Tate no Yuusha/Shield Hero - Episode 20 Discussion / Poll

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by The Green One

He's certainly more in the right than the other 3 heroes, but he's not without his flaws.

Actually I would say Ren comes off the best of any of the Heroes. The worst that he ever did was believing a rape accusation and leaving a dragon corpse(a vast source of wealth) for a village that ends up being dangerous in a way that no one seemed to know could happen.

Spear is an idiot and cardboard cutout of a cool, good looking guy for Naofumi to triumph over.

Bow mostly does not take things seriously enough.

Naofumi is a spokesman for the slavery industry and a ball of boiling teenage angst mixed with an incredibly contrived dose of misogyny. And this is the whitewashed version. The webnovel version is just an all around asshole and that is his good side.

[Kinematics]

So, is the queen's armor the same model that Malty got Naofumi to buy for her back in ep 1? That's either a cheap bit of reused design, or a nod to Malty's designs on the throne from day 1. She's even still wearing that armor right now.

Pope's full name is Bisca T. Balmus. Bisca T ⇒ Biscuit. Biscuit got nommed.

5 1/2 minutes of Naofumi being possessed by Rage. While I can appreciate the intent, it really doesn't translate well into video form. Written form handles extended time periods much better (including the pause-for-dialog bits in this and last episode) because you're not really "on the clock" while reading. Video makes it much more apparent.

I'm also not entirely sure I buy into the justification for Raphtalia, Filo and Melty trying to pull Naofumi back, right after he got their agreement to allow him to use the rage shield. This is one where I wish there was more outside perspective to show what motivated them to suddenly change their minds.

Really liked Naofumi saying "please", and getting a "friendship will prevail" line from Motoyasu. Feels like Naofumi really learned a lesson this time, and took Fitoria's words to heart. Also shows the real heroic underpinnings of Motoyasu, setting aside the fool persona for a bit.

The actual fight being backed by the first OP was solid. Loved the bit about absorbing the Phoenix Blaze in a combo spell with Filo — a new move that fit Naofumi's fighting style, and tipped a hat towards Filo's gluttony.

Queenie used 'Dritte' level magic — "third" in German, in line with Erst (first) and Zweit (second). Respect, girl.

[blakstealth]

Originally Posted by grecefar

It would've been funny if naofumi had told the queen "fuck you" before passing out.

would've loved a "f you....AND your family!" then dies x_x

[maximilianjenus]

That would have made for a nice original ending.

Originally Posted by Magewolf

Actually I would say Ren comes off the best of any of the Heroes. The worst that he ever did was believing a rape accusation and leaving a dragon corpse(a vast source of wealth) for a village that ends up being dangerous in a way that no one seemed to know could happen.

Spear is an idiot and cardboard cutout of a cool, good looking guy for Naofumi to triumph over.

Bow mostly does not take things seriously enough.

Naofumi is a spokesman for the slavery industry and a ball of boiling teenage angst mixed with an incredibly contrived dose of misogyny. And this is the whitewashed version. The webnovel version is just an all around asshole and that is his good side.

You are completely correct.



And nom, that queen; now anime watchers know why I (WN reader) preferred to ship naofumi with the queen instead of raftalia or (uugh) firo/melty....NTRing the king notwithstanding.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by maximilianjenus

And nom, that queen; now anime watchers know why I (WN reader) preferred to ship naofumi with the queen instead of raftalia or (uugh) firo/melty....NTRing the king notwithstanding.

The king does not deserve such a hot wife .

[frodonk]

So this queen finally decided to show herself.

Freaking hell you were missing for almost the entire series for no apparent reason! You don't deserve to get a badass introduction and stroll through to the heroes like you and your army saved the day!

Also, while we're on the topic, can you at least raise your eldest child a little better? Look at how evil your eldest daughter turned out to be! Again for no apparent reason! Did you feed her rotting dragon meat when she was young for her to turn into something this evil?

We better get a satisfactory explanation about where she has been all this time and why she chose this moment to show herself.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by blakstealth

would've loved a "f you....AND your family!" then dies x_x

Yeah, but that would include Melty .

Originally Posted by frodonk

So this queen finally decided to show herself.

Freaking hell you were missing for almost the entire series for no apparent reason! You don't deserve to get a badass introduction and stroll through to the heroes like you and your army saved the day!

Also, while we're on the topic, can you at least raise your eldest child a little better? Look at how evil your eldest daughter turned out to be! Again for no apparent reason! Did you feed her rotting dragon meat when she was young for her to turn into something this evil?

We better get a satisfactory explanation about where she has been all this time and why she chose this moment to show herself.

I assume we'll finally get the explanation for where the queen has been all this time. Somehow I suspect it had to do with Melromarc hogging the four Heroes.

I have to wonder what went wrong with Malty. Maybe they spoiled her too much and she took her status as princess for granted, or she was a bad egg to start. Maybe it's why the queen treated Melty different and tried to mold her into someone worthy of becoming queen.

[frodonk]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Maybe it's why the queen treated Melty different and tried to mold her into someone worthy of becoming queen.

Assuming that:

1. Malty's attitude is entirely due to how she was raised
2. The difference between the personality of the two sisters is entirely due to how they were raised
3. The age difference between the 2 sisters is at most 5-6 years

then that means by age 5-6 the queen has given up and Malty is already showing that ... undesirable attitude of hers and the queen has instead focused her efforts on raising Melty to be unlike her older sister

[Twi]

Originally Posted by Frontier

The king does not deserve such a hot wife .

I bet that marriage was purely political somehow. Personally, I think she should put him and her older daughter to the sword. They jeopardized the peace of the world in a bid to take all four heroes and then purposely tried to get one killed, on top of the daughter trying to kill her sister. Unless there's a seriously good reason there should be at least two heads rolling here by the end of the next episode.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

Actually I would say Ren comes off the best of any of the Heroes. The worst that he ever did was believing a rape accusation and leaving a dragon corpse(a vast source of wealth) for a village that ends up being dangerous in a way that no one seemed to know could happen.

Spear is an idiot and cardboard cutout of a cool, good looking guy for Naofumi to triumph over.

Bow mostly does not take things seriously enough.

Naofumi is a spokesman for the slavery industry and a ball of boiling teenage angst mixed with an incredibly contrived dose of misogyny. And this is the whitewashed version. The webnovel version is just an all around asshole and that is his good side.

Wow. It'd be hard to make a statement I agree with less. Motoyasu isn't there to be someone Naofumi can be better than for one thing. As I've said several times, partly based on the author's own statements about the intent of the story, the three are not there to make the hero look good, they're just there to be bad. You can have a representation of a negative character type without it being there for the purpose of making someone else look good by comparison; he can be and in this case I'd argue IS there just to demonstrate the negative on his own.

And seriously, Naofumi has not once stated he thinks slavery is good or bad, only that he was pushed into a corner where he had no alternative (again, something the author claimed to be aiming for: the depths to which one may sink for the sake of survival under persecution). And he has not ONCE spoken badly of women or demonstrated any evidence of misogyny. The only thing he's demonstrated is that being a woman won't make him hold back, and that there's one particular woman whom he views with absolute contempt and hatred. So no, he's not pro-slavery and certainly not misogynistic. And I honestly can't imagine someone enjoying a show enough to watch it to this point if they actually believed this to be true of the hero.

And Kinematics, as to why the girls fought to bring him back, I'm pretty sure, lies in the difference between using the power and being consumed by it. At first he was fighting it, declaring that he would not surrender to it; he'd remember his rage in order to access the power he needed, but he wouldn't let the rage control him. But then he lost it, allowed the wrath to swallow him and began to forget the world around him, at which point the girls grabbed him and tried to pull him back.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Twi

I bet that marriage was purely political somehow. Personally, I think she should put him and her older daughter to the sword. They jeopardized the peace of the world in a bid to take all four heroes and then purposely tried to get one killed, on top of the daughter trying to kill her sister. Unless there's a seriously good reason there should be at least two heads rolling here by the end of the next episode.

I guess I wouldn't be surprised if it was a political marriage but we don't really have much context for their relationship or how they met. I'd feel a little bad for Melty if it's the case that there was never any kind of love or trust that went into her parents' marriage and she seems to value their relationship enough to try and make an earnest effort to avoid the queen being mad at the king.

I think the king and Malty definitely deserve some harsh punishments even if I don't think the queen is cold-blooded enough to execute her own family. The king at least had nothing to do with trying to off Melty but he did probably override the queen's wishes by summoning the four Heroes together and treating Naofumi like dirt. But I also wouldn't be surprised if Malty talked him into it. Instead of alleviating his wife's burden by protecting the kingdom, he arguably just made it worse.

[ShadowSamurai365]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Wow. It'd be hard to make a statement I agree with less. Motoyasu isn't there to be someone Naofumi can be better than for one thing. As I've said several times, partly based on the author's own statements about the intent of the story, the three are not there to make the hero look good, they're just there to be bad. You can have a representation of a negative character type without it being there for the purpose of making someone else look good by comparison; he can be and in this case I'd argue IS there just to demonstrate the negative on his own.

And seriously, Naofumi has not once stated he thinks slavery is good or bad, only that he was pushed into a corner where he had no alternative (again, something the author claimed to be aiming for: the depths to which one may sink for the sake of survival under persecution). And he has not ONCE spoken badly of women or demonstrated any evidence of misogyny. The only thing he's demonstrated is that being a woman won't make him hold back, and that there's one particular woman whom he views with absolute contempt and hatred. So no, he's not pro-slavery and certainly not misogynistic. And I honestly can't imagine someone enjoying a show enough to watch it to this point if they actually believed this to be true of the hero.

And Kinematics, as to why the girls fought to bring him back, I'm pretty sure, lies in the difference between using the power and being consumed by it. At first he was fighting it, declaring that he would not surrender to it; he'd remember his rage in order to access the power he needed, but he wouldn't let the rage control him. But then he lost it, allowed the wrath to swallow him and began to forget the world around him, at which point the girls grabbed him and tried to pull him back.

It's this that makes me wonder if this is the reason that some/most isekai authors have their main MCs have either a cheat or be overpowered at the beginning of their series? That by having that, the MCs don't have to compromise their 'morals' and doing really questionable things in order to survive, and tell/preach about their morals since they have the power to back it up (since you still have people being on Naofumi's case on how 'immoral' his behavior is, despite evidence on the contrary.).

[Twi]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

And seriously, Naofumi has not once stated he thinks slavery is good or bad, only that he was pushed into a corner where he had no alternative (again, something the author claimed to be aiming for: the depths to which one may sink for the sake of survival under persecution). And he has not ONCE spoken badly of women or demonstrated any evidence of misogyny. The only thing he's demonstrated is that being a woman won't make him hold back, and that there's one particular woman whom he views with absolute contempt and hatred. So no, he's not pro-slavery and certainly not misogynistic. And I honestly can't imagine someone enjoying a show enough to watch it to this point if they actually believed this to be true of the hero.

Not in the anime, at least. They toned down a lot of his worse nature here, which I'd argue is for the better in truth.

[Lex79]

Originally Posted by Twi

I bet that marriage was purely political somehow. Personally, I think she should put him and her older daughter to the sword. They jeopardized the peace of the world in a bid to take all four heroes and then purposely tried to get one killed, on top of the daughter trying to kill her sister. Unless there's a seriously good reason there should be at least two heads rolling here by the end of the next episode.

I agree with you that at least Malty should be sentenced to death, but fear she will be saved by a combination of "we need all the help to fight the waves" and "you'll atone for your crimes by helping the four heroes even if it costs your life".

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Twi

Not in the anime, at least. They toned down a lot of his worse nature here, which I'd argue is for the better in truth.

I've been keeping up in the novels (lots of free time) and I haven't seen one thing there either to indicate the slightest support of slavery or disdain toward women. Disdain toward particular women, sure, but women in general no. He's certainly a bastard and thinks himself even worse than he is, but he's not a misogynist or someone who likes the idea of owning someone and being able to circumvent consent. Honestly, I still get the very strong feeling that this is just a demonstration of the power of initial impressions. He does a few things at the beginning that are deliberately extreme, and as a result every step he takes afterward is interpreted differently, resulting in potentially events and actions being interpreted as pro-slavery or misogyny that would be interpreted differently without these initial assumptions. Besides, we're dealing with the anime in this thread, and even if you can find a way to interpret Naofumi in such a way in the light novels, in the anime he's not any of this.

[Magewolf]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

Wow. It'd be hard to make a statement I agree with less. Motoyasu isn't there to be someone Naofumi can be better than for one thing. As I've said several times, partly based on the author's own statements about the intent of the story, the three are not there to make the hero look good, they're just there to be bad. You can have a representation of a negative character type without it being there for the purpose of making someone else look good by comparison; he can be and in this case I'd argue IS there just to demonstrate the negative on his own.

And seriously, Naofumi has not once stated he thinks slavery is good or bad, only that he was pushed into a corner where he had no alternative (again, something the author claimed to be aiming for: the depths to which one may sink for the sake of survival under persecution). And he has not ONCE spoken badly of women or demonstrated any evidence of misogyny. The only thing he's demonstrated is that being a woman won't make him hold back, and that there's one particular woman whom he views with absolute contempt and hatred. So no, he's not pro-slavery and certainly not misogynistic. And I honestly can't imagine someone enjoying a show enough to watch it to this point if they actually believed this to be true of the hero.

The entire universe was designed to make Naofumi look good regardless of how awful he acts or how contrived it makes the world building. It is a huge example of the "They made me do it " defense.

Naofumi was quite happy to call out the other heroes for the unintended side effects of their good deeds so he should be called out for the unintended side effects of his evil deeds, i.e. boosting the market for slaves. And yes, Naofumi has had his rough edges ground down more in every iteration since the web novels(the changes from web novel to light novel were huge) however he still has an irrational reaction to women even in the anime otherwise Raphtalia would not have a slave seal right now.

As for why I still watch the show while not being a big fan of Naofumi and a lot of the world building it is because I like fantasy anime and this season there is this and Kenja no Mago.

[maximilianjenus]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

As for why I still watch the show while not being a big fan of Naofumi and a lot of the world building it is because I like fantasy anime and this season there is this and Kenja no Mago.

I prefer webnovel naofumi, him being a worse person and the unvierse not conspiring to make him look good was more interesting.

[BWTraveller]

Originally Posted by Magewolf

The entire universe was designed to make Naofumi look good regardless of how awful he acts or how contrived it makes the world building. It is a huge example of the "They made me do it " defense.

Naofumi was quite happy to call out the other heroes for the unintended side effects of their good deeds so he should be called out for the unintended side effects of his evil deeds, i.e. boosting the market for slaves. And yes, Naofumi has had his rough edges ground down more in every iteration since the web novels(the changes from web novel to light novel were huge) however he still has an irrational reaction to women even in the anime otherwise Raphtalia would not have a slave seal right now.

As for why I still watch the show while not being a big fan of Naofumi and a lot of the world building it is because I like fantasy anime and this season there is this and Kenja no Mago.

You're free to your opinion, but again I strongly disagree, in part because of statements of the author posted a long time ago, as I said. In a sense it's a two-sided coin. One can look at it as just trying to get away with stuff using the excuse of "they made me do it", or one can look at it the way the author has publicly endorsed, as an exploration of the way persecution and desperation can impact a person and make them do things they'd normally never even consider.

And as for "boosting the slave market" to this point he's bought one slave total. And we haven't heard one thing up to this point about any changes to the market at all. Not to mention that he didn't want Raphtalia to go back to being his slave, it was a choice she made.

As for his "irrational reaction to women" you'd have to give me examples because in both this and the parts of the light novel I've read I haven't seen a single instant where he reacts to women any differently than men, aside from the very beginning when he'd been at his absolute lowest and convinced himself to take Raphtalia, where the LN has him reason to himself that he can view her as a proxy for Mein. One singular line to which his actions paint a completely different picture, part of the reason I'd suspected early on that at least half of the cruel things he said and thought in those early parts were just ways for him to either excuse the bad things he felt he needed to do or make a bad thing out of any other choices he made. And yeah, if he hadn't thought that one thought at that one time Raphtalia wouldn't have the seal right now. She'd be wherever the trader throws out his dead merchandise. But aside from that one, SINGLE line since then he's treated men and women the same, showing far more concern for people's attitudes and families and pretty much zero concern for their gender. Once again, entirely a matter of initial impression coloring all future interactions and leading to things being interpreted with preexisting assumptions.

[Twi]

Originally Posted by BWTraveller

I've been keeping up in the novels (lots of free time) and I haven't seen one thing there either to indicate the slightest support of slavery or disdain toward women. Disdain toward particular women, sure, but women in general no. He's certainly a bastard and thinks himself even worse than he is, but he's not a misogynist or someone who likes the idea of owning someone and being able to circumvent consent. Honestly, I still get the very strong feeling that this is just a demonstration of the power of initial impressions. He does a few things at the beginning that are deliberately extreme, and as a result every step he takes afterward is interpreted differently, resulting in potentially events and actions being interpreted as pro-slavery or misogyny that would be interpreted differently without these initial assumptions. Besides, we're dealing with the anime in this thread, and even if you can find a way to interpret Naofumi in such a way in the light novels, in the anime he's not any of this.

So you're telling me that when he first got Raph, in the LN, he didn't state that he could almost pretend that she was Myne being controlled and enslaved by him?

[Kinematics]

Originally Posted by Twi

So you're telling me that when he first got Raph, in the LN, he didn't state that he could almost pretend that she was Myne being controlled and enslaved by him?

He did say that. (I checked some of the earlier chapters when I was trying to work out some mechanical details of the world.) And the impression I got was that he told himself this in order to convince himself that it was OK to buy a slave. That is, morally, he felt it was wrong, but realistically he knew he had no other reasonable options. He could accept purchasing Raphtalia as a slave if he could pretend it was actually Myne, because he had enough hate for Myne to overcome any distaste he had for slavery. That bit of self-delusion only lasted as long as it took for him to realize Raphtalia needed food (so about a 15 minute walk, in the anime).

For more visual storytelling, in the anime, you'll note that every time Naofumi was saying cruel or mean things to Raphtalia (such as the rabbit fight), he always kept his face turned away from her. In fact, even when the camera faced him, his face was in shadow, so not even the audience could see him directly. It's a facade that he knows he can't keep up. He's not good at lying.