<So I'm a Spider, So What> Volumes 15 & 16. Honestly, a bit of a disappointment. Not that it was bad but 15 seems to set up for something really great and then 16 ends up being mostly predictible with little payoff. Like, the payoff in volume 14 was HUGE! But volume 16 leaves barely any room for epilogue.

And like, the cover of Volume 16 shows Ariel and White sitting happily together. Like they just won and where so exhausted they collapsed there on the spot. SPOILER: THAT DOESN'T HAPPEN!

And then there's this art!

When I saw that I was like "OH SNAP!" I had already suspected something was up from the wording before about "An evil god wants to sacrifice half of humanity". It's initially implied by the context that it's White but "evil god" has always been D, so maybe because White is D's protoge she's also evil? I also thought maybe the "evil god" could've been Guli-Guli because he was on the wrong side of the conflict and Team Ebony's plan would result in a worse fate for humanity than Team Ivory. But no, it's D. Which could've been okay except I don't feel the author handled it well.

I DO like how if you pay attention to the wording it actually becomes obvious that the ivory god and the ebody god are not the evil god because the adjectives have changed! But anyway...

I really feel the author wrote themselves into a corner and didn't quite know how to finish the story, especially given his self-imposed time constraints. Like one of the strengths of the series is that defeating the bad guy doesn't solve the world's problems. It isn't just your typical "defeat the demon lord and save the world" iseaki. And that means you can have a DEEP villain with lots of backstory and motives. But since he's the cause of the problems and not the source you still have to deal with the problems afterward. Which means you need another villain or challenge to overcome so the story doesn't just become a laundry list of chores to check off.

Concerning the ending as written

So the author decides to make D the final boss? D is already established as the most powerful being in the series. You can’t have a fight with someone like that unless the author gifts everyone a package labeled "Plot Armor: Pre-Activated." Barring some insane turn of events that was never going to work well. And we don't get any insane events; just your standard predictible showdown.

And no, not the showdown between White and Guli-Guli. Turns out that didn't matter AT ALL. Not even the prayers to decide who would win. All meaningless. The "world quest" is instead completed by less than a dozen side characters. Yay?

And even just to get to the ACTUAL showdown it was a stretch. D making a big empty void and just casually waiting for people to teleport to her? Rondalt uses never before seen magic to do the teleportation? Ariel just letting her enemies waltz into the System Core even though she's in a weakened state and has basically already won? Even the message Oka gets is ham-fisted. "Oh, D made your skill so she must've messed with it to give you a personal message" my foot!

And why was the Sword of the Hero even there at all? And Ariel just GIVES it to Shun? It was stupid! And wait, didn't using the Sword of the Demon Lord last time drain a MASSIVE amount of MA Energy from the planet? Shouldn't Shun's wasteful use of the Sword of the Hero have basically ruined the planet forever? And D made the thing so of course it's not going to be more powerful than D herself.

And do I even need to mention that Shun&Co are so underleveled and weak that they don't even matter?

So of course D was going to wipe the floor with them until White shows up. I will say White "spawn camping" D was pretty hilarious though.

One more thing... according to D, the Pontiff's plan to sacrifice Guli-Guli, White, and Sariel wouldn't have given them enough energy but White's plan to suck Guli-Guli dry (but keep him alive) and then use all her own energy to save Sariel and all of humanity would have worked? That doesn't make any sense. I guess the Pontiff wasn't planning on shutting down the system? But without the Gods there would be no core! Anyway...

So what was the payoff for getting through that ridiculous ending? One or two lines about what happened to each person with a good chunk of them being "We don't know what happened to them." Ridiculous.

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

[–] Mercuri@ani.social 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (6 children)

PART 2

How I would have handled the ending

Asking a god to fix everything was the LAST thing I would have expected because that's how they got into that mess. So Shun pissed me off in that regard, although D did point out that Ariel used White's God powers. Regardless, I don't think the solution is to have D just fix things, especially since we all know she could snap her fingers and be done with it. That's a boring and unsatisfying ending.

There's also already WAAAAY too many people willing to die for their cause so a heroic sacrifice ending would be boring too.

So what do we do instead? Well, I could see it going down two ways.

First, power creep. This is more-or-less trying to keep with the original ending.

White has already shown that she has ridiculous growth potential reaching Godhood in record time and all that. And she has clones that can do things in the background. So I ask you this question: If a God is just a being with a lot of energy, where do they get their energy from? We know that White got it from the MA bomb but how about beings like D and Meido? And the way D and Meido talk at the end implies that energy is a scarce resource even among Gods.

So the story plays out more-or-less the same except this time when Oka checks Student Roster she sees "Killed by the Evil God D" next to the status of Shun&Co. You know, so the skill is working as intended and not just some random mysterious deus ex machina hint. She puts two and two together and realizes that D is the evil god. Like, white is the color of good... DUH! The reincarnations decide they need to confront the "evil" D.

They do telephone for exposition and because they have to pick up Sophia, Wrath, and Ariel for 'reasons'. Rondalt teleports them all to the Lower Stratum which he's been to before (Seriously, why did they have to ride from the ENTRANCE of the Labyrinth in the first place?). After a confrontation with Wrath, they make it to the Bottom Stratum. They then use the System's connection to talk to D, who then pulls them all into a dimension of her creation (same as Guli-Guli did). More exposition happens while everyone pisses their pants at D's power. Miss Oka is shocked to learn that her benefactor is the tiny spider she saved and silently thanks White for everything.

Shun being Shun idiotically challenges D because "even if there's no chance I still have to try" and they fight, with D not even taking the fight seriously because there's no fun in that. When all hope seems lost because D is too powerful, White shows up and kicks her into next week. She proclaims she brought friends, then drops an unconscious but still alive Guli-Guli in front of Oka and Shun so they can heal him.

Rewind to earlier when Guli-Guli pulls White into the alternate dimension to fight. It turns out White figured out how to get energy the godly way (what do you think her clones were doing in that alternate dimension all this time?). And she stored all that power in her scythe, which was also in that alternate dimension! I dunno, she sucked it out of the sun or stole all the magic from Earth that they weren't using or something. Anyway, since the extra power was in the alternate dimension because she was hiding it, she was initially losing to Guli-Guli. Powered up White is now maybe half as strong as D, especially after also stealing Guli-Guli's energy with evil eyes (hey, they were fighting to the death and he's still alive so it's all fair, okay? okay? okay). But more importantly, she found a way to be immortal so even D can't kill her. I dunno... she puts part of her soul into the planet's MA field or something. The planet is alive therefore it has a soul and therefore White can put her soul into it. Hey, it's not any more stupid than super teleportation! Anyway, D realizes she can't kill white without blowing up basically every planet in the universe. D and White decide on a truce and to team up. It's basically the Ariel/Kumoko situation all over again.

White uses her new God powers to shut off the system without any sacrifices, then tells D she'll be back after she spends some time with Ariel. We get a real epilogue. Sariel and White have funny moments of non-communication with Ariel somehow understanding the entire conversation even though nothing is being said. Also White learns nothing and continues to be a chaos gremlin.

The End.

So I really like that ending but the power creep thing has been done to death. What is this, SSJ White? And there's still loose ends and White just magically fixing everything is kinda meh. So as an alternative I give you: game ending.

D wants the world to be a game and the world quest is indeed a quest. Except the quest is misleading, right? So the "correct" answer is to support the Ivory God because that is the only way things actually work out. As D said, the Pontiff's plan was NEVER going to work. It's also the opposite of what everyone chose when they sacrificed Sariel so it hits harder.

On top of that, people start picking up more quests that hit at the truth of the world and the identity of the evil god. A world quest's outcome should involve the entire world, not just a handful of people who are mostly outsiders! So yeah, everyone gets random quests and as people complete these quests, more power is generated and send to a corresponding god.

So despite Ariel not expecting anything from humanity, humanity actually starts to side with the Ivory god, especially knowing that the System has been running far too long to continue to be viable. As a result White starts winning the fight with Guli-Guli (who was NOT weakened deus ex machina style)

As White gets more power, a voice pops into her head. <Unpacking D's guide to Godliness.>

Yeah, remember that thing D installed onto White when she became a God and then NEVER came up again? Turns out D wanted White to take over managing the planet so she could make it more entertaining for her. White kicks Guli-Guli's butt but doesn't kill him, instead picking him up and dusting him off. What a good sport!

White returns to the planet and goes about fixing things while complaining about how busy she is the entire time. On top of that, the World Quest shifts to tasks to help fix the world.

To fix the system, White basically sets up a robot spider clone to manage it and saves Sariel. While she's at it she saves Ariel too by using System powers to undo the damage caused by Humility (although in the process Ariel's stats will end up only being like 20000 or so for a few hundred years while her soul heals). Everyone on the planet gets the [n% I = W] skill so their souls go into the regular cycle to heal when they die. New souls are given the option to reincarnate into a "Game World" with skills and since they'll only be there one cycle their souls don't get damaged at all.

People like Kunihiko flock to the world and instigate more change and not only fix the planet but make it one of the most prosperous in all of existence. Sophia finally marries Merazophis. Shun restores the Kingdom with Leston as the new king then marries Katia. Sue moves in and lives with Shun and Katia, much to their dismay. Fei and Hyrince have a thing that's on again, off again. Hugo removes the corruption in the emptire while Fei pesters him about it. Miss Oka becomes a teacher. Wrath opens a sword dojo. Kunihiko and Tagawa's ending stays the same, as does Yuri's. Tenth Army act as world police for Administrator White. The puppet spiders get new outfits. Ronandt retires and is frequently seen playing with Fiel. Aurel gets promoted to head court mage. She hates it. Ariel tells White, "Thank you! I love you so much" just like White wanted way back in Volume whatever. They even get married with Sariel officiating. Later White is frequently seen in the Demon Lord's castle with Ariel skipping out on Administrator work playing video games. Everyone gets a happy ending. Even D.

The End.

I think I like Ending 2 better. It hits the themes of the series perfectly and doesn't just solve problems with absurd God powers... again.

I will say that I felt pretty silly that it took me until Volume 16 to realize there was a reveal in the TITLE. Thankfully I got it before White says it at the very end as the last line of the book but boy did I feel dumb.

So I'm a Spider, So What?

Initially I thought the title was about their bad luck getting reincarnated as a spider and their determination to make it work no matter what. But that's only partially true. The TRUE meaning in the title is that they really were just a spider all along. And just like D said, ironic how the throw-away reincarnation was the one to achieve godhood when all the other reincarnations with better skills and abilities couldn't cut it.

Remember, Kumoko's reincartion bonus was Skanda, which is NOT a unique skill like Ninja or Student Roster. She really was a throw-away that D didn't spend any more time than necessary making. I think that's why when Kumoko exceeds D's expectations, D gives Kumoko a proper unique skill in Wisdom.

Another thing I noticed was that while the series starts out as LitRPG, it drops most of it in later volumes. Sure skills and stats come up, but you no longer see big status pages. This is mostly fine since all the main skills have been established and the skills lists were getting overly long.

Also...

White gets kicked from the system and can no longer see skills and stats so by proxy the reader also cannot see skills and stats. It's kind of cool in that regard if you think about it.

CONTINUED IN PART 3

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