Fairy Tail Chapter 502 Discussion

Fai said:
metsujin said:


Realistically Lucy is not the best fighter,

that's the problem. The Star dress stuff the aquarius stuff was supposed to FIX that. Lucy always had strong oneshot attack but could not legitimately fight. Via what happened in tartaros that was supposedly fixed. That was the whole point of Aquarius sorrowful parting with Lucy and the gift for her and what CSK said to Lucy - so lucy could in fact be able to stand on her own and live up to her potential...The way she performed in Tartaros and the star dress power up should really make her be in upper levels of FT power chart.



Except that come this arc, literally everything of that feels negligible and she is back to jobbing the same way as if she never got those power ups. There's not a legitimate reason for her to job. It just happens for no reason except so she could be placed naked and/or Natsu could saver her.



In here for example, if this was ANY other character, we would see some dramatic struggle and possible a win. Hell it happened with Gray, Gajeel, shitloads of other characters with this arc. Lucy? She gets to pose her butt a bit, then gets offscreened and tied  to a bondage chair so Natsu can have his big moment.



And yeah, Natsu's story blah blah blah, but one of biggest Elemetns of FT was lucy's mystery and her journey - she was his equal in story importance. Now not only was her backstory literally wasted to explain away a part of Natsu's and did not have any relevance to her("Hey you know your mom mystery the whole story teased for YEARS? Oh she sudoku'd so the MC's backstory would not have plotholes")  , but her getting stronger is literally pointless as the story ignores that.  



Which is kind of ironic that while Lucy is denied her very much deserved development and progress, Gray finds himself gaining more and more plot out of nowhere and more and more power out of nowhere.



Its like reverse-RAVE. Had Mashima not written Rave, I would hoonestly believe he is as sexist as Kishimoto.



The thing is in Tartaros, her enemy wasn't someone who had such a OP abilitty, as Brandish or DiMaria. And the struggle she went through made that moment really memorable and more impactful. Lucy obviously grew in terms of strength and magic, but with the current enemy, she can't do much against them. I dislike how much useless fanservice was in this arc (supposedly a war, and supposedly it should be serious... nah). You're also bringing up Gray and Gajeel, who are clearly and were above Lucy before this arc, the whole power level is messed up here, but imagine if someone like Levy (to give a example) could take out a Spriggan, things would not make sense, at least in that aspect Mashima didn't screw it. To me it seems more like you dislike this, because Mashima didn't wrote the Layla part the way you wanted it, and you're just being bitter. This arc is by no means perfect, but there are some stuff that... I wouldn't say redeem it, but they do make sense, to say the least.

Fai said:


WUT? Tartaros Lucy was ABSOLUTELY above those two. Gray was literally one of the weakest main characters in story to the point that his "rivalry" with Natsu was nothing but comedy by the time of Tartaros(well at least till Gray got asspull powers). Gajeel is literally fodder at this level only serving as a ship bait with Levy and aas a way to induce worf effect.



She was thanks to the CSK, she can't bring him whenever she likes, it would mean the loss of a power, and frankly she needs every key for this arc.



Aquarius Lucy summoned multiple spirits who could keep up with actual tartaros gates, and then  no sold attacks of somebody who gave Natsu trouble and then she oneshotted him. The level she displayed, alongside having other star dresses, should put her at least on the same level as Mira or Erza, even if not close to Natsu's oneshotting broken level. Hell she was confident enough to give Natsu a fight.



You know that one shot was made because Lucy probably used the most powerful spell she has right? Literally star power. Need I remind you that that's the basic FT formula? That the last attack of the good guys is super effective.



Tartaros fight is literally remaining the ONLY legit win she had through ENTIRE manga. Lucy. One of the TWO only protagonists in the story. With this trackrecord by the end of the manga, she will out-damsel Naruto's Sakura, who has been the VERY embodiment of japanese sexism



I disagree, her biggest moment was indeed in Tartaros and I don't think she'll have anything that big ever (proabably saving Natsu from his demon side). But she did well in every arc (except GMG), remember how she took Gajeel's torture? How she saved Juvia and they defeat a foe together, defeated Angel, against Klein (the 7 kin purgatory member if that's his name).



Or maybe I dislike this arc because it is senseless, has no real direction and every week trashy shit happens that makes the whole fandom cringe.



Actually its 50/50 with the whole fandom cringe, as I've seen you are pretty much the only one complaining every chapter. Give credit where's to give, and shit on it if its bad.



Her mixed emotions about guild split up and Natsu just leaving? POOF gone!

Her backstory mystery? Used to further Natsu's backstory with her mother being fridged for Natsu's sake.

Her strategic prowess she displayed and leadership capabilities with all comparisons to Mavis? Oh what now? Sorry Mashima is too busy drawing more ass shots to comment on that.  

Her power up that is supposed to make her hold her own alongside main characters? Used for fanservice and literally made no difference in her power level.

The build up towards her possibly being the one who will bring Natsu back from being END? Apparantly that's Gray now!



The thing that I agree with you on, its the fanservice, and how missplaced it is, in this arc especially. Tartaros had ass shots too, but whatever.

What do you mean by her backstory mystery? I don't get that, all that Lucy ever wanted was to enter the guild, which she did. She had troubles at home, but that got resolved. I feel like we're wasting our time with this, tho I don't like to say it, but it feels like you don't really care or acknowledge much of my opinion.

Wow we got this chapter early and I actually really enjoyed it! Seeing Mavis and Zera temporarily reunite was the highlight of the chapter. Looks like Natsu is very close to awakening as END soon, which I didn't expect to happen so soon.

The tumor was not ethernano, natsu is actually pregnant, he's giving birth to END :v

Fai said:
And yet they DON'T FEEL like so op. There's nothing threatening about Spriggans. They are utterly incompetent bunch on level of filler villains.

It's sad. To the point where it's "Forgot about my Powers" bad.



There's about a 100% chance that even though August just casually shot Mirajane like fodder using zero effort, with her being one of the earlier S-class mages from the beginning of the manga who as far as I remember, got the Second Origin power up just like everyone else, he will never use that same lethal move again when there isn't a healer around. He will never just use it on Natsu, Gray, Gajeel, Makarov, etc. And of course, he will not shoot the healer either. Which he could, even if it was the one tree 100+kilometers away(Just mimic Wahlricht, you are higher power level August).



Dimaria will SOMEHOW fail to kill Natsu despite having a literal timestop. August will somehow forget he knows all magic, including nice massive AOE targeting spells that only hit the enemy and kill all enemies(Just use Fairy Law, even Zeref could do this right now as well, boom, now fodder like Jet and Droy are instadead!)



Brandish will Nakama to the good guy's side, because Boobs=Redemption.

Acnologia will patiently wait after getting teleported away like a scrub, to return to battle.



Zeref, after Natsu is captured by Brandish, if informed about this at all, will not take the opportunity, being the immortal, invincible person he is, to try to launch any attacks on the FT members. At the moment he doesn't think Natsu has a chance of killing him anyways with his prior trump card gone. And if he does, he definitely will never, never, nevvvver team up with any Spriggans(who are supposed to be his Shields). Working in groups? That'll just make FT lose, can't do that! ALWAYS 1v1. Holy shit wtf these people are so stupid who in their right mind would do that against a big, grouped up enemy force-



Overall FT are actually in somewhat bad spots, having lost a few members to incapacitation.



Mirajane was recently hit with a fatal heart-shot so she should not be fighting at full potential, even with a 'shrunken wound'. She's up against Jacob who could clap her away instantly. Gray and Juvia who both got fatally wounded and should at least be exhausted on magical energy. Laxus should be pretty fucked up ATM with the magic barrier particles. Lucy, obviously got rekt as well as Natsu. There is still a giant army of fodders to clear away, so even if they are easy pickings, it's not as if they will all be instantly incapacitated so FT can reach the guild hall. Brandish would make an extremely overpowered and mostly unbeatable addition to their group, but most likely will refuse to fight(because Mashima knows she would be OP). Even though she is still just fine with killing anyone besides the ones she spared. Meaning their healing of Brandish is absolute suicide.



Personally I just want to see Natsu get decapitated, no reason he shouldn't be right now. And no real reason to care about Natsu's character at all, he hasn't changed since Chapter 1 other than to get worse.

The Spriggans are unbelievably incompetent.



First of all, it's revealed that Invel's mind paralyzation stops working if he falls unconscious. If that's the case...Why would any sane leader not order him to not leave where Mavis is and constantly watch her? After all, she has infinite magic, and could easily instakill any spriggan if she broke her extremely plot convenient and illogical vow to not use it.



August has seemingly been sitting on his ass this whole time, given that he didn't catch Mavis's escape and immediately stop her with his OP magic. Why didn't he set up some kind of spatial detection field to counter Teleportation attempts, he has control of ancient elements, so 'Space' could easily be included, especially since he already knows Teleport was used to get Makarov out of the Sprigggan continent earlier.



I could understand swearing to not use Fairy Heart if a reason was given, like accidentally destroying the world being likely if she tried to do so, but currently there's just no explanation.



Why is Mavis pseudo-omnipotent with infinity magic again? Where'd she get it from?



Dimaria is an idiot. There's no reason to hate Brandish just because she wants to spare two FT members(and massacre the rest). She could have just done the dirty work for her and stopped time to immediately decapitate Natsu and Lucy with no chance of them reacting. At most, she could just report Brandish to Zeref or August, since it's tactically stupid to start a fight with an ally for a minor deviation from the code of conduct.



If Dimaria wanted Brandish slowly and painfully killed, she should have dragged her back along with Natsu and Lucy(although this is tactically stupid, if you want to kill Brandnish you should do so instantly in one time stop before she can focus on you and explode your internals for an instakill).  



Natsu has a 0% chance of surviving if Dimaria at any point tries to kill him, Time Stop plus his lack of resistance to blades makes it so he would just be casually chopped to pieces in 0.00000 seconds.



Larcade is also sitting on his ass atm.



August should be able to basically instantly win by just using something similar to Fairy Law and killing off all the FT Fodders easily.  At the least many deaths would be unavoidable, given that FT has no set up defenses like barriers to defend their weaker members.



If Jacob was not so stupid, he could just clap his opponent into another dimension and move on to the important ones like Makarov, simply using his knive to slit their throat while invisible or just put them in storage with his clap.

metsujin said:


The thing is in Tartaros, her enemy wasn't someone who had such a OP abilitty, as Brandish or DiMaria. And the struggle she went through made that moment really memorable and more impactful.

And yet they DON'T FEEL like so op. There's nothing threatening abotu Spriggans. They are utterly incompetent bunch on level of filler villains.

Lucy obviously grew in terms of strength and magic, but with the current enemy, she can't do much against them.

If literally fodder can oneshot the likes of Ajeel, I don't see why.

Hell, even Mavis  managed to fool Eileeen who shit-talked Acnologia.

You're also bringing up Gray and Gajeel, who are clearly and were above Lucy before this arc, the whole power level is messed up here, but imagine if someone like Levy (to give a example) could take out a Spriggan, things would not make sense, at least in that aspect Mashima didn't screw it.



WUT? Tartaros Lucy was ABSOLUTELY above those two. Gray was literally one of the weakest main characters in story to the point that his "rivalry" with Natsu was nothing but comedy by the time of Tartaros(well at least till Gray got asspull powers). Gajeel is literally fodder at this level only serving as a ship bait with Levy and aas a way to induce worf effect.



Aquarius Lucy summoned multiple spirits who could keep up with actual tartaros gates, and then  no sold attacks of somebody who gave Natsu trouble and then she oneshotted him. The level she displayed, alongside having other star dresses, should put her at least on the same level as Mira or Erza, even if not close to Natsu's oneshotting broken level. Hell she was confident enough to give Natsu a fight.



Instead with the way she performed in this arc LITERALLY fodder like Cana or  CARLA could defeat her.



Tartaros fight is literally remaining the ONLY legit win she had through ENTIRE manga. Lucy. One of the TWO only protagonists in the story. With this trackrecord by the end of the manga, she will out-damsel Naruto's Sakura, who has been the VERY embodiment of japanese sexism



To me it seems more like you dislike this, because Mashima didn't wrote the Layla part the way you wanted it, and you're just being bitter.

Or maybe I dislike this arc because it is senseless, has no real direction and every week trashy shit happens that makes the whole fandom cringe.



And yes throwing the lead heroine under the bus for sake of appeasing Gray fanbase also plays a part in that shittyness.

Her mixed emotions about guild split up and Natsu just leaving? POOF gone!

Her backstory mystery? Used to further Natsu's backstory with her mother being fridged for Natsu's sake.

Her strategic prowess she displayed and leadership capabilities with all comparisons to Mavis? Oh what now? Sorry Mashima is too busy drawing more ass shots to comment on that.  

Her power up that is supposed to make her hold her own alongside main characters? Used for fanservice and literally made no difference in her power level.

The build up towards her possibly being the one who will bring Natsu back from being END? Apparantly that's Gray now!



Its reverse RAVE.



While Ellie started as powerless and a damsel and slowly grew into confident, strong and awesome protagonist, Lucy started as a damsel and then remains damsel till this day.



However while the way Lucy is handled is HUGE problem with the manga, hilariously it pales in comparison to the overall writing level of this arc, just how disjointed the story progression is, just how many freaking retcons there are, just how utterly undewhelming all the villains are and just how so very fucking little anything happens matters. The writing in this arc is so shit that one of the lead protagonists being thrown under the bus is the LEAST of FT's problems.



Spriggan arc is poorly paced, poorly thought out, incoherently structured, overtly-dragged out mess with the most cringeworthy retcons and letdowns FT ever had. The end of GMG pales in comparison to what we are seeing here.

Dimiria will be one shot killed by Natsu in the upcoming chapters it seems

that tumor of Natsu is actually a sign that he will transform to END