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Things To Dislike About The Fight Scenes In Ragnarok Manhwa?

Friday, February 07, 2014
fight scenes, ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa
This post is also known as "The pointless fight scenes in Ragnarok: Into The Abyss."

What can be so annoying and aggravating about the numerous fight scenes in the manhwa? For one thing, they can be classified as pointless. The reason is because they do pretty much nothing at all except needlessly prolong the story.

Instead of advancing the plot and letting us readers know what happens next, we keep seeing pages and pages of ongoing fights that serve to tell us nothing much of interest.

Those who like action and fight scenes might not mind the many such scenes in the comic. I'm not too fond of them though even if I don't really mind the fight scenes that we can sometimes see when watching anime shows. The reason is because, when you watch a movie with a fight scene, it doesn't take that much time to show us, the viewers, what happens and how the battle progresses.
fight scenes, ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa
Watching a fight scene can be said to be better than reading about it in a graphic novel because these are shown to us fast enough and they end soon enough that they don't end up stopping the progression of the plot. Being able to see the characters moving and seeing them fully-colored also makes the fight scene more interesting and enjoyable to watch.

This is because we won't have much of a hard time trying to identify their movements and we can see just how they fight against their opponent. On the other hand, fight scenes in comics can appear to be quite slow because it takes several pages to show us what's going on and how the characters are moving and who is attacking and who is defending.

As such, it would be best if fight scenes in graphic novels could be minimal because, really, what's the need to draw these scenes out? Wouldn't this just be a waste of time? Instead of making us read about these pointless fight scenes, we could have been shown more plot-related scenes, which would surely be more interesting.

This is especially the case if we already know or if we can already tell exactly who is going to win. In effect, the plot of the manhwa is being put to a stand still because we have to stop and read about some pointless fight, which is completely unnecessary since we already know what the outcome will be.

loki, chaos, skurai, ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa
If these fight scenes were shortened or if they were omitted or limited to 1 or 2 pages, then what will we have missed? Will we miss anything of importance if we skipped these fight scenes or if we only read a few pages of them?

Let's take a look at some instances in the Ragnarok manhwa wherein we can see these annoying and pointless fight scenes that never seem to end.

In Volume 3, we see pages of nothing but fight scenes between Loki, the members of the Assassins' Guild that were with him and those who were trying to summon Surt.

Since Loki is one of the main characters, isn't it practically a given already that he isn't going to die and that he and his group are going to win? So, what's the point of prolonging these fights? Don't you wish they were short and to the point instead of being long and drawn out?

In Volumes 4 and 5, we have one of the more annoying and pointless fight scenes in the comic in the form of the fight between Loki, Skurai and Chaos. This particular fight lasted so long, it really seemed like it would never end. Really, it was such a drag. One of the more disappointing things about it is that we hardly find out anything of use.

fenris fenrir, iris irine, bijou, troll, ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa
Sure, in the beginning we learned a bit about the Dragon Knights, but that's about it as the focus is on the fight between the 3 characters.

I thought at least one of them, like Skurai for instance, would die already, but even that didn't happen. So, what else is the point of having this guy join the fight?

There's also the fight scene between Bijou, her troll, Iris Irine and Fenris Fenrir as well as the fight between Himmelmez, Loki and Chaos, both of which, unfortunately, lasted for quite a while.

If these fight scenes had ended sooner, maybe we could have learned more about the world of Ragnarok. Maybe we could have seen the plot advance and progress and we could have found out more important things about the series.

What do you think about the numerous fight scenes in the manhwa? Do you find them pointless and annoying? Do you wish they were shorter and that the focus should have been more on the plot instead?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Rusembell (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Image of two fighters is meant to represent the many fight scenes in the manhwa
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget

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