Overlord III Episode 8 Discussion

salzguerkchen said:
Read my comment with a grain of salt. I am a LN reader and just watch the Anime to see how they managed to adapt the source material. Because of that I don't exactly remember what was shown in the Anime and what is considered a spoiler for Anime-onlies right now. I'll be vague in points where I am not sure. If it indeed is a spoiler, mea culpa.
So, let me start by clarifying a few points:

The Empire is interested in Ainz Oal Gown. In order to get information about him they hire some workers through a proxy (the baron) to investigate the Great Tomb of Nazarick which location was leaked by Ainz on purpose.
Workers are mercenaries. They choose not to work through the Adventurers' Guild because of various reasons. Some clash with the guild's rules, some with the rewards, some with personalities within the guild and some with the jobs it offers. In the end they all have in common that they are therefore not adventurers. As such is their nature workers mostly get hired for jobs adventurers can't do. This results in them doing "dirty jobs".
The tomb-job was remarked to be a "dirty job" by Foresight themselves - moreso because of the abnormally high payment (a huge chunk of that being paid upfront) and shares of the market price of any encountered treasure. Nevertheless, the four worker parties found themselves accepting the job. Each individual having their own reason to covet for the offered payment. They were asked by Ainz (Momon) why they had taken this job. Their answer was the money. No matter their personal background, in the end it was about the payment. They willingly risked their lives for the payment and set off for the tomb while Ainz learned that the workers were aware of the risks. They encountered treasure beyond their expectations in the side tombs and decided to invade the main tomb.
This went according to plans set up by Nazarick beforehand - Demiurge's ulterior plan concerning the relationship with the Empire (as the Kingdom was deemed worthless for the time being) and Ainz' order to Albedo to set up a defense in case of intruders while minimizing costs. Demiurge's plan is spoily territory, so I will not elaborate on it further, just know that there is a ulterior plan behind this. On the other hand Albedo's order is simple. Traps and higher-levelled summons cost Ygddrasil currency. Sure, Nazarick has monstrous amounts of stockpiled gold, but is still finite. They can produce Yggdrasil gold through the Exchange Box but it is not without a cost. Iirc a whole cartload of grain thrown into the box equals 1 Yggdrasil-gold. POP-monsters (iirc Lvl 30 or lower) on the other hand simply respawn. What kind of POP-monsters spawn depends on the dungeon/guild base. In Nazarick's case they are undead which have the benefit that they have no upkeep-costs. So Albedo's goal was to defend Nazarick using only POP-monsters and as few traps as possilbe. That goal was achieved, as we could see for ourselves.
As for why Ainz deemed it necessary to fight one team (Foresight) by himself: He had no idea how to fight like a warrior. When we see Momon in S1 he is basically throwing his Twin-Greatswords around without any technique. The reason why this works is because of his high base-stats (he is a Lvl 100 character after all). In his fight with Clementine she points out exactly this. As he is max-lvl by Yggdrasil standards, he hypothetically can't learn a new class . Nevertheless, he tries to improve as a warrior.
After engaging in a short melee he understands that he cannot learn anything new from Foresight, so he changes back into being a "regular" caster. You saw the rest.
The more important point is the conversation before the fight. Ainz is not apathetic towards the workers. Although it was Nazarick and by extension him that created this situation he is not pleased by their presence. Now a bit of background (all this is more or less gone over in the prologue of the LN): Suzuki Saturo lives in the 22nd century in a dystopian Japan controlled by megacorps. He has no living relatives nor any friends in his real life. His routine consists of work, sleep, hygiene, nutrition and Yggdrasil, where his online friends reside. His guildmates are the closest social beings to him. They conquered the dungeon The Great Tomb of Nazarick and established it as their guild base. Every member helped (in their own way) in creating the guild base and the NPCs we see now. This is where they put all of their collective (in-game) effort in.
Now, imagine you build something similar with your closest friends and some people invade this place with the intention to plunder it. Sure, in this case you were behind their appearance at your place, but it still leaves you with a bad aftertaste. So we have established that Nazarick and Ainz Ooal Gown (the guild) are very important to Suzuki Satoru/Momonga. Foresight tried to bluff through their hopeless situation but they stepped on a landmine - and not some landmine but THE landmine in regards to Momonga. In comparison to that: Eight Fingers disrespected Ainz Ooal Gown (guild) and you witnessed (although not everything, A-onlies) what happened to them. So it shouldn't be that surprising what happened to Foresight afterwards.
The lovepair were used as a breeding ground for Kyohukou's cockroaches, Arche's parts for various denizens of Nazarick and the priest to deepen Ainz' knowledge about divine spellcasting and more or less the existence of gods. Not only were the workers useful for Demi's ulterior plan and Albedo's test but their bodies were fully utilised as well. The non-utilization of these bodies would not change the fact that they died. I do not question the morality at this point, this comes later.
Please correct me if I have said something objectively wrong about the events that happened.


Alright, now that we are on the same page, we can talk about whether this was morally right or wrong or something in between and whether Ainz is truly evil or not. As far as I am concerned there are two viewpoints to consider.

The (New-World) human POV
Ainz is evil and that's it. He kills humans without batting an eye only based on whether they prove to be useful or they hinder him in completing his objectives. He sees a painless death as mercy. Tens of thousands of people were simply killed because his subordinate Demiurge kidnapped them in order to fully harvest them and Ainz in his "mercy" decided to simply kill them to not let them suffer. Even infants which cannot possibly leak information were killed regardless. His apathetic attitude towards human life in itself and readiness to commit murder in countless numbers do not sit well with a normal human's definition of good morality. All of Ainz' subordiantes can be considered evil as well. Some of them may have positive or neutral Karma values but in their fanaticism they all will follow Ainz' orders, no matter what. If your ray of hope is Sebas because he saved Tsuare think again: In the end he chose to follow Ainz' order to kill her - choosing obedience over personal interests. Nigredo and Pestonya once defied Ainz because they wanted to save said infants but their protests were to no avail and they are powerless before the supreme authority that Ainz holds in Nazarick.
Even if you treat Ainz and Nazarick as a force of nature, it doesn't help. Hurricanes and Tsunamis destroy settlements and take human lives yearly, but you cannot blame them because their existence and their actions are involuntary, not guided by any decision. That would drastically change however as soon as those catastrophies had any consiousness.
All in all, by human standards formed by a human society Ainz is evil. He consciously decides to commit action human society considers evil. Hell, even his character sheet says he is extremely evil...


The Nazarick POV
Ainz wants to protect that which means everything to him - Nazarick and by extension his guild - by any means necessary. This is simply a utilitarian approach. Whether utilitarianism is the "right" way to approach things is a debate on philosophy. What matters is: utilitarianism is most often found in neutral characters.
Nazarick's denizens and especially the Supreme Beings outclass humans. Their power and their lifestyle are beyond extreme compared to humans. Narberal refers to humans are insects, Solution likes dissolving them, Entoma likes their meat, Demiurge loves experimenting on and farming them and so on. This is not something you would do to someone on your level - they see humans as inferior creatures or just do not care about all of them in particular. Altough Ainz sees humans mostly as tools he does not see them as insignificant creatures and he does not kill just for the sport of it. To declare Ainz a sadist would be completely wrong as he does not feel joy when he kills humans, but simply apathy. That being said: every kill, every major action has a reason. As someone previously elaborated:

Everything he did was for the greater good of Nazarick and his ultimate goal to possibly reunite with his friends. The human sacrifices along with way were just a price to be paid.
World conquest cannot be achieved in a friendly sunshine way. Human nature simply does not allow such a thing to happen. Ainz did slip up in the very first episode when he spoke about world conquest to Demiurge although Ainz only said that because he believed world conquest would spread the word about him and maybe that would allow him to meet old comrades of his. In Season 3 this very scene came back to haunt him through Demiurge and he decided to buckle up and double down on this one. Given Nazaricks military power and what we know about the New World as of now it would be possible to conquer the world though military power alone. Ainz does not order this because on one hand he is worried about any potential foe that could actually stand up to him or even be stronger and on the other hand because it would be pointless to rule over a barren wasteland. Iirc Ainz reveals his idea of a country he wants Nazarick to be a bit later in the season. Minor spoiler:
Again: human lifes were sacrificed along the way and more shall follow - the greater goal in mind.
Contrary to the behaviour Nazarick denizens show to outsiders, they live together in peace and are their own society with established rules. As this society (the exception being Ainz) regards outsiders to be of a immensly lower status, moral standards which apply within do not apply to the people outside. So, from their point of view it they do not take actions which are unacceptable. As such, based from these rules, Ainz does not do anything "bad" to the humans/demihumans in order to achieve his goals.

Conclusion
Taking both these POVs into consideration the result is to categorize Ainz as neutral evil.

Ainz is selfish in pursuing his goals although the greater good of Nazarick is not in itself a selfish goal. He would not hesitate to turn on allies outside of Nazarick if it results in a profitable situation. Ainz does make "allies" in order to pursue his goals (e.g. Nfirea, Carne Village, the whole Momon situation, ...). Harming others to get what he wants is not foreign to Ainz but he does not condone meaningless suffering. There must always be some benefit. Whether this benefit is acceptable from a human point of view does not matter. His goal being the greater good of Nazarick and by extension maybe the New World and the simple wish to meet his friends once again do not change what he did or how he did it.

Afterthoughts
So Ainz is not your run-of-the-mill Isekai Hero-MC, what a suprise, huh?
Jokes aside, it took me some time to write this and it might be non-cohesive given that I wrote it during the night. To anyone who slugged through this wall of text: You did it. Yay. If at least someone finds this in any way useful I'll be glad.
The discussion about Ainz' moral standpoint is one of the things I enjoy the most in Overlord. What I wrote here is the conclusion I came to and how I managed to achieve it. There's a bit more what I could have written down here, but I think that's good enough for now.

Happy_Sensei said:




There's a difference between wanting a safe fairy tale that no bad thing ever happens to anyone and hating to see sadism/psychopathy glorified, If you can't tell the two apart that's on you

Kokoro_No_Tomo said:


at this point, lets all of us stop killing cows, chicken etc, its psycopathic behaviour

oh whats that?, its not applicable since they are non-sentience animal?

EXACTLY !, for Ains and any other Nazarick member, any living being other than member of Nazaric are just bunch of swine , farmyard animals

and why is that really wrong killing them ?

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.

duhu1148 said:
You could make the argument that he is working towards the greatest good. If he conquers the world, he can prevent all future wars, massacres, etc. And he won't age and die and neither will most of his npcs. So they'll be around forever.

If he kills a couple million or so in the next decade to achieve this goal, he could save a few million lives over the course of the next couple hundred years or so. Many of these countries go around killing people/monsters they don't like (Eight fingers) or making them slaves (Slaine Theocracy/Empire). "The ends justifies the means."

That said, Overlord's main appeal for me is:

-ridiculously OP protagonists
-protagonists are non-humans
- protagonists are villains
- hi-fantasy setting

Really, I've just grown bored of the same formulaic "hero saves the day. Friendship conquers all" anime. I think most fans are right there with me. Overlord has found a niche which most anime do not follow.

AnimeJunky said:
Here's to hoping someone comes along and mops the floor with Ains. There has got to be someone who is just as or more powerful than him.

AnimeJunky said:
Here's to hoping someone comes along and mops the floor with Ains. There has got to be someone who is just as or more powerful than him.

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 is in the Kingdom, most likely 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).

Arche (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 for some heartless crime too. Think about it logically. This anime is not consistent it doesn't make sense, if he was going to be evil why didn't he do it from the start? Has any of you watched Season 1 and 2 carefully?

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).

FireandIce said:
Good lord there are a TON of easy to please people in this forum. I have been watching Overlord since S1 came out and I refused to listen to my friends who warned me not to; well, after this episode I'm out. Poor writing, poor plot, extremely predictable, and honestly, while i'm not the type of person that can't watch a show unless everyone lives, I DO enjoy character development, new characters, and continuous character interactions, but Overlord follows the same damn formula every season. After awhile it really starts to piss me off, stop introducing 30 new characters every season only to kill them all off, like we f*cking get it, Ainz could kick kirito's, natsu's, AND Luffy's ass he's so ridiculously OP. It seems this opinion is definitely in the minority, but this episode was the last straw for me, Anti-heroes, and edgy hero's "can" be cool, but at this point the mc is a straight villian through and through and I have found myself rooting against him the entire season.

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.

HeroicHealer said:


I hope so too. Somehow he's playing the most played DMMO-RPG game Yggdrasil yet he hasn't encountered a single player in this game out of millions of players who could be playing it. So let's hope it might happen in the near future where he meets his equal.

salzguerkchen said:
Read my comment with a grain of salt. I am a LN reader and just watch the Anime to see how they managed to adapt the source material. Because of that I don't exactly remember what was shown in the Anime and what is considered a spoiler for Anime-onlies right now. I'll be vague in points where I am not sure. If it indeed is a spoiler, mea culpa.
So, let me start by clarifying a few points:

The Empire is interested in Ainz Oal Gown. In order to get information about him they hire some workers through a proxy (the baron) to investigate the Great Tomb of Nazarick which location was leaked by Ainz on purpose.
Workers are mercenaries. They choose not to work through the Adventurers' Guild because of various reasons. Some clash with the guild's rules, some with the rewards, some with personalities within the guild and some with the jobs it offers. In the end they all have in common that they are therefore not adventurers. As such is their nature workers mostly get hired for jobs adventurers can't do. This results in them doing "dirty jobs".
The tomb-job was remarked to be a "dirty job" by Foresight themselves - moreso because of the abnormally high payment (a huge chunk of that being paid upfront) and shares of the market price of any encountered treasure. Nevertheless, the four worker parties found themselves accepting the job. Each individual having their own reason to covet for the offered payment. They were asked by Ainz (Momon) why they had taken this job. Their answer was the money. No matter their personal background, in the end it was about the payment. They willingly risked their lives for the payment and set off for the tomb while Ainz learned that the workers were aware of the risks. They encountered treasure beyond their expectations in the side tombs and decided to invade the main tomb.
This went according to plans set up by Nazarick beforehand - Demiurge's ulterior plan concerning the relationship with the Empire (as the Kingdom was deemed worthless for the time being) and Ainz' order to Albedo to set up a defense in case of intruders while minimizing costs. Demiurge's plan is spoily territory, so I will not elaborate on it further, just know that there is a ulterior plan behind this. On the other hand Albedo's order is simple. Traps and higher-levelled summons cost Ygddrasil currency. Sure, Nazarick has monstrous amounts of stockpiled gold, but is still finite. They can produce Yggdrasil gold through the Exchange Box but it is not without a cost. Iirc a whole cartload of grain thrown into the box equals 1 Yggdrasil-gold. POP-monsters (iirc Lvl 30 or lower) on the other hand simply respawn. What kind of POP-monsters spawn depends on the dungeon/guild base. In Nazarick's case they are undead which have the benefit that they have no upkeep-costs. So Albedo's goal was to defend Nazarick using only POP-monsters and as few traps as possilbe. That goal was achieved, as we could see for ourselves.
As for why Ainz deemed it necessary to fight one team (Foresight) by himself: He had no idea how to fight like a warrior. When we see Momon in S1 he is basically throwing his Twin-Greatswords around without any technique. The reason why this works is because of his high base-stats (he is a Lvl 100 character after all). In his fight with Clementine she points out exactly this. As he is max-lvl by Yggdrasil standards, he hypothetically can't learn a new class . Nevertheless, he tries to improve as a warrior.
After engaging in a short melee he understands that he cannot learn anything new from Foresight, so he changes back into being a "regular" caster. You saw the rest.
The more important point is the conversation before the fight. Ainz is not apathetic towards the workers. Although it was Nazarick and by extension him that created this situation he is not pleased by their presence. Now a bit of background (all this is more or less gone over in the prologue of the LN): Suzuki Saturo lives in the 22nd century in a dystopian Japan controlled by megacorps. He has no living relatives nor any friends in his real life. His routine consists of work, sleep, hygiene, nutrition and Yggdrasil, where his online friends reside. His guildmates are the closest social beings to him. They conquered the dungeon The Great Tomb of Nazarick and established it as their guild base. Every member helped (in their own way) in creating the guild base and the NPCs we see now. This is where they put all of their collective (in-game) effort in.
Now, imagine you build something similar with your closest friends and some people invade this place with the intention to plunder it. Sure, in this case you were behind their appearance at your place, but it still leaves you with a bad aftertaste. So we have established that Nazarick and Ainz Ooal Gown (the guild) are very important to Suzuki Satoru/Momonga. Foresight tried to bluff through their hopeless situation but they stepped on a landmine - and not some landmine but THE landmine in regards to Momonga. In comparison to that: Eight Fingers disrespected Ainz Ooal Gown (guild) and you witnessed (although not everything, A-onlies) what happened to them. So it shouldn't be that surprising what happened to Foresight afterwards.
The lovepair were used as a breeding ground for Kyohukou's cockroaches, Arche's parts for various denizens of Nazarick and the priest to deepen Ainz' knowledge about divine spellcasting and more or less the existence of gods. Not only were the workers useful for Demi's ulterior plan and Albedo's test but their bodies were fully utilised as well. The non-utilization of these bodies would not change the fact that they died. I do not question the morality at this point, this comes later.
Please correct me if I have said something objectively wrong about the events that happened.


Alright, now that we are on the same page, we can talk about whether this was morally right or wrong or something in between and whether Ainz is truly evil or not. As far as I am concerned there are two viewpoints to consider.

The (New-World) human POV
Ainz is evil and that's it. He kills humans without batting an eye only based on whether they prove to be useful or they hinder him in completing his objectives. He sees a painless death as mercy. Tens of thousands of people were simply killed because his subordinate Demiurge kidnapped them in order to fully harvest them and Ainz in his "mercy" decided to simply kill them to not let them suffer. Even infants which cannot possibly leak information were killed regardless. His apathetic attitude towards human life in itself and readiness to commit murder in countless numbers do not sit well with a normal human's definition of good morality. All of Ainz' subordiantes can be considered evil as well. Some of them may have positive or neutral Karma values but in their fanaticism they all will follow Ainz' orders, no matter what. If your ray of hope is Sebas because he saved Tsuare think again: In the end he chose to follow Ainz' order to kill her - choosing obedience over personal interests. Nigredo and Pestonya once defied Ainz because they wanted to save said infants but their protests were to no avail and they are powerless before the supreme authority that Ainz holds in Nazarick.
Even if you treat Ainz and Nazarick as a force of nature, it doesn't help. Hurricanes and Tsunamis destroy settlements and take human lives yearly, but you cannot blame them because their existence and their actions are involuntary, not guided by any decision. That would drastically change however as soon as those catastrophies had any consiousness.
All in all, by human standards formed by a human society Ainz is evil. He consciously decides to commit action human society considers evil. Hell, even his character sheet says he is extremely evil...


The Nazarick POV
Ainz wants to protect that which means everything to him - Nazarick and by extension his guild - by any means necessary. This is simply a utilitarian approach. Whether utilitarianism is the "right" way to approach things is a debate on philosophy. What matters is: utilitarianism is most often found in neutral characters.
Nazarick's denizens and especially the Supreme Beings outclass humans. Their power and their lifestyle are beyond extreme compared to humans. Narberal refers to humans are insects, Solution likes dissolving them, Entoma likes their meat, Demiurge loves experimenting on and farming them and so on. This is not something you would do to someone on your level - they see humans as inferior creatures or just do not care about all of them in particular. Altough Ainz sees humans mostly as tools he does not see them as insignificant creatures and he does not kill just for the sport of it. To declare Ainz a sadist would be completely wrong as he does not feel joy when he kills humans, but simply apathy. That being said: every kill, every major action has a reason. As someone previously elaborated:

Everything he did was for the greater good of Nazarick and his ultimate goal to possibly reunite with his friends. The human sacrifices along with way were just a price to be paid.
World conquest cannot be achieved in a friendly sunshine way. Human nature simply does not allow such a thing to happen. Ainz did slip up in the very first episode when he spoke about world conquest to Demiurge although Ainz only said that because he believed world conquest would spread the word about him and maybe that would allow him to meet old comrades of his. In Season 3 this very scene came back to haunt him through Demiurge and he decided to buckle up and double down on this one. Given Nazaricks military power and what we know about the New World as of now it would be possible to conquer the world though military power alone. Ainz does not order this because on one hand he is worried about any potential foe that could actually stand up to him or even be stronger and on the other hand because it would be pointless to rule over a barren wasteland. Iirc Ainz reveals his idea of a country he wants Nazarick to be a bit later in the season. Minor spoiler:
Again: human lifes were sacrificed along the way and more shall follow - the greater goal in mind.
Contrary to the behaviour Nazarick denizens show to outsiders, they live together in peace and are their own society with established rules. As this society (the exception being Ainz) regards outsiders to be of a immensly lower status, moral standards which apply within do not apply to the people outside. So, from their point of view it they do not take actions which are unacceptable. As such, based from these rules, Ainz does not do anything "bad" to the humans/demihumans in order to achieve his goals.

Conclusion
Taking both these POVs into consideration the result is to categorize Ainz as neutral evil.

Ainz is selfish in pursuing his goals although the greater good of Nazarick is not in itself a selfish goal. He would not hesitate to turn on allies outside of Nazarick if it results in a profitable situation. Ainz does make "allies" in order to pursue his goals (e.g. Nfirea, Carne Village, the whole Momon situation, ...). Harming others to get what he wants is not foreign to Ainz but he does not condone meaningless suffering. There must always be some benefit. Whether this benefit is acceptable from a human point of view does not matter. His goal being the greater good of Nazarick and by extension maybe the New World and the simple wish to meet his friends once again do not change what he did or how he did it.

Afterthoughts
So Ainz is not your run-of-the-mill Isekai Hero-MC, what a suprise, huh?
Jokes aside, it took me some time to write this and it might be non-cohesive given that I wrote it during the night. To anyone who slugged through this wall of text: You did it. Yay. If at least someone finds this in any way useful I'll be glad.
The discussion about Ainz' moral standpoint is one of the things I enjoy the most in Overlord. What I wrote here is the conclusion I came to and how I managed to achieve it. There's a bit more what I could have written down here, but I think that's good enough for now.

mnedel said:


I think that the majority of people here on the forum see Ainz and co as villains who are doing evil things for their own benefit while slaughtering enemies in cruel ways and providing some goofy dialog. It’s fine to find this refreshing, fun and interesting to watch or read (I certainly do) since its fiction, it’s not real. What I find disturbing is the few posters here that, even after everything Ainz has done in all 3 seasons, still claim that he did nothing wrong, that his actions are justified, that he is not evil, that his victims are to blame for what happened to them and even that they would do the same as Ainz in real life. A person I was discussing this previously came out to write that entrapment, prolonged, vicious torture and agonizing death are perfectly fine punishments for minor offences done by children in real life. That’s psychopathic behavior to me and it’s kind of sad that a normal person in the modern world could place so little value on life.

BroxSaurfang said:
If you're still bitching about Ainz's morality at this point. I suggest you should not watch the rest of the season. This is so little compared to what he will do in the climax of this season.

SNDT said:


Who cares about those people? They won't show us their younger sisters or brothers so it will be ok.

salzguerkchen said:
Read my comment with a grain of salt. I am a LN reader and just watch the Anime to see how they managed to adapt the source material. Because of that I don't exactly remember what was shown in the Anime and what is considered a spoiler for Anime-onlies right now. I'll be vague in points where I am not sure. If it indeed is a spoiler, mea culpa.
So, let me start by clarifying a few points:

The Empire is interested in Ainz Oal Gown. In order to get information about him they hire some workers through a proxy (the baron) to investigate the Great Tomb of Nazarick which location was leaked by Ainz on purpose.
Workers are mercenaries. They choose not to work through the Adventurers' Guild because of various reasons. Some clash with the guild's rules, some with the rewards, some with personalities within the guild and some with the jobs it offers. In the end they all have in common that they are therefore not adventurers. As such is their nature workers mostly get hired for jobs adventurers can't do. This results in them doing "dirty jobs".
The tomb-job was remarked to be a "dirty job" by Foresight themselves - moreso because of the abnormally high payment (a huge chunk of that being paid upfront) and shares of the market price of any encountered treasure. Nevertheless, the four worker parties found themselves accepting the job. Each individual having their own reason to covet for the offered payment. They were asked by Ainz (Momon) why they had taken this job. Their answer was the money. No matter their personal background, in the end it was about the payment. They willingly risked their lives for the payment and set off for the tomb while Ainz learned that the workers were aware of the risks. They encountered treasure beyond their expectations in the side tombs and decided to invade the main tomb.
This went according to plans set up by Nazarick beforehand - Demiurge's ulterior plan concerning the relationship with the Empire (as the Kingdom was deemed worthless for the time being) and Ainz' order to Albedo to set up a defense in case of intruders while minimizing costs. Demiurge's plan is spoily territory, so I will not elaborate on it further, just know that there is a ulterior plan behind this. On the other hand Albedo's order is simple. Traps and higher-levelled summons cost Ygddrasil currency. Sure, Nazarick has monstrous amounts of stockpiled gold, but is still finite. They can produce Yggdrasil gold through the Exchange Box but it is not without a cost. Iirc a whole cartload of grain thrown into the box equals 1 Yggdrasil-gold. POP-monsters (iirc Lvl 30 or lower) on the other hand simply respawn. What kind of POP-monsters spawn depends on the dungeon/guild base. In Nazarick's case they are undead which have the benefit that they have no upkeep-costs. So Albedo's goal was to defend Nazarick using only POP-monsters and as few traps as possilbe. That goal was achieved, as we could see for ourselves.
As for why Ainz deemed it necessary to fight one team (Foresight) by himself: He had no idea how to fight like a warrior. When we see Momon in S1 he is basically throwing his Twin-Greatswords around without any technique. The reason why this works is because of his high base-stats (he is a Lvl 100 character after all). In his fight with Clementine she points out exactly this. As he is max-lvl by Yggdrasil standards, he hypothetically can't learn a new class . Nevertheless, he tries to improve as a warrior.
After engaging in a short melee he understands that he cannot learn anything new from Foresight, so he changes back into being a "regular" caster. You saw the rest.
The more important point is the conversation before the fight. Ainz is not apathetic towards the workers. Although it was Nazarick and by extension him that created this situation he is not pleased by their presence. Now a bit of background (all this is more or less gone over in the prologue of the LN): Suzuki Saturo lives in the 22nd century in a dystopian Japan controlled by megacorps. He has no living relatives nor any friends in his real life. His routine consists of work, sleep, hygiene, nutrition and Yggdrasil, where his online friends reside. His guildmates are the closest social beings to him. They conquered the dungeon The Great Tomb of Nazarick and established it as their guild base. Every member helped (in their own way) in creating the guild base and the NPCs we see now. This is where they put all of their collective (in-game) effort in.
Now, imagine you build something similar with your closest friends and some people invade this place with the intention to plunder it. Sure, in this case you were behind their appearance at your place, but it still leaves you with a bad aftertaste. So we have established that Nazarick and Ainz Ooal Gown (the guild) are very important to Suzuki Satoru/Momonga. Foresight tried to bluff through their hopeless situation but they stepped on a landmine - and not some landmine but THE landmine in regards to Momonga. In comparison to that: Eight Fingers disrespected Ainz Ooal Gown (guild) and you witnessed (although not everything, A-onlies) what happened to them. So it shouldn't be that surprising what happened to Foresight afterwards.
The lovepair were used as a breeding ground for Kyohukou's cockroaches, Arche's parts for various denizens of Nazarick and the priest to deepen Ainz' knowledge about divine spellcasting and more or less the existence of gods. Not only were the workers useful for Demi's ulterior plan and Albedo's test but their bodies were fully utilised as well. The non-utilization of these bodies would not change the fact that they died. I do not question the morality at this point, this comes later.
Please correct me if I have said something objectively wrong about the events that happened.


Alright, now that we are on the same page, we can talk about whether this was morally right or wrong or something in between and whether Ainz is truly evil or not. As far as I am concerned there are two viewpoints to consider.

The (New-World) human POV
Ainz is evil and that's it. He kills humans without batting an eye only based on whether they prove to be useful or they hinder him in completing his objectives. He sees a painless death as mercy. Tens of thousands of people were simply killed because his subordinate Demiurge kidnapped them in order to fully harvest them and Ainz in his "mercy" decided to simply kill them to not let them suffer. Even infants which cannot possibly leak information were killed regardless. His apathetic attitude towards human life in itself and readiness to commit murder in countless numbers do not sit well with a normal human's definition of good morality. All of Ainz' subordiantes can be considered evil as well. Some of them may have positive or neutral Karma values but in their fanaticism they all will follow Ainz' orders, no matter what. If your ray of hope is Sebas because he saved Tsuare think again: In the end he chose to follow Ainz' order to kill her - choosing obedience over personal interests. Nigredo and Pestonya once defied Ainz because they wanted to save said infants but their protests were to no avail and they are powerless before the supreme authority that Ainz holds in Nazarick.
Even if you treat Ainz and Nazarick as a force of nature, it doesn't help. Hurricanes and Tsunamis destroy settlements and take human lives yearly, but you cannot blame them because their existence and their actions are involuntary, not guided by any decision. That would drastically change however as soon as those catastrophies had any consiousness.
All in all, by human standards formed by a human society Ainz is evil. He consciously decides to commit action human society considers evil. Hell, even his character sheet says he is extremely evil...


The Nazarick POV
Ainz wants to protect that which means everything to him - Nazarick and by extension his guild - by any means necessary. This is simply a utilitarian approach. Whether utilitarianism is the "right" way to approach things is a debate on philosophy. What matters is: utilitarianism is most often found in neutral characters.
Nazarick's denizens and especially the Supreme Beings outclass humans. Their power and their lifestyle are beyond extreme compared to humans. Narberal refers to humans are insects, Solution likes dissolving them, Entoma likes their meat, Demiurge loves experimenting on and farming them and so on. This is not something you would do to someone on your level - they see humans as inferior creatures or just do not care about all of them in particular. Altough Ainz sees humans mostly as tools he does not see them as insignificant creatures and he does not kill just for the sport of it. To declare Ainz a sadist would be completely wrong as he does not feel joy when he kills humans, but simply apathy. That being said: every kill, every major action has a reason. As someone previously elaborated:

Everything he did was for the greater good of Nazarick and his ultimate goal to possibly reunite with his friends. The human sacrifices along with way were just a price to be paid.
World conquest cannot be achieved in a friendly sunshine way. Human nature simply does not allow such a thing to happen. Ainz did slip up in the very first episode when he spoke about world conquest to Demiurge although Ainz only said that because he believed world conquest would spread the word about him and maybe that would allow him to meet old comrades of his. In Season 3 this very scene came back to haunt him through Demiurge and he decided to buckle up and double down on this one. Given Nazaricks military power and what we know about the New World as of now it would be possible to conquer the world though military power alone. Ainz does not order this because on one hand he is worried about any potential foe that could actually stand up to him or even be stronger and on the other hand because it would be pointless to rule over a barren wasteland. Iirc Ainz reveals his idea of a country he wants Nazarick to be a bit later in the season. Minor spoiler:
Again: human lifes were sacrificed along the way and more shall follow - the greater goal in mind.
Contrary to the behaviour Nazarick denizens show to outsiders, they live together in peace and are their own society with established rules. As this society (the exception being Ainz) regards outsiders to be of a immensly lower status, moral standards which apply within do not apply to the people outside. So, from their point of view it they do not take actions which are unacceptable. As such, based from these rules, Ainz does not do anything "bad" to the humans/demihumans in order to achieve his goals.

Conclusion
Taking both these POVs into consideration the result is to categorize Ainz as neutral evil.

Ainz is selfish in pursuing his goals although the greater good of Nazarick is not in itself a selfish goal. He would not hesitate to turn on allies outside of Nazarick if it results in a profitable situation. Ainz does make "allies" in order to pursue his goals (e.g. Nfirea, Carne Village, the whole Momon situation, ...). Harming others to get what he wants is not foreign to Ainz but he does not condone meaningless suffering. There must always be some benefit. Whether this benefit is acceptable from a human point of view does not matter. His goal being the greater good of Nazarick and by extension maybe the New World and the simple wish to meet his friends once again do not change what he did or how he did it.

Afterthoughts
So Ainz is not your run-of-the-mill Isekai Hero-MC, what a suprise, huh?
Jokes aside, it took me some time to write this and it might be non-cohesive given that I wrote it during the night. To anyone who slugged through this wall of text: You did it. Yay. If at least someone finds this in any way useful I'll be glad.
The discussion about Ainz' moral standpoint is one of the things I enjoy the most in Overlord. What I wrote here is the conclusion I came to and how I managed to achieve it. There's a bit more what I could have written down here, but I think that's good enough for now.

Fabienne said:
lol suddenly this arc turned very cruel, in all arcs before Ainz actions were somehow righteous when he punished **bad humans** or other creatures. Last season he was toying around with the lizards, but not just for fun. In this arc Ainz literally invited these workers to slaughter them happily.

poor Arche though, she was just weak :(

Naxrrhid said:
Another 1/10 anime added to the list.

At the very least, we now have MAL's own version of the LSRP with this thread.

Naxrrhid said:
Another 1/10 anime added to the list.

At the very least, we now have MAL's own version of the LSRP with this thread.

SNDT said:


Who cares about those people? They won't show us their younger sisters or brothers so it will be ok.

CurryTeddy said:
A very good episode with a merciless ruler. Tbh I wouldnt really care about what happened to all of them but the only one I cared about were Arches sisters. Now that they took the LN Route, it is highly obvious (even if they dont show it) what is going to happen.




Now tell me which Ending would you have prefered? In my case dedinitely the Web Novel version, I just cant bear to know what happens to the sisters .... and I dont know if its legit but if its true that the author let the readers decide if Arche should die or not (WN), then fudge those guys for real man -_-

BroxSaurfang said:
If you're saying Arche's death impacts more than thousands of soldiers' because she had a little bit backstory then that is your thinking.

Snaita said:
Well from what I read in the wiki, in the Web Novel Arche and her sister live happily ever after. After but still a win I think.

herrickluk said:
Sad about Arche... surprised Ains wasn't merciful like he was with the lizards. Hyped about the fight with the Empire tho!

Darklight0303 said:


Good thing the WN is non canon

AzorAhai said:
Their deaths add nothing to the plot, it all just feels like a porn for sadistic people to masturbate to.

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!

Gator said:
The problem which I have with this episode is, that so far Ainz always had to think about where to draw the line. His subordinates are without a doubt mostly evil, Demiruge torturing innocent people doesn't surprise me. He's a demon after all, Ainz simply let him do as he pleases since he couldn't come up with a better plan. This is the first time Ainz himself caught people for torture and ordered the death of a nice character.

Is this a surprise? No it's not, he was telling that he seems to lose his humanity the longer he remains in this body. But it kinda killed my enjoyment of the show, because the two things I enjoyed the most were him destroying arrogant assholes and trying to cope with his subordinates hatred for humans. If he now starts to despise humans as well and just kills them because he can, a big part of the enjoyment for me falls off.

That group of workers wasn't arrogant, they didn't look down on him. Such people getting obliterated isn't any fun to watch for me. So yeah this is pretty subjective, but it seems like a lot of people feel in a similar way.

AzorAhai said:
He hasn't displayed such level of cruelty and disregard of life before TOWARDS THE INNOCENTS (example: goblin village), so I was surprised that he actually did it.

Terkhev said:

Cmon, he ordered his servant to massacre multiple tribes of lizardmen so he could experiment with their bodies...