What is Overlord?

I have seen fan writers and others often bring up elements of Overlord but not quite understand exactly what makes it interesting or so on apart from surface narrative facets like characters and action.

Now many of you likely hear the whole "Overlord is D&D and MMOs" line often.

The problem with this viewpoint is that it's a Western-centric one and misses the point of what Overlord really is. At least this is how Papa Ziggy sees Overlord. Since I hang out in the Japanese Overlord fan community as well I see both sides.

1.) Maruyama's Fudged Biography

If you follow Maruyama's social media and posts, you'll see how he does resemble Ainz to a certain extent. So much of the struggles and arcs Ainz goes through are theorized to be semi-biographical. For example, the impetus for Overlord's creation is Maruyama no longer getting to meet with his TRPG group as often. IE the guild slowly losing members in Overlord. This idea of Ainz=Maruyama is not completely without merit of course. Often, you will see Maruyama shirk back praise and say he's not a professional writer or the like. You see this come up with how Ainz tries to explain he's not perfect but the NPCs see him that way. So the Japanese fans often like to talk about how Maruyama is Ainz in this real meta way. That is Maruyama didn't really intend for Overlord to be regarded as it is and he's trying to tell people in the subtext he's really not as great a writer as others make him out to be. Going even further, around Volume 9 Maruyama got a promotion of some sort and coincidentally Ainz became the Sorcerer King compared to the WEb NOvel where he was only a noble.

So one can theoretically link the stages of Satoru Suzuki to Maruyama's own life.

YGGDARSIL = Maruyama's high school and college days where he played TRPG with his friends

Volume 1-9 = Maruyama after he didn't have as much contact with his friends and started writing Overlored, IE this New World was both a fictional setting and also a metaphor for Maruyama exploring ideas and the like. In this stage of his life Maruyama was in a position not quite as heavy as later but he seemed to have subordinates. At some point he got a mortgage and so he had no money to spend at lunch. Thus when Ainz struggles to get money that's a call back to this.

Volume 10 - Maruyama got promoted

Thus all the times Ainz or Momonga feels uncomfortable with praise and high expectations yet tries to live up to them is an allegory for how Maruyama is held in high regard in the office even though he's winging it far more than others think but he tries to do right by his subordinates. The idea of Ainz losing his humanity slighlty or being more apathetic can thus be thought of the moral and conscientous issues Maru faces to get more sales or the like even if goes against what he's comfortable with.

That's the first ingredient of Overlord, and it's the heart and soul of the appeal of Momonga or Satoru, it's a somewhat self-insert for Maruyama. Thus as a fan writer you need to stay true to Maruyama when writing Ainz, with his eccentricities.

2.) Tropes and Plot

One thing others notice about Overlord but many fan writers ignore is that at the heart of Overlord is fantasy tropes from all across history. From fables to modern popular fanfiction to even just splat book lore.

Allow Ziggy to elaborate.

The rise of Nazarick can be likened to the rising influence of a "demon king" or "dark lord" in the world. It's a very common trope, but the New World is built on these.

The key here is that Maruyama does NOT play these straight. He instead uses Isekai to explain some things.

For example, the Gods that came down and guided humanity. Those were just Isekaied humans.

The people who brought magic that was usable to everyone. Players.

The hero who saved the world from destruction? A Player.

The idea is that mythological and historical figures of great importance that seem to come from nowhere... come from nowhere. They are isekaied Players of varying race, power, and even influence.

This fusion of fantasy tropes and isekai is great charm in Overlord. This ties into the tone of Overlord.

3.) The Tone of Overlord is Misunderstood?

Overlord at it's heart is darker than it's cohorts in the Light Novel industry. That's a fair assessment and is generally agreed upon since even the advertisements bill it as such.

But there is something people forget to stress about Overlord.

That is it's not purely just a Tragedy or Dark. Unlike say Berserk which has a dark tone with minor comic relief, Overlord is not the same.

The key difference in tone is as follows. In Overlord, although dark things happen and some tropes are played straight/inverted for the genre, often when a trope is played straight, there is a nuance of comedy to the situation. Take Volume 9. Jircniv portrays Ainz as readding all his moves and playing him. From his perspective Ainz had him on the ropes for the whole meeting. Yet, we get a perspective shift and what we see is... Ainz had literally no idea what he was doing. Even the praise Jircniv gave him was from his rehearsed acting.

But most of all, it's a misunderstanding between these two which adds a layer of comedy to the dark tone Jircniv perceived Ainz.

Misunderstandings like these give some relief to all the tension and dark tone or tropes. Maruyama is quite skilled in fact at using perspective to establish this.

So for any fan-writers, what you and others often lack in your work is you need to utilize perspective and misunderstandings more, some for humor, some to the drive the plot, and some leading to tragedy like we see with Pe Riyuro and the girls in Volume 11 or Stafan and Sebas.

The idea here is that many writers need to explain why this or that happened. Some get real good and have things perfectly choregraphed in fact. But there's a problme with this... is communication that simple? Maruayma being Japanese, this is far more common in his culture due to the limitations of his language. It's why kanji puns are high brow humor but also in Japanese work life why mistakes happen. It's a facet of the language.

Understanding will probably explain why both Maruyama and Carlo Zen use misunderstandings to drive humor or aspects of the plot. It adds a nuance of life to the setting and is true to life for them as well and much needed humor.

4.) The Lack of Morality in Overlord

A big thing in Overlord is that, as Maruyama has elaborated before, is that he writes with a view that the world runs on the Law of Jungle. That is, he doesn't write one side as good and one as evil. And instead of just being gray, he gives his cast competing motivations or goals instead and lets that create conflict.

Some of the cast is more good or evil in terms of writing, but few are comically just one or the other. Take the Quagoa and Dwarven conflict. The Quagoa appeared to be the bad guys and the Dwarves the good ones. Yet mainly it was an escalation of conflict in competing for resources and an inability to set laws to avoid conflict. Their cultures, needs, and even ways of doing things were far different so this only adds to the issues that prevented how things would resolve peacefully. The Quagoa were on the rise, the Dwarves on the decline. That was all. In a world where the strong rule and there are literal one man armies, such is fate in fact.

That's a perfect example of this lack of moral lessons in Maruyama's writing. He doesn't set out to portray one side as one way and this the other to tell a aesop like some writers like to do. Instead, he establishes why they are this or that way adn the consequences of that.

The Kingdom and Empire fall under this as well. Jircniv may appear cold and militant, but all he did was to make his nation prosper. His revolution purged the nobles in his nation and after looking at the dysfunction in the Kingdom we can see why he did it. It may have not been a kind thing to do, but it's not inherently withotu reason. Here is that lack of morality and instead it was strength that decided the matter. Maruyama let's his readers draw their own views of the cast and their actions. He just shows that this person had powered, used it like this, and why they did it. He doesn't try to portray one side as the right side.

Fan writers constantly fail to understand this. They portray Nazarick either as comically evil or comically perfect and the only force to help the world as it needs it.

To nail in this point, consider Project Utopia. It has pure intentions of making racial harmony, however Ainz's reasons for doing this are self-interested and also idealistic. He wants to be able to have a good reputation but also he wants this to happen for his own sentimentality. However, he doesn't just use a peaceful approach, he crushes races that can't fit this model (he approved Demiurge's plan), he uses deceit and farces to make the climate right for him to step in to practice this message, and he doesn't care about the native cultures of these people when he made this decision. Right or wrong, Ainz was just one man with a vision.

As a writer, you don't need to use normal dramatic writing techniques to make conflict or preach a message. In Overlord fan writing, you should try your best to avoid that in fact! Instead let conflict of interests drive the story, not your views on this or that.

5.) On that day cliches received a grim reminder...

The next part is that the setting trumps typical conflict resolution. For example, in the setting, Level means everything in combat. No matter how heroish someone is or how villainous, they don't suddenly become able to do things beyond their means. Climb against Succulent and Gazef against the Dark Young or Sunlight Scripture are examples of this idea.

As a fan writier, you should attempt to set clear Levels for the cast and stick to the game-like understanding needed to justify why this or that person won. And you need to factor in that a person's level doesn't suddenly make them just this or that. Someone too strong will be affected by that. From Clementine's sadism to Gondo's road block, people are affected by this acccess or lack of power you set for them. It affects what they can achieve, how they are perceived, and even what dreams they can accomplish.

Think before you just say this or that person is this level and you don't plan out how they fit in their society as a result, how battles would have gone, and so on.

6.) And finally, Overlord is not D&D or MMO, it is TRPG

The heart and soul of Overlord has D&D as it's base. That is because D&D is the foundation of role playing games. But Overlord is more than that. From the dystopian future being a nod to Shadowrun, the subtle difference in D&D staples affected by the Japanese closest competitor, to the weird things like Wild Magic or non standard classes. Maruyama draws from the collective TRPG bucket for inclusions, selecting what he likes msot and not using what he doesn't. Even if he likes D&D, it's clear he doesn't like every aspect of it, otherwise MP wouldn't be a thing.

What that results in is this rich world of game mechanics that he slowly reveals in his work.

I feel very confident in saying I havne't seen an author use game desgin as part of their world building as well as Maruyama does.

So MMO fans will state YGGDRASIL as an MMO influence as well. IT's true MMO tropes appear, but even the noridc basis for YGGDRASIL or the MMO flavor of classes comes from another TRPG! It's a weird loop of influence in fact. Even Maruyama stated he never cared for MMOs much. That's why he made YGGDARSIL as the type of game he would like to play instead.

There are good and bad points for this TRPG influence.

The good is that as a writer you can pick and choose from huge amounts of material to inspire yourself.

The bad is that you are getting into messy and contradictory games. Like for example, what counts as Arcane magic or Divine is not clearly unique in all these games. Even the magic systems differ a lot.

If you have zero TRPG experience, your work will likely struggle because OVerlord is a love letter to all TRPGs as well as fantasy. I'd recommend some research over none at least so you can start to understand why this or that thing works that way.

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So if you write or read writing based on Overlord, keep these points in mind. There's other parts of Overlord, but I tried to be brief. Things like OCs, arc pacing, or the like are beyond the scope of this, but those are more issues in writing than not understanding Overlord. A person could perfectly emulate all the things I brought up. Doesn't mean your writing is good. These are all just things you need to hit if you want other fans to actually feel that itch is being scratched. Making interesting characters in this sandbox is up to you. Framing things to keep people interested is also your job. Writing is really, reallyhard if you get into it. Sometimes you will make mistakes, but always remember you write for yourself and your audience. If there is somethign you want to try, try it! You don't have to be a carbon copy of Maruyama. As the first point illustrates, you likely don't have the expereinces he has anyway. Just keep in mind how he constructs his story if you want to latch onto it for your own writing.

Like Maruyama once siad, it takes courage to create an original work and fan fiction is far less likely to be received well due to the audience's views on the original work. But what's right in your Overlord is what's right. Stay true to your own writing and see how the Overlord writing template works for you. You might find it restrictive in fact, but art through adversity is a staple of our species!

For those who don't write, hopefully this made you think about elements of Overlord or other things I didn't cover. Liking something and understanding why you like it are two things, but are important for self reflection and so on.

Ziggy hopes you have a good year!

Submitted January 02, 2019 at 06:43AM by ZiggyZiggurat http://bit.ly/2s60PvA