Tower of God Season 2

Episode 7

When I look at this episode of Tower of God, I understand what the creators were hoping to accomplish. However, that's not enough to make me accept it on a logical or emotional level.

Basically, in this episode we see Bam's second team come together and face a major threat. The problem, however, is that they are up against the self-proclaimed strongest man in the tower—and we're given no reason to doubt his words. He easily handles all of them at once. The only reason Bam lives is because Miseng gets in the way—and Mazino pulls his punch to keep her and Bam alive. And once Mazino has what he came for, he simply leaves. He has no want to murder kids—especially ones that were basically tricked into fighting him.

This fight—along with the last test they took—is supposed to convey a sense of unity within the group. Together, they will stand up to even the greatest threat. Yet this doesn't feel enough to explain the choice made in the back half of the episode.

Sure, to Wangnan's team, Bam is a powerful-yet-kind guy. He may be affiliated with FUG, but he's gone out of his way to protect them and help them climb the tower. Their goals and personalities mesh well. They feel they can trust him.

However, the case is not the same for Wangnan. He knows the whole story—and understands that Bam is being blackmailed to climb the tower. He knows that Bam and FUG are in an adversarial relationship and that by becoming Bam's companions, they'll put themselves right in the middle.

Logically, it wouldn't be a bad idea to take FUG's deal—to let Bam climb with a FUG team and have FUG find Wangnan's team a new ringer. It would free Wangnan's team from the dual threat of FUG's potential anger and Bam's reckless inability to give up on a test, no matter the cost. It would also free Bam from giving FUG a whole new set of hostages to control him and the constant issue of having to weigh their lives against his old teams in dangerous situations.

But, in the end, Wangnan and the team decide to keep climbing with Bam and simply ignore the mountain of dangers at their back because... Bam's a nice guy? Because they want to? There's just not enough rationale here.

We needed to go deep into each character's thought processes to see this choice as anything but a stupid, feel-good choice to pander to the audience. It's only because Jinsung feels sorry for Bam and sees the team as harmless/hostages, that he doesn't simply murder them all. Heck, that's what the rest of FUG wants him to do. It's only dumb luck that the team's choice doesn't end with a pile of corpses.

I understand what this show was aiming for, but it didn't feel justified from what little we know of these characters, their pasts, and their goals. And now that it looks like we're about to have a two-year time jump, it seems like we'll be skipping over potential moments that would make their choice believable—even if only in retrospect. Still, I won't pretend I'm not excited to see this new team face off against the old one—even if the character development of the former pales in comparison to the latter.

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Tower of God Season 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.