Ass Pull cleanup

Re AssPull.One Piece. Spoilers, but this is a cleanup for a spoiler trope.

The protagonist's powers are stated to be pretty average and nothing of note Rubber Man abilities. Because it allows to reshape user's body to some degree, its versatility and strengths expand as the series goes on. For 1000+ chapters it being explicitly the "rubber" power without anything extra was consistent.

In Chapter 1017 it's been revealed that the MC's powers are not just not average, but the government's one of the most well protected and dangerous secrets, yet they've never bothered to look into it for the entire plot. In Chapter 1044 it's revealed it's actually not even rubber, but is effectively an inherently god-tier ability, which comes in handy in disposing the local Arc Villain, and adds (another one) coupon to MC's The Chosen One list of traits.

While the Chapter 1044 may be on edge if it's Ass Pull if the twist was set up 6 months in advance, and Ass Pull is YMMV for a reason, I'd question if Chapter 1017 is too much of a Tomato Surprise.

It's a worse case than the Naruto's final villain reveal, who was teased a few chapters before confirming they even exist, which also has the Ass Pull entry.

Edited by Amonimus on May 8th 2023 at 10:09:25 PM

I haven't followed the series that closely. But it does indeed sound like an Ass Pull, becuase it completely changes the dynamic.

During the whole series it was said that his fruit was just a regular one, and a Paramecia, so not that strong. So it was supposedly impressive that he could do such great things with such minor fruit. Now out of nowhere turns out his fruit is incredibly important and means he is even more special.

With such a long series and an author that love details, I dont think the foreshadowing was enough.

If there's foreshadowing at all, it doesn't count.

The Five Elder Stars do say that he’s still a Rubber Man. The major change to how it functions is making his surroundings rubber, which was expected from a Paramecia Awakening. The reveal changes the fruit name and aesthetics of the concurrent transformation.

I can’t say for sure how long this has been planned (most of the earlier “hints” people point to were either recontextualized after the fact or simple reaches), but leading up to the reveal, we have:

• Who’s-Who telling us that the fruit was important enough that he got arrested for failing to escort it, and namedropping the Sun God Nika.
• The Elders are alarmed at the arrival of Zunesha, which apparently signals that a fruit whose name got changed to hide its importance is soon to Awaken.
• After this, the Elders are suddenly desperate to get Luffy killed by Kaido.

EDIT: The entry came back with new wording.

Again, I'm not sure how long ago this was planned, but there was definitely buildup during the Raid which the new entry openly acknowledges, so it's contradicting itself by saying otherwise.

Edited by KOman on May 8th 2023 at 3:44:53 AM

From: The Amazing Spider-Man (2022)

• Ass Pull: The Reveal in #25 that Paul and MJ's kids are adoptive and just so happen to look like them. People immediately speculated that this was Marvel's attempt at an Author's Saving Throw because of the sheer amount of negative reception the plotline has been getting.

The series starts with a time skip and Spider-Man's ex-girlfriend Mary Jane gets trapped in a Year Inside Day Outside dimension with new character Paul. When they finally get out they are accompanied by two kids they met there, who they are now raising together. It's a while before the reveal that they're not MJ and Paul's biological children. The relative time speeds and other dimensional stuff appears to be baked into the plot from the start. The kids may or may not be real, normal kids, as the arc's still ongoing. They may really be younger versions of MJ and Paul, depending on the twists.

That feels as if Ass Pull is misuse to channel wider complaining about the arc? (Author's Saving Throw would be misuse without Word of God or Word of Saint Paul as well, and the 'fan speculation' feels like a way to avoid that rule)

Edited by Mrph1 on May 17th 2023 at 11:42:58 AM

I feel like calling that an Ass Pull is a stretch. If it does actually count, I don't feel the second sentence is needed.

& This just got added to the end of that Spider-Man example, before I'd taken any action:

I don't think that strengthens the argument to keep it. Cut, link to this thread, suggest tropers who know the work appeal here if they really think it's valid?

So, that Spider-Man Ass Pull example was cut as proposed (as was a second newly-added ** example for an unreleased issue spoiled by a Content Leak).

However, it's now been added back again, this time under Shocking Swerve - which is just a redirect to Ass Pull.

I've put an ATT query up as I don't want to start an edit war by cutting again, and wasn't sure there'd be enough activity on this thread for a consensus. Please comment there if you have a view, though.

Edited by Mrph1 on May 20th 2023 at 10:50:44 AM

In regard of One Piece, I would argue that the points of build up really can't be considered so, since they do not tell us at all that the Gum Gum fruit was more than what it looked like. It's the fans that have to make the connections.

Like, in regards of Who's who, they do not even say exactly why the fruit was to be transported around, not even a suggestion that it was that important and needed to be guarded by a a secret agent... they just tell us that the event happened, that Shanks stole it. And Nika's tale is wholly unrelated to the Gum Gum fruit too.

This is why I would say it was generic and very much unrelated.

Same goes for the other two points, of Zunesha and the elders suddenly being afraid of a certain fruit awakening, nothing there suggested that it's Luffy's fruit the special one, until the very moment where Luffy's fruit is actively important again, which is when the reveal happens.

Edited by G-Liguria on May 27th 2023 at 11:38:42 AM

Again, there's a tiny amount of foreshadowing when the trope requires absolutely none, so it doesn't count. sounds a little like you're trying to discount foreshadowing you don't like.

Who's-Who's exposition should make it apparent that the fruit is very important to the Government, since he got arrested for losing it. Then Zunesha's arrival convinced the Elders that a certain fruit that had been renamed was about to Awaken, and they became desperate to get Luffy, the consumer of the fruit that has been established as important to them, killed ASAP.

You can argue that this wasn't always the intent with Luffy's fruit, but you can't claim that it wasn't at least foreshadowed during the raid.

I would argue that foreshadowing to count as that would need to actually tell you im some way that x is gonna happen.

This is why I strongly disagree with calling anything of those points as actual foreshadowing to that reveal, since it is the fans, that need to do the heavy lifting and connect the dots here, as the narrative didn't. It's not because I supposely dislike it.

To say, Who's who's situation (which is also the first time we get to see that devil fruits also get transported like this if I remember right) doesn't tell us anything about the Gum Gum fruit's true nature... can we really say that a generic "x was punished for failing to do y" is a genuine foreshadowing to something like a power up reveal? Especially in regards of objects that are so intrinsecally at the base of the saga?

Zunesha and the Elders too... one can call it a foreshadowing to the Nika thing only by being genre savy, due to how strongly Oda insisted on being vague up to the very end, never specifying what fruit was going to awaken.

Edited by G-Liguria on May 29th 2023 at 12:45:19 PM

"Generic" foreshadowing might apply to what people try to point to before Wano, like retroactively attributing Luffy's resilience to a Zoan as if they have a monopoly on resilience.

However, there's no way you can claim that the raid was being vague when Who's-Who tells us that the Gum-Gum Fruit was in Government custody and cost him his reputation when it was stolen, or that the Elders just coincidentally became desperate to kill Luffy, the guy who ate that special fruit, after Zunesha's arrival convinces them that a fruit is about to Awaken.

I don't know man.

The fact that the story never tell us in any way, that the Gum Gum fruit is more than it looked, is more than enough to call those moments generic. Thus no proper foreshadowing.

Again, Who's who's backstory can only say that the World Government considered the fruit enough to imprison officers that failed to carry it, but given that it was the first time we ever saw this, this could have been applied to every case, not just the Gum Gum. It also doesn't help that the shock factor of his story isn't even that he failed to carry it, but that he failed to carry it because of Shanks, which in turn makes him hate Luffy for his connection to him, thus the whole crew (it helps Who's who's character, but not the fruit reveal). The Nika part is also fully unrelated to the fruit.

And with Zunesha and the elders, because Oda refused to namedrop what fruit it was that they were afraid of, here's that they talk in a generic way, which could refer to literally any fruit. And it's only in hindsight and by being genre savy that one could put 1 + 1 together. And the part where they ordered that agent to kill Luffy is too close to the awaekning itself (it happens in chapter 1041, literally 2 chapters before the start of the reveal), to not consider it part of the reveal moment if you ask me, given what it directly leads to (Kaido that knocks Luffy out again, and thus the big reveal).

I genuinely do not think it's hard to see my point, and I have reread those points of the manga, so I know I didn't miss anything.

Edited by G-Liguria on Jun 2nd 2023 at 6:47:20 AM

FWIW, I don't read One Piece, but just from this conversation (insofar as I can follow it) you're making a much more convincing case for Luffy not having been intended to have a "special" power originally (i.e. Retcon) than for his having a special power not being foreshadowed at all.

Well, thanks, I guess.

But beware, since the very page about retcons states that retcons can also be asspulls.

There is a fine line between the 2, and it is all in the way the big reveal was build up (if it was).

Edited by G-Liguria on May 30th 2023 at 10:34:55 AM

YMMV.Mega Man Zero 3

• Ass Pull: The Reveal that Omega is really Zero's original body under Weil's control. On its face, it's a perfectly shocking plot twist... except for one detail - Omega's sprite in his third form is literally just Zero's design in this series, but colored a darker red and black. The whole "he's actually Zero's original body" bit falls flat because he looks nothing like how Zero actually looked back in Mega Man X, calling into question what that statement actually means.
  • It's because all the characters have undergone a change in art style. It's why "Copy X" doesn't look like the original X despite stately being an "exact" copy of the original X's design in every way.

In context, it gets Five-Second Foreshadowing where Weil reveals Zero is a fake before Omega is shown to resemble Zero, so the intent seems clear despite the art style issue.

Besides the last part arguing with itself, the contradictory detail only comes up as it's revealed as opposed to not being foreshadowed adequately prior. Cut?

YMMV.Bleach

This is listed under Fan-Disliked Explanation.

• The reveal that the Yhwach fought by Yamamoto during the first invasion was actually Sternritter Y Royd Lloyd disguising himself as Yhwach is a disliked part of the first invasion. The twist feels like it comes out of leftfield, diminishes the impact of Yamamoto's Bankai since he used it on an Elite Mook instead of the Big Bad, and made Yhwach look less intimidating for some since he would rather let an underling be a sacrificial pawn to weaken Yamamoto before killing him with ease after the twist is revealed, on top of robbing the viewer of a fight that showcases Yhwach's powers, which would take a lot of chapters to get an idea of. The detail that Royd can only copy the memories and personality of someone also didn't help either, since it means he's just an incredibly powerful Quincy without any real reason, when most of the other Quincies are given reasons why they are so powerful.

I'm questioning why this isn't simply under Ass Pull. There was genuinely no buildup to the Ditto Fighter Killed Offscreen by Kenpachi having a twin brother with a similar ability. There's also a fairly similar entry concerning Filler Villain Kageroza which is under Ass Pull.

Edited by KOman on Jun 1st 2023 at 12:36:51 PM

I believe it should be cut for the reason you stated. Plus, to me, it comes off as someone complaining about the twist.

Probably because, at the time, a lot of fans felt that "Yhwach" wasn't behaving like Yhwach, and was behaving more like an easily-rattled lower-class fighter, and that he cares about the Quincies who died (something Yhwach doesn't do) and were therefore relieved when the twist happened because it made sense of the strange behaviour. So, the fact that fans spotted that there was something off about Yhwach before it was revealed to be a doppelganger means that it isn't an example of Ass Pull. However, the reason given for how the duplication happened (the twin-thing) pissed people off for feeling like the most leftfield way of doing it.

Edited to add:

After looking at the history page and character sheets, Loyd and the way Kenpachi talks about him and his power helps set-up Royd's existence and later reveal in addition to the strange pre-reveal behaviour, which is why it's not Ass Pull. I notice that the original entry made it clearer why it's FDE and not AP. However, it got rewritten to sound more like a AP entry.

So, this entry isn't AP, but it should be reworded slightly to make that clearer.

I notice you've changed the entry to AP, despite not getting any feedback. I'm not sure that's the right thing to do here, especially given how the entry was originally worded and how Loyd's character sheet is troped.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 6th 2023 at 12:23:37 PM

I recently added an entry on the Still Silver, noting that it was foreshadowed with Uryu's flashbacks of Ryuken dissecting Katagiri, but contradicted by the fate of Auswahlen victims (including Katagiri herself).

The entry I saw on Lloyd didn't present it as foreshadowed, and there was a similar-sounding entry on Kagerōza, so it seemed more appropriate for Ass Pull. I hadn't touched the entry before, so it's not necessarily an Edit War or anything.

Regarding the proposed buildup, we do learn later that his Sternritter live as long as they're convenient, but up to this point, we'd only seen particularly callous behavior toward Arrancar.

I'm wondering, does something count as an Ass Pull if it's foreshadowed poorly?

No. It must be no foreshadowing whatsoever, regardless of quality.

Edited by badtothebaritone on Jun 7th 2023 at 12:13:28 PM

Then in that case, there really should be an item for poor foreshadowing that it makes it look like an Ass Pull, or at the very least make it a part of the definition of Ass Pull.

Edited by PlasmaPower on Jun 8th 2023 at 1:52:16 AM

The whole point of Ass Pull is that it's not set up and has no foreshadowing.

Foreshadowing that audiences don't like because they feel it's not good enough is a completely different concept, and I suspect that any attempt to create a YMMV or audience reaction based on this concept would produce something that would be a magnet for complaining.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Jun 8th 2023 at 2:38:20 PM