Fic has several good things going for it. First is the characters, because this story is filled with good fun characters. Even the characters who aren't strictly speaking fun are still interesting. The author is great at establishing the different perspectives, how they conflict and how they're wrong in some ways and right in others. You just don't see web fiction pull off unreliable narration this well.

Second strong point is the dialogue, especially the banter. One-liners galore, and it never feels overdone or gets tired. Spaced out properly and whatnot. You could take the main cast (or really most character combinations), throw them in a room together, and have them talk about anything, and it'd be entertaining. Hell, story's basically done that at times.

Third is a flair for the epic. Goddamn does the story nail crowning moments. Does it again, and again, and again, and again. "Holy shit that's awesome" is a very common refrain, and even in the midst of weaker parts you can find it. While this thread talks a lot about the lows, the highs are real damn high.

Overall, even though the current arc is a drag I still look forward to every update. On a chapter-by-chapter basis the story's still good. Hell, as problematic as the current arc is I think if you carve it out and spin it as its own story it holds up better. The pacing kinda falls apart halfway through book 3 as the update schedule takes its toll, although I imagine it's less painful when binged. The concept of "this is a world that runs on genre conventions" is a tough balance. At times it's great, but the vagueness endemic to that leads to problems. How much of a problem it is varies from reader to reader, and how much you're willing to accept it and the inherent inconsistency/lack of hard line rules. Part of it is an expectation that the reader can pick up the slack in explanations and whatnot, and while that's good and it's nice to see a web author willing to do that, there's quite a few times where he does it too much. Tricky shit when you're dealing with explanations that are nebulous and easily debatable and yadda yadda yadda. There's a longer post lurking in the back of my head about the very fixable downsides to the series, and how I trust Errata to be able to fix them if he ever went back for a revision ahead of a publishing run or something.

End of the day, this is just a fun story. I definitely recommend it.

 

I consider it the RWBY problem. That is to say, for those who don't know, that I've ragged pretty extensively on RWBY for a bunch of reasons, particularly lately. I've complained about how poorly it distributes it's time, how it's reach constantly exceeds it's grasp, how things keep happening almost at random to just resolve the plot in the final episode almost every season, how most of the villains are bland, how the Grimm fail utterly to be a threat, how we skip over huge swaths of time with barely a note, how Ruby has barely been developed--

Look, I complain about a lot of things in RWBY. And I complained particularly hard after this most recent season, Season 5. But, you know, when you actually look back at RWBY as a whole, pretty much every issue it has, it's had since the very beginning. Really, pretty much every complaint there is to have about the show is something that should have gotten on people's nerves from the beginning. Time management, arguably the biggest flaw, was a huge problem from the start, where it took half the season to get into Beacon and then, hey, that's the entire semester gone! Really, I shouldn't whine now, essentially; this is nothing.

And that's true. But here's the thing--first of all, I was a whiny bitch from the very beginning, so I did. But more importantly, there's shit I can give a pass in season one that doesn't slide in season five.

In the same way, there's stuff I'm not willing to forgive Guide for still doing in Book 4, over a million words into the story, that it did early on. Because we're not early on anymore.

Case in point...

See, here's the thing.

This is true. We don't know any of that.

This is not to the story's credit, especially four books and well over a million words in. It's true, we don't know what sets off the narrative in any given situation in this story. We don't know the breadth or extent of it's effects. We don't even, when you really get down to it, know what the narratives in play are. Like, the very premise of the story is that reoccurring patterns become a law of physics in their own right, but we have no idea what those patterns are. We make certain assumptions, but it's made clear that the narratives in-story are not just our out-of-story idea of classic fantasy; when she was fighting Sulia, Cat abruptly decided to pull out what we'd think of as Greek myth and it worked. Note, there's a Greek Nation in Calernia that's almost entirely unrelated to Callow--in fact, there are two. But it still applied in this specific case, except in a way not at all like the myth of Prometheus. So Callow's classic Western Fantasy also has a bunch of not-at-all Greek and other myths mixed in, that sometimes do or don't come up.

Hell, we even recently got an abject lesson from the Pilgrim that when interacting with another country, you can just be poleaxed by their storylines, too. Tell me, what do we know about the stories of, oh, Ashur, Levant, Procer, the Chain of Hunger, the Ratlings, the Everdark, the Free Cities, or anywhere else? We arguably know the most about Callow and Praes, but even then, we don't know a lot and the story just makes stuff up sometimes.

And that'd be bad enough on it's own, but then you have to consider how the stories interact. Because the story does absolutely nothing to establish or explain how that works in the slightest. You ask about the drow and the long and short of it is we have no idea about literally any of that, truth be told. Like, even the assumption that Cat is in a heroic role and the Mighty in a villainous one and that gives her an edge is one we can't really make, because villains being defeated like that is very much a Praesi/Callowan tradition--it doesn't apply nearly as much in Helike, who's Tyrants have been stated to die either when they're betrayed or when half of Calernia is against them, and to otherwise be basically unstoppable.

So, we don't know anything about how the narrative actually works or when or in what way. Same with magic, really, which is just flat-out Star Trek technobabble in this series.

That's not a feature. However, it should be noted that however it does work, it always seems to act in Cat's favor when it's needed to, even when it makes no sense--and before anyone mentions Practical Evil, Cat hasn't acted practically in a book. Like, every move she's made, we have chapter quotes against.

There's a lot of good in the series and a lot of bad--or, at least, a lot of wasted potential. It has a great world. It has interesting, complex, established characters. Every Interlude is an insightful and intriguing look.

Where it falters is consistency.

Now, my post above might make you think I mean the lolpowerlevels. And to a degree, I do, because that issue affects everything else. Two of the broadest reaching, most impactful elements in the series are the narrative and the magic. The narrative (sometimes, except when it doesn't) defines everything in the series. The stronger magic users and Named in this story are fucking gods. 99% of the problems in this series get resolved by one of those things or the other.

The story never explains how either work. Not even really by insinuation. This story fails Sanderson's Laws of Magic hard. Sometimes, the solutions to problems in this series seem clever, but most of the time, you're just gonna have to go 'I guess that's how that works now.' Except it's not gonna be, because the story can and will change it's mind. That's frustrating, just narratively.

But that's not the story's real problem. Like, it annoys the hell out of me, with be anal retentive attention to detail, but if you're willing to turn off your brain sometimes and enjoy the ride, it can make the ride fun enough to get passed the utterly random powers in the story.

What's harder to get by is the inconsistent characterization. Or, sometimes, overly consistent, too.

Like, Stealthy says you can take most of the characters, toss them in a room, and have them talk about anything, and it'd be fun to read, and that's true. But he also says that the story's pacing is better if you read it in one sprint, but I'm not so sure about that.

Because, if you're reading it quickly, I think you'll pick up on a trend in the story where you'll have some downtime and Cat will go an have a world-changing heart to heart with someone. These chapters tend to be really good, truth be told, and even exciting.

90% of the time, nothing comes of them, though. Like, Cat will make a decision about her life, or her future, or her role in the world, and it then has no effect on how she acts or does things. One of my favorite chapters in this book was conversation between Cat and Archer after the Battle of the Camps, because it was phenomenal, and everything Cat decided and realized in that chapter was immediately abandoned at the end of it. Hell, last chapter, we had a talk between Cat and Akua about Cat going back to simpler methods and the things she'd learned from Black--but look at this shit.

And it can even drag down otherwise really cool situations, because like, one of Cat's defining moments--not to spoil anything, because the phrase first comes up in chapter 14 or something, IIRC, but keep it in mind--revolves around a realization and phrase. Justifications only matter to the Just.

But if you're reading through the series at a quick pace, I think you'll see something pretty clearly. Namely, that Cat never once, at any point, holds to that realization, and in fact justifies things constantly to herself and others. So really, there's no weight to the phrase at all.

You'll see a lot of that, where things are built up and characterized in one chapter--Cat's character, the power of heroes, etc.--and completely forgotten later and it's a much worse flaw then even the incomprehensible magic system.

But for all of that, I'd still recommend it just for the setting. Even if you grow tired of Cat or decide you don't like the story, I think you'd have fun reading the Interludes and such, the world and it's breadth of characters are so damn good.

 

Same as what Ryuugi said for the most part. Absolutely read this series. It, Worm and Pact are pretty much the big 3 of web novels for me as far as anything I've found.

 

This update was...fine, honestly. I mean, Masego and Wakesa are kind of amoral monsters, but, you know, news at 11--and putting aside the casual murder over petty insults, it's honestly always nice seeing just how much impact Cat and the Woe have had upon him, that he would act the way he does. Also, it's just fun seeing things from Masego's POV, because, putting aside the magibabble, it's a fun viewpoint, with both how certain things go over his head entirely and others he just doesn't care about. Like, Masego boiled someone from the inside and forgot immediately until the stench reminded him. That's horrible, yeah, but it's a well-written horrible. Same with Wakesa, and his regrets and view of Masego's casual murdering. It's cliche evil, but it's good cliche evil.

If I had a complaint, though, it was that this chapter didn't really advance anything; Masego left the Woe because he had to talk to his dad. This chapter: Masego left the party and still had to talk to his dad. Also, his dads know he has something he wants to talk to them about. They've been around each other for time unknown and haven't talked yet. This chapter let's us know, therefore, that they still need to talk. It just felt kind of fillery, but eh--as long as we don't just skip the conversation being built up to, I don't mind, but if we do...well. I will be upset. If I get this chapter as build up and a chapter for the pay off, we're all good, 100%. If we got this chapter and no payoff, but the last few climaxes we've skipped? Nuh-uh.

You'd figure Praes would have run out of nobles this stupid by now, though. Is it just me, or does it seem like there's one getting this kind of treatment at pretty much every Praesi party? Hoping for long term self-preservation from Praes is pointless, but you would figure the ones that try to use magic against Warlock would be gone by now. This is the guy who's bound people's souls to chamberpots to be pissed and shat on for the rest of eternity and who casually murders people over minor slights. Have people not caught onto that in the last thirty years or so?

It's mostly just personal preference there, though. Even in story, Praes wobbles from deadly, super serious and deadly threats like Black and the Calamities, Terribilis, Triumphant, and even Akua, to, well, every other Emperor, so it's not like there isn't plenty of precedent for them all being morons. It's just that the story wants to point out their morons and also go into how terribly deadly a threat Praes is, at the same time, and I just don't feel it. We get told that trying to take any of the major cities in Praes is a death sentence or worse, but apparently Wakesa and Masego are all that stand between Ashur and the complete sack of Thalassia and everyone inside it, including the High Lord, knows it.

I just never understand the threat level of anyone in this story. Like, Cat says invading Praes would be a death march, but honestly, they're the least impressive evil country we've got right now. Like, show of hands, based just on what we currently know and how things stand--would you rather fight the Ratlings, the Dead King, the Drow, the Tyrant plus/minus the Free Cities, or...Praes, minus all but one Calamity. Because Cat chose the drow on that front and, uh...

 

I stopped reading this series after book 1 or maybe 2 and I have to say that I never liked it that much. For me there was always this clash between trying to tell a serious story with deep and believable characters and world-building clashing with the more comedic, for a lack of a better word, elements of this story and I never warmed up to its central idea of the whole "narrative roles".

 

Thanks for the replies, guys. I'll definitely try it out soon-ish. To be honest, the TVTropes summary did gain my interest more than any other rec, by talking about how the story explores the idea of heroic fantasy tropes being objective rules of reality. If that doesn't sound awesome and promising beyond belief, I don't know what is. The execution, of course, is another matter altogether.

 

So I’ve been thinking about what I said about a lack of hard and fast rules for conventions. In book 4, they haven’t applied at all in the current drow arc. I guess not facing Named influences it? But idk, it hasn’t even been remarked on. The Skein arc did with the whole over complicated plan thing, and while there wasn’t a hero to foil it which gave Cat leeway, it still fulfilled the trope by failing. Never answered the question of why someone as genre savvy as Cat even bothered, though. That’s really annoying.

Anyway, like said when and how narratives apply is kinda consistent but not always, and there’s no rules to it. We’re often left to our own devices and genre savviness to put it together, and that can be very YMMV. Personally I expect that to be the case by nature of what it is, but I understand that sometimes it works better than others. I can tolerate it. Meanwhile, Ryuugi can’t stand it as if it kicked him in the dick after fucking his girlfriend. Also understandable, and is why they’ll be a gap between us most of the time.

But the one time it did establish a clear explicit rule and pattern? Book 2. The pattern of 3. Made the attack on Warlock a reasonable threat. Explained a bit of plot armor against the Exiled Prince, then upped the ante when the demon could strip that away. And it established the peril at Liesse when Cat was due two losses in the book’s climax. We had expectations and an understanding of what was to come, and we haven’t had that since. At least not with respect to roles and narrative or to that extent.

Established systems are all the rage these days, especially with magic. Personally I find that unnecessary, and the lack of it is such a strong point for Harry Potter (yes, I know Taure’s write up, but still). Sometimes it works and is helpful, but sometimes it sucks. As an example, I’m with Ryuugi where I hate the magicbabble of the Guide. Some is okay, like Akua’s explanation of Keter’s due and the limitations of something as plot critical as scrying. And even the concept of different theories of magic, but then it gets too deep and I don’t even bother. The giants use Ligurgian which is hard as hell to master and takes a long time, but is good for epic shit. The Procerans use Jaquinite which is shitty and wasn’t even made up by a mage, but instead a priest. And Praes uses Trismegistan which is a really good and smart one as befits the great sorcerous nation. All good, though I only remember this because I’ve got a pretty good memory. Then the story gets too deep into it, babbles about whatever and I skim over it because I don’t fucking care. I know Hierophant can break rules as he learns them because that’s the basis of his Name, but that’s it. Don’t really get those rules aside from them being super powerful.

But narratives? They don’t get that. Again, I’m okay with that because I consider it part of the schitck (and can tank through it if I’m enjoying myself), but it can also be a weak point. Errata can leave too much to guesswork; a cardinal sin with this stuff. And in book 2 it makes the story stronger by having it. I’m not super fond of Sanderson’s Law, but I get the concept and how sometimes it can really hurt a story. And the narrative concept breaks it hard.

There’s more problems going on, like how it’s been fifty goddamn chapters since Cat’s been in the Crusade (and 4 months our time), but I think this really gets at a big one that Ryuugi’s been talking about.

 

To be fair, story narratives may not be applying as much with the drow because they'd have their own version of story narratives. Plus, it's not exactly 'good vs evil' with 'Cat vs Drow', so a lot of the hero/villain things may not apply.

 

As a slight aside, I checked reddit and found this stuff, which I figured other people might be interested in. A fair bit of it is neat, though much of it is also confusing:

Referring to the Angelic Choirs:

And a rough, fanmade but cited timeline to go with it:

I still have no idea how fucking Procer works.

 

Magic Ryugi, it functions off of magic, priest tears, and rattling corpses.

 

Idea for that that is 100% not backed up by text. We know that Procer somehow does stand up to all of these monsters, and they do not really have significant Named. But who said narratives only work with Named? Entire world works off of them right? So maybe Procer, through being the final real bastion of Good on the continent, and managing to do so without Named, has accumulated narrative weight of being able to punch above its weight class? So even without Named, things will go just that little bit right. Their armies will hold the line for those few extra hours for reinforcements to get there. Their cavalry will have that extra spice of moral breaking. Their suicide mission to bring down the enemy will fight with that little extra oompf, and strike that much more accurately, get 'lucky' shots that little bit more often. Nothing that alone would turn the tide the way that Named can, but just enough all over to let them win out more often than not.

 

Well, there's two nations they gotta fight. The Dead King and the Chain of Hunger. We've been told the Dead King doesn't really go for full on invasions, just raids to grow his armies. He's said that - if he tried - he could conquer a whole lot of Procer without too much trouble. From what we've seen, there's no reason to doubt that, but he doesn't because that puts his neck on the line after he gets a couple centuries of darkness established. So while Procer probably takes losses whenever he throws soldiers at them, the lack of concentrated effort is how they can hold the line. Probably. With him invading for real I'm guessing that this'll be touched on in an Interlude. It'll finally be relevant, so hopefully it'll be a reasonable explanation.

As for the ratlings, well it seemed pretty straightforward at first, but then we saw a Horned Lord in action and while they're supposed to be very very rare, and the average one not as powerful as the Skein... holy shit those things are army wreckers. You'd need a Saint of Swords level hero for those. If a Horned Lord isn't in the warband, I could see it working. Lycaonese are a heavily martial culture and are supposed to have favorable mountainous terrain to hold a defense. But when they do show up... damn. I'd love to see that in an extra chapter.

 

I agree with some parts of this and just can't fathom others, to be honest. Like, just to start with, you say stuff like 'when and how narratives apply is kinda consistent but not always, and there’s no rules to it' and I wondered when it had ever been consistent. You said 'We’re often left to our own devices and genre savviness to put it together, and that can be very YMMV', but my issue is that, frankly, most of the time it's impossible to put it together or completely up in the air.

But mostly, I just don't understand your opinion on Sanderson's Laws here. See, the reason I bring up Sandersons Laws so much isn't because of some love for his work, though I think his works are well written, but rather because, in a way, it's a lot like many laws of Physics--it's something that's in many ways blatantly obvious that someone took the time to actually write out and elaborate. Those laws are as follows and are both extremely basic and broadly applicable, which is kind of the point:

That is, if magic is solving story problems, the reader should know why, just so it's not a random deus ex machina. And I should note, I mean that in the original sense of the term, wherein, say, the play Medea, after Medea commits murder and infantcide and is about to be cornered and murdered herself with no way out, a god literally descends from on high--or sends a magical chariot, at least--to save her and continue the plot; generally speaking, they were lowered onto the stage from above with a machine, hence god from the machine. That can work in certain contexts, but not always and not in general.

This is distinct from just generally understanding how magic works, it should be noted--this law allows for vague, nebulous magical forces that cause problems, that make items that the story focuses on, etc. The exact specifications of the One Ring aren't important, because it's making the character's lives harder and thereby gets a pass on this law. The way this Law applies to Guide is in, well, the Named mages. I'm talking about stuff where, say, Cat having a fake heart is causing her a lot of problems, and Masego just magically fixes it, or when they've facing a deadly threat and he just magically fixes it, or when they suddenly can't go any further and he magically fixes it. Or Cat's faced with the horrible effects of her Mantle and Akua just gets rid of them.

Masego, Wakesa, and lately even Akua are deus ex machina's in the most literal, god from the machine sense. The plot reaches a point where it cannot go any further on it's own and someone starts to lower them on stage.

This is kind of just like the general rule of power is stories, isn't it? It's more important to know what magic can't do then what it can, which has been an ongoing issue with Guide. Most series just accept this law by default, because it's pretty damn important to know what people are and aren't capable of and why--they can make those limits implicit, like in Harry Potter, or explicit, like in the Dresden Files, but when a character runs into a problem, there's generally supposed to be some reason they can't just solve it.

Guide sucks at this. Like, I've joked at it at length, but what Masego, and any wizard/priest/Named/fae/drow/etc. can or cannot do is not only nebulously defined, it's seemingly variable. There hasn't been an issue in Book 4 where I haven't wondered why Masego doesn't just fix it, but let's be real, I have no grasp of anyone's powers in this series. I mean, what the fuck are Cat's limits? Like, hell, I don't think we've ever even seen her run out of power or anything, and she's constantly pulling out new powers.

I don't know what the main character in this story can and cannot do, and so I never know if a problem is worth taking seriously until the story shows me. That's not good.

And finally,

Right now, Guide has the following, seemingly distinct, types of magic. It has magic for mages, miracles for priests, Masego's magical miracles, Named powers, Aspects separate from said Named powers, artifacts, the Pattern-fuckery of the Elves, the Unmaking powers of demons, Angelic powers and blessings, the vaguely defined powers of the Fae, the consumptive power of the Ratlings, the Night of the drow, and so on and so forth. These are all distinct, different forces with different powers and abilities that can seemingly be combined with one another. Note, the limits on all these powers vary randomly.

Focusing just on magic for the moment, we then have more than five different types of magic, with supposedly wild differences. There's the Dead King's brand, the Praesi form, the Callowan type, the Proceran ones, the Giant one, and probably one for every other race and group.

Within all of that, we have various fields of magic, with vaguely defined limits, like scrying, enchanting, necromancy, diabolism, etc. Wakesa's specialty is wards; notably, the story does basically fuck all to explain wards and how they work to us, just that somehow he can turn an area into a literal hellscape with them and such not.

And so on and so forth.

Simply put, the reason I keep bringing up Sanderson's Laws is because it's useful shorthand for 'The story keeps resolving shit without explanation, doesn't tell us the limits or capabilities of anyone involved, and keeps throwing a constant stream of new shit at us when we don't even know how the old stuff works.' Which are all pretty general issues.

Harry Potter, for the record, works more or less fine under Sanderson's Laws. We know fuck all how Harry Potter magic works in a scientific sense or broader capacity or whatever, but when Harry runs into a problem, he does so with a limited tool kit that we know and understand, with established rules on what he can do and what he knows, and he generally brings the same tools back again and again rather then just making new ones. Really, the place it takes the most damage from the Laws is with the Third, and mostly because of Hermione.

Now, in a broader, 'What if Dumbledore was there on every adventure?' sense, yes, HP would immediately fall apart as a story, but he's generally not. Harry Potter is the story of Harry Potter, a young school boy with a lot of limits and limited information, and his story works fine--and Sanderson's Laws are rules for a story, not for a setting. The issue with Guide isn't, in and of itself, the fact that we know nothing about Magic and the Narrative. It's that we know nothing about Magic and the Narrative and are constantly following groups of people who do, and who use that knowledge to fix major problems. The stuff we know know nothing about is consistently the most important stuff.

I found the quote that this was just part three of seven, by the way--that the drow arc is just the third part of this book, I mean.

That boggles my fucking mind, but there you go.

It should be noted that Procer--or, at least, the Northern part that eventually became part of Procer--has had to hold off the Ratlings for over 2000 years, per one of the chapter quotes.

Even if they're very, very rare* and even if the Skein was an exceptional one**, that's a long-ass time to hold back invasions, especially when even just the Ancient Ones are described as 'Tower-sized.' There's having a martial culture, and there's having to deal with small Kaiju with sticks and small bits of metal, with priests that don't fight directly and shitty mages.

*Note, Archer mentions there being multiple in existence at once, so it's more that it's rare for a Ratling to become one then for there to be any at all.

*Which was never stated anywhere.

 

And we got off screened on black so we can have a little guessing game of is he dead. Wonderful.

I genuinely hope he surrendered just to screw with them.

 

It's always fun to see things through Malicia's eyes and this is no exception; an all around great Interlude. As per usual, she comes off as informed, skilled, and yet still limited in logical ways; cold and logical and yet still with fits of emotion. She makes for a great POV, with insight into people that we should arguably know better. Her views on how to use Callow against itself were good and shed light on her recent actions, and it's always good to see people realize that most of Cat's inner circle doesn't give a shit about the nation they're fighting for.

I do like how Cat's plan is so bafflingly awful that Malicia just dismisses it outright. She just goes 'It could be the drow, but she'd have to be an idiot to do that, especially while her Kingdom is burning.' She mentions several different ways she could make Callow collapse while Cat's gone to emphasize the point.

This is followed by further implication that Black might have survived, which utterly fails to surprise me, as I gave it even odds way back. I can see absolutely no good reason to leave him alive--not even Ranger's potential ire, because seriously, leaving him alive and trapped isn't much better; the remaining Calamities and all of Malicia's focus, plus Cat and Masego, we get on that like flies on shit, after all--but I figure it'll probably happen for reasons and he'll probably escape. I'm not happy about that but not upset, either, because while I think it'd be dumb, it comes as no surprise to me. Interestingly, the Ranger's apparent draw with the Summer Queen had left her badly injured enough that she still hasn't recovered, and that was a year or two ago now; since the Summer Queen herself was walking around a week later with just some bandages, I'm not sure that counts as a draw.

Malicia mentions using the full terms of her bargain with the Dead King as leverage to hold Callow in check--I give even odds that there's something in it that makes it so that anyone who goes to war with Praes is considered a valid target by the Dead King; all it would take was a pact of mutual alliance, honestly, since Praes is already at war with Procer and no one really wants to fight the Dead King...as far as Malicia knows, which might be why the Dead King went along with it.

And last but not least, that section at the end, about her and Black, was just solid fucking gold.

 

Now that Black might be alive, I can't help but imagine him being in a Hannibal Lecter-sought of role. In a cell, with nothing but his mind to cause damage. Depending on who he talks to while he's there, that might cause all kinds of trouble for the Crusade.

 

If I had to guess, capturing Black is designed to force a particular narrative. It’s also clearly set Malicia off balance, and in some ways it’s a safer move than outright killing him which would provoke some of the strongest Named on the continent to bloody murder.

Still, leaving him alive risks him sticking a spoke in their plans, and it risks news of the Crusade weaponising a plague getting out. Combined with the Callowan Church naming the crusaders graceless you can build a potent narrative out of that which places the crusaders as the villains.

 

Black’s probably alive. Damn, and that was a good sendoff. So who wants to bet that getting captured was All Part of the Plan? Personally I think it’s a tossup, but if true then there better be a good explanation.

If they do parade him around, I could see him being brought to the Highest Assembly for condemnation, and he’d find an opportunity to speak. Cordelia may be smart enough to keep him silent, but she may underestimate his skill with words. He’s not Malicia, after all. But still, Cordelia’s not an “unnecessary risk” kind of girl. Black could spill some dirty secrets out, though. Like how he was captured because a Levantine unleashed a plague upon him and innocent Procerans. Maybe even that thing where Cordelia funneled money into Tasia Sahelian and this funded Akua’s superweapon.

Also, I know that Ranger is a threat and would apparently slaughter a principality or two, but seriously what the hell is Assassin doing right now? Oh, maybe that’s the leverage Black used to spare his life? Hero is about to kill the evildoer but reveals some heinous scheme that the hero can’t stop without the villain. That’s a trope, and Black could pull it off. The White Knight is the heroic leader and sworn to the Choir of Judgement, and Black’s talked about abusing that before. Or he just immediately surrendered like Legacy said because lol.

Also @Ryuugi Shi re: magic, I agree with near everything you said. I probably phrased myself poorly, because I’m not a fucking moron who endorses deus ex machinas and asspulls. Will figure it out later.

 

I don't see the plague as some terrible secret just waiting to drop. All they Heroes need to say is that the Heavens cursed the village for consorting with the powers of Evils. Black and his army undeniably came to that village and left with barges. The only person left alive to say the villagers didn't aid Black is Black himself and no one will believe him over the Heroes. And they did break bread with the forces of evil when they accepted the barley Black gave them and the town guard did surrender while the Levantine forces fought to the death, so there's a kernel of truth.

 

Assassin is way too much of a wildcard in the story. Like anyone who Praes wants dead should be dead; they dodged him once but nothing has said he only gets ove shot. Feels like he was just written in to be cool and forgotten