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Chapter 252 - Contrasting Philosophy

🕑 Added 2025-10-01 14:32:32 +0000 UTC

Comments

FuriousDee

She is probably going to build it into her armour with the rest of the Triarch’s equipment

UraniumPhoenix

I think I was reading the Belgariad in middle school when I first realized that pretty much every fantasy story I had read, the hero had some sort of special heritage that made them superior to others and/or the story was essentially about restoring a rightful monarchy. That was contrasted by the values that I was being taught in my classes about democracy and equality. That's to say, hopefully the story navigates it gracefully! Because it's been an issue with fantasy that I've been thinking about for a long time.

AlecL

Loving this turn to ~the time looper uses each return to refine her understanding of dialectical materialism~ I’m generally fascinated by what I think of as the lure of dictatorial thinking and the divine right of kings in fantasy. So often the solution to inequality in even the most leftist fantasies boils down to “have a powerful enough person that they can enforce good behavior in the masses.” Curious and excited to see how this story deals with that fundamental contradiction

Leaf

I want Mirian to go grab the First Prophets Titan Focus that’s sitting up on the moon (iirc) and bind it to her!

Leaf

I wonder if she’ll find out what that mysterious 9th god is and get a focus from them…

Michael Vonica

Glyphs are magic symbols. You use magical chemicals, harvested from myrvites, and glyph pens, which work based on their own glyphs, to draw them. By putting arcane energy through glyphs, using a focus or by burning a fossil, the glyphs can create many magical effects. These effects primarily target the physical world. Glyphs also have a magical frequency to them, can do different things based on what other glyphs you draw them next to, can function as a kind of language, and can maybe even do other things. Apparently, this chapter says they can be used for physical coordinates. Runes are a lot like glyphs. The differences are, you draw runes using mostly mundane biological materials, and then use a frequency of soul energy, specific to the rune, to finish it. You need a soul focus for that. And runes need soul energy to work, too. Runes primarily target souls. This chapter says they can also function as mental coordinates. Tri bonds are a special way of writing glyphs and runes. Instead of just writing the symbols in sequence, you can create a tri bond, which connects three of the symbols together in parallel to whatever sequence they are in. There are at least two types of tri bonds. Ones that use only glyphs, and ones that use both glyphs and runes. I don't know whatbis special about glyph only tri bonds. For the other type, they allow for spells that can combine both arcane and soul energy into a single spell. They also allow spells to share functions. Some things only glyphs can do, and some things only runes. Tri bonds let spells borrow from both sides of those exclusive functions. Finally, tri bonds let you power runes off of arcane energy.

Ecthe

I doubt Mirian would ascribe to anarchism. She hates the way powerful people abuse the structure of the society, but she doesn't seem to blame the structure itself. So far I think she resonated the most with the society of Tlaxhuaco. She needs a centralized and efficient government so she can put it to work on her project. I'd argue that Zhuan is an hypocrite. She says she removed the entrenched elites from Zhighua and it allowed the "vast masses of people" to do what must be done, but what she actually did was replacing one group of elites by herself. She is so used to be obeyed by now that she seems to have difficulty sustaining a normal conversation with an equal.

Danidreye

I love this chapter. Based on her prior goals, Mirian seems to ascribe to anarchism, but hasn’t done the reading yet to fully acknowledge her goals and the steps to set them up. Zhuan reads like a communist who is 15 years of theory deep and just wants other people to not blow them off immediately. I wonder if Mirian is willing to work that hard on her ideology, or if her own need for control will shift her away from a thought that actually aligns with her stated values

Evgenii Grishin

Can someone remind me of what is glyphs and runes and there was another symbols to tribond?

Leila

While that is interesting, I really hope the author doesn’t focus too much on politics and societal challenges keeping the focus on marians growth

Michael Vonica

Some people would say that Zhuan should focus more on actually solving the apocalypse first, and not on getting the social power to do so. But this is what she is good at, and it will be necessary. Compare to Gabriel. He is wasting his time on labyrinth delving and jungle trekking. He would be better off learning to manipulate governments, so that when Mirian does actually find a solution, he could help her implement it. It's what he's good at, and he's way better at it then Mirian. It will also be necessary for later. Even if its a bit premature, and the plan isn't all thought out yet, I still think it is the more effective strategy. All this assumes that the prophets are actually working together. Zhuan said she didn't know about the other prophets before this loop (how is that possible, if she was spying on them in dreams?), so in a way, she actually was kind of wasting time by not finding out how everything works and how to stop it. But now, assuming she can work together with Mirian, the skills she has spent years honing will be very useful.

Michael Vonica

I think the idea is more, rule for long enough to make sure the house of cards won't topple as soon as she walks away. And once the place can run itself again, there would be no need for her to keep doing it.

BlastYoBoots

I was hoping we’d start drilling DEEP into the politics and sociology that prevent or drive rapid change! This is absolutely fantastic and well-written, and they so clearly have so much work to do before they discover a change to the world radical enough for them to make to force people to replace spell engines all at once, from the lowest levels up through what remains of / becomes the new elite in the societal upheaval. Zhuan is finally clearing Miriam’s eyes to the fact that any solution to their problem is NECESSARILY going to reshape all society beyond recognition, and all corners of it will resist unless miraculously not given a choice AND presented with naught but a profitable solution. Which is going to be a HECK of a trick to pull off!

Morog T Tiny

I have to agree with Mirian here, a benevolent dictator is the best example we have of something working, ie an emperor with the needs of the country first among his thoughts, In history this has only happened a couple of times but Mirian could pull it off because she has an advantage no leader ever has had, the ability to run her empire for thousands of years, so long as she can be flexible. It also has the potential to crash and burn, the skill set necessary would be different than what she has learned and she would need extreme social ability and skills to pull it off without simply using the biggest stick to beat everything into shape.

Armo

I do think the obvious issue here is that Zhuan’s new world order is itself beholden to the issues she wishes to remove, i.e. social classes inventing an ideology that supports them. Keeping people honest is always a difficult task. I’m sure she addresses everything in her book, though. Another question I have is how resilient any following system will be to such ideological abuse, and if it will require her specifically to maintain it. One point of failure is a bad idea for ruling a nation. We don’t know how advanced her magecraft is, or how wide her influence. Would she even be able to maintain such a system outside the timeloop? Finally, I’m wary of revolutionary new emperors on principle, whether feudal, republican or communist. Mirian’s approach, where she wishes to implement change but not direct it beyond addressing an emergency, is the one that seems least malicious to me. Let’s see if Zhuan the PoliSci professor will build something good.

Kain

Dialectics Every fuckin time, not really but still very often, my favorite web novels always gotta at least waive in the direction of Theory eventually lol. With all the political machinations in this one recently not surprised it came up.

Armo

Communism was not on my bingo card, even though it probably should have been.

FuriousDee

I am getting more and more excited for her armour. So now on top of being made of a huge amount of mythril, having at least one of the artifacts that can absorb energy and the best catalyst we know of it will also have one of every celestial focus. Is that one for each god?

FuriousDee

I wonder if the system keeps working without her

FuriousDee

For her to have a book like that ready for them it would have likely been written before the time loops started. Particularly if Gabriel had already read it.

Viv15

Zhuan: Read Theory I do wonder if she was like this before the loops, because her insistence that everyone speaking to her understand and internalize her methodology, even at the expense of more immediate/important/relevant topics seems like a kind of undersocialization without any other prophets in Zhingua. Every other prophet is a bit deranged, but Zhuan seems the worst off. Of all the other prophets' theories to save the world a global command economy is the most compelling (certainly beats 'destroy all other prophets/infiltrate mystery cults/hire and undead army, conquer Baracul, ???, profit') but it still seems like putting the cart before the horse.

SlickMongoose

Zhuan's going to create a massive famine just like Mao, isn't she? So confident based on month-long experiments.

KooZnack

So she’s a socialist that’s using the pressure of doomsday to pressure people out of greed and preserve her economic policies? That goes hard, I’m here for it

Andreas Kristensen

Didn't think I would see this take a communist turn, but here we are and I'm all for it

bob semple

Mao Zhuan

Alexander Dupree

She’s right in a way if you can get the public behind saving themselves personally they will be all the power you need. It’s a tall order though.

Cirina

Zhuan Li is amazing


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