Digital Ink on the Side: Slane Theocracy (Patreon)

Hi everyone, allow me to introduce you to what i hope will become a new column that will come pop up from time to time!

Digital Ink on the Side is a spot where I would like to discuss with you various subjects going from Overlord-related stuff to writing in general. Instead of writing endless author notes, i would very much prefer have everyone interested participate in the discourse as other people's feedback and opinions are the core toward improvement or providing a different view on certain subjects. So please, no matter how small or different your opinion may be, i invite you to type it out.

For the first entry of this series I would like to dwell a bit on one of Overlord's most controversial countries, the Slane Theocracy!

PS: Both TWTS' next chatper and the secret project will be released by the end of the month for those interested.

I always wanted to have a deeper conversation about this most fascinating and polarizing nation. Though, unforutnately, I never found the right space as Overlord fans tend to be a bit too "radical" on certain topics.

As we all know the ST is the oldest country we are aware of and, as we know, is the only other threat to Nazarick other than PDL and his gang. (Tho, after vol.15-16, said threat has been minimized to say the least)

What I find more interesting though, is the fact most readers in the fandom seem to minimize their existence to "human supremacists", which i find far more fitting for the rest of the human countries influenced by the Four Gods religion (which took out the only non-human god known, Surshana, and the god of light, which i personally believe was not human either).

The racist sentiment in Re-Estize and Baharuth is far stronger than anything shown by the ST, the first branding any non-human as "to kill on sight" and the second using them as slaves if their are pleasing enough to the eye.

I actaully believe that the only times we hear about the Theocracy going out of its way to attack non humans is when defending the Draconic Kingdom from human-eating beastmen (which I think is a fair enough response), to make sure the undead from Katze do not grow too much in number (which is also fair considering how those are mindless undead which would attack anything alive), and the war against the elves (which honeslty is Decem's fault to begin with).

Wow this all sounds like i am some kind of ST apologist. But no, honestly I just think most of the fandom is looking at them without trying to understand what is going around them, and the fact they oppose Nazarick doesn't help with their general reputation among fans who just root for the main characters.

But even with Nazarick, can you really fault them for trying to undermine them? (which is an exaggerated term since they did nothing that wasn't for self-protection till now, at worst scheeming or thinking of a way to deal with the Sorcerous Kingdom). For all they know this is a nation popping out of nowhere whose first act was to kill a third of a million humans. And considering undead already have a bad rep against the living, i could not fault them for fearing what would come next after such an entrance. It didn't help when Nazarick decided to genocide the entire Re-Estize Kingdom because of an idiot...

Honestly, i think that if we had more volumes to look forward to, a coaltion between ST and verious countries like the Argland Council and the City-State Alliance, wouldn't be out of the question considering the threat Nazarick poses. Too bad we will never get to see the full power of such a teased country and the conflict that would ensue

Either way, I think it is really a shame Maruyama did not go more in depth with their culture, since they are the only player-founded nation, i really had high hopes for them, considering how they were powerful enough to make even the 8 Greed Kings back off, the Evil Deities too, but I think they were pretty small fries compared to the Kings.

But we all know how it goes when it comes to Overlord since the author decided to give up trying...

Okay, this stream of conciousness is going ways, i should come back to the main subject.

I think the ST had to play a far larger role in the second half of Ovelrord, with now realizing how broken Nazarick is with the revelation about Wild Magic in vol. 14 (another grave mistake in my opinion seeing how wild magic is something outside the tier system and should have been the main danger posed to players and NPCs, by having it countered in such an easy way you basically cheapen the whole stakes of the battle, but that might be a discourse for another entry).

Coming back to ST, they might be the most reasonable country among those we saw. Too bad we will never get to see a prolonged 4D chess game between them and Nazarick.

There is also a part of the fandom that reduce them to "religious wackjobs" which i think is a gross misunderstanding of how faith works in the NW. They are pretty devout, but who wouldn't be when your Gods walked among you and granted you power through Divine Magic? I think that a lot more people would be devout in RL if the god they preyed to answered them by granting power, or left magical artifacts of untold power in their hands. It could have been such a cool concept to explore more in depth, but alas, we are where we are.

There is nothing that i hate more than wasted potential when it comes to stories like Overlord.

And one last thing before i close this.

The only thing i will never forgive is Zesshi's characterization, I know that we haven't been given much by the previous volumes, and i could smell the potential such a long-lived, traumatized, overly-strong (by NW standards), and twisted character did have . And then vol. 15-16 came... completely reducing all her possible layers and complexity to "basic zealot starter pack" which i will never forgive Maru for. Hence why i am doing my own thing with her in TWTS.

Well, i think that was all i had to say, let me know your thoughts, freely diagree! After all confrontation is the mother of development!

Zero out!