Me with 20k points 3rd place. Guy with 16k? 2nd. Either dapper is cheating or he doesn't exist and the game just invents people to annoy the players into not taking the first place(classic casino tactics)
Ever since the end of TLOK I've had this idea of how we eventually need an avatar of Vaatu. The avatar's job is to bring balance to the world. So how does it make sense that half of the duo of chaos and order is sealed away. That's not "in-balance".
Coz chaos isn't strictly bad or evil. No more so than order. We see the world evolve rapidly as the convergence for the release of vaatu arrives. Now that's not the only reason we see the industrial evolution of TLOK, but it goes with the idea of chaos being change.
For a thousand years before, the world still remained pretty static with small incremental changes. We also see the "evil" part of order with the fire nation or even ba sing se in ATLA.
So that's what I think Korra did. She realised that Vaatu had to be released and undid her seal on him. All the chaos and storms of the seven havens are just the world recorrecting for all the unendured chaos.
Pavi and her twin are avatars of vaatu and raava. They're twins coz they're the first, and this might not be the case going forward. I think it could even be cool if they reincarnated in opposite directions. One following the earth-fire-air-water cycle and the other earth-water-air-fire cycle.
The final shot of the trailer with the red square might be a representation of avaatu. Red being his color, but a square maybe representing containment? Chaos controlled? I'm not sure about this but it kinda sorta makes sense.
I picked up my new tiago EV(24kw) on monday. After driving roughly 40kms and parking at home I noticed the power was at about 60%. It thought it might be some small bug, ignored it, put it back on charge, and went to sleep.
The next day I drove 45 kms from 100% charge and my tiago was at 49%. I barely made it back home. AC was set to 2, on eco mode the whole time. Never went past 80 kmph.
I understood I won't get the 200+ kms promised by tata. But I expected atleast 150.
Contacting the dealership did jack shit, and all they had to do was tell me to go to another place some 40kms away and they might help. Didn't give me a contact number, didn't escalate an issue, nothing. The guy told me he has no clue what to do about anything and basically told me to just go away.
Again, just 2 days after I took delivery of a brand new bloody car. Anyone here know anything I can do? The IRa app isn't connecting to the car even though it has the chasis number and number plate details. The customer service people are barely helpful just giving me a list of service centres(without a map) and telling me to go find one. And the dealership wants nothing to do with this.
Just finished the final book in this series. And its been a frustrating experience to finish. What happens when two bloody authors forget to follow up on setup?
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The good first. It's solidly written. The characters pop, the regression works, the dungeons aren't overly cumbursome, and the MC's powerset is fun and uncommon.
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The main problem as I have stated is that a ton of things are setup and never resolved. Like a very simple detail. In book 1 the MC regresses, and decides he needs to connect with the hero who was supposed to Regress so he can start helping her early. So he turns up at her house, meets her mom, who is elated coz her daughter has no friends whatsoever. So a guy showing up is massive. He then realizes she might be in danger and rushes up to go find her. He doesn't even end up meeting her coz she wasn't where she he thought she was.
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This interaction has no consequence whatsoever. He doesn't meet the hero, she's not in danger. The next time the MC and the hero meet, she doesn't bring it up. There is no call back. There is not even a joke about her mother saying she had a gentleman caller, etc. the only thing coming out of that event is he saves the life of the brother of his ebentual lover(which did work well)
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Later we meet this girl from a powerful clan who's arranged for marriage with the MC. And she says that her grandfather said he's the one the world's hope rests on. And thus a setup that maybe he knows something about the regression. Nope. The concept is never brought up. The marriage is abandoned at the end of book 2, no consequences.
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And these are just tidbits i can say without spoiling too much. It's just this time and time and time and time and time again. It's like the authors forgot the book they themselves wrote.
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And then minor flaws that bug me to not end. At no point is it ever clear how strong the MC is. Like we know he levels up, but what are the levels of the strongest in the world? How much more powerful is he than other people? We never get a proper scale.
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There is this excellent buildup between the MC and his romantic partner. She's strong and the series has spent 8 books working on her strength, and their teamwork in combat. And in the final third of the last book she becomes pregnant and stays out of the final fight, doing absolutely jack all (when she's probably a month pregnant). This also goes back to the setup payoff thing.
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And all of this doesn't even begin to scratch at how the final conflict is resolved due to a benefit they get like 6 chapters before.
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On the whole i thoroughly enjoyed the series upto book 6. Solid 8/10 territory for this genre. The final two books just nosedived so hard it's ended up at a disappointing 5.5/10.
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I got a rare opportunity to finish two progression fantasy series one after another recently. And it really hammered home how important an epilogue can be.
Mark of the fool, is a series many have a problem with, but I adore. And a good tenth of the book is the epilogue. Giving us a lot of time to wind down from a perfect climactic battle, and just enjoy time with these people as they set about their lives. A great ending focusing on the characters we love rather than some bad guy.
Compare this to Qi=MC^2. Granted it is nowhere near MOF in terms of quality. And it is a knock off of Beware of chicken(a god tier series). But I genuinely did enjoy it, and had potential to go down as a solid 6.5/10. But the ending was rushed, and we got a one page epilogue not really building anything up or closing things down. It was an epilogue coz stories have to have an epilogue and the author had to ham fist in the title of the series somehow. (Ps. The cool qi=mc² means nothing if you're wondering. Spoiler alert I guess)
And this isn't an isolated situation. Whether we are talking about traditional fantasy, progression fantasy, scifi, etc, I've consistently found that series that focus on a cathartic and significant epilogue to end on, are remembered well. I mean LOTR has like a whole ass arc after sauron.
So dear authors of this subreddit. Please do us all a favour. Write atleast a 4000 word epilogue. Especially since y'all are writing 300-1000 chapter books. No one is gonna complain because they spent more time with characters they love.