YMMV / The Zombie Knight

• Abandon Shipping: Mr. Frost tried to invoke this with the Ibai/Emiliana pairing. When Ibai was introduced, Ibai took an instant liking to Emiliana and intended to go on an adventure with her. People started shipping them together, kind of overlooking the fact that Ibai is definitely an adult despite his cheerful and naive nature. Frost felt he should mention their age gap:
  George M. Frost: Here's where I remind all of you that Ibai is in his mid-thirties and Emiliana is fourteen.
  • It's debatable how well the reminder worked though. People were quick to point out that in a world of semi-immortal servants, age doesn't matter terribly much anyway.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Abolish: Since we haven't seen much of their perspective, this is a given. Are they really just crazy sociapaths hellbent on creating as much death and destruction as possible, or is there some deeper meaning to their actions?
  • Parson Miles: Did he cross the Moral Event Horizon with his actions against the Rainlords and his plans of overthrowing Sermung, or is he instead a Well-Intentioned Extremist and totally justified in trying to change the Vanguard?
  • the Rainlords: After Sanko arrived, should they have cooperated with the investigation despite their misgivings? Was their utter refusal and Honor Before Reason approach a little rash or totally justified?
• Arc Fatigue: Not a terribly bad example of the trope, but the whole Rainlords vs. the Vanguard arc had some aspects of this. The writing was as good as ever and the arc itself was interesting enough; it's just that there were so many battles in close succession that it became somewhat repetitive.
• Archive Binge: As many commenters can attest, you start reading the story and kind of end up two days later having read through everything in one sitting. It's just that addictive and the format of small little pages invites the "one more page" mindset that leads to binges.
• Awesomeness Withdrawal: The most common complaint of new readers. "I'm all caught up now, what am I supposed to do?"
• Canon Fodder: Since this is an ongoing serial, there are still many unsolved plot threads around. For example:
  • Plenty of people who have been Out of Focus for a while. Colt and Harper will certainly appear again at some point.
  • The Rofal Clan will probably play some part in future arcs. After all, Geoffrey Rofal's corpse is still around somewhere, and we do know that aberration bones have powers...
  • The concept of the Undercrust has been introduced but not explored, so far.
• Creator Worship: While certainly not the worst example of this trope, many readers are quite devoted to Mr. Frost and his work. This has become even more noticeable since the Schedule Slip started. Every now and then, Mr. Frost will post and apologize profusely for the lack of updates. The readership is almost universally understanding and comforting and very patient. However, do not criticize the author in the comment section, because the other readers will tell you in no uncertain terms that you are very free to go to other parts of the Internet.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Ibai Blackburn is very popular with the readers.
• Epileptic Trees: Rampant in the comments. Some readers still believe that Hector's metal is not actually iron despite all the evidence.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The little group of suspicious individuals surrounding Gerald are often referred to as the Pancake House Five — even though they have appeared in their entirety only once, haven't been seen in ages, two of them didn't even have speaking roles and Roman seems to have permanently split from their ranks.
  • The shield Hector received from Haqq is usually called "the cheat shield" because it ups Hector's powers for a short period of time.
• Fan-Preferred Couple:
  • People started shipping Hector/Lynnette basically the second Lynn was introduced. Then the Ship Tease started... Helen turned into a Shipper on Deck for them and Hector confessed to having a crush on Lynn, but due to Hector's shyness, this ship will probably stay anchored for the time being.
  • Roman/Gina is immensely popular as well. Roman's cryptic remarks about their relationship and the few hints about their backgrounds only add fuel to the fire.
• Fourth Wall Myopia:
  • When Hector was wanted after the incidents at his school, the readers knew that he was, in fact, the good guy. This wasn't visible to anyone in-story though; to them he was just the weird kid with scary powers who encased a couple of people in metal. They didn't know that the people he killed were mindless zombies controlled by Geoffrey.
  • Sanko's behavior in the Ranlords vs. Vanguard arc makes a whole lot more sense if you consider this trope. Of course we know that the Rainlords didn't actually betray the Vanguard, but from Sanko's point of view, there is only evidence that incriminates the Rainlords. When they refuse to cooperate with the investigation, this marks them as guilty in her eyes which sets off the fight that might have been avoided otherwise.
• Friendly Fandoms: No fandom in particular, but the fandoms of Web Serials as a whole tend to be quite friendly with each other. Authors sometimes recommend other stories, and sometimes even the authors can be found in each other's comment sections.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Hector's initial thoughts about Micah become this after Micah is killed.
  ‘He’s way too friendly,’ Hector thought, wide-eyed. ‘This can only end in disaster...’
• I Knew It!: Happens a lot due to the rampant Epileptic Trees in the comments.
  • When Colt was killed, most readers weren't terribly surprised when he got resurrected as a servant.
  • Some readers correctly guessed Parson Mile's goals in antagonizing the Elroys.
• Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: The Rainlords vs. the Vanguard arc introduced many new characters. Some of them were killed off in the same arc but there was little emotional impact to their deaths.
• The Un-Twist: When Colt was killed, most readers really kind of expected him to be turned into a servant.

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