TLDR: One week break once again! Will resume posting on 23rd March 2020!
Yip yip yip! We ended yet another book! Oh, how the time flies. With this, the second-last book of Spirit Immortal has come to its end!
Honestly, I would like to keep this author's thoughts short since we're close to the end now. With my final author's thoughts, I will pour out everything that I have been keeping close to my heart and it will be the longest one yet. So please bear with me for this short reflection of Book 13.
So Book 13: The Hero, is what I would call the final climb before the summit. I planted many plots in this book to be resolved in the conclusion of the whole story in Book 14, the final heap of words to conclude this near two-year journey that I've had with Spirit Immortal.
If Book 12 was about the Allfather, his origins, motivations, and ultimate goal. Then Book 13 was about how Shin reflects himself as the hero, the protagonist of our story. I started Book 13 asking… What is the definition of a hero?
Is it a father who will always be the shining beacon of light for his children? Is it the man who sacrifices himself for the greater good of the people? Is it the man who travels around the world saving people from chaos?
What do we imagine when we think about a hero? The first thing that comes to mind is the knight in shining armour that rescues the beautiful princess from the evil dragon. That's the cliche fiction that everyone is told when they're young. There's a clear good guy, a bad guy and an objective that the 'hero' needs to accomplish. However, as you all know, I don't like to make things black and white in my novels.
Shin is the Hero, don't get me wrong. He saves innocent lives from the terror of the Black Masks and is selfless enough to sacrifice his own time and money to save the powerless. However, he's only the hero for humans.
What about the Black Masks? Kin and Gin were villains. They killed innocent humans for the sake of their own personal pleasures. But, were they truly evil? They saw humans as livestock much as how humans saw Spirit Beasts as beings that had to be eradicated. However, the only reason why they joined the Black Masks in the first place, was to hopefully get their eldest brother back. If they were left alone in the Moon Valley, they wouldn't care to hurt a single human being.
What about Momo? She was just like Kin and Gin, killing humans to make puppets for fun. However, she truly never thought that her actions would tear families apart. Momo simply used her powers for the Allfather because she thought that was the right thing to do. After all, she was an innocent little Moon Bunny before the Allfather came into her life.
Lastly, Midori. He joined the Black Masks to separate the Uncharted Wilderness, his homeland that had been raided by humans from the beginning of time. Although it had been protected by the heaps of Primordial Beasts that live within it, billions, if not trillions of the weaker ones were massacred.
See? All of them had joined the Black Masks, possibly the worst crime syndicate since the beginning of humankind, but they all had their reasons. Yes, their actions were extreme and had caused detrimental effects to innocent lives, but once again… They were all doing it for a cause dear to their hearts.
All in all, Shin was a hero to the humans, but in consequence, he had turned the villain to the rest of the Black Masks. Members of the Black Masks aren't inherently evil. Heck, what does evil mean anyway? All four members of the Noble Beasts that died in this book had their reasons for killing humans. They didn't kill them just because they wanted to spread evil, they killed them for the sake of their ultimate goal.
Even Saint Heigui! He betrayed the Lantis Republic because he wants to reach the Immortal Realm, to gain eternal life. A dream that all humans would have. Does that mean he's evil for betraying the clan he swore to protect?
I don't know. You decide I guess. :)