May 07, 2025
Author's Commentary #120:
Time to talk about Chapter 120: The power of the narrative.
This is honestly a make or break chapter for me. This is obviously the part where Pewler shows his true manipulative nature and gives a grand villain speech while also being philosophical. I'm honestly not sure if I nailed that, but I hope I did. His value on controlling the narrative is a major part of his character and I hope to make him a hatable, but well-written villain.
As for his speech regarding the king, it actually stems from him hating having to defend the king since in his mind, the king is dead weight and the other pieces could thrive without it. Of course, he believes that only he shouldn't have to defend a king while his opponent should. There is greater significance behind why this bit is in his speech, but revealing it now would be a massive spoiler for the story.
As for the political parties, the names are actually in Latin. Misericordia can translate to "compassion" or "mercy" while Ratiocinatio translates to "reasoning". Thus, the parties could be considered the Reasoning party and the Compassion party.
(If I made any mistakes with the translations, feel free to correct me).
There was also a reference to the infamous Ruchi Ookuma from Escape Witch, Mystery Ghost Foresight, and Spice of life who was the original evil politician character I created for my novels. I'd argue that Pewler is now worse and more manipulative than her, but only because he has the power of the DESPER. If he didn't have that, he'd still be pretty successful, but not emboldened to try and reconstruct the world in a dystopian utopia to rule over.
As for his secretary, Lindsey, she's fully aware of Pewler's true nature and has already lost a DESPER match to Pewler to ensure she remains loyal to him. Essentially, she's to Pewler what Ai was to Michiko, though Pewler has no intention of just tossing her to the side, as unlike Ai, she's completely loyal and unwavering and not a quasi proxy. Imelda on the other hand is more of a Pewler fangirl.
イメルダ・ベリンシュ (Imelda Berrinche) is how her name is spelled in katakana. Her last name, Berrinche, actually means "tantrum" in Spanish.
Her birthday is March 4th. I chose this date at random so there's no greater significance behind why this date is her birthday.
Her favorite piece is the amazon, mainly because that's Pewler's favorite piece, and like him, the queen is her favorite normal chess piece.
Imelda is actually one of the biggest things I revised about the arc. She now debuts much earlier and her role in the story will be different. I also made her far more hatable than in the original, like top 2 most hated characters in the entire series hatable.
On a different note, some other things I've added are Pewler's conversation with Scharlachrot. I felt it was necessary to show that these two Desperados were not the ones Iori and co were tasked with hunting down. The change will also serve to better build up a plot point that will come up later in the story.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
