Verse 6 Afterword

Hi lads and lasses!

The latest instalment of A Hero Past the 25th is now successfully completed and out, and I thought I'd do a little light novel-style afterword to commemorate the occasion.

I haven't done this kind of thing before for any my stories. I've tried, but it always seems kind of superfluous for the author to comment on his own work. Everything necessary is already between the covers, right?

I've always been a supporter of the  "death of the author"-principle, which I loosely take to mean that every reader's interpretation of a work of art is just as valid as that of the author himself. I know that's not exactly what Roland Barthes was going for, but whatever. It's a bit gross for the author—or anyone—to go tell others "this is wrong, you can't think like this!" All the teachers do that, but yeah. Not cool.

Well, when I adopted this (a little naïve) ideology, a scenario like this never occurred to me.

The newest book reached unusually high engagement levels. There were a lot more comments posted for every chapter than before, for which I was very, very glad. Mostly glad. Discussion is always a good thing, yes? It brings us up in the charts and draws new readers.

But through the discussion, I also noticed a bit strange phenomenon.

The further we go in the series, it seems the further the commenters' views of the story diverge from my own vision.

Normally, the more you read someone's writings, the more you grow attuned to their mindset, and the more your expectations start to match with what is likely to happen—and in some readers' case, this is absolutely true.

But with a handful of people, it seems our views are just drifting further and further apart, and this kind of raises concerns that the future developments are really going to come out of nowhere for them, and hit them in even more unpleasant ways.

Of course, you can't and shouldn't draw strong conclusions based on 2-3 commenters, when each chapter gets 200+ views within the first week of posting.

Most readers don't feel strongly enough about things to share their thoughts, or they're just content with hanging back and enjoying the ride. Or maybe they're shy? 

Then again, neither do they object to these few active commenters, so we can't say for sure how they feel.

One way or the other, I thought I'd do this afterword now as a sort of "director's commentary track", to clear up some things and tell at least to you, my esteemed patrons, that I'm not just messing with you. 

Or maybe I am, just a little.

If you haven't read the book yet, then you should save this essay for later.

Okay. So, pirates.

I wrote extensively about why I chose this setting before launch, so I'm sure you remember. I also mentioned that I expected this part to be particularly polarizing, for reasons, and while the events did provoke strong reactions from time to time, they did so in ways I entirely failed to see coming.

Like, I had this idea in my head before that people generally love pirates.

I love pirates! These Robin Hood-style "taking from the rich and giving to the poor"-type vigilantes, who battle evil and corruption in the name of freedom—they've appealed to readers throughout the ages. Sinbad, Sandokan, Peter Pan, Jack Sparrow, Edward Kenway, Red Rackham, etc, I wanted to write a story in the vein of the classic amusement park attractions.

But, going by the reactions, I couldn't have been more wrong, even if I tried.

The commenters quite unanimously condemned crime at sea, asking no reasons, and wished only a painful death upon everyone affiliated with the pirate side from the start.

Yikes.

It was an uphill battle from square one. Instead of reading the story as the sort of B-tier summer blockbuster it was written as, the commenters took it with the seriousness of a news broadcast, and seemed more outraged than amused that empresses should be kidnapped. Although, it seems to me nobody actually even likes Yuliana.

I'm not entirely sure if the ire was justified.

It was written that the Confederacy was not a unified soccer team, who all wear red shirts and murder babies as a rite of passage. Not at all. By the time Yuliana reaches Harm's Haven and meets the Prince, the reader should realize that the dreadful syndicate they've been told about is a sham, the title of "pirate king" a bad joke. A turkey that spreads its feathers and makes noise to seem bigger than it actually is to fool its enemies.

The confederates were a haphazard collection of seafarers and their followers, who would go for years without ever meeting or talking to each other, minding their own businesses. They were only very loosely united by the Prince against the threat of the neighbouring Empire. He went around winning the support of the less vile among them, eliminating more villainous rogues along the way, but the effort was, as may guess, titanic and far from finished only three brief years later.

There were maniacs among them, like Captain Greystrode and his associates, who represent the genuine, traditional pirates in the story. Over the half a century he'd been in business, Greystrode had gathered the extra-imperial crime lords on land under his influence, and he certainly allowed no one else any control or say in his affairs, as you might figure by his character. His personal mafia was practically disconnected from the "confederacy" altogether, and he merely lent some his assets to the cause when it best suited him, to earn the council's faith.

Then there were the likes of the Prince of Luctretz and Captain Aprophiste, who robbed or murdered no standard capitalists, but engaged in a stealthy guerrilla war against the Imperial forces and their agents, as well as prominent criminals. And for a good reason, seeing how up until six months prior, Tratovia had plotted to invade Luctretz with force, and paid the likes of Greystrode to sabotage the country (which, I imagined, is what led the Prince to cut off his arm and blind his eye).

Then there were all the other captains in between these extreme ends, ranging from merchants to mercenaries, witches and alchemists, outcasts who belonged nowhere. Summarily labelling them all the same, accomplices deserving of the same punishment, would be a little unreasonable, in my opinion.

But, writing a chronicle on the pirate order was not the point of this already too long book. I established the rough main points, implied things here and there, and hoped the readers would fill in the blanks with their imagination. And they certainly did, repeatedly expressing their wish to see the confederates and their families all slaughtered, for what I believe were misattributed sins.

I admit, this was pretty disheartening for me, especially considering the message of the book.

"The spirit of the law is to judge people not for who they are, but for what they do, and why they do it". But no matter how many times it was reiterated, the idea failed to stick.

When writing the first draft, I worried the readers would sympathize with the confederate side to the point that they would begin to detest the already dubious imperial side more in turn. A massive miscalculation on my part.

In stark contrast to their condemnation of the pirate side, the commenters wasted no time hopping on the Imperial bandwagon. The Empire which, up until thirty-four chapters ago, was the source of all the evil and misery in the human realm, and were shown to be in no hurry to change.

No commenter thought to point out the ethical issues in threatening to nuke the almost-million oblivious people of Efastopol, or mass-executing minor offenders just to send a message, but were rather impressed by the gall. What happened to all the morality?

I think that wouldn't fly, even in America.

It's not like I ever intended the tale to become a debate of who is more correct than the others. The main theme of the story is that anyone, anyone, can become a villain if pushed far enough—a process embodied in the character of Sai-Lin, but illustrated also by Izumi's development.

But, murder and destruction are apparently OK, when the hero does it.

Rather than being horrified at how low a person can stoop when Izumi kills uninvolved civilians to make her operation smoother, the commenters only cheered her on.

Nothing seemed to cloud our champion's star.

When writing the final chapters, I feared the entirely unwarranted animal abuse would make the readers detest the protagonist too much. I thought long and hard how to portray the events in a way that would make her actions seem less—well, evil. An entirely wasted concern. The commenters seemed mostly only frustrated that she didn't go all the way.

I couldn't imagine a more unjust conclusion!

Had Izumi killed the Prince and Eryn without even knowing who they actually are, she would've ended up with another crushing regret to bear on a list of too many, and made Yuliana forever her enemy. And, well, also indirectly destroyed the world, but let's not get into that.

I guess many today are conditioned by the mainstream entertainment products, where anyone opposing the main character is a bad guy by default, and the bad guys are evil because they are evil, and you don't have to think too deep on it.

But one of my main goals with this whole series has been to obliterate that bland factory setting, and go like, "hey, what if the bad guys were people too and they weren't all exactly the same every time?" Taking things further here, what if the antagonist were actually more of a hero than the "hero"? I thought that'd be an interesting scenario to explore, but it looks like these layers didn't connect with the readers.

I had hoped everyone could feel relieved that no more were murdered for the evil of others, when the actual villain was already gone. The living have the chance to work and make up for their mistakes—a labor from which the dead are forever freed.

Oh well, that's that. There'd be many, many more points to address, but I shan't bore you further.

Of course, I think it's entirely fine to just turn your brain off and not think about any of what I wrote above. It's essentially just flavor text. Sit down with some chips and laugh at the absurd, over-the-top things as they happen. I personally think that's the optimal experience. I laughed many times when writing this story, and shed tears too.

Just, don't think I wrote what I did to deliberately make you suffer.

This is only a work of fiction, seriously...

Anyway, I think we've explored the themes of justice and humanity enough in the series by now. It's time to return to port and seek different adventures entirely.

Did this help you see the story in a different light? Or was it all obvious to you? I thought it was fairly clear, but well, guess not. In any case, I sincerely hope you found the long voyage at least a little interesting, despite everything. That would make my many sleepless nights thinking about it worth it.

If you like, I could do a little afterword for the earlier parts too?

Thank you very much for reading!

Coming up next on the distant horizon, Side Story C, which I believe you'll get to read sometime in March. What else after that? We'll see!

More news at a later date!

For now, bye-bye!