Possibly true, but reminder, interesting isn't quite clear praise. Also, Sofia herself right now is somewhat of a neet, you can discount it on accounts of her having a job but her job is just giving out fake badges to whatever shmuck that makes it there, rest of it is spent sleeping and petting ancilla. Of course it's still praise coming from her, point is, you can be interesting and a neet. Though that's just a worst case scenario.
Praise wasn’t quite the right word choice. What I meant to imply is that Sofia is stupid old, thinks she’s seen everything worth seeing in the world, and has her positive feelings dulled by soul withdraw. The list of things she finds genuinely interesting is probably very small, and I assume the Demon Queen must be doing something of note to have gotten on it.
Though you are correct that it’s not impossible to be interesting and a NEET. Hopefully not how things will turn out. Between Sofia and Vii, I think the game has hit its quota of lazy, absurdly powerful shut-ins.
I'm fairly certain holding office doesn't prevent addition titles form being accumulated. At best, she couldn't be called a full NEET because she's still required to engage with her subjects now and then. But, outside those obligations?
No, but some titles exclude others. I was just being tongue in check about the NEET acronym including ‘not in employment.’ Demon Queen could have all the associated personality traits turned up to 11, but she has a job*, so technically not a NEET.
*At least, I going to count Queen, especially when it’s not a hereditary position.
My point is, despite Sofia finding the DQ interesting, she's also not enthusiastic about performing as her leader commands. If she was sent to the first dungeon as a deterrent, it stands to reason that once someone like Vili showed up, Sofia would have been called back. I get the impression there is a lot more to that "interesting" than should be assumed at face-value.
In terms of being called back, I think you could make the same statement about the oni sisters. Neither they nor Sofia require the protagonist to defeat them seriously to receive the knock-off sigil. Vii proves Sofia isn’t the only monster with the reality warping shenanigans required to keep the forest dungeon running, and the oni aren’t even involved in dungeon maintenance in that way. Both could be replaced with other monsters, if the Demon Queen wanted to free up her up her most valuable subordinates.
(Side note, I will not at all be surprised if the casino boss also sandbags, when she arrives in 2027)
Anyhow, DQ has decided that the sigil tests are going to be done by her commanders, despite the task being below their capabilities. Not sure why, fingers crossed there’s eventually a satisfying explanation.
My point would be that Sofia’s lack of enthusiasm doesn’t necessarily mean lack of support. She just got assigned a job she can do with zero effort, intentionally so according to Ancilla. Why try harder when you already meet your obligations effortlessly.
Heck, a try hard Sofia could likely stonewall every adventurer who comes calling. But doing so probably violates the terms of her employment, same way she’s limited to only stocking certain types of monsters in her dungeon.
Unless it was taken out of necessity to maintain order within the ranks, which is an actual thing that can and has happened before.
Could be. There’s already lines in the game that suggest the Demon Queen is the reason all the commanders are on the same page.
But someone’s leadership being a necessity for a nation to win a war isn’t a necessity in the same way as say, an atmosphere is for you and I to keep breathing. We can’t choose to breathe sans atmosphere, but a cowardly demon queen could choose to not sit the throne, necessity be be damned.
Outside of the scenario where some third party is strong arming her into ruling, I think it’s safe to say she is there by choice, which puts a limit on how cowardly she can be.
