After four books I just can’t follow the main characters reasoning any more. The author reincarnates the main character from a planet he calls Earth with technology similar to our own and expects this background to do a LOT of heavy lifting.
The main issue I have is with Arthur’s morality.
Minor spoilers ahead.
So Art says he didn’t believe in gods in his previous life so his old life morals are based on societal norms. He then is placed in a situation where he knows the societal norms are different. In this setting we are told that slavery is acceptable, polygamy is acceptable, misogyny is still somewhat present, racism clearly exists, there are societal class systems, and infant mortality is so high that birthdays aren’t celebrated until they’re three.
So now Art shows up with his “enlightened” thinking and when presented with these issues he either out right ignores them or we get a brief “slavery is bad” blurb and then the issue is dropped. Then we get to Tess (and other girls), their obvious feelings for him, and his outright recital of societal norms from “Earth” with no exploring as to WHY they exist or are different.
Instead what we get is a “character flaw” that is incongruous with the world around him, his actions, and his other reactions to societal norms. This point is used as a crutch innumerable times and fills up a large amount of the books while other issues are hand waved away.
Another issue is the “villain” of book 4 who is set up to be “dealt with” by Art and yet isn’t. He does one thing at the end of the book before Art effortlessly deals with him. This makes the court scene utterly pointless filler. We get a solid 3-4 chapters of villain being bad from multiple perspectives then Art magically appearing with no explanation.
There are other issues I have but I think this is enough. The last hour or so of this book just left a bad taste in my mouth with how everything played out.