An annoying recurring theme in non-oneshot forms of media

[Starwulf]

So, something I seem to have across quite a few times in recent months has really begun to irritate me. I've noticed it in video games, in books, and even in movies/tv shows. That theme is the idea of a completely normal person getting wrapped up in some grand scheme of an evil villain(usually to take over the world or something similar), and they embark on a grand quest to make themselves stronger in order to stop the threat, believing that only they can stop it since no-one else seems interested/capable in doing so themselves, only to find out after said villain has been defeated that there are in fact multiple people, and even entire organizations that were aware of the threat and entirely capable of handling it, but don't because of reasons.

For example(this is entirely made up). X person in village overhears minions of evil overlord discussing their plans in a bar about how they are going to do A, B & C so they can utilize Y power to take over the world. Person X then embarks upon quest to get much stronger and eventually defeats not just the minions, but even the evil overlord himself. Then in the next book/game/whatever they discover another major threat to the world, and nearly simultaneously also discover group M that is filled with people far stronger then they are who were entirely aware of the first book/game/whatever villain, but just didn't feel he was important enough to warrant their intervention, despite the fact that said evil overlord could have wiped them off the map if he had succeeded in his nefarious plot.

Does this bother anyone else? It drives me up the wall! I'm fine with being person X and adventuring to save the world, but I hate it when I find out that there were others far more qualified to do it but just didn't, forcing me to leave my normal, safe happy life in order to do their job for them.

[Lord Raziere]

....I feel as if you might have a point, but I'm going to need specific examples of this phenomenon occurring before I can discuss this further with you. so far what you wrote seems too general to say anything substantial.

[Starwulf]

....I feel as if you might have a point, but I'm going to need specific examples of this phenomenon occurring before I can discuss this further with you. so far what you wrote seems too general to say anything substantial.

Alright, for example, the anime Slayers with Lina Inverse. First season she ends up having to fight against Reso the Red Priest. Second Season she comes across people(good guys and bad) that are vastly more powerful, and yet they did nothing. Hell, her own Sister, Luna Inverse is a mage of the highest order, powerful in a way that makes Lina even at the end of the series seem like a child, yet she never once steps in against the world-ending threats that Lina has to face over and over. It's irritating that there are people like that, that know about the world ending threat, but refuse to step in and save the weaker characters the time and effort(against most of the stuff Lina faced, Luna could have ended the entire thing in a matter of minutes). I mean, obviously that would make for a terrible storyline, but why bother including these people at all? Can't we just let Lina be the real star and not undermine her power in such a way?

[Lord Raziere]

Oh.

Hm.

Sorry! I haven't watched Slayers yet. so I can't really comment on that. Hope someone who does know Slayers can respond to you.

[Starwulf]

Oh.

Hm.

Sorry! I haven't watched Slayers yet. so I can't really comment on that. Hope someone who does know Slayers can respond to you.

Lol, Slayers was just an example. I actually love the Slayers anime, just dislike that particular bit of it.

I've just happened to run across it several times in recent months(though for some reason my brain is refusing to pull any other specific examples out at the moment), mostly in video games, and it irritates me. If almighty powerful Mage Z could stop the big bad in a minute, why doesn't he, instead of forcing random civilian X to go on a world journey(often taking him away from those that he loves) just to stop big bad? I mean, sometimes I can understand it, like in the case of Forgotten Realms and Elminster. In a world that big, filled with so much magic, it's understandable that Elminster can't respond to every world-shaking threat. But in universes where there are only a handful of threats, the all-powerful wizard damn well needs to get off his arse and take care of them instead of laying back and waiting for someone else to do it.

[NichG]

I don't know if Slayers is actually a good example, considering that Lina ends up throwing around more power around than the cosmic upper crust of the setting. Even by the first half of Season 1 she's directly going up against the big-bad of the setting (or at least a piece of him). In fact, the self-important other really powerful mage in that arc of Season 1 steps in to solve the situation... and gets fried because he never bothered to learn where his spells are coming from.

The plot of Season 2 is that those powerful creatures seek her out because they want her to end the world by accident, when they're not powerful enough to do it themselves intentionally. So again, even if she's outmatched in terms of the non-nuclear options, her nuclear option is still better than what we see anyone else throwing around. And Season 3 is essentially that the threat is now bad enough to make the big bad guys (who have been running the world) and the big good guys (who were pretty much wiped out) team up to recruit her in order to deal with cosmic forces from another setting.

While the show makes a big deal of Lina being scared of her sister, it's not actually clear that Luna has nearly the same amount of raw power to fling around when the nuclear option is needed. Luna basically doesn't show up in the anime so its hard to say. I'm not sure if that is more detailed in the novels, though.

[Hyena]

Slayers is a parody of RPGs. Of course Luna doesn't lift a finger to do anything - it happened for the same reason the eagles didn't solve the plot of LotR in the matter of hours or why Elminster doesn't do much.

[Starwulf]

Sigh, can we drop the Slayers discussion? Slayers is not why I created the thread, it was merely the example I gave when Raziere pressed me for a better example then my generic one in the OP.

[Sith_Happens]

Soul Eater is sort of another example... I say "sort of" because, well, would the world really be better off if Excalibur started helping?:smalleek:

[Iruka]

Sigh, can we drop the Slayers discussion? Slayers is not why I created the thread, it was merely the example I gave when Raziere pressed me for a better example then my generic one in the OP.

Well, do you have other examples? I haven't noticed this as any kind of trend ...

I'd be equally annoyed if I saw the scenario presented in your example, provided I would consume the media in expectation of a logical, coherent story. If I'm just in for the action, I most likely wouldn't care.

[Starwulf]

Soul Eater is sort of another example... I say "sort of" because, well, would the world really be better off if Excalibur started helping?:smalleek:

...........Definitely not. Immensely powerful, but for every ounce of power Excalibur can grant to his wielder, he matches it with twice as much irritation and annoyance.

[Hopeless]

Louie the Rune Soldier?

Starts off as an adventurer basically breaks his means of casting spells and ends up having to travel within an ancient elven forest to find suitable replacement materials (500 year old oak I think was mentioned) he's accompanied by a fairly high ranking cleric, a rogue and a mercenary soldier or former mercenary even if still an adventuress.

Physically powerful so imagine a munchkin player running a mage who doubles as a brawler, barely manages to keep up with his spellcasting later revealed there are more potent adventuring parties out there but Louie is apparently the chosen champion of the cleric's deity something she complains about quite a bit!:smallsmile:

We later learn there are high level characters involved including one who is alluded to be Louie's actual father but by the time they get there its far too late for them to do anything may not apply the same way as you described Slayers but I thought it worth mentioning.

Luna is supposed to be the incarnation of the first season villain's natural enemy I'd suspect Luna trained Lina for the express purpose of taking those demonic entities out I notice you didn't mention the other spellcaster who went out and learned Lina's signature spell just so she could try and regain Goury's affections?

I believe the Red Priest had everyone else hoodwinked except for everyone's favourite anti-hero, Amelia however seems to appear naturally hoodwinked!:smallamused:

How about One Piece or Dragonball Z?

Could even include Star Wars since the prequels showed the Jedi pretty much able to do anything and suggested to have been downright nasty with their means of recruiting new padawan learners...:smalleek:

[Tengu_temp]

This trend is pretty much the trademark of lazily-written shonen manga/anime and fantasy stories. Good ones try to either avoid it or explain why these super-powerful people weren't there to help.



How about One Piece or Dragonball Z?


Dragonball doesn't really count. The first storyline where the villain is a global threat is the Piccolo Saga, and at that point Goku and friends are pretty much the most powerful fighters on Earth.


Slayers is a parody of RPGs. Of course Luna doesn't lift a finger to do anything - it happened for the same reason the eagles didn't solve the plot of LotR in the matter of hours or why Elminster doesn't do much.

Please don't compare the LotR eagles to Elminster or other super-powerful NPCs that sit there and don't do crap. They couldn't use the eagles because as soon as they flew into Mordor, Sauron would spot them, and then either they'd get shot down by archers or intercepted by flying Nazguls. The end.

This eagle example is a pet peeve of mine.

[Cespenar]

Please don't compare the LotR eagles to Elminster or other super-powerful NPCs that sit there and don't do crap. They couldn't use the eagles because as soon as they flew into Mordor, Sauron would spot them, and then either they'd get shot down by archers or intercepted by flying Nazguls. The end.

This eagle example is a pet peeve of mine.

Yeah, the eagle example is pretty silly. It's not like the books don't show Sauron's forces having flying critters anyway. There are war bats, there are evil crow swarms, and of course the flying Nazgul. Not to mention what having the direct will of Sauron on your ring-bearer in mid-flight would do.

Anyway, to OP: Of course, as one of the most widespread storytelling fallacies, it would irk other people as well.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

....I feel as if you might have a point, but I'm going to need specific examples of this phenomenon occurring before I can discuss this further with you. so far what you wrote seems too general to say anything substantial.
Yeah, ultimately this. It's gonna come down to how well it's executed, and sometimes the answer is "we already were fighting it and needed someone to tip the scales by doing something too insane for any of us to contemplate". :smallbiggrin:

That said, I don't heavily fault a series for this: it's part of the paradox between wanting an established world and wanting the protagonists to have an impact on it. You either have to resolve it by making the protagonists the most powerful people in the world or else have a good reason for why the world hasn't already solved the problem yet.

Now that I think about it, Alfred Hitchcock's films use a form of this very frequently, where the "wrong place, wrong time" character winds up bringing everything to a conclusion because the secret agencies who were getting ready to move were waiting to see how the protagonist gummed up the works and changed things. North by Northwest is a great example of this.

[Traab]

Im honestly trying to think of examples of this, but most of the games I played involved chosen ones with a destiny. Basically, even if there are groups technically more powerful than our plucky farm boy who just got his hands on an item of unimaginable power, only he was fated to win or some such thing. As an example, Legend of Legia. Its an old ps1 title. An rpg where there are these creatures called seru that used to partner with men to give them powers. This worked for centuries and everything was great. Then one day a mist rolled in. Every wild seru that was caught by the mist went nuts and started to attack the people. Any person wearing a seru turned into a zombie basically. The whole world basically collapsed, only surviving in small huddled locations that protected them from the mist. Our hero is the son of a village hunter in a town by the sea. The constant breeze keeps the mist at bay, and they have tall walls. They survive for the better part of a generation there, till one day a giant monster blows a hole in the wall and seru start attacking. Your character gathers the townspeople around a tree that seems to have the ability to push the mist back a bit. (It makes more sense in detail) Anyways, a special seru called a ra-seru pops out of the tree, bonds with your character, and tells you its been waiting for you so you can go out and save the world. You now have to go wake up all the genesis trees like the one he popped out of to push back the mist and save the people.

There are entire cities of survivors. One lives in a tower of babel type location, a structure so tall the mist cant reach its upper levels so they are a safe and thriving community, there are religious orders that are against seru and are expert fighters. Think shaolin monks. So they are minimally effected. You bump into two other "destined ones" who join you but the basic gist is, you, an untrained fighter who hasnt done anything more than hunt for food, are going out to save the world. But noone else seems to even be remotely interested in TRYING. They just sit their in their sanctuaries, and hope that life goes on and nothing else bad will happen. (hint, it does happen and your destined heroes have to fix it) Its an awesome game, and had a fairly unique for the time fighting mechanic and magic system, as well as a pretty cool story line and plenty of hidden secret stuff to find, I highly recommend it for any rpg fans, but its probably the closest to the "nobody else ever does anything, even if they might be better" type of games.

[Bulldog Psion]

Please don't compare the LotR eagles to Elminster or other super-powerful NPCs that sit there and don't do crap. They couldn't use the eagles because as soon as they flew into Mordor, Sauron would spot them, and then either they'd get shot down by archers or intercepted by flying Nazguls. The end.

This eagle example is a pet peeve of mine.

I definitely agree. In any case, Sauron appears to have direct control over Mount Doom's fires. Eagles coming? Start an eruption. Try flying anywhere near the mountain with hot ash blanketing your wings at a rate of 3 inches per hour.

Also, there's no reason why the Eagles couldn't succumb to the temptation of the Ring either, and keep it for themselves. The less know exactly where it is, the better. After all, you don't want to end up with Gwaihir, Dark Wind-Lord of Middle-Earth, He Who Dines on the Livers of Elves and Men.

[Lurkmoar]

Traab, to be perfectly fair to the denizens of that world, you can fight all the seru you like, but unless they had a way to push back the mist, all their efforts were futile.

IIRC people did travel outside, but more often then not they got their tails handed to them by the seru. The monks might have had a better chance then most when fighting the seru, but they were pinned in their little monastery. I think Gaza was the sole defense of the tower he lived in.

The Ra-Seru had the power to turn the genesis trees on that would push the mist back, but without a host they were very limited in what they could do.

[Traab]

Traab, to be perfectly fair to the denizens of that world, you can fight all the seru you like, but unless they had a way to push back the mist, all their efforts were futile.

IIRC people did travel outside, but more often then not they got their tails handed to them by the seru. The monks might have had a better chance then most when fighting the seru, but they were pinned in their little monastery. I think Gaza was the sole defense of the tower he lived in.

The Ra-Seru had the power to turn the genesis trees on that would push the mist back, but without a host they were very limited in what they could do.

Which is why I said the closest I could think of were "destined hero" types. After all, there was nothing stopping the one that attached itself to the main character from chosen literally anyone else, including the previous generation. Instead it chose the equivalent of the local farm boy and said, "Lets run off and save the world!" Of course, you also get to deal with the mechanics of an rpg world clashing with reality in scenarios where, you save this entire kingdom right off the bat. Turn them all back into humans again and save the king, etc etc etc. Do they reward you? Uh, sorta? I think they give you a key to get past a dam that lets you keep moving on. You get no troops, no gear, no backup. Just a "Thanks for the help, feel free to stimulate our economy on your way out." Seriously, there are only two people at this point working on saving the world, would it have killed you to deck them out in your top of the line gear as a way of saying thanks and to help them continue to push the mist back even further?

[LibraryOgre]

Truth to tell, I'm not remembering many examples of this, aside from LotR (where Frodo and the other Hobbits are explicitly "everymen caught up in the events", not grand warriors like Aragorn or Boromir). Far more common, IME, is "secret messiah gets caught up in events and learns he's the Chosen One."

[Kitten Champion]

All I can think of is confusing things like Aslan's role in Narnia, which brings up annoying and thorny theological issues. Mostly the generic protagonist character is either the saviour or a view-point character who serves as a person-type McGuffin that needs to be conveyed through the plot by a more capable protagonist.

[jseah]

You either have to resolve it by making the protagonists the most powerful people in the world or else have a good reason for why the world hasn't already solved the problem yet.
(Direct combat) Power is not necessarily the right solution to every problem. Your protagonist doesn't have to be the person you would bring to a fight.

But fewer stories are written where the conflict is not about defeating some antagonist by force.

[Kalmageddon]

Would Harry Potter count? Once Voldemort is resurrected it always seems like everyone could be much more proactive and are instead relying on Potter and the prophecy.

[NichG]

High fantasy seems to tend to fall into the 'solve by force' type of story but I've seen a lot more variety in other genres. Force is rarely the answer in hard sci-fi stories for example, and often its not really central to mysteries (though there is a significant subgenre where its more about the detective shooting the bad guys than figuring stuff out)

[Douglas]

Would Harry Potter count? Once Voldemort is resurrected it always seems like everyone could be much more proactive and are instead relying on Potter and the prophecy.
The thing with Harry Potter is that Voldemort was unmatched. There were other good people around, but none of them actually had the level of power necessary to beat Voldemort in a straightforward confrontation. There is no one you can point to and say "if that person had bothered to step in, the villain would have immediately lost". Some people could have given Harry more help, certainly, but they had good reason not to - helping Harry carried a high risk of sudden death from being caught by Voldemort.

[Rodin]

I do remember Hunter X Hunter making fun of this. You've got Hisoka, a guy who basically lives for killing powerful opponents at their peak potential. Then you've got the Chimera Ant King, who is possibly the strongest being to ever live. During that entire arc, Hisoka never shows up, despite his dream opponent being out there. When we see him again after the arc is over, he's wondering what all the fuss is about and one of his associates tells him "Dude, you have GOT to start watching the news..."

He missed a possibly world-ending threat because he wasn't paying attention. :smallbiggrin:

[Kitten Champion]

I do remember Hunter X Hunter making fun of this. You've got Hisoka, a guy who basically lives for killing powerful opponents at their peak potential. Then you've got the Chimera Ant King, who is possibly the strongest being to ever live. During that entire arc, Hisoka never shows up, despite his dream opponent being out there. When we see him again after the arc is over, he's wondering what all the fuss is about and one of his associates tells him "Dude, you have GOT to start watching the news..."

He missed a possibly world-ending threat because he wasn't paying attention. :smallbiggrin:

Hmm... I wonder if Hisoka would have fought him. Despite his intense - somewhat sexual - obsession with finding and fighting those that pique his peculiar interest, he does seem to recognize his limitations as a combatant as there are a number of characters which at least appear to dwarf him ability that he doesn't seem all that interested in provoking in the first place. Although I'm sure he'd have been happy to have been there during the whole ordeal, doing whatever.

Besides, Hunter X Hunter averts this with the - presumably - strongest character in the setting ultimately showing up to fight the King himself while the protagonist wasn't even considering it, and that's the only occasion in the manga where anything like an existential threat appears.

[Legato Endless]

Marvel has been occasionally guilty of this. This works on a variety of levels, but most especially in New York. Some super villain threatening to do (insert whatever) to half the city in a place crawling with nigh half the Superhero population is itself rather questionable, but when the FF or Spiderman or the X-men or whomever act like millions will die if they and they alone don't interfere you kind of scratch your head and accept the martyr complex. This is occasionally justified by some of the threats being of sufficient scale that you actually need to call in that many people, but every so often it really isn't. Honestly, New York and crime are a lot like Gotham, in that they run on setting convention rather than anything approaching logical ramifications of the various accrued elements.

This also happens occasionally in the more cosmic stories, but the general inclination of the writers more often is to just to throw Eternity or Galactus into the meat grinder to give the antagonist Worf cred.

The first Dresden Novel might qualify. Not on the scale you're talking about, but while there's a number of potential explanations, Harry not calling in help from his best friend Michael or thinking of asking his mentor for advice against the powerful sorcerer out to spread death in Chicago seems a touch strange. It's quite understandable, as this is the first novel in a series that wouldn't really solidify it's tone and world building until two books later, and after that the series is extremely mindful of what the various big movers and shakers can and can't do.


Would Harry Potter count? Once Voldemort is resurrected it always seems like everyone could be much more proactive and are instead relying on Potter and the prophecy.

Not really, because part of the plot is that the Wizarding world is horribly incompetent when it comes to networking and dealing with threats in general.

[Prime32]

Alright, for example, the anime Slayers with Lina Inverse. First season she ends up having to fight against Reso the Red Priest. Second Season she comes across people(good guys and bad) that are vastly more powerful, and yet they did nothing.I'm pretty sure that Lina's party were the only ones to even know what was happening at the time. And in any case a fragment of Shabranigdu awakening is such a major threat that those other good guys would probably want to gather an army before fighting it, or even give up on confronting it altogether and just try to seal off that region of the map. (Most dragons have shown that they're willing to save the many by sacrificing the few, so they probably wouldn't get too worked up about the casualties in the meantime).

[Traab]

I gotta agree with the marvel verse one. There are so many super heroes and teams in and around new york, that it seems absurd to see issues where, spiderman as an example, is exhausted fighting all these criminals nonstop. Like he couldnt contact any of the laundry list of super friends and allies he has in the area and say, "Hey, can I get one of you to tag in for the evening? I havent slept in a week." Or the bi weekly sinister six teamups. "Yo reed, can you and the family back me up for this fight? I know Ben wanted to punch out rhino at least once." Yeah yeah, rule o drama and all that, but seriously, fighting what amounts to 3/4 of his rogues gallery at once? Thats just showing off. /nod

[Grinner]

It's been a while since I watched it, I never actually finished all five seasons, and the details get a little mixed up. That said, I'm pretty sure Lina receives a message from one of her sisters at some point in season two or three, essentially telling Lina to deal with the problem herself.

I want to say this sort of thing also pops up in The Wheel of Time, but I got bored midway through the first book.

I remember reading a worldbuilding article about Lord of the Rings once which points out that any given world tends to be a pretty big place, so big that there's not going to be just one Sauron. There's going to be five or six. In the case of Slayers, there's a bunch of different worlds, maybe even a multiverse. With so many things going on in a populated world at any given time, there's probably a fair number of villains to deal with just within the main setting, to say nothing of the Overworld.

[Douglas]

I want to say this sort of thing also pops up in The Wheel of Time, but I got bored midway through the first book.
I've read the whole series multiple times, and I don't recall any instance where a major organization or powerful character failed to step in and didn't have a reason for it. There was always some combination of lack of knowledge, lack of belief in available knowledge, or too much other really important business closer to hand.

[Kitten Champion]

I want to say this sort of thing also pops up in The Wheel of Time, but I got bored midway through the first book.

Hmm... the protagonist is a saviour/chosen one archetype by design.

This is actually something they address directly throughout the series - that however seemingly omnipotent the Hero may become or be - he can't be everywhere, do anything, and save everyone.

[Razade]

How about One Piece or Dragonball Z?


One Piece doesn't really count considering the Big Bads of the arcs are often under the control of the Big Bads overall (Almost all Big Bads fought to date were Warlords), already at war with the Powers that Be (the Yonko) or are completely unknown to the Powers that Be (Enel).


All of this ignores one thing though. Often is Fantasy settings there are multiple Evil and Good beings in a constant cold war. Elminster can't do anything because if he starts to move against, say, Bane then Shar's people are going to start mucking about and then it turns into a giant World War but instead of tanks we have literal Gods blowing the world up. And who wants that? You can call it lazy all you want and it can often be but sometimes the simple answer is why the Powers that Be can't act is because acting would cause even more damage and trouble. Same with The Eagles issue, people seem to think it's a clincher on how to solve the series but we know Mordor has things that can fly and patrol the boarders.

[Grinner]

All of this ignores one thing though. Often is Fantasy settings there are multiple Evil and Good beings in a constant cold war. Elminster can't do anything because if he starts to move against, say, Bane then Shar's people are going to start mucking about and then it turns into a giant World War but instead of tanks we have literal Gods blowing the world up. And who wants that? You can call it lazy all you want and it can often be but sometimes the simple answer is why the Powers that Be can't act is because acting would cause even more damage and trouble. Same with The Eagles issue, people seem to think it's a clincher on how to solve the series but we know Mordor has things that can fly and patrol the boarders.

That's a really good point.

...So what you're proposing is that the War of the Rings was a proxy war. Which would make sense, given how Gandalf was resurrected, presumably by the powers that be.

[russdm]

If almighty powerful Mage Z could stop the big bad in a minute, why doesn't he, instead of forcing random civilian X to go on a world journey(often taking him away from those that he loves) just to stop big bad? I mean, sometimes I can understand it, like in the case of Forgotten Realms and Elminister.
In a world that big, filled with so much magic, it's understandable that Elminister can't respond to every world-shaking threat. But in universes where there are only a handful of threats, the all-powerful wizard damn well needs to get off his arse and take care of them instead of laying back and waiting for someone else to do it.

I agree with this, but pass on the Eminister reference as it's not really true.



This trend is pretty much the trademark of lazily-written shonen manga/anime and fantasy stories. Good ones try to either avoid it or explain why these super-powerful people weren't there to help.

Please don't compare the LotR eagles to Elminster or other super-powerful NPCs that sit there and don't do crap. They couldn't use the eagles because as soon as they flew into Mordor, Sauron would spot them, and then either they'd get shot down by archers or intercepted by flying Nazguls. The end.

This eagle example is a pet peeve of mine.

I think Tolkien might have forgotten about the Eagles from the last time they showed up, which was to rescue Gandalf from Isengard, and they could have been busy fighting around Eredor since there is some mention of Sauron sending orcs up there.

Frankly, the Forgotten Realms does a poor job explaining the reasoning beyond the lack of action for it's powerful NPCs.



Yeah, ultimately this. It's gonna come down to how well it's executed, and sometimes the answer is "we already were fighting it and needed someone to tip the scales by doing something too insane for any of us to contemplate". :smallbiggrin:

That said, I don't heavily fault a series for this: it's part of the paradox between wanting an established world and wanting the protagonists to have an impact on it. You either have to resolve it by making the protagonists the most powerful people in the world or else have a good reason for why the world hasn't already solved the problem yet.


In the Forgotten Realms, it wasn't well executed, and it tries to have both states, making the players really powerful while not having nothing solved either.



All of this ignores one thing though. Often is Fantasy settings there are multiple Evil and Good beings in a constant cold war. Elminster can't do anything because if he starts to move against, say, Bane then Shar's people are going to start mucking about and then it turns into a giant World War but instead of tanks we have literal Gods blowing the world up. And who wants that? You can call it lazy all you want and it can often be but sometimes the simple answer is why the Powers that Be can't act is because acting would cause even more damage and trouble.


The problem with this reasoning is that are sufficient NPCs for Elminster to act against Bane while the others work against Shar. Also, the Gods in FR can't blow up the world since if they do they lose their power completely. In FR, it's completely lazy on the designers part, and they add in some crappy BS "Concerns of the Mighty" that just makes everything look more stupid. At least in Harry Dresden, the writer, Jim Butcher, took the effort to have the reasons the stronger powers don't do anything themselves make sense. At points, the reasons they don't get involved are part of the characters or it is explained in understandable terms. FR never does that.

What FR says: "Blah, blah, blah, BS, BS, BS, Concerns of the Mighty BS..." (Whatever garbage the designers put in the 3rd edition campaign guide with all of the various NPCs in that book and every other FR 3rd/3.5 splat-book who apparently need to exist but most not do anything and because these NPCs showed up in some book!)

What FR needs to say: "Elminster has agreed to take on certain concerns by promising Mystra, who holds him to that by threatening to remove his power or not allowing him to interfere; while for others, they are too far away to do anything and are spending their efforts closer to home rather than get involved in a situation nearly across the continent or several nations over. Why have somebody living on the Sword Coast get involved in problems relating to Thay when they won't be able to show up for a while due to travel or because taking care of local problems takes up time that they can't set aside for helping with the Thay issue."

At least the second gives clarity and gives it sense as to why these NPCs are not involved. I would rather see something along the second option rather than first.

[hamishspence]

What FR says: "Blah, blah, blah, BS, BS, BS, Concerns of the Mighty BS..." (Whatever garbage the designers put in the 3rd edition campaign guide with all of the various NPCs in that book and every other FR 3rd/3.5 splat-book who apparently need to exist but most not do anything and because these NPCs showed up in some book!)

The quote in question:


The Concerns of the Mighty

There comes a time when every student and many a passing merchant, farmer, and king, too, demands the same answer of me: Why, O meddler and, mighty mage, do ye not set the crooked straight? Why not strike directly against the evils that threaten Faerûn? Why do not all mighty folk of good heart not simply make everything right?

I've heard that cry so many times. Now hearken, once and for all, to my answers as to why the great and powerful don't fix Toril entire every day.

First, it is not at all certain that those of us with the power or the inclination can even accomplish a tenth of the deed asked of us. The forces arrayed against us are dark and strong indeed. I might surprise Manshoon or old Szass Tam and burn him from the face of Toril - but he might do the same to me. It's a rash and short-lived hero who presses for battle when victory is not assured.

Second, the wise amongst us know that even gods can't foresee all the consequences of their actions - and all of us have seen far too many instances of good things turning out to cause something very bad, or unwanted. We've learned that meddling often does far more harm than good.

Third: Few folk can agree on what is right, what should be done, and what the best end result would be. When ye consider a mighty stroke; be assured that every move is apt to be countered by someone who doesn't like the intended result, is determined to stop it, and is quite prepared to lay waste to you, your kingdom, and anything else necessary to confound you.

Point the fourth: Big changes can seldom be effected by small actions. How much work does it take just to build one house? Rearrange one room? How many simple little actions, then, will it take to destroy one kingdom and raise another - with name, ruler, and societal order of your choice - in its place?

Finally: D'ye think we "mighty ones" are blind? Do we not watch each other, and guess at what each is doing, and reach out and do some little thing that hampers the aims of another great and mighty? We'll never be free of this problem, and that's a good thing. I would cower at the thought of living in any Faerûn where all the mighty and powerful folk agreed perfectly on everything. That's the way of slavery and shackles and armed tyranny ... and if ye'd like to win a bet, wager that ye'll be near the bottom of any such order.

Right. Any more silly questions?

[russdm]

The quote would be more understandable and acceptable if they hadn't gone through and stated every single one of those Mighty ones up fully with everything they could like they wanted you to take them out or something, instead of giving something more along the lines of:

Elminister, Medium Human Figher X / Rogue X / Cleric X / Wizard X / Chosen of Mystra X
Notable traits: Special Pipe (Detailed on what it could do), Chosen of Mystra (Details on what this gives), (Other important things to know)
Brief Summary: Elminister is good at X skills (without mentioning number of skill ranks and in what skills), has learned X (references to talents/feats but not listing them all out), and has knowledge of spells of level X (like up to 9th or whatever)
Notable Items: Special Pipe, (Other objects that define him, leave at that)

This leaves enough information for us, and leaves it up to the DM to finish stating out the NPC if the DM needs to.

[Lord Raziere]

The quote in question:

I can condense all that into something far more succinct for everyone:

Politics.

[BeerMug Paladin]

I view this as almost inevitable in a series as it goes on. Due to either a writer forgetting about the entire canon (and established plot points) as something goes on or just by simply not having thought about the overall setting or resolved plotlines that much.

How obvious these issues are when they do crop up and what is done about them when they are pointed out varies a lot according to the writer. Bad writers usually don't care about things like this and good writers tend to think up satisfactory explanations.

[Sith_Happens]

I can condense all that into something far more succinct for everyone:

Politics.

With a side order of the epic NPCs apparently recognizing that rocket tag is a thing.

[tomandtish]

Marvel has been occasionally guilty of this. This works on a variety of levels, but most especially in New York. Some super villain threatening to do (insert whatever) to half the city in a place crawling with nigh half the Superhero population is itself rather questionable, but when the FF or Spiderman or the X-men or whomever act like millions will die if they and they alone don't interfere you kind of scratch your head and accept the martyr complex. This is occasionally justified by some of the threats being of sufficient scale that you actually need to call in that many people, but every so often it really isn't. Honestly, New York and crime are a lot like Gotham, in that they run on setting convention rather than anything approaching logical ramifications of the various accrued elements.

This also happens occasionally in the more cosmic stories, but the general inclination of the writers more often is to just to throw Eternity or Galactus into the meat grinder to give the antagonist Worf cred.

The first Dresden Novel might qualify. Not on the scale you're talking about, but while there's a number of potential explanations, Harry not calling in help from his best friend Michael or thinking of asking his mentor for advice against the powerful sorcerer out to spread death in Chicago seems a touch strange. It's quite understandable, as this is the first novel in a series that wouldn't really solidify it's tone and world building until two books later, and after that the series is extremely mindful of what the various big movers and shakers can and can't do.


I'll give Marvel a pass, given that you have two scenarios:

1) All other heroes are busy with their own issues. The most common scenario given that some of them appear in as many as 10 plus different comic titles a month.
2) They aren't busy, in which case you get a team-up/crossover

Jim Butcher actually wrote a Spider-Man novel (Darkest Hours) that covered this. Spider-man goes seeking help from Avengers (off-world) and Fantastic Four (another dimension). He does manage to find Dr. Strange.

Incidentally (speaking of Dresden Files and Jim Butcher), since Word of Jim (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php/topic,41204.msg2023481.html#msg2023481) establishes that Harry had known Michael for about a year prior to Grave Peril, that explains not calling him in book 1 (which is about 19 months prior). Note: This timeline (http://www.jimbutcheronline.com/bb/index.php?topic=1592.0) includes ALL Dresden Files works (comics, etc.) so contains spoilers if you haven't read them all.

Later, they do a good job explaining that Michael is a lot less powerful when he's not officially on God's clock, so Harry starts feeling guilty about calling him.

Kind of a good point about not calling McCoy. I suspect part of that is trying to establish just how tenuous Harry's position is with the council as a whole though. And remember, even Harry hasn't thought everything all the way through. It wasn't until he did the same thing for Molly that he "clicks" as to just how far McCoy went for him. It's what leads to their reconciliation.

It can be attributed a combination of "I'm going to prove myself to this council" AND "I don't want anything to do with this council".

[GloatingSwine]

I definitely agree. In any case, Sauron appears to have direct control over Mount Doom's fires. Eagles coming? Start an eruption. Try flying anywhere near the mountain with hot ash blanketing your wings at a rate of 3 inches per hour.

Also, there's no reason why the Eagles couldn't succumb to the temptation of the Ring either, and keep it for themselves. The less know exactly where it is, the better. After all, you don't want to end up with Gwaihir, Dark Wind-Lord of Middle-Earth, He Who Dines on the Livers of Elves and Men.

The Eagles are also messengers of Eru and are basically uninterested in the concerns of men and elves, and only show up to Isengard because of a personal debt owed to Gandalf.

So it's actually just as likely that they'd listen to whoever asked them for a lift, consider the import of the Ring and all it represents, and respond with something along the lines of "none of our business though, is it?"

[comicshorse]

The real reason Gandalf didn't use Eagles all the time

http://oglaf.com/ornithology/

(Warning, most of the comics on this site are NSFW)

[Razade]

That's a really good point.

...So what you're proposing is that the War of the Rings was a proxy war. Which would make sense, given how Gandalf was resurrected, presumably by the powers that be.

Isn't that more or less outright stated in The Silmarillion? Frodo and Sam getting the Ring to Mount Doom is absolutely the most important thing to the story but we know there's more going on during the War. Certainly it's vital to the War in total as well but there's other things that need done. The Eagle thing has never really been something I've seen people be serious about, and if it really is a serious argument...even the Peter Jackson movies give good enough reason.



The problem with this reasoning is that are sufficient NPCs for Elminster to act against Bane while the others work against Shar. Also, the Gods in FR can't blow up the world since if they do they lose their power completely. In FR, it's completely lazy on the designers part, and they add in some crappy BS "Concerns of the Mighty" that just makes everything look more stupid. At least in Harry Dresden, the writer, Jim Butcher, took the effort to have the reasons the stronger powers don't do anything themselves make sense. At points, the reasons they don't get involved are part of the characters or it is explained in understandable terms. FR never does that.

What FR says: "Blah, blah, blah, BS, BS, BS, Concerns of the Mighty BS..." (Whatever garbage the designers put in the 3rd edition campaign guide with all of the various NPCs in that book and every other FR 3rd/3.5 splat-book who apparently need to exist but most not do anything and because these NPCs showed up in some book!)

What FR needs to say: "Elminster has agreed to take on certain concerns by promising Mystra, who holds him to that by threatening to remove his power or not allowing him to interfere; while for others, they are too far away to do anything and are spending their efforts closer to home rather than get involved in a situation nearly across the continent or several nations over. Why have somebody living on the Sword Coast get involved in problems relating to Thay when they won't be able to show up for a while due to travel or because taking care of local problems takes up time that they can't set aside for helping with the Thay issue."

At least the second gives clarity and gives it sense as to why these NPCs are not involved. I would rather see something along the second option rather than first.

Your pet dislike of Forgotten Realms aside, just because the characters are stated out doesn't really mean much. Considering of the NPCs stated out there are more Evil characters and considering there are more Evil and Neutral Deities the all out war that would be caused wouldn't go nearly as you'd think it would. Especially when a lot of the stated out Evil Gods are really powerful mages via the rules of 3.5 while a lot of the Good Deities are not. In short. That's like your opinion man.


The real reason Gandalf didn't use Eagles all the time

http://oglaf.com/ornithology/

(Warning, most of the comics on this site are NSFW)

Oglaf is the best.

[Grinner]

Isn't that more or less outright stated in The Silmarillion? Frodo and Sam getting the Ring to Mount Doom is absolutely the most important thing to the story but we know there's more going on during the War. Certainly it's vital to the War in total as well but there's other things that need done. The Eagle thing has never really been something I've seen people be serious about, and if it really is a serious argument...even the Peter Jackson movies give good enough reason.

To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a Lord of the Rings scholar.

[Bulldog Psion]

The Eagles are also messengers of Eru and are basically uninterested in the concerns of men and elves, and only show up to Isengard because of a personal debt owed to Gandalf.

So it's actually just as likely that they'd listen to whoever asked them for a lift, consider the import of the Ring and all it represents, and respond with something along the lines of "none of our business though, is it?"

Sure, that's quite possible. But Gandalf and Saruman were also messengers of Eru -- Gandalf didn't trust himself with the Ring, and Saruman was utterly corrupted by lust for it. Being a messenger of Eru isn't a guarantee that you won't take the "golden thing" for yourself and become a tyrant. Heck, it might be easier for the Eagles -- "basically uninterested in the concerns of men and elves" could very easily transform into callous disdain for the lesser folk who exist only to serve the Winged Lord as his slaves and occasional dinner.

Not to mention the whole "Mount Doom" and "Nazgul" problem relating to winged emissaries.

Maybe the plan would have worked smoothly, but I still don't think it would have been a guaranteed success, either.