The Rising of the Shield Hero Episode 16

The Rising of the Shield Hero Episode 16

Filolial Queen

After the T-Rex was unleashed at the end of the previous episode, Naofumi & co. need to come up with a plan of attack. They need to lure it out of the town somehow so as to avoid collateral damage. And, luckily it seems to be chasing Filo, which makes luring it an easy task.

However, I didn’t exactly understand why the T-Rex was chasing Filo specifically. I’m pretty sure it had something to do with the fact that Filo ate the core of the zombie dragon that one time, but that doesn’t really explain anything.

Okay, Filo has a part of a dragon inside her, but why does that attract the T-Rex (which is also considered a dragon by the way)? Instead of this reasoning for why it was chasing Filo, why not just say that it was attracted to her potential to be the next Filolial queen? Or to Naofumi’s status as a hero?

I still think these would be fairly weak reasons for the T-Rex to be chasing them, but at least they make more sense than the real reason.

Also, an important piece of information later on in this episode is that Filo has the potential to become the next Filolial queen, but didn’t we already know that? I thought this had been established back when Filo first started growing larger than your average Filolial. So why is it a surprise for Naofumi now?

The Dinosaur

Back to the T-Rex at hand, it turns out that it isn’t just your standard T-Rex. I’m sure we all knew it wasn’t going to be a normal one based on how it looked, but at the same time I still don’t think it should be considered stronger than the dragon Naofumi and his party already defeated.

So, what makes this dinosaur so special? It can’t fly like a normal dragon, so it’s already worse off in that regard, but it can breathe fire, which I wasn’t expecting to be the case. It’s also much larger than your standard T-Rex would be, allowing it to tower over buildings multiple stories tall.

But, the most important thing about it is the fact that it’s skin seems to be as hard as steel. This, combined with its immense size, means that it can effortlessly plow through entire stone buildings without an issue.

Raphtalia from the anime series The Rising of the Shield Hero
Raphtalia

It also means that Raphtalia can’t cut through with her sword, and even Filo’s powerful kicks only make slight dents. This seemed to be the perfect scenario for Raphtalia to break out her mana sword, but for some reason she didn’t and I’m still not entirely sure how that sword works.

We were told that it was supposed to be used on enemies without a physical form, but so far she’s used it to stab two, very physical humans. There has to be a real use for the mana sword at some point, right?

Anyway, in the end, the dinosaur is defeated by the current Filolial queen, named Fitoria. She’s the queen of all Filolials across the world, has lived much longer than a normal Filolial life span, and is extremely large when in her Filolial form.

Four Cardinal Heroes

Now that we’ve met the Filolial queen, we’re also given more information about the four cardinal heroes, including more about why the demi-humans would be accepting of the Shield Hero.

But first, we’re told that the reason Filo is able to become the next Filolial queen is specifically because she’s being raised by one of the heroes. This is also how Fitoria became the current Filolial queen, though we don’t yet know which of the four heroes raised her.

And, this brings up the question of, what will happen to the current Filolial queen when Filo takes over? Is it guaranteed that Filo will be the next one? She’s only referred to as a candidate after all, so maybe there’s no need for a new queen just yet.

Anyway, it’s finally revealed that the four heroes aren’t actually just supposed to be fighting against the waves in the Kingdom of Melromarc. In fact, there are waves happening all across the world, but the heroes are currently only focusing on those in Melromarc because they didn’t know they were happening anywhere else.

Not only has the Kingdom of Melromarc hidden this information from the heroes, thus ensuring that the heroes only save their kingdom and not any of the others, they also were the ones to summon all four heroes. Up until this point, that didn’t seem strange, but we now know this isn’t supposed to be the case.

Instead, each of the four heroes is supposed to be summoned by a different country, and then they all work together to defeat the waves all across the world. Because of this, we can assume that the Shield Hero is typically the one summoned by demi-human countries, such as Siltvelt, which are otherwise hostile towards humans.

Fate of the World

So, due to the absence of the four cardinal heroes from most of the battlefields across the world, others have had to pick up the slack. The current Filolial queen, Fitoria, is one of them.

Fitoria doesn’t necessarily like humans, but due to a promise she made to the hero who raised her, she’ll fight to protect anyone who requests her aid. We can also assume there are other “good samaritans” across the land who do the same thing Fitoria does.

However, this isn’t the way the world is supposed to work. The heroes are summoned for a purpose, and that purpose is to fight the waves together and protect the entire world, not fight alone and among themselves while only protecting a single country.

Fitoria, the Filolial Queen from the anime series The Rising of the Shield Hero
Fitoria, the Filolial Queen

And so, Fitoria comes to a conclusion at the end of the episode. If the heroes are truly unable to put aside their differences and fight to save the world as one, then she’ll just have to kill all four of them so that a new batch of heroes can be summoned.

This may seem like a radical stance, but it actually makes a lot of sense in theory. It’s already been established that even if one hero dies, they can’t be replaced until all of the heroes die, so the only way to get them to work together would be to start with a clean slate.

However, my problem with this line of reasoning is that while it might work in the long run, it would be extremely detrimental in the short-term. Yes, there may be heroes summoned who will work together, but they’ll be starting over from level 1 as the waves continue to get stronger.

Conclusion

So, what are your thoughts on this week’s episode of The Rising of the Shield Hero? What did you think of the fact that the T-Rex was attracted to the dragon core in Filo’s stomach? And, why do you think Melromarc was able to summon all four heroes? Let me know in the comments.

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My review of the next episode is available here.

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