Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation II
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 424 Location: PA / USA |
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It's that last bit that I think is wrecking the show for me, "to grow impressively enough that neither Roxy nor Sylphy think they can have him all to themselves". The fact that she basically smiled and said "he's a perv so she was expecting him to do something like that" in the finale.... Just handwaving the issues at play. Gawd, if polygamy was this easy, why isn't everyone doing it in 2024? Guys are just horny! Go for it Sylphie! saaaaaaaaaarcaaaaaasm I'm having such a paradoxical time/meltdown catagorising this show. I look back in my memories on things like The Twelve Kingdoms and Scrapped Princess (Princess is great, go watch it) for shows having a very RPG-heavy world where the characters are on some big journey or fighting insurmountable odds or something, and Mushoku Tensei is absolutely the best (I think) in recent memory - more than Overlord, Slime, GATE, or Sword Art - at telling this type of story with stakes and consequence, BUT! ....then I have to reconcile that the main character is inescapably over 40 years old, has not told this to the woman he's had a child with while enrolled in the only formal school they've known in their lifetime, and has had various sexually-toned moments of contact with a pretty large handful of characters that are inescapably underage around him. He's essentially a foreign national, and no reasonable person IRL would condone a mentality of "Oh I guess it's the law of the land & okay here so I can have fun so long as I don't go back home to be judged by my peers". The writer in me wants to.... attempt to be charitable; to give the benefit of the doubt that on a historical level and for the sake of showing varying ranges of morality and belief that not-everything is black & white given the circumstances, set aside the scummy harem vibe and revel in the fact that the world feels so dangerous and alive. .....but bloody hells I cannot reasonably sit a non-anime fan down to explain this plot to them without them instantly vomitting - there's just no way. Even the prince guy he works with making dolls - they picked up a small girl. The story could have gone with a boy, but since it's a girl, now she can more than likely grow up and be "hot" and marry the prince, whyyyyy. Would I be going too far to say that academically, in the same way that we understand Tolkien and his works to be both a great storyteller but also a product of their time (lacking in an ability to both write and understand well their female characters), Mushoku Tensei just doesn't seem to contain women in its story for anything other than plot devices, eye candy, comedy, or propping up the male cast, mainly Rudy? I think that we can all collectively come together and establish as a baseline, that the Sheri & Sugawara stuff in GATE, no matter how the show set that situation up, felt icky. I really hate to stop a story midway but every moment that Mushoku Tensei throws some new character in front of Rudy or the audience to devour with their eyes, I just die a little inside. I don't think I can stomach another full season of this. And to stop kills me too because when the show isn't being icky it's such a great anime story. I almost wish they'd have just had Rudy be some normal-pants fantasy RPG rando and we saw him grow and make mistakes naturally. Game of Thrones had a lot of weird junk in it, but Mushoku Tensei is really recapturing the sort of magic GoT had in its prime, at least for an anime. Once the rest of the story is out & finished, I may circle back around if viewers are saying the trip was worth it. |
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ktarf
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I did that, and not only did they not vomit, they also really liked the series. Most of your criticisms are in my view positive aspects that add to the series' value. Yes, it could've been a generic fantasy with a generic protagonist, but it would've been way less interesting. Instead it has a fully realized main character who isn't just a self-insert and an overall strong identity. I disagree with your point about the female characters. I think they are generally pretty good, my favourite being Eris with her amazing development and delightfully twisted relationship with Rudeus in season one. Sylphie has a distinct personality as well, which happens to gel perfectly with Rudy's, while Roxy is definetly the less realized of the three, at least for now. And there are great female characters who aren't love interests, like Zenith, Aisha, Norn, Nanaoshi, Ariel, the list goes on. In my experience, the best art is the most divisive. Some love it, some hate it, but everyone has strong feelings. So reading your post and the overall discourse around this series is to me proof of its value. |
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NeverConvex
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Yeah, the wish fulfillment angle was driven especially hard there; it was a scene to induce eye-rolling for me. It wasn't internally inconsistent---Sylphy's been a doormat this whole time, and it was crafted to give her the excuse of watching a third-party vent on her behalf---but the narrative is pretty transparent about contriving situations to give Rudy the harem he wants with minimal fuss or blame. It was also pretty frustrating to watch Rudy actively try to defend his actions to Norn, which was hard to read as purely for Roxy's sake, and felt very much like a refusal to accept responsibility. At least it was mostly framed as if he was one of the primary parties at fault, though. Assuming this is how it had to go at all, I think it would have been more satisfying for it to cause some kind of at least moderate-length lasting rift between Sylphy and Rudy. There could have been more to this than just a brief hiccup in harem-building.
Agree wholeheartedly with this. Fights feel tense and well-executed; cities and cultures feel reasonably well-realized and varied; the world's great figures feel terrifying and larger-than-life, and it ties the mysteries of its world into the narrative in a way that's engaging and makes me want to know more. Rudy got some significant no-to-low-effort powerups, but thankfully still often seems badly pressed and endangered in most of the series' highlight fights. Agree on the over-40 thing (and .. more, in similar spirit), too, but there's no discussing that without rehashing what was some 40 pages of unfulfilling argument, so I'll just leave it at that.
I've always kind of thought Tolkien's character-writing was threadbare. He did world-building spectacularly, and was one of the first greats to do it with such depth and detail, but I think I'd generally take MT's character development over Tolkien's. Even for some of the MT's ladies, despite that they often seem trapped in the narrative event horizon of Rudy's fantasies; e.g., we watched Eris grow from a hurricane of a noble brat to a hot-tempered but more measured and confident swordsmaster (although it's harder to compliment the way Sylphy or Roxy have evolved). For Rudy himself, I still think the series fundamentally ignores and indulges some of his most glaring issues (the ones I'm hesitant to get into again  ), but he has for the most part shown growth at least in his treatment of the people in his innermost circle (leaving aside this latest cheating on Sylphy thing, I suppose, though it feels somewhat better that he wasn't framed as in the right, even if the narrative rewarded him anyway). I think his loss of Paul also showed a kind of growth; a meaningful connection with a parent, even a deeply broken one like Paul. And, the arm he lost as serious physical harm and reminder of the incident; I'm curious to see if they'll actually run with that as a form of material lasting consequences, or there'll be some contrived way he gets his arm back. I think it'd be a lot more affecting to write it as a wound that regularly reminds him of the loss of Paul, but I'm not sure I believe that's the way it will go.
I've never really understood folks comparing the violence/sex in MT to GoT. When GoT got sexually creepy, it wasn't inviting the viewer to giggle at or support/advocate for it. It was supposed to be somewhere between off-putting and disgusting/enraging, depending on the scene. |
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freebird1994
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One question I have that no one has yet gave a convincing answer too is: What should the consequences be? This is an aspect of the story I have not seen answered well many of the times it came up(mostly when he was a baby, er rather "baby") and this is another one that seems to have come up.
Ideally, the concept of "consequences" is done so that someone learns a lesson. The child who hits another child is put in timeout and (hopefully) they learn not to hit people. So what should the consequences for rudy cheating be, and what is the desired outcome of these consequences? And I ask this because, wasn't the lesson already known? Rudy KNOWS what he did was wrong. So does Roxy. So does everyone in this. And its not like they are hiding it, Once the rest of the party leaves cause this is a family matter, then rudy confesses. And he is ready to take the blame and punishment. So I ask, what kind of punishment are people expecting? Do they want sylphie to divorce rudy? Unlikely since she is currently pregnant and adores rudy to an almost unhealthy amount for that to almost ever come to mind. Do they want roxy to have been forced out(which she almost was)? Perhaps but I don't see how that would be consequences for Rudy. Do we want a classic sitcom bit where rudy is forced to sleep on the couch for a few months and Sylphie ignores him for a while? I mean it happened with paul so I guess it would be kind of humorous to have that come full circle. Now I'm sure the answer is people want some nebulous "punishment" because this is a show where bad or wrong actions often seem to come and go without being addressed. But I feel you always need to look at these in a case-by-case basis with the context surrounding it to determine how it should be addressed. And for this wrong, I think there was not much to be done. Rudy on this journey that ended with him cheating on sylphie lost his father, (basically) lost his mother, and lost his left hand. IDK kind of feels like this entire journey was already a punishment considering what he went through. What more punishment did people want? What would the point of this punishment be? Teach Rudy a lesson, that he already knew, and recognized he wronged? And I feel the show did address what a lot of the audience was probably yelling at the screen at the time with Norn's outburst. If anything she felt like the stand-in for that section of the audience. But much like that section of the audience, Norn doesn't really have much say in terms of what will happen to rudy because of his cheating. That decision comes back to Sylphie and her view on the situation. And her view is that of understanding, not anger nor jealousy(well maybe a little jealousy given how she talk to Roxy). Whether that is comparable to real life is obviously completely subjective. I'm not married, nor have I had a partner cheat on me, and I won't be relying on the experience of watching sitcoms and dramas where this happens to say what the right or wrong course of action here would be. But I will end this with the question I had at the start for you section of the audience that wants it: What specific punishment did you want this story to give Rudy for his actions and what would that punishment have accomplished? |
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Jabootu
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LinkTSwordmaster wrote:
Who's asking you to be charitable? How does this work, or any other work, require your approval? No writer would tell another writer what to write. That's...fascist isn't exactly the word I'm looking for. I'm sure there's a better word, and perhaps someone will suggest it. It's close enough though. If this isn't the story you would have written, that's fine. Indeed, it's nearly inevitable. The advantage of you being a writer is that you can write that story. You can take in this story and learn from it, both of things you want to do and things you don't want to do. The problem being that the story you seem to want to tell is this one with a lot of the complexity and moral edges sanded off, which is...boring? Certainly more conventional. You have every right to want to write stories that basically act as moral instruction. There are lots of great stories like that. Maybe you'll write one of those. Maybe you already have. Mushoku Tensei isn't one of those, though. The author is not interested in telling the reader what to think. He doesn't write about things because he necessarily approves of them. He wants to present a story with a ton of shadings and personal and contextual and social ramifications and then let the reader really think about things. Whether you approve or disapprove with any of Rudy's actions is utterly beside the point. You're supposed to think about why Rudy does what he does, not derive satisfaction from having your own beliefs validated. I mean, look at the comment count. There are 75 pages of comments, nearly 1100 of them and counting. There's a reason for this, and it's because this a very deep work. Is there any other anime that comes close to drawing that sort of scrutiny and engagement here? Perhaps, but if so, there aren't a lot of them. You write that Rudy is "inescapably over 40 years old." Is he? Intellectually he sure is. And an extremely smart 40 year old. Emotionally, though? Socially? Developmentally? He spent the majority of his life (I'm not counting when he was a baby or a toddler) holed up in one small room, steeped in rage and self-loathing. He turned his face away from anyone and everyone, again for the majority of his life. All he knew about women he learned from playing porn games. Then he got reincarnated to another world, and emotionally he clearly viewed the world as not being real, as being more like one of the games he played. We know this because we saw the exact moment Rudy was forced to accept that the lives around him were real and that his actions had genuine consequences, not for game characters for but actual living beings. This is when he got that kid adventurer killed by the giant snake. Up until that point, he still hadn't really bought into the reality of the world around him. It was a major turning point that forced him to stop thinking in terms of game logic and really start thinking about his actions on a moral plane. This is the moment Rudy became an adult, because that's what separates the thinking of an adult from that of a child. His being chronologically 40 in a general sense has not much to do with anything. We also have to take into account that the author is Japanese. The Japanese as a society teach that the nail that projects will get hammered down. It's a very consensus-driven society, one where self-effacement is taught from childhood. Rudy just isn't ever going to be someone who thinks it's his role to change the world around him to conform to his personal believes. And again, there are great stories like that, but this isn't one of those. There's no reason it has to be. You write:
I mean, you're sort of leading the witness there. Again, why would anyone have to condone what Rudy does? Do people condone everything Walter White does in Breaking Bad? Rudy does a lot of things that defy modern Japanese norms, including killing people. But he isn't in Japan. If a IRL person went to Holland back in the day and smoked hash or went to the red-light district, you bet that reasonable people would have judged him differently because he was then in a country where those things were legal. I apologize if I sound like I'm beating on you, because that's not my intent. I will admit that I think you're very wrongheaded about the role of Art, but of course you have every right to think I'm the one who's wrong. However, I really hope you think about this work more deeply. Again, something draws you to this story, maybe more deeply than I'm drawn to it because I don't feel the need to approve or disapprove of anything Rudy does. The fact that you find the work so off-putting yet continue to be so drawn to it is probably a greater complement to the author than my unabashed love of it is. I sincerely hope you can mine the things that clearly you believe the author does so right and incorporate them into your own work. You can probably learn more from works you disagree with than ones you do, although I guess that's a theory more than an objective rule. I'll be the first to admit that I would be a disastrously bad fiction writer. In any case, I do hope you see you back here in two years, or whenever the show returns. Until then, all the best to you. Last edited by Jabootu on Mon Jul 01, 2024 1:23 pm; edited 2 times in total |
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NeverConvex
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I think the purpose of 'consequences' can be to show that a seemingly important event isn't just being glossed over and treated as unimportant in order to get to some pre-conceived end state. That could involve some kind of moral lesson, but it could just be exploring what happens when Rudy breaches his pregnant wife's trust in a major way, while she wrestles with him doing it in a moment of weakness.
No, that would have felt similarly unequal to the way he'd betrayed her trust. I would have liked to see her genuinely struggle with her anger at him; not to leave him (EDIT: well, maybe that would be interesting, too, but that would require much larger changes, and be a rather brave choice for the author to make), but for it to build some significant emotional distance between them, and for this to reveal itself in smaller and larger ways as the show evolved. Maybe at some pivotal point in the future where she needs to trust him, she doesn't and this causes a tragic turn; maybe it just sews a bunch of small-scale unease inside the party and leaves Rudy tormented over whether he's going to behave more and more like his father, and he has some kind of self-destructive arc related to his struggle with that. And, uh, Roxy does something in the midst of all this, trying to come to terms with her own role in sewing distrust between Rudy and Sylphy. Maybe they eventually all overcome the trust issues this kicked off and everyone lives in a happy harem anyway, but I'd have liked to see the story change in a lasting way as a result of his breach of Sylphy's trust. Instead, their relationships are the same as before, but he has +1 wife. Last edited by NeverConvex on Mon Jul 01, 2024 12:58 pm; edited 3 times in total |
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Gamen
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So, for me it's the opposite. Since the last time I participated in one of these arguments, I'm even more on the side of him not being any age but his physical age. He's got extra memories, sure, mostly useless ones of porn. But he lacks any memories of being a mature and responsible adult. And nothing else was carried over from his old life. In his new life, he doesn't have the social connections or the legal status or even the common sense of an adult in that world. He's basically a traumatized and oversexualized kid. And that's how people treat him. And standing over Paul's grave, that's what he's finally realized too. He wasn't an adult in a kid's body sometimes playing at being a kid, he was just a kid sometimes playing at being an adult, and he's now finally beginning to grow up. "Just handwaving the issues at play." Yeah, but again, my contention is that the story was set up to enable a quick resolution. They're not just being hand-waved away, the setting and story reduced the issues to the point they could be hand-waved away by the characters. Sylphy is hurt by this, but she was also emotionally prepared for it, and the circumstances are mostly in her favor. ...Roxy's the weird one. Yes, I remember Scrapped Princess being great, but I wish more than a few of the novels had been translated... "that the Sheri & Sugawara stuff in GATE, no matter how the show set that situation up, felt icky" it's been a while but I can't remember being bothered by it, but I was raised on Heinlein novels so I don't have that kind of gut response. The devil's in the details. From what I can remember I can't think it would have much chance of ending well for either of them, as much from the culture gap as the age gap. It probably wouldn't have turned abusive, but if they couldn't go their separate ways it would have been unhappy. I will say that, uh, I don't think the prince is going to start being attracted to living women, much less his dollmaker. And no, I think there are several women in the story with their own lives and stories... but we're only going to see them when their stories intersect, since this is Rudy's story. |
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#Sparki
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I dont think that he is though. He stopped mentally maturing at the age of 15 or even degraded during his secluded life. He is doing wrong things but he doesnt relate to them, doesnt uderstand how they will affect people. This whole story is for him to actually become a grown up and hold responsibility for his actions. I would say that at the end of season 2 he finally became around 20 and can understand his father a lot better now that he has his own child. And during this season even his view of family and his child changed. At the beginning his baby was a symbol of love, a trophy, a proof. Now it is his everything. About sylphie. I get that you want Rudy to get judged and punished, but for what exactly? For cheating, for breaking his promise, or for making you uncomfortable and unable to relate to him and his story? This wasnt cheating in the same way it is here, but he surely is wrong for breaking his promise. The worst nightmare for sylphie is that Rudy gets tired of her, or something happens to him and he dies or gets separated from her like in the begining. For what she knows after living with Rudys family having two wives isnt that bad. Ofcource it is still a stress and there has to be quite a lot to be done, but it is not something to ruin someones life over. And in the end she loves Rudy and Rudy loves her and it is clearly seen. So for all parties involved having Roxy marry Rudy is for the best. |
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LinkTSwordmaster
Posts: 424 Location: PA / USA |
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This is actually a really good point to be made (there are a lot here, this being page 74) from everyone. And I think it's important to clarify - I'm not solely asking for any sort of punishment for Rudy & only him. If there are consequences for his actions, they should come out naturally in the story. My issue I take with the show, as others have pointed out again & again is the chain of events that have led into this finale and Poly situation seem ....I cant say "sudden" because they've telegraphed/foreshadowed this for a while. My issue isn't with the characters but the general presentation of the story. Someone had to choose how the show would pace & present things this way. Norn's outburst falls dangerously close in my mind as being a "lampshade" technique, to draw attention to the fact that some in-universe characters see this as startling as the audience might, but her underlying concerns aren't exactly addressed. Eris initiated, Rudy is ethically(?) "cleared" of wrongdoing and left with trauma. Roxy initiated, Rudy was sad and was ethically(?) "cleared" of wrongdoing and Roxy is the one that takes the blame. At the end of the finale there is absolutely no reason Eris should ever dare enter Rudy's home, and yet everything in Mushoku Tensei is twisting and foreshadowing that she will guaranteed, be wife #3. I don't know what is up next, but I'm betting she's had Rudy's kid with her this whole time - probably. That's what would get her in the door after she left him in such a sour state.
Breaking Bad is on the watchlist so I'll shift to Dexter instead. Dexter is a killer that kills killers. The show spends a good chunk of time talking about why he has wound up that way and is *presented* or framed in such a fashion that when Dexter murders someone, the victim almost-assuredly would have done more harm to the community if they had kept on living. But! It constantly leaves Dexter questioning, it constantly puts his family at risk. There's this all-encompassing sense that the audience should see that Dexter is a bad person as a baseline, but it's left open to the audience to decide if the positives of his actions outweigh the negatives. And even in describing the show, there's the possibility that someone else that watched it might have taken away something different from myself. The writers have stated in interviews that they were constantly conscious of whether or not Dexter would be received at all by the audience, and the show has some really lame moments that don't land so well too. Paul is maaaaybe a good example of Mushoku Tensei trrrrrrryyyyying to pull this sort of a "complex" character off, because he's in some aspects, a mess of a guy that's fathering by the hair on the back of his neck. Aside from Rudy, we've probably seen more sides of Paul than possibly any other character in the show? When he goes off on Rudy, we can fairly easily say he's in the wrong, and especially after the finale we can get a sense of why Paul acts the way he does in his life in spite of the fact we didn't really see anything of him when he was younger. Whether he apologised and made up with Rudy or not does not matter and doesn't change the fact that the audience has been communicated to sufficiently about "how Paul reacts to various situations the way he does" - similar to knowing how Rudy reacts due to his past experiences. And then from a writing standpoint, obviously the show chooses Paul to stick closer in Rudy's mind because he acts as a model male adult for Rudy to shape his life lessons from. In spite of him being a mess he's one of the more-developed characters in the show. So with that stated, we have another character: Roxy. When she meets Rudy as a kid, for all intent and purpose she has a similar but much more immediate effect on Rudy's life-but-different because she's neither a guy nor his parent. Over the course of the show what's dissimilar from her presentation to Paul is that she cant just exist as this female role model that Rudy is simply just smitten with, we constantly get this running joke of "neener neener Rudy sniffed her panties". Roxy is a professional mage and has her own life for yeeeeears both before and after meeting Rudy for a brief time, but he shows up out of the blue and we're supposed to instantly buy that 1) he looks related to Paul and Zenith in a dungeon that Paul and Zenith are both in and she doesn't recognise him, 2) that after learning who he is she's willing to bed someone she knew as a young kid, and 3) no one up until this point casually had mentioned he got married. Those are three hurdles that instead of being addressed, we get Norn shouting at Rudy. So I'm not taking issue, that by some divine happenstance these two characters were destined from the moment they'd met to be head-over-heels and compatible with each other. My issue is that the pace at which all of that reads, it's sloppy and makes Roxy look at minimum cheap (I mean it could have been a guy mage Rudy's parents hired, but then Rudy wouldn't get to boink her). Eris could have been a boy cousin (though in-universe likely would not have been faced with a reason for Rudy to be hired as a tutor butthisisamadeupstorysoyouwhynotcomeupwithavalidreasonanyway), but then as a boy - Rudy wouldn't get to boink her. Elinalise has some goofy curse that (to be fair, would be objectively funny in a consenting D&D environment at face value, and) is played to comedic relief but again.... wouldn't it be more funny if Elinalise was a male friend of Rudy that was stuck having to do that? The guy Elinalise likes (younger again.... whee!) is part of the church and it'd be maaaad funny if he had that curse and it was conflicting with his goals to the point that Rudy was his only hope of solving it (from what people are saying though, the actual workings of the curse are effed up). This adult, storied adventurer of all of her travels and experiences, has not met a single guy that has changed her mind until this one singular mage kid - wut? My point is, I get that Rudy is a guy so it's generally not unnatural to assume a majority of his circle of friends he trusts are going to be guys, but the moment a girl comes in, she exists either to get boinked or to be ogled. It's flat out disingenuous to ignore the fact that from a presentation standpoint, Rudy doesn't know Slyphie is a girl so that his interactions with her can be read as "innocent" rather than creepy. That's a choice that was made during writing the story to use that specific trope. I'm just so frustrated with the show because of even moments like with Nanahoshi - that character could alternatively be be a guy and yet she's not, so there's this "neener neener" (looks at the camera) signal to the audience of some low-level NTR vibes that Sylphie realises there's something between Rudy and Nanahoshi that's not being said. It's a knife twist that could otherwise be a conversation between the two characters about trust and honesty somewhere down the line, but I - untrusting that the show doesn't have at minimum a terrible track record of presenting female characters as things Rudy gets to boink later - have to worry that NTR is where they want to take interactions with her or that she'll just straight up go School Days on someone later because Rudy abandoned her. When Mushoku Tensei is focusing on moments of Rudy growing/living/surviving in an RPG-lookng world, it's top of its class. The fact he was a shut-in and for pretty brutal reason adds to the depth of his character growth - especially when he can pass that lesson onto his younger sibling. When the show for no reason other than T&A, decides that Ghislaine and Elinalise are the hot eye candy and we don't know ANYTHING about the Dwarf guy and "neener neener" isn't Eris so tsundare there's no way she's not-gonna circle back around.... it reminds me that Delicious in Dungeon exists and halfway through the second part of its first season, there's only been an oddball comment about mushroom feet and two mage girls in a hot bath that I hope no one walks in on while I'm watching it. I just really like the world and especially the characters, and wish I wasn't constantly in a worried panic that whoever worked on this story wasn't taking it in a School Days direction or might wind up getting caught up in some sort of scandal behind the scenes. That Rurouni Kenshin stuff cuts deep to this day, and there's mathematically a real bad chance Amuro isn't gonna sound the same the next time they remake an old Gundam film. I'm taking bets that since Zenith's mind and body are healthy, but no one is home, that someone gets injured and needs to use her body to survive - that'd be a great excuse for Rudy to get to boink his "mom". Unless you've read ahead. Can you tell me for certain there's a ZERO chance of that happening, given what we've seen so far? Absolute zero? |
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Mami-kouga
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This episode's quality oscillated in such rapid succession for me that I can't even put my feelings into words for once.spoiler[ The first half with the reveal of Paul's death was perfect, no notes, but the second half where they pulled the harem pin was just kind of deeply frustrating in how it almost satisfies me but then ruins it. Norn tearing into Rudeus' for being a garbage husband and shutting down his excuses was great (and has earned her a place in my favourite character box with Ruijerd and Eris) but then it gets ruined because she's obligated to forgive him since the victim Sylphie has decided to. Rudeus' utterly failing to have a convincing argument with Sylphie stepping into to save the situation by her own will should have been good but then it amounts to the whole situation taking care of itself for him. Roxy and Sylphie being able to bond with each other as fellow women and coming to an agreement should have made me happy as a lover of female friendships but then it requires Sylphie to be a borderline Saint and her and Roxy's bond mostly amounts to their feelings towards Rudeus. The grave scene was similarly up and down for me with me liking some parts (Rudeus acknowledging himself as Paul's child) and disliking others (you don't get to be deeply weird about underage characters for 2 seasons with logic tracts that make zero sense for a child just to brush it off with "I was actually a child who thought he was a little mature thanks to past life memories this entire time", and I'm the type who is willing to compromise on reincarnated age Vs past life age)]
Overall though this was an uneven season, some high highs and the lowest lows of the series so far. All that said I will probably come for season 3, I want to see Norn, Eris and Ruijerd again. Well, mixed feelings on Eris I'm kind of worried what they'll do with her once she's back. |
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Gamen
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That is what's called a loaded question. All things are possible in fiction so there can never be zero chance. To tell you there is zero chance is to lie. To tell you there is a chance is to validate your suspicions. Last week, your suggestion was merely ridiculous - the only example we had of one person's memories ending up in another body was Rudy, and that could well be because Rudy is "that guy"'s reincarnation. And no means of reproducing that, much less into an adult, has been hinted at. That I can remember, anyway. Moreover it would still be incest. Even if the story did start laying the ground work for such a plot twist, that is for one of his wives to end up in Zenith's body, it probably would end their physical relationship. Which is why it won't happen. And if it's not one of his wives... Well, the transfer could happen, but he wouldn't be boffing her (or him?) anyway. And that's all assuming that her tabula rasa state was permanent - not just that her memories would never come back but that she couldn't retain new memories, learn to talk, develop her own personality, etc. This week, the premise itself is flawed since Zenith has shown hints of still having her memory and emotional attachments. I mean, I don't want to be completely dismissive, but it does sound like your... I forget the Tolkien phrase... your suspension of disbelief and trust in the author has been broken beyond repair. |
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freebird1994
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But why does it need to be in the form of some nebulous "punishment"? I don't think the story is glossing over what happened. Rudy fully knows he F***ed up. He is not denying it, hiding it, or downplaying it. At worst, he MIGHT be trying to mitigate it by explaining how he was in a low point in his life but if nothing else he's saying that to counter the way Norn describes it which is just as "oh you had some free time so you slept with another woman" which is just subjectively(imo) deceptive framing.I feel the story is addressing it in the moment. Now we don't know how this new dynamic will play out. Maybe in the next season we will see that tension playing out. Roxy trying to fit in, Slyphie showing she actually has reservations about it and is trying to keep those feeling buried. Norn is a ball of emotion so we will see how she copes with the new arrangements. I don't know but i feel in the moment it was handled in a way that can be reasonable and understanding without feeling the need for some nebulous "punishment" to be dealt out to any side.
I won't address whatever "wrongdoing" you are referring too with eris cause that's its own can of worms I'm sure. As for roxy however, I don't think the blame is falling solely on her. They are both at fault. Much like Rudy, Roxy is not trying to deflect or hide her involvement. Roxy even admits she seduced Rudy in part for her own selfish purposes, while Rudy is trying to take all the blame himself. Norn's underlying concerns weren't addressed but I feel that is because there is not much of them to address in the moment. Both sylphie and Norn agree that Sylphie would have done the same thing Roxy did had she been in that scenario. Sylphie might have an inkling and we as the audience KNOW how bad rudy can get when he gets despressed. I'm not trying to defend their actions, but neither is Sylphie. On a meta level: As you have noted, and as many reviewers(including the reviewer on this site) noted, this series was always going to go the harem route. There really was no playing around with it. The series has set it up too much and telegraphed it too much to make it seem like this was going to be a "oh who will it be between roxy, sylphie, and eris" situation. I don't doubt eris will eventually be the 3rd wife. I don't even think it should be spoilers to say this, its obvious that will happen and I haven't even read the series. How they go about it will be the more interesting aspect of the story but this series has very much been a series about planting seeds and having them sprout later in the story in a way that can be very satisfying when going through another watch through. I don't think sylphie accepting roxy is the end of this drama, I think it will be address in the future. |
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2364 |
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I don't particularly care if it's a punishment in some moral-teaching-moment sense. I just wish it felt like an action that had a significant effect on the story and the relationships between the cast. A single episode of Norn yelling at Rudy leading into Sylphy's "Well, Rudy's just really horny, so..." feels like a lame contrivance for wish-fulfillment to me.
I mean, I guess it's possible Sylphy's holding a serious grudge and the emotional fallout from Rudy's betrayal is a bomb ticking in the background. I seriously doubt that, though, given the author's choices to date when it comes to Rudy's sexual fantasies. |
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lossthief
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 1415 |
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Note that nobody in this recent discussion has said a word about punishment. You brought that up. What people were discussing is how little material consequence there is from a character or drama perspective. Rudy does something that is really hurtful by cheating on his spouse - and, to be clear, he and Sylphy were definitely in a monogamous relationship before this, so it absolutely constitutes cheating even if they eventually bring in a second partner for Rudy. That is a serious act that, in just about any story, would merit some serious confrontation from Sylphy and the people around him. At the very least, it should cause Sylphy to think of him in a different way, and any reconciliation should involve Rudy taking earnest and direct actions to regain her trust, and it definitely should take longer than it does in this episode. Instead, the story takes great contortions to resolve the entire conflict in Rudy's favor. Unless the only thing you care about in this story is whether Rudy is successful and content, it's a deeply unsatisfying way to develop any of the involved relationships. People don't want Rudy punished. They want him to be treated like an actual character who changes and develops from his choices, rather than the story forcing the to accommodate him. |
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jmckenna15
Posts: 136 |
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So much for "Sylphy is a doormat" huh? What she did in this episode was about as far from doormat as you could possibly get.
I like the fact that Norn was the one to get explosively angry rather than Sylphy first off. She just found out her dad is dead, her mom is a vegetable, and now her big brother who helped her out of her own malaise cheated on his wife and her sister in law who she's grown close to for the past few months? Yeah by all means go off on Rudy and Roxy. They both deserved it and it was a fair consequence of his actions. And thats not considering how it violates her religious beliefs even if it's not something shared by Rudeus (I do think the anime could have done more to build that up outside of just an Elainalise pep talk but that's just me). It's within her character to get that angry and it would take a bit of time for her to come around to it. Sylphy is just not the kind of character to get that angry about anything. Both acted in character for the moment. But what makes Sylphy not a doormat was that she went after Roxy and understood her at a more emotional level. She could have let her walk out the door without having her say but she did not. She addressed the issue on her own terms and in one that she felt was best for all concerned. She knew Roxy loved Rudeus. She knew Rudeus looked up to her. And she understood that Roxy was the one that initiated it with Rudeus and Rudeus is understandly trying to make the best choice going forward for all concerned. Sylphy loves Rudeus and wants to support him and she wants Roxy to be there for him as well -- like she was when he was a kid. Oh and the dig at Rudeus being a pervert was a nice little kick. He can't go unscathed either. As for Rudeus, I think this episode says a lot about how mature and grown up he's gotten this season even when he makes a mistake like he did. He wasn't primarily responsible for what happened but he still put himself out there to protect Roxy from Norn's wrath. He was willing to shoulder all the blame and be the one to throw himself at the mercy of his wife and sister. That takes courage, and continues the theme all cour of living his life to make others happy. Returning the kindness shown to him by everybody he's met. Even proposing to make Roxy his wife was more for her sake than his own. I thought that was excellently done and really highlights how sensitive the writing is to every character in this story. He knows he made a mistake. He had to deal with the consequences of it. He knows he'll make more mistakes. But even with this mistake, I can honestly say that, on the whole, he is a good, but flawed person. I cannot wait for Season 3. Also from an artistic standpoint, I think Sylphy's maturity is furthered by how she looks so much more grown up than anybody else. Rudy still looks like a kid and Roxy is so short by comparison. I don't think it's an oversight anymore. It's a deliberate visual storytelling decision Studio Bind made and makes the last episode better as a result. |
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