Savage Divinity

This is a sad review for me because its mainly my closure review more than being written for the actual purpose of a review.

TLDR: The author had good ideas but failed to stay true to them. The character-driven idea slowly just changed to character-exposition. Even if a story is more character focused doesn't mean its okay for it to stall as long as the stalling is done by characters. 'Driven' is still a key word in that term and it seems like the author no longer has plans to uphold that part of said term.

Now Savage Divinity as a concept, especially given what the author put in the synopsis was exactly what I was looking for when I started out and at first, it delivered.

A character driven cultivation story. Characters are usually the sacrificial lambs in cultivation stories and many times even the MC is left with no actual character. In Savage Divinity that wasn't the case, all the characters were interesting and likeable, with a lot have more realistic worries, trails and triumphs than what is usually seen in cultivation stories.

Similarly in cultivations novels the world is also usually left behind and seems to only appear as necessary in the MC's journey and is erased when said MC leaves.

Now while the characters were always well developed, SD took a more slow revealing approach to world building but all the same it was there and was strong.

The story wasn't highly unique but it was fairly so by the different story tropes it weaved together and how it did it.

Now as you may have noticed a lot of that is in the past tense, and that's the sad thing that has led to this 'closure' review.

While the grammar has not slipped much, pretty much everything else has.

The story, while still providing tibits of its direction has stopped seeming meaningful because instead of being character-driven, it started to be character-stalled. I mean this in many different ways.

The common one you will see in the newer reviews are based around the MC and his constant monologues of self-doubt, that in itself is a big blow to the story's progress but has many facets.

It's not just the character being thrown back into the same character plotlines he was supposed to have conquered, it's also the fact that due to this repeating character stumbleblock the other parts of the story have been pretty much ignored and not explored beyond the occasional side PoV or small mention.

Things are happening but they're not expanded on or explored in terms of their relevance to the overall story or even their fellow characters. Now from where I'm stopping (415), other than the war the other facets of the story seem to be playing out in a background instance that doesn't affect most of the characters in the story. This is because while the impetus for the war may be due to these happenings the war itself is more similar to just a zombie apocalypse and the 'human' side battling against it. This is made worse by the fact that the reason it had to play out like this is barely even hinted at and the characters within said situation are too busy stalling the story to question the reason for their current circumstance, so everything interesting about the story is wasted.

This stalling is even present in the style of the ficiton as the PoV's are often random now and don't serve that strong a purpose in the story because everyone is too much in their own head and don't interact properly with each other so the point of view changes don't actually serve much purpose beyond a slight exploration of present characters, therefore not contributing to the overall story or even the development of other but related characters.

Now for the characters directly. Other than the MC they're quite good though just like everything else the character quality drops as you go over a certain amount of chapters. In the early instances they were very diverse and the interactions between them enlightening even outside their PoV chapters. Now though, a lot of the newer characters that are focused on are mirror images of previous ones and even the MC with a good few fellow self-doubters. All the other characters that would bring balance have been pretty much phased out or shoved to the background. Lin for example being probably the only truly positive and happy character almost never has a PoV but is still constantly in the story and the lives of the other characters who have many PoV chapters.

Now what really saddens me about this fiction is the author, as even with all these problems if the author was more open to trying they could all be fixed, he has the writing skills for it as his earlier chapters showed.

Unfortunately it seems the author has discarded this outlook from his synopsis: "It's my first story, constructive criticism would be appreciated.". Instead, currently any criticism is returned with snark remarks or passive aggressive dismissals, with the constructive criticism seemingly being lumped in with the haters in the authors mind. That or he just doesn't care anymore.

I originally had a great time reading this story, but lately the pacing has been killing me. Even with multiple chapters a week, so much of the story is effectively filler that we can go weeks with the story hardly progressing at all.

Imagine this, someone starts drawing a well known shounen character. You perhaps know a great amount of said character, know a little bit about them, or know of them but never got into the anime/manga they are from. As you observe them draw you notice they take their time, build up a good foundation with slow strokes, but still hold your interest in watching them draw. Eventually you think to yourself, damn the drawing is probably as good as if the original artist drew it themselves if not better. Then they start adding detail. They already have a good drawing laid out for all to see, but it's not what the artist wants, the artist wants to add their own touches and make it more their own. So they start throwing shading and lighting to the picture, adding more cosmetics, even adding coloring. Unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your view point) the coloring doesn't match the original and eventually the artist changes the looks of the character even further to emphasize their own originality. This isn't a bad thing, but for some like myself it feels disappointing. The detailing and coloring ended up making you like the picture less, you still like it, but not as much as you did before. That's what this novel has been to me.

The author took a widely used concept (MC reincarnation into another body and that MC has to struggle through the new world's rules to become strong and get what he wants)
Maybe you're familiar with this setup, reading tons of xianxia and wuxia novels, maybe you've read lots of fan fictions pertaining this style of setup, or maybe you're new to it.
It's been used over and over again and this novel doesn't do anything new besides being written better than most.
The author made a great start introducing the background and world building through a slower but interesting first 30 chapters or so
The writing has been consistent, allowing for a good flow from the start of a chapter to the finish, unfortunately some paragraphs are often repeated throughout chapters just worded differently
The grammar has been consistently good with only a couple of mistakes in each chapter
Eventually the author puts more and more of what they want into the story, which is fine, it's their story and they have all the reasons to do so, but that's the problem. It doesn't feel as good as it could be. Like the choices the author chooses to make are holding back the novel.

I'll give detailed and better explanation for my score but only through the spoiler as I will need to reference the novel to get my point across. I am currently up to date at chapter 216, so this will showcase what I've read so far.

A preface: If you're at all predisposed towards reincarnation or transmigration stories or towards Western-written wuxia, this is a solid addition to your reading list. There are few technical errors that will be noticable to anyone not accustomed to writing and editing at the level expected of a (competent) Ph.D. in English or a related field.

The tone of the setting is largely coherent and at least acceptably interesting. The deliberate vagueness regarding the Definitely Not Warhammer Fantasy Northmen could come across as good or bad, given that that sort of lack of detail is often used to cover up sloppy worldbuilding in amateur writing. The elements borrowed from a more xianxia-ish style are generally not favorable ones, but are at least not the worst possible.

The story is at its best in combat and in downtime. The unfortunate part is that much of it is spent instead on angsty introspection of the worst sort. Despite scores of chapters devoted to pseudo-philosophical naval gazing on Rain's part, there is very little real development in his character, relationships, or outlook on the world. You have to get close to 300 chapters in just for him to stop being a complete asshole.

He's the epitome of an unlikeable protagonist. He's too whiny, thoughtful, and compassionate for the Hard Men Making Hard Choices While Hard crowd, too indecisive and battleharem protagonist-y for people who like complex and coherent characters. Most importantly, he is so goddamn passive and socially retarded that it hurts. Regardless of what you like in protagonists, his utter inability to take action (except when he fucks something up to usher in another 20+ chapters of whining monologue) makes him easy to detest.

Thankfully, there's a large and fairly nuanced supporting cast to drag my character score up. If Rain could get his goddamn act together and stop being such a useless turd it would be a good story. He's like a perverse combination of the worst character traits of Shinji Ikari and Randidly Ghosthound.

When Savage Divinity started, it was amazing. The author's style was fresh, the characters were well developed, and the story was moving along nicely. Now, however, it seems that the story is developing at a snail's pace. I'm not feeling the tension. All I'm feeling is annoyance in literally nothing happening. Yes, war is filled with downtime. In fact, most of war is downtime or marching. But this is a story. We can conveniently skip a lot of that. Yet, the author keeps the story at this slow pace. Literally the past 8 or 9 (latest chapter 458) what has happened? Gen is coming, but taking tiny steps. Rain survives an assassination that took 4 chapters to set up and deal with the aftermath. Past 20 chapters, more development of side characters, 1 battle. I get it, introducing new characters means developing them.

And because of the author's style, I can't actually see any way to speed things up. The author writes out much of the thoughts of the character they are describing the perspective of. Thus, Rain's insights can't be sped up. I literally have to read multiple chapters of just him thinking to himself, and most of that seems to be complaining. Seriously, after 400+ chapters, I still have to hear Rain groan about how all this is unfair? I mean, the point has already been hammered in pretty hard.

And the tension. Yes, Gen is a bad boy, but come on. I literally am not feeling any fear for Rain right now. At least with the society, we didn't know what the outcome would do to Rain. Would he have been exhiled from the Empire? Would he have lived as a fugitive? the effect of Rain's war with the Society was unclear until the author revealed the outcome. With Gen, I can't seem to see any other outcome than just some epic duel to the death. That or Gen is cured and then may or may not comit suicide out of shame.

It kills me to admit this but even though I love this story, I can't help but agree with most of the bad review ratings given to this story. It has slow pacing, a lot of whining and what I think it's worst of all, repeated content paraphrasing.

I noticed that the repeated info dumps happened mostly when readers asked question or commented about topics already explained in the story but that were not very clear to them, I guess the author felt the need to explain the topics in more depths, but it all feels like redundancy and going in circles around the same topics. It's all good. It is better to over explain than under explain. But when the chapter only have a measly 4k length and are only released thrice a week, I can't help but resent a little the precious words wasted on topics already explained.

Even after all my complaining, this story is still my favorite and has filled my nights with beatiful dreams.

I just cannot read anymore. It started out soo good. Loved the characters and story but it has gotten really bad as of late. It feels like the Arthur is going just for page length and nothing else. I have to stop or i will hate myself. Shame Im doing so but i don't want to force myself to read any longer.

This is a story that's been running for a long time, and is very popular, and it shows. The author definitely has a plot in mind, but also really loves all his characters. This is great, and good! However, he loves his characters too much and is obviously trying to pad this out to continue raking in donations and support.

Initial chapters were focused and led somewhere, around the Sansu arc things slowed down. Increasingly, there have been many chapters from the point of view of minor characters, and these are not usually plot driven. The main character has been in a loop for the last 200-300 chapters, being depressed, trying to get past it, then getting depressed again. This is great for someone who's trying to write a realistically depressed person, but it's not fun to read.

Sure, I get it. This is his story and he doesn't owe us anything. But at the same time, I don't owe him anything either. I dropped this story as of now. You might enjoy it. It's well written and has proper grammar. The first few chapters are great to read and enjoyable. Just don't go into it thinking its flaws will improve. The author is aware of them, doesn't care, and they won't improve.

I loved this story at the start but now every chapter has become a chore to read as the characters just annoy me.

All the strong female characters seem very similar and do not have depth. There do not seem to be any strong male characters. They are all either power abusing rapists or sidekicks to the females.

I started reading this story because I felt it was deep and delved into the minds of the characters while building a solid world around them. But as the story progresses the author has thrown all of his/her strengths out. World building has become sloppy and the characters even worse.

Making the other side illogical evil assholes to drive the story along and make the protagonist side look good is what xianxia do. I expected a lot more from this author.

Finally, the MC’s mindset. I get the whole traumatized by the whole slave experience  part but the self debasement has gone on for long enough. Moreover what was the point of him being an older otherworlder if he just behaves/thinks like a regular teenager of the current world. The only use of this plot device seems to be to delay romance between the MC and the females of his age that seem to be enraptured …

I apologize if the review came of as caustic but it may have been spurred by the frustration I felt by the slow deterioration of the story’s quality. I really want the author to improve because I believe he/she can be a much better author.

Over the past few years, I've seen stories on RR come and (unfortunately) go, meaning I attempt not to get too attached to them. I've also noticed patterns about how and why some stories enter the Top Weekly/Monthly Fiction lists, top weekly review lists, etc. and this story has me baffled. Savage Divinity has the quality, quantity and update speed (still somehow daily, warning: author may be a robot) to qualify it both for the latter and, despite my best intentions, the former. 

The characters are so fleshed out and individualistic they are beautiful in their imperfections, the power structure cleanly and clearly laid out, the MC strong-ish but by no means "OP," the world-building unique (which I want to emphasize how shocking it was to me given how many stories I've read), the main enemies (minus one hilarious encounter) nowhere close to caricatures (the "enemy's" reason for fighting is so sad I actually empathize with them in their plight, if not their means - we've only had one or two snippets of their POV but it's heart-breaking in-between the lines), the plot organic and believable, and finally, it has DAILY UPDATES.

If this story isn't #1 on the Top Monthly and somewhere in the top 20 for the Best Rated soon, I don't understand anymore. Help this story get the exposure it deserves so the author knows how good it truly is. I hesitate to hope for this given I've seen authors scared away by rude and uncouth commentators, but this story is good enough that I want others to read it for the author's sake.

TL;DR: Story is gold, read it.