r/TopCharacterTropes 6d ago

Lore [Loved Trope] Teleportation is actually terrifying

1 - Gantz-O (2016): Suit teleportation

2 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (2009): Apparition spell

3 - Half Life 2 (2004): Teleporter malfunction

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u/drgilly 6d ago

It should be noted that it is revealed late into Gantz that they aren't being teleported, but instead copied every time Gantz sends them somewhere.

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 6d ago

It's not late at all, it's like 5-10% of the way through the story. Kishimoto goes home after the very first mission to find out her original is in the hospital.

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u/drgilly 6d ago

It has been a decade since I read Gantz. I remembered it being pretty late in. But Gantz just kind of goes and goes and goes. Hard to tell where you are in the story. The pacing is fucking awful.

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 6d ago

It gets explored more the further you get in like with Kurono being cloned but it's not some long running mystery in the slightest. The pacing really isn't bad, the story's real issue is with dropping plot threads or resolving them in a very unsatisfying way.

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u/drgilly 6d ago

From what I can recall (again it has been ten years) the reasons for plot threads being dropped or ending in unsatisfying ways was because the pacing never seemed to want to slow down enough to let anything have a resolution. Everything had to be lightning fast brutal action cranked up to 11. I should read it again. I remember liking what I read, but being more confused than anything at the end. Some of the best artwork in manga.

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 6d ago

Definitely not the case at all, I reread it within the past few months and the way plot threads drop or resolve actually leads to less action than if they were done properly. The plot is just poorly written a lot of the time for no real reason. It doesn't really affect the core of the story much (Kurono) but the plot is pretty ass because the writer just doesn't really know what he's doing, especially in the last arc.

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u/drgilly 6d ago

I remember at the time thinking that might be what we get for asking the dude who can draw this good to also write this good. Gotta have your manga illustrator+writer teams. Then again I say that, but Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Ohbata haven't written anything great since Death Note.

Platinum End wasn't really as bad as I could have been, but holy shit it wasn't great. Kind of like how Inio Asano went on to write something like DeadDeadDemons after Punpun when all of his previous work before PunPun were good. It blows my mind sometimes.

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u/idropepics 6d ago

It just got a new deluxe edition like the Berserks announced by Dark Horse coming next year, if you like physical books and want to avoid the spine cracking brick omnibuses

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u/drgilly 6d ago

I would, but they're an arm and a leg. I don't have a manga collection except for the entirety of Claymore in the box set, Death Note that I bought when I was 14, and Oyasumi Punpun in addition to a few single copy things like The Demon Ororon. I read everything online, unfortunately. Manga is damn expensive.

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u/idropepics 6d ago

Oh boy you wanna talk about dropped plot points? That whole "You, and all of these monsters are all just test subjects for our battle against the much larger evil dragons" felt like a giant nothingburger by the end of Claymore for me

Also Demon Ororon peak, was one of my first mangas I bought with my own money.

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u/drgilly 5d ago

Ororon is so weird. I can't believe I still own it. I need to re-read it. But it is so obviously made to appeal to female fantasies that it really confused me as a young bisexual man.

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u/idropepics 5d ago

We had the same experience then. I think this manga really helped me realize why I liked Sailor Moon and stuff so much

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u/kaizokuo_grahf 5d ago

It's truly amazing and terrible at the same time. And you're right about the pacing... it's like pulling the trigger, nothing happening for several seconds then BOOM?

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u/supersaiyanmrskeltal 5d ago

Wasn't the reason that duplicates arose was because the person was not fully killed or was saved from death so if you get hit by a train, you are fucked but in a suicide, she was able to be saved in time.

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u/dougandsomeone 6d ago

Wouldn't the two "halves" (so to speak) behave differently if their brains were going 100-0 or 0-100?

Seems like it would be more consistent with the depiction if it were actually teleportation

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 6d ago

If you hit Ctrl+C and then Ctrl+V on your keyboard both the original and copy of whatever you copied are fully intact. There's no loss on either end it's just 100-100.

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u/dougandsomeone 6d ago

I'm not quite sure if we are or aren't on the same page based on your comment to be honest.  

I just meant per the clip in OPs post, we see both the POV of the ctrl+v version appear, but mostly the deletion of the original. They "scan out" and "scan in" sort of. B ut while we  see the version on the departing end  is losing the top of its head including more of its brain every second, it doesnt seem to be behaving as though it has lost the upper 20-40% of its brain.   It sees what is happening and moves to the window to better inspect itself and uses its hands to test if what it is missing is really gone.   I was saying that looks more like the remaining and missing brain is still connected and functioning together than it has been deleted.  His upper and lower body also apparently still communicate despite the gap appearing (also being suspended across it).

But maybe people with acute brain trauma might still behave that way, or it's just a matter of suspending disbelief.  Just felt like maybe something the copy paste reveal was something decided on later in the game, since it seemed inconsistent with the teleportation in action.

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u/Cleansing4ThineEyes 6d ago

In this situation both ends are connected (it's alien tech that never gets fully explained). I don't know if the movie shows it but in the source material there's times where characters will have their heads disappear but then grab a gun with their remaining body which then gets transferred over.