User blog comment:Omega natsu2/Fairy Tail Episode 205: Beacon of Rebellion, Review./@comment-4449950-20141025042918/@comment-4449950-20141026002141

@Duel: But... how are Lucy and Natsu going to develop? Natsu has no real relation to these "bad guys" and everyone else in Fairy Tail will only be brought in through the need to help Lucy and save peeps... I doubt they will get any character growth in any way. As for Lucy... what's this going to prove? That she loves her Spirits? We already know that! That she can fight without her Spirits? We've seen her do that before too! As for her Spirits, they already all love her immensely and have shown that through their dedication over the entire story so far. The only questionable one is Aquarius, and her development can't come in this arc because it's in Tartarus - and tbh even them hinting at it here will ruin that scene for me.

And no, I don't think they missed the boat with the light novels. "Nobody cares about them" to me is generalising. I'd say nobody knows about them is more correct due to the fact that they aren't translated, and they would know if they were animated. Plus, it wouldn't have to be flashback. LN 2 occurs after the GMG at an unspecified time and LN 1 is after the Edolas arc, again unspecified. No flashbacks needed.

@Anon: I see what you're saying, but I don't fully agree. Those twists altered the fabric of FT forever - the timeskip for obvious reasons, the Dragons appearing resulted in Ultear's death and Doranbolt recognising Jellal and CrimeS and Atlas Flame knowing Natsu all sorts of stuff. Here, none of that can happen, because we KNOW that at the end of this arc, FT will return to the guild and Natsu and Gray will get a job request to go fix a frozen village. There can be no character death (because Lucy doesn't lose her Spirits) or big impacts because none of that is present in the Sun Village arc. As such, though there can be twists and stuff, I don't see how they can be too dramatic or impacting :/