Dec 13, 2024
Character inconsistency is one of the biggest and most common flaws present int he light novels that I end up reading (unlucky? bad taste? who knows), and this one is no exception.
It usually goes like this: at some points at the beginning of the novel the main character self evaluates themself and their claim (that can usually be summed up to an adjective like "smart") is further reinforced by the author, be it in describing a particular action they are taking at the moment, or the narrator's voice actually approving of that claim.
Maybe putting in simpler terms, some characterization is made about the main character
...
and that is written in a way that you should accept as the truth.
No problem with that in particular. The problem comes when at multiple times later this characterization proves false, in what seems unintentional.
You see, a really easy way to write a lot is using the main character's thoughts as the main writing (idk, let's say making this +70% of the whole writing), the problem being that it's also really easy to mess that up, mainly in consistency. I say easy btw because thanks to empathy and ourselves we have ample material to take as resource for this naturally, while actually describing places, the world, the state of affairs, would need a bigger planning and the research of way more sources to make things cohesive.
People are chaotic by nature, at least in our thoughts and with a major example of this being intrusive thoughts. Right, so a little inconsistency is welcomed, but what happens in this novel is the character openly betraying every expectation put on them by a reliable source. Remember the characterization? Well, when you keep listening to their thoughts the "smart" (which I used as an example but it's actually used to characterize the MC here) is there sometimes, and sometimes is not only absent but it's shows as opposite in situations similar in nature, so I can't even think about it being a different kind of intelligence needed at the moment or that they were in a wildly different mental state. Really important: the exact same thing could be said about their actions.
The character is not a character, as they are what the author needs them to be at the moment, and also taking into consideration the horrible pokemon syndrome (as I like to call it) they exhibit, that happens when an author gives the MC two or three "characteristics" that defines them and make them repeat that at every single situation that they can (hope you like the word "commoner").
The "characteristics" part being important because wanting to be a "commoner" does not describe the character (it's not a characteristic), is just an objective that has its roots very poorly explained (hope you like irresponsible portraits of trauma, just put there to gather sympathy).
I admit I took this novel to dump my disgust for this kind of trope(?), but I do think this happened because there were some genuine ok/good moments here (that's why I read 95% of the 1st book), so I thought that maybe it was worth it to give this novel more of my time, even if this review is definitely not making a case for reading it.
As an extra, and something more exclusive to this novel itself, I do not like the art of this novel at all. It's the bad kind of simple (minus is just minus here).
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
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