I struggled with this.

I quite like the world, the litrpg aspects (constant and tedious full reads of his stat list aside) and the premise of this story, but I really struggled with the protagonist as a character.

There’s only so much undeserved self-flagellation I can stomach. Feeling guilty because you didn’t allow a tyrannical government to mutilate you might come as traitorous whispers in your mind when you are at your absolute most vulnerable – but to feel that way constantly?

GTFO with that noise. I couldn’t empathise in the slightest, and I don’t put that on me. I put that on an author who clearly wanted his protagonist to feel a certain way, and sought to achieve that in the most clumsy way possible.

If only he had directed even a fraction of the hate he has for himself at the magistrates who literally brand and torture their charges, I might have been able to stomach it more.

The guilt wasn’t as annoying as the blatant hypocrisy though. Refusing to use ‘dark magic’ because it’s ‘evil,’ but shrugging off entrapping a soul in a skull (who expressly asked for the ritual to be undone and to be freed) against its will just because he needs him to learn MAGIC? Someone who was his FRIEND and helped him out already when he was at his lowest?

This isn’t morally grey. This is a level of mentally challenged and cognitive dissonance that I wouldn’t be surprised to see from a toddler.

The protagonist needs a serious reality check. He needs someone to grab him by the throat and grind his face into the ground until he gets it, but that’s the kind of thing that would happen in the real world. Instead, we have a supporting cast that just stands around and enables this nonsense, constantly calling him the second coming instead of calling him on his BS. This leaves me little hope that our hero will ever grow.

It feels like a feature, instead of a bug in his character.

It’s… unfortunate.