Everyone Else is a Returnee (나 빼고 다 귀환자) Korean Novel

[bludvein]

Originally Posted by Aling11

Am I the only one who feels like the MC is the weakest part of the novel? I mean 1000 years of reading every book in the world, acquiring limitless knowledge, traveling everywhere, and he still acts like a clown who mostly references anime/manga/ln's. He feels the exact same as he did in chapter one. I don't know, I would expect someone like the second god of death from assassination classroom at the very least as someone who has acquired a ton of knowledge and skills and combines them to produce a variety of abilities. I mean I'm reading this novel, and whenever the MC tries to say something wise as a result of his 1000 year experience, I'm just reminded of myself in high school, whenever the teacher would ask me a hard question, I would secretly search up Google under my desk, tell the correct answer, and pretend I already knew it. I think it would just have been better if he was an MC like Muyoung or Hansoo, quiet and serious, and honestly, after 1000 years, I'm shocked he didn't end up like them. I really enjoy reading this novel but the MC kind of kills it for me, I'm curious if it's the same for anyone else?

It's really hard to write from the perspective of a genius, as it would take a genius to know, or at least be in close enough proximity with one to know their thoughts well. Even more so for someone who has supposedly acquired the knowledge of all the books in the world and a variety of experiences and can call upon their wisdom.

His personality is in large part because he's actually kind of insane from his isolation and covers it by joking to keep his spirits up. Even now that everybody has come back he can't relate to them at all. He's depressed.

For all that though, I actually like the jokes and references personally. Not every series has to be serious and a good comedy never hurt.

[Aling11]

My main gripe with his personality was that it exposes his "stupidity". The more someone speaks and talks, the more you are able to piece together how educated, eloquent, knowledgeable they are. And the way Ilhan speaks, it's as if he was the same as before the 1000 year training, but with some references to things that make him seem extremely unscholarly. I'm not against the jokes and comedy, the only reason I suggested a silent MC was because I think the author overstepped his bounds by making a omniscient protagonist, then giving him the sagacity and sensibility of a monkey. This quote sums up what I'm saying: "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt" (Quote attributed to Lincoln but I swear I've heard that from some Greek philosopher somewhere before...) It's easier to feign genius when you keep speaking to a minimum so others can misunderstand and misinterpret your actions for intelligence. That's what the author should have done with Ilhan if he wanted to make an all-knowing protagonist IMO. This is why I have so much respect for Assassination Classroom's author, because in that manga, the second God of Death, is pretty much an extremely inferior version of Ilhan in theory, but when you see how he is presented and how he combines his vast arsenal of knowledge to perform assassination, it really dawns upon you how much of a buffoon and impractical Ilhan is.

That being said, I'm still going to be staying for Rita

[J4n1]

The way i see it, is that the MC is not actually all that intelligent.
Not an idiot, sure, but not all that smart either, and has skewed/weird priorities.
And just because he has read all the books he could, does not mean he remembers much, if any, of most of them, even if he understood them in the first place.

That said, i find the MC too human, thousand years of isolation and training should have left him lot more broken, but as far as we can see, he is just a regular late teens/early twenties kid with little to show for all that training except high physical stats and some crafting/wilderness knowledge.

Maybe future story will show more of his supposed isolation issues, but so far, he's been pretty standard protagonist.

[Aling11]

Well supposedly, he was intelligent enough to learn every Asian language + many more Western languages and is able to learn and efficiently utilize the knowledge from the countless books he read, like being use his knowledge from specialized ship books to find a sturdy and fueled boat (Which may seem insignificant in and of itself, but implies he is able to gain countless skills and retain them) . Note how I say "was" because after the monsters show up, all of that goes down the drain and so starts his descent to idiocy.

[cabman11]

You can still have a large amount of knowledge and still act and behave like a regular person.
Knowledge doesn't automatically make you act like the silent cold always logical super intellectual type. This is a fun having guy who likes to have fun.
If he didn't have such a personality he would have gotten depressed a long time ago and probably gone insane. If he's not already insane.

+ humanity is back so he's pretty damn happy

[SinsI]

He wasn't all alone all those years, so he shouldn't be too warped; besides, time flies if you are doing something you like.
The one thing I'm surprised of is that he managed to restrain himself from masturbating for a thousand years - now that's a feat!

[Rasket]

Wait, rather than abstaining from masturbating, wasn't it something along the lines of Lita showing up often enough that made him refrain from it?

[s.a.w..]

I think the idea is that he didn't notice the time go by and pretty much didn't change. He seems like he absorbed many things without thinking it through. Can you remember and put to use all of your knowledge?

[SinsI]

Originally Posted by Rasket

Wait, rather than abstaining from masturbating, wasn't it something along the lines of Lita showing up often enough that made him refrain from it?

That's exactly the reason for his involuntary restrain.

[cabman11]

Originally Posted by s.a.w..

I think the idea is that he didn't notice the time go by and pretty much didn't change. He seems like he absorbed many things without thinking it through. Can you remember and put to use all of your knowledge?

But the thing is a lot of knowledge is redundant. So heal still possess a massive library of humanities knowledge

[J4n1]

Assuming he retained any real amount of that knowledge.
With no real world applications, or any real world experience, reading a book once is not going to do much for education.

I'd expect him to have ton of survival and craftsmanship knowledge, some mechanical skills, and bits and peaces of random trivia of every subject that is unlikely to connect to anything usefull 99.9% of the time.

But because the author does not have that trivia floating around, we are unlikely to see it come up all that often (also, it would serve little narrative purpose in a world as game adventure story).

[mufarasu]

Originally Posted by cabman11

You can still have a large amount of knowledge and still act and behave like a regular person.
Knowledge doesn't automatically make you act like the silent cold always logical super intellectual type. This is a fun having guy who likes to have fun.
If he didn't have such a personality he would have gotten depressed a long time ago and probably gone insane. If he's not already insane.

+ humanity is back so he's pretty damn happy

^This.
A lot of behaviours of the MC that people seem to take issue with are those that would have been shaped by the society one inhabits. If the MC is alone then obviously none of that societal knowledge/behaviour would be learned.

His only idea of what societal behaviour will be like is from any media he went through and Lita (I discount the first few years of his life because I think it would be overshadowed by the 1000 years he spent with her). Except Lita is an angel/higher existence. Not the best person to pick up social skills from in order to interact with other humans. So the MC will act as he damn well pleases.

[Darius Drake]

Originally Posted by SinsI

He wasn't all alone all those years, so he shouldn't be too warped; besides, time flies if you are doing something you like.
The one thing I'm surprised of is that he managed to restrain himself from masturbating for a thousand years - now that's a feat!

The difference between Complete Solitary Confinement and Solitary Confinement with another person IS huge & important. Doesn't change the fact that he should be batshit insane from just 100 years with only one source of "human" contact. Hell, from an Angel's point of view, one angel who went through those same 1000 years went off her rocker in obsession with him, while he's also sent a second angel "insane" in only a couple of months of knowing her. And that's a "species" that has their emotions near completely suppressed.

[Lhklan]

Originally Posted by obnuchious

well, that much was obvious, her being annoying and such . . . .

and we're all just waiting for Erta to finally and officially fall for MC

She has already fallen for him. She's just being Tsun about it.

Originally Posted by Darius Drake

The difference between Complete Solitary Confinement and Solitary Confinement with another person IS huge & important. Doesn't change the fact that he should be batshit insane from just 100 years with only one source of "human" contact. Hell, from an Angel's point of view, one angel who went through those same 1000 years went off her rocker in obsession with him, while he's also sent a second angel "insane" in only a couple of months of knowing her. And that's a "species" that has their emotions near completely suppressed.

To be fair, that kind of determination, time ignoring focus and blase attitude in the face of danger is kinda not normal.

He'll just look at the Pile Bunker. Only an off kilter person would make it AND make it work

[Ebrie]

I never took this as a story that's supposed to have strong characterization or developed themes. Instead, the author wanted to make fun of a lot of game-like novels and uses this story as a vehicle for those quips. Yu Ilhan to me is just meant to be an amusing dude like Satou, except with more wordplay and less harem antics. If people don't enjoy the comedy, why continue reading?

[Lhklan]

Spoiler for Not only making them heretical, but masochistic too?!:

[Why don’t you become the God of Concealment later?]
“If you make me into one, I’ll make you exclusive to me and make you suffer all your life.”
[I, if you can do it, then why don’t you try……?]

Erta’s cheeks reddened. Since she was resenting herself for thinking that maybe not so bad, she had missed the spectacle of the Giant Death Stalker charging through the highlands with a high speed. Around that time, Kang HaJin and Na YuNa also noticed its presence.

Spoiler for Now a lying angel wrestler?:

[You intended to receive help from Yu IlHan from the beginning, right?]
[N, no.]
[If you’re honest, I’ll forgive you.]
[In fact, I did intend that!]
[Angel Sleeper Hold!]
[You liar, *Screams*!]

[Angel Cross Choke, wait, what!?]
[3rd class magic stones are appearing already!? *Screams*!]

Ah, Erta. You never fail to amuse me.

Also, how convenient it is that just when Yu Illhan is about to reach the Rookie Reaper class, an actuall Reaper like creature show up for him to loot.

[Vocah]

Originally Posted by Lhklan

Also, how convenient it is that just when Yu Illhan is about to reach the Rookie Reaper class, an actuall Reaper like creature show up for him to loot.

I wouldn't really call that convenient, since he still is only at 1st class.

[cabman11]

I think he means the fact that while he's trying to get the super rare Reaper class something that looks like an actual Reaper showed up

[Lhklan]

Originally Posted by Vocah

I wouldn't really call that convenient, since he still is only at 1st class.

Put up one he'll of a fight despite said reaper being 3rd and him 1st AND a whooping 100 difference in levels.

... and what did the author say about this NOT being a harem again? Cause I'm pretty sure he just got saddled with another potential pursuer, with this one harder to get rid of then usual.

[bludvein]

Originally Posted by Lhklan

Put up one he'll of a fight despite said reaper being 3rd and him 1st AND a whooping 100 difference in levels.

... and what did the author say about this NOT being a harem again? Cause I'm pretty sure he just got saddled with another potential pursuer, with this one harder to get rid of then usual.

Author never said other women wouldn't like him, just that he would only end up with one(Lita).

Spoiler for Opinion and Spoilers:

That said, I'm nursing a suspicion he's changed his mind with Erta and Empress. They are given quite a bit of development and scenes of their own. Yuna seems safe since she gets shot down as comic relief repeatedly, and she seems mostly there to drive Empress' sense of rivalry since they are friends.

Lita/Liera is the only one that seems a definite though.