Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?
-
@jaquobus True. Given how he normally acts, it's easy to forget when he does something heroic or human.
-
The latest chapters are just soooo good on character building and seeing more of their relationships. Really loving it. Hated kiwa's party volume but loving this one since its just about haru and his party.
-
@paul-nebeling said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
If I had to pick out the author's weakest character, I would say it's Ranta. Compared to the others, he has a cardboard cutout feel to him that the others don't. Heck, Zodiac has better character development than Ranta.
I think this is point-of-view. You aren't seeing Ranta, you're seeing "Haruhiro as he sees Ranta." The few times you see Ranta from his own perspective, it's markedly different from all the times you see him through Haruhiro. Haruhiro doesn't want to see Ranta as anything more than what he thinks he already is, so the audience also doesn't see him as anything more than a series of negative traits encased in a human-shaped package.
I don't think he is ultimately a "good" or "appealing" character either, but I do think there's more complexity to Ranta that we're supposed to infer rather than being told or described outright.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
-
@myskaros said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
@paul-nebeling said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
If I had to pick out the author's weakest character, I would say it's Ranta. Compared to the others, he has a cardboard cutout feel to him that the others don't. Heck, Zodiac has better character development than Ranta.
I think this is point-of-view. You aren't seeing Ranta, you're seeing "Haruhiro as he sees Ranta." The few times you see Ranta from his own perspective, it's markedly different from all the times you see him through Haruhiro.
I still think Ranta lacks sufficient character growth. It seemed like he took one step forward in volume 2, but since it's been like 100 steps back. I would love to know his thought processes sometimes.
Him threatening sexual harrasing towards Shihoru is probably his biggest black mark for readers.
Volume 5(?) Spoiler:
. =[
-
@Terrence Personally, I don't think every character needs growth. Yume hasn't really changed much either. She's still just "airheaded," "clumsy," and "overall unremarkable" in the shape of a party member; Kuzaku also is not really that much different from before.
As I said, I'm not defending Ranta as a likeable character, I'm simply saying that this is the writing style for Grimgar, we mostly see everyone else through the eyes of the narrator, Haruhiro, so we're only privy to changes he notices and can also be led astray by misunderstandings or delusions he has. Whether or not other character experience classic "growth" or character building is either implied or has to be explicitly noticed by Haruhiro for us to catch. Other people can seem like tropes or cardboard cutouts because Haruhiro also boils them down to those attributes when he thinks about them.
-
@myskaros totally have to agree, like always lmao.
I want to mention that we do see some growth on all of them as they have gotten stronger and are only getting stronger but personality wise like you said we don’t see their actual change because we only get Haru’s point of view. Which I don’t mind either. Haru isn’t really a mc that makes me cringe like most mcs. Also growth to any character can be a bad thing in terms of losing them to death. Volume 3 was a good example of that 😢. I had gotten attached to him pretty well but it was gg. -
@hyferzftw said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
@myskaros totally have to agree, like always lmao.
Also growth to any character can be a bad thing in terms of losing them to death.Are you rooting for Haru and the love interests not to confess to each other so they don't perish? The "kiss of death" if you will. xD
-
@paul-nebeling Actually, I would like to disagree with your assement of Ranta. We're all familiar with Ranta's cowardice, and I think it speaks a great deal to both his bravery and his love for his comrades.
A popular description of bravery says that one can only be brave when they understand the implications of their actions, feel the fear of what they're going to do, and act how they feel they must anyways. Back in the siren minesI'm certain he knew how bleak the situation was, yet he acted anyways as if he felt his comrades safety was more important than his own. (which is an ideal that Haru is only adopting now)
On multiple occations, Ranta is shown to "break character" as he tells Haruhiro to go along with his funny man routine. I think Ranta acts the way he does because he feels it lightens up the party's dreary atmosphere and lifts everyone's spirits, as well as creates a common enemy for the party's enmity to prevent infighting ( though this is merely speculation without evidence).
I won't argue that Ranta is a depraved person, but I think it's wrong to call him a cut out character. Ranta is brave and loves the comrades who've accepted him more than he loves himself, and he's not afraid to play the counter part to Haruhiro's timid nature, even though I'm sure he would love nothing more than to be mired in trepidation like Haruhiro so often is. Flawed as he might be, Ranta is a necessary component of Haru's party, and I would argue that he one of the most creatively written characters of the bunch. I mean, if a character can elicit such enmity from the readers, the writer has done a fine job, no? -
Ouch. I got pummeled over Ranta.
I will admit that most of the time we are seeing things from Haru's point of view, so we do tend to miss some things, especially with Ranta.
-
@siphonario I believe you are correct about Ranta making himself unlikable by embracing his role as a Dark Knight. But if my memory is correct, that revelation was made while they were still in Alterna, several volumes ago.
-
@siphonario said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
his comrades safety was more important than his own. (which is an ideal that Haru is only adopting now)
I have to disagree with you here. I'm almost certain that this is not an ideal that Haruhiro is adopting. Especially with the latest part's conversation between Haruhiro and Shihoru, it's becoming clear that he puts their lives above his own because of a severe lack of self-esteem. He is basically convincing himself that, as the party leader, his only value is to shoulder all the risk and its okay for him to sacrifice himself if it helps the team. He has shown this behaviour since at least the fight against Death Spots, and it has become so obvious that Merry and Shihoru have scolded him for it.
-
@terrence well it’s not like that tbh lol, I remember watching an anime way back like 2011 or 2012 where the mc and my ship weren’t going to end up together so I told myself well hope the mc dies that would make it a ironic but good ending and it happened. A kiss of death as you say it can be a good thing but depends who kisses the person XD . But as for Haru, I want him and Mary to become official 🚢. Even if one of them dies which would make me extremely sad.
-
@jaquobus yup, and that’s what makes him a good leader imo. He rather die then have his comrades die. Any good leader would prioritize that unless he/she knew that without oneself they might all perish.
-
Shihoru is growing, maybe more than the others. She's showing new insight and doing things that she might not have done in the past, like sitting down and encouraging Haru. I'm thinking she'll give Merry the push towards Haru because he needs someone to lean on occasionally.
-
@hyferzftw said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
yup, and that’s what makes him a good leader imo. He rather die then have his comrades die. Any good leader would prioritize that unless he/she knew that without oneself they might all perish.
I would not quite agree that he is a good leader. He should be focusing on how to keep everyone alive, but he too quickly devolves to "how do I sacrifice myself to keep everyone else alive?" Since his own evaluation of himself is so low, and his view of everyone else is so high, he constantly thinks that everyone would be better off, or at least fine, without him; that's dangerous since he's less likely to put his party members at a risk that they can overcome in order to get them all through, but more likely to be reckless himself, beyond what he can achieve, in order to save everyone else at the cost of himself. It's a form of tunnel vision.
I don't think he's a bad leader either, necessarily, but he's definitely got a lot of work to do.
Whoever said nothing's impossible never tried slamming a revolving door.
-
@myskaros Shihoru has figured that out about Haru and sort of called him on it. I think Merry has too, although she hasn't called him on it to the extent Shihoru has. (If she did, it might turn into a confession.)
-
@paul-nebeling said in Grimgar - Shipping or World Dynamics?:
@myskaros Shihoru has figured that out about Haru and sort of called him on it. I think Merry has too, although she hasn't called him on it to the extent Shihoru has. (If she did, it might turn into a confession.)
I caught that too, but we'll see if he actually does anything about it. Knowing your weaknesses and overcoming them are very different ;)
