This idea started in my mind when I saw the Yuta slander.
Apparently Yuta can't win without Rikka, and Yuji or any character can't win without their powers either so what is really the point?
Not to mention Rikka's soul long since left, whats left is the equivalent of a construct, an extension of his own power like she was when her soul was bound.
Summoning type characters are the only people I've seen use their powers and be called frauds for it. There is probably others but the logic has always been flawed.
Some people indulge in it out of fun, others are just dumb.
I dont like when ppl refer to an archetypes in a Rant but only list 1 series :/ Nbd tho.
> interesting topic about general tropes
> opens thread
> its jjk
> its agendaposting victim
I never learn
50% of the time it will be jjk slander everytime.
Usually because the archetype talked about is either not that popular or too many characters that are attached to also belong to many other archetypes.
The necromancer god Mannimarco from Elder Scrolls?
The Lich King from World of Warcraft?
He was a former prince who was trained as a top tier knight who found a magic crown that granted him more than just raising undead.
TCK can beat your ass with swordsmanship, freeze you solid with frostbite, give you super cancer, or send his undead knights to dismember you. This bad guy is like a Master-of-All-Trades, not just a necromancer.
So trying to find characters who are primarily this archetype are sparse or difficult to say fit neatly into just this archetype.
So people just pick what’s the most recently popular example or cherry pick. I feel OP is being sincere with his post but just hasn’t done enough research on the topic.
Funnily, one of the most famous summoner in anime’s, Lucy from Fairy tail, character arc is that she must be more than simply a wizard who summon spirits.
I feel your pain. I finally found a post about summoners only to discover it was another post about Jujutsu Kaisen, sigh.
Honestly JJK is one of the only series where summoner characters feel like they have agency and don’t just sit back and let their summons do the work
Nocturne was great with it. The Demi-Fiend gangs up with summons to be stronger than acting alone, but nobody can call him a fraud because he's at least as strong as any of them toe-to-toe.
Which would be contrary to something like Pokemon, where you can't beat one without already having one or more to do the fighting for you.
Well, Team Rocket regularly find ways to capture Pokemon without using their own at all through planning and technology. If they weren’t constantly going up against Ash and his crew then Jesse and James would have captured hundreds of Pokemon. And while Meowth is part of this, he doesn’t battle like a Pokemon hardly ever so I don’t really count that.
Even highlighted by Sukuna, who says modern sorcerers seem to fight alongside their summoning, while they wouldn't in the Heian era
May I introduce you to Raidou Kuzunoha XIV
Also I would say summons in Naruto still have the summoner act as their one ninja. Like Jiriaya has to use combo moves with his frogs
I was so mad about this in RWBY. Weiss learned to summon and immediately her fights became massively less interesting because she'd just sit back and let her summons fight, at most throwing in some elemental blasts every now and then
>Apparently Yuta can't win without Rikka, and Yuji or any character can't win without their powers either so what is really the point?
If you're referring to Megumi, him being a fraud is not related to 10 Shadows. It's to do with Gege's sidelining of him post Reggie fight. He was actually a pretty sick character up until then honestly.
More just any character in general, I do agree that Megumi is the victim of bad writing
Idk enough about jjk to judge them, but in general summoners in ither series get treated as frauds because a bulk of their threat doesnt directly come from them, but the entities they summon.
It's like saying I can win any fight, not because im particularly strong or even good at fighting, but because I got some 300lb massive martial arts master at my beck and call who can fight on my behalf.
That being said, one thing I do know about JJK is that their summoners do tend to actually be able to hold their own in hand-to-hand without their summons, which both elevates them but also still carries the stigma of being a summoner. On one hand they're not squishy wizards being carried solely by their summons. On the other hand their capacity for combat says that if they were just better at fighting, they wouldn't need to rely on summoning. They are being judged as warriors, not summoners.
Are Stand and Persona users considered frauds then?
Stand users, not really because once they become more common everyone fights with a stand, becoming the standard in their verse. If Hammon users or other types were more common, then this dynamic would shift. But last I checked stabds are the goto power in their verse, so cant exactly assume stand users are frauds when everyone is a stand user. Even the archtype strongest character in the verse, Jotoro and Dio, are stabd users.
Persona users are under similar circumstances. If you dont have a persona, you straight up cant do anything against the shadows regardless of whatever your physical abilities were beforehand. And those who can fight shadows without a persona are notably unique and powerful, not the standard.
Summoners can only get blanket labeled as frauds if their archetype isnt the default. Megumi and Yuta might have very special summons, but using Shikigami itself isnt that unique, as you have nameless mimor characters like that old man who tried to fight Geto demonstrates.
I think this ignores that summoners are controlling the things they summon, no different from how Stand/Persona users control their Stands and Personas.
To put it a different way, this would be like me saying Benders are frauds because they make the elements do the fighting for them.
Controlling yes, but in the case of stands and Personas these are just direct manifestations of your soul. You are still doing the fighting because its your soul that's fighting. As opposed to something like Megumi where its just a power he possesses to summon something else. It draws from his cursed energy and he controls it sure, but the dog is the entity fighting
Yes. Major frauds.
Summoners are a rare archetype and if anything it’s a wizard or mage that can just so happens to also be able to summon shit alongside shooting lighting from their finger tips.
The frail old wizard trope coming from video games is usually the culprit because being able to have that power has to have a drawback.
That said, there are summoner characters who can throw hands.
It’s not that summoners themselves are weak, it’s just the archetype it’s attached to.
The magic guy with a lot of magic power that needs to be frail for balance reasons.
More like every SMT protagonist, since personas are well... basically you
Meanwhile Gandalf fighting using his sword.
Because Yuta and Megumi are the only two Shikigami/summoners fighters. With Megumi (and later Yuka in JJK Modulo), he gets a pass because Summoning is his entire power.
With Yuta, his true powerset is Copy and the massive CE reserves, so Rika is seen as "c'mon dude, if you can't win while having THAT, why?".
I actually like Yuta using Rika, because the Love Beam is my favorite JJK attack. I like how Yuta says "you know what, I'm a cheesy lovey dovey, pink beams of love"
Also, remember, Sukuna also got the same accusations because his use of Mahoraga in the Gojo fight. He beat the allegations only when the manga advanced and a full hindsight review made clear that Mahoraga was actually a self nerf compared to True Body Sukuna with his 4 Arms and 2 mouth, Mahoraga was a anti Limitless measure, not a necessity as Sukuna has his Perfect Domain. And he still didn't fully overcame the slander and memes.
Also, for another Summoner who I think gets slandered or underrated. Chihaya Ohtori from Rewrite.
Many Rewrite readers forget that she is actually so strong that she can create Shikigami Familiars on the fly, the entire reason for the survival of Kotarou in the Midou fight was because of this. Midou burned all of Chihaya's defensive shikigami, so she just created new ones in the fly, in a burning building.
She survived a fight with a unleashed Lucia Konohana in a 1 vs 1, with Sakuya (Chihaya's familiar) being heavily nerfed because he was turned into the bandages allowing her to survive Lucia's poison which now covered her body.
Chihaya is not the Strongest Heroine (that position goes to Lucia), but she is easily in the top 3. If we allow Familiars, she is a comfortable 1 or 2.
(If we count Kagari, then its 2, but Kagari is literally a godess overseeing the multiverse)
There's somewhat Yuki. She just has a total of two applications for her technique (that don't kill her) and one depends on Garuda.
Some people see her as a fraud, but tbh no character would've done better in that situation, and the fraud argument never revolves against Garuda.
Yuta would’ve done better in that situation
This is before he has the one technique that gives him a potential argument against Kenjaku, Jacob's Ladder.
We also don't know if he has a simple domain, so his regular domain gets crushed quickly, Tengen can't null Kenny because of that, now Yuta is in Kenny's domain and I have no reason to believe he survives it for longer than Yuki. Add that to Maki, Yuta's greatest bootsucker, saying that Yuki is equal to Yuta, and I see few arguments to how he'd do better. He'd do well, but Yuki did well too.
Kenjaku/geto?
That’s feats over statements in action. We’re told Sukuna’s Heian form is especially strong in hand to hand. But we’re never shown how it would match up against the only opponent it would have mattered against.
We’re just told to believe that a fairly simple physical powerup would make a bigger difference than summoning the #3 of the verse to fight 2v1 on his behalf.
In any other setting it would be like saying Blackbeard with his claws would be stronger than Blackbeard with the Earthquake fruit.
If the narrative was simply that Sukuna cheating was a skill issue on Gojo’s part for not cheating better, you’d see less slander. But the story goes out of its way to say, again and again, that Sukuna would have won if anything had been different, while ignoring or minimising any situational advantages he had.
I am not familiar with which Final Fantasy game this is referring to.
>open thread
>CTRL-F "Yuna".
>no hit
Man...
The yuta rika stuff is absurd cause she’s tied to his abilities and he literally created her. It was unintentional but she is a being made up of his cursed energy
Everyone else is bringing up real issues with Megumi but I 100% LOVE ten shadows. Such a great concept to master one summon then use that summon to fight the next ones until you get to strongest. I’m disappointed on where it went
Like yuta, megumi and even geto are all fine cause thatss their literal ablities, the only time I would discount it is if it was like edo tensei in naruto
Where the summoner can just full sale revive an old powerful warrior with no drawbacks that fights on their behalf. I would never consider tobirama or hashirama as officially part of orochimaru's kit or every edo tensei in the war as part of kabuto's kit. CAUSE other summons in naruto are earned or are something that at very least has an affinity with the summoner like all the animals. I don't think grave robbing is earning anything
But that's not what a necromancer does; he raises zombies to fight for him. Orochimaru literally takes a piece of your body (DNA) and summon you.
Yeah buts way more than just regular necromancy as he brings all these ninjas back with full personalities and all of their abilities
It does feel like cheating vs a regular necromancer depictions
But I’m not a powerscaling person anyways so i don’t care that much
Yes, but the average necromancer also summons creatures with abilities. Often, abilities they possessed in life, for example, the aura of Frieren.
Sure. Let me put it this way, someone like Hidan whose whole gimmick is tied to death and resurrection. So IF HE was bringing people back it would work for me as part of his kit
Sasori killed his opponents to make them into puppets and it’s again tied to his identity & gimmick
Orochimaru is a body swapping snake man. Who just happens to also know Edo Tensei cause he found it in a scroll. It doesn’t lend itself to being a natural part of his abilities as it does with say Sasori
It mostly sticks to me like that since he only used Edo Tensei for combat purposes exactly once.
Necromancers can be cool like Jin Woo, granted many times he couldn't make servants from others
Uh... I'm curious about what kind of person holds that view, it feels silly.
Because in Yutas case. There was an entire prequel movie/chapter that ended with him putting Rika to rest and now all of a sudden he has a new Rika that does the exact same shit as the old Rika and every cool thing Yuta does is because of Rika. It feels like the author couldn't figure out how to make him do anything without Rika which is insane considering he already feels like a bad fanfic character without her
I mean he created rika in first place with cursed energy. Nothing says it couldn't potentially re-emerge as just his own creation tbh
Do wish we got more explanation tho
What matters is how much autonomy the summoned creature is seen to have. If people see the summoned creature as its own entity, they’ll treat summoning it like calling in backup.
Keeping the JJK theme, it’s no secret Megumi gets slandered for this. Mahoraga is seen as a character in its own right rather than an extension of Megumi like the dogs.
As a result, Sukuna calling on Mahoraga lot fight Gojo looks, not like the top two of the verse fighting with all they have, but like #2 calling on #3 for an edge.
And… yeah, it makes no sense logically, but no one ever said it had to.
…Yuta is just called a fraud because modern slang has forgotten the term Mary Sue.
Mary Sue would feel less insulting IMO
I mean, for the same reason for why showing up in a 1v1 with a partner is seen as a fraud. It's not honorable.
Cuz readers are bums
Theyre not? In the exact same series you have Kenjaku who is generally fairly respected. Yuta is called a fraud because a lot of people don't like him and him relying on Rika is an easy jab to make
They're not? Summoners aren't really seen as frauds as far as I know. At least if that's they're whole thing.
This depends heavily on the system.
In the tabletop game Pathfinder, Summoners have their Eidolon as their “main gimmick” summon. You share some skills, and have a shared HP pool.
But they also have access to a full spell list as well. They can cast regular summon spells, battlefield control, buffs/debuffs, act as a backup Blaster. Anything. Summoners in Pathfinder are versatile and are probably my favorite incarnation of the class. Like, you’re telling me I can have my Eidolon run interference with flanking or grappling, while I can also simultaneously buff our Gunslinger with Heroism so he can crit fish? Perhaps against a now-grappled target? Sign me up!
If we want to look at some other anime, you got the Summoner from Black Summoner. Kelvin, I think. Other than his default Summoner abilities (more like Partnering), he also has a full range of other spells, and has even modified existing/invented new spells mid-combat. Though that may be considered hax rather than an innate thing people can normally do, in this example. I’ve only seen clips of the anime, so my knowledge here is lacking.
Depends on the type of anime fan. Truth be told, magical characters aren't allowed to be magical without engaging in physical combat. Fire users can't just summon fire; fans expect them to engage in close-quarter combat, either hand-to-hand or with weapons. In these types of anime, like JJK, people are basically looking for brawlers.
Personally, I think people who call summoners frauds don't understand what a summoner is. The fact that people believe a summoner learning how to fight is beneficial to their magics means they don't understand the purpose of being a summoner. A summoner engaging directly in battle makes them less effective as summoners because usually, summons are linked directly to the summoner. If the summoner is defeated, then so are the creatures summoned. It is important to take into consideration that summons are, in theory, supposed to be more powerful than their summoner. With this in mind, the summoner shouldn't need to engage in direct combat because if the opponent is superior to the summons, then the opponent should also be superior to the summoner. Thus, it is redundant and pointless for a summoner to learn direct combat most of the time.
The point of being a summoner is to allow the user to adapt to situations and strategize attack plans. It allows the user to take on opponents without directly putting themselves in harm's way. It is a far more practical use of magic for a magician than close-quarter combat, as it allows them to optimize their power and adapt better to opponents based on observation. It also allows magicians to play offense, defense, and support simultaneously.
Essentially, some anime fans call summoners frauds because they aren't kicking and punching something.
Okay but if summoning Rika makes him more likely to win then why wouldn’t he use that technique? It’s like calling Superman a bum if he flies against an opponent who can’t. This isn’t an exhibition match or a sports game, and to not use every tool at your disposal in a life-or-death battle is foolish.
It's more so because he has other abilities outside of Rika. Like you have the biggest reserve, the ability to copy your opponents moves (and use them better a majority of the time because you have that copy ability), and are one of the only people that can heal your wounds and the wounds of others. All of it, plus the idea that Rika was supposed to be set to the grave would make things more interesting. In a verse where people live and die by the versatility of their abilities, the idea that someone can copy someone else's kit, and use it better than them in most cases, AND turns any major fight into a 2 v 1 cheap and uninspired. All while having the more uncomplicated decisions to make, and when he does make one (monster moment with Gojo's body) he skips off into the sunset consequence free. All the while also being the nicest strong sorcerer we meet without any of Gojo's arrogance and tendency to put off people from seeing him as more than a weapon. Also is the architect for most of the backup plans after Hojo died.
You start to see the Gary Stu/JJK OC accusations have weight.
Yeah, but being a “Gary Stu” or self-insert or whatever isn’t the same as being a fraud, and that’s what the discussion was about. He’s not like, fronting claims he can’t back up or anything. He’s just using his whole toolset effectively which makes sense in-story.
Rika IS NOT YUTA'S CURSED TECHNIQUE. She is a shikigami given to him by the real Rika to help him once she passed on. She is not his ability, she does not belong to him.
That useless bum can't even copy more than 2/3 abilities if he didn't have Rika as an external store.
The reason why he's a fraud is because of how many fucking times Rika has to save his ass, often times pulling out new abilities to fit the plot. That's the REAL REASON he's a bum, it's because Rika's powers are very purely defined and so she can kinda just do whatever to save that bushcamper whenever he needs to.