Alchemised: A Story Re-Skinned

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]Alchemized, in my opinion, from its very conception was going to struggle to find good faith criticism online. And that's for two very good reasons that turn out to be two groups of people. One is the manicled fans who voraciously consumed Sinland Yu's dramy fanfiction and are going to latch on to the same elements that made them fall in love with that author that absolutely do still exist here in Alchemized. In my opinion, they will likely also take a bunch of elements that only existed in Manacold, the original Germany fanfiction, and project it here into Alchemized, despite those elements not actually existing in this text. There's also the second group at the far other end of the spectrum.

[00:00:55]People who would never actually genuinely engage with a piece of art that has its origins as a dramy fanfiction. It's because it's easier for clicks to just tear something like this to pieces or they do find the faults that absolutely exist here to just overwhelm any other positive attributes that could be worth discussion. That being said, I personally do have a very big issue with the clear reskinning of Manacold into this new story, Alchemized. But not for reasons that make me think you could never reskin a book or a story and make it work. It's just that the execution here got in its own way all over the place. But for me to be able to properly convey exactly why that specific semi-unique element of Alchemized does not work too well, I do need to go through the general overview of the story, which we are going to do here now.

[00:01:59]>> Hey guys, editing Kayla here. So, bit of a serious note. Uh, these are the content warnings that are listed on Senllinu's website for Alchemi. So, please take a look at this before you continue with the video. Thank you. So, if you do not want Alchemized spoiled for you, I'm going to be real. I don't think there are that many people out there because if you are hyped for Alchemized, you're a big fan of Sinlandu, you've already read this. And if this isn't up your alley and you're more here out of curiosity to see me really try and give Alchemist a shot, then you probably don't really me mind that much of his story is spoiled for you. Though I also don't think the best bits of Alchemist are experienced by the big plot reveals or twists to the narrative and instead it's much more about the emotion communicated from the characters page to page for better and worse. But without any further ado, let us get into what exactly is Alchemized and a bunch of colored pencil drawings of all the different characters in Harry Pottering each other. Welcome to the internet. The story takes place in a country called Palladia. And within this country, war is here. And the two sides are the Palatinians, the good guys versus the undying. And there's actually a bit of lore and backdrop to this. You see, within the country of Palladia, there was a not exactly fair power dynamic. We have a family that's essentially on top called the Holdfasts. and their ilk who are resistant to any kind of reform that could challenge their authority. At the bottom though, there are still families with a lot of power, including our main antagonist family, the fren, who are really in charge of like the iron work industry. And as the main city of Palladia has grown, they have amassed far more wealth and soft power. Amidst this tension and chaos though, a necromancer emerges named Moro. I read this book. I didn't do the audio book.

[00:04:08]I'm not sure if that's right. Moro.

[00:04:10]Mora. Moroc.

[00:04:13]And he is masked a following because he has a pretty tempting offer. Hey, come here. You want some immortality? Whole lot of people who aren't happy with the system go indeed I do. And war breaks out between the eternal flame, who are like the Templar good guys of Palladia, versus the undying, who are necromancers that are throwing undead at them. And that's not exactly a formula that's going to uh work out in most wars. I know this all the way since I played Warcraft 3 on my PC as a young boy. If they can raise the dead against you, you're going to have a bad time until you reach your mcguffin that allows you to win. Now, if you're wondering, hey, this world that's inspired by the Harry Potter world, what exactly is the new magic system? How is all of this working? Well, I'm going to let you know. Even a lot of like the diehard fandom forums for Alchemized are filled with people asking clarifying questions because there's so much information delivered in a way that's wildly frustrating here in terms of actually constructing the image of this world and in a book that's over a thousand pages long. You'd think that they'd smooth this out, but the editors and author really dropped the ball here. But just boiling down a lot of exposition.

[00:05:38]Alchemy is the new magic. There are subsects within alchemy like what our main protagonist be. Helena Morino. Yes, that does sound like an Italian parody of Hermione. And that's kind of what she is. Of course though, within our good guys, there are problems because you can't have a rigid society that exists that oppresses other families without there being uh serious problems within the order. And with Helena being a vivammancer, you would think, oh, she's a healer, therefore she's going to be respected and looked at. No, because vivammancers have access to a kind of necromancy.

[00:06:19]And so that's dark magic. And despite her working in medical tents during the war, which is debatably some of the worst work you could ever do in anything of all time and should just come with a bucket of respect, they really think she's not worth it. All of that though is not where our story starts. And we even don't get some of that information until part two of the book. I just need to say it now so that it'll make sense to you when we get there, which uh a lot of this book does not do. Some of that information, even though it's crucial for context, just kept away from the reader. And instead, we wake up after the war is over with Helena in a cryostasis tube, a result of complex alchemy that has kept her alive for 14 months. Why is she here? Even Helena doesn't know. She just learns that the bad guys won. All her friends are dead.

[00:07:22]And now she wants to die. Not only because she has all these memories erased from her head, but she knows that she's just now destined for a life of torture and horribleness, but there seems to be this compulsive urge within her to no longer live. Don't demonetize me.

[00:07:40]>> I want to die.

[00:07:40]>> And this is where I actually want to do my best to engage with this text because it's a lot of her wanting to die, like an egregious amount. And there are attempts. And while I think this certainly could have been handled better with really suspenseful build towards these dramatic attempts to end her suffering and instead we'd kind of just get a lot of >> I just want to die.

[00:08:01]>> It serves a clear purpose. Not only establishing how oh my god unbelievably terrible of a situation this is but on top of that it's clearly her subconscious with what these repressed memories turn out to be trying to save someone. And it's like overt. I see some people saying this is totally pointless.

[00:08:22]It serves no purp. It clearly serves a purpose. And I don't even feel like you have to take a leap. You just need to do a little step to get that. It's not stated directly. And I would resent it if it was. Like we all get that, right?

[00:08:33]The subconscious, the memories. There's a reason these things are being told to us. I also agree it could have been written a lot better. But these gone memories are actually quite the conundrum for the bad guys who are in charge. Because it's known Helena was a part of the Eternal Order, this resistance against Ma and his undying, who are the immortals that came to his side. And if there is a key to the resistance somehow restarting in her hidden memories, they definitely need to gain access to them. She's initially under the care of this female torturer who I want to call sour as in like sourdough bread. That's not her name.

[00:09:12]God, I'm so dyslexic. Jesus, here's her name. But as it becomes clear that Helena is going to require like a highlevel wizard, sorry, alchemist to get those memories from her brain, she is instead sent off to her old schoolmate Kain Faren, who is just Malfoy. And I cannot stress enough how much he's just Malfoy to the point where even like the hair is something you just immediately going to be like there is so much coded here for both of these two for Hermione and Malfoy but that's going to require us to get more into the reskinning and we're going to talk about that later. Ordered by Mor not Voldemort Kane starts delving into Helena's memories in this torturous magical practice to try and access her secret memories. At the same time, his wife is just so jealous of Helena and picking up on some weird vibes between her husband, who will not sleep with her, and Helena.

[00:10:14]Uh, so eventually, Malf Keith, not Keith. Jesus, Kane's wife tries to kill Helena, and Kane has a hell of a reaction to this. Uh-uh. Don't you touch my girl that I secretly love. I mean, this prisoner I don't have feelings for.

[00:10:30]After this confrontation though, uh, his wife is kind of just gone from the text.

[00:10:36]Aurelia is her name. There's this confrontation. It's dramatic. And then this love rival kind of person just fades away. Don't do that in your romance books. Please don't make characters after just one kind of confrontation disappear. It It just makes it feel not very well thought through. And Aurelia actually could have been set up to have a quite interesting art. She is certainly a victim of this society. Essentially, her whole life has been directed towards marrying Cain and doesn't work out. She's just set there to be miserable. I'm not justifying her actions, but I'm saying there could have been some interesting commentary here, but instead just gone. And this entire section of the book is just deliberately miserable. It is miserable to read, but that is intentional. And I want to communicate both of those truths to you cuz they're not a good time. Helena tries to kill Cain. He stops her from successfully unaliving herself.

[00:11:36]>> How romantic of you.

[00:11:37]>> And there's just subtle hints that there's something more substantial here.

[00:11:41]Now, one of Kane's friends tries to kidnap Helena to use her in the worst ways. And Kane disembowels this guy, but that's not lethal in this world to prevent that. So he's being set up as like oh secret savior.

[00:11:58]No cuz oh my god you see because of Helena's genetics I mean she's a vivammancer important thing. Uh she needs to breed in this world to produce more alchemists. And so Cain is instructed to her to get her pregnant and he does.

[00:12:26]Now this pregnancy is the key to unlocking Helena's memories though because it needs to be for plot reasons.

[00:12:35]Thematically it works in terms of working with the magic system that's been set up. Again, reskinning issues and it does not. But this brings us to part two of the book. That's right.

[00:12:45]We're broken down into three acts here.

[00:12:48]And now we're transitioning into part duh, where we go back in time and get the answers for the mysteries set up so far. Ha. And we actually get to kind of meet Helena's character beyond just wanting to die and being miserable. And it only took a third of the story by breakdown. Okay, there's stuff here. We learn about hell. And now you're like, cool. That's good that you have that inside you. And actually starts right away because she's in these medical tents doing everything she can to keep people alive and save lives. And she comes before this eternal order and makes a pretty good case for, hey, we're going up against the undead, right?

[00:13:29]Infinite swarms that the more we die, the more we feed their ranks. What if my vivamcy we use our KIND OF NECROMANC?

[00:13:37]NO. They say that's a foul bad thing because we have this prophesied savior Luke. And it's said in this prophecy that as long as we stay true to what's good, our god's soul and all this, then we will win this war. And if all of this feels kind of like that's what the it's because this story wasn't meant for this lore. We'll get into that. This actually builds into a theme where Helena is constantly seen by the good guys in the false interpretation misguided view of war as a a tempter into the cursed bad things because she has access to those really judging her off just floating a idea guys come on. But again, there are things to praise within Alchemize, and I actually think there are continued themes of forced loyalty, faith, exploitation, and suffering, and how people can be erased from history that are really effectively communicated, just not structurally. Yonked out of her medical duties, though, she is brought on to a secret mission because Keith Faren comes back into play. Turns out he wants to be a spy. Yes, his family works for Mora because he's Malfoy and you had Death Eaters and so he's one of the bad guys. It's justified through his mom being stuff and he had to pledge loyalty. His father failed so his father's been made into like a husk. Uh and now Faren Malfoy risen far higher.

[00:15:06]Uh but he doesn't like it anymore. Hates Voldem Morgoth and so now he's trying to feed information to the other side. Plot holes are about to occur. We'll talk about it. But part of him being willing to become a spy is he specifically told the Eternal Order, "I need need Helena to be my handler. She's the one I'm going to give this information to." And he's strategically choosing this because he knows then the Eternal Order is going to assume he's in love with Helena because they used to be schoolmates. And so they will think they have leverage on him when in reality he's all aware of that. But he does then develop feelings for Hela and she does for him. And this relationship again I want to say in terms of the actual ideas works and plays off the themes quite well. In terms of the execution on the page, they have the chemistry of roadkill. This goes exactly how you would expect in terms of its development. Together they they think about the lore that's been presented to us and figure out that the reason Mor is so powerful is he's actually gaining his power from his immortal undying who are not immortal. And that's actually echoing something we learned in part one where some of them are just dying. And it's because uh-oh, it turns out the big necromancer who promised you immortality [ __ ] lied.

[00:16:41]NO, she has to use her healing powers to heal him. It turns out she's also an anammancer, which is someone who can also mess with souls and minds. And so, while Luke is supposedly this chosen one, uh, the actual special powers belong with Helena.

[00:17:01]Yeah. It quickly turns out though that the hold fasts in the eternal order are all full of [ __ ] Their moral claims about the good and the bad, Helena becomes disillusioned with them. And so as her emotions blossom towards this guy who's also betraying his side, they become loyal to only each other. And again, on an ideas level, this all checks out and works. I actually quite like what was plotted forth here to us the reader. I just choose the word plotted specifically. And yes, because of the marketing, you know, it also occurs during these times. There's aggressive sexual stuff. It's emphasized how much Malfoy looks young and I don't like that. But because of the leaked information, the war starts going a better way. There is an infiltration from the bad guy though that results in catastrophe. And oh, Helena uses her vivamcy to bring Luke back to life. But he then just totally stabs her in the back despite Helena viewing Luke as like a godsend of people. She even says the world without Luke is like a world without a son. Jesus woman. But you're probably asking yourself at this point, what's the secret? Why are her memories erased? Well, we've learned that the bad guys are going to win. They can also read minds. And we've actually been seeing Kane reading Helena's mind continually to make sure she's not going to betray him throughout this whole process. It's actually how they started to really trust each other. And so Helena is in a position where if the bad guys read her mind, they will see that Kane is a traitor. And so she wipes her own memories and ends up getting put in a stasis tank so they can use her for breeding later. Ew. But her paperwork got lost. I [ __ ] you not. And so she ended up just in this tank for 14 months which apparently everyone else like died or got reduced down to mush, but she lived because of vivamancy powers. So this explains why when she wakes up in part one, Luke's dead. Uh, turns out bad guy even inhabited Luke's body for a little while and impregnated Lila.

[00:19:19]Wow. His wife during this who's the Jinny equivalent for this story. And now I have to picture Voldemort clapping jinny cheeks. I didn't want that in my head at all. But picking up in part three now, uh-oh, things are really bad because mind readading is a thing and pregnant Helena now knows the truth again. And so if the bad guy reads her mind or any of them do, then Kane dead, Kane murdered for traitorous things. But you're like, wait, he ripped her. The justification within the text is that if Cain was found out to disobey orders or be a traitor, then the big dark lord would have killed him and found out. So, he had to do it. Except I have a big problem with that because if that's going to be executed well, we need to be really goddamn sure that Cain does nothing the entire story that could hint at him being a traitorous individual. And he straight up tells her things that are forbidden before this time like that. Yes, Moroc is dying. SO I WHAT? And this really undercuts Kane's entire internal turmoil struggle of being forced to do this because the is presented as awful and like he vomits, she's miserable. This is not a sexy time romance book. And I actually was surprised to find quotes from the author saying, "This is not romantic." So, the publisher marketed this entirely wrong.

[00:20:53]But what I know about publisher marketing, I'm not surprised at all. Oh god, I forgot to even mention that she was sterile when she woke up and they reertilized her.

[00:21:04]So, just know that's a thing. Also, Kane had to do it because if he didn't impregnate her, she'd be sent off to be impregnated by someone else. And if you're going, "Wow, I'm not having fun."

[00:21:18]There's a thousand pages in this book, and >> I read it all through.

[00:21:23]>> It's not happening fast. It's a slow suffer. For them to be able to escape and win, though, she needs to be able to undo Kane being made one of the undying because it means he's forever connected to Voldemort Mora. And she ends up using her combo powers, vivammancy, anammancy, to actually have a willing sacrificial soul, which comes from Kane's now resentful father because of what's been done to him. And so her and Kane are able to run off as the necromancy society is having to deal with the fact that oh no our leader is suddenly it's then Lila Jenny equivalent who then after they have some time of peace where Helena gives birth and they have a daughter goes back and delivers the killing blow to this dark lord.

[00:22:16]Don't worry about that though. were spending a lot of peace time with Helena and Kane. And I get why they do this.

[00:22:23]We'll talk about that more in a minute.

[00:22:24]But it was like, wow, so much suffering.

[00:22:26]So much awfulness has happened cuz up until now, I want to make it clear.

[00:22:30]We're near the end of the thousand pages. And you're going, wait, what? And yeah, that's the story. We are literally now at the epilogue, but here is where all that themework manages to actually kind of stick it. Helena and Kane's daughter now needs to go to alchemy school. And Helena and Kain are still viewed as one. Helena is a war criminal.

[00:22:57]She's labeled that because throughout the war she just was kind of walking a very thin line between what they wanted her to do and what she was willing to do to actually save people, secure things.

[00:23:07]And then there's the whole her bringing Luke back from the thing. So they always just kind of teach her as a temptress for darkness. and and Helena even refers to herself as a curse. It's not the most landed aspect of her character and how it impacts the story, but it has to be there for the themes to work at the end.

[00:23:24]Kind of just like never mind. This story doesn't know how to like focus on stuff and make it seem substantial. So, there's certain things where like later on Tel is like, I'm a war criminal. And I'm like, oh yeah, but Kane is also seen as the second in command under Mor and so he can't rejoin society. They are raising their daughter in isolation.

[00:23:44]This also raises plot holes and we know people can look at memories. So you could see that he was just a spy and a traitor. And you could redeem Helena, but this is again justified with Helena and Kane don't want their stories to come out. They don't want to relive this all. There also is someone said like the public won't forgive Kane.

[00:24:06]I I it's it's messy, but again, this works with the final message because we see their daughter, Enid, go and find her mom in a paper, and it just says she was a healer who never did any fighting, completely erasing the sacrifice and everything she went through uh to actually, you know, help take down the big dark lord. Helena's daughter says, "I actually want to do my best to tell my mother's story and show everyone uh, you know, how much she actually is a part of the victory we're able to enjoy today." Now, that is by and large the broadest strokes story of Alchemized.

[00:24:47]Let's get into what absolutely does and does not work here. And for that, we need a blade. I really just want to jump into the Harry Potter shadow over it all. But before we can get into Queen Terf's influence, we got to talk about the tone. This is just misery all the time until the very end. Alchemized plunges itself into the single note, the aura of sad everywhere. And that's not inherently a problem. There are books that are one note awful just in their tone from beginning to end. It's actually one of the reasons I really like Grim Dark is maybe they won't even have a whole scene that's a bit brighter, a bit lighter, a bit nicer, but they'll just let in a shining silver edge and that moment can be so powerful.

[00:25:44]Those don't really exist here. And instead, Alchemized is devoted to an awful feeling in your chest. Because while this is, I guess, if you squint at the publishers's marketing, trying to be a romanty, Alchemized is also a war story following the perspective of somebody who is elbow deep in the worst gore of it from the beginning, timeline wise. And I actually want to draw comparisons to a book I gave a perfect 10 out of 10. Between Two Fires by Christopher Bullman. Another miserable read, but this pulls it off. And Alchemized, on the other hand's tone becomes a bit redundant, even reductive, squashing a lot of the characters emotions internally rather than amplifying them with its resonance. And this is because this is crucial, especially for bigger, chunkier books your reader going to sit with longer.

[00:26:41]The tone should not erase personality and unfortunately it absolutely does for Helena's perspective. We even get to see a pre and postb broken Helena by this, you know, she's just wanting to die all the time in the first part, part one, but actually second part of the story. And before that, she's so full of self-doubt that we don't really get a fun contradiction or an interesting reflection of her personality. And instead, it just feels like there's the Helena that hasn't been completely sunken into misery and the Helena who's struggling to float on top. And I cannot stress this enough. Misery also should not stunt agency. And in all sections of the book, Helena essentially has zero, making it all the more frustrating the man her story is orbiting around. Cain essentially also has zero. Outside of his initial decision to become a spy, you see, he kind of just runs into Hela and decides to have a romance blossom with her. And in part two, he's just obeying orders and yeah, protecting Helena, but not doing anything, not agencyifying their story to then have clever moments, ways to work around rules or reduce the suffering. Neither of them actually have aspects of who they are that manage to break through the story that the narrative wants to tell and make it feel like things are bending to their actions. I cannot stress enough how much these two do not impact the story outside of Helena doing a few things at a couple key moments. Okay, but Daniel, this is being marketed as romantic. The draw isn't going to be all these details I'm talking about, but instead the nuanced power dynamics of Alchemized.

[00:28:39]Uh, those are not interesting. In fact, this is probably the area of the book I'm going to be the most harsh. The power dynamic within Alchemized is pretty pathetic, especially when comparing it to some of the greats of romantic. I know I bring it up every single time romantic is mentioned, but like Cushiel's dart, this power dynamic of having a spy turn coat who now is demanding to see our heroine. So, oh, she's pledged to do anything he wants is not explored in an interesting way.

[00:29:10]There is no reclaiming of power, no real shifting. It's just, oh, they mutually kind of fall in love for the beginning of the story timewise. And then once we enter the second part, it just gets very Handmaid's tail, but neither of them want it. And at least this is not considered sexy. It's very much so deliberately not in the book. And I was massively relieved to sue that because this is not set up in any way, shape, or form to be some kind of sexy.

[00:29:42]And it's just miserable again, hitting that note. And it's not like Kane actually has this really deep persona and insights and he's behind the scenes subtly improving Helena's situation.

[00:29:58]Instead, he kind of just comes across like a giant [ __ ] He just is overreactive when he needs to react to something too late and underreactive when it comes to doing something for the woman who is supposed to be his true love. It would work more though if we just brought in a ton of backstory and implied things about their personality if we assumed these two were Hermione and Malfoy. Well, what do I mean by that?

[00:30:31]Oh boy. All right. There is basically no history between Kain and Helena. In fact, this is actually directly said to us in Alchemized that she just kind of thinks of Kane as like a guy she knew and he was a pompous ass, but it deliberately steps on the idea that these two have the dynamic that Malfoy and Hermione did where they watch Malfoy go down this dark path in the story of Harry Potter and there are moments of empathy, seeing abuse, a lack of choice.

[00:31:05]All that's no not here directly said uh-uh to be yet you can tell alchemized is very dependent on the chemistry between these two bearing that baggage and so what it turns out especially when they're early on in this room together and he's forcing her to be there instead of feeling this tension and weight it's like you know in the videos online of friends when they the show friends they take out the laugh track. And so when Ross says something, it just comes across psychotic and you you lose the intended emotion entirely. It's like on the other end of the spectrum, same thing. Because instead of laughing, we're not feeling the sexual tension or chemistry or weight between these two.

[00:31:52]So there's just these two cardboard cutouts occupying the same space. Now, if you as the reader go, hey, for me to enjoy this story more, I'm just going to take that which was initially there by the artist's creative intent and insert it myself. Wonderful. You will enjoy this story more as a result. But in terms of there being chemistry between these two on the page, they have the chemistry of roadkill and what we actually see them do becomes all the more frustrating because we have Hermione but kind of dumb. And I swear to God, I started actually having to wonder if the dumb thing for Helena was kind of intentional because pretty late on in the dynamic she's growing with Kane, she has the actual thought, "Oh, wow. He's really taking risks here, too.

[00:32:39]I didn't really think about that."

[00:32:46]girl. I understand that if I was fighting in World War II against the most evil people imaginable coming from Germany, if one of them came over and was like, "I want to betray the Germans and I want to be on your side." I would go, "Well, I don't trust you. I don't like this." But I would also immediately think, "Wow, this fell's taken a massive gamble." if he's telling the truth because every human being on the planet would have that thought for you so long into this to then go, "Wow, you're really taking a risk here, buddy."

[00:33:26]And then you have Malfoy, but younger and less evil. Well, more evil, but less evil. It's a contradiction. And this is where so many contradictions begin to be a thing because yes, he's betraying the bad guy and wants to step to the good side and if he had Malfoyy's backstory, there would be meaning to this, but he doesn't. And we just get a kind of empty backstory about how the dark lord tortured his mom and his father's been punished. And so now I'm wondering why the hell is he a powerful guy in the dark side to begin with if his family's looked at his failure? You end up JUST GOING, WHY? WHY? THIS IS WHERE I started referring to Helena in my head too as anti-voth. For those you don't know, I don't like Kavoth. I'm not a big King Killer Chronicles fan, but Koth is this we're told amazing guy. Just the best person. And you can say it's not cringey. It's a deliberate, unreliable narrator. or especially if you kind of look past the flowery pros of King Killer Chronicles, you can just seek both as a massively overhyped character within the narrative. Helena is shown to us to have special powers, single-handedly be the person who is going to be able to undo the dark lord's grip on the world. And I like that there's this theme of her being erased, of her not being appreciated, but with the actual character and the actions themselves, we also have this very frustrating almost she's erasing herself feeling, which isn't great. And I understand it's the additional theme of like a beaten down woman. And there's the uh actual pretty well realized part of Kane's character too here where he is a severely traumatized man. And now I'm going to actually shift gears into praise for alchemized a little bit. I think these two elements are probably the strongest realized parts of the entire story. And I actually give Sin Linux a lot of credit for fully following through on breaking down the archetype and stereotype of a traumatized woman within any story needing to be stronger and come out on top, not changed, unfased by everything that she goes through. Even stories that attempt to be very progressive within speculative fiction often fall into this trap of almost making traumatized women inhuman with how much they can just get over it, move on, and that's not great representation of trauma. Helena is absolutely someone who is profoundly changed by her trauma. And those parts of her character I actually found to really pull a lot of emotion out of me and make me feel terrible. Not only for her lack of recognition by society, but also the lack of recognition within herself of really surviving and going through all this. And at the very end, it's why these scenes with Cain actually work pretty well where we see he's trying to connect with his daughter and he views himself as a monster who did kind of just go along with a lot of terrible things, tried to turn sides, but it didn't even work out that well.

[00:36:49]And that that's great. Like I actually think this is a genuinely great end result of what we talked about earlier.

[00:36:57]this forced loyalty Helena begins the story with where she is looked down on by this corrupt society. She is spat on by them but their propaganda works and to an extent she buys into their narrative. Eventually though she becomes disillusioned, falls in love with this guy and her faith is actually put in people and she's rewarded for that with this happyish ending where yeah their legacy's destroyed. they can't be a part of society. They're scarred and traumatically ruined. Like the daughter even at one point is talking about the fact that like when she talks to her mom about the war experiences, she still like clearly has a physical reaction.

[00:37:38]Yet this is like the best possible outcome at that point in the story for her. And we see that both Kane and Helena were exploited and they're both victims. And I can appreciate that. I think it's a admirable execution by the author and I also want to acknowledge the male trauma recognition and I appreciate that Kane is someone who was essentially at gunpoint forced to commit.

[00:38:11]That is oh my god awful. What I don't like though is how much Helena's suffering is emphasized again to the point of erasure almost coinciding with this neverending feeling of misery. And a lot of the personality and the catharsis we're supposed to feel instead is canes. I keep calling him Keith. Both of these two things could have existed in parallel with each other and Alchemise would have benefited from it.

[00:38:41]But instead, especially towards the end of the story, it feels like Cain begins to dominate a lot of what the thematic resolution begins to focus on, almost kind of echoing how the world and the character herself has been erasing Helena's impact. And you can say that's deliberate, but to me, for this book to feel cathartic, for me to enjoy the experience subjectively, I needed that absolutely to not be the case. It's not a objectively wrong choice from the author, and it's my subjective experience, but I'm here to tell you it made for a really unsatisfying end to all of what's worked so far. But getting more into what actually did work, I do want to give credit to a lot of the actual original concepts for the world within Alchemized were the best elements here. I like the iron works industrial backdrop that actually fits quite well into this revolution setting. I think the fact that the immortal lie was used by this necromancer sets up the actual most interesting power dynamic of the story, which is between the dark lord and his servants. Aesthetically, having the bone connection is cool. And even the initiating setup of having Kane come in as a spy or a turncoat. I shouldn't have said spy, I should have said turncoat is great. I actually think so much conceptually from Sin Linu is really just on face value interesting.

[00:40:11]But that's kind of the big problem for me. There's a lot that on face value is interesting. I enjoy that Kane begins training Helena in certain things. It's just not executed very well. And those moments where I expected their chemistry to be the most pulpable because they're getting physical and and flexing just ended up landing pretty flat. And now we have to kind of shift over into things that could have worked but just didn't.

[00:40:35]And this is largely going to be in the world building. The magic system, how do I put this? When you conceive of a story and a magic system and a fantasy world, even subconsciously within the author, there are thousands of choices happening as you write a book to make it all very cohesive and serve a purpose for that story and its structure. And it feels like you had a story ripped out of a world and placed into another. And the results of this are felt a thousandfold basically on every page. It doesn't help either that this wasn't a complete rewrite from the ground up. And it's confirmed if you find it online. There are whole entire passages from Manicold that have been copied and pasted here into Alchemized without even being edited and punched up to reach TRD publishing standards. And that's a big problem because it tells me a lot as a consumer. As someone who didn't even read Manicold, I now know the author didn't think, okay, I can't publish Manicold. I'll get sued. So, I'm going to turn around, take a lot of the great concepts that resulted me having this fandom and write something entirely new.

[00:42:00]and instead a manuscript was copied and pasted and then went through line by line and went, "Oh, I just have to change that for it to make sense. I just have to make this for make sense. I just have to change this for it to make sense." Those have huge ramifications going down. And no matter how much fidgeting you do to try and fix it, it will not be as seamless as Stitch as the initial narrative. And the structure of this story is really painful with information delivery. In the beginning, we are told not all the things that I told you to make it all make sense in this summarizing recounting. And instead, we are told structurally information in the order it would make sense if we came into Alchemized already knowing a ton about the concept, the story, and the execution. Because in its initial development, we did it was manicled. And we knew going in the dynamic between Malfoy and Hermione. We knew about mudbloods and muggles and the royal families and all these things. And this is why I believe so much of the exposition became repetitive. Have I said this? Did I assume they knew this?

[00:43:12]Is this a part of mine that world? Would I get sued for this? It's now we're not getting the story you intended as an author. We're getting a mutation. Add in on top of that the additional complexities of having something like mind readading here and it becomes almost inevitable it feels like for there to be slip ups. Like how did he get away with telling her this forbidden secret if there was going to be mind readading and also always this but there's a safe room. Why did he have to essay her then if there's a safe room that there could have been information?

[00:43:48]The black cane did go. Nearly every original concept for Alchemized, even if it's a good one, does feel kind of patchwork replacement control v from a Harry Potter concept. For example, these bone fragment things that are existing now within Kain. I don't need someone to tell me that this is a standin replacement for Horcrux's.

[00:44:17]Duh. You also end up losing character motivation. Helena, I don't know why she's fighting so hard for this cause. She's unbelievably loyal to Luke in a way that makes sense for Hermione if you're trying to write more of a love triangle for Harry, Hermione, and Malfoy. But we just have her incessantly tell us again and again and again how obsessed she is with Luke. And then she's a part of this cause. But I would assume in the original Manicold, Hermione was here because she's a mud blood and obviously the, you know, pure Voldemort following wizards despise her for that. What I'm trying to say is like Hermione would have so much additional motivation to be embedded in the politics of this society with her history of activism. The fact that she is a mud blood and has to fight against the additional like puritanism of blood that the death eataters are trying to inflict on society. But that's all wiped away. And there are beats throughout conflicts that occur where you can tell in Manacold like, "Oh, a bad guy called Hermione the mudblood slur here." And that beat still exists in this story, but it was just swapped out for another word. And so creatively, it doesn't feel like, oh, a choice was made to make a character use a slur here that then is a part of who they and oh, it was something that existed in another story for another reason. and instead of rewriting the scene in a way that possibly fit the pure intentions of this scene in this new story, it was tweaked enough and then left. That doesn't feel great as a reader. And so, if you wanted to reskin a book like this, you really do need to take all the things you want to keep that structure and from zero build around it again. I can tell that was not done here. It's possible to reskin a story. Alchemized did not commit 100% in my subjective opinion.

[00:46:19]Even in the wide picture appeal of Manicold, which is clearly, hey, let's see a full adult wartorrn version of the wizarding world, becomes blunted because we're squinting at an unclear picture that has been repatched to not be that and is trying to find its identity in a whole new concept, but is afraid to break away from what gave it mass audience appeal to begin with, but we know for a fact that this book is copied and pasted, at least in some points, potentially as much as it can get away with. Oh, the downgrade in pros makes way more sense. It's so apparent that Senu is a talented author. There are choices that weak of creativity, of talent. All of it though is just unfortunately fully overwhelmed by a transparent illusion of originality. I see a version of Alchemized where it is rewritten from page one and tells the story of two people who are forced to be pawns in this wider conflict and are traumatized so deeply by it. Forced to do the worst things to each other but find the truth.

[00:47:39]And even though in the community, in the world, they are looked down on, there is no perfect recovery from the exploitation, they find their peace.

[00:47:50]That's a story I'll read any day. And I think it has really great appeal.

[00:47:55]I just don't see the effort to actually make it. I see the creativity. I see the potential. I don't see the execution.

[00:48:02]But that is just my thoughts on Alchemized by Sen Yu, the retelling of the story Manicold that I just even as someone who has not read Manicold, I'm going to point everyone towards just read the original popular thing. You don't don't don't read the oh, I wanted to make a really big publishing deal thing. Thank you all so much for tuning in. Like and subscribe if you have not already. Hit the Patreon if you want to support what I do here or vote in what book gets the next mega summary. Have a good one y'all. Peace.