I believe I had read this same comment somewhere in this thread before, but the writer should have had Tiffany and Claudia in the monster world arc instead of Amber and Liz.
Essentially, Liz and Ambers change into superhumans felt forced for plot convenience to bring them into the fray. Which is disappointing considering we already had two characters, Claudia and Tiffany that were FAR closer to the action than either Amber or Liz were. Characters that haven't had enough development compared to how frequently they appeared at the start of the game.
Tiffany already wanted to become a superhuman way back in the Valravn arc?
Adding to this, Liz was far too passive and stoic as a heroine for this arc and her story as a love interest didn't really go anywhere. Her entire characterisation amounted to "yeah, ok" "whatever", after being thrown into another world with no prospects of getting out. If the characters themselves don't care, how do we the readers, possibly feel any sense of apprehension or dread over their circumstances?
The only time I felt apprehension was at the immediate start of the arc when they had to escape the ocean. After that, things fell into a sort of lull as nothing posed a threat to the team.
It felt like a trip through Disneyland instead of an "adventure" the arc was supposed to be.
On the other hand Claudia would have been the perfect foil to express these emotions. We know she is emotionally expressive compared to her sister.
All the other characters took everything way too good. Alice was already a repressed killer like michael, and derek is super happygolucky alongside the stoic MC. The only reason amber was scared was because she thought she lost her sister, but apart from that, the character's emotions over the situation were never really explored in depth.
Having Amber and Liz captured by SIN during this entire arc would have been good motivation for the MC to get back to earth and "save the twins". We could have had an interesting internal conflict over getting back to earth as soon as possible, and staying to help find Michael with Alice.
Aside from the entire eclipse thing going on during the arc, something that doesn't concern the MC, there's no real "urgency" to get back as quickly as possible, which was lacking.
A huge amount would have to be rewritten. And Amber and Liz would have had to stay captured during the Cole fight.
I don't remember if it was ever mentioned what Tiffany and Claudia were doing during the MC's SIN infiltration arc?
Interesting post, it actually reminded me of a situation I went through back when my English was weaker and I used to play the game on my phone, which also had a terrible screen. I remember joining the game’s Discord and writing this huge comment about how I thought the HERO arc should play out (this was around the time Nico takes them there). In my mind, I genuinely believed my ideas were pretty good.
But to my surprise, people just replied with:
“Dude, he already has the whole story in mind.” That really shocked me. Up until then, I thought he was just the kind of author who wrote each update as he went along. But no, he’s actually way more than that. He already has almost everything planned out. Of course, not every detail or execution is set in stone, but still, realizing that gave me an interesting feeling. Honestly, I felt kind of dumb.
From then on, I started replaying the game with a new perspective, paying much closer attention to details, and wow, there are
so many details. Thinking back from the very beginning with Ella, the pills, the beings… all of it made sense back then and still makes sense now. That’s when I began to appreciate something very important:
authenticity. The feeling of trusting the author’s decisions because he’s already proven his narrative genius. And every time, what he creates ends up being so much better than what I had imagined myself.
With that in mind, I’d say, aside from Jonathan’s excellent point about Liz’s development as a character, there’s something deeper going on with the choices around her and Amber. They’re twins, while Claudia and Tiffany aren’t. That fact alone could mean a lot more than we can currently speculate. The mystery of Amber’s powers, Tanos’ plans, the idea that each Apostle has a twin and together they form a greater force… the notion of twins being the pinnacle of superhuman potential. And now, knowing that Liz and Amber not only are twins but essentially share the same body (reaching a kind of purity like the Arbiters)… what can we expect from them moving forward?
It’s epic. The unpredictability, the scale of it, the fact that I can’t foresee what comes next, it’s phenomenal. So if WW decided to go this route and even throw in a fucking Ella doll, man, I’m all in.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s flawless. We’ve seen the whole debate with the MC’s regeneration, and the monster arc itself didn’t quite live up to what it could have been, especially for the MC. Those are valid criticisms. But when it comes to choices like this with Liz and Amber? Believe me it’s for the better.
