[Repost] Ziggy Rambles About Overlord (shocker) and It's Meric and Place In the Light Novel Canon

 

Does Overlord have a good Story?

Not everyone agrees on that one. Mainly criticism centers on the slow pace, the lacking depth and development of the overabundance of characters and far too much exposition interupting the story's rhythm.

Something i'm trying to reflect on is what message and meaning Overlord tries to show/tell the reader

If we go by things Maruyama says though, the story he is trying to tell gets complicated in how we judge it apart from just the core writing critique. Maruyama is adamant he wanted all the mechanical exposition as a setting back bone and not just to fill page counts. Effectively he wanted extremely concrete verisimiltude or in universe consistency. Now this backfires sometimes because we know some conflicts are already spoken for. I'm strictly of the opinion although Overlord can be judged alone, it's more concretely a work that relies on meta textual knowledge of other things first to truly grasp the many messages it contains. For example, Gundam Iron Blooded Orphans was met with mixed reception, but it's only in lookin g at it outside isolation you understand why the 'errors' it made came to be and the message it was trying to tell becomes clearer. Overlord is much the same. Gundam relies on 'tropes' just as Overlord does. These tropes exist to serve as way stones or tools for the broader story. Just like they do in Overlord. The difference is the organization of tropes within the story also tells a story in Overlord and serves as allegories for things from all over. So you have the YGGDRASIL vs New World mechanical meta meanings and commentary. Then you have the trope menagerie being used in strange and entertaining ways (the bad guy is the paranoid MMO player, the Gods of the world are just MMO Players, etc). But you also have tangible commentary on various practices, like the Kingdom vs Empire serving as another meaning apart from tropes and mechanics all together.

 

 

As a 'story' Overlord might be lacking in logistical foresight, resolution, build up, and stakes. But not all of these weaknesses were unintended. Maruyama for example lamented the lack of stakes at times but refused to step away from the initial premise of the story: a MUSOU or story of a peerless character. From a writing compositional perspective, some people see the various isekai staples in Overlord not as cliche or hackneyed writing but instead Maruyama's meta comedy on "the gods of the world are just players iwth MMO powers, gear, and origins" in a traditional fantasy world. Going further, Ainz and Nazarick embody several fantasy tropes but we are actually privy to why the 'Big Bad Evil Guy' has his 'fanatically loyal subordinates'. Or why the Knight in Shiny Armor is infatuated with the princess or why things are being manipulated into that direction . If there is a broader message in Overlord though, what some may call a weakness, ie the non humans act too human could be a fragment instead of the looser message sprinkled throughout Overlord: what people seem like are not in fact what they are. Jirnvciv isn't some manical authoritarian, he's a man who had to get blood on his hands to salvage a terrible situation but broke his own heart in the process. That big bad evil guy that razed an entire kingdom is actually a guy under the weight of never ending expectations. That sinister and shady pale noble is in fact just a doting father trying to prevent civil unrest from escalating in his country not for a grand ambition but instead for mostly his child's sake.
Characters like Beebeezee, Neia, Remedios, Zanac, and so on show us that appearances and who people really are can vary wildly so we shouldn't judge people that way. If you compared Zanac to Barbro ost people would say Barbro looks like a King but its only in Zanac's struggle we see he has the heart and spirit of a King but not the appearance or ambition. 

 

I think people might be more lenient if it's not constructed from scratch. Basicaly you can't go "Chekhov's checklist" on a story that is a retelling of something else or has 'unused' details. That's just what transpired, no matter if 'tight' writing normally means nothing goes unused or without purpose.

 

 I think Overlord actually handles a similar trait in writing as well" not everyone operates on reasoned logic to reach their objectives.

  A problem in modern writing is readers expect everything to be logical, well reasoned, and without flaw.

Speaking as someone whoworks in the real world, no, some people do stupid shit and reality is stranger than fiction at times. 

 

Going back to "Is Overlord even good"? Overlord is difficult to judge because Maruyama went for subtlety, depth, and reread value. We have quotes about him wanting it to be like this so it's not conjecture like some would say. Anyone who thinks 'tight' writing is the only way writing should be would not find it "good" by the very nature of their perspective. Overlord isn't exactly a conventional story either though. If you lack familiarity with the various layers of it, you're perspective and take aways will be wildly different from another's. If you've never read or played fantasy to begin with, it just hits differently. The fans I see are the "when does Ainz fuq Abledo" or "when does Ainz kill everyone?" or so on. When I think of Overlord though, rofl stomping is only one part of it. Looking at the reception between the WN and LN, and the LN and the sidestory, Momonga's internal feelings play a big part as well imo. Satoru is simply charming and endearing to a sizable number of people, bumblefuckery be damned. For the more autistic however, the main story isn't as important as the slow reveal and set up of various mysteries. From that perspective, it not being 'tight' actually is a good thing because it means superfluous details can or may be used or they may not. At the same time it adds to the feeling of the world itself so that appeals to the world building fans. If a story can reward rereads and also engage it's audience multiple ways I can't say it's necessarily 'bad' even if it's not 'tight' by design. Overlord stumbles in myriad ways but it also does a tactical roll mid fall after that stumbly and continues walking on. Fans just tend to get critical of things because they see clearly where Overlord is lacking because Maruyama spent too much time on his flourishes for layers fans may not evne ever engage with.

  What is tight writing?

 Every element that gets included gets used and is relevant in some way in service of the plot, themes, or development of characters for metaphors or allegories.

 Also it's like a painting art lens, where every stroke is in service of the greater vision and the painting can't be complete if you remove strokes.

 I think you might have placed too much weight on the idea of 'time'.

Some people like tight writing because it's like how people appreciate no wasted motion in a martial art in terms of describing it's 'beauty' or 'elegance'. The same funnily enough happens in Pure math as well. We're odd balls but we have some who value this notion of 'complexity you can still see as part of the framework at large without perfect understanding'.