Brutally honest? It reeks of anime tropes.

First and foremost, the movers and shakers of the world will almost never have introverted children, you're more typically going to be ambiverts with at worst a tendency to introversion, due to social standards among their class as well as familial expectations in addition to the interactions among their peers of their social rank. Its no doubt going to be something taught at a very young age, with certain charismatic tendencies picked up through the child's mind modeling itself after how their parents think and act in public based upon what they also are told is right in society. Not saying they're happy go lucky, party hard 24/7, but they will have a tendency to not be shut ins with no ability to control their emotions.

Second, the inclusion of magic is almost entirely arbitrary. If magic exists in the world, which you explain it does, with it being a known and studied art and science, eugenics would be incredibly popular. Like insanely popular. Showing the SLIGHTEST inclination would immediately put yourself above your peers and in a class well above anybody else. You'd also be the subject of reverence and testing. Betterment of the human race and all that.

Third, people who tend to think this way you've described are also incredibly strong willed. They're the ones who also tend to blame things on themselves. It could make an interesting conflict of character but you'd need to have some sort of involvement of the MC's friend' death to make this somewhat believable for his character, that being an introvert. To jump off of this, if you're going to go full military, there is ramifications to this as well. If it's modern day, the military where magic exists is only going to be that much more grueling, holding to of higher standards, strict and breaking as well as rebuilding. If you're going to go in for Magic Combat wingding, you're going to have to first meet standards and if you meet those, you're going to be trained to be better, whether you like it or not. In addition to this, the sister thing is silly. Unless its contained to the family and social circle, no one in the military is going to know nor care because Kill Hats do not act impartial to anybody, you're all trained in the shit, because you're are shit and you will come to enjoy the shit, together as a team because while you may be right when saying "I am shit" you forget everybody is also saying the same thing.

Fourth, while I have no problems with psychological issues becoming apparent from stress breaking down a person's mental stability, its something that happens over time with the little bits and pieces eating away for the certain major blows to hit the heart, before the mind tries to repair itself.

Fifth, you need serious build up to this. Society would need to be seriously screwed up if joining the military was considered a great dishonor and hospitalizing your own damn son was something ignored by authorities especially if it was an act of violence inflicted on a military personnel. Double for your MC actually fighting in something outside of self defense. At best, he'd be dishonorably discharged. At worst, facing time in prison.

Sixth, while people do display light sociopathic tendencies, its not a full blown flick of a switch. You seem to build up to this but its not just becoming logical, people are logical even when they seem like they're not. In fact, sociopathic tendencies inflict the opposite, and what you end up seeing is people who will live normal lives but during periods of psychological or emotional stress simply ignoring or disregarding the issue while taking a passive aggressive stance to it, most commonly in the form of simply not caring.

Seventh, you've created a conflict of setting. If there was a conflict great enough to from the looks of it, permanently scar the MC because of his father's actions, I think the last thing they're going to do is interact with him, nor would them interacting with him be a cause of distress simply because he wouldn't care seeing as it is illogical, even if it was an accident.

So while it is interesting that you're trying to subvert the "Anything is possible if you put your mind to it" idealistic retarded fantasy about life that is so common in media and real life as well, you subvert it to the point where your character seems more childish, brooding edgy ninja highschool that deviates from reality when it serves to further the plot.

Brutally honest? It reeks of anime tropes.

I get the impression that was the goal =)

First and foremost, the movers and shakers of the world will almost never have introverted children, you're more typically going to be ambiverts with at worst a tendency to introversion, due to social standards among their class as well as familial expectations in addition to the interactions among their peers of their social rank. Its no doubt going to be something taught at a very young age, with certain charismatic tendencies picked up through the child's mind modeling itself after how their parents think and act in public based upon what they also are told is right in society. Not saying they're happy go lucky, party hard 24/7, but they will have a tendency to not be shut ins with no ability to control their emotions.

Nonsense, a significant portion of the population is introverted. It's possible it's less prevalent in the elite, but it will certainly exist. For one, there's a genetic component so the raising of the child has its limits. Additionally, there isn't a set child rearing method for the elite within most cultures, never mind across all of them. It's as much a trope that the elite ignore their children as it is that they groom them for power.

Second, the inclusion of magic is almost entirely arbitrary. If magic exists in the world, which you explain it does, with it being a known and studied art and science, eugenics would be incredibly popular. Like insanely popular. Showing the SLIGHTEST inclination would immediately put yourself above your peers and in a class well above anybody else. You'd also be the subject of reverence and testing. Betterment of the human race and all that.

Here on Earth we tended to respect our shamans and burn our witches, but not turn them into studs or test subjects. Yours is an interesting setting, but an unusual one in literature or history.

It could make an interesting conflict of character but you'd need to have some sort of involvement of the MC's friend' death to make this somewhat believable for his character, that being an introvert.

I agree that that feels more natural to me. Although "Bridge to Terabithia" jumps to mind as an example of literature where a character is haunted by a death they didn't directly experience. Children can be very traumatized by loss of a close friend in any variety.

Fifth, you need serious build up to this. Society would need to be seriously screwed up if joining the military was considered a great dishonor and hospitalizing your own damn son was something ignored by authorities especially if it was an act of violence inflicted on a military personnel. Double for your MC actually fighting in something outside of self defense. At best, he'd be dishonorably discharged. At worst, facing time in prison.

Did I miss something? I don't think the author ever stated anyone was military. It's also not that unusual for the elite to exist outside of the normal boundaries of law, either explicitly or just a friendly "sounds like an accident, no need to investigate" by the sherrif.

Seventh, you've created a conflict of setting. If there was a conflict great enough to from the looks of it, permanently scar the MC because of his father's actions, I think the last thing they're going to do is interact with him, nor would them interacting with him be a cause of distress simply because he wouldn't care seeing as it is illogical, even if it was an accident.

They won't necessarily ostracize him, families forgive a lot. But I do agree that this is a rich vein that isn't being mined much in the original description. Surely there would be deep wells of anger, regret, sadness and blame beneath the surface. The characters might choose to intentionally ignore it or forgive or whatever, but it's still going to be there, shaping actions and conversations.

Brutally honest? It reeks of anime tropes.

First and foremost, the movers and shakers of the world will almost never have introverted children, you're more typically going to be ambiverts with at worst a tendency to introversion, due to social standards among their class as well as familial expectations in addition to the interactions among their peers of their social rank. Its no doubt going to be something taught at a very young age, with certain charismatic tendencies picked up through the child's mind modeling itself after how their parents think and act in public based upon what they also are told is right in society. Not saying they're happy go lucky, party hard 24/7, but they will have a tendency to not be shut ins with no ability to control their emotions.

Second, the inclusion of magic is almost entirely arbitrary. If magic exists in the world, which you explain it does, with it being a known and studied art and science, eugenics would be incredibly popular. Like insanely popular. Showing the SLIGHTEST inclination would immediately put yourself above your peers and in a class well above anybody else. You'd also be the subject of reverence and testing. Betterment of the human race and all that.

Third, people who tend to think this way you've described are also incredibly strong willed. They're the ones who also tend to blame things on themselves. It could make an interesting conflict of character but you'd need to have some sort of involvement of the MC's friend' death to make this somewhat believable for his character, that being an introvert. To jump off of this, if you're going to go full military, there is ramifications to this as well. If it's modern day, the military where magic exists is only going to be that much more grueling, holding to of higher standards, strict and breaking as well as rebuilding. If you're going to go in for Magic Combat wingding, you're going to have to first meet standards and if you meet those, you're going to be trained to be better, whether you like it or not. In addition to this, the sister thing is silly. Unless its contained to the family and social circle, no one in the military is going to know nor care because Kill Hats do not act impartial to anybody, you're all trained in the shit, because you're are shit and you will come to enjoy the shit, together as a team because while you may be right when saying "I am shit" you forget everybody is also saying the same thing.

Fourth, while I have no problems with psychological issues becoming apparent from stress breaking down a person's mental stability, its something that happens over time with the little bits and pieces eating away for the certain major blows to hit the heart, before the mind tries to repair itself.

Fifth, you need serious build up to this. Society would need to be seriously screwed up if joining the military was considered a great dishonor and hospitalizing your own damn son was something ignored by authorities especially if it was an act of violence inflicted on a military personnel. Double for your MC actually fighting in something outside of self defense. At best, he'd be dishonorably discharged. At worst, facing time in prison.

Sixth, while people do display light sociopathic tendencies, its not a full blown flick of a switch. You seem to build up to this but its not just becoming logical, people are logical even when they seem like they're not. In fact, sociopathic tendencies inflict the opposite, and what you end up seeing is people who will live normal lives but during periods of psychological or emotional stress simply ignoring or disregarding the issue while taking a passive aggressive stance to it, most commonly in the form of simply not caring.

Seventh, you've created a conflict of setting. If there was a conflict great enough to from the looks of it, permanently scar the MC because of his father's actions, I think the last thing they're going to do is interact with him, nor would them interacting with him be a cause of distress simply because he wouldn't care seeing as it is illogical, even if it was an accident.

So while it is interesting that you're trying to subvert the "Anything is possible if you put your mind to it" idealistic retarded fantasy about life that is so common in media and real life as well, you subvert it to the point where your character seems more childish, brooding edgy ninja highschool that deviates from reality when it serves to further the plot.

Yeah, my point was to make it reek of anime tropes, but to then take a different look at them almost, though since due to my inexperience it will probably mess up lol.

The magic exists, but it is not known to the entire world, only the few mages who survived, for this I should provide context. Essentially around the 1800s magic bloodlines began to die out, which caused established mage families to group together and hoard knowledge in efforts to make sure their branches of magic survived. Then technology such as guns made the non magic majority more combat effective than magic since destructive offensive spells needed time to create for the majority of mages. This made them sort of slink back into the shadows. The world wars occurred and caused the destruction of many of these groups and their knowledge accumulated over hundreds of years, so only mage families with enough resources and influence survived, and after the wars they were little more than legends. Due to the loss of knowledge and numbers the mages began to obsessively focus on making sure heirs and offspring were superior to their predecessors in order to ensure survival, and any not deemed superior are used as test subjects typically to regain lost knowledge. Plus the families due to being very "special" began to also have an elitist mind set, which worsened with generations passing.

So essentially magic is nothing more a bunch of stories and deemed non existent for the majority of the world, and the few who do use it seem to have a mind set similar to aristocrats in a sense. So even someone like the protagonist isn't considered special in both versions of the world, one due to ignorance, the other because of elitism.

He is strong willed in a sense, but like you said he does essentially blame everything on himself for being weak, so his will is usually overridden by his inferiority complex which just makes him sit back and leave everything as it is. Like I said above, magic is essentially extinct now and its unknown if a human alive is actually certain of its existence anymore, so it doesn't actually have any set standards.

My point about the sister was that she is important in consequence to the world. She is the one who has power to change the world for better or worse, but the protagonist isn't. The interaction with the sister is intended to provide context and world building, providing us with the problems caused by the actions she has done because she is that powerful, whilst also showing his psychological problems since they are much more prominent when she is near him because of his desire to protect her and his failure to achieve this.

Yeah my point about the psychological problems was that it was bits and pieces before he does snap, but afterwards no attempt to repair himself is made.

There is no military present. And he doesn't join them. He just simply attempts to strengthen himself but the repeated failures build up psychological stress and problems which eventually cause him to snap.

Good point about the sociopath tendencies. I'll have to look further into that.

The protagonist isn't really scarred by his fight with his father psychologically and readily accepts is was he who at fault, my point was that he just snapped and as a result caused a fight which weakened his body. His interaction with the family as a whole doesn't damage him, its more or less just his superior sister. The family interactions are mostly there to show the different minders between the three.

...Due to the loss of knowledge and numbers the mages began to obsessively focus on making sure heirs and offspring were superior to their predecessors in order to ensure survival, and any not deemed superior are used as test subjects typically to regain lost knowledge...

That sounds extremely significant to the main character: Is this still a practice? If not, do people look back at using children as test subjects in horror, or was the bold actions that preserved the magical lineage respected by the elite? How do the main characters all feel about this? Does the protagonist have a sort of unfulfilled martyr complex, where he feels like he should have been sacrificed?

whilst also showing his psychological problems since they are much more prominent when she is near him because of his desire to protect her and his failure to achieve this.

Why does he feel this way, if she doesn't need protecting?

The protagonist isn't really scarred by his fight with his father psychologically and readily accepts is was he who at fault, my point was that he just snapped and as a result caused a fight which weakened his body. His interaction with the family as a whole doesn't damage him, its more or less just his superior sister. The family interactions are mostly there to show the different minders between the three.

The characters' reactions to the father-son fight is very interesting. Son overthrows father is an very common and powerful myth/archetype about the son becoming a man and assuming his father's place. Cronus castrates his father and becomes chief titan. Cronus eats all his children but Zeus who slays him and becomes the chief god. Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. In a heroic epic, the son would win sooner or later.

Sometimes the archetype is denied and the father wins. In a mythic sense this is a stoppage of the wheel of time, a subversion of the natural and inevitable order of new replacing old. Which fits with the son being stuck a child and unable to achieve responsibility. But almost invariably in stories, the subversion of the natural order is treated catastrophically. The son can't forgive the father and hates him deeply, and this is the emotional blockage that prevents his assumption of adult responsibility. Or the father would grieve at the harm he caused to his son, and kill himself (or abandon his family). And the son would be foisted into responsibilities he couldn't cope with (you can't stop the natural order so son-kills-father reasserts itself. But not having earned adulthood, the protagonist can't continue his story). Or the pressure would tear apart the family with tears and blame and disowning each other (if breaking the natural order can't be resolved, everything tends to explode).

Sometimes an archetype is kind of sidestepped, and you have the sister character to do that. Father defeats son, time grinds to a halt. Daughter defeats father, balance is restored. In that sort of narrative you'd probably have the father blame and disown the son, and the sister argue with him and pin the blame on the father. The father is humbled and loses any power over the narrative. Here the themes you discussed fits in: the son could have been the hero, but failed. He could have been the sacrifice that spurred his sister on her quest (echoing both his dead friend, and the backstory of sacrificing children to preserve magic) but he survived. So now he's a protagonist with no role in the story and his sister's inability to relate to him is a reflection of that.

But all these suggest a familial conflict of one form or another. Son hates father, or father hates son, or father grieves, or everybody is mad at everybody. To have the son say "yeah, my bad", and the family say "we know, but I guess you learned your lesson, huh?" is to leave so much narrative pressure unresolved. In a traditional story arc it doesn't make sense, but I could see where a deft hand could weave the tension of that unresolved conflict into the rest of the story. You could have the father and son having a great time sharing a beer and playing Madden, and there'd be this weird subtext of "this interaction is wrong." That sort of thematic irony, where the reader reacts very differently to a scene then the way the author is portraying it can be very powerful.

There is a traditional out, which is "father and son reconcile". But that's a happy ending with the son resolving his issues and becoming an adult anyways.

Which interestingly, leaves us in limbo. The father and son didn't reconcile, they just stopped the conflict. The son didn't win, so he can't progress with his life. But since the story is primarily psychological, he didn't "lose" either: his father wasn't trying to defeat the son, so the natural order isn't backwards either. It's just a failure to launch. It suggests a sort of narrative reprieve: like success or tragedy are out there, we're just not moving towards them. We were well into the rising action, approaching a climax where things would either split into comedy or tragedy, and then...nothing. The protagonist abruptly stepped out of the story.

All of which is to say that you're playing with some powerful tropes in an unusual way. You can be very successful with it, but you need to proceed with a lot of skill: I think this portion of the story is either going to feel extremely sophisticated, or poorly thought out and hastily brushed over.

...Due to the loss of knowledge and numbers the mages began to obsessively focus on making sure heirs and offspring were superior to their predecessors in order to ensure survival, and any not deemed superior are used as test subjects typically to regain lost knowledge...

That sounds extremely significant to the main character: Is this still a practice? If not, do people look back at using children as test subjects in horror, or was the bold actions that preserved the magical lineage respected by the elite? How do the main characters all feel about this? Does the protagonist have a sort of unfulfilled martyr complex, where he feels like he should have been sacrificed?

whilst also showing his psychological problems since they are much more prominent when she is near him because of his desire to protect her and his failure to achieve this.

Why does he feel this way, if she doesn't need protecting?

The protagonist isn't really scarred by his fight with his father psychologically and readily accepts is was he who at fault, my point was that he just snapped and as a result caused a fight which weakened his body. His interaction with the family as a whole doesn't damage him, its more or less just his superior sister. The family interactions are mostly there to show the different minders between the three.

The characters' reactions to the father-son fight is very interesting. Son overthrows father is an very common and powerful myth/archetype about the son becoming a man and assuming his father's place. Cronus castrates his father and becomes chief titan. Cronus eats all his children but Zeus who slays him and becomes the chief god. Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. In a heroic epic, the son would win sooner or later.

Sometimes the archetype is denied and the father wins. In a mythic sense this is a stoppage of the wheel of time, a subversion of the natural and inevitable order of new replacing old. Which fits with the son being stuck a child and unable to achieve responsibility. But almost invariably in stories, the subversion of the natural order is treated catastrophically. The son can't forgive the father and hates him deeply, and this is the emotional blockage that prevents his assumption of adult responsibility. Or the father would grieve at the harm he caused to his son, and kill himself (or abandon his family). And the son would be foisted into responsibilities he couldn't cope with (you can't stop the natural order so son-kills-father reasserts itself. But not having earned adulthood, the protagonist can't continue his story). Or the pressure would tear apart the family with tears and blame and disowning each other (if breaking the natural order can't be resolved, everything tends to explode).

Sometimes an archetype is kind of sidestepped, and you have the sister character to do that. Father defeats son, time grinds to a halt. Daughter defeats father, balance is restored. In that sort of narrative you'd probably have the father blame and disown the son, and the sister argue with him and pin the blame on the father. The father is humbled and loses any power over the narrative. Here the themes you discussed fits in: the son could have been the hero, but failed. He could have been the sacrifice that spurred his sister on her quest (echoing both his dead friend, and the backstory of sacrificing children to preserve magic) but he survived. So now he's a protagonist with no role in the story and his sister's inability to relate to him is a reflection of that.

But all these suggest a familial conflict of one form or another. Son hates father, or father hates son, or father grieves, or everybody is mad at everybody. To have the son say "yeah, my bad", and the family say "we know, but I guess you learned your lesson, huh?" is to leave so much narrative pressure unresolved. In a traditional story arc it doesn't make sense, but I could see where a deft hand could weave the tension of that unresolved conflict into the rest of the story. You could have the father and son having a great time sharing a beer and playing Madden, and there'd be this weird subtext of "this interaction is wrong." That sort of thematic irony, where the reader reacts very differently to a scene then the way the author is portraying it can be very powerful.

There is a traditional out, which is "father and son reconcile". But that's a happy ending with the son resolving his issues and becoming an adult anyways.

Which interestingly, leaves us in limbo. The father and son didn't reconcile, they just stopped the conflict. The son didn't win, so he can't progress with his life. But since the story is primarily psychological, he didn't "lose" either: his father wasn't trying to defeat the son, so the natural order isn't backwards either. It's just a failure to launch. It suggests a sort of narrative reprieve: like success or tragedy are out there, we're just not moving towards them. We were well into the rising action, approaching a climax where things would either split into comedy or tragedy, and then...nothing. The protagonist abruptly stepped out of the story.

All of which is to say that you're playing with some powerful tropes in an unusual way. You can be very successful with it, but you need to proceed with a lot of skill: I think this portion of the story is either going to feel extremely sophisticated, or poorly thought out and hastily brushed over.

It is still practiced, but due to many of the families regaining the majority of their lost knowledge it isn't widely practiced anymore. Though because of the power craving and elitist mind set not many mages are actually against the practice itself, especially if it provides results.

That's why I made the character like that. In anime you always see the protagonist wanting "to get strong to protect his loved ones" but in many cases the loved ones are also pretty strong themselves and its because the protag is the strongest that this goal is achieved. In the story its due to the trauma caused by his friends death as a child that makes him have this very unhealthy obsession with gaining strength and protecting everyone, and ignores everything else. Which then eventually leads to his acceptance that he is weak and his sister was always strong, which because he spent so long trying to gain strength led to the complex relating to his sister. It's more like a tragically ironic take on the trope, since he wanted to protect something that was protecting him without him even knowing.

Yeah that's my main problem regarding the father/son dynamic. The whole point of the protagonist is that due to his obsession to be strong and protect everyone, coupled with his natural weakness and psychological baggage he is essentially stuck in limbo, with no idea or motivation to attempt to resolve his issues or move on. The protagonist does accept he was in the wrong for attacking his father, which infers he is somewhat mature and an adult at the beginning, but then his obsession with what could be considered a childish dream and his stubbornness to let go of it and help himself shows that he is not a fully fledged adult yet, and still has a lot to learn. I do want them to actually still be stuck in limbo, but considering my inexperience with writing it is likely I will have to change it to something more easy to write.

...Due to the loss of knowledge and numbers the mages began to obsessively focus on making sure heirs and offspring were superior to their predecessors in order to ensure survival, and any not deemed superior are used as test subjects typically to regain lost knowledge...

That sounds extremely significant to the main character: Is this still a practice? If not, do people look back at using children as test subjects in horror, or was the bold actions that preserved the magical lineage respected by the elite? How do the main characters all feel about this? Does the protagonist have a sort of unfulfilled martyr complex, where he feels like he should have been sacrificed?

whilst also showing his psychological problems since they are much more prominent when she is near him because of his desire to protect her and his failure to achieve this.

Why does he feel this way, if she doesn't need protecting?

The protagonist isn't really scarred by his fight with his father psychologically and readily accepts is was he who at fault, my point was that he just snapped and as a result caused a fight which weakened his body. His interaction with the family as a whole doesn't damage him, its more or less just his superior sister. The family interactions are mostly there to show the different minders between the three.

The characters' reactions to the father-son fight is very interesting. Son overthrows father is an very common and powerful myth/archetype about the son becoming a man and assuming his father's place. Cronus castrates his father and becomes chief titan. Cronus eats all his children but Zeus who slays him and becomes the chief god. Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother. In a heroic epic, the son would win sooner or later.

Sometimes the archetype is denied and the father wins. In a mythic sense this is a stoppage of the wheel of time, a subversion of the natural and inevitable order of new replacing old. Which fits with the son being stuck a child and unable to achieve responsibility. But almost invariably in stories, the subversion of the natural order is treated catastrophically. The son can't forgive the father and hates him deeply, and this is the emotional blockage that prevents his assumption of adult responsibility. Or the father would grieve at the harm he caused to his son, and kill himself (or abandon his family). And the son would be foisted into responsibilities he couldn't cope with (you can't stop the natural order so son-kills-father reasserts itself. But not having earned adulthood, the protagonist can't continue his story). Or the pressure would tear apart the family with tears and blame and disowning each other (if breaking the natural order can't be resolved, everything tends to explode).

Sometimes an archetype is kind of sidestepped, and you have the sister character to do that. Father defeats son, time grinds to a halt. Daughter defeats father, balance is restored. In that sort of narrative you'd probably have the father blame and disown the son, and the sister argue with him and pin the blame on the father. The father is humbled and loses any power over the narrative. Here the themes you discussed fits in: the son could have been the hero, but failed. He could have been the sacrifice that spurred his sister on her quest (echoing both his dead friend, and the backstory of sacrificing children to preserve magic) but he survived. So now he's a protagonist with no role in the story and his sister's inability to relate to him is a reflection of that.

But all these suggest a familial conflict of one form or another. Son hates father, or father hates son, or father grieves, or everybody is mad at everybody. To have the son say "yeah, my bad", and the family say "we know, but I guess you learned your lesson, huh?" is to leave so much narrative pressure unresolved. In a traditional story arc it doesn't make sense, but I could see where a deft hand could weave the tension of that unresolved conflict into the rest of the story. You could have the father and son having a great time sharing a beer and playing Madden, and there'd be this weird subtext of "this interaction is wrong." That sort of thematic irony, where the reader reacts very differently to a scene then the way the author is portraying it can be very powerful.

There is a traditional out, which is "father and son reconcile". But that's a happy ending with the son resolving his issues and becoming an adult anyways.

Which interestingly, leaves us in limbo. The father and son didn't reconcile, they just stopped the conflict. The son didn't win, so he can't progress with his life. But since the story is primarily psychological, he didn't "lose" either: his father wasn't trying to defeat the son, so the natural order isn't backwards either. It's just a failure to launch. It suggests a sort of narrative reprieve: like success or tragedy are out there, we're just not moving towards them. We were well into the rising action, approaching a climax where things would either split into comedy or tragedy, and then...nothing. The protagonist abruptly stepped out of the story.

All of which is to say that you're playing with some powerful tropes in an unusual way. You can be very successful with it, but you need to proceed with a lot of skill: I think this portion of the story is either going to feel extremely sophisticated, or poorly thought out and hastily brushed over.

It is still practiced, but due to many of the families regaining the majority of their lost knowledge it isn't widely practiced anymore. Though because of the power craving and elitist mind set not many mages are actually against the practice itself, especially if it provides results.

That's why I made the character like that. In anime you always see the protagonist wanting "to get strong to protect his loved ones" but in many cases the loved ones are also pretty strong themselves and its because the protag is the strongest that this goal is achieved. In the story its due to the trauma caused by his friends death as a child that makes him have this very unhealthy obsession with gaining strength and protecting everyone, and ignores everything else. Which then eventually leads to his acceptance that he is weak and his sister was always strong, which because he spent so long trying to gain strength led to the complex relating to his sister. It's more like a tragically ironic take on the trope, since he wanted to protect something that was protecting him without him even knowing.

Yeah that's my main problem regarding the father/son dynamic. The whole point of the protagonist is that due to his obsession to be strong and protect everyone, coupled with his natural weakness and psychological baggage he is essentially stuck in limbo, with no idea or motivation to attempt to resolve his issues or move on. The protagonist does accept he was in the wrong for attacking his father, which infers he is somewhat mature and an adult at the beginning, but then his obsession with what could be considered a childish dream and his stubbornness to let go of it and help himself shows that he is not a fully fledged adult yet, and still has a lot to learn. I do want them to actually still be stuck in limbo, but considering my inexperience with writing it is likely I will have to change it to something more easy to write.

There's value in practicing the basics over and over again before deviating too far (Picasso was classically trained before starting on cubism); there's also something to be said for diving into the deep end and learning to swim that way. I'd suggest trying the story out first with the father/son battle and it's resolve/unresolved tension. Maybe jump right to writing some scenes between them. If they feel flat, rewrite. If they still feel flat, maybe then consider changing it to something easier.

Fighting a rival or a bully is a less loaded choice. I think there's some interesting themes in that as well: by the time the protagonist has recovered, the rival might have moved off to college and is proceeding with his life. The two are never fated to meet again. Again, a sort of echo of the dead friend: a failure is setup for redemption in the heroic epic, but in real life time moves on, people move away, you don't get to refight your battles every time.

There's also the option of a distant father: he's a member of the elite, perhaps he doesn't have time for his son. That gives sort of a physical manifestation to the unresolved issues: he's off traveling the world and doing whatever it is he does, it's not merely that the issues between them are only semi-resolved, it's also that they don't have the opportunity to resolve them. Also gives another motivation for the protection obsession: the son doesn't even need to overthrow the father, that seat is vacant. He just needs to assume leadership of the family, but can't.