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thispatternismine) wrote2025-11-15 11:58 am
New SVSSS Extra musings
Firstly, the gacha system of characters who are willing to give up their lives sounds super interesting for about 2 seconds on account of the angst (Shen Jiu chose to die!). But then it falls apart. Is the System polling characters on their willingness to die? (How would that work? Is there a random voice showing up in people's heads asking if they want to die?) Or does it assess people's emotional state & if they have a low moment at some point, that's enough to count? Does it only happen to characters who have had some kind of potentially fatal accident or illness & the System checks in then to ask? Considering you'd still need a character who is part of the story in some way, surely you'd have a pretty small pool of takers who would say yes. (Also Airplane transmigrated when SQH was a child, so was that kid's childhood so miserable that he was willing to die?)
Also, Shen Yuan gets brought in because Xiang Fei/Airplane failed to make any changes to the plot, but HE NEVER RECEIVED ANY INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THAT. But it's somehow his fault he changes nothing & the System has No Choice but to bring in someone else?
That would work if he had no System to guide him - considering it's established that LBH is the System's power source but he transmigrated before that point, into SQH as a child, it'd make sense if he only had instructions from the Hibernation Mode AI Assistant to guide him ('Greetings User! Bound role: Shang Qinghua! Mission: Join CQMS within X years & become head disciple within Y years! [insert punishment for failure here]! Please work hard!') until LBH is born. But we see him getting instructions from the System in the Airplane Extras, & that System reacts to his actions & the world around him, so he clearly has a proper System by that point at least, & not just an AI Assistant.
So it's giving him instructions (he gets a mission objective when MBJ shows up, & an order to become Head Disciple) & penalising him for a random thought he has. But setting him a mission to do anything to improve LBH's life is impossible, apparently. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The closest it comes to letting him deviate from what he assumes to be the set plot is it not objecting when he considers killing MBJ, but MBJ is a side character whose role can presumably be filled in by someone else if needed, & that's right after it docked points for him thinking of changing the narrative by running away from CQMS, so he's getting mixed signals at best. (And there are plot points set in stone to prevent the narrative veering off too far from what it 'should' be, so like what do you even want here, System?)
I think these additions bother me especially as SVSSS is a wonderful commentary on storytelling & characters & how we interpret/respond to those stories & characters, & just going 'nah actually it's real & we beamed a story into the author's head so he can write it down & make it real & any additions & changes he made were bad' makes it lose a lot of the magic.
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I've seen similar ideas being better executed in other places, so that might have coloured my opinion on the new extra. The rest of the extra is fine though. I'm glad that Luo Binghe was finally able to meet Shen Yuan face to face, and Luo Binghe finally heard it from his shizun regarding the Endless Abyss incident.
Thank you for sharing your musing. It's fun reading your thoughts regarding the extra.
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