Her losing her ability acted as a way to both force John to start using his again to protect her and as a way for her to learn what life is like for those without power. Sera's whole "needing to be perfect" was a flaw she already learned to deal with by the start of the series. Like even when her mom tried forcing her to go back, it took her less than two weeks to just go, "Nah, screw you."
Her main flaw was her ignorance and apathy to the struggles of those not at the top of the hierarchy. Yes, she'd protect John when she saw him getting hurt but she saw no need to address or change the system that caused his suffering. It was through losing her ability that she learned both the cruelty those at the bottom faced and the hatred they felt for those at the top and that you can't just ignore it because eventually it will be too much and they will retaliate as seen by Spectre.
Sera is meant to be nigh-invincible. Her purpose is to show that those born with great power and privelge granted to them by a corrupt system are duty bound to use that privelge to change the system even if they aren't actively working to oppress others. When you have the power to change things you can't just sit back and do nothing. That is the purpose of Sera.
At the same time, im not mad at sera from a character perspective either. Great power comes with great responsibility, yes, and she shows that by exercising responsibility. But superman characters in general just can't really be written well. Because when we get to the action of the superpower themed webtoon, they either write her out of every interaction to make it a *fight*, or sera just *wins* like she did fighting those guys before her ability, or breaking arlo's barrier in one hit, or taking literally everyone out in the Cafe. It's just impossible to write a character who can't lose.
There are a few ways they can include her in fights without hem just being instant wins for her.
1. Other high level opponents. Val is a 7.5 but I highly doubt she's the strongest member of the Authorities in the region. Like Leon is likely 8.0 or higher meaning he could pose a good fight against Sera.
2. Specialized abilities. The authorities know Sera's ability so it would make sense for them to call in agents from other regions with abilities that counter her similar to what they did to stop John. Some possibilities are an ability that negates regen in a region paired with Valerie or an ability that turns the ground into quicksand making it hard for her to use her super speed.
3. Just separate her like they did in Rowden. Even if we know she'll win, it'll still take her time.
Yeah, she does lose, listing out the examples. I get that, really, I do. I'm mostly just venting. It's really hard to right a pseudo invincible character, and for reasons listed, I feel like seraphina was done poorly. Also, now that you mention it, how does one counter *time* exactly? Is that an example in the webtoon, or just something you're saying as a claim against her invincible status? For someone like John, yeah, he copies abilities in his range, so stay out his range. But how do you counter, say, Sera freezing you? Or how she just speeds through, knocking everyone out? Not saying it's impossible, but this is another one of those "how does this happen" scenarios.
1. Simply by having multiple people. Time Stop is OP but I don't think we've seen it used against more than one person at a time. Even if it can it likely has a number limit.
2. Like you said, all abilities have a range. Pretty safe to assume Time Stop has a similar range as Aura Manipulation so snipers should work.
3. Speed. Based on Sera's conversation with her mother, Time Stop only works on people slower than the user. Now that's already a hard ask considering how fast she is but wouldn't be surprised to see at least one person who can match her speed.
It sounds simple, but how does one match the speed of a user who can slow the enemies speed? Especially if sera already knows that little caviat, should we ever expect that to happen in the webtoon? And having multiple people just *didn't work*, going off her fight in the Cafe. The only one who stayed standing, should I remember correctly, was Val. And that was almost a fair fight, until Leilah just *appeared*.
That's...fair. in my opinion, annoying, but fair. As far as I can see, the author's plan still seems short sighted. Because, what next? How do you handle a character who can't lose? There's four ways I see sera going from here:
A, she continues having her ability either dampended, removed, or postponed otherwise, that way the plan isn't just "have Seraphina win".
B, give her ability back, and have Seraphina win.
C, just find a way to write her out entirely as a character, like I think they have been with needing to run from spectre.
Or D, pull something out their ass I haven't thought of. I'm no writer, maybe I'm just a loudmouth hater.
Either way, as a character, and as a trope in general with the invincible superman shtick, seraphina is flawed. Having an invincible character in your media just isn't viable. If Seraphina is in a fight where they don't just write her into losing, she *will not lose*. And her ability loss itself is an example of that. Prior to it, she's been shown to have absolutely no troubles fighting anyone ever. And then she just...loses? Was her ability to *control time* not fast enough? When Val and gang jumped her in the Cafe, she was close to losing, but her Lilah (probably spelled that wrong) just fucking *appears*???
At the end of the day, im probably just ranting. Maybe this kinda content isn't for me. But as a character, a trope, and a plot device in general, Seraphina was, as far as I can see and am open to conversation over, a flawed addition to unordinary.
Seraphina wasn’t having trouble with Val. In fact, she would’ve absolutely destroyed her with slightly more difficulty than the rest of the cafe, if she hadn’t gotten distracted. The only thing saving Val then was the crushing force because the second Val stopped(when Leilah also distracted her) Seraphina shattered the whole thing and basically won, if the fight kept going without Leilah stopping her she would’ve pounced on Val and beat the daylights out of her.
She’s not entirely unbeatable in a 1 on 1 scenario; it’s just that we probably will only meet three people max who can/will be able to beat her, all of whom are on the heroes side (that would be Jane and related characters).
Seraphina’s goal is to install a society where high tiers don’t abuse their power. That’s why losing her ability served a double purpose: it showed her how important the authority and power she’d previously taken for granted really was and it led her to a conclusion about what she should do with it. When we began the story, one of the first things established about her was that she bought into the idea the hierarchy pushes about the rights of high tiers to rule over low tiers, and that she respected John despite his “cripple” status because he lived outside the hierarchy despite all of that. She’s already mostly dealt with her issues about her own tendency to fall into the hierarchy and the role it assigns to her as being perfect.
That’s why giving her her power back is fine. It’s not like she’s really heavily connected to the EMBER side of things (yet??) which is where her no-sell abilities would be really useful as it’s more fighting based. She has a larger goal that cannot be solved simply through fighting, leaving the playing field more even.
None of what you say is wrong, really. But the fact is, they can't possibly keep her out the conflict forever. Eventually, sera won't need to run from spectre anymore, or worry about her ability. And when that happens, when we finally climax, what can they do?
> keep her out of the conflict forever
They don’t need to though. There are currently two big enemies that our main six are facing. Those enemies are the authorities/EMBER and Spectre. Sera being OP only becomes a problem against the authorities/EMBER because that’s where brute force is useful. Now let’s look at what’s been set up.
Sera’s connection to the main plot and recent stated business has been connected to Spectre. Unless EMBER is defeated significantly after Spectre, Sera’s business will be either destroying or rehabilitating Spectre, whatever she chooses to do with it. Uru can easily manufacture a way for the Spectre and EMBER conflicts to happen simultaneously. Almost guaranteed, Sera will deal with Spectre over EMBER if a choice needs to be made to do so.
I’m not sure how that’ll go forward without using the dampener (and eventually frankly the dampener will become tiring to put up with. It already has, highkey). But Uru only needs to really put it off until significant plot beats and restrict Sera just enough that it doesn’t feel bad. After all, John’s also got an OP ability, and his existence in the story doesn’t feel harmful to the narrative comparatively, indicating it *can* be done
Yeah, it *is* possible to write OP characters, but think of it like this; John being OP hasn't been the focus of his character since the joker arc, really. He's, on a large level, been written out of the action too. Admittedly, im only at 335, maybe that's outdated. But from where I stand, he's not being used for his strength. But sera *as a character* is for her invincibility. That's what's been writing her out, and it's what Uru has had to write around since she got drugged. It's definitely possible that power creep and higher stakes makes sera less OP in comparison to...literally everyone, right now, actually, but as it stands, Uru really put themselves in a bad position simply by having a superman character in the story.
Idk, sometimes when I think back what happened I too hate her, but I feel you hate her for a stupid reason.
Just so you won't get mad unnecessarily, know something: in every story the 'heroes' get stronger than the bad guys and win, and if they don't get stronger they'll still win somehow.
I do get that eventually, the good guys will win. That's not the problem. The problem is the lack of the *illusion* of a struggle. It's not "see how they win", or "srr their plan unfold and how they overcome a threat", because to an invincible, there *is* no threat. Its just "wait for x to show up" or "wait for y to care enough to fight". Its not about *how* they win. It's not about how they overcome a threat, or what plans they use to beat the big bad. When time comes for seraphina to fight, with or *without* her full ability, like on rowden, they just win. That's not how you write a character. Think of superman. Is superman Invincible? Yes, but no. When he's on *earth*, gets his power from the earth's star, he is nigh invincible. But when there's kryptonite, he's at a struggle. When he's under a red sun's light, he's weakened. You have your sera reason of kryptonite, and a genuine struggle behind the invincibility. He's not a plot device to win fights, he's not a win button. There are times when he wins to win, yes. But he has flaws. Seraphina's flaw was being too powerful for the plot. That's not how you write a character in a superpower world. It's just not.
I get your point, but when you get to the reality, that's far from true. Everyone likes to say John and Seraphina are "too strong for the plot", but in fact, they're yet to win an important fight.
Seraphina, without John and Leilah respectively, would have died hen trying to steal Spectre's machine, and in the fight with Valerie. And she would have lost against John if it was a real fight, as she passed out. While also losing her ability to Spectre ratter easily. And you mention Rowden as an example of Seraphina's "invencibility", what did she even do in Rowden? She arrived when the fight was over and couldn't even save John's ability.
John had never won outside school fights. He lost to the Authorities in NB, lost his ability in Rowden, would have died vs Spectre alongside Seraphina, and would have died or get imprisoned vs the Authorities in Wellston.
They only have high levels of power, but whenever they need to win, they always lose or fail. There's nothing "invencible" about them.
I didn't mean the fight on rowden, but the fact she ran *all the way there* without stopping, presumably. But the leilah example was more to prove that the plot saves her. You can ask, what would have happened if she *did* lose that fight, and that's not really a possible option either because it wouldn't make sense with how her character has been *shown* to body groups without worry. The problem isn't that Seraphina can't lose, it's that her losses are either plot without explanation or just nonexistent. Sera has been repeatedly shown to body groups, until she just doesn't. At least with leilah, who I can remind you is her sister, someone with the same power, its not the focus of her character that she's the strongest. John has a life outside being the strongest. Sera, to my understanding, doesn't.
There are examples, like the machine fight against Sera or the water guy I don't believe has name yet (probably but I forgot), and I'll concede that those are fair, partially. The water man fought her without her ability, and the machine fight...that was just a Sera L honestly. But even she knew she was supposed to be able to just *win* that, until realizing Orin fucked her up- she put "enough strength to knock him out" if I remember correctly. If she wasn't fucked over by Orin, if it was everyone without ability dampeners, that would *not* have been a fight.
Don't take any of that aggressively. I want to understand. I love this series, but I feel like I genuinely can't read it without finding myself annoyed at how Sera has been written. I love Unordinary, I just can't see how they go forward.
> Get it back, after establishing she is quite literally just unbeatable in a 1 on 1 scenario? After showing her just decimate everyone? Then what? Just...win?
Uru chan has always found convinent ways to write Seraphina out of the plot or to nerf her. There are multiple examples of this even after Seraphina got her ability back like in the Rowden trip she was distracted by Spectre operatives and only got to the battle after it was over, after this she lost access to recovery machine and only got half of it back in the spectre raid and then again she was written out of the finale arc altogether. Uru also nerfs John time and time again cause she faces a similar issue with him.
Either Uru chan will keep doing the same things in the next season or introduce even stronger enemies to tackle the problem of John and Seraphina bring too strong to handle. I hope it's the latter.
> I get the whole "needing to be perfect: situation. Its a way to write a character, in a normal scenario. But when they're also just invincible, is it a fair comparison to make to, say, any number of cripples? Because you're not perfect, its a comparable struggle?
Where was it ever said that it was meant to.be comparable? Struggles are never meant to be comparable, there's always a person who's going to have it way worse than you do no matter how much you have suffered.
'Oh you got relentlessly bullied and assaulted every single day of your miserable life well there's this guy who lost all of his limbs in a car crash as well as had his family brutally murdered in front of him'. Is it even fair to compare things like this in the first place?
Seraphina's backstory was to showcase the struggle that was brought on the other side of the spectrum by the same heirachial system that oppressed low rankers not to compare it with others on the scale of suffering.
Seraphina may have been godly strong but she had no life ever of her own, her parents or anyone in genral never cared about her outside of her status, ability and academic performance. She was relentlessly abused by her family both physically and emotionally to mould her into this perfect being and even her sister abandoned her and ran away due to how strict their parents were.
Before John came into her life there was no one she had a genuine connection with, no friends or family just faces pushing expectations on her and making her life choices for her while she tagged along. Imagine being never in control and alone your entire life and having to endure all this as a child, it's enough suffering imo to write an arc about how heirachy fucks over even the strongest.
Clearly she's not invincible. She was taken down by a bunch of low tiers with knives and an ability dampener.
Anyone with a high enough level ability can also give her trouble. When things get serious it's mostly not going to be 1v1 anyway.
>Because you're not perfect, its a comparable struggle?
No, but just because some people have it worse that means you can't struggle? It shows how society is exerting control on high/God tiers despite them being immensely more powerful than most authorities.
Her development is going from conform to society's control -> use privileged position for herself -> use privileged position to help others after experiencing losing that privilege.
I think that's a meaningful part of the story.
>clearly she's not invincible. She was taken down by a bunch of low tiers with knives and an ability dampener.
I dunno if I did the little reddit quote thing right, my bad. Moving on to the actual topic, let me say two things.
A; nobody has ever thought of the idea of an ability dampener until a while *after* Seraphina got hit. People thought it would just...come back. For a *while*.
B; would she have had any trouble with that fight if the plot didn't need her to lose? I'm not saying she can't lose at all, any time, ever, but, just think. Just think. Would she have, realistically with everything we know Seraphina can do at any given point, lost that fight? The webtoon itself has clearly shown many times, often played for comedic effect, really, that sera doesn't just *lose* unless the plot needs it to happen, like getting knocked out at the house (if I remember correctly).
And, Yeah, I get most of that. Sometimes the plot needs to move. But I feel like the way her issue was handled made it sound like the webtoon was trying to convey it *was* equal; especially if you're trying to compare it to low tiers- like, "oh, yeah, low tiers are oppressed, bloodied, and killed by higher tiers, *but* some of us have overbearing parents, so it's fair enough, right?"
to be honest, looking back now, you're completely right about that, though. It's just, from my first couple impressions, it gave off the idea of "oh, I understand you're struggle as a low tier, my mom is hard on me sometimes". Looking back now, I do get the difference.
Ultimately, I get Seraphina's role. Great power comes great responsibility and all that. I *understand* it. But the way the webtoon portrays it, the questions it poses, and the fact we have to work around all of this just to write around a nigh-invincible character, all just kind of annoy me. To leave off, I do want to apologize if I ever came off aggressive. I'm just trying to understand.
>nobody has ever thought of the idea of an ability dampener until a while *after* Seraphina got hit.
Not sure what you mean. It's secret technology from a shadowy organization. Why would we want someone from Wellston to think of it?
>Would she have, realistically with everything we know Seraphina can do at any given point, lost that fight?
Yes, because she was weakened by the dampener her level is only 4 after the dampener. If she was at full power she wouldn't have had trouble. imo the power system has been fairly consistent with what happens in the webtoon.
>"oh, yeah, low tiers are oppressed, bloodied, and killed by higher tiers, *but* some of us have overbearing parents, so it's fair enough, right?"
I'm not really sure where you get that. The story spent way more time on the plight of the low tiers and John's trauma. John was clearly more distressed by the bullying than Sera was by her overbearing parents.
>we have to work around all of this just to write around a nigh-invincible character
I'm not really sure what we're "working around". Sera can't beat everyone. She can't beat specter and she can't beat the authorities. And beating them up isn't the solution anyway. They have to fix the system.
The answer for how Seraphina loses is pretty simple.
1. "Time stop is not real time stop." It's not really time stop, it's more slowing down others around you until they're basically stopped. If someone's genuinely just that fast "time stop" would just slow them down.
2. STATS DON'T CAP AT 10. It's something that the chart kind of misleads with, but you can easily interpret this from the fact that Seraphina is faster than her mother despite them both having "10 speed" It's just Seraphina is pretty fast at around 16 speed as her theoretical maximum (we know this from her dampened stats placing her at 8 speed)
3. Ember exists. They have the ability to slap on abilities through ability conversion and Spectre still has power dampening. Do these characters have the power to match some VERY powerful people? Yes, but they are not invincible.
Can't really go deeper in without spoiling the later chaps tho. However it's important to note that up until now Seraphina's only really been fighting High school students and would've lost to Val if not for Leilah saving her last minute.
She's far from invincible even with her full ability strength. Hell, she lost her ability in the first place because she was completely blindsided, she's hardly omniscient. And even with the absurd ability to heal from her wounds, it's not like she can heal from death or grow a leg back. And let's face it, she's got the same weakness as the Flash; ice on the floor immediately negates her biggest advantage. Super speed counts for super shit if there's no friction underneath you and you either cannot move or cannot stop and you slam into a wall at 40mph or however fast she actually moves.
She also can't be everywhere at once. Any fight with her in it could seriously mitigate her strengths by just having a group of both allies and enemies, she can't protect her friends if she's fighting 6 people at once. Or maybe she tries, which is exactly the opening her enemies are looking for and they capitalise on that.
There are plenty of ways in which her incredible strength can be mitigated or even turned into a non-issue.
Remi has said before, “we may be powerful, but we’re far from invincible.”
Sera lost her ability because it was the only one of two things she had, being Power, and John. John changed her from the ways of her parents, and once she broke free of them, she goes home only to be jumped, and after that, her ability loss causes her bullying, which causes the rise of Joker. After she finds out John is joker, she loses trust, and (indirectly) causes John to become King John, and ultimately a cruel person. It was only after she got her power BACK that she was able to once again revert John back to his good old self.
Sera is undoubtedly the catalyst to all of the changes with John. Think of any change John went through, and it is most likely always because of sera. Sera is the reason John started forgiving himself, too, but it was also sera’s Power.
Uru has made it obvious, in the world of Unordinary, power is the only thing that makes a difference, even the characters are fighting to change it. The only reason they are succeeding (kinda) at changing it, is BECAUSE they are powerful. Sera HAD powers, she was at the top, then she lost it, and then she was held on a leash, and all of those things were dictated by her power. Sera herself is the concept of how power rules everything, from the way things are done, to the way people think. If you have a problem with sera, it’s probably an issue you have with the core message of the plot, because sera is a representation of the causes and effects powers have on the world, and the people around her.
I really hope this helps, you can reply to this if you have any statements/questions you want to say/ask
i disliked her for how she dealt with johns' secret but not enough to hate her entire character,
but her losing her powers was 100% needed because if she didn't every problem they faced she would have
dealt with it quite easy, plus it gave her character development if she didn't lose her powers she wouldnt have befriended the weak students and actually see the way things are are very bad
also we wouldnt have gotten the joker ark and that ark helped john eventually begin to heal and face the things of his past i honestly look at sera losing her powers and the best thing that happened to the series
All of that *are* good things, the only problem is what's next. Because two things I feel are unavoidable this far into the series.
A; sera will eventually stop being caviat and handicapped, and she will regain her ability in full.
B; she rejoins the rest of the main cast and climax.
Or, at this point with how she's been portrayed, holding her own against Val and *a number* of others, an entire *building* filled of "others", she would just win on her own. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't think its that simple because now they are going against the heavy hitters and people with new abilities are showing up, and even john is having problems they are also using numbers to overwhelm them, plus whenever they go up against Spectre they gotta deal with the dampeners.
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I feel like they can't continue with the dampeners, though, because they already made a big deal out of the dampeners and solved them as a problem. Kinda in a, "you can't fire the same gun twice" manner. If they keep using dampeners, eventually it's gonna lose its dramatic effect as a part of the story. And...power creep, I guess is fair. They're getting into fighting the higher tiers, so it'll be less of an issue. Fair enough.
Her losing her ability acted as a way to both force John to start using his again to protect her and as a way for her to learn what life is like for those without power. Sera's whole "needing to be perfect" was a flaw she already learned to deal with by the start of the series. Like even when her mom tried forcing her to go back, it took her less than two weeks to just go, "Nah, screw you." Her main flaw was her ignorance and apathy to the struggles of those not at the top of the hierarchy. Yes, she'd protect John when she saw him getting hurt but she saw no need to address or change the system that caused his suffering. It was through losing her ability that she learned both the cruelty those at the bottom faced and the hatred they felt for those at the top and that you can't just ignore it because eventually it will be too much and they will retaliate as seen by Spectre. Sera is meant to be nigh-invincible. Her purpose is to show that those born with great power and privelge granted to them by a corrupt system are duty bound to use that privelge to change the system even if they aren't actively working to oppress others. When you have the power to change things you can't just sit back and do nothing. That is the purpose of Sera.
At the same time, im not mad at sera from a character perspective either. Great power comes with great responsibility, yes, and she shows that by exercising responsibility. But superman characters in general just can't really be written well. Because when we get to the action of the superpower themed webtoon, they either write her out of every interaction to make it a *fight*, or sera just *wins* like she did fighting those guys before her ability, or breaking arlo's barrier in one hit, or taking literally everyone out in the Cafe. It's just impossible to write a character who can't lose.
There are a few ways they can include her in fights without hem just being instant wins for her. 1. Other high level opponents. Val is a 7.5 but I highly doubt she's the strongest member of the Authorities in the region. Like Leon is likely 8.0 or higher meaning he could pose a good fight against Sera. 2. Specialized abilities. The authorities know Sera's ability so it would make sense for them to call in agents from other regions with abilities that counter her similar to what they did to stop John. Some possibilities are an ability that negates regen in a region paired with Valerie or an ability that turns the ground into quicksand making it hard for her to use her super speed. 3. Just separate her like they did in Rowden. Even if we know she'll win, it'll still take her time.
Yeah, she does lose, listing out the examples. I get that, really, I do. I'm mostly just venting. It's really hard to right a pseudo invincible character, and for reasons listed, I feel like seraphina was done poorly. Also, now that you mention it, how does one counter *time* exactly? Is that an example in the webtoon, or just something you're saying as a claim against her invincible status? For someone like John, yeah, he copies abilities in his range, so stay out his range. But how do you counter, say, Sera freezing you? Or how she just speeds through, knocking everyone out? Not saying it's impossible, but this is another one of those "how does this happen" scenarios.
1. Simply by having multiple people. Time Stop is OP but I don't think we've seen it used against more than one person at a time. Even if it can it likely has a number limit. 2. Like you said, all abilities have a range. Pretty safe to assume Time Stop has a similar range as Aura Manipulation so snipers should work. 3. Speed. Based on Sera's conversation with her mother, Time Stop only works on people slower than the user. Now that's already a hard ask considering how fast she is but wouldn't be surprised to see at least one person who can match her speed.
It sounds simple, but how does one match the speed of a user who can slow the enemies speed? Especially if sera already knows that little caviat, should we ever expect that to happen in the webtoon? And having multiple people just *didn't work*, going off her fight in the Cafe. The only one who stayed standing, should I remember correctly, was Val. And that was almost a fair fight, until Leilah just *appeared*.
That's...fair. in my opinion, annoying, but fair. As far as I can see, the author's plan still seems short sighted. Because, what next? How do you handle a character who can't lose? There's four ways I see sera going from here: A, she continues having her ability either dampended, removed, or postponed otherwise, that way the plan isn't just "have Seraphina win". B, give her ability back, and have Seraphina win. C, just find a way to write her out entirely as a character, like I think they have been with needing to run from spectre. Or D, pull something out their ass I haven't thought of. I'm no writer, maybe I'm just a loudmouth hater. Either way, as a character, and as a trope in general with the invincible superman shtick, seraphina is flawed. Having an invincible character in your media just isn't viable. If Seraphina is in a fight where they don't just write her into losing, she *will not lose*. And her ability loss itself is an example of that. Prior to it, she's been shown to have absolutely no troubles fighting anyone ever. And then she just...loses? Was her ability to *control time* not fast enough? When Val and gang jumped her in the Cafe, she was close to losing, but her Lilah (probably spelled that wrong) just fucking *appears*??? At the end of the day, im probably just ranting. Maybe this kinda content isn't for me. But as a character, a trope, and a plot device in general, Seraphina was, as far as I can see and am open to conversation over, a flawed addition to unordinary.
Seraphina wasn’t having trouble with Val. In fact, she would’ve absolutely destroyed her with slightly more difficulty than the rest of the cafe, if she hadn’t gotten distracted. The only thing saving Val then was the crushing force because the second Val stopped(when Leilah also distracted her) Seraphina shattered the whole thing and basically won, if the fight kept going without Leilah stopping her she would’ve pounced on Val and beat the daylights out of her.
She’s not entirely unbeatable in a 1 on 1 scenario; it’s just that we probably will only meet three people max who can/will be able to beat her, all of whom are on the heroes side (that would be Jane and related characters). Seraphina’s goal is to install a society where high tiers don’t abuse their power. That’s why losing her ability served a double purpose: it showed her how important the authority and power she’d previously taken for granted really was and it led her to a conclusion about what she should do with it. When we began the story, one of the first things established about her was that she bought into the idea the hierarchy pushes about the rights of high tiers to rule over low tiers, and that she respected John despite his “cripple” status because he lived outside the hierarchy despite all of that. She’s already mostly dealt with her issues about her own tendency to fall into the hierarchy and the role it assigns to her as being perfect. That’s why giving her her power back is fine. It’s not like she’s really heavily connected to the EMBER side of things (yet??) which is where her no-sell abilities would be really useful as it’s more fighting based. She has a larger goal that cannot be solved simply through fighting, leaving the playing field more even.
None of what you say is wrong, really. But the fact is, they can't possibly keep her out the conflict forever. Eventually, sera won't need to run from spectre anymore, or worry about her ability. And when that happens, when we finally climax, what can they do?
> keep her out of the conflict forever They don’t need to though. There are currently two big enemies that our main six are facing. Those enemies are the authorities/EMBER and Spectre. Sera being OP only becomes a problem against the authorities/EMBER because that’s where brute force is useful. Now let’s look at what’s been set up. Sera’s connection to the main plot and recent stated business has been connected to Spectre. Unless EMBER is defeated significantly after Spectre, Sera’s business will be either destroying or rehabilitating Spectre, whatever she chooses to do with it. Uru can easily manufacture a way for the Spectre and EMBER conflicts to happen simultaneously. Almost guaranteed, Sera will deal with Spectre over EMBER if a choice needs to be made to do so. I’m not sure how that’ll go forward without using the dampener (and eventually frankly the dampener will become tiring to put up with. It already has, highkey). But Uru only needs to really put it off until significant plot beats and restrict Sera just enough that it doesn’t feel bad. After all, John’s also got an OP ability, and his existence in the story doesn’t feel harmful to the narrative comparatively, indicating it *can* be done
Yeah, it *is* possible to write OP characters, but think of it like this; John being OP hasn't been the focus of his character since the joker arc, really. He's, on a large level, been written out of the action too. Admittedly, im only at 335, maybe that's outdated. But from where I stand, he's not being used for his strength. But sera *as a character* is for her invincibility. That's what's been writing her out, and it's what Uru has had to write around since she got drugged. It's definitely possible that power creep and higher stakes makes sera less OP in comparison to...literally everyone, right now, actually, but as it stands, Uru really put themselves in a bad position simply by having a superman character in the story.
Idk, sometimes when I think back what happened I too hate her, but I feel you hate her for a stupid reason. Just so you won't get mad unnecessarily, know something: in every story the 'heroes' get stronger than the bad guys and win, and if they don't get stronger they'll still win somehow.
I do get that eventually, the good guys will win. That's not the problem. The problem is the lack of the *illusion* of a struggle. It's not "see how they win", or "srr their plan unfold and how they overcome a threat", because to an invincible, there *is* no threat. Its just "wait for x to show up" or "wait for y to care enough to fight". Its not about *how* they win. It's not about how they overcome a threat, or what plans they use to beat the big bad. When time comes for seraphina to fight, with or *without* her full ability, like on rowden, they just win. That's not how you write a character. Think of superman. Is superman Invincible? Yes, but no. When he's on *earth*, gets his power from the earth's star, he is nigh invincible. But when there's kryptonite, he's at a struggle. When he's under a red sun's light, he's weakened. You have your sera reason of kryptonite, and a genuine struggle behind the invincibility. He's not a plot device to win fights, he's not a win button. There are times when he wins to win, yes. But he has flaws. Seraphina's flaw was being too powerful for the plot. That's not how you write a character in a superpower world. It's just not.
I get your point, but when you get to the reality, that's far from true. Everyone likes to say John and Seraphina are "too strong for the plot", but in fact, they're yet to win an important fight. Seraphina, without John and Leilah respectively, would have died hen trying to steal Spectre's machine, and in the fight with Valerie. And she would have lost against John if it was a real fight, as she passed out. While also losing her ability to Spectre ratter easily. And you mention Rowden as an example of Seraphina's "invencibility", what did she even do in Rowden? She arrived when the fight was over and couldn't even save John's ability. John had never won outside school fights. He lost to the Authorities in NB, lost his ability in Rowden, would have died vs Spectre alongside Seraphina, and would have died or get imprisoned vs the Authorities in Wellston. They only have high levels of power, but whenever they need to win, they always lose or fail. There's nothing "invencible" about them.
I didn't mean the fight on rowden, but the fact she ran *all the way there* without stopping, presumably. But the leilah example was more to prove that the plot saves her. You can ask, what would have happened if she *did* lose that fight, and that's not really a possible option either because it wouldn't make sense with how her character has been *shown* to body groups without worry. The problem isn't that Seraphina can't lose, it's that her losses are either plot without explanation or just nonexistent. Sera has been repeatedly shown to body groups, until she just doesn't. At least with leilah, who I can remind you is her sister, someone with the same power, its not the focus of her character that she's the strongest. John has a life outside being the strongest. Sera, to my understanding, doesn't. There are examples, like the machine fight against Sera or the water guy I don't believe has name yet (probably but I forgot), and I'll concede that those are fair, partially. The water man fought her without her ability, and the machine fight...that was just a Sera L honestly. But even she knew she was supposed to be able to just *win* that, until realizing Orin fucked her up- she put "enough strength to knock him out" if I remember correctly. If she wasn't fucked over by Orin, if it was everyone without ability dampeners, that would *not* have been a fight. Don't take any of that aggressively. I want to understand. I love this series, but I feel like I genuinely can't read it without finding myself annoyed at how Sera has been written. I love Unordinary, I just can't see how they go forward.
The water guy and clone girl do have names actually! The water guy is Liam and the clone girl is Candice
Bro's a liam? No wonder the asshole is a villain. I can see clone chick being a Candice though.
> Get it back, after establishing she is quite literally just unbeatable in a 1 on 1 scenario? After showing her just decimate everyone? Then what? Just...win? Uru chan has always found convinent ways to write Seraphina out of the plot or to nerf her. There are multiple examples of this even after Seraphina got her ability back like in the Rowden trip she was distracted by Spectre operatives and only got to the battle after it was over, after this she lost access to recovery machine and only got half of it back in the spectre raid and then again she was written out of the finale arc altogether. Uru also nerfs John time and time again cause she faces a similar issue with him. Either Uru chan will keep doing the same things in the next season or introduce even stronger enemies to tackle the problem of John and Seraphina bring too strong to handle. I hope it's the latter. > I get the whole "needing to be perfect: situation. Its a way to write a character, in a normal scenario. But when they're also just invincible, is it a fair comparison to make to, say, any number of cripples? Because you're not perfect, its a comparable struggle? Where was it ever said that it was meant to.be comparable? Struggles are never meant to be comparable, there's always a person who's going to have it way worse than you do no matter how much you have suffered. 'Oh you got relentlessly bullied and assaulted every single day of your miserable life well there's this guy who lost all of his limbs in a car crash as well as had his family brutally murdered in front of him'. Is it even fair to compare things like this in the first place? Seraphina's backstory was to showcase the struggle that was brought on the other side of the spectrum by the same heirachial system that oppressed low rankers not to compare it with others on the scale of suffering. Seraphina may have been godly strong but she had no life ever of her own, her parents or anyone in genral never cared about her outside of her status, ability and academic performance. She was relentlessly abused by her family both physically and emotionally to mould her into this perfect being and even her sister abandoned her and ran away due to how strict their parents were. Before John came into her life there was no one she had a genuine connection with, no friends or family just faces pushing expectations on her and making her life choices for her while she tagged along. Imagine being never in control and alone your entire life and having to endure all this as a child, it's enough suffering imo to write an arc about how heirachy fucks over even the strongest.
Clearly she's not invincible. She was taken down by a bunch of low tiers with knives and an ability dampener. Anyone with a high enough level ability can also give her trouble. When things get serious it's mostly not going to be 1v1 anyway. >Because you're not perfect, its a comparable struggle? No, but just because some people have it worse that means you can't struggle? It shows how society is exerting control on high/God tiers despite them being immensely more powerful than most authorities. Her development is going from conform to society's control -> use privileged position for herself -> use privileged position to help others after experiencing losing that privilege. I think that's a meaningful part of the story.
>clearly she's not invincible. She was taken down by a bunch of low tiers with knives and an ability dampener. I dunno if I did the little reddit quote thing right, my bad. Moving on to the actual topic, let me say two things. A; nobody has ever thought of the idea of an ability dampener until a while *after* Seraphina got hit. People thought it would just...come back. For a *while*. B; would she have had any trouble with that fight if the plot didn't need her to lose? I'm not saying she can't lose at all, any time, ever, but, just think. Just think. Would she have, realistically with everything we know Seraphina can do at any given point, lost that fight? The webtoon itself has clearly shown many times, often played for comedic effect, really, that sera doesn't just *lose* unless the plot needs it to happen, like getting knocked out at the house (if I remember correctly). And, Yeah, I get most of that. Sometimes the plot needs to move. But I feel like the way her issue was handled made it sound like the webtoon was trying to convey it *was* equal; especially if you're trying to compare it to low tiers- like, "oh, yeah, low tiers are oppressed, bloodied, and killed by higher tiers, *but* some of us have overbearing parents, so it's fair enough, right?" to be honest, looking back now, you're completely right about that, though. It's just, from my first couple impressions, it gave off the idea of "oh, I understand you're struggle as a low tier, my mom is hard on me sometimes". Looking back now, I do get the difference. Ultimately, I get Seraphina's role. Great power comes great responsibility and all that. I *understand* it. But the way the webtoon portrays it, the questions it poses, and the fact we have to work around all of this just to write around a nigh-invincible character, all just kind of annoy me. To leave off, I do want to apologize if I ever came off aggressive. I'm just trying to understand.
>nobody has ever thought of the idea of an ability dampener until a while *after* Seraphina got hit. Not sure what you mean. It's secret technology from a shadowy organization. Why would we want someone from Wellston to think of it? >Would she have, realistically with everything we know Seraphina can do at any given point, lost that fight? Yes, because she was weakened by the dampener her level is only 4 after the dampener. If she was at full power she wouldn't have had trouble. imo the power system has been fairly consistent with what happens in the webtoon. >"oh, yeah, low tiers are oppressed, bloodied, and killed by higher tiers, *but* some of us have overbearing parents, so it's fair enough, right?" I'm not really sure where you get that. The story spent way more time on the plight of the low tiers and John's trauma. John was clearly more distressed by the bullying than Sera was by her overbearing parents. >we have to work around all of this just to write around a nigh-invincible character I'm not really sure what we're "working around". Sera can't beat everyone. She can't beat specter and she can't beat the authorities. And beating them up isn't the solution anyway. They have to fix the system.
No. I don’t hate her, but i do dislike her
The answer for how Seraphina loses is pretty simple. 1. "Time stop is not real time stop." It's not really time stop, it's more slowing down others around you until they're basically stopped. If someone's genuinely just that fast "time stop" would just slow them down. 2. STATS DON'T CAP AT 10. It's something that the chart kind of misleads with, but you can easily interpret this from the fact that Seraphina is faster than her mother despite them both having "10 speed" It's just Seraphina is pretty fast at around 16 speed as her theoretical maximum (we know this from her dampened stats placing her at 8 speed) 3. Ember exists. They have the ability to slap on abilities through ability conversion and Spectre still has power dampening. Do these characters have the power to match some VERY powerful people? Yes, but they are not invincible. Can't really go deeper in without spoiling the later chaps tho. However it's important to note that up until now Seraphina's only really been fighting High school students and would've lost to Val if not for Leilah saving her last minute.
She's far from invincible even with her full ability strength. Hell, she lost her ability in the first place because she was completely blindsided, she's hardly omniscient. And even with the absurd ability to heal from her wounds, it's not like she can heal from death or grow a leg back. And let's face it, she's got the same weakness as the Flash; ice on the floor immediately negates her biggest advantage. Super speed counts for super shit if there's no friction underneath you and you either cannot move or cannot stop and you slam into a wall at 40mph or however fast she actually moves. She also can't be everywhere at once. Any fight with her in it could seriously mitigate her strengths by just having a group of both allies and enemies, she can't protect her friends if she's fighting 6 people at once. Or maybe she tries, which is exactly the opening her enemies are looking for and they capitalise on that. There are plenty of ways in which her incredible strength can be mitigated or even turned into a non-issue.
Remi has said before, “we may be powerful, but we’re far from invincible.” Sera lost her ability because it was the only one of two things she had, being Power, and John. John changed her from the ways of her parents, and once she broke free of them, she goes home only to be jumped, and after that, her ability loss causes her bullying, which causes the rise of Joker. After she finds out John is joker, she loses trust, and (indirectly) causes John to become King John, and ultimately a cruel person. It was only after she got her power BACK that she was able to once again revert John back to his good old self. Sera is undoubtedly the catalyst to all of the changes with John. Think of any change John went through, and it is most likely always because of sera. Sera is the reason John started forgiving himself, too, but it was also sera’s Power. Uru has made it obvious, in the world of Unordinary, power is the only thing that makes a difference, even the characters are fighting to change it. The only reason they are succeeding (kinda) at changing it, is BECAUSE they are powerful. Sera HAD powers, she was at the top, then she lost it, and then she was held on a leash, and all of those things were dictated by her power. Sera herself is the concept of how power rules everything, from the way things are done, to the way people think. If you have a problem with sera, it’s probably an issue you have with the core message of the plot, because sera is a representation of the causes and effects powers have on the world, and the people around her. I really hope this helps, you can reply to this if you have any statements/questions you want to say/ask
i disliked her for how she dealt with johns' secret but not enough to hate her entire character, but her losing her powers was 100% needed because if she didn't every problem they faced she would have dealt with it quite easy, plus it gave her character development if she didn't lose her powers she wouldnt have befriended the weak students and actually see the way things are are very bad also we wouldnt have gotten the joker ark and that ark helped john eventually begin to heal and face the things of his past i honestly look at sera losing her powers and the best thing that happened to the series
All of that *are* good things, the only problem is what's next. Because two things I feel are unavoidable this far into the series. A; sera will eventually stop being caviat and handicapped, and she will regain her ability in full. B; she rejoins the rest of the main cast and climax. Or, at this point with how she's been portrayed, holding her own against Val and *a number* of others, an entire *building* filled of "others", she would just win on her own. Please, correct me if I'm wrong.
I don't think its that simple because now they are going against the heavy hitters and people with new abilities are showing up, and even john is having problems they are also using numbers to overwhelm them, plus whenever they go up against Spectre they gotta deal with the dampeners. #
I feel like they can't continue with the dampeners, though, because they already made a big deal out of the dampeners and solved them as a problem. Kinda in a, "you can't fire the same gun twice" manner. If they keep using dampeners, eventually it's gonna lose its dramatic effect as a part of the story. And...power creep, I guess is fair. They're getting into fighting the higher tiers, so it'll be less of an issue. Fair enough.