#luke slayers

Mostly a lot of riveting battle scenes in this update and I don’t have much in the way of profound observations. 

-Gourry needs Lina to charge up his sword. Sorry, couldn’t resist.

-Lots of foreshadowing with Luke and the Ruby-Eyed Blade and grabbing Dulgoffa.

-Gourry really does a lot of good fighting in this novel. Lina refers to him as “my man” again while watching him work, and the contrast to the comments about his stupidity at the end just seem bizarre as a result, though as Lina did specify, she does tease him about it. Perhaps she’s realized the value of having people underestimate him.

-I gotta say, I love Gourry and Milgazia battling it out to be king of the Dad humor.

-Novel Lina is rather magnanimous towards Mephy’s attitudes humans. Anime Lina wouldn’t be.

Hoping J-Novel keeps on this pace!

-Lina is rather humble when the demon talks about how she defeated Hellmaster. Anime Lina would have been more of a braggart. But in the novels Lina really doesn’t want the type of attention it would attract and she also uses humility to lure the demons into underestimating her. While the demon is grandstanding Lina is chanting and she comments about how she uses his stupidity against him.

-Lina is in full form this chapter. While we don’t see powerful spells she is very street smart. I absolutely love the scene where she storms the castle and fools the inhabitants into believing that she is working with them against the intruders…when she is the intruder! I absolutely hate that we will likely never see this scene animated. I can visualize it all so perfectly, along with Gourry watching Lina work her spell lovingly and admiringly.

-It’s worth looking at Luke and Mileena’s responses to Jade’s request that someone heal their former enemy, General Allus, after Allus helps them by ordering the guards to leave them. Luke is distrustful and scolds Jade for being too soft and seems to believe (falsely) that Allus is leading them to a false sense of security.

The group does have good reasons to trust Allus by this point because he did divert the guards away from them. People who have a healthy sense of who to trust can look at evidence like this and make a calculated risk to trust, but Luke is not able to. Further, he also does not want to heal Allus’ wounds and leave him in pain.

While Luke could be thinking in pure pragmatic terms with not wanting to heal an enemy once they have him cornered, it also contributes to the lack of evidence as to whether Luke (or any of the people who house Shabranigdu) has a sense of empathy. So far nothing Luke has done has indicated that he has this important trait. It is also possible though never proven that Luke could feed on Allus’s pain.

Luke’s statements indicate a lack of trust and wanting to keep control of the situation and stay on top. People who don’t have empathy and difficulty with trusting do tend to be motivated more by staying on top and accumulating power and top dog status than relationships that are genuine and reciprocal. Such people also tend to deride people who show empathy like Jade as being “soft” and even deserving of being betrayed for their kindness. But the other things that a difficulty with trust indicates to me is that the person exhibiting that difficulty is someone who himself is not trustworthy. Luke could be projecting his own tendencies to use other’s trust against them onto Allus.

Meanwhile, Mileena silently heals Allus. When she does this Luke is caught off guard and awkwardly says that there are times it’s not bad to trust others.

This does indicate that Mileena has the ability to trust and emphasize that Luke does not. But this also shows that rather than having an internal sense of what is right or wrong, Luke is taking his cues from Mileena, who he is trying to impress and whose motivation would likely vanish the moment she returned his affection (going by typical patterns of people who do things similar to Luke). That poor woman is living with a giant red flag.

The fascinating question with Luke of course is whether or not he was raised in an abusive environment that leads some children to develop the traits that he exhibits or if he developed this way because of Shabranigdu.

-Magic Sucker Sword. I laughed.

-Gourry is full of awesome in this chapter. Speaking of empathy, Gourry shows it in spades with Jade when he steps up to fight his father for him, and this is one point where I would love to see the novels from his point of view. Gourry speaks to Jade like someone who has been through something similar and tries to be the person he needed at that time for Jade. It’s a great Gourry moment, the type that sadly never made it to the anime.

-Further, Lina speaks highly of Gourry’s skill, at one time noting that his maneuvers are inhuman and that anyone else would have difficulty executing them the way he does. I would so love to know if HK has any explanation for Gourry’s skills that he’s kept secret for 30 years or if he just made him a major badass without explanation to keep us fans speculating.

-This chapter has a slasher movie feel with the demons attacking Lina, Gourry, Luke, Mileena and a group of soldiers in an enclosed area and there being lots of guts and gore. Though the human cost is emphasized a bit more, and the group has to grapple with their desire to help the wounded while also needing to stop the demons at the heart of the plot. Sometimes triage can be a brutal process. Then there’s the horror of having to confront Jade at the end.

-And they do answer the question of what happens if a human attacks a demon with a sword.

-Gourry takes command!

-And Lina sums up her tricks for demon slaying, keep the battle short, strike em unawares, aim for one-hit kills.

-Gourry makes hard things look easy and Luke is jealous.

-And whatever the truth about Gourry’s demon sensing ability is, he picks up on the truth about Sardian when he’s in a different room.

-Magic Sucker. In fan translations I believe it was Sword of Amplification but Magic Sucker def sounds like something Lina would come up with.

-And we see Lina and Gourry get distracted in battle when the other is in danger, with Gourry turning his back on an enemy and Lina stopping her spell casting.

-There are definitely a lot of parallels coming up, with the group having to face Jade echoing what will happen later with Luke. 

-It is worth noting as well that Luke feels a sense of obligation and responsibility for Jade.

-Luke is an ass. And another instance of either his lack of empathy or general hard time relating to people who are closer to the civilian end of the spectrum with Maias.

-Mephy is also a bit of an ass.

-And the whole group accepts that Lina is responsible for Gourry. Everyone knows they go together.

-And Luke sure wishes he were as cozy with Mileena as Gourry is with Lina.

-Mileena seems to be trying a new tactic with Luke’s romantic advances in this novel, which is to ignore him completely. Lina notes that when she shoots him down he’s despondent but when she “leaves him hanging” he acts neglected. And this implies that he is seeking attention. There’s the whole soggy potato chip concept in child development circles, which is that if you are starving a soggy potato chip will look good. Which translates to if you never receive positive attention from someone you will settle for negative attention. Being ignored is far worse than being yelled at, scolded, hit, etc. The opposite of love is not hate but indifference. Used correctly and in the right circumstances it can be a good way to extinguish undesirable behaviors, and I think it says a lot that Mileena is embracing this approach.

-It is worth noting because of the questions over Gourry’s intelligence that he is the one who challenges the plan to go to the western tower when he notes that other places have their lights on. First, this means he can determine which way is west. Second, it means that he is smart enough to recognize when new information means changing the plan. Gourry also successfully breaks the ice with the palace soldiers. Mileena takes it from there with the plan to be arrested but to keep their weapons and gear so they can find Jade.

Still, both he and Lina almost seem to be colluding to spread the he’s an idiot narrative. And I tend to suspect they do it to give him a tactical advantage.

-Adding confusion to the timeline, General Allus says the fire in book 7 was a year ago. Granted, given the circumstances, General Allus might not have the best memory at the moment. Lina runs with the whole it happens a year ago thing.

-You go Milgazia! You help that captain find his power! Milgazia is awesome!

-I really wish we could see Mianzo animated. So creepy!

-OMG! I loved this chapter so much and had so much fun reading it! For the first time you see Lina team up with good guys who are much stronger than her and the conflicts that results, particularly in the dynamic with her relationship with Mephy. There is also a lot of good world building in this chapter, from information about dragons and elves, to how the first Incarnation War started, to Zanafa armor and chaos words.

-I’m not sure if this has been clarified before, but just in case, it does specify that Milgazia is the leader of the dragons at Dragon’s Peak. We can also deduce that he is at least 1000 years old, likely older, as he provides first hand testimony about the first Incarnation War.

-Also of note, dragon’s lose the need to eat as they get older and absorb ambient energy.

-Elves have good night vision apparently and can see well even on a moonless night.

-Mephy’s full name is given as Memphys Rhinesword. Her nickname is Mephy and she refuses to let Lina call her by her nickname in this chapter. And while not explicitly stated, I do have to wonder if the inferiority complex Lina has with her sister replays in her relationship with Mephy.

-Milgazia gives an overview of what he knows about the history of the Incarnation War, and it is good fanfic fodder as well as things to think about with Dynast and Gaav’s minions currently infiltrating Dils. You also get more of a feel for the Mazoku’s strategy of dividing humanity and diverting their attention from important matters. Finally, it looks like Aqualord Ragradia was specifically targeted.

-Specifies that Hellmaster’s priest had already been destroyed when the war broke out. Xellos then decimated the dragons and weakened the people fighting for the gods. Then Shabby was revived. Gaav fell, then Hellmaster’s general, and then the Aqualord sealed Shabby in ice as he died.

-Talks about the existence of dwarves but Milgazia says their numbers have dwindled and they are unlikely to be much help.

-Specifies that Lina slew Shabby the for the first time two years ago.

-Gourry casually drops the information that they took down Shabby together, causing much surprise with Milgazia, Memphys, Luke and Mileena. Luke is disbelieving and Mileena is all, “I don’t think he’s the type to lie though…” I just loved this scene to pieces.

-So, legit, when I was reading the part when Mephy was freaking out when she learned how Lina had taken down Shabby with a Giga Slave combined with Gorun Nova, “Always a Woman” just happened to be playing, and I could not think of a more perfect song for the moment.

-It’s worth noting that Milgazia is stunned speechless when he learns that Lina had taken down Shabby and how she’d done it, and despite the danger of her methods he still asks her and Gourry for help with the current situation. Perhaps Milgazia, being older than Mephy, is aware that desperate situations calls for desperate measures or perhaps he thinks that since she has been so successful he might as well take the risk. Whatever his reasons, it does say a lot that despite the danger of her methods he still asks her for help.

-Milgazia offers weapons developed by dragons and elves in exchange for their assistance.

-Luke is the one who grumbles about working for free. Mileena glares him into it.

-Lina knows she has to help, but doesn’t want to, which is really indicative of her attitude to trouble after the Hellmaster mess. “I gotta do it. But I don’t wanna…”

-We get some interesting thoughts from Milgazia about the differences between living creatures and demons. He suggests that “living creatures” are more adaptable than demons, as in living creatures grow and mature and develop while demons do not.

-Given how Lina is portrayed in the anime, there is something amusing about Lina being aghast at Mephy’s casual destruction of the inn.

-Gourry mentions he signed the inn logbook, along with Lina, Luke and Mileena (once again this is evidence that Gourry can write, granted, in some societies a person’s name was the only thing they could write). I guess Lina never noticed Luke and Mileena’s last names while perusing a logbook though.

-The first time the demons specifically seem to be looking for Lina.

-Milgazia says that it is unlikely for demons to be motivated by sentimental emotions like a desire for revenge after Gourry suggests they may want revenge for Lina killing Sherra, and Lina agrees.

-It is a shame that we have never seen the fight between Lina, Gourry and Luke animated. That would be epic!

-So Gourry broke the Sword of Absorption!? Damn! I have to re-write so many fanfics now! Or as that just a regular sword that Luke imbued with magic? I guess it’s a bit nebulous? I think the Sword of Absorption is gone though.

-I think it says a lot that Lina turned down payment for this. We see novel!Lina do that a few times and it says a lot about her own moral code.

-Lina definitely references Xellos in this.

-I’ll have to wait for the 15^th novel to say more on this, but I do wish there was more of a farewell for Mileena.