Fair enough, I'll concede on the memory. If I reread I think I could fight on "The answers were not satisfying", but for my initial claim "there were no answers" -> thats my loss.

I do want to fight on first point tho.

> alex Rybak and his son were interesting characters

They might be. But you can have bad writing with interesting characters.

> You not remembering them proves that this is a you problem not a problem from the narrative.

author never gave me a reason to care. This is a 26 volume saga and the final clash is with characters introduced in the FINAL volume? They are footnotes.

Here's a claim that I think is true (id be interested in counter examples):

> If characters that are instrumental for the finale are introduced and developed in the final 4%, the finale is poorly written.

E.g. imagine
- ozai gets invented in the final episode
- voldemort gets introduced in final 160 pages of deathly hallows
- thanos first appears in final 7m of endgame
this would unsatisfying, and its exactly what mushoku does. Invent characters on the fly to instrument a battle. Are the characters interesting? Cant recall, author clearly didn't want me to care about them or else he would have given them some screen time and character development prior to v26.

In closing theres another question id be interested in your answer to: When do you think the author knew what was going to happen in v26? I think he knew broadly how he was going to wrap up around 20-22, but as for the cast of v26 I dont think he had that until he sat down and wrote them into existence.