#tcf lark

[blueteller]

Lock: *wishes to be like Cale* Also Lock: *gets deified*

Why am I even surprised... 😂

[samberrybay]

This part in 32 chp always felt kind of odd to me and this is the reason why:

The coward wolf boy, Lock. Until Choi Han found him, Lock had been hiding as the chief had told him. The Lock at that point is very much a coward, a weakling, and kind of slow. In simple terms, Lock easily took the position of the character that readers found to be extremely frustrating.

This has bothered me since I first read the novel, and to this day, even after several rereads, it still haunts me.

Cale simply isn't the type of a person to actually call a kid, no matter how they behave, to be "frustrating".

(When the text said "readers" it's damn well obvious of Cale being the one to think so.)

Pondering for some time I can roughly guess why the wording was so unexpected for his character.

At the time of the assassination/kindaping in the village, Lock was only thirteen years old. He also hasn't had his first berserk transformation yet. Therefore it is not surprising that Lock's uncle hid him and told not to go out, saying that everything was fine and he should continue to hide.

Now let's look at the situation realistically.

Lock (in tcf) jumps out of his hiding to protect his younger siblings. The adrenaline and inner Blue Wolf Tribe's instincts to protect turned on his berserk transportation one year beforehand, however if not Rosalyn and Choi Han, who came earlier than in the actual novel, i don't think it would help much.

Lock would possibly be able to kill a few people or at least seriously injure them, but CMON. They killed an ENTIRE village full of berserk Blue Wolf's and with almost-Wolf King (Lock's uncle). Do you really believe that a thirteen years old boy jumping into his first berserk transformation would be able to fight properly against strong organization that had holy water or some sort of holy artefact on their hands?

Again, if not for Choi Han's and Rosalyn's arrival... it would have definitely ended pretty bad.

In TBOAH Lock for some reason didn't jump out. Different circumstances, wrong wroted part in the novel, idk, but the fact is stated: Lock stayed hidden. He also most likely survived only because of Choi Han's help. Just with much worse scenario where he was left alone from the whole village.

And it wasn't Lock's fault yet again. He was a child. No matter if a Beastman one or not, the boy was just an innocent, naive and weak child.

So why would Cale, Kim Rok Soo at the time, find him frustrating? Extremely so even!

The answer is much easier if you think about it.

Because it wasn't Kim Rok Soo blaming a kid for being weak and cowardly in a fearful situation, it was a man who saw his own past that he hated so much.

A coward, a weakling and kind of slow.

For Rok Soo, who blamed himself for half of his life for the deaths of team one members, Lock was like a salt for still open, but ignored wounds.

KRS greatly disliked and maybe even envied Lock for a bit. The boy got a new family, he got friends and some sort of guidance from them even after facing so much despair.

While he was all alone, trying to understand what to do on his own.

It sure is irritating for Rok Soo.

Yet Team Leader Kim Rok Soo was probably unable to fully hate Lock for his weakness, because while the latter was still a kid, the same forgiveness can't be used on him. At least in his own head.

So with conflicting feelings Cale settled on "Extremely frustrating" description.

[zercealee]

BWAHAHAHHAHhah chaos! Destruction! Death! Murder! Chaos again! HHAHAHAHHAH ur not sane too Cale!!

[murasaki-cha]

Tcf part 2 chapter 276

If Choi Han is like an older brother, Rosalyn is like an older sister. Gashan is like a grandfather and Raon is like a younger brother. Cale is like an uncle to him, or- 'Yes.' He was like a father. It was strange. Although their age difference is not that much, when Lock was praised or acknowledged by him , it touched him more than anyone else's recognition and made him feel relieved. Because Cale's back was bigger than anyone else's to Lark. He can not help it.

Awwwwww this was just so sweet😭🥹 Lock really looks up to cale and thinks of him as a father figure. Man we have been well fed with dad Cale these past chapters!

[cale-alberu]

THEY'RE SO GORGEOUS!!!

IT'S TOMORROW Y'ALL!!

BRACE YOURSELVES!

[annerisk]

KYAAAAAAAAA Lock is softboyTM shooooo soft and not to mention adorable

[benevadeca]

Genuinely like I get the official translation for tcf beefing on illegal fantranslations but the way it went ok to distinguish myself I'm gonna change all the names. Rowoon kingdom. Lark. Lout of the count's family I'm literally

[blueteller]

The Issue of TBOAH's Narration – was it wrong??

As those who finished reading TCF Part 1 know (spoiler alert); Cale Henituse got his knowledge about the world he got transmigrated into from a series of books called "The Birth of a Hero", by "Nelan Barrow" – aka. Choi Jung Gun, Choi Han's uncle.

CJG wrote them as a "guide" for Choi Jung Soo, Kim Rok Soo's friend, who was originally supposed to be the one transported into that world to help Choi Han defeat the White Star. Plans changed, however, when he and Lee Soo Hyuk altered fate and saved KRS's life, at the cost of their own. So KRS-turned-Cale took CJS's place and the TBOAH series served as a guide for him, instead.

There are still many questions unanswered about this whole thing. For example: how did CJG know all the things he did? The novel was supposedly from TBOAH!Choi Han's point of view, and yet, it had some inexplicable details… like how to earn the Indestructible Shield (which supposedly was never gotten by anyone), or Harol Kodiang parentage – why mention such a thing at all? Was Harol somehow important in the TBOAH verse later on?

Or another example: why didn't the books mention the White Star at all? Surely, if past-volume-5 Choi Han's knowledge was given to CJG to write about, shouldn't he first and foremost explain to CJS who the Final Boss is and how to defeat him??

Or another: why was it so important for CJG to tell his grand-nephew just how pretty the Whale People are???

So many unanswered questions!!

Today, however, I will be focusing on topic of them in particular:

Was TBOAH's narration actually, 100% correct?

Here's the thing: I was re-reading one of my favorite fanfics recently, "In an Instant" by Messy_haired_bum on AO3. I got to the chapter where a certain part of TBOAH came up – namely, "the Last Survivor of the Wolf Tribe", the Wolf King Lock. The characters in the fic discuss a particular problem with that title: Lock wasn't the last Wolf.

Or, well, he wasn't supposed to be.

Arm's goal in attacking the Wolf Tribes wasn't exterminating them at all – it was abduction of their children. Lock's siblings, by all account, should have gotten kidnapped in TBOAH verse, not assassinated. It is important, because later on the races "abandoned by the gods" – like the Wolf Tribe, Vampires and Dark Elves – were meant to be used as sacrifices to the God of Despair, to summon the 8 Unranked Monsters from the demonic statues in Endable, as well as the Temple of the Sealed God in Puzzle City. Lock was part of the team who managed to rescue some of the abducted Wolves, himself.

The problem is this: did the TBOAH!Lock not know about the abduction somehow, only assuming he was the last one when that wasn't the case… or was the TBOAH's narration wrong, for some reason?

The characters in the fic are torn on the issue – neither argument supported by the omniscient narration (which was a clever move on the author, that's why the writing's so great in this) – and the two Locks despise each other: TBOAH!Lock believes his counterpart to be weak, while TCF!Lock thinks the other him was blind and failed to notice his siblings getting abducted.

However, there is a third option. Which is a theory I've had for a long time.

I do not believe that CJG's writing could actually be 100% correct – especially where it comes to subjective stuff, such as beauty or people's personal beliefs. He clearly has some idea of his character's motivations and personalities, and yet he had no idea about OG Cale throwing his reputation for the sake of his step-brother Basen.

On the other hand… I think CJG got his objective facts right, such as the order of events. Even if the timeline wasn't explained to Cale as clearly as he would have wished – causing him to encounter the Whales in the Ubarr Territory, despite visiting the shore way earlier than the events of TBOAH's volume 5… Still, CJG never wrote any lies. Sure, TBOAH!Lock believed to himself to be the last member of the Wolf Tribe when that clearly wasn't the case. However, I think the attack on his village could have been a complete assassination after all.

How, do you answer? One word: Redika.

Redika was the one who attacked Lock's Wolf Village in both TBOAH and TCF, but his actions could have been different in the two timelines. Why...?

...Because of Raon, of course.

Think about it: Cale's actions caused massive differences from the very beginning. From Choi Han's relationships, to the survival of the nameless village where Raon was being tortured at. However, most people forget that there was an important link between Raon and Redika. Redika was the one who sold the Black Dragon Egg to Marquis Stan – and the thing is? He wasn't supposed to do it!

No, in fact, the Black Dragon going on a rampage and dying at Choi Han's hands? It probably gave Redika a lot of trouble! Because he was never supposed to sell that egg!! It never should have been in his posession at all!!!

The Dragon-Half Blood, which was presumably Redika's teacher in magic, gave him the Black Egg in secret in order to "dispose of it" – aka. protect it. Redika agreed, then double-crossed him by selling it to a random low-ranked Arm member (because let's be honest, the Stans couldn't have been high in that hierarchy) for some BIG CASH. Everything went down well under the table of course, so he was pretty confident there would be no bad consequences for him.

...Except, he Dragon escaping and revealing himself in such a public way?? No way he could have covered it up! Redika was probably sweating bullets when he found out! If someone connected the dots about him being involved… oh boy. If the Dragon Half-Blood heard about it, Redika would be good as dead. If the White Star heard about it… he'd be worse than dead.

And I bet the news reached him juuust around the time he got the mission to abduct some Wolf Tribe children. What would a psychopath do in such a stressful situation?

Why, murder a bunch of children, of course!

It makes 100% sense. Maybe Redika didn't kill all the children in TBOAH – maybe it was just some of them. But it was enough to make Lock and others convinced that Arm's goal was assassination. Redika went on a rampage to let off some steam, and probably killed more of the "seeds" than he should have on this mission. He'd probably get even more in trouble because of that, but hey – YOLO, am I right?? 😂

I mean c'mon, it's not like Redika was a particularly restrained guy.

Of course, there were other factors: such as Choi Han and Rosalyn arriving earlier than in TBOAH, thus saving more lives. But I'm pretty sure that Redika's actions were different in TBOAH, as well. There's no way he would be unaffected when he about the Black Dragon escaping in TBOAH. The butterfly effect in TCF is super strong. If tiny differences like Choi Han not beating up Cale resulted in his actions being different, why wouldn't the same apply to other characters? We all know the moment Cale transmigrated, the whole thing went of the rails.

Basically: I think CJG was right in TBOAH, mostly. Except Cale's actions caused such huge waves of changes, the situation changed drastically. Lock believed to be the last of his kind because for all he knew, that was the case. But the attack on his village probably went differently in TBOAH from the start, not just because of Choi Han and Rosalyn.

[murasaki-cha]

Tcf part 2 chapter 281

Ryan's eyes widened. He paused. Just for a moment. It was really just a moment. For a split second, he saw a fog rolling over him. And the poison mixed in that fog.

"Nya!" He heard the cries of cats. “It’s a special poison that can even fight Dragon Lords! I made this with my sister and Grandpa Ron!” Those children that White Snake Wisha talked about. That wasn't just about Lock. Among the rubble of collapsed buildings. Two cats were sticking their heads out. “Of course, it’s still weak because it’s still in it's experimentation phase!” “It’s enough to make you pause for a moment.” On continued Hong's words and blurted out. “That’s enough.” The corners of On’s mouth turned up with a grin.

As she said, it really was just a moment. It was a small amount of time, about 1 second. But that one second was quite big. And the ones who knew about On and Hong's practice and efforts better than anyone else were Lock and Raon. “I got it!” The moment when the fog covers him. That one second gap. Raon immediately worked his magic. "!" Ryan's eyes widened. A small black shield blocked his mana-covered fists. That was Raon's defense to protect Lark. “These-!” In that moment Ryan immediately removed the paralysis and broke down the shield.

And then, when he saw Lock extending his fist towards his face, he tried to use magic and attack at the same time. "Die!" Lock shouted and turned around. He immediately unclenched my fist. "Ha ha ha!" Cale laughed again.

THE KIDS HAVE GROWN SO MUCH!! Oh this was such a cool scene and it made me so prowd of them! They cooperated so well and showcased their power resulting in completely catching the enmy off guard! And Lock tricking Ryan into thinking he was attacking but he went for the divine item instead!

No wonder Cale was laughing he was just so proud of his kids!!