Review Detail of Holdmahbeer in Release That Witch

Thanks for pointing out the centralization of power. Sometimes I'm scared people will read this and be romanticized by the idea without thinking about the consequences. That part of this novel really turns me off anr makes it feel like communist propaganda

I don't think this novel is communist but a capitalist one. A communist divides wealth equally among the people without consideration for the people's effort to gain such wealth. It is clear in the novel that people who worked longer and had better jobs earn higher than those who don't work longer hours and doesn't have a better job. It is not even socialist for the industries are not owned by the people but by Roland himself and he alone decides what will be prioritized in production. Neverwinter in my opinion, is a state-sized conglomerate which has monopoly on all industries which can be proven by Roland's complete control on steel, agriculture, oil, and construction industries. I do agree that Roland overcentralized Graycastle, but the circumstances which revolves around his world forces him to implement such protocol. Only he knows what industrialization looks like. After the end of the war, he might decentralize Graycastle and turn it into something like the US or make large tracts of lands into provinces where a local government is in charge of maintaining it and that local government reports to the central government. I do not understand what ramifications does a mind reading secret police has but I'm more than free to discuss ideas with you. In my opinion, a mind reading secret police is not Gestapo since Gestapo cannot read minds. I'm a fan of RTW and I've been rereading it a more than a couple of times and I would love to hear your ideas about Roland's management system since I am no expert and I might have overlooked something. I look forward to your reply.

First off, it's interesting to hear a considered response to my assessment. So I'll try to keep my response reasonable as well. To begin, I'd argue that your take slightly misreads the cause and effect of the social order: it's not effort which brings people wealth, it's loyalty that does so. The townsfolk who stuck with roland in the first winter get good houses; early adopters of the neverwinter system get education and good jobs; the nobles who follow roland live and the rest die; spies and traitors caught by the mind reading secret police get blacklisted from jobs and questioned. Heck Edith is a walking poster girl for loyalty leading to success. I get that loyalty and hard work are related, but it's loyalty to roland's system that gets you points in roland's system. No amount of effort on its own replaces loyalty. That is a key reason why the system feels kind of oppressive. It's also why secret police are a big deal. If nightingale claims you're a traitor, you don't get to defend yourself. It's just over. I also get that roland's system is the only shot at survival. That's why I'm willing to tolerate a lot of the choices he makes. But his actions have consequences. Forced migration to neverwinter? Historically, forced migrations have one common denominator: human tragedy. Roland's choices mean people who don't want to die, will die. Through no choice of theirs. And the fact that he's the only hope mean that his power is the only one that counts, period. Is another human civilization in a position to oppose him? No, not with that tech advantage. Is he going to relinquish this power when it's over? No, his agenda is to be the king forever because he has eternal life. It's still a good story. It's just not a good model for a charitable and equitable society in the real world.

That's definitely true. If this happened in our world, millions of live will be lost. But what's pretty about RTW is that the situations presented in the novel are ideal situations where such controversial methods are perfectly reasonable to implement. After all, we have never faced an enemy that can wipe us out. For Roland, it is desperate measures for desperate times. But the first part of your paragraph confuses me. If loyalty makes them rich, what about those immigrants, who prospers, who works for the King without loyalty to the crown? They were still able to buy what they want and eat very well if they get multiple jobs. What about the merchants who come and goes in the territory of Greycastle? They go home full of money whenever they sell their wares to Greycastle. I am a bit ***** and I might have missed something important to scrutinize.

The thing is, a tragedy is a tragedy even if the alternative is also a tragedy. America nuked Japan. The reasoning was that the alternative would be a ground war which would cost many more lives. And, yeah ok, that may be true. Both sides still had people and land to fight over and ultimately lose lives for. But still: America nuked Japan. And that was a human tragedy. It wasn't right just because the alternative was terrible. And neither is roland. Which is fine, the story doesn't need a perfect protagonist; just don't pretend like his actions don't have negative consequences. And it's not like I'm saying that there is no economy. There is. It's critically important. But let me ask you: who controls the distribution of food in neverwinter? Not the free market. Sure, you might have foreign capital. Businessmen come from exotic places to sell exotic things. But that doesn't change the name of the game. They don't control the distribution of survival. The government does that.

I never said it was right. It was necessary. Morally speaking, what he did is morally wrong but doing the moral thing isn't always the necessary thing.

Yep. Glad you came around to it.

I thank you for such good discussion. I was pretty terrified of my own response because it might portray me as some sort of a cold person. I had a row with an SJW once and it wasn't a good experience. Talk about a terrible first time in a forum.

Likewise, it was interesting to have my assertions challenged. If it makes a difference to you, remember that some ancient orators thought that the point of an argument is not necessarily to convince the other person to accept your viewpoint, but rather for you to come to a more nuanced view of the issue (and hopefully for your fellow interlocutor to as well) I, for one, now concede that my biggest gripe with neverwinter government isn't that falls under one classification or another; rather, I simply dislike how it seems oppressive and unstoppable. Hopefully, you've also come to see why that might be the case. It certainly fixed some evils, but it introduced its own evils, too. Ultimately, I don't think such a system would be tenable if attempted in real scenarios. Either way, fun to consider

I totally agree with everything you just wrote. Hope we can share some opinions in the future about this great novel again. Thank you once again for this conversation. Have a good day.