Spoiler Latest Chapter Discussion Thread for Death Mage Raws

Discussion in 'Spoilers' started by FussyBadger, Nov 25, 2017.

  1. Reman Scimitar

    Reman Scimitar Princess Zadiris Faction

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    A cursed weapon is labeled as a spirit, not a ghost, or have you forgotten how many cursed crossbows are called as undead when Van made the three walls to defend Talosheim from siege from Mirg Shield Nation and Amid Empire. Spirit is a possession. And throwing the wrongness gif doesn't mean much other than you're trying to compensate for something.

    If they didn't bother trying to help the common races, then yes it'll be harmful. And fairly certain no living being man/god/demon/monster can survive a nature's wrath. And remember they've done some downright stupid things or have you forgotten the first Alda-Vida War?

    Again, a mere simple person with a physical body. Gods don't need a physical body 24/7 (Alda wouldn't stay on Lambda for what? Less than 10 minutes?), Spirits don't need it as it's just an embodiment of nature or a possession.

    Magic on a barren world? After the death of both the Light and Dark Gods, but not before, it was a sheer clean slate. No magic, no life, pure barren.

    A gift can also be part of their creation.

    Then name a time any of the Gods of Lambda has cleaned up a Devil's Nest in either Orbaume Kingdom or Amid Empire. I'll also include dungeons as that spills out mana into the environment as well since they were originally monster breeding facilities for Guduranis.

    Or like how you kept coming to the conclusion I said Gods have a physical body.

    Important to the point they overlap one another? Gods that are not redundant are not needed, Lambda is doing fine without Curatos and Fitun (so far). I don't get the idea where everyone thinks Lambda needs the gods to survive when a few Gods themselves know man should move on already from Gods to govern themselves, save for Brainless and his yes-men who're regressing man horribly to their current position.
     
    Last edited: Mar 4, 2019
  2. jemini

    jemini Well-Known Member

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    Errr... I'm sorry, but I believe the point here is that "dead spirit magic" is a type of magic that functions by using the powers of ghosts to cast spells. If the functionality operates off of ghosts, and it is called "dead spirit magic," then that means that ghosts are a classification of spirit in every single bit the same way as those cursed weapons you are referring to.
     
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  3. Mesaphrom

    Mesaphrom Well-Known Member

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    Have nothing to do with recently released chapter (have not read them yet), but reading the talosheim population thingy I just remembered to go and check how the the evolved lizardmen (Arman) are actually supposed to be read since they should be some kind of mythological being if one follows the naming convention until now, so acording to the SMT wiki, Arman (アーマーン, Āmān) is supposed to be read as Ammam also know as Ammut, the divine beast with the body of a lion, an hyppopotamus and a crocodile who was tasked with eating the hearts (read: soul) of the dead that were deamed unpure by Anubis.

    Can remember it being mentioned before, so, there.
     
  4. hillo315

    hillo315 Intact but Tactless

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    Thank you, @jemini, for explaining what I already tried to explain to someone who finds fault with everyone who participates in arguments he starts.

    That would explain why Van can't take the Ammut job, despite his soul-eating and monstrous soul form.
     
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  5. kari-no-sugata

    kari-no-sugata Well-Known Member

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    Random thought but I suspect Van's attempts to "not stand out" are doomed to failure...

    After all, he's an ultra-rare dhampir. And his "sister" will be going with him a 3m tall girl of a race nobody had heard of before.

    Sure... totally inconspicuous. And if he then tries not to stand out and people notice he'll stand out even more.
     
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  6. Reman Scimitar

    Reman Scimitar Princess Zadiris Faction

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    Don't forget his not-so-natural death attribute lol (or ability to make legions of golems without alchemy)
     
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  7. Mesaphrom

    Mesaphrom Well-Known Member

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    Now I have the image of shoggoth going to highschool and presenting themself as Normal Commonman, the exchange student from Somewherelse, a very famous unknown country in Nothere, stuck in my head.:blobexpressionless:

    Edit: Am I the only one who still wants my earlier scenario of Van being so popular with the ladies that the guys start getting pissed off... at the ladies for hoarding Van's attention?
     
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  8. Reman Scimitar

    Reman Scimitar Princess Zadiris Faction

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    I just want to see how much a war will break out in school between the males and females just for Van lol (esp if a few noble daughters try to get Van's attention for their families).
     
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  9. hillo315

    hillo315 Intact but Tactless

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    That should go without saying...

    He is the only dhampir who is is also the Great Demon King. Exceedingly rare! :blob_grin:

    But in all seriousness, it wouldn't be a big deal if Van just so happened to be a dhampir. Everyone would eventually lose interest in dhampirs they start seeing every day at school. However, Van is eccentric in almost every way. Van attracts attention to himself just by being Van.

    Nah, gotta stick to the classics. Try John Smith.

    Then Van will announce that he is male, breaking countless heterosexual hearts.
     
    Last edited: Mar 5, 2019
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  10. jubjub3000

    jubjub3000 Well-Known Member

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    i wonder if van could take some "servants" due to him being a noble (even if honorary) so he could bring rita and saria along without hassle?
     
  11. hillo315

    hillo315 Intact but Tactless

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    Good question. Honorary nobles don't have territory because they are just in it for the, well, honor. But can they hire servants?

    I'm guessing the answer is yes?
     
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  12. Mesaphrom

    Mesaphrom Well-Known Member

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    Van would start opening weird doors in those people's heterosexual hearts. Just like Rimuru...
     
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  13. jemini

    jemini Well-Known Member

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    I regards to Van and attracting the girls, he has reached 12 now but that is still going to be prepubescent for a Dampire of any race mix, especially so for dark elf. So, he should still be young enough to be confused for a girl.

    That said, he has also become a bit famous as the "son" of Darcia, who is really making some waves. And, if he's going to a school for nobles, nobles tend to be fairly well apprised of news from distant regions, so it's entirely possible they are quite aware of Van's gender even if he can still be confused for a girl.

    In other words, it really could go either way.
     
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  14. Reman Scimitar

    Reman Scimitar Princess Zadiris Faction

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    Terrifying power of being androgynous (shivers).
     
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  15. jubjub3000

    jubjub3000 Well-Known Member

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    but i wonder what everyone else would think about it, they would probably first think that the master of the house is giant pervert (darcia) and is forcing them into kinky maid armour or something haha.
     
  16. Mesaphrom

    Mesaphrom Well-Known Member

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    Well, there is always the excuse of "it is the elder's (Kanako) idea of a ultra lightweigh but highly durable TG still in the prototype stage".
     
  17. mai.rain

    mai.rain Well-Known Member

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    But they might get him confused with the other famous Dhampher, Selen, if they haven't met her and ask him abut Heinz's exploits which would be quite funny.
     
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  18. jemini

    jemini Well-Known Member

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    I could seriously see that one. Yeah, that one would be great.
     
  19. jemini

    jemini Well-Known Member

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    So, I talked a few times about how it really doesn't matter that Van's so OP, and the reason really is that "risk of someone else being able to kill you" is really not the only or even most important source of conflict. In fact, there are 5 sources of conflict in story writing, and "risk of being killed or beaten" is a sub-part of a few of those other parts of conflict, and not even a very interesting one. Actually, it's considered the simplest and least useful of the possible sources of conflict, because plot armor is a thing.

    At any rate, I think it's time I break down these 5 sources of conflict. But first, let's define conflict. Conflict is defined as something that stands in the way of a character achieving their goals. Now, it may seem like Van's goal might be to defeat Alda and bring peace to the Vida races. That is not his goal though. That is a means to his goal. His real goal, as stated several times in this series, is very simple. It is just to be happy and to be surrounded by friends who he can be happy with. He also wants to achieve his arbitrary goals of becoming an honorary noble in order to prevent the other reincarnators from being able to attack him without consequence. Those are Van's actual goals, and this is how we need to view Death Mage in terms of the 5 conflict types I am about to describe.

    1. Character Vs. Character.

    This is the most popular and basic source of conflict. Character Vs. Character describes a situation where the two characters are somehow antagonistic to one another. In shonen battle anime, it means they are out to kill each other for some reason. Again, this is a simple lowest common denominator tactic, and is very low grade story writing.

    Higher grade story writing would be that maybe the two characters' goals are somehow in conflict in such a way that it creates tension between them. Maybe the two of them share a common goal, a common goal for which only one person can achieve it. Or, maybe they have conflicting goals that naturally set them against each other.

    In the case of Death Mage, the primary Character Vs. Character conflict that concerns Van is Van Vs. Heinz. In this case, they both share the goal of achieving peace between the human and Vida races. While this may seem like a set of goals that would allow the two to get along, Heinz's grevious sins in his past and his ignorance and the ease with which he is manipulated by Alda combined with Van's vengefullness set them on the inevitable path to conflict.

    This in and of itself is interesting conflict. You don't need Van to be at risk of loosing for it to be interesting.

    2. Character Vs. Self

    The character struggling against their own character flaws. Van is actually a mess of character flaws, but the interesting thing about him is he is not very bothered by them. However, his wrath and vengefullness, while very satisfying to see in action, has actually created problems for him that threaten his goals. We, as the readers, are lead not to worry about it because Van doesn't worry about it, but if you look into it closely enough you realize this character flaw has created a lot of issues for him.

    That said, that's exactly what makes this series interesting. We get a lot of millage out of this conflict, because it's awesome when he's being wrathful and it's interesting when we see the conflicts that result from it. Plus, having a character flaw like this makes Van a much more interesting character than, say, (insert generic typical isekai protagonist here.)

    3. Character Vs. Society

    The social norms work against the character somehow. In Van's case, this conflict type is amped up to freaking 11 in human society, and that's made quite clear in the 1st couple chapters of book 1. If you get right down to it, this is actually the core central conflict within the Death Mage series. And, with society itself being the ACTUAL major antagonist of the series, we can say it was in the 11th arc that Van finally started effectively fighting back against it. We all have been talking about how he's doing all sorts of culture war tactics against Alda and how Alda is so screwed because of what Van's doing, but while that may be true what is ACTUALLY going on here is that Van took the fight to the REAL enemy.

    This is why Van's culture war stuff is REALLY freaking interesting in and of itself. If it was just a tactic to fight Alda, it really wouldn't be very interesting. The reason it seriously captures the imagination is because the culture IS the enemy in and of itself, and by fighting a culture war he's doing direct battle with the enemy that's the source of the single largest conflict in the entirety of Death Mage, far larger than even Alda, Bellwood, and Rodcorte. The three of them are, in fact, only cogs in the bigger picture of the culture at large. They are prime movers, but Van is taking over as a prime mover in the culture and he is changing it. That truly is interesting for its own sake, and I think it's the single most praisworthy thing about Death Mage.

    4. Character Vs. Nature

    Some factor of the structure or the way that the world is, not due to society but because of a simple fact of nature, creates a problem for the character. In the case of Death Mage, the most significant source of this form of conflict would likely be the very nature of magic itself, of Death Magic in particular. It was Van having Death Magic, and more specifically in Death Magic being such a rare and incredibly useful thing, that has lead to a lot of both benefits and problems for Van, and all of this started in Origin.

    The nature of the soul transmigration system can also be seen as a part of the nature of this world that creates conflict. However, the nature of the gods in this world makes that issue a little bit more messy as to whether you would call that nature or technology. Something that actually does seem to be more a matter of nature of the world though that creates some conflict is the manner in which gods gain strength from the worship of humans. This nature of gods has fueled Van to push for people to convert to worshiping Vida. Van would never have had this objective on his list of things to do if it weren't for this part of the nature of gods. It's also the reason Alda's so powerful right now since he's been hogging up all the worship due to being the only active greater god. It's also the reason Rodcorte is able to be so detatched from the world as to cause all the issues he has caused in his carelessness.

    5. Character Vs. Technology

    The final source of conflict. It is traditionally portrayed as a conflict type that makes man seem small and insignificant in the face of the cold march of capitalism and technological progress. It can interact with Character Vs. Society in the case of a society built up around a certain level of technology. In the case of Death Mage though, we have a world that has a distinct lack of technology, and this Character Vs. Technology conflict is flipped completely on its head compared to normal.

    In the case of Death Mage, it's about a technologically backwards world in which Van is able to gain great power and influence because he advances technology. So, quite the contrary, this conflict has actually been turned into a benefit for Van. That said, it does still cause conflict due to this being a world full of Ludites, people who actively resist technological advancement and seek to do harm to those who promote it. Therefore, this wraps into the Character Vs. Society conflict and gives another facet to it.

    Also, as covered in Character Vs. Nature above, due to the way the gods are handled in this series the circle of reincarnation system could be considered a form of technology in a somewhat convoluted way, and the nature of the reincarnation system definitely has created a great deal of conflict in this series. In fact, right along side the Character Vs. Society conflict, the conflicts spurred by the reincarnation system are among the central core conflicts of this series.
     
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  20. NekoMK2

    NekoMK2 Lazy cat, [self proclaimed GM_Rusaku Disciples]

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    new chapter is out, rather fast eh unlike usual