Apocalypse Bringer Mynoghra: World Conquest Starts with the Civilization of Ruin - Ch. 31 - Curtain

[McYeet]

I completely forgot though
little help?

Verdel was introduced in manga Vol. 2 Chapter 6.1

https://mangadex.org/chapter/0c1d0524-52cf-4a30-8e8a-b19655b1fa3c/1

 

[ScryedParadox]

I honestly thought it was obvious. Fact aside that his miasma is literally turning the people into monsters who lose their morality, as was described in previous chapter where they didn't see or felt anything wrong with people being skinned in the streets, even just looking at the latest chapter, him using the face of his friend to stab the unrelated (afair) paladin in the back wouldn't make him a decent guy in my books. Tho I concede that the ideas of morality among the readers wildly vary.

Well. And don't take this as me criticizing you or saying you don't already know this, but your statement made me feel like discussing this publicly.

That's the general premise of an anti-hero.
While the character is still the Hero, and he still does good towards a group of people, his actions can be questionable or lean into what we can objectively or subjectively consider evil.

Like the difference between Batman with a strict no kill policy but utilizing terror on criminals to protect the innocent versus the Punisher who straight up murders and kills criminals on the spot. Both have actions taken to save the general populace, but with different shades of dark, one much darker than the other, one far more hopeful than the other, with the Punisher being far more Grim Dark, and Batman being more Hopeful Good.

And now I'm going to shove most of my post into a spoiler because... Wow I wrote a lot.

Spoiler: Just hiding a wall of text in here

In this case, you could consider the MC here propagating his culture that could be viewed as barbaric and evil in the eyes of other cultures. For example, if there was a peaceful culture out there that was living off the land, in harmony with each other, happily and without war with neighbors. But they skinned cats and dogs alive and ritualistically ate the animals while they were boiling alive. You would consider that horrific, despite the rest of their culture being peaceful because of a different view of values of life.

Hell, you don't even need to go so far as to consider entire different cultures across different nations, you can look at differing ideologies. For example, a die hard Vegan would consider me, someone who is a meat lover, a horrific murdering monster. Even if I restricted it solely to just drinking milk, they would consider that torturing an animal for produce. You could argue that the issue is that they are on the extreme edge of Lawful or Good alignment, but then their actions could also lead to what is considered evil or dogmatic.

Now, of course, we can also end up delving into discussions between relative good and evil on a subjective level versus objective good and evil actions, which becomes harder as while we are capable of creating an objective standard, these standards can still be open to being painted in different ways. For example the aforementioned differing values of life between me a meat eater and a vegan could both admit that we value life, but how do we value life becomes the question. Do we set a standard of lives which have more value than others or an absolutist view that all lives are equal, which may suggest that even the grass living has the same equal value as you living, meaning that just stepping outside on the grass makes you a mass murderer. Now that is an absolutely absurd stance to take, but it is within the sliding scale of how someone Values Life.

Now spread that to a bunch of different topics, like how do we value Justice. Everyone seems to agree that Justice is an objective value that is shared, but how we view what is and isn't justice is the matter. And from there we need to determine a general objective standard that is held to a combined society typically through shared values that are shared for any number of reasons. Now, since if we don't focus this on a purely fantastical made up scenario like specifically talking about the story, this can delve into the real world that gets much messier, so let's look at it because this does involve the concept of Justice.

The setting is that the king has been attacked, attempted assassination from a foreign hostile country who determined that your culture is not just incompatible to theirs, but also to be destroyed, and therefore by extension your entire country and all the lives within are to die, which touches on the previous query of how do you determine the value of life on an objective and subjective standard. At what point are contemptible actions determined as justified or even just straight up just and correct and an act of Justice. In a dream world, Talk no Jutsu would always fix everything, but worlds with better world building and complexities that makes a world breathing and living typically also means that Talk no Jutsu becomes far less effective without the means of enacting some sort of quid pro quo or mutual benefit that outweighs the value that they view to your complete destruction.

It's why these sort of stories often ends up causing a lot of debate on evil and good, because there are a ton of factors to consider, a ton of different sliding scales of things. Recontextualization, cultural differences, general results that offsets or forgives past or future transgressions, adjusting scales on what we perceive as just or can logic as being the correct action. Far more complex than a scenario where a hero wants to save his lover whose sacrifice would save the world, where outside of the emotions and subjective view and romantic idea that a world should save all who lives within it is often not met with the harsh reality that there are costs to these decisions.

Sorry that I kinda went all over the place, but it really did just get the mind flowing.

 

[Iskarioth]

Well. And don't take this as me criticizing you or saying you don't already know this, but your statement made me feel like discussing this publicly.

That's the general premise of an anti-hero.
While the character is still the Hero, and he still does good towards a group of people, his actions can be questionable or lean into what we can objectively or subjectively consider evil.

Like the difference between Batman with a strict no kill policy but utilizing terror on criminals to protect the innocent versus the Punisher who straight up murders and kills criminals on the spot. Both have actions taken to save the general populace, but with different shades of dark, one much darker than the other, one far more hopeful than the other, with the Punisher being far more Grim Dark, and Batman being more Hopeful Good.

And now I'm going to shove most of my post into a spoiler because... Wow I wrote a lot.

Spoiler: Just hiding a wall of text in here

In this case, you could consider the MC here propagating his culture that could be viewed as barbaric and evil in the eyes of other cultures. For example, if there was a peaceful culture out there that was living off the land, in harmony with each other, happily and without war with neighbors. But they skinned cats and dogs alive and ritualistically ate the animals while they were boiling alive. You would consider that horrific, despite the rest of their culture being peaceful because of a different view of values of life.

Hell, you don't even need to go so far as to consider entire different cultures across different nations, you can look at differing ideologies. For example, a die hard Vegan would consider me, someone who is a meat lover, a horrific murdering monster. Even if I restricted it solely to just drinking milk, they would consider that torturing an animal for produce. You could argue that the issue is that they are on the extreme edge of Lawful or Good alignment, but then their actions could also lead to what is considered evil or dogmatic.

Now, of course, we can also end up delving into discussions between relative good and evil on a subjective level versus objective good and evil actions, which becomes harder as while we are capable of creating an objective standard, these standards can still be open to being painted in different ways. For example the aforementioned differing values of life between me a meat eater and a vegan could both admit that we value life, but how do we value life becomes the question. Do we set a standard of lives which have more value than others or an absolutist view that all lives are equal, which may suggest that even the grass living has the same equal value as you living, meaning that just stepping outside on the grass makes you a mass murderer. Now that is an absolutely absurd stance to take, but it is within the sliding scale of how someone Values Life.

Now spread that to a bunch of different topics, like how do we value Justice. Everyone seems to agree that Justice is an objective value that is shared, but how we view what is and isn't justice is the matter. And from there we need to determine a general objective standard that is held to a combined society typically through shared values that are shared for any number of reasons. Now, since if we don't focus this on a purely fantastical made up scenario like specifically talking about the story, this can delve into the real world that gets much messier, so let's look at it because this does involve the concept of Justice.

The setting is that the king has been attacked, attempted assassination from a foreign hostile country who determined that your culture is not just incompatible to theirs, but also to be destroyed, and therefore by extension your entire country and all the lives within are to die, which touches on the previous query of how do you determine the value of life on an objective and subjective standard. At what point are contemptible actions determined as justified or even just straight up just and correct and an act of Justice. In a dream world, Talk no Jutsu would always fix everything, but worlds with better world building and complexities that makes a world breathing and living typically also means that Talk no Jutsu becomes far less effective without the means of enacting some sort of quid pro quo or mutual benefit that outweighs the value that they view to your complete destruction.

It's why these sort of stories often ends up causing a lot of debate on evil and good, because there are a ton of factors to consider, a ton of different sliding scales of things. Recontextualization, cultural differences, general results that offsets or forgives past or future transgressions, adjusting scales on what we perceive as just or can logic as being the correct action. Far more complex than a scenario where a hero wants to save his lover whose sacrifice would save the world, where outside of the emotions and subjective view and romantic idea that a world should save all who lives within it is often not met with the harsh reality that there are costs to these decisions.

Sorry that I kinda went all over the place, but it really did just get the mind flowing.

I read your whole statement and agree with most of it though I feel like you really drifted into a philosophical/ theoretical direction. As for the MC being an anti-hero, I'd say it is very much a gray area as IMO the anti-hero usually still has a goal in my mind that could be considered good but employs immoral methods, which I find hard to apply to the MC. He's like a beast in a sense that reacts instinctively and might just transform into a plaque to the universe he inhabits later on. His creatures (which reflect on him) show almost no morality as they go off on murder sprees or use excessive violence and corrupt other people / countries.

Anyways I initially called him evil mostly because I find the shallow support / cheering of certain readers off-putting because their inherent self-righteousness which just doesn't fit when the MC and his intentions lack said righteousness. Furthermore it speaks volumes about those who are offended by me calling him evil despite that being an accurate statement even if you just look at the setting itself.

 

[PugOfWar]

Hmm did he do something like create 2 "characters", make them both Paladins, and give them both the name "Unknown"? Then proceeds to play mind games, by having one kill the other; then, swap the dead body with the other paladin that got killed, just to completely screw with any attempt to properly analyze the situation, via divination?

thats my headcanon from now on

 

[nathan67003]

HERE IT COMES [FINDING OUT written in impact font over tornado].jpg

 

[mangavorex]

Verdel was introduced in manga Vol. 2 Chapter 6.1

Thanks a lot!

As for the MC being an anti-hero, I'd say it is very much a gray area as IMO the anti-hero usually still has a goal in my mind that could be considered good but employs immoral methods, which I find hard to apply to the MC.

There should be little doubt that the MC is evil (it's literally in the title, in the civilization description, in the fact that he's repeating it over and over, and of course the fact that this is a 4X, which usually requires the destruction of any other civilization.
Certainly immoral, as shown by his and his units' behaviour, and "evil" is only defined in contrast to "good" (moral)

As for the goal, we know it: the ascension ending, he said so

So the remaining point of contention for me is whether he is a hero. To the dark elves he's a saviour and leader, so I'd say it counts as both "good and immoral". Strictly speaking Hero would be a no, that's Atou's role, he seems more of a personified god, which would also fit with the wold lore ("beware the king of ruin" etc). Take or leave it, I think it still counts as hero.

 

[rluka]

How is the position of Player in Takuto’s game?
Is it the type where they have a “King” piece to represent the player (can take action as fighter in battle) and capturing this piece means victory like in chess. Or is it the type where the Player is invisible and defeat is represented by their Capital/Palace being captured by enemy?

If the later, then Takuto acting on his own could be seen as him moving as a Hero unit.

 

[ScryedParadox]

I read your whole statement and agree with most of it though I feel like you really drifted into a philosophical/ theoretical direction. As for the MC being an anti-hero, I'd say it is very much a gray area as IMO the anti-hero usually still has a goal in my mind that could be considered good but employs immoral methods, which I find hard to apply to the MC. He's like a beast in a sense that reacts instinctively and might just transform into a plaque to the universe he inhabits later on. His creatures (which reflect on him) show almost no morality as they go off on murder sprees or use excessive violence and corrupt other people / countries.

Anyways I initially called him evil mostly because I find the shallow support / cheering of certain readers off-putting because their inherent self-righteousness which just doesn't fit when the MC and his intentions lack said righteousness. Furthermore it speaks volumes about those who are offended by me calling him evil despite that being an accurate statement even if you just look at the setting itself.

Yeah well. It's why I prefaced it by saying I just felt like discussing things and it wasn't a direct reply in the first place.

Oh, and I ended up writing another wall of text. I'll just hide it in a spoiler and give a TL;DR at the end.

Spoiler: Just a good old wall of text hidden in here. Also some minor Overlord spoilers.

And as for the MC's goal. The only goal I can recall is him wanting to win, since this is effectively just another round of his 4X turn based strategy game. I honestly do not recall if he even had a positive end goal to reach. Hell, looking back at chapter 1, he stated directly he would create a kingdom solely for himself and Atou whom he favors above all, as well as lead the world to destruction, clearly aiming for conquest and victory. So we know right off the bat that he was always going to go into war and conquest, his general build isn't one set for diplomacy. It's like saying you picked the Necropolish faction in Might and Magic, and saying you're going to do a pacifist diplomacy run. It runs counter to what your faction is optimized to do, which is to kill and overrun. I also do not have any key moment I recall where he clearly declared some sort of peaceful intent as an end goal, outside of just generally wanting ot make his subjects lives better, but that seems to serve more the end goal of conquest.

By contrast, we have another character that plenty of people call evil but unlike the MC here Ainz Ooal Gown from Overlord very clearly makes it known to the reader that his intent is to create a paradise on earth because he desperately wants to make his friends proud of him and avoid being an enemy to fellow players and to the world, indicates a positive end goal but with very questionable methods to achieve it, which are all due to his emotions being subdued by his Overlord nature that suppresses most of it, allowing him to think rationally at all time, which also means to act in a very cold hearted and brutally efficient manner at all time too, even if he has lofty positive goals that arguably significantly objectively betters the lives of everyone under him.

And his starting point is very different. He started wanting to remain an isolationist, he did not want to invade, he simply wanted to keep his place safe and the NPCs that he viewed as children, wanted to make them happy. Unfortunately his big mouth caused some misunderstandings and his subjects desire conquest, so unlike our MC here who behaves with full authority, Ainz actually acts on a twisted form of Democracy where he goes along the wishes of the masses under him, who just happen to be fanatically devoted to him as if he was the ruler of an Tyrannical Authocracy. Hell, he actively wants dissenting opinions under him because he knows he's surrounded by Yes Men.

So I can understand your stance on that too. If I were to shorten it down.
We have two very similar characters who are evil aligned and on a path of world conquest while making their subjects happier with better lives, but who can be evaluated entirely differently due to a very simple description:

Takuto is a Conquerer who happens to make his subject happy as a result.
While Ainz Ooal Gown is a Ruler who wants to make his subjects happy and is a Conquerer as a result.

The cause and effect are inverted and is more indicative of the goals of the MC, which in turn can be a more defining argument as to how you could more clearly define that one is more evil and the other more good.