If we are taking them as people, I find certain characters actions to be out of character from what we have read. The biggest example is Riveria. She was the one pushing Finn to accept the offer for something Loki could have gotten Ouranos.

Royman's actions make sense as they are logical, and the action people charged with Orario's protection would make. Do agree with them but that's a moral question.

The problem is they aren't people, they are characters with their actions being dictated by Omori. He couldn't figure out a way to make his script work, so he forced characters to take these actions.

Nothing is LN18 feels earned, deserved or natural. After LN18 Loki Familia is going to take Hestia Familia on expedition. Why would Hestia Familia accept this offer? Why would Loki Familia need Hestia Familia?

It's only going to happen because the author wants it to happen. There is no connection between the familias, no level of trust and interaction. LN18 was a fantastic way to build all this so it felt natural in later LNs.

@StinkyPete12

“Nothing is LN18 feels earned, deserved or natural. After LN18 Loki Familia is going to take Hestia Familia on expedition.”

We don’t know when this will happen, if I was a betting man, probably around the volume 24-25 mark.

“Why would Hestia Familia accept this offer?”

Because without Loki familia, Hestia familia isn’t getting anywhere near the bottom of the dungeon. Bell wants to complete the dungeon and it’s almost laughable to think Hestia, take, and miach familias can just solo it🤣. But then again, it’s Omori.

“Why would Loki Familia need Hestia Familia?”

Haruhime, imo, is a game changer for Loki familia and a much needed piece for completing the dungeon (we have already seen what she can do with her level boost on Bete). Bell, Ryuu, Lillie, Welf, Mikoto, and maybe Nina (if she ends up joining) are kind of just the cherry on the top for Loki familia. They aren’t necessarily needed but they kind of have to have them since they aren’t just going to be able to request Haruhime from Hestia familia and that’s it.

“It's only going to happen because the author wants it to happen. There is no connection between the familias, no level of trust and interaction. LN18 was a fantastic way to build all this so it felt natural in later LNs.”

This has already been taken care of in SO. Finn completely trust Lillie and even trusted her to lead her own army/group in SO12. Tiona and Ais also have a strong connection to Bell as well. At the end of the day though, Ais and Bells relationship is suppose to be what technically unites the two familias together, a reverse Romeo and Juliet in a way. I’m assuming that’s what the author was going to use in order to establish the connection between the two familias.

All in all, this stuff has already been mainly taken care of in SO. Hestia familia has already fought alongside Loki familia toward a common goal. It will basically be a rehash of SO12 but in a bigger version when they take on the dungeon.

Cowardice on the part of Loki Familia. And cowardice on the part of the Guild, whose actions make sense superficially and in the short term, but fall apart when you apply more thought about consequences.

The entire sequence is ridiculous in-universe, and only makes sense out of universe from the perspective of Oomori, who faced a choice, so he thought, between "massive battle where the Alliance would be favored to easily win and the focus would be taken off Bell" and "heroic underdog with the odds stacked against him." Obviously people want the latter, right? The entire series up to that point had been built on "heroic underdog", so that's what his readers want, right? RIGHT?!

Well, no. Oomori misread what we want. The entire hype before the book came out was revolving around the epic clash we were sure to soon see, where the good guys would triumph over the (INDISPUTABLY) evil FF SoBs, and Loki Familia would actually EARN their title of heroes and protectors of the city for once. Nobody expected Bell to have to carry the whole thing by himself, because the amount of rule-bending, rule-breaking, logic-defying, plot armor that would have to occur would be outrageous. We wanted a logically consistent story that enriched and expanded the verse.

Nope, have "HEROIC UNDERDOG".

Honestly, Royman (as dickish as he can be and the stress don't help) made the most logical decision considering that his goal is to keep Orario in one piece and you can't have that by having the two most powerful familia's clash, which would result in the city suffering a lot of collateral damage.

IIRC, Finn was kind of sweating bullets by going up against Hedin, who is in fact WAY better at strategy.

Riveria was a bit aggravating by simply throwing the very familia that saved their arses from the Nighogg under the bus, just for some deep floor info, but this also shows its importance (by willingly trying to throw the HF to the wayside) and the fact that Riveria isn't particularly close to the HF anyway.

The LF not joining the wargame was good, since this allowed other lower level familias to gain a lot by challenging the most powerful familia. I aslo find it strange that the LF didn't just give the guild the finger and fight anyway. So I guess they either chickened out or it was a matter of politics.

I've said this numerous times already in other posts, but hot take, this really isn't actually a problem and those who think so are either not actually reading, or are just clouded with bad faith arguments.

If Finn refused the deal and had the Familia join the War Game, what would've happened? Would Royman and the Guild just shrugged their arms and let them fight? Probably not, considering the story repeated multiple times how they had no qualms with disqualifying Hestia Familia and just letting Freya take Bell, cause they established keeping her Familia's strength is all that matters to them. The deal was an attempt to appease LF so that they wouldn't bother them anymore, but considering they immediately went ahead to help behind-the-scenes anyway, literally shows they weren't just turning tail and being "cowards".

I also find it incredibly ironic and pretty funny that after all the discussions and discourse on the wiki about fighting the Dragon, people are really mad at the one character in-universe who voices the same sentiment.

And I'm sorry, but when it's clear most of the anger comes from the side who view Freya and her Familia as "unambiguously evil villains who should all be executed", you were never gonna be happy no matter what shape they decided to take the volume in. Because if you were paying any level of attention to Vol. 16 and 17, you would know what this whole arc has been actually *ABOUT* and what it's been trying to say, it's far more than just "the two rival factions should fight so we can power scale them".

If the guild could unilaterally decree Freya's victory if they disobeyed Royman, he would not have bothered to negotiate with Finn, he would have sent him an ultimatum "if you intervene, victory will be Freya's", but no, Royman gave them something artificially indispensable to them (conveniently urgent information) in exchange for their inaction, even though he said he would prefer not to give it to them. Which clearly indicates and is also obvious that the Loki family does not bow to Royman's whims and could do something as simple as send to hell the guild's unilateral decision to declare Freya the winner and act as they see fit.

What Royman offered was something that he would inevitably have to give them in the future, therefore, it was not an asset that Royman could bargain with and Finn is supposed to be intelligent, he could have easily deduced this. The great disappointment that there is about this is because Omori had promised that this would be the greatest war game in history but he left out the adventurers who could have made his promise come true and as I just explained, he had no real literary reason for it, he simply wanted to do it that way and gave an argument so ridiculous that it practically offends the readers' intelligence.

I don't know what bravery you're talking about, the Loki family sent others to fight in their place, maybe our definition of bravery is different because sending others to fight your battles is a lot like cowardice. Finn was worried about the fall of his reputation if he left an insignificant vouivre alive that no one cared about, but when a real problem arises that affects the entire city and "Braver" is expected to be the hero he claims to be and faces the tyrannical oppressor, he didn't come through. The stupid things that Omori does... because this would affect his prestige ("the brave one" who was afraid to fight Freya).

Lastly, yes, the Freya arc was about saving Freya not punishing her and that was Bell's responsibility, but what did Bell do in the war game? deal with Ottar, then this battle could have been left as it happened (Bell, Mia, Ryuu and Hedin vs Ottar) and that would have been enough to save Freya.

The conflict is in the other battles in which Bell played no role, Omori could have allowed at least one or two Loki executives to deal with Freya's, for example against Allen since his role in the war game was ridiculous given that there was no good scenario for him, in this way, the Loki family would not have looked so bad and the fans who also like shonen would have been satisfied.

Do you have a good argument as to why it would be a negative development for certain Loki executives to face with Freya's executives, especially considering that Bell played no role in defeating them?

Logical despite our own personal feelings regarding it.