Thoughts of J-Novel Club Translation of The Slayers: The Cursed Sword of Bezeld, Ch 1
-Ya’ll! We now have an official translation of the first chapter of the 9th novel!
-Dark Lord’s Hungry Bone Staff. I’m glad that Gourry eventually finds the Blast Sword and not that, because either my mind just goes to puerile places or...
-Y’know, Gourry is being terribly dense about the need for a legendary sword. The only explanation is that he likes to encourage Lina’s displays of concern for his safety. Perhaps after the Hellmaster ordeal he’s in need of assurance and having Lina butter him up about being worried about him is how he gets it.
-It’s rather open to interpretation, but it does seem to me as though Lina is struggling emotionally after the incident with Hellmaster. She is rather aggressive. Lina even implies, when she’s questioning Luke, that she’s having a hard time controlling her impulses and towards the end of the novel she controls her violent impulses when she gets frustrated with Gourry, implying this is something she’s aware of it a problem and that she’s working to manage, and sometimes she’s successful and other times she isn’t.
-This is a mix of Lina and Gourry having some nice scenes enjoying each other and Lina being incredibly immature and dismissive of his safety. Once again, I blame the Hellmaster ordeal for Lina’s immaturity. She’s definitely not her best self in this novel, granted given what she’s recovering from it makes sense.
-My honest and likely controversial take of Luke is that he is obviously one of those guys who would ditch Mileena should she ever return his advances. His attitude towards Sherra is a bit creepy, especially considering that Lina says she appears to be 14 or 15.
-As for Mileena, she is as ever baffling. She really seems to dislike Luke and doesn’t seem too interested in Sherra’s treasure. Why she’s even there will remain a mystery.
-Sherra is a good decoy. Frankly, she has good reasons to be distrustful and rude to all four of them.
