Why Is Sara Irine The Anti-Climax And Deus Ex Machina (Ragnarok Manhwa)?

Why is it that we can classify Sara Irine, the Valkyrie, from Ragnarok: Into The Abyss as the anti-climax and deus ex machina of said manhwa? What did this character do to get such a label?

This post is also known as "the uselessness of the main characters," "the pointlessness of some scenes and chapters," and "why does Sara Irine get to do all the work?".

So what reason is there for anyone to want to consider the aforementioned Valkyrie as the comic's anti-climax and deus ex machina?

To answer that question, let's take a look at Volume 7, particularly the scene wherein we see Sara killing Bijou. Don't you think that this was very anti-climactic? Why, you ask?

This is because, prior to this scene, we had several chapters showing us the fight between Fenris Fenrir, Iris Irine, Bijou and her troll. After being shown all those fight scenes, who would have expected it to end in the way that it did? It could be that the good guys will win or maybe the bad guys will temporarily win. Either way would have been fine.

But having the Valkyrie be the one to finish off Bijou when they were supposed to be in the same side is very much unexpected and not in the good way. While unexpected scenes would save the graphic novel from being predictable, this particular scene just fell flat and ended up becoming so anti-climactic.

After all, what was the use of showing us all those fight scenes between the women and the troll when it's just going to end with Sara, who wasn't even part of the fight in the first place, showing up to help out the heroes?

The Valkyrie's appearance made all the long fight scenes we had to go through pointless and a complete waste of time. After all, if Sara was just going to show up to off Bijou anyway, then what's the point of having the readers see all those pages and pages of fight scenes?

We could have been shown more plot instead. That would have been much more preferable as compared to this.

What about the deus ex machina though? How can Sara's appearance in that scene be described as a deus ex machina?

It's quite easy to see her appearance as a deus ex machina, because, if you recall, Bijou was winning in this particular chapter in Volume 7. She was about to defeat Fenris and Iris.

It would have been the end for our 2 female protagonists had it not been for the sudden and unexpected appearance of Sara Irine who comes to save the day. If she hadn't shown up, those two would have been destroyed by Bijou. How's that for a deus ex machina?

It doesn't even make sense for Sara to want to kill Bijou. When asked for a reason, she responds with, "Because I choose to," but what does that even mean? Why would she want to off Bijou when they're both working on the same side, when they're both working for Freya?

None of this makes sense and we don't even know what the Valkyrie is planning, so this really just comes across as being one anti-climactic scene topped with a deus ex machina.

It's like Bijou became so much more powerful than the main characters, so much so that there was no other way for them to win and they would have lost if a deus ex machina, in the form of Sara, hadn't shown up to help them out.

That scene isn't the only time that we see Sara the anti-climax and deus ex machina though. Later on, we see her killing Himmelmez in order to help out Chaos and Loki.

Once again, all the fight scenes that readers had to endure (and those were very, very long, annoyingly so) all went to waste thanks to how anti-climactic things turned out to be.

Once again, we see how the heroes couldn't possibly win and there would be no other way out but to introduce a deus ex machina in the form of Sara to get the protagonists out of this mess. It's very dissatisfying, to say the least.

This is exacerbated by the fact that we don't get a decent reason as to why Sara would do such a thing. Why would she destroy Himmelmez when they're both working for Freya? Her lame attempts at providing us with reasons as to why she kills Himmelmez just falls flat and ends up sounding weird and even insane, not to mention absolutely ridiculous.

She says she killed Himmelmez because she didn't like the woman and because the latter was apparently an obstacle, but to what, we don't know and it's likely that we never will.

Besides, even if Sara really wanted to off the woman, why didn't she do that after Himmelmez was through fighting with Chaos and Loki? Why does it have to be at that precise moment? Why not later on or before the heroes get in trouble? It's really like the Valkyrie just had to do this, so she could be the deus ex machina for the heroes.

Even if we can explain that the reason she killed Bijou was because she did care about Iris who is actually her half-sister (even though that's still unbelievable since the 2 aren't even close and she has jealousy issues seeing as her father, the Lord Irine, prefers Iris to her), Sara helping out Chaos just does not make sense.

After all, Chaos is the reincarnation of Balder and she knows that already, so why would she help the guy out? In short, it's really like all those fight scenes we just read were nothing but a complete waste of time.

Instead of seeing the main characters further develop their skills and learn from their battles, we just see Sara doing all the work for them. If this is what was going to happen anyway, then we should have skipped straight to this, so we could have had more plot-related scenes.

What do you think? Do you think that Sara Irine is indeed an anti-climax and deus ex machina? Do you think she shouldn't have done all the work for the heroes especially since she's not even on their side?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by hayashinomura, CC:BY-SA from deviantArt
- Image is meant to symbolize Sara Irine being the anti-climax and deus ex machina because the figure in said image appears to have come from out of nowhere
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget

Problems With Sara Irine And The Valkyries Of Ragnarok Manhwa

Sara Irine is a character from Ragnarok: Into The Abyss. She's a Valkyrie and a pretty powerful one at that. But what are some of the things that can be pretty confusing (or that doesn't seem to make sense) about her and the other Valkyries that appear in said manhwa?

Let's start with Sara since she is the first Valkyrie to be introduced in Ragnarok and she is the one that this post title specifies. When we first meet Sara in volume 1 of the manhwa and then find out that she is a Valkyrie, there's nothing that seems odd about that.

However, events that happen in volume 2 quickly change the way we know things, causing us to feel confused and even disbelieving. Volume 2 tells us that Sara Irine wants revenge on the city that abandoned her. She then shows up in Fayon, a city in Midgard. The fact that she shows up in this city seems to clearly indicate that she was born here and that's where the problem lies.

If she is from Fayon and if Fayon is a city in Midgard, then doesn't that mean that Sara is a mortal, a human? If so, how can she be a Valkyrie? In Norse Mythology, Valkyries are women that have been tasked to bring heroes and warriors to Valhalla (located in Asgard, the realm of the gods) upon the deaths of these people.

There is nothing in Norse Mythology that seems to indicate that Valkyries are mortals. In fact, they appear to reside in Asgard themselves, which seems to imply that they could be Norse goddesses of a sort.

I understand that the Ragnarok manhwa is only loosely based on Norse Mythology, so a lot of things are bound to be different.

However, if the comic doesn't make these things clear to us, it's highly likely that many would think or assume that the Valkyries in the graphic novel are pretty much the same as the Valkyries in the stories.

We only know that Sara Irine is one of the 12 Valkyries of Valhalla and that she works for the goddess Freya. This wouldn't have been a problem at all had she not also been introduced as the daughter of Lord Irine who is a mortal.

Part of Volume 3's summary or story so far portion even tells us that, 12 years ago, Sara Irine was apparently going to be sacrificed so that a new heir to the city of Fayon could be named. The question is, of course, why? Why is this even necessary? What's wrong with Sara being the heir of Fayon? Why couldn't she be the heir?

But, more importantly, when Sara escaped from the aforementioned city, it was said that she became one of Freya's Valkyries, which thus appears to indicate that Valkyries aren't born (as in, you're not born as a Valkyrie), but made.

How does this work though? And how can this just happen? What is the criteria for one to become a Valkyrie?

Does this mean that any mortal could become a Valkyrie if they want to? So, how did Sara get all her powers and abilities?

If she was made into a Valkyrie, does that mean all her strength and the things that she can do weren't inherent in her and that the only reason she can do these things was because she became a Valkyrie?

*Sigh*. Yeah, I also wish it wasn't this confusing. The only thing that seems pretty clear is that the Valkyries in the manhwa are obviously different from the ones in Norse Mythology, though how exactly these things work and all the other aforementioned questions are still in dire need of answers.

Anyway, let's just move on to another Valkyrie before we get any more confused with Sara Irine. Volume 1 of Ragnarok also introduces us to another Valkyrie named Zenobia. She's apparently from the city of Daema, but what does that mean to us readers? We don't even know where Daema is. Is this city in Asgard or Midgard?

And why is she a Valkyrie from Daema while Sara is a Valkyrie from Valhalla?

The character Arkana is also introduced, but we don't know if she's also a Valkyrie or not or if she's even human or not.

In Chapter 4 of Volume 1, Zenobia says that Sara Irine is her sister. But how can this work? They have different last names. Could they be just half-sisters then? Or could Zenobia simply mean that they are like sisters because they are both Valkyries?

What do you think of Ragnarok's Valkyries? Do they confuse you? Do you wish they were more like the Valkyries in Norse Mythology or at least that the manhwa had better been able to explain exactly how its Valkyries worked?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Rusembell (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Said image is meant to represent Sara Irine since the figure in said image appears to be powerful and strong
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget

Valkyrie Sara Irine's Attack On Fayon (Ragnarok Manhwa)

The Valkyrie named Sara Irine is a character from Ragnarok: Into The Abyss. In volume 2 of said manhwa, she attacked the city of Fayon. What are some of the questions that we should ponder regarding this incident?

Volume 2 of the Ragnarok manhwa reveals many things about Sara Irine, but it can also be rather confusing (read: really, honestly, it could have been so much clearer than what was presented to us).

Sara Irine in the city of Fayon

In Ragnarok: Into The Abyss Volume 2, the aforementioned Valkyrie heads to the city of Fayon. The most important question regarding this is why. What is the reason why she went to this city? This is something that warrants thinking about because she didn't go to Fayon by herself. She brought Frost Giants with her and she's clearly here to pick a fight.

Now, the character handbook a few pages or so ago mentioned (though, really, perhaps it would have been better to show these things to us instead of outright telling us about it) that Sara wanted revenge on the city where she was born because it apparently abandoned her.

Thus, it seems pretty obvious that this city is Fayon even though the handbook didn't mention or specify a name. After all, if Fayon wasn't the city where Sara was born, why else would she be here then?

The reason Sara is in Fayon

Speaking of the reason why Sara would even be in Fayon, this could be one of two things. The first is that she could have been here to take revenge on the people that have somehow wronged her, just like the handbook says.

The second is what Fenris Fenrir later says. She claims to sense Sara Irine and assumes that the Valkyrie must have come for her and Balder.

Her reasoning makes sense, however, there is no evidence in the manhwa to prove that this is really the case. Why not, you ask? To answer this, let's take a look at what Sara did as soon as she got to Fayon:

• She had her Frost Giants attack everyone in the city practically as soon as they got there
• She was busy watching as her Frost Giants fought with Matthew and the rest of the soldiers of Fayon
• Neither Fenris nor Balder (Chaos) were anywhere near where Sara currently was, so, if she was really looking for them, then why is she attacking the wrong people?
• She didn't even mention or think about either Fenris or Balder the whole time she was watching the ongoing fight between her Frost Giants and her enemies
• Instead, she was busy gloating

With this, it appears that Fenris was mistaken in her assumption and that the Valkyrie hadn't come to Fayon to track her and Balder down. Well, that's good news for both her and Chaos, but, if we thus operate under the idea that Sara was in this city for the purpose of revenge, this opens a whole new set of questions for us to ponder and think about.

The most noteworthy question to ask is why is the Valkyrie only just now attacking the city of Fayon? Why didn't she attack it before? Why does she have to attack it now?

After all, whatever she was mad about happened 12 years ago, so what stopped her from going to Fayon and destroying everyone and everything there a few years ago?

Couldn't she attack the city years before the manhwa started? If she couldn't, then why not? Also, shouldn't she be reporting to Freya about her failure in stopping Fenris from obtaining Guarding Wind, Balder's sword?

Does she really have time to be taking her revenge on Fayon right now? Surely, Freya didn't authorize this? And if the goddess actually did, the question, of course, is why? Perhaps we might have a better and clearer understanding of things if we knew what exactly happened to Sara 12 years ago. But that's just the problem. We don't know.

What happened to Sara Irine 12 years ago?

Events that happened 12 years ago, particularly with regards to her past and childhood, keep being alluded to, but we never get a clear explanation on what exactly happened. Whatever happened back then sounds interesting enough, but it would have been so much better if we got more of an explanation regarding these events.

True, we did get flashbacks, but these hardly told us anything of use at all.

Lord Irine tells Iris Irine that he made a mistake or that the choice he made was a mistake 12 years ago, but he never gets around to explaining exactly what it was that he did due to a convenient interruption in the form of an explosion, which effectively ended his conversation with his daughter.

But, seriously, what did he and the rest of Fayon try to do to Sara exactly?

A few pages later, it becomes apparent that Lord Irine attempted to kill his child and that he'd even killed Sara's mother, but that just brings us to the question of why. Why did he kill Sara's mother who is supposed to be his wife? Why did he want to kill his daughter?

The flashbacks we were shown indicated that he and the Valkyrie used to be close and that his daughter had a pretty good childhood with loving and caring parents before it all mysteriously changed one day. The question is, of course, what changed and why did it change? What reason did Lord Irine have to want to kill his own daughter when parts of the flashback we were shown illustrated him being fond of Sara?

It doesn't make sense, does it? It also appears confusing, very much so. What do you think? Do you find that none of this makes sense and that it's all very confusing? What can you say about the Valkyrie Sara Irine's attack on the city of Fayon?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Rusembell (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Said image is meant to symbolize the Valkyrie Sara Irine
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget