Kumo Desu Ga, Nani Ka?

This series really reminds me of Overlord. I love the worldbuilding, but I'm not really interested in any of the main characters. I used to like Shiro, until she became a diet version of D.

^^ I haven't read Grimgar, but Rokka no Yuusha has serious pacing problems and keeps trying to do shocking twists all the time. I got bored.

^ ? She doesn't have a lot in common with D. She does bad things sometimes but not D level or even D style.

Grimgar is good and I really liked the anime. I own a decent number of the novels... I should actually read them.

It's been fun.

I disagree about the "pacing problems" first we need to remember that: "Rokka no Yuusha/Rokka Braves of the Six Flowers" never really "ended" but instead the Light Novel just stops in the place (probably the series has been call off for some reason), so we can't really say the plot is slow when we don't know how how much was left from the plot of the series if the series over the 95% percent of her plot I will need to agree the plot moves on in slow pacing but if Volume 6. (the last Volume of the main story) is just 40%-60% percent to the story I will think the plot move fine the story starts to solve the mysteries that he created and we can start to see the End of the story.

Edited by TURI12345 on Jul 17th 2021 at 10:52:26 AM

It didn't feel like the characters were actually making real progress, though. The TWISTS always made it feel like progress was set back to zero.

The interesting thing about the twists in Rokka is that they always flesh out and re-contextualize plot points we already know.

I mean, she literally starts calling herself an evil god. Plus the way she puppeteers people's lives is very reminiscent of D.

I disagree about it first we need to remember Spoilers to the Light Novel of Rokka no Yuusha/Rokka Braves of the Six Flowers: the main character was under brainwash from before the beginning in Volume 1 and until the time the brainwash has removed the series called off, so we don't saw the change in his personality. About the side characters, we do see a change in their acts even if it's not something big.

Edited by TURI12345 on Jul 17th 2021 at 10:56:27 AM

I don't think that's enough to consider D and Shiro similar.

D is primarily lazy, secondarily someone who wants entertainment at the cost of others. Shiro is primarily hungry, secondarily someone who does whatever she feels like doing, which may or may not include saving the world. They're not all that similar, other than a general lack of human morality. But Shiro still has some of that, while D has almost none. I don't think they're similar at all.

Haven't seen Rokka or Grimgar, so I can't comment on those.

I don't think a female main character is that unusual, but then I also read a lot of shoujo/josei, which tends to have those. Seinen also has a bunch of series with all-female casts.

But on that topic, I think generally the main benefit of having a female main character (other than that I just like it for various reasons) is that harems are far less common. They exist, obviously almost exclusively to the demographics I mentioned, but still not to the same degree, and especially in josei they're more about having a bunch of male character around, rather than part of a harem-like group of characters.

That said, it's not that I dislike harems (to pick one, Trinity Seven is good at that), but they're usually written only for the purpose of widening the appeal of characters, rather than for the better of the story. It also only really works if the characters involved agree on the harem bit, rather than compete within it. And there needs to be plenty of interactions between all the members of the harem, rather than just with the MC.

It works, because it's not the focus, nor given much attention. It's more about there being adventurers who take care of those mercenary tasks, rather than as a way to force the MC to follow the dotted path. It also sort of works in actual game worlds (but those tend to focus more on more realistic guilds like various crafting or merchant guilds, ironically enough).

The bland hero syndrome is a mark of trying for a wide appeal at the cost of actual quality. It's not like there's a genre where it's more common. It's just more common where it's easier for lower quality creators to publish their works. Or for cashgrab production companies. But they also tend to work, since because of their blandness, they're easier to fit into more types of plots within the same story.

For the rapist part, I don't see too much of that outside deliberately immoral (more common in revenge stories) MCs. I also tend to see similar behaviour more from female characters, but that's somehow more accepted. But most of the time actual sex never happens unless that's the selling point, and erotica tends to fall outside norms much more than anything else.

Slaver MCs are strangely common, and the reason it's been explained to me is that there's an appeal for the relationship to the MC to be fixed, so there's no worry of the slave leaving. I just think that whole concept cheapens the relationship in the first place, with the possible exception of a consistently mutually consented and voluntary master/servant relationship. In other words, if there's any force outside personal choice keeping them together, it's a negative force.

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Shiro actually does have serious problems with the sin of sloth. Probably worse about it than any of the other deadly sins. She's completely apathetic towards anything like her responsibilities and has no will to overcome her own flaws because it would take a lot of work to improve herself. It hurts her, the people around her and possibly the world at large.

I suppose you could draw parallels between her and D in that respect. D is definitely not taking care of her actual job, which is a pretty big deal. But while D definitely shows a lot of that good ol Acedia, her main issue isn't really one of the seven deadly sins the series likes to use: She's just a straight up sadist with no empathy for others. She takes pleasure in watching the suffering of others. I suppose this could correspond to pride, maybe? She's like a little kid who pulls the wings off of insects to watch them squirm.

Heh, now that I think about it, lack of empathy would fall under sloth, wouldn't it? So in a way you're right that she's a mini D. Just not for the reasons you said. Honestly I appreciate you saying that, it made me think a lot about the parallels between the two.

Edited by Arha on Jul 17th 2021 at 9:45:19 AM

I didn't think of D as being lazy because she seems like she works very hard at screwing people over, but yeah that's an interesting parallel

Eh, I think a lack of empathy is a markedly different character trait than being too lazy to improve one's self. I think putting them under a single category is excessively arbitrary.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 18th 2021 at 7:44:59 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

No, lack of love is part of the classical sin of sloth, especially the sin it's based on, Acedia. Sloth is not mere laziness, it's apathy, lack of love and abandonment of responsibility. This isn't me making a stretch.

You're missing my point, I don't care how Medieval Christians defined traits. My argument is that they defined it wrong, nothing is gained by conflating different flaws.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 18th 2021 at 8:11:58 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

You're arguing that a dictionary is using the word wrong.

Given that the work in question is directly referencing the medieval array of sins, including the definitions used by them, saying the historical view is "wrong" seems like missing the point entirely.

It's been fun.

When did the work do that? I don't remember anything like that in the anime.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

The implication that the Ruler titles directly reference the Seven Deadly Sins is pretty obvious. Thus, using the definition of those Seven Deadly Sins - AKA "how Medieval Christians defined traits" - is perfectly valid.

From Wikipedia:

A lack of empathy falls textually under Sloth's purview.

Edited by RedSavant on Jul 18th 2021 at 8:58:02 AM

It's been fun.

I had forgotten about the ruler titles. Touche.

Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 18th 2021 at 9:17:43 AM

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

Yeah, the ruler skills are definitely related to the seven sins. That said, being lazy and being apathetic are two very different character traits. For instance, if you have a job to do something, if you're apathetic to it you're more likely to just get it done, while if you're lazy you're probably going to spend some energy towards avoiding it, ironically enough.

I'd say those two traits are more different than, say, gluttony, lust, and greed are to each other. As far as differentiating characters goes, the sins are fairly bad at it. They're just arbitrary slots to chuck characters into.

So no, I don't think D and Shiro are that close to each other. Sure, they have some similarities, but not enough to call them different versions of the same character. They're both more or less evil, but in different ways. They show some type of laziness, but again, in different ways.

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Sure, but again, the historical definition of Sloth includes both of those. Apathy towards improving one's self and lack of empathy for others - apathy toward proactively doing positive things for others - are both linked under that concept.

It's been fun.

Which means it's a bad concept for analyzing characters.

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Just to be clear, are you arguing that making references to centuries-old cultural concepts in literature for thematic purposes is bad, or that analyzing characters through the lens of the cultural concept that is explicitly in-text stated to apply to them is bad?

If you're arguing that Baba shouldn't use the Deadly Sins, I don't see why not. If you're arguing that they're using the Deadly Sins incorrectly, that doesn't appear to be the case. If you're arguing that Sloth doesn't apply to Kumoko (or to D), you're wrong. If you're arguing that they aren't foils, you could make an argument for that, but they're explicitly linked several times even in the anime (via Hiiro Wakaba) and I would argue that they're the real protagonist-and-antagonist pair of the series.

This is a work of fiction. Analyzing fictional people through the lens of a cultural concept that the author is clearly aware of and using in their writing is perfectly valid. That's kind of the whole point of this entire site.

Edited by RedSavant on Jul 19th 2021 at 2:24:45 AM

It's been fun.

Are you responding to me? I'm having trouble parsing the relevance to what I wrote, so I'm not sure what to respond to.

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He's asking you why you think it's a bad way to analyze characters given the pretty clear authorial intent in using the seven deadly sins as a motif and a source for major character drama.