Dispute over the definition/description: Logical Weakness

A few days ago, there was a debate in the Mahou Sensei Negima thread (which continues into the next page) over whether Negima's protagonist's vulnerability to anti-demon techniques while using his Black Magic (particularly his Elemental Shapeshifter modes) constitutes as either Kryptonite Factor or Logical Weakness. *

To make a long story short, while everyone agreed that he did not qualify for Kryptonite Factor, it was decided that until the actual boundaries of Logical Weakness are clarified, the entry under his Character Sheet profile would be axed.

My personal stance on the matter is best summarized by the following quotes from Power at a Price and Kryptonite Factor, respectively (since there's no Laconic entry for the trope):

In other words, the character's own power(s) make them vulnerable to something in a sensible/logical way. Other participants in the debate, however, have challenged this interpretation as too broad (it would be better to read the discussion for details, the exact positions are varied and I do not want to accidentally misrepresent any of them).

I now seek the Troper Hive Mind's voice on the matter: What are the boundaries of Logical Weakness?

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The "directly related to his powers" seems like a good definition. Sort of like a deconstruction; what are the consequences of somebody having these powers in the real world?

A good example is Alex Mercer from Prototype; being a human-shaped mass of biomatter with the ability to absorb living creatures, he's simply too dense to swim.

Well, maybe deconstruction is only part (but not all) of the whole thing...

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Hmm, good point.

And rename it Bundled Weakness or Requisite Weakness or something. It sounds like "Puff of Logic Vunerability" or "EMP Vunerability" depending on how you read it. And has little to do with logic as such.

edited 12th May '11 6:49:22 PM by TBeholder

...And even I make no pretense Of having more than common sense - R.W.Wood

I see this as a sort of inverse of Required Secondary Powers. Both are basically related to Fridge Logic, which makes me wonder if they should be YMMV. Thoughts on that?

Don't think so, unless people are using it to bitch about the setting more than I've seen.

Fight smart, not fair.

I hate the new names. The current one sums the trope up perfectly.

Also, I don't think most magical powers should count. In the Negima example above, it requires that the reader understand that Black Magic and "anti-demon" whatever are derived from the same thing. The entire point to magic is that only the writer knows that the rules are until he/she directly states so.

The point of Magic A Is Magic A is that readers can reasonably predict what magic is capable of.

The Negima one is weird, though. It's not a direct result of his powers, but it is related. He gained the ability to become an Energy Being. In this 'verse, high-class demons are Energy Beings. Therefore, techniques designed to work on high-class demons work on him. It's a little more wonky than other examples.

Energy Being is technically inaccurate; it's more that his Elemental Shapeshifting causes him to become both partially incorporeal and make his body's state of existence similar enough in nature to that of demons to make Demon Slayer attacks work just as effectively on him (when they have much less effectiveness on normal humans).

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Bump.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

A power making a character similar to a demon also making that character vulnerable to anti-demon stuff seems pretty much the exact definition of a Logical Weakness to me.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

That's what I kept saying. Others think otherwise, however, and yet I was not convinced by the arguments they posed. We were hoping the matter can be better resolved here.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I agree with Native Jovian.

Fight smart, not fair.

I also agree. Demons being weak to things that kill demons is just logical.

edited 24th May '11 6:09:48 PM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

As the party representing the other side of the argument, the techniques he's talking about were developed specifically to fight demons. Negi basically becomes a demon. That is not logical weakness, it's someone developing a countermeasure for exactly this kind of situation. Logical Weakness is supposed to entail things more like fireballs not working well in the rain and whatnot. There is little practical distinction between the Negima example and someone developing bullets to kill someone.

If this counts as Logical Weakness, then the trope is much broader than it should be. The demon killing stuff is not due to anything like holy water. It's merely special sword techniques.

Also, please try to either let the other party know you're bringing it to the TRS or at least give a balanced view of the situation, Marq.

Edit: And everyone in the thread familiar with the series at the time agreed that it does not fit Logical Weakness. Marq was the only dissenting opinion by the time the conversation was over as I recall.

edited 24th May '11 9:03:35 PM by Arha

Well there are the Anti-demon techs and the "second form" tech which is used by the main family (it lets you attack the behind someone to the person behind) which were originally made for possessions and such as explained in Love Hina.

The combination of those two is what makes Godel such a threat since the "second form" ability lets the attack go though shields that all mages use added onto the the Super Effective Anti-demon techs.

edited 24th May '11 9:27:56 PM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

I've said it time and again, Magia Erebea doesn't turn Negi into a true demon, it turns him into a being that is similar enough to high-class demons for Demon Slayer techniques to be just as Super Effective against him as they are towards actual demons. Just because Evangeline stated that the end result of his metamorphosis is liable to be a bestial monster does not equate to transforming into a demon; there's a clear difference between terms like bakemono (monster) and mamono (demon).

Yeah, that's one way to look at it.

@Arha: You were saying?

That said, 1) I already asked you in the Negima thread whether you wanted to be the one who takes it to the TRS; I took your silence to that post for the following couple of days as a "No". 2) I was under the impression that you washed your hands of the issue entirely. 3) I specifically included the following clause into the OP...

edited 25th May '11 4:39:45 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

@Arha: "becoming demonic to fight demons" is not what we're talking about, here. We're talking about "being vulnerable to anti-demon stuff while using a technique to become demonic". The technique makes you become more demon-like. Being vulnerable to anti-demon stuff is a Logical Weakness to that.

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

But it's not a logical weakness. Someone said 'Shit, these demons are bad news. Let's develop a style of swordsmanship to deal with things like this. Okay, they tend to be hard to hit directly, let's make our attacks do X.' You know what a logical weakness from Negima is that I can think of? Negi's first lightning form actually turns him into lightning, meaning he puts out positive streamers and thus despite his speed isn't that difficult to counter. You know where he'll be due to how lightning works. That's an actual property of lightning and a logical way of dealing with it.

The sword techniques do not rely on anything like holy water or other common demon weaknesses or whatever. They're just techniques made to hit certain beings. This is not what logical weakness as I see it is meant to encompass.

And Marq, it simply annoys me that without saying anything you went around the opinion of everyone there. I don't think Raso is actually really supporting your argument, either, since it's not a weakness of demons. It's a weakness of beings that have certain properties. And Shinmeiryu works on everyone. That's what it does.

edited 25th May '11 8:59:53 AM by Arha

I don't know anything about Negima, so the examples there are useless to me.

As I understand it, the facts of the example under discussion are that a character uses a technique that gives them some properties of demons, but also makes them vulnerable to some of the same things demons are vulnerable to (in this case, a specific attack).

If my understanding of the example is wrong, then that's one thing. But if you're trying to say that becoming vulnerable to anti-demon techniques isn't a Logical Weakness of using a technique to become more demon-like, then you're just wrong.

Edit — we're ninja-editing over each other. I'll wait a few minutes to let everyone get on the same page before replying again.

edited 25th May '11 9:48:45 AM by NativeJovian

Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.

Have you actually read Negima? Shinmeiryu was developed to deal with demons by being able to go through objects and hit other things. It works on everyone. [Swords] were developed to kill [Humans] so when [Monkeys] are similar to [Humans] is it a logical weakness that [Swords] work on [Monkeys]? That's what you're saying.

Let's come at this from another angle.

Okay, swords. Swords were designed to kill anything that bleeds, specifically humans. Therefore anything that bleeds is vulnerable to swords. That's basically what the Negima example is.

Now, is that a Logical Weakness? I honestly don't know, I think it's a hard one to pin down. I'm just trying to make the example clear so people don't have to read a couple dozen chapters before chipping in on this discussion.

The basic Zanmaken does not go through objects, Arha. It's the Ni-no-Tachi form of the technique that does, and that's all the difference between the two. Zanmaken being Super Effective against spirits and demons in and of itself is not reliant on being able to go through objects.

And since when did was the issue about "Shinmeiryuu as a whole being a Logical Weakness of Magia Erebea!Negi"? Only the Zanmaken techniques have been shown to be capable of damaging Negi in his Magia Erebea forms; the Zanganken Ni-no-Tachi that he was hit with that time only disrupted the physical tangibility of his arm and leg temporarily before they re-solidified, and the only problem then was that as a Ni-no-Tachi technique, it managed to completely bypass all of his magical Deflector Shields.

edited 25th May '11 10:12:44 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

Most of the info about the techs are in Love Hina though. Anti-demon techs are known to everyone in the Shinmeiryuu or Gods cry school its the Ni-no-Tachi' aka Second Form'' ability (Going to start using English names for this as its a pain in the ass to spell.) that allow the techs to pass by Mage's shields and attack the person directly which is only known by the main family.

It was first made to deal with Demonic Possession as proven vs the Hina blade in book nine of Love Hina, but it works perfectly fine in other areas its done is destroy a rock behind Keitaro, Clothing Damage to Naru and Mutsumi behind Keitaro when Motoko used it on him.

Its the Combination of which that's the Logical Weakness IMO "Second Form" makes Godel a mage killer but Negi became a half demon mage so combining them makes him extremely deadly to Negi.

(Do we have a trope where an attack skips the object in front of it and attacks the person behind it?)

edited 25th May '11 10:17:27 AM by Raso

Sparkling and glittering! Jan-Ken-Pon!

Fine, I'll reclarify. Zanmaken techniques hit intangible stuff. We don't know why, but they were something developed specifically for this purpose. If they hit because of some special inherent quality of demons that had been noted it might be different. Say demons are made of fire and the sword techniques work by throwing water on them or something.

Do tanks have a logical weakness to those uranium shells or whatever they were? Does bulletproof armor have a vulnerability to those bullets designed to pierce them? Do animals have a logical weakness to swords? That is the category that the Negima attacks are in. By your own admission the Zanmaken techniques just happen to work in a certain manner that they go through stuff and hit other stuff.