Highlights
- The characters in The Rising of The Shield Hero are flawed, which adds depth and realism to the story.
- The heroes' flawed behaviors and perspectives don't match their revered status, creating interesting conflicts and dynamics.
- The heroes' belief that they are living in a game world leads to a lack of seriousness towards their responsibilities as protectors of a real world.
Warning: The following contains spoilers for The Rising of The Shield Hero Season 3, Episode 6, “Where You Point Your Strength”, now streaming on Crunchyroll.
One of the great things about Rising of the Shield Hero is its characters. This series tries its best to craft three-dimensional characters with unique lives, behaviors, and points of view. And for the most part, it has been a largely successful endeavor.
One of the key reasons behind this success is the fact that most of these characters are flawed. They are not perfect and they often make terrible decisions. The best example of this concept is none other than the four legendary heroes themselves. So let’s use this chance to look into what is so wrong with these heroes, what are the reasons behind it, and why it is a good thing for the series as a whole.
The Flawed Heroes
There are four heroes currently active in the country of Melromarc. The Sword Hero Ren Amaki, the Spear Hero Motoyasu Kitamura, the Bow Hero Itsuki Kawasumi, and the protagonist of this series, the Shield Hero Naofumi Iwatani. Every single one of them wields powerful legendary weapons that have existed for thousands of years, and all of them have a flaw in their character. Their behaviors and perspectives in life don’t befit their status as heroes revered by the people.
Ren Amaki is known for being selfish and only cares about increasing his own abilities and achieving his own objectives over anything else. Motoyasu Kitamura can be said to be the kindest of all the heroes, but he is also a playboy who prefers to play around with women rather than doing his job as a hero. Itsuki Kawasumi has the highest sense of justice compared to the other heroes, but this is also the reason why he becomes a self-righteous man-child who thinks he knows better than everyone else. Last but not least is Naofumi Iwatani, who is notoriously known for his distrustful nature and generally rude attitude towards others.
To be fair though, Naofumi’s bitter attitude stems from Malty’s betrayal and the scorn and disdain thrown at him by the people of Melromarc in his early days as the Shield Hero. Truth be told, Naofumi is actually a kind and generous person who is willing to go out of his way to help others. Unfortunately, the same thing can’t be said about the other heroes. Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki already had the seeds of corruption in their hearts even before they were summoned to Melromarc. Being a hero simply brings those bad qualities to the forefront and makes it worse.
Game vs Real World
Apart from Naofumi, all of those aforementioned terrible qualities that the heroes have come from the same place, which is the idea that they are currently living in the Game World. To them, the real world is the life that they have left behind back in Japan. This new life is nothing more than a new playground that has been gifted to them. A new world that feels familiar to them due to its similarities to the fictional world that they often see in their old video games.
So what’s so bad about living a life like it is a massive video game? After all, from the monsters to their incredible combat abilities, everything looks and feels exactly like a fantasy game. So it’s only natural for them to treat it as such, right? Well, unfortunately for them, Melromarc is not a game. It is a real world where real people live and die. The people in this new world try their best to lead a fulfilling life amidst the harsh living conditions where monsters and bandits can kill them anytime and anywhere without warning. And it is the job of the heroes to protect them from such threats, especially from cataclysmic events like the Waves of Calamity.
However, since Ren, Motoyasu, and Itsuki still have the image of Melromarc as an extension of the game world that they used to play back in Japan, they don’t take any of the aforementioned threats seriously. To them, monsters are there to increase their levels, bandits and bad people are nothing more than an objective to tick out of their list, the waves of calamity are just massive events to gain great rewards and experience points, and the people in this world are simply NPCs that they can treat however they like.
Character Development Galore
While the Bow, Spear, and Sword Heroes are not inherently bad guys, they are not living up to their status as heroes either. They are a bunch of brats who don't take their jobs seriously. While having such terrible heroes is certainly bad news for the people of Melromarc, it is actually a piece of good news for this series as a whole. Because it means developing their characters would be so much easier than somebody like Naofumi and Raphtalia who are already good people right from the start.
Turning a weak but kind character into a strong but kind character requires careful planning and delicate treatment. Otherwise, the story will quickly get boring because it will appear that the author only enhances the character’s strength and not their personality. That is why Naofumi and Raphtalia have to go through so many obstacles throughout three seasons in order to make their character development as compelling as it is.
As for characters who are already bad right from the start, they usually only need some major life-altering event to change them into good guys. And that is basically what is happening to Ren, Itsuki, and Motoyasu right now. The author simply needs to show several instances where these characters abuse their power, and then hit them with a harsh reality so that they can change for the better. Mind you, everything will still need to be carefully thought out to make the plot as believable as possible, but for all intents and purposes, these three heroes are some of the easiest characters to develop.
Needless to say, more character development is always better for the story as a whole. That’s why although the three heroes are bad for the people of Melromarc, they are a good source of free character development for the series.