LCD Death Mage

Discussion in 'Latest Chapter Discussion' started by lygarx, May 21, 2017.

  1. metazoxan

    metazoxan Well-Known Member

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    I feel you're underplaying a cricial aspect of the ghouls. THey have EXTREMELY low birth rates and so resort to the ritual to recover their numbers. As far as terrible acts to preserve your race go forcing captive women to join your tribe isn't exactly the worst. Again this is especially true given ghouls don't leave their devils nests so for the most part their captives are people who intruded on their land and a fair few are ones that killed them. In anycase the ghouls wouldn't need to convert women if people weren't regularly killing them. THey have pretty long life spans which helps balance out their low birth rates but long life spans mean nothing when you're regularly killed by humans.

    Also while human society obviously won't see it the same way I just want to point out the ghouls are VERY open about sex. Because their birth rates are so low they'll just do it as much as they can with whoever they can. So when they convert women into the tribe it's less rape and more "Well your one of us now". Again not saying humans would see it that way but from their perspective they're just treating converted women as one of their own.
    Pretty much and it's this behavior that completely destroys the redeamability of his character. He's kind empathetic enough to understand even the suffering of his enemies, and smart enough to understand the Ghouls situation, but it doesn't mean a damn thing if he does NOTHING about it.

    A comparison that comes to mind is a scene from the movie Hotel Rwanda. In it the main character is talking to an American general asking about when further aid might be sent. He says something along the lines of it probably won't come to which the main character asks how people can stand aside when a massacure is happening. To this the general replies "Well the way I see it people will look at their TV's and go 'oh no that's terrible' and then go right back to eating their dinner".

    If empathy doesn't inspire action then it's meaingless and it's even worse when the subject is fully in a position to take action but refuses to do so and makes excuses for his inaction.
     
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  2. Arha

    Arha Well-Known Member

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    Shrug. As I said, there being a legitimate reason for it doesn't change what it is, especially when judging from the victim's perspective. The best defense of this kind of behavior is that they stopped doing it when they had alternatives, namely fertility charms. Honestly, it's actually the same for orcs, which is why Van doesn't actually hate them even right from the start. How else is a race of entirely male creatures supposed to survive if nothing wants to reproduce with them? It's not their fault they were made that way.

    Side note about Heinz, but you'll note that he still didn't really talk about trying to make amends to Van himself, nor try anything like sending a messenger. Nope, he just wants to power level so he can force Van to talk on his own terms. If Van hates you for wronging him, why not try to apologize for doing so?
     
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  3. metazoxan

    metazoxan Well-Known Member

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    Sure. I'd kind of define the bad orcs (I specify bad because of the orc empire inside of the mountain range that seems almost entirely friendly from what we know. I know normal humans wouldn't know the difference though.) as worse because not only are they much more dependant on females of other races than ghouls. But they don't generally welcome them into the tribe, their just birthing tools and the bad orcs seem to enjoy it a hell of a lot more and view their own actions as rape. Unlike the ghouls who are just really open about sex to the point many of them aren't sure who their own fathers are.

    But that's not really the point. The point being humans hate and fear ghouls because they take women away to become one of them. The fact they are overall treated well doesn't change the issue of their perception.

    As for you side note .... pretty much. I mean Van has said in no uncertain terms he'll never allow Heinz to live. He's far too scared Heinz might someday take his mother away from him again (which is almost complete paranoia but either way the point stands) or someone else he cares about. Meaning for Van it's not an issue of forgiveness it's more an issue of trust and Van is entirely unwilling to trust Heinz to leave him alone. But in Van's defense he's probably right. Alda will never leave him alone and Heinz will never outright defy Alda so even if he does it "regretfully" Heinz will attack Van even if they agree to a ceasefire.

    HOWEVER, Heinz doesn't entirely know this yet. He might suspect it from their previous talk but as has been mentioned before HE HAS YET TO EVEN TRY! We know asking for forgiveness is entirely hopeless but he shouldn't yet. But he's already decided forcing Van to an equal "Negotiation" is the only hope despite lacking the information to actually know that to be the case. So he's right ... but he has no reason to be.

    Unless he thinks their previous talk counted as asking for forgiveness ... in which case Heinz is a legitimately terrible person if he thinks that nonsense counted as an apology.
     
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  4. Arha

    Arha Well-Known Member

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    Tarea's manga flashback indicates they're actually treated like shit unless they can earn a high social status through fighting or some other means. And her broken attitude is more the victim of a rape victim than anything, at least until she realized she'd be allowed to make stuff.

    Honestly, I don't know what Van might do if Heinz made a sincere effort to apologize and atone on Van's own terms. We might not be giving him enough credit. Maybe he'd give him a shot. But Heinz won't do it because even if he was ever inclined to do so, his friends would tell him he doesn't have to.
     
  5. metazoxan

    metazoxan Well-Known Member

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    Unless that flashback is also in the novel and specifically states those details then it's not valid. Sometimes manga adaptations add or adjust things for various reasons.

    hard to say about Van considering he had a mental breakdown so bad over the mere idea of forgiving Heinz that he accidentally made a dungeon that sent a hord of monsters specifically after Heinz. His trauma is not a small one.
     
  6. secretish

    secretish Well-Known Member

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    While not explicitly stated, in chapter 17 where she's first introduced, there's lines like:

    "Tarea was transformed from a human into a Ghoul by a ritual. Having already lost her willpower to resist, she opened her body to the Ghoul men and came to spend every day obeying their commands."

    "For Tarea to survive, she had no choice but to obey the commands of the Ghoul men. But did she have a future if she kept living on like this?

    Her eyes were clouded with despair, but her days of living such a life changed when she laid eyes on the fur of a Huge Boar that the men had hunted and brought back."

    It's pretty heavily implied she was treated badly until she showed her crafting skills. Would make sense that other captured women wouldn't be treated any better without something useful to contribute.
     
  7. metazoxan

    metazoxan Well-Known Member

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    It would but at the same time none of the others show any similar issues so ... eh. I'd still give them somewhat of a pass regardless as again it's either they take extreme measures or face extinction and most of those captured would still be those who entered the nest and thus can at least partly only blame themselves. I forget how Tarea ended up there but she's mostly an exception.

    Isn't there another ghoul who's a former adventurer? She seems chill with the ghouls now but pretty sure one girl is specifically a captured adventurer.
     
  8. Mastine

    Mastine Well-Known Member

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    As I recall the ghouls don't kill ALL the male adventurers that come through. Someone strong and friendly like Schneider would get all the snu snu he could handle as they try to up their numbers. Since the children would be born as ghouls.

    Tarea was an escaped slave that ran into a ghoul tribe and transformed. She became chief when the old one died and they needed her crafting skills.
    And Kachia was one of the former adventurers clinging to Van wishing for death to take her. Which he did.
     
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  9. Arha

    Arha Well-Known Member

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    You don't mean Kachia do you? She's the only other former human I can think of offhand.

    Tarea was running away from the brothel her father sold her to.
     
  10. metazoxan

    metazoxan Well-Known Member

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    Yeah I think I Mean her. I didn't remember when she became a ghoul.
     
  11. CountryMage

    CountryMage [XSanguine8] not my blood...

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    Tarea also used her skills from the brothel to take over the tribe, and trained apprentices to also control the men.

    But anyway you guys are overlooking some things. What happened to Darcia isn't an isolated incident, it isn't even limited to people who enter into relationships with nonhumans willingly, the pov chapters for Kachia, Tarea, and Natania show that anyone raped by monsters is demonized by society. Natania was in Orbaume, so it wasn't as bad as it would have been for the others, but she accepted that her life was gonna be shit trying to care for Juliana, even if they made some money off the minotaur babies.
     
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  12. Arha

    Arha Well-Known Member

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    Dunno if I'd count Kachia. She became a ghoul by choice, which isn't how it usually works.
     
  13. CountryMage

    CountryMage [XSanguine8] not my blood...

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    The transformation can only work by choice, but that doesn't mean that you actually want to change. It also works if you have no other choice, Kachia and the other adventurers that Van rescued would be dead anyway, the empire treats anyone who gives birth to a monster as a witch. The normal procedure for Ghoul villages with dwindling numbers is to get a bunch of human women, bury them all, and they either accept the transformation, or they die in the mud and become dinner.
     
  14. Donce

    Donce Well-Known Member

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  15. ZeroDelta

    ZeroDelta Well-Known Member

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  16. FranckOA

    FranckOA Killer Klown From Outer Space

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    Funny to see that Randolf "the true" is such a liar... :blobsmirk:
     
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  17. Kaithar

    Kaithar Well-Known Member

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    I need to go read the new chapter but I have to say stuff...
    Functionally they should... Skills and everything are part of the soul's decorations, it's part of what gives them power and can come from even external gods. Stripping all that away to make them heroic spirits would be dumb, and we know Roddy's trio kept their skills. The God of Status is purely listing and quantifying their souls, probably handles all analysis skills, so they have one if that god can see their soul. Practically, that probably means any spirit or higher will have a status if they wish to reveal themselves to it or if they are in a realm those gods outrank and can thus fully access.

    That said, I doubt gods need that readout with their power, and the system is likely only used to simplify more complex changes, so it's not like the rest like skill ups and job changes operate like they do for mortals.

    Simple answer:

    He knows fully that Van is doing a better job than anyone on Alda's side... He knows Van isn't evil and probably more determined and capable of preventing to end of the world. Heinz knows that in most matters Van has been in the right. That kind of awareness would allow his redemption, but he can't get it because of the people around him.

    His party members don't help and can only get worse, the Churches he's interacting with are human supremacist even when not in murder hobo mode, the doctrine he's being given is a pack of lies, and the gods are directly telling him to do the Wrong Thing. He has no chance unless he defects, and with the level of hostages being held over him the chances of that are zero. Sadly he's not bright enough to understand all of this, and thus continues trying to "do good", which isn't helped by Van losing his shit everytime the two meet.

    The single most useful thing Heinz could do is to setup camp in some divine realm and stay there. Don't get involved. Stay out if the way. Don't need to tell you the odds of him doing that.

    *carried self centrally, circling companions circumscribing,

    Grammar and conjunctions are the ban of this kind of wordplay.

    Love it. Somewhat appropriate too.
     
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  18. Arha

    Arha Well-Known Member

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    Yknow, to be fair to Heinz, the question of what happens to the empire after Van dies is an entirely valid one. Even we the readers don't actually have any assurance that his subordinates won't go nuts once he's gone. If nothing else, the story does need to make it clear why the empire won't collapse and the undead go on a rampage if something happens to Van.
     
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  19. Kaithar

    Kaithar Well-Known Member

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    It's fair but at this point the gods should know better... The fights they've seen should be enough to tell him he can't die to such conventional things as age or decapitation. As readers we're pretty clear on him being mostly immortal via various loopholes... I suspect if they found away to kill him physically, and I am not confident that is viable at this point, he would automatically ascend to be a Heroic God or better under Vida's faction. The status gods very much seem to favour him anyway.

    Van's plushie making skill seems to have levelled up to "so life like we can't tell the difference" ... Aka "I can't believe it's not Van butter" :blobwhistle:
     
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  20. Bielt

    Bielt 『Planets Eater』『The Sin of Animosity』

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    Dang i had forgotten that novel had some pretty sad and dark settings before~

    Well anyway the Ghoul thing is kinda "what comes first? The egg or the chicken?" Question, it's hard to say what if they act like that because they were hunted down hard or they were hunted down so hard because they acted like that, what we do know is that both sides are contributing for the situation to stay so badly

    Ghouls have bad fertility but they can live up to 500 years, even if most just lived till 350 they should have quite a lot in numbers and no real worried about going extinct, so the whole thing about kidnapping women probably started after they started to get hunted.
    That gives out a reason why they do it, but doesn't really justify, what they do IS horrible and certainly very traumatic for any woman which hasn't already decided to abandon their previous race.
    But we must also consider that human society in bahngaia isn't any better at all, Tarea herself got sold as sex slave while still in human society, from what we have seen till now, kidnapping and rape is freaking common in small villages and selling their children into slavery is kinda permited and even legal in some places.

    So it's hard to say that they are any better than what the Ghouls.


    Actually besides Edgar (which sincerely doesn't care about getting his hands dirty so that Heinz and the others can keep up) the other party members look like they have more of a conscience than Heinz, they have very few lines but they appear really bothered and thoughtful about what Van said, but Heinz is literally their leader and emotional support so whenever he brushed things aside they drop the topic.

    Just look at the past SS, they really wanted to discuss things with Edgar to decide how they were going to act but then Heinz arrived and said: "Van can do it because he has skills and a country, we don't have Skills to support it so let's forget the topic."

    So I genuinely think that it's the other way around in this case, Heinz is the one hindering them from actually getting conscious enough about the topic to actually try to do something about it
    That is were I sincerely think you are wrong, Heinz already changed things without even trying when he picked Selen, he made Dhampirs "accepted", he HAS the power to change the society of Orbaume kingdom because he literally became a heroic symbol to the population.
    Such he would get a lot of opposition, resistance and get threatened, but you must remember that in Bahngaia personal power is a freaking useful tool, like Schneider he was half hated by the nobles and the king which had 12 almost S rank people under him didn't dare to go against him in the open.
    Heinz has public support and is gathering personal power at really fast rate besides his guider skills, he has a very good chance to change things if he tries to slowly change things
    Yes it's totally valid question, tho we as readers know that there is a very low chance of things really getting out of hand.
    The monster Nations on Vida side are pretty pacific, the Undead on taloschien were in a kinda catatonic state before Van arrived but they weren't rampaging at all, and that was even in a situation where they didn't had cultural and entertainment support which second what Van said helps a lot at keeping the undead in a healthy state of mind, also high level undead generally maintain their conscience much better, so we can suppose that even if Van cease to exist they wouldn't become a world calamity at least for some years
    The only ones that would probably get out of control are the very low level ones.

    Yeah by now he is pretty much immortal, he can even prolong his life span with Death Magic, and he is surely going to become a god when he dies, even if not naturally Vida absolutely wouldn't let him not become a God or at least a heroic spirit.
    The only way I can see for something to happen to Van that would incapacitate him from helping the undead on Vidal empire is him getting sealed by Alda