If death is the only stake an author can conjure then I say they’re a poor author. After millions upon millions of words, I’m more invested in TWI than almost any other series I’ve ever read so for me personally, I’d say the stakes are fine as they are. Plus, it does feel as though at some point shit is going to hit the fan and things will REALLY get crazy.

The amount of basic chemistry you could explain in an hour or so might just be the basics of the Periodic Table. Ryoka has not given too much away. That would help for metal purity by magic, I might guess.

I was going crazy looking for a comment like this lol. In volume 1, I think Erin was kind of an introvert but since then there has been really little indication of that. I assumed that her class was affecting her personality like we’ve seen with other high leveled characters and I think that would’ve been the much more interesting route to go. It’s actually been annoying me with the sudden character shifts recently. Liam basically did a 180 in like 2 chapters, Okasha was better done imo in that it was a good attempt at showing the change in the last arc but again I have to imagine that wasn’t planned since there was no indication of that in the previous doctor arc regarding Okasha, Geneva as well seems to flip flop personalities like nothing lol.

Ryokas personality change was probably the best done but a big time skip helped with that. On the note of Erin, it’s annoyed me how she’s portrayed as incapable of doing like anything regarding actual innkeeping duties recently. She went right from pretty much running everything, too letting Lyon run everything except cooking, and now Imani is the cook and apparently we are meant to believe that Erin is a terrible cook despite having [advanced cooking] and cooking for months at this point.

I though the Maviola chapter where she forced Erin to actually do stuff was a push in the right direction, but since then, Erin has gone back to being useless at innkeeping and managing.

Hard disagree. The world doesn’t feel real when every semi important character gets deus ex machinaed out of any situation in which they might be in danger. Suspense is the best part of stories imo, the early volumes were really really good at suspense, but recently it’s just been meh. I can’t see any situation in which a character like Ryoka will ever be killed at this point, which is fine, she is basically a main character at this point, but it makes reading about her a lot more… boring?

Obvi I never doubted that Erin would survive her dangerous situations, but it was still super suspenseful since Erin is surrounded by friends who are more than willing to die for her in most cases. But when Ryoka encountered the bloodfeast raiders, it was obvious she was in no real danger. No one of any import even died in the Celum massacre, which I think was a mistake. We read about how much celum suffered from the attack, but without any personal connection to the deaths, it just feels empty and disconnected. I suppose there is a reality in which Fierre dies? But really doubt that tbh.

The other PoVs have more chances for death but at this point I’m doubting anyone i have any connection to is in danger in any PoV. The Rhir arc was a bit egregious on this front. To me, it seems like Pirate doesn’t want to kill off established characters, and I mean fair enough when she’s written hundreds of thousands of words at least setting up the any major PoV, but introducing, or rather developing a previously non character, like Cirille and the other irregulars in a few chapters to have them killed off in the end is annoying. I don’t think it would be bad if the state of plot armor wasn’t what it is currently, but as is, it’s just seems like it is trying to get the emotional response without actually putting in the effort to make it really feel.

i don’t want any specific character to die, but I feel like it’s necessary for me to feel like stakes even exist anymore.

This post sounds really whiny probably but it has been bugging me for a while now. I feel like stakes are really important for a story like the wandering inn, and the lack of them is just frustrating me as I read sometimes. The story is still good ofc, the slice of life chapters are still as good as ever, but any chapter then involves heavy amounts of action and “suspense” has been rather disappointing to me, and is kinda a slog to read through sometimes because I know nothing of substance will come from the dramatic fights.

Oh my god finally someone else said it! Is she insane? Why did she do that?

Truly just a horrendous idea. Every single antinium other than the antinium divorced from the hive have fairly consistently shown that, at best, they think genociding and colonizing izril is too much work to get into right now. And every other antinium other than Xrn, Klbcth, and maybe the Free Queen are actively making sure they can kill everyone when they inevitably start the war. Does anyone think that Xrn would actually spare Izril if she believed the antinium were capable of winning the war reliably? She was all for mass genocide until her side started losing.

Anything anyone gives the ants (even the “nice” ones) is going straight back to the Hives for war with the drakes, how would trebuchets or the periodic table even help them against an actual god? No, these are specifically meant to win the war against the drakes, and nothing else.

They’re just people, like you and I, except they’re led by and 10000% devoted to murdering murderous murderers who murder people.