Terrarium Adventure Chapter 228 Discussion

I'm reading this one raw so I can't speak for the quality of the translation (from the number of comments about the pronoun-flopping I'm guessing it's MTL, which is a shame), but this worldbuilding has all the makings of the female-targeted MMORPG of my dreams—which makes sense, because the author was working in the MMO field (I believe she quit due to overwork/burnout and to focus on writing for a bit while she caught her breath) and began writing Terrarium Adventure as a scenario exercise to channel her frustrations at the male-dominated nature of the industry. (Source: author notes from when she first posted the rough draft on Joara)

TA is an incredibly imaginative breath of fresh air. The visual descriptions are stunning, and each druid and dryad are distinctive in personality and (in the case of the dryad) species. I love the incorporation of flower language and legends in the individual histories of the dryads, and how the relationship between the individual flower and the larger species is fully realized in a way that leaves them room to manifest their own personality and interpretation of the legend they proudly bear, and even to forge new legends of their own. No handwavy Pokemon are-these-species-or-individuals (are you telling me every single Cubone's mom was killed by poachers?) worldbuilding holes here!

I'm suspicious of the claims that the main character seems "unintelligent, " because in my experience the kind of protagonist that gets approvingly labeled "smart" in this sphere is, nine out of ten, a total dickwad who has no compunctions about exploiting everyone they come into contact with for their own gains. Jay is a normal human being who experiences reasonable difficulties adjusting to a completely different world, which isn't a popular character type with the LN crowd for reasons I won't touch (but I'm thinking them really hard). She's an excellent strategist with a gamer's instinct for spotting and taking advantage of enemy's weaknesses in battle, she's quick on the spot and resilient and can talk herself out of any corner, and she has the strength to trust in her dryads' abilities when her own aren't suited for the situation. Plus, she really knows how to spend money. The catharsis of watching her blow stacks is a huge part of the early charm of the story, especially in her interactions with her Elderflower.

Her initial major flaw as a character, which some may be misattributing to unintelligence, is actually her immaturity. Jay starts out impulsive and prideful, quick to anger and to take being told to play it safer as a personal slight even if the other person has a point. She's a sheltered teenager living in an extended state of unreality whose overconfidence in her abilities as a gamer leads her to make dumb choices sometimes, but that's not the same thing as s*upidity. Look me in the text and tell me you'd have handled the Spoiler

situation after Cannabis's first rescue, when she bluffs so impressively that she not only turns one of the new plantnappers against the rest and gets him to escort her all the way to safety and walk away thinking he fooled her, but also puts him on retainer for future "jobs for her boss, "

[collapse] better than she did. Give her time to grow into herself, to learn responsibility and patience and to watch and listen before leaping into action. If you want a flat main character who never experiences meaningful growth, go read tr*sh of the Count's Family (sorry TCF, you're just not that good, also what's with all the torture and unquestioned use of child soldiers?), and if you want a main character who is a perfect sweetheart from the get-go, read The Third Wheel Strikes Back (actually, go read that one anyway, 1000/10 no notes).

By the way, if Jay's persistent mentality of "this is just a game and nothing is real" bothers you, know that there is a reason for it: Spoiler

when trauma leaves her shaken the World Tree mind-manipulates her, reinforcing her sense of unreality to prevent her from grasping the full extent of the danger she's in and thus keeping her on the path it needs her to walk.

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I do think it's weird how the narration treats Seedling at its start. He's awkward but never anything but well-intentioned, and it's sort of bizarre how hostile Jay is to him for a while and how his own dryads won't even defend him whenever she goes in on him, just fall over themselves trying to appease her. The story explains this as everyone else being so intimidated by him that they're desperate to get him any human socialization at all, even from someone who apparently hates him for no good reason I guess, but I did feel bad for the poor guy.

My theory about this is that on a metanarrative level the writer resented the pressure to shoehorn romance into the story at all when she just wanted to write a pure fantasy story featuring a female protagonist (this traces back to a Whole Thing where years ago a majority-male readership bullied female writers and readers out of "fantasy" categories, leading to the creation of the new and pretty eyeroll-inducing category of "romance fantasy"/"rofan" where female-oriented stories got automatically relegated, but now every one of those stories has to have romance in it even if that's not what you wanted to write), and so she needed a reason to sideline Seedling, and having Jay just hate him at first sight explains why they didn't start traveling together, even if that would make more sense since he could provide mentorship as a more experienced druid and she could help him be a socially functional human being. But then it wouldn't be Jay's story anymore so much as Jay and Seedling's, would it? So Seedling doesn't join the party until much later (when Jay's done some growing already), as part of an expanding crew of friends and allies and mentees with Jay at the center of it all.

[Also, re: another review, counterpoint to disagreeing with Jay's initial stance that Seedling shouldn't have cleaned up all the mobs: it's precisely because he's stronger that he should have left some mobs behind. Proximity to towns established around Branches of the World Tree naturally weakens the Flames, which are further fractured and suppressed after a culling like that. The fields close to settlements are literally training grounds for new fighters, how is any new druid supposed to grow if the stronger druids sweep through and raze everything? Seeking out untouched fields farther away on their own would be very likely to get them killed. The responsible thing to do as a more experienced druid would be to leave some weakened mobs scattered behind for safe combat practice, which was Jay's point.]