Thunderstrike2024

Pretty sure the author hasn't been to a KFC. There are other inconsistencies too.

The OC was saying that destroying mountains isn't truly a god-level feat. Jesus, the incarnate Son of God, performed much greater feats than moving a few mountains, so if you take the literal interpretation that a god must at least be equal to Jesus, then the OC is correct. The minimum standard is not met, only the dregs of what Jesus could do. On a side note, Jesus was never considered God until after the resurrection. Nothing in the Bible shows that people perceived Jesus as anything more than a teacher and a prophet. Hence the fact that even his closest disciples at the Last Supper still asked "Lord, show us the father, and that will be enough for us". They had abandoned him even before nightfall. They didn't truly believe that he was God.

That's not how the system works even in this novel though. The other children aren't just abandoned, but they don't inherit the land or titles. That is exactly what happened in the era of the Crusades. Some children fought for power in larger kingdoms like France (Charlemagne) or England (William), but those were primarily the children of Dukedoms or Kingdoms, not lesser nobles such as Counts, Viscounts, or Barons. Even Mstislav was fighting over city states within the massive Kievan Rus, not lesser territories like Bohemia or Brandenburg. The Hautevilles, a clan of Normans in Italy, were given nothing but swords and armor and then let loose to fight for glory. One managed to conquer most of Italy. Another founded the Kingdom of Two Sicilies which eventually merged with Sardinia, absorbed Piedmont and Naples, and conquered Venetia, to form the modern state of Italy. Bohemond de Hauteville even battled the Byzantine Empire and conquered the ancient city of Antioch from the Saracens of the Abbassid Empire. This story focuses on a fictionalized version of a different path, the church, that many second or third sons took, but it was still very real, and even was the preferred path of the Florentine Medici family, which produced multiple popes at the city's peak of influence.

You say it is impossible in real life, but it is actually well-documented. Especially for the Normans, who had several instances of second or third sons leaving their houses to fight for glory. The Crusader Kingdom of Antioch was a good example, and the Kingdom of Two Sicilies was another. Part of why the Crusades were so influential despite their failure was that they reshaped and reorganized societies from truly feudalistic to mercantile ones. Most people were not like Mstislav the Bold, toppling people left and right to place their siblings on the thrones. The majority were forced to acknowledge powerlessness and become priests or merchants.

Jesus didn't do anything like that while incarnated on Earth, but the Apostle John describes Jesus as having been God's principle actor within creation. That is, the one who created light when God said "let there be light", which in some interpretations is consistent with the Big Bang. So if we take the maximum interpretation, which is corroborated in Revelation by the description "God filled the whole universe, and the world could no longer fit", then Jesus is perfectly capable of creating a universe with a thought, and likely destroying it too. That's why God is bad for comparisons like this, as he is transcendent, timeless, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. There is a reason why other powerful beings get associated with him, as he is the standard for power.

reign, like in sovereignty, not like the reins of a horse.

I agree. I think the label of Western food is derogatory and dismissive in this context, but I just don't disagree innately with the idea that eating two meals of the same item back to back is unappealing.

I didn't say it was untrue, but that the author implies there are other ways to make soup or salad, which is not true.