Interlude 10a is one of the most infamously controversial chapters among the fandom, with reactions to it going all the way from “Bully for Regent! Finally that bitch got what she deserved” to “Regent is the most horrifingly evil monster in all of fiction and I wish he dies in a nuclear fire”. Either way it is often considered one of Wildbow’s finest pieces of writing. Your bolded “holy shit” response did not disappoint, but could you expand a bit more on your emotional reaction to the chapter?
I can absolutely see how this would be a true base breaker. I’m closer to the “horrifyingly evil” side, I think, though not quite that extreme – he’s not the most horrifyingly evil, nor do I necessarily wish death on him (that takes a lot).
But it’s hard to ignore the fact that what he did was supremely fucked up (even if he was bluffing about actually going through with it if Sophia stayed in town), and if there’s anyone who deserves the treatment Sophia got, it’s not her. She’s a horrible person, sure, but she’s a petty one – she deserved retribution, but the one Regent gave her was disproportionate, especially if it was only for the specific crime of fucking with his teammate.
I think one of the primary emotions I had during the climactic scene was one of disbelief. Not in the story, but in Regent, shock that he actually seemed to be going this far, that kind of thing. Wildbow really did a good job with revealing the true extent to which Heartbreaker fucked up Regent’s morals.
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