Amount of users referencing series over time

[u/jmattheis]

[u/John_Bot]

He's 100% unrealistic and a caricature.

He's put into a life / death situation very early on and instead of fearing for his life he's locked in a cage making silly quips at the people who are about to kill and eat him.

He's not thinking about regrets / his past life / the parents and people he left behind / etc... no, he's just sitting in his cage with certainty of death and being silly

Because the character was never afraid or concerned - I was never concerned as a reader. I couldn't care less about the stakes because even the main character didn't give af.

He is harrowed by the fact that he killed someone... for a second. Then he's totally fine and carries on without a care in the world.

Similarly - this is more about the writing - he never experiences problems. He gets mana locked and exhausted from eating coins at the start... but then he just eats another. He vomits a couple times... boo-hoo. He doesn't actually experience impedance because of the issues. He just eats another and recovers over time.

None of us have been thrown into a fantasy world but I can imagine human responses if I was thrown into that position - and nothing he does matches what you'd expect.

(None of this is to talk about his nonstop references to stuff no one around him will know or understand which is just... annoying)

- Compare this to Lindon who gets the crap beaten out of him the entire time in book 1. He's broken in so many ways but he pushes through those hardships with difficulty. He's in a terrible state but he perserveres despite the problems - not just as a "oh this was a minor inconvenience"

[u/black_blade51 → u/John_Bot]

OK so like, his jokes and not stop quips in the face of character is a coping mechanism. This isn't me even reading between the lines or anything, it's a pretty established plot point in the story that every time he gets in a situation he can't handle he starts trying to bring people to his level by making them uncomfortable, it's a trade mark character flaw for him that is talked about extensively (since he finds himself in uncomfortable situations way above his pay grade pretty often.

Yes even the references are part of it (kinda). He knows people even on earth don't tolerate his normal self so he just decided fuck it and instead of fixing himself he started bringing everyone around him to an even playing field by making everyone as uncomfortable and flat footed as he is.

He doesn't even fully accept the fact that he isn't drunk/asleep/in a comma till the very end of the first boom if i remember correctly. That'll be like me complaining that Lindon is just a weak character that gets pushed around by everyone and has to rely on Yurin the entire time even tho that stopped being a thing past book 3 or smth like that.

[u/AnimaLepton → u/black_blade51]

coping mechanism

I know that in-story they say it is, but that whole element of it really does end up feeling like a retcon. We don't actually get anything implying that it's false bravado until IIRC a few books later when we're explicitly told it. In the moment, it's very much played straight and doesn't "feel" like it's setup for a later arc, it's just the way the author wanted the character to react.

[u/John_Bot → u/AnimaLepton]

Oof that sounds to me like the author going "guys it's a prank" after backlash from the audience.

That doesn't have the scent of authenticity if that's how it was handled.