Whats wrong with Near Light?
It is completely clueless as to what its own point is.
"Maria Nearl" made an excellent job of portraying the capitalist bloodsport known as "the Kazimierz Major" as a soulless venture meant to sell dreams and deliver bloodshed, propaganda, and ad revenue instead. It is impeccable in its themes, to the point that Blemishine is in fact told that she is expecting far too much, by EVERYONE else, when she says she'll compete in the Major for the sake of House Nearl having a Knight Primus. Her closest associates end up supporting her not because they truly believe she's right, they support her because they literally don't want her to end up dead. Zofia, Vogelweide, Kowal and Marcin know there's no actual stopping Maria once she sets up her mind on something, so they choose to train her not so she can win, but so she can survive at all in something she's woefully unqualified for. There's absolutely no glory to be made. This is a vie for survival first and foremost.
Near Light then completely disregards all of this and makes Margaret Nearl, a character I really like, into a generic fantasy hero that Must Fight To Achieve Things. It takes the very grounded "meaningless fight for something" from the first event, which is completely in line with old knightly literature, and turns it into a shonen, which I found pretty, well, insulting. Victory equals successful ideals now, because she's Margaret "Kirito SAO" Nearl, so if she does it, it's Fine now. It spins everything into seemingly being honorable knightly duels (but we're the good ones), while giving a horribly passive centrist narrative to what was purely a criticism of late stage capitalism in the prior event. Margaret wants to change things systematically from within.. Which is just a load of hog-fucking-wash when we already established from moment one that the system is in itself flawed, corrupt, and a cesspit of maggots trying to eat each other. It makes you wonder if it was the same writer that wrote both events, because it sure as shit doesn't seem so, and if it was, did they get into NFTs in the meantime or subscribe to Infowars or Andrew Tate or whatever equivalent there is mainland China or something? It went from a clearly muddied look at a system that is inherently flawed into "Actually, if we win enough fights... We can begin the Change Everything castbar, it's pretty simple, actually".
And I bring up those particular shitstains because Margaret Nearl, VERY uncharacteristically, pulls off a "no handouts, let them pull themselves up by their bootstrings" in the event: She refuses to go rescue Pinus Sylvestris because "they can't be saved by those who already have true conviction, they must do it themselves"... Actually what the fuck? You see in Chapter 0, 1 and 7 of the main story that Nearl will go out of her way, risk her very own flesh, to rescue those who are hopeless because that's what she believes in, that's why she's admired, because she'll fucking pull through in these situations... And then she says this shit in Near Light? AND THEN, as if that wasn't enough, smashing a fucking broken thermometer over a salted wound, it is then stated in god damn Operators Files that she did rescue Pinus Sylvestris off-screen anyways, because whoever was responsible for "writing" this, and I'm being fucking magnanimously generous with that word, couldn't just have their cake, but also had to devour it wholesale in one single bite? Get the fuck out.
On screen: Yeah, they gotta earn their lives. [Some fakedeep shit about needing to be devoted enough to their own cause and beliefs] Off screen: Oh I saved them anyways lol, I need to Look Cool.
It's not good writing, g, I'll tell you that fucking much, and it makes me upset because it's a character I like in a setting I love.
Of course I'm not going to like if they Kiritofy a character they had consistently written real damn well prior to an event meant to star her.
It makes me mad because the ultimate resolution of it all is a very cowardly "I Will Now Improve Things From Within" yeah okay and Suzaku was right in Code Geass too, right? Jesus fucking christ, man.
Bottom line, it all feels like they set up something incredible in Maria Nearl, right up until the very end, when Fan Favorite comes out of fucking nowhere to save the day, and then her event contradicts the key tenets of her character thus far to boot.
So you'll have to forgive me but my opinion on Near Light is not particularly positive because it became a "Wow look at how COOL this character is!" kinda shonen shitshow when we had a very "The system is inherently wrong, the solution is not at all simple" sort of seinen narrative going on. It should be telling when Mlynar embodies a more scathingly apt take on the sides Maria herself did not cover in her event towards the narrative than whatever the hell they decided to tarnish Margaret with. It's like the Twilight of Wolumonde writer handled Maria Nearl until the end and then they put the Sword Art Online writer on for Near Light.
It's not because I dislike Margaret Nearl that I feel this way. It's because I like her and they did her dirty. But sure, wau cool horse dom wife mommy or whatever.
