Honestly, I think the difference between the paths the two took is probably rooted in Heinz's condescension. Schneider went to see what they had to say for and about themselves and how they lived. Heinz never bothers because he still looks down at Vida's races as inferiors. In a kind of genuine White Man's Burden way rather than just as an excuse for imperialism. "It's not their fault they suck so much, let's go help them fit into our society. The good ones, of course." Also yeah I agree with CountryMage about the details in this conversation being really fundamentally wrong, but I'm not up for another Heinz argument today.
new chapter https://lightnovelbastion.com/novel/death-mage/volume-11/death-mage-261/ I wish my eyes would not hurt so much, otherwise I would be reading it now.
I was kind of amused by this exchange. Van: "I need to know why you want to join me. Just saying you were guided isn't enough of an answer." Bashas etc.: "Oooh, awkward. Cause that's all we got." Okay maybe they didn't say it that way but that's basically what it amounted to.
Well, some people switch side to a competing company for a bigger salary, so for a god to switch side cause they like the leader more does make some sense. Also Zakkart converted a bunch of evil gods to the losing side through pure charisma (and probably rolling some 20's on his persuasion checks) so this isn't too big of a deal in comparison.
Oh, it doesn't bother me. It's basically why Van has almost all his allies. Good old magical charm abilities.
[Bashas is a young goddess ascended about 50,000 years ago. She was excellent in fortune telling and weather forecasting, had saved many people by predicting natural disasters.] [Aliases: Goddess of Rain Clouds] It seems its just because she is more compatible with the dark path guidance with her being seen more as a goddess of ill omens (i think that was mentioned in the last few chapters)
There are a few problems with this assessment here. 1.) Martina was blaming the victim. Heinz and his party attacked a woman walking down the street, 5 on 1, not even bothering to confirm her identity, and knowing full well in advance that she would be horribly tortured and killed, regardless. This is clearly not an easy thing to defend, so Martina just chugs her ale and goes "she got what she had coming, Heinz, so quit beating yourself up for accepting a quest you claim you didn't want. (Chug, chug, chug)" 2.) Heinz's only claim for going after entire villages of ghouls, Majin, etc. is that a quest at the adventurer's guild said they were harmful. But once it became apparent that the adventurer's guild changes its rules on a whim, as he saw with his own eyes in Nakiri, and it becomes crystal clear that the guild's proclamation that ghouls are a type of undead is blatantly false, a rational person should begin looking at everything else they proclaim with suspicion. If the guild is going to lie so blatantly and shamelessly about something like ghouls being undead, what else are they lying about? Not to mention that it's established fact that ghouls don't leave devil's nests of their own volition, which begs the question of what the human "victims" were doing in ghoul territory in the first place. 3.) Your analogy of "Heinz has to go to the leader of the faction" falls apart when one remembers that Alda sees and hears everything Heinz sees and hears and Heinz already has a method to communicate with Alda directly called "prayer." Heinz can ask Alda questions all he wants. He may not hear the answer due to Alda's "divine message" ability being weak, but he can still ask without going around massacring entire villages and calling himself a "hero" while doing it. 4.) You initially mentioned that Heinz is acting rationally while Van is acting emotionally. I recommend going back to chapters 200 to 203 and resisting the urge to skip their little debate as irrelevant "because Van wants to kill Heinz anyway." Van posits his position calmly, and rationally, despite being royally P.O.d at everything Heinz and party have been doing in Bellwood's Dungeon and catching Heinz training in how to kill everyone Van cares for, including Van himself, in the most brutal and efficient manner possible, an act of war if the situations were reversed and Heinz caught Van doing the same to the leadership of a human country. Meanwhile, before Van even finishes saying "hello," Heinz points at the corpses and yells "It's their fault for not wanting to talk things out!" Did he try to talk things out with Darcia? Nope! Did he try to talk things out with the countless villages of Vida's races he was putting to the sword and spell? Not likely. Heinz then spends the rest of their "private chat" throwing out excuses like chaff, trying to shift the blame, while Van refutes them all with cold, hard logic and facts, including the fact that Heinz had to go through Scylla territory to avoid the border check-points, and clearly paid absolutely no attention to their straits. 5.) Van tells Heinz that it no longer matters if he has a grudge or not as Heinz has demonstrated himself to be a clear and present danger to the people of Talosheim, and has to die, and it isn't an act of vengeance. Heinz retorts "THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE!!!!" and draws his sword. At that point, Van finishes taking control of the puppet body and surprises even himself by mutating into a Lovecraftian horror, with Heinz then having the gall to yell out "YOU NEVER WANTED TO TALK THINGS OUT IN THE FIRST PLACE!" Honestly, Heinz walks around with earplugs and blinders, shouting "I can't hear you, LA LA LA!" to keep from feeling guilt or taking responsibility for his actions, makes public speeches to make himself feel better, and when he runs out of excuses, throws himself into a depression, all while doing absolutely nothing to actually address or redress his actual victims. It's mind-boggling how people continue to try and defend him.
Nope. Nobody, not Heinz, and definitely not the hunter that reported her knew what that fanatic priest was going to do to her after she was caught. They all probably knew she'd be executed, but not that she would be tortured for days. You can hear that asshole muttering about how they should have let them play with her first, if they were going to ruin her body like that. You have just shown yourself to not be rational. A rational person doesn't jump to suspicion of everything after just one lie, no matter how big, or how damaging that lie is. Heinz can keep asking but all he gets back is the vague don't question that, or follow the scripture. These aren't answers, these are prerecorded responses. I recommend you go back and stop skipping the parts you think are irrelevant. Most of your points are overturned by the author. He says no such thing. Van knows He is irredeemably evil, but he would still make all the same choices if he had to do it over, and he still wouldn't ever tolerate Heinz existence after what happened to Darcia.
He does say that he would kill Heinz even if he didn't hate him. Since you seem to be sort of a Heinz defender, can you answer a question for me? What's the defense for Heinz's actions against the Ghouls? I never found an answer for this, but it's possible I just missed it when reading this thread.
So wait, we’re debating who is more evil or more good between Heinz and Van? Haven’t we already decided they both fit in the PSYCHOPATHS, yes all caps, aisle of the store but for different reasons? Van straight knows he does bad to advance his objectives and he’s told pretty much every god he’s ever met as much. Heinz still pursues the line of “Justice through Might.” Which is a lot of MC’s from China actually. Go read any of the Xuanxia or Wuxia novels. The only big difference is “full disclosure, including to one’s self,” vs “make it look pretty and sugarcoated, including to one’s self.” Well that and cuteness. Van wins in all boxes for cuteness lol. PS the reference to China is important because there’s still a lot of casual racism between the two cultures. Again just read the literature from either side or watch a few shows. The historical tensions have only dropped to simmer and mud slinging. They haven’t ended.
It's actually pretty hilarious. The most blatant example I've seen was in Isekai wa Smartphone where the author makes one of the countries an extremely obvious China stand in then gets his characters to trash talk that country in all the ways he obviously wants to trash talk China but can't get away with in his industry.
Can we just stop with the Heinz vs Van crap. It's the same people every time and neither side will EVER convince the other. With the SAME arguments each time it's brought up. I think this is the 20th time in 274 pages of this LCD. Not covering the previous deleted version. If you like Heinz for being the standard hero done wrong trope, well and good. If you hate Heinz with a passion for not looking at himself objectively. Welcome to humanity. In the end it doesn't matter. Van WILL eat him because the author has made that outcome quite obvious.
Yeah lets talk about the serious shit... whos best Van waifu? who do you ship? amount of muscles? what side are you on in the 2 legs vs 8 legs debate? this is the stuff we need to work out here!
A man of culture descends. Personally……..all the ships except the momma ship. I don’t think Van would ever dream of it and can see him inventing something worse than souleating to punish the fool that embarrasses Darcia momma by even suggesting it. PS if I can only choose one ship…..Van/Basdia. First love is best love.