Characters - Image, Depth, Chemistry, Development

Sunder the Gold

Well-Known Member
#1
The inspiring video-essay: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqKm0HdCLR8

Let's break our favorite characters down into these elements and see what we uncover.


I'll start with Nanoha. Please expand or criticize my observations as you see fit.

TAKAMACHI NANOHA

Aesthetic:
People can easily guess right away that Nanoha is the "main hero" of a fairly idealistic, action-oriented series, thanks to her barrier jacket. White with blue, red and gold elements is a fairly common "central character" pattern in both Japanese and American media. For Americans, it evokes our nation's flag. I won't guess why the Japanese use it, but shows up in Mega Man X as well as every Gundam series ever.

Nanoha's colors let us know that she's a generally well-rounded combatant, not overspecialized. She's not associated with any mundane element like fire or lightning, but instead has spiritual and heavenly themes. Her Divine Buster and Shooter attacks, Sacred Mode barrier jacket, and the Starlight Breaker. The pink wings on her ankles make it clear that she's capable of flying at great speeds, in the tradition of the Greek god Hermes. She is clearly a creature of the pure and beautiful heavens; a force of light and goodness.

For the Japanese, her own coloration straddles the line between Normal and Alien. Her hair is reddish brown, a possible but unusual color. Her eyes are purple, which is further out there -- it's somewhat close to blue, but I think blue is supposed to be VERY rare among the Japanese, and purple isn't a natural eye color anywhere.

Nanoha's two most common expressions are a joyous smile or a determined shout. This conveys that she is a lively, friendly, assertive character. Her speech is polite and friendly.


Depth: The things that break Nanoha out of the stereotype of "cute, friendly elementary-school girl". She's keenly sensitive to loneliness, and extremely independent because of her background. She's good at math, but unfit and undercoordinated compared to her peers, which may also be related to her background (staying alone indoors rather than running around with her siblings). She enjoys playing fighting and fantasy-action video-games with Arisa, but she also has some skill with cooking. She reveres her father and lives up to his instructions to help others, but because of her independence and self-sacrificing attitude, she tends to keep her problems to herself rather than ask for help.

And of course, Nanoha insists on proper communication whenever conflict arises. When communication breaks down, she's not adverse to using violence to solve the problem.


Chemistry: With her family, we get to see Nanoha's polite, dutiful, affectionate side. Being the baby of the family helps make it clear that she refuses to ACT like the baby; she tries to carry her share of the weight and solve her problems on her own. Nevertheless, she loves and respects them all, and appreciates the love they show in return.

With Yuuno, we get to see Nanoha's reckless side, as Yuuno falls into the role of the one who watches her back, providing the support that lets her concentrate entirely on blowing stuff up.

Fate and Vita both show how far Nanoha is willing to go to help people who don't think they want help, and she has different relations with each afterwards. With Fate, Nanoha is gentle and encouraging. With Vita, Nanoha is teasing -- always treating Vita like an adorable child no matter how often Vita protests; it's the closest that Nanoha gets to insensitivity or sadism.

With the Forwards, Nanoha becomes the Devil Drill Sergeant.

With Vivio, we get to see Nanoha as a mother.


Development: Nanoha has only two major character arcs over the course of the franchise, in the first couple of episodes in the original season, and then later in StrikerS.

At the beginning of the first arc, Nanoha is a relatively normal girl who is willing to become a magical girl to help out a talking ferret and protect her town. She's unaccustomed to putting herself in actual danger, or being attacked, and she's not used to the kind of physical activity required for hunting Jewel Seeds. She starts out weak, gets into the swing of things for a bit, and then begins to wind down as it catches up with her. So she decides to ignore the Jewel Seed she thought she saw in order to keep relaxing.

Then it comes back to bite her, and Nanoha is ashamed of herself. After this point, Nanoha decides that this power she's been given is not some temporary hardship, but a permanent responsibility. She resolves that no more disasters like that will happen around her simply because she decided to NOT use the power given to her.

That combines with her pre-existing character traits to create the hardworking, overachieving, burnly-too-brightly girl that we're all most familiar with.

Nanoha's second character arc, in StrikerS, is simply about whether or not Nanoha wants to become Vivio's mother. She's frightened about the responsibility involved, but eventually decides that she's more concerned about what will happen to Vivio if she (Nanoha) DOESN'T adopt and care for the little girl as best she can.


Realization: I forgot to cover this element. Get back to it later.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#2
Since I have a lot of time to kill, I guess I'll throw in my two cents...

With regards to Nanoha's combat abilities, I am under the opinion that she's quite specialized, but built her techniques around her skills so that she can fully use her strengths and overcome her weaknesses.

Nanoha is basically, the quintessential Mid-Childian style mage. Her style revolves around shooting from a distance, and Yuuno even states that she's a natural in this kind of combat magic. She basically only has two kinds of attacks:

* Multi-target: Divine and Axel Shooter, Strike Stars, Sacred Cluster.
* Single target: Barrel shot, Exelion Buster, Divine Buster, Starlight Breaker.

Note that all of these attacks are "Bombardment" types and according to Reinforce, this is the only type of attack she knows. She's not able to use any kind of element because she either she does not know how to convert mana into a particular element, or she chooses not to, and I am inclined to the latter because she can learn how to, but deems it not necessary since her style is effective enough as it is.
 
#3
Shooting and Bombardment magic are two different kinds.

"Bombardment" refers to a sustained beam, whereas a "Shot" is a concise missile construct. Bombardment-type spells are noted to be more demanding than Shooting-type spells, at least in terms of cost and strain. Shooting-type spells are probably more demanding in terms of magical theory and skill.


Also, I see I forgot about the element of Realization when breaking down Nanoha as a character.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#4
The point is Nanoha is the best example of the Mid-Childian magic style: a style that focuses on ranged attacks.

Raising Heart has a melee function in the form of the Strike Flame, which turns her into a lance. The most well known use of it is to break the opponent's barrier (or at least, pierce it) and fire a point-blank shot.

One of the few reasons why Nanoha is a very respected mage despite her specialization is that she has learned to get around the typical weaknesses of a ranged combatant due to fighting opponents that preferred melee combat. Her speed is not that exceptional and is average at the least and though her defenses are tough enough, they are nowhere near Zafira's, Yuuno's, and Reinforce's level. It also helped that she grew up watching her older siblings train in sword-fighting, so she may have picked up certain traits and strategies that melee combatants use.
 
#5
Hoki said:
The point is Nanoha is the best example of the Mid-Childian magic style
Agreed.

And perhaps it's worth comparing that point of Nanoha's "aesthetic" against Fate's, since Fate is an atypical Midchildan mage despite actually having semi-Midchildan origins and conventional Midchildan instructors.

Nanoha didn't grow up with magic, and her teacher was another atypical Midchildan mage, yet she became the epitome of that Style's intended mage.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#6
While watching StrikerS and rereading Force (out of boredom waiting for new chapters to be translated), it occurred to me that among the three aces, only Fate is relatively less well known in-universe. The thought somehow surprised be and at the same time, made somewhat a lot of sense because when you look at their accomplishments, Nanoha has achieved a far greater claim to fame than both Fate and Hayate.

We are only told of Fate's exceptional record as an Enforcer of the TSAB, and only buy it because we know she has the skills to back up this claim. However, from a civilian standpoint, she is relatively unknown. Hayate's claim to fame (or infamy) is being the master of a Lost Logia, and as of Force, is known as the Mage that led the group that stopped the Saint's Cradle. Most people know her name (as evinced in Vivid and Force) but do not know what she looks like. Most people imagine "Hayate Yagami" as an intimidating figure, thus many are actually surprised when they see her in person.

Nanoha, on the other hand, has been well known throughout the TSAB populace since she was about 9, what with being an AAA rank mage from a backwater planet helping to prevent not one but two interdimentional disasters. There are magazines featuring Nanoha in them, there are currently two movies about Nanoha, and she's familiar enough that the sight of her causes criminals to hesitate or be fearful for their lives. Adding the fact that she has an exceptional track record, makes her celebrity status even more prominent.

Ironic, isn't it?
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#7
We all have our dream matches with out favorite characters and sometimes, it takes a video game for us to determine which of our characters came up. However, video games have stats which balance characters and the skill of the players involved do not make it quite an accurate standard. Still, it inspires some character analysis on our favorite characters. This is somehow related to that, as my matchup was inspired by playing the Nanoha PSP games.

This is between two of the certified most powerful mages on the Nanoha-verse: Hayate Yagami and Precia Testarossa.

For one, both of them are in the absolute highest mage rank, with the key difference being Hayate acquired her powers as opposed to Precia's natural talent. This got me thinking, which of them would come out on top if they fought? After several rewatchings and a bit of research, there was no doubt in my mind who would come out on top.

Precia Testarossa would win.

Why did I say this? I found two major points on how Precia would walk over Hayate.

=Probably the most important criteria in this is power control. As Hayate herself admits, she can't perform spells other than nukes. That alone gives her a very bad disadvantage over Precia, who has perfect control over her powers; being able to deal critical damage to Arf without so much as batting an eye. she's also able to fry groups of mages in one fell swoop, and if she wasn't already on the verge of death, could've destroyed the Artha instead of just disabling it with a lighting bolt. A case can be argued by the fact that Hayate has the Wolkenritter, who serves as her guardians and could buy time for her as she charges up her spells. However, Precia can also summon robotic golems, which can also hold the Wolkenritter long enough for Precia to cast a devastating thunder spell for all of them. Also, Precia as speed on her side; namely casting speed.

=Not only that, Precia can aim her spells with frightening accuracy, demonstrated when she fired a thunder spell on the Artha, a very large target, and Fate, a very small target. Precia doesn't even need to be in the same dimension as her opponent. As per the example above, Precia managed to hit two targets of different sizes located in different locations (Fate was on Earth, the Artha being in dimension space) from the Garden of Time, which was implied to be hidden within deep dimension space. Hayate, on the other hand, has difficulty aiming even her nukes, requiring the assistance of either Rein or an entire bridge crew.

It's just too bad that the creators didn't show the full extent of Precia's capabilities, so all of these are simply based on what we know so far. Still, Precia's advantages over Hayate would give her the edge.
 

Akiyoshi

Well-Known Member
#8
Nice analogy and i agree on most points. Hayate's potential is enormous and has she followed the path she started in the PSP games she would be more than a worthy opponent for Precia. Ufortunately her main continuity counterpart is underdeveloped in actual combat and while Precia is also lacking in that area she at least knows how to play to her strengths.

That being said. Allowing the full Wolkenritter into the fight is an important factor. Precia's mecha guards may look imposing but mages of certain range and skill can deal with them. Chrono alone made short work of an entire fleet of those. They also kinda slow so i bet Vita and/or Zafira could take them down in large numbers. Also while Precia had enough raw power to compensate her lack of fighting skill against Zafira and walk over Shamal she did it in one-on-one fights each time and Signum alone managed to take her down. The four of them could be a very annoying distraction for her. Robot army and all.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#9
So, I've come across an interesting idea when I was browsing the TV tropes forums and the gist of it is like this;

Thoma, as he is now, is basically a bland character and one of the reasons some fans don't like him is because he's just so plain as a protagonist. However, the same can be said for Nanoha, who is admittedly quite plain as a protagonist. However, aside from being the franchise's titular character, Nanoha remains very well liked, despite being a vanilla protagonist. The question is what does Nanoha have as a protagonist that Thoma seems to lack?
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#11
Guess I should've made myself more clear, given that the first thing most people dislike about Thoma is that he's not a girl.

However, if you look past the gender difference, Thoma isn't really much different from Nanoha personality-wise. I remember somebody even calling him a male Nanoha. Still, Nanoha as a character remains more interesting that Thoma's. Thoma even has the requisite "traumatic past" thing and the usual "super empowering origin" that Nanoha lacks.

So how is Nanoha a more interesting character than Thoma?
 

Rising Dragon

Well-Known Member
#12
Yeah, that was me that pointed out that he's even similar in appearance to Nanoha. But really, that's the only major difference. Nanoha has boobs. Beyond that, Nanoha has Fate.
 

Akiyoshi

Well-Known Member
#14
Tohma and Nanoha have many similarities but also have some key differences. Mainly due to their background. Tohma is a naturally talented fighter who prefer to keep his troubles to himself while helping others like Nanoha. Unlike her, though, his motivation comes from his preference to avoid violence altogether, he's a talented combatant (according to canon at least) but he himself despises combat and would want to avoid a fight if possible. Nanoha on the contrary is pretty enthusiastic and while she never lose sight of what's important she also relish challenges and enjoys testing herself against new obstacles.

Nanoha matured from experiencing the hard time befallng those she loves and developed resolve to not be a load. Tohma experience direct tragedy harming him and had to find strenght out of survival instinct. I guess that's why his fears and drive are at the same time more generous and more selfish. Of course the other difference is their age, Tohma lacks experience and wisdom to deal with what's happening to him but that's why he now has Nanoha and the rest around him.
 

Azure

Well-Known Member
#15
Hoki said:
So, I've come across an interesting idea when I was browsing the TV tropes forums and the gist of it is like this;

Thoma, as he is now, is basically a bland character and one of the reasons some fans don't like him is because he's just so plain as a protagonist. However, the same can be said for Nanoha, who is admittedly quite plain as a protagonist. However, aside from being the franchise's titular character, Nanoha remains very well liked, despite being a vanilla protagonist. The question is what does Nanoha have as a protagonist that Thoma seems to lack?
I think because FORCE never really played to the strength's of Tohma's character. Like on paper Tohma's character is really great for a protagonist (and has more room to play around than what Nanoha had at the start), he is motivated by two things that will push him in completely opposite directions, a disiese that gives him power but also imposes a time limit on him to make sure the plot keeps moving, and he has enough distrust of authorities to push him to become a criminal if needed (and thus add drama because he has friends in the TSAB. So basically, Tohma had everything you needed to make a good compelling anti-hero protagonist if you go with the original idea of FORCE being basically Nanoha from the POV of the villain.

The problem is that after the battle with the Hucks, they kinda just gave up on all that and went with the safe idea of having Tohma join the TSAB and that kinda killed his character. The kid just gives up on one of his big goals just like that, and since the TSAB has a cure for the Eclipse he also loses the time bomb that would have made his situation more desperate and dangerous. Hell, he even lost that mistrust of the TSAB he had at the start. Plus after that came time training arcs and things just slowed down too much.

Finally, I think that early on Nanoha had more agency than Tohma did with the TSAB. Like even when Nanoha joined Lindy and Chrono, she was still her own person and ignored them to save Fate. On the other hand, Tohma just went along for the ride and did everything the TSAB told him to do. His character felt really weak after that and I think that was part of it.
 
#16
I guess Azure simplified what I didn't like about touma. I agree he will really be interesting if he followed what you said. Imagine, the conflict that we would have if that happened. Not to mention his action as anti hero. I don't care people called him an edgy character. It still 100% better than be a damn eroge mc or ecchi manga mc.

If i was to give my two cents about Nanoha, I would said I hate her decision to pursue the mage career if any conflict between she and her family. Its like her parent decide they cannot do anything to repent what they did to her as a child and that isn't even they own fault. It just happened. Also, just because you have great power doesn't meant you have the responsibility depends on the context how she get the power. She didn't want it, she just get it. Yuuno and fate never encourages her to join TSAB. If this about keeping her power in check, Yuuno can teaches her controlling magic power without she have to join TSAB. Another way, he could just erase her memory for good and extract the linker core. A great way to end the series, I guess?

I do not see any reason that TSAB would accept her except as a very useful tool. For her parent, if yu think 11/10 years old can decide independently, you must have a problem being a parent. If this story is based on war/chaotic times, then maybe that will be permitted.

Another 1 thing that make Nanoha unlikeable to me is that she willing to blast away those who she wanted to help but she herself never cared to ask other peoples help for her problem. If they do not even care her, thats fine. If she is alone and doesn't have friend,fine. The problem is the completely opposite happened. She is not only troublesome her friends but also make them too worried about her. Its like she play a role as tragic hero and want to be useful to others at all cost. I guess that also came from her childhood trauma.
 
#17
Shit, I just realized I typed his name wrongly lol...
 

Azure

Well-Known Member
#18
Van, I think you are doing a wrong reading (or rather unkind) on Nanoha. She joined the TSAB because she loved being a mage, and she liked helping people. Nanoha basically found out of her life's calling by helping people with her powers- that's really why she joined the TSAB. For the TSAB, Nanoha joining was a blessing, since she was a really unique asset and they always need strong mages to fill their ranks. I don't think we really can critique Nanoha for making the choice of joining the TSAB if we can accept that Chrono, Yuuno and Fate all made equally important choice even though they were young too- it's a cultural thing for Mid to expect mages to be responsible even though they are young.

Also, don't fall for the befriending meme, Nanoha has always asked people about their problems first before shooting (look at the Vita fight). The thing is that she starts shooting when they get hostile, and tries to cool them down before trying to talk with them again. Yes, she has the flaw of trying to take care of everything by herself, but that is what landed her in the accident in the first place.

I guess people could find Nanoha a bit bland because the series never really focused on giving her a proper arc until Strikers (yes, there was stuff there in the first series, but not really the focus). Still she is a likable character because she always was proactive and really wanted to help people- specially Fate and the Wolks. That made her character charming, and made you want to cheer up.
 
#19
Maybe because i was reading and watching too much of dark oriented genre stuff, I becoming more and more pessimistic myself. I rather preferred to called as realist though.

I can think of an explanation though on the fact of chrono,fate and yuuno. Chrono is a citizen of Mid, basically that law or cultural stuff applied to him. Fate can be considered as a criminal for her involvement in Jewel Seed incident, in order to save her from being punished by TSAB law, Lindy is forced to recruit Fate as a mage for TSAB. Same case for Yuuno, actually, basically all the three aces have "certain special benefits" that cannot easily found in common mages of TSAB. That is why they were "recruited", the show basically pictured it as they "choose it as they wished for it". Although, this is my own opinion. Feel free to criticize it.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#20
Nanoha didn't get recruited, she joined on her own volition. Fate and Hayate served some time in the TSAB as part of their sentences (I guess as community service or something similar). After that, they were free to do whatever they wanted. Like Nanoha, they chose to become TSAB mages. Yuuno's affiliation as a TSAB mage only extends to the IL as the chief of the Information Department, and the TSAB only calls on him when they need some really important stuff that needs researching, like the Saint's Cradle. As StrikerS shows, Yuuno has a career in education and lost logia appraisal.

The TSAB doesn't force mages into joining their ranks. If they did, Precia would've been a great addition to their ranks, way before Nanoha and Hayate ever came to the picture.
 
#21
Precia was more specialized in that biological stuff or whatever she was doing. I guess the TSAB have more use of her in that field rather than combat stuff. Join, recruit, does it sounds any different in real life. The TSAB did offer Nanoha to work in TSAB, right? Does that count?
 

Azure

Well-Known Member
#22
Wasn't Precia basically a particle scientist working in a new reactor? She really wasn't a combat mage and they got more use out of having her doing research than having her be in the field.

About Nanoha, I don't really see why her case is so different than say having Yuuno or Fate joint the TSAB to help people. Shouldn't she be applauded since she decided to join out of her own volition just because she wanted to help people? It's not like she suddenly decided to leave her family right there, it was a more gradual thing and it's not like she became an officer right away. Sure she made the choice very young, but it's a cultural thing from Mid that believes mages who can nuke cities have to be responsible even though they might be children.
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#23
I think Precia would've still been recruited as a mage and given proper training if the TSAB found out that she was a mage with power rivaling that of a lost logia long before she took up a job as a scientist. If not, then at the very least, keeping an insanely powerful mage within TSAB control would certainly put some people at ease.

Nanoha's case in joining the TSAB kinda comes off as special not because of her reasons, but of her background. She's from a backwater planet that literally doesn't know of magic. Fate and Yuuno are technically members of a magical society, so deciding on whether or not to join the space police is as mundane to them as choosing their future careers. Nanoha's decision, on the other hand, will literally change her life, as not only would it separate her from her Earthling parents and friends, but she will also experience things no other human girl will ever experience in their lifetime.
 

Azure

Well-Known Member
#24
Yeah, I forgot about that angle of how Nanoha joining the TSAB would separate her from her family, good point in bringing it out. In a way things like this makes me hate the timeskip to Strikers, I wish we could have seen how Nanoha got introduced to the planet Mid, it's society and how she adapted to basically leaving her family behind like she did.

Also, backtracking a bit, did the talk above help you with Tohma and why his character really needed work?
 

Hoki

Well-Known Member
#25
Azure said:
Yeah, I forgot about that angle of how Nanoha joining the TSAB would separate her from her family, good point in bringing it out. In a way things like this makes me hate the timeskip to Strikers, I wish we could have seen how Nanoha got introduced to the planet Mid, it's society and how she adapted to basically leaving her family behind like she did.

Also, backtracking a bit, did the talk above help you with Tohma and why his character really needed work?
Ooh, a fanfic idea! How Nanoha got used to Mid-Childian life.

Anyway, I have a basic idea of why Thoma's character needed work, I'll explain myself when I have time. Beside derailing a topic is not very uncommon in forums anyway. It did help a bit, sorta.
 
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