I can still hope he gets his face smashed in by someone for showing up and trying to take Rust away."Hello Rust, I fired you and I have zero leverage to get you back with a worse condition to the company from when you were previously employed, even less overall budget to the entire enterprise and a desperate need to save my own neck. Be grateful!"
I mean let's not drag this on too long, we know what's going to happen.
I was honestly worried a moment when it started to look like they were gonna make him a tragic character backstory and I would have been "Nope that doesn't excuse his behaviour to this point"I can still hope he gets his face smashed in by someone for showing up and trying to take Rust away.
It's not a good reason but it's cause the mangaka wants an antagonist, that's it. Also yes it's poor writing that blows me away everytime I see it in these "Exile/Booted/Kicked" series.I do question what Rihalzam's purpose in the story even is.
All of his personality seems to be handcrafted to be as unpleasant as possible with no actual redeeming qualities or style to balance it out, but the story gives him amounts of attention that wouldn't make sense if he was a 1 chapter throwaway, despite not having anything about him which would warrant that being anything more.
Like, why does he have all these set-up chapters when there is nothing really set up here? At best, all they served was extra validation for the MC and showing how much of a loser this guy is. Things already established early in the story.
I think there's a lot you can do with the blatant antagonist archetype once you get him through the introductory idiot antagonist phase and drive him into an long term role.It's not a good reason but it's cause the mangaka wants an antagonist, that's it. Also yes it's poor writing that blows me away everytime I see it in these "Exile/Booted/Kicked" series.
The purpose of Rihalzam was to boot Rust out of the alchemy association. Also he's a cheap antagonist, a "reverse mirror" of everything Rust is. Incompetent, fat, ugly, greedy and with an obsession for stomping over the protagonist...easy to hate.I do question what Rihalzam's purpose in the story even is.
All of his personality seems to be handcrafted to be as unpleasant as possible with no actual redeeming qualities or style to balance it out, but the story gives him amounts of attention that wouldn't make sense if he was a 1 chapter throwaway, despite not having anything about him which would warrant that being anything more.
Like, why does he have all these set-up chapters when there is nothing really set up here? At best, all they served was extra validation for the MC and showing how much of a loser this guy is. Things already established early in the story.
At this point I never trust competance lol I'm too burned from hoping in series they don't go the easy route. I will be pleasently suprised though if they do good writing though, I can only hope.I think there's a lot you can do with the blatant antagonist archetype once you get him through the introductory idiot antagonist phase and drive him into an long term role.
Do I trust anyone who uses this trope to do that? Not really, but we can now only pray this author does something actually interesting with Rihalzam...
Could this maybe be them plagiarizing their own firing but portraying their former boss as a completely incompetent buffoon and themselves as the absolutely perfect lynchpin without which the company would totally fail?The purpose of Rihalzam was to boot Rust out of the alchemy association. Also he's a cheap antagonist, a "reverse mirror" of everything Rust is. Incompetent, fat, ugly, greedy and with an obsession for stomping over the protagonist...easy to hate.
Way too many web novels start with a competent (or secretly competent) character being thrown out due to incompetence, then proceed to "show them up". It's gotten so bad people joke about it, the "Narou template".