Critique Request, to Magical Girl fans! :D

Hai guise. So, um, I have this character (called Naida) for a script I'm writing (called 'The Adventures of Naida at the End of the World') and, well...

She's supposed to subvert, invert and deconstruct many Magical Girl tropes and traits and things while still keeping the core ideal (girl gets strange powers which complicate her life and (sometimes) leads to battles with other super powerful individuals or alien monsters etc.)

Thing is, I'm not sure whether I've actually *succeeded* or not. I like to think I have, considering the sheer variety of stuff that can be termed 'Magical Girl' anime, but some may disagree. If you feel the character 'doesn't seem to fit', please explain exactly what you mean, and why.

Naida Willis

• Intelligent, bookish, introverted and easily discouraged, fascinated with anthropology and annoyed by most people’s disinterest (and even disgust) towards the field of study or towards arthropods in general. Possibly eats too much snack food and tends to listen to depressing music.

• One day, Naida's ordinary life is interrupted by a new transfer student at her school. Eventually, she meets a mysterious spider-like creature called 'Nana' - Nana is of the Inous, a peaceful but relatively un-advanced race of monstrous giant bug-like creatures, who have been forced to flee by the genuinely adorable members of the Karalot Empire. In order to help thwart the Karalot's plans to conquer Earth and wipe out the remaining Inous, they give Naida the power to transform using a mysterious crystal - and so begins her adventures.

• Naida’s outfit is quite dark and insidious looking, maintaining the vaguely ‘princess-y’ design that all transformed girls share, but is in a mixture of black and various shades of green, and instead of being ‘templar-esque’ like Clarissa’s, the armoured aspects are instead made of things like bone, chitin, shells or meat: it looks vaguely organic, like it was built out of bits of dead insects and arachnids, and the cloth looks like it’s woven from spider silk. It has a motif of spiders, webs, and lightning. In her right hand is a black and green staff, with a green crystal on the end and the metal shaped like an arching spider. Emerging from her back is a pair of insect-like wings which glow bright neon green.
  • Can fire bolts of black acid that corrodes materials, or blasts of green, glowing slime that function like giant spider webs. Can also fly and summon a variety of insects and arachnid species to do her bidding - this appears visually as an indistinct, dark grey ‘mass’ that buzzes loudly and blocks things. Her strength and reflexes also increase tenfold.

Sorry to break it to you, but anthropology is not the science of arthropods.

Oh, am I supposed to comment on the character too? Uh...well, she fits, but I just don't know if you've done enough out of the ordinary to count her as a deconstruction. One idea would be to play up the 'easily discouraged' thing, like having her bail out on missions and having the inous repeatedly get frustrated with her for not being adequately heroic. Also, you could give her transformed attributes that aren't strictly enhancements, like maybe only being able to hear with her arms (like a cricket), or having all her speech sound like cicadas chirping (so other humans can't understand her, but the inous can), or being really attracted to bright lights (either innocently or otherwise, depending on the tone and target audience you're going for).

Join my forum game!

Haha, I'm reminded of that Calvin And Hobbes strip where Calvin starts his report and the entire class goes "BATS AREN'T BUGS!"

I'd say I'm being refined Into the web I descend Killing those I've left behind I have been Endarkened

When you say, "She's supposed to subvert, invert and deconstruct many Magical Girl tropes..." I'm not sure you understand what those mean. A subversion means that it doesn't happen, an inversion means the opposite of it happens, and a deconstruction means that it's played realistically straight to look bad. It might be possible to make some tropes about magical girls played with one way and some played with a different way. Which Magical Girl tropes did you have in mind?

so far you've succeeded in the subverting and inverting part. to (needlessly) elaborate:

• your description of her seems to be a typical magical girl and then...
• she gets her powers from an Eldritch Abomination creature^note this isn't quite a subversion and more of an inversion, you're supposed to set it up to happen first then take a sudden turn where it doesnt occur, like a genie that grants wishes for free will turn out to be a malicious one who grants wishes in a way that screws the wishers over. "turn out" because the corrupted wish isn't apparent at first. (? perhaps just Ugly Cute is enough) who are at war with Killer Rabbit creatures. an Inverted Trope.
• Then you list her Lovecraftian Superpower which apparently, is supposed to mirror typical magical girl powers.

Well, don't see any deconstructions yet, but that's kinda the point of this thread so...
just remember one thing that will make deconstructions easier:

Play the tropes straight but focus on the realistic/pessimistic consequences/disadvantages of having said tropes..


so for example, She Wake Up, Go to School & Save the World. to deconstruct that, you gotta simply have her have actual trouble in classes and lose focus in battle due to having problems on both. show how bad it affects her life.
for another, let's say the usual "beginners luck" plot of magical girls. have her screw up so bad she injures the person she is supposed to save and have the Early-Bird Boss succeed but get defeated after it (as in she wins, but is too late). then let this consequence turn up later as plot points or trauma.

edited 20th Jul '13 2:11:28 PM by ShanghaiSlave

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?

Regarding the deconstruction aspect - that's more of a side-effect of my writing in general. I dunno how well I succeed at it, but as a general rule I try to address and play out pretty much all of the implications and possibilities of a premise. More specifically, I suppose the deconstruction is of some of the more 'general' tropes associated with kids cartoons anyway.

And thank you all for the suggestions - I was considering having her avoid being too heroic at first, but after these comments, it definitely seems to be the way to go. Un-heroic at first, I mean.

That, and I guess 'aversion' of tropes is a common aspect? Or else that they're lumped aside. To compare - her main rival, and later close ally, is a much more typical Magical Girl empowered by the Karalot Empire: who battles, not out of a sense of duty or revenge (like Naida does, since she at least partly does it out of spite against the idea of What Measure Is a Non-Human?) but rather because it 'sounds fun' and heroic and such. That, and how could such adorable creatures be evil, right?

• Also, Naida's rival has the power to 'purify the soul' of her targets, with a pink heart blast - this is one example of Deconstruction I'm talking about.

Naida already has a reputation for coming in late to class (the pilot episode being an exception, due to two of her pet spiders (Peter and Parker) dying mysteriously) - when she starts having to routinely stay up late, this leads to criticism from relatives and teachers, frustration from friends, and further teasing from bullies. The Inous also get annoyed with her - admittedly, they hoped their savior would be grosser looking and, ya know, capable.

• It seems like a good idea that her powers have unintentional, 'bug related' side-effects, to create a further contrast.

On another, somewhat irrelevant note - Naida is black, which I figured adds an interesting new spin on things, maybe?

edited 20th Jul '13 2:08:31 PM by Eventua

pink heart blast soul purifier is not a deconstruction. at least until we see what exactly it does to the soul that is.


and having a black character have ugly powers seems like treading on a minefield to me. at the very least, race should be irrelevant, but it will be pretty noticeable in this case perhaps.

edited 20th Jul '13 2:16:14 PM by ShanghaiSlave

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?

Yeah, should've elaborated.

It 'purifies the soul' by removing evil. According to the definition of the Karalot Empire.

Humans tend not to think properly, afterwards.

damn, you reply too fast. i've edited my two previous posts. and that effect would be a variation of the usual magical girl enemies "Agony Beam" powers that make people depressed, not a deconstruction.

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?

No, what I mean is - it makes them happy, you know? So happy! And it shows them all the more fully the One Truth that, of course, beauty is everything, that joy is everything, and that the Karalots - so cute and caring and numerous - are so, so, much better than other forms of life.

Especially things without internal skeletons. Especially those nasty, nasty Inous, and the Earth creatures that scuttle and creep and swim, just like them.

Regarding Naida getting the 'ugly' powers - the idea of the Inous being ugly is itself set up to ultimately fall flat: because 'ugliness' and 'beauty' are ultimately meaningless, subjective expressions that mean nothing and vary massively between individuals and cultures.

That's basically the central theme of the plot.

uh... make "variation" inversion. i was typing that @ 5 AM without sleep. i never sleep early on saturdays, or make that i don't sleep on saturday.


her power then is an Inversion of the usual fare of magical girl enemies. so far so good.

the plot is nice (and now the black heroine doesn't sound so racist), but won't be a deconstruction unless you explore the setting for all it's worth. so far though, you are on the right track. however, you don't seem to have your definitions straight on trope playing.

like what lexicon above said:

• Subverted Trope — is when you set up a trope to happen and then it doesn't happen. like in the Sheet of Glass example in the page.
• Inverted Trope — is when you use the opposite of the normal trope. this is what you are doing here on most tropes so far.
• Deconstructed Trope — is when you play a trope straight but show that it's not really as "awesome" for positive tropes or "is far worse" for negative tropes.

edited 20th Jul '13 10:53:55 PM by ShanghaiSlave

Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?

drew some fan art just for fun []

She kinds sounds to be a scary protagonist going by the description. But sounds like fun.

Are you going by a cheerful protagonist?

edited 31st Jul '13 2:21:23 PM by Fallenlegend

Make your hearth shine through the darkest night; let it transform hate into kindness, evil into justice, and loneliness into love.

Eee! Oh, thank you! That looks really awesome, the staff and armour especially.

As for her personality... she's not really 'scary', though I imagine she'd be the sort of person who'd get a kick from playing some sort of gross or scary prank on particularly unpleasant people. Rather, more an introvert who enjoys spending time with her pets - she can handle 'ordinary stuff' or hanging around more outgoing people fairly well, but she doesn't generally enjoy doing so.

So I guess, eh... more emotional and cheerful if you get to know her or when she's talking about stuff she enjoys, but tends to be kind of gloomy and/or apathetic towards people she doesn't know or like, or when forced to discuss/engage in stuff she doesn't enjoy.