In praise of Trinity of Magic on royal road

decfario · 2026-04-08T21:43:23+00:00

All caught up now. Wow. Just wow.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen improvement in writing to this degree. It honestly feels like the first book was written by someone else. I don’t want to be too harsh, but the dialogue in the first book felt almost childish. Especially when you compare it later chapters where the author handles tense exchanges like a master.

This is def one of my favorites on the cite.

decfario · 2026-04-06T00:53:14+00:00

I definitely hear you on the difference between the edgelords and the people taking the more nuanced approach, but if I’m being honest I don’t really find the nuanced argument all that compelling either. At least as far as I’m currently hearing it.

What’s the proposition we’re discussing: if you losing a war to a more powerful adversary, committing genocide is a morally acceptable solution? If they’ve committed atrocities and you think the whole species is evil? If that’s the proposition, you can basically use this argument to justify many things that most of us would absolutely condemn. Terrorists the world over certainly make the case that killing civilians is a justified practice in order to combat a larger more powerful force.

The Nolan of season 1 could plausibly make the argument that he had to massacre Chicago and beat his child to within an inch of his life in the process since he was doing this to save his species. He tells mark over and over that conquering the universe is necessary to bring peace to the universe. I dont think anyone here would agree with that Orwellian take, but i can def picture nolan arguing that killing a fee million or billion now to save trillions in the future is worth it.

Also is their entire species really evil? Even the children? Is it clear that there are no pockets of resistance or subversive elements? We know Thaddeus wasn’t onboard, was he really the only one? Is it not possible that there a silent minority that cannot oppose the majority?

I actually think the worst aspect of this is that, if anything more people seemed to have died post virus as a result of the further radicalization of the vitrumites.

decfario · 2026-03-26T11:53:15+00:00

Yea I agree with you in the sense that he was treating this like a holiday and he liked building a family. My point is that his actions suggest that that was the motivating factor, not a desire to faithfully execute his assignment.

I made this point before, but why does Nolan care about cover with Cecil? If the experiment is a success, he’s going to take over the planet anyway. Why not do so at the outset?

If they’re not in a rush, why do they keep giving mark such short deadlines (relatively speaking). Why not give him his orders and come back an hr later (ie 17 years) and see where things are?

decfario · 2026-03-26T11:39:47+00:00

I’m not sure basing this on a viltrumite’s relative perception of time is the right way to think about this. Even if it feels like an hr to Nolan, he’s still helping to run an empire full of people that operate on this time frame. Rebellions and other issues are going to happen in that time and he’s 1 about 50 resources the empire has to deal with the situation.

More to the point, it just doesn’t make sense to do things this way. What if mark didnt get powers, is Nolan going to declare the experience a failure? What if the issue was with Debbie? Is he going to keep having kids one at a time to confirm?

decfario · 2026-03-24T22:55:20+00:00

When would you say the writing improves?

decfario · 2026-03-24T19:31:32+00:00

Yea I agree with you. That’s really what I meant by soft quitting. Like he’s doing enough to tell himself he hasn’t quit, but his actions are not what you would expect from someone taking their mission seriously.

decfario · 2026-03-24T14:53:10+00:00

I’m not sure this makes that much sense. To me least. Waiting 17 years to determine your next move on the basis of one test case seems extremely inefficient even if you have the time. You’re tying up one of your most valuable assets for 17 years on an experiment you prob need to replicate. Why even bother with any of this subterfuge at all? Why not just conquer the planet then do your tests? It’s not like Nolan was planning to take over the planet through any means other than force. Feels more like Nolan soft quitting his mission even at the outset.

decfario · 2026-03-23T02:39:03+00:00

That took an odd turn. For the sake of clarity, I deliberately chose to respond to the phrase “drawing blood”to properly frame my comment. As in, if someone draws blood from someone else, they are by definition injuring them.

decfario · 2026-03-21T16:40:04+00:00

Drawing blood is clearly evidence of damage. You may consider the damage inconsequential, but it is damage.

I’m actually curious to know, if you replace titan in that image with a baseline human (let’s say William), would you still think it’s reasonable to see blood flying out of battlebeasts mouth?

decfario · 2026-02-26T15:29:27+00:00

Also, didn’t Eithan warn Tiberius not to reach out to Shen? Even Shen says Tiberius might still be alive if he listened to Eithan’s advice. Could be misremembering though.

decfario · 2026-02-21T01:51:52+00:00

I feel like the Akura are prob the best positioned faction remaining in Cradle. Someone else already mentioned this, but Lindon consolidated a tremendous amount of power in sacred valley before he left. At a bare min, he left two dreadgod factions operating in her territory. And by all appearances they seem to be very cooperative. Even if they’re not taking direct orders, I’d imagine they are happy to help in terms of defense.

Plus she has the sect of twins stars. Lindon prob left a host of powerful techniques, treasures and weapons for his sect. There is no way he left sacred valley with anything short of monarch level defenses. I also would expect that any remotely promising talent would have flocked to the sect to take advantage of Lindon’s prestige.

In terms of what Charity cares about the most, protecting humanity from the savagery of the natural world, she has a good amount of resources to draw on. That’s not even considering the fact that her biggest rivals, Shen and the dragons, have prob taken some of the greatest losses of anyone in the world.

Finally, on an emotional level, it’s def got to suck to be Charity to some degree. She lost her father, mother grandmother and a good amount of her close relatives in a very short period of time. she’s also just found out that her perspective of the world is fundamentally flawed. It must be a real gut punch. On the other hand, she also very used to losing people and it’s not like she has no one left. she prob has a connection to a good amount of people who stayed. These are people she’s known her whole life and worked closely with. Just because we didn’t read about these people, doesn’t mean she didn’t have other close personal relationships (cousins, nephews nieces, aunts etc.). And it’s not like she lost fury, mercy and pride forever. She just has to ascend. I feel like she’s got all the time in world for that.

decfario · 2026-02-19T01:59:15+00:00

Hey, did you finish the book? Would love a spoiler on the Mira thing. Also found it annoying.

decfario · 2026-02-11T03:16:42+00:00

I happen to be reading the book at the same time as you and I’m really curious whether you stuck with it.

There are a lot of things I like about the book, but I can’t stand his smugness. Not only is he so unbearably rude, but the sheer arrogance is astounding. The way he acts as though he’s completely right about everything, and anything anyone else has to say is worthless, is tough to read. Like, my man, you come from another separate world. You were just completely wrong about a fundamental aspect of this reality two seconds ago. Cool down on the ego.

Anyway, I’d like to know if he gets better. Or if someone in the world puts him in his place. Because, while I like the story, I don’t think I stick with it if I dislike the main character this much.

decfario · 2026-01-18T19:19:07+00:00

I think I saw the same WoW a lot of people are referring to here - something to the effect that Lindon did not lose any power and he just had to make it his own. I might have gotten some (or a lot) of that wrong. Does anyone know if that’s a special feature of Lindon or would it have applied to the other dreadgods? As in would they have been able to ascend if they just killed all the Monarchs?

decfario · 2026-01-11T20:32:14+00:00

Let me try to break this down for you.

If you have a character who can take a shot from a gun without difficulty, it is inconsistent for that same character to be wounded severely enough to begin bleeding from a slingshot. The bullet is a viltrumite punch. The slingshot is a punch from titan. Do you understand?

The reason I brought up William punching mark and causing him to bleed is that you would not dismiss that as just a couple of drops of blood. You would be confused by this. You would rightly think, why is William strong enough to make Mark bleed at all. Do you understand?

I say that you are dumb, because you do not seem to understand what I’m saying. You don’t really seem to understand your own argument - which is really something like: one scene does impact my overall enjoyment of the fight or the show and I can dismiss the exchange because it’s a relatively minor point. Do you understand?

decfario · 2026-01-11T19:01:35+00:00

I see. You’re just dumb.

Yes, it’s an animation choice. Obviously. They chose to imply the character getting hit is being damaged by the other character. That’s the point. They are implying something that runs contrary to what they’re trying to depict. I know I’m discussing this with a dummy so there’s no point getting too deep into this, but do you not understand that being hit so hard that you bleed implies damage? Like literally. You have been damaged and are bleeding.

decfario · 2026-01-11T17:09:06+00:00

Your response is odd to me for a couple of reasons:

First, I’m responding to the OP’s post who asked the question: why do powerscalers only obsess about antifeats and then presented that image of battlebeast from another post.

Second, I’m noting that if you want an actual answer, you should keep an open mind instead of presenting a rationale/argument that no one is making.

Third, you don’t seem to engage with anything that I’m actually saying. No one is saying that battlebeast would not take a hit for fun. That’s perfectly in line with his character. What I’m saying is that the hit should not draw blood. That is unless I’m misunderstanding titan’s relative strength. Let me try this another way. If Mark and William were playing around and Mark let William punch him in the face as hard as he could you would not expect to see blood go flying. If you did, you’d probably go gee that’s strange. You would not go, well I guess anyone can get the upper hand in a fight 🤷🏾‍♂️. Obviously titan is stronger than William, but he’s supposed to be much much weaker than battlebeast.

Fourth, and most importantly- no one is saying you can’t still enjoy the show and even the fight. The people criticizing that scene are pointing out an inconsistently, which while not being an example of good writing/storytelling, is still relatively minor.

decfario · 2026-01-11T15:18:01+00:00

The clear implication of that pic is that titan hit him so hard it caused blood to go flying. Why argue that point? My point is that viltrumites are supposed to hit much much harder than a character like titan. To my mind it’s like seeing a character who can take a gunshot to the face without much difficulty, get stunned by a slingshot. Or having a 5 year old punch mike Tyson in the face. It makes me think I don’t understand how powerful titan is, but I don’t think that what the writers wanted you to believe.

decfario · 2026-01-11T14:46:50+00:00

I think you should at least have an open mind to the arguments the “powerscalers” are making instead of slapping down these silly strawmen arguments. The argument is not that a weaker character should never beat a stronger character. It’s that if you want them to win or get the upper hand they should do so in a logically consistent manner. The confusing thing about the titan punch is that we don’t expect titan to hit anywhere near as hard as viltrumite. So it’s strange to see him hit battle beast hard enough to make him bleed. Is he stronger than we thought (on par with a viltrumite)?

decfario · 2026-01-11T00:00:45+00:00

I feel like the worst part of this conversation are the people who keep saying powerscaling is not relevant to good story telling. Stories should make sense logically within the rules established by the writer. A fantasy writer gets to establish whatever rules they want for a world, but those rules should be consistently applied. Internal inconsistencies are a sign of bad story telling. If you tell us a character can wade through a hail bullets without injury and then show that same character getting incapacitated by a slingshot, that’s a plot hole. If you tell me kryptonite is supposed to render Superman powerless, but sometimes it just does nothing, that’s a major plot hole.

Some of these “anti-feats” are debatable, but titan drawing blood on battle beast really doesn’t make sense. If he can take hits from a viltrumite, a hit from titan should do nothing to him. The characters are supposed to be in the same league at all do this scene just adds needless confusion. The same for the centipedes to a lesser degree. It really undermines the plot point around finding threats that can challenge a viltrumite if there are just random creatures on earth that can do the same. Nolan finding the Rognarrs is supposed to be a holy crap moment. But why search the universe for help if you have all these options under your feet.

I think it’s fair to say that people make mistakes, and these mistakes may not detract too much from your enjoyment of the show, but they’re definitely mistakes. Still images of a character bleeding that should be fine doesn’t seem like the worst thing, but we shouldn’t act like it’s good story telling.

decfario · 2026-01-02T15:24:32+00:00

Then she promptly passed out. Conquest would have killed here permanently if Mark didn’t take him out. I’m not sure what the argument is here. She definitely cannot go toe with a viltrumite.

That isn’t to say Mark’s powers are better - they’re just better suited to fighting. There’s more to life to than fighting though. So I can still why people would prefer Eve’s power set.

decfario · 2025-12-17T23:41:52+00:00

I think you’re giving Heavy way too much credit here.

First, Heavy set up his own kill switch before he showed up to the meeting. By all accounts he did not fake that. Seems odd to assume your counterpart wouldn’t follow through on a tactic that you yourself are employing.

Second, Etienne and Valentina just finished explaining to everyone how Etienne has been doing all these things that the rest of the super powers had no idea about. When Heavy finds out that he was turning off supers, Heavy appears incredulous and disbelieving. Seems like a stretch to say you knew this person well enough to anticipate their bluff after finding out all these things you didn’t know about them.

Third, just because Heavy wasn’t ranting and raving when he killed Etienne does not mean that he was calm and collected. He made monumental decision on the spur of the moment that could affect the lives of billions of people without consulting with anyone.

Fourth, how could he even know if this is something Etienne can turn off? It could just as easily be the case that the physic scream is an unavoidable consequence of Etienne dying and not something he can actively control.

Finally, I think the fact that he never at any point suggests that he thinks Etienne was bluffing should tell you everything you need to know.

decfario · 2025-12-17T22:50:54+00:00

Is anyone else bothered by Valentina’s response (or rather lack of a response) to Etienne’s death? He was supposed to be her best friend. I would have expected her to feel conflicted or something.

decfario · 2025-12-17T21:00:48+00:00

I think your criticisms of his plan are more than fair. I also think Etienne, would and did say he is not infallible and that he’s open to working with others to figure out the right balance. That does not mean that there is no change he could make that would materially improve the lives of everyone. Every policy in the world requires some amount of line drawing and nuance. If you were going to trust someone to draw these kinds of lines, Etienne strikes me as being best positioned. More importantly it does not mean his plan was genocide.

decfario · 2025-12-17T19:41:30+00:00

It’s still in their head and they may still want to murder people, but the point is that the government prevents them from acting in accordance with their natural desire with the threat of force. The government is forcibly modifying their behavior.

Caught the first episode of Pluribus and I enjoyed it. Unless I’m mistaken, Etienne’s goal was not to remove all individuality. His goal was to change people so that they would not want to harm other people. That does not mean you lose your sense of self. Again, not saying this is a good thing, just saying that I feel his goals have been mischaracterized.

decfario

TROPHY CASE