The Extra’s Academy Survival Guide Chapter 144 Discussion

Current Ch: 144

As always, this is an interesting premise. What I enjoy about this novel, is one of the facts that most of the "negative" reviews mention. (Also, these negative reviews usually never read the chapters past 20, which shouldn't even warrant a review yet.)

(If you want to read the actual review, skip this part) TLDR: The MC is forced to interact with the story even though he doesn't want to, because himself wanting to survive is a variable in itself that will fundamentally change the story, even though he doesn't want it to. This makes the novel more realistic, as it is true that it would be impossible for him to try to survive without interacting with the story.

More thorough review:

Anyways the fact I am talking about is that the MC messes up the story-line. Quite early on the MC says that he doesn't want to interact with the story-line at all, so he always knows what is going to happen, as it is a huge advantage for him. However, as time passes, there is a huge variable, which is himself. It realistically makes sense, there is nothing he can do about the variable as he wants to survive, which is what makes the story interesting.

At first, he wants no interaction what-so-ever with anything that has to do with the story. When the MC realizes this is impossible, he changes his perspective. He realizes that he has to interact with the story to try to keep it on track, as much as possible. It won't be exactly the same, but close enough that he can somewhat guess the events that will happen.

Spoiler (Why he ends up getting even further tangled into the story-line) :

Spoiler

Eventually, he goes even further and completely derails the story-line himself, due to his own emotions and feelings of guilt. At this point in the novel he would surely feel like the people around him are real people, not just characters that are set to live or die, which is why he ends up making a choice based on this. For the first time in the novel he tries to change the story, even if it's just subtly, because he doesn't want someone to die.

Spoiler (The choice he makes which backs this up) :

Spoiler

In the story, Adele is destined to die. Ed doesn't go out of his way to save her, but gives her a warning that she is about to die. I see this as character development, he feels that the people around him shouldn't just die because they were destined to in the novel.

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That was quite a rant, but necessary. In my opinion it's one of the strongest points in the story which makes it a bit more realistic. Another part I enjoy is the fact that the MC doesn't seem to be "the best" at anything, but finds out what he is talented at and works with that. He doesn't win a fight by just being the strongest or most talented, but by tactics and remembering the fighting patterns from the games. He uses a variety of the different mechanics (Magical engineering, Magic, Spirits, Knowledge etc.) all to his advantage to help him out.

This novel is almost a 5/5 for me, except there's a few cons that drag it down quite a bit... So here comes the cons of this novel.

The Harem. Personally I despise harems, which is rough in the Webnovel world. I hate it when the MC is going to end up with more than 1 romantic partner, but so be it. Most of the girls that interact with MC ends up getting interested in him, some more interestingly and realistically (Lucy / Yennekar), while some more randomly in dumb ways (Yennekar's friend who I don't even remember the name of / The Saint). It's kind of frustrating. #TeamYen, also Lortel is so annoying. Also the MC acts really dense, which is quite annoying, though I do believe it might be because of his past life before this world.

The story seems short? Apparently there's only 250 chapters in the main story, but I am only at chapter 144, which is still below act 10. If I remember correctly, the game had 40-50 acts so how its gonna close out the story in 106 more chapters will be interesting. I would like a longer story personally but I'll have to see how it ends off.