Fairy Tail, Chapter 517: Wendy Berselion
So yeah, this chapter kind of renders the discussion in the comments section our previous chapters about Eileen's character kind of moot -- why didn't Eileen do this? Why didn't Eileen do that? Well obviously because she's an absolute fucking moron, that's why. So yeah, after all the nonsense rant about how Wendy is 'gone' and she is now the inhabitant of the body, and unleashing all sorts of attacks on Erza... apparently she's stupid enough not to realize the full extent of her own magic, which means... Wendy ends up possessing her original body and her original powerful magics, basically blasting her and threatening to destroy her had she not cancelled the body-swap.
And apparently magic power doesn't transfer when she body-migrates, meaning even if Wendy by some miracle dies (if Eileen had dealt a mortal wound to her own body, for example, or if her spell worked differently) she would still be stuck in a far weaker form. Yes, Wendy's body has sky dragon magic and yes, we've never seen it used as offensively as Eileen-Wendy is doing now, but still that would entail a significant power downgrade. So yeah.
Oh, and of course the first things both Eileen and Wendy talk about when they wake up in their new body is how small or big their boobs are. Of course. Because that's all women care about in Fairy-Tail-land, apparently, even in the middle of a war. Boobs.
And the two pages of random flashbacks to Wendy moments is totally necessary.
Man, this manga is just bad.
Ah, and here we go back to standard FT fare. So long, somewhat interesting writing in Eileen’s backstory - you were a good change of pace while you lasted. Now time for some good ol’ fashioned unanimous hate.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter just reinforces what my biggest gripe with Eileen was. No matter how much backstory and exposition is given to her, none of it - not even if genuinely good storytelling like the backstory was - can fix how her actual *characterization* sucks. Let’s put aside the customary FT flaws like the tasteless fan service (Erza ass-shots, Eileen and Wendy talking about and weighing their, or rather each-other’s, breasts - oh, and of course the panty-shots for the 12/13-YEAR OLD LITTLE GIRL) and focus on the big issue.
Now, the moment we learned in the last chapter that Eileen and Wendy’s magic had a fundamental similarity of working via enchantments, it set the stage for the take-over of Wendy to be reversed the moment her spell was broken… but I STILL didn’t think Eileen's spell would have such a stupidly-huge drawback as being a potential two-way bridge! Even if it’s badly injured, Eileen’s body and it’s contained magic is still a pretty dangerous weapon to give Wendy - as the chapter itself proves when Wendy turns Eileen’s own power back on her to reverse the spell.
In all honesty, it’s less a flaw in the magic though and more that, like every goddamn FT villain before her, Eileen’s been hoisted by her own petard by having so much power yet doing nothing intelligent with it - the moment she knew Wendy could use the same type of magic as her, she should have destroyed her old body to prevent not just Wendy but *anyone* from reversing the transfer. Instead she wasted all her time gloating and now, after having basically flushed away a ton of magic on attacks that Wendy mitigated and getting a bunch more injuries, she’s set to get her ass kicked by Erza. Add in tasteless irony in that Eileen gets shafted by the very same thing she warned Zeref against (stalling things out instead of quickly finishing them) and it’s the last nail in the coffin for this Mary Sue.
Yeah, Fairy Tail's absolute obsession at making the twelve-year old Wendy fanservice material always disgusts me.
DeleteEileen's as much a victim of her own stupidity as the story's own inherent brainlessness, though. It's just an absolutely stupid little plot point, that Eileen didn't even consider the magic works both ways, that makes her look incompetent as all hell.
Still, did this surprise anyone? Anyone at all?
You mean like how the cover-image for the chapter was Wendy in Eileen's skimpy outfit striking a pose? XD
DeleteWell, yeah, Eileen’s biggest flaw was that we were *told* she was an intelligent and powerful adversary but were only ever *shown* her acting like an idiot by being so ridiculously arrogant and self-righteous that she abandoned all sense of caution and tact. But honestly, that's been the flaw of ALL FT villains - not one of them has been absent the overused flaw of being so cripplingly arrogant that they throw out rational thinking, and then suffer meltdowns when they start getting thrown on their back-foot by their own miscalculations and lashing out. Even characters that we're told are smart suffer from having so much pride that the moment it's hurt, they start making reflexive and incompetent choices.
Still, it's not that the villains being dumb surprised me so much as that it's been taken to such horrible levels even compared to past arcs - which is only magnified by this being what looks like the final arc. Maybe once August (now the last standing Spriggan) inevitably goes down, I’ll write up a breakdown for each of the Spriggans sucked and post that shit up on one of the forums (if for no other reason then it's fun to pull apart). For now though, I'm just counting down the fodder till Zeref is down and the series fucking ends.
That, among other things. Hiro's usually tried to sexualize 'oh, they look young but really are super old' Mavis to satisfy his pedophile audience, with Wendy mostly being reduced to more innocent 'aw so cute' fanservice, but he clearly isn't giving any shits.
DeleteEileen's a special case of utter idiocy, though. I'm honestly trying to think of any other villain who is as stupid as Eileen, and I can only think of Jacob from this arc, who, honestly is a difficult level of idiocy to surpass.
ReplyDeleteThis is amazing dog shit. Okay, starting with the cover page is wendy dressed as Irene in that slutty over designed mess of a costume. Shivers.
So Irene's first thing to do is to check out her new bod it is fine at first with her listing off wendy's injuries like bruises and shit but, we end on her feeling up her breasts commenting on the cute little boobs. Hiro... Have you lost your sense dramatics. This is not a time for jokes by your villains, especially tone deaf ones like this. In One Piece the serious villains the bigger threats they are don't get jokes like this and even then on the smaller villains the jokes don't feel this out of place. It doesn't help that it is creepy because she doing this to a 12-year-old body. If you want to do fan service with small boobs get Levy. I don't care if she is an adult woman mind it is goddamn creepy. So there is a fight and Irene has the upper hand as she is learning...What she is just right away learns all of Wendy's powers very easily without any difficulties.
This creepy for all the wrong reasons but, It is kinda gross how she is talking about a 12-year-old having a child and it being weird. I don't know it just gross it feels really wrong. Blows are exchanged but Erza can't hurt her friend. Which in fairness is done well but, hold on he is going to fuck this up. Irene takes advantage of Erza's weakness beats her up. All is lost when...Wendy takes Irene body.
How? No seriously, HOW? I don't think mavis could use magic as a spirit but more importantly. If what I understand from this chapter is Magic is directly tied to the body. So how can wendy cast a spell without a body i.e. a source of magic? And if this spell is so hard or new how can wendy do it with this kind of handicap? What are rules to this?
This just makes Irene look like an even bigger idiot. Because now. TADA You have made your enemy stronger and yourself weaker. Where is the tension in this scene? Irene is less than a threat she is a joke now.
What happened to your Storytelling because this is high-quality shit. Dear god this is not even fun and light it is dumb.
Wendy in her new super powerful body which Hiro has to mention she has tits now. Just Wow this hilarious. Then she starts wrecking Irene. she is like how are you so strong? SHE IS IN YOUR FUCKING BODY!!!
OH MY GOD! So we have a Beam struggle where wendy is winning and she is pulling Irene out of her body.Irene is a goddamn joke A horrible joke. And a rule of three Titty joke fuck me RAW. In the middle of climatic battle to the death. Ow, hiro really just really.
Irene we are not going to aim for our neck or something you can critically injure yourself. Go back into your body and let wendy go into her dying body and let her die. because if wendy can go into your lifeless body you could go into her lifeless body after you repair it. You are supposed to be smart and cruel. and it works on a character level
No, I don't see Hiro to actually kill a character at this point but, By that would add ticking clock element Erza has to hurry up and Eileen to save wendy.
So we end right back where we start with Irene vs Erza and wendy is down. This was a waste of fucking time.
"Absolute dog shit" is a very accurate description of this chapter.
DeleteThere are times for jokes in battles, but manga like, say, One Piece or Taizai tend to have them happen spontaneously, and usually when fighting weaker villains. Like, Fairy Tail in-battle jokes has both combatants stop and stare as a huge nonsensical skit plays out.
What are the rules to this? Ha ha, it's a futile effort, really, trying to make sense of how magic in Fairy Tail works. Even moreso than any other fictional magic out there, Fairy Tail literally has the 'it's magic, deal with it' thing to fall back on.
It is a waste of time, really. The fact that Eileen doesn't even realize that Wendy would have access to her old body with all of her original magical powers really makes me hard to believe that Eileen's brain would think up a proper strategy like 'oh, let me cripple my old body so Wendy can't use it'.
Well, supposedly, Wendy performed the transfer at the same time Eileen did - it just took her longer to adapt to a foreign body. And I guess her mastering it that quickly is supposed to be because of the "she's a genius prodigy at enchanting like Eileen was" that was shown in the last fight.
DeleteIf anything though, the real idiocy comes from how Eileen was so lost in her own little world that she not only wouldn't notice this happening but didn't bother to actually check around and make sure Wendy's spirit being ejected into nothingness wasn't just an assumption. Any enchanter worth their salt *would* have waited until the battle was over to make a body swap - then you could not only have what you wanted but potentially infiltrate the enemy ranks - but Eileen just doesn't *care* and therefore makes foolish choices. And that in and of itself may be the biggest issue with the series in general - you don't get the sense that the writer himself really cares anymore.
Well, whether it's Wendy somehow managing to pull off a transfer at the last moment, or Eileen apparently not knowing how her own magic works, both are really the fault of the author's shitty storytelling, isn't it?
DeleteTrue enough ^_^
Delete1. First of all, if you look back at Chapter 514, the soldier that informed that Eileen's skin was shedding.....wears the same outfit as the soldier that greeted Belersion, in other words.....Eileen start shedding her skins when SHE WAS STILL THE QUEEN OF DRAGONOF. So yes, I'll let you do the thinking about how Eileen's backstory is garbage.
ReplyDelete2. Look how simple it is to enchant yourself into each other bodies. If it was that simple then why doesn't Eileen spend the rest of her life finding suitable hosts? She wasted a decade of time with Zeref, never trying to enchant herself ever again into anything after failing to do so with Erza until she just took a sword to the head and decides to do with Wendy after decades of just wanking around and wasting time. This asspull of body-swap with no payoff, contributes to nothing except to prove that Eileen is probably the worst thing to happen in this entire arc.
3. Compatibility eh? Remember how Neinhart commented when Erza one-shot his Historias and how her power reminds her of Eileen? So that mean Erza is not only physically related to Eileen, she also identical in terms of magical power TOO. SO WHY CAN'T EILEEN ENCHANT HERSELF INTO ERZA? Utter bullshit that's why.
4. So apparently Wendy got into Eileen's body...How? Lol you silly rabbit, logic isn't for Fairy Tail. So then they swap back and Eileen starts damaging Wendy's body! Oh of course Mashima let's make the character even more of an irredeemable asshole, that's totally gonna help when you try to give us the redemption scene of Eileen. Oh you aren't gonna redeem her and just kill her off? Well why introduce her in to the story in the first place?! She hasn't contributed anything worthwhile, hell you could have just made August cast Universe One instead of her or maybe not call in Acnologia at all since he looks like he's just gonna sit this one out and seem like an idiot.
5. Oh and then Erza goes like, "Leave it to me!" and then proceeds to put on her flaming-pants suit on. Oh boy, here we go again.
6. Sigh well it was better than I expected though. You know, having Wendy push Irene out, through willpower alone. But sooner we bury Eileen and move on, the better.
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Delete1. Agreed, let's move on from this.
Delete2. Agreed but I dunno, I didn't find her magic all that impressive either.
3. Erza sending the Historias away with her stare, comes from her requip magic?
4."...you could make that argument for ALL the Spriggans at this point.."
Yes.
6. :(
2. Well, it *is* basically just a more grandiose version of magic we've already seen before (enchantment and creation) - magic-wise, she's just a level-up of Wendy's booster magic and Levy's creation magic. A lot of the Spriggans are like that, actually:
Delete- Eileen is just a level-up of Wendy's enchantment magic and Levy's creation magic.
- Ajeel is just a level-up from the sand-magic Max (FT's store owner guy) uses.
- Dimaria is a level-up from Ultear's time magic.
- God Serena was a level-up from Laxus' lacrima-based Dragonslayer magic.
- Bradman was a level-up from the Tartaros demons.
- August is just a level-up from Makarov and Hades' massive magic knowledge.
- Jacob is just a level-up of the spatial magic Marlin (Brandish's idiot subordinate) uses.
- Neinhart is just a level-up of Rustyrose's Arc of Embodiment.
- Wal Icht is just a more permanent level-up of the machine-enhancements Jenny (Blue Pegasus Machine Take-Over mage) could use.
- Invel is just a level-up from Gray, Lyon, Ultear and Ur's Ice-Make magic - and not even a good one considering how Gray beat him.
The only Spriggans who had actual new magic unique to them were Branidsh with mass-alteration and Rakheed with sensory-manipulation, and they were used more for fetish fuel (Brandish with the giant or shrunken size-shots, Rakheed's hentai-tentacle scenes), and even then Koyuka kind of beat Rakheed to the punch with manipulating one's senses, even if it was in a different capacity.
Simply put, the reason it might not feel impressive is because almost none of them really had anything truly unique to them.
3. No - that came from raw willpower, *without any magic used whatsoever*. She basically ordered/stared them down/intimidated them into oblivion through force of will... kind of what Eileen does to Neinhart herself when she orders him into the suicidal, senseless act of going after Natsu on foot and he doesn't have the sense to refuse such a stupid order XD.
2. True.
Delete3. Didn't Eileen enchant Neinhart though?
3. And look how well that turned out. Plus, Neinhart's magic is based off creating copies to do the work for him - do *you* want to explain to me how enhancing someone who's (A) already not oriented to physical confrontation and (B) is already expending a crapton of magic maintaining three Historia Copies was supposed to do any good against a melee-oriented demon-dragon-human hybrid fire-mage who's skin seems practically magic-retardant at this point? XD
DeleteFair enough LOL.
Delete