He once ruled the world, Shadow of the Conqueror Review
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- Опубликовано: 7 мар 2023
- Now he's taken a flying leap
The book
a.co/d/9unfph0
The Author
/ @shadiversity
Links to my own page and where to reach me
My own work
www.amazon.com/T-Alex-Ratclif...
Minds
www.minds.com/talexratcliffe/
Twitter
/ 1428524725039423491 
Развлечения
Shad making a magic system, where your power is based around how right you think you are, is a joke that writes itself.
Amen
Not the first.
Warcraft did it first.
Its called self fulfilling, and self reinforcing. People do this to themselves all the time... Especially people who are vain or stubborn
@@Furyhound warcraft did it first.
Light's source of power is literally self-righteousness.
@@lloydgush i wasnt disagreeing
I really though the point of the story is that Dylan was a villain, and even when given a second chance he's just too much of a sociopath to actually change his nature
That's what I took from it. Though the author says different.
The ending say different, unfortunately. No matter how unearned.
Another win for La mort de l'auteur.
Whenever Shad advertised the story, he would stress the redemptive arc of Dylan. I was almost tempted to buy the book because I love stories of rags to riches, or from evil to redeemed.
Yet....I call malarkey on the redemption story in this one. Redemption is a rocky road, but if a person is actively committing the same atrocities with little care, then shove it. That's not redemption...more like a sociopath!
You know the MCs character hating building and fixing things despite being gpod at it really reminds me of how Shad claims he is good at art but dislikes drawing
Really gets that noggin jogging.
I had the same thought when I heard that. This just reinforces my belief that Daylen is a self-insert.
not trying to defend shad, but being good at an art form while not liking the process of that art form is far from untypical, george r.r. martin once said he likes "having written", but not writing.
@@davejacob5208 fair for sure, I definitely get it too, like I have to get myself in the right mood to actually be able to draw anything, I mainly bring it up in his case because at least to me he came across as almost boastful about being good at art but not liking it
Look at the promotional materials. The mc looks like a young shad if he loosed like 30 pounds of fat. And even having the same color of red clothing as shad in his videos
As a DnD player, I remember Shad did a video criticising DnD's 5 foot squares. His contention was that one can strike an enemy with a sword from more than 5 feet away.
To illustrate his point, he outlined three 5 foot squares with sticks, stood in the rightmost and "demonstrated" his point.
Dude literally stood in the middle square and stuck his sword out to the left square in a manner which any chilc could defend against (i.e. against all basics of swordfighting) and claimed he was still in the rightmost square because his foot was just over the line, touching it.
His body was 98% in the middle square and he claimed it wasn't cause half his foot was in the original square.
I laughed so hard.
Dude did some entertaining videos in the past, even these days he can be fun to watch from time to time, but he is not knowledgeable on any of the topics he claims he is.
To clarify, he lunged from the rightmost square towards the leftmost and landed in the middle square in a way that his blade barely entered the leftmost square's airspace.
Anyone could have defended against such an attack (by leaning back slightly), thus proving DnD right to employ 5 foot squares for combat.
@ticijevish also to me it's such a dumb thing for him to hate on, tge 5 foot squares are there because its a game there needs to be some level consistency for a game to exist. His reason for changing or getting ride of the rule doesn't actually make the game anymore fun it just makes it harder to play the game.
He literally erected a strawman to fight against to prove his point.
@@gregchezick7757 A recurring theme with him it seems.
@@gregchezick7757 Worse. He erected a straw man to fight against _and lost._
I keep coming back to this 'the brightest light' comment.
If an organisation that maintains the law can sense light, they surely have noticed that the ones with the brightest light are either the purest or the vilest individuals, with no possibility to tell them apart by virtue of their 'light strength' alone.
If anything, that would make the whole 'sensing light' something actively avoided by seekers of justice (or at least give reasons to highly mistrust 'bright light' individuals as opposed to blindly trusting them).
It's such a rabbithole of poor world-building.
It could certainly have been handled better.
I like the subjectivity of the light being bright in the truly monsterous, but it would have been better with an example of a real sociopath...
Outside of Daylen.
I have to agree with Satyxes. It's interesting that the light is subjective, but if that's the case then it makes no sense for everyone to treat it like it's objective. Because then you get what happens here, which is that the protagonist brutally murders and SAs a bunch of people, but he thinks he's a cool guy, so I guess it's all good.
It's somehow a less coherent take on the Jedi.
No. Just like real life you could centuries of religious dogma telling people with the brightest light are good and.
for the level of evil this dude was on you need to pull a total Thorfinn level redemption arc to make any kind of redemption work.
Honestly, I don't think even that level of redemption arc would work here.
Despite all the hate and the killing, Thorfinn was a kid raised by a group of vikings who pillaged, killed and raped for the MOST of the years he spend with them, yet he himself never raped anyone, nor did he enjoyed it when he killed people. Hell, he never actualy wanted to kill ANYONE exept for ONE person through out the whole story. He is not a bad person at his core. That's one of main reasons why his redemption arc works so great.
While Dylan is just... Yeah.
I’m here because I got this book for my husband for Christmas. He did not like it, and I originally came here to watch this just to learn more about it.
I ended up reading a lot of the parts you spoke about, wanting to learn full context and WOW. It is so much worst than you make it out to be which I give you huge props for. I feel like this was very fair and you did your best not to nitpick because there is a lot to nitpick.
Personally, my favorite part is when Dayless tells Bringer that his dad trained him and that is why he’s so good. Then when Bringer points out that he said he lived in an orphanage, Daylass just clarifies that his dad would visit him whenever he could and trained him during those times. Which is just…. Insane. Bringer accepted this like it made total sense too.
Also Dayless Jr. here talks down to bringer so damn much?? Calling him Son like he is his senior, which is not at all annoying or frustrating to read from a character you know is supposed to be pretending to be 17.
Daylass talks to himself constantly when alone, he is so overly confident and he is unlikable as a character. It’s frustrating to read him get away with everything. If feels like he only does because he’s Dayless and the story demands it.
'He's a guy who fixes things who hates fixing things', sounds like 'He does art but hates doing art' Shad.
As someone else who read the book recently for a bunch of people in a VC, it broke my brain quite a few times, so kudos for you going through it, man.
It was a slog
@@talexratcliffe Did you also notice how much the book repeats itself with everything? It's probably the most egregious in the descriptions of powers being switched up.
@dizzydoom4230 Yes.
Luckily, I have some distance from the book now. I hope to forget it entirely with all the books I'll read in 2024.
@@talexratcliffe Maybe so. You ever read the Stormlight Archives series? It's one of Shad's obvious inspirations and MUCH better.
I read this book back when it first came out. I didn't like it then and I really don't like it now that Shad has shown his true colors.
This book is the sort of thing that you write for your own "purposes", then file it away somewhere where only you can see it.
Like the ancient evils hidden within "De Vermis Mysteriis", it was not meant for mortal eyes.
What true colors?
@ravissary79 when he released the book he was just "the sword and castles" guy. Since then he's started another channel where he and his friends shit on TV shows and movies for being "woke", saying all sorts of bigoted things, and literally calling other creators evil just because he didn't like their take on a story.
On top of that he's become an advocate for ai art, which is just theft.
@@mainstreetlamplighter9630 how is AI art theft?
It minim8zes the work of artists by not employing them, but it doesn't steal from them.
Also, having traditional values doesn't make you Hitler. Learn to tolerate people you disagree with on politics and religion. If they're not advocating overtly totalitarian actions then they're simply making value judgments on what they think is good and bad, which is what everyone does. I think we can all learn from people who give a different perspective in good and evil, do long as they agree to abide by the rules of society in a way that facilitates a peaceful discourse, making meaningful debate possible.
I think Shads real character flaw is thin skin. He needs to grow up a bit and become a little less insecure... perhaps receiving criticism with more calm humility.
But none of this reveals he's some sort of cross burning, rape fantasy bigot. His own description of the main character us that he's a BAD person. Thus I don't think he's meant as a self insert.
Second Godwin's law.
Honestly, it's pretty common for suicidal people who are otherwise mentally stable-ish tend to think very ritually about it, and if their situation changes dramatically they often no longer want to die.
Its only rational that most people who are situationally suicidal will view the appearance of a second chance as a replacement for repentance. Such a one is far more likely to rationalize his behavior.
But it certainly doesn't make hom very likable.
Knowing he's a BrandoSando fanboy, I realized Shad just wanted a self-insert with a redemption story like Dalinar, without actually letting his character have any low points or struggles or self-examination and growth like Dalinar.
Wait do you not like Brandon Sanderson? I’m not accusing, I’m curious
@@bc9402 oh no I love him (I was literally jumping during the Well of Ascension twist at the end), but having read enough of his work I can tell what Shad wanted to do and build a sympathetic despot, without either condemning his actions or putting him through suffering as a result that lets the character become someone better. Lord Ruler had complex motivations, but it's still murder and they say that, and Dalinar loses so much and suffers and drags himself into being someone better and Shad putting so much of himself into the character, from what I've heard, meant he couldn't have him be truly evil or weak or break to have to work to change.
Why do you not consider the mental breakdown to be a low point?
When you listen to Shad's critiques on the Mario movie, you really start to understand where the flaws in his writing come from. He actually thinks Mario would have been a better character if he was a naturally gifted hero and aced Peach's trial the first time instead of gradually making progress and improving. Shad literally doesn't understand the appeal of character growth, he'd much rather indulge in power fantasies and so much of that is reflected in Daylen/less's character. Obviously there are stories where flat a protagonist could fit the narrative better than a round protagonist, but Shad clearly doesn't have the literary understanding nor skill to make such a story work. And this is especially this case for what's supposed to be a redemption story, which is *all about* the character growth, yet Shad can't be arsed to make his characters improve aside from getting shiny new powers undeservedly.
@@henryhuynh9182it's interesting though because he is extremely critical of Mary Sue and Gary Stu characters, like Rey in Disney Star Wars.
For me, the title is Shad-o the Concurer.
It's just Shad Brooks wandering around saying "Ah, yes... I do agree" for 652 pages.
Legit interesting direction for this to have gone would've been him just reconquering like you said. Great review.
They were asking for it.
Good concept, bad execution. A much better redemption story is Rurouni kenshin. He was a murderer that would kill anyone in his way, now he's learned his mistakes he promised he won't kill again, even though there are plenty temptations for him to murder his opponents, he stayed strong.
The question for kenshin was "will this guy relapse given all the temptations". Well in Daylen's caee, he relapsed at the slightest temptation. I know he's supposed to learn during this journey, but he's had decades of solitude to learn from his mistakes, this guy is irredeemable
Daylen never wanted to change. At least, that's how it appears. He makes no attempt to change. It doesn't help that every other character basically pats him on the back and tells him what a good boy he is when he does something terrible.
@@talexratcliffe Yeah, at best Daylen just decided "I want to use my evil for good now" and shifted his targets accordingly.
Do we want to redeem a child rxpist even?
@@SylvanasWindrunnerResurrected 100%! the story begins on the premise of building up a mass killer, rapist and abuser as a sympathetic person. A person which is a self-insert of the author...
@@AdamOwenBrowningBrooks is apparently Mormon. But given this book it wouldn't shock me if he wasn't part of a splinter group. The main LDS church has spent a lot of time abandoning or softening bad doctrine. Brooks just seems to go completely insane wuth a clear self-insert and the CSA stuff is telling.
I'm sorry, I can't help it but all this "lightbringer" talk, the "superhero", the rape... I'm getting Linkara flashbacks.
I thought the same! Probably some sort of coup since they're too ideologically opposed for it to be a shoutout!
Or MAYBE it's 3D chess...namedropping a critic's own amateur attempt at a comic in order to head off a scathing review!
The difference is that Linkara grew up. Shad actively refuses to.
@@Hawkatana With how poorly Linkara speaks of his old webcomic, I'm surprised he hasn't stricken it off the face of the internet.
okay so the protagonist was going to off themselves because they felt remorse for what they had done and it didnt work ...
So why didn't they jump twice or find a better method ,despite his age?
it just makes it seem like he wasn't actually trying to pay penance , but was more upset about being old.
like everything in this gary stu's book is more concerned about the protagonist " winning" than anything-- to the point the protagonist is forgiven by his arch nemesis , with barely any effort.
Im certain that he jumped off the world with Both stones , hoping that it would somehow create an explosion that would destroy the world-- because if u cant win ; you can unplug the console.
Thats true. I could see a few ways a redemptive arc could work in this setup. But this simoly doesn't work as written.
The most obvious, but trite, is a Revan-esque arc where there are mental consequences from the jump. He gains these powers but has no clue how to use them or who he is. It can branch off from there in a lot of ways with him unwittingly undoing or lessening his prior actions. Eventually he has to decide who he really is.
There's even room for doinf it without amnesia. But the character wasn't redeemed or even really remorseful. He just wanted to handwave it all away and pretend that made it ok.
he didn't want to die because he was remorseful it read more of he was just old and wanted to die before his body fully gave out on him
The premise is actually an interesting one. I have actually used the whole "redeeming a monster" element for some of my stuff. The main character of one of my stories is actually a psychopathic mass murderer, but operates but has a code of conduct for the people he kills, much like Dexter. Throughout the story he is not trying to be redeemed in any way, he's just pitted against a much greater evil than himself and his actions accidentally benefit others as a result. Shad's protagonist is just disingenuous in its execution
Redemption is a common theme, but I think I Shad's case this was more power fantasy. It's also WAY too long.
I really enjoyed the early seasons of Dexter.
I just don't get how it is supposed to work for the reader in this case. Him basically getting an instant redemption after having time to think his life over for two decades while he happily butchers random thugs who don't have nearly the kill and rape count he does really clashes with the redemption theme for me.
@@patron8597 I never got that impression.
I have actually seen it done pretty well in a fanfic. Then I dropped it, because I wanted to read about an overpowered evil guy being overpowered and evil, not explore the theme of redemtion.
@@nobody4248 Read Overlord instead? At least that book series admits that the main character is evil.
So this book has someone called Lightbringer and a weird obsession with sexual violence? Did Shad cite Lewis J. Lovhaug as an influence on this book. Sounds like he is a fan.
Apparently, from what I've heard, Linkara can actually accept criticism and recognize flaws in his work. Which is strange for a professed libertarian. The same cannot be said of the narcissist who wrote this mess. The fact that its so clearly written how Shad Brooks sees himself is. . . well he needs to be on a watchlist.
@@sypherthe297th2
Naw, Linkara has a reputation for being an insufferable asshole with glass skin.
It seems like a lot of problems boil down to Daylen being an 82 year old tactical mastermind in the body of a 17 year old, but he acts like a 17 year old as well so he's basically just an overpowered teenager
Shad claims Rey is a Mary Sue and says Captain Marvel is flawed because she is overpowered but ironically ends up writing that exact same traits for Daylen. Bravo, Shad
Im so happy somebody else thought him increasing his "skill" with swords was ridiculous. I hate hard magic aystsms that aren't really hard magic. Because its just new powers as the plot demands.
It's hard to have struggles when your power moves at the speed of plot convenience.
Just sayin, that Shad should know that stabby weapons like the rapier can still make bleeding a major concern. Not to mention the rapier while a thrust oriented sword is…actually nasty with cuts too. Heck I seen one cut a pig in half at that after a couple deep slashes.
Just thought it was funny, that while yes a rapier are built for thrusts, Shad should still know that they can still cut as deep as a lot of swords. As long as it’s not like the weird estoc like ones that have no edge. Just found the rapier hate in the book to be silly.
I wonder if Shad just thinks that rapiers aren't as cool and """badass""" as broadswords.
seems based in some bias he has. He knows full-well that very very few swords are "thrusting only" and that a bladed rapier can cut things. Bizarre since this is in his area of expertise!
@@AdamOwenBrowningIts all tied up in his perception of being "manly" which. . . well to be fair he's lightyears from meeting his own flawed standard of.
@@sypherthe297th2 he didn't like rapiers in the book due to them not being useful against the monsters he used to fight. They are not planning for the future ahead when they have to fight them again. Look at his new video on the rapier he knows it can do a lot of damage against people.
longswords*@@P0rk_Sinigang
My takeaways:
The main character should have been the villain in the first book (with redemption possible later on)
The knowledge that the light reflects somebody's perception of their own actions should have been left a mystery. Until then, it is entirely believed that this 17 year old is a truly good person. It's first drawn into question when the characters discover (perhaps at the same time as the audience) that this young prodigy is secretly the most tyrannical person in history.
It's when the true nature of the light is revealed. MC loses any friends who previously stuck with him. Up to this point, he thought he was justified in all his actions because of how much light he had in him. Now he himself questions whether he was ever justified in anything.
For this to work, he would have to not show any remorse for his actions. Perhaps at first, when he felt powerless, he grew to regret anything. But we should see how he quickly goes back to his old self.
Or, even better, don't show him getting the powers. Have a brief scene showing the old man, identified as the conquerer, standing up and leaving his house. Then it cuts to the young man arriving at the house, meeting with the lightbringer and claiming to be the conquerer's son. It's only revealed leading into the climax, setting up an ultimate challenge where the MC must rely on the help of those who don't necessarily trust him.
The more details I learn about this book, the more it just becomes, "We have the Stormlight Archive at home." Which considering Shad was apparently a beta reader and fight choreo advisor on one of the Stormlight books is just infinitely sad.
Be careful when writing self insert power fantasy.
43:18 The fact that this is basically the premise of "redo of healer" makes this unnecesarily funny to me.
I disagree, at least in redo of healer, it’s made clear that the protagonist is a terrible person and broken, and the only reason your rooting for him is cause he’s going after worse people.
Daylen, is not that at all. He is worse, as it seems to me that he didn’t have any low points or justifiable reason for why he is the way he is morally. He dosent even have a quest, this is not take of revenge as far as I can tell, not some path of redemption. He’s just there, and he’s changed cause he feels like it? I don’t know.
The worst sin I think, is that Daylen, even when villainous, is kinda boring. When your morally dubious protagonist is uninteresting, your story is in trouble.
It sounds like Shad tried his hand at an Isekai and failed. Hopefully he can improve his craft and take any criticism to heart. Honestly, I have the exact opposite problem with my series: given the disconnected nature of the story from society at large, I find it hard to do actual exposition in regard to it. I'm hoping to correct that with my third novel.
Same word Isekai. It's all come full circle.
Failing at writing is the most "isekai" thing about it though
Why Shad will lost time improving his writing when he can simply put that book on GPT-Author and in no time he will have an improved and much nicer version of the book. Everyone can be a writer now, in fact I'm going to write a love letter to GPT-Author because I was a frustrated writer, but nowadays my writing is so much better with the help of AI lol
Future guy here shad did not do that he’s been going a bit weird lately
@@inkthroughdesenhos1107 If you are going to follow that path why not go full hog and blame your poor writing on the Wokes or something and start a youtube channel. There seems to be a really good market for that content.
Given Shad's recent stance on AI, and him talking about how he can draw but doesn't like drawing, the thing about Daylan being a tinkerer who hates tinkering.... Yeah, no, sure. Daylan definitely isn't a self-insert. Nope. Definitely not. No Siree... *cough*
Okay real quick, couldn't Daylus just go and officially make a birth certificate? I mean he's a person that was seemingly never on the grid to other people, his parents don't exist, that doesn't mean he can't legitimately document himself as an individual
Shhh... we'll have no logic here.
He was never planning to? His change in age was recent it's not something he set up before hand.
@@generights the timeline goes on for months, we don't mention legality when it comes to his new identity
This is what happens when a misogynistic mormon tries to write a morally grey lead in a dark fantasy book. It's just so gross and painfully bad, but the idea of a villain getting a second chance and becoming a hero is an idea I always like but it's done completely wrong here.
This character is essentially "we have dalinar kholin at home" lol
Even listening to this review has me cringing so hard dude, this is some middle school tier writing.
Nonsense.
Middle-schoolers would have gotten tired of Mt. Exposition long before it reached the length of this book.
They also would make something funnier.
So, my partner is an editor, and a scenario writer for rpgs and the like. She said to me, after we read it together, "If this had crossed my desk, I would not say it needed revisions, I would say don't write it. I wouldn't have edited it. I'd bin it."
Side note here, she quite literally burned her copy of the book. Little extreme if you ask me, but she set the damn book on fire.
I also write stories and characters, lore etc for my own RPG. This whole thing screams "my first idea and first book and I never got an editor" @@TheSimpleMan454
Naah, plenty of sci- fantasy novels by grown men are "r/\p€ me swiftly, I must return to my master" $#¡tcrap like this.
Thank you for this. I now have something to go back to whenever I feel down about my abilities as a writer. I may not be Sanderson, but I’m already light years beyond Shad!
Concise and excellent review. Good work. I appreciate the insight
Thank you kindly good sir.
Making the subject of your redemption story an absurdly prolific serial-rapist seems like a bad call. Giving yourself hard-mode for your first novel, at least.
If he did genocides and war crimes and starved people and so on... those crimes could conceivably have some sort of end served by the evil means. There could be some plausible way he convinced himself he had to do it because reasons. He could tell himself he's making the hard choices other men are too weak to make, but in the end they'll be glad someone was able to, or whatever.
The rape, though, that's just taking satisfaction in the domination and harm of another person. It's power plus unchecked sadism with no space for justification or misunderstanding. It's not like it's something would seem like it's all fine and above board until things start spinning out of control a couple decades down the road. He knew the harm he was causing and was comfortable with it for years... and then suddenly he wasn't. The notion that someone suddenly underwent that sort of change of heart is difficult to sell.
to be fair
that was the point.
to see if you could redeem an objectively evil man.
whether or not he did is up to the reader
@@shirothefish9688 The answer is "no"
Just literally "no"
Shad can't do it.
It's a difficult subject and he's a bad writer.
@@paulsmart4672 and that's your opinion.
There will always be someone who disagrees with you.
We should not be pushing our opinions as facts.
Also note how I wasn't talking about shad doing it. I was talking much more general than that.
Your reply thus makes it sound like you don't believe it can't be done by anyone, regardless of writing skill, up until you specify shad.
@@shirothefish9688 Actually, it turns out the book wasn't written by a vague and generalized "you" at all. It was written by a specific guy.
I guess this is book is of the cases of "Cannot See the Forest for the Trees", what idea Shad wished to express and present in the story have not translated well into the pages. Hopefully this being first book will allow him to grow as a writer and any of his following books will avoid the infodumps and character acting silly/artificially with each other.
Hopefully, there is potential here, but a lot of work to be done
... shad says that he has written multiple novels and this is the first one that he published. he stands by it, though he had given it some revisions for his updated version.
he also loves to call himself a "writer" while providing his opinion on what he perceives quality of craft to be.
he will often say things like show, don't tell, when what i've been able to read so far is SO much telling.
he's just another person who cannot see how subpar the product is for the audience.
and he seems to deflect criticism of it... because his identity is probably tied to the book.
i like shad. i admire shad. i tried to say in his comments how much i don't like his book.
i bet he does not care.
he has enough people in his echo chamber who want his attention or are afraid to challenge him.
Hm, actually, this is not his first book. He said once he already wrote 6 or 7 books befores this one, but he never managed to get them published (probablye because they are way worse)
@@monnaranzoti732 They probably are worse, BUT that's not in and of itself an indictment of him as an author because EVERYONE's first attempts will suck. The only metric we can use is to see if the next one is better (If anyone left cares to read it considering the skill level of the last one and of course, Shad as a person).
@@monnaranzoti732 isn't this one self-published? So he just has enough money to publish it.
“And as he goes outside to wait, his bones rickety and clattering against each other, he notices there’s an individual know as a lightbringer…”
HMMM
Shad, shadow, dayless... You can't convince me there isn't some kind of self-insert when the names are linked. It's usually the first giveaway.
I never even heard of this book but i could predict it as you told the story. It's because i read angel armor by linkara. What is it with lolcows and constant unnecessary rape and weird sex things like that naked fella country... really disturbing. I write for a living in my native language, yet i used rape like twice in two short stories centered on the horror of it. Here rape is just like... a background noise. Rape this, rape that, here's some sex slaves, here's a traumatized rape victim, here's a weird shame ritual... why? And its always rape too. Like they won't write a book where every character eats people or stuffs bugs into their butt or other weird deviant and horrid shit. Just always rape. Its so bizarre and specific for short mentally unstable people.
Can't answer for it. It keeps coming up in a lot of books.
If I can, I skip over it because I don't want that stuff in my head.
I guess it's an easy way to make a character "evil".
@talexratcliffe if that's why they do it, they are just unexperienced or poor authors which is totally okay. But if u wanna know my opinion, I'd say it's sexual. The authors are always m'lady types who need to justify being with an attractive woman even to themselves in their fantasies. Like, hmmmmm... this girl im imagining would never be with me.. oh i know!.. and then they either write a rape, a hero stopping a rape and having the saved girl comes at them, hero saves sex slave who comes at them, or even this bizarre unrealistic 'this society shames rape victims but my gary stu will be kind to one so she'll have sex with em'
I kind of find the parallel funny between Shad's super rightwing ideology and the fact that, rather than making his "Evilest Dictator Ever" mirror a fascist, he made him a communist (well, an incredibly simplistic understanding of one based on an authoritarian communist, but that's par for the course). It's pretty telling.
Real world politics should be avoided in stories. It can be hard to separate yourself from your beliefs when writing, but it is a skill worth developing.
Regardless of your political beliefs.
@@talexratcliffe I don't think that's true. You just need to understand the political theory behind the topics and politics you are criticising. A lot of beloved media is heavily political.
@@adapienkowska2605 and that beloved political media is beloved because its relation with politics is that of exploration and discussion, and not just author's personal views bleeding into an entirely unrelated work.
@@Spellweaver5 which is where a nuanced understanding of the history and political theory comes into play. that way even when you have a clear side you're on, you can still explore interesting tensions and contradictions. but that doesn't require to set aside your views, just to have them be rich enough that they're worth expressing.
@maximeteppe7627 it still does. Nuanced or not, if you treat your personal view any differently than the other views, you end up with a biased story.
The problem with rarity in fiction is that it can be quiet hard to actually show. Its common in Anime, most of the time we are told that the power system in the world is rare, with very few people actually having access to it. In Bleach, for example, its stated over and over that Bankai is incredibly rare, with those who reach the peak being engraved onto history. Despite that, most of the cast can use it because we are dealing with the upper echelons of power. The most interesting beats of a story, particularly if its focused on fights, happen among those with unusual powers who experience unusual events, which can give an inaccurate idea of how common those things are. Shard wielders in the Stormlight Archives are another good example. Shards are INCREDIBLY rare, but most of the cast has access to them because we are dealing with those at the top. So yes, it is convenient that everyone in the story has rare standing and equipment, but it kinda...has to be like that for the story to be interesting.
I thought maybe the AI that wrote this crap threw in the unicorn from MLP for a minute there!
Saying the "bones" of this story is good is even a huge stretch, the writer has made it very clear that it's essentially Hitler apolagia.
I think he mostly means the setting (minus all the sexual violence), not so much how the characters are written.
This made all of my points, but better articulated than I could make it. I read fhis one alongside my partner, who despised it. I just found it sad and frustrating. Because there was an attempt at something ambitious here, but it was bungled up so badly that I couldn't like it, despite wanting to like it because it has heart. But... The analyst in me, and the critic in me always picked up right away on its failures. I called it suicidally ambitious in my last book meet. And I stand by that. This kind of story is not one a first time author should try to tackle. Not when you have to cram in the bullet points and workings of an entire world, make a monster the viewpoint character, and have people around him forgive and redeem him. It's difficult for veterans. Let alone a debut author. Dayless is not refeemed. He's given a pass. People are either blind or stupid all the time, and just shrug and say "He said he was sorry, so it's okay now."
Is Dayless the Grinch? No, he's Mega Hitler with God power. "Sorry" doesn't cut it. And that so many people just... Get on board with "New" Dayless, who has not changed... Drives me up the wall.
Pgs 250 to 285 were kind of interesting. The protagonist makes his arc statement on 250, and the evil baddies finally appear at 285. Don't know why it took 200 pages though.
I bought the book and could not bring myself to finish it. The part with "learning powers", especially the one with loosing legs was for me so weird and cliche at the same time that it took me out of the setting completely.
While world presented is fine, i was not able to sympathise with main character nor find him interesting. There were simply too many simillar stories.
And the amount of exposition dumps and internal monologues was pretty overwhelming. At one point i realised i am not reading a story. I am reading an author's explanation, trough characters voice, that im reading a story, and how the story works. I agree with Shad on quite a lot of things and find his videos entertaining, but this book made me feel as if someone written bad-mid fanfic and then tries to explain to me why i am too stupid to understand its in-lore mechanics, despite me understanding them pretty well. The said mechanics are just dumb.
The villain of my story is responsible for organizing world war 3…
(Yeah he doesn’t survive…he gets absolutely ruined and brutally killed when he’s finally caught after destroying the world…) but before that he’s an incredibly imposing, intelligent villain who knows how to counter the hero’s…)
The book was mid at best, but the worldbuilding was somewhat interesting and I would actually enjoy writing something in it that actually makes sense lol.
The world could be an interesting setting. He needs to learn less is more.
I gave up on this book about three-quarters in, when I realised that absolutely nothing was ever going to be a threat to the main character. I had already been exhausted by the exposition dumps and the creepy stuff, there was just nothing worth sticking around for. Seems I was right.
In regards to the book, to be honest, it sounds too much like many of the -free- fantasy stories (original and fanfiction) on the internet to be worth it, but to be honest, my comment is more to address an assumption that a lot of people (incidentally, many on the other side of the Atlantic make).
That is that an armed society is somehow less vulnerable to strongman leaders, tyrants, oppression and what-have-you.
Funnily enough, the Medieval society was armed to the teeth from top to bottom. There were some regional weapon restrictions, but usually they weren't about restricting access to weapons of war - hell, there were probably just as many laws that obligated the commoners to own and/or train in the usage of weapons.
Most restrictions were about, say, owning hunting arrowheads (while armour-piercing bodkins were perfectly legal) or, in HRE, for the commoners to have swords, but kriegmessers, a metre -long "knife" were perfectly legal because of how the handle was built, making them not-technically swords.
Honestly, weapon restrictions for the peasantry would have been pretty much pointless. The biggest restriction for peasants owning weapons and other military equipment was usually cost. Most of them didn't see the need to buy a warhammer or a set of mail armour which might cost more than they make in a year and that would just rust in their home for most or all of their life.
Another reason why weapons were generally not banned was that peasants nearly always had on hand a tool that can be used as a weapon. The axe they were splitting wood can split a head just as well. The scythe can be (and frequently was) made into a pretty good polearm after just a short visit at the village smith.
The issue usually was that even (unorganized) armed peasantry weren't that successful at repelling raids from professional soldiers (or ‘warriors’) forces, like (but not limited to) the Scottish and Welsh cattle raids in England, English chevauchées in France or the Tatar slave raids in Eastern Europe.
Basically, it wasn't an issue of armed versus unarmed, but of professionals versus amateurs. And professional soldiers (or warriors) generally do better than amateurs, even if those amateurs are armed. And amateurs can't all spend the necessary time to become professionals, because, well, they have to spend most of the time working to feed their families.
So, yeah. People throughout history were usually armed. It didn't change much.
I think the specific idea is that regimes like his in the real world (as in, mainly the USSR and nazi germany, as technology seems to be about the same level, just in a different form) disarmed the populace pretty early on specifically so they'd be easier to control.
Now how well this would work in a more medieval society I dont know, but thats not what this is.
Is it a bad sign that after hearing you talk about 30% of the book, it doesn't sound like there's even a conflict or a structured plot? Granted, I have not read this book, but I hear mostly a character in search of a story.
Honestly, it was more like 15 to 20% if that. The boom is really long, and if I remember correctly, I left a lot of stuff out of the recap.
But your assessment is correct.
@@talexratcliffe That's a damn shame. I've seen a lot of people stumble on their writing drafts, because they want to create worlds and/or characters but neglect a story that palatably serves them to a reader.
Also, I was thinking about how light is supposed to reprepresent how "right" a person is. I could've sworn that sociopaths know right from wrong. Is this how Shad described it? It sounds to me that what actually would measure the light in someone would be their resolve, faith, zeal, or other similar traits.
@@theanimerican Slight corrextion, inner Light is more a measure of how one views the world and themselves. They even say pedo-rapist Dayless had "brighter than average" Light.
This is pure Chaos
The chaos gods bow before this level of chaos.
It seems like this book is *compellingly* bad.
Not fun-bad, like bad movie night is bad. Most of the people who reviewed it stress that the process of reading it was not enjoyable.
Almost everyone who's reviewed has been negative, usually very negative, but most of them have their own version of how it should have been done. People in the comments often have their own ideas for how it should have been done.
Maybe that core idea is a really interesting one. Maybe it's that potential combined with frustration at seeing the idea done poorly.
I think the way to do it that hews closest to the source is to handle it as a tragedy. Dude gets made young again, a new life and a chance to put right everything he did wrong. But he starts using the same good intentions to repave the same road. There's always a good reason why he's got to do this cruel thing, why he needs power over this person. He's always pulling the level to divert the trolley, but there's always another trolley, and the exchange is a little less clear-cut every time. In the end his hubris, his belief that he should be the one to decide for others, leads him to end his second life in the exact same place as his first one.
That's not a *fun* story, it's probably not a story that most people will really enjoy, per se, but it's a story I could believe of this character.
He should give a light explanation that is easy to understand during the story and go deeper in the appendices for those interested in knowing more
congrats for hitting the 100 subscribers!
It sounds like this book is possibly on level with the Eye of Argon.
I've only heard rumors about eye of Argon
Well for the mass altering I took that he is making his body heavier and in order to conserve KE his speed has to drop. Decrease your mass and still keep KE the same his speed goes up. That still leaves the question about what is changing about his body, maybe his atom just interact more with or less gravity.
I kinda got what he was going for, but it was too iffy mid-air. I can see the "physics" he was going for.
There were better ways to execute it. It's magic. As authors, we have to create the vivid dream and not overexplain. It's a learned skill.
@@talexratcliffe oh agree it was really really over explained
@@talexratcliffe where do you draw the line between proper explanation and over explanation?
@@texteelthere is no hard line, if there was every author would write a book following a recipe like baking a cake.
Its also straight from brandon sanderson, but its less iffy there!
The handling of the themes of sexual assault in the story is somewhat disturbing. I’m not opposed to the inclusion of these themes in stories but it requires a lot of awareness and consideration. It feels Shad puts most of the focus on the rapists and saviors and brushes over the impacts on the victims themselves other than in bland generic trauma responses
My favorite part was when the MC found one of his victims and she started screaming to him to go away. He didn't, of course, why respect her wishes? She just need to hear his explanation and she will understand why he had to rape her.
I guess the Light never heard that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Thanks for the review.
Thank you for watching
@@talexratcliffe I enjoyed hearing your opinions. Let me know if you are ever in the mood for an Indy sci-fi with space pirates and I'll happily send you a review copy (honest opinions only, though).
Im glad I never bothered with the book the cover art looked off putting and how he promoted it really didnt stirr any confidence in the work especially since its his first book and he made so many writing mistakes.
Good review dude nice beard!
Thank you kindly
Honestly cover looks ot me like something from Star Wars especially with that ship flying in the background and guy on the left looks like jedi
Granted I'm an author myself, albeit my books tend to be somewhat shorter.
So I did wonder whether I'd enjoy Shad's book, my own tend to skew towards the lighter side.
Part of me isn't sure if I'd like it but if anyone else does that is fine.
The thing about books is even if you hate it, someone else may love it.
@@talexratcliffe Thanks for understanding, books are probably very individual. Long Exposition is something I struggle with keeping up with but other people probably like books with lots of explaining. Mine is probably the opposite, I jump around a lot, especially in my fantasy and sci-fi works and I'm sure for some that comes across as too fast and for others it helps keep the story moving.
Sheesh, any more toxic, and this chat would be radioactive
Shad really isn't very knowledgeable about historical armor, weapons, or HEMA.
He's an absolute joke amongst people who know anything about the subject and pretty much a pure Dunning-Kruger crystal.
Even just the "armor" he bought is a perfect argument against listening to his opinions on the subject.
Imagine if once he jumped he instantly regretted it. Many people who have survived suicide jumps have stated they instantly regretted it so it’s a realistic thing to happen.
Then after his life flashes before its eyes, seeing the horrible things he has done, he regrets it all. He is not happy at his old age, what was the point of a life that leaves him unfulfilled. Then he passes through the barrier, high above the sky blinded by light. “Is this the afterlife” he thinks as he panics about falling. He notices he is young again and right before he hits the ground he naturally tenses accidentally stopping his fall from his new powers.
After going to his house he realizes he is not dead, he gets a second chance! Then the rest of the book is him trying to relive his life in a good way while suppressing his natural tendencies of violence. He struggles with the regret and eventually after all the good deeds he has done it is discovered he is the old man who killed himself.
He doesn’t go to grab his stuff because he has to leave that life and his sword is stained with the blood of his past. So a B plot would be him with the light guy traveling with him to find out why the old man’s gear still exists. Either he isn’t really dead, but people saw him jump with a stone, or there’s a chance one of his many illegitimate children might be passed on.
I don’t know. I feel like getting a second chance could allow a character to have a sudden and sharp change of heart while trying to tie loose ends of his previous life without letting people know he was the horrible person he was.
Edit: also there needs to be one secret person who has accidentally gotten the same powers he also has. Like a higher up in the government jumping with two stones every time they get old and rise the ranks each time without telling anyone. A secret immortality used by one person and trying to suppress anyone who tries to do the same.
Shad certainly is a creative individual and he used to make fun and informative videos on medieval stuff, but he is just a guy on RUclips talking about the things he enjoys and as far as I know lacks any real expertise on the topics he covers
Nothing wrong with being an enthusiast and sharing something you learned with others, but as time passed he became more and more arrogant to the point of claiming knowledge he doesn't possess and calling out the people who do (on archery, writing, HEMA etc., when he's proven wrong he just calls people snobs and goes on a sophistic rant) so pointless exposition and questionable physics don't surprise at all coming from him
Not to give Shad credit where it's likely not due, but could the contradiction between Dylan constantly talking about how he wants to die and always finding reasons not to be an intentional characterization? Like ... he's aware he's a bad person, and this wishing for death stuff is him acknowledging his guilt, but then he just keeps on finding excuses to keep living because he's a coward who's afraid of death in the end and enjoys being a smug murderous asshole.
Shad doesn't realize that he made the perfect bad guy instead of a character trying his best to repent. So bizarre that most of Shad's soapbox rants are about how there's a lack of heroes for young boys in this generation. Well...Dylan certainly isn't hero material.
Excellent review. Dayless Part two, the Conqueror's Boogaloo would have been a better read.
So videos on this book have been showing back in my recommended, which reminds me of the fact Shad's videos around before or after it's publication was why I unsubscribed. I can only presume he's sitting something up in social media being the cause.
To a point though, the video that told me exactly what kind of book it was going to be was the one were he sung praises of his own magic system and how it can make "cheap and less exhausting to handle materials as stronger than steel" as he himself played around with a wooden sword.
It just spoke so much about how he saw things, the objectives behind the way things were in his fantasy world and his views in other systems. How much of a self fulfillment tale it was going to be by the fact one of the most "distinctive" aspects existed clearly to empower what he did (Swordfight with wooden swords) and that it was going to be rough at best, the borderline comical focus on sexual violence was just cherry on top.
I very much like your idea of the re-write. If executed like you planned out, this could also be a deconstruction and analysis of how people come to fall under the sway of Sociopathic despots. It could be a more serious (i.e., less on the nose) version of Iron Dream by Spinrad.
This shad, is a drifter
For some reason, this reminds me of Mission Earth, at least in structure
I'd be interested to hear your take on The Wheel of Time. Shad has been vocal before about how much he enjoyed the series and took inspiration from it. It seems like by all accounts he tried writing in the Style of Robert Jordan but instead made an edgier less well written version of a dense high fantasy book.
I've had the series sitting in my catalogue for over a year. It may be time to break it out.
It's one of my favorite series, Daniel Greene has done a lot of fairly in depth coverage of the books on his channel if you're on the fence.@@talexratcliffe
@@talexratcliffe pro tip: analyze it for mental health analogies, critiques of the "chosen one" trope, and the way those two things are linked.
To be fair, "body part," depending on how you wanted to define it, can be pretty broad. The cells within your body are a part of your body, maybe man's was going for that? Increasing and decreasing your density by spreading the distance between your cells, increasing your intelligence by bonding shit to your neurons, and etc...
Haven't read the book so I don't know how it looks but that's some idea to shoot
Sorta right. It ends up going off the rails later and basically stops caring when Daylen can bond, and I quote, "sword skill" and basically win any fight as long as he had light energy.
This wouldve been a better way of handling it, binding it to your eyes for sight, legs for speed, etc.
Instead he goes for fundamental physical properties like mass or abstract concepts like sword-skill.
Basically the definition can be pretty broad but it definitely doesn't work for some of what he does, and keeping it to body parts wouldve been much better.
Who would have thought the evil persons self insert is evil?
He's certainly not been making friends lately.
What are you talking about?
@@Mailed-Knight shadiversity is a cruel heartless mormon (definition of evil) and has a self insert that does some of the vile shit I've ever seen. A tad bit of a Freudian slip if I say so myself.
@@justanidiotmk2749 Specifics please? Link me a video of Shad saying/doing something cruel and give me a time stamp. Explain to me how the super communist is Shad's self-insert, because other than over-explaining shit Daylan doesn't even act like Shad, if anything the Lightbringer seems to be Shad's self-insert.
@@justanidiotmk2749 I just remembered that RUclips deletes comments with links. Please give me the channel name, video and timestamp please?
Honestly love to see you review the God of War novel.
The one based on the original PS2 game.
i mean you can convert mass to energy. that is what e=mc^2 is all about. a little bit of mass does obviously convert to INSANE amount of energy, so using this in your magic system is a terrible idea, but it's possible. not that i think shad took this into account.
I think the idea here is KE = 0.5 * m * v² , where KE must stay the same.
I know this because it's essentially directly lifted from mistborne lol
@@VoidplayLP that's for kinentic energy. so something that's half the weight needs to go faster to have the same kinetic energy. but that's a type of energy that matter can have. but matter is in some ways best understood as frozen energy. so to make energy you need enough energy to "freeze", and if you "melt" it an amount of energy is released. e=mc^2 describes how much energy that is.
@@vinx.9099 yes the idea is that the mass increases, therefor the speed decreases to preserve kinetic energy. of course the issue is, what does it physically mean to increase or decrease mass? where does it come from and where does it go?
the way brandon sanderson does this (as the exact same thing happens in mistborn) is by converting the mass to his magic energy
@@VoidplayLP yea, it sound like it's stolen. the problem i'd have with both is that the amount of energy needed is incredibly high. though this is of course only a problem is you try to really ground your magic in scientific laws. just "if it's bigger it moves slower" isn't that. but if you go and try and explain magic, make specific calls on things like KE = 0.5 * m * v² then i'm afraid i'm going to look at your math and then e=mc² ruins your day.
@@vinx.9099 Sandersons magic, specifically feruchemy is pretty specific there. it doesnt go into math but its based on KE = 0.5mv², so you increase the mass and slow down.
the way they do this is by converting magic to mass, instead of energy.
and vice versa they can convert mass to magic.
This is actually a neutral system, so to be heavier for a minute, they have to make themselves lighter for a minute first.
The disclaimer that Shad is a 'knowledgeable fellow' at the start is especially funny given that Shad's been pretty thoroughly outed as a LARPer who knows almost nothing but confidently states opinions in a way that fools people into thinking he's knowledgeable while pointlessly beefing with people who actually know what they're talking about. Oh, and Matt Easton severed all ties with him.
I'm sure none of that attitude will make it into the book!
If you want to read a story about a good, intelligent but naive man, who becomes corrupted and then proceeds to corrupt everyone around him by sweettalking and gaslighting them (and himself), while becoming an overpowered evil emperor and then redeeming himself just to fall from grace again...
I recommend the "Ulldart" - Cycle by Markus Heitz (The Dwarfs, The Albae), wich is actually a very good read despite clearly beeing a debut and having many of the flaws of beeing a first novel. The characterwork and worldbuilding is outstanding, the humor brilliant and all the adult themes are there, but handled with insight and understanding.
I can't get rid of the feeling that Chad tried to do something similar with this and failed due to too much self-insertion and -indulgence...
I would really love to hear your thougts about this series!
Edit: typos
I sampled the part of the first book avalible on Amazon for free.
It didn't leave much of an impression on me other than, "Some neat ideas. Bad prose." And I've seen me some bad prose. This wasn't even really that bad in the grand scheme of things and I was willing to concede that he might have improved with future installments, but, one way or the other, this is not up to the standard Shad seems to have set for himself. It's not going to show the woke libs how it's done, I'm sorry to say.
I haven't read the book, and don't have much interest in doing so.
A "redemption" story of a horrible rapist and murderer that chose to be a horrible rapist and murderer does not sound remotely interesting to me.
I would rather read a redemption story of Tempus Thales from Thieves world, because at least in his case, he was at least partly forced to do those horrible things or be punished by the god of war.
Preface: This is not a critique of your thoughts, but sincere questions about your thoughts on writing techniques.
So I'm of the opinion that Mary-Sue's aren't always bad. It's how you use them that determines whether or not they hold your story back. A great example of this is Saitama from One Punch Man. He's a Mary-Sue. He will always be as strong as he needs to be to defeat his opponent in a single punch and while people will first tend to write him off, or have negative first impressions, they will always end up respecting and befriending him when they get to know him. This would normally make a boring character and story, but it's not the case in One Punch Man. For one, Saitama might be overpowered but what keeps him interesting is that achieving his dream has caused him to become depressed. He feels no joy because life is mundane without a challenge. This is an interesting contrast of our expectations. We would expect that a man in a world where physical prowess will literally lead to fame and fortune, would be happy. We expect that he would feel a sense of pride and accomplishment in becoming the best, but Saitama doesn't. We expect that achieving our goals and our dreams will lead to our best life, but Saitama was ultimately betrayed by his dream of being the strongest. Typically a character like this is motivated by a greed for more, and their insatiable greed is what leads to their dissatisfaction, but all Saitama wants is to feel alive and a sense of purpose. There are some other things that keep Saitama being a Mary-Sue from ruining things (the comedic tone keeping the audience from taking things too seriously, simple but loveable side characters, and Saitama is used very sparingly), but we'd be here too long and I want to get to my real question for you.
When it comes to this story, you've mentioned that Daylen is a Mary-Sue. I haven't read the book so I won't try to disprove you or say that Shad implemented Daylen well. I have no information to work with. It's clear to me, though, that Shad wanted to have a story of an evil conqueror (or god emperor) in his twilight years. To be a conqueror, they needs to be powerful and to be a ruler for so long, despite having so many enemies, and committed so many atrocities, the character must have been VERY powerful. They must have also been charismatic, because you can't lead armies if no one will follow you. So from the get go, it appears to me that it would be difficult to write a story like this without making a Mary-Sue, especially for someone's first book.
So my questions are:
1. Is it even possible to write a story like this without making a Mary Sue?
2. How would you avoid it without being too aggressive (without writing in contrived subplots that only serve to show that your character has flaws)?
2. For fun, let's assume that it is actually impossible and you will inevitably make a Mary-Sue. How would you keep the character and story interesting?
He is not a Mary-sue because he isn't flawed or too powerful, he is a Mary sue because the way the world reacts to his actions is not logical. It always serves his goals despite him not doing any of the work to make it so.
Thus its not about showing more flaws, its about making sure that the character actually acts the way the world pretends he does.
He embraced the protagonist as villain. It turns out it was a scheme do destroy or acquire light cause he know he couldn't defeat someone with those powers.
Make it so he was more affable, and that he manipulated his own soul and memories to acquire.
So finale w
Schizophrenia is a hell of a drug
I kinda used to like shad but then I made the error to watch some of his live stream kind videos.... that he would write such a book and react in that way to criticism kinda tracks.
On the other hand, cudos to anybody who manages to write and publish a book even if it´s terrible. Who knows maybe shad someday manages to take critique as feedback instead of a personal attack.
Maybe it's that kind of problem many people with a big, dedicated fan base that basically praises you no matter what you do have.
Good review. I liked it. I don't understand why you had to re-narrate the start of the book. Next time try to motivate this by explaining why you are doing it and how your reviews are structured.
My format has changed considerably since I made this video almost a year ago. I've been doing these reviews by trail and error, and making changes based on recommendations and what I think works.
Granted this is still a hobby I do in my free time.
14:35
Was this written by AI ? Or just the cover? It'd explain the character inconsistencies! For example, with the main character, the AI picked up on "age 17" and smoshed together a bunch of hot headed young men from the samples!
Sadly, we know it wasn't because it was published before the technology was available.
The book is 100% Shad.
If it’s not too much trouble I’d be interested to see you compare my novels the Perion chronicles to Shad’s book, or even one of the other books I’ve published bearing in mind that I was a broke 19 year old when I published it and then a slightly less broke college student
Possibly, we shall see.
@@talexratcliffe sweet, that’s all I can ask for, so thanks man! I really like your content it’s very well articulated
As someone who's writing their first story that involves a redemption arc for one of my main characters I really hope I don't fuck it up anywhere close to as hard as this, at least based on what I've heard secondhand through reviews of the book
The book is, after the recap of the 30%, absolutely abhorrent! The protagonist is not redemnable in the slightest, contradicts himself constantly and goes with the old videogame logic of "murder now, justify later", except that this shouldn't work in a literative piece of fiction, especially since we can legitimately see the whole world bend to the protagonist's will, specifically with all the combat he initiates and easily wins.
Also the amount of SA and other uncomfortable topics genuinely does not play well with the 'fantasy' vibe there's meant to be.
everyone, even the worst of people, must be protected. if they are not then you could accuse someone of being the worst of people and take all their rights away.
I would say the nazis are the worst people and I wouldnt make an argument saying "they should be protected" my dude
btw not calling shad one but making a point that some people shouldnt be protected if they want to actively cause harm
@@randomnameseventythree2255
we can agree that nazies are amonst the worst people there can be, but here's my argument for why their rights should still be protected: "randomnameseventythree2255 is a nazi" does this mean your rights and protections should be taken away? what if people think they have a reason for thinking that? that my point. i don't want to protect nazies, fuck nazies obviously, but it's a prerequisite to protecting people falsely accused of being nazies. it's my reason for saying that the death penalty must not be used even if we agree people deserve it, because people will be falsely accused and there's not coming back from death.
i'd be willing to bet shad shares a troublesome amount of views with nazies.
also not a dude lol.
@@vinx.9099 I feel like this way of thinking is faulty because it implies there is undeniable proof of this thing while also saying the accused are bound to this same fate.
Its like with Daylus, he's a pedophile warcriminal who should and likely would have been put to death a long time ago, there is undeniable proof that he did this as the people who experienced it are still alive, thousands of people. Now that Daylus is Daylin, that proof isn't exactly applicable because no one for sure knows if they're the same person, so they can't just end his life on the spot.
Basically, Daylin is only protected from the actions of his consequences because he basically became a different person, not because its just a humanitarian right. There is no logical reason as to why someone can accuse another person of being Daylus without being seen as insane, just like no one is gonna think "Oh shit, neo-nazi on the streets!" when someone randomly blurts an accusation like that.
@@randomnameseventythree2255 That's personal political view
do you believe that one persons rights should be violated to protect the rights and safety of others? @@realdragon
I want to read your version of the story instead. Sounds great
The worst thing with shad is whole he Said, If movie got sword in it objective good. Which i found the stupid thign i ever heard in my life.
I know I should read it to make an informed opinion but you make it sound like a more competently written Empress Theresa crossed with half of Onision's books. It's the serious themes being handled callously by the sounds of it, that seal the comparison in my mind.
Ah come on, it's only twenty hours of your life. Don't you want to read 16 hours of testing superpowers in a power fantasy, then three house of extreme violence and the justifications for it?
@@talexratcliffe yes I don't know why going into autistic detail is an actual issue with the book. Why is it a issue?
@@generights maybe because a soft fantasy book shouldn't be a 20 hour essay on anime power scaling and then a good 3 minutes of SA fantasy straight out of a court document
@@justanidiotmk2749 cringe you don't like it that's it. People do and do not it's useless to say bad because to detailed.
@@generights can you read? It's called SOFT FANTASY it's advertised as such. Would you be upset if you opened up Harry Potter and had 300 pages dedicated to a single spell that's used once? That's fan content not actual published works, it's a sign of being unable to write coherently.
I think a story about someone like Kaido from one piece would make a much better version of this story. Work with a character who wanted to do something good and become the "Chosen One" and does everything right in his mind, becoming one of the most powerful and indestructible people on the planet but then having to cope with the fact that he isn't the chosen one and its because he just is actually a horrible person. Then you get the recipe for someone who hates themselves, is incredibly bored, and wants to die but doesn't really care anymore either because he is basically indestructible. I think going more of that route could be much better. And considering how poorly fleshed out Kaido ended up being, theres definately some room for it.
Just so this is clarified, the thing that Daylem did was not communism. Not by a long shot. And that's not even about being good or bad, it's just that in the soviet union (which is not the only socialist experience in the world and each one of them has its own characteristics) your land was yours, the state didn't have ownership over it. You just couldn't accumulate ridiculously large plots of land and use them to exploit other people's labor
Seems like he slid his name into the title there. Smh
Caught that did you?
@@talexratcliffe embarrassing
@@talexratcliffe honestly, I wouldn't be watching this if he hadn't talked shit about nunchucks.
@@jorje0068 how dare he! Lol
When I first heard of this book, it's premise and plot... I was wondering how anyone in their right and full mind could write something so hamfisted and well, bad, considering the subject material.
Then I remembered Shad is a massive weeb, and very mormon, and the pieces of the derivative yet ignorant puzzle slipped into place...
You seem to have a very pop culture understanding of communism.
Shad literally said himself that he teid to make his main-character a mix of Stalin and Dschingis Khan. He is very clerly trying to portrait Stalin when it goes to politics.
I actually like this book flaws and all, probably mostly because i like shad and the fact that i found the question of ”if daylen could be redeemed or not” interesting. Good review tho.
I'm glad you found a book you enjoy. Readings what we do when our leisure time.
I think the book, in general, has interesting themes - writing issues aside. But I think the way he set it up just makes him irredeemable, especially given the fact that his victim essentially got stuck with him and may or may not form a romance down the road (which she should absolutely not). The thing Shad should* have done is to have her tell Daylen to get fucked because the least and best he could EVER do is spend the rest of his trying to atone for the things he's done, but nothing would ever be good enough for her to forgive him and then we should never have seen her again, or if we did, it should only be in some way where if the main character found themselves in a position where they need to give up their life, they should offer it to her to take.
You assume the people owned the land instead of a aristocratic-oligarchy like in Rome.