#maple ramble

A concept that makes WHB “charming” and appreciative is how there’s no true villain or hero. The line that defines evil and good, despite there being angels, dragons, demons, and humans, is nonexistent.

Disclaimer: Spoilers for Chapter 5, Events, Gamigin, and Lucifer!

We are put under an illusion such a line exists when we see the human MC get attacked by Gabriel, only to be saved by Satan. From that point on and all the way to Chapter 4, everything seems to be set in stone that the villains are the angels, whose goal is practically to assert their race as the only living race as a mean to receive all of “God’s” love since they are jealous that they aren’t the ONLY race to receive his love. This includes the whole issue of them targeting the MC as they are the descendent of the sole human who received most of “God’s” love (i.eSolomon). Hence, the MC and us, the players, are put under the impression that devils are victims since they are trying to protect their homes while owing them a debt for saving (reviving) Minhyeok. 

Chapter 5, however, shows us that this isn’t the case and the situation wasn’t that simple. Though we learn of how the angels used to run a lab to experiment on a large population of devils, including Leviathan and Orias, the devils weren’t completely innocent. When discussing as to why the Seed of Knowledge would be in Tartaros, we learn of how said country used to do just the same as the angels where the devils of Tartaros had previously ran a lab and experimented on angels before Mammon, himself, destroyed it due to the experimentation posing as a threat to his people.  

We also see from the two events, Requiem of the Survivors and the Life Investigation of Leraye, how Orias attempts to take Leviathan’s life just so he could consume Leviathan’s soul and obtain long-lasting youth while Astaroth is found by Sitri coming back from the human world after corrupting and ruining the life of a human. We would think the devils wouldn’t be like this as they are introduced as more of a pure and innocent existence especially when, according to Solomon and other devils, they can’t even lie. Based on these events and from seeing in Chapter 5 how the devils of Hades are able to lie, that’s not the actual truth.

If anything, it can be argued their nature and cruelty is almost closed to the angels. The few things that doesn’t make the devils from being on the same level as them is how they don’t intend to assert their race and commit genocide for said goal but exhibit consideration and sympathy towards their fellow and other races. From The Two Stars event, Gamigin’s comic, and Lucifer’s comic, we see how the devils show kindness even towards angels and dragons where the original Gamigin gives his life up to save dragon Gamigin while Satan’s camp and Satan, himself, show neutrality to Lucifer when he first arrived in Hell and takes down his fellow angels. In addition to this, the devils of Paradise Lost choose to follow Lucifer and acknowledge him as their king and “hyung” despite him being an angel. 

All of this being said, there’s no “good guy” or “bad guy” in WHB. Instead, we see how war brings out both the good and bad sides of all beings that justifies reasoning for certain actions but not excusing them.  There’s also emphasis that the POV of the MC can’t be completely relied on due to bias where they are mostly interacting with the devils on a normal and mutual basis. The concept of moral-grayness makes the overall story all more intriguing as more lore is revealed through interactions between MC -to- characters and characters-to-characters. 

PB did a fantastic job with the new event where not only did they drop more lore but also emphasize no side is a complete antagonist/"bad guy". Up to before this event, the angels have continued to set up as petty and villainous being that only wishes to be the eyes of "God". The event shows that isn't really the case when revealing the relationship between Lucifer and the seraphims.

In fact, I can't help but really pity the angels and their relationship with Lucifer. Especially with Michael, it's obvious that he really does love Lucifer in an extremely twisted way. He never once faults Lucifer for anything he does and, instead, blames and kills those around him to be the cause for any actions Lucifer takes that Michael disagrees with/ "goes against 'God's' will". Heck, despite Lucifer being the one to have pulled one of his eyes out as a way to save the remaining two dragons (Gamigin and Serenade), Michael does everything in his power to find Lucifer and tries to bring him back to Heaven from Hell. He still calls him "hyung", which in both KRN and JPN, a guy calling another guy who's older than himself whether being blood-related or not "hyung", "aniki", and so forth is interpreted as being extremely affectionate and close with the other party. He also doesn't frown or get angry at him but smiles and flushes in Lucifer's presence.

The part that makes all of this ever more tragic is that the love between Lucifer, Michael, and the rest of the seraphims is mutual. Lucifer doesn't come to hate them but shows desire for them to realize what they're doing is wrong. It ranges from Lucifer saying to Michael his desires outright to having Michael be the only surviving angel to go to Heaven while killing the rest that were brought down to Hell. He really could've killed Michael and in the event, it was mentioned how Lucifer had felt when addressing Michael was fury and "child-like affection". Not once was the word resentment or hatred used, rather his feeling of resentment/hatred seemed to be targeted toward himself and had caused him to lose his mentality.

This leads to Michael's final action of not knowing how to react or what to do and instead, choose to fly back to Heaven. Before the event, Michael and the other 2 seraphims were portrayed as those that were fanatic purely towards "God" alone and would destroy everything for the sake of "God". So, it wouldn't be surprising and perhaps, event expected, that Michael would at least call Lucifer a traitor and swear he would be the one to take his life. The new event, however, definitely showed that's not the case and the seraphims are capable of being affectionate towards others as Michael ends up crying and leave without a word, seemingly from heart break.

All of this makes me think what Lucifer and the angels had was like the relationship between "God" and the angels. Both loved each other yet even "God" had reached his limit with the amount of atrocities the angels were committing for "his sake". I want to think it's because how precious the angels were to him as were the rest of the races he created that "God" wasn't able to have the heart to actually discipline them. And since he didn't want to lay his hands on them, this issue had become one of the reasons as to why he disappeared along with the possibility of wanting to be with Solomon - to punish them and have them realize the crimes they have committed. Nothing is confirmed and we have to wait for more information to drop but if this ends up being confirmed, it's obvious it only served to worsen the angels behavior.

As a p2w player, even I find that incredible rude. Whether it's p2w or f2p, NO ONE should be blocked from being able to enjoy a game's content including being able to obtain a character they like. F2p players have their own reasons to be f2p, the biggest factor being due to irl obligations. But to express discontent by saying it's not fair when f2p don't pay to even support the game? Ridiculous.

PB why are you likes this!!! Why do you have to pull my heart strings and make me like a character to the point I'd be willing to throw everything, only to off them!!!

Seriously, I'll be willing to throw all my resources for OG!Gamigin or even beg PB for him to either get revived in the story or have his own card so I can see him co-parent our drago!Gamigin and Jjok with Lucifer!!!

*Spoilers for Gamigin's comic under cut

So, at this point everyone has read the recent announcement PrettyBusy has posted in regards to sharing ANY paid content. For the full announcement you can access it here but for those that just wants a sweet, small summary, it's essentially them taking legal action on anyone who:

Share any DATAMINE of PAID characters

Share any of the PAID characters FULL story, chats, etc.

So, they still allow players to share parts/bits and pieces of the paid content, just not all of it.

Though it seems like everyone can understand the whole business side of things, there's still confusion on the datamine aspect as in how is datamining is illegal, why is there legal action taken against datamining, etc.

First, I feel like people need to understand that datamining, itself, it NOT illegal. The problem is sharing datamines publicly on any social media. The reasons are for the following

Intellectual Property Rights: when companies release games, all of their contents are protected by trademarks, copyrights, and intellectual property laws. When posting content that company didn't share themselves on their own social media page or to EVERYONE (both F2P and P2W), it's infringing copyright laws since the one sharing it wasn't the one to have produced/created the work or data (think of it reposting artists work without their permission but you're sharing a work that was put in by artists and game creators of the company without their permission).

Terms of Service Violation: Many software applications, websites, and digital platforms impose terms of service (ToS) that users must agree to before using their services. These ToS often prohibit activities like reverse engineering, data scraping, or extracting data in a manner that circumvents the intended use of the service. By datamining and posting content obtained in violation of these terms, you are breaching a contractual agreement between yourself and the platform, which can lead to legal consequences.

Security: there are certain codes and firewalls set up that many (if not ALL) game companies put in as a means to detect if there is any malicious activity happening within the system that could potential harm the players (e.g., hacking and extracting players' personal information). When datamining, most people aren't aware in what form these protective barriers are set-up, so when extracting contents from the game, rather than being seen as simply getting contents for one's amusement, it can be detected as a threat by the security system.

What I wrote are only snippets of the few reasons as to the legal concerns in sharing datamine contents. And despite for other fandoms, it's not as prevalent, game companies are starting to take up action in regards to datamining, some being obvious about it while others are being discreet.

However, if we were talking about solely on the announcement, it's understandable why it would bother players, especially F2P. For other games (not saying ALL or MOST), they do eventually make the paid content accessible at some point for F2P without having to make them wait for so long. However, PB isn't taking much initiative with that, where now they're adding characters from the Solomon Seals after 3 MONTHS while, for now, not letting F2P have ANY ACCESS to limited characters from Nightmare Pass. To top that off, previously PB had promised re-runs of events, which would've allowed newer F2P to have a chance to play the event and obtain resources/characters from it. But now they have their previous events accessible behind paywall, decreasing the likelihood for event re-runs to happen. As for P2W, players are literally paying to get the character and related contents related to said character so there shouldn't be much restrictions in sharing their paid content on public platforms in the first place (this is not to say they should disrespect PB and share everything though). This is without mentioning some of the promises that have already broken based on the announcement earlier this year and last month (?) (Main story drop every 2 months, Friendship System, Comics related to Cards being posted on their Social Media, etc.).