Soukyuu no Ariadne - Vol. 13 Ch. 126 - Surprise Attack

[MangaDex]

 

[criver]

The poorly executed info dumps piss me off.

 

[Randall1337]

@criver

What about this is poorly executed?

 

[Yuyuruzu18]

More seventh sword action is always welcome

 

[criver]

@Randall1337 The info dump. And it's not the first time this happens in this manga. Idk if I have just forgotten it, but I don't remember it being so bad in Claymore.

 

[theShear]

@criver Nah, people complained about those in Claymore too. We had whole Chapters dedicated to them.

 

[Randall1337]

@criver Oh, you're someone who sees a lot of text in a chapter so you just skim over it and assume it's bad. All of what they were talking about was relevant and properly paced to expand the world and also advance the short-term plot. I think this arc has done a great job of actually giving us meaningful story and exploring the world that has been set up so far.

 

[criver]

@Randall1337 If you believe this is fine, then you simply need to read more and better books. My issue is not that it's a lot of text, but rather that it is a poorly executed info dump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposition_(narrative)#In_fiction

 

[Randall1337]

@criver And I asked what about it was poorly executed, but you just keep repeating the same thing.

 

[criver]

@Randall1337 Pretty much everything.
It ranges from blatantly unnecessary (page 3):
"Us seven swords, the greatest military force in Ariadne, have a duty to our people that we must uphold." - No way will an actual character say this if everyone on the table knows it already. This sentence is meant purely for the reader, and just breaks the immersion.
To a history lesson (page 6 and some of the previous pages):
"The Granaga kingdom..." - clearly everyone on the table should know that. Nevertheless, it is included because the reader needs to know this.
To an actual narrator info dump (page 9 onwards):
"Ten years before the collapse..."

On those occasions the characters seem to serve only as a mouthpiece for the author to dump info that was not introduced in a timely manner due to pacing issues/retconning. It's also clear that I am not the only one that thinks this: see the comments. Now contrast the above to something like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrGenUdbeP4
In the latter the characters do not have turn into puppets for the author to introduce details about the story.

 

[Randall1337]

@criver I'm going to have to disagree on all of that.

The readers being reminded of big details is important because of how long ago they were last introduced. Taking a few speech bubbles out of a whole chapter to remind the audience just who the characters they see on the page is much better than having to go back and find the previous chapters the content was in and read it again for the details.

The story is already getting confusing for some people, and having it get more confusing in the name of having people not repeat info they already know isn't worth it in a lot of cases. And I think it was the right decision here.

 

[criver]

@Randall1337

having it get more confusing in the name of having people not repeat info they already know isn't worth it in a lot of cases.

You're missing the point. Repeating or not is not the main issue. The issue is turning your characters into narrative mouthpieces in the most blatant way possible. Suffice to say this is considered very poor writing style.

 

[major_ingram]

I wonder what kind of forces the other cities have that would be strong enough to help the seven swords against barbaros. Maybe one of them has the captive member of the lost eleven that lionheart was talking about a couple arcs back. Would be a shame if we never found out.

 

[Randall1337]

@criver You might be forgetting that a lot of that they're talking about happened 10-20 years ago in their timeline which would conceivably make a few of the seven swords fairly young when certain things happened. They are literally in a strategy meeting, so going over past history with each other especially around sigmund who keeps talking about his age showing isn't all that bad. More power to you if you think its very poor writing though.

 

[criver]

@Randall1337 You should know better than try to make excuses for poor writing.

 

[Randall1337]

@criver Ah yes. Me bringing up valid points and you repeating your last buzzword you brought up. Name a more iconic duo.

Is my prior comment not correct? People forget a lot over a decade or two. Especially when its history that's not involving them or if they were young when it happened. They're key figures for their country and you could say it's their job to know, but this story has been shown to have people with hazy memories throughout.

 

[criver]

@Randall1337 I just don't believe these are valid points. Nor do I think I will convince you, since you seem to really like the manga, to the point where you are ready to overlook its flaws. And there's nothing wrong with that.

 

[backtothesuture]

Can't wait to see the other sacred tools. The two we've seen so far have been pretty OP