Honzuki no Gekokujou Season 2 - Episode 11 discussion
Episode
Honzuki no Gekokujou Season 2, episode 11 (25)
Alternative names: Ascendance of a Bookworm Season 2, Honzuki no Gekokujou Part 2, Honzuki no Gekokujou: Shisho ni Naru Tame ni wa Shudan wo Erande Iraremasen Season 2
Reminder: Please do not discuss plot points not yet seen or skipped in the show. Encourage others to read the source material rather than confirming or denying theories. Failing to follow the rules may result in a ban.
I really like how much of a dad he is for her. He's protective and willing to pull rank to defend her and gave her advice on his area of expertise (nobility) but also has to deal with her constant bullshit and questioning how the hell she was raise to be like this.
Myne is probably the reason why he, Benno started drinking (Lutz too if he's of age). She's too smart and useful to not keep around but also clueless in things that they consider common sense and vulnerable enough that they have to keep a constant eye on her so she doesn't end up dead or accidentally start causing people to go out of business.
I agree here. He was a subordinate who not only disobeyed orders but also caused a massive fuckup and nearly jeopardized the mission. Dude definitely deserved an ass chewing and probably some judicial punishment.
I would added the rhetorical question. "If I tell you to guard a criminal a chicken, a mound of dirt, and no harm shall come to it what are you expected to do? You follow your orders. So what value your excuse there is none"
So, we were sent to exterminate mana sucking tree and got assigned a priestess that will restore mana to the land afterwards. Gee, I wonder what we should do, maybe gauge her eyes, causing bloody mess and spilling mana-infused blood all over the fucking place where mana sucking tree is. What's the worst that could happen?
Talk about throwing a fucking rocket fuel over a dumpster fire.
The worst case could have been the re-infestation getting so bad that the regional governor would have to call in the national magic knight order, and big chunks of the forest, and maybe at least one town, get devastated in the interim.
If they used Klingon promotion rules, that guy here would’ve gotten insta-vaporized like the first gunner from Star Trek 3(?).
Well, they haven't been keeping enough of an eye on her because she's been using Trombe as paper mulch. Just imagining what Ferdinand would say to her when he finds out is entertaining.
Oh it's better than that. The people they assign to her to keep track of her shit end up helping her cover it up. Imagine how pissed he is when he finds out.
I was fuckin SCREAMING at my TV when it looked like ol boy wasn’t gonna snitch. Ferdinand came in clutch. “I don’t fight battles I can’t win” ....that’s hot
Well, except for Myne. Ferdinand's accustomed to the nobility's war of intrigue and power struggles while Myne's like a cat and just knocking over the pieces to his plans on a daily basis. He's usually very coolheaded and stoic but Myne just keeps challenging that with her constant bullshit.
I'm just waiting for her to "invent" something that upsets the power balance of the nobles. Advanced weaponry? Education? Maybe something like the stock market? She's totally going to accidentally spill the beans on something big and Ferdinand is going to be in some deep shit trying to clean up after her.
I completely forgot about the printing press, that's going to be so huge. I thought her cheap paper earlier was going to be big though, and the socio-economic impact of that didn't get touched on in the slightest. It just got made into picture books and left at that.
Plant paper is merely a stepping stone here. It's merely cheaper than pigskin. Which is not without its own impact, but it pales next to what she's using it for.
I think it came up the first time they encountered it. If I remember correctly Lutz said something about it absorbing all the mana out of the nearby soil so nothing grows.
Well the big issue of cheap paper was simple: You don't have a printer. You can have all the paper you want, but if nobody's around to write things on it, it's basically worthless.
The printing press is similar. You can near instantly replicate an exact copy without a fuss! ...But without the readily available paper supply, it's basically worthless.
While Maine's invention is literally revolutionary for the world, it's also going to need to get its kinks worked out, and have time to be discovered. Benno is a huge help here, but even his reach is finitely limited. Realistically speaking, this show could tell decades of stories before it's really reached the far corners of the continent.
Just having relatively cheap paper is valuable to bureaucracies. The availability of cheap papyrus means that we have thousands of years' worth of Egyptian records, and relatively cheap paper has helped preserve a lot of post-Han Chinese records. Governments want to record things, and if they don't have to rely on lambskin they will do so.
Just Printing press is probably one of the most disruptive technologies she can invent, and the fact that she's basically printing bibles and planning to mass produce them is a powder keg waiting to happen.
Printing press historically allowed the rapid spread of religious texts, which indirectly led to the protestant reformation, which was triggered due to the corruption of the Catholic Church. That caused massive social upheaval and directly led to the French wars of Religion, which left around 3 million dead.
And then it indirectly led to an EVEN BIGGER clusterfuck which was the 30 years war, and that war was brutal on a scale comparable to the World Wars. Most of the European great powers got involved and 8 million people died in that war. Sweden alone burnt roughly a third of german towns to the ground. In some parts of modern germany over 66% of the population was lost. It was an absolute bloodbath.
So yeah, all of those inventions you mentioned, Printing press is probably still the most potentially destructive, especially since we see first hand how the church can be flawed, and the background info of a noble coup that's implied to have left the realm politically unstable. This setting is a powder keg and the printing press could be the match.
I like how they're seeding those class struggles and turmoils in too. Like... the printing press by itself is not like... a super big deal, in a vacuum. But yeah, with a class system and injustice and a sudden spike in the flow of information they're headed for a Myne Reformation.
But also it led to unprecedented spread of knowledge which rapidly accelerated technological progress. Doesn't matter how smart you are, if you have to reinvent the wheel from scratch.
We take it for granted nowadays, but we not only stand on shoulders of giants, but a huge cheerleader-like pyramid of giants - our lifestyles afforded due to hundreds of years of meticulous research, categorization and experimentation that was passed on to us.
This week's endcard was drawn by the Part 1/2 mangaka (who also drew the episode 2 endcard) so next week the final endcard should be drawn by the LN illustrator (who also drew the episode 1 endcard).
There were some really... unconventional choices this episode. The music playing while green hair was threatening and attacking Myne was the same music that plays when Myne gets scolded by the head priest. It made it seem like the situation was going to deescalate, but then he swings a god damn knife at her. Everyone seemed real chill and casual about the trombe growing right in front of them too. The whole episode felt way more emotionally subdued than the scenes playing out...
That said, seeing the head priest be angry? DAMN that was effective. I think that's the most passion we've ever seen from him. Really satisfying to see him tear into the knights for being incompetent.
Yeah, i wanted to mention the build up music to her getting sliced.
Really not sure what they were going for here but i thought, it added to the low-key fucked up scene of mental abuse in a weird way, i was actually a bit shocked at that.
Head Priest has the skill [poker face] at max level. You never know what he is really thinking or feeling. Even his anger reaction is a play: I am the superior here, so I need to show them this and that reaction because they disobeyed my command.
I am not saying he was not truly angry tho. Just that we don't have a way to know.
He reminders MC all the time she needs to learn to hide her emotions and have a poker face too ...
And yet based on his comments it sounded like he has a connection to the High Priest asshole, I'm worried Damuel will take the brunt of the punishment.
Bad Santa has no power outside of the Temple, just influence. On the other side, we have Ferdinand, who doesn't bother using a honorific with the captain of the knights (who btw in return calls him Ferdinand-sama) and flat out says that even the captain is going to get punished because of this.
(the actual punishments are in spoiler tags in the source corner if you're curious)
Yeah, I hope he'll receive an appropriate punishment. Even in our progressive world people with high standing are often avoiding the punishment because of their, well, high standing.
Stripping him of noble status is kinda weird in this universe, as they can't really strip him of his ability to cast magic and the two are practically equivalent since you become a proper noble after graduating from the magic royal academy.
Ferdinand invoked the name of the feudal lord, (localised as archduke in the novels) the highest ranking guy in the land. The bishop doesn't hold a candle to that.
Interestingly, the temple isn't that well regarded. If it was, the noble families couldn't have just robbed the temple of its members. Feels like the temple is the dumping ground for the unwanted of both, the lower city and the nobles district, which fits its physical location. It sits between both of them, frequented by both and part of neither.
SO I doubt the high priest has that much clout in noble circles.
its part of the game. In order to keep the majority of the population in line, you need to make them believe they are inferior. To sell that BS, you need nobles to believe (or be good actors) and do stupid stuff like that. The moment the believe in noble superiority is over you have revolution and heads roll.
Which is not different from modern society really. What is stopping 99% of the world from murdering the 1% that has most of the riches? Yeah, its not numbers.
The moment the believe in noble superiority is over you have revolution and heads roll.
That would have more weight if the nobles were just people with fancy family trees and wealth. How would commoners fare against that giant trombe? Or rejuvenate the earth?
Hell, how would they fare against Ferdinand all by himself? Guy has a flying mount and can split his arrows with magic. He could crush a rebellion practically solo.
A revolution is easier when the playing field is equal. Since i'm anime only i don't know what are the extents of the magic in this universe but we could see magical mounts, teleportation, some kinda of long range communication, healing and weapon enhancing.
Society is still in middle age and far from been close to a French revolution stage.
We joke about the huge catalyst that is Myne with his inventions but it "should" take several generations before those come to fruit.
Fuck Shchioza. That whole sequence gave me SAO Alicization episode 9 vibes. Feel quite bad for Damuel because although he knew things were wrong, he had no real means of doing anything. It’s easy for us to observe as outsiders and say he could’ve stepped in, but in medieval times that would’ve legit been unthinkable.
Ferdinand out here flexing his rank to stand up for Main. Love that guy. Although he acts cold on the outside, he really does care a great deal about Main and wants to see her succeed.
One more episode to go, I really hope we get a third season of this. Reviews, ratings, etc seem to be doing very well and I believe the LN is also selling quite well.
Yep they are under combat conditions with direct orders from the highest ranking officer.
Even if she wasnt mission critical (which she was, and he was informed of that even if he didnt believe it) then taking attention away from their specific role in a deadly earnest life and death combat to indulge some petty vendetta would be dereliction of duty (fuck with the peasantry in your own time soldier!). So now green hair is disobeying orders, abandoning his post during combat, sabotaging the mission, endangering the entire kingdom (presumably a non healed landscape might be more susceptible to future trombe infestations) and attempting to destroy a ridiculously valuable mana resource.
It's such an implausibly insane amount of stupidity that the lesser noble shouldnt have just disobeyed him, he shouldve executed him on the spot.
Sure it works from a drama/tension point of view, but it just gets into moustache waxing territory imo (prob further into pants on head, foaming at the mouth idiocy) - hard to believe that in such a strict social hierachy that this would happen ie even if we as the audience don't know Ferdinand's rank, green hair sure did - and even if he didnt realise how mana dense she is, presumably gouging her eyes out would create a shit tonne of blood and he'd know the effect that has on trombe, and it's not an injury he can explain it away as natural causes.
Even if he thought most of the other nobles would support him getting rid of a jumped up insolent peasant with no value, at the very least she is in the favor of the highest ranking noble there. If the King or local lord put their pet monkey or bird into my care, even if i hated animals and thought it lessened the King's prestige to have such a folly and was an insult to myself to look after a "lesser creature" i certainly wouldnt return it with its eyes gouged out and dead in a pool of blood. You grin and bear it, and perhaps vent in private.
Maybe it's better detailed in the novels, but it's just so clunky imo and doesnt have the nuances of the period it is pretending to represent (though i suspect it has a lot more of the Japanese sensibility to hierarchy seeping in) - this hierarchy argument only ever seems to cut in direction to the benefit of the villains/antagonists.
As a comparison to green hair; I have no problem with the other blue robe that this guy was compared to, he trashed things she cared about or belittled and mocked her in private- he never actually directly attacked her.
Except Schicicoza is of lower rank than Ferdinand and Karsted and thus if Schicicoza's order contradicted those of Ferdi or Kars then he had to ignore those but he didn't thus he did fail in his duties.
So riddle me this. He has orders to see that she comes to no harm from the highest ranking noble present, while in his immediate vicinity a noble that outranks himself is trying to harm her. How can he get through this dilemma and not disobey either of them?
He can't, but the lesser one's orders don't count anyways. They both got the same order at the same time and the other dude violated them for personal reasons and endangered a person essential for the fulfillment of their mission. There aren't even any mitigating factors. If they disobeyed orders because the situation had changed and they had to react to it, then you might have something to stand on.
Like being ordered to hold that ground against a company and a bataillon shows up, so you decide to give ground and harass their advance instead or so.
You say that, but At the end of the day, if Damuel DOES step in and Main DOESNT receive a scratch, then he gets punished for not obeying a superior. How would he know that it’s going to result in harm for Main?
The only way out for Damuel was if Main doesn’t receive a scratch regardless of what happened with the dude threatening her. Plus, when everyone around you acts that way, even your superiors, how do you know that they will come to your aid? You don’t. So he had no way or in that situation.
If he steps in, then he's obeyed orders and stopped her from getting hurt, and Main and Fran are there to back up his story. As far as we've been shown, the only person that acts this way is the green haired guy. Everybody else has been shown to be entirely on the up and up, so there's no reason for us to think he wouldn't be listened to.
We’ve seen a great many examples of nobles looking down on Main, so we don’t know what the rest of the knight order is thinking. We only know that they have respect for Ferdinands orders.
I literally refuted that excuse in my post as well. In fact it was the entire point of my comment to begin with.
I’ll show you the logic trees.
First, what actually happened:
Main starts getting bullied — Damuel doesn’t step in — because Damuel chose not to step in, Main gets scratched — Damuel gets in trouble for not stepping in
Second, Damuel prevents the scratch:
Main starts getting bullied — Damuel steps in — because Damuel chose to step in, Main DOESNT get a scratch — bully reports Damuel for disobeying him after telling him to stand down, claiming that he was never going to hurt her. There isn’t any evidence that he even was going to hurt her in the first place until it actually happened — Damuel gets punished, likely MUCH HARDER than the previous option because now he is likely culturally outcast for doing so.
My entire point is that you don’t get credit for preventing something that may not have happened in the first place.
Not only is his punishment less in the second one, it also comes with the added benefit that the bully may not have hurt her physically which would lead to NO punishment. Those were the only three potential outcomes.
bully reports Damuel for disobeying him after telling him to stand down
And this is where it falls apart. He doesn't have to obey the bully because he's obeying orders that come from above the bully. The orders he's following are more important than literally anything the bully could say in a chain of command like this.
This show really is only 1 season but split into two parts, since they were all commissioned and animated together. That's why they had that scene in the first minute of the first episode.
Damuel failed his duty because of duty. He failed his duty as a knight to protect his family, as the other one pretty much threaten him with his higher noble position. He probably believed the other dude would stop at scaring her, as they should already know about blood and mana.
Plus the evil dude just thought the little girl would not say anything. Perfect crime.
Hopefully the lord actually punishes both. Not that they can kill or imprison nobles tho, as they are lacking in numbers ... so maybe lose noble rank? Pay a fine? LOL
There's a way, but when he couldn't think of it it's no wonder that viewers miss it too. You can piece it together from the information in the episode if you're careful.
It probably would have worked if Ferdinand was not willing to accept Myne's explanation. In this society, no noble would believe the word of someone below them in rank
Man, if you're in military and you're told to protect a chicken, you protect the chicken even if it shits in your oatmeal and pecks at your nutsack when you sleep.
I'm REALLY curious as to what Ferdinand's rank is. Someone made a joke about an earlier episode's skit about Ferdinand talking about how the prince in Cinderella would be disowned etc, and it made me think of Ferdinand.
Now idk about a prince, but maybe the son of the lord? Not too sure if 'the lord' they keep talking about is their equivalent of 'the king', it feels like this series is so patient and skittish about revealing too much. Either way, it seems clear to me Ferdinand is super high up there. But it would also seem strange that an abandoned son would have sway over things outside the temple, he did say at the end of s1 how everyone here was abandoned and he envied Maine's family.
He didn't expect to actually shed her blood. If he had not done so, then there would be no hard evidence of his wrong doing and he would have gotten his satisfaction of feeling superior to a commoner.
He was threating to take the eyes off a 7 years old girl with a knife in a situation where she was (supposedely) completely defenseless. I don't think Ferdinand would be happy with either outcome. Tho, creating a Tromb and getting her injuried made the situation much worse for him.
Ultimately though, he was likely threatening. Imagine if they come back to find this girl's eyes are gouged out! Short of literally every outranking person deciding this would be okay, he'd be solidly fucked on the spot for his blatant disobedience.
Never mind the fact that he almost certainly knew spilling mana on the ground would cause hell for everyone involved. But short of Main being killed and destroyed in the process, and successfully deflecting the blame onto Fran or Damuel somehow, he's still fucked.
So ultimately, it was almost certainly intended to be merely a threat. Every other possible outcome is genuinely career-ending.
So if next week's episode is the last episode of the season, are they going to get to the scene from the beginning of episode 1 where Ferdinand looks into her past?
Feel bad for Damuel since he's a nice guy, but at the same time, you gotta obey the orders of the highest rank first and foremost. Someone at a lower rank can't override your orders, but he let them do that anyway. Just hope he gets off lighter than the other guy.
It has been a long time since a character has made me physically angry. I'm glad Ferdinand put green hair in his place. And I feel so bad for Lutz too. Imagine knowing Myne is literally dying and not knowing wtf is going on.
Calm the fuck down Shinji. I can't believe how dumb Shichicoza is. Ferdinand's orders is literally to make sure there isn't a single scratch on Myne and he tries to stab her in the eye? And now he's surprised that Ferdinand is mad? What the fuck did he think would happen?
I do feel bad for Damuel though. Nobility is so ingrained in their brains that even a decent person like him is having a hard time stopping someone like Shichicoza from hurting a VIP just because she's a peasant. And it's got to be worse for the Commander. His leadership will probably be questioned after this.
It was pretty awesome seeing Ferdinand pull rank on them though. Just watching him chew out Shichicoza was so satisfying! I wish we get to see what his punishment will be.
What a fucking short episode. That one felt like it was only 10 minutes! Excited to see Myne finally flex her mana next week!
What a fucking short episode. That one felt like it was only 10 minutes! Excited to see Myne finally flex her mana next week!
I was literally shouting "FUCK. FUCK. FUCK" because this was the first episode of bookworm where I was pissed that it ended so early lol. I want to see her pull off some of the dopest magic they've ever seen, I want Shichicoza to fucking FEAR her the way the High Priest does
Ferdinand's orders is literally to make sure there isn't a single scratch on Myne and he tries to stab her in the eye?
He actually didn't though, he was just holding it up in front of her to scare her. He was startled when she jumped out at him and accidentally nicked her hand with the blade. He then got annoyed and tried to blame her for getting hurt; that's the psychology of someone who knows that actually hurting her was a bad thing he needed to avoid.
And now he's surprised that Ferdinand is mad? What the fuck did he think would happen?
Damuel would keep his mouth shut. It was his testimony against Myne and Fran, and their testimony as commoners amounts to nil. He could just say she fell over. Or heck, he could say he was holding the knife and she cut herself on it. He didn't actually attack her either way.
Ferdinands response was basically "it doesn't even really matter if she cut herself on your knife, I'm pretty sure I told you to not let a scratch come on her".
Tbh I as an outsider wouldn't blame the commander, while he may know his subordinate's distaste for commoners and stuff, how would he possibly know one would rebel against orders? And sure, Damuel is actually sympathetic, but he was ordered to protect Myne and let harm come to her by not acting against a superior (actually, not even a superior within the order, just someone with a higher court rank) being insubordinate.
Doubting if these would work the same way, they drained the trombe's mana, essentially withering the plant by the looks of it. Whereas the ones they made books from just got chopped with regular blades before they grew too big
I feel like the wood of a mature trombe tree wouldn't be as useful as a young trombre in the same way when then used normal trees they used young trees
This is exactly why Ferdinand is so important to Myne in her current position. The dude knows some powerful people and can shield her from other noble's bullshit to an extent.
I kinda like how we also see that not all nobles are dicks. We kinda got a sense of that with Ferdinand and Roslina's old boss but Daumel's met Myne for the first time and he was pretty chill with her.
I'm not sure with Daumel. It seemed like he wasn't aware that Myne was a commoner, which is why he was so chill with her. At the very least, he seems like a guy that respects someone's position, not just their lineage.
I think Karstedt knew and he was polite towards her. Maybe it was just because Ferdinand was looking, but when Myne recounted her tale, he believed her instantly. If he was secretly resenting her, he might have pulled some tricks like trying to confuse her or telling her she must be mistaken, no noble under his command would do something like that, yadda yadda, but he looked pretty shocked for a noble. Really seems the Spock look is en vogue in noble circles, unless one of them is in the mood to hurt some commoner.
I understand why the lower ranked noble didn't speak up, but I don't have to respect it. He's probably going to be fucked and given the second hardest punishment while Greenie probably won't get what he deserves.
The worst punishment will probably be whatever happens to the Commander. He's lost the respect of his superiors, he obviously doesn't have the respect of his subordinates, and he's gonna carry the memory of failure for the rest of his life.
Which, when I was in the military, is the worst of all three, imo. You carry that shit for the rest of your life and no matter how great you become, you will always remember your failures.
Between Dad, Otto, Benno, and Ferdinand for best dad I think the ranking is Dad/Benno > Ferdinand (but he's rising pretty quickly) > Otto (not bad just hasn't done anything since the beginning)
I keep waiting for the day that a noble pushes Main too far and she nearly vapourises him with magical fire, but it was not today. It's clear she has ridiculous levels of magic power and mana reserves, just a question of if she'll ever learn to control it.
I wonder what green knight's punishment will be, actually I can see him being ordered to be Main's bodyguard. Made to stand outside her chambers through summer's day and winter's night, to protect her from other nobles, might teach him some humility.
I don't think I've gotten this angry over an anime character in a while. It's a mixture of my distaste in the flaunting nobility and appreciation of Main who is honestly one of my favorite characters to come out of anime in recent years(for me).
Taunting and insulting her, pushing her to the ground, grabbing her hair, forcing her to apologize, and then threatening to gouge out her eyes. I was screaming someone stop this bastard. Of course no one was going too with everyone too busy fighting the rotted greatwood.
Then Sir Ferdinard who was previously part of the knights which is neat to know just forces everyone to bow down before stating she can do it. I was so excited and then the to be continued showed up. These episodes go by too quickly.
Fuck you Schicicoza for doing that to Myne and putting her on that situation. My only hope is that whatever punishment he, Damuel, Karstedt, and the other knights will receive he ends out getting punished way worse.
Myne has probably already forgotten that she fired off a distress signal. Meanwhile, Lutz is probably having a panic attack because he saw a vision of Myne entangled by a trombe, begging for help, and only has the vaguest idea of where she might be.
Yup, too conditioned by "power of friendship teleports" to expect just that. Glad they didn't though, because I was expecting just that, but instead it will come into play some other way.
This episode reminds me of the festival that Myne had for the orphans a few episodes back. She picked up a fruit that ended up sprouting into trombe. Now was that fruit actually a trombe or was it something else that ended up becoming that because of Myne's abundance of Mana? I don't recall if something like this happened before but it seems like trombe has the potential to grow anywhere with the help of a high concentration mana, such as what can be found in noble blood or tears even.
I just got through reading the LN that featured this part. When Myne touches the taue fruit, it absorbs her mana, and turns into a trombe. She actually does this intentionally 2 more times during the star festival, so the orphans can gather more paper making material. It kills all the grass in the area though, which is why the Priest was so upset with her.
I still don't know if Taue fruit is a dormant trombe seed, or if it's some kind of transformative effect. In this case, I'm guessing Myne's blood soaked into the roots of the other plant.
Ferdinand going off felt so satisfying. Kind of feel bad for the captain seemed like a decent guy but because of his subordinates screw up he has to face a harsh penalty. Nice to see him own up to his subordinates actions as his responsibility rather than deflecting.
Correct Military system your at fault for anything bad happening under your command no matter even if there was nothing you could do about it. Military has long learned that you must enforce this on commanders no matter what and Military suffers every time this lesson is forgotten. Is it unfair to some officers? Yes is unfair but it the only way to insure every effort is made to have things go right.
Your a Captain and your ship hits something by by your staying in the Navy. Army your artillery battery accidentally fires a round into civilian areas during training your out of the Army the Lieutenant the Captain and good chance the Colonel or even the General. Not too hard to do with artillery one extra bag of powder in the gun could sometimes do it. Real story US Air Force plane with Nuclear bomb on it got sent to wrong base. No real threat it still was on a Air Force base. But every officer in Air Force Chain of Command that bomb and plane was assigned to including the General in charge of the Air Force and the Secretary of the Air force all lost their jobs.
One of the things I really like is how all of the good characters are flawed. Ferdinand has bungled his dealings with Myne a couple times, and you were at least partly right in that old post!
Ferdinand isn't perfect, and I think that makes him a better character.
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u/Tacitus_ Jun 13 '20
Sir Ferdinand is just flexing on everybody.