Posted by  |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
「みんな、腹黒くね？」 (Minna, Haraguroku ne?)
“You guys are kind of awful, huh?”
This week’s episode of Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? sheds light on much of the lore that surrounds the different faiths and ideologies of the universe. But as Kumoko and Fei will eventually come to learn, their status as beasts cause them to have to tread carefully when roaming around the elf and human cities
What this episode helps to establish is how Kumoko would eventually end up as such a huge, important figure in the world, namely through her efforts to keep Sophia safe. While she keeps on racking up a body count, she finds that most of the people going after Sophia were bandits that we ultimately found out were hired by Potimas to snuff the two of them out. On top of all of this, the personal vendetta that the Followers of the Word have against them both along with Potimas for abducting children makes it clear that allegiances are all over the place with this world’s faith systems.
At the same time, the Goddess Sect is also at war with the Followers of the Word as oppositional religions that also haven’t been able to make heads-or-tails of Kumoko. Everyone else sees Kumoko as either a scary demon monster or as an insulting blasphemer, but the latter would be the type of people who belong to the Goddess Sect who find spiders to be sacred. Humorously enough, those who couldn’t know better ended up assuming that Kumoko was a blessed deity for being able to heal the maladies of a young boy and his mother, causing the entire town to see her as a guardian who blesses followers of the Goddess Sect.
It’s a nice surprise to have so much of the tensions between the Goddess Sect and the Followers of the Word unpacked this time around since it relates to both the struggles Kumoko has to endure and what Shun’s party has to keep in mind. With dragons also being a religious figure, Fei is forced to dress heavy so that the religious town they’re passing through doesn’t see Fei herself as a blasphemer insulting them with her feathers. Likewise, Potimas’ abduction plan bridges the gap between Kumoko and Shun’s times with how the elves have been trying to take all of the reincarnations. With how Sophia and her mom have been handling Kumoko, I’m also curious as to what they’ll do with such information once their storyline starts to diverge with Shun’s.
I wonder if there are other kinds of elves in this world, since based on everything so far these elves perfectly fit criteria of the dark elves of every other universe, scheming, backstabbing stealthy assassins, it’s no wonder Ariel wants to wipe them clean, they’re literally pieces of shit of any universe they exist it. We need some high elves in this.
Drow would be worshiping the spiders, not trying to oppose them.
I expect pontimus is just following the desires of his “daughter” Miss Ooka, reincarnated as an elf and his daughter, who wants to gather up all the reincarnations of her students and bring them to safety in the elf village, away from the looming religious war and the humans who might exploit or ruin them.
A story centered on Shun would have been the typical isekai story, but one of the things that makes Kumo Desu ga, Nani ka? such a good story is showing how those “I’m the hero!” nonsense tropes is just Shun (or wannabe hero Hugo) playing tiddlywinks while Ariel, Dustin, and Potamas are playing 8th dimensional chess, with Kumoko being the chaos agent extraordinaire.
there was a nice trope once…
“30 xanatos pileup”
And I think we have a variant here:
Word of God pontif has own conspiracy, while Elves do their level best to kidnap (or kill ) Sophia. Ariel is in the background with whatever she plots (come on, you dont get to be Demon King without somekind of grand plot…) , and there is multitude of lesser players , last but not least beign Kumoko…
Loved how one healing turned into multitudes seeking her blessing.
“That escalated quickly”
After this episode, seeing what Sofia did to Potimas is understandable.
Still waiting to see how she really suffered though.