The enemy's fortress is impenetrable but actually, it's located right smack in the middle of a city or near a location where there're still civilians there, which defeats the purpose of making it hidden. Even then, defense is low and most of the enemy soldiers or troops or guards are low-level, even though the enemy is known for being intelligent, strong and powerful.
I remember someone commenting a bit of that on some manga(I was thinking of picking it up again) and that really reminded me of so many shounen titles. Or rather, so many action titles.
The manga claims it's an empire but it doesn't even know how empires are actually structured. *smacks head* Where's the hierarchal command? The idea that there're many, many groups acting on behalf of the monarchy or whoever's in-charge? Especially, you know, when the lead protagonists have the ability to run about just anywhere they wish to, without encountering guards/other people who may or may not know their identity/reputation? At least
The legend of sun knight, a shoujo, didn't screw over that idea so much. Or
Tower of God for now. Or
The Emerging Story of Mismarca.
All empires have differing factions and *sighs* it sometimes infuriates me when everyone behaves like they're all happily getting along forever. Or when there's absolutely no friction between the religious orders and the monarchies. Or the manga try to present friction in between the groups but they don't realise that in politics, they'll pretend to get along in front of certain others and then, take a bit of time to make their moves. And even then, even the "pieces" being used are probably some hapless soldiers or staff, which can't be traced directly back unless the protagonist is well-aware of the politics and blah blah. Though this only applies to the more skilfull manipulators.
The worst offenders of the above 2 points aren't limited to shounen but also every damn genre or demographic.
When the protagonist is supposedly super smart but the enemy is smarter. And yet, for some stupid reason, the enemy lets him get away even IF they're well-aware of his abilities and so on, for a long time.
Or the protagonist has a hidden super power and everyone but the enemy knows it, even though the evidence is right SMACK in their eyes.
Or the protagonist is sooo smart, he can think of every tactic possible and blah blah blah... but he lets his friends get killed, all for the sake of creating drama. Unless, he's got some psychiatric issue that intervenes with his logic and so on...
The idea there're limited resources, yet, everyone uses up almost everything, creating an even more massive shortage of resources. Still, they continue to fight... and fight... using up even more resources, which leads to the question: are the resources actually in short supply or not?
A ruler is presented as being brutal but in reality, his stand and objective wasn't that ruthless as compared to the alternative of letting everyone die. However, he's branded as evil and so that forces his hand to act.
Only knowing the secondary reason why countries go to war: resources, politics and territorial disputes, etc. But war can only happen if you've got a lot of money and then, a lot of troops at hand, sustainable population, decent command structure, good weapons, etc. Even then, unless the emperor or whoever is insane, there must be something of even greater worth in the country you're invading, to compensate for all the expenses. And also, not knowing that the worth of a "resource" can degrade or increase over time or there're many factors which can render a resource worthless.
Last edited by VampireBanana at 7:17 am, Aug 13 2011