Helck Episode 22 Discussion

Every time I find myself getting invested in this show, it pulls yet another twist where it's glaringly obvious that it's been made up right then and there by the author. Mikaros gets powers as the plot demands, Edil, who could not even beat Hyura before can suddenly overpower Azudra after his mind was "broken", which should actually make him weaker... Either they're taking some shortcuts with the original material that results in this mess, or the other way around, they shouldn't have adapted the story plothole by plothole. How are they going to wrap this up in just two episodes?

@pip25
Why are you acting as if all of Mikaros' powers were already defined? Mikaros has been reintroduced as a quasi immortal great magician with more than a couple of aces up his sleeve several episodes ago so it's not exactly strange seeing him pull some new tricks now that we see him fighting for a second time (and I'm not even sure what specific incantations are perplexing you).
You completely misunderstood the final scene with Edil and Azudra.
Edil, who has lost his sense of self and succumbed to his own hero potential, is not stronger than Azudra, he just took his chance while the latter was deeply concentrating on a large scale incantation and wounded him.

@pip25
Why are you acting as if all of Mikaros' powers were already defined? Mikaros has been reintroduced as a quasi immortal great magician with more than a couple of aces up his sleeve several episodes ago so it's not exactly strange seeing him pull some new tricks now that we see him fighting for a second time (and I'm not even sure what specific incantations are perplexing you).
You completely misunderstood the final scene with Edil and Azudra.
Edil, who has lost his sense of self and succumbed to his own hero potential, is not stronger than Azudra, he just took his chance while the latter was deeply concentrating on a large scale incantation and wounded him.

@Avvenirista I think there is a meaningful difference between someone having one or more "aces up their sleeve" and someone being a walking, talking plot device. Mikaros went from a sage who needed the winged awakened humans to crush the demons to a near-immortal, all-powerful abomination that doesn't even need the awakened to crush his enemies.
Even this wouldn't be so bad with at least some meaningful backstory behind it, and I was actually excited when it seemed like we'll finally get some explanation to how he came to be in this episode. But no, Mikaros' "backstory" doesn't explain anything, least of all his motives, it merely serves as an excuse to have a connection with Azudra and to give him even more abilities. He's not a character, as in he has no personality aside from being sadistic and insane, he has no motivation aside from wanting to destroy the world because that sounds like a good idea, and he has no strong and weak points, as his abilities are apparently dictated by where the plot needs to go at any given moment. At least some of these would need to be present, in my opinion, to make him an enjoyable antagonist.

It sounds odd to me that Azudra managed to deal with thousands of monstrous awakened soldiers at once, but failed to notice, not to mention fend off a weakened Edil, but perhaps we can just agree to disagree on this topic.

I do recall reading the manga at one point, but it was quite a while ago, and I don't remember much of it. Aside from piquing my interest, I don't think it affects my impression of the show in any way. I am merely stating opinion like everyone else here.

@Avvenirista Don't bother. We've seen the same pattern over and over: whenever there's a new development, they think they finally 'got' Helck and diss it, even though it doesn't matter. Like when they thought the nobles were the ultimate enemy, and clamored much because Helck didn't fight them. Or when they complained Helck's backstory was kept a mystery, only to complain again that the flashback was too long.