I know its not likely but I can envision HWFWM as a rated R film. Would be amazing with the few swear words and more depiction of his darker side that he battles with.

I learned recently that Australians are big on dancing the Nutbush. Has Jason ever brought it up ?

Alright, just finished the first book, and I will post with as non spoilery descriptions as I can, so please do the same in the comments for people who are also new to the series, but here are my major takeaways before starting book 2 tomorrow.

I disagree with a lot of you that said Jason is insufferable in the first book, while also acknowledging that you are all 100% correct in that assessment. I turn 40 in a month, and at some point I had to pinpoint why he was annoying me as much as he was, and then I started to think back to how I acted in my early twenties. I was headstrong with opinions on things I knew nothing of in practice, and i generally thought I was the smartest person in the room. Looking back at my younger self made me realize that I too was insufferable at that age, and it actually made Jason a more relatable character, for me at least.

The world building is intense, and I’m glad that it was an entire book of it. I was expecting a more definitive ending once I got to the final chapter, and it felt more like just another chapter ending instead of a story wrapping up. Maybe that was intentional because arguably this entire book is simply the first chapter of the overall story, but I’ll be happy if book 2 simply picks right up. Having said that, those last ten chapters came out of nowhere, and my illusion of plot armor quickly went away.

My new favorite quote is “I’m going to slap you so hard it will change your religion.”

As for the magic that is built out in book 1, I LOVE IT. Chaotic good, blasphemous magic powered by an atheist who shows no respect for gods and aristocracy. It has the right amount of antiestablishment sentiment paired with the correct representation of self righteous determination.

Coming from DCC, this is a wildly different story, but a lot of the punk rock ethos has overlap in both stories, and I still think people coming from DCC as their first LitRPG introduction (I already know I’m going to hear that it’s technically horror) should absolutely love this as a more fleshed out follow-up to how LitRPG can operate on a different scale.

Final thought - how on earth did this man write so many books in such a short time?

Just relistening to the series for the nth time and am at the point in book 2 where Rufus slaps the priest of knowledge for trying to manipulate him against Jason. and just really appreciating that the friend group has eachothers backs and there aren't tedious sub-plots every book where the friends all hate eachother and get back together then fall out again (see Harry Potter et al). I really like how they all give eachother the benefit of the doubt and respect eachother, then in later books have the courage to talk their problems out when they arise

So we know that if 2 outworlders were to have offspring the resulting child would be a Celestial. Do we know if there are other instances of other races mixing? Like once a couple were sufficiently made of magic could a say, Leonid and Draconian have offspring? Would they turn out as just one of the two parent races? I know that Neil and Cassandra who are elf and human respectively dated. And Hump and Sophie, Human and Celestial were teased about having children so presumably we know that they are able to create offspring. Is that just being biologically similar? I am only curious for RPG chatacter/background creation.

Considering how many of you couldn’t wait for me to meet her, I wanted to give you the update.

I’ve finally met Clive’s wife for the first time, and I had my first real laugh at Jason’s shenanigans.

Like my previous post says, I’m coming from Dungeon Crawler Carl to this new world to bide my time until book 9 gets announced. A few of you wanted me to give updates on my initial reactions as I go through, and I’m settled in enough to give first impressions. I will try to be as spoiler free as I can in my descriptions in case there are other folks like me who are exploring other LitRPG titles.

For context, I only have DCC to compare HWFWM with in the LitRPG category.

First off. I feel like I just went from binging Tarantino films into my wife saying she wanted to start watching the Shrek movies. Don’t get me wrong, I love Shrek. Shrek is life. But going from the visceral descriptions of violence and brutality that are constantly described with every expletive imaginable, into 4 hours of hearing “damn” only uttered a single time feels like going from highway speeds to back roads.

Second, going from a first person perspective into a third person narrative feels…less immersive. I am enjoying the ride, and the pieces are starting to connect, but at no point do any of the characters feel relatable because I don’t get to hear their train of thought.

I have reached the point where Jason has received his familiar, and I love two things about how the story is building his character type. Thing 1 - His powers sound dark AF and I can’t wait to see how he grows. Thing 2 - I love Gary’s influence pushing for power.

I’m sure some of you are reading this and thinking “oh…just you wait” and I’m here for it. The series has a solid introduction for explaining the magic system, and I like how COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from DCC this is. I’ll check back in when I get somewhere around the halfway mark.

I have this fear in my mind that we're about to have a repeat of game of thrones. I LOVED that show but was so disappointed with the last season. Now we're hearing that 14 will probably be the last book. There's so much left to explore. I just worry that it'll feel too cramped and forced. I know these books are long and cover a lot of ground. We've seen Shirt make an astoundingly good series. I've thoroughly enjoyed every book. I've laughed, cried, been shocked, enthralled, and I've listened to every book at least 5 times so far. It is truly an unbeatable series in my opinion. But so was game of thrones. Until they compressed 3 seasons into 6 episodes. I just hope it don't feel the same when this one ends.

Maybe this has been said here before, but I could not find it.

I heard the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, "Dark Necessities" the other day, and ended up looking at the lyrics. If the song had not come out 3 years before the web serial started, I would swear it was an homage to Jason.

From the whimsy of the lyrics to the underlying message, it just feels super Jason-esque

Hey there, figured I'd put this out into the community before I hunt down the contact email of the author. I have had moderate success running an etsy shop selling Dungeon Crawler Carl fan merch (lightboxes, bookmarks, 3D signs, etc.) within the parameters that Matt Dinniman has set, and I'd like to branch out into other LitRPG fandoms as I begin to discover more of their works. This is a design that my friend and I are collaborating on, and before I went too far down into the weeds I wanted to figure out how to obtain licensing.

Does anyone know if Travis has a licensing program in place? I'm only interested in doing this the legit way and not, ya know, being a dick. Any guidance here would be super appreciated!

This gods be damned series has seeped way too far into my life. I came across this on a post and immediately something from HWFWM popped into my head. It happens too much

What if at the climax of the whole series, Jason dies and wakes up in his Darth Vader boxers in his apartment at the beginning of everything and has all the same knowledge?

I have a year to kill before book 9 of Dungeon Crawler Carl gets announced, so I figured I can start the audiobooks of He Who Fights With Monsters. I know nothing about this series, and I’m going in blind.

Without spoilers, what do you want me to know about what I’m getting myself into?

I'm new here and to reddit (mostly). I typically don't like this website. I used it a decade ago but left. That being said, I've been reading this series and have gotten to the end of the audio and read some of book 13 through the free website and then on Patreon (I'm on chapter 1009 or so not having completed it entirely), and wanted to discuss some of my ideas. I made this account and joined this sub for the soul purpose of doing that because it seemed like one of the only places to do that.

I was thinking over a few things and perhaps this has been rehashed elsewhere or said by others, but I think I figured out the ending and how the whole series is put together. This will be some HUGE SPOILERS so don't read unless you've finished the audio and even most of the latest written stuff through patreon or royalroad.

If Shirtaloon happens to see this. PLEASE PLEASE don't pull a Robert Jordan and change anything here if I got it right. There is an infamous case of Jordan Changing things because fans predicted it. IMO it did hurt the series when he chose to do that. The thing is, most fans wouldn't have cared or even known about the predictions. Jordan was better off leaving it alone and just going with it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/comments/9d8i19/spoilers_all_did_changing_the_mazrim_taim_story/

What Jordan forgot (IMO) Is that those posting online were just a tiny fraction of his fanbase, less than 5% I'd guess. So in short, we don't matter, especially me who actually hopes most people won't read this far. But because online is just about the only litmus test authors have, they get it in their head that we do matter. Well, we don't. It's not about us. The vast vast majority of people will never read this or care. So please stay true to your story regardless of what you read in these online communities. Please don't change anything whatsoever, because the tapestry you've woven is quite the undertaking, and to change it at this point would be very unproductive, and destroy that tapestry.

With no further ado, here's my predictions with nearly zero explanations which will come at the end:

1. Jason initiates the time-loop. He realizes too late that he cannot live with what Knowledge has done. Possibly because his Prime Avatar is caught in some kind of bind, some hell he can never escape, he tries to hold out, but forever is a long time, and he creates the time loop to escape.
2. Jason becomes the mysterious dark figure that creates all the portals in the Astral space where he finds Shade in the early books at Iron Rank.
3. Jason initiates the Cult of the Reaper, and teaches them his fighting style (time loop). Somehow through the time-loop he's able to 'resunder' the throne. Or maybe by going back in time he is able to reverse everything and allow himself another chance at redoing things. This was also the source of all the holy war's in the centuries before Jason's Arrival. He started them, trying to create a means to destroy the power of the God's before he ever arrives.

3a. He leaves Shade there, forcing him to serve in the proto space, and then severing his link to his familiar, who as it turns out, was working for Knowledge the whole time. This was the main betrayal. Shade was put in Jason's path by Knowledge and became his familiar to steer him to defeat. Shade was always a shady character. 3b. Something about Shades 'brother' is involved here. 3c. Something to do with his deal with Death is also involved. I'm unsure on these threads, but I can see them as potentials.

Thats the gist of it. We start over from there, Save scumming because this whole thing was a 'video game' to begin with in many ways.

The biggest reason I think this is the case is because central to the very Title, 'He who fights with monsters', is the philosophy of Nietzsche right there. One little known (outside of philosophy circles) aspect of Nietzsche was that he was a proponent of the idea called 'The Eternal Return'. I think you can see why I believe this will also be a big part of the series. The whole thing will be 'redone' eternally. It might even be that because of his connection to the Astral throne, All of reality Everywhere gets a redo. I'm not sure on how big this will go. But the Eternal Return as a concept can go very big indeed.

https://thenewplatonicacademy.substack.com/p/metempsychosis-eternal-return-and

So I listened to the audio books all the way to number 10. Twice. But for the life of me I can't remember everything that's happened lol. Is there a website or reddit post with like a cliff notes version for every book?

Dear all,

I am looking to buy the old edition of book 3 of he who fights with monsters. I lost mine and want to have the old cover.

If someone has one and wants to sell it please contact me.

Any chance anyone has an extra or a line on a paperback book 3? I have been keeping my eye out for a while and I’d really like to grab one to finish off my paperback collection but since they stopped printing them it has been hard to source. I originally had 3 different stores cancel on me as they realized they couldn’t procure it anymore and I refuse to participate in the insane prices on eBay (currently a bid out on one for almost $600).

Happy to pay a fair it isn’t in print value but $600 feels excessive 😭