Witch Craft Works - Vol. 15 Ch. 91 - Takamiya-kun VS. Kayou, Part 5

[WillLi]

@comeonnow0 You really are an absolute moron. You are now comparing the characters to refigerators and hammers. So you're saying the Honoka is a tool? Good job, you have proven the point everyone is talking about. His personality isn't needed, just his functions, meaning his -role- is needed. As long as someone fills it we're good.

You say you could dispute my points...but you didn't. Then you're actually dumb enough to say that agency has very little to deal with if a character is useless...you know nothing about literary analysis if you think that. Agency is one of the most important factors in determining if a character is 'useless'.

Your motivational speaker comment again, you obviously have some horrible reading comprehension because I didn't say motivational speakers 'did nothing' I explicitly said "They are replaceable" As long as -something- motivates you, the result is the same. But when it comes down to who the credt goes to for the decisions you make and actions you take, they are your own, not the person who motivated you. Or is WWII Germany only Hitler's fault an no one else's?

And my police officer example isn't broken, because Kageri's feelings belong to her, not Honoka. Yes she is obessed with Honoka, but that is -her- choice to behave that way. Honoka could be a total ass hat jerk, but as long as he does nothing bad, and Kagari is still obsessed with him, nothing changes. Just because "something happened to Honoka" that was important, doesn't actually mean that Honoka was required for it to happen. The reason Kagari is obsessed with Honoka is because he saved her, not because he's 'innocent'. Or at least that's all we have that is -confirmed-. You can not prove it is specifically because of his innocence, which means you also can not say that if Honoka was a jerk but still saved her that she wouldn't act pretty much the same towards him. Which means "Honoka" isn't important, but rather someone saving her is. And before you go on and say "Well that's a decision he made that's agency" that was 'before' the story, so it doesn't really count towards whether or not he's showing agency in the story.

Also even if the Criminal stopped specifically because the police was there, that doesn't give the police officer agency in stopping the crime. It would only be if the officer specifically waited there with the though of "A lot of crime happens here, so if I sit here it might go down" Agency is consciously and intentionally making a decision towards something. It doesn't have to turn out the way you expect, but you have to knowingly make a decision. Otherwise it's not agency, it's coincidence. If a cat runs across the street cause it smelled something tasty on you and gets hit by a car, you didn't kill the cat, coincidence killed the cat. If you see a cat on the other side of a busy street and call the cat over to you, and it gets hit, then you killed the cat.

Agency is about -your own- decisions and choice. So even in my police example, what the criminal thinks has NOTHING to do with the police officer's agency. And what Kagari thinks has nothing to do with Honoka's agency.

 

[comeonnow0]

@WillLi Wow, you're just showing your incompetence. I make a comparison to refrigerators and hammers. According to your broken logic, that must mean that Honoka is a tool too! Nah, it's not like there are actual similarities between humans and tools about USEFULNESS that can be explained by making the comparison. It's not like I actually gave explanations. Herp derp, you see tools, so therefore, it must be tools. That's the kind of logic that you use.

And again, I specifically said that it is his PERSONALITY that shows his usefulness. His PERSONALITY is what DOES things, is what MOTIVATES people in the story. But nope, you just ignore that to push your broken point.

And again, you failed to read what else I said about motivational speakers. Look at the OTHER parts that I wrote. Guess what the real world looks like? Not anything motivates people. Only SOME things motivate people. Only CERTAIN things motivate people. You have literally put the cart before the horse. If you assume that you have something that can fulfill the same purpose, then no duh, it's replaceable. That's not what we're talking about. The issue is whether there even is anything that could fulfill the same purpose in the first place.

Wow, your Hitler and World War II example was massively stupid. Are you saying that if one person motivates other people, then NO ONE ELSE has any action or agency? This is hilarious from the idiot who claimed to know what agency is. Have you never heard of shared responsibility? Nah. Kagari is the ONLY person who acts in this story. Ignore literally everyone else here. Ignore her mother. Ignore her adoptive mother. Ignore everyone else. Only one person had any agency in this story, and it's so totally Kagari. No one has any additional responsibility. That's your dumb logic.

Herp derp, Kagari's feelings belong to her, herp derp. They're unaffected by literally the person who saved her and who continues to motivate her right now. And again, you're missing a major issue. He CONTINUES to motivate her. It was not just a one and done past event. His actions CONTINUE to give her a reason to like him. He CONTINUES to show her that he has the same kind of personality as back then.

Yeah, no on your criminal and police officer example. Again, I could go into how you're wrong. I could go into how that is not how people actually talk about agency. I could go into how Takamiya does act with agency to do certain things. NONE of that is relevant. You're again conflating agency with usefulness/uselessness. I'm sorry. Since when were agency and utility the same thing? Literally no justification here.

That's a prevailing thread through what you've written. In fact, I can do this. For the sake of argument, I'll say sure, Takamiya has zero agency. He is worse than a helpless baby. He is a rock that sits there, waiting to be acted upon by the outside world. Guess what? You're still wrong. He is a rock with specific characteristics. He is a rock with particular features that make him USEFUL to moving the story forward that could not be replaced because agency is completely different from usefulness. I could say that all of your points on agency are completely right, but you're still completely wrong about him being useless.

And for what it's worth, I don't actually believe that has no agency. I'm just showing how you have distracted from the actual original issue. You even said what the original issue was, but apparently, we're going down this irrelevant agency issue. And I'll head off the other part of what you've said by just repeating myself. I say this again. If a character can only be replaced by an exact copy of that character, then they are not replaceable. Takamiya could only be replaced by an exact clone of Takamiya. He is not replaceable.

 

[WillLi]

@comeonnow0 See this is where you get dumb. I ignored your point about 'personality' because I already addressed that, before you weven made the point in my other post. His personality doesn't actually matter. Because we're not talking about "Does Honoka do anything" we're talking about "Is Honoka useful to the -story-" so that means the only part of his personality that matters for this discussion is how his personality effects him making decisions that effect the story. So before that, there needs to be decisions he's made that effect the story.

Your stuff about motivational speakrs is still wrong, because you're running on a fallacy. Yes not everything will motivate someone, but that doesn't mean the thing that did motivate them is not replaceable. This isn't math where the is only 1 answer. There are almost always multiple answers, it's just a matter of which one you arrived to first. So in the case of motivational speakers, there were likely many other's that could've motivated the person, they just came across that speaker first. It's also likely that they could've been motivated by things that weren't motivational speakers at all, they just didn't encounter it. However at the end of the day, -how- they got motivated doesn't matter, it's what they were motivated to do, and if they did it that mater. People like to treat things as 'fate' or a special encounter, but that's generally not true, it's just the first thing that succeeded that you encountered.

Also your analysis of my Hitler comparison makes you the idiot here. I firstly never said Kagari was the only person who acts or who has agency. In fact actually her mother has -more- agency than her. So do the bad guys. Kagari has plenty, but short of Honoka, she actually is one of the people with the least agency. But my whole point is that motivation does not remove agency you idiot. Meaning, Honoka 'motivating' someone to make a decision that is story related does not give Honoka that credit. Yes Honoka motivated them, but for purposes of the -story- it doesn't matter that Kagari was motivated by Honoka, it matters that -something- motivated Kagari to make the decision that progressed the story. As long as that happens it doesn't matter how. That's the whole point. Honoka is not useless to Kagari, but he's useless to the -story- those are two different things.

And again you say "I could go into" but yet you don't, and the reason is obvious it's because you're wrong. Espcially about "That's not how people talk about agency". And I'm not conflating the two terms, Agency and usefulness are two very separate things. But WE're already established that Honoka doesn't make any 'combat' effectiveness in the plot. It's all mostly on his social worth, however if we're examining how useful he is socially, then we have to examine is he moving the plot or is the plot moving him, which gets into agency.

Now your thing about the rock, that's just it, he doesn't have specific traits that make him useful in relation to the -story-. Because he only gets acted upon by the story. The story just needs a rock, and he happened to be it. Like I mentioned in my post, all it needs is a person who doesn't do bad things (they don't even have to actually be that good of a person) who saves Kagari and contracts with Evermillion, as long as those things happen, all major story points will happen, and even most of the small points will happen. The only things that wont happen will be some fluff. Yes individual people's interactions with him would change, but those interactions are not the plot, so they're irrelevant to whether or not this has an impact on the story/plot.

There is no distraction from the original issue, the problem is just that you don't actually know anything about literary analysis and have confused "doing anything" with "Being useful to the story", or are you so dense as to believe people saying "He's useless" mean that he literally does absolutely nothing to impact anything in the world what so ever? No, it's obvious "He's useless" is referring to his usefulness to the plot and story as a specific character, and not as a role filler. Otherwise he'd automatically be the most useful character ever, more useful than Goku is to dragonball, because the story can't happen without someone contracting with Evermillion, and Honoka is the only one in the story that is like that. But again, that is a narrative -role- and as long as it's filled, things go on, even if it's not Honoka.

 

[comeonnow0]

@WillLi I write my posts like that because I write from a phone, and it is difficult to scroll back up through your idiocy and back down to typing my comment. That's why I don't go in depth on irrelevant things that I specifically label as irrelevant.

You say we are talking about whether he is useful to the story. Yes, I agree. Then you say "there needs to be decisions he's made that effect the story". WRONG. Again, you are conflating agency with usefulness.

"Honoka is not useless to Kagari, but he's useless to the -story- those are two different things" How ironic. You conflate agency and utility, but here, you try to separate out two very interconnected things. Yeah, we both agree that Honoka is useful to Kagari. Then you act like that has no impact on the story. That is beyond stupid. She acts BECAUSE of him, because of his personality, because of his continuing personality. Without his specific character, she would not act upon THE STORY in the same way. Honoka, through his personality and interactions with her, deeply CONTINUE to influence Kagari in a way that actively shapes the story. Denying that is just being stupid. You keep saying the only thing that matters is that - something- motivates Kagari. Are you actually idiotic? What that something is deeply affects HOW Kagari is motivated. The particularities of the - something- influence HOW things happen. One motivational speaker ould influence a listener in a completely different way from another speaker. That matters because the effects are different. It's nonsense to ignore the actual differences that it makes.

"if we're examining how useful he is socially, then we have to examine is he moving the plot or is the plot moving him, which gets into agency" We see that he moves the plot because he moves other people who also move the plot. That should be obvious, but you keep denying it. And again, you are still conflating agency and usefulness. If we're examing how useful he is socially, then we have to examine is he moving the plot. FULL STOP. The question. If whether the plot is moving him IS A COMPLETELY SEPARATE QUESTION. Guess what? Characters can change and be affected by the story. They are not indomitable forces that never change. They can change. They can be acted upon and forced into situations. Guess what? That does NOT mean that they do not ALSO affect the plot themselves. They can BOTH act and be acted upon. It's not one or the other.

"The story just needs a rock, and he happened to be it." And I say again because I disagree. It needs a PARTICULAR kind of rock. You say that it doesn't need that pure of a person? Look back at how malicious Evermillion used to be. Look at how Evermillion can easily become malicious again. Look at how she willingly helped Takamiya because he impressed her with his selflessness.

I'm even willing to meet you halfway and say that your point here is reasonable.I obviously disagree, but it's a difference of opinion here. You say the story doesn't require super specific personality traits of Takamiya while I say it does. That's just a difference of opinion that we might not be able to ever reach agreement on, but both positions could be reasonable.

The rest of your post is bullshit because you're doing what you blame me of. Agency is not the issue. You are confusing agency with utility. Your comparison to Goku is so stupid that I can use your logic to show it. Goku is also useless according to what you said. He's just this mindless being acted upon by the outside world. His "choices" that he makes? Pointless. Any other character could fulfill the same situation and do the same things. In fact, let's look at your specific statement. His personality is totally like so many shounen and seinen characters. Choice to train? Choice to fight Freeza or Cell or Buu? All choices that did not impact the story.

You even admit that the "fluff" would be different without Takamiya. What the hell kind of arbitrary distinction between "plot" and "fluff" are you making here? Herp derp, this story is just about the witches fighting and has nothing to do with the interactions and relationships between the characters. Romance is not "plot". Friendship is not "plot". Only what I care about is plot.

One thing I keep noticing is that you keep going all or nothing, black or white. You are literally the one who said he is USELESS. Totally without use. Replaceable by another character. I am not saying he is the only useful character. I am saying he is clearly useful to the story because of his particular personality that motivated others to do SPECIFIC actions. Your response? It's ONLY those other characters who are useful at all. Ignore that without Takamiya and his particularities, the story would take a different shape. You keep denying literally the fundamental basis of the story.

 

[WillLi]

@comeonnow0 I'm not even going to read your entire post. If you can't be bothered to remember what I actually wrote, and if you're dumb enough to think that agency isn't related to being a useful character. But especially if the criteria for what is and isn't irreverent is -you- deciding it. There's no way to convince you because you're one of those people who doesn't actually accept the reality of a situation and instead decides the outcome first and then comes up with things to support it. Come back when you can one, actually disprove anything I said, and two, can actually understand literary analysis.

 

[comeonnow0]

@WillLi Not even reading my post but acting like what you said even responds to what I wrote.

I'm deciding what's irrelevant and what's not? Huh. Sounds an awful lot like how you're the one deciding what is plot and what is fluff.

 

[WillLi]

@WillLi Not even reading my post but acting like what you said even responds to what I wrote.

I'm deciding what's irrelevant and what's not? Huh. Sounds an awful lot like how you're the one deciding what is plot and what is fluff.

@comeonnow0 Quoting it so you can't edit it.

This is how dumb you are. I said I'm not even going to read your entire post. But you are actually actually so dense, that you can write that I am "acting like what I said responds to what you wrote" No you nimrod, I'm straight up saying I didn't read your whole post this time because you haven't been bothering to actually read mine. Up until now I have literally addressed everything you have said in one post or another either directly or indirectly. If you can't be bothered to make sure I didn't already comment on it that's on you not me.

Don't talk to me until you go back and actually read all of my post and double check to make sure I didn't say it. Because if it is something I already touched on, I will report you for harassment, because that is what it is when you badger someone with the same question over and over after they answer it.

 

[comeonnow0]

@WillLi And here comes the baseless accusations because you're backed into a corner. I have read all of your comments. Some of it I decided I didn't need to address directly. In some cases, I responded indirectly. In some places, I decided what you said is irrelevant. I said earlier that I type from a phone and it's difficult to go back and forth between your idiocy and writing a response. I'm not going to make it more difficult on myself to show how stupid you are.

And you missed what I wrote. Yeah, no duh you admitted to not reading my entire post. The problem is that you STILL act like what you said responds to it. The fact that you're so dismissive and so conceited shows that you believe you don't need to care about what I wrote.

You'll report me for harassment because I'm resounding with logic and reason to why I disagree? Yeah, okay. That really shows how reasonable you are.

 

[WillLi]

@comeonnow0 Explain to me how me saying I didn't read your post is me acting like I am responding to it. Or yes, I will report you. I'll make it easy for you and actually quote my own post.

I'm not even going to read your entire post. If you can't be bothered to remember what I actually wrote, and if you're dumb enough to think that agency isn't related to being a useful character. But especially if the criteria for what is and isn't irreverent is -you- deciding it. There's no way to convince you because you're one of those people who doesn't actually accept the reality of a situation and instead decides the outcome first and then comes up with things to support it. Come back when you can one, actually disprove anything I said, and two, can actually understand literary analysis.

That is my entire post. Point out where I'm acting like I'm responding to your entire post in your next post or I am reporting you for harassment. So either put up or shut up, time to prove you're above room temperature.

 

[comeonnow0]

@WillLi It's your choice if you want to report me. I stand by what I said and do not believe that what I wrote was actionable for "harassment". I stand by what I said and how I believe that that would just show how reasonable (or not reasonable) you are.

I'll quote my own post.

Yeah, no duh you admitted to not reading my entire post. The problem is that you STILL act like what you said responds to it. The fact that you're so dismissive and so conceited shows that you believe you don't need to care about what I wrote.

We both agree that you did not read my entire post. That's obvious. The question is why. I very clearly said that it's because "you're so dismissive and so conceited..that you believe you don't need to care about what I wrote." What else is there to say? I'm just quoting from my previous post.

 

[Zephyrus]

@WillLi @comeonnow0
I swear to god, internet slap fights are going to be why I murder someone.

Block each other or take it to DMs. Reporting this shit is childish and a waste of the valuable time of any moderator that has to deal with it. If I see either one of you abusing the report system again, you'll lose the ability to make reports for six months.

 

[xXx_EpicProGamerVsSociety_xXx]

@WillLi @comeonnow0 TL;DR but what I understand that both of you are childish and annoying and you are lucky that the mod was kind with you because in my opinion anyone who false report should get banned

 

[comeonnow0]

@xXx_EpicProGamerVsSociety_xXx Okay. It has also been one month since then.

 

[WillLi]

@xXx_EpicProGamerVsSociety_xXx first off that's not even how you use TL;DR, second necroing topics is a punishable offense in a lot of forums, so look in the mirror dub.

 

[Zinji]

Hmm. MC is not useless. First of all, he and all workshops couldn’t even use magic that is why he couldn’t fight back. And how do we know that? Didn’t chairwoman ask that tower witch gave a ride cuz during that time, sanctuary tree hadn’t restored yet. So stop complaining about MC is being useless, he didn’t even learn how to fight in the first tho.