(CR) Banished from the Hero's Party Season 2

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Random14

Good thing they came up with a cover story for why Esta was visiting them. Finally the Guide blessing comes in handy again, although Van doesn't even listen to the church much anymore so not sure much Van will listen for long Guide either. At least Red's lessons do seem to be sinking in a bit after they went on that job (with the added bonus of learning a bit more about Lavender's powers), especially with him tailoring them to be simple and logical so not even Van can find much fault with them.

It'd be nice if everything could be resolved peacefully but its probably still a good thing that they're keeping heavy hitters like Ruti and Danan in reserve just in case.

I guess to Red's advantage he's literally meant to be the Guide of the Hero because of his Blessing, so Van's personality and status as the Hero means he has to listen to Red.

[Alchemist007]

With the way Van's mind works, I'm surprised he didn't just star attacking when the two guys entered.

[Lex79]

I was expecting much more drama when Van learned Red wasn't following his blessing, but evidently a "you gave to follow what I tel, you" blessing is particularly effective with someone who believes blessings are everything. It's becoming more likely that Van might be redeemed, but still he has to atone for how he acted until now.

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by Lex79

I was expecting much more drama when Van learned Red wasn't following his blessing, but evidently a "you gave to follow what I tel, you" blessing is particularly effective with someone who believes blessings are everything. It's becoming more likely that Van might be redeemed, but still he has to atone for how he acted until now.

I almost love how he was like "how are you still alive!?" after finding out Red is living his best life without his Blessing as if Red would've rather committed suicide instead .

[AndrewR5D4]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

I suppose there's always the angle that constant conflict is good for faith. And maybe Zoltan is a prime example. Pretty removed from most conflicts, fairly peaceful, and not overly religious. If humans and demons are constantly in conflict they are especially dependent on their blessings to get by.

But yeah, I suppose the question is if there's a tangible gain. Does Demis just really like the idea of being worshipped and thus manipulated factors to get as much as possible?

Your conclusion makes some sense, but the conflict is far from constant. The anime might not have made the mention, but it's worth noting that demons live on the opposite continent separated by a vast ocean, while humans occupy the other. The Demon Lord does send forces overseas to conquer, but if I recall, three of his four generals are dead thanks to Ruti and Theodora, and their forces have been routed.

Conflict is seemingly at a standstill. It's very difficult for humans to stage a proper counterattack on the Demon Lord, since they would have to transport a humongous fleet across the sea into unknown territory to even have a chance. The amount of resources spent would be astronomical, and the result would be like running into a fight blindly with basically nothing to gain.

Assuming Van is the ideal Hero to Demis, his plot to marshal innocent people into battle with brainwashing is highly suspect.

[zztop]

Originally Posted by AndrewR5D4

Your conclusion makes some sense, but the conflict is far from constant. The anime might not have made the mention, but it's worth noting that demons live on the opposite continent separated by a vast ocean, while humans occupy the other. The Demon Lord does send forces overseas to conquer, but if I recall, three of his four generals are dead thanks to Ruti and Theodora, and their forces have been routed.

Conflict is seemingly at a standstill. It's very difficult for humans to stage a proper counterattack on the Demon Lord, since they would have to transport a humongous fleet across the sea into unknown territory to even have a chance. The amount of resources spent would be astronomical, and the result would be like running into a fight blindly with basically nothing to gain.

Assuming Van is the ideal Hero to Demis, his plot to marshal innocent people into battle with brainwashing is highly suspect.

Iirc in the novel, Shisandan explained in the previous story arc as to why humanity and demonkind must fight per Demis' game (unfortunately it was cut out from the anime version).

Spoiler for novel explanation for demons vs humans war:

"Because the balance of power between the two continents grows stale, the Hero and the demon lord must clash. The result of their conflict will upset the stagnant equilibrium. After a time, a new Hero and demon lord appear, and the cycle will continue. These wars have helped develop the world. Civilization, like blessings, can only advance through hardship. After all, the capabilities of the people and demons who lead are determined by the level of their blessings. A large scale war weeds out the weak while the powerful gain levels. And the world advances to a new age on the backs of those chosen by Divine Blessings."

Where basically people of the world are being moved around like game pieces for a god's glorified The Sims playthrough.

[Frontier]

Well, Ljubo thinks that after investigating they should leave Ruti alone and finally leave...but Van won't have it. Especially when he's not having any impulses from his Blessing .

Albert has come a long way from how he was in season 1! Now he's even going out of his way to help out a lost little girl and gushing about Theodora! They really are cute together. Maybe they should settle into a slow life of their own .

Ljubo may be a bit of a corrupt priest who would rather drink than actually resolve any problems, but it seems like his faith in Demis and Van was genuine enough...if still misplaced .

So the lost girl was just playing with a cute dragon fairy the whole time...but of course Van being Van, just sees the dragon fairy as something else to kill. But it takes a real hero like Albert, knowing full well he didn't have a chance, to stand up to Van and protect the true innocent, even at the expense of himself .

And when her man is in danger, Theodora finally loses it and beats Van up! She'd probably been waiting to do that all season and it was so satisfying !

Also nice to see Ruti tear up Lavender, even if it basically gave herself away .

Theodora was once a serious and committed woman of faith, even willing to turn against her former comrades for the sake of the world, but now she's someone willing to fight for the man she loves. And if you ask me (or Red) that's all for the better .

Ljubo finally realizes Van has come too far, especially when he's talking about annihilating all the fay and everyone in Zoltan just to get at Ruti, but it's too late to actually matter...especially when Van stabs him .

Ruti even brought out her armor! And they might need it because Lavender isn't just some Archfay but some ancient long thought dead Calamity in the form of a fairy. Though quite the visual of her naked !

Red thinks "nah, I'd win" to Van and thinks now that he's wavering so much he can solo him and truly resolve this...and he calls out Van for running from his wavering feelings by committing to killing Ruti and rationalizing everything as being what a hero does when he's been acting anything but. But it was Ruti's doubts that let her realize what she was really meant to do and allowed her to truly find companionship in her party .

And as Red and Van begin their showdown, Rit prepares to battle Lavender, both fighting for their respective loves .

[Marina2]

Lavender sure has many interesting facial expression lately I guess she technically their strongest opponent if she didn't need to hide her true form/true power. from Van......so keeping Van alive can prevent her from going berserk.

[FlareKnight]

You know...I kind of like the idea that the strategy to handle Van kind of blew up in their faces. The only downside is that I don't think it actually blew up enough. The only real casualty was someone no one even cares about.

Everyone was so overconfident that they could handle how someone this unstable might react an attempt to change course. Red may have intended good things from trying to steer Van in a better direction. But he underestimated how it might backfire. And trying to handle the priest was truly pointless in the bigger picture. Heck, Esta pretty much stopped trying because hey Red probably has it covered. And the consequence was Albert getting utterly demolished.

They tried to play it safe and get an idealistic result where Van would leave and Ruti could live quietly without her identity being discovered. Lucked out that Esta actually went to check on that drunk Priest and tracked them all down in time. Also lucky that Van is really not very strong.

On the other hand...Red certainly hasn't lost his absolute arrogance . Albert is KO'd in recovery, the Priest is bleeding out all over the inn's floor, but he's totally confident he can win him over with words. Wow!

I suppose considering Ruti can instantly win if it doesn't work would allow for absolute confidence though. I mean what's the real danger? Lavender going berserk would be problematic, but that's about it. Though even that actually lost any real sense of risk when Rit was setting up to have a 1v1 against her. No offence to Rit, but if that's the case then Lavender shouldn't be much of a danger either. They have Van's side outnumbered and outgunned.

[zztop]

According to source readers, the pacing so far means the anime will likely cover up to LN Vol 9's end.

Which means that unfortunately we won't be seeing Vol 10 content which wraps up this Van storyline, which involves

Spoiler for Vol 10 content:

a trip to the ancient elf ruins, finding out the secrets of the Hero blessing and fighting a Demis-possessed Van.

[Random14]

Yay, finally time to beat down Van. Well, Red is still planning on talking him down somehow or other, but at least now he can be more direct about it. Great to see Ruti could take out Lavender so easily (and funny how they had that as her true form whereas most comments hinted at something quite different). Its reassuring to know their party (as Ruti said they really do feel more like a party now) can handle the fight, its getting Van to back down that's the hard part.

I can understand having the new Hero as the main overarching plot of the season but it still feels like they dragged it out a bit too long, or rather having to put up with Van airtime since the beginning of the season. Would have liked to have seen vol 10 animated as well (and with faster pacing they could've after they already skipped vol 6 and 7) but I'm just happy we got a second season at all.

Was surprised Ljubo actually was taking his priest job seriously considering how corrupt he is, but guess by their world's standards, as long as he listens to his Divine Blessing enough, that counts. Good thing Albert survived, he and Esta are cute together.

[Strahan]

I had to chuckle that Rit thinks she can hold Lavendar on her own. They just explained that she's this mythical big deal, doesn't seem very hopeful. If Ruti can tear her apart with that shot she did, she should have just done that earlier. When Rit had her distracted at the cafe with the love talk would have been a good opportunity. Of course, you can't do that because that would be too easy and they need tension after all.

If I were Red, when Esta was talking about how she tried to kill him I'd have to have been like "yea, and don't think I've forgotten about that BTW". Though obviously he holds no grudges, unlike me. People in TV shows always seem so chill about stuff like someone trying to murder them, lol

[Frontier]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

You know...I kind of like the idea that the strategy to handle Van kind of blew up in their faces. The only downside is that I don't think it actually blew up enough. The only real casualty was someone no one even cares about.

Everyone was so overconfident that they could handle how someone this unstable might react an attempt to change course. Red may have intended good things from trying to steer Van in a better direction. But he underestimated how it might backfire. And trying to handle the priest was truly pointless in the bigger picture. Heck, Esta pretty much stopped trying because hey Red probably has it covered. And the consequence was Albert getting utterly demolished.

They tried to play it safe and get an idealistic result where Van would leave and Ruti could live quietly without her identity being discovered. Lucked out that Esta actually went to check on that drunk Priest and tracked them all down in time. Also lucky that Van is really not very strong.

On the other hand...Red certainly hasn't lost his absolute arrogance . Albert is KO'd in recovery, the Priest is bleeding out all over the inn's floor, but he's totally confident he can win him over with words. Wow!

I suppose considering Ruti can instantly win if it doesn't work would allow for absolute confidence though. I mean what's the real danger? Lavender going berserk would be problematic, but that's about it. Though even that actually lost any real sense of risk when Rit was setting up to have a 1v1 against her. No offence to Rit, but if that's the case then Lavender shouldn't be much of a danger either. They have Van's side outnumbered and outgunned.

If you ask Red, Van having a mental breakdown and going crazier actually works out better for them since now it's easier to deprogram him .

Originally Posted by Random14

Yay, finally time to beat down Van. Well, Red is still planning on talking him down somehow or other, but at least now he can be more direct about it. Great to see Ruti could take out Lavender so easily (and funny how they had that as her true form whereas most comments hinted at something quite different). Its reassuring to know their party (as Ruti said they really do feel more like a party now) can handle the fight, its getting Van to back down that's the hard part.

I can understand having the new Hero as the main overarching plot of the season but it still feels like they dragged it out a bit too long, or rather having to put up with Van airtime since the beginning of the season. Would have liked to have seen vol 10 animated as well (and with faster pacing they could've after they already skipped vol 6 and 7) but I'm just happy we got a second season at all.

Was surprised Ljubo actually was taking his priest job seriously considering how corrupt he is, but guess by their world's standards, as long as he listens to his Divine Blessing enough, that counts. Good thing Albert survived, he and Esta are cute together.

I'm oddly reminded of season 1 where people were pretty lukewarm when the "main plot" took over the focus in the last half...basically just substitute Van/Lavender with Ares .

Originally Posted by Strahan

I had to chuckle that Rit thinks she can hold Lavendar on her own. They just explained that she's this mythical big deal, doesn't seem very hopeful. If Ruti can tear her apart with that shot she did, she should have just done that earlier. When Rit had her distracted at the cafe with the love talk would have been a good opportunity. Of course, you can't do that because that would be too easy and they need tension after all.

Just imagine Rit keeps distracting her with love talk .

If I were Red, when Esta was talking about how she tried to kill him I'd have to have been like "yea, and don't think I've forgotten about that BTW". Though obviously he holds no grudges, unlike me. People in TV shows always seem so chill about stuff like someone trying to murder them, lol

Red probably thinks he has no business judging people for how they live considering his own situation.

[Strahan]

Originally Posted by Frontier

Red probably thinks he has no business judging people for how they live considering his own situation.

Yea, probably not; he's so chill lol. I just couldn't be that magnanimous.

Too bad there is only one episode left. I was hoping they'd wrap the Van thing up and give us one "slice of life" post drama episode. I like those the best. I wonder if the writer is going to do the "everyone gets a happy ending" again. Theodora may grate on my nerves for having turned against the protags, but at least she was decent most of the time. Lavendar though is a psychopath through and through, so I'm curious if she still gets her happy end. Probably heh.

[Alchemist007]

They were really intent on treating Van like a child, well said child is just out for blood as the solution of choice.

[Lex79]

I suppose after Van nearly killed Albert and planned to murder everyone (well, Red maybe isn't fully aware of how far he's gone) the plan is to talk to him and then be friends? I hope we are going yo learn he's under some serious brainwashing from his blessing of the author wants me to care about him being redeemed.

[Frontier]

It's Red vs Van! And Red draws first blood! Actually, he's totally wrecking Van, it's barely a contest !

Of course Lavender won't just let Van be hurt and even transforms into her true form, requiring everyone to fight her...but Ruti just one-shots her. Should've seen that coming .

Red and Van lose their blades, Van uses his powerful magic to weaken Red, and is about to use his signature move...until Red turns the tables on him with some help from Ruti. Might be a "cheat," but it's a fight between men, and they both put their all into it. And it's still Red's win .

Watching Lavender tied up and incapable of doing anything but being annoying is definitely one way to deal with her .

Van is still a little surly, but he actually cares about the people he's hurt, which is a big first step. It seems like he's finally realized that the human frustrations he's been feeling are natural, and that to be a true Hero doesn't mean being slavishly obsessed with your Blessing, but actually being Heroic, personable, and opening yourself up to others .

So Van's Blessing DID change. Did Demis realize he couldn't do anything about Ruti so he made Van the Hero instead ?

I love that nurse side-eyeing Ljubo because he keeps complaining about not having any alcohol or cigars while he's in the hospital .

And Van actually goes on an apology tour! Apologizing to Ljubo, Albert, the town leadership, even the kids! It seems like he's actually putting in the effort to change and be better! And even Lavender almost admits she loves him more for it .

Lavender is still annoying, but the least she can do is give Red the blue sapphire he'd started this season off looking for in order to make his engagement ring for Rit .

And look at Red going all out on setting up a romantic dinner and ambience so as to properly propose! Gets down on one knee and everything! And of course Rit says yes and they swear their undying love for each other !

Time to party in honor of Rit and Red's engagement! They even brought back the season 1 OP! And I want to hear more embarrassing stories about Theodora !

Ruti never wanted to be the Hero, but Van is willing to take on that challenge and take the steps necessary to become someone worthy of being the Hero, the least Red can do is help guide him a little more along the way .

[FlareKnight]

I love how Red outright dodges the accusation of cheating...despite the fact that he totally did . Sure Red, just keep moving ahead and don't comment on that one. Although to be fair it was Van's fault for going along with Red's terms when he absolutely didn't have to. Should have abused having the superior weapon. If Red lost because he couldn't be bothered to get a good sword that's on him.

That was even more anticlimactic than I expected. They build a whole season around this Van thing and it's the minor event of the whole series to this point. Any of the smaller arcs in season 1 were more intense than this.

Even the Priest survived!? Oh come on. Are we going to reveal next that the guy Van decapitated is also fine!?

I mean yeah, that's a fine way to wrap things up I suppose. A bit underwhelming. But again it's still the best result for the main characters. Since they need a hero to fill Ruti's absence. If Van can get the job done then that's easier on everyone. Not that I could see Red feeling guilty if Ruti's absence lead to the world burning to ashes, but I think Ruti would probably feel bad about it .

Got the engagement ring and all is well. Honestly the whole story could end here and it'd probably be fine. Proposal went well and honestly even the mild hints about dangers with those monsters with elvish on them is pretty minor. Any immediate trouble can be cleared by Ruti. Honestly they might have been better off just focusing on Red's hunt for a stone for the engagement ring . The relationship between Red and Rit is still a really strong element in the show. When it leans into that side it's much better than what they tried to do with Van.

Not as good a season as the first one. But that's the downside of the major drama playing out in that first season. There wasn't all that much to tackle this time around. In some ways it feels like the story was intended to end where that first season did but the need to pay the bills kept the story going .

A 6.5/10. Not the worst season, but never quite did enough with its setup.

[magnuskn]

I think this season actually did the story a bit better than season 1, in the sense that Ruti back then did a lot of highly illegal stuff as well and that got glossed over pretty much completely.

7,5/10, I had fun watching this.

[frubam]

Not a bad way to end the season, but not very exciting either. There are some loose ends, like Flareknight said about the monsters with elven tattoo writings, but honestly, the show does much better being a slice-of-life showcase for the former heroes than any action/combat events. I would watch another season of this, but wouldn't care all that much if another season never comes; there was enough of a wrap-up that pretty much kills any curiosities I could have about all of the protagonists. The machinations of the antagonists weren't as good as the first season(with Shishisendan's identity adding a 'mystery' component to the story) and I can't see any more interesting antagonists arising from a out-of-the-way remote village.