Exponential Plot Delay/Sandbox



A serial works that takes as much time getting to the three-quarter mark as it did getting to the half-way mark. And then as much time again on the next eighth. And so on.

The main storyline advances initially, but later all but comes to a halt. The rate at which Plot Coupons are collected drops dramatically. For the A-story, Status Quo Is God. This can follow from the writers understandable desire to avoid resolving the overarching plotline -- the one that is providing the core tension sustaining the work.

There are several ways to make this work. First and foremost are sub-plots. And sub-sub-plots, etc. The advantage is twofold: sub-plots take the weight off the main plot and they provide an opportunity for storytelling in their own right. For maximum effect this trope is combined with multiple Plot Threads, advancing each sub-plot in turn. If too many threads are left unresolved however, the series can descend into a Kudzu Plot.

Another way to keep the A-story stable is the repeated discovery of The Man Behind the Man, often coupled with the Sorting Algorithm of Evil. As The Hero triumphs over a foe, he repeatedly finds out about an even worse foe out to get him. If all else fails, the writers can resort to Filler.

All series must end eventually, one way or the other. Sadly, some series are Cut Short; Real Life Writes the Plot and it's Left Hanging because of money problems and/or Author Existence Failure. Something a series is not profitable enough to continue but a short work is made to Wrap It Up. Other series end more naturally; the A-plot is taken out of the freezer, lightly microwaved with some lead-up and given a satisfying resolution.

Compare and contrast Cosmic Deadline.


 * Inuyasha Episode 1: Kagome travels back in time. Episode 3: Kagome and Inuyasha start searching for shards of the Shikon jewel. Episode 24: All of the major protagonists have been introduced, except Koga. Episode 36: Koga. Episodes 96 - 101: Individual filler episodes. 102 - 122: Fighting. Episode 167: The show Overtook the Manga so they just don't make any more episodes. ...until the manga finished, anyway.
 * Ranma ½ is similar, but this arguably works in its favor, as it can focus on being an episodic comedy series without worrying about maintaining any sort of continuity or major plot arc.
 * Yu Yu Hakusho
 * Final Fantasy XII The first quarter of the game has you breaking into a palace, escaping, getting arrested, meeting the guy who killed your brother, escaping from there, your girlfriend getting kidnapped, you go to rescue her, get arrested again, and escape again. The second quarter has you going on a longish fetch quest, then one of your party members betrays you and dies. The third and most of the fourth quarter has you trek halfacross the world to find out how to use the shiny paperweight you fetched, then treking across the other half of the world to find out how to destroy it, then trekking across the entire map to destroy the rest, then trekking back across the map to find out how to make more. It's only in the second-last dungeon that the plot finds itself again and the plot threads that have been left hanging for half the game are resolved.
 * The Wheel of Time: To the point that you can go for an entire book without seeing one of the three male leads. Oddly, also a possible inversion, as the pace has apparently picked up since the existence failure of the original author.
 * The Pokémon anime follows the above formula almost exactly. Originally it was working up to a conclusion, then it got a popularity explosion and the execs wouldn't let it finish.
 * This seems to be where Safehold is headed as of the fourth book. Characters are added faster than they're killed off, and with all the checking in on minor figures like Gorjah, hundreds of pages can pass before the big players like Nahrman so much as make an appearance. And of course, since many of those big players are spying on everyone else, they spend a lot of pages discussing new developments before they actually decide to take action on any given situation.
 * Kamen Rider Agito follows this trope exactly, right down to the four criteria. The first one-third to half is pretty interesting, and then the Arc Fatigue kicks in and things go unresolved for a long while, after which they're tied up in a hurry in the finale. Unfortunately, this happens to be a Signature Style of the main writer, Toshiki Inoue. A similar condition returns in Kamen Rider 555, also by Inoue, only with less favorable results.
 * Some of the quest series in Runescape. The main examples are Elves, Menaphos and Morytania quest series. They started at rather fast pace when they were released, but each installment will either grant less progress than the previous installment of the quest series or suffers from Schedule Slip. Later though a few of the quest series have still been wrapped up.
 * In Pirates of Dark Water, the crew got their hands on the first two of the thirteen Treasures of Rule in the five episode mini-series, five more in the next eight episodes (the first season), before taking the entirety of the second season to get their hands on one more. Then came cancellation with only eight of the thirteen found, and enough filler episodes that could have been used instead to finish the story.