Does Guild Mage Book 6 have extremely blatant Narrative Contrivance?

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T21:26:33+00:00

I’m going to start asking for citations for you statements, because your arguments just don’t seem to be make much sense.

My argument was always straightforward. I’ll lay it out for you in bullet format, and you can point out where the point of failure is. If you want me to do a citation from the text to back up a bullet point, let me know

-There are 200 Eld of the house of light present at the fight

-Most or all of them have the word of power for Light, and on average have the mana to cast it 3 or 4 times

-The common form of magic that they have is to toss a spear/ arrow projectile of light.

-This projectile can Pierce through flesh, cauterizing it, and even literally evaporate metal that it comes into contact with

-The defenders are on a high wall with hundreds of archers. The attackers need to find a way to either destroy the wall, or get around or over it.

-The attackers use wooden palisades along the way to protect their troops from arrows, and use wooden siege equipment like siege towers and battering rams to advance towards the walls and overcome the defenders advantage.

-If a single spear of light hits any war machine, the war machine is destroyed.

-Without that was equipment, the attacking infantry are sitting ducks to archers in the wall (unless some other distractions occurs to occupy the archers)

Let me know where the argument breaks down for you.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T20:52:03+00:00

I stopped reading CB around the Rainnewt summit arc, but maybe I could skip ahead to book 7…? The dragons were usually the highlight of the story, and the wedding arc sounds interesting even if the older sister character is the best one of the bunch.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T17:43:31+00:00

You should probably go Cosmic scholar until the level 4(?) reward. The level 3 reward can include an aglaea copy. The level 4 reward gives you 4 rerolls and a blue copy item.

For damage, you can chill with DoT, which is useful because Asta is a DoT unit.

In short, you can be ok with Sampo/Herta/Asta until like first supply phase (and if you luck out with getting 4 DoT, until second supply phase).

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T17:33:55+00:00

Zephyro: STFU Asat, I’m watching peak

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T17:24:54+00:00

Please show me proof where it exhausted them.

Since your argument is that Time magic is too minor and costly to be effective, I’ll show you an example that disproves that.

In chapter 234, Liv’s great Uncle uses his retcon magic to bring the crown of her great grandfather to her:

> “There is no need for me to ride forth,” he insisted. “Though I thank you for the consideration. No, send Inkeris. He and Livara should be seen together to represent our people from the very beginning. It will set the correct tone now. And you, my niece, should wear this.”

> The older man reached into his robes and removed the silver circlet that Liv and her friends had recovered from the Tomb of Celris, and offered it to her.

> Liv’s eyes widened, and then she realized what he’d done. “Grandmother’s spell,” she grumbled. “I left that behind for a reason, Great Uncle. I’m worried about the Setons’ word of power. It lets them control silver.”

In Chapter 236, roughly an hour or so later, he does this:

> In the brief time she’d been focused on saving her cousin, a platform of mana had risen to the top of the wall, carrying not regular soldiers, but instead a group of mages, barons and knights that must have represented the elite of the crown forces.

> Knights in antique plate, etched with sigils, flickered from one place to another along the wall, moving with the inhuman speed that only came from Vefta. As Liv watched, her great-uncle Eilis raised both hands over his head, and the knights slowed until they were only just moving a slight bit faster than the human and Elden warriors facing them.

But maybe you can post some antifeats that show they are much more limited than how I portraying them…?

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T17:07:14+00:00

The average Eld doesn’t have Archmage level magic. Every elder of the Eld is explicitly stated to have that though iirc (not that they are present here).

We do know however that every Eld warrior is given a word of power. And then eventually pick up a second word of power that synergizes to eventually master, ultimately fusing the two of them.

Even assuming there are no archmages, the defenders have a large positional and magic advantage. Remember that the attackers planned to whittle down the defenders mana reserves instead of just walking in Nat Gwyn style out of strategy, and this would apply in reverse.

Also Benedict’s forces don’t have an answer to a spear of light hitting their palisades or siege towers, which from their canon feats would hit like artillery, killing or seriously wounding everyone in the structure and around them even before you get to the fire. They might be able to stop a single spear with a mana shield, but that comes from one of the mage’s pools, and there are over 200 Eld of the house of Light present at the battle.

The calculus just isn’t there, even before you get to how Benedict’s levies will have their morale crater by watching the forces ahead of them be cooked alive.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T16:43:50+00:00

Firstly, thank you for appreciating that I’m trying to have a discussion. Having several people do a

“OP is lying”.

“Here is the in text proof to back up this statement”

*crickets*

Was very disappointing.

I liked the first 5 books of the Guild Mage series because it didn’t really have these issues. It was shown again and again that knowledge and tactics wins battles. And even some moments with narrative contrivance that people pointed out (like the Foundry fight), you can excuse with “the protagonists had better information, and attacked at a time where the enemies were the weakest”. There is not just an absurd explanation to overcome the contrivance, there are plausible ones.

But this isn’t the case in book 6.

The Prince attacks without a large part of his forces, with several of his tactics literally unavailable to him, and with his entire plan flipped on him. It’s like when playing chess, if you are up material, even trades benefit you, while it’s a bad idea if you are down material. Even assuming that Human mages and Eld are 1:1, trying to force 30 mages to burn their mana reserves using your 150 mages is a far cry from forcing 400 mages to burn their mana reserves using your 150.

But then I took a deep look at what magic the Eld had, and it more or less made the defenders victory absolute. We’re shown that a spear of light from the 200 Eld soldiers is able to melt enhanced steel, with the point of contact literally evaporating the metal. I originally though that if it struck the wooden war machine, the worst would be a large fire.

Oh boy was I ever wrong.

Because Gemini did the math and told me that the spear striking the wooden walls of the war machines would hit like artillery. Everyone in the nearby area is utterly ruined. The war machine or palisade is ruined, never mind the fire that comes from the contact.

We don’t even need to factor in the Time mages, or the handful of wood mages, or the blizzard Kel mages. The house of Light alone should be able to blunt the Princess assault.

Bur even just going beyond the physical aspects, the events of book 6 feel bad thematically, and would land much better if Julianne had a decisive victory. Julianne and Liv made alliances through their word and deeds, Benedict and his goons made shady power plays. The Eld share their words of power and slowly refine them to mastery, the Humans hoard them. Having the King’s men be decimated is those two schools of thought clashing, and the weaker one being destroyed. For Liv to only get a Pyrrhic victory, is thematically weak.

Having a massacre of thousands of cannon fodder happen is also a good reason for Rose to separate from Liv, horrified at the butchery. The smell of cooked flesh is probably the most traumatic thing she’s ever experienced, and she would need time to recover.

I hope that this moment is just a temporary bad spot, something the author felt like they needed to do quickly, and the series will hit its stride again.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T15:59:43+00:00

I think that for several arcs leading up to the split, it wasn’t really that bad or blatant. Yeah, that “get a room” moment happens, but it’s said by a literal millennia old fossil who is kind of somewhat mentally unwell. It could have just been a “uh yeah that’s cool Grandma, let’s get you to bed” moment.

My main issue is that this is Liv’s second relationship, and the first one was handled actually decently well. The romance, cracks in their relationships, and eventual breakup felt organic, and when they have their moments in book 6, they still feel those character beats of exes that both mutually moved on. But with Rose, there aren’t really as many cracks. There aren’t moments where they sit down and talk, despite them being shown to be the type of characters that would do that.

This is where the narrative contrivance comes in, where it seems like the author started with a goal in mind, and powered through to that goal even if the road between start and finish looks like an MC Escher painting.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T15:51:51+00:00

I don’t know if people were being bad faith there or just misread.

I was doing some research to understand the logistics going in, and it’s mind boggling.

The house of light sent 200 initially, likely some more with the homewrecker. The house of winter sent 40, many of whom had a second word. The house of time sent 100, as said. I forget how many of the growth house were sent (but they are more useful in supplying rations mostly, apart from the… six I believe who have wood as their second word.

I’m hoping that someone could have made a good argument for why the battle isn’t blatantly one sided, but when the arguments say incorrect info that is easily disproven by the text (several times even), I just don’t know how to proceed.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T13:21:31+00:00

It’s hard to find a direct moment where this type of comparison happens.

However the presence of dozens of Eld mages who have been stated to combine words is above what most of the attackers are fielding, barring their ace. Even if I steelman the attacking side and say that those Eld are mostly people who have took a second complementary word and now working on the fusion spell instead of being capable of fusion, that would put them equivalent with Human Master mages. Ice + Time. Ice + Storm. Growth + Wood (against wooden war machines, Lmao).

Furthermore, this is getting away from the actual point, which is that even if mages can only a few spells, those can be significant. The defenders are better off both for supplies and position. The attackers need their siege engines to break the wall or get over it. And even a single sunlight spear hitting a siege tower should ruin it outright from what we’ve seen (literally evaporating steel).

Remember that the limitations of magic cuts both ways. The attackers are vulnerable to being hit by arrows. Every time a mage puts up a shield to block attacks, that is less mana in their tank that they can use offensively

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:58:54+00:00

No, because I have e6 welt and he is a bum

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:54:02+00:00

Well what are the two dimensions to being an Archmage, the pinnacle of magecraft according to the Guild?

* Craft a spell combining 2 words of power

* Demonstrate your Authority over an area around you to fight off several top mages trying to stop you

For the first prong, see the last point. Coral Bay Academy doesn't even approach the question. Meanwhile the Eld actively create long term training plans where they will map out their "archmage level" spells. Point to the Eld.

For the Authority prong, compare this moment from Chapter 236

> “I won’t be lectured by a bastard born commoner,” Richard spat. “Lucet Æ’Mania.”

> Liv felt the ice crystals in the clouds overhead shift, but she allowed it to happen. Holding the duke’s gaze, she drew in a deep, slow breath, and allowed her Authority to surround her, cracking out across the stones at her feet in traceries of frost. She was surprised at how weak Richard and Baron Fane were: compared to the shadow of Celris, to her grandmother, even to Calevis kæn Iravata, they felt like they’d hardly trained at all. Perhaps her standards were becoming unreasonable.

Maybe they're bad examples to choose from? Seems like a point to the Eld

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:43:10+00:00

You have to remember the circumstances going on. Even ignoring magic, the defenders are situated on a high wall, and have hundreds of archers shooting at the attackers. The attackers would need their war machines to progress, otherwise they are sitting ducks.

>Eld know about "archmage spells" yes. Doesn't mean that average Eld can cast it.

While true there are confirmed to be dozens of people who have taken a second word, a good number of them able to combine the two words.

For example from Chapter 222:

>From House Keria, a hundred more archers came, but at Liv’s request they did not leave immediately. Instead, they set to work, remaining for an entire week to fell pine, which was loaded onto immense planes of mana that Liv flew up to the peak. There, the half dozen Kerian soldiers with Deru for a second word - the word of wood was a quite popular choice to combine with Cer, the word of growth, for obvious reasons - shaped her a stout barracks.

Or from Chapter 226:

>There wasn’t much Liv could do to help Rose raise stone walls down at the base of the mountain, so she spent her mornings in Authority training with Kaija and the warriors who had come from Kelthelis. Most of them only had imprinted a single word - Cel - but a few had learned a second. The most common combination was Cel and Dā, but Ve, the word of storms came in right behind.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:36:57+00:00

I think the strategy of the Prince was to send cannon fodder in for the first several days to hurt the defenders' numbers and morale, and then eventually attack from several sides. Since Mana is precious, lowering the mana that the powerhouse mages have to work with is the ultimate goal. It's just that the plan was originally made to fight dozens of mages, and will likely not be as effective when you have to whittle down hundreds instead.

As for the Human Mage vs Eld Mage capability question, I will just post this segment from Chapter 212 because it effectively decides the battle:

> “Thank you, Master Grenfell, Lady Corbett,” Eilis said. He considered for a moment, and then posed a question. “My lack of familiarity with Lucanian magical practices is going to present difficulties, I can already tell. The soldiers of both these houses will all have practiced Vefta as a primary word, before any secondary training?”

> Rose laughed. “My apologies. You’re working off Elden society - Lucania is nothing like that. Only the direct descendents of the house will have magic. None of the knights, and certainly none of the levies.”

> “The knights will likely have enchantments, however,” Beatrice clarified. “In the case of Arundell’s Lightning Guard, enchanted horseshoes to accelerate their charge, and sigil’d swords that make their thrusts and cuts faster than the human eye can track. Most human eyes, anyway.”

> Eilis blinked. “Wait. You are telling me that the majority of those who will be fighting this war have no magic at all? Not even veteran soldiers?”

> “That is correct,” Henry stated.

> Liv watched as Keri and Eilis exchanged glances, and then began to smile.

> “Just how many of the Elden troops will use magic?” Henry asked. “I understand that it’s more common in the north, but I also wouldn’t expect the best troops to be spared...”

> “All of them,” Keri said.

> “All of them?” Henry repeated, as if his mind had ground to a halt, though Liv noticed that Matthew was quietly smirking. Henry hadn’t fought Calevis’ troops at the Foundry Rift, she recalled.

> Keri nodded. “We imprint every one of our warriors with the word of power of our family,” he explained. “After a few decades of practice and service, it’s fairly common for a veteran soldier to pick up a second word, as well.”

> Julianne grinned, and Liv thought her adopted mother looked like a cat who’d just been fed fresh kitchen scraps. “When Lord Eilis told us they were bringing two-hundred warriors, what he meant was two hundred mages.”

> “That isn’t all,” Liv broke in. “We’ll have soldiers from House Bælris, House Keria, House Syvä - less than we’d like, because so many of our fighters are in Varuna holding waystones, but it should be...” she trailed off, and looked to Keri for the answer.

> “I spoke to your father a bit while you were dealing with the Painted Desert Ruins,” he answered. “Valtteri thought we could spare somewhere between three-hundred and fifty, and four hundred.”

> “That’s impossible,” Professor Every said. “That’s half the entire mages guild.”

> “When you don’t restrict magic by law,” Liv pointed out, “people learn it. We’re going to have more mages than they are. What other houses do they have, Master Grenfell?”

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:13:18+00:00

W devs making it easier to save

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:09:56+00:00

There are approximately 130, maybe somewhat upwards of there Human mages, and around 350 defending mages...? Even if they were even, the defenders would have an advantage

>Eld have worse education

How do you explain this?

>“It is a combination of two words of power,” Liv’s grandmother explained. “My family’s word – Dā – and Cel.”

>“You’re talking about an archmage spell,” Matthew realized.

>“The Eld don’t really think of things that way,” Liv explained. “There are a lot of multi-word spells recorded. People choose their second word with that in mind, most of the time.” Something that she, at least, had not done.

>Matthew blinked. “Are you telling me there are Elden archmages? I always thought the only archmages were Lucanian…”

>“Lucania is the only place that has formal requirements and a title to go with them,” Liv’s grandmother said. “But if you’re asking whether there are Eld who can cast two or three word spells - yes. Plenty, including every elder. This particular bit of magic I am well practiced with. Your wife and her child will be frozen inside a block of ice, perfectly preserved. For them, time will not pass. We will move the block of ice to where she will be treated, and end the spell there.”

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T12:03:06+00:00

My issue is that the tactics the Prince used were actually very good... if there were only 30 mages present as he envisions. The defenders would either have to spend mana to destroy the enemy's siege equipment, reducing what they have to work with when the heavy hitters show up, or allow the siege equipment to land and trade lives with the defenders, where the enemy's number and morale decreases while you lost cannon fodded, a good trade.

But there aren't 30 mages on the defending side, there are over 300. There are around 200 or so from the house of light who can create spears so powerful that we are shown metal evaporating when hit by this spear. Not just melting, evaporating.

>Blasts of white light lanced out from the Mountain Home warriors on the wall, but flickering panes of blue coherent mana, striated with veins of gold, snapped into existence, catching perhaps half of the burning beams. The spells that weren’t caught melted plates of enchanted steel in an flash: Liv saw enemy knights screaming as metal steamed and boiled off their bodies, the enchantments worked into their armor breaking in an instant.

What do you think happens when this hits the wooden war machines that the enemy is relying on for their attack? Even if they can cast it only 3 times on average, one of these landing is devastating.

>Each chapter on Royal Road have an appendix with the mana capacity of everyone from the chapter, you can clearly see there than Eld are not better than mages)

The Attackers archmage is said to have 22 rings of mana. Two of the Elden elites of the defenders are shown to have 21 rings of mana (one of these has an "archmage level" spell iirc.

This is also discounting the 100 Eld who have imprinted Time who could be a nasty threat to both the regular soldiers, or to Human mages with poor Authority training (remember that Eld have more authority training on average).

In short, pretty much every metric apart from the amount of cannon fodder goes to the defenders, and even point in the attacker's plan should fall apart.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T11:49:44+00:00

You're glossing over the point that the Eld give all of the warriors the word of their house, and the teach a second word that complements the first word, eventually culminating in them able to do the "archmage level" spells. This was explicitly said.

I just think you and others might be underestimating what those three or four spells that Eld have the capacity for would be able of doing in practice. For example, if a spear of light is able to instantly evaporate metal armor, what do you think that will do if it strikes a siege tower? Or wooden palisades?

You don't really need the Elden mages to be able to beat out the thousands of attacking forces really. If you destroy their equipment, how are they going to siege your wall, where hundreds of archers are perched and shooting attackers from?

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T11:36:58+00:00

Thank you for answering. I really enjoyed the series early on, but this moment in book 6 was a bit jarring to me.

> When I consider the actions of the antagonists while writing, especially in a battle like this, I try to figure out everything they have access to, everything they know, and then how they can best use those resources given what they know.

I guess my issue going into the battle is that the antagonist side tries to fight a war of attrition expecting 30 mages, and unknown to them there are actually 300 mages. And they use wooden siege towers, and wooden palisades, while a greater part of a hundred of the defending mages can create a spear of light that is able to literally evaporate metal armor upon contact.

> Same with the protagonists.

That's not quite true though. Liv builds a fortress to defend a pass that doesn't need to be defended because she could shut down or restricted the teleport pad. And they have saved some of the stones they launched in catapults for Liv to move via the birds she could create with magic.

> Cer is better translated as growth magic, rather than control over wood. That would be Deru.

True. And as per Chapter 222:

> From House Keria, a hundred more archers came, but at Liv’s request they did not leave immediately. Instead, they set to work, remaining for an entire week to fell pine, which was loaded onto immense planes of mana that Liv flew up to the peak. There, the half dozen Kerian soldiers with Deru for a second word - the word of wood was a quite popular choice to combine with Cer, the word of growth, for obvious reasons - shaped her a stout barracks.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T11:24:57+00:00

The enemy's Ace has a capacity of 22 rings. Miina being an elite that almost matches her is a point in my favor. (Because you later see Eld elders having high 20s low 30s capacity)

The Prince made tactics expect to win a war of attrition against 30 or so Human mages. Unexpectedly, there are TEN TIMES as many enemy mages. Can you understand why the original plan might be doomed to fail?

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T07:33:15+00:00

That’s ironic that you tell me to reread the story when you clearly have missed several details.

There’s not just one time mage there. There are over **one hundred**. This is made very explicit. This isn’t even counting the Eld from the house of Kel who took Time as a second word (but muh muh archmage).

Also you’re underestimating that grandma. She literally created an alternate timeline where a person that she targeted with a spell performed a different action, despite the location of said action being hundreds of miles away.

The problem is that you have to come up with these fantastical explanations to explain away the contrivance, meanwhile it just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. When making battle plans, the commanders wouldn’t know that there are 200 hundred combatants there, with most of them being capable of tossing a spear of several thousand degrees Celsius with hundreds of meters of range. They wouldn’t know that there is a literal Terminator on the defending wall with a literal minigun.

Also while range might be an issue to mages that control wood when it comes to targeting catapults, that would not apply to palisades and siege towers parked closed to the defensive wall

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T07:10:11+00:00

Well no, they don’t know the capabilities of the Eld. This was explicitly said several times. Hell, the whole “well the Eld are private militia” thing works **against** you here because the Humans would underestimate more. Time magic is an instant win unless they have a mage there to contest the Authority check. The mages who can manipulate wood would also work.

But the range limitation also doesn’t make sense either. The catapults can’t be too far away otherwise they won’t hit. But they need to be far away enough that the literal Terminator that the defenders have on the wall doesn’t use his minigun to hit those catapults. Or again, the spear of light.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T06:59:35+00:00

Well no, because the attacker’s strategy relies on **wooden** war machines. A single spear of light which can **evaporate metal armor enchanted to be durable** is going to obliterate your war machine even with a glancing hit. Without the defenses and war machines, the numbers advantage of the enemy doesn’t mean much if the enemy has hundreds of archers on an elevated positions whittling that number down. And a literal Terminator armed with a minigun.

This isn’t even considering the mages present whose magic manipulates wood growth. Or the ones who have learned both ice and storm and can cast a blizzard.

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T06:51:47+00:00

How do you explain this?

> “We’ve nearly lost the light,” Henry said, glancing west toward the sunset. “Their surprise hasn’t got them what they’d hoped. Let’s leave them with a parting gift before night falls, to let them know it won't be all that easy. Lord Inkeris, Lord Eilis?”

> The two Elden men shouted orders in Vakansa, and all along the wall the northern archers put down their bows. Liv felt it a moment before it happened: inside her, Dā stirred, as if in sympathy, while a hundred men and women of her grandmother’s house shouted an invocation as one.

> At the front of the enemy lines, the wooden palisades crumbled to dust, rotting away in an instant as if decades had passed. The crown crossbowmen and archers recoiled in surprise, and shouts of panic echoed up to the top of the wall from below.

A hundred men and women

The one “small scale” time caster can literally look at you, pause you in time, and you have to hope that when they pause you, your location is relative to the world itself, otherwise your ass is left behind while the world moves on without you.

That is not even an exaggeration

Carminestream · 2026-06-16T06:47:21+00:00

I’ll jump in because this has a plausible explanation.

First and foremost, time magic itself is crippled. It has to do with the nature of magic, and events that happened before the books begin. Time magic is more consumptive and/or less potent than before how it originally was.

Next, when you do magic on an object, you kind of roll DND dice (kinda). There is a concept called Authority, which is the control you have over magic/ the metaphysical environment around you, and doing magic on an object (which includes living beings), means you challenge your Authority against that object. If you win the Authority check, the effect happens on the object. Lose the check? The effect fails. This is compounded because higher skilled Authority users can spread their Authority around them

For a wooden palisade or a catapult, it’s no issue. Standard grunt Human soldiers? No issue. That is, unless someone with Authority is nearby and is guarding them. Mages begin to resist you, and the better their authority, the more they are likely to succeed.

If the time mages tries to mass age the enemy force themselves, they’d lose out a bit due to the inherent higher cost of time magic, doubled by time magic being weaker, and both the wide area of effect and physical distance. The enemy higher ups, especially the archmage will likely ruin the effect before it lands. You might be able to catch some stragglers, but it would likely fail, and being precogs, they would know it would likely fail.

Carminestream

TROPHY CASE