u/jeremieesekodi

I just thought of something.

What if we took the smartest characters from different universes—but removed any broken abilities like omniscience or supernatural powers—and made them play a game of Werewolf (Mafia)?

One of them is secretly the wolf, and everyone else has to figure out who it is.

Characters like Aizen, L, Light, Ayanokoji, Fang Yuan, Klein, etc.

Who do you think would win?

Or better yet, choose one character to be the wolf, while all the others have to expose them.

I saw a LOTM fan comment saying that Fang Yuan is the better protagonist, but that Lord of the Mysteries has better world-building than Reverend Insanity. I've read both novels, and honestly, I don't see how LOTM's world-building is more developed than RI's.

Most of the arguments I hear are about the mysteries surrounding each era in LOTM or the fact that there are multiple languages. But RI has similar depth too. Even if it doesn't focus as much on different languages, every region has its own accent and culture. The apertures have their own unique atmospheres, and every era ruled by a Venerable is completely different from the previous one.

So is it just the mystery theme that makes people say LOTM has better world-building? If that's the case, does that mean mystery shows like Dark, From, or The X-Files automatically have better world-building than Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon, Power, The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, or The Originals?

What did the author lose?

Is it because he can no longer make his characters grow stronger in a logical way, so he has to nerf everyone else instead? He keeps creating arbitrary limitations for no reason.

After Antarctica, the characters don't really become stronger. It's just that their enemies suddenly become weaker or act irrationally. For example, Mordret after Antarctica is like night and day compared to before.

Anvil losing to a newly ascended Supreme, or Ki Song being unable to protect her own children from Nephis despite having far more experience as a Supreme than her, makes little sense.

I won't even talk about Asterion for now. First it was Azarax, then it will be Eurys, or the Nine will turn out to be frauds. If Noctis appears later, he'll probably become a fraud too.

Even Weaver will likely be turned into a fraud just so Sunny and his group can defeat him. And the Dream God? I can already feel that he'll end up being a massive fraud as well.

We really need to talk about people who constantly use terms like planetary, continental, universal, and so on.

Just because a story calls a country a continent doesn't mean it is actually a continent. Likewise, when a story mentions higher worlds or higher dimensions, you cannot automatically conclude that a character is higher-dimensional or superior in some measurable way.

You can't actually prove those claims, yet people keep throwing around labels like planetary, continental, universal, multiversal, and so on. It's honestly frustrating because you hear these terms all the time, even when there is little or no evidence to support them.

I'm here, and I think I understand that you're talking about intelligent characters in fiction, light novels, and similar media. However, I think many people don't really know how to recognize an intelligent character.

Yes, a character should be surrounded by other intelligent characters so that meaningful comparisons can be made. But in 99% of fiction, the characters people call "geniuses" are not actually that intelligent. They often follow very simplistic logic, but the author fills chapters with long explanations and internal monologues that don't really mean anything. Because readers see all those explanations, they assume the character must be smart.

Do people actually read all of that and then conclude that the character is intelligent?

Take Classroom of the Elite, for example. I read the light novel up to the final year-end exam where Yamauchi gets expelled. What I saw wasn't anything particularly impressive or sophisticated. It was mostly simple logic stretched over many pages, yet people called it genius-level intelligence.

And there are plenty of other stories like that. You get pages and pages built around very basic reasoning. Then you read the comments, and fans keep talking about how intelligent the character is.

The "genius logic" often boils down to something like:

"How did you figure out my plan and counter it?"

And the protagonist replies with something along the lines of:

"I noticed that you coughed three times instead of four and a half, so I changed my plan."

When I read things like that, I just think, "What kind of nonsense is this?"

So people should actually read these stories carefully instead of skipping over the details and then coming back to tell everyone that the character is intelligent.

Can anyone acting in good faith provide a list of each Pathway and the abilities of every Sequence? I finished Lord of the Mysteries, but I've forgotten many of the abilities of the other Pathways. I'm currently reading Lord of the Mysteries 2 and I'm having some trouble understanding Lumian's new abilities. I've just finished Volume 1.

I have a problem with main characters and fandoms.

You'll hear people say that the protagonist of a story is incredibly intelligent and cunning, but then you actually read it and realize that he's neither intelligent nor cunning. The other characters are just stupid, or the logic of the story itself is ridiculously flawed.

The character's philosophy is often shallow or nonsensical, yet you'll constantly hear people praising it as something profound. Then you start reading and end up disappointed, disgusted, or both.

The same thing happens with power scaling. You'll see a protagonist at the Qi Refinement stage beating Nascent Soul cultivators, and it keeps escalating like that. The antagonists are often the only people who seem capable of basic reasoning. Everyone else is so foolish that if you pointed at the sun, they'd insist it was the moon. The villain would say it's a star, and then the MC would correctly identify it as the sun, and suddenly everyone would treat him like a genius.

I won't mention specific works, but seriously, what is wrong with some fans? Why exaggerate to this extent?

People will tell you that a character is extremely intelligent or manipulative when, in reality, he's an idiot. And the worst offenders are often fans of harem stories who try to convince everyone that the series isn't just a harem.

You'll hear things like, "He suffers," or "He fights alone," when in reality he gets a few scratches and immediately gains ten more girls. Eighty percent of the chapters are just conflicts between the girls in the harem, while the remaining twenty percent are the MC going off to recruit another girl into it.

Then you read the reviews and comments, and it feels like those people read an entirely different story from the one you just finished.

Hello, I'm still in The Great Hunt, and I'm having a hard time continuing to read.

First of all, the idea that women are socially superior to men doesn't really bother me. My issue is with how some female characters treat their loved ones for no reason, especially Egwene and Moiraine. They seem to behave this way mainly toward men who are actually polite to them.

Moiraine always acts as if she's smarter than everyone else and refuses to share information with the people around her. As for Egwene, the way she treats Rand feels like pure meanness for no reason. At the end of The Eye of the World, Rand saves her during the final battle, and she still gets angry at him. Almost every conversation she has with Rand ends with her being unnecessarily hostile toward him.

I actually prefer Nynaeve. She doesn't act as if she's some superior being, and she's not cruel for no reason.

I've heard that Brandon Sanderson takes over the series at some point. I don't know if that's true or which volume it happens in, but I really like him as an author.

What I wanted to ask is: does the story improve? Does Rand eventually stop letting Moiraine and Egwene walk all over him?

And with a few minor spoilers: does Perrin eventually become a wolf or a werewolf? Does Mat gain powers because of the dagger?

"Can you help me? I'm looking for the name of a Gu Master from the Gu Yue clan. He was only Rank 2 and died while fighting Bai Ning Bing. He had a Gu that allowed him to absorb primeval essence from nature, and I'm trying to remember the name of that Gu. I found it very interesting and I'm also wondering whether that Gu could potentially evolve into an Immortal Gu."

don't know why, but today I was thinking about the Mad Prince in Ariel's Tomb. The more I think about him, the more I feel like the author sold us a powerful, intelligent, and cunning character, when in reality he's kind of a fraud.

Why I think he's a fraud outside of Ariel's Tomb:

1. He never became Supreme, nor did he get rid of the Corruption. We know that death can be a way to remove Corruption (the Vile Thieving Bird demonstrated that), and he should have figured that out eventually, especially after spending so much time with Ananke. With the amount of time he had at his disposal, I find it hard to believe he couldn't discover a way to free himself from the Corruption.

2. He's not actually that clever. He's basically like Subaru from Re:Zero—a looper inside Ariel's Tomb. He had knowledge of future events thanks to previous cycles, and he was also being helped by Cassie (the Torment). Knowing Cassie, it's entirely possible that he was just another piece on her board without even realizing it.

3. Weaving and the Estuary Key (I forgot whether it was Supreme or Sacred, but I think it was Sacred) do not mean he could create Sacred Memories whenever he wanted. If he truly had that level of mastery, he would have created something far more subtle than a Memory whose sole purpose was preventing Sin of Solace from revealing everything. I think it's much more likely that he simply studied Sin of Solace and its weave, then created a counter-weave specifically designed to stop it from exposing the truth.

4. His fight against Asterion isn't that impressive. We had an Asterion who had lost his Citadels and was unable to use his Aspect, yet the Mad Prince barely managed to hold on. Meanwhile, Saint Sunny and Saint Nephis fought Anvil and Ki Song while those two could still use their Aspect abilities.

I'm not saying he should have won, but if it had been Anvil or Ki Song instead of Asterion, he would have been defeated easily. Because of that, I think Saint Sunny, Saint Nephis, Saint Mordret, Saint Jet, Saint Jest (unlike Asterion, his Aspect is emotion-based, and the Mad Prince is emotionally unstable—if Jest amplified his emotions toward Nephis, Cassie, or Kai during a fight, he would lose control), and Nightwalker would all beat him.

I won't mention Kai, Effie, Cassie, Morgan, or Seishan because their power levels depend too much on the author's mood.

5. Does he even really know how to fight? People assume that because he lived for so many years, he must have perfected his combat technique. But I think it's more likely that, inside Ariel's Tomb, he simply knew his enemies extremely well and had countless cycles to learn how to counter them. That's all.

I just found out that there are people who haven't actually read all of Reverend Insanity. They skip entire arcs and only care about the fights. For example, some people skip the Northern Plains arc or the Zombie Alliance arc altogether because they find them boring.

I used to think we had the best community. With Lord of the Mysteries, most discussions seem to revolve around jokes like "Klein is bullying Leonard," "Mommy Evernight," "the taste of a Demoness," or "Audrey is cute." And when you post about anything else, people often ignore it. As for some Shadow Slave fans, many seem unwilling to acknowledge the story's inconsistencies.

But then I saw a comment from an RI fan saying that they skipped both the Zombie Alliance and Northern Plains arcs because they were boring. That's when I started to understand why, whenever you ask some RI fans about the novel, they always bring up the same things: Fang Yuan feeding a girl to a bear, burning two children alive, and other shocking moments.

I always found it strange that someone could read 2,334 chapters and remember only those scenes.

What about Tai Bai Yun Sheng's death? What about the Rank 2 Gu Master from the early chapters who had a Gu that could absorb primeval essence from nature, and who died fighting Bai Ning Bing? What about Reverse Flow River? What about the Divine Investigator from the Tie Clan in Volume 1, or his daughter?

None of that seems to matter to them. If it isn't the Fate War or a massacre, they don't care. Some of them even skipped so much that they don't understand why the Fate War happened in the first place, why Fang Yuan regressed, why Red Lotus wanted to destroy Fate Gu, or why Duke Long was so determined to repair it.

I have a question. I'm not trying to justify anything; I'm just curious about something.

People actively look for stories about demonic cultivators, antiheroes, villains, demonic sects, and ruthless protagonists. Yet when they see the MC committing acts such as rape, massacring innocents, or behaving as a truly merciless person, they become shocked or disgusted.

To be clear, I'm not defending those actions. I'm simply wondering about the apparent contradiction. When I hear terms like "villain," "antihero," "demonic cultivator," or "member of a demonic cult," those kinds of actions are exactly what come to mind. That's what I would expect from genuinely evil characters.

However, many readers specifically seek out stories centered on these types of characters, but then they don't want to see them actually do the things that would make them villains in the first place. Is it because they're uncomfortable with the implications of their own tastes?

Personally, I don't even enjoy stories about villains, antiheroes, or demonic cultivators. But if someone asked me to define what a villain or an evil character is, I would think of those kinds of actions. What confuses me is that some people spend most of their time reading stories about such characters, yet they still don't want those characters to act like what they are supposed to be.

I find it even stranger when people say they dislike Reverend Insanity, but then ask for recommendations for stories that are similar to Reverend Insanity.

I do not understand what “fate” really is in Shadow Slave. The author tells us that fate is something absolute that cannot be changed. Fine, let’s accept that, but then:

1. The Sun God wraps the threads of fate around Noctis and the others to make them immortal and bind them to the imprisonment of the Demon of Hope. Isn’t that literally manipulating fate?

2 )Cassie can see the future, and she arranges events to reach her goals. The Chain Isles and Antarctica are examples of that, and I think anyone with an Aspect related to future visions could do the same. So where is the overwhelming power of fate if people can constantly work around it?

3. The Vile Thieving Bird steals Sunny’s fate and his True Name. Everyone forgets Sunny, even the Spell itself, but people like Cassie and Weaver already had preparations against that. So fate is not really absolute, but fine, let’s move on. If the bird truly stole Sunny’s fate, then it should have taken Sunny’s place and everything fate had reserved for him. But instead, it only took the shadow bond and escaped the Nightmare because the Spell confused it with Sunny. After that, nothing. Sunny continues collecting Weaves as usual. So this is supposed to be fate in Shadow Slave? In Lord of the Mysteries, if Amon steals someone’s fate, then for the world and for people, he literally becomes that person. But in Shadow Slave, the bird steals Sunny’s fate and only takes his shadow bond? Why did it not take his Aspect too, since the Aspect is also connected to the shadow bond?

4 )The Nine and Weaver—I never understood the connection with fate there. Weaver could have stopped them, and if he had simply let Slayer die… Also, across the six worlds (realms), there was no one besides the Three Seers capable of predicting the future? Even Nether, the Demon of Destiny, saw nothing coming? And this is supposed to prove the power of fate?

I know that “fighting against fate” is a popular theme, but the author should at least come up with a convincing explanation for it.

I’m probably not the only one who noticed that the author made us believe Fang Yuan was the worst human being because of his pursuit of immortality, while Spectral Soul and Giant Sun exist.

One of them is the most murderous Venerable in the world, and Giant Sun basically did the same things as Fang Yuan. He is a Demon Venerable, yet people call him an Immortal Venerable. He created the most terrifying path, the Blood Path — even Soul Path never reached the same level of fear and taboo as Blood Path.

And honestly, I wonder if Giant Sun isn’t actually the greatest genius in the world, because Luck Path alone is already unbelievable. I don’t think any other path defies heaven as much as Luck Path and Blood Path do. Blood Path is extremely easy to use, requiring almost no precious resources… unless you consider your own family precious. On top of that, even Spectral Soul’s Soul Path was never feared as much as Blood Path.

Like Primordial Origin, Giant Sun also created an organization — the second most powerful in the world — with a system unfair toward outsiders. Sometimes I wonder if he killed even more people than Spectral Soul, because creating an entirely new path requires enormous time, research, experiments, and resources.

As for Spectral Soul, it wasn’t even humans trying to stop him — Heaven’s Will itself intervened. He was the most murderous being the Gu world had ever seen, creator of an organization so powerful that Heaven’s Will constantly targeted it, and he almost succeeded in resurrecting completely.

“Sunny and Cassie hate fate and want to destroy it, but I think that for both of them, fate has actually been favorable. And don’t come and say that Cassie lost her sight or that Sunny has the shadow bond or had a difficult childhood. Mordret and Nephis are the ones who could truly say they had a hard childhood. Nephis lost her father and mother, then her clan, and faced assassination attempts. Mordret, on the other hand, was considered a monster by his own father from birth and was sent to live with a madman; when he returned home, they even tried to kill him.

Yet neither of them constantly blames fate or complains about their suffering. But Sunny, every time something goes wrong, it’s ‘fate.’

On the Forgotten Shore, Sunny and Cassie actually benefited from fate by meeting Nephis. Nephis had a much higher chance of surviving the Forgotten Shore alone than Sunny and Cassie did. I don’t think Sunny would have survived there on his own. And the memories Sunny receives are extremely useful for his future adventures. He received two Divine memories as if it were nothing, and even a fragment of a divine realm. I think that fragment will eventually make him superior to others once he becomes Sacred.

Not to mention that he is the heir of Weaver. Even his act of defiance was relatively easy compared to others. Nephis had to regenerate countless times to endure the sun of Godgrave. Mordret had to split his soul into millions of pieces while maintaining his sanity. Nephis, in her first Nightmare, had to burn herself over and over again, which is not something quick or easy. Mordret had to endure his own at just 12 years old. Nephis completed her second Nightmare while still a Sleeper, and Mordret went through his as well.

Meanwhile, Sunny ruined his own plan purely out of hatred—he had the ambition to kill a demon while still an Awakened, and I think he could have succeeded. Even Mordret himself says that every time he tries to accomplish something, something happens to stop him (Sunny, the gates opening, Sunny again, the corrupted kingdom…).

So overall, the people who should truly hate fate are not Sunny and Cassie.