I think it was pretty realistic. It truly nailed in just how little Schneider care for him, as well as how easy it is to lose your life as an awakened. It was sudden, extremely sudden, just like death in real life.
Good point. I agree it was realistic and true to the world of the story. Lol I just had a personal attachment (even if I didn’t really like him) bc of how long its been.
Since there wasn’t more to his character than his angst, though, I’m def ready to meet some new villains.
Nah, he lost all my sympathy after he sold out all his school friends, shared all their techniques etc to the frame, author loosing a arm, that white haired girl loosing an eye… many others straight killed.. they never stood a chance. This isn’t some typical jealous over the top guy… duke betrayed everyone around him. How could his master or anyone else respect or care for him? If it was just him being crazy obsessive about beating jiwoo maybe I could back a redemption arc. But he had no conscious… he didn’t care/respect his master, he was always scheming behind his back with spike collar dude. If you can betray those closet to you for me, you will one day betray me.
That is true, but like no one batted an eye at this because it's so normal in the world. It's wild that the people considered 10 strongest in the world would just shrug at the apprentice *they* chose doing this rather than try to correct early on. And when it got worse, they just still watched. The only times crazy rookies are scolded is for losing, not actually being psychotic.
So I mean "it's a shame" that he really reduced himself to a run of the mill villain rookie. I kind of agree after thinking that he became iredeemable. It's just crazy that at all these steps to him getting worse, all the adults were really just watching or encouraging it. Like the world focused on solely power over anything is a shame.
I feel that given more time, Duke could have had some sort of redemption. Not full 180, but a change. And tbh even with all his bad, it was still possible for him to become some kind of antihero even — but like his master said, his mindset ruined him. That said, I don’t remember his master once telling him this before in a way that wasn’t bad for his mental health. So the weight of those word’s didn’t hit for me.
The vibe is: “That’s what you get” after watching him descend? Huh.
I’m not happy Duke is gone because nothing changes whether he is here or not. He’s not a Zuko or an Azula. We weren’t given some traumatic backstory to relate to him. He’s like a stand-in character that just shows us how everyday villains are made in this world. Bc any other villain could have been him. He almost doesn’t matter because even the top ten around him seem to care less whether he lives or dies.
This is a terrible world awakeners live in. And I’m almost impressed that the writer never backtracked on that just to make us comfortable.
That said, because we spent so much screen time with him, ending his story just like that is dissatisfying.