The Spearmaster and the Black Cat Chapter 204 Discussion

Absolutely love it, hands down one of my favorite novels. BUT I recommend reading it in bits and pieces when you reach the later chapters, if you binge it you'd probably want to repaint your walls with your brain...

The beginning is great, the world building is one of the best I've ever read - it actually feels vast and real, the problems and events that are monumental in one area are the faintest of whispers in other areas, places that we spend countless chapters reading about are places almost nobody even knows the name of in others, and there's a whole vibrant world both above and below the surface, that are entirely separate. Add to that the other realms that come up so often and it genuinely feels huge, as a WORLD should.

THE BAD

The problems I have with the novel come from when he starts interacting with other humans. Initially he doesn't stick with anyone, which was annoying, he meets people, saves people, falls in love with people, and he just completely leaves them behind every single time, very annoying. In the later chapters he finally settles down some and all those lose ends start to get tied up, the people he's met on his journey end up gathering up and he actually sticks with them. It's lovely to have all these loose pieces finally getting bundled up.

And then it gets s*upid.

Half of the story now is his female companions whining about how they want to sleep with him or turning into feral cats because he looked in the direction of or spoke to another female. I don't know what happened to the strong, cool women they once were, but every single one of them became whiny, needy, jealous, petty incarnations of sexist gender stereotypes. Like I'm no feminist but there are parts that hurt to read because they've become such sexist stereotypical things... I still absolutely love them, and they have their cool moments and are actually very strong, but it's mind numbing reading chapters and chapters of them fighting over who gets to hold his hands or how it's unfair he went out for business with one of them.

Additionally, because there are so many characters now, a gigantic portion of every chapter is just getting through all of them responding. Like MC asks if they're ready to go and it's nine lines of different people saying 'yes' or 'okay' in different ways. And combat, while being super cool, ends up being an entire chapter just explaining each of them doing their tiny part, it's several paragraphs to explain what happened in an instant because there are so many people.

THE GOOD

Despite all the complaints, I still love the novel. It does a lot of things incredibly well.

Shuuya, the MC, stays true to himself, he doesn't bend or bow to anything. He's not some arrogant Chinese MC, but he does what he wants when he wants to; he respects those around him and listens to their opinions, but ultimately he makes his own decisions. He's also not a weak pushover errandboy, but neither is he heartless and uncaring. He helps those in front of him when he can afford it, and he doesn't pretend to be some saint to make himself feel better.

The MC's companions are genuinely strong. Unlike a lot of novels where the MC has to do everything themselves, the MC's companions can handle themselves quite well, MC is still unimaginably stronger than them but they can handle themselves against all but the genuine masters.

Combat is written in a very interesting sounding way, and there seems to always be new stuff evolving and changing it.

The world and story feels big and alive. MC is a powerful character, but it's not as if the story revolves only around the MC. The world and story move even when he isn't around, other big forces move behind the scenes, countries wage war and territory is won and lost, all without any connection to the MC. It's not as if time only advances in the presence of the MC, like it kind of seems to in some other novels.

It's got a huge story. There are bits and pieces of plotlines that were explored in the very beginning that are still being brought up and explored over a hundred chapters later. Just in the last dozen chapters something from the first dozen or so chapters came into play in a big way again, after not even touching on it for almost 200 chapters. Some of the stories feel kind of forgotten, in a frustrating way, but because there are so many stories going on in the background it really feels like the world is full and dynamic. It's not just whatever is in front of the MC, you can feel machinations in the background and shadowy forces at work behind the scenes, it feels like there's a ton of depth to the story.

Overall, it's absolutely worth the read, just take a break if all the petty jealousy starts making you want to end yourself.