An easy one (hopefully!) to compensate for the last one.
It is mentioned in Border Crossing that the four races of elves are related to wood, stone, water and fire respectively.
It's clear who the Wood-elves are, stone would be the Mountain-elves, and water would be the Sea-elves, which have not appeared but are mentioned together with Wood-elves as the ancestors of the Mixed-bloods.
Who or where are the fire elves? Are they some sort of desert-dwelling elves? And which race did the Irnianam/Valley-elves originally come from?
Happy Christmas and New Year :P
That is a myth, but there were originally four races of elves, which is where it arose from, and it's very wide-spread. The Mountain-elves are actually the ones associated with fire; they were known for metalworking and smithcraft, which formed something of a cycle with the fact that they tended to be warlike (underlining the fire association, since fire is associated with danger and destruction as well as homely images such as the hearthfire - like fire, Mountain-elves made good allies and bad enemies!).
The Valley-elves are actually the ones associated with stone or earth, from an ancient association with the land and farming that they've moved away from since, as well as some associations around unwillingness to change or, as they'd prefer, stability and reliability. It's also stuck because of their long tendency to hold themselves apart from the others and their ability to survive disaster - whatever sweeps over the land, land will still be there.
There are desert elves a long way off from Duamelti; I don't know how much of a factor they'll become!
(A link to the books for anyone playing the home game!)
Swordmasters from Island of Blood finished. Now on to the Lothern Seaguard!
(Cant decide if i should expand the army into one of the Arcane Journal factions, or shoukd just shoot straight and keep to the Grand Army. Advice anyone?)
I had initially postponed writing this until the next chapter, but I've come to realise I have so much meta to write that it's best I do each chapter individually.
Summary because it's been a moment
The first part of the chapter is set in the mountains above City G where the Council of Swordmasters is based. At their building, the three disciples are reviewing what they've been able to unearth about Sweet Mask. It's precious little, with nothing available before his signing up as a hero. Iaian surmises that this fits in with the information that Bushidrill has been able to uncover on Amai's shifting appearance. They consider that the shape-shifting could be a special power, but in light of his behaviour towards Do-S's hostages, was much more likely a sign of progressive monsterization. Iaian expands on it by recounting what he'd seen of Sweet Mask at the surface when he'd seen a monster struggling to keep its humanity. With surprising empathy, Iaian states that it's often those who've lost something who know its true value. They decide to keep a careful eye on Sweet Mask but say nothing to Atomic for now. Okamaitachi hopes that they end up glad to have kept Sweet Mask's hands clean.
Elsewhere, we see Kamikaze (it is not right to call him Atomic Samurai in this context) and Nichirin paying their respects at a shrine dedicated to successive generations of the Swordmasters. They are accompanied by two young people, here to take the places of the slain Swordmasters. We are treated to Yuta's thoughts of hunting down whatever remains of the Monster Association. Nichirin apologises to the pair to say that if he'd been stronger -- but Shido cuts him short. His father lived by the sword, after all, and falling in battle was an honourable death. Besides, as a bodyguard, seeing Nichirin alive would have pleased him.
Speaking of that, given how gravely Nichirin had been injured, it naturally leads to Kamikaze asking after the old man's health. Nichirin sits on the ground and hitches his robes up to show a pair of cybernetic legs. His entire lower half is now mechanical and he's apparently no worse off for it [Aside: I guess the doctors who butchered Air back in Chapter 182 weren't joking about Metal Knight's skill in cyborg medicine].
He stands up, and, declaring that circulating one's chi through body and weapons made them part of a whole -- artificial bodies included -- unsheathes his sword and slices at an apple that he tossed into the air. The apple is apparently unharmed, but the cliff face in the background is cleaved. The apple falls to the ground, and Shido and Yuta marvel at the accuracy of the old man's cutting the cliff but sparing the apple. Nichirin states that he did cut the apple as well. Kamikaze picks up the apple and explains that this is Nichirin's special technique: it's so fast and finally that the Apple rejoined itself, apparently unharmed. He is relieved the old man is his usual self.
It's now Nichirin's turn to ask him a question. Now that his rival Bang has retired, will Kamikaze stay at the Hero Association? Kamikaze looks wistful for a moment as he recalls himself leading the charge to take down Psykos-Orochi. He says that, indeed, he'd initially gone only to challenge himself, but now he had experienced something that he couldn't get anywhere else. Besides, he still had one more person whose strength he needed to fathom -- we are shown that it is King. He'd decide after then.
As he takes his leave, Nichirin thinks that Kamikaze has changed. Being thrown among a variety of strong fighters with vastly different strengths had broadened his mind. Maybe being a hero wasn't so bad after all. He says that last part out loud to Yuta's puzzlement.
We cut to the hero Association and to Saitama and Genos approaching it. Inside, Forte is putting the finishing touches to a dog house Black Sperm is disgusted, but shelter and food, even if it is only dog food, are what he needs right now, at least until he rebuilds his cell count. Saitama and Genos heave into view and Forte greets them. Black Sperm rushes behind the dog house in well-justified fear. His life wouldn't be worth a scrap of cigarette ash if Genos caught sight of him. Fortunately, Genos is a bit distracted, first by the dog's name, then by the news that Forte lives next door to Saitama. He wastes no time in evicting Forte.
I have a feeling the dog is going to be trouble
Finally, we're in the M-City branch of Mouse Sushi, the cheap rotating sushi place with the infamous nasty t-shirts Saitama loves. Atomic Samurai is there with his disciples, having paid a futile visit to King's residence. There's only one problem with this place: someone keeps taking every plate they have their eye on. After the fatty tuna plate is taken, Atomic stands up to confront the person only to find that is King. The chapter ends with Atomic standing over an anxious King and asking if he could talk to him for a few minutes.
Whew, if you think this is meaty, wait until we get to the meta. Grab a drink!
Meta
I really struggled with thinking where to even begin with this one. Well, let's take it like a hot bowl of soup, start on the outside and work our way in.
The Real Kaijin Shows Up
Small things first. It's hilarious that Genos invokes more fear than the actual monsters do at Saitama's residence. Surprising that he's been visiting Saitama for a while but has never run across Saitama's neighbours or pets until now. You'd think that Saitama had brought home a tiger. As if he were extolling how the beast is still barely half-grown and tame, and all everyone else could see is how it's already the size of a large fridge with cruelly-curved claws longer than one's fingers and fangs sturdy enough to bite through one's skull. Forte may know not to mess with Saitama but he's so aware of Genos's capacity to do actual violence to him that the latter doesn't even need to breathe a word of threat to commandeer his house.
the really big dogs don't need to growl
Don't Panic, It's Just A Monster
I love thus story: people are not blind or stupid. It's hard to keep secrets when someone takes an interest. The disciples are on Amai Mask's trail, and while they're fairly certain that they've uncovered a monster hiding as a human being, the circumspection and nuance they're showing is remarkable.
Despite their misgivings, they're prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt and see him more as a person struggling to retain his humanity than as a monster biding its time to strike. In this, Iaian leans towards the former interpretation, while Bushidrill would rather err on the side of caution. Okamaitacchi is in the middle but is of the mind that this is a fluid situation that could go either way.
It's really neat that what was once a one-off gag, with Iaian telling Meltzegard that he could read the latter's murderous intent, has been repeatedly revisited ad deepened in the course of the story to create what is a wise and sympathetic response to a potentially dangerous situation. The disciples aren't blind to the danger of a monstrous hero, but because they can read intentions, they're willing to be heroes to the core and risk reaching out a helping hand to a struggling person.
Iaian's taking a risk in hoping there's a person in Amai who can be saved. But what else is a hero about?
Decisions and Inspirations
So, what will you do, Kamikaze? Had Nichirin died, what he'd have had to do would have been simple. As the new head of the Council of Swordmasters, Atomic would have had to resign as a hero and raise up a new generation. Thankfully, he's been spared that.
It's refreshing to get more insight into Atomic's character and find that he's been looking for both a source of challenge and inspiration in his life. Bang had certainly provided both while he'd been a fellow pro-hero. However, Atomic deciding to lead a charge to the very skies rather than stand on his pride and be an old man shouting impotently at the battle raging overhead had been a revelation. Terrible as the Monster Association showdown had been, it had also been a peak experience unlike any he could have imagined. He's hooked. [Since this is so late, Child Emperor's suggestions of a specialist dragon-slaying team would have found in Atomic an enthusiastic sponsor]. But he still wants a rival, so off he is to challenge King.
a new fire has been lit in this guy who thought he understood everything
Coming to Nichirin, I have three things to say:
A: Words Are Best Eaten Cold, With Salt
Despite having a disciple working as a hero (Spring Mustachio), Nichirin hasn't thought too highly of heroes. Depending on the translation, he'd called them hunters... or pest controllers. It's nice to see that he's had to eat his words.
I hope those words are tasty
B: The Old Lie
'Dolce et decorum est pro patria mori' . I don't blame Shido for clinging onto a view of his father bravely laying down his life. He needs all the comfort he can get.
We know the truth. Zambai was not felled by a superior foe but by a sentient barf bag spitting in his face.
Amahare's desecrated remains were so fragmentary that his coffin needed only a single pallbearer. A cruel duty indeed for Yuta to perform.
Nor can we forget Spring Mustachio fighting desperately to stop Nichirin's transected body from being burned, then Fubuki frantically keeping him alive, his guts kept from spilling out by what had been Genos's precious designer jacket.
a tableau of horror
This had been an actual conflict, not a carefully-managed test of skill vulgarly called a 'fight', and there was nothing sweet, fitting, nor fair about it.
C: Sword and Spirit
AND NOW FOR THE PART I'VE BEEN WAITING FOREVER FOR! Forever being from December 2017. It also ties into more recent chapters. The border between living and non-living has always been a bit porous in One-Punch Man and it's amazing to watch Nichirin make no distinction between his biological body, his sword, and his prostheses to forge a whole that is much greater than the sum of its parts. Once again, it comes down to spirit and willpower.
Had Genos witnessed this, he'd have asked Saitama for a leave of absence to study under Nichirin. This is the missing part that has been nagging at him, the question he'd asked Saitama about whether his parts truly made him stronger, to which Saitama had had no answer. Heck, just being able to observe Nichirin would have been profoundly inspirational for Genos.
ONE, however, is not in the business of giving Genos anything cheaply. No, on current headings, he's going to have to work it out for himself. Indeed, he accidentally and instinctively touched on the answer when he seamlessly rejoined himself after being bitten in two by Elder Centipede. He didn't think about what he was doing then: he was just totally determined not to be dismissed by that miserable worm. [It goes without saying that Kuseno did not get a distress call, nor brave monsters to see what the fuck was going on for himself because of a mere broken leg and some loosened plates of armour.]
Before and after: plates laid on a bias rejoining so perfectly there's no damage to see. And all the internals are fine too. Black magic shit that got the old engineer out of bed to do a field inspection.
Come to that, Saitama does know about the importance of will but does not know it consciously. Yet another gag that has become very much not a gag is that any object Saitama holds that he does not want to break becomes unbreakable. Cheap store-bought chopsticks catch a falling man -- and his clothes, in turn, don't give way. They become an extension of Saitama, like Nichirin's sword does of himself. Speaking of swords, it's notable that when Atomic Samurai managed to draw the sun blade, it was impossible to tell where the man ended and the sword began. Saitama just has no idea that that's what he's doing, so he can't teach it to his increasingly frustrated disciple.
the same principle, played very differently, but each in a life-or-death situation
And like that, another piece of the puzzle of the power scheme of OPM has been shown to us. No one character has the whole picture. We will hopefully get to piece it together by the end, and we hope that the right characters understand it well enough at the right time to make for good outcomes.
It will never not be funny to me that the secret police of the Warhammer High Elves, the dudes that show up in the middle of the night to kick in doors of religious minorities and drag them of screaming to be tortured, look like this:
Becaue clearly nothing say "secret police" like wearing a foot-lenght gown of glittering scale armour, giant two-handed swords, and a highly polished silver buttplug as a hat
Is Derdhel's belief in souls and an idyllic afterlife common among the Mixed-bloods? If so, how does it relate to the Spirits? And if not, where does this belief come from?
I understand that the ease with which Derdhel talks about death is partly due to his character, but it's not clear if the others also have those beliefs and just don't express them as much.
I know this response has taken a while, sorry! The more I talked about it, the more complicated my answer got. I hope this did end up being interesting and answered your questions!
Mixed-bloods do generally believe in souls, but for the most part they have similar beliefs to the ones Maelli expresses in Bladedancer's Heirs, where they believe that a dead elf's soul becomes part of nature. Maelli believes in something like an afterlife, but it's not a separate place but something far closer to the living world, hence references to hearing the voices of the dead on the wind. He believes his dead friends are still present but there's no way of reliably interacting with them. A lot of Duamelti Mixed-bloods believe things along these lines with personal variations.
More widely across the world, there are many different Mixed-blood groups and there are variations in their beliefs in the afterlife and souls, especially since their beliefs are influenced by different environments and interactions with each other and other groups of elves. Close to home, this is part of what's going on with Derdhel; his strong belief in a specific separate afterlife is unusual among Duamelti Mixed-bloods, but there are several other groups in other parts of the world who have the same or substantially similar beliefs and it actually comes from Mountain-elven influence; a lot about Derdhel's particular community is heavily influenced by early Mountain-elven immigration to the area (as remembered in the Bladedancer story Seregei tells in Border Crossing!).
So among other groups there are variations in beliefs about souls. Some take it further than Maelli and say that the dead elf's soul ceases to exist entirely and is just subsumed back into the natural world at the moment of their death. This is sometimes expressed as a belief that they merge with one or more of the Spirits, since the Spirits are often identified with their respective elements. Similarly, some elves believe in a form of afterlife where the souls of dead elves remain separate from the Spirits, but serve them in various ways such as tending particular places (often those dear to the elf in life like a garden or a particular beauty spot, and this also incorporates things like the belief that Bladedancer still guards the borders of Duamelti) or observing the world and carrying messages. On average, Duamelti Mixed-bloods tend towards something along the lines of that last thing so the souls of the dead continue to have some presence and purpose.
There is (believed to be - I'm not committing to whether any of the deities are real within the world!) a Spirit of Death - Valfir - and belief in his role also varies. Some believe he's a psychopomp who guides the souls of the dead to an afterlife, some that he's a Grim Reaper figure who is the one who separates the soul from the body (regardless of where the soul then goes), some that he's just a comforting presence at the moment of death who eases the dying elf's passing, and some that his domain is actually decay rather than death itself, so he's concerned with the body rather than the soul.
Derdhel and Maelli are most vocal about their beliefs about death and an afterlife because they're generally most vocal about their philosophical and religious beliefs, and Derdhel is unusual (Maelli being more conventional) but he's not unique. Certainly, his belief that there is a soul separate from the body that goes elsewhere after death is pretty conventional; the main difference is the idea of a separate and ideal afterlife that he gets from the culture he grew up in.
(Also, to anyone curious, here's a link to the books we're discussing!)
Now something new! About the differences between humans and elves in the Swordmasters universe. So far, we've seen that elves don't die or age (in general), they are more resistant to diseases, and they can walk on snow (hehe ;). Are there any other differences between the two? Do humans have some characteristics that could be considered an advantage over elves?
Elves can still be killed, of course, and their bodies can actually really struggle with foreign objects - if it goes deeper than the skin and isn't dealt with properly it can start triggering a very nasty immune response. Humans tend to be more fertile than elves, so can have more kids more easily (I know YMMV on whether that's an advantage!).
Also, all else being equal humans don't hold grudges and run feuds the way elves can; not being so long-lived they can forget and move on from problems more easily. Not to say they always do, but it's easier. Trauma and similar psychological wounds heal more easily for humans than for elves. On the timescale of the books that's less obvious since it's mostly scaled to elves!
Humans actually also tend to be more flexible and better able to cope with having their lives thrown off the rails and better able to deal with mental illnesses* which, because of the way elven mortality works, can cause much more of a problem for elves.
So while elves get a lot of physical advantages, humans get a lot of psychological ones! I have ideas for later stories in which humans feature more, so hopefully that will start coming out more as time goes on.
*(Physiologically, not necessarily culturally, since humans being more flexible also means a lot more cultural variation)
How did Seri and Maelli meet and become friends? I just love their dynamic so much. They look out for each other, they don't let disagreements sour their relationship, and stay absolutely loyal.
Maelli showed up at the Guardhouse looking to become a Swordmaster because he felt called to go and serve his people more widely, which was actually quite similar to how Seri joined except that Seri had come from Duamelti while Maelli was from a nomadic clan. However, the fact that they had both completely redirected what had been pretty stable lives to join the Swordmasters gave them something in common to begin with, even though they were coming from such different backgrounds. Most of their fellow Swordmasters had already been somehow at odds with society before deciding to come to the Swordmasters, so these two were unusual. Then, since Seri was the most junior Swordmaster at the time he was the one who took Maelli on as a trainee, so they spent a lot of time working together and found that they make a good pair.
Deep inside, Seri does know Maelli's a good influence and takes off some of his rough edges, as well as being good at talking him down when he's upset. Maelli, meanwhile, respects him because he knows his worse behaviour does come from a good place and also knows that he will generally listen if told that he needs to change something, which is also something to be respected in a superior. It's part of how he knew something was really wrong in Border Crossing. They have a lot of history, so they know they can deeply trust one another, and that also means that when there is a massive disagreement (and they have had plenty of fights) they know it doesn't need to affect how they see each other and
It's pretty common for the trainee/mentor relationship to end up very close - Weyrn and Neithan are another example - but these two really clicked, partly because of the dynamic of Seri being passionate and Maelli being calm and them understanding where each other are coming from.
