When an Injury Makes or Breaks a Story
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 มิ.ย. 2024
- A video essay about the portrayal of fictional injuries in various forms of media.
Social Media
● Twitter: / perseusgrim
● Twitch: / perseusgrim
● Livestream Highlights: @PerseusGrimLIVE
0:00 - Intro
3:22 - Pointless Sadism: The Theory
4:58 - Pointless Sadism: The Example
10:17 - Internal Logic? Never Heard of it.
17:28 - Wounds of the Flesh and Soul
20:40 - Wounds of the Soul: Ellie's Pain
24:41 - Wounds of the Soul: Joel's Healing
28:05 - Wounds of the Soul: The New Normal
32:15 - The Purpose of the Pointless
37:06 - Conclusion
42:02 - Outro
Video Footage Used: Blue Eye Samurai, The Last of Us Part I, The Last of Us (Show, Season 1), Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Die Hard, Mony Python and the Holy Grail, John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, Rob Roy, Scarface, Breaking Bad, Pulp Fiction, Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope, Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back, Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker, Home Alone 2: Lost in New York, James Bond: Casino Royale, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, Injustice 2, League of Legends (Tyler1), Gang Beasts (Sleep Deprived), DOOM (2016), The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Old School RuneScape, “Can 4 Guys Beat 1 Climbing Champion?”, “HIGHLIGHTS | KSI vs. Logan Paul 2”, pexels.com, videezy.com, vecteezy.com.
Images Used: Wikimedia Commons, unsplash.com
Music Used: Prey (2017), League of Legends, Ghost of Tsushima, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, DOOM, @Shishaku
Sound Effects Used: mixkit.co, pixabay.com - บันเทิง
![แฟนแนวใด๋ - ยูริ โตเกียวมิวสิค [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4_XVMuhhbsU/mqdefault.jpg)
Now I understand the true message of Blue Eye Samurai: being a mixed kid makes you immortal
Yeap😅
The truth was right before us this whole time!
I'm mixed and can confirm this is true
@@SomasAcademy Feels good to know that I have immortal people watching my content!
I'm mixed as well, and my mortality has yet to be proven
Real quick nitpick: after storming the castle and returning to her masters home she doesn’t have a few days to recover, but probably a few months since the seasons change significantly between when she arrives and when she leaves.
Nice catch, that is absolutely possible. I made the assumption because Abijah Fowler and Heiji Shindo talk about their trip which is only a few days long, but you are right that the weather changes quite a bit, so that might indicate a longer passage of time than I thought.
@@PerseusGrim i also wanted to mention Mizu doesn't faint before her fight with Tigen due to the cut. that's part of it but as you explore its literally not that deep. Mizu also fell from a cliff and has a concussion since the fall knocked her out cold and its the water on her face that jolts her awake.
i think Mizu is framed as this, not invincible, but wholly unstoppable force, she bleeds, she can die, but she will not stop till the 4 white men, her would be fathers are wiped from the face of the earth. i think the story does a pretty good job of demonstrating that, although i think increased mobility issues after being stabbed through the foot horizontally would be nice to show she IS injured and there are consequences for that, i think Mizu just doesn't care if she dies on her quest. Hense why she agrees to fight tigen while on the brink of death.
@@Dr_Procrastinatorthe interesting makes less sense but something else is the fact that she's probably got some naughty high pain tolerance because she's fighting a lot of people and getting injured all the time that was shortly after she does that run and then stuff she immediately gets into a fight so she's pumping through adrenaline which makes her ignore it and then it continues even further and she continues on this constant fighting Streak and then she's getting pumped up with drugs and then she's getting hit with adrenaline and then she's getting hit with both so she just absolutely pumped up with s*** that is just making her ignore everything and just perform at maximum capabilities like people who are on adrenaline can lift f****** cars so her pumped up with adrenaline and some drugs makes climbing up the side of a tower carrying tengen is 100% possible
@@PerseusGrimI see it as their actual trip only took a few days but he was probably still in the tower for a few months because he need enough time for all of his weapons to get sent in in all of their installments which would have taken several months because the number that he brought he brought like probably a couple thousand so that definitely took a few months even if a few shipment showed up already by the point that he had a fight with Mizu he was still waiting on more so the actual trip itself might have only taken a few days but the entire setup for the rest of it probably took a couple of months
Yup! And we get that montage of Heiji Shindo and Abijah Fowler fucking their way through a long, leisurely trip, so it certainly took weeks--if not months. Plus, the show begins in winter, but Akemi's wedding is in the "Spring", because it's "auspicious."
One fun example of a bad injury in a story that springs to my mind is from Assassin's Creed: Rogue, where the main character is shot in the back, falls off a cliff, and is then saved and taken to an older couple's house to be nursed back to health. We cut forward to see him some time later, and he's in the process of recovering - he's not on the verge of death, but he's still clutching his side and limping heavily, clearly in pain with every movement. So, it starts out pretty reasonable, he got hurt badly and is taking time to recover. Then some gangsters attack the people who have been caring for him, and he's suddenly fit enough to beat them unconscious - but okay, it was a desperate situation, maybe the adrenaline helped him push through the pain for a little bit, fair enough... and then he gets some new clothes and is immediately able to start doing parkour as if he wasn't limping and holding his side minutes earlier lmao
Haha, that sounds very on brand for the topic. It seems like most of the time, characters just need a little nudge to overcome their injuries and then they act as if they were never even hurt to begin with.
@@PerseusGrim Kinda reminds me of Watson from BBC Sherlock Holmes. He forgets his walking cane and suddenly realizes he just doesn't need it.
@@starbirds007 He didn't though, that was a psychosomatic issue, not an actual injury-related issue. It's DUMB, but it does have the appropriate context to make it work.
Oooh, you're one of those they have to do essays on because you don't understand video games are video games.
@@nachgeben Que?
About the star wars bit:
Obi chose to die. Him disappearing was most probably meant to be taken as a trick of the force.
Vader's shoulder is armored. When there were more sith and jedi, Vader was usually sent to kill them, so he wears armor to protect(even slightly) against light sabers. You could also make an argument that Luke wasn't properly using the saber so it didn't go through fully(i.e he pulled the saber back prematurely instead of following through with the strike.)
Luke's hand was completely unprotected. No explanation needed.
Thanks for commenting exactly what I was just about to man, I appreciate it
Yep. Many flaws in all the star wars movies. This ain't one of them, if anything these scenes (when shown in their actual entirety) are a good example of how to explain things audiovsiaully without words.
Obi-Wan has a whole narrative cue that he is about to do something (he sees the rest of his team coming to board the falcon, he knows they did what they came to do and that they'll scape now). Then the sound track quickly shifts into a force theme with obi-wan smirking then doing something odd (closing his eyes in concentration and taking a completely defenseless position), clearly signally he is about to do some force shenanigans. Then he immediately follows that by vanishing, leaving a visibly confused vader behind (it is visible from hsi body language). The scene perfectly narrates that what was happening was Obi-Wan's doing and the extraordinary enable through the force, all without saying a word of exposition about it.
Vader's shoulder armor has the same sparks and smoke visual effects we see on other things light sabers can't cut well or at all in the movie, such as the walls just a few seconds earlier in that scene/clip. Anyone paying attention can recognize "oh, his shoulder sparks and smokes just like all the other things the light saber just kinda bruises the surface". And it is the same Vader who in an earlier scene in the movie stopped a few blaster shots ("laser" blades, "laser" shots) with the armor in his hand, which also did a similar sparks and smoke effect. Clear communication and consistent communication that the light based technologies don't go through everything equally, and Vader armor is one of such though to go through things, and all without one word of spoon fed exposition, you just have to watch the movie.
I think Mizu's (or BES's in general) deal is that she's, at least metaphorically, an Onryo, and the enemies she faces are mythological creatures of a similar caliber. Think of it as you would John Wick, for example. The point isn't shock value, or I don't think so. It's to show the fact that she's so driven that not even deathly injuries can stop her. As you yourself said it, she's a force of nature.
That being said, I think this is a great video! Between this and the previous one, I'm already looking forward to what you put out next.
Good points! I definitely agree about the metaphorical side of things, and as I said in the video, I did really like the show, but sometimes I feel like it earns a bit of an eye-roll. But yeah, it's definitely a bit of a "woman too angry to die" situation. Also, I'm glad to hear that you've enjoyed both my videos so far!
Yeah, here I think it wasn't bad writing but rather a choice between more characterization or realism, and BES chose characterization
first of all, i haven't watched BES, i just knew about the show now and i'm planning to watch it, so i'd just like to talk about this within the scenes that are shown by perseus grim. but correct me if i get anything wrong anyway.
i think it would be more compelling if we actually do see the effects of those injuries, but despite them, she still pressed forward.
If a character's arm was cutoff and knowing their chance of survival has been drastically reduced, yet they still choose to keep fighting is perseverance. but, if they lost their arm, then regained them the next episode or suddenly the bad guys are incapable of taking down a one armed guy that they could take down with both arms or the injury didn't even faze them, then it's not perseverance, that's just called plot armor.
if the character doesn't even consider it as something important, then the viewer would think that way as well. the "too angry to die" premise kind of only works if we see them dying / struggling as direct result of those injuries, but if they don't struggle from them, then did those injuries really happened? the injuries could literally be swapped with anything since the outcomes wouldn't change.
it seems BES didn't really focus on the characterization part, as the fight scenes shown are still tied down by realism. what i mean is that because they didn't go 100%, it kind of just became a stale mix of it; it's not as beautifully stylized like samurai jack, not as grounded and impactful as hara kiri, and not as flashy / entertaining as kill la kill.
@@enraikow6109 I understand where you're coming from, but I don't think that'd actually benefit the narrative that much. In fact, it could only slow it. It's hard to explain without spoiling it, (and I do think you should go watch the show even having seen this video).
And for that last part: BES can ABSOLUTELY be as beautiful as Samurai Jack and as entertaining as Kill la Kill (Nothing can ever be as flashy as KLK tho). Haven't seen Hara Kiri tho.
@@PerseusGrim Bride from Kill Bill be like:
I agree that some suspension of disbelief about how an injury *would* affect a character is acceptable; but when it's taken too far, I find it a distracting factor that takes away from the story.
I fully agree. It's hard to expect every writer to have knowledge equivalent of someone with a medical degree, but as long as you don't stray too far from common sense when writing injuries it should be alright.
I never thought too much about characters jumping through glass windows until a glass door shattered in my hands one day (it was tempered glass and not super dangerous, just some small cuts). Now every time I see a character diving almost headfirst through a window, I can't help but wince a little bit.
It certainly doesn't seem very bad in movies or shows, but I can imagine that the reality of it wouldn't be very pleasant. Either way, great example!
It's not pleasant but you can ignore how uncomfortable it is @@PerseusGrim
love the part in teh venture brothers where rusty jumps through a window as a stunt and then is immediately sent to the hospital for the rest of the episode
Numerous new TH-camr's will make one hit video and then poof into irrelevancy and obscurity. I'm here to make sure this doesn't happen!
Happy to have you along for the ride!
I like him. But, c'mon.... Get used to it, friend.
What the fuck are YOU going to do?
This must be something that’s been bugging me subconsciously too. The main cast in my comic has two characters with enhanced healing factors, two doctors, and the rest at least know basic first aid. I’ve been very explicit with how characters’ injuries effect their fighting ability, and they take sterilizing and securing injuries asap seriously.
I think working in a field where I use *extremely* sharp knives, chisels, and other assorted blades every day has made me very aware of how little it takes to put someone out of commission (I once chopped the end of my finger with a chisel and couldn’t use that entire hand properly for months while it healed :D).
Anyway, wonderful video! I’ll make sure to stick around for whatever else you analyze, as you’ve been bringing up some very fascinating points that I hadn’t consciously considered before!
It's surprising how little it takes to knock people out of commission, even with small injuries. Even without a blade or other tool, just using enough physical exertion can make you sore for days. Let alone actual injuries, those can easily take months to return to normal even if small.
I'm glad I could help drag those thoughts from your subconsciousness so they could be fully articulated, and thank you for the kind words! I hope you didn't lose too much of your finger in that accident and I hope you've stayed more careful around those sharp blades since then, but yeah, it doesn't take much at all for an injury to prevent you from going about your day-to-day like usual. When I started bouldering, I noticed how losing just a tiny amount of skin on a finger would completely distract me and prevent me from grabbing the holds like I was supposed to, so even just a small scrape can be painful or annoying enough to inhibit normal actions.
@@PerseusGrim Oh, yes, I’m much more careful now. Work gloves are a beautiful thing that shouldn’t be underestimated haha.
I’ll continue giving you kind words as you bring up fascinating points in the future, and I wish you luck in the getting the algorithm gods back on your side. I hope these comments boost engagement so other people can have their own “aha!”, moments.
Don't you _love_ it when characters cut their palms diagonally with a knife every time a ritual demands some blood? After all, it's just a 5cm/2in gash in the middle of the hand. Pfft. As if _that_ would ever interfere with day to day activities or fighting, right? 🙄
Blue eye samurai was great. It also simultaneously had my suspension of disbelief fighting for its life every episode.
That's pretty much exactly how I felt about it too.
You seriously liked it? I found the dialogues and dubbing terrible and couldn't watch to the third episode. Does it get better later on?
@@qc6265 Yes, it does!
And as for the voices, those threw me off too, but there are a variety of dubs to choose from, so you could always try another version.
@@qc6265 It's not dubbed. The original language is English, unless you're talking about another language's dub of the show.
@@benjaminwilson2945 you would be surprised to know every animation needs a dub even original ones
I think "pointless" injuries are a great tool for setting a tone and establishing the characters place in the world.
SOMEWHAT SPOILERS FOR "BERSERSK" ANIME & MANGA
WAS
For example we can take Guts vs 100 soldiers scene from Berserk: he is a freaking badass and comes on top and his injuries from that fight don't even add much to the story. But this shows that no matter what ungodly powerful warrior you are, you are still vulnerable. And further in the story when he faces a real threat it payoffs
It can absolutely work if it's written well! I'm not all that familiar with Berserk, but I came across the scene you mentioned while I was doing research for my video. I guess it's almost necessary to let a character get at least a little hurt if they're fighting off a small army all on their lonesome.
I’ll be honest I think berserk is a bad example here, Berserk is very much like blue eye samurai here in that it feels like it’s a split 50/50 chance if an irl debilitating injury is gonna be that or if it’s just gonna be shrugged off
It helps a lot that in the 100 men fight you can see his injuries steadily slowing him down - but we also get to see how his ferocity and the sheer amount of death he's causing is shaking the morale of the group. We get the satisfaction of seeing him GRIT through the injuries and come out on top thanks to his willpower, while also feeling like the injuries are consequential (in the short term, of course).
@@ASmartNameForMe bro got stitched up and had to not be in the front lines for a bit after that 100 man fight. Also we see him debilitate in health after consecutive fights on the later arcs, (the Fairy dust probably helped on some of the healing to fighting condition, but Guts mostly fights on a deficit)
Spoilers for Malazan Book of the Fallen!
I love how one of the characters gets hurt and his wound doesn't heal completely. The medic, who has access to magical healing then repeatedly urges the guy to have the wound fixed, but he constantly declines, because there are others who need healing and he doesn't have time to be out of the action. Two books later, the already strained bone snaps and he dies in a fight making it a very powerful moment.
Haven't gotten around to reading Malazan yet, but that sounds like some good storytelling. Sacrificing your own access to magical healing does make a lot of sense if it is a limited resource and others are in more urgent need of it.
Man this feels cathartic to watch. I honestly can’t agree more. So often I watch or read something and it’ll establish that injuries aren’t taken seriously, but then the mc will be taken out by something they’ve shrugged off 100 times because the plot demands, or the other way around. It just feels like I can see the authors pen moving in the frame to get what it wants and whenever I bring this up people are always really dismissive of it, but dammit injuries can do so much for a story.
My favourite example is from The Road, a 2006 book and 2009 movie by Cormac McCarthy. Slight spoilers ahead: the road is about a father and son travelling a post apocalyptic USA (and not the fun kind) as the father becomes more and more bitter and paranoid as the story goes on. Towards the end of the movie, a gang try and kill the pair and the father gets hit in the shin with an arrow. Most series would have the mc pull it out and limp for a bit and move on like he’s wolverine, but instead the road uses the wound to increase the desperation and bitterness felt from that point on. The father CANT heal the wound because they have no supplies, and the injury brings them both to the brink and the story instead of just saying “ look how cool the protagonist is they can shrug off arrows” or something equally shallow it uses it to brilliant effect.
Glad to give some catharsis to a like-minded soul! I haven't read the book or seen the movie that you mention, but it sounds like that is a pretty good example of how to make an injury impactful. Besides, post-apocalyptic settings feel like the perfect fit for a small wound to become a big deal, specifically because of the scarcity of medical supplies.
People that shrug off those kinds of complaints watch shows to not think about anything. Brain dead entertainment for them. If you're going to have unrealistic things, at least keep it consistent enough so that it makes sense! People that aren't bothered by illogic like characters being unhindered by being chopped in half that suddenly need a vacation from a split lip and bruise to the abdomen don't use their brains in the first place. Entertainment is just a way for them to waste time not thinking about stuff, when even sleeping would be more productive for them. I'd be infuriated by seeing a main character take on an army and then suddenly beat up by some lone punk and then their sidekick who's not even close to being as competent suddenly becomes immortal to avenge their friend.
Pointless injuries that don't impact my characters as much as they should is a glaring issue that I've noticed myself, and even when starting writing I'd have these characters recovering for at least a month from some stuff. But my whole point has always been to see characters *_push through_* their limitations, not just have none. My only issue is that I would give my characters more injuries than they could reasonably handle, even for the logic and magic my stories have.
This is one of my least favorite battle shonen tropes. Aside from providing the characters some iconic scars, you can be relatively sure that any harm they take (and they do take a lot of punishment in battle shonens) will be repaired in the next chapter.
Just recently, the protagonist of one of Shonen Jump's biggest-running series had both of his arms severed before regaining them in less that three panels.
Kimetsu no Yaiba really surprised me since it was one of the few times when the main cast was injured and it was revealed that they would genuinely be handicapped for the rest of their life.
I sure hope they have a good explanation for how the guy could regrow his arms, because that sounds very extreme, even considering the genre. Either way, it's always a pleasant surprise when writers take injuries seriously and aren't afraid to let them have some real long-term impact on the story and the characters.
@@PerseusGrim I mean considering how much superhuman people in shoenen anime, and how much magic is thrown around, saying people can heal much easier than RL makes perfect sense.
Kind of how modern medicine greatly reduced the chance of dying from injures.
Who did if it was itadori from jjk it makes sense since he has reverse cursed technique and blood manipulation. If it was denji from chainsaw man then like yeah denji has gone trough worse and healed it due to his hybrid biology. I genuinly cant think of shonen character rn that doesnt have an insane healing factor. Or a world with very good healing capabilities
@@herdoman5169 There's also Undead Unlock, with Andy negating death. Honestly one of my favorite examples of doing the trope of super fast healing factor.
The use of DOOM's music is great to emphasise the video game feeling of it all. Once you are past a checkpoint (a scene ends), your short-term mistakes don't matter, almost as if creators count on our attention spans being a minute long. Hell, even "get stabbed to use your opponent's weapon as leverage" seems to become more of a cliche by the day (from John Wick to Dune to Road House).
Great job.
I'm happy to find any excuse to include some gems from the DOOM ost, so when it came time to add music, it felt like the perfect fit. As you said, that episode feels almost like a video game. And the point you make about writers relying on shorter attention spans reminds me of the claim made by Tomasz Bagiński that the logic of the writing in a show doesn't matter anymore because the audience has been damaged by things like TH-cam and Tiktok. Can't say I agree with his take, because it seems more like an excuse for lazy writing, but I guess a lot of people don't seem to mind so maybe he has a point.
Injuries can be an effective tool for worldbuilding, especially if characters are not human. In Blame! most of the characters are either cyborgs or androids. And when any of them suffer non-fatal injuries (a severed limb is a fairly common occurrence) , details are revealed to us about how the characters' bodies work and whether they have access to futuristic regeneration and repair capabilities, while interactions with equipment and machinery that allows augmentation or healing add depth and thoughtfulness to the world.
The movie with the most brutal injuries that have the least impact that I have ever seen was Scream 6.
The movie starts out taking itself quite seriously and the consequences of injuries were for the most part fine and didn't break the immersion, but the final act was so bloody and brutal, yet it never had any consequences for the characters, that it basically switched genre from whodunnit-slasher to supernatural comedy. I don't think I've ever before seen an unintentional grnre swap. To this day I still can't tell if it's by accident or design.
Sounds like quite a roller coaster of a movie and very much sounds like it suits the topic of the video based on what you've told me.
Considering that it was a Scream movie, I think it was 100% intentional.
The whole point of Mizu getting injured and still fighting is to show her sheer dedication and desire to gain vengeance. It does weaken her, as we see her unable to fight Taigen properly after her duel with Blood Soaked Chiaki. Sue can fight after a while of it, but she hurts herself in doing so. Her entire character is her going on a self destructive and bloody vengeance quest, no matter how much it hurts her. As she said herself "I don't want to be happy, only satisfied"
And on top of that, dopamine is one hell of a chemical. I've seen people survive getting limbs blown off and still sprint and fight.
That's fine, but there's a point where I just start laughing with how ridiculous it gets and takes me out of it. Like taking a spike to the foot like that, you're foot is done. For most people it's whatever and they don't think of it too hard. But if you do it starts to kinda fall apart.
The Star Wars example kind of bugged me. Maybe I misunderstanding what you are saying, but their is a fairly clear logic that comes across,
Ben disappeared when stabbed, because he is an enlightened space wizard who understands things better than Vader and Luke, this seemed to be clearly intended to be weird thing which was not normal.
Second Lightsaber blows stuck different things each time, in Vader case he got armor, and we see him barehanded block a blaster bolt, no shock a lightsaber merely hurt him. In Luke case getting a hand cut off is different than being cut in half.
Yea the examples given bugged me too like good point bad execution type thing
It's not as strong of a professional writing comparison but I have something very interesting to share on the topic of injuries.
I run a tabletop roleplay campaign with some of my friends and I use a mostly homemade system for all the rules and such, set in a low-fantasy dark age.
One thing that I decided for a long-term, character driven campaign was that death could be a little boring, so if anyone is defeated in a battle with an enemy they don't lose all their health and die then need to make a new character. Instead they always have a chance of death based on context but they're more likely to survive with a permanent injury. And must carry on that character with the burden of their injuries, also including mental damage as well (too many spells gone awry make you coo-coo).
One of my players, the charismatic captain of the company of mercenaries everyone is a part of began her career leading from the front of the formation, gung-ho and ready to take on any challenge. Until she received a nasty spear wound that permanently collapsed one of her lungs. Leaving her short of breath and weak nearly all the time.
What I so enjoy about that turn of events though is how organically we rolled with the punches and told a story with it, since her injury the captain is basically dependant on riding her horse when marching, and when it is time to fight she found new ways to be of use, she studied tactics, organised sergeants, leaned on her charisma instead of her sword to lead smart, not hard. And the company turned out all the better for it.
I also observe an odd phenomena: Where we have a bunch of NPC's in the company that I always make time to develop and characterise, which means it's almost harder to have to tell them they're too injured to be part of the team, give them a severance package and drop them off in the nearest town than it is to just watch them die on the spot to some beast in a shower of glorious viscera.
This system has also really brought into the spotlight another player who chose to be the company's physician, any time you get saved from death or permanent injury you have the doctor to thank. And because the system in my game is more involved than "I cast +5 HP", usually involving intense surgery and preparation. People have a particular camaraderie, appreciation and protectiveness over him. He's respected like a professional, instead of memed as a babysitter like clerics in DnD.
I also have another player who got really lucky on a dice roll and got away from a wound with just a facial scar that people find dashing, +1 charisma.
So even in a systemically-driven, emergent video game sense, having fail states that don't just set you back to a checkpoint can be very engaging.
You just described exactly what I'm looking for in a TTRPG. Is there any way you could share the rules you use?
@@royrieder2113 Hey, I'm glad someone actually likes the nonsense I come up with, I'd be happy to share. If you don't mind a fair bit of reading.
We all have to play the game digitally, we use a site called roll20 and I use sheets from a system called "FATE" by Evil Hat.
I wouldn't recommend you do the same though, FATE has been busted on roll20 for a time and I've just had to make do.
That said, these rules can be adapted or be made to apply to any system of your choice I'm certain, so I'll explain it all more generally.
Every character has an amount of points they can accrue as a result of failures, these points go into 'wounds', 'derangement', 'suspicion' and 'scandal', these are all fundamentally your health, but made to track other things such as mental trauma, criminal records, fame and infamy respectively.
Different races in my game each have different max amounts, the towering "Krokozza" for example have a higher threshold for wounds but a lower one for derangement.
Now whenever you reach the maximum amount for any of these you receive a 'consequence', for wounds it's a permanent injury, for derangement it can be any amount of persistent nightmares and so on.
But of course to stay on top of these you have to prepare: For the game I'm running I drew up a big map of the setting and let my players loose on it, so it's a sandbox that I mostly ad-lib our adventures on.
You have time in each day to do anything you want, I use just three units, morning, afternoon and evening, there is night as well of course but you got to sleep sometime. For the doctor, he mostly spends his time making medicine.
However, this was never meant to be a hardcore survival or anything like that, I don't track ammunition for example because I've filtered what I consider to be chores out of the things that take a time slot, instead I focus on meaningful decisions.
For injuries, you can receive any of: Bruising, bleeding, broken bones and or infection. The doctor needs to treat each with a specific cure but only has enough time to prepare for each. See what I'm getting at?
So it is essentially a game where the players have lots of downtime to make medicine, improve their skills, train the company, go shopping or anything else. But encounters are quick, nasty and designed to test their preparedness.
It is a low-fantasy setting though, and things are sort of made through a historical and grounded lens. A knight in full plate receives very few cuts and less bone breakage, but can still get super bruised up, so with a bit of common sense the doc can have an idea of what to prioritise. But when a forest hermit sics a horse-sized, acid spitting insect on the party there is less one can do to prepare for the supernatural, which is just how I like it, keeps magic 'magical'.
I hope this was a good enough rundown, it isn't a fully realised system, but more of a loose set of house rules I put in to try and shake up the cliché's and expectations of your average DnD game.
Yeah that's a GENIUS system, definitely gonna keep it in mind for my own games.
@@royrieder2113 Hey, I posted a reply earlier but it seems it didn't go through. Did it?
Maybe it's an invisible character limit so I'll try again:
Everyone has a threshold of points in certain things. Wounds, derangement, suspicion and scandal. It's basically your health system but it can also track mental health, criminal record, fame and infamy.
In order to counter these points you need to prepare. For wounds the doctor needs to make medicine appropriate to the type of injury that I just decide based on context, you need a specific cure to cuts, bruises, bone breakage and infection chance. You only have three time slots to brew up a certain amount of each.
I generally work with small numbers because I prefer to emphasise meaningful decisions rather than make a full 24-hour itinerary to track things I would consider chores. Making ammunition I would consider a chore, making a decision to make one cure over another that saves someone in the next fight is a meaningful decision.
When you can't stay on top of you wounds etc. And you cross the threshold, you receive a consequence, a permanent injury or nightmares, a bounty, merchants trust you less.
So yeah, that's the most brief way I can describe the whole thing, you can apply these little rules to any system I should think, change the numbers as you so choose and all.
what also massively bothered me is that all the "important" characters are basically walking tanks in what sort of injuries they get, but the enemies that wear thick armor get split in half like butter. why even bother with it at all then if it seems to be doing nothing. like what is that bs. she throws her sword and penetrates multiple mm of steel plating with it. like WHAT?
Something, something, magical meteorite sword. But seriously, I could probably make an additional video just about the Hollywood trend of turning plate armor into paper, because writers seem to think armor doesn't do jack. I guess the only armor that really matters in media is plot armor, and random grunts don't get any of that.
@@PerseusGrim - Plate armor is paper but steroids give you bullet resistant muscles! Also, roided out colossi don't feel pain and don't seem to care about getting stabbed or shot¹, which is what allows the protag to kill them, otherwise, they'd all be Jack Reacher, and you _do not_ want to fight Jack Reacher! ( ... when he's Alan Ritchson.)
¹Apart from the usual suspects, Kevin Nash in _Punisher (2004)_ comes to mind.
11:12 Well, there are in-universe reasons for each of these. Obi-Wan Kenobi gave himself up to the force, in order to become a force ghost. (Yoda does the same thing in Return of the Jedi). Vader has a lightsaber-resistant suit. He can survive a glancing blow from one. On the other hand, Luke's wrist was just exposed skin. A lightsaber has no trouble cutting through flesh.
14:07 no0oo! goon used to have such a noble meaning
Times have changed, I'm afraid. I can't look at the word the same way anymore...
@@PerseusGrim Duhuhuh, good one, boss!
Seems like it was a stylistic choice in Blue Eye Samurai. Though admittedly one I really didn't like and that took me out of the story quite a bit
Yeah I don't doubt that it was intentional. It definitely messes with the suspension of disbelief, especially if you're not used to that kind of injuries being thrown around so frivolously, but I found that it was best to just roll my eyes and enjoy the rest of the show anyway.
I get it with adrenaline and all, but that gash is deadly without immediate medical attention
I could not enjoy the last John Wick movie at all as I was unable to disable my brain and accept all the body shattering injuries he sustained without being K.O'd
Oof, I've only seen the first three so far, but this doesn't bode well for whenever I get around to watching the fourth one. Suspension of disbelief is a powerful thing, but even so it has its limits.
I mean, the endings seems to have them matter.
John Wick is a series I desperately wish had never had a sequel. The first film is so interesting and full of mystery that the following three films simply destroy.
I’m a firm believer that, regardless of the excellent cinematography and locations, ONLY the first film should be acknowledged.
I've only ever seen the first John Wick, and it wasn't good enough to want to see any later ones anyway.
NO
At this time, no one has finished the video
big true
Spoken like a true scholar of mathematics! But alas you are mistaken, because I watched the whole video myself before publishing it.
I think a sister issue is the "disabled person gets super powers that completely negates their disability" trope. Disabled people (like myself) crave representation, but when we get it the character is either the villain or their not actually disabled because of blank power. Or if the disability is subtle and not specifically said, no one thinks of them as disabled
11:12 Little correction :
Vader didn't killed Obi-Wan, per'se.
Obi-Wan turned into Force Spirit, moment before being hit.
It was like quitting a multiplayer game.
+
Vader is mostly machine, so its rather obvious conclusion that he got the Grievous' idea, and made himself body made out of plasma resistant materials.
I'm so glad someone is talking about this. I'm sure plenty of people can enjoy this show despite it's flaws but for me personally, I could not care less about any fight scene, since near-mortal injuries are irrelevant. They made it clear there's no stakes, Mizu's opponents may aswell be trying to hit her with a pool noodle.
Wow, you are picking really great topics for your first videos!
Thank you! I've been a bit worried that the people who were interested in my first video would only be want stuff related specifically to the fantasy genre or the medieval era, so hearing that someone finds both topics interesting is reassuring! After all, I don't have a huge sample size of (my own) videos to analyze, so I'm forced to test the waters to see what people are really interested in.
At least for me, both your medival stasis video and this one cover topics where, when I am reading the title, I think "yeah, why is that the case?".
To me, both videos are about somewhat obscure questions/aspects of storytelling, that really get my brain going, and I think that's why they chatch me.
Good luck on the testing and may the youtube-algorithm be with you!
You want a great example of how to do injuries properly? The Dark Tower Series.
In book 1 we meet Roland, an absolutely crazy capable gunslinger and our protagonist. He's shown to be deft with his revolvers and uses them impeccably well to survive several violent encounters throughout the story, as well as using his wits, knowledge, and just his cold and cynical iron will to overcome several obstacles in his path. Then in Book 2 he very nearly dies in an almost buffoonish way after encountering some wild animals while he's just waking up and snip snip, loses most of the fingers on his dominant hand. Oops.
Not only does he spend the remainder of this book having to deal with the immediate injurious effects - the wound is infected and potentially poisoned and he has to go to some rather great lengths to simply not die - it completely changes the nature of him as a character. Because his martial art was tied directly to the deftness of his hands, his ability to aim a revolver precisely and quickly reload the gun faster than any could believe (to the point that they called it his "reloading trick") and losing most of the fingers on his dominant hand absolutely ruins him in this regard.
But over the course of the same story he also gains several allies in his quest and over book 2 and continuing throughout the rest of the story, he begins to train them. They become his students in everything he knows. His injury changes him from the sole action protagonist into more of a mentor of a group of action protagonists instead. And he's not exactly a slouch in a gunfight either since he does still have his other hand, and after a few years of training, becomes proficient enough with using his non-dominant hand in a gunfight even though he knows he'll never be at his peak again.
It's honestly a great example of an injury A) happening a lot like they often do in real life - almost incidentally or accidentally and having a profound impact, and B) changing the whole direction of a character's role in a story in a way that C) "rebalances" a potentially overpowered character that makes other characters more important as the spotlight moves onto them.
As interesting as the first video. As an indie writer, both of your videos helped me put words on some things I felt instinctively but couldn't explain clearly while writing my book. Great video!
Thank you, and I'm glad to have helped give you some perspective for your own writing journey! Best of luck with the book!
The TLOU's injuries analysis was really interesting. Thanks for shining a new light on the game!
Glad to hear that you found it interesting! I'm always happy to provide my thoughts on stories I really enjoy, and TLOU is certainly one of them.
Going back to the Star Wars point you made in the start of the video. I think that the first trilogy, the prequel films and the early star wars series such as clone wars and rebels set some pretty good ground rules for how a lightsaber should work and act. (Maybe with some faults, as you pointed out in the original trilogy as well as in clone wars, looking at you Darth Maul) Lightsabers have come to be seen as glowing sticks of lava, able to melt metal and slice through limbs like butter, one stab has always been enough to kill a person. So when Disney now is treating them like staby glow sticks and not what the fans expect a lightsaber to be, that adds onto the pile of problems that the new star wars series and movies have.
the idea is that her rage pushes her through the whole thing, thats why the injuries become an issue once she is done
The Long Sun novels have a storytelling method that isn’t for everyone, but they use injury to create tension very effectively. The protagonist (a healthy man in his 20s) gets scared in a confrontation halfway through the first book and jumps off a second story balcony to flee. He breaks his ankle in the process, and despite the use of medical futuretech the injury is a recurring problem at least every 2-3 chapters for the remainder of the four book series. It’s not the most consequential in its own right, but when urban warfare breaks out in the later novels it makes the reader acutely afraid of how easily characters could die from their injuries.
When I was watching Blue Eye Samurai with my friend, we kept making fun of how she was basically immortal. We stopped getting worried about whenever she got hurt, because it didn't matter. It really takes you out of the story.
It is understood that the reason luke wasn't able to penetrate Vader's shoulderplate might've been either the fact that the armor on Vader's armor was a heck of a lot stronger, considering his armor can canonically allow him to survive in space, but also the strong theory that lightsabers have edges, and when a more masterful wielder uses a lightsaber, they can cut more defined cuts
The whole 6 to 7 has a whole season of a timeskip. There is thick as well as fresh snow at the start of episode 6. Episode 7 is well into late spring.
There is GREAT joy in being able to “trust” a filmmaker, author, etc. This comes down to what you were saying about internal logic and the deal we implicitly make when we suspend disbelief. We are free to believe that storybeats have purpose and our time is not being wasted.
It’s like when you’re stuck on a video game level and you don’t know if what’s happening is a glitch or if you haven’t figured out the right solution. If you TRUST the game, you know there’s a solution and you can keep looking. When you can’t trust it, you never know. And for me that heaps on frustration, which is my least favorite state.
Edit: it also leaves us with no stakes and little interest in metaphor or symbolism because it makes it hard to believe the author’s intentions.
Wonderful essay! I appreciated your balance of memes with citations, and visual demonstrations with jokes. And thanks for qualifying that at the end of the day, TLOU is trying to be intensely grounded, while BES uses the viscerality of its action for more short-term gratification. (The creators cited action movies as their main inspiration, so it's likely they're sticking to those 'rules' and use them to further Mizu's intensity, rather than provide hurdles on their own, since the injuries themselves are less psychologically-charged than what causes Mizu to brush them off.)
blue eye samurai doesn't get enough critique. this video is needed!
I hope you know that your future videos won't get the views of your first. Don't see it as a bad thing and don't be disappointed if you aren't as successful as you hoped. This doesn't mean I think it's going to happen to you, but I've seen these kind of reactions too often for my liking.
Oh yeah, I'm aware. I'll take nothing for granted, but I'll power through the lows so I can hopefully reach new highs later down the road. Honestly though, I surpassed any and all expectations and hopes I had within a week of posting my last video, so anything from here on out is just an added bonus.
The Star Wars example did have logic to it. Kenobi clearly disappeared due to a force thing. Like how he said "cut me down and I'll be more powerful than you can imagine", and he later showed up as a ghost, not unable to be kept away from Luke and able to keep mentoring him.
Darth Vader basically took blaster bolts to the hand, and assuming Han wasn't just aiming at his hand, redirecting the bolts. It isn't too hard to think this super powerful sith lord who's already shown impossible feats with energy weapons could deal with that.
Over all agree with your point in the video though. Just, so long as the characters being superhuman isn't a rule in the setting, and they stick to that rule (even selectively as long as it's actually due to some nuance in the rules and not just the writer's convenience).
A little late to the party but when talking about wounds in series and their impact, sweetooth came to mind
If you’re into injuries in literature making an impact, check out the book series The Remaining by DJ Molles. It’s about survivors in the zombie apocalypse but the main characters are special operators that have a long history of military service who are meant to rebuild the US after the collapse. One scene I can remember is the main character falling down part of an elevator shaft and breaking some ribs during a gunfight in an abandoned hospital. He survives but after that injury, he struggles to breathe right and he complains about those injuries coming back to bite him later on in the books. It’s a fun book series and it’s worth a dive if you really are into zombie survival fiction.
It's interesting to consider how the show "Invincible" plays into this. As a superhero show, it's filled with characters' skulls getting smashed, stabbed, and limbs ripped off. But they've started having their mortal characters sustain and survive the same level of injuries, to the point that character deaths are meaningless, since they survive so often...but it does texture the world well.
Cause they're SUPERHEROES, dude.
I didn't realize I saw your past video too. Your videos are so good.
Happy to hear that! Hope you'll enjoy whatever I cook up next too, then.
I'm reminded of an episode in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where a character who got shot and as a result has lost his leg comes back from the hospital where he got a new leg (it's sci-fi an all). The whole episode is about him having to deal with the experience of having lost his leg. At one point he watches a Western on a old-school TV (something they usually don't do in that future) and is very confused when he sees the protagonist getting shot but continuing like nothing has happened. It was a good scene.
You have a good eye for video topics. I clicked on this video on the home page without recognizing it was you. Despite being subscribed to you after your last video. Will look forward to you next work
That's great to hear! It's hard to know what kind of topics people are interested in when you're just starting out, so getting some positive feedback on that is a bit of a relief.
The first video longer than 15 minutes that I've been able to sit through in almost a week.
Pathetic
Curing tiktok brain, one person at a time! On a more serious note: I'm glad to hear that I could pique your interest enough to sit through the whole thing!
@@PerseusGrim
It's more that a lot of TH-camrs are artificially inflating otherwise interesting questions/videos that would realistically take about 10 minutes into these needlessly long 30+ minute videos, so I very rarely click on them these days. Your video had a lot of depth and nuance to cover, so the length is entirely appropriate. I just get really pissy when it's clear that a TH-camr is just wasting my time!
@@Mage_Chartreux That's fair, I know exactly what you're talking about. I usually aim to make shorter videos (I wanted this one to be around 20 minutes originally), but then by the time I'm done covering everything I feel like I need to talk about, I end up with a behemoth of a video on my hands instead. Because of that I always try to cut out as much as possible that isn't absolutely vital, so I'm glad this method seems to pay off.
I did think that when watching blue eyed samurai recently... everytime I looked over to my 2nd screen during fight scenes, she got injured, but nothing ever lasted.
Which probably explains why I just stopped caring at some point and just fully zoned out of all of the action.
This is an important topic to me too because I see injuries shrugged off because adrenaline which makes sense for a bit but not for the whole characters journey, I’m writing a character for my comic that needs to cut them selfs in order to use their blood for combat and I want to take into consideration that first the blood is limited in the body and that the injuries are felt during the whole fight, even getting up will hurt depending on where the cuts are, realistically the body can only tolerate so much pain before you succumb to demobilization and death.
I'm personally not very picky about plotholes or exaggerated details as I'm able to really embrace the rule of cool, which Blue Eye Samurai quite heavily relies on.
Which is to say this isn't a problem I find having with stories (not that I'm that savvy in good story writing indicated by my video game choices)
Overall pretty great video, though if I had any advice, try picking up a pop filter if you don't have one already or mess with the audio recording settings a bit more.
Your voice is super nice and satisfying to listen to though I feel there are some high tones making it not as pleasant or clean as it could be.
Possibly some better soundproofing though that's a much more expensive and tedious
There's no shame in not being picky about writing. If anything, it's probably for the best to not be too much of a snob about it and frown on anything that isn't "high-brow" enough.
As for the audio point: I'm curious what kind of high tones you are referring to. I do indeed use a pop-filter and can't say I have noticed any problems with plosives. In terms of audio editing, I run some noise reduction, a light EQ (just going with presets for that one), and then some compression to level it out a bit. Could be the occasional background noise from outside since soundproofing is indeed quite a bothersome and pricey task, but if you could find a timestamp that exemplifies the issue I'd be happy to investigate it.
yea it's kinda double edged sword, being able to enjoy media regardless of how bad the writing might be though at the cost of not really taking in good writing.
And the audio, i guess it's just a matter of preference because i'm a bit of a bass head and i enjoy really deep yet soft voices, binging with babish is a prime example.
By no means is it a big deal just again preference.
Great video I love watching writing tips to help on my own story also really made want to rewatch blue eye and replay last of us
Happy to hear that I could provide some writing advice. I'm finally putting that creative writing degree to use!
8:17 - I hate this so much. It doesn't matter if you're a zombie, Gregor Clegane, or an anime protag having flashbacks of your parents dying in an alley when you were a kid, if a tendon or muscle got severed, if a nerve cannot work due to damage or neurotoxins: You. Are. Not. Moving. That. Bodypart!
While I generally agree with your stated thoughts, I do keep remembering how inconsistently I personally respond to injuries. Example: shingles only tickled for me, I've had organs attempt to burst and felt nothing...but if I stub my toe or lightly bump my thigh into a table and experience exquisite pain, bordering on agony. I've also been seriously injured but didn't notice until way later due to adrenaline. So maybe it's sloppy writing, but...maybe it's also partially due to human bodies being ridiculous?
Kenobi transubstantiaed into the force, Vader was armored and Luke aside from not being killed outright was still a Padawan. So presumably no transubstantiation even if he had been killed. A better question is why other Jedi masters didn't disappear upon their deaths.
The other Jedi masters didn’t disappear when killed because you have to learn how to become a force ghost and go through certain trials. Obi-Wan was able to do so because Yoda taught him how to become a force ghost, a technique that Yoda himself didn’t know until recently.
While I’m still and will probably remain a fan of the John Wick series, by the time we got to the final chapter, my suspension of disbelief was more than strained to the point that I just let it go completely and had to roll with it.
The most inconsiderable thing in “blue eyed samurai” is that she threw her sword. Samurai were highly against this and it was very dishonourable to do, so they didn’t do that. Also she’s not even a samurai, she’s a bloody ronin.
I guess you just casually ignore that freezing wind blows there, making the foot injury more bearable.
you could dump the entire foot in a bucket of ice water, it would still be impossible to run, jump, and fight like that lol
@@_kaleido The goal is to forget your pain.
A part of that is discipline. If you get reminded at every corner that your foot hurts, it's then that you're more likely to die.
@@KittenKatja it Beyond pain at this point and we reach the point of your body lacking physical ability to prefrom these things
@@MuhammadAlkomy I feel like what everyone forgets is that she started her journey of revenge a long time ago, not last year.
Awesome video! Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
I definitely agree with most of this. My only quibble is initial disablement.
I did seemingly impossible things with major injuries and so have my brothers. When you truely mind over matter, you can ignore injury unless it is structuraly imposssible. Intense pain can conditionally be put off, but make no mistake you will feel it. Focused adrenaline is a hell of a drug.
The cost is a longer recovery and/or permanent injury. My leg is, for example is permanently messed up (crushed by falling full oil drum). So is one of my brother's legs (rpg). Both of us did stupid crazy stuff after injury. Both of our lives changed forever. Lessons from that day changed me in ways i will forever be thankful for. It would be nice to have a working leg again, but my character was improved. I mellowed and softened, while keeping conviction. I communicate better and accept help. Im a better husband and teacher.
I like this video and i agree
Maturity is realizing Mizu, for all her badassery, is the Bad Guy
Like the Blue Eye Samurai, I've been injured by 666 mortal Ads in this video and survive
That outro was perfect.
13:31 You have no idea how nauseous that image made me feel, why would you do that! 😂
Prey intro soundtrack? A man of taste.
21:14
That catholicism joke was straight up HERETICAL
love it.
I'm lucky to live in a time where there's no inquisition going around looking for heretics, because that would have landed me on their list.
Prime example of when injuries feel unserious could be a lot of gaming, how often do they let us jab a needle in ourselves and walk off bullet wounds? Then people make stuff with realism in mind and it's like ah right I'm screwed going in but lucky getting out
Great vid, thank ya!
While writing a reply to another comment, I came up with a great representation that makes sense for this topic:
Characters should have to push through limits rather than have none.
It's different when you see an injured character being put nearly out of commission who obviously struggles to get back up and keeps fighting through adrenaline. Showing them having difficulty when getting up and adding a bit more weight to their movement is enough to show that they are impacted and yet fighting through it, whereas, you lose immersion and investment when injuries that are supposed to put you on the edge of your seat don't affect the character at all.
Resident evil comes to mind for me with their healing sprey cans you just spray over you body and no matter the injury your all fixed.
2 videos!? You got a looottt of potential bro keep it up
What I have learned from this video: I am a baby bird now apparently. Give me knowledge, mama bird.
Be a good little birdie and eat up! You'll grow up to be a strong and knowledgable fledgeling one day.
So there’s Rimworld, aka the best story generator in the world. I mean, alright, it has no prewritten plot, nothing like that but.. when someone gets wounded in battle, they get weaker during it, or might even die. A good hit on your pawn might just kill it in one hit even, or incapacitate them. And those injuries, they ain’t playing around. The pawn might die after getting treated, might die before getting rescued, bleed really bad and get permanent injuries! Now that, is how you do it.
One thing I would like to note, is I liked code Lyoko partly because it had a hit point system in setting, so damage can be done realistically and people can be taken out constantly.
Also punches in fiction often feel unweighty because it sometimes feels like people can take arbitrary amounts of punch.
Bryan Singer’s a pdfile but I liked how he portrayed a gun shot wound in Days of Future Past. Mystique got shot once and limped the rest of the movie.
I'm making a RPG, right, and I want to run a campaign in my system and setting, obviously.
There's magic in my setting, and, depending on the time period, sci fi stuff, like cybernetics.
I've made this philosophy of making my characters/players/whatever struggle, I don't want them to loose, I want them to succeed, but the struggle will make the victory fulfilling.
Yes, you can heal a severed arm with magic, but at a cost, it makes the caster use blood, and it regenerates slowly, thus trading the forever uselessness of one character for a long, yet temporary uselessness of another.
Also you don't always get life threatening or crippling damage; you have armor, you're competent, you get hurt, but it doesn't always destroy all your momentum. Sometimes it does, that's teh nature of things, but that's why you don't work alone, unlike how it's often depicted in fiction. A team struggles better, cuz it's harder to kill a group, and it doesn't have to be unkillable to be competent.
You’ve never been there?🔥💙
Edit: Very good job at reminding ppl that punches are actually lethal when they’re no longer 7 yo.
It’s a massive pain explaining this over and over to an entire horde of ppl…
…& the importance of wearing an armor.
…& what "black blood" means.
…& snapping ppl out of blood rage.
…& honor.
They wayyyyy overdid it with the injuries in blue eye samurai. :(
In the story writing playlist this goes!
In most of games, you regenerate health or use healing and you're 100% good to go
Earned my like and sub. Nice essay. :)
For my part, I always find this topic relevant in discussion Health in DnD or other TTRPG. People have this idea that being hit by an attack and losing HP means being injured. This becomes a break in immersion if a simple one hour break can remove said injury as you regain HP.
My answer to this situation is that HP does not equal Health but Hit Points. How much a character can take before going down, like Drake's Health in Uncharted. When Drake's HP reaches 0, he is actually shot for the first time and dies. His lucks runs out.
Therefore, HP can be visualised in many ways. Being nimble enough to dodge but draining your internal stamina. Tough enough to simply take the hit like Mizu but still able to move forward. Simple luck that the blade hits your armor but the sheer force makes you stumble for a second.
The second part of this is how recovery works. How easily could wounds be mended and by which way? How is the narrative aspect of recovery handled in comparison to mechanics? Some might simply sleep of an axe wound to the shoulder and ignore that part. Others simply imply use of medicine and bandages, the sdme way equipment maintanence is implied. If magic healers are in involved, things becomes way easier to handwave.
And some DnD tables or even other systems have grittier rules where being injured always gives a character penalties until recovered. Meticulous system to track injuries are implemented because we associate being hit with an action hero being hit. But we want to keep our immersion intact, thus do not simply recover wounds easily
Wounds and recovery in media are certainly interesting.
Personally, when I play D&D, I like to think of hp mainly as a mix of endurance and minor scrapes. Of course, if you take a massive hit that eats up half your hit points, that might be a real injury (albeit not lethal), but most parties also have some form of magical healing at their disposal anyway, so that can always be ruled as something that deals with the worst of the wounds the characters sustain. There's also the older editions of the game, of course, where long rests would take weeks to complete, so naturally you'd have more leeway to properly hurt the characters without completely ruining immersion. And regarding your video game take, I definitely think that most of the gameplay is "non-canon" in regards such as damage. At the end of the day, it's just a mechanic to create a challenge and not really something which is a part of the narrative.
@@PerseusGrim Part of the issue with that, is their are some cases where it hard to explain injures of working that way, for example healing fixes it quickly, objects have hitpoints, sneak attacks only do extra damage If you have skill, you take hit point loss from environmental hazards and so on.
However hit points only tend to get high in number when one is past level six, at which point one doing so much superhuman stuff it makes sense in a way. Why can your character survive being stabbed dozen times, prehaps the same reason you character just clubbed a hill giant to death while a annoying wizard keeps on summing bears on your head,
HP has usually been described as luck and minor scrapes, in my experience, but if we're gonna be real about it the reason why characters have HP that is depleted per attack in a TTRPG such as DnD is because that's the core game mechanic to facilitate player characters getting into multiple fights in a row and the feeling of being larger than life. At its core HP is first and foremost a gameplay mechanic; any narrative rationale is applied post-hoc. That is why TTRPGs that want to evoke the feeling of wounds being serious with narrative consequences will design their combat system-or lack thereof-with this specific intent and will most likely forgo using HP in the first place. It's easy to get caught up in how realistic combat is in a TTRPG or whether or not it breaks immersion and forget that you're playing a game that needs to function as a game. This, incidentally, is why homebrew injury systems slapped onto DnD for the sake of realism end up sucking because they are completely at odds with how the rest of the game functions and what actions it encourages. You are better off playing a system where that concept is baked into the game from the ground up.
I know this is getting a bit off the topic of non-interactive fiction, but I wanted to stress this point since I have seen it come up time and again in discussions of DnD and HP as a mechanic in TTRPG game design-and, admittedly I have a bit of a bug up my ass about it.
@@starmantheta2028 I feel like that does not work that well in practice. At low levels the amount of injuries to take someone out is easily survivable, their is a the classic commoners getting murdered by angry house cats, humans have also survived stuff like being shot many times, getting a metal rod through the brain, terminal velocity falls. Also some stuff is just less deadly than you expect, for example, I remember hearing machete attacks are less deadly than you might think because it actually hard to get a good deep cut on a moving squishy live target.
Basically at low levels the notion at the person is keeping going past their injures on grit and adrenaline is plausible.
Meanwhile at high levels, you can often get into scenarios where their is no plausible way to dodge the attack, stuff like being submerged in lava, getting entangled than hit by a troll club repeatedly. At the same time at those high levels, one is doing superhuman stuff often enough that it kind of makes sense in a mythological hero kind of way.
Also this leaves a major question how AC factors into things, it is kind of weird how dodging and blocking with armor got shoved in the same thing. I guess precise well executed blows help bypass/overcome both, but they react very differently to a unwieldy oversized weapon.
Fire video, keep making more vids! ❤
A good plot injury I've seen is in days gone the MC best bud gets a blow torch to the arm and ends up losing it. Is a nice story with zombie and bikes so you should check it
Yeah the Blue eye samurai thing is wild, Mizu just almost died half the time and is fine a week later
It’s honestly one of the few bad things about the show that is just pure nonsense
It is thematically relevant since it shows just how insane Mizu is and how close she truly is to an actual demon
I can only agree. Great show but certainly not without flaws.
Problem I had with Hajime no Ippo recently, that started annoying me. They always rail on about how strong Ippo's punches are, but his fights end up being dragged on, even when Ippo gets so many good hits. Especially in the loss that led to his retirement, that guy really had no business beating Ippo by a long shot. It was scripted poorly to be beaten by a throw away character, would have made more sense if he was beaten by formidable opponent or one of the rookies like Imai.
I do find it really annoying when injuries just disappear, or don't affect the character at all. No problem with suspending my disbelief when they get an adrenaline rush and fight through the pain, but serious injuries have to affect them at some point. Just feels really annoying and cheap when the scene definitely wants you to think they just had their spine broken into a million pieces, but a minute later they're just... fine. Maybe limping a little, and of course COUGHING. No matter what the injury is, it always makes them start coughing, and I guess coughing helps you recover from anything.
I found a new person to watch, yay
Happy to hear that! You get a "yay" from me too.
15:50 maybe they went with "what doesn't kill you makes you *insanely* stronger"
first like four episodes of BES are pitch mfn perfect and all the other ones just take a huge dook on the whole thing.
imhoykwim
The last episode was a bit disappointing, but aside from the injuries that I adress in the video, I think the rest of the episodes were fine. And of course, I'm curious to see where they'll go from here.
a good depiction of injuries is anakin from Star Wars. Not only the arm injury but the one that made him Darth Vader.
another great one, mate
Nice to see a familiar face around! Glad to hear that you enjoyed it!
My favorite case of injuries in a story is in naruto when rock lee gets his legged completely crushed by Gaara and theres a whole process of medical yreatments and recovery that happens
I'm so in awe about the animation. I loath how Mizu seems to be a mythical warrior god. Quick to learn and master her swordsmanship on her own. I don't know why noone else seems to think it's not Mary Sue material.
35:30 I was playing Morrowind on my phone when this part came up, and it was a pretty surprising coincidence
I worked out how she survives all these injuries.
She's a cartoon, which is a kind of drawing that moves, apparently.
Not false.
If you want to discuss how injuries are portrayed, what about The Princess Bride (both the man in black and Inigo Montoya).