Time-skips: Bring on your worst

[Wraith]

ANYTHING by DWJ. Do you like these protagonists? Awesome, they won't be in the next book. Maybe as a cameo, if you're lucky. But she makes it work every single time (Dalemark is a favorite of mine)

Reminds of of the Magician saga by Raymond E. Feist. He wrote a trilogy of books to establish the world and the characters, and then in the next trilogy wherein he finished the arc he chose to skip time forward by 50 years so all but 1 of the mortal characters had died off-camera.
He had to establish all new characters AND tie up the 6-book-long story with them, and it doesn't land particularly well. Especially since the main protagonist of both trilogies is functionally ageless and performs the same role throughout, so the core role doesn't change and it just refreshes the entirety of the supporting cast and kills most of the reasonably popular second-string for no particularly good reason.

As an example of a good time-skip, the first thing that springs to mind is Samurai Jack. The final series is set 50 years after the end of the previous one, and spends a lot of time explaining why that is significant for the titular character, his mission and his attitude, and what it takes to get him back on track. The skip actually means something, and plays a big part in the plot, rather than it being skipped over.

[Radar]

Naruto comes to my mind. Things just go downhill after the timeskip, with few exceptions. One reason is ridiculous power-creep that started with the timeskip.

This has nothing to do with the timeskip itself - just how things were written after it. I think the skip itself was handled fine and problems started afterwards.

[Rynjin]

Nah, I think it tracks. The worst arc of the entire series is immediately post-timeskip, and it does a sloppy job of setting up the new antagonists.

I am not of the opinion that everything post-timeskip is bad, but the series really only starts to get good again post-timeskip once Hidan and Kakuzu show up because they're the only actually intimidating members of the Akatsuki, aside the Itachi/Kisame pair which does most of their cooler stuff not on Akatsuki specific missions.

I also appreciate the clowning on Worm's timeskip, and would raise the timeskip before the start of Ward as well.

While it is technically a sequel, the abject absurdity of the human race going from "nearly extinct, our primary Earth is basically completely destroyed" to "Welcome to Megacity 17!" in approximately 2 years is laughable.

[Iruka]

My least favorite timeskip happens in Worm.

Basically, there are these fairly rare, epic fights that happen every so often, and things build to them over about eight entire arcs of story.

Something happens to alter the way these work, and a brand new contender appears for one of these fights, and the massive, epic fight begins. Halfway through it, we time skip two years. We just never see the last half of the epic fight we've been waiting for.

Reading through, I see this has already been mentioned. If it ever gets published, I have to assume that the pre-pub edit would dramatically change this entire section. Perhaps we'd skip most of the Taylor as hero stuff altogether. It mostly isn't at all important. I've read the whole thing twice, and I couldn't tell you much about the Chicago wards.

At least some amount of rewrites was planned, but that quote is from 2013, so things may have changed ...

The plan is to rewrite the time skip and make it two arcs, with one being an interlude arc (interludes don’t have the implicit promise of . I also think I might have another arc between the Coil/Echidna arcs and the imago/chrysalis arcs, to show more of the life-as-a-warlord.

[Forum Explorer]

Nah, I think it tracks. The worst arc of the entire series is immediately post-timeskip, and it does a sloppy job of setting up the new antagonists.

I am not of the opinion that everything post-timeskip is bad, but the series really only starts to get good again post-timeskip once Hidan and Kakuzu show up because they're the only actually intimidating members of the Akatsuki, aside the Itachi/Kisame pair which does most of their cooler stuff not on Akatsuki specific missions.

I also appreciate the clowning on Worm's timeskip, and would raise the timeskip before the start of Ward as well.

While it is technically a sequel, the abject absurdity of the human race going from "nearly extinct, our primary Earth is basically completely destroyed" to "Welcome to Megacity 17!" in approximately 2 years is laughable.

Wait, isn't that the Saving Gaara arc? I wouldn't call that the worst arc in the series.

Anyways, I think the timeskip was handled well. There is a clear reason for it, it fits what is happening everywhere, and it mostly covers boring information over a long period of time. As well, we do get to see character changes (mostly visual changes) as a result and actually get a tiny bit of time exploring those changes. Yeah, the story really went downhill after this point, mostly because the escalating power isn't actually that entertaining, but I feel the flash backs really started flying fast and thick after the timeskip as well.

Worst arc I think is Danzo vs Sasuke. Because Sasuke was at peak unbearableness at that point and Danzo was not set up or presented well.

[Tvtyrant]

I haven't seen Fairy Tail mentioned yet. Not only does it have one bad timeskip, it has two. Both are literally just excuses to power up the characters who were already the strongest people in their respective world near the end where the first time skip starts, but by the end of the second they're so powerful the setting had to bring out an entire new country.

Not only that but there's some strong evidence that they both happened simply to make character more "sexy". A character who was too young to put in skimpy outfits before and whose outfits grew far more overt and skimpy after the time skips.

I stopped reading that one after the first time skip, but what is weird is that the author has the classic "all attractive women look the same" approach. So making someone sexier just means making them a clone of the main female lead with a different hair cut, making you wonder what the point is.

[Willie the Duck]

It isn't the worst, but it certainly was pretty pointless -- towards the end of Xena: Warrior Princess they had a time-skip where the two central protagonists were frozen for the better part of 20 years. This let them age up the daughter character from a baby to a young adult, such that they could save her and set her on an arc for atoning for turning into something of a murderous warlord in the meantime (which was already Xena's arc, so this didn't do much)... except they spent maybe 3 episodes on that, and then the series went back to the two main principle stars roaming the countryside interacting with the threat of the week and the world's unaging deities. Thus the only lasting effect was that the writers had to remember that they can't use such and such a recurring character anymore (or put them in lots of makeup) and age-up, then kill-off, the comic relief guy. For so little payoff, they should have just did the whole port the baby to an alternate dimension where they age quickly like Angel did.

[EggKookoo]

Series finale of Star Trek Enterprise. They time-skipped 200 years and into an entirely different Trek series.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Wait, isn't that the Saving Gaara arc? I wouldn't call that the worst arc in the series.

Anyways, I think the timeskip was handled well. There is a clear reason for it, it fits what is happening everywhere, and it mostly covers boring information over a long period of time. As well, we do get to see character changes (mostly visual changes) as a result and actually get a tiny bit of time exploring those changes. Yeah, the story really went downhill after this point, mostly because the escalating power isn't actually that entertaining, but I feel the flash backs really started flying fast and thick after the timeskip as well.

Indeed - the time skip jumped over what would essentially be a long training montage with a forced-in plot, and the story immediately after the time skip was the Saving Gaara arc, which remains one of my favourite arcs. It built on the existing story, gave us a decent resolution to Gaara's situation and was overall good fun to read.

Conversely, I can't even remember what the following arc was apart from the fact it introduced some new character I really couldn't care about, and after that I dropped the series entirely because the story ceased to interest me at all.

[Cikomyr2]

Series finale of Star Trek Enterprise. They time-skipped 200 years and into an entirely different Trek series.

What? The series ended with "Terra Prime", with the very sweet but sad scene where we learn that Tucker and T'Pol's daughter died, but that there was hope for future hybrid between humans and Vulcans. A perfect note to leave the series AND THAT IS ALL I WILL ACCEPT ON THE TOPIC

[Tyndmyr]

I also appreciate the clowning on Worm's timeskip, and would raise the timeskip before the start of Ward as well.

While it is technically a sequel, the abject absurdity of the human race going from "nearly extinct, our primary Earth is basically completely destroyed" to "Welcome to Megacity 17!" in approximately 2 years is laughable.

Oh god, yeah, that was painful.

All of humanity lives in one giant megacity called....the City. That's not the post-apocalypse I would expect, yknow? Especially with infinite earths on tap and a shortage of food.

Plus, the inherent drama of the setting of living in the immediate post apocalpyse is glorious. Why would just skip past that so we can watch a character angst about fashion choices and bad cell reception? Ward was kind of a huge let down on many fronts, and you could pin a lot of them on the timeskip.

At least some amount of rewrites was planned, but that quote is from 2013, so things may have changed ...

Wildbow's since stated that he's more into doing the web serial thing than pursuing traditional publishing. This is kind of unfortunate, because I would love to buy the finished product, but I can't be upset at the guy for making a living doing the thing he enjoys.

[EggKookoo]

What? The series ended with "Terra Prime", with the very sweet but sad scene where we learn that Tucker and T'Pol's daughter died, but that there was hope for future hybrid between humans and Vulcans. A perfect note to leave the series AND THAT IS ALL I WILL ACCEPT ON THE TOPIC

Kidding aside I hold the same position. Great conclusion to the show.

Likewise, TOS ended on "All Our Yesterdays" (which has some canonical support if you go by stardates).

[J-H]

I didn't mind the Worm timeskip much. It was needed to avoid spending entire arcs on Taylor getting used to being a Ward, but would not have moved the main plot along unless Wildbow did the Wheel of Time thing and added a bunch of new plot points midway through.

The ATLA movie had a giant "tell, not show" montage in... I think the Northern Water Kingdom? Way too much time-skipping. We had no familiarity with the animated series when we watched the movie.

Star Wars (1999 on) suffers from this, partly because they put a bunch of the movie plot into other media. I don't have or watch a TV, let alone have cable, so everything between Attack of the Clones and RotS was a mystery to me. General G-who? Why's he a big deal?
Mixed-channel media has this problem in general for everyone except the fans who seek out the info. I heard something about Fortnite being how Palaptine's return was announced in the Disney Sequel Trilogy, but I'd already checked out by that time and just don't care about SW aside from the OT and PT.

Star Trek Voyager had a great two-parter called the Year of Hell where the ship actually took damage, people got killed, etc...over a year. It was a good time-skip. Then they did some timey-wimey-BS and undid it. I think I'd rather watch that weird unicorn show instead of re-watching Voyager.

[A.A.King]

I don't have an immediate example of this but in the age of binge-watching the type of time-skip that really bothers me is the one a lot of TV shows do between seasons. I am specifically talking about tv shows that revolve somewhat about mystery and intrique, the kind of shows that you are initially drawn into because you want to know more about the main character and his shady/mysterious business dealings. It's the first episode of the show, so of course there is a lot you don't know about him/her but at the end of the first season you feel like you've really got an understanding of how this world works.

Next season starts and they're a year or two into the future. A bunch of stuff happened off-screen. Relationships you understood have been destroyed, some old characters have apparently flipped sides or died and the main characters have made a bunch of new friends and enemies that you don't know anything about yet. Basically, the story has moved far enough into the future that you get to relive the experience of the first season: not understanding the world the character lives in and slowly learning how it all works.

With some shows it justs seems you never get to be familiar with the characters. The only story the writers seem to be able to tell revolve around a main character who knows significantly more than the audiance does so that by the time the audiance has caught up with the main character they have to jump forward in time so that our knowledge becomes outdated and end up ignorant again.

[Giggling Ghast]

If I remember, Fable 2 has a years-long time skip while you serve in magical slavery to some overlord.

It's actually 10 years, though there are snippets of what life is like in the Spire.

[MCerberus]

Fable 2 really isn't the bad timeskip in the series.

So the third game has this TICKING CLOCK OF DOOM. You wake up each day and need to make decisions about gathering resources in order to fight the EVIL DOOM. So with weeks left on this ticking clock you go to bed and suddenly time skip. You weren't allowed to gather and resources or make decisions during your nap, so you just wake up and suddenly the apocalypse.

[Rynjin]

Wait, isn't that the Saving Gaara arc? I wouldn't call that the worst arc in the series.

Indeed - the time skip jumped over what would essentially be a long training montage with a forced-in plot, and the story immediately after the time skip was the Saving Gaara arc, which remains one of my favourite arcs. It built on the existing story, gave us a decent resolution to Gaara's situation and was overall good fun to read.

Conversely, I can't even remember what the following arc was apart from the fact it introduced some new character I really couldn't care about, and after that I dropped the series entirely because the story ceased to interest me at all.

See, I never liked the Rescue Gaara arc. It is unbearably slow paced in both the manga and anime, and contains very few memorable moments besides Sakura's only combat contribution for the rest of the series.

The arc after that is also pretty trash, but it at least has the big 4 Tails v Orochimaru spectacle to hold it up.

But right after that is the whole Hidan/Kakuza/Asuma thing and it's one of the best bits of the entire series, and represents a sharp uptick in quality.

Worst arc I think is Danzo vs Sasuke. Because Sasuke was at peak unbearableness at that point and Danzo was not set up or presented well.

This barely qualifies as an "arc", IMO. It's a single fight that is basically just a footnote to a better bit of the series, which introduces us to the remaining Kage and Sasuke getting clowned on by A. It's also mercifully short, unlike the Rescue Gaara arc which in the anime spans 33 episodes.

[Forum Explorer]

See, I never liked the Rescue Gaara arc. It is unbearably slow paced in both the manga and anime, and contains very few memorable moments besides Sakura's only combat contribution for the rest of the series.

The arc after that is also pretty trash, but it at least has the big 4 Tails v Orochimaru spectacle to hold it up.

But right after that is the whole Hidan/Kakuza/Asuma thing and it's one of the best bits of the entire series, and represents a sharp uptick in quality.



This barely qualifies as an "arc", IMO. It's a single fight that is basically just a footnote to a better bit of the series, which introduces us to the remaining Kage and Sasuke getting clowned on by A. It's also mercifully short, unlike the Rescue Gaara arc which in the anime spans 33 episodes.

I did like the fight against Sasori, and Gaara's fight against the bomb dude. Those were some of the last fights that were actually kinda restrained and not giant explosion boom, the later sort of fights became. Hidan/Kakuza/Asuma I think were the other one like that.

4 Tails vs Orochimaru was nothing but spectacle with no substance. It's pretty much nothing but giant explosion boom silliness.



I remember there being a bunch of pre and post fight angst from Sasuke, as well as from Naruto and Sakura.

[Manga Shoggoth]

See, I never liked the Rescue Gaara arc. It is unbearably slow paced in both the manga and anime, and contains very few memorable moments besides Sakura's only combat contribution for the rest of the series.

...

It's also mercifully short, unlike the Rescue Gaara arc which in the anime spans 33 episodes.

I think that's where our disconnect is - my experience of Naruto post-timeskip is primarally from the manga - I found the entire pre-timeskip anime to be horribly slow, so never bothered with it post time-skip.

[Rynjin]

I think that's where our disconnect is - my experience of Naruto post-timeskip is primarally from the manga - I found the entire pre-timeskip anime to be horribly slow, so never bothered with it post time-skip.

Even in the manga, which I was reading week to week at the time, the arc is absurdly long for what it actually offers. It's nearly 30 chapters; over 6 months of real life time.

For an arc with a bit more substance, this is fine. This is roughly the length of the Land of Waves and Sasuke Retrieval arc, which are both solid. They each have a lot going on, and breeze by, with something memorable or unique in pretty much every chapter. Importantly, both also involve a wide variety of characters, each of which is interesting in their own right.

The Gaara Rescue arc, on the other hand, consists largely of three events; Gaara is captured, people are sent to retrieve him, and then there's two big fights happening simultaneously. It also only prominently features 6 characters: Naruto, Kakashi, Sakura, Chiyo, Deidara, and Sasori. Gai and his team are technically there, but they proceed to very flashily accomplish...absolutely nothing of real value, wasting everyone's time in the process. Thanks Kisame!

One of these fights is a complete nothing fight where Kakashi wastes everyone's time by pulling a new ability straight out of his ass and completely clowns on one of the supposedly intimidating Akatsuki who beat Gaara (albeit with dirty tactics).

The other is solid in parts, but far overstays its welcome, as Sasori decides he wants to be the final boss of an RPG and presents a boss fight in 4 stages, only two of which are even vaguely interesting.

The only redeeming qualities of the arc are the initial tussle between Gaara and Deidara being an entertaining tactical battle, and Sakura actually getting to strut her stuff for once before she's relegated to the backline role forever again.

[NulliusinVerba]

I will third (fourth? fifth? sixth?) my dislike of the Worm time-skip. It smacked of Wildbow conceding that either the bit of Taylor as a new Ward or even just everything that followed it was irrelevant.

To be honest, after the Alexandria fiasco and then the Behemoth bit I tuned out on Worm until the S9000 arc. I would go so far as to suggest that the majority of that material would need to be re-written or condensed.

[Tyndmyr]

I didn't mind the Worm timeskip much. It was needed to avoid spending entire arcs on Taylor getting used to being a Ward, but would not have moved the main plot along unless Wildbow did the Wheel of Time thing and added a bunch of new plot points midway through.

I agree that more time with Taylor as a ward would be odd. But Taylor as a ward did very little for the plot in general. Almost all the Chicago stuff could be straight cut with absolutely no impact on the story.

Just removing a bunch of that time might be possible, if it's desired. Adding more plot points would also be a fine alternative. You would probably want to at *least* finish the fight they're in, though. Cutting away before it resolves is kind of a let down.

[Tvtyrant]

I agree that more time with Taylor as a ward would be odd. But Taylor as a ward did very little for the plot in general. Almost all the Chicago stuff could be straight cut with absolutely no impact on the story.

Just removing a bunch of that time might be possible, if it's desired. Adding more plot points would also be a fine alternative. You would probably want to at *least* finish the fight they're in, though. Cutting away before it resolves is kind of a let down.

To be honest, I dislike everything after she becomes a Ward so if possible I would like that entire section rewritten. Naruto syndrome is very blatant.

[NulliusinVerba]

To be honest, I dislike everything after she becomes a Ward so if possible I would like that entire section rewritten. Naruto syndrome is very blatant.

I also dislike most of what happens post Tagg / Alexandria all the way through the S900 arc, with the exception of the Behemoth fight.

The problem was that the escalation of the Alexandria arc left Wildbow with very little elsewhere to go.

Spoiler: Arc 20

Show

Once you murder one of the Triumvirate, if you stay a villain you pretty much get a kill order on you.

[Rater202]

I also dislike most of what happens post Tagg / Alexandria all the way through the S900 arc, with the exception of the Behemoth fight.

The problem was that the escalation of the Alexandria arc left Wildbow with very little elsewhere to go.

Spoiler: Arc 20

Show

Once you murder one of the Triumvirate if you stay a villain you pretty much get a kill order on you.

Spoiler

Show

It's noted that Taylor's Layer got his hands on the interrogation tape.

Bit of Trivia: Literally everything that happened during that interrogation, everything Alexandria did, is illegal. Law Enforcement can't lie to you when a lawyer's present and Alexandria herself was at this time known to be a war criminal and so never should have been there in the first place.

The cops also aren't allowed to threaten to murder your friends, threaten your dad with having you executed if he doesn't talk some sense into you, charge you with treason without your confession or three credible eyewitnesses to the same act(also, in the united States Treason is a very specifically defined crime and nothing Taylor did ever came close)

And they're not allowed to torture you to force you to confess or surrender unconditionally.

And, well, faking the unlawful execution of someone's friends for the sole purpose of hurting them emotionally is legally considered torture.

Taylor and her lawyer had already gone through all of the charges and established that they could get almost all of them dropped or downgraded if this actually went to trial and that the PRT did not want it going to trial, they just wanted to crush Taylor and throw the book at her without having to be public about it.

If Taylor had pressed it, she could have gotten all charge against her dropped. Alexandria started it. Alexandria claimed that she was planning to murder Taylor's friends one by one, just execute them without trial, and went to extreme effort to convince Tayor that she had in fact done so.

And despite being criminals, murdering them is still a crime.

If they'd gone to trial, that tape would have by itself been enough to get her cleared of all charges. By establishing that the killing of Alexandria was provoked directly by Alexandria psychologically torturing her, by establishing that the PRT was so unsure of their alleged laundry list of charges that they stooped to illegal means, and by putting jury sympathy on Taylor as a skinny little nerdy teenage girl doing what she has to help the city and getting literally tortured for it.

After killing Alexandria, Taylor made a demand of the PRT and they gave it to her. If she'd pushed, she could have gotten all charges against her dropped and just joined as a real wArd, no probation, no criminal status, with the PRT openly acknowledging her as a hero because that's how damning that video was. That video could have destroyed the PRT.

[Tyndmyr]

I also dislike most of what happens post Tagg / Alexandria all the way through the S900 arc, with the exception of the Behemoth fight.

The problem was that the escalation of the Alexandria arc left Wildbow with very little elsewhere to go.

Spoiler: Arc 20

Show

Once you murder one of the Triumvirate, if you stay a villain you pretty much get a kill order on you.

I would agree that the S9000 arc gets...a little ridiculous. The fear that one unique individual evokes is a bit diluted when you're just throwing dozens of clones around, yknow? They've gone from being epic fight scenes in their own right to throwaway executions. I'd like to think that the whole plotline in a finished publication would have a little bit of cleanup there to tidy up some of the samey bits.

As for the writing into a corner...I'd honestly assumed that with all the Birdcage groundwork, he was planning for Skitter to eventually end up Birdcaged, and figure out some way to make a jailbreak.

I mean, why else would you play up how unescapable it is, and go into details on the process and countermeasures for escaping unless you later plan to have a jailbreak? That setup seems absolutely perfect for it, and then it just...never gets used. Maybe it was an early plan, and he went a different direction.

As for the rest of the spoilery discussion:

Spoiler

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Skitter also has at least some measure of public trust by this point. Her actions throughout the S9 arc repeatedly have her risking her life for the well being of others, often very publicly. She's known to be one of the villains who shows up to Endbringer fights, she doesn't usually aim to kill heroes, and she's very protective of the civilians in her area.

I think that would probably count for something.

Sure, as readers, we see more than the general public does, and thus, get an even more sympathetic view of her, but at least some members of the public are willing to risk themselves for her, even over the heroes at times. There's a couple of ways you could play this...negotiation, courtroom drama, public opinion....Kill order isn't strictly the only option out I think, even if the escalations do limit some things.

[Gnoman]

As far as the topic goes - I've always felt that David Weber's habit of time-skipping between books in the Honor Harrington novels was to their detriment. A lot of the protagonist's reputation for being a Boring Invincible Hero comes from how all the traumas and injuries suffered get recovered from offscreen during skips with a bit of Show Not Tell at best. The jumps after books 2 and 7 are the biggest offenders here.

I don't think more sequences like we saw after Paul's murder, the Grayson dome collapse or the shooting of Timothy Meares would improve the series. There's already plenty of trauma shown, and a lot of the critics already miss how much time passes within the books.




More in the spirit of the thread, there's two-and-a-half timeskips that I really loathe.


The first is in the final Earth's Children book, about halfway through. Suddenly Ayla's babies are children, and we miss almost all of her shaman training. I don't know what happens afterward, because I stopped reading fairly quickly due to the total disconnect.


The other 1.5 come from WEB Griffin. His The Corps series spends much of the print run in the early part of WWII and the last year or so of the prewar (for the US) period. In doing so, he builds up a large cast of characters that you have a chance to get attatched to. Then, around 1943, he suddenly skips forward to 1950 immediately before the Korean War. Not only do you not get to see how his characters deal with the second half of the war, half of them disappear for good. It is quite literally as if four or five books were simply excised.

The .5 comes from his Men In Blue series centered around the Philadelphia Police Department, which is a timeskip without a timeskip. When it first started, the books were set in the mid-to-late 70s, and this played a huge part of the books. A minor plot point in the first book dealt with the city's ".38 special ONLY" firearms regulations for police, and a plot in the second book centered around a wealthy character (a hotshot cadet in his early 20s, promoted to detective early for being stupidly lucky) heading over to his dad's office to use the good typewriters. Then out of the blue you have the same character at the same age closing his laptop and tucking a .45 into his pocket.

[asda fasda]

I'm not sure whether it was mentioned* already but the best use of time skips is for sure:
1) Highlander
2) Interview with the Vampire

as both movies use time skips as one of the main story structures


*
(quick search on thread reveal that it was somehow not mentioned yet : )

[Sholos]

I think my least favorite time skip I've encountered was the one b÷tween seasons 1 and 2 of Young Justice. Season one ended with the bare beginnings of a relationship between two characters and season 2 started not only with them broken up but one of the characters dating an entirely new-to-the-show character. We didn't even find out why they btoke up in the first place until several episodes in. There were also a lot of plot points and character development that happened off-camera that had characters acting weird. It was extremely confusing and frustrating.

[Ionathus]

In an entirely different genre, the final season of Parks & Recreation post-time skip was just sort of...there.

I realize that's not entirely the fault of the timeskip, and it was probably a good idea to skip Leslie & Ben's early childraising years, but I just kept being disappointed by the narrative convention of things like "ooooh, Ron is in a different job and Leslie is mad at him for something, what is it??? You'll find out in four episodes!" and then the reveal is actually just "Ron got a different job."

Basically, the timeskip had the potential to show how things can change, especially given how much attention Parks & Rec gave to legacy. Instead, it was mostly used to set up formulaic/unoriginal jokes and manufacture drama that didn't fit the characters or the series.