The central idea of a story about a totalitarian dictator having everything stripped from him and he has to redeem himself and become the hero is actually kind of interesting. And it was done best by Disney with The Emperor's New Groove. The difference though between Kusko and Shad's protagonist is that Kusko wasn't a genocidal r*p*st.
agree that the setting would be interesting if it was written by someone who doesn’t glorify raping and other bs and writes women as onedimensional sex dolls
While Shad did probably start making more culture war content for the grift, it seems like most of his wild opinions are genuine. His brother Jazza has talked about how their parents raised them in a domineering, hyper-conservative sect of Mormonism which Jazza broke away from while Shad seems to very much remain a true believer
I heard somewhere that he at some point, relatively unprompted, said that it's a shame that wars aren't between people who look different anymore. And that's... probably what it was.
@@lavellelee5734 - Yeeeah, like... I can *kind of* see how it could be a really ill-advised expression of something innocuous - like, if we're talking about a movie where it's useful for there to be a clear visual distinction or something. But after getting through half of his book, I think that would be far too charitable.
It is still hard for me to fathom that Jazza is Shad's brother, considering just how awesome Jazza seems to be compared to how.... batshit insane Shad is.
@@JCTheSniper15 he has a second channel with his yes man or something, where they show how stupid they are in any area that is not medieval military history. I wouldn't look it up ever again. It feels like an insult to your intelligence to listen to them and could probably be considered self harm.
I can't help but think maybe Shad's Mormon faith has totally warped his ideas of what forgiveness and redemption should be. I know it's a big thing in Mormon churches that abuse victims not forgiving their abuser is considered more disruptive and disrespectful than the abuse itself. Which is something the main character does over and over and over.
Just wanna throw out when you're talking about the usage of slurs and stuff: In A Song of Ice and Fire they would use the term "simple" for people with mental disabilities. It's direct, understandable, and grounded enough that you know what everyone means by it. And in turn, since Westeros and Essos don't have any Greek-influenced cultures, you even have minor things like when Tyrion meets someone named "Penny". The name "Penelope" doesn't exist so the girl was *literally* named after money and the narration even takes a moment for Tyrion to think it's really dumb someone would do that to their child.
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 True, but that's the only part. The rest of the culture is very late medieval italy with the Bravo's, all the theater players, etc. And it's Venice because of all the canals. It's located to the north of the Europe-shaped continent of Essos, though
Hi, I'm a big fan of Shad and would like the opportunity to defend him in a debate with you! I dont actually know any of his opinions or his justifications for his opinions, BUT I did use over 300 of his videos to train an AI chat bot that I can use instead of actually knowing how to debate, and as we all know, using that chat bot will make me just as qualified a debater as anyone, in fact it will make me BETTER then a regular debater, since I'll be able to make my talking points quicker without the pesky need to understand the arguments or the context of the questions asked. I'll just copy what what you say and have the computer do it for me! And really, is there any difference between that and regular debate tactics and research? I dont think so, and anyone who says otherwise is approaching the situation from a position of profound ignorance! I mean I still have to take those responses and copy the parts I like and delete and have the computer rewrite the parts I don't, and that's exactly the same as making the arguments up myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise! So you and I can debate at any time, just not tonight, as I will be busy writing my book, it's about Space Mao who comes back to life in a copy of his 18 year old body with super powers, and the whole story is him beating random people to death while talking about how much he regrets being a communist! And while yes, its true I dont know anything about how to actually write a book, I did copy all of Robert E. Howard's work and use it to train an AI chat bot to write the book FOR ME. Now before you get all pissy, I did write notes on the basic outline that I wanted the chatbot to use, so it's basically EXACTLY like I'm writing it myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise! /s
This makes me think of Yharim, the antagonist of Calamity Terraria's lore. He was a traumatized young boy who, in an effort to resolve the injustice that ruined his life, became the ruthless dictator ruining the world. You find notes from him across the course of the game, and you see how much he regrets this, how he's given up, how he's staying out of your player character's life because he no longer really wants to survive and is just waiting until you become strong enough to challenge him. The thing is, Yharim was well-written. The game's lore actually slings you back and forth between being disgusted by the things he did and feeling very, very sorry for Yharim himself. Also, no weird sex stuff in Yharim's story, at least not that we're told about.
Also helps that Yharim is, at no point, presented as a good or redeemed guy. He goes from horrible to just sad. The lore recognizes that an evil person can still be a tragic figure.
This took me digging to figure out wth it was talking about… mostly because I ignored the 1st search results that pointed to some mod for the old 2d little Minecraft-like… apparently this is referring to some mode for that old little Minecraft-like 🤷
@@joearnold6881 Minecraft: Released November 2011. Terraria: Released May 2011. Terraria is also the world's 10th most selling game. Its only got 44 million downloads compared to Minecraft's billion-plus, but its hardly a "old little Minecraft-like."
Wait so this "redemption story" is about the worst person to have ever existed in all history becoming some absolute arbiter, acting as judge jury and executioner for people who have done only a fraction of the things he has done? This isn't redemption, it's hypocrisy.
I remember just putting the book down when MC eviscerated a homeless guy who tried to mug him with a knife, when he's basically superman. And then he's all like "I'm trying to redeem myself" when literally the only thing he doesn't do anymore is r little girls. WHOA, what a 180 in personality!
So my take of that aspect of the book was he's seeking redemption, he wants it but fully acknowledges because of what he's done he's unlikely to ever find it and has to learn to live with that. As to what Martin said. yea he kills a homeless guy then is like, wait, fuck, I can't be trusted I need help with this, enter Ahreck
@@delinquentpanda Except at no moment in the book he ever displays the humility and self awareness to ask for help. It would be good writing if it happened the way you said it, but that's not what happened.
Maybe there could be some story about worst guy to ever exist that have good redemption story but I'm not really into redemption stories so I'm not sure how it should look like
Tbh a simple power fantasy would've been fine if he hadn't made Daylen an ex-pedo dictator who raped hundreds and killed millions. You'd have to be a super good writer to handle that redemption story, which Shad isn't lmao. Also the way Shad handles rape and sexual trauma just feels gross. Lyrah was one of Daylen's child rape victims and she easily gets over her intense trauma she's had for years, forgives him, and teams up with him in the end.
Man, I'm a decent writer and wouldn't touch the concept with a 1000ft pole. It's just, ick. I genuinely cannot fathom going there and thinking "this is an epic" like Shad did
Do I want to meet who can write that kind of story? I'm just thinking either I'm meeting someone who can turn shit into gold or a master propagandist, maybe both. 😅
@@sporeham1674 Most people who write that I know simply wouldn't even try to go in depth on this because they lack a full understanding of how that kind of thing affects someone. The people I know who do write and would/have gone there? Victims. People who actually understand the perspectives they're inserting into their stories. People who are clearly not the audience Shad was going for 💀
As someone who's read this story back when I was a fan of him (thought he was just a cool writing guy with good tips about fantasy and worldbuilding), I can tell you how viscerably *uncomfortable* it was reading this book with Daylen as the protagonist. I kept saying that it would've been so so so much better if the protagonist was the dictator's son, that would actually be interesting and tackle about whether the sins of one's father is your burden etc etc, instead, I got a piece of shit who was trying so hard to be sympathetic despite being an actual rapist a p,dophile.
Epstein Hitler is *REEEAAALLY* sad about what he did you guys, c'mon. 🥺 FR I don't know how many books you need under your belt to make that story work. 🤣
The first thing to do to make this work is: "REMOVE him being a Pedophile." Redemption arcs only work if its for things most readers can see someone redeeming themselves from. Being a active Pedo... aint one of them.
Stephen King could do it. Specifically "directly post car accident, painkiller and cocaine frenzy, two hours of sleep at night" Stephen King. We'd have two to three well received adaptations of it by now too.
@@JoseRS1186 One of those authors where they got a little too silly again, had another stay in a mental hospital, and wrote another banger while they were in there. 🤣
The worst part is a story like this could be interesting, but it’s written by a bad person with a fascist worldview. If you want a well done version of this premise based on “redemption,” I would read Vinland saga or Berserk. 😅
I mean, it's a very video gamey concept, obv. Mogworld does something similar, as an early clue that its fantasy world is actually an MMORPG. The weird thing with Shad's book is how little it comes up after it's first introduced.
@@indrickboreale7381 Well his major critique was for Elden Ring was that all the lore for world and characters wasn't all explained to you in very long exposition dumps by the characters. Now knowing about his book... it's very obvious that Shad legitimately thinks long exposition dumps make a story better when they do not.
I mean fair I'm not personally a huge fan of FROMSOFT-style storytelling (I'm fine with intuiting stuff, but it usually feels like I'm writing 99% of the story myself instead of experiencing it), but Shad's said plenty of other dumb shit so
@@juniperrodley9843 The way I described it to my brother was like this. "Imagine you went downtown and asked someone on the sidewalk about the history of the building you're standing next to" They couldn't tell you probably. They wouldn't say oh this building was first constructed 1893 as a needle factory then there was a fire reconstructed in 1924 as a hospital during the war in 1940 it was repurposed as the hospital it is today. A person who lives in an area can give you a general geography at best and that's if they are a nice person. People are not walls of exposition to explain the history of the world to you. Which is what Shad wanted. He wanted to be told about the world rather than experience. Think of the Weathertop scene in LOTR the "Tower of Amon Sul" the movie embelishes on the age it was made but in the story they use it for shelter as it looks over the South road and Aragorn says it be the second place Gandalf would stay in case of trouble. Imagine how much tension would have been broken from Bree to Weathertop if we spent 10 pages explaining the history of the tower. It's alright to add character and depth to your world but not at the cost of the story.
This is actually something that Steven King made sure to point out in his book "On Writing". He said it's important to read bad books, so that you know what NOT to do. Which is ironic because it's his only book I've ever read ^^
Not gonna lie, I was semi-enjoying the book as a sort of goofy Heinleiny world-build novel. Then it got into the first weird out-of-nowhere rant about how, no, but srsly, communism is bad, which I just kinda shrugged off because, again, Heinlein's clearly an influence. But pretty much as soon as there was any intimation that this was going to be some kind of buddy-cop adventure between a rape survivor and her rapist in disguise... I just noped the fuck out of there and felt absolutely no desire to read on. So I don't know if that was where the story ultimately went. But the fact that that was the *least* distasteful way I could imagine it going was enough for me to not want to know.
No... that's about right. That's pretty much how it went. At the end they put Daylen on trial and all his victims agree to commute his sentence to a form of indentured servitude... as one of those knights who have absolute authority and can do whatever they want. With the rape survivor as his partner/parole officer.
@@Archone666 - Weird, I saw Last Action Hero, and it had all those quirky mismatched buddy-cop duos, but they never had the "magically studlified omnipotent rapist/victim of specifically his sexual abuse" pairing. I guess they just forgot to include such a natural logical trope. If I was feeling in any way charitable, I'd imagine that Shad wanted to do something that had never been done before, but... sometimes there's a reason.
@@FTZPLTC Maybe it would have worked better if Daylen had received an agonizing injury that was later downgraded as "not even a flesh wound?" Or just get him different partners... th-cam.com/video/Lu7PxhwDGqw/w-d-xo.html
@@Archone666 - I think it would've been better if they'd just... not. Like, I don't think any idea is doomed from the start, but Iat the same time, I wouldn't want to try to write Lolita before I've learned to write... well, at all.
@@FTZPLTC Oh, I agree. I'm was trying to make a few jokes about how awful the book is - because Shad himself certainly has no sense of humor about it. But to be more serious about it: his main problem was that his characters were completely unrealistic in their reasoning and rationale. Simply put, a decent person would never have done the "repeated rape of underaged girls before ordering his servants to have them killed" thing in the first place. To put it in perspective: Hitler committed so many atrocities after convincing himself that it was for the good of Germany, that he was doing the "necessary evil" for the greater good. But Hitler also married a woman that he appears to have genuinely loved. Raping young women was not something Hitler could rationalize as being for the greater good (though of course plenty of nasty types became Nazis so they could do exactly that - but they weren't motivated by twisted altruism). But when it comes to Daylen, Shad seems to have decided, "I'll have him be like Hitler - but I'll throw in some Ted Bundy for good measure! After all, they were both evil, and all evil is done for the same reasons! They're both bad, so I'll have Daylen be both and he'll be super bad! That makes sense!"
Real talk: I feel like when poorly made media uses heavy topics like r*pe, it has less to do with the creator actually wanting to explore those topics and more to do with either A.) generic shock value/edginess or B.) having a cheap defense ready for when people criticize the work ("It's DEEP and if you say it sucks then that just means you can't handle how fucked up the world is UwU").
“Repeating myself a lot, while also, confusingly returning to the same point.” I watched a few of Shad’s videos before he became openly reactionary, and that’s exactly how he communicates.
Wait, so this guy can see the "light" or "darkness" in a person, and that gives him liscence to kill people at will? That's Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow death cult stuff! This is literally just Visions of Glory as a fantasy book! I knew Shad was mormon, but I didn't think he was _that_ kind of mormon
Reminds me of a hypothetical I saw discussed on the old Wizards of the Coast forums, about a Lawful Stupid Paladin who uses Detect Evil in the street and attempts to kill anybody who detects as evil. Thankfully, most people agreed that Paladins who attempted that would immediately become fallen paladins and lose their powers.
The real tragedy is how close Shad is to people of real talent in whatever medium he tries to get into, but he just doesn’t ask any of them for advice or a proof read or anything. Talk about self sabotage
weird, i watch some of his videos from time to time (usually when my insomnia hits) and him and Tyrinth have a good back and forth on Knights Watch. The recent ones on the spear from Troy, they actually ask one another for advice and ideas of how to do the jumps and blocks. So the OP is factually wrong.
@@AzguardMike Congrats he talks to his friends in the HEMA community. I was talking about the fact that his brother is a famous artist yet he can't seem to draw figures correctly and he has advised Brandon Sanderson on some of the Storm Light Archive books yet when he goes to write his own book its full of weird rape fantasies. I used to watch Shad a lot but he's just a narcissistic ass who says that anyone who disagrees with him is woke or taking him out of context or some other excuse to cover up the fact that he's just not likable outside of his one medium
Damn, that's just sad. Like sure he isn't the picture of male masculinity but, and take this from a bi guy, he really doesn't look bad. Sure he looks a little bit like a Redditor, but if he cleaned up his act and behaved like a fucking decent person I'd call him reasonably handsome - it's just that his ugly spirit somehow has an affect on how you see him.
@@YTDariuS-my6dg There was an insane wojak post about how no matter how ugly you are if you have a good heart it shows visually and vica verca that applies to him.
@@YTDariuS-my6dg yeah Shad is a good looking guy. You don’t need to be 6ft of abs to be handsome. But he’s utterly unnatractive because of his awful views and behavior. All I see is an insecure man who’s frustrated and unsure of his role and place in the world. And doesn’t like being called out on messed up views he’s internalized and doesn’t wanna examine, instead doubling down on them. Which makes him more repulsive
ok and? Most celebs do this. Even normies do it. Hell, most women modify their facebook pictures to look healthier. Just looking for reasons to hate shad. Gasp, he's right wing. Hate him. He wrote a book where a morally grey guy kills people. He's Australian! He... he... he believes in sex AFTER marriage! He's basically HITLER!!!!! and no, I'm not a fan of his. I just refuse join this circle jerk hate fest over a guy who wrote a mediocre book and is right wing.
Former fan of Shad back when he actually did interesting videos about medieval weapons and story ideas, instead of the weird "muh woke" and "muh AI" crap. I knew of his book for the longest time, figured it was probably ok? I never sat down to either listen to it or read it and if all of this is true... Yiiiikes. Bro was not well even back then.
@@megaflamer Been listening to other reviews of the book (I don't want to give Shad's book more publicity points) and it seems like... Yeah the world just bends all logic and morality to give this douche infinite power. Found it hilarious how this Ex-Rpst gives himself the benefit of the doubt but no one else gets a second chance, they all deserve awful fates, only he has been chosen by "the light" despite he is a monster on par with everyone else he kills. You'd think that with a background like that he'd become some kind of Batman-like character that swears to make up for all the horror in his past life, abstains from ever murdering another soul and believes that not only is there potential for good in himself, there is potential for good in others as well. Nah "their souls are dark, rips their c###s off. Hey ex-victim, my are you well endowed now." As someone writing my own story that is also about a villain seeking redemption, this feels like something I would've wrote down as a first draft when I was in middle school. Gives me second hand embarrassment. Sad to keep going down this rabbit hole of a book because I recall how Shad would go on and on about how much redrafting he did about his story.
@@pyerack it uh, doesnt show. the book is quite poorly written with exceptional leaps of logic pretty much every chapter more or less. Take one example, dude is supposed to be hiding so all his enemies dont catch on to him. Youd think he would, you know, maybe don a disguise and a different name. Nope, keeps his old name and does absolutely nothing other than give a supremely flimsy excuse whenever questioned. And people just....believe him? even massive sceptics and his mortal foes just.,...overlook this extremely suspicious dude looking like their ex nemesis, sounding like him and having the same bloody name?!? So yea, gary-stu as he can do no wrong apparently and everything around him bends over like its a game of limbo to accommodate him
I miss hearing him go on rants about machicolations and gambeson. Vastly better than anything he's doing now, but it's spoiled by the writing... this drek.
he liked AI art, he used his right hand to draw the bow instead of the left, he's australian, he is a conservative with right wing ideals like 2 genders and sex after marriage.
I've wrote some hot garbage under some aliases. And some horror shorts that kinda sucked. In my defense, my books were intended to be porn, and I know they aren't very good. Shad has way too much ego to understand how bad his work is, and if he can't do that, then his writing quality isn't going to get any better. It's hypocritical for him to call characters Mary Sue when he made his protagonist a massive Mary Sue. Your review makes it sound like he wrote a story following one of those "Avatar the Last Airbender is the best shit ever" writing guides to a T. I honestly think that's what happened. They all advocate for excessive world building.
He complains and explains about rules that he doesn't put into practice, it's amazing how years of lessons on Worldbuilding he threw in the trash. It was a good lesson itself, it must have been ignored. Aside from Mary Sue, half of these bad book authors I realize they use all the tropes they criticize, it's asymptomatic of a bad author being a hypocrite.
@@lordlittletoeq8537 No, they were definitely porn lol. I tried pretty hard to stitch a plot together, but I realized after a while that the sex and the plot weren't meshing together very well. I'd actually like to revisit it at some point when I finish college and have time.
So what you're telling me is that the guy who thought the gay romance in The Last of Us was too much depicts explicit pedophilia in his book and that's somehow more tasteful????
when I heard that shad, a conservative guy that has talked a lot about gender roles and how depending on if you're born a man or woman, you should do that, or behave like that, and how he has many times said homophobic and sexist things, wrote a book, and nontheless a book that contained characters that were r*ped my first thought was "... he's literally the less qualified person to tackle that subject"
There's a lot of SA and torture portrayed therein, for a book written by a Mormon. However, the stereotypes about coloured people fit right into that particular brand of Christian extremism unfortunately.
@@user-jq1mg2mz7o Yeah but it's even worse with Mormons because they think darker skin is the mark of Cain so they inherently think people with darker skin are just fundamentally evil.
All of this makes way more sense when you remember that Shadiversity is mormon and sexual assault of minors is super normal for them as is the weird racism.
The mormon church recently came under hot water for saying they were "pleased" with a legal verdict that protected their right to not report ongoing sexual assault confessed to their leaders
i disagree about the culture wars content part. i think this actually ruined his channel's algorithm, because it used to be just purely sword / nerd stuff. politics and nerd stuff are nowhere near in the same category. if anything, i think it diminished the views in his OG nerd content and i think he's somewhat aware of it, which is why he is currently grifting as an AI artist because he mistakenly thinks this is going to be a new income stream for him. it's just sad to see a nerd go this way.
@@Ilyak1986 he uses the same name (shadiversity) in all his content. he associated it with the culture wars algo. if you try and look at the views of his content around the time he dabbled in the culture wars stuff, you'll notice the dip in his viewership. even now, his recent nerd content still hasn't gotten the same average viewership he used to have prior to the culture wars stuff.
@@maggyfrog what I mean is his culture wars channel is Knight's Watch--why does that affect his main Shadiversity channel? Shouldn't it be entirely separate? It's like if I had a programming channel and a gaming channel or something, would it screw with the algorithm? How exactly does it work when working with multiple channels?
@@Ilyak1986 think of the tags. anything tagged with "shadiversity" especially around the time he actively participated in culture wars are all potentially seen by the algo as also part of the culture wars algo.
26:25 I’m so glad you brought up the comparison to Sanderson because it’s been driving me MAD how copypasta this has been of Sanderson’s whole body of work, right down to shoddy imitations of character names. It’s like filing the serial numbers off, only you don’t know what you’re doing and file off the entire receiver.
I used to watch him... but then he started saying things that seemed really weird to me... Like his defense of rape in Goblin Slayer... that women being raped is a good motivator for male heroes... And women can't hold swords... I left his channel before his commentary became explicitly right-wing political advocacy....
@@The5armdamput33 I don’t think the priestess is real. Just like redo of healer It’s a kink hentai thing that ain’t got any substance and the characters are just meant to be fuckable. And some people that are really fucked up in a non kinky way will take it to horrible non kinky places but that’s their and the others that lead them there’s fault. Not the porn. If you want to read something with actual nuance on rape and similar issues, read berserk, emergence/metamorphosis or nana.
@@The5armdamput33 rape kink is a thing, and there is a whole subgenre of hentai dedicated to it. It's not the worst subgenre of hentai, there is much worse
I fell out of enjoyment with Shad some time ago. His pop culture weapon videos and frame by frame Star Wars fight breakdowns were great. Then his format changed when he brought two other guys on, and I enjoyed the videos less. Then I began to see videos such as "When cartoons were wholesome" and I knew Shad was on a bad path. I never would have expected him to write about rape or child love... It's simply sad.
I knew the moment he defended boob plates and bikini armor that he was like that. For a guy supposedly obsessed with accuracy he sure was fine with throwing it away when it gets in the way of his gooning.
Shad's tendency to over-explain every single sentence of his book really shows his insecurities. If you're a good writer you don't need to explain every single aspect of your world's magic system, or cultures, or even why someone doesn't feel like they should kill their opponent. He'd probably write it off as "perfectionism", which is also a form of insecurity, as it shows unwillingness to let go of your creation and find your own flaws and refine the process.
I don't agree entirely here but I do agree that some parts of the book are a little over explanatory. However, it is better written than Sanderson's first book Elantris, which I can't even reread because I cringe to hard.
Allan moore once said that is important to explore the bad side of art as much as the good one to truly understand it (im just paraphrasing the insane bearded wizard king if you find the actual quote let me know)
I remember being a fan of Shad when this book came out and thought the premise actually sounded interesting. But like, why rape? I thought when he said "Hitler was the protagonist" he meant murder. Why touch this subject?
@@ColaDad Why not include rape? Because it hits too close to home. Most people don't ha e any personal experience with genocide or even murder, and even then if he's some dark lord he wouldn't be personally killing them. But virtually everyone woman and most men have a personal experience with sexual harassment and assault.
@@ColaDad Because when it comes to the crimes people can forgive a character for, rape is really far down the list, and from the sounds of it, Shad doesn't have the skill required for the redemption story he is writing, so why have your MC be a rapist pedophile?
@@MrDrewwills So your argument as for why a work should not handle something traumatic/bad is based on how common it is? In that case, would it be an issue if he wrote about heart disease and cancer in his works? A friend or family dying from those is extremely common and also very traumatic and sometimes even expensive as well. It fits all your criteria ergo should be wrong.
I think it's pretty incredible that this guy can, with a straight face, say that women can't be soldiers in any kind of fantastical or mythic fantasy setting because of menstruation, and having to squat to pee, but will just casually drop the idea that there could be a world where continents float and the world behaves like Pac-Man where when you go too far one way, you appear coming from the other direction, and that's just to be accepted without question. But have Rey climb a wall and you suddenly have to show evidence of her gym membership, and the credentials of her climbing instructor.
As a minor writer myself, I acknowledge that women are physically weaker, but that magic bridges the gap enough that it isn't really an issue for women to be soldiers. There are two instances where I bring up women having periods, in one, there is mention of a spell that deals with the effects of it, and the other is a nation of cloned women, and they just don't have them at all. I find it more interesting to mention the differences between people and then explain how they use those differences to their advantage. Having a world of magic but then deciding to ignore how that would effect cultural development and the sexes is silly.
I feel like a lot of Shad’s points could be disproven or given an alt perspective if he just… talked to women working in traditionally masculine fields like the military or martial arts community, and also some historians lmao. Im a woman and have been in the army for 13 years. I’m also a fan of historic fashion and a fantasy writer. The thing about periods is you find ways to deal with them in the field, it can suck but you suck it up, and a lot of women in various historic periods used rags or makeshift underwear or whatever they had available to deal with theirs. Settlers didn’t stay at home and avoid months on the road bc of their poor little period lmao. There’s been women warriors for as long as written history, often disguised as men, sometimes given their own society like the Dahomey Agooji. Or Japanese women often being trained in the naginata to defend their homes while men were away at war fields. Culture usually determines what a woman is allowed to do or believed to be capable of, regardless of what she’s actually capable of Strength can be trained and built up. You may not be as strong as some counterparts, but as long as you can carry your weight and do your job in the military no one cares what you are. Sexism can still happen sometimes but it’s deeply discouraged and seen as inappropriate and unprofessional. And most of that is just bc culturally it’s now generally acceptable for women to be in military service. In fantasy, you can make the culture whatever you want, as long as it’s believable and internally consistent
@@Joyride37 Yeah, I think the "Women have periods, so they would, IDK, die of an infection or something if they were in the wilderness." is so fucking funny in particular, because it just assumes women were invented in 1870 when sanitation first became available or something. All evidence of women existing before that must be ignored because logically, they would have died of period induced infection, right? The physical strength thing is funny too, because yeah, you have to argue that a woman cannot ever become stronger than the weakest man that would be allowed in the service to justify their systematic exclusion from war. Considering the nature of medieval times as one of conscripted levies, and training and physical requirements were not up to the levels of professional modern militaries and professional modern militaries DO allow women to serve, it seems absurd. The biological fact is that women do tend to be physically weaker, but the fact of their exclusion from the military is in fact, still completely cultural, even with that fact in mind. And if you're writing a story, you get to decide the culture of the places you describe.
@@Jerthanis That's not their argument. It would be that battlefield conditions are dirtier thus they'd be moar likely to get infected. Of course, this requires multiple assumptions they don't prove on their part so it's still fallacious, but don't misrepresent them. In reality, the reason why women were excluded from war is because one man can impregnate many women but one women can only be pregnant at a time. So they'd be moar valuable for reproduction for any given population, thus not risked in warfare. This does not change in fiction unless you're writing speculative evolution where the species reproduces differently. However, just because it's common doesn't make it a rule you can't break; and it's only a mild pressure on suspension of disbelief anyways. In the modern era where populations comprise of millions for even the smallest countries, this isn't an issue, but it's going to be a hurdle in any ancient civilization. This is why these ppl seem to accept sci-fi militaries being gender neutral much moar. *All that I'm saying is that assuming even a medieval to Victorian fantasy would would have a male dominated military specifically because of differing reproductive realities of the sexes is completely valid and actually adds to the realism.*
Cogent Roleplaying, the tabletop RPG he wrote, really sucks too. Which is really funny to me because he has loads of videos on why D&D 3rd edition sucks because it doesn't accurately depict weapons or armor, and in his system wearing armor actually makes you a worse fighter. Used to be a pretty prominent member of his discord server, mostly hung out in his roleplaying games channel and would constantly get people asking for advice about it but Shad had long since abandoned it leaving it half finished. The mods he has for that server and the one running his reddit are the definitions of the power mad moderator meme too, and left those when all this alt right nonsense of his starting bubbling up to the surface.
@@westsidetyler man I used to really like his content too, his fantasy rearmed series and his castle videos (he really knows castles, perhaps his only expertise tbh) were what drew me in and I should have just stayed watching his videos. but once I joined his discord my eyes were opened, his head mod right before I joined was ousted for having a secret grooming channel. So all this really isn't that surprising for us non-fanboys who were in the trenches as it were.
Having practiced at 150meter gun range with iron sights in past, the part about gear where it says along lines of "if you have optics you can take shots at sniper range of 100m+" lives rent-free in my head.
Reminds me of when my husband left that server when he was punished for calling out tankies that claimed that the Leopard 2 stood no chance against the T-72. (for those who don't know, that's like saying a two-barreled shotgun is as effective a war weapon as an assault rifle) The tankie was left to his own devices and continued and continued spreading deep-soviet propaganda (any propaganda being against server rules, mind you) and my husband was punished for what? Calling that guy a tanky. Apparently that is not a descriptor, but a derogatory term. Guess all the derogatory terms my husband was called were just accurate descriptors but tanky is too much.
Late to the party but reading the rules and in the armour section, their description doesn't even match the rules. Character stabbed by a rogue and uses their armour to reduce the damage. But on the PREVIOUS page it says that injury reduction is not applicable in close combat.
I don't mind too much the occasional author self-insert (Heinlein did it pretty well)... what bugs me is how the main character "self-inserted" with respect to teenaged girls. It's hard for me to keep reading a book about a guy like that. I had immense trouble reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for similar reasons.
@@hoi-polloi1863I've had a boyfriend obsessed with Thomas Covenant guess who cheated on me with a 13 year old girl he groomed online? You're totally valid for not feeling this book ^^'
Haven't read it, but just by listening to the description, it sounds like Daylin might be a Western chauvinist's stand in for America/"Western civilization"; lots of bad things in his past, but basically invented everything and has to solve the world's problems because he's the most competent, special boy. Anyone else get that impression? I'll be curious to hear how far that analogy goes in parts 2 & 3.
The British Empire at its height, bringing civilization to all the ignorant “savages”. Sure, they extracted all the resources for their own selfish gain, subjugated and killed millions, ruined whole parts of the world for (ongoing) generations.. But they brought them the “benefits” of modern society, like capitalism, so it all evens out in the end. It’s a net good, actually! 😢
@@clan741 From what I've learned, the best teachers are also good at the thing they teach. You cannot teach a subject well if you are not familiar with the intricacies of how that subject works. I strongly feel that if one picked apart his lessons, one would find serious flaws. Either in presentation or content.
@@cajunguy6502 Well, when it comes to developing world history... you end up making narratives that if you embellish, could turn into great stories, just as like, background info.
24:04 Regarding inventing new terms, I can come up with something on the spot right now instead of using the r-word. "You must be dark in the head/you must've been left in the dark for a little too long" - possible offensive alternative for the r-word within the context of the world, referencing how the Shades are made and equating them to someone acting irrationally/being mentally ill. Downside is the second one could be confused with "being left in the dark" meaning for us being uninformed.
What baffles me is why he didn't use more archaic words or therminology like "i m b e c i l e" or "feeble minded". Shad made a whole video about the difference between modern day insults and Medieval insults so he should know how out of place it would feel
There's a lot you could do with light/dark imagery, for example: 'You must have/keep shadows/shades in your head' -- Derogatory; You're stupid/ignorant to the circumstances/closed minded. Might also be used to call out particularly dangerous, destructive, or depressive thoughts of another. See also 'Open your eyes and let the light in.' Etymology-wise, it'd come from the whole Light/Dark and Man/Shade thing in setting, but also referencing the existance of light blocking window blinds/shutters and doors and how you'd open them to drive away the darkness in your home in the daytime.
Oh god, i forgot about the Lusts... yeah, that kinda sums the book up tbh. Kinda reminds me of those guys who will tell you all the terrible things they think should be done to rapists as punishment... but at the same time would not believe any victim's testimony without a shitload of equivocation.
So we should have believed Amber Heard because she said so? What about the countless other false accusations by women used to attack men that didn't have millions to defend themselves in a biased court system? It's elections soon. I can't wait for them to start trotting out the lines of women with accusations about how some political candidate touched them in their nono square 30 years ago. Then watch them magically disappear when they crawl back into the woodwork with their payoffs. But yeah, lets just believe them. Who needs proof.
I remember when Sanderson's new Stormlight Archive book came out, Shads name was in it as a historic martial arts reference. That book actually has my least and most favorite fights. The least favorites are the ones where the fight is sidetracked by one or two sentences of "technical" description that rarely makes sense when your characters are in the fucking air. The most favorite is one that uses the rules of the magic engineering as a replacement for one of the characters missing super powers, and thus he has to avoid all confrontation that would require any form of martial arts. Fucking excellent example of a consultant actually making a book worse, especially in a book that does a really good job (for pop fantasy) at dealing with mental health due to the many mental health consultants
no suprises, as Shad know nothing at all about martial art lols. he just repeat stuff he hear on other peoples videos. he does nothing, know nothing. Complete fraud
I am so glad to not be the only one who noticed that. It is so obvious what pots he had his finger in and they are so absolutely rotten. I legit hope Brandon drops him as a consultant and a beta reader. It almost beggars belief that Shad would even enjoy Brandon's books, given his personal opinions.
Shadow of the Conqueror? I dont think Shad's conquered anything more threatening than a plate of ribs. Dude's terrified of Princess Peach in pants destroying western civilization.
I guess he forgot that Princess Peach Toadstool (I guess Peach is her first name) has been certified monster-whooping badass since 9.10.1988 when she debuted her first active appearance. She did NOT wear pants then.
I watched Shad's videos about swords, they were fun. He said he wrote a novel, I figured I would throw him some support. I made a mistake. This book encapsulates everything wrong with fantasy fiction. This book makes me long for the days when publishers acted as gate keepers, protecting my eyes from amateurish hacks and their puerile gibberish. Left wing, right wing, I do not know, I do know this book sucks.
With respect. You clearly have not read many historical books in the context of the times they were written in, if you are aggravated that 'politics' plays a role in stories today. Additionally, while I personally enjoy Tarzan as a "turn your brain off and skip the part where he learns the full nelson" type of book. It is (by Edgar's own words) trash. Gate keeping? Nah. They want books that will be sure to sell. There is a tiny difference about the size of a grand canyon. They aren't gate keepers for masterpieces.
@@TryssemTavern Is what I read a historical work of nonfiction? No, it was fiction. Did I say I was aggravated or indifferent to politics? I indicated I was indifferent to politics. Am I unaware fantasy fiction is escapism? No. The problem with Shad's book is the terrible writing. The gatekeeping of which I spoke referenced the horrible writing.
shad once said in an old vodeo that immigrants shouldnt be allowed government assistance and only white australians should. this was like 8 plus years ago.
Nevermind shad and whatever he did, this military softheads channel has appeared in my recommendations, heh ok. You leftists believe in the state bullying people to pay for border grifters that you vote to cram down societies neck, whose societies literally generate refugees, because the people you voted for, start wars in their countries and then import them over for the rest of us to pay for, en masse. As if there's overflowing charity in any non white country😂Not sorry for being human and concerned for my own group, smh you kooky critical theorists.
I like a lot of Shad’s non-political content. His castle knowledge is great and very interesting and he presents it well. I bought his book on Kindle when he released it though, and couldn’t get past I think the second chapter, not because of any moral objections - don’t think anything too horrendous had happened by then - but just because the writing was so bad. The bit where his main protagonist falls off the edge of the world (which in this setting loops back to the surface of the world again, and very quickly - actually could be an interesting idea) and works out his new magic powers in the space of a few seconds on the basis that he was an engineer in his former life, was so bad I couldn’t believe it. It actually showed how his whole “magic systems should follow rules and not be random” idea, which is true in some ways, when taken to extreme, ends up taking the magic out of magic and rendering it into engineering, just with different laws of physics. That was something I was thinking about his ideas about magic in fantasy settings before he released his book. And then his book came out, and HE ACTUALLY HAD TO MAKE HIS MAIN CHARACTER AN ENGINEER in order to have them understand and explain his magic system to his readers. That’s not magic bro… And then he started getting more and more political, and yeah, it’s bad… I still watch and like his non-political fantasy/history/arms and armour content sometimes. It’s a shame really, because he is a nice guy in many ways who makes interesting and entertaining content. But yeah, he kind of went off the rails. (Note - I wrote this 3 mins into this video, so I don’t actually know what you are going to say about his book yet, these are my pre-existing thoughts 😂).
Christians don't know how to create anything. They do the typical white-supremacist tactic of stealing ideas and inventions from people of color and LGBTQIA people and then claiming it as their own. The most notable thing Christians have ever created is their Bible, which is the worst piece of fiction ever written (and even that was hijacked from Judaism).
I fully agree that magic systems SHOULD follow rules and not be random. However, you don't have to EXPLAIN them in such detail! Even Tolkien, who is infamous for telling instead of showing, largely kept the rules to his magic system hidden from the reader. This led to some pretty weird instances, and people wondering "Why didn't Gandalf just do X?!" Come on Shad, this is basic writing by now!
Even in his non-political content he puts his weird beliefs in there. I watched his video on female armor and not only did he ignore that warrior women have in fact existed, he randomly started talking about how it's good that we send young men to war because of their natural desire to protect or some shit.
I had no idea . I love Jazza he is such an inspiration to the art community and is always giving back. He also makes great content. I had no idea Shad was his bro.. they are completely different.
@@SatanicBarbeque he is on youtube for 15 years and has done art for more than that and his skills barely improved. To the point that his art still looks like clipart in word from 2004. Let's not kid ourselves he is a good marketer but his art skills are below average.
It sounds like Shad really likes how thorough Tolkein was about his world and how Pratchett depicted the decades of experience with Cohen the Barbarian, and then was 100% certain that he could do it too.
You see, overconfidence is a key part of improving! Before you reach the level of Tolkien, you need to be confident that you can reach that level. And then you need to be willing to really change and get better, and that's where Shad faceplants
To be fair, Shad's world building was pretty damned good. It's his CHARACTERS who were awful. I'd love to play a video game set in the book's world... preferably a game where the objective is to kill Daylen and the others, because oh man they are so unlikeable.
@@Archone666 so you dont like the characters? Reminds me of Game of Thrones. The books are soo damn long and all the characters are written like massive ..... jeremy hunts. You hate them all. The show watered them down and made some likeable but in the books.... its hard to like any of them.
I was a fan of Shadversity ones, till he began to frequent this kind of people, the grifters and right-wingers that pretend that they aren't right-wingers in the internet, with very toxic review, I try to warn him, but he didn't listen, then I realise that he really believe this bullshit, so I quit his channel, not watch it anymore.
Thank goodness I never bought his comic adaptation when he had that crowdfunding campaign. I wonder what happened to his pilot movie adaptation of his book tho.
@@ponczos_2293 It's on hold with no apparent future. Apparently the producer wasn't good, and they mismanaged the budget, leaving no money for post-production. And they need about the same amount of money they got in the first place to finish it because they have to do VFX shots. Actors weren't payed, but they spent 9k on swords for some reason. Every producer knows you need to budget for post, it was an amateurish production at it's worst.
I've been in nerd communities enough that when I saw the first video on his writing all those years ago I smelled bullshit. Guys like that always have weird opinions and it starts with "historical accuracy" and "healthy body types" and you quickly realize that only comes up when it's women and you gotta turn the other way incredibly quickly.
1:18 To be fair to Shad, HEMA is much more of an art than practical training. Sure Shad messes around with swords without actually participating in the play-fighting with blunt pieces of metal; but no one is going into combat wielding Excalibur and facing an enemy armed with dual Nippon steel katanas, unless they travel back in time and into fiction. That said, I have _actually_ been attacked by multiple trained men *armed with nunchucks,* so maybe HEMA is more practical & useful than I give it credit for. Okay, on with the rest of the vid!
I love your critique. I agree 100%. Daylin as a character was ridiculous. He was the best swordman in the world while also being one of the best engineer. Also he was a military genius. Every conflicts in the felt shallow and boring because he would either stomp anyone or his opponent would become his friend very quickly. I know people complain about the book because the protagonist is a massive rapist but for me it was how boring everything felt since it felt like the world was bending over the protagonist.
You're a nobody bro he's a king, he has a plastic castle in his backyard if we were in a fuedal society with no consent laws and courts were replaced with sword fights he would freaking own you bro.
See lots of stories are power fantasys for the writer. Even if the power fantasy is "these are bad people and my character protects others from these bad people" Untreated Narcissistic people have the problem that they aren't able to really conceptualize power fantasy as anything besides "I succeed and prove the haters wrong because I'm the best person ever if i was given the chance to prove it" and then can't comprehend why others proceed to mock the result. It must be because they are being hateful for it's own sake. Their still self aware people though so they don't improve their craft as that might prove they failed initially. The people with the condition who have treatment are able to improve their craft so you never notice they have narcissism
Luke Skywalker is admittedly a self insert for George Lucas and Star Wars still works. The thing is that power fantasies can be exciting, but you need to have exciting things for the main character to conquer for the power fantasy to work. Example: Darth Vader is a great and powerful villain, and just because of that, you want to see how Luke is going to overcome him.
@@turkoositerapsidi He's on the light end of the Mary sue spectrum if where going even use that term seriously at this point, I personally see most of it's value being comedic, last time I've seen media use the term mary sue in a way that enriched my experience of consuming it was in a terrible writing advice video and thats because he's using it for comedic value and he combines his throwing it around with much more profound critique. Just want to say I really like Luke as a character, but you can't deny the fact they starts out with superpowers that give him the massive edge that saves the day and not much in the way of character flaws in the first film.
“Daedalus The Hedgeheg. Daedalus was stronger than all of his contemporaries at the Sonic Fighting Academy. He even made it to the top of the Sonic Military. But then he fought Shadow (of the conquerer) and in the battel he had lost part of his ear and that’s why he does not have a part of his ear that’s why (pls stop pming me asking me why.) Also while fighting Shadow (of the conquerer) he turned to the darkness and betrayed and killed sonic.” Daedalus: Psshhhhhh, nothing, personnel kid!
When you talked about how it would be interesting if the story started as "This is a tale of man who decides to kill himself..." I thought of another way the story could be told. There's a brazillian novel called Dom Casmurro, which is told by Casmurro himself on his last years about how his life was ruined by his cheating wife, but, by the way he narrates, it becomes clear that he isn't a reliable narrator, striking doubt to the reader. I think Shad could do that, making a morally grey and unreliable narrator who tries to justify his horrible actions to the reader.
Well this is kind of what we get when a comics gate ppl tries to write their own book. Are we sure he didn't take a lot of MDMA, and try to recount their game play of Skies of Arcadia?
Some advice for future book/show/movie reviews you might do in the future - _Don't_ spend most of the video telling me you don't give a fuck about the details/don't remember them. I've not read Shad's story but I can see from the comments that it's pretty bad, however I got 8 minutes into this video and all I've got so far is how little any of it stuck with you to the point you didn't even keep a script/notes for the names of the characters. This doesn't tell me Shad's book is so bad that the details don't stick, it tells me you've got no interest in coming across as impartial and so I won't be able to trust that something you complain about is actually as bad as you make out. This is a problem I see from more than a few reviewers (even some of the big ones) and it drives me nuts. Especially since 9/10 times the videos don't include actual examples of how boring/terrible/cliche something is and I'm expected to take the person at their word.
The description of that world sounds almost identical to the world in the first book of the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragon Wing.
If you make special technology or have powers then it doesn't make sense that being good with a sword is all you need. I like Eragon because in that book Eragon becomes a master sword fighter but also gains acess go super powerful weapons and abilities. Beyond that Eragon originally uses a bow- so bows are viable weapons that are often used in the Eragin books as well as people using magic. So if you have technology in a book then it makes sense that people would have crossbows or maybe special steam punk swords. It doesn’t seem like shad included any of that weaponry or equipment or how it would change fighting in that world he made up.
I remember him "reviewing" the Wheel of Time show, where he complained about wokeness while his 2 friends said "Yeah" a lot. The guy had some interesting content back in the day (e.g. series on which weapons would be good for specific fantasy races), but I haven't been able to stand him for years.
I'm only halfway through this video and I guess what adds to the terribleness is usually when an author decides "time to slide my predatory fantasy into the story" they wait until middle-late into their story or series to try to make it seem normal, but he's like "OK EVERYONE LET'S START OFF RIGHT".
The concept of floating continents, everlasting day, and sky ships sounds kind of interesting if the weird video games physics and the child sexual abuse weren't incorporated into that
18 hours, that's the whole effin Darth Bane trilogy xD THAT'S THE ENTIRETY OF THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY!!!! Thank you for your masochism to bring this to us.
This was an incredible breakdown! I feel like I'm a better writer after watching this. You don't just point out the obvious, you go in depth into some really good points and breakdowns into literary techniques.
I personally see more of a resemblance between the character and Mao Zedong because he was kinda forced out of power for a while and then came back to power after.
He hasn't fell, the rest of the world is looking into this little hyper-bigoted echo chamber with sadness in our hearts. Shad is the chad, nobody is fleeing from him, he hasn't been canceled successfully :)
@@bingolos9063 Skallagrim is no better. He watched Vinland Saga 1 Episode and then dropped it because the fighting scenes werent realistic. He got backlashed and deleted the video and then made a response video and saying pointless things (also he was recording outside walking which he was not being serious about it). I dont know what his tastes on anime are but he judged too quickly. Vinland Saga has so much to offer on history about Vikings and Norse culture (which is his thing) to just brush it off was very insulting. I also know he said he have some depression and food addiction and he wants improve which is a good thing. But he still looks fat currently and I hope he put action to his words. For Metatron he is living his life so I have no words. But I wish he continued the armor reviews from games.
@@YuriSteiner04 with all due respect Skallagrim not liking Vinland Saga is literally irrelevant and completely harmless (especially compared to anything Shad has done) he is objectively Better.
@@luxsuperbia1531 yeah you are right Shad was worse. Whether it is relevant or not my point was how Shad and Skallagrim reacted and responded from backlash. And of course Shad handled it much worse.
You ignored the fact his fall was a coalition of nations he didn't/couldn't conquer. You pretend to not watch his stuff while ignoring the fact you actually have to go onto a second channel to see anything political. The economy of Daylen's empire is a mix of multiple dictators in history, as is how he treats others. He never was posed as a good guy until he actively wants to earn redemption even though he may never get it as he may just wonder the world till his death. And that is the little of this video I can take. If it's not your type of story, fine. But you flat out leave key plot points in this video for the sake of having something to rant about.
Damn, half the video in and the only conclusion for me is that I want Tyler to write a book because his idea for how to make Daypiss or whatever actually be interesting, like yeah I'm down for a badass, cunning old fart who beats kids up to teach them a lesson while also trying to be a better person.
All good :) I also have a podcast of free stories call the Westside Fairytales. Mostly horror and dark fiction, but SF/F plays a big part in my universe as well! :D Hope you enjoy if you end up checking it out!@@YTDariuS-my6dg
@@futurestoryteller Idk how I missed that then. 😂 Just everytime I've used Goodreads I could never find any bad reviews for anything. Could be memory bias since I haven't used it for a few years though.
@@crypticcorvid Just seems weird either way, for a "four-star book" to be highlighted by negative reviews. But they're *all* hilarious. Especially the ones that are like "Daylen is almost as much of a Mary Sue as Rey Skywalker." Like a woman can't even survive a fight with a man, but if this guy woos his rXpe victims, has eternal youth, defeats everyone and cuts islands in half... I mean... come on guys, it strains credibility a little. Maybe if he was less of a chad.
I understand that the majority opinion is that Shad's novel isn't the best fantasy work out there, not by a wide margin. I personally haven't read Shad's book, and never will, thus I have no foundation for an opinion on it. I find these sorts of videos entertaining and informative. It is sort of poetic in a way, as Shad is very critical of a lot of media these days, and for him to find out that "writing is hard" is funny. That said, I don't understand why the term "Mary Sue" is something you dont like to use. There are so many characters out there these days that fit this moniker perfectly. It is a huge problem in modern media. So much writing is very lazy and inattentive, and the "Mary Sue" is absolutely a phenomenon that can be found all over the place. Anyway, I almost want to read the book after watching this, just to see how bad it really is 😅
As much as i hate to admit it, I feel bad for Shad. He failed at drawing, gave up and turned to writing, but also failed just as bad here. He's already using AI for art, might as well use it for stories.
This could be a generic Isekai novel from Japan, it's a lot for the author to talk about heavy themes without the necessary level of depth to do it right. Shad Brooks would have to let go of his romanticization and fascination with war, something that goes against the heavy themes of this story.
The one "redemption arc" I could think of about one of the most horrific vullains to ever exist was Megatron from the IDW comics. Incredibly controversial as you would have expected it but in my honest opinion, I think the writers actually did a pretty amazing job in "redeeming" him. What's greater is that while he did change, saved countless lives, the story repeatedly emphasizes that regardless of how Megatron became the way he is, his tragic backstory, his justifications, his new change of paths, none of it will ever JUSTIFY the atrocities he's committed. By the end of the comic, despite Megatron being an integral part in saving the universe, he still gets punished for his crimes and his ultimate is left ambiguous. It was either infinite solitary confinement or death, either of which are outcomes you dont usually see for a "villain redemption arc". It's genuinely of the best redemption arcs I've ever seen for a villain. Where he gets to save lives, perceive a path where he could have done better, face the many consequences of his horrific actions, and yet at the end of the day, receives none of the glory and instead welcomes it with open arms. "You can save a hundred million worlds and none of it will make a damn difference." But this book? This just felt like doing the opposite, with the MC being... glorified and romanticized. It's just... eugh.
it sounds like he tries to be berserk? but without havinbg that violence apalling in the first part, and the nihilism. also ther being no justice so that a rape victim turns into a succubus with a pact out of that much despair sounds not bad. Imagine she joins the party when they hunt rapists. and gets to be a sympathic good even character. And even be a foil for a redemtion arc, well done. Not accusing shad he would, just a succubus tht became that out of dispair and them pondering about life could be interesting in good hands. Just make it her agency becaus eshe really saw no other choice for any justice, and then ponder on justice.
I'm glad you wrote those descriptors on the cover for the thumbnail, because I watched another review about the book a few weeks ago and looked at the cover with those thoughts and just... wow
Being fair, regarding HEMA specifically, Shad's problem with them always was that, for lack of a better phrasing, they are stuck up a-holes sometimes, having, apparently, mostly experienced the (absolutely existing) side of HEMA practitioners that seem to treat the old treatises as scripture that is to be taken completely as written and if you dare fight in another way that's not "the right way".
it takes balls to come out and be like maybe the russian monarchy ( google the monarchy's many many crimes they even had their own gulags ) being killed was where the problem began ... god shad somehow triples and quadruples down into the like being weirdly aristocratic and weirdly monarchist vibe all fantasy has
I dont know if you've seen the movie romper stomper about an australian nazi skinhead gang in the 90s, but their targets are asian immigrants, specifically filipinos (I think). I could definitely see shad being on the anti filipino side of australian politics... the term "churro asians" could have been come up with in discussion with american racists as a comparison between mexican immigrants and filipino immigrants. Putting it in his book was a clever racism for his homeys to enjoy.
@@westsidetyler it's pretty good, plus fun to see baby Russell Crowe, but really only brought it up as some vague evidence of which ethnic groups australians hate. Very similar to American history X, but doesn't handle the subject matter as well.
The central idea of a story about a totalitarian dictator having everything stripped from him and he has to redeem himself and become the hero is actually kind of interesting.
And it was done best by Disney with The Emperor's New Groove.
The difference though between Kusko and Shad's protagonist is that Kusko wasn't a genocidal r*p*st.
Kuzco was just a royal brat not a totalitarian dictator
@theatricult
When was anyone forced to offer themselves?
he's just a weeb that read too many revenge porn isekais lmao
You people took my comparison too seriously. I was just trying to be silly while making a point.
agree that the setting would be interesting if it was written by someone who doesn’t glorify raping and other bs and writes women as onedimensional sex dolls
While Shad did probably start making more culture war content for the grift, it seems like most of his wild opinions are genuine. His brother Jazza has talked about how their parents raised them in a domineering, hyper-conservative sect of Mormonism which Jazza broke away from while Shad seems to very much remain a true believer
Very sad
I heard somewhere that he at some point, relatively unprompted, said that it's a shame that wars aren't between people who look different anymore. And that's... probably what it was.
@@FTZPLTC what? The hell
@@lavellelee5734 - Yeeeah, like... I can *kind of* see how it could be a really ill-advised expression of something innocuous - like, if we're talking about a movie where it's useful for there to be a clear visual distinction or something.
But after getting through half of his book, I think that would be far too charitable.
@@FTZPLTC just.....damn😅 this kinda hurts
It is still hard for me to fathom that Jazza is Shad's brother, considering just how awesome Jazza seems to be compared to how.... batshit insane Shad is.
True, there's more Island Boys, and Paul brothers than diametrically opposite brothers.
Because Jazza was smart enough to leave the Mormon church.
As a former Mormon, it's the best thing one can do.
Mormons are crazy. Though I haven't seen anything that wild from Shad. Maybe I've missed those. I've just seen stuff on swords and shit.
@@JCTheSniper15 he has a second channel with his yes man or something, where they show how stupid they are in any area that is not medieval military history. I wouldn't look it up ever again. It feels like an insult to your intelligence to listen to them and could probably be considered self harm.
Wtf they are brothers ?
I can't help but think maybe Shad's Mormon faith has totally warped his ideas of what forgiveness and redemption should be. I know it's a big thing in Mormon churches that abuse victims not forgiving their abuser is considered more disruptive and disrespectful than the abuse itself.
Which is something the main character does over and over and over.
What should forgiveness and redemption look like then? Since you fancy yourself an expert on the topic.
@@JimyRozeso petty
@@theamericannestormakhno2360 what did i say that was petty, or where you refering to the other guy?
@JimyRoze you seem triggered by him talking about mormons which is petty
@JimyRoze typically when people say something bad about mormons it's true
Just wanna throw out when you're talking about the usage of slurs and stuff:
In A Song of Ice and Fire they would use the term "simple" for people with mental disabilities. It's direct, understandable, and grounded enough that you know what everyone means by it. And in turn, since Westeros and Essos don't have any Greek-influenced cultures, you even have minor things like when Tyrion meets someone named "Penny". The name "Penelope" doesn't exist so the girl was *literally* named after money and the narration even takes a moment for Tyrion to think it's really dumb someone would do that to their child.
Isn't Braavos Greek inspired?
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 Braavos is Venice inspired. Valyria was roman inspired, closest to Greece I guess
@@Barendsen2 They have a Colossus though
@@ChangedMyNameFinally69 True, but that's the only part. The rest of the culture is very late medieval italy with the Bravo's, all the theater players, etc. And it's Venice because of all the canals. It's located to the north of the Europe-shaped continent of Essos, though
Hi, I'm a big fan of Shad and would like the opportunity to defend him in a debate with you! I dont actually know any of his opinions or his justifications for his opinions, BUT I did use over 300 of his videos to train an AI chat bot that I can use instead of actually knowing how to debate, and as we all know, using that chat bot will make me just as qualified a debater as anyone, in fact it will make me BETTER then a regular debater, since I'll be able to make my talking points quicker without the pesky need to understand the arguments or the context of the questions asked. I'll just copy what what you say and have the computer do it for me! And really, is there any difference between that and regular debate tactics and research? I dont think so, and anyone who says otherwise is approaching the situation from a position of profound ignorance! I mean I still have to take those responses and copy the parts I like and delete and have the computer rewrite the parts I don't, and that's exactly the same as making the arguments up myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise!
So you and I can debate at any time, just not tonight, as I will be busy writing my book, it's about Space Mao who comes back to life in a copy of his 18 year old body with super powers, and the whole story is him beating random people to death while talking about how much he regrets being a communist!
And while yes, its true I dont know anything about how to actually write a book, I did copy all of Robert E. Howard's work and use it to train an AI chat bot to write the book FOR ME. Now before you get all pissy, I did write notes on the basic outline that I wanted the chatbot to use, so it's basically EXACTLY like I'm writing it myself! It's profoundly ignorant to say otherwise!
/s
This comment was written by a bot, probably.
You had us in the first place not gunna lie lmao
Not nearly enough fantasizing about sexual assault to be a Shad fan.
LMAO
oh, its /s!!
saying this they casually toss aside a large rock
This makes me think of Yharim, the antagonist of Calamity Terraria's lore. He was a traumatized young boy who, in an effort to resolve the injustice that ruined his life, became the ruthless dictator ruining the world. You find notes from him across the course of the game, and you see how much he regrets this, how he's given up, how he's staying out of your player character's life because he no longer really wants to survive and is just waiting until you become strong enough to challenge him.
The thing is, Yharim was well-written. The game's lore actually slings you back and forth between being disgusted by the things he did and feeling very, very sorry for Yharim himself.
Also, no weird sex stuff in Yharim's story, at least not that we're told about.
Also helps that Yharim is, at no point, presented as a good or redeemed guy. He goes from horrible to just sad. The lore recognizes that an evil person can still be a tragic figure.
This took me digging to figure out wth it was talking about… mostly because I ignored the 1st search results that pointed to some mod for the old 2d little Minecraft-like…
apparently this is referring to some mode for that old little Minecraft-like 🤷
@@joearnold6881 It's good though. If you game much, I highly recommend :)
@@joearnold6881
Minecraft: Released November 2011.
Terraria: Released May 2011.
Terraria is also the world's 10th most selling game. Its only got 44 million downloads compared to Minecraft's billion-plus, but its hardly a "old little Minecraft-like."
@@NazoPureChaosminecraft released in 2008. I like terraria and it aint a minecraft clone but youre wrong.
Wait so this "redemption story" is about the worst person to have ever existed in all history becoming some absolute arbiter, acting as judge jury and executioner for people who have done only a fraction of the things he has done? This isn't redemption, it's hypocrisy.
Medieval h**er turned jesus
I remember just putting the book down when MC eviscerated a homeless guy who tried to mug him with a knife, when he's basically superman. And then he's all like "I'm trying to redeem myself" when literally the only thing he doesn't do anymore is r little girls. WHOA, what a 180 in personality!
So my take of that aspect of the book was he's seeking redemption, he wants it but fully acknowledges because of what he's done he's unlikely to ever find it and has to learn to live with that. As to what Martin said. yea he kills a homeless guy then is like, wait, fuck, I can't be trusted I need help with this, enter Ahreck
@@delinquentpanda Except at no moment in the book he ever displays the humility and self awareness to ask for help. It would be good writing if it happened the way you said it, but that's not what happened.
Maybe there could be some story about worst guy to ever exist that have good redemption story but I'm not really into redemption stories so I'm not sure how it should look like
Tbh a simple power fantasy would've been fine if he hadn't made Daylen an ex-pedo dictator who raped hundreds and killed millions. You'd have to be a super good writer to handle that redemption story, which Shad isn't lmao. Also the way Shad handles rape and sexual trauma just feels gross. Lyrah was one of Daylen's child rape victims and she easily gets over her intense trauma she's had for years, forgives him, and teams up with him in the end.
Man, I'm a decent writer and wouldn't touch the concept with a 1000ft pole. It's just, ick. I genuinely cannot fathom going there and thinking "this is an epic" like Shad did
Do I want to meet who can write that kind of story? I'm just thinking either I'm meeting someone who can turn shit into gold or a master propagandist, maybe both. 😅
@@sporeham1674 Most people who write that I know simply wouldn't even try to go in depth on this because they lack a full understanding of how that kind of thing affects someone. The people I know who do write and would/have gone there? Victims. People who actually understand the perspectives they're inserting into their stories. People who are clearly not the audience Shad was going for 💀
As someone who's read this story back when I was a fan of him (thought he was just a cool writing guy with good tips about fantasy and worldbuilding), I can tell you how viscerably *uncomfortable* it was reading this book with Daylen as the protagonist. I kept saying that it would've been so so so much better if the protagonist was the dictator's son, that would actually be interesting and tackle about whether the sins of one's father is your burden etc etc, instead, I got a piece of shit who was trying so hard to be sympathetic despite being an actual rapist a p,dophile.
@@diwatya I'm sorry you had to lose someone you were a fan of to the alt right extremist pipeline 😢
Epstein Hitler is *REEEAAALLY* sad about what he did you guys, c'mon. 🥺
FR I don't know how many books you need under your belt to make that story work. 🤣
The first thing to do to make this work is: "REMOVE him being a Pedophile." Redemption arcs only work if its for things most readers can see someone redeeming themselves from. Being a active Pedo... aint one of them.
Stephen King could do it. Specifically "directly post car accident, painkiller and cocaine frenzy, two hours of sleep at night" Stephen King. We'd have two to three well received adaptations of it by now too.
@@JoseRS1186 One of those authors where they got a little too silly again, had another stay in a mental hospital, and wrote another banger while they were in there. 🤣
"Epstein Hitler" from what I understand of the mc, it's just magical Genghis Khan, with all the atrocities kept as they were or magically exaggerated
The worst part is a story like this could be interesting, but it’s written by a bad person with a fascist worldview. If you want a well done version of this premise based on “redemption,” I would read Vinland saga or Berserk. 😅
Wait- a fantasy land called the everfall where if you fall off the map, you just pop back up at the top? Guess shad played Dragon's Dogma, huh? Lmao
I mean, it's a very video gamey concept, obv. Mogworld does something similar, as an early clue that its fantasy world is actually an MMORPG.
The weird thing with Shad's book is how little it comes up after it's first introduced.
@@FTZPLTC name a more iconic duo than shitty fantasy writers and critical worldbuilding concepts that never become relevant
That is one of his favorite games XD
He wrote game respawn mechanics into his book
@@FTZPLTC just the name of the book sounds video-gamey.
Always remember that Shad criticized the enviromental story telling of Elden Ring.
With all his knowledge Shad was supposed to write at least decent fantasy book
@@indrickboreale7381 Well his major critique was for Elden Ring was that all the lore for world and characters wasn't all explained to you in very long exposition dumps by the characters.
Now knowing about his book... it's very obvious that Shad legitimately thinks long exposition dumps make a story better when they do not.
I mean fair I'm not personally a huge fan of FROMSOFT-style storytelling (I'm fine with intuiting stuff, but it usually feels like I'm writing 99% of the story myself instead of experiencing it), but Shad's said plenty of other dumb shit so
@@juniperrodley9843 The way I described it to my brother was like this. "Imagine you went downtown and asked someone on the sidewalk about the history of the building you're standing next to"
They couldn't tell you probably. They wouldn't say oh this building was first constructed 1893 as a needle factory then there was a fire reconstructed in 1924 as a hospital during the war in 1940 it was repurposed as the hospital it is today.
A person who lives in an area can give you a general geography at best and that's if they are a nice person.
People are not walls of exposition to explain the history of the world to you.
Which is what Shad wanted. He wanted to be told about the world rather than experience.
Think of the Weathertop scene in LOTR the "Tower of Amon Sul" the movie embelishes on the age it was made but in the story they use it for shelter as it looks over the South road and Aragorn says it be the second place Gandalf would stay in case of trouble.
Imagine how much tension would have been broken from Bree to Weathertop if we spent 10 pages explaining the history of the tower.
It's alright to add character and depth to your world but not at the cost of the story.
Elden ring had no environmental storytelling.
It delivered its story though flavor text on random inventory items and disjointed, short cutscenes.
This is strangely inspiring... Im inspired not to write like Shad.
💀
I’m inspired not to watch shad brooks
I literally learned how to 3D model because I saw the models from Garten of Banban, and knew that, no matter how bad I was, I could never be that bad
This is actually something that Steven King made sure to point out in his book "On Writing".
He said it's important to read bad books, so that you know what NOT to do.
Which is ironic because it's his only book I've ever read ^^
Which shad?
Ah yes, Shad employing one of the most famous of all storytelling rules: Tell, don’t show.
Also including the "1000 words is worth an image" if his writing style is so painfully drawn out...
I get what you mean, but; Tell, don't show, how else you do you do it in a book! :D
Not gonna lie, I was semi-enjoying the book as a sort of goofy Heinleiny world-build novel.
Then it got into the first weird out-of-nowhere rant about how, no, but srsly, communism is bad, which I just kinda shrugged off because, again, Heinlein's clearly an influence.
But pretty much as soon as there was any intimation that this was going to be some kind of buddy-cop adventure between a rape survivor and her rapist in disguise... I just noped the fuck out of there and felt absolutely no desire to read on.
So I don't know if that was where the story ultimately went. But the fact that that was the *least* distasteful way I could imagine it going was enough for me to not want to know.
No... that's about right. That's pretty much how it went. At the end they put Daylen on trial and all his victims agree to commute his sentence to a form of indentured servitude... as one of those knights who have absolute authority and can do whatever they want. With the rape survivor as his partner/parole officer.
@@Archone666 - Weird, I saw Last Action Hero, and it had all those quirky mismatched buddy-cop duos, but they never had the "magically studlified omnipotent rapist/victim of specifically his sexual abuse" pairing. I guess they just forgot to include such a natural logical trope.
If I was feeling in any way charitable, I'd imagine that Shad wanted to do something that had never been done before, but... sometimes there's a reason.
@@FTZPLTC Maybe it would have worked better if Daylen had received an agonizing injury that was later downgraded as "not even a flesh wound?"
Or just get him different partners...
th-cam.com/video/Lu7PxhwDGqw/w-d-xo.html
@@Archone666 - I think it would've been better if they'd just... not. Like, I don't think any idea is doomed from the start, but Iat the same time, I wouldn't want to try to write Lolita before I've learned to write... well, at all.
@@FTZPLTC Oh, I agree. I'm was trying to make a few jokes about how awful the book is - because Shad himself certainly has no sense of humor about it.
But to be more serious about it: his main problem was that his characters were completely unrealistic in their reasoning and rationale. Simply put, a decent person would never have done the "repeated rape of underaged girls before ordering his servants to have them killed" thing in the first place.
To put it in perspective: Hitler committed so many atrocities after convincing himself that it was for the good of Germany, that he was doing the "necessary evil" for the greater good. But Hitler also married a woman that he appears to have genuinely loved. Raping young women was not something Hitler could rationalize as being for the greater good (though of course plenty of nasty types became Nazis so they could do exactly that - but they weren't motivated by twisted altruism).
But when it comes to Daylen, Shad seems to have decided, "I'll have him be like Hitler - but I'll throw in some Ted Bundy for good measure! After all, they were both evil, and all evil is done for the same reasons! They're both bad, so I'll have Daylen be both and he'll be super bad! That makes sense!"
Real talk: I feel like when poorly made media uses heavy topics like r*pe, it has less to do with the creator actually wanting to explore those topics and more to do with either A.) generic shock value/edginess or B.) having a cheap defense ready for when people criticize the work ("It's DEEP and if you say it sucks then that just means you can't handle how fucked up the world is UwU").
And then. There's the third kind.
It's C) the author's fetish
“Repeating myself a lot, while also, confusingly returning to the same point.”
I watched a few of Shad’s videos before he became openly reactionary, and that’s exactly how he communicates.
Wait, so this guy can see the "light" or "darkness" in a person, and that gives him liscence to kill people at will? That's Chad Daybell/Lori Vallow death cult stuff! This is literally just Visions of Glory as a fantasy book! I knew Shad was mormon, but I didn't think he was _that_ kind of mormon
Reminds me of a hypothetical I saw discussed on the old Wizards of the Coast forums, about a Lawful Stupid Paladin who uses Detect Evil in the street and attempts to kill anybody who detects as evil. Thankfully, most people agreed that Paladins who attempted that would immediately become fallen paladins and lose their powers.
its called FANTASY.
@@AzguardMike its really bad fantasy like it just sucks
@@AzguardMike Wow, I saw you on another video trying to defend shad. You’re pathetic.
His family comes from a wild sect of mormons.
The real tragedy is how close Shad is to people of real talent in whatever medium he tries to get into, but he just doesn’t ask any of them for advice or a proof read or anything. Talk about self sabotage
It's insecurity to the point of narcissism
He has convinced himself he is better than everyone else at all those things.
weird, i watch some of his videos from time to time (usually when my insomnia hits) and him and Tyrinth have a good back and forth on Knights Watch. The recent ones on the spear from Troy, they actually ask one another for advice and ideas of how to do the jumps and blocks. So the OP is factually wrong.
@@AzguardMike Congrats he talks to his friends in the HEMA community. I was talking about the fact that his brother is a famous artist yet he can't seem to draw figures correctly and he has advised Brandon Sanderson on some of the Storm Light Archive books yet when he goes to write his own book its full of weird rape fantasies. I used to watch Shad a lot but he's just a narcissistic ass who says that anyone who disagrees with him is woke or taking him out of context or some other excuse to cover up the fact that he's just not likable outside of his one medium
@@misscranky Don't quote me on this but iirc a feature of narccissism is strong insecurity
One of the funniest fucking things about shad is that his Twitter pfp is an AI image of him but buff and “Handsome”
Damn, that's just sad. Like sure he isn't the picture of male masculinity but, and take this from a bi guy, he really doesn't look bad. Sure he looks a little bit like a Redditor, but if he cleaned up his act and behaved like a fucking decent person I'd call him reasonably handsome - it's just that his ugly spirit somehow has an affect on how you see him.
@@YTDariuS-my6dg There was an insane wojak post about how no matter how ugly you are if you have a good heart it shows visually and vica verca that applies to him.
@@YTDariuS-my6dg yeah Shad is a good looking guy. You don’t need to be 6ft of abs to be handsome. But he’s utterly unnatractive because of his awful views and behavior. All I see is an insecure man who’s frustrated and unsure of his role and place in the world. And doesn’t like being called out on messed up views he’s internalized and doesn’t wanna examine, instead doubling down on them. Which makes him more repulsive
@@techni1766 Roald Dahl wrote about it in The Twits, iirc
ok and? Most celebs do this. Even normies do it. Hell, most women modify their facebook pictures to look healthier. Just looking for reasons to hate shad. Gasp, he's right wing. Hate him. He wrote a book where a morally grey guy kills people. He's Australian! He... he... he believes in sex AFTER marriage! He's basically HITLER!!!!!
and no, I'm not a fan of his. I just refuse join this circle jerk hate fest over a guy who wrote a mediocre book and is right wing.
Former fan of Shad back when he actually did interesting videos about medieval weapons and story ideas, instead of the weird "muh woke" and "muh AI" crap.
I knew of his book for the longest time, figured it was probably ok? I never sat down to either listen to it or read it and if all of this is true... Yiiiikes. Bro was not well even back then.
ive 'tried' to get through it twice, the main character is about the most insufferable self-pitying gary-sty you can imagine. And he, never, changes.
@@megaflamer Been listening to other reviews of the book (I don't want to give Shad's book more publicity points) and it seems like... Yeah the world just bends all logic and morality to give this douche infinite power.
Found it hilarious how this Ex-Rpst gives himself the benefit of the doubt but no one else gets a second chance, they all deserve awful fates, only he has been chosen by "the light" despite he is a monster on par with everyone else he kills.
You'd think that with a background like that he'd become some kind of Batman-like character that swears to make up for all the horror in his past life, abstains from ever murdering another soul and believes that not only is there potential for good in himself, there is potential for good in others as well. Nah "their souls are dark, rips their c###s off. Hey ex-victim, my are you well endowed now."
As someone writing my own story that is also about a villain seeking redemption, this feels like something I would've wrote down as a first draft when I was in middle school. Gives me second hand embarrassment.
Sad to keep going down this rabbit hole of a book because I recall how Shad would go on and on about how much redrafting he did about his story.
@@pyerack it uh, doesnt show. the book is quite poorly written with exceptional leaps of logic pretty much every chapter more or less.
Take one example, dude is supposed to be hiding so all his enemies dont catch on to him. Youd think he would, you know, maybe don a disguise and a different name. Nope, keeps his old name and does absolutely nothing other than give a supremely flimsy excuse whenever questioned. And people just....believe him? even massive sceptics and his mortal foes just.,...overlook this extremely suspicious dude looking like their ex nemesis, sounding like him and having the same bloody name?!?
So yea, gary-stu as he can do no wrong apparently and everything around him bends over like its a game of limbo to accommodate him
Which is why as soon as I find out someone is a Christian, they are blacklisted in my eyes.
Can't trust em
I miss hearing him go on rants about machicolations and gambeson. Vastly better than anything he's doing now, but it's spoiled by the writing... this drek.
Hey, at least Daylen isn't Shadiversity's self insert
Edit: hopefully
He is.
True, the bit where he just weirdly blurts out how bad socialism is is just there because it's so vital to the plot and character development.
@@Vlad_Tepes_III oof
@@FTZPLTC No one who does that EVER knows what it is.
Hopefully it's not wish fulfillment.
That Moment When you dislike someone but for petty reasons, then a whole bunch of real reasons come out and you're vindicated
Ooohh, what were the petty reasons?
@@deusdragonex He was just a little annoying before embracing the grift tbh
Yeah, I love that. Then I can pretend I'm just a good judge of character 😂
he liked AI art, he used his right hand to draw the bow instead of the left, he's australian, he is a conservative with right wing ideals like 2 genders and sex after marriage.
It's an increasingly common experience for me
I've wrote some hot garbage under some aliases. And some horror shorts that kinda sucked. In my defense, my books were intended to be porn, and I know they aren't very good. Shad has way too much ego to understand how bad his work is, and if he can't do that, then his writing quality isn't going to get any better. It's hypocritical for him to call characters Mary Sue when he made his protagonist a massive Mary Sue. Your review makes it sound like he wrote a story following one of those "Avatar the Last Airbender is the best shit ever" writing guides to a T. I honestly think that's what happened. They all advocate for excessive world building.
He complains and explains about rules that he doesn't put into practice, it's amazing how years of lessons on Worldbuilding he threw in the trash.
It was a good lesson itself, it must have been ignored.
Aside from Mary Sue, half of these bad book authors I realize they use all the tropes they criticize, it's asymptomatic of a bad author being a hypocrite.
not just a mary sue, but a whole marya suenova (cuz of the stalin references)
intended to be? did it fail?
@@idnyftw "cuz of the stalin references" i guarantee he knows nothing about Stalin.
@@lordlittletoeq8537 No, they were definitely porn lol. I tried pretty hard to stitch a plot together, but I realized after a while that the sex and the plot weren't meshing together very well. I'd actually like to revisit it at some point when I finish college and have time.
So what you're telling me is that the guy who thought the gay romance in The Last of Us was too much depicts explicit pedophilia in his book and that's somehow more tasteful????
In my playthrough of Mass Effect: Andromeda romance arc ended with (male) Ryder and Jaal winding up together. It was kind of confusing.
look bro non-con is hot we don't wanna see no consensual beardmixing here
when I heard that shad, a conservative guy that has talked a lot about gender roles and how depending on if you're born a man or woman, you should do that, or behave like that, and how he has many times said homophobic and sexist things, wrote a book, and nontheless a book that contained characters that were r*ped my first thought was "... he's literally the less qualified person to tackle that subject"
There's a lot of SA and torture portrayed therein, for a book written by a Mormon. However, the stereotypes about coloured people fit right into that particular brand of Christian extremism unfortunately.
christians love pain and suffering
i fail to understand how to those people whatever-this-is is more ok than two adult men in a consensual same-sex relationship.
I think a good Christian love self-sacrifice. And, in My case até last, i don't Care If two people of the same gender are in love!
@@user-jq1mg2mz7oMormons are barely christian
@@user-jq1mg2mz7o Yeah but it's even worse with Mormons because they think darker skin is the mark of Cain so they inherently think people with darker skin are just fundamentally evil.
All of this makes way more sense when you remember that Shadiversity is mormon and sexual assault of minors is super normal for them as is the weird racism.
As someone living around a lot of mormons... holy shit, it does.
I'm scared for Shads children. Given everything he wrote in his book.
@@aaroncross6874 same...
The mormon church recently came under hot water for saying they were "pleased" with a legal verdict that protected their right to not report ongoing sexual assault confessed to their leaders
not just mormons sadly
i disagree about the culture wars content part. i think this actually ruined his channel's algorithm, because it used to be just purely sword / nerd stuff. politics and nerd stuff are nowhere near in the same category. if anything, i think it diminished the views in his OG nerd content and i think he's somewhat aware of it, which is why he is currently grifting as an AI artist because he mistakenly thinks this is going to be a new income stream for him. it's just sad to see a nerd go this way.
Shouldn't his Shadiversity channel NOT be affected by the culture wars stuff, which is on ANOTHER channel?
@@Ilyak1986
he uses the same name (shadiversity) in all his content. he associated it with the culture wars algo. if you try and look at the views of his content around the time he dabbled in the culture wars stuff, you'll notice the dip in his viewership. even now, his recent nerd content still hasn't gotten the same average viewership he used to have prior to the culture wars stuff.
@@maggyfrog what I mean is his culture wars channel is Knight's Watch--why does that affect his main Shadiversity channel? Shouldn't it be entirely separate? It's like if I had a programming channel and a gaming channel or something, would it screw with the algorithm? How exactly does it work when working with multiple channels?
@@Ilyak1986
think of the tags. anything tagged with "shadiversity" especially around the time he actively participated in culture wars are all potentially seen by the algo as also part of the culture wars algo.
"purely"?
26:25 I’m so glad you brought up the comparison to Sanderson because it’s been driving me MAD how copypasta this has been of Sanderson’s whole body of work, right down to shoddy imitations of character names. It’s like filing the serial numbers off, only you don’t know what you’re doing and file off the entire receiver.
I used to watch him... but then he started saying things that seemed really weird to me...
Like his defense of rape in Goblin Slayer... that women being raped is a good motivator for male heroes...
And women can't hold swords...
I left his channel before his commentary became explicitly right-wing political advocacy....
Lmao I knew I couldn't be the only one who started to think the guy was kinda sus after his entire video defending specifically r*pe in Goblin Slayer.
Goblin slayer is edgy hentai. It’s does that because it’s a kink.
@@Pukeprincess
I don't think the priestess saw it that way....
@@The5armdamput33 I don’t think the priestess is real. Just like redo of healer It’s a kink hentai thing that ain’t got any substance and the characters are just meant to be fuckable. And some people that are really fucked up in a non kinky way will take it to horrible non kinky places but that’s their and the others that lead them there’s fault. Not the porn. If you want to read something with actual nuance on rape and similar issues, read berserk, emergence/metamorphosis or nana.
@@The5armdamput33 rape kink is a thing, and there is a whole subgenre of hentai dedicated to it. It's not the worst subgenre of hentai, there is much worse
I fell out of enjoyment with Shad some time ago. His pop culture weapon videos and frame by frame Star Wars fight breakdowns were great. Then his format changed when he brought two other guys on, and I enjoyed the videos less. Then I began to see videos such as "When cartoons were wholesome" and I knew Shad was on a bad path. I never would have expected him to write about rape or child love... It's simply sad.
Cartoons never were wholesome. Just watch Steamboat Willie and you see lots of casual animal abuse.
I knew the moment he defended boob plates and bikini armor that he was like that. For a guy supposedly obsessed with accuracy he sure was fine with throwing it away when it gets in the way of his gooning.
Shad's tendency to over-explain every single sentence of his book really shows his insecurities. If you're a good writer you don't need to explain every single aspect of your world's magic system, or cultures, or even why someone doesn't feel like they should kill their opponent.
He'd probably write it off as "perfectionism", which is also a form of insecurity, as it shows unwillingness to let go of your creation and find your own flaws and refine the process.
I don't agree entirely here but I do agree that some parts of the book are a little over explanatory. However, it is better written than Sanderson's first book Elantris, which I can't even reread because I cringe to hard.
This novel being such hot ass legit convinced me to continue writing my fantasy novel
You go! Write that book!
well if you know exactly why it's such hot ass, then maybe you can avoid all the hot-assery in your novel.
Allan moore once said that is important to explore the bad side of art as much as the good one to truly understand it (im just paraphrasing the insane bearded wizard king if you find the actual quote let me know)
It makes me feel better about mine shitty fantasy
Don't. If Hollywood's woke as hell writers can't do well then you have no chance.
I remember being a fan of Shad when this book came out and thought the premise actually sounded interesting.
But like, why rape? I thought when he said "Hitler was the protagonist" he meant murder. Why touch this subject?
Why not?
@@ColaDad Why not include rape? Because it hits too close to home. Most people don't ha e any personal experience with genocide or even murder, and even then if he's some dark lord he wouldn't be personally killing them.
But virtually everyone woman and most men have a personal experience with sexual harassment and assault.
@@MrDrewwills so?
@@ColaDad Because when it comes to the crimes people can forgive a character for, rape is really far down the list, and from the sounds of it, Shad doesn't have the skill required for the redemption story he is writing, so why have your MC be a rapist pedophile?
@@MrDrewwills So your argument as for why a work should not handle something traumatic/bad is based on how common it is?
In that case, would it be an issue if he wrote about heart disease and cancer in his works?
A friend or family dying from those is extremely common and also very traumatic and sometimes even expensive as well.
It fits all your criteria ergo should be wrong.
I think it's pretty incredible that this guy can, with a straight face, say that women can't be soldiers in any kind of fantastical or mythic fantasy setting because of menstruation, and having to squat to pee, but will just casually drop the idea that there could be a world where continents float and the world behaves like Pac-Man where when you go too far one way, you appear coming from the other direction, and that's just to be accepted without question.
But have Rey climb a wall and you suddenly have to show evidence of her gym membership, and the credentials of her climbing instructor.
As a minor writer myself, I acknowledge that women are physically weaker, but that magic bridges the gap enough that it isn't really an issue for women to be soldiers.
There are two instances where I bring up women having periods, in one, there is mention of a spell that deals with the effects of it, and the other is a nation of cloned women, and they just don't have them at all.
I find it more interesting to mention the differences between people and then explain how they use those differences to their advantage.
Having a world of magic but then deciding to ignore how that would effect cultural development and the sexes is silly.
@@ImTakingYouToFlavorTown does shad know that women also have fingers that can hold a sword?
I feel like a lot of Shad’s points could be disproven or given an alt perspective if he just… talked to women working in traditionally masculine fields like the military or martial arts community, and also some historians lmao.
Im a woman and have been in the army for 13 years. I’m also a fan of historic fashion and a fantasy writer. The thing about periods is you find ways to deal with them in the field, it can suck but you suck it up, and a lot of women in various historic periods used rags or makeshift underwear or whatever they had available to deal with theirs. Settlers didn’t stay at home and avoid months on the road bc of their poor little period lmao.
There’s been women warriors for as long as written history, often disguised as men, sometimes given their own society like the Dahomey Agooji. Or Japanese women often being trained in the naginata to defend their homes while men were away at war fields. Culture usually determines what a woman is allowed to do or believed to be capable of, regardless of what she’s actually capable of
Strength can be trained and built up. You may not be as strong as some counterparts, but as long as you can carry your weight and do your job in the military no one cares what you are. Sexism can still happen sometimes but it’s deeply discouraged and seen as inappropriate and unprofessional. And most of that is just bc culturally it’s now generally acceptable for women to be in military service. In fantasy, you can make the culture whatever you want, as long as it’s believable and internally consistent
@@Joyride37 Yeah, I think the "Women have periods, so they would, IDK, die of an infection or something if they were in the wilderness." is so fucking funny in particular, because it just assumes women were invented in 1870 when sanitation first became available or something. All evidence of women existing before that must be ignored because logically, they would have died of period induced infection, right?
The physical strength thing is funny too, because yeah, you have to argue that a woman cannot ever become stronger than the weakest man that would be allowed in the service to justify their systematic exclusion from war. Considering the nature of medieval times as one of conscripted levies, and training and physical requirements were not up to the levels of professional modern militaries and professional modern militaries DO allow women to serve, it seems absurd. The biological fact is that women do tend to be physically weaker, but the fact of their exclusion from the military is in fact, still completely cultural, even with that fact in mind. And if you're writing a story, you get to decide the culture of the places you describe.
@@Jerthanis That's not their argument. It would be that battlefield conditions are dirtier thus they'd be moar likely to get infected.
Of course, this requires multiple assumptions they don't prove on their part so it's still fallacious, but don't misrepresent them.
In reality, the reason why women were excluded from war is because one man can impregnate many women but one women can only be pregnant at a time. So they'd be moar valuable for reproduction for any given population, thus not risked in warfare.
This does not change in fiction unless you're writing speculative evolution where the species reproduces differently. However, just because it's common doesn't make it a rule you can't break; and it's only a mild pressure on suspension of disbelief anyways.
In the modern era where populations comprise of millions for even the smallest countries, this isn't an issue, but it's going to be a hurdle in any ancient civilization. This is why these ppl seem to accept sci-fi militaries being gender neutral much moar.
*All that I'm saying is that assuming even a medieval to Victorian fantasy would would have a male dominated military specifically because of differing reproductive realities of the sexes is completely valid and actually adds to the realism.*
Cogent Roleplaying, the tabletop RPG he wrote, really sucks too. Which is really funny to me because he has loads of videos on why D&D 3rd edition sucks because it doesn't accurately depict weapons or armor, and in his system wearing armor actually makes you a worse fighter. Used to be a pretty prominent member of his discord server, mostly hung out in his roleplaying games channel and would constantly get people asking for advice about it but Shad had long since abandoned it leaving it half finished. The mods he has for that server and the one running his reddit are the definitions of the power mad moderator meme too, and left those when all this alt right nonsense of his starting bubbling up to the surface.
That shit is sad af
@@westsidetyler man I used to really like his content too, his fantasy rearmed series and his castle videos (he really knows castles, perhaps his only expertise tbh) were what drew me in and I should have just stayed watching his videos. but once I joined his discord my eyes were opened, his head mod right before I joined was ousted for having a secret grooming channel. So all this really isn't that surprising for us non-fanboys who were in the trenches as it were.
Having practiced at 150meter gun range with iron sights in past, the part about gear where it says along lines of "if you have optics you can take shots at sniper range of 100m+" lives rent-free in my head.
Reminds me of when my husband left that server when he was punished for calling out tankies that claimed that the Leopard 2 stood no chance against the T-72. (for those who don't know, that's like saying a two-barreled shotgun is as effective a war weapon as an assault rifle)
The tankie was left to his own devices and continued and continued spreading deep-soviet propaganda (any propaganda being against server rules, mind you) and my husband was punished for what? Calling that guy a tanky. Apparently that is not a descriptor, but a derogatory term. Guess all the derogatory terms my husband was called were just accurate descriptors but tanky is too much.
Late to the party but reading the rules and in the armour section, their description doesn't even match the rules. Character stabbed by a rogue and uses their armour to reduce the damage. But on the PREVIOUS page it says that injury reduction is not applicable in close combat.
You can't spell the title of this book without the words "Shad The Conqueror." Don't tell me this isn't a self-insert.
This will be second conspiracy theory I believe in
I don't mind too much the occasional author self-insert (Heinlein did it pretty well)... what bugs me is how the main character "self-inserted" with respect to teenaged girls. It's hard for me to keep reading a book about a guy like that. I had immense trouble reading the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant for similar reasons.
I can't unsee that now. Which is very funny... And even more concerning.
@@hoi-polloi1863I've had a boyfriend obsessed with Thomas Covenant guess who cheated on me with a 13 year old girl he groomed online? You're totally valid for not feeling this book ^^'
Had the same thought.
Haven't read it, but just by listening to the description, it sounds like Daylin might be a Western chauvinist's stand in for America/"Western civilization"; lots of bad things in his past, but basically invented everything and has to solve the world's problems because he's the most competent, special boy. Anyone else get that impression? I'll be curious to hear how far that analogy goes in parts 2 & 3.
That makes a ton of sense tbh
The British Empire at its height, bringing civilization to all the ignorant “savages”.
Sure, they extracted all the resources for their own selfish gain, subjugated and killed millions, ruined whole parts of the world for (ongoing) generations.. But they brought them the “benefits” of modern society, like capitalism, so it all evens out in the end. It’s a net good, actually!
😢
You would think that for all his lectures on world building and general writing practices, he would be better at putting such things together.
You know the saying, those who can’t do, teach.
@@clan741 From what I've learned, the best teachers are also good at the thing they teach. You cannot teach a subject well if you are not familiar with the intricacies of how that subject works. I strongly feel that if one picked apart his lessons, one would find serious flaws. Either in presentation or content.
@@clan741 we should replace that saying with "those who can't do, make shitty youtube videos"
Building a world is easy. Playing in it is a bit more of a challenge.
@@cajunguy6502 Well, when it comes to developing world history... you end up making narratives that if you embellish, could turn into great stories, just as like, background info.
24:04
Regarding inventing new terms, I can come up with something on the spot right now instead of using the r-word.
"You must be dark in the head/you must've been left in the dark for a little too long" - possible offensive alternative for the r-word within the context of the world, referencing how the Shades are made and equating them to someone acting irrationally/being mentally ill. Downside is the second one could be confused with "being left in the dark" meaning for us being uninformed.
I mean, I think that's perfect and the "left in the dark" bit actually makes a solid connection to our own world.
A Mormon writing 'You must be dark in the head' has some pretty racist undertones though...
@@Naptosis I can't help him there unfortunately
What baffles me is why he didn't use more archaic words or therminology like "i m b e c i l e" or "feeble minded". Shad made a whole video about the difference between modern day insults and Medieval insults so he should know how out of place it would feel
There's a lot you could do with light/dark imagery, for example:
'You must have/keep shadows/shades in your head' -- Derogatory; You're stupid/ignorant to the circumstances/closed minded. Might also be used to call out particularly dangerous, destructive, or depressive thoughts of another. See also 'Open your eyes and let the light in.'
Etymology-wise, it'd come from the whole Light/Dark and Man/Shade thing in setting, but also referencing the existance of light blocking window blinds/shutters and doors and how you'd open them to drive away the darkness in your home in the daytime.
Oh god, i forgot about the Lusts... yeah, that kinda sums the book up tbh. Kinda reminds me of those guys who will tell you all the terrible things they think should be done to rapists as punishment... but at the same time would not believe any victim's testimony without a shitload of equivocation.
So we should have believed Amber Heard because she said so?
What about the countless other false accusations by women used to attack men that didn't have millions to defend themselves in a biased court system?
It's elections soon. I can't wait for them to start trotting out the lines of women with accusations about how some political candidate touched them in their nono square 30 years ago.
Then watch them magically disappear when they crawl back into the woodwork with their payoffs.
But yeah, lets just believe them. Who needs proof.
Crossing my fingers, hoping it’s the ghoulish paralysis-demon type succubus and she gets to eat people
I remember when Sanderson's new Stormlight Archive book came out, Shads name was in it as a historic martial arts reference. That book actually has my least and most favorite fights. The least favorites are the ones where the fight is sidetracked by one or two sentences of "technical" description that rarely makes sense when your characters are in the fucking air. The most favorite is one that uses the rules of the magic engineering as a replacement for one of the characters missing super powers, and thus he has to avoid all confrontation that would require any form of martial arts.
Fucking excellent example of a consultant actually making a book worse, especially in a book that does a really good job (for pop fantasy) at dealing with mental health due to the many mental health consultants
no suprises, as Shad know nothing at all about martial art lols. he just repeat stuff he hear on other peoples videos. he does nothing, know nothing. Complete fraud
What is the Rhythm of War
I am so glad to not be the only one who noticed that. It is so obvious what pots he had his finger in and they are so absolutely rotten. I legit hope Brandon drops him as a consultant and a beta reader. It almost beggars belief that Shad would even enjoy Brandon's books, given his personal opinions.
@@ubeka3013 they are both Mormons, so that probably plays a part.
Which fight you did not like?
And you mean oath ringer, right?
I don't recall Shad saying anything about working on ROW
Shadow of the Conqueror? I dont think Shad's conquered anything more threatening than a plate of ribs. Dude's terrified of Princess Peach in pants destroying western civilization.
Bodyshaming, very progressive.
I guess he forgot that Princess Peach Toadstool (I guess Peach is her first name) has been certified monster-whooping badass since 9.10.1988 when she debuted her first active appearance. She did NOT wear pants then.
@@vksasdgaming9472 She was also BROKEN AS FUCK!
@@SeanStrife Not at all. Speedrunners swear by Toad and Luigi was better at jumping than Princess was. That float was quite useful though.
@@vksasdgaming9472...that it isn't exactly Western culture, rather a Japanese take on Western culture. I'd be glad it's pants and not tentacles.
I watched Shad's videos about swords, they were fun. He said he wrote a novel, I figured I would throw him some support. I made a mistake.
This book encapsulates everything wrong with fantasy fiction. This book makes me long for the days when publishers acted as gate keepers, protecting my eyes from amateurish hacks and their puerile gibberish. Left wing, right wing, I do not know, I do know this book sucks.
It's self-published. That means he had to pay publisher to get it printed and released. It explains a lot.
With respect.
You clearly have not read many historical books in the context of the times they were written in, if you are aggravated that 'politics' plays a role in stories today.
Additionally, while I personally enjoy Tarzan as a "turn your brain off and skip the part where he learns the full nelson" type of book. It is (by Edgar's own words) trash. Gate keeping? Nah. They want books that will be sure to sell. There is a tiny difference about the size of a grand canyon.
They aren't gate keepers for masterpieces.
@@TryssemTavern Is what I read a historical work of nonfiction? No, it was fiction. Did I say I was aggravated or indifferent to politics? I indicated I was indifferent to politics. Am I unaware fantasy fiction is escapism? No.
The problem with Shad's book is the terrible writing. The gatekeeping of which I spoke referenced the horrible writing.
shad once said in an old vodeo that immigrants shouldnt be allowed government assistance and only white australians should. this was like 8 plus years ago.
Bro WHAT
But white Australians are imm... you know what, nevermind.
Maybe he should get off my land then (I'm Australian aboriginal)
Nevermind shad and whatever he did, this military softheads channel has appeared in my recommendations, heh ok.
You leftists believe in the state bullying people to pay for border grifters that you vote to cram down societies neck, whose societies literally generate refugees, because the people you voted for, start wars in their countries and then import them over for the rest of us to pay for, en masse.
As if there's overflowing charity in any non white country😂Not sorry for being human and concerned for my own group, smh you kooky critical theorists.
@@westsidetyler
A leftist jarhead vaush fanboy. "Don't be boring, choose to be a maximally hypocritical dumbass"
I like a lot of Shad’s non-political content. His castle knowledge is great and very interesting and he presents it well. I bought his book on Kindle when he released it though, and couldn’t get past I think the second chapter, not because of any moral objections - don’t think anything too horrendous had happened by then - but just because the writing was so bad. The bit where his main protagonist falls off the edge of the world (which in this setting loops back to the surface of the world again, and very quickly - actually could be an interesting idea) and works out his new magic powers in the space of a few seconds on the basis that he was an engineer in his former life, was so bad I couldn’t believe it. It actually showed how his whole “magic systems should follow rules and not be random” idea, which is true in some ways, when taken to extreme, ends up taking the magic out of magic and rendering it into engineering, just with different laws of physics. That was something I was thinking about his ideas about magic in fantasy settings before he released his book. And then his book came out, and HE ACTUALLY HAD TO MAKE HIS MAIN CHARACTER AN ENGINEER in order to have them understand and explain his magic system to his readers. That’s not magic bro… And then he started getting more and more political, and yeah, it’s bad… I still watch and like his non-political fantasy/history/arms and armour content sometimes. It’s a shame really, because he is a nice guy in many ways who makes interesting and entertaining content. But yeah, he kind of went off the rails. (Note - I wrote this 3 mins into this video, so I don’t actually know what you are going to say about his book yet, these are my pre-existing thoughts 😂).
He simply disapplied everything he taught in the videos about Worldbuilding and realism in fantasy.
@@giulyanoviniciussanssilva2947 yeah - weird
Christians don't know how to create anything. They do the typical white-supremacist tactic of stealing ideas and inventions from people of color and LGBTQIA people and then claiming it as their own.
The most notable thing Christians have ever created is their Bible, which is the worst piece of fiction ever written (and even that was hijacked from Judaism).
I fully agree that magic systems SHOULD follow rules and not be random.
However, you don't have to EXPLAIN them in such detail!
Even Tolkien, who is infamous for telling instead of showing, largely kept the rules to his magic system hidden from the reader.
This led to some pretty weird instances, and people wondering "Why didn't Gandalf just do X?!"
Come on Shad, this is basic writing by now!
Even in his non-political content he puts his weird beliefs in there. I watched his video on female armor and not only did he ignore that warrior women have in fact existed, he randomly started talking about how it's good that we send young men to war because of their natural desire to protect or some shit.
“The Biggest Mary Sue of all time.”
Empress Theresa: YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME MORTAL?!
I had no idea . I love Jazza he is such an inspiration to the art community and is always giving back. He also makes great content. I had no idea Shad was his bro.. they are completely different.
He's the badass guy who has to put up with his brother because he doesn't want distance.
Jazza is a hack too
Yeah, Jazza has fun and I think he does plenty of good stuff. His heart seems to be in the right place and he is entertaining.
@@MightyGachiman No he's not
@@SatanicBarbeque he is on youtube for 15 years and has done art for more than that and his skills barely improved. To the point that his art still looks like clipart in word from 2004. Let's not kid ourselves he is a good marketer but his art skills are below average.
It sounds like Shad really likes how thorough Tolkein was about his world and how Pratchett depicted the decades of experience with Cohen the Barbarian, and then was 100% certain that he could do it too.
Tangentially, Blackheart is both the name of a Marvel villain and an upper-tier well rum.
You see, overconfidence is a key part of improving! Before you reach the level of Tolkien, you need to be confident that you can reach that level.
And then you need to be willing to really change and get better, and that's where Shad faceplants
To be fair, Shad's world building was pretty damned good. It's his CHARACTERS who were awful. I'd love to play a video game set in the book's world... preferably a game where the objective is to kill Daylen and the others, because oh man they are so unlikeable.
@@Archone666 I think his world is good and his worldbuilding is bad. Presentation is a key part of the process! He failed at that part.
@@Archone666 so you dont like the characters? Reminds me of Game of Thrones. The books are soo damn long and all the characters are written like massive ..... jeremy hunts. You hate them all. The show watered them down and made some likeable but in the books.... its hard to like any of them.
I was a fan of Shadversity ones, till he began to frequent this kind of people, the grifters and right-wingers that pretend that they aren't right-wingers in the internet, with very toxic review, I try to warn him, but he didn't listen, then I realise that he really believe this bullshit, so I quit his channel, not watch it anymore.
This is legit reassuring to me as someone writing a fantasy novel cause wtf
Like I don't think I could write a worse story if I tried
The sad thing is that I got this book (before reading anything) for my mom a couple years ago💀
Oh god, how did that go? Did she read it??
@@burningtrash6330 I don't even think she made it through the first chapter before it started collecting dust on the shelf lol
Oh my god, dude no
Thank goodness I never bought his comic adaptation when he had that crowdfunding campaign. I wonder what happened to his pilot movie adaptation of his book tho.
Oh yeah, that was gonna be a thing
@@sporeham1674 does anyone know what happened to it?
@@ponczos_2293 is looking at the update tab on its kickstarter page for it too hard?
@@ponczos_2293 the team for the project lost most of its members, leaving a few people alone in need of further crowdfunding, it's very sad...
@@ponczos_2293 It's on hold with no apparent future. Apparently the producer wasn't good, and they mismanaged the budget, leaving no money for post-production. And they need about the same amount of money they got in the first place to finish it because they have to do VFX shots. Actors weren't payed, but they spent 9k on swords for some reason. Every producer knows you need to budget for post, it was an amateurish production at it's worst.
I've been in nerd communities enough that when I saw the first video on his writing all those years ago I smelled bullshit. Guys like that always have weird opinions and it starts with "historical accuracy" and "healthy body types" and you quickly realize that only comes up when it's women and you gotta turn the other way incredibly quickly.
1:18 To be fair to Shad, HEMA is much more of an art than practical training. Sure Shad messes around with swords without actually participating in the play-fighting with blunt pieces of metal; but no one is going into combat wielding Excalibur and facing an enemy armed with dual Nippon steel katanas, unless they travel back in time and into fiction.
That said, I have _actually_ been attacked by multiple trained men *armed with nunchucks,* so maybe HEMA is more practical & useful than I give it credit for.
Okay, on with the rest of the vid!
what are you kiryu
Who are your enemies and how do I make sure I never meet them?
Technically to go into combat wielding Exaclibur facing an enemy armed with dual Nippon steel katanas one would need to go forward in time.
Who are your enemies and how do I become one of them?
Bro where do you live? Feudal Japan? 😂
I love your critique. I agree 100%.
Daylin as a character was ridiculous. He was the best swordman in the world while also being one of the best engineer. Also he was a military genius.
Every conflicts in the felt shallow and boring because he would either stomp anyone or his opponent would become his friend very quickly.
I know people complain about the book because the protagonist is a massive rapist but for me it was how boring everything felt since it felt like the world was bending over the protagonist.
Shad has some weird power trip issues. Between his garbage writing and his A.I. "art" he has some strange delusions of grandeur
You're a nobody bro he's a king, he has a plastic castle in his backyard if we were in a fuedal society with no consent laws and courts were replaced with sword fights he would freaking own you bro.
I read this book once upon a time. My life is a punishment now and I regret about it a lot. Very immersive experience.
Can't people like him create something else than a power fantasy?
I'll bet on the fact that he just self inserted into that novel
See lots of stories are power fantasys for the writer. Even if the power fantasy is "these are bad people and my character protects others from these bad people"
Untreated Narcissistic people have the problem that they aren't able to really conceptualize power fantasy as anything besides "I succeed and prove the haters wrong because I'm the best person ever if i was given the chance to prove it" and then can't comprehend why others proceed to mock the result. It must be because they are being hateful for it's own sake. Their still self aware people though so they don't improve their craft as that might prove they failed initially. The people with the condition who have treatment are able to improve their craft so you never notice they have narcissism
Luke Skywalker is admittedly a self insert for George Lucas and Star Wars still works. The thing is that power fantasies can be exciting, but you need to have exciting things for the main character to conquer for the power fantasy to work.
Example: Darth Vader is a great and powerful villain, and just because of that, you want to see how Luke is going to overcome him.
@@OlgaZuccati At least L. Skywalker is not complete mary sue, unlike some other main characters.
power fantasies can be anything, and be fun, if the writers are selfaware enough to still make them a decent character working in the world.
@@turkoositerapsidi He's on the light end of the Mary sue spectrum if where going even use that term seriously at this point, I personally see most of it's value being comedic, last time I've seen media use the term mary sue in a way that enriched my experience of consuming it was in a terrible writing advice video and thats because he's using it for comedic value and he combines his throwing it around with much more profound critique. Just want to say I really like Luke as a character, but you can't deny the fact they starts out with superpowers that give him the massive edge that saves the day and not much in the way of character flaws in the first film.
The protagonist is a Mary Sue with a penchant for the younger set? So, Shad read "The Chronicles of Conrad Stargard" and said: Hold my beer?
"I find it very offensive when people say jesus christ"
What about when they say have a seat?
“Daedalus The Hedgeheg. Daedalus was stronger than all of his contemporaries at the Sonic Fighting Academy. He even made it to the top of the Sonic Military. But then he fought Shadow (of the conquerer) and in the battel he had lost part of his ear and that’s why he does not have a part of his ear that’s why (pls stop pming me asking me why.) Also while fighting Shadow (of the conquerer) he turned to the darkness and betrayed and killed sonic.”
Daedalus: Psshhhhhh, nothing, personnel kid!
If I had a nickel for every weirdo on the internet with Shad in their username, I'd have two, which is unfortunate
Weirdos with weird fetishes no less.
When you talked about how it would be interesting if the story started as "This is a tale of man who decides to kill himself..." I thought of another way the story could be told. There's a brazillian novel called Dom Casmurro, which is told by Casmurro himself on his last years about how his life was ruined by his cheating wife, but, by the way he narrates, it becomes clear that he isn't a reliable narrator, striking doubt to the reader. I think Shad could do that, making a morally grey and unreliable narrator who tries to justify his horrible actions to the reader.
The guy writes about underage rape, by his own self-insert character. He's pretty sick in the head. SNS.
Well this is kind of what we get when a comics gate ppl tries to write their own book.
Are we sure he didn't take a lot of MDMA, and try to recount their game play of Skies of Arcadia?
That's a low-key amazing reference. Don't mind me, just another old jrpg enthusiast passing through.
In a world where the sun never sets, you'd think that the people there would have adapted long ago to all be black, not just the stereotypical ones
Nah I believe it. There are factors.
Some advice for future book/show/movie reviews you might do in the future - _Don't_ spend most of the video telling me you don't give a fuck about the details/don't remember them. I've not read Shad's story but I can see from the comments that it's pretty bad, however I got 8 minutes into this video and all I've got so far is how little any of it stuck with you to the point you didn't even keep a script/notes for the names of the characters. This doesn't tell me Shad's book is so bad that the details don't stick, it tells me you've got no interest in coming across as impartial and so I won't be able to trust that something you complain about is actually as bad as you make out.
This is a problem I see from more than a few reviewers (even some of the big ones) and it drives me nuts. Especially since 9/10 times the videos don't include actual examples of how boring/terrible/cliche something is and I'm expected to take the person at their word.
shit ain't memorable ain't my fault lmao
@@westsidetyler Despite my issue with the start of the video, I did enjoy this review of the book once it got into details.
The description of that world sounds almost identical to the world in the first book of the Death Gate Cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, Dragon Wing.
Is that a good book?
@@nikkialkema1032 If they are anything like other stuff they have written, then yes, it is. Worth a chance anyway.
Please just get to the book please. I came for a review.
Edit: I regret asking you to get to the book review.
If you make special technology or have powers then it doesn't make sense that being good with a sword is all you need.
I like Eragon because in that book Eragon becomes a master sword fighter but also gains acess go super powerful weapons and abilities.
Beyond that Eragon originally uses a bow- so bows are viable weapons that are often used in the Eragin books as well as people using magic.
So if you have technology in a book then it makes sense that people would have crossbows or maybe special steam punk swords.
It doesn’t seem like shad included any of that weaponry or equipment or how it would change fighting in that world he made up.
The dude never wanted to die because of his pass he only wanted to die because of being old and Constantly being in pain.
I remember him "reviewing" the Wheel of Time show, where he complained about wokeness while his 2 friends said "Yeah" a lot. The guy had some interesting content back in the day (e.g. series on which weapons would be good for specific fantasy races), but I haven't been able to stand him for years.
Wheel of time TV series is still bad but not for his stupid reasons
Sounds like he tried to combine berserk’s dark fantasy with the Silmarillion by constantly lore dumping.
I'm only halfway through this video and I guess what adds to the terribleness is usually when an author decides "time to slide my predatory fantasy into the story" they wait until middle-late into their story or series to try to make it seem normal, but he's like "OK EVERYONE LET'S START OFF RIGHT".
The concept of floating continents, everlasting day, and sky ships sounds kind of interesting if the weird video games physics and the child sexual abuse weren't incorporated into that
I feel like ive just woken up from a coma, are we talking about the guy that does medieval weaponry videos? What?
Shad is the Neil Breen of TH-cam with somehow less drive, talent, and charm but double the delusion.
18 hours, that's the whole effin Darth Bane trilogy xD THAT'S THE ENTIRETY OF THE FOUNDATION TRILOGY!!!! Thank you for your masochism to bring this to us.
He’s 40?!?! Also as an ex Mormon you are a hundred percent correct.
Fellow ex mormon here! Leaving the church was the best choice my family could have made.
A monarch named "... the Bastard" turned "... the conquerer"? Wonder where he got that idea from.
This was an incredible breakdown! I feel like I'm a better writer after watching this. You don't just point out the obvious, you go in depth into some really good points and breakdowns into literary techniques.
I personally see more of a resemblance between the character and Mao Zedong because he was kinda forced out of power for a while and then came back to power after.
Fall of shad. He would've been better just being a mediaeval geek rather being a religious fanatic
He hasn't fell, the rest of the world is looking into this little hyper-bigoted echo chamber with sadness in our hearts. Shad is the chad, nobody is fleeing from him, he hasn't been canceled successfully :)
@@TheJaguarthChannel Shad look more and more like narcissistic clown now. Skallagrim and Metatron is where its at
@@bingolos9063 Skallagrim is no better. He watched Vinland Saga 1 Episode and then dropped it because the fighting scenes werent realistic. He got backlashed and deleted the video and then made a response video and saying pointless things (also he was recording outside walking which he was not being serious about it). I dont know what his tastes on anime are but he judged too quickly. Vinland Saga has so much to offer on history about Vikings and Norse culture (which is his thing) to just brush it off was very insulting. I also know he said he have some depression and food addiction and he wants improve which is a good thing. But he still looks fat currently and I hope he put action to his words.
For Metatron he is living his life so I have no words. But I wish he continued the armor reviews from games.
@@YuriSteiner04 with all due respect Skallagrim not liking Vinland Saga is literally irrelevant and completely harmless (especially compared to anything Shad has done)
he is objectively Better.
@@luxsuperbia1531 yeah you are right Shad was worse. Whether it is relevant or not my point was how Shad and Skallagrim reacted and responded from backlash. And of course Shad handled it much worse.
You ignored the fact his fall was a coalition of nations he didn't/couldn't conquer. You pretend to not watch his stuff while ignoring the fact you actually have to go onto a second channel to see anything political. The economy of Daylen's empire is a mix of multiple dictators in history, as is how he treats others. He never was posed as a good guy until he actively wants to earn redemption even though he may never get it as he may just wonder the world till his death. And that is the little of this video I can take. If it's not your type of story, fine. But you flat out leave key plot points in this video for the sake of having something to rant about.
Wrong on all counts lmao
Damn, half the video in and the only conclusion for me is that I want Tyler to write a book because his idea for how to make Daypiss or whatever actually be interesting, like yeah I'm down for a badass, cunning old fart who beats kids up to teach them a lesson while also trying to be a better person.
got u fam: westsidefairytales.com/books
and there's more coming
@@westsidetyler oh shit fr? I'm new here so I didn't know. Nice!
All good :) I also have a podcast of free stories call the Westside Fairytales. Mostly horror and dark fiction, but SF/F plays a big part in my universe as well! :D Hope you enjoy if you end up checking it out!@@YTDariuS-my6dg
This book has almost 4 stars on Goodreads.
He got hoes all over the world
Tbf, every book I've ever seen has 4 stars on Goodreads, no matter how bad or unpopular it is. 😂😂 I've never seen anything below 3.5 stars.
@@crypticcorvid Are these *_random_* the front page is utterly wallpapered with 1 and 2 star reviews?
@@futurestoryteller Idk how I missed that then. 😂 Just everytime I've used Goodreads I could never find any bad reviews for anything. Could be memory bias since I haven't used it for a few years though.
@@crypticcorvid Just seems weird either way, for a "four-star book" to be highlighted by negative reviews. But they're *all* hilarious. Especially the ones that are like "Daylen is almost as much of a Mary Sue as Rey Skywalker."
Like a woman can't even survive a fight with a man, but if this guy woos his rXpe victims, has eternal youth, defeats everyone and cuts islands in half... I mean... come on guys, it strains credibility a little. Maybe if he was less of a chad.
I understand that the majority opinion is that Shad's novel isn't the best fantasy work out there, not by a wide margin. I personally haven't read Shad's book, and never will, thus I have no foundation for an opinion on it.
I find these sorts of videos entertaining and informative. It is sort of poetic in a way, as Shad is very critical of a lot of media these days, and for him to find out that "writing is hard" is funny.
That said, I don't understand why the term "Mary Sue" is something you dont like to use. There are so many characters out there these days that fit this moniker perfectly. It is a huge problem in modern media. So much writing is very lazy and inattentive, and the "Mary Sue" is absolutely a phenomenon that can be found all over the place.
Anyway, I almost want to read the book after watching this, just to see how bad it really is 😅
As much as i hate to admit it, I feel bad for Shad. He failed at drawing, gave up and turned to writing, but also failed just as bad here. He's already using AI for art, might as well use it for stories.
This could be a generic Isekai novel from Japan, it's a lot for the author to talk about heavy themes without the necessary level of depth to do it right.
Shad Brooks would have to let go of his romanticization and fascination with war, something that goes against the heavy themes of this story.
I hate those generic isekai novels and most of them are still better than whatever this is.
The one "redemption arc" I could think of about one of the most horrific vullains to ever exist was Megatron from the IDW comics. Incredibly controversial as you would have expected it but in my honest opinion, I think the writers actually did a pretty amazing job in "redeeming" him.
What's greater is that while he did change, saved countless lives, the story repeatedly emphasizes that regardless of how Megatron became the way he is, his tragic backstory, his justifications, his new change of paths, none of it will ever JUSTIFY the atrocities he's committed. By the end of the comic, despite Megatron being an integral part in saving the universe, he still gets punished for his crimes and his ultimate is left ambiguous. It was either infinite solitary confinement or death, either of which are outcomes you dont usually see for a "villain redemption arc".
It's genuinely of the best redemption arcs I've ever seen for a villain. Where he gets to save lives, perceive a path where he could have done better, face the many consequences of his horrific actions, and yet at the end of the day, receives none of the glory and instead welcomes it with open arms.
"You can save a hundred million worlds and none of it will make a damn difference."
But this book? This just felt like doing the opposite, with the MC being... glorified and romanticized. It's just... eugh.
it sounds like he tries to be berserk? but without havinbg that violence apalling in the first part, and the nihilism.
also ther being no justice so that a rape victim turns into a succubus with a pact out of that much despair sounds not bad. Imagine she joins the party when they hunt rapists. and gets to be a sympathic good even character. And even be a foil for a redemtion arc, well done. Not accusing shad he would, just a succubus tht became that out of dispair and them pondering about life could be interesting in good hands. Just make it her agency becaus eshe really saw no other choice for any justice, and then ponder on justice.
Sounds like something you'd see in a Baldur's Gate/Planescape story.
Can’t believe I used to listen to this guy’s worldbuilding advice
If you like the concept of the book and want it to see it well done, read Mistborn.
I'm glad you wrote those descriptors on the cover for the thumbnail, because I watched another review about the book a few weeks ago and looked at the cover with those thoughts and just... wow
Being fair, regarding HEMA specifically, Shad's problem with them always was that, for lack of a better phrasing, they are stuck up a-holes sometimes, having, apparently, mostly experienced the (absolutely existing) side of HEMA practitioners that seem to treat the old treatises as scripture that is to be taken completely as written and if you dare fight in another way that's not "the right way".
it takes balls to come out and be like maybe the russian monarchy ( google the monarchy's many many crimes they even had their own gulags ) being killed was where the problem began ... god shad somehow triples and quadruples down into the like being weirdly aristocratic and weirdly monarchist vibe all fantasy has
I dont know if you've seen the movie romper stomper about an australian nazi skinhead gang in the 90s, but their targets are asian immigrants, specifically filipinos (I think). I could definitely see shad being on the anti filipino side of australian politics... the term "churro asians" could have been come up with in discussion with american racists as a comparison between mexican immigrants and filipino immigrants. Putting it in his book was a clever racism for his homeys to enjoy.
I have been getting recommended that for years
@@westsidetyler it's pretty good, plus fun to see baby Russell Crowe, but really only brought it up as some vague evidence of which ethnic groups australians hate. Very similar to American history X, but doesn't handle the subject matter as well.
Shadiversity thinks he is an artist.