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leliel_12[Trigger Warning: Yep, got more slavery apologia, plus some pedophilic tones plus nonexplicit underage nudity. And these episodes are a break from the last two. Holy shit.]
[Image heavy by necessity.]
[Spoilers for Black Clover, Jujutsu Kaisen]
[Scripts are from https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewforum.php?f=2415, not sporker original work]
[Link to fork on das_sporking]
[As the scene opens, it becomes clear that the only two human people are present.]
Leliel: …so that’s kind of why we need you guys. Because the main sporkers have officially called a break after that shit, and given how it’s about a sentient magical bird…
Green-Eyed Crow: …This still feels like a mite speciesist. Or maybe I just really don’t want to.
Red Hawk With Sword: Do ye ever, Catha?
Winged Woman: If anything’s going to make her more than just being stubborn, though…Danu’s tits. I feel almost inadequate at this.
Wanderer2691: And camera’s on-hey guys! Welcome back, to what is currently a very demonic co-sporker cast! …literally, all these ladies are Shin Megami Tensei demons, which we have…well, dragged from the Expanse because understandably, our normal co-sporkers would have held a mutiny, led by an actual pirate.
Leliel: And the thing is, ironically, these two episodes are a bit of a break from the creepy nonsense, just really weird and cliche nonsense. But we felt that after The Horror really scarred us, we needed three birds - especially given how here, we have an episode about consequences of heroism, and perhaps the most pointless royal we’ll meet in the series…including Mircella. But first, Sporker Roll Call!
Hawk: So it be. Macha, goddess of war, horses, and rulership in Irish myth, reporting for duty.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Macha)
Catha: …Badb Catha. Goddess of death in war and battle fury.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Badb_Catha)
Woman: And Nemhain, goddess of morale and the chaos of war!
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Nemhain)
And yes, we’re all Celtic war goddesses. The Morrigna, to be precise. No, I don’t ken why we were all needed.
Wanderer2691: Because we’re going to need a very distinct perspective about a certain Red Menace that you three are most qualified to provide. Not now, but I think we should set the groundwork.
Nemhain: …okay then. That…isn’t exactly a comforting thought, but…
Leliel: While these three don’t have that distinct areas of interest, they will be commenting a lot on the logistical side of conflict, social effects, and how fucking useless this country’s royal family is. But, without further ado…let’s see what that dead dragon was about!
Catha: [Suddenly looks interested] Well now…
Wanderer2691: Yeah, somehow I thought you and Nemhain would be all over that thing…but believe me, you’ll probably be disappointed given how little is done with it. Anyway, episode opens on Raphtalia and Filo snoozing while Naofumi is blacksmithing something, which turns out to be…
Leliel: For the record, that jewelry is stuff he’s fitting to his slaves to surprise them with gifts when they wake up…always a factor in an abusive relationship, the buttering-up phase…and decorating your possessions…
Macha: …well, that didn’t take long.
Wanderer2691: [Grimace of Absolute Fury] Oh, it really fucking does. I already had the Warp-Spasm last time, but it’s only because of exhaustion I’m not doing it now - because this isn’t just fucking creepy, it’s ostentatious. He’s gone beyond just “surviving”, no matter what the show is desperately claiming. He is actively putting adornment on his property to show off. This isn’t a gift - it’s treating them like fucking pets. Yeah, sure, they smile and are glad for it - so are a lot of dogs. The dogs are still not being treated like people no matter how nice they look! One hundred points, both for the attitude - and for the sheer subtle abandonment of the core justification for all this.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 429
Catha: Honestly, is there any way this could get more pandering and manipulative as metatext?
{FILO}: {[waking up briefly]})What's wrong, master? Can't you get to sleep tonight?
[NAOFUMI]: {[Hiding gold]} I just came to check on the two of you. Go back to sleep.
{FILO}:M'kay… Good night, master... Thank you for checking up on us.
Nemhain: …uh, I’m not sure. I can’t see the screen for all the sirens blaring in my ears. Sometimes I hate being able to hear dogwhistles.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 430
Leliel: Anyway, title sequence, then we get into the episode proper. Filo’s being tacked up, when two people approach the party:
Macha: To their very minor credit, Naofumi does share some soup with the two of them, and we get their advice:
[MOTHER] You folks would do well to turn back while you can.
{SON} If you keep going forward on this path, you'll die.
[RAPHTALIA] Huh?
[NAOFUMI] We heard there's a village down this path.
{MOTHER} The village is devastated. Even the village elder got sick with the plague.
Nemhain: Now, this I like. It’s intriguing, and it’s definitely something a regular hero would be involved with, even if actually going into the plague town is not advised. Honestly, more scenes like this would do a lot to-
[NAOFUMI] I'm a traveling merchant. I have medicines to sell.
Nemhain: -unfortunately, there’s not a lot of scenes like that. [Sigh]
Catha: It may be the Law in us speaking, but frankly, immediately hawking medicine to a town undergoing an epidemic is a bit ghoulish, and yes I am aware of the irony of the death goddess saying it. More importantly - you don’t know if it’ll even help. Yes, healing potions and all, but this is where the whole “stat magic” thing shows how shallow it is; discovering that health potions don’t work on, say, bacterial infections, because the bacteria are their own living entities unlike a virus, is a genuinely neat twist. It also has precedent, given the parasitic plants needed defoliant. No points, but frankly, none of us are a wee bit merciful.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 404
Wanderer2691: So, the guy recognizes Filo as the Heavenly Fowl-
The Morrgina: The WHAT?!
Wanderer2691: Ugh, it’s a whole thing, and it’s stupid - you ladies are not going to like seeing the whole exploration of filolial society, assuming you’re even there. But yeah, Naofumi’s rep precedes him, as the village clinic opens its doors. Naofumi points out he’s only a merchant, but the doc says it’s fine because…
Macha: Obviously. There might need to be inconvenience to get the stressed doctor to open up, and the writer can’t have that when fluffing the self-insert! Of course.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 298
Leliel: Anyway, Naofumi administers it to give the potions a Shield boost, which is actually clever, and after he’s done…I’m going to show two sets of screenshot back to back. First, what Naofumi sees before…
And the first thing he says to the doctor after treatment is completed, as he gets paid 50 silver?
Wanderer2691: …and why are you worried about that now?! Freaking vulture, these people literally are draining village coffers in a plague and you get “eh, it’s a bit short but I’ll take it because I’m such a nice guy”?! Nice charity there, Scrooge!
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 405
Macha: Oh, and he’s not done. Because as soon as the doctor thanks him and seems to be satisfied…
{NAOFUMI} And that's enough for you? All I did was treat their symptoms. I didn't cure them. In no time, they'll be right back to square one.
{DOCTOR} I'm afraid you are indeed correct.
[NAOFUMI] Not that I mind, since I'd make good money anyway. Why don't we just see which dies out first--you or your pocketbook…
Nemhain: …oh, look at these glasses and this helmet. Excuse me, sir, but I think you dropped them…Mammon.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Mammon)
Wanderer2691: [Traumatic flashback to boss fight] The robots…the robots…
Catha: Honestly, this is the kind of thing Kunikazu Okumura, who willingly forced his daughter to marry an objectively awful man to get at political connections, would hesitate at. Mostly because it’d link to him, but he would at least be pragmatic enough to acknowledge that, maybe, trying to blackmail plague victims and taunting them about it might not reflect well on a political career! [Cawing spit.] Fifty points for every not-enough silver!
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 455
Leliel: And this is where the character assassination of the Cardinal Heroes really starts to kick into high gear. Because that’s when the nurse points out the actual source of the plague is a wind from the local monster nest in the mountain.
[NAOFUMI] Yeah, I did hear some rumors a while back. But wait a sec. How does that connect with the plague that's here?
Catha: …that’s what I want to know. What, is there a vengeful ghost? …please say yes, then things would be intriguing.
Wanderer2691: Oh look, the monkey’s paw curled. But in this case, no. Because this show is also a believer in medical urban myths. But we’ll get there. First of all, as the doc explains…
{DOCTOR} many adventurers came to our village, mostly in order to see the dragon's corpse as well as to purchase supplies. That certainly did help the village to flourish, of course.
{DOCTOR} The dragon's flesh had begun to rot and began emitting some kind of poison.
Macha: O…kay…? I mean, it is a dragon in a fantasy world, the flesh releasing poison as a final feck off to its killers is hardly the most out-there retaliation-
[NAOFUMI] Damn Ren!
Actually, I guess it must've slipped his mind, since he thinks this world's just a game.
[Beat]
Nemhain: As opposed to big, brainy, very adult college students, who understand the healing power of homeopathy, pyramids, and crystals. That is not how decay works.
(https://www.mysportscience.com/post/what-is-pseudoscience)
Catha: Alright, take it from the expert - while disposing of a corpse needs to be careful, and leaving it rot in the air where it fell is not a good plan, what it cannot do is taint the air. That seems against common sense, hence why miasma theory was a thing for generations, but here’s a big secret about pathogens - if they kill their host, they’ve failed. They want the host to continue living to spread them and reinfect later, mayhap, because pathogens are parasites - they can’t really survive in a dead body. Yes, a corpse can become a vector for a disease it was infected with, but the corpse generally has to be closely handled or to pollute water, where the disease is protected from the, uh, everything in the open air, and obviously a corpse can’t breathe, so it’s not breathing out germs in aerosol. The decay ecology organisms that make the distinct stench aren’t pathogens, though they’re often unsanitary and toxic - they literally aren’t interested in the living, and the stench is generally their waste products, not the organisms themselves. Most importantly - to get a disease from a corpse, it needs to have been infected first and probably died of it.
Macha: You may have noticed that there isn’t a disease called Being-Stabbeditis. As morbidly funny as the idea of a disease that has a terminal stage of anime protagonists suddenly turning agro, I somehow doubt that Ren grinding off you is transmissible…and that Ren should have been asked, especially because he’s not the one who is asked to dispose of it. The tourist attraction was entirely the town’s idea going by the script, or at least if it’s not, the show utterly failed at conveying that. And even if it was Ren’s idea - the man is literally not paid to know corpse disposal. He removes the threat and moves on, any advice would be a suggestion from a mercenary who might not know any better and the town knows it. Quite simply, it comes off like Naofumi is looking for reasons to feel superior - and it’s clear the series really, really wants you, as the least common denominator otaku, to agree so you feel superior to the cool boy, a la a Dungeon Master that is very intent on making his self-insert suck the least and trying to make it so the players like them via being the only one who can fix problems. As it is, we are not. What we are doing is giving ten points to the relevant scores, as we don’t fecking buy it.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 465
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 83
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 308 (Oh look, a problem Naofumi can solve and look cooler than Ren in, how very novel.)
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 301 (Was it really that hard to say dragons specifically release poison as they decay and Ren didn’t bother looking that up, just seeing it as a random encounter? Really?)
Wanderer2691: But Ren’s good name being the sudden target of Dr. Iwatani (Ph.D in Young Adult Literature Studies) here aside, basically the villagers can’t get rid of it - the mountains filled with monsters, and the ecology has changed a bit due to the giant honking decaying dragon corpse. As a result, average adventurers can’t get near it, and Melromarc’s government is being typically useless and slow in getting the elites and an actual medicine supply. So, Naofumi says he’ll do it, to which the healers thank him and - well, he is interminably himself.
{NAOFUMI} You can keep your thanks. What I want is your money. Five hundred silvers will do it.
{DOCTOR} Five hundred?! That's too much!
{NAOFUMI} That includes hazard pay so you can just give me what you were going to pay the court, or were you hoping for a discount?
Leliel: You know, scalpers and grifters are known for charging way more than official sources for their services. I don’t know why that came to mind. It seemed relevant.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 466
Macha: What is with him?! He’s no hero, he’s just-
{NURSE} "Savior," my foot. He's just a lousy money-grubber.
[DOCTOR] You musn't speak like that.
Catha: *Doctor* “There’s far harsher language warranted.” But in reality, this show is once again trying to milk this for cheap sympathy, as Naofumi goes “I don't recall asking anybody to call me a savior” and then we get this…
[RAPHTALIA] Master Naofumi, you're deliberately trying to make them hate you, aren't you?
Nemhain: Dearie, please. Making excuses for someone is a sign of being in an abusive relationship. He’s just a greedy sack of shite. No points, but I am noting that self-sabotage only comes up when it’s a convenient excuse for pissing everyone off for good reason. Though, I do like that Naofumi puts on a Poison Resistance Shield, and the little kerchief masks for corpse cleanup:
{RAPHTALIA} but this is a lot more than what we usually carry.
Wanderer2691: Which includes food, and not for a good reason - rather, Filo got really protective of the stuff in the wagon:
{FILO} We can't leave it behind!
[NAOFUMI] Yeah, right, a lifetime of a whole month.
[FILO growls]
Leliel: [Eye twitch] Thanks for reminding me the Horror is that young given what she’s used for. And that she is thus a source of fractal positions on the sex offender registry.
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 421
Macha: Thankfully, a bit can be skipped. The supplies turn out to maybe have been advised due to a small army of monsters, but Filo’s charging combined with a Fast Guard spell from Naofumi results in the group ramming through easily. We then see the corpse itself…
{NAOFUMI} Looking at this isn't doing wonders for my appetite.
Wanderer2691: I’d be glad I didn’t eat, but eh, it’s subjective. There’s a funny moment where it turns out Filo is a bit of a carrion eater and absentmindedly eats some Bio Plant fruits because it triggers her “scavenge” response, but as it turns out, there’s a rather different challenge than just dismantling the corpse for transport and burial:
Leliel: Oh shit, Ravener![/Pathfinder Nerd]. But seriously, the Dragon Zombie is a neat twist…and makes the idea that “nyeh, Sword Hero stoopid, can’t am know germ theory are wrong” even more dumb, because “this thing is undead and literally became a breeding ground for plague on its own due to necromancy” is both way more palatable, and might actually be Ren’s fault for not considering last rites to appease its soul.
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 302
Nemhain: Raphtalia and Naofumi wisely decide to evacuate, but the fact it is a dragon provokes Filo’s Totally-Not-Deliberately-Programmed filolial aggression, and she rushes the zombie.
Wanderer2691: …you know what, I’m making this an utterly unofficial contest. You put the most funny caption you can to Sumo Chicken vs. Zombie Dragon here. I’m curious.
Catha: And now the group realizes they need to fight it, especially when it starts breathing poison and possibly making the town’s situation worse. Issue is, that shield doesn’t convey poison resistance to Filo or Raphtalia…and why the intentionally overpowered support weapon does not do that is never explained…
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 302
…but Filo keeps attacking:
Leliel: I’m not sure of the CGI blood here, which is…pretty tasteful, actually, but it’s kind of hard to catch the glorious moment. But, suffice to say, this is the dragon zombie’s current theme song:
Macha: I’d celebrate, but to be honest we all ken she’s alive. Especially given how she’s swallowed whole. But, to continue the dance of alleged tragedy…
Catha: [Bored] Ah yes, scream, dragon attacks, sad montage that is conveniently saving on animation budget, very sad. It’s also here where we get a bit of a meditation from Naofumi:
Is this world going to take everything from me again?
Wanderer2691: See, this is the point where I recognize what’s trying to be said here, and I’d be fine with it…except Naofumi is, above all else, profoundly selfish. He literally does not care about life except as how it affects him. So all I can see is “I, me, myself,” in all this. Which is a bloody shame, because that kind of entitlement makes this a lot more interesting:
Nemhain: …Those…are not happy letters…
Macha: And…even less happy glitches…
Catha: O…kay. Apparently, Lucifer can communicate through stat screens…or Lilith, at least. Definitely has precedence in our corner of the multiverse:
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Issachar)
Leliel: Honestly, not that far off. This is the full awakening of Ye Olde Shonen Superpowered Evil Side, the Wrath Shield - or technically, the Shield of Rage right now. Which, he unintentionally shows off a bit to Raphtalia…
Wanderer2691: …given the marks, I’d ask if we’re sure it should be called that, but then I remembered Khorne, Chaos God of War, isn’t into shields. More like axes.
Leliel: It’s also way more magical than what Mr. Skull Throne likes, as its flames aren’t just for show:
Macha: …okay, that I can see in a defensive Wrath-based power set. Counterattacks, and rather sadistic ones at that. So, how does it translate into direct aggression?
Wanderer2691: …that’s the thing. We don’t see it.
Catha: …Cad?
Leliel: Yeah. We see Naofumi walking towards the Dragon Zombie menacingly as he watches visions of Malty alternatively taunting him and burning alive…
And then suddenly, his eyes clear and he hears Raphtalia:
And then, cut back to reality-
Nemhain: …okay, first of all, feck off with that “love brings him back” bullshit, he cares for you as a gladiatrix and not anything else-
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 430
…second, how the in the name of Tech Duinn did she get scorched like that?! And then fall over unconscious?!
Wanderer2691: We’re not kidding! It’s just a weird hallucination, suddenly there’s a fried raccoon! And the zombie isn’t that injured either, just Raph, so we don’t know if Naofumi lashed out at her in the berserker rage or he was just on so much fire it burned her when she got close! And we certainly didn’t see any cool “lost all moral restraints” carnage either! We just snap here, and suddenly, Naofumi’s back to normal with his shield on fire!
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 309
Leliel: This is one of the many, many things I despise about the Wrath Shield, not the least because it’s way too early…but I’ll save that rant. Because after Naofumi desperately starts healing her in a way that feels earned enough to skip a point (he did realize he accidentally scorched her after all), suddenly we see something moving in the zombie’s gut, and…
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 310
Catha: So, turns of that “blood” was actually fruit Filo spat up, she’s not even that injured, but being inside the undead belly let her find…Magnetite?
Nemhain: I guess? I’ve never heard of it animating a corpse and then the zombie dying as soon as it’s destroyed…but that’s what happened when Filo saw it, and Naofumi instantly gets it. Makes it easy!
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 311
Leliel: Actually, there’s also crystals that get farted out of nowhere to animate dragons somehow, and this isn’t followed up on. Seems relevant, maybe even something the Waves of Calamity did - but nope, weak point that is just kinda there…
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 303
…but thankfully, I can summarize the rest. Party goes back to hospital, turns out Raphtalia’s burns are cursed but she claims it was the Dragon Zombie that did it…yeah, great codependency there, very nice…
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 431
And the nurse makes a remark on Naofumi attending to her…
Catha: [Angry caw] Yes, as an investment and ornament.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 432
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 421 (She gives a noticeable blush after that.)
Wanderer2691: Naofumi’s told to go back to the city for better treatment of curse wounds, feeding the remnant of the crystal core to the Shield is a bit high level for now to be unlocked, Naofumi realizes the Wrath Shield isn’t part of the normal tree and is very dangerous to people around him, everyone engages in self-blame for things going sideways, Raphtalia asks if she can sleep next to him-gross-
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 422
-but he has none of it and tells her to sleep with Filo, and he resolves to be stronger for the people who believe in him. Bing bang boom, we’re done!
Macha: [Facepalming with a wing] I think I see why you need co-sporkers…
Leliel: Yep…but before the next, it’s time for Uncle Leliel’s Mid-Duology Episode Rant Time!
(https://tenor.com/view/schabe-shite-gif-21821907)
…which I am leaving to one of Iana’s friends, because I already had my rant on the Curse Series, and to be frank, I’m feeling mighty spiteful towards my Exalted OCs for having run like cowards. So, I’m gonna hand over the mike to someone we think might be good for critiquing this nightmare government later. [Snaps fingers, reveals co-spoker]
Iridescent Man: [Grumbles as he shifts into view]
Wanderer2691: WHOA! Were you always there?!
Iridescent Man: Yes. I am no Moonsilver, but I can be functionally invisible when I want to be, especially around, no offense, mortals. Plus, your gods helped.
Nemhain: Uh, the term’s ‘demon’, but yeah. We figured we needed someone to bounce off of. But, introductions?
Horizon: Convergence of Horizons, Convergence or Horizon for short. Ambassador of the Clastat-Nurad Exploration Initiative to Champoor and original co-witness of the Pact of Oil and Sea. Before you ask, the shine is because most of me is clay where it isn’t starmetal. I am an Alchemical Exalted - to make a long-story short, what your people would call an android, created by the inhabitants of the living machine-world of Autochthonia, body of the Great Maker Autochthon, from a mystically charged metal and imbued with life and consciousness from the soul of a hero of my people. I am effectively the voice and a lead scientist of the Locust Crusade we needed to begin to save our world and god through securing resources needed for the intensive repairs, and my purpose is to help Creation-born help us find a sustainable long-term harvest and tithe, and to study the multiverse in general. And finding allies who appreciate trading help for our technological superiority, of course.
Leliel: Yeah, Autocthonians are about as close to true alien invaders as you get in Exalted - as in, a technologically advanced mortal species invading to loot the planet. Thing is, they need the loot to save their god, and thus themselves - and they don’t regard other humans as inherently enemies, they’re canonically just as shocked that they found their own species on the other side of the dimensional barrier. In my Creation, the first portals appeared around the parts of the Dreaming Sea that had Champoor in it, and Horizon unintentionally became the official founder of Iana’s Circle when he realized they were all looking for the same thing. Then he later found Champoor didn’t mind playing host and naval backup to a nearby mining and research colony in return for tech like mass-produced crossbows and electricity - anything to get one over on Prasad and Ysyr, and ensure full independence of the Sea from the Realm, and possibly the seed of a new hegemonic empire of their own. But I digress.
Horizon: Quite; we’ll describe as it becomes relevant. But, as it is, I am being tapped because we Autocthonians have long experience with Artifact weapons with malevolent wills of their own; Lord Autochthon has a chronic illness, you see, and in his divine flesh, that becomes the Blight on a human scale.
Catha: …I take it it’s not a particularly stubborn patch of posies and Autochthon just hates plantlife, I suppose?
Wanderer2691: Not hardly. In reference terms, the Blight is basically what would happen if the Phyrexians from Magic: the Gathering were taken over by SHODAN.
Macha: First of all, yikes, second, I get the sense you are delaying. Point, please?
Horizon: Point is, we are all too used to material magic that is literally infected with the desire to be a weapon against all that makes life worth living. But, beyond the fact I am being unpleasantly reminded of Blight theotechnology, I have done an assessment of your fiction…and on a metanarrative level, it fails at what it is supposed to be. Allow me to exposit a bit on Superpowered Evil Sides, spoilers for Black Clover and to a much lesser extent Jujutsu Kaisen.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperpoweredEvilSide)
Nemhain: Oh so that’s where Etrigan went! Shame, most of his family aren’t good company - the forces of Chaos might be my enemy, but he was respectful about it.
Horizon: …Apparently that universe is part of your planar system. Who knew? But I digress; to make this trope short, a Superpowered Evil Side is fundamentally a berserk mode - something that almost certainly will solve the immediate problem, but in the worst and most destructive way possible. It is, in effect, a temptation for a protagonist to go all-out, completely devoid of restraint or moral consideration. My fellow Exalted and their Great Curse can be considered a form…as can my own iteration of that toxin, Clarity.
Macha: Which is?
Leliel: Basically his nature as a machine meant to serve, guide, and protect the people who built him overrrides the influence of his human emotions and soul if he doesn’t remind himself of irrational passions…which is not a good thing if you’re trying to avoid pissing off people or catch on to needed emotional context. Just ask Gale here:
Horizon: …mood coworker. But yes, I don’t quite dislike its effects, when I need to shut down everything except cold analysis; without strong emotions, my memory is more accurate and my ability to deduce hard truths is not impeded by tunnel vision. But Maker oh Maker do I get obtuse. If I had a glot for every time I’ve had to apologize for an insensitive remark caused by Clarity…but back to the trope, Superpowered Evil Sides are extremely popular in shounen and seinen anime these days. In many ways, they both allow for the power fantasy…and also shows the dangers inherent to reckless power. The question is not whether the protagonist is going to win, the question is whether they will lose more than they gain, and how they are going to control this side of themselves productively; the default idea is with Hollow Ichigo, from Bleach - a demonic alternate personality born of soul damage:
(https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Zangetsu_(Zanpakut%C5%8D_spirit)/Image_Gallery)
Catha: [Whistles] Nice mask.
Leliel: …please don’t get a crush on the undead embodiment of hunger over death masks…
Wanderer2691: If you’ll let me butt in - one should not that the Evil side does not need to be actually malevolent, or even sentient, just destructive. Fire Emblem Fates, my beloved, has a similar thing with player avatar Corrin’s dragon form:
(https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Feral_Dragon)
Macha: …that does not look like something a human should be.
Leliel: It very much isn’t. Corrin’s a Manakete (edit: prince_chrom informs us that is backwards, a Manakete is a dragon in human form while Corrin is a human that can turn into a dragon - functionally the same, but different origins), which is to say someone who can shift into a dragon form, but the issue is that all dragons in the franchise can’t remain as dragons and retain their sanity. This form only appears in the wake of the assassination of their long-lost mother and is directed at the assassins, but it’s clear Corrin can’t do anything except rage while like this - it takes a magical song from other main character Azura to even get them to realize someone’s calling them back to calm down, and then requires a Dragonstone to use without losing their mind. While the stone works to the extent that Corrin losing themself to the madness is no longer an issue in the plot, it still exists, and turns out to be very key to how the main villain got that way, so even post-transformation the dragon form is treated with healthy caution as a potentially self-destructive weapon.
Horizon: However, there’s been a recent tendency in many franchises to make the Evil Side a character in their own right, instead of a dark spin on the one we know. In such cases, it’s become frequent to make them a bit sympathetic, as it is with Black Asta from Black Clover here - or to use his true name, Liebe.
(https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Asta)
Wanderer2691: …So, normal Asta can’t seem to control all the rage that’s inside him?
Horizon: …relevant. But, to make a long story short, when a Witch Queen attempts to puppeteer Asta’s mind and suppress his personality to gain control of his magic-canceling ability, the demon within the spellbook he uses - which the titular Black Clover, by the way - awakens and tries to convince Asta to give up his body to the demon so as to seek revenge for the humiliation, and while it doesn’t take, he still finds remaining as Black Asta too long means the devil has a strong chance of influencing his actions to…kill other devils, regardless of how reasonable or safe the idea is. When Liebe is drawn out to be subdued before he fully takes over Asta, it’s soon revealed that the terrifying figure is in fact a demonic pauper, and moreover, that he lacks any magic of his own beyond nullification of others - which is not a good thing to be in the local version of Hell, which is a nightmare of a magocracy.
Macha: Let me guess - it’s a place where the only worth is what you are able to enforce through power.
Horizon: Very astute. Liebe was little more than an abused slave, and after a bit of bullying by his fellows left him stranded in the mortal world, the first good thing in his life happened when he was effectively adopted by a human woman…which the Devil King possessed Liebe in order to kill. As a result, Liebe’s anger is entirely righteous, focused on the destruction of every diabolic noble, he’s just blinded by rage and self-loathing. Asta realizes this quickly during the fight (Liebe can’t bring himself to kill someone he knows has done nothing immoral to him, so the killing intent is missing), and rather than bind him into slavery, accepts him as a friend and partner.
(https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Liebe)
Macha: Isn’t peace wonderful? Especially when it lets you fight better?
Horizon: That doesn’t mean that Evil Sides can’t be Evil, it’s just that “dangerous but tamable” is common. Which makes the genuinely evil sides even more striking as figures of temptation and corruption that the more heroic halves must depend on, like Ryoumen Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen, who isn’t just protagonist Yuji Itadori’s worst friend, but one of the main antagonists of the franchise due to his visceral hate for Yuji as a person combined with love of carnage:
Catha: …so, even more Chaos-aligned. More’s the pity, those four eyes are striking.
Nemhain: Catha’s taste in romantic partners aside, I do think I understand where you’re coming from. Both of these two aren’t just forces that give the main character things - they have their own agency, and remain as such. Which is to say, the kind of thing that message should imply about the Shield! It clearly tempted him!
Horizon: Actually, it’s even worse, because this Wrath Shield, this corrupted weapon of last resort that will drain Naofumi’s remaining sanity…is a straight power upgrade. This thing, that Naofumi claims will corrupt him in hate, is literally treated as wow so cool - and it didn’t even do that much!
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Advertising/WheresTheBeef)
Let’s see how this thing manifested, shall we? First, Filo was seemingly killed. That is a fine reason, even though we dislike her out of universe. Then the Wrath Shield made its offer and started blazing, and we saw how difficult it is to fight it without being scorched, as its power then started draining its wielder’s sanity…and then, suddenly, “Master Naofumi, come back!”, and he might as well be wearing a road flare for as much as it affects him. Tellingly, the only creature that seemed especially burned by it was Raphtalia, and the zombie dragon wasn’t even that injured by it, it just reared back after small parts were set on fire. Quite simply, not only is this capability not examined at all, apparently the Shield just asks questions when trying to indulge its desire for destruction - and then we see how easily Naofumi can be brought back. No trauma, no understanding of self and his dark side, his gladiatrix just hugs it away to indulge in the viewers’ fantasy. Corrin may have also dodged needing to worry about dragon madness too, but, here’s the critical difference - we actually got to see why they need the Dragonstone and are holding on to it for dear life afterwards!
Wanderer2691: Quite simply, from this episode, it’s hard to say what the Wrath Shield is even for, it can’t even burninate dragons well. However, in coming episodes, we will see what it’s used for - chickening out of fight scenes where the writers would have to be clever.
(https://www.etsy.com/listing/1296596024/get-out-of-jail-free-card-funny-gag-gift)
Horizon: It will not be the most egregious - actual chickens will be involved there. But really, this is truly a platonic idea of how this show views Naofumi - that his precious protagonist status is so fragile that when suddenly faced with even turning dark for a good cause…the franchise panics so badly that he ends up hurting his Sword more than anything he was fighting. Moreover - it doesn’t even use the Shield for cool fight scenes, like the aforementioned dragon form - it’s strong, but mechanically, it’s still just a unit that can’t turn the tide of battle…unlike the Wrath Shield suddenly conveniently can when it’d require too much effort to think of a fight. Quite simply, this is worth fifty points, for making the concept so utterly boring.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 361
And with that, my duty is done. Please suffer after I had to deal with that. [Suddenly vanishes as if he was never there]
Leliel: Yeah, he really doesn’t like being pulled into things he doesn’t feel interested in. It’s not Clarity, he just doesn’t like having a schedule disrupted.
Wanderer2691: Given how he’s coming back, I’m surprised you didn’t get a crossbow bolt through the skull when he realized what you wanted him for…
Nemhain: So, what’s next?
Morrigna: [Collective confused look]
Macha: Is it just me…or am I suddenly illiterate?
Catha: I…I can see something that looks like an M, but…my mind just isn’t catching it…
Leliel: Ugh...before wordcount ate it, we used to have a second title saying "the Most Forgettable Character." This is what we mean. You’re reading it fine, your memories just aren’t catching it. That’s how much of a nothing Melty is. Spoiler alert. Anyway, our first shot is the party fighting wasps and…axolotls?
Nemhain: Probably just lizards, but unimportant. What is important is this comment from Raphtalia of something important despite the fact she’s still burned and apparently Cursed:
[NAOFUMI] I'm the one who agreed to take this job. You don't have to force yourself to keep up.
{RAPHTALIA} No, I'll be fine. Master Naofumi, don't forget I'm the one who begged you to let me fight.
Horizon: [Poking his head in] Ah, just before I take my leave - spoken like a true Voidbringer cultist. For the record, someone who has been brainwashed by a monster who embraced the power of the Blight.
Wanderer2691: Honestly, being overtaken by a conceptual disease personifying malfunction and innovation used exclusively for war might make Naofumi nicer - he’d actually respect his living weapons as peers.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 433
Catha: But, they win, and Naofumi makes it clear he wants to head back into town now to get holy water and treat the curse burns. Because he’s such a good master. [Cawing retch]
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 434
Macha: But, that’s when Filo notices something interesting in the bushes…
Leliel: [Snorts] You can’t hear it, but the filolials are all doing the Discount Chocobo Kweh sound…except it’s way too flat, so it sounds like they’re particularly chatty ducks.
Nemhain: Honestly, probably a better Legally Distinct Bird Mount. Travels earth or sea! But, seeing strangers spooks them off, and we see their guest’s face for the first time:
Macha: …hey wait a minute….
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Malty_S_Melromarc)
…don’t tell me…
Wanderer2691: Yeah, theme naming strikes again; Melty is Malty’s younger sister. And I can also say nothing not-cliche is done with it.
Catha: Of course not. That’d require the show to respect its audience. But, opening, we cut to a last scene of the filolials fully escaping this show, and then-
{FILO} Those birds looked yummy. If we start now, we could still hunt them down.
Leliel: THE HORROR HAS BECOME CANNIBAL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BEFORE SHE EATS YOU WITH FAVA BEANS!
Wanderer2691: But seriously, the show claims that this is because Filo doesn’t recognize her own species, a la imprinted birds - but, one problem. Filo is sapient - and as noted, filolials are often cart animals:
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Filolial?so=search)
Are you seriously telling me she’s never seen another on the merchant road? And never at least asked or remembered being one? Seriously? The only thing this is setting up is a joke later in this same episode, and it is not worth it.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 362
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 304
{MELTY} So big...
[NAOFUMI AND RAPHTALIA] Huh?
{MELTY} Are you really and truly a filolial?
{FILO} Do you mean me?
{MELTY} And you can actually talk, as well!
Nemhain: …this is going to be kind of her thing, isn’t it?
Leliel: Yeah, one of the many reasons Melty is that forgettable is that she’s almost more an accessory to the Horror than her own character a lot of the time, including filolial obsession. But, that’ll be shown later. For now? She mostly squees over being able to talk with a filolial, apparently not knowing about Filolial Queens…in spite of being a princess who, if she is that obsessed with them, probably would have discovered that particular facet of their biology fast. Admittedly, she might be saying she’s surprised she met one knowing it was only theoretical, so I’m not scoring. Yet.
Macha: Naturally, she hits it off with Filo quite well, giving her some meat jerky as a treat, and incidentally making her full introduction. Naofumi quickly realizes that Melty’s in way too nice clothes to be just a village girl, she is clearly a member of the aristocracy. Which is fair:
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Melty_Q_Melromarc)
That getup probably requires a dedicated team to sew after she plays with the giant cart birds that peck at things.
Catha: Most of the rest is fine, with Melty rolling with Filo’s human form being revealed pretty well - but we get this comment:
Wanderer2691: [Rigid grin] First of all, slave owner, not adoptive father, and second, thanks for reminding me of her desire to mate you when a kid her age is a fucking newborn.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 435
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 423
Nemhain: That flashback-inducing aside later, we just see a bit of Naofumi distributing medicine to a town, while Filo and Melty have a playdate. Later that night, when Filo and Melty rejoin them, that’s when Melty reveals…something that is likely to result in a few guards losing their jobs. If her parents are feeling extremely merciful.
[FILO] [Melty] also told me how she got separated from the rest of her people while she was playing with filolials.
{NAOFUMI} Well, good for her… Hm? Wait... separated?
Macha: …”Wait” is right, separated? As in, from her escort? That can’t possibly be, I mean, she’s the damned princess-
[MELTY] I was on my way to the royal capital and, um… But then, when I saw all those beautiful filolials, I, uh...
[Very, very long pause]
Macha: Excuse me for a sec… [Opens portal to Melromarc Barracks, and telepathically beams a video into all minds]
HOW?! HOW DO YOU TOAD-LICKING GOBDAWS FUCK THAT UP?! THE PRINCESS PLAYS WITH THE FILOLIALS, AND YOU GET BORED LOOKING FOR HER?! WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, AND HOW DO YOU BREATHE WHEN YOU ARE THAT INBRED?!
Catha: I…bwuh…whaa…? Do we…do we even need to exposit on this? Because…the filolials aren’t even hard to scare off. They ran when someone stepped on a branch. And maybe, just maybe, check if the princess who is a filolial fangirl around where filolials are grazing. I just…twenty points. How….?
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 324
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 382 (Because it’s clearly an excuse for her to travel with them first.)
Wanderer2691: To skip a bit while our brains recover from the massive shock of stupid, basically she asks to join them on the way to the capital, and Naofumi agrees…because while it’d attract attention, he’d get a reward for returning a noble’s daughter (not knowing she’s a royal and her daddy is King Aultcray yet), and because Filo and Raphtalia bug him with basic decency about the lost girl until he’s open to doing so in return for a promise of bounty. Prick.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 467
Also, proof that the Shadows, at least, share at least one brain cell:
Nemhain: …and now I’m wondering why this lady didn’t go out and retrieve the full complement of guards now. Well, assuming she didn’t strangle them all in a rage at the gravity-bearing levels of density shown, which is plausible and a valid reaction.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 383
Anyway, we have a cost-saving montage, and Filo and Melty growing closer together…and then we get the unfunny joke we mentioned after we cut to Raphtalia waking up for campfire watch duties.
[RAPHTALIA] Huh? Where's Mel?
[NAOFUMI] Huh?
Leliel: Oooooh, noooo…why agaaaain…?
Macha: [Crazed look of suffering] But we can be assured that our protagonists have their moral priorities in order!
{RAPHTALIA} You don't think...
{NAOFUMI} Uh-uh. There's no way.
{RAPHTALIA} I can't believe that Filo--!
[NAOFUMI] Well, remember, she did say even her own kind looked yummy...
[RAPHTALIA] Yes, but...
[NAOFUMI] Raphtalia.
[RAPHTALIA] Yes?
[NAOFUMI] We saw nothing, okay?
[RAPHTALIA] Wha--?! What are you saying?!
[NAOFUMI] If we destroy the evidence...
[RAPHTALIA] You can't be serious!
[NAOFUMI] What, you think it's better for us to confess that Filo ate some nobleman's daughter?!
Catha: …Better for us, certainly. I wonder what Shield Hero eyes-onna-gibbet taste like…
Leliel: You know, for all the goofy music the show applies here tp this scene, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End had something similar about a demon girl, with her species’ notorious lack of anything resembling even cognitive empathy, killed a human adoptive sister and tried to give her adoptive mother a replacement, because that’s how she honestly thought how parental love works. This was done to emphasize that demons are inherently low-functioning psychopaths to a tragic degree and played for horror, similar to how Filo was apparently fast friends with Melty then absentmindedly ate her, according to these two assholes. And Frieren, upon seeing this, sighed that she warned everyone and zapped the demon, rather than attempt to cover it up. Basically, her titular show is better, and I’m also gleefully imagining her tearing Naofumi and Raphtalia new assholes. Or melting new ones into them, as it were. One point for each year the small child they just planned to cover up the death of lived.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 477
Wanderer2691: Of course, it doesn’t last - Filo wakes up and reveals that Mel’s just sleeping in her feathers, giving us a lovely shot of a buck naked preteen sticking out shoulder deep that we will not show for everyone's sake.
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 424
But, she’s fine, she just thinks Filo’s feathers are comfy, and her clothes are off for…some reason. Raphtalia falls asleep in them, Naofumi marvels at how fast they work, and end scene. Next!
Leliel: So, they arrive at the capital, Filo goes off to take Melty home, and Naofumi goes to stick his head in the lion’s den for no apparent reason.
[NAOFUMI] Why's the shield the only one missing?
Nemhain: Oh, a common, easily missed oversight, everyone makes that mistake, given how you are the fecking Devil to these people, moron. I assume you can, I don’t know, check a magic shop nearby to get Holy Water? Or use your incredible wealth to get a gofer?
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 478 (This is for idiocy more than entitlement, but for the love of God, man, you know everyone hates Shield! This isn’t a twist!)
Macha: So, they enter, and after somehow not meeting the business end of the temple guardians’ weapons rather than having nuns chat nervously…
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 384
…we discover none other than the Pope is in attendance.
Catha: As a side note, while it’s not explicitly given here, his name is Biscas T Balmus. There is probably a pun we don’t care to look up. And how does he react to the Shield Devil showing up?
[BISCAS] If it isn't the Shield Hero. Welcome to our humble church, my son, I saw your magnificent duel at the royal palace. I must say, the way you fought with the odds stacked against you made a profound impression on me, and I couldn't believe you held your own despite wielding only a shield.
[Long pause]
Macha: Question. Is there anything that says it was only decided the Shield Hero is the devil after several chapters of the web novel? Just a hunch, as there’s no reason to even pretend to be polite here. Yes, Biscas is being manipulative, and it’s likely he does this by default with everyone, but here, it’s a perfect moment to indulge his dark side and bully someone who everyone is going to nod along to hurting.
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 325
But as it is, Naofumi goes all business and asks for the most potent holy water, worth a gold coin. Raphtalia protests, saying that’s too much…
(https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Gag-me-with-a-Spoon-by-blueavocado/138101269.LVTDI)
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 436 (Oh look, you’re worth the investment now that Beloukas thinks you’re worth gold. How heartwarming.)
Wanderer2691: But that bit of Totes Caring aside, that’s when Naofumi notices something about the “best holy water.”
Yeah, I saw that coming. No shade on Naofumi for calling it the fuck out. But then…
{NUN} Well, I mean, uh...
If you did this to satisfy your personal beliefs, then you must repent… I hope I have made myself clear.
Leliel: You mean the beliefs you share, especially around a request of the Devil of the Shield to save a demihuman? …come to think of it, why are you chewing out a woman in the matriarchy, even if you’re a guy your entire culture things “okay, the guy who fucked up was a dude.” And you’re still in charge, and not a nun!
GASLIGHT GATEKEEP GIRL-LOSS: 327 (One for attacking a woman doing what the religion says is a smart thing, another for it being a woman in the supposed matriarchy.)
Nemhain: Given how Biscas immediately pitches his religion, I’m half-convinced it was a setup to spin things to his advantage…not that it works, Naofumi righty fingers him as a smug prick. But, no time to rest, when a guard apparently comes right at him!
Leliel: Oh hey, I know that guy!
Naofumi doesn’t recognize him though, and so he assumed it’s an attempt to harass him or otherwise arrest him…and why he thinks that when the Pope of the Church of Three Heroes is apparently cool with him is anyone’s guess, once again undergoing Schrodinger’s Prejudice when convenient to the plot.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 385
Macha: Realizing the guard’s “after” Naofumi, he and Raphtalia split up to lose him…and then Naofumi encounters someone who actually is after him, and still for legitimate reasons:
Leliel: Since Malty isn’t here, Clowns Farting in a Basement is yet unplayed, but I’m still humming it in my head. Especially this is where the show…’innovates’ to ‘show’ how ‘bad’ Motoyasu is.
{NAOFUMI} You're attacking me in the middle of the street?! What's wrong with you?!
Catha: Clearly because he’s as tired of you as we are.
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 84
Wanderer2691: See, Motoyasu saw Filo, and realized she was another slave of Naofumi’s, getting pissed and trying to free her…and being tragically uninformed of filolial biology, and what her age is:
{MOTOYASU} I've never seen a girl that perfect. She's incredible.
(https://tenor.com/view/calcifer-cal-doge-dog-pupper-gif-17238038)
Catha: …so, yeah. This is the thing. He apparently is a bit of a lolicon and thinks Filo’s hot. This is what makes him irredeemable. Because he finds Filo attractive. That’s proof of him being Da Baddie All Along.
Leliel: Right. Uh, remind me, how were we introduced to Filo’s human form?
{[FILO stands up, revealing herself to be completely naked, decency only kept via strategically placed hair bangs]} Master, hi! Good morning!
And after that, what was Filo’s motives for getting gagocco eggs?
Wanderer2691: But you see, those obvious signs of salaciousness involving Filo and appealing to the audience with that mentality is different, because unlike Motoyasu, the audience is self-inserting. So, it’s clearly way more skeevy, creepy, and unwanted, because it’s the jerk who clearly isn’t paying as many kindness coins into Filo and relationships come out, he’s cheating the system in all those pick-up artist handbooks.
Nemhain: Well, this is disgusting. Twenty points each, because vital to the plot, and ew.
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 104
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 444
Oh yeah, and Motoyasu’s wearing a codpiece now after the bird-he-doesn’t-realize-is-Filo groin hit him. So there’s that.
Macha: Anyway, duel begins, it begins to mutate into a riot, at which point the guard from before intervenes to stop Motoyasu. Boo.
However, as it turns out, Motoyasu didn’t come alone, and overheard that…
Leliel: Never mind, turns out Clowns Farting in a Basement is on after all!
Malty orders her guards to surround them, and…
[MYNE] Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare this an official duel between the Spear Hero and the Shield Hero. All thanks to the royal crown which has vested me with the authority to do so.
Catha: Continues to prove that her poor sister has an aura that drags the most idiotic people in the country to her orbit, on the basis that the riot that justified her bringing Naofumi in to torment in prison was happening right there. And now he gets to fight back all he wants! Absolute sterling schemer, this woman.
RED MENACE: 69 (Fitting, given how obsessed this show is with her usually unseen promiscuity.)
Thankfully, another fight scene we’ve seen the general shape of before is averted when Melty shows up, and we get the official reveal of her identity.
Macha: Long story short, the royal sisters do not like each other, and Melty’s pissed that Malty let/goaded Motoyasu into picking a fight in a public place. It’s also clear from a particular threat Melty makes that she’s the maternally favored sibling:
[MELTY] If I have to, I will let Mother know about this.
Wanderer2691: Remember that mentioning this is what’s causing Malty to go from ‘annoyed’ to ‘barely contained fury.’ Given what Mirellia lets happen to her later…honestly, the show accidentally a tragic backstory. And shows how its obsession with making her hated makes her a worse villain, because Malty’s jealousy being born of feeling inadequate to her younger sister would give a lovely bit of charismatic bitterness. It’d certainly give her a motive.
Nemhain: Oh, and Filo shows up too, and Motoyasu starts on his ‘poor you’ thing:
Leliel: Yep, you can see where this is headed. After the last time he unknowingly insulted the Horror, plus this, Filo snaps, and we get the source of a certain spork count:
One kick that overcomes the codpiece later, and Motoyasu and the Red Menace exit stage left, pursued by a medic, much to Melty’s exasperation.
Macha: …speaking of that count…
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 479
Yes, “He always puts us through hell.”, but last I checked, about half the time he did so was because you were keeping slaves, including this time. Frankly, you don’t get to feel just, you’re the author’s irritating favorite villain who everyone hates for constantly humiliating the actual hero.
Catha: Ugh, thankfully, we can get through the end - Melty decides to come clean and talk with Naofumi directly, they all hide out in Erhard’s shop to do so. We also discover that while Malty was born first…
Macha: You read that right. Mirellia more or less officially decided to skip Malty in favor of someone who isn’t even pubescent yet. I wonder why the sisters don’t get along?
Wanderer2691: Admittedly, we aren’t scoring this, as Malty being the Red Menace explicitly happened before the disinheriting, but once again - accidental tragic backstory. Because if Malty wasn’t already completely obsessed with the idea the only way she could get agency and power was to scheme for it, and that the only other person in the world she could trust was her father…
Nemhain: Of course, that’s not to say Melty doesn’t have her…own quirks.
[Beat]
Leliel: Melty, I’m sorry, but you’re developing an eye condition. You literally seem unable to perceive the right arms of people, or at least shields that are constantly attached to them and shapeshift.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FailedASpotCheck)
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 386
But anyhoo, before Melty can expound on her plan, Naofumi interrupts - at this point, he’s been burned by the royal family so much that he wants Melty, who was literally not bringing up the fact she was a member of the royal family, to get lost. And if we did forgiving points, he’d lose an I HATE YOU point, because this is the sanest reaction anyone in this show has had.
Nemhain: And we are DONE! And with that, the Morrigna will fly the coop until that damn ‘special spork’ is needed! [And they do.]
Wanderer2691: And the worst part is? That was one of the least painful pairs so far. Join us next time, as we see the next Wave of Calamity, and Itsuki joins the Team Professional Moron the other Cardinal Heroes are on.
“So…” Romuli Argentum looked over the new addition to his contacts. “Soul-Bearing Golem, huh? That’s new. Even for me.”
“Apparently, I’m actually closer to the original myths in the worldlines the Heroes are from,” Convergence of Horizon said, turning over the crystal in his forceps as the fob that came out of his skull focused on it. “It’s supposed to be exclusively a person made of clay and imbued with life and sapience to protect a community…which I am about, oh, 75%? Of course, the mythical golems can never speak and are largely mindless, so myself telling you all this makes it clear I’m not quite one.”
“Sounds like a bit too much nuance for my perspective, but I’ll take your word for it.” Romuli shrugged, before sniffing the crystal. “To be honest, I’m not sure why you’re so intent on this one crystal. It’s a Dragon Emperor Core - one reanimating its old dragon isn’t that far-fetched for one.”
“That’s precisely the issue. It’s not strange at all…what is strange is the plague.” He nodded at the gas masks Romuli and he were wearing. “Natural undeath doesn’t tend to result in illness spreading - a hungry ghost, body or no body, mostly exists to protect its grave site and sustain itself.”
“And that’s what’s getting me and Iana a wee bit flapped, aye,” Suspire said, his vampiric form the only one unmasked. “Because this is something that don’t make sense. Ren killed this thing because he was being a pain, aye? But you’d expect rage to be focused on him; it’s basic psychology.”
“We know the inhabitants of that village wanted to turn him into a tourist attraction, so while it’s not that strange for a hungry ghost to lash out at apparent defilers of the grave, he wasn’t killed by disease; to follow the logic of death, it’d be more likely that everyone would be driven mad by hallucinations of a vengeful dragon stalking them or being stabbed by spontaneously forming Underworld phantoms.” Iana hummed, a black sphere of necrotic Essence dancing between her fingers as she thought. “Actually, what was he doing when alive?”
Suspire’s eyes flashed red as his Crime-Unveiling Wickedness ability sensed a mystery within a mystery. “...huh. Check the resonance itself, and why this was made; I be getting an odd feeling from that.”
“You’re the expert,” Horizon muttered, changing out a lens in his array - and blinking. “...my Technological Analysis Engrams state that the purpose this Core had when it became a force of animation was ‘revenge against thieves who tricked the Sword Hero into murdering me, and to fully awaken the Shield of Wrath’.”
There was a stony silence, before everyone not from the village silently turned to a suddenly very nervous village doctor.
“...We didn’t know,” he finally said after a good bit of internal wrestling. “We didn’t know the reason Gaelion wasn’t sharing…”
“...Start from the top,” Iana muttered, rubbing her temples.
“It was those Shield-damned tenthshare taxes!”, the elder shouted. “We don’t have enough to pay nine parts of everything we made to the Church and expect to survive! And…well, we knew a pureblood dragon likely had money, enough to get us through the winter until we paid our dues for guarding against monsters that one year…”
“And you tricked Ren into being your unknowing hitman,” Horizon said, sourly. “Without even asking this…Gaelion if he was willing or able to share.”
“Ngh…that damned beast merchant…he said that Dragon Emperors would rather die than part with their hoard…” The doctor held his head. “And he was the one that suggested we make his corpse into an attraction for adventurers seeking dragon parts, and that the Sword Hero would be an ideal champion...”
Romuli frowned. “The…beast merchant…?” He blinked, before his ears suddenly pinned back. “...question. Was this merchant a short man in a feather boa and top hat named Beloukas?”
“...yes? You know him?”
The silence was even stonier.
“...On a hunch…” The lens carrying Horizon’s Technological Analysis Engrams flipped back into his skull, as the circuit boards in his skin lit up with gentle golden light that wove into fractals.
The crystal screeched.
The alarmed Alchemical quickly dropped the Core as the crystal cracked and fell away, revealing something simultaneously more and less organic than its shell. Tumorous fleshy growths of pale, unearthy flesh threaded between black metal that seemed to drink the light, becoming what was almost a void in space. Toxic, foul-smelling smoke belched out from the cracks, reeking of the stench of dying flesh and industrial waste. As sharp, cruel-looking gears wound down, everyone could hear an almost animal growl of hate and spite towards what could be called its “killers”, if it was alive enough to die.
Horizon inhaled. “...find where Misses Boonchuy, Amagi, Satonaka, and Noceda got off to. They’re going to need to be present when I explain what the Blight is - and what sort of inventions it inspires.”
OOC: This is actually based on something in the wiki - apparently, in Volume 12 of the light novel and web novel both, it’s revealed that apparently, the villagers conned Ren and only ever wanted the dragon’s hoard. Naturally, there was no foreshadowing at all at this point or other hints later on (let alone the dragon was sentient and named Gaelion), but I do note that this suspiciously only became a thing when Ren was due to be sympathetic. I’m not giving points to things the anime didn’t cover yet, but ye gods the moral cowardice of suddenly making excuses for anyone the franchise wants you to think is heroic. You can have done objectively dumb things and remain sympathetic, you don’t need to suddenly ruin a village’s entire reputation to make it not as bad. So, I decided to split the difference - and ruin the government of Melromarc’s reputation. Because the Queen deserves it.
[Image heavy by necessity.]
[Spoilers for Black Clover, Jujutsu Kaisen]
[Scripts are from https://transcripts.foreverdreaming.org/viewforum.php?f=2415, not sporker original work]
[Link to fork on das_sporking]
[As the scene opens, it becomes clear that the only two human people are present.]
Leliel: …so that’s kind of why we need you guys. Because the main sporkers have officially called a break after that shit, and given how it’s about a sentient magical bird…
Green-Eyed Crow: …This still feels like a mite speciesist. Or maybe I just really don’t want to.
Red Hawk With Sword: Do ye ever, Catha?
Winged Woman: If anything’s going to make her more than just being stubborn, though…Danu’s tits. I feel almost inadequate at this.
Wanderer2691: And camera’s on-hey guys! Welcome back, to what is currently a very demonic co-sporker cast! …literally, all these ladies are Shin Megami Tensei demons, which we have…well, dragged from the Expanse because understandably, our normal co-sporkers would have held a mutiny, led by an actual pirate.
Leliel: And the thing is, ironically, these two episodes are a bit of a break from the creepy nonsense, just really weird and cliche nonsense. But we felt that after The Horror really scarred us, we needed three birds - especially given how here, we have an episode about consequences of heroism, and perhaps the most pointless royal we’ll meet in the series…including Mircella. But first, Sporker Roll Call!
Hawk: So it be. Macha, goddess of war, horses, and rulership in Irish myth, reporting for duty.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Macha)
Catha: …Badb Catha. Goddess of death in war and battle fury.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Badb_Catha)
Woman: And Nemhain, goddess of morale and the chaos of war!
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Nemhain)
And yes, we’re all Celtic war goddesses. The Morrigna, to be precise. No, I don’t ken why we were all needed.
Wanderer2691: Because we’re going to need a very distinct perspective about a certain Red Menace that you three are most qualified to provide. Not now, but I think we should set the groundwork.
Nemhain: …okay then. That…isn’t exactly a comforting thought, but…
Leliel: While these three don’t have that distinct areas of interest, they will be commenting a lot on the logistical side of conflict, social effects, and how fucking useless this country’s royal family is. But, without further ado…let’s see what that dead dragon was about!
Episode 8: Curse Shield
Catha: [Suddenly looks interested] Well now…
Wanderer2691: Yeah, somehow I thought you and Nemhain would be all over that thing…but believe me, you’ll probably be disappointed given how little is done with it. Anyway, episode opens on Raphtalia and Filo snoozing while Naofumi is blacksmithing something, which turns out to be…
Leliel: For the record, that jewelry is stuff he’s fitting to his slaves to surprise them with gifts when they wake up…always a factor in an abusive relationship, the buttering-up phase…and decorating your possessions…
Macha: …well, that didn’t take long.
Wanderer2691: [Grimace of Absolute Fury] Oh, it really fucking does. I already had the Warp-Spasm last time, but it’s only because of exhaustion I’m not doing it now - because this isn’t just fucking creepy, it’s ostentatious. He’s gone beyond just “surviving”, no matter what the show is desperately claiming. He is actively putting adornment on his property to show off. This isn’t a gift - it’s treating them like fucking pets. Yeah, sure, they smile and are glad for it - so are a lot of dogs. The dogs are still not being treated like people no matter how nice they look! One hundred points, both for the attitude - and for the sheer subtle abandonment of the core justification for all this.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 429
Catha: Honestly, is there any way this could get more pandering and manipulative as metatext?
{FILO}: {[waking up briefly]})What's wrong, master? Can't you get to sleep tonight?
[NAOFUMI]: {[Hiding gold]} I just came to check on the two of you. Go back to sleep.
{FILO}:M'kay… Good night, master... Thank you for checking up on us.
Nemhain: …uh, I’m not sure. I can’t see the screen for all the sirens blaring in my ears. Sometimes I hate being able to hear dogwhistles.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 430
Leliel: Anyway, title sequence, then we get into the episode proper. Filo’s being tacked up, when two people approach the party:
Macha: To their very minor credit, Naofumi does share some soup with the two of them, and we get their advice:
[MOTHER] You folks would do well to turn back while you can.
{SON} If you keep going forward on this path, you'll die.
[RAPHTALIA] Huh?
[NAOFUMI] We heard there's a village down this path.
{MOTHER} The village is devastated. Even the village elder got sick with the plague.
Nemhain: Now, this I like. It’s intriguing, and it’s definitely something a regular hero would be involved with, even if actually going into the plague town is not advised. Honestly, more scenes like this would do a lot to-
[NAOFUMI] I'm a traveling merchant. I have medicines to sell.
Nemhain: -unfortunately, there’s not a lot of scenes like that. [Sigh]
Catha: It may be the Law in us speaking, but frankly, immediately hawking medicine to a town undergoing an epidemic is a bit ghoulish, and yes I am aware of the irony of the death goddess saying it. More importantly - you don’t know if it’ll even help. Yes, healing potions and all, but this is where the whole “stat magic” thing shows how shallow it is; discovering that health potions don’t work on, say, bacterial infections, because the bacteria are their own living entities unlike a virus, is a genuinely neat twist. It also has precedent, given the parasitic plants needed defoliant. No points, but frankly, none of us are a wee bit merciful.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 404
Wanderer2691: So, the guy recognizes Filo as the Heavenly Fowl-
The Morrgina: The WHAT?!
Wanderer2691: Ugh, it’s a whole thing, and it’s stupid - you ladies are not going to like seeing the whole exploration of filolial society, assuming you’re even there. But yeah, Naofumi’s rep precedes him, as the village clinic opens its doors. Naofumi points out he’s only a merchant, but the doc says it’s fine because…
Macha: Obviously. There might need to be inconvenience to get the stressed doctor to open up, and the writer can’t have that when fluffing the self-insert! Of course.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 298
Leliel: Anyway, Naofumi administers it to give the potions a Shield boost, which is actually clever, and after he’s done…I’m going to show two sets of screenshot back to back. First, what Naofumi sees before…
And the first thing he says to the doctor after treatment is completed, as he gets paid 50 silver?
Wanderer2691: …and why are you worried about that now?! Freaking vulture, these people literally are draining village coffers in a plague and you get “eh, it’s a bit short but I’ll take it because I’m such a nice guy”?! Nice charity there, Scrooge!
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 405
Macha: Oh, and he’s not done. Because as soon as the doctor thanks him and seems to be satisfied…
{NAOFUMI} And that's enough for you? All I did was treat their symptoms. I didn't cure them. In no time, they'll be right back to square one.
{DOCTOR} I'm afraid you are indeed correct.
[NAOFUMI] Not that I mind, since I'd make good money anyway. Why don't we just see which dies out first--you or your pocketbook…
Nemhain: …oh, look at these glasses and this helmet. Excuse me, sir, but I think you dropped them…Mammon.
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Mammon)
Wanderer2691: [Traumatic flashback to boss fight] The robots…the robots…
Catha: Honestly, this is the kind of thing Kunikazu Okumura, who willingly forced his daughter to marry an objectively awful man to get at political connections, would hesitate at. Mostly because it’d link to him, but he would at least be pragmatic enough to acknowledge that, maybe, trying to blackmail plague victims and taunting them about it might not reflect well on a political career! [Cawing spit.] Fifty points for every not-enough silver!
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 455
Leliel: And this is where the character assassination of the Cardinal Heroes really starts to kick into high gear. Because that’s when the nurse points out the actual source of the plague is a wind from the local monster nest in the mountain.
[NAOFUMI] Yeah, I did hear some rumors a while back. But wait a sec. How does that connect with the plague that's here?
Catha: …that’s what I want to know. What, is there a vengeful ghost? …please say yes, then things would be intriguing.
Wanderer2691: Oh look, the monkey’s paw curled. But in this case, no. Because this show is also a believer in medical urban myths. But we’ll get there. First of all, as the doc explains…
{DOCTOR} many adventurers came to our village, mostly in order to see the dragon's corpse as well as to purchase supplies. That certainly did help the village to flourish, of course.
{DOCTOR} The dragon's flesh had begun to rot and began emitting some kind of poison.
Macha: O…kay…? I mean, it is a dragon in a fantasy world, the flesh releasing poison as a final feck off to its killers is hardly the most out-there retaliation-
[NAOFUMI] Damn Ren!
Actually, I guess it must've slipped his mind, since he thinks this world's just a game.
[Beat]
Nemhain: As opposed to big, brainy, very adult college students, who understand the healing power of homeopathy, pyramids, and crystals. That is not how decay works.
(https://www.mysportscience.com/post/what-is-pseudoscience)
Catha: Alright, take it from the expert - while disposing of a corpse needs to be careful, and leaving it rot in the air where it fell is not a good plan, what it cannot do is taint the air. That seems against common sense, hence why miasma theory was a thing for generations, but here’s a big secret about pathogens - if they kill their host, they’ve failed. They want the host to continue living to spread them and reinfect later, mayhap, because pathogens are parasites - they can’t really survive in a dead body. Yes, a corpse can become a vector for a disease it was infected with, but the corpse generally has to be closely handled or to pollute water, where the disease is protected from the, uh, everything in the open air, and obviously a corpse can’t breathe, so it’s not breathing out germs in aerosol. The decay ecology organisms that make the distinct stench aren’t pathogens, though they’re often unsanitary and toxic - they literally aren’t interested in the living, and the stench is generally their waste products, not the organisms themselves. Most importantly - to get a disease from a corpse, it needs to have been infected first and probably died of it.
Macha: You may have noticed that there isn’t a disease called Being-Stabbeditis. As morbidly funny as the idea of a disease that has a terminal stage of anime protagonists suddenly turning agro, I somehow doubt that Ren grinding off you is transmissible…and that Ren should have been asked, especially because he’s not the one who is asked to dispose of it. The tourist attraction was entirely the town’s idea going by the script, or at least if it’s not, the show utterly failed at conveying that. And even if it was Ren’s idea - the man is literally not paid to know corpse disposal. He removes the threat and moves on, any advice would be a suggestion from a mercenary who might not know any better and the town knows it. Quite simply, it comes off like Naofumi is looking for reasons to feel superior - and it’s clear the series really, really wants you, as the least common denominator otaku, to agree so you feel superior to the cool boy, a la a Dungeon Master that is very intent on making his self-insert suck the least and trying to make it so the players like them via being the only one who can fix problems. As it is, we are not. What we are doing is giving ten points to the relevant scores, as we don’t fecking buy it.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 465
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 83
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 308 (Oh look, a problem Naofumi can solve and look cooler than Ren in, how very novel.)
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 301 (Was it really that hard to say dragons specifically release poison as they decay and Ren didn’t bother looking that up, just seeing it as a random encounter? Really?)
Wanderer2691: But Ren’s good name being the sudden target of Dr. Iwatani (Ph.D in Young Adult Literature Studies) here aside, basically the villagers can’t get rid of it - the mountains filled with monsters, and the ecology has changed a bit due to the giant honking decaying dragon corpse. As a result, average adventurers can’t get near it, and Melromarc’s government is being typically useless and slow in getting the elites and an actual medicine supply. So, Naofumi says he’ll do it, to which the healers thank him and - well, he is interminably himself.
{NAOFUMI} You can keep your thanks. What I want is your money. Five hundred silvers will do it.
{DOCTOR} Five hundred?! That's too much!
{NAOFUMI} That includes hazard pay so you can just give me what you were going to pay the court, or were you hoping for a discount?
Leliel: You know, scalpers and grifters are known for charging way more than official sources for their services. I don’t know why that came to mind. It seemed relevant.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 466
Macha: What is with him?! He’s no hero, he’s just-
{NURSE} "Savior," my foot. He's just a lousy money-grubber.
[DOCTOR] You musn't speak like that.
Catha: *Doctor* “There’s far harsher language warranted.” But in reality, this show is once again trying to milk this for cheap sympathy, as Naofumi goes “I don't recall asking anybody to call me a savior” and then we get this…
[RAPHTALIA] Master Naofumi, you're deliberately trying to make them hate you, aren't you?
Nemhain: Dearie, please. Making excuses for someone is a sign of being in an abusive relationship. He’s just a greedy sack of shite. No points, but I am noting that self-sabotage only comes up when it’s a convenient excuse for pissing everyone off for good reason. Though, I do like that Naofumi puts on a Poison Resistance Shield, and the little kerchief masks for corpse cleanup:
{RAPHTALIA} but this is a lot more than what we usually carry.
Wanderer2691: Which includes food, and not for a good reason - rather, Filo got really protective of the stuff in the wagon:
{FILO} We can't leave it behind!
[NAOFUMI] Yeah, right, a lifetime of a whole month.
[FILO growls]
Leliel: [Eye twitch] Thanks for reminding me the Horror is that young given what she’s used for. And that she is thus a source of fractal positions on the sex offender registry.
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 421
Macha: Thankfully, a bit can be skipped. The supplies turn out to maybe have been advised due to a small army of monsters, but Filo’s charging combined with a Fast Guard spell from Naofumi results in the group ramming through easily. We then see the corpse itself…
{NAOFUMI} Looking at this isn't doing wonders for my appetite.
Wanderer2691: I’d be glad I didn’t eat, but eh, it’s subjective. There’s a funny moment where it turns out Filo is a bit of a carrion eater and absentmindedly eats some Bio Plant fruits because it triggers her “scavenge” response, but as it turns out, there’s a rather different challenge than just dismantling the corpse for transport and burial:
Leliel: Oh shit, Ravener![/Pathfinder Nerd]. But seriously, the Dragon Zombie is a neat twist…and makes the idea that “nyeh, Sword Hero stoopid, can’t am know germ theory are wrong” even more dumb, because “this thing is undead and literally became a breeding ground for plague on its own due to necromancy” is both way more palatable, and might actually be Ren’s fault for not considering last rites to appease its soul.
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 302
Nemhain: Raphtalia and Naofumi wisely decide to evacuate, but the fact it is a dragon provokes Filo’s Totally-Not-Deliberately-Programmed filolial aggression, and she rushes the zombie.
Wanderer2691: …you know what, I’m making this an utterly unofficial contest. You put the most funny caption you can to Sumo Chicken vs. Zombie Dragon here. I’m curious.
Catha: And now the group realizes they need to fight it, especially when it starts breathing poison and possibly making the town’s situation worse. Issue is, that shield doesn’t convey poison resistance to Filo or Raphtalia…and why the intentionally overpowered support weapon does not do that is never explained…
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 302
…but Filo keeps attacking:
Leliel: I’m not sure of the CGI blood here, which is…pretty tasteful, actually, but it’s kind of hard to catch the glorious moment. But, suffice to say, this is the dragon zombie’s current theme song:
Macha: I’d celebrate, but to be honest we all ken she’s alive. Especially given how she’s swallowed whole. But, to continue the dance of alleged tragedy…
Catha: [Bored] Ah yes, scream, dragon attacks, sad montage that is conveniently saving on animation budget, very sad. It’s also here where we get a bit of a meditation from Naofumi:
Is this world going to take everything from me again?
Wanderer2691: See, this is the point where I recognize what’s trying to be said here, and I’d be fine with it…except Naofumi is, above all else, profoundly selfish. He literally does not care about life except as how it affects him. So all I can see is “I, me, myself,” in all this. Which is a bloody shame, because that kind of entitlement makes this a lot more interesting:
Nemhain: …Those…are not happy letters…
Macha: And…even less happy glitches…
Catha: O…kay. Apparently, Lucifer can communicate through stat screens…or Lilith, at least. Definitely has precedence in our corner of the multiverse:
(https://megamitensei.fandom.com/wiki/Issachar)
Leliel: Honestly, not that far off. This is the full awakening of Ye Olde Shonen Superpowered Evil Side, the Wrath Shield - or technically, the Shield of Rage right now. Which, he unintentionally shows off a bit to Raphtalia…
Wanderer2691: …given the marks, I’d ask if we’re sure it should be called that, but then I remembered Khorne, Chaos God of War, isn’t into shields. More like axes.
Leliel: It’s also way more magical than what Mr. Skull Throne likes, as its flames aren’t just for show:
Macha: …okay, that I can see in a defensive Wrath-based power set. Counterattacks, and rather sadistic ones at that. So, how does it translate into direct aggression?
Wanderer2691: …that’s the thing. We don’t see it.
Catha: …Cad?
Leliel: Yeah. We see Naofumi walking towards the Dragon Zombie menacingly as he watches visions of Malty alternatively taunting him and burning alive…
And then suddenly, his eyes clear and he hears Raphtalia:
And then, cut back to reality-
Nemhain: …okay, first of all, feck off with that “love brings him back” bullshit, he cares for you as a gladiatrix and not anything else-
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 430
…second, how the in the name of Tech Duinn did she get scorched like that?! And then fall over unconscious?!
Wanderer2691: We’re not kidding! It’s just a weird hallucination, suddenly there’s a fried raccoon! And the zombie isn’t that injured either, just Raph, so we don’t know if Naofumi lashed out at her in the berserker rage or he was just on so much fire it burned her when she got close! And we certainly didn’t see any cool “lost all moral restraints” carnage either! We just snap here, and suddenly, Naofumi’s back to normal with his shield on fire!
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 309
Leliel: This is one of the many, many things I despise about the Wrath Shield, not the least because it’s way too early…but I’ll save that rant. Because after Naofumi desperately starts healing her in a way that feels earned enough to skip a point (he did realize he accidentally scorched her after all), suddenly we see something moving in the zombie’s gut, and…
Sporkers: CALLED IT! ROLL THE CLIP!
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 310
Catha: So, turns of that “blood” was actually fruit Filo spat up, she’s not even that injured, but being inside the undead belly let her find…Magnetite?
Nemhain: I guess? I’ve never heard of it animating a corpse and then the zombie dying as soon as it’s destroyed…but that’s what happened when Filo saw it, and Naofumi instantly gets it. Makes it easy!
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 311
Leliel: Actually, there’s also crystals that get farted out of nowhere to animate dragons somehow, and this isn’t followed up on. Seems relevant, maybe even something the Waves of Calamity did - but nope, weak point that is just kinda there…
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 303
…but thankfully, I can summarize the rest. Party goes back to hospital, turns out Raphtalia’s burns are cursed but she claims it was the Dragon Zombie that did it…yeah, great codependency there, very nice…
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 431
And the nurse makes a remark on Naofumi attending to her…
Catha: [Angry caw] Yes, as an investment and ornament.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 432
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 421 (She gives a noticeable blush after that.)
Wanderer2691: Naofumi’s told to go back to the city for better treatment of curse wounds, feeding the remnant of the crystal core to the Shield is a bit high level for now to be unlocked, Naofumi realizes the Wrath Shield isn’t part of the normal tree and is very dangerous to people around him, everyone engages in self-blame for things going sideways, Raphtalia asks if she can sleep next to him-gross-
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 422
-but he has none of it and tells her to sleep with Filo, and he resolves to be stronger for the people who believe in him. Bing bang boom, we’re done!
Macha: [Facepalming with a wing] I think I see why you need co-sporkers…
Leliel: Yep…but before the next, it’s time for Uncle Leliel’s Mid-Duology Episode Rant Time!
(https://tenor.com/view/schabe-shite-gif-21821907)
…which I am leaving to one of Iana’s friends, because I already had my rant on the Curse Series, and to be frank, I’m feeling mighty spiteful towards my Exalted OCs for having run like cowards. So, I’m gonna hand over the mike to someone we think might be good for critiquing this nightmare government later. [Snaps fingers, reveals co-spoker]
Iridescent Man: [Grumbles as he shifts into view]
Wanderer2691: WHOA! Were you always there?!
Iridescent Man: Yes. I am no Moonsilver, but I can be functionally invisible when I want to be, especially around, no offense, mortals. Plus, your gods helped.
Nemhain: Uh, the term’s ‘demon’, but yeah. We figured we needed someone to bounce off of. But, introductions?
Horizon: Convergence of Horizons, Convergence or Horizon for short. Ambassador of the Clastat-Nurad Exploration Initiative to Champoor and original co-witness of the Pact of Oil and Sea. Before you ask, the shine is because most of me is clay where it isn’t starmetal. I am an Alchemical Exalted - to make a long-story short, what your people would call an android, created by the inhabitants of the living machine-world of Autochthonia, body of the Great Maker Autochthon, from a mystically charged metal and imbued with life and consciousness from the soul of a hero of my people. I am effectively the voice and a lead scientist of the Locust Crusade we needed to begin to save our world and god through securing resources needed for the intensive repairs, and my purpose is to help Creation-born help us find a sustainable long-term harvest and tithe, and to study the multiverse in general. And finding allies who appreciate trading help for our technological superiority, of course.
Leliel: Yeah, Autocthonians are about as close to true alien invaders as you get in Exalted - as in, a technologically advanced mortal species invading to loot the planet. Thing is, they need the loot to save their god, and thus themselves - and they don’t regard other humans as inherently enemies, they’re canonically just as shocked that they found their own species on the other side of the dimensional barrier. In my Creation, the first portals appeared around the parts of the Dreaming Sea that had Champoor in it, and Horizon unintentionally became the official founder of Iana’s Circle when he realized they were all looking for the same thing. Then he later found Champoor didn’t mind playing host and naval backup to a nearby mining and research colony in return for tech like mass-produced crossbows and electricity - anything to get one over on Prasad and Ysyr, and ensure full independence of the Sea from the Realm, and possibly the seed of a new hegemonic empire of their own. But I digress.
Horizon: Quite; we’ll describe as it becomes relevant. But, as it is, I am being tapped because we Autocthonians have long experience with Artifact weapons with malevolent wills of their own; Lord Autochthon has a chronic illness, you see, and in his divine flesh, that becomes the Blight on a human scale.
Catha: …I take it it’s not a particularly stubborn patch of posies and Autochthon just hates plantlife, I suppose?
Wanderer2691: Not hardly. In reference terms, the Blight is basically what would happen if the Phyrexians from Magic: the Gathering were taken over by SHODAN.
Macha: First of all, yikes, second, I get the sense you are delaying. Point, please?
Horizon: Point is, we are all too used to material magic that is literally infected with the desire to be a weapon against all that makes life worth living. But, beyond the fact I am being unpleasantly reminded of Blight theotechnology, I have done an assessment of your fiction…and on a metanarrative level, it fails at what it is supposed to be. Allow me to exposit a bit on Superpowered Evil Sides, spoilers for Black Clover and to a much lesser extent Jujutsu Kaisen.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SuperpoweredEvilSide)
Nemhain: Oh so that’s where Etrigan went! Shame, most of his family aren’t good company - the forces of Chaos might be my enemy, but he was respectful about it.
Horizon: …Apparently that universe is part of your planar system. Who knew? But I digress; to make this trope short, a Superpowered Evil Side is fundamentally a berserk mode - something that almost certainly will solve the immediate problem, but in the worst and most destructive way possible. It is, in effect, a temptation for a protagonist to go all-out, completely devoid of restraint or moral consideration. My fellow Exalted and their Great Curse can be considered a form…as can my own iteration of that toxin, Clarity.
Macha: Which is?
Leliel: Basically his nature as a machine meant to serve, guide, and protect the people who built him overrrides the influence of his human emotions and soul if he doesn’t remind himself of irrational passions…which is not a good thing if you’re trying to avoid pissing off people or catch on to needed emotional context. Just ask Gale here:
Horizon: …mood coworker. But yes, I don’t quite dislike its effects, when I need to shut down everything except cold analysis; without strong emotions, my memory is more accurate and my ability to deduce hard truths is not impeded by tunnel vision. But Maker oh Maker do I get obtuse. If I had a glot for every time I’ve had to apologize for an insensitive remark caused by Clarity…but back to the trope, Superpowered Evil Sides are extremely popular in shounen and seinen anime these days. In many ways, they both allow for the power fantasy…and also shows the dangers inherent to reckless power. The question is not whether the protagonist is going to win, the question is whether they will lose more than they gain, and how they are going to control this side of themselves productively; the default idea is with Hollow Ichigo, from Bleach - a demonic alternate personality born of soul damage:
(https://bleach.fandom.com/wiki/Zangetsu_(Zanpakut%C5%8D_spirit)/Image_Gallery)
Catha: [Whistles] Nice mask.
Leliel: …please don’t get a crush on the undead embodiment of hunger over death masks…
Wanderer2691: If you’ll let me butt in - one should not that the Evil side does not need to be actually malevolent, or even sentient, just destructive. Fire Emblem Fates, my beloved, has a similar thing with player avatar Corrin’s dragon form:
(https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Feral_Dragon)
Macha: …that does not look like something a human should be.
Leliel: It very much isn’t. Corrin’s a Manakete (edit: prince_chrom informs us that is backwards, a Manakete is a dragon in human form while Corrin is a human that can turn into a dragon - functionally the same, but different origins), which is to say someone who can shift into a dragon form, but the issue is that all dragons in the franchise can’t remain as dragons and retain their sanity. This form only appears in the wake of the assassination of their long-lost mother and is directed at the assassins, but it’s clear Corrin can’t do anything except rage while like this - it takes a magical song from other main character Azura to even get them to realize someone’s calling them back to calm down, and then requires a Dragonstone to use without losing their mind. While the stone works to the extent that Corrin losing themself to the madness is no longer an issue in the plot, it still exists, and turns out to be very key to how the main villain got that way, so even post-transformation the dragon form is treated with healthy caution as a potentially self-destructive weapon.
Horizon: However, there’s been a recent tendency in many franchises to make the Evil Side a character in their own right, instead of a dark spin on the one we know. In such cases, it’s become frequent to make them a bit sympathetic, as it is with Black Asta from Black Clover here - or to use his true name, Liebe.
(https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Black_Asta)
Wanderer2691: …So, normal Asta can’t seem to control all the rage that’s inside him?
Horizon: …relevant. But, to make a long story short, when a Witch Queen attempts to puppeteer Asta’s mind and suppress his personality to gain control of his magic-canceling ability, the demon within the spellbook he uses - which the titular Black Clover, by the way - awakens and tries to convince Asta to give up his body to the demon so as to seek revenge for the humiliation, and while it doesn’t take, he still finds remaining as Black Asta too long means the devil has a strong chance of influencing his actions to…kill other devils, regardless of how reasonable or safe the idea is. When Liebe is drawn out to be subdued before he fully takes over Asta, it’s soon revealed that the terrifying figure is in fact a demonic pauper, and moreover, that he lacks any magic of his own beyond nullification of others - which is not a good thing to be in the local version of Hell, which is a nightmare of a magocracy.
Macha: Let me guess - it’s a place where the only worth is what you are able to enforce through power.
Horizon: Very astute. Liebe was little more than an abused slave, and after a bit of bullying by his fellows left him stranded in the mortal world, the first good thing in his life happened when he was effectively adopted by a human woman…which the Devil King possessed Liebe in order to kill. As a result, Liebe’s anger is entirely righteous, focused on the destruction of every diabolic noble, he’s just blinded by rage and self-loathing. Asta realizes this quickly during the fight (Liebe can’t bring himself to kill someone he knows has done nothing immoral to him, so the killing intent is missing), and rather than bind him into slavery, accepts him as a friend and partner.
(https://blackclover.fandom.com/wiki/Liebe)
Macha: Isn’t peace wonderful? Especially when it lets you fight better?
Horizon: That doesn’t mean that Evil Sides can’t be Evil, it’s just that “dangerous but tamable” is common. Which makes the genuinely evil sides even more striking as figures of temptation and corruption that the more heroic halves must depend on, like Ryoumen Sukuna in Jujutsu Kaisen, who isn’t just protagonist Yuji Itadori’s worst friend, but one of the main antagonists of the franchise due to his visceral hate for Yuji as a person combined with love of carnage:
Catha: …so, even more Chaos-aligned. More’s the pity, those four eyes are striking.
Nemhain: Catha’s taste in romantic partners aside, I do think I understand where you’re coming from. Both of these two aren’t just forces that give the main character things - they have their own agency, and remain as such. Which is to say, the kind of thing that message should imply about the Shield! It clearly tempted him!
Horizon: Actually, it’s even worse, because this Wrath Shield, this corrupted weapon of last resort that will drain Naofumi’s remaining sanity…is a straight power upgrade. This thing, that Naofumi claims will corrupt him in hate, is literally treated as wow so cool - and it didn’t even do that much!
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Advertising/WheresTheBeef)
Let’s see how this thing manifested, shall we? First, Filo was seemingly killed. That is a fine reason, even though we dislike her out of universe. Then the Wrath Shield made its offer and started blazing, and we saw how difficult it is to fight it without being scorched, as its power then started draining its wielder’s sanity…and then, suddenly, “Master Naofumi, come back!”, and he might as well be wearing a road flare for as much as it affects him. Tellingly, the only creature that seemed especially burned by it was Raphtalia, and the zombie dragon wasn’t even that injured by it, it just reared back after small parts were set on fire. Quite simply, not only is this capability not examined at all, apparently the Shield just asks questions when trying to indulge its desire for destruction - and then we see how easily Naofumi can be brought back. No trauma, no understanding of self and his dark side, his gladiatrix just hugs it away to indulge in the viewers’ fantasy. Corrin may have also dodged needing to worry about dragon madness too, but, here’s the critical difference - we actually got to see why they need the Dragonstone and are holding on to it for dear life afterwards!
Wanderer2691: Quite simply, from this episode, it’s hard to say what the Wrath Shield is even for, it can’t even burninate dragons well. However, in coming episodes, we will see what it’s used for - chickening out of fight scenes where the writers would have to be clever.
(https://www.etsy.com/listing/1296596024/get-out-of-jail-free-card-funny-gag-gift)
Horizon: It will not be the most egregious - actual chickens will be involved there. But really, this is truly a platonic idea of how this show views Naofumi - that his precious protagonist status is so fragile that when suddenly faced with even turning dark for a good cause…the franchise panics so badly that he ends up hurting his Sword more than anything he was fighting. Moreover - it doesn’t even use the Shield for cool fight scenes, like the aforementioned dragon form - it’s strong, but mechanically, it’s still just a unit that can’t turn the tide of battle…unlike the Wrath Shield suddenly conveniently can when it’d require too much effort to think of a fight. Quite simply, this is worth fifty points, for making the concept so utterly boring.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 361
And with that, my duty is done. Please suffer after I had to deal with that. [Suddenly vanishes as if he was never there]
Leliel: Yeah, he really doesn’t like being pulled into things he doesn’t feel interested in. It’s not Clarity, he just doesn’t like having a schedule disrupted.
Wanderer2691: Given how he’s coming back, I’m surprised you didn’t get a crossbow bolt through the skull when he realized what you wanted him for…
Nemhain: So, what’s next?
Episode 9: Melty
Morrigna: [Collective confused look]
Macha: Is it just me…or am I suddenly illiterate?
Catha: I…I can see something that looks like an M, but…my mind just isn’t catching it…
Leliel: Ugh...before wordcount ate it, we used to have a second title saying "the Most Forgettable Character." This is what we mean. You’re reading it fine, your memories just aren’t catching it. That’s how much of a nothing Melty is. Spoiler alert. Anyway, our first shot is the party fighting wasps and…axolotls?
Nemhain: Probably just lizards, but unimportant. What is important is this comment from Raphtalia of something important despite the fact she’s still burned and apparently Cursed:
[NAOFUMI] I'm the one who agreed to take this job. You don't have to force yourself to keep up.
{RAPHTALIA} No, I'll be fine. Master Naofumi, don't forget I'm the one who begged you to let me fight.
Horizon: [Poking his head in] Ah, just before I take my leave - spoken like a true Voidbringer cultist. For the record, someone who has been brainwashed by a monster who embraced the power of the Blight.
Wanderer2691: Honestly, being overtaken by a conceptual disease personifying malfunction and innovation used exclusively for war might make Naofumi nicer - he’d actually respect his living weapons as peers.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 433
Catha: But, they win, and Naofumi makes it clear he wants to head back into town now to get holy water and treat the curse burns. Because he’s such a good master. [Cawing retch]
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 434
Macha: But, that’s when Filo notices something interesting in the bushes…
Leliel: [Snorts] You can’t hear it, but the filolials are all doing the Discount Chocobo Kweh sound…except it’s way too flat, so it sounds like they’re particularly chatty ducks.
Nemhain: Honestly, probably a better Legally Distinct Bird Mount. Travels earth or sea! But, seeing strangers spooks them off, and we see their guest’s face for the first time:
Macha: …hey wait a minute….
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Malty_S_Melromarc)
…don’t tell me…
Wanderer2691: Yeah, theme naming strikes again; Melty is Malty’s younger sister. And I can also say nothing not-cliche is done with it.
Catha: Of course not. That’d require the show to respect its audience. But, opening, we cut to a last scene of the filolials fully escaping this show, and then-
{FILO} Those birds looked yummy. If we start now, we could still hunt them down.
Leliel: THE HORROR HAS BECOME CANNIBAL! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES BEFORE SHE EATS YOU WITH FAVA BEANS!
Wanderer2691: But seriously, the show claims that this is because Filo doesn’t recognize her own species, a la imprinted birds - but, one problem. Filo is sapient - and as noted, filolials are often cart animals:
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Filolial?so=search)
Are you seriously telling me she’s never seen another on the merchant road? And never at least asked or remembered being one? Seriously? The only thing this is setting up is a joke later in this same episode, and it is not worth it.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 362
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 304
{MELTY} So big...
[NAOFUMI AND RAPHTALIA] Huh?
{MELTY} Are you really and truly a filolial?
{FILO} Do you mean me?
{MELTY} And you can actually talk, as well!
Nemhain: …this is going to be kind of her thing, isn’t it?
Leliel: Yeah, one of the many reasons Melty is that forgettable is that she’s almost more an accessory to the Horror than her own character a lot of the time, including filolial obsession. But, that’ll be shown later. For now? She mostly squees over being able to talk with a filolial, apparently not knowing about Filolial Queens…in spite of being a princess who, if she is that obsessed with them, probably would have discovered that particular facet of their biology fast. Admittedly, she might be saying she’s surprised she met one knowing it was only theoretical, so I’m not scoring. Yet.
Macha: Naturally, she hits it off with Filo quite well, giving her some meat jerky as a treat, and incidentally making her full introduction. Naofumi quickly realizes that Melty’s in way too nice clothes to be just a village girl, she is clearly a member of the aristocracy. Which is fair:
(https://shield-hero.fandom.com/wiki/Melty_Q_Melromarc)
That getup probably requires a dedicated team to sew after she plays with the giant cart birds that peck at things.
Catha: Most of the rest is fine, with Melty rolling with Filo’s human form being revealed pretty well - but we get this comment:
Wanderer2691: [Rigid grin] First of all, slave owner, not adoptive father, and second, thanks for reminding me of her desire to mate you when a kid her age is a fucking newborn.
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 435
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 423
Nemhain: That flashback-inducing aside later, we just see a bit of Naofumi distributing medicine to a town, while Filo and Melty have a playdate. Later that night, when Filo and Melty rejoin them, that’s when Melty reveals…something that is likely to result in a few guards losing their jobs. If her parents are feeling extremely merciful.
[FILO] [Melty] also told me how she got separated from the rest of her people while she was playing with filolials.
{NAOFUMI} Well, good for her… Hm? Wait... separated?
Macha: …”Wait” is right, separated? As in, from her escort? That can’t possibly be, I mean, she’s the damned princess-
[MELTY] I was on my way to the royal capital and, um… But then, when I saw all those beautiful filolials, I, uh...
[Very, very long pause]
Macha: Excuse me for a sec… [Opens portal to Melromarc Barracks, and telepathically beams a video into all minds]
HOW?! HOW DO YOU TOAD-LICKING GOBDAWS FUCK THAT UP?! THE PRINCESS PLAYS WITH THE FILOLIALS, AND YOU GET BORED LOOKING FOR HER?! WHAT THE ABSOLUTE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, AND HOW DO YOU BREATHE WHEN YOU ARE THAT INBRED?!
Catha: I…bwuh…whaa…? Do we…do we even need to exposit on this? Because…the filolials aren’t even hard to scare off. They ran when someone stepped on a branch. And maybe, just maybe, check if the princess who is a filolial fangirl around where filolials are grazing. I just…twenty points. How….?
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 324
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 382 (Because it’s clearly an excuse for her to travel with them first.)
Wanderer2691: To skip a bit while our brains recover from the massive shock of stupid, basically she asks to join them on the way to the capital, and Naofumi agrees…because while it’d attract attention, he’d get a reward for returning a noble’s daughter (not knowing she’s a royal and her daddy is King Aultcray yet), and because Filo and Raphtalia bug him with basic decency about the lost girl until he’s open to doing so in return for a promise of bounty. Prick.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 467
Also, proof that the Shadows, at least, share at least one brain cell:
Nemhain: …and now I’m wondering why this lady didn’t go out and retrieve the full complement of guards now. Well, assuming she didn’t strangle them all in a rage at the gravity-bearing levels of density shown, which is plausible and a valid reaction.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 383
Anyway, we have a cost-saving montage, and Filo and Melty growing closer together…and then we get the unfunny joke we mentioned after we cut to Raphtalia waking up for campfire watch duties.
[RAPHTALIA] Huh? Where's Mel?
[NAOFUMI] Huh?
Leliel: Oooooh, noooo…why agaaaain…?
Macha: [Crazed look of suffering] But we can be assured that our protagonists have their moral priorities in order!
{RAPHTALIA} You don't think...
{NAOFUMI} Uh-uh. There's no way.
{RAPHTALIA} I can't believe that Filo--!
[NAOFUMI] Well, remember, she did say even her own kind looked yummy...
[RAPHTALIA] Yes, but...
[NAOFUMI] Raphtalia.
[RAPHTALIA] Yes?
[NAOFUMI] We saw nothing, okay?
[RAPHTALIA] Wha--?! What are you saying?!
[NAOFUMI] If we destroy the evidence...
[RAPHTALIA] You can't be serious!
[NAOFUMI] What, you think it's better for us to confess that Filo ate some nobleman's daughter?!
Catha: …Better for us, certainly. I wonder what Shield Hero eyes-onna-gibbet taste like…
Leliel: You know, for all the goofy music the show applies here tp this scene, Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End had something similar about a demon girl, with her species’ notorious lack of anything resembling even cognitive empathy, killed a human adoptive sister and tried to give her adoptive mother a replacement, because that’s how she honestly thought how parental love works. This was done to emphasize that demons are inherently low-functioning psychopaths to a tragic degree and played for horror, similar to how Filo was apparently fast friends with Melty then absentmindedly ate her, according to these two assholes. And Frieren, upon seeing this, sighed that she warned everyone and zapped the demon, rather than attempt to cover it up. Basically, her titular show is better, and I’m also gleefully imagining her tearing Naofumi and Raphtalia new assholes. Or melting new ones into them, as it were. One point for each year the small child they just planned to cover up the death of lived.
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 477
Wanderer2691: Of course, it doesn’t last - Filo wakes up and reveals that Mel’s just sleeping in her feathers, giving us a lovely shot of a buck naked preteen sticking out shoulder deep that we will not show for everyone's sake.
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 424
But, she’s fine, she just thinks Filo’s feathers are comfy, and her clothes are off for…some reason. Raphtalia falls asleep in them, Naofumi marvels at how fast they work, and end scene. Next!
Leliel: So, they arrive at the capital, Filo goes off to take Melty home, and Naofumi goes to stick his head in the lion’s den for no apparent reason.
[NAOFUMI] Why's the shield the only one missing?
Nemhain: Oh, a common, easily missed oversight, everyone makes that mistake, given how you are the fecking Devil to these people, moron. I assume you can, I don’t know, check a magic shop nearby to get Holy Water? Or use your incredible wealth to get a gofer?
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 478 (This is for idiocy more than entitlement, but for the love of God, man, you know everyone hates Shield! This isn’t a twist!)
Macha: So, they enter, and after somehow not meeting the business end of the temple guardians’ weapons rather than having nuns chat nervously…
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 384
…we discover none other than the Pope is in attendance.
Catha: As a side note, while it’s not explicitly given here, his name is Biscas T Balmus. There is probably a pun we don’t care to look up. And how does he react to the Shield Devil showing up?
[BISCAS] If it isn't the Shield Hero. Welcome to our humble church, my son, I saw your magnificent duel at the royal palace. I must say, the way you fought with the odds stacked against you made a profound impression on me, and I couldn't believe you held your own despite wielding only a shield.
[Long pause]
Macha: Question. Is there anything that says it was only decided the Shield Hero is the devil after several chapters of the web novel? Just a hunch, as there’s no reason to even pretend to be polite here. Yes, Biscas is being manipulative, and it’s likely he does this by default with everyone, but here, it’s a perfect moment to indulge his dark side and bully someone who everyone is going to nod along to hurting.
WORLDBUILDING OF CARDBOARD: 325
But as it is, Naofumi goes all business and asks for the most potent holy water, worth a gold coin. Raphtalia protests, saying that’s too much…
(https://www.redbubble.com/i/poster/Gag-me-with-a-Spoon-by-blueavocado/138101269.LVTDI)
PROPERTY OF COP-OUT: 436 (Oh look, you’re worth the investment now that Beloukas thinks you’re worth gold. How heartwarming.)
Wanderer2691: But that bit of Totes Caring aside, that’s when Naofumi notices something about the “best holy water.”
Yeah, I saw that coming. No shade on Naofumi for calling it the fuck out. But then…
{NUN} Well, I mean, uh...
If you did this to satisfy your personal beliefs, then you must repent… I hope I have made myself clear.
Leliel: You mean the beliefs you share, especially around a request of the Devil of the Shield to save a demihuman? …come to think of it, why are you chewing out a woman in the matriarchy, even if you’re a guy your entire culture things “okay, the guy who fucked up was a dude.” And you’re still in charge, and not a nun!
GASLIGHT GATEKEEP GIRL-LOSS: 327 (One for attacking a woman doing what the religion says is a smart thing, another for it being a woman in the supposed matriarchy.)
Nemhain: Given how Biscas immediately pitches his religion, I’m half-convinced it was a setup to spin things to his advantage…not that it works, Naofumi righty fingers him as a smug prick. But, no time to rest, when a guard apparently comes right at him!
Leliel: Oh hey, I know that guy!
Naofumi doesn’t recognize him though, and so he assumed it’s an attempt to harass him or otherwise arrest him…and why he thinks that when the Pope of the Church of Three Heroes is apparently cool with him is anyone’s guess, once again undergoing Schrodinger’s Prejudice when convenient to the plot.
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 385
Macha: Realizing the guard’s “after” Naofumi, he and Raphtalia split up to lose him…and then Naofumi encounters someone who actually is after him, and still for legitimate reasons:
Leliel: Since Malty isn’t here, Clowns Farting in a Basement is yet unplayed, but I’m still humming it in my head. Especially this is where the show…’innovates’ to ‘show’ how ‘bad’ Motoyasu is.
{NAOFUMI} You're attacking me in the middle of the street?! What's wrong with you?!
Catha: Clearly because he’s as tired of you as we are.
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 84
Wanderer2691: See, Motoyasu saw Filo, and realized she was another slave of Naofumi’s, getting pissed and trying to free her…and being tragically uninformed of filolial biology, and what her age is:
{MOTOYASU} I've never seen a girl that perfect. She's incredible.
(https://tenor.com/view/calcifer-cal-doge-dog-pupper-gif-17238038)
Catha: …so, yeah. This is the thing. He apparently is a bit of a lolicon and thinks Filo’s hot. This is what makes him irredeemable. Because he finds Filo attractive. That’s proof of him being Da Baddie All Along.
Leliel: Right. Uh, remind me, how were we introduced to Filo’s human form?
{[FILO stands up, revealing herself to be completely naked, decency only kept via strategically placed hair bangs]} Master, hi! Good morning!
And after that, what was Filo’s motives for getting gagocco eggs?
Wanderer2691: But you see, those obvious signs of salaciousness involving Filo and appealing to the audience with that mentality is different, because unlike Motoyasu, the audience is self-inserting. So, it’s clearly way more skeevy, creepy, and unwanted, because it’s the jerk who clearly isn’t paying as many kindness coins into Filo and relationships come out, he’s cheating the system in all those pick-up artist handbooks.
Nemhain: Well, this is disgusting. Twenty points each, because vital to the plot, and ew.
CHOSEN LESS THAN ZEROES: 104
FBI OPEN THE PORTAL: 444
Oh yeah, and Motoyasu’s wearing a codpiece now after the bird-he-doesn’t-realize-is-Filo groin hit him. So there’s that.
Macha: Anyway, duel begins, it begins to mutate into a riot, at which point the guard from before intervenes to stop Motoyasu. Boo.
However, as it turns out, Motoyasu didn’t come alone, and overheard that…
Leliel: Never mind, turns out Clowns Farting in a Basement is on after all!
Malty orders her guards to surround them, and…
[MYNE] Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby declare this an official duel between the Spear Hero and the Shield Hero. All thanks to the royal crown which has vested me with the authority to do so.
Catha: Continues to prove that her poor sister has an aura that drags the most idiotic people in the country to her orbit, on the basis that the riot that justified her bringing Naofumi in to torment in prison was happening right there. And now he gets to fight back all he wants! Absolute sterling schemer, this woman.
RED MENACE: 69 (Fitting, given how obsessed this show is with her usually unseen promiscuity.)
Thankfully, another fight scene we’ve seen the general shape of before is averted when Melty shows up, and we get the official reveal of her identity.
Macha: Long story short, the royal sisters do not like each other, and Melty’s pissed that Malty let/goaded Motoyasu into picking a fight in a public place. It’s also clear from a particular threat Melty makes that she’s the maternally favored sibling:
[MELTY] If I have to, I will let Mother know about this.
Wanderer2691: Remember that mentioning this is what’s causing Malty to go from ‘annoyed’ to ‘barely contained fury.’ Given what Mirellia lets happen to her later…honestly, the show accidentally a tragic backstory. And shows how its obsession with making her hated makes her a worse villain, because Malty’s jealousy being born of feeling inadequate to her younger sister would give a lovely bit of charismatic bitterness. It’d certainly give her a motive.
Nemhain: Oh, and Filo shows up too, and Motoyasu starts on his ‘poor you’ thing:
Leliel: Yep, you can see where this is headed. After the last time he unknowingly insulted the Horror, plus this, Filo snaps, and we get the source of a certain spork count:
One kick that overcomes the codpiece later, and Motoyasu and the Red Menace exit stage left, pursued by a medic, much to Melty’s exasperation.
Macha: …speaking of that count…
I HATE YOU SHIELD GUY: 479
Yes, “He always puts us through hell.”, but last I checked, about half the time he did so was because you were keeping slaves, including this time. Frankly, you don’t get to feel just, you’re the author’s irritating favorite villain who everyone hates for constantly humiliating the actual hero.
Catha: Ugh, thankfully, we can get through the end - Melty decides to come clean and talk with Naofumi directly, they all hide out in Erhard’s shop to do so. We also discover that while Malty was born first…
Macha: You read that right. Mirellia more or less officially decided to skip Malty in favor of someone who isn’t even pubescent yet. I wonder why the sisters don’t get along?
Wanderer2691: Admittedly, we aren’t scoring this, as Malty being the Red Menace explicitly happened before the disinheriting, but once again - accidental tragic backstory. Because if Malty wasn’t already completely obsessed with the idea the only way she could get agency and power was to scheme for it, and that the only other person in the world she could trust was her father…
Nemhain: Of course, that’s not to say Melty doesn’t have her…own quirks.
[Beat]
Leliel: Melty, I’m sorry, but you’re developing an eye condition. You literally seem unable to perceive the right arms of people, or at least shields that are constantly attached to them and shapeshift.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FailedASpotCheck)
RISING OF THE CONTRIVANCE LEVELS: 386
But anyhoo, before Melty can expound on her plan, Naofumi interrupts - at this point, he’s been burned by the royal family so much that he wants Melty, who was literally not bringing up the fact she was a member of the royal family, to get lost. And if we did forgiving points, he’d lose an I HATE YOU point, because this is the sanest reaction anyone in this show has had.
Nemhain: And we are DONE! And with that, the Morrigna will fly the coop until that damn ‘special spork’ is needed! [And they do.]
Wanderer2691: And the worst part is? That was one of the least painful pairs so far. Join us next time, as we see the next Wave of Calamity, and Itsuki joins the Team Professional Moron the other Cardinal Heroes are on.
Spitefic: Blighted Omens
“So…” Romuli Argentum looked over the new addition to his contacts. “Soul-Bearing Golem, huh? That’s new. Even for me.”
“Apparently, I’m actually closer to the original myths in the worldlines the Heroes are from,” Convergence of Horizon said, turning over the crystal in his forceps as the fob that came out of his skull focused on it. “It’s supposed to be exclusively a person made of clay and imbued with life and sapience to protect a community…which I am about, oh, 75%? Of course, the mythical golems can never speak and are largely mindless, so myself telling you all this makes it clear I’m not quite one.”
“Sounds like a bit too much nuance for my perspective, but I’ll take your word for it.” Romuli shrugged, before sniffing the crystal. “To be honest, I’m not sure why you’re so intent on this one crystal. It’s a Dragon Emperor Core - one reanimating its old dragon isn’t that far-fetched for one.”
“That’s precisely the issue. It’s not strange at all…what is strange is the plague.” He nodded at the gas masks Romuli and he were wearing. “Natural undeath doesn’t tend to result in illness spreading - a hungry ghost, body or no body, mostly exists to protect its grave site and sustain itself.”
“And that’s what’s getting me and Iana a wee bit flapped, aye,” Suspire said, his vampiric form the only one unmasked. “Because this is something that don’t make sense. Ren killed this thing because he was being a pain, aye? But you’d expect rage to be focused on him; it’s basic psychology.”
“We know the inhabitants of that village wanted to turn him into a tourist attraction, so while it’s not that strange for a hungry ghost to lash out at apparent defilers of the grave, he wasn’t killed by disease; to follow the logic of death, it’d be more likely that everyone would be driven mad by hallucinations of a vengeful dragon stalking them or being stabbed by spontaneously forming Underworld phantoms.” Iana hummed, a black sphere of necrotic Essence dancing between her fingers as she thought. “Actually, what was he doing when alive?”
Suspire’s eyes flashed red as his Crime-Unveiling Wickedness ability sensed a mystery within a mystery. “...huh. Check the resonance itself, and why this was made; I be getting an odd feeling from that.”
“You’re the expert,” Horizon muttered, changing out a lens in his array - and blinking. “...my Technological Analysis Engrams state that the purpose this Core had when it became a force of animation was ‘revenge against thieves who tricked the Sword Hero into murdering me, and to fully awaken the Shield of Wrath’.”
There was a stony silence, before everyone not from the village silently turned to a suddenly very nervous village doctor.
“...We didn’t know,” he finally said after a good bit of internal wrestling. “We didn’t know the reason Gaelion wasn’t sharing…”
“...Start from the top,” Iana muttered, rubbing her temples.
“It was those Shield-damned tenthshare taxes!”, the elder shouted. “We don’t have enough to pay nine parts of everything we made to the Church and expect to survive! And…well, we knew a pureblood dragon likely had money, enough to get us through the winter until we paid our dues for guarding against monsters that one year…”
“And you tricked Ren into being your unknowing hitman,” Horizon said, sourly. “Without even asking this…Gaelion if he was willing or able to share.”
“Ngh…that damned beast merchant…he said that Dragon Emperors would rather die than part with their hoard…” The doctor held his head. “And he was the one that suggested we make his corpse into an attraction for adventurers seeking dragon parts, and that the Sword Hero would be an ideal champion...”
Romuli frowned. “The…beast merchant…?” He blinked, before his ears suddenly pinned back. “...question. Was this merchant a short man in a feather boa and top hat named Beloukas?”
“...yes? You know him?”
The silence was even stonier.
“...On a hunch…” The lens carrying Horizon’s Technological Analysis Engrams flipped back into his skull, as the circuit boards in his skin lit up with gentle golden light that wove into fractals.
The crystal screeched.
The alarmed Alchemical quickly dropped the Core as the crystal cracked and fell away, revealing something simultaneously more and less organic than its shell. Tumorous fleshy growths of pale, unearthy flesh threaded between black metal that seemed to drink the light, becoming what was almost a void in space. Toxic, foul-smelling smoke belched out from the cracks, reeking of the stench of dying flesh and industrial waste. As sharp, cruel-looking gears wound down, everyone could hear an almost animal growl of hate and spite towards what could be called its “killers”, if it was alive enough to die.
Horizon inhaled. “...find where Misses Boonchuy, Amagi, Satonaka, and Noceda got off to. They’re going to need to be present when I explain what the Blight is - and what sort of inventions it inspires.”
OOC: This is actually based on something in the wiki - apparently, in Volume 12 of the light novel and web novel both, it’s revealed that apparently, the villagers conned Ren and only ever wanted the dragon’s hoard. Naturally, there was no foreshadowing at all at this point or other hints later on (let alone the dragon was sentient and named Gaelion), but I do note that this suspiciously only became a thing when Ren was due to be sympathetic. I’m not giving points to things the anime didn’t cover yet, but ye gods the moral cowardice of suddenly making excuses for anyone the franchise wants you to think is heroic. You can have done objectively dumb things and remain sympathetic, you don’t need to suddenly ruin a village’s entire reputation to make it not as bad. So, I decided to split the difference - and ruin the government of Melromarc’s reputation. Because the Queen deserves it.
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Date: 2024-12-13 01:04 am (UTC)Wait, the religion is monotheistic now? I thought they worshipped swords, spears, bows, and the dimension hoppers that wield them.
This feels like Zuko and Azula with extra logic gaps.
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Date: 2024-12-13 01:22 am (UTC)Ah, but it's never defined! So that makes it any dogma you, or more accurately the writer, wants!
...The Sanctists from Metaphor: ReFantazio did that better too with never actually contradicting anything any of them say about their dogma, of course, but details!
You're not the only one who thinks so.
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Date: 2024-12-21 06:02 pm (UTC)Of course, it would be easier to be charitable if the show were to actually build its world (hint hint, notes Worldbuilding of Cardboard count).
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Date: 2024-12-22 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-22 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-12-13 03:27 am (UTC)"And to my alcoholic cousin SkullExamon, who never worked a day in his life, I leave three crates of my finest whiskey. And a boot to the head."
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Date: 2024-12-13 03:34 am (UTC)