No, the MC is literally imprisoned.
Merriam Webster “a state of confinement or captivity.”
Is the MC free to leave of their own accord? Nope, so they are in fact confined.
The MC is objectively imprisoned, and claims it’s subjective opinion are in fact counterfactual.
I would go on a Arcadia vs Param debate, but the last time I did it went on for 72 hours so I would much rather let it go.
This path can only go one way, and it will take me, without any shame, into the hands of 1 week ban.
This, honestly, is one reason I freaking hate that golden-haired prick. There are a lot of things I can overlook, but lack of loyalty isn’t one of them. You don’t watch someone go through the shit the MC went through–selflessly, I might add–then screw them over the way Leon did. You don’t come back from that.
Loyalty breeds loyalty. Betrayal breeds betrayal. And, after replaying b1 and getting my character solidified, there’s no way in hell Leon can work his way back into her good graces. She is selfless and loyal, but she’s no doormat. Betray her–torture her and turn your back on her like Leon did–and you will reap the fucking whirlwind (amusing since I ended up naming her Aella, which literally means “whirlwind”). And anyone who stands in her way to take him down will be turned to ash.
Agreed. And his little whiny episode of sitting in his room for a couple of weeks doesn’t undo what was done. Nothing can undo the inhumane torture he put the MC through. If some MCs want to trust him again and let it go (and somehow managed to escape without suffering PTSD from the torture), that’s their business. For me and my MC, however, that won’t and can’t happen.
Like you said elsewhere, the way Leon treated the MC is how you treat someone you wanted to dispose of all along and were looking for a good reason to do so. And, honestly, that fits with Leon’s behavior from the beginning–use the MC to help achieve his goals, then murder her because she’s too dangerous. Of course, I think he’s too stupid to plan that far ahead…
And I can’t freaking wait for it to happen. When Aella is done with Leon’s ass, she’ll deal with Thalia, who will have one chance to show she is better than the asshole king.
Exactly how my MC feels. Whatever the circumstances, Thalia is not yet on her shit list. If nothing else, Thalia has given her another chance to live, and to seek revenge on the bastard who betrayed her and threw the love she had for him back in her face.
I think that’s all the MC ever was to him.
Exactly so. For my MC, it’s not even about a worldview. Things, for her, are much more personal than that. She fights for personal reasons (the trees, not the forest) and is loyal to individuals, not institutions or nations.
So, for her, being brought back means she can right a wrong that was done to her, something unforgivable. She will remove the boy king. She couldn’t give less of a shit who takes the throne after that, but he has to die. As does Ante. As for the people of Param, they made their bed when they turned on her. She doesn’t put her torture at the foot of everyone there, but neither will she ever bleed for them again. Those in Param who showed her loyalty–Saine and Ilya–will keep hers. Everyone else? Fuck 'em.
Personally, my MC just wishes he’d stayed dead and didn’t have to get dragged back into political nonsense. Honestly, if it weren’t for Eli, Ilya, and Saine, he’d probably die again without a care; however, since they DIDN’T abuse or kill him, he’s gonna make sure they make it out of this mess alive. Screw Arcadia, screw Param, their problems are their own, and this time, there’s no selfless noble mage who’s gonna save them. If the opportunity arises, he might even take both down, but regardless, his life is his own this time.
Yeah honestly my mc is probably going to go screw both sides and just focus on protecting who they care that or maybe kill Thalia and maybe put Yurui in their place as leader then kill Leon
My Sevan has a parallel but opposite reaction to the whole thing.
While not out for revenge on Leon or anything, if Leon tries being all commanding I’d like an option to the effect of “Hey, Leon, remember that tragic backstory of mine which includes being from an Imperial noble house? I’m not Parami, you aren’t my king. I chose to help you because I deemed it the right thing to do. As I will continue to help you when I deem it is the right thing to do.”
As for Thalia, hey my Sevan is as pro-Arcadians as every other people. But I find it very unlikely that doing what’s actually good for Arcadians and satisfying Thalia’s murder boner are mutually compatible.
So being a needs of the many kind of guy, my Sevan will be basically “There will be no war. I know this because I will exterminate like vermin any of you squabbling children who is foolish enough to think I will just stand here and let you mass produce orphans and widows.”
Now that, I can get behind.
With what power? The mc cannot even beat an arcane collar on their own and is literally being kept alive by Thalia’s unholy powers. Sure, it’s a nice speech for those who care about politics but it’s just the mouth writing a check, the body, mind and whatever weird magic the mc has cannot hope to cash.
The power that the game literally stated made them the single most powerful mage in the entire country of Param before even calculating arcana use.
And while we cannot use our original phantasm as of yet, we already gained another powerful phantasm.
And for that matter our MC has two phantasm still connected to them that have yet to be unlocked. The first game stated that the MC has 6 of those arcane tattoos, the choices of the first game only account for four of them. So the MC has a few tricks up his sleeve.
And no, power at a cost does not equal weakness, power at a cost is still power.
The fact that the MC is scary powerful should not be a surprise to you, since the author has stated that just killing everyone is in fact on the endgame options. I’m pretty sure the author did in fact have in mind the MC going crazy with a spoon.
I mean you’re right, but also so is @idonotlikeusernames, Thalia is literally the only thing keeping MC alive, and can presumably end the spell and un-alive MC faster than you can say “I haven’t felt such excruciating pain since I got burned alive, and I’m pretty sure my heart stopped.” Unless it takes a year to cancel the spell too, which would just be hilariously poor planning, or we pull a Madara Uchiha.
While, again, I don’t feel particular dislike towards Leon, I do hope we can play the part of utterly resentful MC later on, because boy, don’t think for one second that I will miss my chance to see some good drama in action, and golden boy would get much benefit from seeing some consequences to his actions for the first time in his life.
That is only compared to non-arcana users and mages rated 8 or less on the power scale. Granted probably not that many 9’s and 10’s walking around and when it comes to arcana the mc seems about on par with Yu power-wise if you compare purely destructive potential and actually far less powerful when it comes to both understanding and the cost of that power, since unlike Yu and seemingly pretty much every other arcanist, except maybe Eli and sister due to the kind of procedure Thaubal used the mc cannot really commune with the parasites and using them means a very long period of recuperation and excruciating pain. Without either Eli or that whole team of Parami mages the mc would need months or even years to naturally recover between every significant use of the parasites.
That is a very serious drawback shared by no other arcanist, not even Eli or sister. And it is a drawback that makes sure the mc, unsupported by either a team of mages and healers or Eli or both is not actually that powerful. Yu could likely beat an unsupported mc one on one and it was a close call with sister too.
So while the mc is powerful they are not scarily so, neither as a regular mage, nor as an arcanist. At least not at this time. Maybe that’ll change in the future, maybe it won’t. It appears to do so in the hinted at batshit insane kill everybody ending.
Regardless what may or may not happen in a possible future (the author can after all change their mind about any ending until it is actually written and published) does not change the fact that the mc is not force of nature, crazy powerful right now or they would not need Eli as a magical crutch and jailer.
And as far as the whole knowledge is power thing the mc always seems to be two steps behind everybody else too, so they haven’t got much of that sort of power either.
And reunited MC with their platonic/romantic soulmate. 
I can’t even lie. Everyone wants to get revenge on Leon by killing him or tearing Ante apart piece by piece. My MC just wants to be the “bitter ex” and make out with Eli in front of Leon. Not only are they gonna kill you and destroy everything you care about, they’ve moved on pretty quick from being the love of your life.
Leon will always be second rate to Eli. 
Even if he hadn’t handed MC over to his enemies on a silver platter, when Arcadia would eventually coming knocking with Eli in tow, my MC would jump ship immediately.
I can’t remember if I mentioned this before, but I wonder why Sister didn’t tell the truth about Eli still being alive. All she had to do to make sure all of Param perished was tell MC Eli is alive and in trouble. If MC doesn’t find them soon, they’ll die again. My MC would fall for it WITHOUT QUESTION.
At that point, Sister was mostly an insane sadist who just wanted to defeat MC who she regarded as having superior Mateus blood. Because, you know, inferiority complex.
Honestly yeah, bitter ex MC is just hilarious to imagine. Especially because my three MC’s romance paths went roughly
Eli, technically → Ilya - > Eli (“I don’t have a type, what are you talking about?”)
Besties with Saine → Romance with Yu
and, what I think would be worst for Leon,
Leon - > F. (“I may have questionable taste, but if I had met F before you, they’d have been my choice all along.”)
I just love like… hilariously silly best friend/partner routes. Like, yes, they loved the golden boy™ but we all know that the bitter little prick that is F would be the true pick for them.
While I tend to avoid ship drama/wars for the sake of my sanity, gotta admit, after interacting with Eli in book 2 the temptation to change routes is pretty strong right now, and sadly, unlike Leon, Ilya doesn’t give any good reason for why our hero ought to reconsider his feelings. With the possibility of forming new relationships on the table, I do hope some drama comes up in the future, but this time just for the sake of resolution and adressing what will be a very uncomfortable elephant in the room once our old gang discovers that MC is in fact very alive.
Well it’s been like, what, two years since MC died? I hate to say it, but there’s a chance that Ilya moved on, which on one hand, would kinda suck (guess which RO I went with), but on the other, creates more drama, shows that she’s not still hung up on a dead person, and y’know leaves Eli romance open.
