I would be surprised if Fortov isn't an asshole since in chapter 46, Kirielle says that when she asked Fortov to show her magic, he burned some of her drawings as a joke. I apologize for not knowing how to put it in a quote.

 

I think it will devalue the characterization is Zorians family all turn out to be okay people. Daimen should still be a dick, even if he isn't as bad as he might've been. Same with Fortev and his parents.

 

I'm actually on the fence about whether or not Zorian will patch things up with his parents. However, I do feel that will learn more about the mother and why she is the way she is. My reason for thinking so, is the whole issue with Zorian's grandmother and how his grandmother and mother didn't get along.

If Zorian ever wants to learn more about his witch background and the specifics of his bloodline magic, the first person to ask would be his grandmother. However, if his grandmother is dead (he has never contacted her from what we know, even when she could potentially counsel him on how to deal with Silverlake), the next person that would know the most about his witch background would be his mother.

If and when that time comes, we will have to delve deeper into the relationship between them and why they don't get along. I would also predict that Zorian's grandmother might have practiced blood magic (the ritual to imbue an inheritable magic ability into their bloodline probably required it).

The only person in Zorian's family I think we might not go into would be the father (very little screen time).

Also, to answer someone else's post, I believe that for the most part, most of Zorian's family is messed up, but have their reasons for being so (like people in real life).

 

It's very much said that while they aren't the complete dicks he thought them as, Zorian's reading on people was more or less spot on. The thing is, maybe thanks to his powers, these reading turned them into Caricatures in his mind across the time he interacted with them, as saw by a sullen and angry kid/teen who didn't forget any slights.

It's a common theme that all characters, emphasis on the Kazinskis, are deeply flawed people, like Zorian (who arguably was as bad as them, selfish and petty, among other things) and that a huge part of Zorian's character development is not only to learn to acknowledge his flaws and improve them, but to learn to give other people a chance, since they didn't actually have the chance he had to improve themselves.

The mother and father are certainly awful parents. This chapter made it really clear what a disaster their family is and all can be traced back to them one way or another. Don't think there will be much to salvage there. Their reasoning will probably be acknowledge yes, but doubt they will be sympathetic.

 

Hi, I was just now re-reading some past chapters, and something dawned on me. I think the 5 imperial artifacts all have an aspect of the time loop as part of their magical properties. I know it's kind of early to theorize this (though I feel a lot of people might have already thought of this before), but hear me out.

The Orb: it can basically create a huge pocket dimension whose anchor point is almost impossible to detect to divinations, unless you already know it's exact location. We already 'know' (technically never confirmed by the Guardian of the Threshold, but I will assume that is the case) that they are inside a giant pocket dimension capable of holding an entire copy of the original world and anchored to it. (Also, we still haven't gone inside the orb, but it might even make time go slower inside it, to keep food fresh. Who knows?)

The Crown: We still don't know it's properties, but I highly doubt it's just an ornament. For one thing, the lich (his name is hard to spell, and I can't be bothered right now) always brings it to battle with him. I think the crown might give the person wearing it some sort of 'buff' when it comes to dimensionalism, probably related to perception (since it's made to wear on the head).

It hasn't been addressed yet, but the lich teleporting so often is not normal. No other character has used teleportation in battle to such a great degree as he has. Those constant teleportations should be quite draining on his mana reserves, and yet he keeps using them in battle, when he should be paying close attention to how much mana he spends so that he can continue fighting (leading me to believe that it might somehow lower mana costs for those spells). Not even Zach with his ridiculous mana reserves teleports in battle as often as him. He is also pretty fast at teleporting (the time it takes for the spell to activate) and can cast hasting spells that speed him up by 5 times whenever he's in a pinch.

Not only that, but despite not being specialized in Dimensionalism (and rather in Necromancy), he still managed to make something that acted similar to a Bakora Gate. At first, I attributed this to him living for a long time and dedicating most of his efforts into trying to get out the island of exiles and back to the main continent (and maybe being able to sense the soul of the spirit inside the gate, somehow). However, he was not the only person researching the Bakora gate, several people in the continent got together and studied them over the years, and they never got anywhere.

 

Hey, I don't know if this has been mentioned before, but Zorian technically has an advantage I'm pretty sure none of the other araneas have when it comes to manipulating/enhancing their own minds (what the matriarchs of the webs often do). He can make a simulacrum of himself.

This means that he can make his simulacrums be the guinea pigs for those experiments. They would be affected the same way he would be if something went wrong, but it wouldn't cross over to other restarts, because the simulacrums would be dispelled when the restart ends. The simulacrums can also share their experiences with the original through memory packets, so the knowledge of how the experiment went can be transferred across restarts.

The simulacrums can also be objectively analyzed by simulacrums that aren't part of the experiment, to check for any bad side effects that might not be noticed by the person in question. If they go insane, they can be immediately dispelled and if any of the webs try to screw him over by giving him a technique that could negatively affect him, he wouldn't be affected and would note down that web.

I can honestly see Zorian advancing a lot farther along in this than any of the aranea if given enough time. The only issue might be that some side effects might not be immediately noticeable within the span of a loop. What do you guys think?

 

Thats a great idea. You should message the author.

 

Regarding the new chapter, when has characters been able to shapeshift to look like other people? Did I forget or miss something?

Did I misuse the word has? It sounds wrong.

 

Zorian's parents amused me greatly.

 

Zorian's parents didn't particularly amuse me but I did find the fact that his grandmother apparently threatened to poison the water well if someone tried to get out of paying her. How Zorian is very much his parents' child did amuse me.

 

All in all a chapter just tying up the remaining ends from the last chapters adventures. We probably gonna see a chapter or two of setting up and then something big will happen.

 

Again lots of character discover again. Many relationships are getting resolutions lately and soon there won't be many left. At the same time Zorian's magical development is hardly done or even close to it and the Keys are far from being collected. On one hand it feels like we're getting very close to the end, on the other it feels like we haven't crossed a halfway point of this arc.

The parents turned out to be a little better than his portrait of them. A little, because while it's hard to blame them for not being aware that their child have strong emphatic abilities causing his behaviour, they could've been a little emphatic themselves.

That said, they have very little excuse for what they're doing to their younger daughter. Informal or not, an arranged marriage is an arranged marriage and its perspective does affect Kiri's mental well-being much stronger than they probably expect.

Zorian's mother may attack him on the basis of his inexperience in raising children, but that's an argument you use when you don't have arguments proving you were in the right with your decisions concerning it.

 

Yeah, let’s see what has to be addressed before we even leave the time loop:

Find the rest of the imperial treasures and figure out a way to collect them all in one restart
Get Silverlake to teach Zorian how to make pocket dimension, etc.
Find out or more about his mother and grandmother, and overall witch lineage
Zorian character development (still some left)
Fortrov character development (not much so far)
Tinami character development (still some left)
Kopriva character development (not much so far)
Neolu character development (not much so far)
Alanic character development (still some left)
Find out how to stop the primordial summoning and reduce civilian casualties during the invasion (what happened inside the time loop might not work if Red Robes is around and the invaders can summon demons)
(I honestly don’t know if they will be able to figure out who Red Robes is within the time loop.)

 

I completely expect the Red Robe reveal to happen after they're out of the loop, and for it to be one of those monkey wrenches thrown in to make the 'for real, no takebacks' timeline exciting.

 

I felt like the arranged marriage bit makes sense in Zorian's society. If women don't have that much upward mobility, then why wouldn't you assure your child's future by trying provide them with an easy way up? It makes the parents seem reasonable in that regard, it's not like they're being neglectful or spiteful. Them wanting to control their children's futures is a common thing parents of all sorts do. While we can empathize with Zorian not liking his parents, this scene finally lays to rest any notions of Zorian's parents being malevolent people. They're just normal parents for the society they're in.

I was a little disappointed we didn't get much detail on Zorian's date other than, "it went well, except for the part where it won't matter soon". I would've liked to see the sorts of conversations that took place. I mean, Zorian's personality is ahead of his biological age, so that extra maturity...does it help or hurt his ability to connect? Is he fun to be around, or has this time loop crap made him unable to let loose with a girl? Also, how does an empath date somebody without being a sleaze? Not that I'm suggesting Zorian would use his power that way consciously, but I still think it makes for good material to write up about.

 

I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that Kirielle would be able to move up with a magical education, but her mother is vehemently opposed to the idea due to the persecution she experienced growing up as a witches daughter.

I don't fully understand the difference between witches and mages in this world. but judging from what we have seen of society in Cyoria, female magi are actually considered quite distinct form witches, and do not suffer from the same prejudice.

I think Kirielle would probably be able to do quite well in society with a magical education --- but her mom has an understandable but misjudged opinion of it due to the environment she grew up in.

 

Some patriarchal power structures clearly exist, but in general MoL-verse, like most fantasy settings, seems to be pretty low on blatant sexism. This makes perfect sense as magic is the great equalizer.

Now, power (both magical and otherwise) is very much inherited in MoL-verse, and climbing social classes is likely a multigenerational project, but it's probably not that much harder for women than men.

 

The way I see it, seems like Zorian will belearning if his Grandmother is alive or not, since at some point his Mother is going to say something related to it and IIRC didn't Zorian need some hundred restarts ago?

 

Wait, does that mean that Silverlake (the one who wants eggs of the grey hunter) could be Zorian's grandmother?

 

It was mentioned in chapter 72 that she "had been dead for a while now". It was mentioned during his talk with his parents. So, to answer the person before me as well, Silverlake cannot be Zorian's maternal grandmother. To begin with, it was mentioned that Zorian was taught alchemy by his grandmother in the first few chapters, so Silverlake and Zorian would have recognized each other if that was the case.

To add on, I think it's nice that we finally confront Zorian's parents. I think the Kirielle situation will force Zorian to get to know them better, and hopefully solve some of their family issues. Not only that, I mentioned this in a previous post, but if Zorian wants to learn more about his bloodline ability, he will have to talk with his mother a lot, since the grandmother is dead.

Speaking of the bloodline ability, I think this might be what allows Kirielle to attend a magical school. My reasoning for this is that Zorian's mother probably doesn't know about it. She has tried all of her life to run away from her witch lineage; how would she feel if she suddenly learned that she hasn't, that she passed on part of it to her kids?

No matter how hard she tries, she cannot completely distance herself from her past. There is no way to get rid of the bloodline ability, and without proper training, it could mentally cripple some of their descendants in some cases. Not only that, they have no idea if there might be other bloodline abilities that might be passed on that could be even more dangerous, since they have avoided their witch heritage all this time.

Case in point, stopping Kirielle from learning magic isn't going to stop people talking about their witch heritage, because the bloodline ability will be passed on regardless, maybe even to Kirielles own daughter in the future. Learning about magic might make the ability more manageable at least.