Literally this.
I actually agree with them that MC should have killed the dude since he was too dangerous to leave alive and was making moves to start a war anyways.. but it gets pretty damn annoying when people keep bitching about something they should expect from the kind of series they're reading.
It's passable anyways since Youki isn't battle-hardened and was in fact a literal shut-in. Living as an overpowered being granted him the luxury of never having to make hard decisions to stay alive such as killing an opponent.
I think a lot of people here simply don't understand that actually killing someone is an act that can even be a straight-up traumatic experience.. whether the person being killed deserves it or not. Especially if you don't have a tool like a gun to make it quick and clean.
To me, it's only genuinely frustrating when a character who refuses to kill clearly has BOTH the psychological capability and every incentive to do so.
Only part I found stupid was him having an inner thought that what his subordinates were suggesting was "too harsh".. when discussing what to do to an utterly-vile piece of garbage. I personally say that's even lenient for someone who tried to kill a little girl and overall ends lives sheerly for the hell of it.
Well, and going by this logic, that he was overpowered enough that he never had to make "difficult/hard decisions" left him in a situation where he wasn't "ruthless". Like, recent events have shown that
sometimes ruthlessness may be
somewhat necessary from
time to time. But I also appreciate and like the fact the MC is an innocent shut-in who doesn't murder people. It's a nice change from the brutal, psychopathic MCs of a lot of Korean webseries. I need my floofs and feels to pad out the brutal nutshows.
Oh, I don't disagree about
the trauma. Funny how I sometimes wonder if the people who are saying that, may themselves, be a tad off the reservation. Systemic, intergeneration trauma being so prevalent with all the wars and horrors that have gone down over the last couple hundred years makes me suspect that a
statistically significant number of people have developmental or low grade to worse trauma issues, undiagnosed, untreated, running wild in the world. Especially, when unrepentant.
This was also argued by Neil Postman as one partial explanation for why Japan got rid of firearms despite at one point being on the cutting edge way back yonder. Though, as other historians have likewise pointed out, it was probably primarily for keeping the oligarchs, kleptocrats, and nobles in power and stopping the risk of "populist peasant uprising". Given how difficult using a sword is compared with a firearm to successfully kill
en mass, the argument goes that having these "professional warrior classes" helped keep the oligarchy in power far longer than they otherwise would have. That said, I also get Postman's point about technology and technological progress vs social progress, and that the two are not necessarily connected. One does not necessarily come with the other. See ongoing genocides as case studies.
I get you on your last point. Though, I also recognize that some people are, for all intents and purposes, totally fucked up. In those cases, ideally, you get them the "help" they need, even if it comes at the end of a barrel of a you-know-what. Sometimes, we are incapable of recognizing that we "need assistance", and in those cases, it is the duty of others to help us when we cannot help ourselves in the event that we are harming others. Though, I recognize that to tell
that kind of story is FAR more complex, nuanced, and requires an extremely high skill of writing, who understands psychology, trauma, the human condition, etc., vastly better than your average comic or light novel writer. And even then, I don't know how many people would necessarily go for it. Like, I can well imagine people complaining in those cases because they want a gorefest. WHY they want a gorefest, I can't say or readily comprehend. If you can avoid needless bloodshed, then good. That said, I think the real issue is that a LOT of writers don't understand the sorts of people they often want to use as villains, which is why so many of them so often come out like OG Maleficent in the 1959 Disney Animated Film, Sleeping Beauty. You get amazeballs acting and villainy, but it's also relatively unrealistic in terms of humans. We don't just "do that shit". There are TONS of shit involved with us getting there. That's why I enjoy Once Upon A Time (ABC tv series). They did an overall excellent job of blending "evil and fuck" villainy with character development, a strong understanding of the human condition, and really meaty, lovely, heel-face-turns and redemption stories. Also, prime example of "heel-face-turn villains, when done right, can often become some of the most badass and interesting characters". Or so is my opinion. =P