Yondome wa Iya na Shizokusei Majutsushi - Vol. 6 Ch. 23 - Vigaro's Fight

[ssj4maiko]

This is a story that likes to play with prejudice and preconceptions. Van is currently with Ghouls, but he is well aware that some Ghouls do attack humans. Same thing for Undead, those around him are nice, but he knows that wild undead will try to kill people, and people should defend themselves, whoever they are.

It may look like it's suggesting that humans are evil and other races are nice, and some readers do seem to take it quite far, however, that's not the case at all, after all, even Sam and the Armor Girls were humans before they died, he knows there are certainly good humans around, and he expects to meet them in Orbaum, which is why he is trying to go over there, however, with the news of the War that he got from the Amid spy spirit a few chapters ago, he understood that it would be hard to cross through a battlefield, which is why he decided to go through the forest, which is also dangerous, but that's where he met the Ghouls.

This novel does try to make itself look generic in a way, take the summary that clearly can be misunderstood as an edgy revenge story, take the misunderstandings that happen quite often but are rapidly solved, like when Zadiris slept with Van, or Basdia told Tarea that Van would give her a baby (not a lie). Usually they are just played for some short comedy, but he doesn't rely on extended misunderstandings to move the plot like many other stories like to do.

And another thing about the author, he used to write a R18 Zombie harem story on Pixiv, so you could say he has experience in that field.

 

[Artaris]

Thank you for translating

 

[VirgoShaka]

Thanks

 

[anotherone]

@Iskarioth You may want to read modern fantasy then, some of the best try to (at last) change the fixed conventions that the success of Tolkien imposed on the genre, with great success. I'd suggest the "Orcs" trilogy by Stan Nicholls. Or Warcraft 3 in videogames. Orcs are corrupted beasts in Tolkien or D&D lore, but that doesn't mean other authors have to follow this in their own, separate works.

 

[Iskarioth]

@anotherone Funny thing is, I read that book ( or at least the first one, I think) more than a decade ago and it was not good, at all. A trope is not the same thing as established lore, if you f.e. mention a Minotaur in your book and it turns out to be a tiny rat with a human head and frog legs, people will only end up confused and angry, and rightfully so. No idea why you mentioned Warcraft because the Orks there are pretty much still Orks. My issue was the concept of "noble" in connection with Orks, which makes zero sense (especially for the Orks in this story). But apparently it just means higher level, or advanced Orks which is o(r)k-ish, but still weird to name them that way.

 

[anotherone]

@Iskarioth Well, "noble" just means aristocrat, which in a highly hierarchical society like the Orc's one in this series, seems pretty logical to me. An orc king or duke or general wouldn't shock me either.

Agree to disagree on "Orks", as I found it highly evocative and a good exemple of politically inclined fantasy. I don't see the point of the minotaur comparison, since orks are not only not as defined as minotaurs in culture (pig heads in most of asia, etc.) they also have their mentality only defined from the POV of their enemies in Tolkien's works and several older others.

For Warcraft.. Really ? Starting from the 3, most orcs become "good", most notably Thrall, their previous evilness is explained by demonic corruption and even before that, they have a highly hierarchical society AND several disagreeing and politically and spiritually diverse figures...
So, yeah, they are vastly different than orcs in classical fantasy.

 

[Iskarioth]

@anotherone I know where this is going. Sorry I am not interested in discussing the shades of evil along the lines of " look this one is less savage and murderous therefore he's good" or how moraility is only matter of perspective. "Noble" does not have only mundane connotations but also suggests them being more civilized or something along the lines. That's the part I take issue with. But I already achknowledged that the intended interpretation is different, more D&D like.

When I made my comparison I had the Ghouls in mind, sorry. That was part of my inital complaint about the manga, that those Ghouls look silly and simply aren't Ghoulsy by any stretch of the imagination. Had nothing to do with Orks tho.

Still I am not a fan of people trying to break very clear concepts. To exaggerate " the devils is by default an evil entity" for instance - when people try to completely overhaul that by depicting something that is nothing like the label, like turning the devil into a saint, they might aswell just not use it at all and create something new.

 

[ssj4maiko]

This is info that appears later in the Novel, shouldn't be that big of a deal now, although it explains a few things on why do Noble Orcs have such, for a lack of better word, influence in this work:

Spoiler

From all naturally born monsters, Noble Orcs are not only the most intelligent, they are born with the highest minimum Rank (6) of all monsters. This means that soon after being born, a Noble Orc is something many lower level adventurers wouldn't be able to win against. In human society, there is also a myth of a Noble Orc Empire that exists beyond the Boundary Mountain Range.

And this is about the current Noble Orcs they are fighting against:

Spoiler

Bugogan is an exiled Noble Orc, dismissed from his land for refusing to accept "popular" customs.

As can be seen in the manga, Bugogan and his children do talk human language (Japanese), this is because they learned to talk in their homeland, monsters are not born already knowing everything. Bugogan however didn't like that custom, and in his mind Noble Orcs deserve to take over everything because they are, well, Noble Orcs, and so he was forced out (So if you think Bugogan is strong, you can imagine there is a stronger force there). This is one of the reasons, although he talks most of the time, sometimes he goes oinkoink/buhibuhi.

Considering the 3 Noble Orc sons were all Rank 6, you can say they were they are the typical "noble sons that are naturally stronger than everyone in their surroundings, so they never had a chance to train, nor wanted it". Their father however is not the same.

In in the end, the trope of Noble Orcs having gold hair could be said to serve to reasons: one is because it's a joke on Orcs acting like nobility, usually portrayed as blue eyed blond people. The second is for

Spoiler

the upcoming new heroine.

But the idea that it's stupid for there to be "moral" orcs because Orcs are by essence evil rapists IS VALID in this novel. This concept is not ignored, and it's a fact that all the orcs that have appeared in the manga are exactly that, with the Noble ones just being stronger, superior, and more intelligent than the stupider and weaker normal versions.

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@Iskarioth

Still I am not a fan of people trying to break very clear concepts. To exaggerate " the devils is by default an evil entity" for instance - when people try to completely overhaul that by depicting something that is nothing like the label, like turning the devil into a saint, they might aswell just not use it at all and create something new.

I'm not sure if that's your case, but if not, you should consider trying to learn a different language. Language is what is used by us to explain our surroundings, at the same time, in many cases, we are limited by such language, and other languages have completely different ways of saying the same thing, or similar things.

The example that mostly happen in this work, but also in many others is the term "demon" 魔人 (majin). Why? In Japanese, we have 3 alphabets, and one of them, the famous Kanji, has thousands of ideograms, and many of them may mean different things, and in many cases, the reason for this different meaning is their own culture.

In the west, we have very defined good and evil mythologies, you have the god of good and the demon of evil, so when you say demon, you think evil, when you say god, you think good, when you say magic, you think neutral. In Japanese however, besides the many gods, many of them had both parameters of good and evil, so when you think 神, there is no good or evil related, just that it's something "divine".

In the same way you have "magic": 魔法 (mahou), which can also mean witchcraft, sorcery. In some contexts, witchcraft may denote a negative meaning, but did you notice? In both mahou and majin we have the same Kanji 魔(ma), in one it means demon, in the other, it means magic, is that always the case though? In some works they do exactly that, the "majin" is not demon, but "magic person", or the mahou/majutsu is akin to "evil sorcery".

It makes total sense in Japanese, but when you have to localize/translate, you lose all the meaning if you don't know japanese.
The way they read the world is different from ours, not all people think in english, not all people are limited my english either.
Many works have many influences around the world, you don't go out there complaining that they should all be the same, specially when the original vocabulary itself is not even native to the country of the source material.

 

[Iskarioth]

@ssj4maiko well I am not an english native speaker either but yes Romanic languages share those common traits. I am faintly aware that japanese or asian languages in general are different in that regard. I'm just trying to explain my inital thought ( and ofc sometimes there are authors who delibaretly misuse existing concepts out of laziness or simply bc they know better, case in points japanese using european languages, but that's a whole other topic). I am not really complaining about this particular part of the story anymore, I get it 😄

 

[Tearsax]

The chapter ends as they just met while going for a walk. "Howdy, a fine day for a walk, right?"

 

[joel7686]

@Tearsax what is sad is that his personality is not like this, he must be suffering so much because of the curse god put on him

 

[firedragon5789]

What chapter is this in the light novel?

 

[TheKuudereDude]

@firedragon5789 it seems to be chapters 20-21, with chapter 21 being the chapter where Vandalieu will be fighting against the Noble Orc

 

[squidcommand]

LETS GO VIGAROOO!!!!!!