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Zeno\'s Race is now Exponential Plot Delay.
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[[caption-width:260:You can't get there from here, man.]]
[=~Zeno's Race~=]
There was once a philosopher named Zeno who tried to disprove the possibility of movement with paradoxes. One of these paradoxes goes like this: to get from point A to point B, you have to go to the halfway point first. Then you have to go halfway between that point and B. Then you have to go halfway between ''that'' point and B... There will always be another halfway point, and so how can you ever reach B?
In {{real life}}, this is easily manageable, as the "paradox" doesn't take time or speed into account -- each halfway point takes half as long to get to, so the amount of time you're given to reach point B never reaches the amount of time the journey would be expected to take. But some serial works seem to take just as long getting to the next halfway point as they did to the last one. They are then trapped in [[ZenosRace Zeno's Race]].
Such a work may start normally, but if it goes on long enough -- and as long as this trope is in effect, the work is not going to reach the end naturally -- then the plot will eventually freeze over. You'll know from watching the early installments that the story is ''supposed'' to be arc-driven, and the ResetButton is never used at any time; but the story will eventually be moving forward so slowly that new viewers will assume that StatusQuoIsGod.
It's extremely common in action anime and manga. The cast and premise will be introduced up front so you know who to root for during the thousand-or-so viewing hours of high-octane battles that make up the rest of the series.
It also sometimes surfaces to milk the cash cow in other genres, such as romance; a lack of progress sometimes translates into good business.
Sample structure of a work in ZenosRace:
* IntroDump: Roughly half of what you'll ever need to know about the work will be introduced in the first five installments. Superpowers? Space-age weaponry? Talking animals? Whatever you're in for, it's going to be there right at the start. Take notes.
* Things will move at a comfortable rate for the next ten to fifteen installments, in which you'll meet the supporting cast and learn some of the nuances of the world the story is set in.
* Plot development beyond the twentieth installment will slow dramatically. Maybe there's an attractive tangent that will turn out to be a PlotTumor; maybe the first truly major villain has finally appeared. Maybe the writers got distracted by something shiny. The introduction of anything relevant to the show's original premise will eventually cease entirely, leading to:
* Pseudo-StatusQuoIsGod: This is it. The forces of good and evil will be locked in sporadic but unending battle. [[StoryArc Story Arcs]] will rise and fall, and may themselves drag out and succumb to ArcFatigue, blurring the original story even further. Beyond this point, no progress toward any goals set in the start of the series will be made. You may find yourself looking forward to the {{filler}} episodes, since these are at least not even pretending to move things forward.
* Eventually, the series will end - forcibly, if TheChrisCarterEffect takes hold. Resolution is optional; you can easily be left with NoEnding. Any resolution given will probably seem unnatural or inorganic after prolonged stagnation (or may be a genuine non sequitor - a GeckoEnding) and even if it isn't, a real ending may feel abrupt after so many years with so little progress.
Remember, even if the series has taken way too long and is driving you mad with its lack of progress, you may be sad to see it go. You'll have gotten to know the characters ''very'' well by the time it ends, after all.
----
!!Examples
* {{Bleach}} The more arcs pile up, the longer each one gets and the more meaningless they become.
* The DragonBall saga, taken collectively.
* {{Inuyasha}} Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and InuYasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show OvertookTheManga
* SailorMoon. Its one MonsterOfTheWeek after another until the current BigBad gets bored and initates a climax. Then a new BigBad comes along and starts the whole thing over again.
* ''FinalFantasyXII'' The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the [[MacGuffin shiny paperweight]] you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking ''back'' across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
<<|{{Exposition}}|>>
[[redirect:ptitle96cc44ei]]
[[caption-width:260:You can't get there from here, man.]]
[=~Zeno's Race~=]
There was once a philosopher named Zeno who tried to disprove the possibility of movement with paradoxes. One of these paradoxes goes like this: to get from point A to point B, you have to go to the halfway point first. Then you have to go halfway between that point and B. Then you have to go halfway between ''that'' point and B... There will always be another halfway point, and so how can you ever reach B?
In {{real life}}, this is easily manageable, as the "paradox" doesn't take time or speed into account -- each halfway point takes half as long to get to, so the amount of time you're given to reach point B never reaches the amount of time the journey would be expected to take. But some serial works seem to take just as long getting to the next halfway point as they did to the last one. They are then trapped in [[ZenosRace Zeno's Race]].
Such a work may start normally, but if it goes on long enough -- and as long as this trope is in effect, the work is not going to reach the end naturally -- then the plot will eventually freeze over. You'll know from watching the early installments that the story is ''supposed'' to be arc-driven, and the ResetButton is never used at any time; but the story will eventually be moving forward so slowly that new viewers will assume that StatusQuoIsGod.
It's extremely common in action anime and manga. The cast and premise will be introduced up front so you know who to root for during the thousand-or-so viewing hours of high-octane battles that make up the rest of the series.
It also sometimes surfaces to milk the cash cow in other genres, such as romance; a lack of progress sometimes translates into good business.
Sample structure of a work in ZenosRace:
* IntroDump: Roughly half of what you'll ever need to know about the work will be introduced in the first five installments. Superpowers? Space-age weaponry? Talking animals? Whatever you're in for, it's going to be there right at the start. Take notes.
* Things will move at a comfortable rate for the next ten to fifteen installments, in which you'll meet the supporting cast and learn some of the nuances of the world the story is set in.
* Plot development beyond the twentieth installment will slow dramatically. Maybe there's an attractive tangent that will turn out to be a PlotTumor; maybe the first truly major villain has finally appeared. Maybe the writers got distracted by something shiny. The introduction of anything relevant to the show's original premise will eventually cease entirely, leading to:
* Pseudo-StatusQuoIsGod: This is it. The forces of good and evil will be locked in sporadic but unending battle. [[StoryArc Story Arcs]] will rise and fall, and may themselves drag out and succumb to ArcFatigue, blurring the original story even further. Beyond this point, no progress toward any goals set in the start of the series will be made. You may find yourself looking forward to the {{filler}} episodes, since these are at least not even pretending to move things forward.
* Eventually, the series will end - forcibly, if TheChrisCarterEffect takes hold. Resolution is optional; you can easily be left with NoEnding. Any resolution given will probably seem unnatural or inorganic after prolonged stagnation (or may be a genuine non sequitor - a GeckoEnding) and even if it isn't, a real ending may feel abrupt after so many years with so little progress.
Remember, even if the series has taken way too long and is driving you mad with its lack of progress, you may be sad to see it go. You'll have gotten to know the characters ''very'' well by the time it ends, after all.
----
!!Examples
* {{Bleach}} The more arcs pile up, the longer each one gets and the more meaningless they become.
* The DragonBall saga, taken collectively.
* {{Inuyasha}} Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and InuYasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show OvertookTheManga
* SailorMoon. Its one MonsterOfTheWeek after another until the current BigBad gets bored and initates a climax. Then a new BigBad comes along and starts the whole thing over again.
* ''FinalFantasyXII'' The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the [[MacGuffin shiny paperweight]] you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking ''back'' across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
<<|{{Exposition}}|>>
[[redirect:ptitle96cc44ei]]
to:
[[caption-width:260:You can't get there from here, man.]]
[=~Zeno's Race~=]
There was once a philosopher named Zeno who tried to disprove the possibility of movement with paradoxes. One of these paradoxes goes like this: to get from point A to point B, you have to go to the halfway point first. Then you have to go halfway between that point and B. Then you have to go halfway between ''that'' point and B... There will always be another halfway point, and so how can you ever reach B?
In {{real life}}, this is easily manageable, as the "paradox" doesn't take time or speed into account -- each halfway point takes half as long to get to, so the amount of time you're given to reach point B never reaches the amount of time the journey would be expected to take. But some serial works seem to take just as long getting to the next halfway point as they did to the last one. They are then trapped in [[ZenosRace Zeno's Race]].
Such a work may start normally, but if it goes on long enough -- and as long as this trope is in effect, the work is not going to reach the end naturally -- then the plot will eventually freeze over. You'll know from watching the early installments that the story is ''supposed'' to be arc-driven, and the ResetButton is never used at any time; but the story will eventually be moving forward so slowly that new viewers will assume that StatusQuoIsGod.
It's extremely common in action anime and manga. The cast and premise will be introduced up front so you know who to root for during the thousand-or-so viewing hours of high-octane battles that make up the rest of the series.
It also sometimes surfaces to milk the cash cow in other genres, such as romance; a lack of progress sometimes translates into good business.
Sample structure of a work in ZenosRace:
* IntroDump: Roughly half of what you'll ever need to know about the work will be introduced in the first five installments. Superpowers? Space-age weaponry? Talking animals? Whatever you're in for, it's going to be there right at the start. Take notes.
* Things will move at a comfortable rate for the next ten to fifteen installments, in which you'll meet the supporting cast and learn some of the nuances of the world the story is set in.
* Plot development beyond the twentieth installment will slow dramatically. Maybe there's an attractive tangent that will turn out to be a PlotTumor; maybe the first truly major villain has finally appeared. Maybe the writers got distracted by something shiny. The introduction of anything relevant to the show's original premise will eventually cease entirely, leading to:
* Pseudo-StatusQuoIsGod: This is it. The forces of good and evil will be locked in sporadic but unending battle. [[StoryArc Story Arcs]] will rise and fall, and may themselves drag out and succumb to ArcFatigue, blurring the original story even further. Beyond this point, no progress toward any goals set in the start of the series will be made. You may find yourself looking forward to the {{filler}} episodes, since these are at least not even pretending to move things forward.
* Eventually, the series will end - forcibly, if TheChrisCarterEffect takes hold. Resolution is optional; you can easily be left with NoEnding. Any resolution given will probably seem unnatural or inorganic after prolonged stagnation (or may be a genuine non sequitor - a GeckoEnding) and even if it isn't, a real ending may feel abrupt after so many years with so little progress.
Remember, even if the series has taken way too long and is driving you mad with its lack of progress, you may be sad to see it go. You'll have gotten to know the characters ''very'' well by the time it ends, after all.
----
!!Examples
* {{Bleach}} The more arcs pile up, the longer each one gets and the more meaningless they become.
* The DragonBall saga, taken collectively.
* {{Inuyasha}} Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and InuYasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show OvertookTheManga
* SailorMoon. Its one MonsterOfTheWeek after another until the current BigBad gets bored and initates a climax. Then a new BigBad comes along and starts the whole thing over again.
* ''FinalFantasyXII'' The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the [[MacGuffin shiny paperweight]] you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking ''back'' across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
<<|{{Exposition}}|>>
[[redirect:ptitle96cc44ei]]
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[[caption-width:260:You can't get there from here, man.]]
[=~Zeno's Race~=]
There was once a philosopher named Zeno who tried to disprove the possibility of movement with paradoxes. One of these paradoxes goes like this: to get from point A to point B, you have to go to the halfway point first. Then you have to go halfway between that point and B. Then you have to go halfway between ''that'' point and B... There will always be another halfway point, and so how can you ever reach B?
In {{real life}}, this is easily manageable, as the "paradox" doesn't take time or speed into account -- each halfway point takes half as long to get to, so the amount of time you're given to reach point B never reaches the amount of time the journey would be expected to take. But some serial works seem to take just as long getting to the next halfway point as they did to the last one. They are then trapped in [[ZenosRace Zeno's Race]].
Such a work may start normally, but if it goes on long enough -- and as long as this trope is in effect, the work is not going to reach the end naturally -- then the plot will eventually freeze over. You'll know from watching the early installments that the story is ''supposed'' to be arc-driven, and the ResetButton is never used at any time; but the story will eventually be moving forward so slowly that new viewers will assume that StatusQuoIsGod.
It's extremely common in action anime and manga. The cast and premise will be introduced up front so you know who to root for during the thousand-or-so viewing hours of high-octane battles that make up the rest of the series.
It also sometimes surfaces to milk the cash cow in other genres, such as romance; a lack of progress sometimes translates into good business.
Sample structure of a work in ZenosRace:
*IntroDump: Roughly half of what you'll ever need to know about the work will be introduced in the first five installments. Superpowers? Space-age weaponry? Talking animals? Whatever you're in for, it's going to be there right at the start. Take notes.
*Things will move at a comfortable rate for the next ten to fifteen installments, in which you'll meet the supporting cast and learn some of the nuances of the world the story is set in.
* Plot development beyond the twentieth installment will slow dramatically. Maybe there's an attractive tangent that will turn out to be a PlotTumor; maybe the first truly major villain has finally appeared. Maybe the writers got distracted by something shiny. The introduction of anything relevant to the show's original premise will eventually cease entirely, leading to:
*Pseudo-StatusQuoIsGod: This is it. The forces of good and evil will be locked in sporadic but unending battle. [[StoryArc Story Arcs]] will rise and fall, and may themselves drag out and succumb to ArcFatigue, blurring the original story even further. Beyond this point, no progress toward any goals set in the start of the series will be made. You may find yourself looking forward to the {{filler}} episodes, since these are at least not even pretending to move things forward.
*Eventually, the series will end - forcibly, if TheChrisCarterEffect takes hold. Resolution is optional; you can easily be left with NoEnding. Any resolution given will probably seem unnatural or inorganic after prolonged stagnation (or may be a genuine non sequitor - a GeckoEnding) and even if it isn't, a real ending may feel abrupt after so many years with so little progress.
Remember, even if the series has taken way too long and is driving you mad with its lack of progress, you may be sad to see it go. You'll have gotten to know the characters ''very'' well by the time it ends, after all.
----
!!Examples
*{{Bleach}} The more arcs pile up, the longer each one gets and the more meaningless they become.
*The DragonBall saga, taken collectively.
*{{Inuyasha}} Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and InuYasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show OvertookTheManga
*SailorMoon. Its one MonsterOfTheWeek after another until the current BigBad gets bored and initates a climax. Then a new BigBad comes along and starts the whole thing over again.
*''FinalFantasyXII'' The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the [[MacGuffin shiny paperweight]] you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking ''back'' across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
<<|{{Exposition}}|>>
[[caption-width:260:You can't get there from here, man.]]
[=~Zeno's Race~=]
There was once a philosopher named Zeno who tried to disprove the possibility of movement with paradoxes. One of these paradoxes goes like this: to get from point A to point B, you have to go to the halfway point first. Then you have to go halfway between that point and B. Then you have to go halfway between ''that'' point and B... There will always be another halfway point, and so how can you ever reach B?
In {{real life}}, this is easily manageable, as the "paradox" doesn't take time or speed into account -- each halfway point takes half as long to get to, so the amount of time you're given to reach point B never reaches the amount of time the journey would be expected to take. But some serial works seem to take just as long getting to the next halfway point as they did to the last one. They are then trapped in [[ZenosRace Zeno's Race]].
Such a work may start normally, but if it goes on long enough -- and as long as this trope is in effect, the work is not going to reach the end naturally -- then the plot will eventually freeze over. You'll know from watching the early installments that the story is ''supposed'' to be arc-driven, and the ResetButton is never used at any time; but the story will eventually be moving forward so slowly that new viewers will assume that StatusQuoIsGod.
It's extremely common in action anime and manga. The cast and premise will be introduced up front so you know who to root for during the thousand-or-so viewing hours of high-octane battles that make up the rest of the series.
It also sometimes surfaces to milk the cash cow in other genres, such as romance; a lack of progress sometimes translates into good business.
Sample structure of a work in ZenosRace:
*IntroDump: Roughly half of what you'll ever need to know about the work will be introduced in the first five installments. Superpowers? Space-age weaponry? Talking animals? Whatever you're in for, it's going to be there right at the start. Take notes.
*Things will move at a comfortable rate for the next ten to fifteen installments, in which you'll meet the supporting cast and learn some of the nuances of the world the story is set in.
* Plot development beyond the twentieth installment will slow dramatically. Maybe there's an attractive tangent that will turn out to be a PlotTumor; maybe the first truly major villain has finally appeared. Maybe the writers got distracted by something shiny. The introduction of anything relevant to the show's original premise will eventually cease entirely, leading to:
*Pseudo-StatusQuoIsGod: This is it. The forces of good and evil will be locked in sporadic but unending battle. [[StoryArc Story Arcs]] will rise and fall, and may themselves drag out and succumb to ArcFatigue, blurring the original story even further. Beyond this point, no progress toward any goals set in the start of the series will be made. You may find yourself looking forward to the {{filler}} episodes, since these are at least not even pretending to move things forward.
*Eventually, the series will end - forcibly, if TheChrisCarterEffect takes hold. Resolution is optional; you can easily be left with NoEnding. Any resolution given will probably seem unnatural or inorganic after prolonged stagnation (or may be a genuine non sequitor - a GeckoEnding) and even if it isn't, a real ending may feel abrupt after so many years with so little progress.
Remember, even if the series has taken way too long and is driving you mad with its lack of progress, you may be sad to see it go. You'll have gotten to know the characters ''very'' well by the time it ends, after all.
----
!!Examples
*{{Bleach}} The more arcs pile up, the longer each one gets and the more meaningless they become.
*The DragonBall saga, taken collectively.
*{{Inuyasha}} Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and InuYasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show OvertookTheManga
*SailorMoon. Its one MonsterOfTheWeek after another until the current BigBad gets bored and initates a climax. Then a new BigBad comes along and starts the whole thing over again.
*''FinalFantasyXII'' The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the [[MacGuffin shiny paperweight]] you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking ''back'' across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
<<|{{Exposition}}|>>
