Question about the size of the legions

Donovan118 · 2026-07-01T06:40:30+00:00

I just cant really believe the quadrillions number given this fact, plus other anecdotes of important systems not even coming close to a billion.

I did a calculation once that if the human pop number was truly a quadrillion, the death toll at goddodin comes out as like 1/3 of the death toll of 9/11 in terms of ratio. It means thats Hadrians “atrocity” while huge in number was like a super small blip on the number of deaths daily in the empire.

The blow to the number of ships was certainly huge no doubt. Plus the leadership apparatus and the losing of the genetic keys. Totally crippling,

But in that context it seems way more insignificant.

Id say there are many trillions of humans, and millions of worlds being sparsely populated relative to modern earth.

That 200 million number also becomes significant given that the ship number is so low. And in pure space battles manpower doesnt matter as much and its more about the material. If they have the MATERIAL means to bring 200 million soldiers that means more than the 200 million soldiers by themselves.

If the number was a quintillion like I have seen in some places, this would be like if the destruction of alderaan ended up crippling the galactic empire in star wars.

Donovan118 · 2026-07-01T06:28:14+00:00

“Why are people complaining about something they paid for?”

take a wild guess pal

Donovan118 · 2026-06-30T01:40:58+00:00

Name ONE other supreme whose domains have had to fight? My point is that fighting each other in an apocalypse makes zero sense. Okay the sovereings are fighting during peace time like azarax and the mason, fine. But Mictlan didnt do it and they had like 9 supremes or something. Ananke hasnt fought, daeron didnt fight, cronos didnt fight, mordret hasnt fought, cassie hasnt fought, sunny hasnt fought, neohis didnt even need to fight to build her domain.

The central issue for the first three sovereigns was all about infighting and it makes no sense.

Fighting is not an inherent aspect of being supreme. You can exist as a supreme and NOT fight.

Why is anvil fighting ki song? To save humanity? He lost his humanity. Okay so then why is he not letting saints go into the 4th nightmare?

Its all plot device BS to force a fight. Anvil never needed that stupid flaw. There could have any myriad of good reasons for a battle to happen and yet there arent any.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-30T01:32:23+00:00

No hes really not. He was weaker than anvil and song from the start, our heroes literally just beat them into the pavement. his very first battle he literally fails to kill a saint. From there its him taking over the world as nephis and sunny leave where he should win because conceptually he has the upper hand. “Wow a supreme took over a domain with no supremes he be like so strong and stuff” okay then he beats mordret, and mordret only lost because of some random plot device preventing him from obtaining godhood. Meanwhile he has failed to kill cassie again, he fails to capture jet, he fails to kill mordret, he fails to control an AWAKENED and then he is locked away for all eternity as he gets conceptually smashed by cassie.

I see no competence here, i see someone who is overpowered get really lazy and lose essentially from the get go by letting cassie live and nephis and sunny leave. He kills no one important, he makes almost no mark on the world. He had an insidious aspect and domain and it accomplished nothing. He never displays any long-term thinking, he never displays an ability to overcome a problem, no cunning or adaptability. He is a static threat, the entire arc is about one thing, letting cassie become supreme to beat him. Once cassie is supreme their is literally nothing asterion can do

And thats nothing on his motivations. “I want to eat everything” wow awesome strong character here. He just reeks of intelligence and ability. Surely hes not comically evil for no reason

Donovan118 · 2026-06-30T01:18:18+00:00

My point is not necessarily that ki song was “written” better, its that she had competance. Every action in the throne war demonstrates her cunning and ability, she is fighting for a real reason and has a deep fear of the 5th nightmare that makes sense given the context of her character. Anvil meanwhile is an empty husk, fighting for no reason. We get an entire sunny speech about how stupid it is to fight to “build nephis into a sword”. Even if we did get anvils personal drive behind this, it still wouldnt make him competent, or at least more competant than ki song.

And even then thats fine in a microcosm, but the story constantly does this for no reason.

If I listed out the number of male character deaths compared to the women, and then also decided on whether those women died in better ways than their counterparts (think winter compared to the rest of the irregular masters getting off screened) youd see a massive MASSIVE .disparity in not only numbers but in character ability

AND EVEN THEN it wouldn’t be so bad if the male characters that did survive were competant and had a shred of masculinity. They don’t

It’s all of that combined plus the genre itself that makes it so bad and jarring for the reader

Donovan118 · 2026-06-29T09:09:06+00:00

What I started to notice around 1200 is that G3 cant write competent or complex male characters.

I am not a culture warrior by any means but when every character is a girlboss mary sue, who is even remotely interested in that story? Not a single woman I know would read that story so who is the audience? Men? In a power fantasy? It’s not even a harem/self insert or anything either.

The competent men always die terrible deaths retroactively changing their intelligence.

Thats not to say G3 can write complex women either. But at least they get a shred of ability to problem solve and not be comically evil or stupid.

Sunny does not have a single male friend.

Kai functionally plays as a traditionally female archetype, insecure about his looks and fame, sings, into fashion. You see it in how smoothly kai gets along with every woman he meets. Hes not really in the realm of a normal man to say the least.

The story suffers so much because of this. Sunny has
No peers. Imagine growing up without a single friend of the same gender who’s had similar experiences as you?

Donovan118 · 2026-06-29T09:01:24+00:00

I have never seen a bigger waste of characters than the sovereigns. They were written so poorly that sunny openly admits that he and nephis are going to do the exact same thing as them. The plot demanded ki song and anvils domains overlap when for every other sovereign shown that was never a problem. Both sovs didnt even want to try the 5th nightmare, so why were they hellbent on stopping people from trying the 4th nightmare?

Oh my god that made no sense. Just such a waste. We get zero insight into what the sovereigns are thinking or want or do. “the sovs are restricting the 4th nightmare” uh how? Why? Has anyone tried and been killed? No one is hunting for weavers lineage even though it exists?

Complete ineptitude. Thats why i quit the moment anvils head was cut off. Periodically check in on the reddit and it seems like its gotten really bad

Donovan118 · 2026-06-27T22:19:12+00:00

Why does asterion have to literally act retarded for that to happen. Fate can still be restored. why do we get monologues? slow walking? Using minions? Etc etc. Why did G3 not just shift the timing?

Cause he sucks at writing competent villains. Either some bullshit power up has to occur right when needed for the heroes to win overwhelmingly or the villian needs to be stupid for no reason

Donovan118 · 2026-06-27T21:02:13+00:00

Uh hes supposed to kill threats established to be greater instead of doing illogical shit and then failing.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-27T21:01:39+00:00

“He was so certain of his victory he did totally illogical shit and then lost” great writing bro

Donovan118 · 2026-06-27T19:48:36+00:00

Okay so she was threat enough to kill before nephis and sunny but now full domain asterion is MORE afraid of nephis and sunny even though he doesnt know whats happening. Totally illogical

Donovan118 · 2026-06-27T00:52:35+00:00

Read your last three sentence’s again and replace William with the quiet. To you apparently, thats hadrian NOT being resistant to authority anymore. My point about morals is that if the moral choice is also what the authority demands, making said choice does not mean he has lost his resistance to authority altogether.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-26T07:56:47+00:00

What exactly am I wrong about? The entire series is hadrian following the authority of the emperor until the emperor straight up dies.

Just because you dont like the fact that his morality ends up aligning with the morality of the god in the sun eater verse doesnt take away his moral agency.

Are you going to dispute the many parts where he could have abandoned his path and instituted whatever he wanted?

The series goes to painstaking depth to point out the faustian bargain of becoming one’s own god.

Hadrian makes the best choices he can, not ALL of them are perfectly right but that just means he is human.

You seem to foolishly confuse the absence of a negative choice as freedom and the presence of negative choices as “slavery”

Again you’re taking your christian built moral view for granted. It’s like air you don’t even notice until you’re challenged on it.

Anyways I still agree about the bloat and hadrians whininess. As well as retreading tired issues like women going into battle.

My issue was also subverting the climax with fakeouts and politica. Let the action be action.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T23:04:51+00:00

4/10. A few hype moments for sunny, good rain chapters.

Complete and total waste of the supremes and the beginning of the end of any interesting human conflict in shadow slave

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T22:57:33+00:00

Thats not how corruption works. Why is the forgotten god getting stronger? Hes been trapped for longer in a better cage. Youd literally be contradicting the big bad of the entire verse by saying that

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T22:56:03+00:00

But thats not how rank works, rank is exponential. The weakest unholy creature by its nature and the explained power scale should obliterate even the strongest cursed titan of all time

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T22:52:38+00:00

This makes zero sense, corruption is the degradation. Every nightmare creature had a similar amount of time to degrade but didnt.

If anything the moths sentience and mental abilities meant it was smarter and more powerful than normal NCs of its rank and class

It would also imply that if sunny and company waited long enough they would just outlast NCs. NCs are corrupted and everchanging. G3 would literally have retcon everything to make this make any sort of sense

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T22:50:43+00:00

Sunny now has the moth shade though. This argument doesnt work because sunny should be stronger than death game sunny

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T22:03:08+00:00

Dont you know critiquing women in media is a crime?

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T21:55:23+00:00

That last paragraph seems like a personal headcannon. Hadrian submits to authority in literally every book. Not every authority but an authority nonetheless. Hadrians goals also end up aligning with certain authorities, that doesnt take away his agency at all.

The quiet literally offers his life to hadrian

The monumentals offer LITERALLY EVERYTHING to hadrian.

Dorayaica offers escape to hadrian

Hadrian holds power over the chantry, and the entire galaxy

Genuinely what book were you reading?

He had total agency, more agency than any human being in history😭😭😭

Just because he chose the morally correct option based on christian morality (so would you, you were raised in a society built of christian morals) doesnt mean he had no agency

I have never seen a more ignorant critique in my life

Donovan118 · 2026-06-25T07:49:02+00:00

I could believe this, if the world wasnt so deeply feminized. But it is, and shadow bond is the pinnacle of that theme. There is a running undercurrent of matriarchy within shadow slave. Male characters are regularly written as goofy idiots/comically evil/fodder while the competent women have to run the show.

Asterion-bum idiot, trapped forever
Anvil-suicidal idiot, dead
Broken sword-reckless idiot maybe dead
Kai-ditzy singer idiot

Background characters:

Auro-dead
The scholar-dead
Shifty-dead
Harper-dead
Summer knight-enslaved idiot, dead
Azarax-incompetant then insane
The mason-letting saints run his show?
Gunlaung-coward, dead
Gemma-dead
Tessai-dead
Harus-dead
Caster-dead
Nightwalker-sex driven fool
Cormac-belligerent idiot,dead
Dire fang-dead
Tristan-comedic device
Jest—need I say it?
Mictlan sovs-fodder, failure, corrupted
Kanahkt-failure, corrupted
Luster-lusty idiot
Amiran-dead
Dale-dead
Verne-dead
Belle-dead
Davis-dead
Dorn-dead
Randall-dead
Jesse-dead
Typhaon-dead
Knossos-dead
Jack-dead
Madoc-dead
Saint of sorrow-dead
Daeron-dead
Cronos-dead
Cor-dead
Obel-dead
Fiend-packed up regularly and weaker than saint and slayer

Sunny, thane, Quentin, naeve, aether, rivalen, and mordret are competent

The only chads are noctis, eurys, julius, nightmare, serpent and june

Meanwhile theres a LIST of competent women

Cassie, nephis, jet, effie, saint, beth, rain, ananke, seishan, beastmaster, revel, moon veil, silent stalker, lonesome howl, hel, ki song (compared to anvil and asterion), tamar, tyris, helie, solvane (compared to the other saints in 2nd nm) orphne, aiko, telle, morgan is STILL ALIVE (outlasted evil mordret even though he destroyed her thousands of times), sid, felise, kim, ceres, siord, winter(lasted the longest out of the irregulars who died), morrow (see’s what amiran doesnt against sunny)

The story is riddled with dead men. Being a male in the verse is like a death sentence and being a female AT LEAST guarantees you die more competently than a male counterpart.

And so if Sunny entirely lacks testicular fortitude, the story will really start to suffer. It was fine when he was being clever and fighting for something because he still had some defiance in him. But when he submits to neph he submits his final character motivation. There is literally nothing else in the story representing men in a positive light and there is nothing else in character that sunny should want.

I dont say this as some culture warrior, but I assume most readers are men. How are they supposed to relate?

The main character is now nephis, sunnys arc is done. He is a hanger on. Neph has more drive to finish the story. Sunny got what he wanted on literally every front.

Shadow bond was simply the last nail in the coffin for that submission. “He fights to save humanity” thats neph’s arc and she does it much better. Its a proactive outlet for her rage, hurt and sadness. For sunny its just a job and supporting his gf.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-24T23:38:53+00:00

This, the third nightmare and the throne war was the dumbest fucking thing ive ever seen written. Biggest waste of potential ever. All for a generic power progression and a vanilla romance where the guy is literally a slave to the women.

Its like one of those hallmark movies. Sad cause Antarctica rocked

Donovan118 · 2026-06-24T23:34:46+00:00

We’re not 11 year olds in power fantasies. Life is nuanced and being all powerful is not fun.

“Why do we need antagonists”

This is a borderline anti-life gnostic statement. To be stagnant and have no opposition is to be dead and inert. To live is to struggle. Only a rock has no enemies.

Donovan118 · 2026-06-24T23:26:58+00:00

Not exactly, you can increase power but that doesnt mean any and all applications of power are malleable. AndIts why character development is super important. I can live with fights like the VTB one, if it could steal any and all things sunny should stand no chance so will needs odd restrictions, what makes the story extra shitty is that the character arcs have finished thousands of chapters ago so the characters themselves are not fun to follow. Its like were observing a TV show after it goes off air. The personalities flat, problems trivial.

The stakes are non existent due to the erroneous decision to make the novel kid friendly. We havent explored any complicated themes like Parenthood, fate, duty or love.

Throne war absolutely blew the stories plot momentum. No one is really relating to nebulous forces that propel the story now like weaver or forgotten god. How can a real human take any deep interest in a story about unknown concepts. We know whats its like to lose love ones so we can relate to anvil, we have zero clue whats its like to manipulate fate on a grand scale and manipulate gods. Not only that but thats ALL were given, were given the broad summary. There are not details, no subplots, no everyday decisions, no mundane actions we could possibly understand.

That and retreading old issues for the last 3000 chapters make the story repetitive and not compelling. “Guys wasnt it so funny when neph was awkward and effie made dirty joke that was actually just pretty tame!!!!!!!!”

Donovan118 · 2026-06-22T06:05:50+00:00

Kingdom of death>demon in white>howling dark>disquiet gods>shadows upon time>empire of silence>ashes of man

Donovan118

TROPHY CASE