Its been another interesting week with the ending of February. However I wish to go back to Rise of the Shield Hero because I decided to take a peek ahead in the light novel due to how the anime is going. Oooh boy did I find something interesting. Considering how I’ve been getting fairly good at breaking down individual characters I looked specifically at the false accuser Myne Sophia also known as Malty Melromarc – Princess of the Kingdom of Melromarc.
“Hold up Alex, Shield Hero is no longer controversial. Why are you jumping back into this gynocentric show that is not fulfilling my MGTOW fetish of making women suffer???” Yes, I’ve actually run into such an argument online, though I’m sure they were just trolling. But considering the increasingly provably false allegations against Vic Mignogna, the coming of the Weeb Wars, and the success in fighting back the social justice cancer that is starting to be seen on this front, not just with discussion of the truth of the matter but coming litigation… Well I can see how this could be something to analyze, especially since the original source is from 2013. It seems prophetic due to the comprehension of such tactics. Let’s Hammer This In!
To begin lets review the setup. One Naofumi Iwatani, age 20, is warped from a variation of our contemporary world to a Renaissance-style fantasy world along with three other “heroes” from other similar realms. They are all equipped with one of four legendary weapons, Naofumi gaining the Legendary Shield with all of its perks and detriments. At first, no one respects him due to him thinking he got the crap equipment. He only gains Myne in his party at first. Little does he know this is a ploy to vilify him and steal his gear and resources for the sake of one of the other heroes. For the first couple of months he simply thinks that it’s just the sociopathy of the Royalty. After this, though, we find out something much more sinister is at work and it’s here that I will of course make a spoiler warning if you’d prefer this be answered to you by the anime.
So what is Malty’s deal? What is going on with this matriarchal realm and how they are running things, and why are the other heroes so revered but Naofumi so vilified? Well its actually very simple – its one of the prime religions of this world! While the King Aultcray Melromarc XXXII (gods that’s a lot of dudes with the same name…) formerly Luge Lancarose of Faubley, and eventually known simply as “Trash,” isn’t of this religion, the spoiled heiress Malty takes wholly to this cult’s teachings. This meshes with the slavery and racism towards demi-humans. That stems from a White Tiger demi-human killing his parents and that motivation leading to him decimating Slitvelt – the demi-human homeland. This makes him a hero to Melromarc and gains him the attention of the soon to be queen Mirelia, who Naofumi learns is the true ruler. More on her later.
So what about the Bitch? Yeah, thanks to Naofumi that is her new name because frankly she is a bitch in every sense of the word. Well on the surface she is too ‘attractive’ for her own good and she knows it. It’s to the point where her assets and physique are an absolute waste, since she takes after her father’s bigoted nature and turns it up to 11. She puts up a friendly demeanor to whoever she tries to take advantage of at the time, but as soon as you lose usefulness or displease her for any reason, you might as well be on the chopping block. She’s a compulsive liar, absolutely amoral, and will do anything to get what she wants… a complete and true sociopath if I’ve ever seen one. The most frightening part is we’ve all met someone like her in real life. Credit to Aneko Yusagi’s talent to be sure, due to how truly human her characters are.
So as I said before the motivation for Malty’s false accusation is in service to her religion, known as the Church of the Three Heroes. This is a religion built around some of the King’s racist beliefs, along with seeing the Shield Hero specifically as a demon due to his veneration by the demi-humans. This may be linked partially to the recently revealed Cursed Shield series that Naofumi has unlocked. If so, then what they’ve enacted is a self-fulfilling prophecy due to their own incompetence. As with many overpowered things, this series of shields grants immense power at a terrifying cost. For one, the shield not only consumes its user’s humanity, sanity, and potential life force but curses those affected by the flames of its Rage Shield mode.
As a consequence there is also the Four Saints Faith which venerates only the Shield Hero as a savior by the four major clans of the demi-human race which are based on the four guardian beasts of Eastern folklore. When considering that throughout the series Naofumi is clearing up the mistakes made by the other three heroes who can’t stop thinking about this world as merely a ‘game’ and considering the consequences of their actions this mindset is likely inevitable. However, we are supposed to be talking about a Bitch here, not fictional religions.
Though she does follow this faith, it’s not a permanent ,as the religion is eventually outlawed and disbanded by the Queen Mirelia herself due to the attempt by Malty and the Cult on her younger sister, Melty’s, life, so much so that they razed a forest to the ground to try to kill both Melty and Naofumi. It’s here that with a heavy heart the queen disowns, disavows and denounces both her deemed ex-husband and the Bitch. The venerable Queen is disgusted wholeheartedly by the actions of her betrothed and her own child. This is compounded by the fact that Melty was only 10 years old and was horrified by the actions of her father and sister as well as her countrymen.
This is far from the end of the matter though as due to the fact that slavery is still legal and enforceable by blood magic the queen adds one more layer to the Bitch’s punishment. She is made into the Queen’s personal slave as a re-education tactic considering that the cost of disobeying the orders of a slave master is the slave seal shocking the slave in question. Talk about some heavy duty parenting. Does this make the Queen a good person? I don’t think so because with the ongoing story I would see this as having little to no effect on the sociopathy of her daughter for one and also some additional sourcing for the original amorality. If I were Naofumi I would take the Queen’s good will with a grain of salt and caution. There is nothing to say that someone as manipulative as the Bitch would not eventually twist things back to her favor.
Backtracking a little I do need to go into how she deals with the other “heroes” become affected by her, of course the one she has the greatest effect on is the Spear Hero Motoyasu. He is a naive and arrogant soul who blindly follows whatever ass is in front of him at the time. He is the worst type of white knight because if it comes from feminine lips he doesn’t even question it. In short he is a complete moron, well-meaning perhaps but a moron nonetheless. He keeps up this unrelenting belief until her lies eventually effect him which break him mentally to the point where he ends up eventually seeing all women as pigs and unlocks his own Curse Series. Funny enough this regresses him so much that he sees Naofumi who is a year younger than him as his ‘Father’. I’m sure there is an NPC joke in there somewhere….
Now as for the Sword Hero Ren, he starts to see through her lies a little more quickly than Motoyasu, but due to his ineptness and own misconstruing of the world’s setting he completely fails at expanding his skill tree and becomes a bandit failure, so much so that once the Bitch tricks him to rob him blind and breaks him to the point of his own Curse Series taking over. That leads him to massacre characters who he views as mere NPCs for experience points. It stays like this until he is defeated and broken free from his own personal curses. In short, the Bitch made him a serial killer, quite the cautionary tale to be sure.
Finally with the Bow Hero Itsuki she took advantage of his own gullibility and urge for ‘justice’ to unlock his Curse Series and make him quick to anger and attack Naofumi, once she and her cult compatriots lied about Naofumi carrying an experience booster, and once more when Naofumi was disappointed in him. This feeds his hero complex, which leads to him becoming a liar and also waiting until dire straits to come forth to ‘save the day.’ His Curse would seem to be the most useful to the Bitch as it accesses a brainwashing ability which he uses to force people to see things from his flawed perspective.
This is why in my earlier article I’m glad to say I was able to call the fact that these three ‘Heroes’ were as such in name only. Despite acting cynical and trying his best to not seem like anything more than a money-grubbing merchant Naofumi is the only true hero among them. Analyzing the actions and effects that Malty has upon those around her and breaking her down as a character helps here because we see in her a full-on playbook of how feminist manipulators work to trick men into following them lock, stock, and barrel to the slaughter. Sure, you can get good women like Raphtalia, but this shows that this can only happen via positive male influence. The former king is NOT a positive male role model due to his very prominent negative traits. Add to the fact that he didn’t reprimand his own child once and we see where that went.
Here we’ve shown full stop not just the playbook we’ve been dealing with for the bulk of feminism’s existence but even more so the importance of true masculine mentorship. We also see a lot of these effects currently going on in the Vic Mignogna situation much to the chagrin of the #KickVic side of things. That’s why I think discussion over these subjects is so very important, and as always encourage wholeheartedly the discussion to take place in the comments section.
As such I would also like to make mention of Gab’s new Dissenter extension for browsers. This I feel is going to be an absolute necessity moving forward and partially wonder if there is any way to integrate it into the site here in lieu of Disqus because I’m aware that there are some issues with it to boot. That, and it would be nice for us to show some solidarity with the concept of a tool that would make censorship by larger media companies all but unenforceable. The truth should never be silenced. In any case I hope you’ve found this whole approach interesting. Next week I’ll probably be doing a full update on what we’ve managed to learn from the Vic Mignogna situation, as it has become a very important potential social precedent, one which, if you can and want to, you can support here. Anything solid we can use against the defamation of those of us who support the human rights and dignity of men will be a huge step towards getting past the negative sum game. Until then Please Remember to Game Freely!
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- Breaking the Narrative Episode 122: You’re Reviewing What Now? The Dissenter Web Browser! - June 10, 2019
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