Headscratchers / Log Horizon

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• Why does Shiroe only turn a Person of the Land into an Adventurer once? The necessary materials sound like they're rare, but how rare can they possibly be? They can repeat a raid daily, right? He also only tried it once, so we only have an upper limit on how rare the materials are. If the knowledge that this is possible becomes public, it will cause problems, and there will be issues deciding who to pick, but it seems like it would be worth it.
  • As Shiroe has stated, the materials needed to pull it off are very rare, and a raid isn't something you can just organize on a whim. Log Horizon definitely doesn't have the members to do a raid on its own. Plus, Shiroe is concerned about the societal impact of the knowledge that it's possible to create a completely new school of magic. Worst case scenario is that the Lander kingdoms tear themselves apart trying to figure out how to turn themselves into adventurers. Not to mention, other adventurers might use the knowledge for their own ends. To Shiroe, this is a secret best kept close to the vest.
    • How rare exactly? I'm not all that familiar with MMORPGs, so I don't really know the scale of that. Also, the materials he used were very rare. He doesn't know what materials he needs yet. I would be hesitant to keep a secret close to the vest with so many lives at stake. It's one thing to kill witnesses. It's another to withhold a cure for death.
    • Item rareness depends on the MMO, really. However, the fact that Elder Tale seems to have unique items of which only one can exist, and how Shiroe and his DBT members have gryphons which could only be obtained from beating a raid once thought impossible, suggests that most high level items are EXTREMELY rare. And again, Shiroe may have saved one person with the contract, but he's a man who thinks several steps ahead. He most certainly predicted that the social upheaval this knowledge would cause would not be worth going public with it. There's also the fact that he is suspicious of Minami, which is essentially Akihabara's rival, and fears what would happen if other Adventurer factions knew about the contract.
    • Rarity of items can vary wildly. It's quite possible that gathering sufficient resources could take months of playtime.
  • The items were collected during the game era, which you have at least 3~4 times player number and likely much more high level characters to support the raid. Even given the fact that most of the hardcore players are trapped there now, most people are still struggling to adapt to the new world. The items might not even be collected entirely in the Japanese server, there are almost no way of traveling to other parts of the world yet (as of volume 10, and Rudy was revived in volume 6). Also, the traveling time became much longer(12 times) within the world(so distance with a travel time of 2 hours in game era would take a whole day to get to) but the summon time of rides did not increase.(e.g. the Griffons time limit is 4 hours a day, in the game era that means 2 whole game days, but in story that is only 4 hours of a game day.) A raid that took 6 hours in game era(real life time) will now take 3 whole days, not counting random drops may not pop up every time.(so you might have to repeat the raid quest 3~4 times to get enough drops) If we include game features like the Fairy rings that are teleportation devices that are very easy to use in game era because you can surf the internet to check the schedule, without fairy rings the traveling time also multiplied by a lot, in game era a player can probably travel to a nearby fairy ring in around 5~10 mins and then be teleported to almost 5~10 mins away from anything if you meet the teleport schedule hours, but it will take a few weeks or more to get to in the story. The distances between places are also expanding per Roderic measurements.
  • It's less about the item rarity or even the ability to turn Po E into Adventurers, it's that with the right materials and skill level as a Scribe, Shiroe has the potential to overwrite any subclass or create new subclasses wholecloth at a whim, as well as create binding contracts of world encompassing scope. Any contract he writes with powerful enough materials will become real. Think about that. All he needs is to be detailed enough in his writing, and he can essentially outmaneuver the any Literal-, Playful-, Deceitful-Genie programmed into the gameworld.

• How come people don't independently figure out how to make food with flavor? Once it's known that ingredients have taste, the obvious thing to do would be to try to physically combine them. And the characters do seem to try things like that (Naotsugu was shown attempting to cook a sausage, for example). It doesn't work for them, but I would expect more than one cook would try it.
  • It apparently just didn't seem to occur to them, as people still thought they were merely in a game. Plus figuring out how to cook food with flavor is a pretty low priority among the chaos of people trying to figure out how they got transported into the game.
  • Presumably most people who attempted to cook had a skill too low for the item they were trying to cook, and it rapidly became accepted knowledge that it didn't work.
  • Other cooks did make the discovery but there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of them to begin with. It looked like the subclass only became popular post Apocalypsserae.

• Why do the adventurers never tell the People of the Land about our world?
  • Who would believe them? What purpose would it serve since adventurers have no way of returning to it, anyways?
    • I see no reason that it would be all that unbelievable. It certainly explains a lot. The main purpose it would serve is diplomacy. The Landers will trust the adventurers more if they don't restrict information to a need-to-know basis. It also gives context to the technological knowledge of the adventurers, which makes it easier to use. What I find really odd though is that every adventurer seems to have independently decided to keep it a secret. I could definitely see Shiroe doing it, but everyone?
    • Because the overlying theme of the show is that at least on some level, a lot of the players actually prefer living in Elder Tale rather than the real world and have no real interest in going back or talking about it. And again, there just doesn't really seem to be any critical reason to go out of their way to tell Landers about it.
    • "Hey, so in our world, your entire existence is a game designed for our entertainment and you are designed to only fulfill roles to further this purpose." Then again, I'm certain Shirou could phrase it more diplomatically.
  • In Elder Tale lore, Adventurers came from another world. So most Landers, or at least those who know their lore or their stories, are aware of that fact. But to them, Adventurers were mindless drones that killed monsters and competed quests. Out of the blue, they suddenly gained massive intelligence and broke the technology stagnation that existed for presumably hundreds if not thousands of years. A lot of Rayneshia's story is about coming to terms with the Adventurers and their world.
  • As of halfway through the second season, Isuzu has tole Rundelhaus about the musical culture of our world, and it's made clear that he, at least, has been made aware that the adventurers are aliens who aren't here by choice.

• Why are all of the young adventurers so short? I would expect them to make their characters have the same height as the adults.
  • The young adventurers tend to be players who just recently got into the game and MMOs in general, so maybe they decided to pick an avatar that looks similar to themselves.
    • I'm not very familiar with MMOs. Does that actually happen?
    • There are people who tend to do this. How many there really are, of course, nobody really knows. And of course, avatar appearance depends on the capability of the game. While most actual MMOs don't allow you adjust your height, it's clear that Elder Tale does.
  • It's worth noting that several characters have avatars that look much older than their real age. William, for example, is only 17 and yet his avatar looks to be late 20's. Serara went the opposite route. Despite being William's age her avatar looks to be 13 or 14. So far the only young characters with age representative avatars are Minori (age 14), Tohya (age 14), and Isuzu (age 17). Supposedly Isuzu only made her avatar so close to her actual appearance because she intended to quit the game once her trial period expired and she didn't feel like getting too into character creation.
    • which anyone who's ever tryed making themselves in almost any character creation that usually takes longer than just clicking through the hair and preset face options

• Landers die permanently. Everyone knows this, so it must have been the same when Elder Tale was a game. Combine this with the Lord British Postulate and you must ask: How are there any landers left in the world?
  • They reproduce, which can help. But you'd still think they'd be deathly afraid of adventurers. My best guess is that, when it was a game, you weren't allowed to kill the landers.
    • At least you cannot kill one in the cities since the guards will kill you. The only problem will be the ones that you find in quests where you need to save them from monsters, there are ones like the Izumo Knights which are stronger than players, but also some really weak ones. It might be that in game those are spawn at the quest so they don't yet exist since no one is doing those quests at the time of the story begins, and the world has at least 3~4 times landers than game era Non Player Characters, even the Bot players obtained consciences.

• It's implied that Landers don't speak Japanese, and the only reason Adventurers can understand them is the translation software that comes with the game. This explains why Rundelhouse has a name that's unpronounceable in Japanese, but how does he manage the Gratuitous English?
  • Landers are capable of learning new concepts and ideas. For example, Regan manages to familiarize himself with 'hotpants' and 'panties' neither of which exist in the Elder Tales world proper. Likewise words aren't always translated exactly to their Elder Tales world counterpart, which is why Rudy can say both 'seven colors' and 'rainbow'. It may be a bit of a stretch but I can see him in his desire to emulate adventurers picking up phrases that weren't translated fully by the game code (or ancient Alv magic/technology, going with the season 2 theme)
    • Is the idea that when Japanese-speakers speak English, the game fails to translate it from Japanese, so it gets left English, and then the Landers start copying that since it's the only words they haven't heard before?
    • That's probably part of it. Rudy and Kanami both manage more than just English (French, German, Hawaiian). Whatever is happening it's clear when a character wishes to say a word instead of conveying an idea (a greeting as opposed to 'hello') they can.

• Why does Tetra not drink the same potion that Akatsuki used in the first episode? It would solve most of the problems he winds up having and prevent him from being over-written by his avatar...
  • Well, according to the wikias on Log Horizon, Tetra is rather playful and likes teasing Naotsugu. It could be possible that she would possibly use one of those potions (if the recipe for it is ever discovered by Adventurers) if Naotsugu manages to figure it out.
  • The potion Akatsuki got from Shiro sounded like an award for long time subscribers and considering Shiro was one of the game's earliest players it's possible relatively few players received it. In general rare items seem to be especially rare in Elder Tales when compared to other MMOs. Besides, they might just be enjoying their feminized body better than their old one.
  • That potion is supposed to be extremely rare, on the order of Phantasm-class equipment if I'm not mistaken, and it's a one-time-use item. Besides, Cross Players are very common in MMO's, so I imagine any of the potions that did exist in Akiba would have been passed around and used up long before all people in that situation got one.
    • And it wouldn't just be cross players. There's probably a lot of people who didn't want to go through life as a were-cat. Shiroe had trouble enough keeping his balance after gaining a few inches in height. A tail, becoming digitigrade... it's a miracle Nyanta managed so much control in so short a time.
    • The potion is from an one time event, it is not just rare, but unique in a sense. Good thing is that they are pretty useless, so most players kept it as a collector's item instead of using it. Another potion was used in the manga West Wind Brigade by Max to turn back to a girl, the trio said they went through quite a lot to get the potion(and cloths for Max to appeal to Soujiro) And it cannot change the race of the person, the name of the potion is "Appearance resetting potion" and was described as a potion that you can reset the appearance of your character. Since the race alters stats and game play, it really is out of the "appearance" zone.(the gender does not)
  • No one ever bothered to buy or keep that potion. It was an award at a single event, and no one had any interest in it so they were generally discarded. Thus, it's one of the few "phantasm-class" rarities that became rare because no one even wanted it.
  • In fact, by the time Tetra enters the story, the Roderick Lab already developed a potion to replicate the effects of the rare Appearance Reset Potion. So the reason why she doesn't use it is because she doesn't want to.

• It is established fairly early that you resurrect in the last city you visit. So why don't all the people who want to leave Plant Hwyaden (easily do able) immediately travel to Akihabara, or any other city, once the option becomes available (either by gate, or other means)? Now they will resurrect in a city not controlled by Plant Hwyaden and they don't have to live in fear.

• If Akatsuki was so concerned about her height, why did she choose to return to it after using the Appearance-Changing Potion? Presumably, it could've changed her height as well as her gender. On top of that, why isn't she checking to see if there are potions that would allow you change your height later on during the invention boom?
  • She chose to return to her original height because it was nearly impossible to move with the level of grace and skill she needs in her role at the height of her male avatar. Even a few inches difference can throw off your sense of balance - even for simple, mundane activities like walking. For fighting, and especially the sort of high-speed, extremely precise fighting style Akatsuki has, anything that might trip her up could mean the difference between victory and ignoble defeat. It's mentioned very briefly at the start of the anime by Shiroe, who notes that his avatar is a few inches taller than his old world body, and that this fact has been making him clumsy. In the Light Novel, Akatsuki can't even walk in the male body - the difference in limb length is just that severe. Again, obviously, you could eventually learn to live with that - but imagine trying to fight while wearing stilts.

• Why are Minori's hands so messed up while she's in the Guild Hamlin? Leatherwork was just having the necessary ingredients and recipe and then hitting 'Create' in the crafting menu. There are other reasons why life in that Guild sucked, but busted fingers shouldn't have been one of them.
  • We do see some scenes of her doing leatherwork, and she’s actually sewing with a needle and thread. As for why Hamelin isn't just having her use the menus, they probably just don’t care or want to demoralize her. Or Evil Is Petty.

• Eins rise to Duke doesn't really make a lot of sense. It looks like Eins has sworn fealty to Touri, but this only makes sense if Touri is a King or Emperor. While Touri has a claim to the throne of the Holy Empire Westlande, he doesn't have the actual title, and it seems like there is no current King or Emperor on the Yamato server to swear fealty to. This would make Eins a standalone Duke, not beholden to anyone, but its clear that Eins is following Touri's lead. It also doesn't make sense for Westlande to tolerate this, as they don't want Touri gaining any political power. but with Eins in charge of Akibahara, Touri's already gained significant political power, through Eins, if not personally. The reactivation of Akibahara's travel gate shouldn't have made that much difference. What does make sense is the reactivation of the Travel Gate spooking Westlande, as there's now an easy way for Eastlande to invade Westlande should they choose to. They likely wouldn't, but its still a large security hole.