Board Thread:Off Topic/@comment-26397825-20160113034906/@comment-203.177.28.219-20160114140816

VedranTheII wrote: Both of those are catch 22 lines I use when I critique because I find it’s shorter and more to the point than saying too many convenient things happened to a character  outside of his ability to influence it  for no other reason than the author wanting to make him important. Key word is convenient:

-Lost his parents at age 7 by a secret military he had no knowledge of existing…convenient;

-Said secret military leaves him alive so you can have him experimented on…convenient;

-He was considered a failure despite surviving and gaining abilities from the experiment so he can be buddy buddy with the other underpowered failures...convenient;

-Despite being a failure, he wasn’t left to die so the scientists wouldn’t have to spend manpower to keep an eye on him or the other failures from doing something crazy like oh I dunno, trying to run away?...convenient;

-You gave him a split personality that won’t freak out the other failures but will freak out the village he will be living in so you can get him to escape now and be hated by other people later…convenient;

-At the age of 10 all the failures banded to try and make it out, yet he’s the only one who does cause plot armor…convenient;

-He didn’t get hypothermia in the icy pool and die...convenient;

-He didn’t drown because “something” was there to save him...convenient;

-The cold somehow made him lose his memory...sure...why not...convenient;

-the experiments gave him tattoos to make a bunch of conveniently paranoid villagers who associated him with a convenient demonic myth conveniently hate him...have i mentioned convenient?

Now compare and contrast to the stuff say….Yang went through between age 7 and 10 that were outside of her control:

-Found out her mother was mother by proxy;

-Her real mother ditched her before she could even remember her face;

-Had to be saved by her uncle when she followed a lead in order to seek her real mother out.

Everything else happened through her actions. She found the picture of her mother while looking for it, she took Ruby with her and nearly got herself killed, and she decided to keep looking but be more careful after she got saved.

Notice the problem? Compared to Yang, your character is nothing more than a ball you kicked around to see where it lands. So I stand by what I said but will rephrase it to hopefully remove the ambiguity. Too many things happened that your character had either no control over or little to no influence in creating them for me to like his design or concept.. Now this is what I was looking for when I sought this wiki for a critique. I'm not mad, a little disappointed, but nor mad. I knew there were things I needed to work on for him, but his story got disjointed, as other characters of mine were developed. I could answer some of these complaints, but I have what I need, rendering arguing pointless. I will say I'm not just kicking him around to see what results. There are many other characters I have in mind that are connected  and parallel in ways that moving one piece threatens the entire framework to collapse. I'll move on to a different character to illustrate. Ember  (Sirius's teammate and protege) paralles Ruby in several ways. Ember is blue; Ruby is red, referencing RVB. Ember has a blue fire Semblance, which makes her a thematic foil for Weiss and Yang as well. Since Weiss is almost like a sister to Ruby, Ember feels like a lost relative. Speaking of which, Nevara "Schnee" further deepens the parallels. She is an antagonist bound with Ember, just as Cinder is to Ruby. Nevara uses ice; Cinder uses fire. Nevara parallels Winter, who parallels Yang, as sister figures. Keep in mind, Nevara wants to train Ember. This is also similiar to Emerald who is the "apprentice" of Cinder. If Ruby is going to become the guardian of the world and the Summer Maiden, Ember would become a rebel that defies those in power. I have other characters with similiar themes. Of course, symbolism does not replace good writing, but I'm trying to balance it. I hope you understand what I'm trying to accomplish. Hopefully, when done, my story would feel like a fractured mirrror to the canon story, presenting a dark side to the world that is different from the darkness already present.