Originally Posted by Natsurin
EDIT: Oh boy. Posts were made while I was writing. Sorry, Loremaster and dniv, I'll have to address your posts in a later one (since this is already pretty long and double-posting won't do) after I've read them.
@Lazy_Hunter
I've said Index specifically, yes, but I never actually said anything about other light novels simply because firstly, I don't follow any other novel that has a large enough fanbase for it to be a problem, and secondly that that's not the same standard other people hold it to most of the time. It's a general rule that the more popularity a work has, the more rabid and aggressive fanboys or haters it'll attract and that showed during the SAO grand war, but I can't actually say anything about novels I'm not reading or people would then be trying to discredit my posts on my mindlessly hating things I don't even know much about in the first place.
That's where you're starting to head into assumptions and dodging parts of my message to invalidate my points. There was actually a time there I thought Index was a pretty high-tier novel as well and for those specific volumes I still think that way (because apparently this subforum struggles with the notion of "grey areas" rather than full on black or white, I guess it's easier to flag people when you don't have to ponder the implications of what they're saying when they're saying they don't like something in this series). And while no one's openly saying it, some people are definitely acting the part and almost act offended on the handful of times their opinion of Kamachi's beautiful prose was contested and argued against by pointing out a flaw or anything that might compromise the idea that it's not a perfect work unless it's widely agreed by the entirety of the fanbase that it was a really shitty flaw (but it's so uncommon that I don't even have an example that would immediately pop to mind besides the useless baiting for marketing purposes of early NT volumes), and that's certainly not a behaviour I was the only one subjected to.
Since you're also conveniently foregoing this and the numerous times I mentioned not hating this series (but that's fine, that's basically to be expected at this point), as I mention later in my post, I don't care about whether or not they love it, what bothers me is how they express that love and you can't say this fandom hasn't been prone to the most absolutely nonsensical circlejerking and other absolutely retarded behaviour born of a suprematist mindset of "agree with our superior opinions, or fuck off from our precious subforum" that the mods had to repeatedly intervene and separate just to quell. Weird how Index isn't the only light novel series with such an admittedly difficult series structure and rabid fandom issues, but was the only one that was forced to be separated so much just to keep tidy and peaceful if the fanbase is, as you seem to think, not that bad compared to others...
If you love something, that's good for you and not my place to say anything about it as long as it floats your boat. But if you're constantly going to circlejerk (and, again, don't you dare tell me this very subforum has never been very heavily oriented towards circlejerking people who had unfavourable opinions when there was a time where barely mentioning some characters would get you flagged as a fag who had no credibility) because you like it and don't accept others don't like it, or are just generally shit at expressing your love for the series in a mature way where everyone can agree to disagree, then that's an entirely different problem.
Like I said far too many times now, I don't like where the series is going, but I've never encouraged anyone to do anything or attack anyone on the opposite stance. The most I've done is just defend my point because you guys seem to translate every non-"this is a great novel" to "I hate this and I'm just here to mention that" when, if any attention was paid, it would've gone noticed that I've mentioned repeatedly liking this series prior to where it went wrong in my opinion. Again, must be more difficult to process when trying to categorise people as "worthy or filthy infidels incapable of understanding the great truth" or some other bollocks.
Once again, not paying attention to my point to say it's personal grudge and forego entirely what I'm saying. What I said was that Index was not written with a message in mind to begin with, and its sole messages are the thematic ones that may be included in a volume, simply because it was never planned to even grow at the size where it could deliver a message.
Or go ahead, find an actual message that the series as a whole in Kamachi's mind wants to deliver to its audience, because chances are there aren't on the sole basis that there doesn't need to be for it to be able to entertain people.
I'll concede my next paragraph was rather poorly written and expressed, but once again it's not that exact mindset that bothers me (if a plot point truly surprises you, good for you, I'm not going to sell myself as someone who sees everything coming just to make others feel like idiots since even this series surprised me a few times whether in a good or bad way) but the expression that's as if Index is unique in that regard is what's annoyingly short-sighted. Most of the time, it's not, and the fanbase needs to seriously take a step back when it comes to literally praising everything Kamachi writes because... well, it's Kamachi, and clearly anyone else who doesn't agree is mistaken to his greatness as opposed to other works (that could very well be worthy of similar praise in different ways).
I find it rather interesting you seem quite attached to this "strawman" term to discredit what I'm saying, not only rather poorly at that since you're not tackling the other half of my message which said there was no message to be read in Index which was a rather considerable part of my entire post, despite affirming yourself you had no experience with Index communities beyond this one and my repeatedly affirming I've had involvement with other Index communities as a whole, and not just restricted to English ones and mentioning two times at that that what I was saying didn't restrict itself to AnimeSuki alone.
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