[Kamen Rider Die]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShyGuy

Personally, I find that the whole debate about who is or isn't the secondary Rider exposes how ultimately pointless such distinctions are. Kamen Rider is a show telling a story, and storytelling is an art form (Even if said show exists primarily to sell toys). And art isn't something where you can just slot everything into clean, obvious formulas. Saying "this character = this role" and "that character = that role" does nothing but diminish the work as a whole by treating it like a problem to be solved, instead of as a work where characters and the purpose they fill in the narrative is often murky and shifting around based on how the story develops.

The term "secondary Rider" is thrown around constantly, but what does it even mean? Riders like Kaixa, Baron, Cross-Z, and Geiz are all considered secondary Riders, but they are vastly different characters. Kaixa is a straight-up villain, Baron regularly walks a very fine line between uneasy ally and antagonist, Cross-Z is a trusted friend and ally, Geiz is a cautious ally with major reservations about his relationship with the main Rider. Technically speaking these guys are all the secondary Rider, but the roles they fill in their respective seasons are so massively different, what's the point of trying to shove them all in the same "secondary Rider" box? It just doesn't mean anything. It just seems pointless to me to try to shoehorn characters into these predetermined, meaningless categories. I would much prefer to critically engage with characters in terms of how their roles and characterizations fit their respective shows than try to figure out who best fits into some arbitrary franchise term that has no relevance to the narrative itself.

So, yes, I absolutely agree with you. Trying to take a story and attack it diagrammatically, to force it into a template, it's never going to work. (If it does work, it's probably not a very good story!) I don't think I spent a single second of my time watching Blade and wondering which guy was which predetermined role. When people brought it up on the boards, it's a fun diversion to engage with, but nothing that has a definitive answer or any inherent value. It's like talking about what kind of pizza each Rider would order.

The thing is... I get why a segment of the fandom obsesses over trivial things like this. The second you construct a fictional space for stories to exist, there's going to be people who care about the rules. When you have decades of stories existing in (more or less) the same fictional space, that emphasis on Definitive Answers becomes more and more pronounced. It's... it's like the flipside to the kind of engagement that keeps us all caring about these characters and stories. It's just what some people find valuable about stories and fiction. Do I? No. But I get that they do.