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spoilers for the newest scanlated ToG chapter under the cut

if im understanding the most recent ToG chapter correctly, at the time of the flashback the 10GF and Jahad had already sealed their own memories once? the incident that Gustang is learning about from the book Bam absorbed is, I assume, roughly analogous to the current flashback - although interestingly the current flashback lacks a single focal character; much of the recent chapters centers around Traumerei and Enkidu but a variety of things have happened throughout the recent chapters that aren't known to either of them. these don't seem to be Gustang's memories either.

It's almost more like the collective memories of the major figures from that time were sealed. However, there may be a different explanation. The book is not the only source of 10GF memories in Bam - he also has the Leviathan that Traumerei sealed his memories inside. a lot of people, myself included, have been asking why Bam needed the Leviathan powerup at this point in the story. I think this might be why.

The power of the Leviathan hasn't been particularly well defined, which might be because the powerup is a complete red herring, and the main reason SIU had Bam absorb the Leviathan was to justify the commingling of Traumerei's memories with Gustang's

Gustang went into this in search of his own memories, but he got Traumerei's as well. This might change Gustang's agenda going forward pretty significantly, compared to what it would have been if he just recovered his own memories.

To return to my initial confusion, it seems that the 10GF already had their memories of a particular incident sealed some time before the events we are currently seeing. My interpretation of the timeline is something like this:

10GF and their companions ascend to 134th floor. Something happens here, 10GF choose to seal their memories about it and stop climbing. Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

Various parties dissatisfied with the decision make moves against, or at least in defiance of, Jahad and 10GF.

This dovetails with Enkidu's inferiority complex and Traumerei's incel awakening, leading to some kind of major disaster probably involving the deaths of Traumerei's fiancee and one or more other important figures.

10GF choose to have their memories sealed, imprison Enkidu, and vow to no longer concern themselves with Regulars. Once again, Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

The thing that sticks in my craw abt this timeline a little bit is the emphasis on Enkidu's feelings of inferiority and the way the 10GF and their travel companions already seem to put their connections to each other above their more recent relationships. It doesn't explicitly contradict the prev narrative of the event with Enkidu causing the 10GF to distance themselves from the Regulars but it does seem like there is already a kind of explicit rule the 10GF follow governing their relationship to the Regulars.

Maybe this is the case, and what we are seeing is the sequence of events that led to the rule being changed. If true, this is interesting in itself. It seems to imply that the Great Warriors and their travel companions had some kind of internal code of conduct prior to Jahad declaring himself King of the Tower. If this is true, it could be that all of the anti-Jahad movements we're seeing up to the present from FUG and the "revolution" have their roots in an early schism of this group.

It's been very odd to me how easily the revolution has been able to identify and exploit the internal politics of both the Po Bidau and Lo Po Bia families. I had previously chalked it up to the sort of prognostic ability displayed by Guides, Khel Hellam and others - abilities we can be fairly confident that the Captain/Boss has been utilizing since the time of Genesis.

But if FUG and the revolution are led by old traveling companions of the Great Warriors, we have a decidedly less magical explanation for how effectively they're manipulating everything right now.

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548

Oh man oh baby we are back in the fucking saddle hell yeah! Classic extremely fucked up ToG is BACK

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Tower of God 547 again

My favorite faildaughter is BACK what a time to be alive

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Tower of God 547. One of the funniest panels in the series

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I'm seeing conflicting information about the current state of the comic. did 543 just get delayed by a week or are we officially back on hiatus? im fine with whatever since ive got a big backlog of speculation to write up anyways, and also I know how hard that grind is and want SIU to make himself and his health the #1 priority. but since im seeing multiple definitive claims being made about what's going on i wanted to see if anyone here had an official source on the information

EDIT: forgot to tag the post lol

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Tower of God 542 spoilers

on the one hand I'm significantly hype to have Sophia Tan in the story, but I'm kind of shocked SIU has deferred consequences AGAIN for the Cat Tower participants. Now I'm thinking back to when Augusgus and Mule Love got reintroduced right before the big hiatus, and I think that SIU might have needed to get the Regulars and weaker Rankers headed back towards Augusgus for some reason. Or maybe that group does successfully escape and it's Khun A.A.'s group that's caught in the lurch. Part of me thinks Maschenny definitely knows Bam has the Leviathan and let him go because all of this was her way of getting him to be set against Traumerei for some reason, but if that isn't the case and she genuinely wants the Leviathan for herself then Khun A.A.'s group can be made into hostages very quickly.

The other major thing in this chapter is Gustang's frontal assault on the Lo Po Bia mothership, which he states is specifically aimed at getting Traumerei to return through the warp gate. Given the... extremely fortuitous placement Gustang has enjoyed earlier in the story I have long felt he definitely has some kind of strong predictive ability. The fact that Lyborick is a Po Bidau AND a Khun cant be a coincidence, but I don't know whether the significance of that is just thematic or directly plot-relevant. The last time we saw Rachel she was meeting with Gustang to deliver him Wangnan's red Jahad ring and the item from the Hidden Floor, neither of which we really understand at this point. Gustang and Traumerei are also the Family Heads with the strongest implied connection to V. If Gustang lure Traumerei away, I wonder if his next move is to pursue Traumerei into the Nest. So many irons in the fires right now. I love it here

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Tower of God 541 spoilers

So... Who do we think survived the Cat Tower? I had pegged Cha as a survivor previously but as long as one Genesis-era hero survives that plot thread can continue, so I doubt he will have survived due to his proximity to the bomb. I think a number of other characters probably have to survive for plot reasons - Karaka, Hockney, and Sola, and maybe others I'm forgetting - but I think Shibisu, Hatz, Evankhell, Mule, Elaine, etc., are all viable candidates for SIU to kill off at this point, even if I like all those characters quite a bit. It's also possible that everyone miraculously survives the cat tower only for their luck to run out on Traumerei. If you want me to explain my reasoning on why a certain character is/isn't at risk, or just want to talk about some other aspect of recent ToG, replies are always open

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539 spoilers

Of all the ways Traumerei's interaction with Bam could have gone down I cant say I expected this, but in a good way. It makes perfect sense and resonates with the Wangwang flashback in obvious ways. Traumerei really looks at the whole Tower like Dragon Quest Monsters.

While I don't agree with a lot of the criticism S3 is getting, I do agree that it's been a while since SIU has actually done something interesting with Bam, but I do think he's been building to something and I think this is potentially part of that.

The bevy of powerups Bam has gotten recently could definitely be justified from the perspective that SIU is trying to make Bam v Traumerei plausible. Do I think Bam would actually win? Hell no. But if we look at all the threads of what's been happening, it makes a lot of sense that SIU wants Bam to think he can win here.

First off, this entire invasion has been a massive failure of Bam's moral compass IMO. I've mentioned before how significant it is that Hatz and Khun A.A. have both expressed anxiety at getting "left behind" by Bam as his power growth continues to sail past theirs. No disrespect, but Hatz does not belong in this fight. Shibisu does not belong in this fight. Bam has brought a lot of people significantly weaker than himself to the most significant battle the Tower has seen since Genesis. There are going to be consequences for that.

Speaking of consequences, did anyone really expect Ha Jinsung to get freed like this and be an active participant in the fight? I certainly didn't. Bam's whole reason for getting into this fight is accomplished at this point, the only reason he's still fighting is to bring his people home. This is why I'm so impressed with Traumerei's offer.

Bam realistically can't withdraw right now. His forces are spread too thin, for one thing. For another, while Yama has the presence of mind to be covering for Yu Han Sung infiltrating the teleporter ship, I'm not sure he's going to be willing to withdraw from the fight himself just yet. Considering everything Traumerei has put his kind through, it would definitely be somewhat hypocritical of Bam to ask Yama to leave at this juncture. It could still happen, but I don't consider it likely.

Traumerei is essentially giving Bam the (appearance of the) upper hand at the negotiating table here. Bam could easily make the withdrawal of Lo Po Bia forces a condition of this marriage, were he to accept. Realistically, that's the only way he's getting out of this without named character death. And it's not like he really wants to climb the Tower or kill Jahad to begin with.

I doubt Bam has the presence of mind to understand what a good deal this could be for him. Nor do I think it's the right thing for him to accept. This is an impossible situation brought on by Bam's inability to reconcile his selfishness with his fundamentally good nature. The consequences I've been anticipating feel closer than ever. The recent powerups might be just what Bam needed to feel confident in making the biggest mistake of his life. I'm ready.

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happy 2022 everyone 🥳

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Bam’s Evolution 3: Ignition Weapons & Living Ignition Weapons + Bam’s Evolution 4: Why Does This Guy Have So Many Souls?

Sorry for the wait. I should never have split these two topics to begin with, and trying to justify the split in my mind To be honest, I thought some of my speculations were going to be directly addressed through the Baam vs White fight. Seeing as I was wrong, and that a lot of people continue to be really upset about that fight, I think now is the perfect time to talk about where Baam is at as a character and where he’s going. As always, I’ll be talking about the ongoing arc under the cut so if you care about spoilers, go somewhere else. There will also be some spoilers for the current arc of One Piece.

Bam’s Evolution 3: Ignition Weapons & Living Ignition Weapons

Let’s start with Ignition weapons, more specifically with their definition. Per the wiki, “[an] Ignition weapon is a weapon refined with shinsu bearing a soul. The most famous of these are the 13 Month Series, which also contain a portion of the half of the 135th Floor Key given to Ashul Edwaru of Gong Bang (the Workshop) by Jahad. We’ll have a lot more to discuss about Ashul in the future, so let’s put a pin in that for now.

This is a pretty vague definition, but I think we can learn more by applying it to the Living Ignition Weapons in the story and cross-referencing the abilities we know are directly related to their status as Ignition weapons – i.e. the fact that they have been injected with Ignition fluid and a mysterious creature which bears some connection to the Administrators.

· Horyang manifests a ‘wing’ that changes form depending on the power being used. Broadly speaking, his abilities confer a bonus to his speed, his physical offensive power, or his resilience.

· Cassano seems to have similar abilities, though tailored to ranged combat rather than melee. He and Horyang are in possession of half a ‘devil’ each, although Cassano is in possession of Horyang’s half for a significant portion of the story. I am presuming that the ‘devil’ fulfills the ‘bearing a soul’ criteria, for reasons I’ll touch on later. The fact that a portion, in this case half, of a soul can be used for an Ignition weapon is worth noting.

· Baam also belongs in this category, though at this time this is mainly notable for being the mechanism by which the Thorn is integrated into his power set.

· Beta is where this starts to get… interesting. He has the same abilities as Horyang and Cassano, but he is also intelligent to a formidable degree. He showcases predictive abilities bordering on prognostication in the Workshop Battle arc, and his presence in Khun A.A.’s lighthouse is specifically cited as the reason A.A. can use the Enna Core ability as a regular.

· Emily, who kind of blows the lid off what we traditionally assume an Ignition Weapon to be. Emily has a heightened version of the predictive abilities seen in Beta, clever enough to confound Hwa Ryun’s pathfinding abilities. It’s hard to overstate how rare this degree of foresight is. Coupled with the complete lack of any offensive abilities shown thus far, it seems reasonable to conclude that Emily’s intellectual abilities are specifically related to her status as a Living Ignition weapon.

The reason it’s important to keep all this in mind is that I believe it indicates that “Ignition Weapon” is a somewhat misleading name. Beta and Emily seem to be more like computers than swords. Or to put it in ToG terms, more like Lighthouses than needles or spears. However, it isn’t until the current ‘arc’ (by which I mean everything situated in and around the Nest, so basically from the Nest arc up through the Dark Twist/Dark Change arc we’re currently in) that I think we truly see all the pieces start to fall into place.

ToG is a story with significant elements derived from games and gaming. One of these, I believe, has to do with how the Administrators enforce rules and contracts throughout the Tower. In recent chapters, we’ve seen several characters who are part of an experimental collaborative program between Jahad’s army and Gong Bang. The goal of this program is to develop soldiers who are able to bypass the floor tests in order to ascend the Tower quickly. In the Cat Tower, White fights a soldier from this program who is recognized as an item by the Administrators and thus able to freely ascend the Tower. Though these soldiers have not yet been described as Living Ignition Weapons, their existence does suggest the Administrators using some sort of classification or tagging system.

If the Administrators really do use something like a tagging system, I think we can make a huge statement about Bam based on the things we’ve seen: he has an incredible learning capacity, the ability to absorb powers and weapons, he can nullify spells, he can do all sorts of things which seem to set him apart even from the other Irregulars. When the Floor of Test Administrator made a contract with Bam, it told him that the contract would end up being a shackle. I’m not sure how much of this stems from Bam being a Living Ignition Weapon and how much comes from his unique revival by the ‘god of the outside,’ but I have a way of thinking about Bam that makes his various powers make sense together: he is something more general than a base item. Specifically, he has some properties associated with weapons, some with the Lighthouses, and some with a third and (for my purposes) most important category: Pockets.

Bam’s Evolution 4: How Does This Guy Have So Many Souls?

Let’s change gears for a moment. The conflict between Bam and White is spurred on in part by White’s desire to teach Bam something to do with the usage of souls. He repeatedly suggests that Bam ‘focus all of [his] powers in one spot’ in order to utilize them in a more efficient, coherent fashion. Bam resists this idea because he thinks using the power of the souls would be akin to killing them, that they would be ‘used up’ in a sense. White refers to his technique multiple times as ‘soul burning,’ which seemingly confirms this. But let us consider that phrasing more closely. Soul Burning. Burning, as in igniting.

I think we’re meant to view these concepts comparatively. White burns the souls he’s consumed to output more power, which is exactly what a Living Ignition Weapon does. The differences are the means and the mechanics. White achieved his ability to consume souls through sorcery, and he needs to continue eating to remain powerful. In other words, he truly does expend his souls, which is what Bam fears doing. Bam is, among many other things, a product of Gong Bang. He is a Living Ignition Weapon. And like other Ignition weapons, Bam’s ignition process doesn’t seem to permanently consume any soul Why not? Why is soul burning lossy when ignition is (seemingly) lossless?

Well, we already know that the Administrators can grant eternal life through their contracts. This is not an ability the Great Warriors innately possessed, this is something bestowed upon them. What if this works in the same way that the new experimental Jahad soldiers work? By which I mean, the Administrators can ‘tag’ certain individuals in such a way that the death process no longer applies to them? We already know that FUG desires Bam for his status as an Irregular specifically because he is not covered by the wording of Jahad’s contract. Here’s what I think is going on: Gong Bang has struck a limited accord with the Administrators which allows the former to apply something akin to the immortality contract to the souls imbued in living weapons.

We’ve never seen a Great Warrior sustain damage that would be fatal without a contract. What if the Healing Exoskeleton we see revive Bam is akin to the mechanism that keeps the Great Warriors alive? The difficult thing about understanding Bam’s powers is that he keeps absorbing new ones. We do see Bam and Horyang speculate that the Healing Exoskeleton is related to Bam’s status as a Living Ignition Weapon, but the timeline is hazy. To return to the subject of souls, I don’t believe we know that pre-FUG Bam would be able to contain the souls, the Thryssas, or anything else. Time will tell whether Bam will learn to extend this immortality – if that is in fact what he has – to the other souls inside of him.

Closing thoughts

Let’s return to people’s dissatisfaction with the Bam vs White battle. Since I’m running low on steam, I’m gonna bullet-point my thoughts on this fight. Sue me.

· If Bam has been altered by Gong Bang in the specific ways I’ve speculated, White’s fight in the Cat Tower might have clued him in to the possibility that Bam can burn souls losslessly. This would be absolutely devastating to White’s ego for obvious reasons. I think this may account for why White chose this moment to betray Bam when they were fighting alongside each other earlier before Yasratcha’s game.

· The complaints that the fight is long and kind of weightless are somewhat fair in my opinion. If I thought of this as a climactic battle between these two characters, I would be inclined to agree. However, I think SIU's ultimate goals for this conflict as a writer were to adjust the pacing of Bam's storyline relative to Kallavan's, Evankhell's, et cetera, as well as to justify swapping the Hoaquin personality for Vicente. It's not the most elegant solution, but given the sheer number of irons in the fire right now juxtaposed with SIU's ongoing health stuff, I strongly encourage everybody to cut the man some slack. Weekly comics are a helluva grind, and we don't need to make it harder. I would be fully in favor of the series switching to a monthly release schedule.

Similar complaints are made about a lot of what’s going on in One Piece right now (the raid on Onigashima). Much like I believe the raid will fail, I believe that White’s role is far from over. I’m confident we will eventually see all the FUG Slayers together in one place, as one party. White will be there for that.

· I agree that the whole ‘we can fly now’ thing with Khun AA and Rak is kind of embarrassing, to be honest. ‘Cringe,’ as the youth have taken to saying lately. I do, however, trust that whatever SIU is working towards will be worth it. Too much leads up to this specific encounter. SIU went out of his way to establish the Lo Po Bia as the Great Family most loyal to Jahad all the way back in the first part of the story on the Floor of Test. Since then, SIU has been very careful to place seeds for an eventual Lo Po Bia confrontation at regular intervals. Yama’s mad dog in the Workshop Battle, Kaiser’s backstory in the Name Hunt Station, the list goes on. He’s been thinking about this part of the story for a very long time. I’m inclined to forgive some pacing woes.

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Obsessed with the implication that anaak doesn't know khun's name

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It suddenly occurred to me that Yama is probably going to die this arc. Making this post to remind myself to list out all the reasons I think so in another post later when I have more time

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ok so side note i didnt realize my last post on this blog before today was a reblog about Bam being overpowered. i dont really think i have a following that would do this but just to be 10000% clear my intention was not to vague the person i rb'd from months ago and if i see anybody flaming that person or anyone else for complaining about Bam being OP i wont hesitate to block the aggressor. I disagree with that complaint for the reasons I've established in both posts, but thats not any kind of condemnation of anyone making that argument

again i really hope/think i do not have anyone that rude or nasty interacting with my stuff. but i thought i should mention it since i dont think post dates show up on tumblr mobile so app users might not notice those posts being like. months apart i think.

anyway no more meta housekeeping and no more tangents. next job is to finish my thoughts on Bam and then its time to finally get into the thing that inspired me to start this blog to begin with:

Gustang

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it's been entirely too long, but I want to get back to this blog in a big way. A tentative itinerary:

Bam's Evolution 3: Ignition Weapons and Living Ignition Weapons

Bam's Evolution 4: Why Does This Guy Have So Many Souls?

Bam's Evolution 5: Putting the Pieces Together

The Workshop Makes Me Feel Insane

What's This Prick Up To? Madoraco Edition

What's This Prick Up To? Gustang Edition

What's This Prick Up To? Lyborick Edition

What's This Prick Up To? Jahad Edition

What's This Prick Up To? Headon Edition

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Very frustrated that I keep seeing people on here complain about 25th Bam's supposed plot armor when that's actually one of his main character flaws.

Like sure, he can withstand some attacks he shouldn't be able to, and he can punch well above his metaphorical weight class. If you're willing to read through this, I want to do my best to convince you of two things - first, that Bam has always been written with this intent in mind (i.e. that this is not a case of runaway power levels a la Dragon Ball) and second, that the themes of the story are directly served by Bam being OP (i.e. that much of the series' emotional weight is not just in spite of Bam's power, but because of it). I'll be talking about the current arc so if you care about spoilers this is your one and only warning

In order to illustrate the first point as briefly as possible, let's go over a bulleted list of some major moments in Bam's life, as well as some notes on what we can learn from these about Bam's desires and eventual conflicts.

Bam spends his early life in extreme isolation in a cave. He has one friend who occassionally visits, Rachel. As such, Bam has a strong desire for companionship and autonomy.

Rachel tells him not to leave the cave. I can think of three main reasons for this: 1) that Rachel was worried people outside would abuse or manipulate Bam, 2) that Rachel feared Bam's destiny would directly interfere with her dreams in some way, or 3) that the physical environment or the nature of Bam's resurrection prevented him from being able to survive outside.

Bam makes a contract with the Administrator on the 2nd Floor. The Administrator tells him that this contract - arguably the source of Bam's abilities as a Wave Controller - is a shackle. Bam's powers are thus suggested to come at the expense of his autonomy.

FUG manipulates the 2nd Floor testing process to separate Bam from his friends, essentially using them as hostages to make him participate as JVG, Slayer Candidate in their bid to commit regicide. Bam's power and his Irregular status are both explicitly cited in the text as reasons FUG interfered in his life and endangered his friends. Because Irregulars are not bound to the rules of the Tower, Bam is thought to be one of the rare few exempt from the rules of Jahad's immortality contract. This makes Bam's desire for autonomy tragic, because his unusual capability to act as he wants

Bam, as JVG, allows himself to be pulled into the newly-formed Team Sweet & Sour. His FUG mentor realizes how important it is for him to have these new friends and decides not to punish him for violating FUG's earlier command that he pass the floor test alone. From this point on he has three teams of people who are for the most part significantly weaker than himself who all want to climb the Tower with him.

Ok, this got much longer than intended already so time for the lightning round

Bam's initial motivation to be with Rachel

SIU deciding to have Bam basically unaware of, and uninvolved in, Horyang's recovery.

Bam initially rejecting Blue Thryssa's offer of tyrannical power

Endorsi's team turning against Bam temporarily in the Name Hunt Station

Bam's failed promise to save Deng Deng

Khun and Hatz's homoerotically-charged anxiety about the increasing possibility that Bam will simply become too powerful for them to keep up with him, and their desire to continue climbing the Tower with him as long as they can.

Here's a question about the bolded bits above - are these the strategic decisions of someone who intrinsically values victory and strength? Are these conflicts that Bam could have overcome through sheer power and durability? Does Bam's power lend itself to the type of life he wants to live?

This has been a lot, so let's return to the issue at hand: the idea that Bam is 'overpowered' or has 'plot armor.' As much as the phrase 'plot armor' irks me, I do think it signifies a real issue with how stories driven by a Main Character often struggle to make mortal threats the Main Character faces seem credible. I think this is actually one of the reasons for the recent ubiquity of power-fantasy based isekai - faced with the task of dangling the marshmellow over the campfire only to yank it out at the perfect golden-brown moment, some decide not to bother and just eat them straight from the bag instead. There is no 'correct' way to write a story, but in my opinion the most promising isekai authors often do what SIU has done with Tower of God - convert narrative weakness into strength by using the protagonist's invincibility and immense power as a catalyst to introduce conflicts that these superhuman traits cannot directly solve.

I'm sorry if you feel like Bam's power dulls the stakes of the story, but in my opinion these are the highest the stakes have ever been. He has brought some of his closest friends to war with Jahad's army, endangering their lives for the sake of one man - one of the guys responsible for threatening his friends to begin with, at that. Even if weaker characters like Shibisu manage to make it out of this thing without serious injury or death, they will be targets of Jahad's soldiers and assassins for the rest of their lives. Physically, Bam will survive and continue to grow stronger and climb the Tower after the Nest. But otherwise? I see no reason to believe the Nest will do anything less than humble Bam to an unprecedented degree.

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I somewhat agree, altho i think this is a better case than usual for this type of story because his stance is based on anticipating long term consequences that he wants to avoid. Rather than just being emasculated if that makes sense.

Full disclosure i do think that there is probably going to be a major humbling in store for Bam sometime this season, so my willingness to forgive these types of decisions is informed by the assumption that he's going to be punished for it later

Sometimes i love Baam, but he have his moments. I really hate when the mangas/animes show a really tough guy/girl who is considered really powerful and the protag said "idc im much weaker, i'll fight then" and thanks to the plot armor they manage to survive the encounter or even win. I really, i really start to hate this kind of mechanic.

And of course dear Bam he not see you an equal because even you're an irregular you still a kid who have protag privilege