Liam was a boy, and then a man, who suffered so much trauma and pain. He was bullied as a child and then lived a nightmare that I think none of us can really imagine of having that triggering experience replicated on a literally global public scale. He became a man who inflicted trauma on others. He was an addict who was unable to find a way out of that disease, and now never will, but who was open and vulnerable about his struggles. He was an incredibly talented musician and artist and an absolutely integral part of one of the most important bands of a generation; his voice and songwriting and skill in the studio shaped every aspect of what One Direction became at their best. He loved that band and being a part of that experience with his whole being and would never have stopped celebrating what they meant to us and to the world. He had problems and did bad things; that doesn't mean he was a bad person who didn't deserve to be loved and helped to heal- everyone deserves that- and the fact that that's not something that can ever happen now is devastating. I was very distressed by many of his actions; and I cared deeply about this man I didn't know and wished for better for him than this outcome.
I'm so deeply, deeply SAD tonight. I'm sad for Liam, who will never now have the chance to look back on this hard time and reflect on how far he's come, and for Liam's family, for his parents and his sisters who loved and supported him so much, and for everyone in the 1D band family and circles. And I'm sad for us. It feels like nothing will ever be quite the same, and that's hard and sad and shocking. It's a special kind of doubled grief, to mourn the loss of the person, and also of what he meant to us in this strange world of parasocial fanning, for the real him and also for the version of him that we made up and attached so much meaning to and for the escape that brought us. For him, and also for the easy uncomplicated joy of listening to those beautiful songs from happier times, which might never feel the same again. For the other boys, who we love so much and wish we could shield from suffering and loss and pain. For our fellow fans, who we also worry about the impact of this on. Everything about this is terrible, and I am sending so much love out to all of you. We are not alone, and it's okay to feel complicated emotions and it's okay to mourn and it's okay to care about how it effects you and your life, whatever you're feeling- it's okay. We are here with you. We are 1D family.
I can’t stop being upset about Veilguard’s writing, and apparently the only way I can get it out of my thoughts is to put it down in words, so here we go…
I’m frustrated, I’m upset, and the longer I think about the way this game was written, the more problems present themselves… and I bloody hate that. It feels like a first draft writing effort, and every time I’m reminded that this game was in development for so many years, I cannot fathom this being the end result. Dragon Age 2 had 16 months of development, and it feels more cohesive and put together writing-wise. I can see the years of polish in the visuals, but the spectacle of the game doesn’t blind me to all the problems in the writing.
Naturally, these are personal opinions, I am genuinely thrilled for people who have played the game and enjoyed it – I wish I could be there enjoying it with you – but clearly these things get under my skin more and spoil the experience for me when they aren’t problems for you. And I also acknowledge there are genuine good parts of the game which I enjoy, but those moments aren’t enough to overshadow the negative experiences that irk me.
And because this post has apparently gotten away from me… I’m gonna put some headings to summarise the problems I’m having, because otherwise this is just a massive rant with no structure.
Show me things, stop just telling it to me.
So much of the game feels like writer’s notes where they put “what the player should take away from this scene” and instead of being creative with how they do that, they just say it verbatim. My immersion in this game was being broken by the game reminding me it’s a video game – which yes, I know it is, but I want to be invested in this world and feel like I’m part of it.
Varric and the game’s own pop-up system is the main problem that’s consistent through the whole game – constantly dropping narration or mission summary where they have zero problem dropping exposition on us and/or spoiling future content. Forget letting me explore these things and reach my own conclusions, the game is going to make sure I know exactly the interpretation I’m meant to have for every moment.
And it’s so damn frequent, I feel like they don’t think I’m paying attention and therefore need to constantly poke me with reminders instead of trusting me to reach my own conclusions. Do they not trust me to have an attention span long enough to go on a walk with Davrin without reminding me at the end of the walk that I did that?
To add to that problem, I absolutely hate how the writing just has people know things – they shouldn’t know this, they shouldn’t be talking to us about this, all evidence points to them not being able to know or be ok discussing this, but for some reason they do.
The Veil Jumpers suddenly just know how to translate and interact with ancient elven artifacts, ignore how the Dalish have been trying to do that since the fall of the Dales (and realistically, even before that) and their efforts over those hundreds of years were a scrap, a pittance of what could be known. But I guess the Veil Jumpers are just better than those hundreds of years in the few years they’ve been active.
Oh, and the scary reputation of the Dalish is just gone? These people just go to the elves they have deemed “savages” because they simply know these ones have good intentions? This world has been established as very untrusting of the intentions of other groups, but that’s simply gone now for this one – I wish I was shown how this started in some way instead of just being told it’s chill now.
And don’t get me started on Strife and Irelin and their seemingly endless knowledge that they shouldn’t have. I read the comics, I get that they’d probably know about the Dreadwolf and have a vested interest in learning more once that particular bit of information was revealed to them – but they somehow also just know about the mask Cyrian is wearing? They know it will influence him but not control his will? Why do you know this with no doubt whatsoever?
Why can’t these things just be presented as theories? Or give us something to find and reference where that information comes from? I want to learn things without just having characters tell me things they know.
And overall, I hate how this game decides to just exposition dump information on us, then we sit around and talk about the exposition dump – it’s overwhelming in magnitude. It feels like such a passive way to have us engage with everything, and this is supposed to be an interactive experience. Instead of being force-fed exposition in big chunks, drip feed details, let us put the puzzle together, let us gather and discuss what we learn with multiple interpretations like the RPG this is meant to be.
And this exposition problem also ruins the stakes in the game for me. Personal interpretation, probably, but the stakes in this game feel artificially inflated to me via having characters constantly tell Rook they are going up against the biggest threat ever. We bring in past heroes of the series to reiterate that, how they think we’re up against worse things than they faced… and I don’t feel that. Telling me constantly how hopeless things are, but every obstacle ends up being overcome relatively easily and without great losses… no, I don’t feel the stakes are real.
Oh, and hearing the talk of how all of Thedas is in trouble, there is so much destruction and only Rook can save them… why don’t you find a way to show me that? Because I’m not feeling that, I’m not seeing it, and I’m starting to think the Inquisitor is making stuff up so Rook doesn’t ask them to get involved again when they’re so busy.
This is a lore problem in the series…
Plot holes and wonky lore can happen, it’s not surprising… especially when there are three games prior to this as well as several books, comics, and other branches of the universe. There have been inconsistencies since the start, and a lot of it doesn’t matter – I don’t care if the second moon is forgotten about, the moon not being there isn’t going to make a problem with the way the story is told since that moon is never something elaborated upon in the plot.
This game though… it has problem that are both related to information in this game not being consistent with previous games, and information within its own contained plot contradicting itself.
I’m not going to beat the dead horse of “this isn’t how the previous games did it/explained it”, people who played the previous games are aware, I don’t see a point of elaborating in detail all the instances of this. Just take some dot points of the one’s I noticed:
The Crows are a horrifying organisation that are suddenly presented wholesome
The Qun offering to rehabilitate Karash is horrifying and it’s presented wholesome
Slaves are meant to be everywhere in Tevinter, but we don’t see that
Racism is supposed to be rampant in Tevinter (and other nations, but particularly here for any non-human), and we also don’t see that
Handling pure lyrium is fine now (unless you’re Harding)
Adult Dalish without vallaslin (Elgar’nan’s captives)
Fenharel’s agents are just gone now – as are all signs of mass elven exodus from cities
Solas’ opinion on blood magic is suddenly negative instead of neutral
Spirits dying is given the same weight as people dying
Flemeth…….just everything about Flemeth and Morrigan
Re-write of the after credits scene in Inquisition to recontextualise the Flemeth and Solas interaction
Isabela’s attitude towards Shathann sending Taash away without their knowledge (the comics make me doubt she’d be cool with this)
Non-Dalish elves knowing things about ancient elves and elven language
Blight sickness and how darkspawn are “born” (some leeway for this one since the blight is overall just different in this one, but it does feel less interesting this way)
Morrigan naming the Crossroads in lieu of the true name being lost to time, but everyone uses the term now
Crossroads looking different through elven eyes
You can’t just make people be magic/not magic (me side-eyeing Illario and his random ability to do magic now)
This is a contained problem in this game…
What troubles me more is the inconsistencies within the same game… that isn’t just deciding “this is how it works now in this iteration”, this is a problem that they wrote into existing, then either didn’t notice or didn’t resolve appropriately. And granted, some of these things aren’t inherently plot holes, but when you put certain aspects under inspection, it doesn’t make things look good.
For starters… I have to talk about Varric. Or more accurately, not-Varric.
I’m under the impression that not-Varric is simply Rook’s memory of Varric being projected for them. I personally don’t think there’s some extra level of Solas interference in what Rook is seeing moment to moment… and I feel the need to state that because Rook’s memory cannot conjure up information that Rook doesn’t know.
So why does not-Varric point out that the ritual dagger is the dagger from DA2?
Rook could not recognise it, there is absolutely no reason for Rook to even theorise that – so not-Varric should not be able to impart this knowledge to Rook. And what makes this worse for me, aside from being an impossible situation as the plot presents it, is that this observation doesn’t matter in the slightest. They put this backstory to the McGuffin Dagger and I don’t know why since all it does is create a plot hole. The only purpose I can see for this moment existing at all is to bolster the illusion that not-Varric is real and trying to help with the cause in whatever way possible.
Then there are other issues with Varric not being alive which makes other character’s lack of talking about him feel awful. Like, it’s not natural the way people avoid mentioning him when it would be very appropriate to do so – and I understand that to an extent, the game’s gotta game – they want to surprise us and therefore the characters aren’t going to blatantly give the surprise away early. But the Inquisitor doesn’t ask after him at all? Doesn’t mention how Kirkwall is coping now that the viscount is dead? Dorian doesn’t say anything after learning Varric found Solas in his city and then died? Isabela has nothing to say about Varric until after the illusion is broken for Rook?
It makes it feel like Varric’s friends (aside from Harding, the only person who seems to actively mourn him at the start of the game) don’t give two shits that he’s gone.
That’s not even accounting for how characters don’t bother to check in with Rook who is constantly talking with the companions about their various issues of mourning, hearing voices or apparitions, and just checking in with them overall – but none of that is seemingly reciprocated.
Frankly, this makes me feel awful. I feel awful for Varric being seen as so disposable that his friends don’t mention him or his absence. I feel awful for Rook who is apparently not worth the direct effort that they offer others.
And I try to think of how a new player to this series would feel about all of this – because Varric was just some guy who walked us through a tutorial in this game. Most of our time with him is fake, any connection I saw form between Rook and Varric in this game isn’t real – but then Rook mourns Varric more than he mourns the companions we have spent most of the game with.
I don’t like it.
And I don’t like the utilisation of returning characters. Morrigan, or as she’s utilised in this game deus-ex-Morrigan, has a new view of Flemeth and therefore she will take on Mythal’s soul fragment so she can again swoop in and save the day by handing us the means to get a reconciliation type ending… it couldn’t be something that characters in this game figure out, just have a returning character provide us with the magic solution. Also ignore how the whole reason Morrigan was afraid of her mother in the DAO and DAI was that her body would get taken over by her spirit… but I guess that doesn’t happen now. We can just create new rules for this iteration because it’s easier to tell the story this way.
Solas is also just… I’m so upset by what was done with him. He was a character in DAI who told half-truths or lied by omission, leaving others to assume false information without him actually saying it – it was never just blatant lies to take advantage of others. And his motivations were about restoration of something he felt he had robbed the world, it was about righting what he viewed as a mistake which lead to such a cascade of problems that he needed to somehow rectify it. Whether you agree with his point of view or his desires doesn’t matter, his principles remain the same in terms of what motivates him.
Then this game happens and he’s just a liar constantly, and not even a clever one if you can apparently just trick him up with a “woopsie, this isn’t the real dagger”, and he also apparently has no insight into the idea that Rook would anticipate that.
They make him act like the worst interpretation someone could have of him, the thing he actively was trying to tell us was a false interpretation in DAI and the comics. But history was written and remembered by those who experienced the negative outcomes of his choices, and they remembered that as the greatest evil in comparison to what else could have been. But apparently in this game, that’s the truth now. His motivation is about his desires and he cares nothing for the people who has hurt or will be hurt. But it’s ok, because just as easily as his motivation changed between DAI and Veilguard, it will be changed again at end game if you listen to deus-ex-Morrigan.
Then there are smaller things, but things that really would have been caught if someone was just paying a little bit of attention…
Like Harding and Emmrich going camping in Fereldan… which if we’re to believe the things the Inquisitor was saying about Southern Thedas, I don’t think you’re going to have a fun trip. But I’m glad they’re able to find some time for a vacation while the refugees are getting blighted all over.
Or Rook actively saying “I should talk to Varric” directly in front of characters in the lead up to end-game, and those characters choosing to completely ignore that.
Or in Neve’s companion story, Aelia deciding to interrogate the witness to the red lyrium deal right next to where it happened. She didn’t need to be in the area, she was puppetting the smuggler, and she clearly has insight into what the person is seeing and doing while puppetting them. So I guess she’s just there so we can figure out she was involved.
Or the game telling us that Anaris need Cyrian to perform rituals for him since Anaris doesn’t have a physical body to do them himself… except he apparently doesn’t because he can kill Cyrian when he disobeys. I still would like to know if Cyrian ever died originally, by the way, and if so how he’s back and seemingly normal – this game likes to answer big lore questions like it’s nothing, but they just gloss over details like this.
Or how in Emmrich’s missions, Manfred’s spirit dies and can just be brought back to life… so I guess spirits dying means nothing if they can be brought back with their memory and personality intact. So that Solas flashback where we were supposed to be appalled that spirits died? Apparently there was nothing lost there, someone just needs to revive them and they can carry on as normal.
Or how the rewrite of DAI’s ending cutscene implies that Solas killed Flemeth/Mythal… before he had the power to do so since the whole reason he has been able to do anything in this game is because he absorbed her amassed power. So Flemeth/Mythal would have to let her power go willingly since Solas should not be able to forcibly take it, but clearly, she didn’t since the dialogue we’re given is her being reluctant. Solas apparently has the power he needs to do things when the plot demands it, but also no power when the plot demands it (aka, when Rook needs to prove they’re better than him).
Or the crew making a fake Ritual dagger near end game. For no reason whatsoever. They just decided to do that knowing it would only be a prop, but they had no plans that even involved a prop at that point – so they just did this because the plot told them they had to.
And speaking of that Ritual dagger… all the old elves want that dagger for one reason of another, but they never seem to try to get it when they can, or they don’t seem too concerned when it’s not in their grip anymore. Solas doesn’t try to hold onto it after Varric gets stabbed. Elgar’nan doesn’t try to pick it up after it kills Ghilan’nain, in spite of him knowing it’s the one thing that can kill him… nope, just leave it there and peace out.
Or my personal most hated thing – Isseya and her stupid motivation making no sense.
I cannot fathom the logic of having Isseya, a warden who was forced to blight griffons, who came to resent this order as she watched the griffons go mad, made it her mission to safeguard a clutch of eggs, takes the blight from the eggs into herself while using magic to put the eggs into status, then goes off to her calling which doesn’t actually end in her death… and somehow, 400 years later, she’s decided that since those eggs have hatched and the griffons are healthy and unblighted, the thing she wanted, but they’re in the hands of wardens which she doesn’t really like, so now she’s gonna go get those griffons to blight them.
Literally doing the thing that made her so mad at the wardens. Because she wants to save the griffons from the wardens and their cruelty… by repeating it… I just… this is nonsense.
If she’s capable of articulating that she’s mad at the wardens for their cruelty to the griffons, then she shouldn’t be repeating it thinking she’s saving the griffons. If she was just keeping the griffons captive to keep them away from the wardens, then I could buy that, but adding the element of her wanting to blight them just makes this nonsensical.
Oh and never talk the First Warden down – it will make the final scenes with Isseya even worse if he tells you about the feather from her griffon and show it to her. Because I don’t even think Isseya dies in that variant of the cutscene, she just says sorry and rolls on the floor while I guess Rook and Davrin let the griffons out…
Who is Rook?
Usually, in a game like this, choices are what make us feel like an active participant in the world. It helps us build up our own character and determine how/why they behave the way they do, and also how the world around them is shaped by the consequences of those moments.
But this game feels so stripped of choice, especially choice which is any way related to morality or priorities that aren’t standard ‘Hero traits’. Rook will always do the right thing, they can’t be motivated by personal desires, excitement, monetary gain, fame, etc…. and when Rook is forced to make a choice, there is no option which would be looked at as unreasonable by companions. They might give us an approval/disapproval pop up, but it never really feels like Rook is capable of being incompatible with anyone, they will always be seen as justified in companion’s eyes. And to me, this makes Rook as the game presents them incredibly bland.
Most of Rook’s unique characterisation happens in the character creator – the game gives us minimal chances to expand or form a personality for Rook that is significantly different from any other person who plays the game. We do the heavy lifting here, we transpose qualities on Rook because the game won’t give us meaningful opportunities to do that.
And not only do I feel like the game lacks choices that would help us define Rook, it lacks decisions that make me feel like I’m having any impact on the world overall. I can defend Minrathous or I can defend Treviso… this is the one choice we make which seems to actually shape the world we play in.
And it doesn’t even come up as something Rook can regret in the sequence about regrets… Rook apparently is faced with only regrets that are the result of other people’s decisions to volunteer to do something. But the one thing where Rook actually has to actively choose something, something they are actually responsible for the suffering on the side they don’t defend… that isn’t something they can regret.
What the hell is that supposed to mean? Surely, if Rook should regret anything it should be the thing they feel direct responsibility for, no? But Rook doesn’t. Because Rook doesn’t regret anything they do, because they aren’t written with choices that they can regret since they aren’t seen as responsible for negative outcomes.
Honestly, that sequence might as well have been about mourning or sadness rather than regret, because Rook has to be upset at the loss of companions, we don’t get to influence that. But Rook isn’t regretful – that’s how they get out – but I can’t help but wonder why they didn’t then make us able to actively regret the legitimate choices we make, rather than feeling regret for our companions deciding to risk themselves.
Rook feels like an outside observer to everything that happens around them. They are the mediator, the sounding board, the magic-8-ball for decision making when companions need a push because they’re stuck. Sure, they do things, but for an RPG the way they go about things feels so linear.
And on another note… why is Rook seen as important? They start championing Varric’s cause in his absence, they want to stop the veil coming down and that starts with stopping Solas, then stopping Elgar’nan and Ghilan’nain. But to the outside observer, Rook is just some guy who says they are on an important missions, and they really need to speak with all these important leaders of factions – just trust them, I’m sure the First Warden is happy to make time for a meeting. And also the First Talon of the Crows, I’m sure they are fine with just some foreign person saying they need to meet your leader.
What I’m trying to get at is that Rook has no title, your group isn’t given any proper title or status which these people can look at and assume Rook is being truthful, trustworthy, or even worth their time. No one has any reason to hear Rook out, but in this game, they either just do, or they don’t and it’s because they’re actually a bad guy.
But Rook is no one special. They realistically shouldn’t be trusted like they are, they should absolutely be struggling to be taken seriously by others but it’s portrayed as unfair when that does happen. But they’re the protagonist, and it’s like everyone in the world simply knows that. I want Rook to struggle, I want them to grow and prove themselves, but it feels like we skip passed that to get straight to the fantasy of being in charge and considered fit for that role.
Pacing and feeling like something was missing…
The start and ending throw a lot at us and expect us to keep on running – but then the middle portion of the game suffers due to the companions putting a stop sign on the plot so you can do their companion quests. And they aren’t shy about telling you “you need to stop and do our quests or we’ll be distracted at end game”… and again, thank you game for explaining game mechanics to me.
I was going to complete character quests, because if I care about the characters of course I’m going to do that. Having to actually pause the plot and have the characters explain to you that you have to care… I don’t know how to explain this, but it immediately took me out of the fragile immersion I was trying to get into. It makes me upset with the companions for reasons I can’t put into words. Maybe it’s because in one fell swoop it made me see them as checklists to be completed instead of people I wanted to know? I’m not sure, if someone had a similar reaction to this moment and has a better explanation, I would love to be enlightened on what it is that makes me so uncomfortable about this.
But I digress, the problem here is that the plot grinds to a halt. We stop doing things which feel like we’re advancing our plan of stopping the big baddies, we just kind of patter around and make sure our companions feel ok. And most of those missions to help our companions aren’t connected to the enemy we’re facing… Aelia, Anaris, Hezenkoss, Illario, The Dragon King, Isseya – they aren’t agents of the big baddies, they are just enemies that pop up at the same time as the big baddies are around, and are therefore making the situation worse.
So yes, we’re still doing stuff, but it feels like fluff. It feels like a detour while we just hope the world doesn’t burn while we stop to go on another picnic.
This is something that happens in a lot of games, the urgency isn’t real because you can stop progressing plot to go for a long walk if you want to – but in none of the other games did it feel so blatant to me. I still felt like most of the little tasks in the interim of plot advancement were at least advancing the cause in little ways… I don’t feel that with a lot of the things that happen in the middle of the game. It just becomes about companion missions; the bad guys will wait until we sort that out, the blight will stop advancing so we can have family dinners and go for walks.
And I really don’t know how to explain this, but it feels like something is missing in how the story progresses. Like extra things were meant to be happening and they are just not there. Maybe this is another part of how the game often just tells me things that happen in scene transitions, or it’s me really wishing there were more actual plot advancing missions in the middle of the game.
This problem I think also is most evident in the romances. Veilguard seems to take its romance pacing more from the Mass Effect games than the previous Dragon Age games – and while it was acceptable in Mass Effect to have very few romance scenes, and predominantly only having one big scene which culminates at end game, but suddenly introducing it in this series makes it feel like a huge downgrade from previous instalments.
It feels like we’re missing things, we’re given banters by companions commenting on the progress of our relationship and our partner can talk about how close they feel to our Rook – we’re given the impression our relationship is strong and established midway through the game. But with how strong the characters talk, it feels like we should have experienced so many more interactions with our partner to substantiate that.
For comparisons sake, in DAI if you enter a romance prior to going to the Winter Palace, you get romantic dialogue with your partner if they’re present, you get a dance, you get to feel like you’re in a relationship as it’s developing into something deeper. You get more interactions as the game goes on, moving from spoken interest, kisses, and intimacy (in most cases). It’s a slow build, and let’s you feel the build up by giving you glimpses of each step as the relationship develops, and then letting you just experience being in the relationship.
This game feels like it gives us the bare minimum in actual content, but has characters talk about how established the relationship is. The heavy lifting is again left to us to interpret all these blank spaces and fill in how this relationship is developing. The problem isn’t inherently with what the game gives us, it's what it doesn’t.
It lets us choose a relationship in the middle of the game, then it doesn’t give us all the progression – rather it gives us the minimal amount of snippets to meet the checklist of “they express interest, they mutually agree to be in a relationship, the relationship is consummated physically”. Sure, we can continue to pick flirt/love based dialogues, but it doesn’t feel nearly as strong as the banters seem to be telling us it is. And over all, we can go a very long time between each progression point.
I love this franchise, and I so desperately wanted to like this instalment… and instead I feel hollow.
There's a specific kind of frustration that comes from having exactly two people that you tell everything about your stories two and neither of them showing any real interest or investment in your writing.
AKA: Why I Will Be Mad About This Until the Day I Die
Okay, so I've been really in my feels about Ace again and this was the only way I could think to help get over it. I want to start by saying that this is not an attack on One Piece or Oda in any way. I love One Piece, the world, and the characters that exist within it. As with any form of media, especially one as long form as OP, there are some things that I think could have been done better. This is only meant to be a literary critique concerning how I feel about things. I know not everyone will agree with me, and that's the beauty of media: it's subjective. So with that disclaimer out of the way, I bring you a list of things that bother me about how Ace's death was written and handled afterwards. MASSIVE SPOILER ALERTS FOR MOST OF ONE PIECE.
Narrative and Writing Critiques
Retconned Powers
Before Marineford, the show established that Logia users (like Ace) are made of their element. When Akainu punches Ace, the explanation given is that magma is "hotter" than fire, so it burns through his fire.
As someone who has written fiction and studied creative writing for years, this feels like a convenient retcon. It seemed like Oda needed a quick way to bypass Ace’s logia ability because he hadn't fully fleshed out the rules of Haki yet. It felt cheap and nonsensical because it broke the established logic of how devil fruits interacted just to ensure Ace couldn't survive. That being said, I've seen the argument that Ace allowed Akainu to hit him so that it wouldn't go through him and into Luffy. While I can see this, I still think that from what we've learned in the past, with the way the logia works, it would have prevented the damage from being fatal. I talk more about Ace getting placed into this situation on it's own later on. Watching this scence just felt like the author breaking his own world rules just to make sure Ace couldn't defend himself.
The Haki Mess
The concept of Haki hadn't been fully established/developed during Marineford. It was early in the system, and there were a lot of things still being fleshed out concerning how it worked. I feel like this is most strongly shown in how Haki, at this point, is treated as extremely rare, to the point where everyone is shocked when Luffy uses it mid battle. (Especially when compared to post-timeskip where it's super common to be used by just about anyone). Without Haki being established, Oda had to create a way to bypass Ace's logia powers which led to the above issue.
The biggest part of the Haki situation that bothers me regarding Ace, is what we learn in retrospect later on. Much later on, it is revealed that Ace had Conqueror's Haki since he was a kid and mastered Armament Haki as a young pirate (albeit, the ladder is only mentioned in the Ace's story side novels).
With this being the case, it created a massive plot hole. If Ace possessed the level of Haki that they described, the logic of him being entirely defenseless against Akainu because "magma burns fire" falls apart completely. The story forcibly downplayed/ignored his abilities just so the script could kill him off.
The Pell Effect
The double standard in life or death stakes is absolutely drastic across the series. Somehow, characters like Pell are able to survived giant, city-level bombs with no almost no issues or narrative consequences. Various other side characters are shown being stabbed through the chest, shot multiple times (sorry Law, love you, but my god Oda likes making you a punching bag), or even completely cut in half (you know who you are) and still survive just fine. Yet Ace, a powerful logia-type with haki masterment, was taken out instantly due to a single blow and illogical magic rules. Will how inconsistent the system is, it makes Ace's death feel targeted and out of place.
Clumsy Plot Devices/Narrative Choices
Ace’s entire character was built on loyalty to Whitebeard and his family. Having him ignore Whitebeard's (and everyone else's) final sacrifice to turn back for a schoolyard insult ruined his growth. While yes, in the past, they showed that he was hot-headed enough to fight over the smallest mention of disrespect to Whitebeard, the majority of Marineford was Ace realizing that he did truly have a family that loved him and was worth fighting for. For me, when an author ignores character growth and forces a specific ending anyway, it stops feeling like a story and starts feeling like a mandate. It feels disrespectful because Ace was stripped of his agency just to serve as a stepping stone. It feels as if all growth of his character that was built upon was stripped from him all because he had originally been created as a character that was meant to die.
On that note, I know that Ace's character was planned to die from the start. However, when a writer creates a character solely to be a sacrificial lamb, but that character organically grows into something much bigger, I feel like it makes for better storytelling when the writer allows for the plot to develop around the characters (as opposed to the other way around). The way the whole thing was written feels like a structural clash: the author forcing a dynamic, living character back into a rigid plot box that no longer fit him.
To top it off, Luffy chasing after the vivre card on an active battlefield felt like a lazy way to put him in danger. It made Ace's death feel like an accident caused by a blunder rather than a necessary tragedy.
Redundant Motivation
A common asrgument that I see for Ace's death is that it was necessary to push Luffy forward as a way to make him realize that he was not invincible. In my perspective, Luffy already lost everything and hit rock bottom when his crew vanished at Sabaody. He did not need a second, harsher trauma just to learn he needed to get stronger. At this point, he had just suffered a humilating defeat in which he wasn't even sure if his friends were alive (it was implied, but he didn't know for sure). The crew was already separated and literally at their lowest points. The motivation to get better was already there.
The Shadow of the Pirate King:
Making Ace the son of Gol D. Roger at the last minute created what would have been a huge plot point that would have needed to be written around if he had lived. If Ace survived, his lineage and his strength meant he would logically be a primary candidate to be kinf og the pirates, which could have easily overshadowed Luffy in various ways. Instead of exploring this dynamic, or even acknowledging the fact that Ace never wanted that in the first place (especially since he was one of Luffy's biggest supporters/cheerleaders outside of wanting Whitebeard to be king), the story took the easiest way out by eliminating Ace entirely.
I can understand not wanting this competition (if you could have even called it that) between the two brothers to be a main plot focus, but that even lost credibility with the development of Luffy's devil fruit. The story spent hundreds of chapters telling us Luffy was just a rubber boy who managed to succeed and perservere through stubborness, creativity, and the desire to protect his loved ones. Then when it was revealed that he actually ate a literal god fruit and was predestined to accomplish all of these amazing things, it really made everything seem more artificial (to me at least. I could write a whole other essay about the shift from fighting for what you want to fated/chosen prophecy, but I just want to focus on Ace here). The point being, that making this shift to the fact that Luffy was prophesized to do all of this, really makes killing Ace to clear his path seem even more forced, as who his father was clearly didn't matter at that point.
Okay, now that I've covered why I think the death itself was forced and clumsily written. I want to talk about the parts that I feel like were the absolute worst. How his death was handled afterwards.
Rushed Mourning
The story pacing shifts so quickly to the training arc/timeskip after the flashbacks and Ace's death, that I feel like the narrative doesn't give proper time to sit with the grief. Especially Luffy, who was in a medical coma for two weeks, woke up, cried for maybe a couple hours more, and then was punched by Jinbe and was perfectly fine. We don't even get mention of Luffy being bothered by Ace's death again until much later in Dressrosa when he brings it up to Sabo.
The "Replacement Clone" Trope
Speaking of Sabo. I have a lot of feelings about Sabo. Introducing him right after Ace dies felt incredibly cheap. Giving him the exact same devil fruit power and the same brotherly role makes it feel like Oda regretted killing Ace and tried to hit the undo button.
Sabo had the potential to be an interesting character, and does separate himself from Ace a bit later on. But really, his introduction felt extremely disrespectful to Ace's memory. It really came across to me as an "I want to have my cake and eat it too", moment. Like I want the shock value and turmoil of killing this character, but not the narrative consequences. It really left a bitter taste in my mouth about everything.
Everything from him randomly being alive again (Welcome back Pell Effect), to getting Ace's same devil fruit powers, to the extremely convenient amnesia just fell like a cheap way to insert a brotherly figure back into Luffy's life.
Don't get me wrong, I understand that killing off a character in fiction is a necessary tool to add emotion and drive. There are plenty of characters that I loved that, while their death's did hurt a lot, it still felt like it was done in an organic, logical way that made sense (Dabi from MHA for instance. His death hit me hard as well, but story-wise and how it was handled afterwards, for the most part, were done well). Ace's death is something that I'll never be able to get over or agree with because it felt forced, illogical, and like it was handled disrespectfully to him afterwards. Am I just bitter that he's gone? Yes. But would I also still feel the same way about some of the narrative choices even if he wasn't my favorite character? Also yes.
Again, this is in no way me saying that I don't like One Piece or think that Oda is a bad writer. He's obviously incredibly talented to be able to invoke this much emotion. This is just someone who has a bit of writing knowledge providing a critique of a media that I love, but think could benefit from some aspects. No work is perfect, and while I think post-timeskip starts heading in a direction that I'm not entirely in love with, One Piece is still an absolute masterwork of a saga. I just wish it was more character driven instead of being so focused on ticking off plot point milestones.
Thanks for listening to me ramble if you've made it this far. Part two will be focused on why his death is such a struggle for me as someone with autism specifically. I feel like talking about that stuff can help normalize the grief that comes with character death especially for neurodivergent people, but I didn't want to make this any longer than it already is.
I hate hate hate weight gain lord specially with my mom celebrating it. Gosh as long as my waist is under 60cm I say I'm fine but 57/58 IS NOT FUNNY I was at 54 like a week ago for christ sake I don't want to keep gaining LORD WHY ME, WHY NOW. Granted I measured after eating and I've been bloating lately. BUT STILL
"He kept his silence. He, like Danton, could in this last hour have left sayings for men to treasure, but he had spoken what was in him, and it had not availed." 💔
