Hey, he was SKETCHING at one point in the book! And that's probably before he gets his new superpower of AI-ART-BRAIN - which is TOTALLY going to happen in the sequel! (Probably...!)
In the next book Daylen also becomes a *master level* artist who single-handedly starts an entirely new art movement by collecting other people's artwork in a room, looking at them, then creating a "new" piece of artwork from thin air, which will be a mash-up of various parts from the art he was looking at. And everyone will love him for it and praise him while he talks about how he wants to die and murders some guy.
He outlawed sex traffic for everyone else except himself. He thinks everyone who commits a crime deserves death except for himself (despite all his whining). No one else deserves a chance for redemption except himself. He has no empathy. It's just about him and his guilt and his ego.
@@bokrugthewaterserpent3012 Yup. But who decided he’s the only evil villain deserving of redemption? What does he learn to change about himself on his redemption path? Does he gain any empathy or humility or self awareness?
@@dorkangel1076 It's full of stuff like this. On one hand, it's supposedly condemns despotism....but then it goes on its way to potray Daylen as textbook example of a "Great man"-theory, who has seemingly innate intelligence and skill that makes him better than all the rest, whose technological achievements last to this day. And it credits solely him and not the society that he created, just him. It wasn't that gathered people around him that were able to innovate, it was just him. And despite him being of superior intellect, he supposedly also couldn't figure out the economy and created something of libertarians understanding what command economy is. And apparently he despite all of his intelligence, he somehow was still dumb enough that he took no steps to fix it or better yet find other people who could understand it better than he did(apparently because they presumably do not exist).
I believe it’s actually based off of how right the person believes themselves to be rather than any objective standard. Don’t quote me on that though, I’ve not read the thing, just seen other reviews.
Hear me out: How about Daylen is an all powerful god-king who ruled through his magical powers, and instead, when he tries to kill himself, he wakes up young, brown of hair, and without powers. Now he must live another life as a mortal man, and the reason could be to guide his children - maybe one of them is following in his footsteps - onto a better path. Through restraint, cunning and patience, he must work his way up the ladder of power, and do it all without his magical abilities. He learns the value of humility, responsibility, parenthood and life. And maybe he dies to teach the ultimate lesson to his son/daughter - to not be as he was. Boom. Better book.
Or he was reincarnated 1000 years later and goes to demon king academy where he owns everyone with his ancient powers and flirts with the female students.
It's almost like the book should have leaned into Daylen being a manipulator who's entire trial scene was bullshit he was feeding to the crowd until there would have been a riot if they killed him.
This wouldn't be a problem if Dayln's curse is that he became immortal instead of becoming young. But shad want to write a self insert for dumb young men. Oh well
@@VicAusTaxiTruckie I initially said Dorian Gray, thinking of the ending of that story explicitly because it is late, but that would imply a significantly more interesting character and curse. It's late, my bad. The way he is now is Dorian Gray but without the interesting part of superficial beauty on an internally ugly person having a reflection, whoops.
The "best" part about people like Shad is that they criticize other people's works constantly, nitpicking and demolishing everything and Mary Sues in particular. ...And then they write shit like this.
He reminds me of a french-speaking youtuber who would review manga/anime for years, who loved criticizing isekais and dark/emo/edgy characters. Then he writes a manga (illustrated by someone else) and it's about an edgy psycho teen that gets isekai'd and it's the worst thing you'd ever read. At least he doesn't bring up politics or SA. Just discovered the shad rabbit hole and wow...
Tricking your own rape victim into believing you are your own son and then getting her to say sorry to you. Can there be something more heinous and evil?
"Can there be something more heinous and evil?" Sadly, the answer to this is "Yes"... "Yes there can be." (Which is not to say that the original premise is any less reprehensible than it is.)
@@Priestofgoddess why? You asked a question if it can get worse and I responded with yes the sad reality is there are many fates worse. Whats odd about that? Am I wrong? Also it‘s a book maybe calm down a bit, you are creating outraged over a fictional character.
Shad: "I hate mary sues" Also Shad: "Makes his main character in his fantasy book a Mary Sue" Me: "I dunno guys, I think I'm noticing a double standard here"
seems on par with these internet critic types. Will Jordan's books having "girlboss" characters despite how much his Critical Drinker persona complains about girlboss characters in movies.
Mary Sue's warp the story to support them. this character attains all the tools through the world building established to shape the story through their actions. mary sues's never usually kill themselves either
The thing is, it IS possible to do a redemption story about a seemingly unforgivable, genocidal, murderous bastard. Just look at Omni Man from Invincible or Kratos from God of War. Instead of genuinely reflecting on and coming to terms with their actions and striving to change their ways like those two, Shad seems to think “redemption” is Daylan remaining murderous but redirecting his brutality towards obvious “bad guys” and having everyone (especially women) falling over themselves to tell him how “good” he is. He is simply rewarding and encouraging Daylan’s recidivism and instead of genuine self reflection, it’s more of a self-righteous self-pity party where he still insists on the underlying justness of his actions.
@@namkia205even Kratos as much evil as he was willing to do he didn't pull a Zeus or touch kids , and he tried to kill himself on olympus at the "first" and last scenes in og gow , and the Last one was an attempt to give Greece a possible future through hope
Like, one of my favourite book characters is Dalinar "the Blackthorn" Kholin, who is a war criminal and did, among other things commit a genocide and kill his wife. Alongside being not the best father to his two sons with said wife. But his arc involves him becoming a better person. His entire thing is "I will rise each time a better man." and to do more than just be a warlord, which is what he was in his youth. More importantly, he actually does try to get better, holding back on the skills that he has as a warlord to try to be more political, and not doing the best at it. Hell, we even get to see that during his warlord days, where he spares a child (who was a legitimate threat to his brother's rule later down the line) because it's a child. But Shadow of the Conquerer doesn't seem to understand the sort of effects that violence has on a person, and how someone who has done a lot of horrible things can find redemption. We just get told that Daylan has redeemed himself, rather than with how Dalinar struggles to redeem himself and accept all the horrid things he has done.
My Favourite is Tarnum, from the earlier Heroes of Might And Magic franchise. He started out as a member of a repressed people, and rose up to become a conqueror, commiting the same unforgivable atrocities he hated his oppressors for. He has a similar story as Daylen, but he has to fight with his former oppressors, and with the people he oppressed, so much so that eventually he is forced to fight with the most brutal, malicious of all people to save the world, and he reflects on everything, noticing just how little stomach he has for the things he used to do with no remorse.
@@namkia205 I mean, that was Shad’s decision to add in the child r@pe for the edge factor. He easily could have not had that part of Daylen’s character and written a better story.
@@valeriacaissa4552That's some GOP thinking. No, not everyone is as bad as "you." Like, half of the United States thinks it's OK to s**ually assault 10 year old girls. There ARE evil people in the world, but it's only about half the population even though we're at the worst point in modern history
it's insane how much shad bragged that his main character was "gray" when the grayest thing he ever did was killing a few bad people, and even then when you killed millions of people _some_ of them are bound to be evil the main character lies, cheat, murder, and rapes at every turn it's not even funny
OK, hearing the first five minutes of this I was like "wait, is this just a villainess time loop manga, where he gets sent back in time and has the chance to undo whatever mistakes he regrets having made?" only to realize one line later that no, he didn't actually get sent back in time, he just got given a young body in the present time, only furthering his personal god complex, not overcoming it.
Yup , thought that it was Regression story as well. And actually It would work way better. It would be good justification to why he didn't tried to kill himself again.
I can't help but think the author'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, and that seems to be a big repeated message in this narrative.
@@AstoraNoble it just became too much. Reading the book gave me too much insight into the inner mind and things I brushed off before were just uncomfortable now.
What's most scary about this is how much of shads own beliefs are spoken through this character, especially when it comes to the topic of sexual assualt against woman and children, even more so regarding womans worth and attitudes based on whether or not they got pregnant from the assult or didn't
What coulda been a really fuckin cool twist would be to have the Lightbringer be bullshitting for power, leading Daylen on to kill people because "They are full of darkness ooOooOooO! Do this to repent!" and by the end Daylen recognizes he brought a new dictator into power or something idk just seems weird that "these people are bad, go ahead and cut their heads off" is a reoccurring theme
I found this because I just watched a video about Shad criticising the world building in Elden Ring. It was a bad video, Shad doesn't understand Elden Ring at all. But he prefaced it with "I know about world building because I'm a writer" and flashed the cover of this book on screen. I was curious what his book was like and so here I am. Good god, it was worse than I thought. I'm sorry, but if being a jerk or a pirate makes your soul completely black and irredeemable, but planetwide genocide and over four hundred serial rapes doesn't, then you need to go back to the drawing board for your world building. If doesn't matter how good anything else in the book is, you done goofed and it all needs a rethink.
It does make him bad considering the lore writer is also George R martin for Elden Ring as a collab and the moment he said that he's indirectly challenging George R martin
...he criticized the world building of Elden Ring? The company that is known for making games with intricate worlds with subtle details about the events and people scattered all over their games? There are hours long videos only talking about the architecture in FromSoft games and it's meaning! What the hell?
@@dorianleakey Agreed on him being less egotisical and likability. For all the horrid acts the Emperor committed in his Great Crusade it was all to save humanity from Chaos and countless xeno races seekig humanitys destruction. Also his own flaws are partially why the Horus Heresy happened
@@xtremeranger30 At least God Emperor of Mankind has excuse of truly not being able to understand humanity on instinctual level and working on so much longer and bigger scale that his flaws do not get spotted. Maybe whole Horus Heresy was his plan to stop Primarchs from usurping him from his position as supreme ruler of mankind. Or maybe they guessed that Emperor will turn on them once they have outlived their usefulness as galactic conqueror's generals.
I appreciate Shad trying to write such an ambitious book. That said he’s not a George R. R. Martin. Also it’s lame if your main character is essentially a emo god right off the bat. Not to mention most people find one rape unforgivable yet alone hundreds of rapes. If you forgive that how can you justify killing anyone……
The thing is, I could ACTUALLY see this working if the point was how delusional he was and that he was never a better person and was lying to himself, but the world seems to support his viewpoint. Like an unreliable narrator situation, but he literally has a power that says, in universe, that he's a good, good boy who did nothing wrong... Weird *apparently, some people took this to mean that I'd read the book. I haven't. My criticisms of the plot are as it's described in the review. Honestly life is too short to read bad fiction and the excerpts I've seen didn't look good. I'll read Joe Abercrombie if I want something dark
I can't wait.. till every single guy here.. grows up... Grows a bit older . And realize JUST how dumb they were. How ignorant and shallow minded they were acting
@@wastedinspiration Actually it doesn't. Pretty sure big point was the whole power up turned out NOT to be based on morality, hence it worked on him and not a very good person in a character's flashback. In fact it's hinted at the lie was made due to having major ramifications if just about anyone could get it potentially. If you're going to criticize something absolutely do it, but don't be wrong about it.
This book reminds me just how important it is to actually listen to critisism. Shad's published novel is on the same level of quality as something I'd write when I was around 10. I'm greatful that I had a father figure in my life to judge my work from the very start ❤
When I heard the premise of "Evil dictator gets reincarnated into the chosen one and his previous enemies struggle to make him into a good person" my first impression was that it was going to be a lot more comedy oriented. Something like 'The Devil Is a Part-Timer!'. The whole idea of the chosen one just being a little gremlin hellspawn that the heroes try to make into a paragon of virtue sounds absolutely hilarious and I am very disappointed that the narrative didn't end up taking a lighter tone.
There's a webtoon/manhwa that is essentially that, except it's an isekai not a reincarnation, but it's really good and played for laughs called FFF-Class Trash Hero. I recommend it, the MC is basically disillusionedabout being forced into a saviour role so he just breaks the system whenever he can. The author also has another similar manhwa called Is This Hero For Real? which is also a fun read
One of the Tanith Lee books deals with this kind of plot. There is a magician guy who goes to sleep in a tree and forgets everything he did before, and sleeps for 500 years. When he wakes up he has forgotten and forgiven, but it is hinted that others who are long-lived have not. Not sure I ever finished the series, but it had the possibility of a hook that would give him a new character arc.
exactly my thoughts, it would have been perfect as a comedy and tbh its the only genre thatd fit the narrative. Everything else makes the plot look weird and morally questionnable
@@awandererfromys1680 Hellboy I feel is the opposite premise, or at least the opposite side of the same coin; his whole story is that he was created to summon the armies of hell and/or the Ogdru Jahad and bring about the end of the world, but instead chooses to resist his destiny and spend his time fighting monsters and doing the best he can.
I may be wrong, but in my experience, stories like this have often suffered from beta readers who were too nice to the author (friends, family, fans, etc). I obviously don't know for sure here, but i suspect that's the case here; that Shad didn't have anyone who could give him an unbiased opinion, so it comes across as very self-indulgent.
I can't help but think throughout the review that one way to salvage this is to introduce some "god-like" entity that would berates the guy for misusing his one chance at redemption and then takes everything from him, his youth, his strength, his powers, and even the gift of death so he couldn't die (not because he's just so dang good, but he can get killed and then he'd resurrects --lots of revenge torture potential here, too) And then the story would explore if humility would bring about a more honest redemption than mercy.... idk, spit balling here
@@mikedesousa4040 that's certainly one route it could go in a sequel. He needs to humble and humiliate this character for any of the core concept to work.
This is the book written by the guy who complained that Princess Peach from the Mario Movie was overpowered. Of the two weird sword guys on RU-vid it turns out the viking one was way more wholesome.
The whole idea of people's "karma" in this universe is completely insane. The main character killed and tortured millions and yet he has a "good soul" because some of his actions were "meant well"??? Yet some guy who knowingly lies a few times and steals a bit is apparently considered to have a more evil soul? Also how did Daylen "mean well" when he was abusing women and murdering people just to keep power? It makes no sense at all.
@@LimeyLassen, Not really... it was a poorly thought out and badly implemented idea. This is just a morality system based loosely on the concept of "sins". Lightbringers (priests) are full of light. Shades (horrible monsters) are full of darkness. Good people have intentions of helping others. They serve the light. Bad people have intentions of harming others. The serve the darkness. A person who loses all light, is filled with darkness, becomes a Shade. As people who have intentions of harming others are low in light and high in darkness, they are more likely to become Shades. Of course, this system is completely horrible because in the book a pirate trapped a person in the cave... and that person became a shade. This is one of the many issues with this black and white morality system Shad uses... and he pretty much uses it to promote the idea that Dayless is a "good person" despite all the horrible things he has done. By focusing on _intent_ the Shad attempts to create nuance in his, blatant, black and white morality system. "If you intend to do good, you're filled with light". . . This is also brought up when Lyla talks to the Dawnists at the airship port... and notices the one doing the preaching is dangerous because he was full of light... AKA "A true believer". It was his way to "teach" his protagonist a lesson. To say "he's good now" to the audience. Quote: "He followed, feeling the despair over his continued life subside as purpose grew in his heart. It was the same sense of purpose he had felt when committing his new life to do good shortly after receiving his powers. It was interesting that in every choice [Dayless] had ever made it was with the intent to do good, but his life was proof that intent didn't mean spit. Ultimately it was his actions that defined who he was, and this time [Dayless'] actions actually mirrored his initial intent. It made him feel better about himself than he had in a long, long, time. [Dayless], could actually do it. He could do good and fight evil without making the same mistakes of his past. He could be a better man--and in fact, he thought with a bitter-sweet smile, he was." - Shadow of the Conqueror Pages 495-496 Too bad this contains some very obvious contradictions... what was the good intentions he had when he ... the barely legal girls? What were the good intentions when he brutalized the barely legal girls to the point they ceased functioning as people, so he _murdered_ them? Yes, none. He had none.
@@LimeyLassen, It only sounds like predestination because Shad's entire novel was predestined to make Dayless a "good guy" a "hero" despite _never_ being one.
@@aralornwolf3140 Damn, you're right. That's more loony than I thought it was. The only explanation I can come up with is that the author wanted to write a redemption story, but kept forgetting he was doing that because the protagonist was a self-insert. Like his excuses are so realistically the excuses of a bad person because he's getting confused and can't separate his protagonist from himself and thinks his own characters are bullying him.
It had editors, he gave them credit on the copyright page... however, it needed _better_ editors who were willing to forego $$$ by telling him his book is trash.
Knowing Shad's views makes the aggressive focus on redeeming a rapist and the women being damsels in distress throwing themselves at the protagonist much more sick.
@@Necrophadez I don't believe it's covered in this video but the dude has some truly archaic views about women. Talkin some... "legitimately agitated that his daughter liked Peach from the Mario movie because Peach is more active instead of being a damsel for Mario to save" type stuff.
@Shack11 that is Yikes af. Yeah, I remember hearing him say he doesn't believe the same sex parents could be good parents because they couldn't fulfil the roles necessary for kids or something to that affect. I thought that was a red flag, and I felt he may go down the road of that one Warhammer 40k guy. That was a long time ago, I think it was what stopped me from watching his stuff. When I saw he was becoming more politically opinionated and reactionary in his content.
@@Necrophadez Yeah, Shad's very "traditional gender roles" and doesn't seem to respect the concept of a self-actualized woman at all. What put me off his stuff years ago was how he was trying to talk about how he feels women should be afforded extra special regard and protection. . . just before launching into a deranged rant about (I'm paraphrasing here) 'war is bad for everyone, and yes it's bad for women because they get raped sometimes, and that's bad- but is it REALLY that bad? I mean it's really not THAT bad in the grand scheme of things even though it's reprehensible- but men are the REAL victims of war anyway because they die, and men are also victimized by life too! But men have it worse because they die in war'. So anyways, I haven't watched him in years; I shudder to think what he's like when the camera isn't rolling.
Honestly the most fucked up thing about this whole book is how Shad frames Lyra or however it's spelt as being punished for having an abortion. Like the abortion resulted in her being infertile therefore negative. Not the whole being raped and sodomised by a grown man when she was a literal child, that had next to no physical repercussions
IIRC, she didn't have an abortion, she gave herself a C-section and was somehow saved by whatever Shad calls people like Ahrec (it's been years, I forget some terms). Which is just the edgiest bullshit for a character's backstory.
@@JustStop19 Ironic considering I'm not, it's just a very fucked up way of thinking that permanent sterilization should be your punishment for an abortion. Especially considering the abuse she suffered at such a young age probably would have done that to her anyway
@@MasterIceyy totally agree. Besides, it unravels many implications - if Shad is writing about this sensitive topic like that, what other fucked up thoughts he has?!
@@JustStop19"pro-choicer found"? Yeah, imagine that. Look everybody, we've found someone who doesn't want to force children to bear an unwanted pregnancy conceived through rape to term, let's all point and laugh at them!
Coming from a guy that always rails against Mary Sues I'm astonished that Shad Brooks would go on to make a character that would make Rey Skywalker blush. This book was incomprehensibly bad to the point where I feel that Shad is psychologically unwell. This is something a school shooter would write However I do like the idea of a dictator redemption story. If done well that would be an interesting journey to explore. The problem is with the execution.
Rey's not even that bad a character, even if she's written pretty dull sometimes, at least she wasn't written as a disgusting piece of filth who gets away with consequences or gets excused for doing them because they have a "Pure Light Soul"
Yharim from the game Terraria: Calamity. His story isn't exactly a dictator _redemption_ story, but it is a well-done story about a guy rising to power with all the best intentions, becoming a horrible person to complete the journey, and realizing far too late what a monster he's become and regretting it. It really isn't a redemption arc, though, because when Yharim realizes just how far he's fallen, his reaction is essentially to decide that it's too late for him to ever be a good person again. He won't commit any of the crimes of his past again, but he's also not trying to fix anything or redeem himself. He kinda just wallows in depression.
@@YEY0806 I'd say Rey had the degree to which she could be labeled a Mary Sue increased with each passing installment though. First movie got *really* carried by the title implying that Force Users in this era were just developing stronger than prior ones, and then the second movie did not carry that as a thing, while making her problem change from "I want to find my parents" to "I want my parents to be famous", which... that scene where Rey gets puppetmastered by Rian Johnson to be an audience surrogate for what he assumed the response to her parents being unimportant was the part that ruined her character writing in my eyes. And then of course "Sith Lightning is now genetic, and Rey is Palpatine's Neice because we can't admit to the idea of Palpatine having sex, so it was a clone of him, but we're gonna call her Palpatine's granddaughter anyways."
The premise of a tyrant turned saviour has already been done, and done competently in games like Knights of the Old Republic. Albeit with the amnesia trope, but that's sort of the only way it could be done, by literally making him a different person to his past self by having his memories wiped. By contrast, having your hero gaslighting his r*pe victim and refusing to face the consequences of his actions is not much of a redemption arc.
@@The_Sleepiest_Socialist Hitler, he doesn't know a damn thing about socialism or the heroes of the revolution. Shad is a hair away from pushing White Australia again.
After some more recent events, i cant imagine how bad his next book is going to be since he has turned into an AI advocate. He has already stated he will implement AI in his writing workflow to an even greater degree than it already is. This books just reads like someone that has little to no grasp on fantasy litterature decided to write a book because he read other books and thought he could do a better job. He really should read more fantasy and non fantasy in order to become a better author, but seeing how he acts towards criticism, i can see that being an impossible task
Considering the “excerpt” he’s shared on Twitter where his new protag goes on a weirdly seething and condescending rant on why women can’t be in the military, haha heckin yikes. I’m sure his AI crutch will make that one feel more genuine and rounded.
The problem with him isn't that he doesn't read, it's that he lacks any humility and assumes no one has anything to teach him. You can see this with his ai art evangelism and his swordguy videos too
I'm not so sure about that. Reading Fantasy isn't exactly writing it. The vast majority of Fantasy is utterly mediocre with nothing to say. Honestly it'll probably just make your writing worse. ^^" Rather learn about Story telling and draw inspiration from elsewhere, like history, Nature or Folktales.
Daylan might have been a more interesting protagonist if he actually DIDN’T feel that bad about the things he did. Mentally, he could be aware of the enormity of his crimes, and even that he SHOULD despise himself because of them. But emotionally, he could be too dead inside (both because of his own crimes and because of prior trauma) to really feel it. His journey could then be about getting confronted by the consequences of his actions. Meeting women that he r*ped and the relatives of people he killed, as well as witnessing further atrocities committed by his own followers. All of which does technically happen in the book, but it would be better if this was how he learned to feel genuine contrition rather than just being reminders of things which he is already aware of. Also, the ending should be that Daylan offers himself up for execution so that the surviving victims can experience some form of catharsis, and any final sense of peace/spiritual redemption should come while he is awaiting execution. The moment when Arak forgives him could be left until the end too, in a scene that perhaps mirrors a condemned man talking to priest on his final day, but with added significance because the priest is someone he hurt in the worst possible way. I honestly can’t fathom what Shad was thinking with the ending we did get as it makes no sense in-universe and robs the story of any real dramatic payoff.
It really fits in terms of villains being the hero of their own story. I'm sure he can on some level identify things he's done which he really regrets or knows were wrong, but still think they're fundamentally a good person and not be willing to die over it.
The "cathartic execution" was the first thing that came to mind. Daylen should realize that even if Arak forgives him, the "shadow of the conquerer" will always hang over the people as long as he's alive. It's so obvious. Like, Darth Vader needs to die in selfsacrifice. You need to be pretty talented to subvert that trope in a satisfying way, and Shad just couldn't live up to expectations. I'm not surprised really but still, if you're not a good writer, at least try to be competent.
At the beginning of the book, Dayless wanted to die on his own terms, escaping justice like a coward. Over the course of the story, he should have turned himself in to give his victims the justice he came to realize they deserved.
that idea could be a really good premise for how criminals could get jaded about their crimes because those now feel like second-hand to them (similar to the themes of breaking bad, where the protagonists slowly get more and more apathetic to their murders because they've killed and hurt so much people) it could be a decent exploration of how one can forgive a horrible person, let alone a tyrant. maybe it could even explore topics like "nature vs. nurture", vengeance and how it can conquer you, or the idea that you can get an addiction to power
And most of the good reviews are just fans of his youtube channel. I honestly dare Shad to publish a new book under a fake author's name so that he'll see people's real opinion on his atrocious writing style.
@@DainnGreywallI'm a fan of his channel (let's see for how long though, given the things I find out about him) and I find this book absolute trash, based on the reviews on it. The plot is a mess, there is very little logic to the characters' actions and motivations, he kills the main character at least 3 times and bring him back for no reason. It just sounds like he doesn't know how to end the book.
Well, there’s one review from a few years ago that only ruffled his feathers enough to where he could take the criticism of “I can’t forgive Giga-Shitler” without “getting uncomfortable”.
So Shad wants us to believe... that this man who murdered and SA'd women and children... is somehow still a "good" person who is worthy of forgiveness? Because he is the "lightest" inside of his soul? Because he had "good intentions"? What was "good" about SA? Is he justifying literal 🍇??? I.. have no words.
I see it as more of a non-fiction horror/confession, but maybe I'm too harsh? I'm usually predisposed to deciphering the psyche of an author through their work, but this was a concerning rabbit hole through that particular lens.
@@Casperski1312 Shad seems to have the mind of a young teen boy. it's just him being an edgy-edgy-edge-lord, and probably wrote the book with ChatGPT, given his recent "AI Art" vids... (TL:DR he thinks using midjourney makes him a master-painter)
Hi! I read Shadow of the Conqueror in 2019. Just a few months after it was released. I wasn't happy with the story. I did leave comments on Shad's videos when he brings up Shadow the Conqueror outlining my opinion of why the book was bad but I was a very small minority of the people who had issues with the novel. Everyone else was praising it as "one of the best books I've read". Admittedly, I didn't expect to read a good novel. I was expecting a flawed novel with some redeeming quality. There are four aspects to a novel, prose/composition, isn't something I am qualified discussing, so I ignore it in the favour of the other three; Plot, Characters, and Setting. The plot is full of contrivances. Dayless realizes he's not dead so he needs to create a new identity. So the very first thing he does is to rush back home to collect his sword, Dayless' Sword, and his badge which tells everyone he's one of the top 100 swordmasters in the world. While there he meets a priest who tells him he's going with him and because he's a priest, Dayless caves in; for reasons. Then, despite not having practiced with a sword for _years_ Dayless was the swordmaster's equal; for reasons. Dayless heads to the capital, to forge a birth certificate, which just coincidentally can only be saved by Dayless' sword. Isn't convenient that both of them are there for that event? *Face Palms* The protagonist is inconsistent. He's a 70+ year old man, who _knows_ how to plan and can keep his mouth shut. But just can't do either of those things because he's once more a horny 18 year old lad with all of youth's lack of _self-control._ Worse, he wants to keep a low profile because he lacks proper identification, while at the same time he runs around attracting attention to himself! This is compounded by the fact that Dayless is a Gary Stu, he can do _anything_ the plot requires of him to get to the next plot point. It's even confirmed that he's more powerful than all the other Magic Knights! Why? Because; for reasons. The setting is self-contradictory. On one hand, the only way to get powers is to fall through the bottom of the world, on the other hand, you can do that by jumping off the edge of a continent. When said continents are hundreds, or thousands, of meters thick _and_ on the bottom of the large one is an entire ecosystem, which implies that there is an "upwards" force keeping the ecosystem in place. Thus, the very first thing Dayless should have done when he jumped was to face plant onto the continent's side. Of course, there are other issues here like weather and time. Not once did Shad explain what a _year_ is in a world in which time is measured with a huge rock in perpetual free-fall. The weather, just think about the air currents the storms. The water of this world would have been blown away by the wind a long, long time ago. Yet, a contradiction was required for the final "battle" to happen, to give Dayless his heroic moment. Dayless spent years spying on the Magic Knights, learning everything about them because he believed they were a threat. And when they turned on him, in less than a year, all of his armies were destroyed and he was fleeing for his life. Yet, somehow, a _terrorist_ organization was able to figure out that the Magic Knight's powers can be destroyed if they were shot with a Kryptonite bullet; the exact same Kryptonite that's used _everywhere!_ As a survivor of CSA, the portrayal of everything he did pissed me off. This story was _meant_ to be a redemption story -- it says so on its back! -- that means the author _needs_ to make the reader root for the protagonist. Dayless was an arrogant PoS in the first paragraph and an arrogant PoS in the last paragraph. That was the only consistency Dayless had. But we're supposed to root for Dayless; "he's a good person", "his family was killed, that's why he was a tyrant", "he's so full of guilt and remorse and self-hatred"... *Spits at Shad's feet* I don't care. Dayless did an unforgivable act, repeatedly. I want him _dead._ Not him to be sentenced to "House Arrest until the People need _Him_ to _Save the World."_ So he can _become_ a hero at a later time. He's no hero. He never was, nor will he ever be one. The last Monologue just showed how shit Dayless is. Here he was congratulating himself for being a "good person" because his intentions matched his actions for the first time in his life... that all his actions were predicated on good intentions, but when you take evil actions, then his intentions never mattered. This is obvious BS. Yet, that's Shad's attempt to tell _us_ the reader that Dayless is a good person now, he's been redeemed! Except it contains one very obvious _LIE_ what "Good Intention" did _he_ have to lower the age of consent so he could ... children only a few years older than his daughter was when she was murdered? That's right, there is none. There is no way to get around this fact. Yet, the arrogant PoS thinks he's good now. Did Shad even _read_ his story with a critical eye? The exact same critical eye he used to call Captain Marvel "Utter Garbage" with? Because that phrase fits Shadow of the Conqueror quite well. It does _not_ have any redeeming qualities. White Wolf is a redemption story, written by Mr. Gemmel. We don't know what The Damned did to earn the moniker The Damned until half way through the novel. We learn what he did in a flashback, just like all the other flashbacks written in the novel which cover all the important events in The Damned's life, and the series of events which lead him to the incident in which he earned the title The Damned. We root for him because we're empathize with him, maybe sympathize. But that's completely different than what Shad attempted to do in Shadow of the Conqueror... Shad wanted us to root for Dayless because he feels bad for what he did to those girls. *Spits* That's how you piss people off, and turn them against your protagonist... It's right up there on the list of things _NOT_ to do to while writing a Redemption story. White Wolf is a redemption story written in such a way that it's not really a redemption story. The Damned knows he can't be redeemed so he doesn't make the attempt to redeem himself and _that's_ a much better way to handle mass murderers than them attempting to do good acts to make up for the fact they are mass murderers... it reeks of self-aggrandizement. There is just no way a ... can be redeemed so no one tries. Shad didn't know better so he made the attempt only for idiot fanboys/fangirls won't see the multitude of problems with his story praise him and to give him money. more money. He did the same mistake as Patricia Briggs did in her debut novel, Masques, to make the villain as evil as possible. In Masques the villain even licks the blood off the dagger... the very dagger he just used to kill a child who, through magic, worshiped him as an all-benevolent god and allowed himself to be murdered. Good times, right? At least Patricia Briggs learned that's _not_ how to write villains, lol. Yet, in that very same novel, through Aralorn's love for him, Wolf was put on a path towards redemption. Wolf, in case you're wondering was the most infamous evil wizard of his time... In Wolf's Bane, the two wed... and he is much further along the path towards redemption. The two novels were released several years ago as part of an anthology, Shifter's Wolf. My pfp is taken directly from the cover. They do make such a sweet couple. I just wanted to distract myself from the tire fire that is Shad's novel. I'm not sure I _want_ to watch your review, I read the novel once I don't want to read it again. I may need high blood pressure medication if I do. Yes, it pisses me off that much. Recently Shad is calling critics "haters", he's _earned_ that hate for ignoring to valid criticism in favour of sycophantic praise.
Note: I made 1, possibly 2, mistakes. First mistake was saying he was ... children nearly his daughter's age. This was incorrect. At the time of his daughter's death she was an infant. However, he did have a son who was born during the Fourth Night (which lasted 14 years), so it is possible for him to have been 10 years old. The second thing, I don't know where in the novel it is said he deliberately lowered the age of consent. I do not want to reread it just to find a source. However, it doesn't matter, because in one of his journal entries he, Dayless, admits to _torturing_ the girls, and sometimes killing them because they were so broken. What _good intention_ did Dayless have that encouraged him to ... children? That's right, none. So, my larger point remains unchanged. Getting back to mistake number 1...The Fourth Night lasted for 14 years. That's 14 years without light/heat. That's 14 years of plants _starving_ to death. Of herbivores starving to death. The entire world's ecosystem should have been destroyed by the time the Fourth Night ended. _This_ is another World Building mistake.
oh, but didn't you hear? he was never with two women at once, just used one and discarded them or made them do stuff with each other, so it's totally ok. in case it wasn't obvious fuck this book, fuck everything it stands for, and fuck the worthless piece of shit that would write such a horror.
Couple very small factual errors about the worldbuilding: The ecosystem on the underside of the continent isn't held there by any sort of force, it's just plants clinging to the underside, and flying creatures that can, well, fly to feed on them. The only force that seems to drive that world's wind is gravity, which pulls down, so storms are probably fairly mild and predictable since the air currents ought to be extremely settled in their courses: down until hit an obstruction, then sideways around it. And the water can't really be blown away, since it would just fall back in through the top of the world... though now I'm wondering about airborne water vapor and the supposedly infinite nature of the world's horizontal direction... But yeah, the worldbuilding does serve the dumbass purposes of the plot more often than not. Especially the bit about light plus darkstone equals 4-powered knight; somehow no one ever discovered that? The knight order didn't experiment? No sadistic f---- tried executing an enemy by parking an airship at the border and tossing their enemy through with stones on? It just happened to be discovered by Daylan Sue? Ugh. Theoretically Night could be survivable with enough lightstone and Lightbringers, potentially to the point of preserving small sections of nature... but the logistics of that are implausible already, and shade attacks would render it impossible quickly. The idea of an underground military campaign that lasted a year or more (I think it was? at least half one) is already straining credulity to bursting - the number of bringers needed is absurd, given that they're shown to be uncommon at best. I think, like GRRM, he had an idea for his "evil ecological disaster" that sounded cool, and then didn't actually think through what that would be like. See the game Frostpunk for an example of how poorly it would go. Utterly unsustainable for the long term.
@@Ansixilus, Your first several sentences show your ignorance of science... unfortunately. 1. It is explicitly stated that those flying animals _only_ live in that ecosystem. This clearly indicates that they can only feed on the plants found in that ecosystem. 2. You haven't explained _how_ the plants got to that location. Plants propagate from one or both of these methods (possibly others, I'm not a plant biologist); "creeping" and seeds. Either way, the plants require _soil_ to grow roots in. Soil which needs to somehow remain connected to the bottom of the continent with enough upwards force that the downwards force of "gravity" is more than countered. 3. Shad's explanation of "gravity" is flawed. Gravity is a force that is constantly applied. This constant application of a force causes ever increasing acceleration. The rock which is used to tell time with never accelerates, nor decelerates. Unless, its velocity resets to 0 when it comes out of the top of the world. Of course, it's also possible that it has reached terminal velocity... but it can't due to the air under it disappearing when it does a loop. 4. The thing that causes weather isn't "gravity" it's thermal dynamics. It's stated that the sun is in the same location at he same size, no matter where someone is, which creates areas of greater and lesser heat collection. Air that is heated rises as it is now less dense than the colder air around it. As it rises, this creates a pressure differential causing colder air to move to take its spot. We now have wind independent from "gravity". 5. "And the water can't really be blown away, since it would just fall back in through the top of the world... though now I'm wondering about airborne water vapor and the supposedly infinite nature of the world's horizontal direction..." Congratulations, you've discovered the biggest issue with this world... it doesn't work unless Shad invokes "MaGiC!". In a recent video, Shad explicitly called Shadow of the Conqueror "Hard Fantasy"... because like Hard Science Fiction, his magic system has rules and laws it must obey. Too bad Dayless ignored said magic system. Too bad Dayless' Sword ignored the magic system. Thus, I vehemently disagree with Shad's "clarification" about his book. It might have worked, if his magic rules didn't get contradicted by other things. There are other issues than the ones I mentioned above. Sure, invoking "MaGiC!" will fix a lot because with magic everything is possible... except, it doesn't fix flat out contradictions! Only an editor can fix that, lol.
@@Ansixilus while the primary force for wind being gravity may make them predictable (i mean, wind currents on our world are also predictable on the large scale) it wouldn't make them mild at all. in our world wind works by being warmed up and cooling down, this limits how fast winds will go as it goes back and forth. so cycles of slow in one direction, fast in one direction, slow in one direction, slow in the other direction, fast in the other direction, slow in the other direction, and returned to the starting position. if the force is just down then there's no limiter for the speed. it can just keep speeding up. terminal velocity wouldn't even be a thing as that's the result of being in conflict with the atmosphere, something the atmosphere largely won't have with itself (it would nearer continents, where sideways winds would conflict with the downwards winds next to it, but more open areas would be like this). so you'll probably have downwards winds going at the speed of sound. with speeds like that wind erosion at the edges of the islands would be nightmarish and render the world nothing but falling dust in a very short time.
Wait... The guy that got branded for adultery made someone else cheat and then felt guilty for fucking up again so branded them to enforce the rules he's now broken twice?? Also the ick of the SA survivor being written to be constantly around a naked man as part of her job and then just so happen to encounter a ship full of his people who are also naked all the time- also she is in the wrong all the time because she's bossy and uptight and sex is her master idk... The fucking moral dissonance and latent misogyny is just sad.
Its utterly unsurprising too, Shadiversity is a mormon regressive extremist who thinks even the slightest amount of LGBT representation in film (particularly in Disney) is part of a "woke cultural marxist plot to groom kids into being trans"
A great review! To call Shad's hypocritical drafts a book, is an insult to literature. His obsession with extremely serious topics he knows nothing about, merely to make light of them and use them as another highlight to how great his protagonist is, is miserable. Not laughable. Because by doing so, Shad shows utter carelessness, to how maturely these things should be taken. But his prose and nonexistent idioms? So many descriptions and sentences are out of place and awkward. The paragraphs are a mess. it's painful to read it, even if you blank your mind.
The explicit essentializing of the goodness and evilness of people in this setting is 1) very convenient 2) kinda fucked up and 3) very indicative of Shad's conservative values lol
@@thedarkmasterthedarkmaster it's not the good and evil, its the essentialism with which it is portrayed. That it's a "thing" that, one, can be observed as it's own magical aura. And two, it is **prescriptive** of one's character and therefore the justification of their actions, rather than being **descriptive**. Prescriptive = You just ARE good/bad, therefore your actions are good/bad, respectively. Descriptive = Your actions are good/bad, so that makes your good/bad, respectively. He tries to make it seem descriptive, but time and time again, Daylen seems to be just an awful dude but then someone's like "Well, his light says he's good actually, so I guess he was right the whole time."
@@ababblingbrooke3340 Fuck ff postmodernist. Essentialism is not bad, it doesn't say anything about anyone who uses it. There are some people who are evil, sociopaths, murders, pedophiles. What you're complaining about is not the essentialization it's the way it was handled. Sauron was prescriptively evil, doesn't make LOTR any less of a good book regardless of what that hack Neil Gaimen says. The flaws of this book are the way it's handled not the idea itself
@@ababblingbrooke3340I would like to call this magical aurism. Basically what if racism instead of using inconsistent facial features, skull shapes and skin color to justify massacring people used magical aura. It's magic racism.
Something smaller that really bothered me about the book is the leader of the Dawnists whose name for the life of me I can't remember. The whole MO of the Dawnists as a group is that they're working-class people who have been radicalized by mistreatment by the current ruling Guilds into worshipping Daylan. But the story doesn't seem to be willing to engage with the fact that their radicalization and indeed the system that is radicalizing them is the symptom of the system still having problems. The Dawnist leader is a GLARING example of this, as we just... gloss over how she became radicalized. How did she get to the point where she started worshipping Dayless the Conqueror? There's some implication of capitalist-esque exploitation of the working class that contributed to her radicalization, but again it's glossed over, as if if we look too hard for why she become how she is the story might have to contend with the fact that society's problems didn't all magically end with Daylan being dethroned. Daylan, authorial mouthpiece he is, isn't willing to engage with this, instead citing that the system is good enough, or puts the onus on the populace for voting in bad politicians, as if multiple methods of voter suppression don't exist. Like oh wow look at that, there's a sneaky little law that's been passed that moves the window for voting for when the working class are all working! Ain't that some shit? (not an example from the book, but an example of how it'd be so easy to... diminish the voting rights of groups the politicians might find inconvenient).
WAIT the book ends with a TRIAL!? And one full of clowns at that. From how Shad described it early on, I was expecting a fantasy action adventure about a former tyrant trying to unfuck the world he fucked. Like trying to avert a disaster that he set in motion during his reign. But the most that happens is Daylen basically just bullying poor people. This would have been so much better if during his reign, his actions lead directly to some sort of societal collapse (Codename "The Big Oof"). Like maybe it gets so bad, even forces within his own administration start turning on him. And he just tries the easy way out, but the light is like "Oh no no. Your mess. You fix it." and brings him back. (but maybe not giving him god powers this time) And whether its some magical thing he has, or knowledge, or skill, or all of those, he could have something that makes him uniquely qualified to save the world. And then throughout the book, you portray it, not as something that makes him awesome and special and cool, but as an unfortunate fact of the matter that everyone has a problem with, but also has to begrudgingly deal with. INCLUDING Daylen. Hell, with him being a tyrannical leader, it would even make sense that he would have knowledge, powers, and skills that would be key to stopping "The Big Oof", that only he can understand. Not because he's special and cool, but because he's an asshole that kept everything for himself. Oh. And like, it's okay to just not include themes of sexual abuse, or sexual anything, in your book. Like, if you're not equipped to treat it well, it's perfectly fine to just not put it in your book. Even if it "makes sense cuz he's an evil tyrant and that's what they do". Like, yeah, it is. But as an audience, we are able to and okay with, suspending just the tiniest bit of our disbelief, and leaving that stuff behind the curtain. You don't have to include everything in a story, just because it makes logical sense that it would be there.
Dude, I love your idea so much. That would've been really neat to see play out and also would've forced Daylen to acknowledge what he did AND try to take responsibility and fix it the best he could after the harm he'd done.
@@KirkpattieCake Thank you! ^u^ I admit, I am a very good writer. 😌💅 TBH I kinda wanna write it myself lol that's how a lot of my ideas come to me. I see a story that's like "Oof, my guy, you almost had it." and I just rewrite the whole thing in my head haha
I've heard several plot rewrites of Shad's book, and literally all of them sound like legitimately interesting and engaging fantasy stories. I think my favorite I heard was an alternate plot where Dayless fell and became a Shade after being ousted from power, and Daylen IS actually his bastard son, and has to grapple with learning this, Black heart being his biological brother, needing to constantly resist his father's words because he's literally speaking into his mind tempting him to follow the same path, and he eventually needs to defeat his Shade father. Literally the SHADOW of the Conquerer. Like, Shad looked at the same story we just did, and he thought "perfect, this is the story I wanted to tell" and didn't think of any way it could be improved... Are we sure he had any test-readers for this story who didn't already worship him?
@@macdaddy1376 Given that Twilight (as boring and crap as it is) has legitimately less plot holes and handles r*pe infinitely better, I'd definitely and unironically call it a superior series of books. Also, both of the protagonists are whiny little shits with a martyr complex, but it's somewhat excusable in Bella, who is a teenager with a developing brain and therefore naturally whiny and self-centered/pitying. No such excuse can be made for Daylen the navel-gazing old geezer on a murdering rampage.
I remember an advice from my Litterature Teacher: "R...pe is a sensitive subject that easely provock disguse and repulsion from the reader. It should only be used in your story if entirely necessery to the plot, and NOT for shock value. If not, you will lose your reader." Yet... In this story it's tossed around so many times it began to feel empty. "Oh yeah, women are being r...ped outside. Whatev... It's a cruel world"
This is stupid. You either go hard on stating what the protagnist has to be redeemed for, or you can forget it all together. Why is rape worse as all other kinds of terror btw? It feels kinda strange to create a hirachy of traumatic experiences...
@@carno.5911 Really? Oh but you can clearly see it in your word of fiction today. There is a ladder of how we percieve acts of violence: Fighting? Really common. Murder? No prob but not for every public. Murder of children? Ouch, yeah....no.... Now it's more rare. Etc, etc... R...pe is a touchy subject. It evovled in our culture to be one. It's cultural more than logical. If you go logicaly, murder is worst, murder + torture is way worst. But we're not logical animals. We're emotionnal. In in some culture, sure, R....pe is just another thing that happenned. But not here in the occidental post WW2 era.
@@SiegahertzCarmin no problem, English for me is also a second language, so I always look for ways to improve. You made a little mistake in otherwise well-articulated sentence. Your English is great!
This isn't a "morally-grey" character -- this is an outright villain. His "guilt" also makes no sense. He didn't kill enemy forces while serving as a soldier in his country, or kill someone in self-defense -- he spent decades as a iron-fist tyrant, slaughtering anyone who opposed his fascist dictatorship. You don't behave that way for decades, only for a conscience to suddenly rise up when you're old. If anything, he only thinks he feels bad now because he's old and frail, and he feels weak -- it's not true empathy and guilt for his sins. That kind of mass-murdering behavior is seen in psycopaths, and empathy doesn't just randomly manifest in them. To slaughter that many people, for that many years, merely because they opposed your tyrannical rule, is 100% psychopathic behavior, and any "guilt" that arrives afterward is false. All of that being said, there's a long history in literature and entertainment of guilt-ridden protagonists with lots of blood on their hands -- but there's always some kind of reasoning behind their actions. Pure narcissism is NOT a good reason to justify a protag's murderous past. Not only that, but the elephant in the room is the fact that he is a MASS CHILD RAPIST. Sorry, but I don't care how edgy your book is -- there is no story in which you can get me to root for a mass child rapist. The level of sadism, cruelty, and indifference to the suffering of innocents, required for such a character guarantees that I would NEVER root for such a character. Even if such a character, SOMEHOW, in this fantasy world, expressed guilt for their actions, the best next step would be to take that character out. Daylen had it right the first time -- he needed to be eliminated from the landscape of the living. The fact that he decides to trash that mission once he gets his new, younger body, indicates that he was never interested in killing himself for the right reasons in the first place -- he was just depressed because he was old.
David Gemmel wrote a "Redemption Arc" for a character; The Damned. The Damned was full of guilt for what he did, but recognized nothing he could do could undo his actions, so he spends the rest of his life doing everything he can to avoid making similar actions. While sad that he's The Damned and forever barred from entering Paradise, he doesn't whine, or bemoan, about his guilt... he just shrugs his shoulders and tries to live his life anyway. The story begins in White Wolf... when the Damned is in his mid twenties. The first half of the novel contains a crap load of flashbacks detailing important events in The Damned's life which lead to him doing his unforgivable action. The Damned is a Sympathetic Character, even w/o the deep dive into his past the reader is presented with, but the deep dive certainly helps to provide context on his actions, past and current. The Damned is a good person who made a horrible horrible "mistake". However, Shad never gave us that much detail into Dayless' past... but the details he did include... You are correct. If Dayless was a good person, he would never have gone so far as to have a harem of barely legal age girls and force them to commit acts with each other as he physically and psychologically tortured them. Some were so scarred, he thought it was for the best, for society, not them, for them to die... so he murdered them. The reason he entertained himself with women was to distract himself from his misery, and then he started to "change" the women so they wouldn't fall in love with him.... so he somehow becomes vicious and cruel even to them... *Shakes Head* At the end of the novel, I was pissed. I wanted him to be _killed._ His last monologue, outlined how much of a horrible person e was. He didn't change... yet we're told, constantly, that he has and he's a good person _now_ so we should give him a chance. A chance that the jurors at his trial decided to give him because of his "powers"... *Rollseyes* He tried to kill himself because he simply wanted to die on his own terms... then, just as he was about to pass through the threshold, he asked for a do-over which was granted... and he was still a horrible, horrible, person... and a Gary Stu... as his actions (like the sexual violence he committed on others) was hand waved away as "they were bad people, they deserved it."
The fact that Daylen is self-agrandizing narcissist and that all the characters only serve to say or show how great of a guy he is and how "morally superior" or better at everything he now is shows a lot from Shad Brooks worldviews and way of thinking. He's a religious conservative, so he believes certain people are inherently good, while others are inherently bad. And the "good" people will believe the "good" things, while the "bad" people will believe the "bad" things, but as for actions, there's no difference, because religious conservatives are (because of their ideology) essentialists. For them you can do bad BECAUSE you're a bad person, rather than being a bad person because you're doing bad things. The difference is very important, since in the first case, no amount of doing things differently can change if a person is good or bad. It's all in their "essence". That mentality shows with that "inner light" stuff, and the superficiality of his worldbuilding and characters. He also always responded criticisms quite poorly. At first with a false "polite" attitude, but would degenerate quite quickly to insults and "I'm destroying you with facts and logics" kind of attitude if the disagreement persisted. I guess he transmitted some of his self-inflated ego to his main character. As for the "Their swords chimed as they clashed, parrying, thrusting, striking, seeking leverage in the bind, throwing feints and counters" part, it is clearly there to serve just as a "namedrop" of terminology to "prove" that he knows things about how swords were used historically, even though he has too much of an ego to tolerate the criticisms he has recieved from the HEMA community in the past.
There's nothing in the Bible that says some people are good and some people are bad, it's all about your actions. Nothing Shad wrote here lines up with the Bible, unless there's something in the Mormon stuff that I don't know.
...uh, I'm a religious conservative and I'm not an essentialist. I'm not stupid; I can tell that morality is complicated and people always have more than one aspect to their identity, motives and personal morality. (Except maybe this book's protagonist, ha ha.) And no, giant0mantis, there is no weird Mormon stuff in here that you don't know (speaking as a Mormon). We Mormons believe that all people are born with a lot of inherent good to them and free will. You can choose to do good, or you can choose to do evil, they're both in your nature and you are not defined by any one of your choices, but by the general trend of them. At the end of the day, if you're genuinely trying, you're doing well enough. That's what we Mormons believe.
@@ceinwenchandler4716 I'm talking about the logical conclusions and basis for the political ideology. Then again, many people often subscribe to a general ideology not necessarily because of the core precepts but because of their upbringing. So just so we're able to understand each other better, I'd like, if you want (I'm not forcing you and will understand if you don't really want to) to ask you some clarifying questions on how you identify specifically to conservatism. What's your opinion on: - LGBTQ+ people? - Democracy? - The reason why poverty exists? - What we should do to adress crime?
@@maaderllin I've tried to reply three times now. I wrote up answers to your questions and I want to know what you think of those answers. But the replies just aren't showing up as far as I can tell. Did you get them, or are they hitting some sort of RU-vid filter?
I honestly did not enjoy the nonexistent character arc of Daylen. So, when the story kicks off after him becoming young, he is brutally killing people, and I thought it made him a hypocrite, but I thought as the book progressed, this would lessen as he matured and understood that he was given mercy, by some force, even though he was the tyrant of tyrants. However, he just kept killing people sadistically and deriving pleasure out of dispensing "justice." The ways he killed people just solidified that he was not repentant. He was Daylen in another form and in another occupation. Good point, as well, about the suicide stuff. He could have done it at any moment throughout the twenty years he was in hiding and throughout the book but never did--assuming he would not just randomly resurrect because of his plot armor.
A writer's morality is reflected in his worldview. Shad is a Mormon. I don't think being religious is bad but usually they have shaky grasp about what most would consider good.
I am afraid of KirkpattieCake now not because she's a bad person, but because she has the insane willpower to power through such a badly written thing made by another person, let alone take detailed notes, then break it down for her audience. Like holy shit, I could never. The fortitude required is insane.
There are T-shirts declaring "Olen lukenut Alastalon salissa". It is a treekiller of almost thousand pages about one, mostly empty hall in one manor house and depicts six hours of events in it. Which means every minute gets about three PAGES of text. One incident of guy choosing a tobacco pipe from shelf takes about 70 pages. Writer of that novel had way of using 200 words when ten was enough. I'm certain that novel is more interesting and pleasant thing to read than Shitiversity's rambling mess.
The fact that this story acts like killing a ray-pissed means you can't _also_ be a ray-pissed is...frustrating. It's like those guys who say, "How could you accuse me _harassing_ you? My fair babe, if I met a man who was harassing a woman, I'd do like, a _totally rad spin kick cut his head off with my epic sword,_ then present it to her and she'd be all, 'My hero! You're so unga bunga stronk, I'm sure you'll keep our offspring safe!'" Instead of acknowledging, "Oh shit, I was out of line, I'll back off. Sorry for the intrusion." It's like they think they can disavow a behavior by murdering someone as hard as possible, rather than...by deconstructing their biases and _not engaging in the behavior._ Except in this case, the main character _is the very same scoundrel he's disavowing!_ It's a pitch-perfect demonstration of how they think a ray-pissed is always _someone else_ and they never have to reflect on themselves _even when they're canonically guilty of the crime!_ Bro illustrated the fallacy perfectly _and he doesn't even realize._ blarg. anyhow, this was a cool first impression of your channel lol
The light inside him isn't a measure of pure intentions it's a measure of how right he believes he is. So any sociopath could have an extremely bright light. This book has a lot of issues though, which you highlighted quite well, I just wanted to clarify that.
Shad's life of privilege in a white bubble comes through crystal clear in this book. Morality and things like rape are distant actions and not the raw real experiences they truly are. The pure sheltered cluelessness comes through so thoroughly that it is cloying, thick, and inescapable.
The most frustrating thing about the setup for this is that he had 20 years of seclusion to better himself since he feels so bad about his actions and yet he goes back into the world with his second life and behaves like he only stopped being the conquerer 2 weeks ago
@@braydoxastora5584 you're suggest that he knows what it's like to have r4p3d hundreds of 14yo girls while ruling the world as a despot, then being rewarded for it with rejuvenation and power? ... well he IS mormon, so that tracks with his probable mindscape...
@@artcorbeau Not necessarily, but that's basically a jacuzzi argument. All self-insert characters share a similar worldview to the author, but not all characters who share a similar worldview to the author are self-insert characters. It's just one factor.
I love how literally explains how bad the governments that are clear stand ins for socialism and communism and then also states how they were worse Then his main characters government which was genocidal, full of mass murder and rape. He then literally has rape apolgia at the end He says that if you are raped and got a kid out of it you are thankful for your rape, or it's considered a blessing And all the raped women who didn't get a kid are written to be only bitter that they couldn't get a child out of their rape. And he gets either forgiven or let off the hook for his rape just because...
Please no. 😭 Empress Theresa is too pure for this. Plus, she married Steve, her sweetheart, at pretty much the beginning of that book and is loyal to him the whole time. Daylen has to find someone else more his style.
I am struggling to even come up with a proper comment to describe what I think this book is about. Holy fck this was hard to get through. It seems like Shad wanted to show us the most despicable character in fiction, by his own admission. But at the same time he seems to secretly want to BE his despicable character. He admires Daylan because Daylan is powerful, and so because he is powerful and USEFUL in a UTILITARIAN sense we MUST forgive him because we as a society would be LOST without him. This viewpoint is the same viewpoint that is held by many despicable people who defend other despicable people because they may fill a ROLE for them.
Everyone can be a critic but not everyone can create something of value. I criticize the food I eat on a daily basis. Doesn't mean the food I cook is edible.
@@thalesanastacio760 he actively spread/s (don't know, stopped watching him a while ago) misinformation about HEMA, yknow, THE "sword stuff". It seems to me he is overall not very capable person, just someone who confidently states wrong stuff and people sometimes don't have enough knowledge to call him on it. His only real position seems to be that he is persecuted for his genius and he has the right to attack everyone else.
This sounds like a satire or comedy, but I don't think it's meant to be. It reminded me of Candide by Voltaire, a satire of the idea that "we live in the best of all possible worlds" while the most awful things happen. This book could almost be a satire of the idea that only intentions matter, except I don't think it's meant to be. Also, if this indicates Shad's morals at all, the dude is fucked up. Also reminds me of JK Rowling writing an anti-slavery moment as just being an annoying liberal. It seems less like he's becoming a better person, and more like he's dragging everyone else down with him. There seems to be an odd amount of focus on sexuality and sex crimes in this too. Shad is a conservative Mormon, right?
Why do you think what an author writes is the morals of the author? If anything that makes YOUR morals Really fucked up if you think an author has to stand for everything they write as their own personal morals. Only a truly fucked up individual believes this. But it does kinda make sense looking at your avatar.
The sad thing is how the author truly thinks he wrote a highly successful redemption story. Like he thinks that the main character has been fully redeemed.
It's really funny to me (and creepy) how the whole "he's in the body of a 17 year old" thing is written. Like he was made young again. If this happened in real life, you wouldn't have some kind of age-o-meter to know exactly how old his new body is, you would just look at him and go "he's a young man" and his new age can functionally just be whatever he wants to tell people. On top of that if he's described as having the physique of his prime 30 year old self, then why the fuck would anyone think he's 17? Like he's be super buff, is clearly very intelligent and skilled, people would probably guess he's in his mid 20's at the earliest. So like he's got the mind of a 84 year old and the body of a 30 year old, but he's just magically 17 for some reason? There's literally no reason to write it that way unless Shad *really* wanted to have an underaged protagonist for literally zero reason lol
The problem is you’re adding too much logic and realism into the whole thing. You’re doing it wrong. The less sense it makes, the better it is; not the other way around. Let the writer do his thing. And let me have my comedy.
considering the book's theme of underage boys and girls getting trauma, maybe it's kinda like the "white out of touch man finds a tribe and turns into the most tribal & cultural man ever" trope? like "oh he have trauma and he TURNED 17!! that means it's morally reprehensible to kill him because he's 17! and he #relates to the youth that he abused and traumatized in the first place, but because he feels bad about it it's fine guys!! HE 17! HE HAS CHANGED! WON'T YOU PLEASE THINK OF THE CHILDREN??"
'It's ok because I feel bad and I forgive myself' is already a terrible redemption idea, but then to add 'anyone who doesn't forgive me is a bad person' is just plain disgusting. Then while on trial for murdering millions we're subjected to a tirade about one person who lies because apparently that one liar is the bad guy of the scene. This isn't a redemption story, it's a villain learning nothing and pretending he's a good guy while continuing to be a villain.
given the recent AI "art" controversy I'm just going to assume he "wrote" this book the same way he "Painted" his wife as super-girl... with ChatGPT... 🤷
@@YukiA816 ChatGPT came out in 2022 and the book was published in 2019, so he probably didn't use AI. At least I don't know if there was a widespread language based AI before that. The prose and characters are soaked in his usual style that he uses in his videos anyway, so chances are he wrote the thing. The guy would have some talent as both an artist and a writer if he pulled his head out of his ass but alas.
@@YukiA816 Given that he uses Generative AI to mimic Art Greats, then INSISTS that it was him that is the great artist, I suspect he used Ai to write large portions, then went back and edited it, and now insists that HE wrote it, in full, and that he didn't REALLY use AI since he edited it after, so it doesn't count! wahh 😭 wahh etc. and so on... it'd match his MO regarding the tech so far, at least.
getting offended from getting called 'kid' is a common trope, i was the same way, but if my body was ridden with age, and then i was suddenly revived and young, somehow i don't think that would upset me anymore holy shit there's a really good premise here. i'm particularly against the reversing of his age and think he should start out at 84 and stay that way or start out at 17 losing the backstory, but you could still work it by having to regain his body and skills. but the Archknight plot is ripe with potential. with him having been a dictator, he is confronted with the freedom he denied so many. more on that later. okay, many authors don't know how to write a character that people fawn over. personally was pretty popular in school, had the attractive nerd thing going on. so its painfully obvious to me that these people forget that personality, that these characters should feel like they have a life outside thinking about mcfuckboi or whatever "using his superpowers he makes his memory 16 times better" this is literally the equivalent of downloading RAM apparently "shove it up your ass", something i've told my FRIENDS many times, is brutal enough to cause Lyra, a hardened warrior, to break down and sob. also i don't think i need to say him getting into a relationship with her is gross. very. gross. my idea is that instead of Archknights given powers for being a blanket good person, have them follow oaths instead, liking them to paladins or templar. Eric is kind, but maybe too forgiving. Eric would win when Dalen is old but choose to spare him. Lyra is consumed by indignant vengeance. Lyra would talk about how she's going to kill the man, oblivious that she's staring him right in the face. it's dark, yet comedic. have the two argue, not for petty dumb comic relief, but have them exchange and disagree on how they view their own vows, with Eric saying that the heart is more important than the written word and swears to protect the weak, but because Lyra adheres to them more strictly, she is more powerful than either of them. Dalen isn't a god here, he has to be careful about how he acts, what he says around Lyra, and slowly grows to realize through her how bad it must've been living under him, both through how she makes him feel, but also through how she feels. i'm a cringe fanfic writer, what i cooked up is hardly a masterpiece but its a helluva lot better than...this
This kinda sounded like Onision took one (1) writing class and rewrote his third book in a fantasy setting. Honestly thought novels would be the area Shad shines in.
I think the reason why is that back when he was publishing this, all people knew about him was his middle ages stuff on his channel and the fact he talked up about how he consulted on Rhythm of War. Along with a few basic writing observations. Little did anyone know at the time just how right-wing he was, and that seems to rot the part of your brain where you can analyze media properly. So what we're left with is basically a clock happening to be right when he criticizing media which has objective writing problems, but the only reason he identifies them is because he perceives them as "woke". So he's not actually thinking about why it's bad, it just happens to have been done poorly. That means, as soon as it comes to HIS own work, he is totally unable to identify mistakes or critically analyze his writing because he "knows" that he's not woke, so everything looks fine to him.
@@danielbroome5690 yeah I was never a huge follower of his channel, but I just remember being shocked when finding out “wait, the guy who made those cool, informative videos about swords whines about the Mario movie being “woke” and Princess Peach wearing pants?” Lol
A man who used to be a murderous monster goes on a final, life-changing pilgrimage that results in him undergoing a transformation to begin his arc towards genuine repentance and acknowledgement of the atrocities he has committed? Whose name started with D? Who has a scary nickname? Where have I heard that before? Could it perhaps be Dalinar Kholin, major protagonist of the Stormlight Archive, whose own villain-redemption arc was published two years before Shadow of the Conqueror, and who is from a series we know Shad follows and loves? Except evil young Dalinar was pretty explicitly not a rapist, most of the people he killed in his life were soldiers rather than civilians until the Rift, his past villainous life made working with the good guys to save the world a tremendous uphill battle, and even in the latest book people note that he still holds tyrannical tendencies that can be downright unpleasant, which he actively tries to change about himself. Not to mention he published a book listing all of his crimes and taking full responsibility, without any attempt to garnish or underplay the atrocities.
Ooh yeah, past-Dalinar was utter scum. Even his realisation that stuff he was doing was monstrous was initially about someone he cared about accidentally ending up in the firing line of his latest atrocity, rather than recognising it was an atrocity. Most of the messes he's made can't be reversed or even really cleaned up, he's killed most of the people he'd need to reconcile with or apologise to. He's actually killed basically everyone who could have tried to hold him to account. His is a VASTLY better story of a someone taking a look at themselves and owning what they've done and turning it into action to do better from then on.
AI artists want the clout from making something beautiful but not the physical and emotional effort of doing so. So they have a bot do it for them and skip right to the clout. Shad wanted the clout for making a good redemption arc for a rapist mass-murdering dictator, but not the airing out of his or the character’s soul to do so. So he just surrounded the character with bots who would change their minds about him for him and skipped right to the clout
? the character was literally put on trial. and he also killed himself with his own powers. seems intead forming a conclusion based information you've started with a conclusion and then made up information to support that conclusion.
I think this is the main point. This arc COULD have worked IF a better writer had written it with a lot more care and sensitivity and time, or if Shad spent the time and put in the work to redeem him over a much longer period.
@@DeletedSince.2020 you don't need toknow shad to make a bad review. common sense isn't all that common. they should be able to reference the book rather then the story inside their head
Oh my gosh Daylen's new magic powers give him insta healing?! You're totally right Ian this kills the tension going forward in the story. Especially if the story is going to be action-adventure oriented. Maybe I'm boring, but I couldn't write a protagonist who doesn't value human life. I just need to have a viewpoint character who has a good heart, valuing life is a big part of that. Ugh I hate the use of SA unless in very certain circumstances, and I despise that we supposed to route for a protagonist who committed SA. In my wip I have a character who totally changes his life and refuses an important part of his adulthood responsibility for a long as he can, because of something he did in the course of fighting a war. As a rule I don't do any SA content in my writing, so I know this character didn't do anything of that nature, but it was Big B bad. Authors do not have to go this route, especially if it's just to make a piece dark and gritty. Also with the example of Lyra and Kusic, like what a weird way to bring up Lyra's trauma, it does rings as strangely prude on the author's part, and then insensitive/ or shock value toward Lyra. Yes you're totally on it Ian, the Arc Knights partnering Kyra with Kusic seems illogical at the least, and completely non-functional at the most. Like you said it does makes them seem unreal, un-lived in institution, poor set up. Lol I love your pouty face impression of Daylen inwardly reacting to people saying he was an awful person. Ack Daylen breaks the rules even in the way he gets his powers? How frustrating. In a lot of the poorer stories I've read, there seems to be this problem of what the character says they want to do and what the character does. There's no sense of proving the characters motivation through evidence on the page. They say lots of things, sometimes the narration tells of lots of things, but so often it's just not actually on the pages of the story. This could be failure to execute in the story itself, or missing it in going back through on editing, but I'm surprised when authors that do this don't notice, before they go to publish. I promise myself when I get to my editing phases I will check for this and I ask my betas. I giggled when you said Daylen couldn't talk about how he go his powers because if people found out he'd be kicked off the server for cheating. Ha ha! It definitely sounds like that. Lololol! Daylen bursting through the wall like the Kool Aid Man OH YEEEAHH! XD Oof the incestuous assault bit. ::grimace:: I don't want to get personal or anything, but most people become more sensitive to this topic as they get older, and especially once they have children. I'm kindof shocked Shad would go here when he's got children of his own. X( Daylen needed that extra shot of ego in the butt. I chuckled ^_^ I hate this magical mechanic of seeing the light= goodness in people, it's cheesy, but it takes away from the reality of any of the characters, this is just not how people work, and by his actions-- no way is Daylen a light person at all, gosh I'm glad I didn't read/spend money on this book. I nearly did whew. Aww the man the myth the legend! He's sooo CUTE. Aww kisses. He's so floofy, aww =^_^=
To be fair about the traveling to a special mountain to end it all, plenty of people travel to San Francisco every year to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. They may not be former dictators, but there are places in real life that attract this sort of tourism.
@@RuSosan You mean boring fake love story caused by deliberately stupid decisions of main characters. Of course Mary has looks of Playmate and Gary can do good impression of John Holmes and both have sex-drive of teenage rabbit on breeding season. Neighbors hate them and they don't even record and sell their exploits.
I think the people of shad’s world doesn’t know how the magic works. Day is the brightest because well he took the light of millions hahaha. Now that would be a great plot twist. Ya you’re the strongest because you’re the worst. Hahaha. Honestly would have been better if shad was just honest in his writing and made the book a murder hobo smut novel. At least it would be honest.
the level of defending rape in this book to this level just makes the writer suspicious "no, i didn't have a harem i slept with one woman at a time or watching two women do it together" like, bro? who are you defending yourself against? what does it add to the story? two readings: the writer thinks that rape is excusable, but polyamory isn't. this would be terrible, yet make sense with the book as in at least a serves a purpose. it's the writer saying "no i'm not into polyamory i just slept with one woman and watch lesbian porn with is totally fine" which... why would you put that in a book? or the worst one, and the one least ignorable: that's a lot of rape apologetics for someone who's not defending himself.
Considering Shad has this Gary Stu character that's basically an unrepentant rapist glorified by the story, and some of the other comments he's made and ideas he's had regarding consent and permission, like his utter disregard for the consent or permission of the artists his AI images steal from, I'm starting to get the idea that Shad literally just approves of rape. Honestly, I'd be pretty damn worried about being assaulted by this dude if I were a woman in his social circle. JFC.
Let's pretend that I haven't been watching this video for hours. Just going by the title of the book SHADOW OF THE Conquerer: CHRONICLES of EVERFALL. Like every word if the title is one if the most shallow and cliche things he could've picked out of bag.
Due to the narcissistic, controlling, selfish way and with little attention to the effort and work of others (including his own brother) that the author demonstrates in several videos and posts he has on the internet, I feel that the main character is a version of what he would like to be being and the way he idealizes to be treated (this incredibly tough and powerful creature who is good at everything without putting any effort, always right and better than everyone around him, with a dark and edge backstory, which causes fear and respect at the same time which is admired). And it wouldn't surprise me if Ahrek was a representation of Jazza and his relationship with Shad. And the fact that this book has a story that seems to be created by an emo edgelord whose character's actions don't make any sense at all is precisely due to a lack of experience (narrative/literary production), ability (to write) and notion of how personal relationships ( which depends on seeing that the other person has value and you are not the center of the universe) works outside the magic bubble of "I'm a content creator, praise me". ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ PS: Also, awesome review and content!
I've never read the story, but I watch his channel sometimes. I remember him excitedly talking about this book at one point (I guess about when it was officially published). He touched on the world, the characters, the special sword, and his "well thought out" magic system. Everything he was saying sounded more like a brainstorming session than a finished product. What you have when you start the process of writing only to later realize you have to throw stuff out because it didn't serve the story or was contradictory. Problem is the "throw stuff out" part never happened. There was no way I was going to even consider buying it -let alone actually reading it- after hearing him talk about it. Not to mention I already hated his MC without reading a single word of it.
The way Shad (and fans of the book) talked about the "well-thought-out magic system", and about the combat scenes made it sound to me more like an RPG system rather than a good story.
@@iapetusmccool Does he have fans of the book or just fans of the channel who support his book to support the channel? This does have the flavor of a homebrew tabletop system that evolved into a book. Maybe he had some really fun gaming sessions with this character/story line, but that doesn't necessarily translate to a good story.
@@JoeSyxpack The only fans of the book that I am aware of were people on his channel. (I used to be a fan myself, until his Knights' Watch content started bleeding into his main channel).
@@iapetusmccool Yeah, I used to watch him too because I thought he had some good takes on weapons (and made fun of movies I didn't care for). For a while I figured his arrogance was just an act, but after a while I realized that's really who he is. I haven't watched anything with him on it in a while. I even skip any EFAP where he makes an appearance.
1:45:12: I'm a (former) HEMA practitioner. I know what all those words mean. But I have absolutely no vision of what is happening in that fight scene. He's just throwing a load of technique names at the page, not actually describing what is happening. It would be like describing a boxing match by saying "He punched and jabbed and blocked! And the other guy did the same! It was a really tough fight!"
Just right off the bat i think the whole thing is literally a hallucination of the main character which he is experiencing as he falls to his death. It would explain why he seems to be immortal and the center of the universe. It's literally all in the head of a narcissist who is used to being the big shit
Thanks, I forgot I never finished this book. I was annoyed at how much of a Mary Sue this guy was and being preached at but read for a while just to see how big the dumpster fire could get. It was the preaching in the fight with Eric before the finale that finally broke me. I never even knew about the trial afterwards.
So, shad wrote a regression (kind of, following the classic isekai route) light novel otaku power fantasy of a guy who says feels guilt but the "story" glorifies him in a really hypocritical way? :v
he literally kills himself with his own guilt after messing with his reinforcement ability to enhance his memories/brain. its not the person it glorifies but the power that allows him the chance to do good in the world is whats glorified
At first I just laughed at how poorly Shad did with his book. He hangs out with the media-critiquing crowd and yet has apparently internalized nothing. He is a beta and not a deep thinker, so I wasn't surprised. Yet the deeper we get in to his book, the more it looks like Shad has some serious f'd up problems. His morality is appalling and his treatment of sexuality and abuse catapults from merely juvenile, to suspicious and worrisome. What the F is going on with that nerd?
Holy shit, I cannot reconcile Shad's degree of thoughtless self-aggrandizing with his weapon and tactics analysis videos. Either he turns of his brain for novel writing or his sources were doing heavier lifting than I thought.
Shad is completely embroiled into the Mormon faith, which has some wildly gross ideas about SA victims not forgiving their abusers being worse than the act itself. Pretty sure that repugnant belief is likely why he wrote the way he did. I've lost all respect I once had for Shad in the past, the more I learn about him as a person the more I firmly believe he's a terrible person inside and out.
Oh my god... I think he wrote a Mary Sue. Which is really funny cause one of his major critiques of the sequel trilogy was that Rey was a May Sue. Though I guess in this case it would be a Garry Stu
To be fair, Shad does give reasons for Daylan's skills in that he had a lifetime to gain them and had the power and contacts to get people to teach him. After a while though it did get a little tiring to read of another ability and think "Oh, he's an expert in THAT too".
I'm a bit of an asshole. Shad has a huge ego. Shad wrote an objectively shitty book. This bring me joy. Now, he sold a lot of copies because of his youtube channel, and i'm sure he spent a lot of money on his narrator, his comic book adaptation, and his attempted live action movie based on his book...so i'm sure all the money he made off the book are gone. But one thing he didn't spend money on was an editor. That book is rough. Like 2nd draft rough. He likely fielded all his beta readers from his youtube fan base. And they either did him dirty, or his ego made him ignore the criticism. Anyway, I'm looking forward to see if his second book is even better. But given the time that has passed, he should have been done writing it by now if he's taking his writing seriously. Which makes me believe he's not. I think this book might have broken him as an author.
Wait, he's made his book into a comic and attempted a movie? Dude, write a few books, get a solid base etc before branching your first and only book into other mediums!
@@wolfdragonhorse He hired a comic illustrator do it ofc. And the movies wasn't attempted by him but by other indie group who wants to do it. He surely does help them the moment he found out though
because people nowadays choose to support the author based on their personality, interests and relatablity rather than the work itself. Hence why there is an excess of content out there that is constantly pushed because of the person rather than for the merit of the writing and impact
Just found out about this book recently, and after hearing so much about it I feel inspired to do my own short take on the idea as writing practice; because it'd be pretty damn difficult to do the idea worse. Either actually redeeming a terrible villain, or just the catharsis of taking Daylen and his fake remorse and killing him off like he deserved... maybe both now that I think of it: Having a former enforcer of the old Empire turning themself in and seeking redemption by finding and putting down the mad conqueror; who thinks he can repent just by calling himself a hero and performatively crying about how terrible he was and that living is the worst punishment for him.
I actually think Daylen would be perfect Darklord of Ravenloft. As in villain of epic level of nastiness doomed to fail in their grand schemes again and again. Some of them have tragic backgrounds.
just barely 8 minutes in and I have to say that the concept of an asshole dictator who "dies" and is reincarnated into his younger self to either repeat or change the assholery he did, only to start his new lease on life with the same asshole mindset was both done better and, more importantly, INTENTIONALLY in the chinese novel: The Husky and His White Cat Shizun, or just 2ha for short. It's a lovely venture (in the beginning) of what confirmation bias can make you blind to, a lesson I hilariously think Shad has never encountered from the looks of it.
@MasterIceyy when you boil it down to tyrants being reborn changing their ways a Christmas story fits in that category. The story the poster spesifically mentions however was released way later than Shadow of the Conquerer.
58:20 I admit a sick joy in laughing at basically everything Shad does these days, but I had to pause here because Shad apparently thinks its romantic and kind to do the shit my abuser used to do. Holy shit that man is gonna be the subject of a true crime podcast one day, no joke.
I read a little bit of this book after it was released. The poor writing quality and the way it minimized and justified horrible behavoir was genuinely shocking. I assume that most people who have studied/practice fiction writing know that it is important to 1. find out a character's flaws and 2. create situations that reveal those flaws and make the character miserable. Shad's inability to expose the main character to vulnerability is bizarre from a writing standpoint. That resistance to being challenged becomes stranger after you (quickly) realize that this character is a stand in for himself. Don't even get me started on the flippant, unnecessary use of sexual assault, etc. Gross. If someone in my life wrote something similar to this I would be questioning my relationship to that person. Thanks for your video. The grit required to get through this book is enormous.
This summary actually made me mad. Not mad at the author, but mad at the protagonist. He sounds terrible, but is written like a Mary sue with no interest in genuine redemption. This premise has so much potential for a complex and nuanced story, but this isn't it. It's hilariously dumb that he get's so angry about being called young when he looks 17. Tbh it actually makes sense Daylen only felt bad about killing Blackheart and bothered to consider if he could be redeemed too, after he learned that Blackheart may have been his son. Daylen cared for entirely selfish reasons and it wasn't true empathy. Now do I think this was intended by the author? Heck no! I'm sure it was intended to show hi inner light or whatever. It's disturbing that Daylen is just given the okay to kill people with a dark inner light while it also being said that being a jerk makes your inner light dark... and apparently mass murderer and r*p*st Daylen has a light one? Tbh at this point the inner light seems pretty irrelevant to any legal action any or vigilantism anyone should take. I feel so bad for Leera, especially how Daylen Triggered her PTSD after being the one who victimized her. I didn't even read this book, but I already hate him, find him disgusting, and want him to die. Poor Leera she needs a hug. I hope she doesn't end up his love interest. Also, Daylen is said to have a light inner light because, he was motivated by good, but I don't believe that at all. What morally good reason did he have to r*p* children making him a p*d*ph*l*?!?!?!?!?!?!?! And he also forced children to perform s*x acts for him to watch?!?!?!?! I do not believe he has a ligth inner light, unless it's just malfunctioning. It would've make more sense if he started out pitch black and it got lighter over the course of the book as he changed... but oops I forgot he doesn't need to change because he's already the purest soul ever! BARF!!!! This world makes no sense?! Women are worshipped, and can be the police and are trained to fight just like men, but they're constantly r*p*d and considered less than when they are?! Make it make sense! Also, why is this book to fixated on r*p*?!?!?!?! WHY DO THE ARC NIGHTS HATE LEERA!!! FIRST THE SUPER SEXUAL MAN AND NOW HER R*P*ST?!?!?! I HATE THIS!!!! I BET THE AUTHOR IS TRYING TO MAKE THEM A COUPLE AND I JUST WANT DAYLEN TO DIE!!!!!!!
@@danubeisreallypeculiarrive7944 Good thing FLDS isn't my country. The LDS sect here are just normal people. The Mormon sect got split in US , due to difference of understanding the Book. And many people mistake FLDS and LDS as the same. I say this as a very inactive LDS member , the reason why I am inactive. I'm not very religious at all just wanted to do my own thing while still doing at least more than the bare minimum to be a decent human to others
Don't take this the wrong way, but I love how this comment breaks down into confusion and screaming for answers the further on it goes, the further on one reads. It perfectly reflects the arc of the book's story; A descent into madness, of questionable circumstances which one screams into the void for any semblance of a coherent answer for. Poetic.
I too wanted Dayless to die. He was an arrogant PoS in the first paragraph, and he was an arrogant PoS in the last paragraph. He didn't change. He didn't learn. Yet, he has the arrogance to think he's a good person... which means the _author_ wants _us_ to think he's a good person. I'll quote it here (pages 495 to 496): "He followed, feeling the despair over his continued life subside as purpose grew in his heart. It was the same sense of purpose he had felt when committing his new life to do good shortly after receiving his powers. It was interesting that in every choice [Dayless] had ever made it was with the intent to do good, but his life was proof that intent didn't mean spit. Ultimately it was his actions that defined who he was, and this time [Dayless'] actions actually mirrored his initial intent. It made him feel better about himself than he had in a long, long, time. [Dayless], could actually do it. He could do good and fight evil without making the same mistakes of his past. He could be a better man--and in fact, he thought with a bitter-sweet smile, he was." This is undone by a very easy to see _lie._ That's why I hate him... and so many of Shad's fans will defend this trash with "best book I have ever read!"
Ahhh, there is is... that heady mix of ego and incompetence that leads to a book revealing far more about the author than the world they are trying to build. I'm almost sad that Shad is going the AI route, because that means the next book is less likely to be him self-reporting his own authentically-held terrible ideas and awful worldview.
I think Shadiversity may have accidentally written the most amusing adult swim cartoon protagonist in history. The story just needs some added self awareness and to acknowledge that yea, we all know Shad's self inser- I mean Daylen is a garbage human being. Fantasy Rick Sanchez
Im an aspiring novelist and I, perhaps like many of you, have a lot of anxeity about whether anything I do is any good. Hearing all this gives me hope. If this can get published, so too can my work lol.
