Panels 3-5: In theory, might’ve worked better to have Ninjette leaping backwards off Emp and possibly landing on the roof of that building in the foreground—but that would’ve added notable storytelling complications, as opposed to having her land nearby Emp. Gotta say, for any nitpickers out there harping on story flaws or potential errors like this, you should be aware that many—if not most, or quote possibly almost all—such imperfections arise from sheer narrative necessity and/or convenience.
So, as a storyteller yourself, it’s not enough to just notice such an inconsistency or blemish and harrumph in nitpicking triumph; rather, you need to think about how you would avoid such an error without expending any further pagecount—or screentime, or stagetime—in the process. You’ll likely find that you often have to wax vague or allusive—or, less charitably, inconsistent or even contradictory—about certain minor plot points just to keep the g-d story rolling. Due to the space and/or time limitations of most media, your narrative is like the proverbial shark—it has to keep moving, or the damn thing will asphyxiate. You rarely have the luxury of burning precious pagecount to explain every procedural step carefully enough to assuage the determined nitpicker. This isn’t meant to excuse sheer laziness or mindless trope regurgitation on the part of hack screenwriters, but you should be aware of the limitations that a storytelling medium imposes on even a scrupulous and well-intentioned storyteller.
Along those lines, a recent example springs to mind. I’m quite enjoying the unheralded and rather odd—if not, shudder, “quirky”—Amazon series Patriot, in part because of its approach to narratively convenient tropes of espionage and action fiction. See, by necessity modern spy thrillers have to skate over or breeze through connective plot points just to keep the story unfolding—say our hero is forced to check a satchel of illegal cash in his luggage while flying, but whew, everything works out, so on with the plot, folks! Instead, in the few Patriot episodes I’ve seen, every g-d plot point that normally goes smoothly in a spy drama—so the story can proceed onward—instead goes disastrously awry, adding one maddening complication after another as our long-suffering hero doggedly struggles to make things right. Ah, but then again, Patriot is TV miniseries, not a movie, so the creators have the time they need to address these complications in detail; the makers of your typical bit of Bourne-ish spy fluff don’t have the time necessary to tackle these matters of narrative friction.
That being said, Ninjette saving herself via that chain swing off the light pole does seem a bit of a stretch. My No-Prize-ish explanation? She invoked yet another exotic, quasi-magical shinobi jutsu to avoid having her arms yanked outta their sockets, perhaps. As we’ll see later on in this very volume, various forms of Empowered-universe ninjutsu possess skill sets that allow unearthly powers for their users.
Hey, and I just said I didn’t have time for commentaries! In truth, I still don’t, but occasionally I’ll stumble across a point that happens to coincide with one of my many, many comics-related hobbyhorses. Mount up!
-Adam Warren
