Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: The Executioner and Her Way of Life
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Thesarum
Posts: 415 |
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Menou herself admits as much after killing the initial potato-kun. "You did nothing wrong... I'm the villain for murdering you...". The use of "murder" is somewhat interesting. It may not go quite as far yet as Menou being conflicted about what she does, but she's at least aware of the fundamental contradiction between the ideal "A priestess must be pure, just and strong" and what she actually does (which is to lie pretty fluently to hapless children and then murder them when their back is turned). Arguably that awareness is worse than her just being an unthinking brainwashed tool. She may feel a massive debt to the church (and Flare and Orwell in particular). She may believe that what she does is necessary, even unavoidable. There's clearly stuff being kept from her. But she's not blameless. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 666 |
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True. But as I was getting at, there are some folks out there already overlooking this, admittedly minor, demonstration of that fact. I think at the moment many people are taking that moment as more hollow contrition than it may actually be. I think they're waiting for more build up, since we're only a couple episodes in, to see if that was really her feeling of contrition on a personal level, or just reciting lines she was trained to recite. |
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Yttrbio
 Posts: 3653 |
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Regardless of how the character feels, I find the idea that the show thinks there's something morally ambiguous a lot harder to support when it immediately followed the moment by "look at this badass kill these other dudes!"
Broadly speaking, I think the message is "her killing people is only morally ambiguous if she (/the audience) finds them attractive." |
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blahmoomoo
Posts: 470 |
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Those other dudes were directly threatening the lives of the people on the train, or if you were referring to episode 1, they were threatening her own life due to the actions she was required to do for her job. There's a reason to fight them. Compared to her assigned targets, who only have the potential to threaten the lives of others. So, I think there is a clear line here. |
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RenimLS
Posts: 119 Location: North America |
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Not seeing what you're seeing. After Menou killed the first other worlder, the knights were in no way depicted as good people. They knew that every other worlder they summoned would be executed and deliberately summoned two for the specific purpose of having one be killed quickly to try and throw off the executioners. They also explicitly stated that the summoning was for them to obtain power to overthrow the Faust. Both cases show that they had no moral issues with using other humans as tools to be used and/or disposed of if it served their purposes of obtaining power. As for claiming it's only morally ambiguous if she or the audience finds them attractive seems to completely ignore that Menou did not hesitate to try and kill Akari as soon as she had deemed it safe to try and kill her. Menou's feelings may be one thing, but she has not been shown to hesitate doing her job first and leaving processing her own feelings about it later. |
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Yttrbio
Posts: 3653 |
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I'm not talking about the plot, I'm talking about the show. The show didn't need to follow up a supposedly morally ambiguous situation with a moment to show off the lead's killing prowess against obviously-bad guys (with the one younger guy with apparently less authority shunted off to be killed by the possessive sidekick). The fact that they did says the show didn't think there was much point in dwelling on the morality of things.
Same with Akari. She's not getting killed the way everyone else is. Akari is the triggering plot detail for Menou to confront the situation, not anyone else. This is hardly the first show to kill tons of people with only mild moral significance until we get to the attractive female character where suddenly death matters. But combined with the fact that we're talking about redemption for a murderer, it's even more eye-rolling than usual. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5852 Location: Virginia, United States |
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That is not Menou's or Momo's fault. Akari is not getting special treatment. The reason for that is spoiler territory. |
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Mami-kouga
Posts: 173 |
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I find the weird glee people get over the boy getting stabbed in the head kind of weird. I wouldn't be interested in the story if he stuck around but I honestly found his characterisation and dynamic with Menou more endearing than most series where his type actually are the protag.
That being said, it seems fairly straightforward to assume that Akari has looped at least once. She reacts with overwhelming trust and affection towards Menou, seems uninterested in her life back in Japan in addition to her comments about being with Menou being "fate". |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 666 |
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I think the "glee" is precisely because of what you noted. So many isekai series that remotely take a serious tone seem to think their MC has to be almost a despot with heavy anti-social leanings, while spending much of the series trying to sell to the audience why "he's not really that bad". I imagine for those feeling "glee" it's a cathartic release to see one such isekai protag dispensed of right away. Personally, however, I much rather they just do a series where the protag just isn't a borderline sociopath. I think the thing with Akari is that it's not yet clear if her affect is because she's already looped before, or because that's just her personality. When she looped back from death, it appeared that her memory was entirely neatly reset back to that exact moment before dying. She didn't, for example, seem to recall the sensation of being stabbed. So it's not for certain whether she would remember past loops. We're not even certain she fully understands her power right now, or if she might, for example, think of her power more along the lines of precognition. Having been summoned to a fantasy world where you have a super power, believing it's fate just makes sense - especially when she isn't fully aware of the circumstances of her summoning, how many others have been called on, or the fact that she's being escorted to her own potential execution. Not saying Akari looping and knowing of prior loops isn't a possible avenue the story could take, but I don't know that it's necessarily the only option right now either. Even her disinterest in returning home could have a number of alternate explanations from simply not being written in (common in many isekai) to her having already been explained it wasn't possible (we don't know all of what the royals said to her when she was summoned) to a naive/good natured assumption that it's part of the help Menou is offering. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 666 |
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I have to agree with Tars, at this point the only reason Akari is getting "special treatment" is because they couldn't kill her. They tried, didn't work, and when asking about what to do next were told to bring her to a place that the job could be done. At this point, while we assume the church is up to no good and plans of using Akari for something, Menou and Momo don't seem to be playing this any different from how they'd handle any other case, except that they're unable to kill this target as easily. |
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Yttrbio
Posts: 3653 |
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I guess I don't understand how any of this is relevant to my point. The show obviously has an in-universe explanation for why things happen the way they do, but it's all written by a someone who wanted it to roll out in a specific way. The writer made an attractive female special case that would prevent the (in-universe) typical "she kills the otherworlder" from happening, so now things are going to be different and the murderer may have to confront the morality of her actions.
(Edited for tone) Last edited by Yttrbio on Wed Apr 20, 2022 4:48 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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ATastySub
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 650 |
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If your basis for ignoring others is "fiction isn't real" then you had no reason to post anything to begin with for the same reason. Everyone is very aware that it is written and are discussing the reasons it was written that way for an audience in the real world. |
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Kitsu Kyouno
 Posts: 170 |
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If you have any questions about how the magic system works in this novel, here is a brief summary to avoid confusion.
Basically, people have Ether; this is "mana" and can naturally be used for self-enhancement, as shown by the visible glow around people. -Menou can adjust the color of this glow for camoflage as shown with the dress but is not skilled enough to maintain it while moving. Flare is. -People have varying reserves of ether; it's generally stronger in females. It can also be drawn from leylines running through the earth and sky. Menou has an unusually low amount for an executioner but is really good at using it. -To accomplish most spells like fire or make structures, people need to use crests, basically precoded spells that can be activated by pouring ether into them. They're built into weapons, usually no more than three, and are in coins, I think as an anti-counterfitting measure. The scriptures priestesses carry around are completely filled with crests, one for every verse. Normally you open the book to the page with the crest you want in order to activate it. Menou is skill and has apparently memorized the exact location of every verse and can activate them while the book is closed. spoiler[ -Lost Ones have a "Pure Concept" and a tremendous quantity of Ether. Pure Concepts are tremendously powerful and potentially extremely broad; they can do almost anything related to the word. Menou's hometown was transformed to salt by "White", and it "Bleached" her memories and a large chunk of her soul away. -As a Lost One uses their Pure Concept it becomes more firmly embedded, growing stronger but eating away at the user's personality. Menou thinks that's why potato-kun immediately turned to the idea of using Null to obliterate people.] It's also possible to transfer ether, as Menou demonstrated, but apparently usually really, really hurts. |
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2216 |
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As for the episode itself, it was compelling. It seems like Menou was one step from getting her body purified into salt instead of just her personality. Who knows how salt equals Dragon. It's impressive how the mediocre Menou became a capable Isecutioner as Flare grew exhausted. I have to wonder though: are all Isecutioners nuns, or are there dudes shanking hapless Japanese people as well? And a few of those dead fellows from the flashbacks looked like adults, so I'm curious if summoning is random or if summoners can set an age range. It'd suck extra hard to be a toddler yanked in to die. |
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Florete
Posts: 363 |
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Congratulations, you've just described literally every piece of fiction ever. |
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