Yhe The half-Giant woman

Teres nodded lamely. She wished Trey were here too. There was a limit to how much the twins could entertain the King of Destruction’s interest. Flos could be moody. But the King of Destruction kept turning his head.

Raelt muttered at the ceiling. He could almost imagine his father’s response. Raelt wished his face were clearer, but he had to look at a picture these days to capture everything. Time…

(Keep in mind that I’m still catching up on reading, so events and developments in later chapters might change my opinion.)

For me, it’s a combination of three factors.

The first is that it feels like pirateaba seems to be trying really hard to manipulate readers into liking Flos. With many of the other rulers of Chandrar, we’re shown how they’re being greedy, and scheming, and manipulative, and so on – in short, how they’re ‘bad people’, especially from our modern-day perspectives and morals. With Flos, we’re instead shown things like him having fun with the twins’ smartphone(s), or here being chummy with a fellow/rival [King], while any of his and his subordinates’ nastier traits, decisions and actions get downplayed, rapidly stop being mentioned, and so on. Because it’s very much worth keeping in mind that for all of his hamminess, affability and cheerfulness, the man will readily engage in chattel slavery, mass slaughter of civilians, ethnic cleansing, and just generally see hundreds of thousands, if not millions dead purely for his own joy and ego as he pursues his dreams of conquering everything.

The second is that he doesn’t suffer any sort of negative repercussions or consequences for his decisions and actions that should realistically be expected, especially if others in similar situations do. For example, in the chapters where Tiqr is conquered by a coalition opposed to Flos, it’s mentioned that Tiqr will be a thorn in their side for a long time due to unrest, guerilla activity, etc. Meanwhile, Flos conquered two realms earlier in the story, but instead of them being a drain, one of them is rapidly turned into an “Ally” via plot shenanigans, and the other is handwaved via “his steward is handling it”. His refugee-subjects cause trouble for other nations who need to accomodate said refugee-subjects or suffer his wrath, but not for Flos by getting him dragged into wars he’s not ready for, or people proclaiming themselves his ‘subjects’ in order to cash in on his reputation for their own gain, or just the logistical difficulties of suddenly having to feed, house, etc tens of thousands of new people. And of course his ‘sleep’, where he left his conquered realm to wither after suffering the personal loss of friends and loved ones over the course of his conquests (as opposed to his subjects losing friends and loved ones), and yet after his re-emergence we don’t really see any former vassals, subjects, or allies of his seriously telling him to fuck off and die for abandoning them and letting them suffer the consequences of his warmongering while he vegetated on his throne; instead – outside of some token protest from that Crusland guy – his most important vassals happily throw themselves at his feet again, along with plenty of new people. And so on, and so forth.

That last part could almost count as another point all on its own; Flos’ various vassals and subjects oftentimes feel less like characters in their own right, with their own interests, goals, and so on, and instead more like extensions of Flos that purely exist to serve some narrative purpose. Orthenon exists to handwave away administration/rulership, Grazi to handwave away assassins/spies, the Garuda-guy to handwave away the Empire of Sand (for now), etc. Honestly, the degree to which they act in unison without any sort of serious friction, interpersonal conflicts, or the like, makes them appear more like a hivemind than the Antinium ever did.

The third is that Flos and his Seven seem at odds with how the Innworld ostensibly works. Leveling is supposedly about overcoming difficulty and adversity, rather than just repetition; hence why no one becomes a Level 100 [Warrior] by stabbing 50 000 rabbits to death, and why events like the Frost Wyvern attack on Pallas, or the various attacks on Liscor by dungeon-monsters tends to invite comments about how the survivors are sure to Level. It’s also why Counter-Leveling is a thing.
And yet, Flos and his Seven seem exempt from this; with the powerful skills/buffs and champions available to him from himself and his subordinates/vassals, his own forces should barely be leveling at all, given how they trivially overpower most foes. Instead, we get to read about some new recruits gaining levels at breakneck speeds for essentially doing nothing. (And, yes, Flos might have skills that speed up his subordinates’ Leveling, but zero multiplied by five or ten or whatever should still be zero.)
Inversely, with Flos and his Seven being so powerful, anyone who even tangentially clashes with them and doesn’t immediately get killed or crushed should be gaining Levels like crazy. And yet that also doesn’t seem to happen; Raelt, for example, just got out of a diplomatic tangle with Flos and various other nations – social conflict is still conflict, especially for rulers – but seems to have gotten absolutely nothing out of it.

I mean, how else do you begin to care about characters than to read about their actions and see how they operate in the world? If they were one-note I would have a problem, I enjoy when characters in the world that take up different regions are covered and are each unique and interesting to read about. I don’t need to be rooting for them already to want to see what they have to offer.

mmm, say, didnt erin white “flag” incident with the goblo army kinda left it known that waving white flags was not common ocurrance, at least for suing peace, like, goblos not knowing would be one thing, but the lack of words for not knowing what ering though from the boyos on the wall, left me understanding that white flags, are flags that are white, and not the universal symbol of peace. Verily incongruent if it is so. tfc?

Yes. The Chandalar chapters are … mehhhhh….

It’s almost certainly the product of some sort of Skill. [Twinned Life-Thread] or something like that, which allows them to merge their original life-thread with whoever they bring into their collection. The original life-thread is in all of them, and only the body they consider as the “main” body at any given time is fully active. The other heads are still “alive”, but attaching a random body to them wouldn’t “activate” that body since they aren’t being designated as the “main” body by the Skill.

Magnolia doesn’t had any direct lineage, but she does have plenty of other family (even if they have been hinted at being horrible). She also has her group of Ladies to pick up pieces of her territory if she falls. Not the best options, but at least something. Pretty sure she might only be interested in having half-dragon whelplings with Teriarch, too, which could be problematic for her chances.

Niers specifically mentioned in one of his chapters that his company is currently probably going to be a mess if he dies soon. But, that was also made to be due to it being relatively young, all things considered, and him having children wouldn’t necessarily make those children good choices to fill his role. Rather, he needs a few good, really high level Strategists or similar to take things over. That’s his main issue, is the huge level requirement. Even a level 30 kid, if he had one, wouldnt be able to take his spot.

Ilvriss lost his chance (at least for a while) when Periss died. However, he does have a sister, so she’d be able to keep their family going, if nothing else.

Goblins typically don’t live long enough to consider such a thing. Even if a chieftain or lord had children, they’d have a good chance of dying along with the rest of the tribe, unless they split apart and formed their own tribe. In which case they wouldn’t really be carrying on their parents’ legacy.

He himself, along with his Seven and Orthenon are all munchkin characters. And while that’s fine for a lot of novels, it makes them fairly boring for this sort of story, as they can beat almost any obstacle with little to no danger. They have very little room to grow because they are already so strong.

Beyond that, the two Earthers he has are some of the most useless, boring ones out of the lot, pretty much only beaten currently by the group Magnolia had, and perhaps some of the near-faceless members of the UN group. Even Laken, for as much as he is divisive for readers, is far above the twins in being an actual character.