Meaning of 一段階ショック

Question

I'm not quite sure how to understand what is being said in bold below. The first part is him thinking that he could forgive her a little since she is more beautiful than the ugly girls that have hated him. He then says however, it might actually be ....

頭のどこかで「今まで俺を嫌ってきたブス子さんたちより、そこそこ美人な分少し許せる」と思っていたのだが、逆に一段階ショックかもしれない

Unfortunately 一段階ショック doesn't seem to be a common phrase when googling it, but the hits suggest that it is to do with the "first step/stage" of something. Most of examples I saw on google were describing the first stage of "pet loss" as shock.

Would anyone be able to help me understand what he means?

Answer 1

Believe or not, this is a comparative expression.

逆に一段階ショックかもしれない
It's actually one notch more shocking/hurting

Japanese does not have a piece of grammar that corresponds to the comparative, but it does have several constructions to do its jobs. ショック is a na-adjective in Japanese that means mostly the same as in English: "to be (emotionally) shocked", and the [numeral] + [counter] + [adjective] pattern implicitly conveys the meaning "[numeral] more [adjective]".

一回り大きい one size bigger
二つ年上（だ） two years older (a related post)
三人少ない three fewer people (= outnumbered by three)

In many cases, you'll see a noun phrase with ～より (meaning "than") somewhere before the expression, which should make it easier to understand. However, you will also see it alone if that element is left out.

Bonus: I think 許せる in this passage is better understood as "acceptable" rather than "forgivable".