Shadiversity's BORING Novel is also INSANELY CREEPY (Review Part 1/3) 

The central idea of a story about a totalitarian dictator having everything stripped from him and he has to redeem himself and become the hero is actually kind of interesting. And it was done best by Disney with The Emperor's New Groove. The difference though between Kusko and Shad's protagonist is that Kusko wasn't a genocidal r*p*st.

While Shad did probably start making more culture war content for the grift, it seems like most of his wild opinions are genuine. His brother Jazza has talked about how their parents raised them in a domineering, hyper-conservative sect of Mormonism which Jazza broke away from while Shad seems to very much remain a true believer

Wait so this "redemption story" is about the worst person to have ever existed in all history becoming some absolute arbiter, acting as judge jury and executioner for people who have done only a fraction of the things he has done? This isn't redemption, it's hypocrisy.

This makes me think of Yharim, the antagonist of Calamity Terraria's lore. He was a traumatized young boy who, in an effort to resolve the injustice that ruined his life, became the ruthless dictator ruining the world. You find notes from him across the course of the game, and you see how much he regrets this, how he's given up, how he's staying out of your player character's life because he no longer really wants to survive and is just waiting until you become strong enough to challenge him. The thing is, Yharim was well-written. The game's lore actually slings you back and forth between being disgusted by the things he did and feeling very, very sorry for Yharim himself. Also, no weird sex stuff in Yharim's story, at least not that we're told about.

It is still hard for me to fathom that Jazza is Shad's brother, considering just how awesome Jazza seems to be compared to how.... batshit insane Shad is.

Epstein Hitler is *REEEAAALLY* sad about what he did you guys, c'mon. 🥺 FR I don't know how many books you need under your belt to make that story work. 🤣

This is strangely inspiring... Im inspired not to write like Shad.

Wait- a fantasy land called the everfall where if you fall off the map, you just pop back up at the top? Guess shad played Dragon's Dogma, huh? Lmao

I can't help but think maybe Shad's Mormon faith has totally warped his ideas of what forgiveness and redemption should be. I know it's a big thing in Mormon churches that abuse victims not forgiving their abuser is considered more disruptive and disrespectful than the abuse itself. Which is something the main character does over and over and over.

Tbh a simple power fantasy would've been fine if he hadn't made Daylen an ex-pedo dictator who raped hundreds and killed millions. You'd have to be a super good writer to handle that redemption story, which Shad isn't lmao. Also the way Shad handles rape and sexual trauma just feels gross. Lyrah was one of Daylen's child rape victims and she easily gets over her intense trauma she's had for years, forgives him, and teams up with him in the end.

Always remember that Shad criticized the enviromental story telling of Elden Ring.

Ah yes, Shad employing one of the most famous of all storytelling rules: Tell, don’t show.

Hey, at least Daylen isn't Shadiversity's self insert Edit: hopefully

Not gonna lie, I was semi-enjoying the book as a sort of goofy Heinleiny world-build novel. Then it got into the first weird out-of-nowhere rant about how, no, but srsly, communism is bad, which I just kinda shrugged off because, again, Heinlein's clearly an influence. But pretty much as soon as there was any intimation that this was going to be some kind of buddy-cop adventure between a rape survivor and her rapist in disguise... I just noped the fuck out of there and felt absolutely no desire to read on. So I don't know if that was where the story ultimately went. But the fact that that was the *least* distasteful way I could imagine it going was enough for me to not want to know.

Just wanna throw out when you're talking about the usage of slurs and stuff: In A Song of Ice and Fire they would use the term "simple" for people with mental disabilities. It's direct, understandable, and grounded enough that you know what everyone means by it. And in turn, since Westeros and Essos don't have any Greek-influenced cultures, you even have minor things like when Tyrion meets someone named "Penny". The name "Penelope" doesn't exist so the girl was *literally* named after money and the narration even takes a moment for Tyrion to think it's really dumb someone would do that to their child.

Real talk: I feel like when poorly made media uses heavy topics like r*pe, it has less to do with the creator actually wanting to explore those topics and more to do with either A.) generic shock value/edginess or B.) having a cheap defense ready for when people criticize the work ("It's DEEP and if you say it sucks then that just means you can't handle how fucked up the world is UwU").

Wait, so this guy can see the "light" or "darkness" in a person, and that gives him liscence to kill people at will? That's Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow death cult stuff! This is literally just Visions of Glory as a fantasy book! I knew Shad was mormon, but I didn't think he was _that_ kind of mormon

The real tragedy is how close Shad is to people of real talent in whatever medium he tries to get into, but he just doesn’t ask any of them for advice or a proof read or anything. Talk about self sabotage

This novel being such hot ass legit convinced me to continue writing my fantasy novel

That Moment When you dislike someone but for petty reasons, then a whole bunch of real reasons come out and you're vindicated

All of this makes way more sense when you remember that Shadiversity is mormon and sexual assault of minors is super normal for them as is the weird racism.

One of the funniest fucking things about shad is that his Twitter pfp is an AI image of him but buff and “Handsome”

I've wrote some hot garbage under some aliases. And some horror shorts that kinda sucked. In my defense, my books were intended to be porn, and I know they aren't very good. Shad has way too much ego to understand how bad his work is, and if he can't do that, then his writing quality isn't going to get any better. It's hypocritical for him to call characters Mary Sue when he made his protagonist a massive Mary Sue. Your review makes it sound like he wrote a story following one of those "Avatar the Last Airbender is the best shit ever" writing guides to a T. I honestly think that's what happened. They all advocate for excessive world building.

Former fan of Shad back when he actually did interesting videos about medieval weapons and story ideas, instead of the weird "muh woke" and "muh AI" crap. I knew of his book for the longest time, figured it was probably ok? I never sat down to either listen to it or read it and if all of this is true... Yiiiikes. Bro was not well even back then.

“Repeating myself a lot, while also, confusingly returning to the same point.” I watched a few of Shad’s videos before he became openly reactionary, and that’s exactly how he communicates.

There's a lot of SA and torture portrayed therein, for a book written by a Mormon. However, the stereotypes about coloured people fit right into that particular brand of Christian extremism unfortunately.

Shad's tendency to over-explain every single sentence of his book really shows his insecurities. If you're a good writer you don't need to explain every single aspect of your world's magic system, or cultures, or even why someone doesn't feel like they should kill their opponent. He'd probably write it off as "perfectionism", which is also a form of insecurity, as it shows unwillingness to let go of your creation and find your own flaws and refine the process.

You would think that for all his lectures on world building and general writing practices, he would be better at putting such things together.

You can't spell the title of this book without the words "Shad The Conqueror." Don't tell me this isn't a self-insert.

I think it's pretty incredible that this guy can, with a straight face, say that women can't be soldiers in any kind of fantastical or mythic fantasy setting because of menstruation, and having to squat to pee, but will just casually drop the idea that there could be a world where continents float and the world behaves like Pac-Man where when you go too far one way, you appear coming from the other direction, and that's just to be accepted without question. But have Rey climb a wall and you suddenly have to show evidence of her gym membership, and the credentials of her climbing instructor.

26:25 I’m so glad you brought up the comparison to Sanderson because it’s been driving me MAD how copypasta this has been of Sanderson’s whole body of work, right down to shoddy imitations of character names. It’s like filing the serial numbers off, only you don’t know what you’re doing and file off the entire receiver.

24:04 Regarding inventing new terms, I can come up with something on the spot right now instead of using the r-word. "You must be dark in the head/you must've been left in the dark for a little too long" - possible offensive alternative for the r-word within the context of the world, referencing how the Shades are made and equating them to someone acting irrationally/being mentally ill. Downside is the second one could be confused with "being left in the dark" meaning for us being uninformed.

I remember being a fan of Shad when this book came out and thought the premise actually sounded interesting. But like, why rape? I thought when he said "Hitler was the protagonist" he meant murder. Why touch this subject?

i disagree about the culture wars content part. i think this actually ruined his channel's algorithm, because it used to be just purely sword / nerd stuff. politics and nerd stuff are nowhere near in the same category. if anything, i think it diminished the views in his OG nerd content and i think he's somewhat aware of it, which is why he is currently grifting as an AI artist because he mistakenly thinks this is going to be a new income stream for him. it's just sad to see a nerd go this way.

Hi, I'm a big fan of Shad and would like the opportunity to defend him in a debate with you! I dont actually know any of his opinions or his justifications for his opinions, BUT I did use over 300 of his videos to train an AI chat bot that I can use instead of actually knowing how to debate, and as we all know, using that chat bot will make me just as qualified a debater as anyone, in fact it will make me BETTER then a regular debater, since I'll be able to make my talking points quicker without the pesky need to understand the arguments or the context of the questions asked. I'll just copy what what you say and have the computer do it for me! And really, is there any difference between that and regular debate tactics and research? I dont think so, and anyone who says otherwise is approaching the situation from a position of profound ignorance! I mean I still have to take those responses and copy the parts I like and delete and have the computer rewrite the parts I don't, and that's exactly the same as making the arguments up myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise! So you and I can debate at any time, just not tonight, as I will be busy writing my book, it's about Space Mao who comes back to life in a copy of his 18 year old body with super powers, and the whole story is him beating random people to death while talking about how much he regrets being a communist! And while yes, its true I dont know anything about how to actually write a book, I did copy all of Robert E. Howard's work and use it to train an AI chat bot to write the book FOR ME. Now before you get all pissy, I did write notes on the basic outline that I wanted the chatbot to use, so it's basically EXACTLY like I'm writing it myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise! /s

So what you're telling me is that the guy who thought the gay romance in The Last of Us was too much depicts explicit pedophilia in his book and that's somehow more tasteful????

I fell out of enjoyment with Shad some time ago. His pop culture weapon videos and frame by frame Star Wars fight breakdowns were great. Then his format changed when he brought two other guys on, and I enjoyed the videos less. Then I began to see videos such as "When cartoons were wholesome" and I knew Shad was on a bad path. I never would have expected him to write about rape or child love... It's simply sad.

Oh god, i forgot about the Lusts... yeah, that kinda sums the book up tbh. Kinda reminds me of those guys who will tell you all the terrible things they think should be done to rapists as punishment... but at the same time would not believe any victim's testimony without a shitload of equivocation.

when I heard that shad, a conservative guy that has talked a lot about gender roles and how depending on if you're born a man or woman, you should do that, or behave like that, and how he has many times said homophobic and sexist things, wrote a book, and nontheless a book that contained characters that were r*ped my first thought was "... he's literally the less qualified person to tackle that subject"

Haven't read it, but just by listening to the description, it sounds like Daylin might be a Western chauvinist's stand in for America/"Western civilization"; lots of bad things in his past, but basically invented everything and has to solve the world's problems because he's the most competent, special boy. Anyone else get that impression? I'll be curious to hear how far that analogy goes in parts 2 & 3.

shad once said in an old vodeo that immigrants shouldnt be allowed government assistance and only white australians should. this was like 8 plus years ago.

I remember when Sanderson's new Stormlight Archive book came out, Shads name was in it as a historic martial arts reference. That book actually has my least and most favorite fights. The least favorites are the ones where the fight is sidetracked by one or two sentences of "technical" description that rarely makes sense when your characters are in the fucking air. The most favorite is one that uses the rules of the magic engineering as a replacement for one of the characters missing super powers, and thus he has to avoid all confrontation that would require any form of martial arts. Fucking excellent example of a consultant actually making a book worse, especially in a book that does a really good job (for pop fantasy) at dealing with mental health due to the many mental health consultants

Thank goodness I never bought his comic adaptation when he had that crowdfunding campaign. I wonder what happened to his pilot movie adaptation of his book tho.

Shad has some weird power trip issues. Between his garbage writing and his A.I. "art" he has some strange delusions of grandeur

I had no idea . I love Jazza he is such an inspiration to the art community and is always giving back. He also makes great content. I had no idea Shad was his bro.. they are completely different.

The protagonist is a Mary Sue with a penchant for the younger set? So, Shad read "The Chronicles of Conrad Stargard" and said: Hold my beer?

The sad thing is that I got this book (before reading anything) for my mom a couple years ago💀

It sounds like Shad really likes how thorough Tolkein was about his world and how Pratchett depicted the decades of experience with Cohen the Barbarian, and then was 100% certain that he could do it too.

This is legit reassuring to me as someone writing a fantasy novel cause wtf Like I don't think I could write a worse story if I tried

I watched Shad's videos about swords, they were fun. He said he wrote a novel, I figured I would throw him some support. I made a mistake. This book encapsulates everything wrong with fantasy fiction. This book makes me long for the days when publishers acted as gate keepers, protecting my eyes from amateurish hacks and their puerile gibberish. Left wing, right wing, I do not know, I do know this book sucks.

Cogent Roleplaying, the tabletop RPG he wrote, really sucks too. Which is really funny to me because he has loads of videos on why D&D 3rd edition sucks because it doesn't accurately depict weapons or armor, and in his system wearing armor actually makes you a worse fighter. Used to be a pretty prominent member of his discord server, mostly hung out in his roleplaying games channel and would constantly get people asking for advice about it but Shad had long since abandoned it leaving it half finished. The mods he has for that server and the one running his reddit are the definitions of the power mad moderator meme too, and left those when all this alt right nonsense of his starting bubbling up to the surface.

The guy writes about underage rape, by his own self-insert character. He's pretty sick in the head. SNS.

I like a lot of Shad’s non-political content. His castle knowledge is great and very interesting and he presents it well. I bought his book on Kindle when he released it though, and couldn’t get past I think the second chapter, not because of any moral objections - don’t think anything too horrendous had happened by then - but just because the writing was so bad. The bit where his main protagonist falls off the edge of the world (which in this setting loops back to the surface of the world again, and very quickly - actually could be an interesting idea) and works out his new magic powers in the space of a few seconds on the basis that he was an engineer in his former life, was so bad I couldn’t believe it. It actually showed how his whole “magic systems should follow rules and not be random” idea, which is true in some ways, when taken to extreme, ends up taking the magic out of magic and rendering it into engineering, just with different laws of physics. That was something I was thinking about his ideas about magic in fantasy settings before he released his book. And then his book came out, and HE ACTUALLY HAD TO MAKE HIS MAIN CHARACTER AN ENGINEER in order to have them understand and explain his magic system to his readers. That’s not magic bro… And then he started getting more and more political, and yeah, it’s bad… I still watch and like his non-political fantasy/history/arms and armour content sometimes. It’s a shame really, because he is a nice guy in many ways who makes interesting and entertaining content. But yeah, he kind of went off the rails. (Note - I wrote this 3 mins into this video, so I don’t actually know what you are going to say about his book yet, these are my pre-existing thoughts 😂).

I used to watch him... but then he started saying things that seemed really weird to me... Like his defense of rape in Goblin Slayer... that women being raped is a good motivator for male heroes... And women can't hold swords... I left his channel before his commentary became explicitly right-wing political advocacy....

I read this book once upon a time. My life is a punishment now and I regret about it a lot. Very immersive experience.

I was a fan of Shadversity ones, till he began to frequent this kind of people, the grifters and right-wingers that pretend that they aren't right-wingers in the internet, with very toxic review, I try to warn him, but he didn't listen, then I realise that he really believe this bullshit, so I quit his channel, not watch it anymore.

"I find it very offensive when people say jesus christ" What about when they say have a seat?

The dude never wanted to die because of his pass he only wanted to die because of being old and Constantly being in pain.

Shadow of the Conqueror? I dont think Shad's conquered anything more threatening than a plate of ribs. Dude's terrified of Princess Peach in pants destroying western civilization.

When you talked about how it would be interesting if the story started as "This is a tale of man who decides to kill himself..." I thought of another way the story could be told. There's a brazillian novel called Dom Casmurro, which is told by Casmurro himself on his last years about how his life was ruined by his cheating wife, but, by the way he narrates, it becomes clear that he isn't a reliable narrator, striking doubt to the reader. I think Shad could do that, making a morally grey and unreliable narrator who tries to justify his horrible actions to the reader.

1:18 To be fair to Shad, HEMA is much more of an art than practical training. Sure Shad messes around with swords without actually participating in the play-fighting with blunt pieces of metal; but no one is going into combat wielding Excalibur and facing an enemy armed with dual Nippon steel katanas, unless they travel back in time and into fiction. That said, I have _actually_ been attacked by multiple trained men *armed with nunchucks,* so maybe HEMA is more practical & useful than I give it credit for. Okay, on with the rest of the vid!

He’s 40?!?! Also as an ex Mormon you are a hundred percent correct.

I feel like ive just woken up from a coma, are we talking about the guy that does medieval weaponry videos? What?

“Brother of Jazza” that’s so weird, that makes it almost relatable. Someone relatively normal/talented has a family member who’s so fucked up that they’re a c-list literary super villain. It’s like how one of the Koch brothers had a twin brother who is _not_ evil and sociopathic and hell bent on controlling America

I love your critique. I agree 100%. Daylin as a character was ridiculous. He was the best swordman in the world while also being one of the best engineer. Also he was a military genius. Every conflicts in the felt shallow and boring because he would either stomp anyone or his opponent would become his friend very quickly. I know people complain about the book because the protagonist is a massive rapist but for me it was how boring everything felt since it felt like the world was bending over the protagonist.

“The Biggest Mary Sue of all time.” Empress Theresa: YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME MORTAL?!

Sounds like he tried to combine berserk’s dark fantasy with the Silmarillion by constantly lore dumping.

I've been in nerd communities enough that when I saw the first video on his writing all those years ago I smelled bullshit. Guys like that always have weird opinions and it starts with "historical accuracy" and "healthy body types" and you quickly realize that only comes up when it's women and you gotta turn the other way incredibly quickly.

As much as i hate to admit it, I feel bad for Shad. He failed at drawing, gave up and turned to writing, but also failed just as bad here. He's already using AI for art, might as well use it for stories.

Well this is kind of what we get when a comics gate ppl tries to write their own book. Are we sure he didn't take a lot of MDMA, and try to recount their game play of Skies of Arcadia?

18 hours, that's the whole effin Darth Bane trilogy xD THAT'S THE ENTIRETY OF THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY!!!! Thank you for your masochism to bring this to us.

If I had a nickel for every weirdo on the internet with Shad in their username, I'd have two, which is unfortunate

In a world where the sun never sets, you'd think that the people there would have adapted long ago to all be black, not just the stereotypical ones

This book has almost 4 stars on Goodreads.

The concept of floating continents, everlasting day, and sky ships sounds kind of interesting if the weird video games physics and the child sexual abuse weren't incorporated into that

Dune did it better with Paul Atreides.

Can't people like him create something else than a power fantasy? I'll bet on the fact that he just self inserted into that novel

The description of that world sounds almost identical to the world in the first book of the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragon Wing.

I personally see more of a resemblance between the character and Mao Zedong because he was kinda forced out of power for a while and then came back to power after.

If you make special technology or have powers then it doesn't make sense that being good with a sword is all you need. I like Eragon because in that book Eragon becomes a master sword fighter but also gains acess go super powerful weapons and abilities. Beyond that Eragon originally uses a bow- so bows are viable weapons that are often used in the Eragin books as well as people using magic. So if you have technology in a book then it makes sense that people would have crossbows or maybe special steam punk swords. It doesn’t seem like shad included any of that weaponry or equipment or how it would change fighting in that world he made up.

Damn, half the video in and the only conclusion for me is that I want Tyler to write a book because his idea for how to make Daypiss or whatever actually be interesting, like yeah I'm down for a badass, cunning old fart who beats kids up to teach them a lesson while also trying to be a better person.

A monarch named "... the Bastard" turned "... the conquerer"? Wonder where he got that idea from.

When you talked about age regression this instantly became isekai wannabe trash: I was the Conqueror of the World until I was Overthrown and Retired until I decided to go on a Redeeming Adventure.

What if Karsa Orlong never realized he was wrong and wasn't cool AND was written by fat guy wearing a chainmail hoodie

Damn, that second half of the book sounds like Shad’s sick fantasy.

"He gets bored with power, SO HE STARTS GRAPING ALL THE LITTLE GIRLS" Whoa! Where did that come from?!

I lost all respect for shad when he started supporting AI 'art' despite the fact ai steals and cuts up other people's art and then tries to stitch it into a 'new' piece of art

Blackheart is a cool name but Shad wasn’t the first one to come up with it. Off the top of my head there’s Ballister Blackheart, the main character from the graphic novel Nimona by N.A. Stevenson.

Please just get to the book please. I came for a review. Edit: I regret asking you to get to the book review.

if i had a nickel for every time a guy with Shad in his name has been an utter creep, i’d have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice

Shad rlly read the Stormlight Archive and went “What if Dalinar was a serial rapist and written far, far worse.” Barely changed the name.

I'm only halfway through this video and I guess what adds to the terribleness is usually when an author decides "time to slide my predatory fantasy into the story" they wait until middle-late into their story or series to try to make it seem normal, but he's like "OK EVERYONE LET'S START OFF RIGHT".

I used to really like Shadiversity. I think I only finished this book out of a weird sense of loyalty, even as I'd been drifting away from his channel for a while before its release. This book made me cringe inside out multiple times. Bad book. Bad. Into the freezer with you!

This was an incredible breakdown! I feel like I'm a better writer after watching this. You don't just point out the obvious, you go in depth into some really good points and breakdowns into literary techniques.

it takes balls to come out and be like maybe the russian monarchy ( google the monarchy's many many crimes they even had their own gulags ) being killed was where the problem began ... god shad somehow triples and quadruples down into the like being weirdly aristocratic and weirdly monarchist vibe all fantasy has

I'm glad you wrote those descriptors on the cover for the thumbnail, because I watched another review about the book a few weeks ago and looked at the cover with those thoughts and just... wow

I found Shad ages ago for medieval and fantasy themed videos, castle reviews, memes. It was fun. His podcasts and other content started to become weirder and weirder and his views clearly became more and more Conservative and right-leaning. The AI art topic made me completely lose interest in him as a content creator and a person. I unfortunately bought the book but found it... okay, at best. It went on far too long in descriptions of magic and the main character is so incredibly overpowered he explodes his legs early on and just shrugs it off and regrows them with the magic he was gifted.

What kind of sicko makes child rape a main part of their book. Ew.

I'm sorry, but "sky pirate Stalin" is such a baller pitch I'd give the book a shot.

Aren't these videos also grifting for the same thing shad is grifting but just the opposite side?