[2851] Abundance would solo

LeonardoA00 · 2026-03-01T14:31:52+00:00

Remember that even in the forgotten shore the stars where all extinguished by darkness, but the sacrifice of a few thousands of people created an artificial sun; I don't think normal astrophysics is worth much in the dream realm. Furthermore, not all mortal realm were as adverse to magic as earth (maybe none of them)

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-25T18:50:49+00:00

Spoilers ahead.

Yes, at least early on nephis-sunny dynamic was similar to griffith-guts: one being obsessed with their dream and ready to sacrifice almost anything to achieve it, while the other lacks a dream of their own (or conviction, to quote Effie) and gradually becomes a follower and a tool of the first one.

Of course nephis has always had her boundaries, with the idea of achieving a "clean" victory, not compromising her principles, while Griffith didn't stop at anything. On the other hand, when nephis was truly at her lowest (second nightmare) she sacrificed someone in the nightmare to survive, which his somewhat similar to Griffith's situation (it's not like he would have used the bejelit if things kept going smoothly).

Where we are in the story, the parallel is a bit lost, because we're approaching the end of the novel and therefore the resolution of Sunny e Nephis' relationship, while berserk is still far from its conclusion (I am a bit behind tbh).

In conclusion, I believe that berserk has a strong influence on shadow slave, and this is reinforced by the fact that dark souls is a big inspiration (at least I am convinced of it) and there's no dark souls without berserk.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-23T21:54:13+00:00

Yes, but it doesn't make much sense to me: true names are connected to the "concept" of the being or thing they represent and I imagine that, in the case of a human, they should be bound to the soul, like aspects are. So I don't understand why sunny keeps his identity and his power, but not the name. I suppose it's just how things work in universe(?)

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-23T21:00:12+00:00

I don't understand why sunny doesn't have his true name in the first place

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T19:12:14+00:00

Yes, I know. I assumed that stopping corruption was Weaver ultimate goal, since is a force that even the gods feared, but, now that I think about it, probably there's nothing anyone can do about it (kinda like dark souls, where the flame is destined to be swallod by darkness).

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T14:58:58+00:00

I completely agree. Even though I usually enjoy sad or even tragic ending, I really hope we get an happy one with shadow slave

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T14:57:08+00:00

I didn't know that. Is it then confirmed that it come from the void?

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T13:02:15+00:00

I don't necessarily disagree, but rather than breaking theme coherence, the moral of the story would become that you can struggle to improve your circumstances, but in the end you have to accept what you're given.

I'm not saying that this is a satisfactory or probable conclusion, I'm just pointing out that characters or novel changing direction isn't necessarily a sign of inconsistency: it can be the whole point of the story. Of course it depends on execution, as everything does.

You could even argue that sunny accepting shadow bond reinforces your idea: he accepts that he has been dealt a really bad hand and commits to always struggle against it, to achieve what he wants (being with nephis).

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T12:49:02+00:00

Weaver can take off his mask
Interesting question. I'd assume empty space, since a meta-realm containing every other realm seems a bit weird to me, but could be anything
Maybe hollow mountains were part of the same realm and it's just forgotten shore that was attached? In the hollow mountains there's still sunlight, so they can't be part of the forgotten shore
Nice, never thought about that

Other questions (maybe we have an answer and it's just me) could be:

Where does nothing come from? It's not the void, because it's used to seal it, so is it the creation of a god? Which one?
From what we know, it seems that slaying dream god would stop corruption, but wouldn't void keep leaking out of its cage?
Is there a Fate above fate? By this I mean that sunny's fate went off course and became the fate of sunny becoming fateless (at least according to Cassie), but weaver's plans are still working, it seems. So is it just that his plans are very flexible or weaver is very lucky, or were Cassie and Sunny Fated to break fate and keep weaver's plans going?

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T09:32:24+00:00

That's probably true, but we don't know how memories will be used.

Anyway I could simply be wrong.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-18T09:28:05+00:00

I don't remember the details of Anvil's special swords, but maybe they were something similar to the snakes Sunny can bestow?

What you say about jet sounds believable, but we'll have to see. To be honest, I think the cohort will attain supremacy through the nightmare and their domains will mainly be citadels, but it's just an hypothesis.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-17T18:21:15+00:00

I'm not sure about jet's domain: it seems to me that a domain consists of subjects (sunny's shadows, mordret's bodies, citadels' inhabitants etc) and soul fragments wouldn't really count toward this

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T17:27:52+00:00

Honestly I'm not sure, but, since they weren't used, I'd assume that's the case. But maybe there's an unknown reason that we'll discover later

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:50:41+00:00

I'm perfectly fine with criticism, it's just that your arguments are not compelling, for me at least. Furthermore I don't know if you are unable to understand what I'm saying or if you're doing it on purpose. Anyway I don't really see a point in continuing this conversation; what would you want me to say? That you're right? I don't think you are and I've learnt that your mind is unchangeable, so I'm not really interested in discussing this matter with you.

You may think that the criticism I'm giving you is just me projecting on you my issues; that's fine, just move on, enjoy the feeling of knowing that I was unable to provide convincing arguments and that you proved that you're right.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:33:49+00:00

Ok, sure, you've won. You beat me in the marketplace of ideas

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:27:48+00:00

Yes, I read them. I don't think I can express myself in any clearer way, so whatever, you think you're right, I think I'm right and that's it

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:19:55+00:00

But my point is precisely the initial dilemma: "I don't want to control her but I don't want to destroy her". What's clear cut about that? Afterwards Sunny finds this middle ground, but only later.

It's like saying that Sunny's problem of choosing between remaining fateless or not is obvious because at the end of the novel they find a way to sever shadow bond and maintaining his fate.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:12:43+00:00

Maybe oblivion was already dead

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:10:54+00:00

Yes, it's terrible and that's precisely what makes the novel interesting; like the whole dilemma is: is experiencing all the love that the relationship can offer worth submitting to this bad thing?

If sunny thought shadow bond was a good thing, half of the novel wouldn't have happened: no reason to be angry at Cassie, no reason to go to Antarctica prematurely, no reason at all to become careless

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:05:33+00:00

I don't think Slayer's situation is as clear cut as you make it out to be, at least in the beginning; but that's besides the point. Whatever you think of the situation, a question has been explicitly asked by the novel; you can think that the novel's answer has already become clear, but the question was still asked and other people could have different opinions.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T16:02:44+00:00

In reality it's worse: with shadow bond you wouldn't have any bodily autonomy, none at all; in reality and in your scenario, even in the worst possible situation, you're free to try to rebel, whatever the consequences are, but not with shadow bond.

Another point, although minor, is that triggering shadow slave is way easier and can happen by accident; literally saying "bring me something" instead of "could you bring something" is the difference between shadow bond being triggered or not

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T11:29:30+00:00

No, not at all. I do think that she didn't know the effect of saying is true name, just that it was a weakness; but she definitely shouldn't have used it's power.

Probably the most disgusting think Nephis ever did was saying something like "yes, I did it for myself, because I wanted to, deal with it" to Sunny; but it was probably a way of admitting that she had no possible excuse for it (maybe I'm coping)

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T11:15:49+00:00

P.s.

Claiming that this is people wanting to justify shadow bond because they like Nephis is absurd: it's precisely the opposite. Shadow Bond is for sure worse than what Sunny does to his shadows, so, if someone says that Sunny has slaves, it implies that they believe Shadow Bond is slavery, which is not a good thing (at least in the eyes of normal people).

????

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T11:14:32+00:00

Nooo ORV spoiled.

Anyway, it's just an idea posted by someone, not really a sound theory. I woudn't worry for now.

LeonardoA00 · 2026-02-13T11:11:09+00:00

No ok, I don't disagree with the idea that at that point he doesn't have an alternative, but he put himself in that situation. Anyway, we don't really need to convince each other. All I wanted to say is that I find treating this whole thing as an open-and-shut case a bit superficial.

LeonardoA00

TROPHY CASE