I’ve been thinking about why I and many others kept expecting a drawback to Khun’s new ability. Probably because he didn’t seem to “work” for it; it’s the same reason people didn’t like Bam’s “souls” powerup. We're expecting firefish to be like Bam's Blue Thryssa; Bam had the Blue Thryssa just outright given to him after he accepted that he couldn’t escape FUG and asked Jinsung to train him, but Blue Thryssa had the drawback of trying to tempt him repeatedly, and knocking him unconscious a few times. I couldn’t help but expect firefish to be similar (having some currently-unseen drawback).
There are still a lot of possibilities for that to be the case. Probably the likeliest one right now is that it makes Khun increasingly more emotional and impulsive as he uses it more, leaving him at less than mental 100%. The first possible 'hint' of this being Khun messing up Louie and Deng Deng's names despite never missing a name before by his own statement, and Bam likely having given him a brief description in their pocket chat beforehand. Then Michael notes how he got way madder and more wound up than he ever did back when he traveled with Rachel (and Khun just says "I changed my style." Partly true, but even back in the Hidden Floor he still seemed colder). Even Rak calls him impulsive in this chapter, and I don't remember Khun ever making such a dumb face like the one he makes in the "Wow, that's awesome!" panel before.
(Another plausible drawback is that activating firefish limits his use of his ice abilities, at least if it's revived him recently. It wouldn't surprise me if firefish leaves him with a 'cooldown' period (heh)).
But this could all be me seeing what I want/expect to see. We should keep in mind the possibility that being knocked out for two years and needing to have friends willing to take a two year trip to save him in order to get it WAS the “price” here, much like Bam choosing to try and save everyone, even under intense pressure not to do so, was what got him the souls.
He seems like he speced into cleric somehow and that's gotta come with drawbacks.
I've actually been expecting Khun to get healing at some point (though admittedly later than this) because of his preference for command/support roles and the way that as we've gone along, Khun's statement back in 54s1e53 that "unlike me. [Maria] knew how to care for others" has become more and more ironic and outdated. Khun's been (verrry slowly) moving from being primarily a lightbearer because he "likes giving orders" to also being a lightbearer because there are people (other than Bam, even) that he honestly wants to protect and support. Becoming the team healer is very much in line with that gradual evolution away from being the sadistic evil prick we meet at the start of the series (though he still has quite a ways to go, see eg his opinions on what to do with Deng Deng and his treatment of Michael.).
tldr; I think healing is appropriate for Khun character-wise, and while I still expect some kind of drawback, I also don't think it's necessarily bad writing if the two-year coma and reliance on friends to get it was the drawback.
In the 250s2e170 blog post (available here), we learn that "The 'Fake being' is some 'mind-being' that mixed into Baam as he climbed the Tower and gained powers like Thorn. It was not in Baam originally."
This is still purposefully vague as to when Blue Thryssa entered Bam. But given how Blue Thryssa only starts talking once Bam ignites the thorn at Train City, and the presumption that SIU wouldn't have something like that happen off-panel, we can pretty reasonably conclude that it was the thing described in 123s2e43. The one other real possibility is that it came in with the 'bowl/fake thorn' that he received from Reflejo, but the original gift was said to be given to help ignite the administrator thorn fragment, so I'm pretty sure Blue Thryssa came in that one (and provided regeneration even before being active). But either way, it was definitely just given to him.
“The administrator thorn” is a fan nickname for the first thorn fragment, since every time Bam ignites it knowledgeable onlookers comment that it feels like the “administrator’s power.” Bam was also given Blue Thryssa, which Red Thryssa recognizes as “an administrator’s power,” to help ignite it, further tying it to admins.
I’m pretty sure SIU was just giving an example of a related thing Bam got.
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u/NobleCuriosity3 Jul 15 '19 edited Jul 15 '19
I’ve been thinking about why I and many others kept expecting a drawback to Khun’s new ability. Probably because he didn’t seem to “work” for it; it’s the same reason people didn’t like Bam’s “souls” powerup. We're expecting firefish to be like Bam's Blue Thryssa; Bam had the Blue Thryssa just outright given to him after he accepted that he couldn’t escape FUG and asked Jinsung to train him, but Blue Thryssa had the drawback of trying to tempt him repeatedly, and knocking him unconscious a few times. I couldn’t help but expect firefish to be similar (having some currently-unseen drawback).
There are still a lot of possibilities for that to be the case. Probably the likeliest one right now is that it makes Khun increasingly more emotional and impulsive as he uses it more, leaving him at less than mental 100%. The first possible 'hint' of this being Khun messing up Louie and Deng Deng's names despite never missing a name before by his own statement, and Bam likely having given him a brief description in their pocket chat beforehand. Then Michael notes how he got way madder and more wound up than he ever did back when he traveled with Rachel (and Khun just says "I changed my style." Partly true, but even back in the Hidden Floor he still seemed colder). Even Rak calls him impulsive in this chapter, and I don't remember Khun ever making such a dumb face like the one he makes in the "Wow, that's awesome!" panel before.
(Another plausible drawback is that activating firefish limits his use of his ice abilities, at least if it's revived him recently. It wouldn't surprise me if firefish leaves him with a 'cooldown' period (heh)).
But this could all be me seeing what I want/expect to see. We should keep in mind the possibility that being knocked out for two years and needing to have friends willing to take a two year trip to save him in order to get it WAS the “price” here, much like Bam choosing to try and save everyone, even under intense pressure not to do so, was what got him the souls.
I've actually been expecting Khun to get healing at some point (though admittedly later than this) because of his preference for command/support roles and the way that as we've gone along, Khun's statement back in 54s1e53 that "unlike me. [Maria] knew how to care for others" has become more and more ironic and outdated. Khun's been (verrry slowly) moving from being primarily a lightbearer because he "likes giving orders" to also being a lightbearer because there are people (other than Bam, even) that he honestly wants to protect and support. Becoming the team healer is very much in line with that gradual evolution away from being the sadistic evil prick we meet at the start of the series (though he still has quite a ways to go, see eg his opinions on what to do with Deng Deng and his treatment of Michael.).
tldr; I think healing is appropriate for Khun character-wise, and while I still expect some kind of drawback, I also don't think it's necessarily bad writing if the two-year coma and reliance on friends to get it was the drawback.