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[aroberuka]

Now that the official translation is out in full, I took the time to reread The Scum Villain Self-Saving System and man. I forgot how hard the ending went on Thematic Resonance.

 

The final chapter of SVSSS is an absolute mess of a final confrontation that brings together three different plotlines & sets of characters (one of which you might not even know is a thing you should pay attention to on a first, unspoiled read) for maximum chaos, and in the middle of all that neatly brings together three major themes of the novel in a way that leads Shen Qingqiu to take a good long look at the situation and go no, stop, we're learning from other people's mistakes for once:

1)"This world is pitiless, so in the end we passed each other by" -> miscommunication & general lack of trust leading people who should have stood side-by-side to lose each other in the end. Tianlang-Jun spent decades convinced Su Xiyan had betrayed him and resenting the entire world for it; Yue Qi & Shen Jiu were never able to clear the air between them, and by the time Yue Qingyuan is in a position to try it's already too late;

2)Repaying one single moment of kindness with everything you have, aka Zhuzhi-lang and Yue Qingyuan really do keep messing themselves up for the people they feel indebted to, huh, wonder if that applies to anyone else in this room;

3)"If you're going to assume the worst of me and act accordingly, why shouldn't I give you my worst?" -> common thematic statement of SVSSS's villainous figures. Why should Tianlang-jun show restraint if simply being there gets him trapped under a mountain for two decades; if Shen Jiu is destined to be scum, why shouldn't he act the part? If everyone is determined to think of Luo Binghe as the devil incarnate, well...

All leading to the cascading realization that, hey, all those little kindnesses that I didn't think twice about meant everything to Luo Binghe, so much so that he would have gladly jumped into hell if I'd only asked him to, and I repaid that by mistrusting him at every turn and assuming he would inevitably become the worst version of himself instead of treating him like an actual person capable of complexity and change, and if I don't find a way to course correct now I'll never get another chance.

 

As a writer, this is the kind of satisfying payoff I aspire to. As a reader, that kind of thing is why I'm still thinking about this novel one year later.