The Rising of the Shield Hero - Vol. 13 Ch. 49 - Outwit

[gaigous]

Fitoria is such a useless bird.

 

[SSJR2]

i really wish this was a situation where if heroes die new heroes are given abilities afterwards. I really want those 3 to just die already and make room for a new crew of competent heroes like the MC.

They are beyond frustrating at this point and beyond reason. I had hope that they would get better after they all started working for the queen but their stupidity is beyond hope now.

 

[Meridis]

@mage_goo

well, the examples you gave of killing the dragon, the tyrant, and freeing slaves was an example of their lack of follow through. In each case, they see it in terms of a game or story, ones with a limited scope with a neat and tidy end specifically. Further, they aren't really isekai hero stereotypes, they are isekai reader stereotypes. The reflect a person trying to act the part of an isekai hero.

The sword hero will be criticized later for killing the dragon that actually wasn't doing anything but only by the dragon's daughter. As for what Nao and the story up till this point criticisms him for, it was that he didn't finish the job because he either thought and that the corpse would disappear or that he simply didn't know that leaving a giant corpse to rot near the village would be a biohazard. This matches his motif, since he's the youngest and represents younger isekai readers who think Kirito is cool, specifically for being a loner. Half the time, his problems just that he doesn't know better yet and he often responds reasonably to criticism. The other half though...

The bow hero's attempts to act the part of a more typical shounen hero and his vanity is pretty obvious. As for the thing with the tyrant, it's actually a pretty serious real world problem. There's been plenty of wars and revolutions which have been carried out without consideration for who has power after the tyrant is killed and these leave a power vacuum which lets someone worse come in. It would be nice if just killing the head fixed the problem but it almost always makes it worse. So he's just acting out the exciting parts of a story with no understanding of how to deal with the problem itself. The english version of the LN is actually just about to get to the part where Nao will have to do this kind of thing himself and seems to do a better job of it, so we'll see how that goes.

The spear hero's pretty much the manifestation of kronix and those like them. He's trying to act out his idea of a "good" hero when his only real metric is if he sleeps with the harem, the reason for that earlier scene where he was concerned about Bitch robbing the townspeople but shut up when she started to flirt with him or something(they didn't show much of his reaction in the manga). As for his thing about trying to free a slave (Raphtalia) the problems are as Raphtalia and Nao mentioned and then some: he's only concerned because said slave is attractive, he doesn't have the actual ability to free slaves or enforce their emancipation (he has no real political/judicial influence and the nobles will simply do as they please in the shadows as he's really just one guy who can hit stuff hard as long as the nobility or other authorities don't choose to back him), and the biggest problem I believe is what happens after they're freed. In the US, the emancipation of slaves was a half-measure, as the 13th amendment allows slavery under the condition that they have been convicted of a crime while former slave owners can then target specific behaviors, substances, or just being a specific race at a given location in order to re-enslave them. In this story, slave traders will be attempt to re-enslaved someone simply by catching them again. Later, when Nao has more political influence, he'll set up a system for dealing with this somewhat.

TL;DR
the problem with the heroes is that, before they get their own reality checks, they are dumb isekai novel readers trying to imitate the heroes in poorly thought out stories. Even if dealing with a problem itself is good, they either don't know enough about the problem or don't care enough to try and fix it without making it worse.

 

[Yautja]

I love it when the main character isn't a moron and can read through slightly obscured facts and occurrences. That said, I still fucking hate this ridiculously childish "let's all hold hands and sing" bullshit and the "anyone can be saved / change" bullshit. No, these 'heroes' improving and becoming decent people isn't believable. No, it's no the best decision / path for the story to take. No, people certainly do not want to see these assholes become deserving of their titles when they've so thoroughly tainted them.

 

[gaigous]

@Yautja What if they stay assholes and save the world? I mean, It's not like being an asshole has any bearing on an individuals' capabilities to begin with.

 

[Yautja]

@gaigous
Didn't say anything about them saving the world. And that isn't related to or change what I said; I said no one likes them, no one wants to see them 'redeem themselves' / become good guys, and that it isn't believable.

 

[gaigous]

@Yautja
Woah there, I didn't mean to challenge your statement, I just wanted to know if them staying a bunch of irredeemable assholes while saving the world was preferable to them being rehabilitated.

I actually prefer selfish assholes like Izaya Orihara from Durarara!! to someone with heaps of moral fiber like Okabe Rintarou from Steins;Gate.

 

[Vigo_to_Vigo]

@yautja I'm pretty sure as far as Shield Hero himself he doesn't give a shit about them on a personal level, don't think he wants to be friends are even on good terms with them, he just wants them as a resource. Despite their emotional issues they're still really strong potential weapons. People with cheat skills aren't something you wanna just dismiss because you don't like them, if your life is on the line.

Plus, I like the tension between the two groups. Its makes the MC and the Queen, camp serious heroes, more likable when you have these fools, camp fuck ups, to play them against.

I'm also a little partial to the Spear Hero, as the spin off manga about him is pretty interesting.

 

[xEternalSoul]

@mage_goo Then you must have misunderstood the conversation as you missed our point entirely.

And I really don't get why you can't see killing dragon that terrorizes villagers, killing tyrant, and freeing slave as some level of good.

Except, that didn't actually happened. The dragon was living peacefully in the mountains with Wyndia, Ren went to subjugate it simply because it was a dragon and in games dragons are almost always bossing material, sounds like murder. Motoyasu 'freeing' slaves by ignoring others free will and taking them away from people they want to be with? Sounds like slavery to me, just snatching ownership from others and making them his. Itsuki killing a tyrant is the only action out of those that you stated that happened literally and can actually be seen as good, but only if you don't understand that he was not doing it for the suffering citizens but for his own ego, pride and reputation, in other words 'self-benefit'. It's like calling a guy a hero for helping a wounded man because someone paid him to do it. There is no heroic act at all, what you are saying is not viewing their actions from different perspectives but simply falsifying scenarios.

 

[mage_goo]

@xEternalSoul Guess I missed out the part where most isekai MCs' actions are bad when looked from a different perspective.

Wait, ain't Sword complains to Shield that Shield sabotaged and steal the reward for his dragon subjugation quest?
Spear ain't claiming no one nor trying to make someone his.

It's like calling a guy a hero for helping a wounded man because someone paid him to do it

Guess doctor and paramedic can't be a hero, huh?

You know what? Let's just drop all that and go back to the roots.
They're all fighting the waves, in other words, putting their life on the line to save the world.
Damn sure you can view that in a positive light.

 

[talisay999]

just take the advice

 

[Serkket]

At this point it's better to just kill the other heroes and pray for another summon.
Cheat abilities are worthless if all you do is run around using their most basic level of power instead of refining it and learning about your enemy.

 

[PsychoJing]

@mage_goo uh no, we really can't view them in a positive light.
Remember, when a hero dies, the waves basically become impossible for everyone. So many more people will right after they do.
Add the fact the shield hero has been doing a better job they all 3 combined, the best they can do for everyone is nothing......
Their just a liablity and nothing more. In the last wave all they did was argue, the shield hero had to solo the boss...


@Vigo_to_Vigo

Spoiler

You might want to save your sympathy for the spear hero. He was completey aware of everything the Spoiled princess did, he just overlooked it because he thought he would get to sleep with her later down line if he did. Many of the women that were with him at the beggining of the story will be sold as slaves by princess. Even when he meets them in the future as slaves and they beg him for help,he just chooses to believe they have the wrong person and bolts. He's just self-deluded and willfully ignorant, only believing whatever he wants to believe, even if everyone tells him he's wrong...

 

[Yautja]

@gaigous
That's what it read like, anyways; from a literary standpoint, yes, it is. Like I said multiple times, it isn't believable to have them become decent people. They've already been cast as completely immoral moronic psychopaths. Having them become decent people is extremely unrealistic, to the set standards of the story and general human capabilities, and it'd be one thing if they had any real depth and substantial, believable backstory but they don't. It'd require either some serious top tier writing, or more than likely, a lot of contrived bullshit.

@Vigo_to_Vigo
Like I just said to the last guy. None of that relates to or denigrates what I said. I said they're cunts, and them becoming decent people is neither believable nor desirable. Them being useful makes no difference.

 

[gaigous]

@Yautja Sure, and I agree with you, the math doesn't lie after all.

 

[mage_goo]

@PsychoJing doesn't change the fact that they still goes and fight in the frontline

 

[PsychoJing]

@mage_goo if you mean go to the front lines to argue your right. XD Plus they have a group of people that follow them RELIGIOUSLY that they order around for kicks.

Spoiler

In the future, this reckless behavior will get many of their followers killed in their place. The bow hero and spear hero will never give a shit no matter how many people die, but the sword hero will change because of this.

Plus the bow hero doesn't fight on the front line, he's using a bow..........

 

[seitann]

Does anyone else ship Iwatani and the Queen?

 

[Meridis]

@seitann
I feel like it's less that I would ship him with the queen (since he has issues with trust and intimacy) and more that I would aim for the queen if I was in his position. It would double as both bargaining (though more as the queen getting an advantage since I would be the one asking) and an F*ck You to trash and bitch. Hell, I could totally see the queen having trash watch as punishment...the anime will start soon so I guess we'll see the doujins of this soon...

 

[cherokeemoon]

@Yamibi lol the other 3 heroes aren't being independent though, they're being assholes. They're selfish and corrupt and if they continued to work under the queen they wouldn't be "puppets" because the queen isn't some evil corrupt government figure head, she actually cares about her people and the heroes, and everything she does is to mature them into better heroes. They're not trying to be independent at all they're being selfish. The second things don't go their way they run with no regard for their position as heroes, and no regard for the people who would die without their protection during the waves. Once again, that is not independence, it is immature selfishness.

That's all I gotta say lol