permission, it sure would be. Tsunade merely sent them to acquire information on Orochimaru, Akatsuki, and Sasuke. It was Danzo who screwed that plan all to hell and back.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Who did you hate in the Marineford arc?

Him, him, him, and him. And others, the most sad being someone who was close to being one of my favorite characters.

Originally posted by Nephthys
Obviously there are other elements in determining quality. I shouldn't even have to say that. But there are factors that can override others if they are prominent enough.

An individual character should never be that prominent. Unless its a story with only one character. The only argument otherwise would be if that character happened to be the main one and even then, you better have a damn good argument that said character is objectively bad.

But yeah, I'm pretty much done. This thread is not the location for such a debate and we're pretty off topic for the purposes of the thread. Not to mention, I have an uncomfortable inclination that this will devolve into an argument for why Sasuke is(n't) an objectively bad character. So yeah, I'll not bother replying so if you want to get the last word in, you may. 😛

No need, this isn't a serious argument, or I didn't think it was:

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Your opinion is subjective though.

And yours isn't? 😬

What, are we suddenly talking about objective fact here? Because I thought we were just talking about what arc in what manga we thought 'sucked'.

Best way to determine seriousness is the size and content of the post. 😛

Of course. And no matter how hard I try to look at things with an objective perspective, there will always be my individual biases that interfere with my tastes. And yeah, we have been talking about objective fact. 😛

Nah.

But yeah, either GARuto or Guffy will win this fight.

Taka must've been awful as all my friends quitted Naruto back then. And then for some time Naruto was a chore for me, but then it got better 😄

Taka didn't really do anything that warrants them being the problem. I mean, they didn't do a lot that would really endear themselves to the fans either. They were all just kind of there. Effective mind you, but still mostly just there.

I don't know, probably they hated the introduction of Sai or were just disappointed on the constant string of new characters that were meaningless plotwise. That seemed a big problem in Naruto for a while.

I never disliked Sai really, mostly because it showed off Danzo's incompetence, which I enjoyed. Really, if I had to pick the characters that legitimately were the problems of Shippuden, it would be Team 10. My God Kishi, at least be subtle when your playing favorites!

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Taka didn't really do anything

Correct.

Originally posted by TheAuraAngel
Effective mind you, but still mostly just there.

awesome