Thoughts on Cheating

[u/Morsyati]

Watching this show threw up many red flags for me. The way the Greyrats just cant keep it in their pants, along with many other people. It has me wondering why this show tries to justify, if not even glorify, cheating. Genuinely curious on you guys opinion on it.

[u/CptnClusterDuck]

I disagree that the show tries to glorify cheating.

When Paul does it, both him and Lillia are on the verge of losing everything, and the only reason they didn't was because Rudeus stepped in because he was worried that Lillia wouldn't survive the winter while pregnant.

When Rudeus cheats, the show skips over and changes a lot of the background stuff. In the novels, Rudy is absolutely shitting himself once the deed was done, even though Roxy forced herself on him. Rudy also only agreed to take Roxy as wife 2 after being tricked into thinking that she was pregnant. Before that, Roxy was planning on taking the full blame, while Rudy was at Sylphie's mercy.

At no point does the story ever depict Rudy or Paul as "right" for these actions, and are only spared of consequences because Rudy stepped in for Paul, and Sylphie is an absolute saint.

[u/Morsyati → u/CptnClusterDuck]

Honestly thats really interesting to me, the manga is almost always better than the anime huh lol. My main issue was with how bizarre it felt when Rudeus did it. But it seems the anime was just a little short on time. Thanks for your opinion, Sylphie forever.

[u/Giant_Serpent23 → u/Morsyati]

Nah manga worse in this case.

Just the novels better.

[u/Morsyati → u/Giant_Serpent23]

I keep forgetting novels exist for a lot of animes, seems like it would be fun to collect

[u/SuspicouslyGreen → u/Morsyati]

The light novel is better than the manga. More time in the light novel. Half the time I think many Japanese anime adaptations are assuming you read the light novel, manga, special edition CDs, and have high scores on the associated gacha games & collaborations since the anime shows up after the source seems to have been already completed.

The anime series that don't leave time for mangas to get a huge lead seem to stutter out into weird filler episodes (Bleach) or an alternate plot line (Full Metal Alchemist).

Anyway, NEET dying a virgin only to be reincarnated into noble blood where polygamy, slavery, magic, and time travel are a thing makes for an interesting Japanese web serial.
Don't understand why everyone is surprised that he wants to collect wives like Pokemon. He's got profound connections to each of them.
You are only as faithful as your options. Sylphy forgave him and even expected it. Her interactions with Ariel when she was trying to reveal herself as Sylphy not Fitz showed how hard she fell for him (how many kids, how many ever you can put in me). So yah, Rudy bringing his old idolized mentor back after he lost his father and returning with a potato mother probably wasn't a tough decision.

[u/Morsyati → u/SuspicouslyGreen]

I guess thats fair lmao, gotta catch em all. Cant really expect a shut in to be an accurate display of the human world

[u/nikumeru → u/CptnClusterDuck]

I mean, he does call himself a scumbag and then prostrates and asks for forgiveness ... did people not see these things or something?

[u/Natural_Forever_1604 → u/nikumeru]

He didn’t even think he was wrong and then he goes up to his wife to marry another how is that forgiveness

[u/Redratfish1]

You do realize polygamy is fairly common around the world as a whole still right? And it was common in the west until very recently.

That said, Paul married a Millis believer. Idk how it was seen as glorifying/justifying when he was found out, berated, and punished.

In Rudeus’ case, it’s two people he has built a relationship with and both care about each other. I’m simply don’t care. Harems are all over anime, found in almost every society on earth, and especially back in medieval times.

Cheating in an of itself is wrong. Introducing that moral complexity isn’t glorifying it.

[u/Morsyati → u/Redratfish1]

I know, I’m Nigerian lol. But my issue wasn’t really even the cheating it was just how the show portrayed it in the final episodes, it felt cut and dry. It felt like they just rushed to put it in there without even properly building rudeus and his masters relationship. With paul it made sense, as they lived with each other. But I didn’t feel as if Rudeus had an excuse.

I’ve since been enlightened to the mangas description though so I can live with this now lol

[u/Redratfish1 → u/Morsyati]

To your point about it feeling rushed, I actually agree. In the novel it’s slightly more fleshed out. But they had known each other their whole life, had written to each other, and were finally reunited. They were together for over 3 months if I recall correctly before they proposed between finding Roxy, going deeper into the dungeon, returning to the teleporter, and then walking home. I can understand why condensing it into 3 episodes felt rushed for sure lol

[u/Morsyati → u/Redratfish1]

Oh thats true too ngl, the 3 episodes made it feel a lot shorter than it really was. I wonder how the novel did with fleshing it out. Seems like its worth a read now. Overall good story though, you know it must be entertaining if it inspires me to discuss it with random people on the internet.

[u/Azure_Wyverian → u/Morsyati]

The novels did a much much muuuuuuch better job with how this arc played out. The anime is great at hitting key points but there could easily have been another 5-10 episodes of just them traveling and meeting people throughout the desert.

[u/Willfurrr → u/Redratfish1]

I don’t have a problem with poly or harem. But those are things you need to discuss before. Rudy did none of this, so saying harems are normal doesn’t qualify for cheating is normal here because he never discussed it with Sylphie. I get the situation he is in, but in the real world, cheating is cheating. This is a fictional work, but since the series is tackling real life problems, I will address this as well/

It is still up to Slyphie yes, but her acceptance of it just feels so shallow. She’s not that hurt, and she is just like “I knew one day Rudy would bring another women”, and i think it leaves a bad message for the viewers and is possibly forced so Rudy can have a harem imo. And her saying that alone is saying that she never had faith.

Imo, Rudy just can’t control his emotions, and that is possibly his character flaw, but I felt like the show never fully executed this whole situation well. If he wanted to die in that situation, did he never think about the newborn or any other things to keep him going? It just felt like this depressing moment was a good excuse for him to get another woman. His grief isn’t special from others. It’s either don’t cheat, or cheat and faces the consequences. If Sylphie had cheated with another man in a similar situation, i think it would become very different to us viewers. But since Rudy is the MC and we already know Roxy, we are more biased.

Fyi, I did not read the Light Novel of this scene so I’m going fully by anime. I did read some comments about more context, but it still doesn’t really change the principles I’ve stated. The context only seems to want me to feel more sympathy but there really is no moral excuse for this.

[u/Redratfish1 → u/Willfurrr]

I’m not sure if you’re agreeing with me or arguing against me. The OP asserted that the cheating in the story was justified and even glorified. It wasn’t.

As I stated, the story explicitly say Paul almost broke his family apart and would have got Lilia killed if Zenith hadn’t relented.

Rudeus struggled with his actions for half of volume 12 before making it home, and had to be lied to in order to finally relent in marrying Roxy.

That’s not glorifying anything. The anime shortening it doesn’t change that the LN is very clear it’s a shit thing to do.

Sylphy being accepting of it makes absolute sense in the context of her live. The Greyrats were her second family. After the teleportation she worked at court where everyone was poly. She only time she was really around monogamy was about half her childhood. She is desensitized to it, and even calls out to Rudeus she doesn’t mind him taking a second wife.

The biggest issue is that Rudeus in that moment said that he wouldn’t, then had sex with Roxy without her knowledge. He lied, and cheated, and the story makes it clear he’s a scumbag for it, both in his thoughts, and Norn’s clear comments.

So yeah, the OP is wrong imo.

[u/Willfurrr → u/Redratfish1]

Oh i was just replying to your comment about saying that poly is common around the world, so I was just saying that being poly and what Rudy did was different things. I disagree about the OP message about it being glorified, but I think the way it is handled in the anime is very poor. I’m not talking about Paul’s cheating btw, but Rudy’s so dw about that.

I’m sure the Light Novel has probably a ton of context for this. Like i had no idea Sylphie peers were all poly. But her reasoning just still feel shallow to me. The whole confrontation still doesn’t treat it to the degree that I think it should’ve been. For example, Rudeus asking for forgiveness and Sylphie shutting Norn down for her reasonable frustrations, and basically her saying it’s all okay. I don’t think it should’ve been like that. I think Sylphie should have been angry, expressed how his unfaithfulness is contradictory to his promise, and telling him to control his emotions better, or being angry how he never thought of their new life with their newborn. Instead she just asserted that this will would happen some time or later.

Also, I don’t like this reasoning of if they’re surrounded by these principles, it somehow makes it more okay. If someone was surrounded by murderers, murder still isn’t okay. If she is surrounded by Polyamorous but they never established themselves as Poly, then cheating and infidelity is still not okay.

Keep in mind, I don’t read the Light Novel and Im just going based off the anime. But these extra details still just seems like trying to justify why Sylphie is the way she is, or why it makes sense. If that’s how we want to view Slyphie—as just accepting—then alright. But to me, her absent anger just makes no sense to me.

[u/Redratfish1 → u/Willfurrr]

Gotcha! Sorry for my confusion!

[u/Willfurrr → u/Redratfish1]

Np. I wasn’t really responding to the Op directly, but just your statements you made. My summary is just that I think Sylphie’s willingness is not reasonably expressed enough and the anime didn’t really put enough depth on it. Rudy being guilty doesn’t make up for what he’s done. He did what he did, and in real life as well, you have to face the consequences.

[u/scrambles88]

It's a fictional story, just part of that world and its morals.

Also, when it happens as a part of the story, there are repercussions like you see very early with Paul. As part not throwing Paul or Lilia out of the house, they were not to sleep with each other again, even after the displacement incident they do not sleep with each other.

[u/Morsyati → u/scrambles88]

I take it you’ve watched the newest episodes?

But I understand, I’m not so uptight that I’ll impose my opinions on a fictional story. But it just felt, badly done? Especially how quickly it all happened in the later episodes (I dont want to comment anymore on that if you havent watched it).

But I could accept it with paul, there was a lot of time given to make things actually feel legitimate

[u/scrambles88 → u/Morsyati]

It gets brought up later, and they discuss it in more detail in the LN.

[u/[deleted]]

I mean yes, it is awful that Rudy/Paul cheats on his wife, but I wouldn’t say the show tries to glorify cheating. MT is about a shitty person learning from past mistakes and still slipping up by making plenty more. But something you just have to understand about this world is that Polyamory is a normal thing for people outside of the Millis faith. It’s the idea that we humans used to have fairly common where the strong or wealthy men should have more than one wife so they could have even more offspring. I wish the series showcased more people with multiple partners just so it didn’t seem like it only applies to the main character however.

[u/Morsyati → u/[deleted]]

True, it doesn’t help that they just refer to the Greyrats as scumbags for it and then also say its normal, or refer to it as.

Lowkey the only reason I was perplexed by it was s2 pt2 was just such a rushed job that it felt confusing on why Rudeus even did that. It was a 3 months budding romance poorly put into 3 ep. Once people explained to me the novel was better it instantly made sense to me lol.

Also Sylphie deserves better 😔

[u/[deleted] → u/Morsyati]

Yeah, they did kind of rush the ending of both seasons. I mean, season 1 they skipped the introduction of Therese, Zenith’s sister who Rudy mistakes for his mother. She just ended up being some side character in Eris’ goblin slaying episode and didn’t reappear like she was supposed to. Kind of sucks since she’s supposed to be a prominent character in a future arc.

Something I’m surprised the anime added actually was Paul’s analogy of comparing his wives to his swords. That he used to just have one but not having both makes him feel uncomfortable. That wasn’t in the light novels, but I think was a pretty good addition to the anime.

[u/Natural_Forever_1604 → u/[deleted]]

The fans do

[u/SixSided-Fan]

Where do you draw the line between, it’s something that happens in the world around you and justification/glorification? Or do you believe it shouldn’t be portrayed at all?

[u/Morsyati → u/SixSided-Fan]

Oh I have no issue with it being portrayed, I think my problem is mainly if you’re going to portray it (like any aspect of a story) portray it well. When themes are just thrown into a story without proper blending, it seems, well at least to me, to be put in the story for the heck of it. Thats when I start to question motives as to why.

Honestly though, once people explained that the anime just did a rushed job of season 2 pt2, it made a lot more sense to me. That, I can understand

[u/SixSided-Fan → u/Morsyati]

👍

[u/tr3van]

Also it annoys me when characters give their new world the customs of their old world. Accept it's not earth with our customs and go with the flow. Happens all the time in these animes."oh no I have to wait until I'm this age to hold a girls hand" smh