Overlord III Episode 8 Discussion

SiMPleT0N said:
I'm getting a bit confused now.. what the hell does Ains want? He was supposed to be a good and empathetic guy right? But since this season..he's getting more and more cruel. He still keeps the good guy act with the Momon character though.
Is it all because of Demiurge's plan? He wasn't so ruthless before. He was fierce in the lizardman arc but in the end he showed some compassion.
What is he turning into?

Darklight0303 said:


LOLOL go back to shitty shounen shows if that's what you're hoping for

IrisFTW said:


One day you will realized Overlord is just another wish fullfilment series. Instead of horny virgins, it aim at edgy teenagers, you are an example btw.

Darklight0303 said:


Is that supposed to be an argument? Also good job assuming my age. Too bad you're far off but then you are accustomed to failure I am sure.

IrisFTW said:


One day you will realized Overlord is just another wish fullfilment series. Instead of horny virgins, it aim at edgy teenagers, you are an example btw.

Terkhev said:
It's funny how giving some characters backstory changes people's perspective. When Ainz kills nameless soldiers, it's cool, even though they probably also have families, are nice people etc. But when he killed a bunch of tomb robbers, he is suddenly a bad guy, simply because we got to know them a bit. He (as Momon) even confirmed that they are doing it for money and are ready to die for it.

CHC said:


The interesting thing is that the show has been avoiding showing the cruel side of Ainz by never letting characters we have emotional investment in be killed mercilessly. All that killing nameless people look like a game and the overall tone of the show never tried to make us taking what happened in the show too seriously. But in this episode the intention was clearly to make the death of those four characters feel real enough to question Ainz's moral standing. Indeed it looks like the show is pull some Undertale trick here, and if it is so that's actually quite interesting. At least more interesting than the pure power fantasy that I had been watching up until now. It's good when a show is willing to throw some challenging moral questions in your face. Though I guess most hardcore fans of the show are still consuming it as a power fantasy and keep worshipping Ainz simply because he kicks asses. Some of them on this forum are trying so hard to argue for two somewhat incompatible statements: a) Ainz has always been a ruthless murderer; b) Ainz is justified in all his killing. Well, I guess life becomes harder when one is unable to recognise guilty pleasure as guilty pleasure.

Grey-Zone said:
I think people are missing the point here. This arc has, as far as I have seen, 2 main points to make:


1. It subtly points out the audience's hypocrisy regarding whether or not someone deserves death (or worse) based on knowledge of their circumstances. People seem to sympathize with Arche here due to her background and consider Nazarick's actions to be evil mostly based on that. I don't think that conclusion would be the same if all invaders had been like the guy with the elf slaves.

But is that really fair? Then what about the various "mob-characters"? People just seem to come to their own conclusions based on what they wish to be true.

For example, what if the Theocracy Knight (disguised as Empire Knight) from S1 EP3 that Ainz killed with Dragon Lightning early on in the show actually had a sob story about his daughter having an illness that can only be cured by very expensive medicine and the only way to get enough money for that medicine would be to participate in this dangerous mission where they might have been killed by Gazef Stronoff before the main force with the angels arrive? But because he stood right next to his collegue who seemed to enjoy the situation, people just assumed that he is probably just as much a horrible psychopaths who just enjoys killing people even though there is no actual evidence for that.

So Arche only really showed that most of the audience is just a bunch of hypocritical jerks with prejudice who assumes the worst of characters with no background story. I also thought the same when reading this part of the LN, so I am not really one to talk tehe~


2. People call Ainz "evil" but mostly only because of forgetting season 1 and missing the big picture.

The (default) moral compass of Ainz is usually that of a corporate CEO (even though he was only a regular salaryman himself as a human), all about the "profit" of Nazarick, though probably a bit on the extreme end because what most anime watchers don't know is that Suzuki Satoru (the guy who controls Momonga) actually lived in a dystopian society where cronysm is widespread and big corporations control everything (this is only mentioned in LN character sheets and will probably never be mentioned in the anime) where work conditions are much harsher than in our time. This is probably why he is willing to be rather cruel when it comes to making profit for Nazarick.

One more element is that Ainz seems to be a person who doesn't show any mercy toward those he sees as enemies. He is even worse toward those who he has personal grudges against escpacially if someone insults Nazarick or its guildmembers and/or their creations. Vice-versa if someone gives genunine praise for Nazarick or Nazarick members, like in the case of Nemu.

Another very important element are the memories of Ulbert (creator of Demi-Urge) and Touch Me (creator of Sebas Tian). They are like the "devil and the angel on the shoulders who whisper into your ear"-imaginry that should be well known from various kinds of visual fiction.

Ulbert's evilness and cruelty influnece Ainz through Demi-Urge's plans, which often contains cruelty just for the sake of cruelty, even though some of it doesn't give any additonal "profit" to Nazarick, but the plans themselves are solid otherwise, so Ainz obviously keeps relying on these plans.

Touch Me's motto of "saving someone's who is in trouble is common sense" is something that Ainz cherishes a lot, but it's often mutually exclusive with the part about wanting profit for Nazarick, so he needs to make some kind of "excuse" for throwing the profit away. And he found this excuse and has been using it ever since the part at the beginning of the story when he saw Touch Me when looking at Sebas, though it's a bit subtle: "Let's save/spare/revive him/her/it/them for the sake of an experiment". In other words, Ainz does most his good deeds whenever he says "let's do this for the sake of an experiment" because the results are unknown, which makes it compatible with his profit mindset. Some of the Nazarick residents seemed to have noticed the pattern that Ainz is more likely to accept a request if it's in the guise of an experiment, escpacially Demi-Urge and Sebas.


I think this subtleness of his good deeds in contrast to the obviousness of the bad deeds caused by following Demi-Urge's plans, as well as this particular instance where point "1." applies is what makes Ainz look so "evil" to people in this arc, but looking at the big picture it's much more complex as you can see.



Sorry for bothering you all with this Wall of Text.

HeroicHealer said:
This forum is filled with psychopaths trying to defend Ain's selfish actions. He literally baited the humans because of Demiurge's suggestion/plan to experiment on humans. He literally exploited the teams, even his Death Knight was sent to that Kingdom all planned by Ains. The ones who foolishly entered were even trying to find a way out, they literally mentioned that they came to "raid" a tomb for "GOLD" not to kick someone's sand castle because they felt good about it. The humans did it out of necessity, Arche did it for her two siblings, think about it why would someone risk their lives just for fun? It's because they all had their reasons.

Sure it's easy for him to kill humans, because he's not human and majority of his so-called servants aren't human either. But we're forgetting is that he used to be human, good thing his friends weren't around to see him in this state, for example sir "Touch Me" was a heroic warrior who defended the weak as shown in season 1 when Ains (Momonga) was a weakling. Even Sebas Tian shows such heroic behavior because he was designed by sir "Touch Me" - Season 1 and 2 were themed showing Nazarick and it's member as the good guys.

If I had to choose a good and likable character in this anime it would most likely be Sebas. To think that Ains would go even as far as to commit blasphemy at some priest who happens to religious, to disgrace the dead and their body (Rest in Peace Arche killed at such a young age, she only wanted to make a better future for her two sisters because the parents were total piece of sh*ts, to make it worse they die from overwork right after being sold to slavery by their worthless parents).

Arch (having a painless death) does not necessarily mean that she did not die with no regrets, she must have felt plenty and must have thought of her two younger sisters. To make it worse, she had her body disgraced, limbs torn off, her voice (most likely larynx) taken by Entoma (weird bug girl), some Silk Hat demons took her head, arms divided among Deadman Struggle, Demiurge (the sick sadistic weirdo) took her skin and Grant's children ate the rest. And Ains says did you "put her body to efficient use" treating a human like an object.

Half of this forum is most likely filled with teenager minded morons who think "blowing up a planet" or having an abusive Over-Powered character would be so cool. Is the first criteria which is to qualify you as a psychopath. Most of these morons would most likely will end up in jail or doing something very messed up, most likely incarcerated too.

Sure the theme of the anime was "an evil main character" well they did a crappy job at Season 1 and 2, because they showed him and his servants as the good guys. For example, saving a village, protecting a hero of a kingdom, protecting a village from the undead, avenging the good guys and the party that were killed by an evil heroine.

Protecting a kingdom, helping a weak and defenseless person sold into slavery (this one Sebas did). What's worse, Ains is a total narcissistic, OCD inflicted weirdo who was desperate enough to stick to game when all his friends got bored of it, manage to have a virtual (not real) character fall in love with him. To make it worse he gets manipulated by an NPC Demiurge (for example season 1 where he suggests to rule over the world) and season 3 (again Demiurge's plan to experiment on humans by baiting them to the Tomb of Nazarick).

HeroicHealer said:


Read the whole post instead of nitpicking specific points and derailing the topic.

Chaosta said:

Well I mean, Historically speaking. Conquering the world with sunshine and rainbows is impossible, to conquer a world, your gonna have to do some evil stuff lol
Even in the anime "the master of ragnarok & blesser of einherjar" he plans to rule the world but he still has to do some messed up stuff, war is war after all xD. ainz way isnt that bad really. He's powerful enough to just wipe out every single city and enslave everyone. In fact that would be alot easier that way than the way he's currently doing it lol

FrozenRaider said:
Wait... so what happened to the half-elf and her lover? Did they become food of king of roaches in the end?

And that cleric-paladin guy was converted to "another god" or he just vanish from the show?

It might be nice to see him teaching about might of AOG. :D

mnedel said:


The two of them were taken alive to be used as nests for insects. Basically, the cockroaches will lay their eggs in them and when the eggs hatch, the immature cockroaches will feed on their flesh while they are still alive. However, they will not be allowed to die but will be healed and the process repeated over and over again… Ainz experimented on the cleric to see if changing his belief in god would have an effect on his cleric abilities. He did this so much that he eventually drove the cleric insane and finally broke his mind completely. So, in both cases a fate far, far worse then death. But remember, according to some people on this forum, Ainz behavior is completely justifiable and not morally wrong at all, even applicable in real life…

Chaosta said:
um no... No one here thinks his actions are justified or "right" we do however think it 100% fits his character. You all foolishly believed this was some pg rated anime when it never was. You thought ainz was a good Guy and are salty now Because of His cruelty
When in Fact he's always been this way. Always had nazaricks best interests at heart and always cared about himself and his goals more than anything else. You people blindly watched the show and missed literally every key plot Point and now are confused. Sad really.

Chaosta said:
um no... No one here thinks his actions are justified or "right" we do however think it 100% fits his character. You all foolishly believed this was some pg rated anime when it never was. You thought ainz was a good Guy and are salty now Because of His cruelty
When in Fact he's always been this way. Always had nazaricks best interests at heart and always cared about himself and his goals more than anything else. You people blindly watched the show and missed literally every key plot Point and now are confused. Sad really.

mnedel said:


Hm, where did I say Ainz is a good guy, you are putting words in my mouth. It was clear from season one that Ainz is an evil villain and that’s the whole appeal of Overlord, the gimmick that sets it apart from other isekai shows. Our protagonist is an irredeemable villain. That’s also the reason why I watch this anime. Sometimes its nice to see a movie or show that brakes the norm, where the mass murderer gets away so to speak. That’s why I find it strange that some posters are going out of their way to try to sugar coat his actions. What is even more disturbing is that some people are claiming that Ainz actions are justifiable, morally acceptable, that the workers are to blame, that Ainz did nothing wrong, that the attacks on lizardmen and the kingdom where thousands of civilians died are fine since he did it for the good of Nazarik, that he is not evil and so on. Hell, some even claimed that Ainz actions would be fine in the real world, that they would do the same to thieves if they found them. Just read this tread from the start, you will find plenty of posts like this. Makes you wonder what kinds of people are around in our society

Chaosta said:
I haven't seen much of what you posted about. I do see people Defending his character when some cries how cruel he is because they are defending his character traits.. For one, it is the workers Fault they died.. If someone breaks into your house they have decided that their life is worth the risk to gain riches. That's true in real life aswell.. In Texas I have the right to shoot and kill an intruder who enters my home. Now if I shot and killed him, whos fault would it be that he died? It would be his. It was his decision to break in, not mine. Most people on here seem to think there's no reason for his actions or kills when that is 100% wrong. What I'm saying is that his action are needed to continue towards his goal which is a fact. That doesn't mean the actions are justified. There is a massive strategy involved with every single move ainz and his subjects do. Shit hitlers blitzkrieg was Necessary for his goals aswell but that doesn't make it right..

mnedel said:

Well than you haven’t been following this tread so thoroughly.
First, workers are not thieves. They are not braking in to someone’s home, they are investigating a tomb complex. They have no idea who or what lives there. Could be a demon worshiping cult bent on destroying the region, could be anything. They were also hired by a powerful patron to investigate the tomb, its not like they can just go back and say: Well, we didn’t want to go any further since there was no dust on the floor. Second, Ainz intentionally lured them there and he knew they were helpless against him. Ainz is infinitely more powerful then the workers, he could have handled them in any way he wished but he chose to be pointlessly sadistic and cruel about it.
Your comparison with Texas doesn’t stand. The real comparison would be if you buy an old farm, then deliberately spread rumors around town that’s it abandoned and has treasure inside, then when a bunch of clueless teenagers show up, you beat them, kill some right away and drag the rest to the basement to torture for months before feeding them alive to pigs. You think that is normal and acceptable behavior?
On principle, I think it is all right to kill an intruder in you home if he might be a danger to you or someone else. If a guy is running away with my tv I’m not going to shoot but call the cops. Human life (or any other sentient beings) is worth more than an object.
Of course, Ainz has reasons, as you pointed out Hitler had reasons, everyone has reasons, it doesn’t change anything. Moreover, his reasons are also selfish and evil.
Also, I don’t see what we are even arguing about. It looks like we agree that Ainz is an evil guy, that his actions are not justifiable and that he has been like this from the start.

Darklight0303 said:


Investigating a tomb in a nation that the patron's empire is at war with. They had no right to be there. That's why Foresight kept saying this was a DIRTY JOB. You can try to ignore that all you want. It doesn't change the fact that they were illegally going into another kingdom to rob a tomb since THAT was part of the offer.

Ainz did not promise them treasure and cookies. He merely let the information of its existence leak and activated the defenses. The greedy workers still made the conscious choice to take the job. Even though the terms of it were suspiciously TOO good.

You are desperate to paint the Workers as Innocent victims when they are anything but.

All because one pretty anime girl died as she was expected to given the circumstances. Just because pretty anime girls didn't miraculously survive and followed the only logical outcome for her and her group's very bad choices.

Dasecookies said:
My inner Emiya Shirou is in pain for that group of thieves, they were genuinely good people...

kenji1104 said:
I am just chuckling on the fact that we are arguing MORALS here and about Overlord nonetheless. Must have watched the wrong show if you are expecting the stereotypical good heroes

mnedel said:

Well than you haven’t been following this tread so thoroughly.
First, workers are not thieves. They are not braking in to someone’s home, they are investigating a tomb complex. They have no idea who or what lives there. Could be a demon worshiping cult bent on destroying the region, could be anything. They were also hired by a powerful patron to investigate the tomb, its not like they can just go back and say: Well, we didn’t want to go any further since there was no dust on the floor. Second, Ainz intentionally lured them there and he knew they were helpless against him. Ainz is infinitely more powerful then the workers, he could have handled them in any way he wished but he chose to be pointlessly sadistic and cruel about it.
Your comparison with Texas doesn’t stand. The real comparison would be if you buy an old farm, then deliberately spread rumors around town that’s it abandoned and has treasure inside, then when a bunch of clueless teenagers show up, you beat them, kill some right away and drag the rest to the basement to torture for months before feeding them alive to pigs. You think that is normal and acceptable behavior?
On principle, I think it is all right to kill an intruder in you home if he might be a danger to you or someone else. If a guy is running away with my tv I’m not going to shoot but call the cops. Human life (or any other sentient beings) is worth more than an object.
Of course, Ainz has reasons, as you pointed out Hitler had reasons, everyone has reasons, it doesn’t change anything. Moreover, his reasons are also selfish and evil.
Also, I don’t see what we are even arguing about. It looks like we agree that Ainz is an evil guy, that his actions are not justifiable and that he has been like this from the start.

Chaosta said:
Do you think before you post lmao.. they had 0 rights to invade nazarick... they are thieves, nazarick sits in another country to begin with... How many more reasons do you need to see that the workers are 100% at fault here... I swear its like you didnt even watch the show..

Darklight0303 said:


No they weren't. With their skills they could have been a crack team of high ranking Adventurers for the guild. Instead they opted to be Lawless workers so they could do whatever they want and how they want.

They themselves didn't paint each other as good people nor did they think this job was clean. They called it DIRTY multiple times during the briefing and yet they still did it.

Terkhev said:
One one hand I'm happy they adapted it, on the other I slightly hoped for original or WN version of Arche's end.
After-credits scene got me hyped!

Aggron said:

Agreed her ending in the web novel was much better. If anyone is interested here is this chapter https://frostfire10.wordpress.com/2017/06/06/overlord-first-half-chapter-59-invaders-part-7/ her trvia section on her wiki page also has more info

HeroicHealer said:
Well let's just make this topic a bit simple, the anime is themed to show an evil character as the main character. No one can change that, but the problem with the main character is that he's narcissistic, selfish, manipulative, OCD (as shown by how he obsesses over his friends who most likely were productive people in society and didn't have the time to play MMO games all day) and borderline psycho.

Ains is so strong when he sneezes a whole village get's wiped out. When he laughs Kirito wets his pants, bla, bla, bla. We get it.

This show is targeting edgy teenagers not in touch with reality. The teenagers who have a misunderstanding that "Might makes Right" which again doesn't justify wrong and cruel actions. But if these guys were asked to act tough in a dangerous situation they would all be sucking on their thumbs and crying mommy.

At episode 7 at around 7 minutes 12 seconds, when he's talking with some dude, the guy says "Even though they are workers, they are our comrades for this job. I hope they come back safely. What do you think, Mr. Momon?"

To which he sadistically replies: "They'll all die, won't they?" To which that dudes reaction was "Huh" which is actually a very right response. As you can see Ains intentionally set this up, his lack of remorse, guilt and conscious is one thing found in people who display psychopathic behaviors in real life, which is clinically referred to a person who is dangerous to other's around them.

Sure his plan was to establish a new country and the first thing he does is bait that other country's citizens, murder them all mercilessly, takes some of them as slaves for experiments committing acts of atrocities, later on sends emissaries to declare war on a country because they entered some ruins which were a new discovery. How logical, so smart, wow. This literally reminds me of an event which occurred in real-life in history by a certain country who did the same stupid thing.

Heck, this show was for the bad guys, who am I to even post this. How dare I give an opinion, an unpopular opinion which differs from the majority (since most of you can't think for themselves and most likely would rather choose to stick with the crowd). Likewise, this show has that theme, so I should have expected that outcome. Everyone has their tastes, so to those who got offended earlier from my posts, I'll apologize.

Edit: I sure hope Ains is not the only player in Yggdrasil, I hope there is some sane player there too. I'm rooting for the humans though.

I've seen how Ains is an edgy and self-centered MC just like how most of it's fan base is made out of.

mnedel said:


The two of them were taken alive to be used as nests for insects. Basically, the cockroaches will lay their eggs in them and when the eggs hatch, the immature cockroaches will feed on their flesh while they are still alive. However, they will not be allowed to die but will be healed and the process repeated over and over again… Ainz experimented on the cleric to see if changing his belief in god would have an effect on his cleric abilities. He did this so much that he eventually drove the cleric insane and finally broke his mind completely. So, in both cases a fate far, far worse then death. But remember, according to some people on this forum, Ainz behavior is completely justifiable and not morally wrong at all, even applicable in real life…

FireandIce said:


I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks all the people going “this is fine” or “oH BoY LoOK aT HoW COOl ThIS IS” is alittle off. I mean...I’m not exactly expecting 100% morally sound thoughts on myanimelist, but at the same time, this past episode was just straight awful and cruel through and through, decently disturbed to see so many people, apparently completely fine with that.