Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Wandering Witch - The Journey of Elaina
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AmpersandsUnited
Posts: 633 |
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I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Fictional works that at least have some degree of thought and effort put into them tend to have established worldbuilding, themes, and lore. Adhering to all that is generally how you avoid plot holes and bad writing. Are you saying adhering to established rules or consistances is no excuse for the main character not just doing what the viewer wants? That the excuse of "slavery is legal so she can't just free Nino" is invalid because "well the author made slavery legal so they just have to not make it legal then she can do that". Maybe I'm misinterpreting your post, but if that's the case then that just comes off like complaining that a work has something you don't like in it or why the characters are not doing what you want them to do rather than an actual criticism about the writing. Like the equivalent of asking why Team Rocket doesn't just go full evil and just kill people to steal their Pokemon rather than do overly complicated disguises, plans, and traps. |
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JaffaOrange
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It think this is a good point and I've definitely been paying more attention how authors/creators use framing, especially for stories that feature slavery and stratified societies. I'm going to hazard a guess at the author's intentions with the stories in episode 3's two-parter and say they're the "actually, this world of magic has some dark parts to it" worldbuilding chapters. Rereading how the flower story was adapted in the manga, I really notice how the anime's cut down version really hurts everything. Here, Elaina feels bad about the siblings and does make an effort to help them but it's ultimately futile. There's a sense of inevitable misfortune to the affair where the siblings' circumstances lead them to this fate that the anime doesn't decide to cover. In regards to the bottle story, if we analyse the intentional framing of it, the story suffers even more. Here, the author has thrust the MC into a situation that she cannot solve without massive contrivances and we should ask, to what end? This doesn't become a learning experience for Elaina but instead we just get told, as an audience, "actually, people can be horrible even, or sometimes especially, if they intend well". i don't think this is profound, just unpleasant. |
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GoethiteGolem
Posts: 10 |
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I've had a hard time figuring out exactly what is bothering me so much about this show. Even before this week's episode, something has felt off about it. I've watched plenty of episodic travelogue shows before. Both Mushishi and the original Kino's Journey had plenty of messed up stories with questionable morals, but it always felt like it was in service to some point. I don't understand what these stories are trying to do. They just feel like a series of arbitrary non-sequiturs.
In the first story, the conflict fundamentally resolved around Elaina's mother bribing a witch to knock her own daughter down a peg. That's weird and messed up, but I'm fine with that, as long as you show me why. Why did Elaina need a harsh lesson in humility? Why did such a seemingly sweet and supportive family deem this necessary? Why did Fran go along with it? Nothing in the episode itself showed me why they needed to do this. Okay, setting that aside, what did the lesson of the story have to do with any of that? Elaina was too patient and diligent, and needed to learn to speak up for and and assert herself? That sounds nice and all, but what did it have to do with what we just saw? I can come up with a whole bunch of hypothetical answers to this, but the story doesn't give us much to actually connect the dots, so it's easy to assume the worst. That Elaina's parents don't actually understand her or care about her, but just want to control her. That Fran is an amoral mercenary who, when faced with the sight of a girl breaking down in tears at her bullying, decides to blame the victim for not sticking up for themselves. I don't really think that's the story this show is trying to tell, but it's easy to come to that conclusion based on what we saw, since the show isn't actually providing the context or insight to really understand these choices The second episode's conflict revolved around the reveal that Saya stole Elaina's brooch. That was a pretty natural and straightforward development. But then, it turns out that the reason she did it wasn't that she wanted to use the brooch herself, or that she needed to give Elaina a reason to stick around to teach her, but just that she was lonely and wanted a friend. What. Who stages an elaborate pick-pocketing in order to make friends? Again, this isn't necessarily bad! But when you see characters make weird choices like that, I want to know why. And why did choose to Elaina believe her? The show needs to give some insight here, otherwise the obvious assumption is that Saya is just desperately lying to save her skin, and that Elaina is too stupid to realize it. The third episode's problems felt similar. Why did Elaina do or not do the things she did? Why did she feel like it was okay to blithely ignore and push past the border guard? Is she just that arrogant? Why was her response to finding out the truth of the flower field to just ignore it and walk away? Maybe it was a actually problem to big for her to handle somehow? But since she was immune to it's effects, it seems like she could have easily burnt the whole thing from the sky. It seemed like she should have felt a little responsible for inadvertently causing that guard's death, especially given that the ending implied that her actions might have sparked a zombie apocalypse. Then the slave-girl story. I can understand not getting involved in this household's drama, even in spite of the moral hazard in doing nothing. That part, unpleasant as it was, at least made some sense. But then, what was the point of this story? Why did she change her mind and decide to encourage the boy to show Nino what was in the bottle? She clearly was skeptical about whether it was a good idea at first. Why did she change her mind? What did Elaina really think about these situations, and why did she do nothing? Did she feel powerless? Does she have some principles of non-involvement? Did she feel any guilt or responsibility about it? Heck, Kino, patron saint of stoic non-involvement, once expressed regret over spoiler[hunting some rabbits for some people trapped in the snow who turned out to be slave traders turned cannibals that she ended up killing when they tried to abduct her. It was a fundamentally weird and messed up story, but at least it gave some insight Kino's worldview and thought process.] It's pretty normal in this kind of story to have people and societies that make questionable decisions, or encounter horrible things they can't do anything about. But if you're telling a story like that, you need to give us some insight about them. As it is, both the show and Elaina herself feel like they're lacking any self-consciousness about what they're actually doing and why. |
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EPB
Posts: 3 |
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I actually read the light novel since someone mentioned the flower episode is different in it.
It's worth noting since someone brought it up earlier, that the manga version is different from both the anime and the original LN (in which Elaina is most overtly in the wrong and leaves the soldier to die despite acknowledging he could be saved). In the LN the timeline is basically just: Elaina brings flowers to town, argues with guard, gets chip on shoulder, flowers get torched (to no detriment), Elaina lies about seeing the sister to older guard (out of spite?), reflects that man eating plants exist, soldier leaves town to find sister, Elaina finds him amongst the flowers Reading on, I think the biggest problem other than the author's glaring misanthropy (which is toned down in the anime) is A) that a lot of the characters are written like caricatures and B) that Elaina chops and changes in disposition rapidly between stories and in such a manner that it feels like I'm reading about several different protagonists rather than one. |
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harminia
 Posts: 2045 Location: australia |
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To be honest, I don't mind that. For me, she seems to still be a bit immature and self centered, so she'd rather only do things that benefit her (for now at least). But I think she also recognises there are some things she can't really fix. I don't think she could've done anything to change the situation in Bottled Happiness. Killing the father won't end slavery and won't make the servant's life a lot better (she'd be out of a job and the son is in no way capable of looking after them). I think it was clear that the son wasn't actually wishing for change. He didn't want to get the servant out of her situation, he just wanted to think he was some great guy for helping her. The fact he said, when Elaina was leaving, "Nino and I will make you a great meal next time" shows he is perfectly fine with the current situation. Gosh, he just wishes Nino would just smile a gosh darned little bit more. To be honest I see that story as Nino killing the father AND the son rather than killing herself. As for the flower part... I feel like she could've done more, but it's also like.. This flower has existed for a long time. Theoretically what it does is just the circle of life. Nike(?) wrote about the exact same flower and clearly didn't fix the problem by destroying all evil flowers, so it makes sense that Elaina, who just wants to look at stuff Nike looked at and who doesn't like going out of her way unless it benefits her, wouldn't do anything. I mean, this is a girl who thinks she's the hottest shit around and who starts every episode saying how beautiful she is. I enjoy her personality because it's different to have such a self-centered main character, but I do hope she evolves a bit. I feel episode 1 didn't really teach her anything; it seemed to be more "you shouldn't hold it in if you're unhappy" rather than "stop thinking you're the best thing since sliced bread", which I wish had been the actual lesson but eh... I think it's too early to say she's a despicable human who refuses to help people because she may intervene in future episodes (I assume she will, though whether it's because she'll get something out of it or not I can't say) TL;DR I'm enjoying this series so far. I know ep 3 is kind of the watch or drop episode for a lot of people, and I have some mixed feelings about it, but I'm a fan of horror short stories so this was up my alley. Anyway, boy, this thread is sure a big one! Don't think I've seen such a divisive episode in a while. |
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Seagloom
Posts: 298 |
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In my opinion this the most glaring issue with Wandering Witch. Characterization improves in future volumes so that side characters are less like caricatures. Even the jump in quality between the first and second volumes is noticeable. However, it is still not at a point where I consider it great save for a few reoccurring characters. The one-offs tend to be written as plot devices, not people. Elaina herself reads like a cipher at times. As if the author is playing Mad Libs aside from maintaining a few basic traits. I can probably tolerate it because I have a soft spot for prickly characters, and do not really feel the series is about Elaina as strange as that sounds. That and the occasional yuri. Although even said yuri is sometimes handled in a questionable way. That the series has such a polarizing character, and the odd *highly* polarizing story is why I never recommend it to acquaintances. Admittedly, seeing all these reactions has been very entertaining since I never get to talk about this series with anyone. I eagerly await seeing how viewers react to some of the later stories. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2510 |
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Does it really matter whether "slavery exists everywhere in this universe or that it's always impossible at all times for slaves to escape their masters in their world"? Even if that were the case, we should at least see the story -- either through Elaina or whatever other vehicle it cares to use -- grapple with the moral consequences of that kind of world. Barely nodding to slavery's existence and moving on casually to the next story is a deeply superficial take on an extremely important issue. That's the principal problem with how Journey of Elaina handled Episode 3, in my opinion; the trouble is not that the show chooses to depict evil things, nor even that Elaina might herself be of questionable character, but rather that the show doesn't seem to be interested in treating these issues seriously when it does show them to us. "Teenage slave girl is abused sexually by slave owner" just isn't an issue you toss into an episode if you're only willing to dip your toes in the most surface-level way into its causes and consequences, y'know?
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pokefreaks
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For me, it's not that very difficult to love (or can relate) to a self centered character but now I have to try harder to love her after episode 3. I will keep up with the show and will check out more chapters of LN and manga afterwards. Currently in the anime, the only consistent way Elaina was portrayed seem to be her character introduction.
The flower field episode was a bit different in LN, manga and anime as mentioned above. What even more weird is how Elaina would lie to the guard (and didn't mention about meeting his clearly missing sister) when he ask about the shawl even though she clearly could've said about the truth since it's not like they are gonna treat her like a suspect or a kidnapper. It could be because she wasn't treated nicely as she always wanted but wouldn't the guard be thanking her as a savior if she gave the information about his missing sister? It could also be because she think the sister will eventually return or just being kidnapped by flowers (and won't die right away). In the manga, she got the information from the citizen and visit to the flowerfield and in the anime, even though she read about the "killer flowers", she mentioned like "I visited it back before I leave" and not right away. Not sure if it is the way the author wanted her to be or not since I don't know about her future events yet, but the way she was portrayed and how she narrate the events make her seem like she has no sympathy towards most people. For the manga, the chapter finished with the guy in front of the more grotesque looking flower but the anime make it worst by showing her leaving the side without a helping word to the guard or not trying to help him or stop the flower draining his life force right in front of her. Personally, I think it would've been better if they add at least a line of dialogue or a scene where she at least try to help or stop him but was considered too late. Even if it is part of the nature of their world and human are not top of the food chain and evil flower are part of status quo, she could've at least said about it or discuss few minutes with the guards if they need her help or not, it's not like she need to overthrow a dictator or anything. Instead, she was like "10 minutes almost up, time for second half of the episode" and left. Hopefully, it is just the case of the author not giving much thoughts in early stages and we have more consistent characterization in later events. |
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Sisyphusson66
Posts: 96 |
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After thinking about it some more, I think ultimately my thoughts on the episode remain, but they are a bit more cohesive regarding the second part of episode 3.
The first part I still don't know why Elaina doesn't act immediately upon finding out the dangers of the field and that the girl she got the flowers from could die. There was no danger to herself, and she would have been able to get to her faster. Even if she was too late, she would have saved the brother at least. The second part seems like it is simple, but the way the entire part of the episode plays out is too complicated and fails to portray the lesson. Lessons only work if the person learning the lesson is part of the incident(s) that lead to it. This is not the case with the bottle of happiness. Elaina has nothing to do with the bottle. Sure, she encourages the boy to give Nino the bottle, but he would have done it at some point anyway, regardless of her advice. Elaina not only is not present at the moment where the lesson ought to be realized, but she only remembers the lesson, the cruelty of kindness, through the ending of the husband and wife story. One problem here is that there is no difference between Elaina learning the lesson from a book and the bottle of happiness. She has no connection to it, and she just acts, really, as the audience. We as the audience see Nino get the bottle, but there is no indication that the lesson has been learned by the boy, and Elaina, the main character, doesn't learn anything from it. If anything, the bottle of happiness portions of the episode are extraneous to the lesson and only serve to remove Elaina from consequence. The whole second part of the third episode would have worked much better if the bottle of happiness was not a thing, and made Elaina's fixing of the pitcher the inciting incident that taught the lesson of kindness's cruelty. As I stated earlier, there is no way Nino is not in a worse position after Elaina fixed the pitcher and seemingly intimidated the village chief. This way Elaina's action would have directly lead to the lesson, and would actually impact her character. The way the episode plays out, her act is buried under the bottle, something she doesn't even witness or see through to the end. Last edited by Sisyphusson66 on Sun Oct 18, 2020 9:18 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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a_Bear_in_Bearcave
Posts: 549 Location: Poland |
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Yep. Kino's Journey also had episode with slavery, but the revelation of slavery was both more horrifying, and the slavers spoiler[ended up dead because they tried to backstab Kino - as you might expect from evil people - and she was too late to help their victims, which happens quite often in her journeys.] There wasn't this shitty message that slavery is just a thing that happens, you gotta deal with that. For some reason the author put Elaina as a witness of horrible situation which she could remedied as far as we know, but she chooses to be totally glib about it. Elaina, I watched with Kino's Journey. I also watched 2nd season, even if first was better. Kino's Journey was a favorite show of mine. Elaina, you're no Kino. |
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Horsefellow
 Posts: 262 |
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I don't see anyone says it has to exist, as in the show would be worse off if it didn't meet some kind of slavery quota, just people pointing out that it obviously does given what little context we've seen. A lot of fantasy series have slavery in it, from Star Wars to Game of Thrones. Heck, I remember in Star Wars the heroes never really cared about it unless it personally affected one of their friends and had to rescue them. Otherwise they were fine letting the slave market flourish since it ultimately wasn't their prorogative to end slavery in the universe. I never read the LN so I have no idea if slavery is even mentioned ever again, but I more or less just watched the episode and noted slavery exists and moved on which is why I didn't think anything of Elaina's nonchalant reaction to it. If the existence of slavery in media is upsetting to some people, then it's within their choice to decide to watch it or not. |
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Cardcaptor Takato
Posts: 5162 |
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Nobody has ever said slavery should never be portrayed in media. We are just saying the way it was written in this episode was very poorly done. It's perfectly fine to like problematic media as people are imperfect by nature and most media is going to have flaws to it. I myself have enjoyed my share of problematic media before. One can enjoy this work without having to argue it's portrayal of slavery was somehow flawless or arguing that slavery is some kind of unbreakable element of the show's world building that is required for it when it hasn't been stated by the show or the author otherwise.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11586 |
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My take on the whole slavery issue is just completely different from what everyone else was seeing, so I guess I missed something along the way. I didn't get the impression that slavery was actually a thing in this village/country. It seemed to me that the village head had to go really far afield just to find a slave, which he seemed to have not even been actively looking to buy, but rather was offered to him, and he took the deal. If slavery were the norm in this area, he could've just rolled down to the local slave market at any time and picked up one or two that suited him.
It felt to me like Nino was a slave in fact, but not in name or law, since his son called her a servant. She's captive of the village head whom no one will gainsay, but moreover, the villagers may not even know Nino is living there, since they keep her inside the compound all the time. If they do know, they may think she's just a paid live-in servant, or not really give it a second thought at all. As for what Elaina could have done, well, even if I'm completely off about the whole slavery issue, the village head was obviously terrified of her after that long, evaluating look she gave him before fixing the pitcher instead of him, so I think she could've easily convinced him to accept a small token sum for Nino, and taken her along to the next village/country. Or...she could've taken her back to be a companion to Saya until Nino was strong enough to survive on her own. These kinds of stories do have a "what would you do if you were in their shoes" sort of element, but Elaina's powerful magic makes a lot of that moot. IRL, I honestly don't know how involved I'd get (I'd like to think I would, but I haven't faced that particular situation in my life), but if I had magic plus the prestige it brings, and could travel on a broomstick, that would change the calculus considerably. 
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motormind
Posts: 90 |
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I don't know about this one. Elaina's morality is spotty, to say the least, and it doesn't help that this goes hand-in-hand with her being so full of herself.
The show's setup reminds me a lot of Kino no Tabi, with the protagonist traveling the world in order to seek new experiences. Kino has this rule of "not interfering with the places she visits," which is rather silly since you will inevitably influence the people you meet no matter what. Kino tends to go back and forth on this rule, sometimes interfering out of righteous indignation, while on other occasions failing to help innocent people even though it would have been the moral thing to do. I will never forgive Kino for not trying to save Lily, for instance. Still, Kino has the excuse of being an ordinary human being who, apart from being a good shot, has no special powers. Elaina, on the other hand, is a talented witch with an immense amount of magical power at her disposal. And what does she do with it? Well, apart from flying around on her broom and seducing cute girls, not much. spoiler[ In episode 3 she promises a weird girl who just appears in the middle of an immense flower field to bring a bouquet to a nearby town, which puts that town in great danger. The moment i saw that girl I already realized it was a trap, but Elaine just goes "Ah, whatevs!" I thought she was a trained witch in a world rife with magic, so why the heck would she fall for the very first evil magical being trying to trick her? And what does she do afterward to make up for her mistake? Does she incinerate the poisonous flower field with her stupendous magical attack powers? Does she at least try to rescue the guy who was turning into a plant right before her eyes? No. She just looks on and flies away. Just great, Elaine. You have shown to be completely useless. The bit about Nino is possibly worse, since the solution to that would have been even simpler: Burn those two guys into a crisp (or, alternatively, turn them into newts) and fly Nino to safety with you. But no, she just leaves Nino with those two knowing that this will likely not end well. Again, completely useless. ] So in the end this is a show about someone who has the power to fight evil, but decides not to use it it because .. meh... why bother? Not very compelling.... |
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