It doesn't need to know when someone will die. I think there are probably extras lying around because a soul breaking is just difficult/annoying to fix, not literally impossible, but it doesn't matter normally. Okay, so, Jeff the adventurer dies and his soul is immediately available. Rodcorte's system automatically finds a new destination for that soul. In his next life, he is now a turtle named Paul. But it could have just as easily been Beebleblot the bumblebee that died and had its soul plopped into Paul's body. I assume those extra souls are slotted in when the population increases faster than it decreases. When a soul is broken Rodcorte has to manually handle this process, which takes a significant amount of time. Please don't quote me on this as it's only something I heard from a professor I had, but I've HEARD that Hinduism has a similar explanation for why the population can increase while people near the top get to stop reincarnating but everyone still has a soul: There's a kind of layer below being a human where souls are sitting by idly because they aren't virtuous enough yet to be a person, but it just so happens that those souls are fulfilling their dharma well enough that they can become a lowest rung human and start moving up the ladder. Meanwhile the actual people on the ladder are all slowly moving upwards until they reach the top and can stop reincarnating. The Earth that Zakkart came from and the Earth that Vandalieu came from are not the same place. The translator capitalizes one when when the distinction is relevant and I assume in the raws this means one Earth is written in kanji and the other in katakana. Earth, EARTH and Origin are all more or less physically identical world with extremely similar cultures. Why this is is not clear and may not matter at all so far as this story is concerned.
That's not exactly accurate. For starters, Heinz is a native of Lambda, so he'd never be an isekai protagonist. Second, he's not a horni slave owner. Third, an isekai protagonist would be far, far more likely to actually investigate the situations he gets thrust into than Heinz does, and be far more willing to accept the consequences of his actions and learn from them. What I think you're going for is that Heinz is the victim of a "perspective flip." If the story was "How I was tricked into awakening the Demon King, and now I must quest to save the world from injustices far and wide with my friends the five colored blades", Heinz, as the protagonist, would be painted as a hurting man walking a tightrope where he's trying to free many oppressed peoples while having to live in the system that's doing the oppression, doing everything he can to rise in influence so he can make lasting changes, and his biggest problem is the young dhampir boy his "youthful indiscretions" have harmed, and who has twisted himself into a monstrosity in the pursuit of vengeance, leaving him no choice but to cut him down, and grant him peace. Because that's how he sees himself and forces himself to believe it. Since the story is "The death mage who doesn't want a fourth time", we actually see how the world is responding to his actions, and the consequences he blinds himself to. Where we all see that he's his own biggest problem, even his most stalwart defenders, barring those who outright ignore his worst flaws to paint him as "unflinchingly a good guy." The only time, on screen, where he's actually lifted his hand to help a member of Vida's races is Selen, and even then, he "failed to rescue" her parents, despite having prior knowledge. And to make it all worse, is on-screen using her as bait to lure out Alda fanatics and then lies to them to get them to stand down by telling them Alda himself is changing his mind, when that couldn't be farther from the truth, even if Alda heard his prayers and talked to him, which isn't happening. While he has done a great deal of off-screen preaching about how persecution is wrong, when he and Van meet in the early 200's, he admits that he lashes out at Vida's races when they harm humans, but is prone to ignore it when the reverse is true, and will always side with the humans in any conflict, regardless of the context or the situation, despite knowing Vida's races are oppressed and murdered day in and day out. He has done nothing of note in regards to Vida's races, all the "reforms" Van encountered have been people just sucking up to him for the sake of appearances, so it looks like they're "trying," at which point Heinz goes "good enough" and moves on, with all the changes being easily reversible. Arguably, being second class citizens, like Keniz in Morksi, or being shipped off to reservations, like we see here in chapter 254, is better than "kill on sight", but Heinz can't take credit for it, and even if he could, it still isn't enough to justify the fact that the vast, vast majority of the time, the best Vida's races can hope from him is indifference, as he takes kill quests without thinking, and is written to be far more interested in trying to flee the guilt of his mistakes and sins rather than learn from or outgrow them.
This alone make shim hallow and means he is doing nothing. and not making any changes. Heinz is all image and no substance, always has been and will be. He is just a bigot with a bad conscience and a hero complex. Heck, he claims to have arrived to late to save Selene's parents, but this means he would have killed the mother for daring to fight back against her attackers. As long as one side dose not have the right to defend itself, whatever "changes" Heinz makes mean exactly 0. Whoever is at fault has to be the one held accountable, but Heinz will never do that.
Somehow I feel like what I wrote was spiteful, so I deleted it. Suffice to say I think people have long made up their minds and are not receptive to new arguments.
New topic: Selen. How is Heinz likely to resolve this particular conflict-of-interest between himself and Alda, or at least how would he if or when it came down to it? When the kill-order comes, is Heinz gonna finally man-up and tell Alda to do something physiologically impossible to himself? Is he instead going to kill the Dhampir girl he adopted immediately, no questions asked? Or is he going to take the Black Templars (WH40k) approach to the problem, like they do with Astropaths and Navigators, and just put off killing her until she's the last one left on the hit-list? I bring this up because surely even someone as clueless and willfully ignorant as Heinz must have some suspicion that Selen, as a Dhampir, is still no-good in Alda's books? Ultimately, her ancestry involves an Undead Otherworlder, which is double-heresy. He has to be at least somewhat aware by this point?
That is because he has not done anything, doing something requires it to have a meaningful and lasting impact, whicih none of Heinz's efforts have had. All he has done is placate his conscience, and stroke his "hero" boner. Except he effectively does none of that. The substance that is required for those actions to have any actual meaning are not the, because Heinz is not willing to put them there. He is not ending slavery, it is still rampant he is at best punishing (some) criminal slavers. s he going around ranting about how you should not just enslave Vida's races, no because then he would not have held freeing the mine slaves against Van (which was actually freeing unjust slaves) His political reforms have no meaning, and a just a shiny new coat of paint. Also the religious reform, it was already there, he just became its poster boy. Don't even get me started on tolerance, that means nothing as long as long as he still openly takes murder quests against Vida's races. Heinz is all show, no substance. We are reading it, your arguments are just deeply flawed and people are pointing out those flaws. You also keep trying to make bad correlations to Van. Like pointing out that Van has slaves, ya but how did he get them? they are all someone who earned their status, as opposed to the saving the innocent who just defended themselves Heinz is perfectly fine when it is one of Vida's races. (see the above mention of his "humans" 1st policy) Everyone Van does those things to has done something to earn it, Heinz's victims can not say the same and many are the exact opposite. As to Van and mass murder, not really. Van does not go out and kill for the lolz, if he is killing a lot of people there is a reason for it other then murder. Heinz has slaughtered villages down to the last child.
Hmm I could kind of cheat your question by pointing out that there isn't actually any reason for Alda to want Selen dead. Once the systems are switched over it doesn't matter if she's alive or not because she'll die of old age eventually and will never be able to have actual descendants. As for what he'd do... Could go either way. I lean towards him not being able to do it though because he didn't actually think of ghoul children as being actual children. Which is obviously horrible, but he doesn't have that same excuse with Selen. Also, you didn't actually address my arguments. I pointed out clear results of what Heinz has done and you said 'Nuh uh' and other people said 'it doesn't count because he's done bad things too.' Those are not addressing the points I made, so I can only assume people didn't actually read them or simply rejected them immediately. That's fine, we can just end the argument since I don't think you actually want to discuss it.
I don't remember how many times people have argued with eloquence about Heinz without coming to an understanding. Maybe everyone should write a thesis about it and just refer people to the chapter concerning the point that was brought up.
Ah, yes, the mass-murder argument. I wish more people understood the difference between mass-murder and mass-killing; you, sjmcc13, seem to get it, but it actually bugs me that more people don't. Vandalieu doesn't actually commit many murders in the traditional sense; even the author doesn't seem to understand the difference, though perhaps as a peaceful modern-day Japanese person it may just be a more cultural understanding. Rules of thumb for the unenlightened: All murders are killings, but not all killings are murder. For a killing to be a murder, it has be both unjustifiable, and it has to either be deliberate or done out of indifference as to the consequences of the perpetrators actions. Universally, killing children is always murder unless the children in question are actively trying to kill you first. When Vandalieu kills invading armies, that isn't really mass-murder; it's terrifying, yes, but it's ultimately just a consequence of warfare, even if he probably could've gotten away with simply paralyzing the whole lot of them and holding them hostage indefinitely. Wiping out groups of bandits and slavers isn't mass-murder either, especially when one remembers that the crimes that slavers and bandits in Lambda commit are so horrific that they could be killed on-sight even in the real world. The Knight Order from the Hartner Duchy? Bandits with titles, and therefore equally killable, especially since they were deliberately violating Hartner Duchy law while doing their thing. Ditto for the criminal-enterprises and politicians that Vandalieu has erased and or assassinated over the years; they're basically bandits and slavers who were too important or clever to get caught while committing their crimes by other relevant authorities in-series. Every Braver he has ever slain? Self-defense at the least; Kanata was basically a super-bandit, so there really wasn't any reason to spare him, period. The guards of the illegal slave mine in Hartner? Not murder; even if they were just doing their jobs, they were still unrepentant rapists and murderers themselves, which effectively makes them bandits with official titles. Alda's subordinate gods that he destroyed? Either self-defence, or defense of others. In effect, Van hasn't killed anyone, outside of warfare, who wouldn't have likely been put to death for their crimes anyway, even by Lambda's moral and legal standards. Of note, Vandalieu never kills children. Ever. I don't think he even killed Goblin or Orc children, not even the sub-sentient ones north of the Boundary Mountain Range. Nor did he go out of his way to annihilate the newer members of the Five-Colored Blades, even though they've committed crimes worthy of his attentions as well; if he hadn't deliberately tried to spare them, Heinz, Edgar, and Delizah would've never made it out of the Trial of Bellwood Dungeon. Heinz, by contrast, is most definitely a mass-murderer. This does not mean that all of his killings were unjustified; it's probable that many of his killings were unquestionably legitimate, even from Vandalieu's standpoint. The problem is that nothing justifies his slaughter of sentient children; he can't claim self-defense or defense-of-others because the children weren't an actual danger to him or to anyone else, even if their parents were. Willful ignorance--which is deliberately choosing to not know better for the sake of plausible deniability--is not an excuse. Questionable heroics aside, he is more of a murderer than Van.
You were right up until this point. As numerous other stories have pointed out (on top of what Van and Luciliano tell us in this one) monster children grow to maturity much faster than humans, so if you spare the children there will be an army coming for revenge in just a couple years, rather than the decades it would take human orphans. Remember all of Van's Orcrus, Anubis, and Black Goblin kids were born after the battle with that noble orc, and were teenagers by the time they reached Talosheim, they are adults with families now.
@The Godly Aeolus legally, what Heinz and Van committed would likely count as manslaughter. Also if you say Heinz has murdered Van has committed murder to, I think at least three murders (your definition is close enough as far as I can tell) could be more don't care to find out the correct amount. If it matters to you, I do think Heinz likely has committed more then Van, neither are perfect nor have clean hands.
Ya, they are not on Van's to soul break list. Spoiler and even get to survive the final fight with Heinz, as one of Van's subordinates teleports them away from the fight. Though that they were there should hopefully lead to some consequences later on, hopefully.
If they aren't an actual danger at the moment of the act, it's still unjustified, especially since they probably didn't start the violence in the first place. Sure, they could be problematic in a few months to maybe two years, but so are a number of real-world predatory species like wolves or mountain lions, who are equally capable of remembering people who have wronged them and acting accordingly. The same with pre-teen Humans, who are developed enough to form long-lasting grudges, and old enough to become a viable threat in a few years. I don't imagine that Heinz ran around slaughtering the pre-teen children of bandits he's killed to tie-up loose ends, now has he? That'd be deplorable, even though they'd be just as dangerous and motivated as the monster children, or the children of Vida's races, soon enough. Same concept. If the kid isn't legitimately and immediately dangerous, it's inexcusable. Period. The Vida's race excuse doesn't fly for Heinz, since he believes that most of them are still people; he killed them anyway. By your logic, we could kill the children of terrorists now because they could grow up to be terrorists in the future, even though they have yet to do anything to warrant such a punishment. Not personally attacking you or anything, it's just that that argument has a hole in it.
Think grizzlies, and other possibly harmful animals, that need to be hunted down when they taste human flesh, but growing to full size, and having children of their own within a year sometimes. In the time it takes a human orphan to grow up and Zoro you, you could have several generations of a tribe coming for revenge. Plus whatever number the Vida races convert over to their side. According to 100 thousand years of accumulated research, Ghouls can just bury you alive to turn you into an undead, but they do it especially to women and children.
Okay let me jump on this wagon again. First let me say one thing, i also disagree with the people saying that Ketchup did nothing good till now. He DID have an good impact on Orbaume kingdom, does that makes him a good person? Hell no! In fact neither Van nor Heinz are good people and no matter what people argue both of them are at minimum mass-killers. Now why do we use that as argument against Heinz but not against Van? The reasons is simple, Van never believed himself to be good or righteous, Van IS partial and would kill even a good person if said person was a threat to his family. While Heinz firmly believe himself to be a just and good person which is obviously not true. So in my view trying to pull the topic to Van makes absolutely no sense, since they are from two totally different types of people with totally different motivations and their way to look at themselves can't be more different than it already is. Do you want someone good to compare with Heinz? Try to compare him with Asagi (as they are of the same kind of people) or try to compare him with his companions (since they actually share good part of their experiences and ideologies) Sincerely with the exception of the rogue from his party Heinz is clearly the worse person in his own party, the others were actually shocked and remorseful about killing the ghouls after the fact was thrown at them, while Heinz first reaction was to try to justify himself. Now changing a bit, let's talk about the so called impact Heinz had on Orbaume. 1st Heinz isn't the creator of the peaceful faction nor the first person trying to push it, in fact the whole upper echelons of Orbaume kingdom half supported it from the start since that makes Orbaume citizens more likely to dislike and resist harder the influences of Amid Empire. 2nd as said before Heinz didn't create or organized the peaceful movement or the political movement to improve vida races stand of society, he was adopted by them as the poster boy because he was a beautiful and promising adventurer which had a firm believe which matched theirs. That DID help the movement gain force so he does deserve some of it's credit, but as people said Heinz IS not interested in developing his interpersonal status, and focus more on adventuring, so all the real heavy political lifting was done by other people he was just borrowing his image to them. 3rd - since he didn't create the movement nor did the negotiations/political stuff you can't say those things happened because of him, at most he speed them up. 4th - the one single thing that probably only happened because of Heinz is the improvement on the situation of the Dhampirs. That was really unlikely to have happened without him, as Dhampirs were mostly shunned for being related to Vampires which are considered evil even by the peaceful faction.
what gets me is when the people defending Heinz clearly just start making stuff up or ignoring what the story itself says just to fit their own narrative. I'm all for not painting him as an absolute mosnter, but what is up with the people trying to paint him as almost saint like? Do they just ... not understand WTF they are even reading or do they just like making up arguments for the lolz? I'm starting to think the later because ... god damn some of these arguments for Heinz just blatantly ignore what is clearly the author's intent in order to push a clearly wrong interpretation. and I"m not saying "I'm right you're wrong" type of thing I'm saying the story outright spells some things out and there are still people going "but actually". Because at the end of the day it's pretty clear what Heinz role is in the story. He's meant to be an antagonist but not exactly an evil one. What some people don't understand is that antagonist doesn't mean evil it just means essentially an enemy of the protagonist. That being said the author has spelled out pretty clear that Van's moral position is a little insane but overall kind and accepting. Which means for Heinz to be in opposition to that means he's 100% in the wrong for whatever reason. You can certainly argue he's not totally in the wrong on everything, but some of the Heinz defenders keep wanting to justify his every action like he's the real hero ... he's clearly not no matter how much they gloss over things. Edit: Something occured to me I just want to point out quick. It's less about Heinz and more about Van. Spoiler: Just compacting this so you don't have to scroll past it. One of the ways people try to give Heinz a pass is implying a lot of the negative facts against him are just Van being biased or Van ignoring Heinz good deeds. But this couldn't be further from the truth. First of all going back to when they met at the adventurer's guild Van's response to meeting Heinz again and seeing him with Selen is to have a metal breakdown over the inner conflict between being unable to forgive Heinz and understanding he's not entirely the same person. The conclusion Van comes to is that no matter how Heinz has or hasn't changed he simply cannot forgive Heinz. He fully knows this stance isn't justice but also knows he simply can't feel any other way. Meaning Van isn't trying to demonize or discredit Heinz actions. He doesn't need Heinz to still be bad to have a reason to go after him. Heinz could become an orphanage director and feed the homeless and Van would still probably eventually go after him. So when Van confronts Heinz in the dungeon and calls him out on his actions being more for show than anything and all the times he did nothing ... he's not distorting the truth through biased hatred. That's not Van's character at all. He's someone who can calmly peel a corpse apart and stitch it back together without blinking or eat pieces of soul like snack food. Meaning Van is not someone who would lie or be biased. He's someone who will look at things objectively and then do what he wants regardless. Even with things like the statue, he understands why people want to make a statue of him ... but he still doesn't want one. He doesn't reject arguments for why one is needed despite VERY VERY much not wanting one.
You are factually wrong again. His inner boiling emotions were him being upset that Heinz's reputation is so good that if he went public with his accusations and people actually believed him they would still side with Heinz. He thinks to himself that Heinz is a classic tragic hero and he's done so much good that people would basically demand that Van give up his grudge against him. But just because Heinz has done good things does not mean he isn't a murderer who never faced the consequences of his actions. And he is right about that and to expect him to simply forgive Heinz because he 'feels bad' is ridiculous. This actually works against you because Van himself is noting in that situation that Heinz has done so much good that people would side with him against the child he orphaned for money and then abandoned in the wilderness to die. Meaning even he recognizes the good that Heinz has done to some extent. Which ties into my position, actually. Heinz has done good things but he has also committed premeditated murder and doesn't seem to have fully acknowledged that or learned his lesson properly. It doesn't negate the good things he's done and the good things he has done do not cancel out the bad. This is why I actually do not consider Heinz a true hero, which I have said like ten times but people like to ignore that part of my arguments. To atone for his actions be needs to accept that he did something bad and submit himself to the judgment of people who won't immediately exonerate him. If he did that I actually would consider him unquestionably heroic rather than his rather gray representation. Side note, I'm glad he's kind of a fuckup. It makes him more interesting. Sort of like how I like how Amemiya never learns his goddamn lesson.
I can't really think of any "innocent" people that Vandalieu has killed off the top of my head... at least, not directly or consciously. Heck, even the people he killed accidentally during his freak-out outside of Niarki were planning on mugging him, and worse besides. Truly, I cannot recall a single instance in which he caused the deaths of anyone who hadn't actively attempted to harm him or his loved-ones first, excepting Van's raids on bandit groups and illegal slaving rings, neither of which count anyways since both are crimes punished by summary execution in literally every country and province in Lambda. Van doesn't even always wipe out the criminal organizations he runs into if they don't peddle in murder or illicit slavery. All this aside, I don't doubt for an instant that Vandalieu would unflinchingly commit a proper murder or two if it furthered his goals and he had no better alternative options. Thus far, however, this has been a non-issue because Vandalieu always has reasonable alternative methods to achieving his goals that don't require him to extinguish innocent lives; as it so happens, brainwashing is pretty damn effective!
Are you misreading what I say on purpose? Van doesn't think of Heinz as a hero, but other people do. Which is what my entire post was about. Van was furious because public opinion would not be with him were he to accuse Heinz. And he was at no point considering forgiving Heinz. That was not a thing that happened. Also, Vandalieu is not 'the story.' Vandalieu says Heinz isn't doing anything. Vandalieu is capable of being wrong. You do not understand this story. And in a moment you are going to reply to me full of smug vindication as you nitpick some tiny detail rather than actually address what I am talking about, like you just did.
Can you point where this thought process of Van's is? Because I've read through the Van / Heinz scenes and I don't recall him ever thinking this stuff.