linkspooky

[linkspooky]

Everyone shut up my baby girl is back. Unfortunately I will be paying attention to the new Titans series again.

[linkspooky]

NEW CHAPTER OF BURN THIS CITY DOWN!

If you want to read my Azula / Aang and Azula redemption fanfic, the next chapter is up on AO3 please check it out and leave a comment!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56914849/chapters/169116055

[linkspooky]

NEW CHAPTER OF BURN THIS CITY DOWN!

If you want to read my Azula / Aang and Azula redemption fanfic, the next chapter is up on AO3 please check it out and leave a comment!

https://archiveofourown.org/works/56914849/chapters/169116055

[linkspooky]

who are you really?

[linkspooky]

it’s been a while since i’ve drawn judai have a random ass drawing bye

[linkspooky]

THE PHILOSOPHY OF KAGURABACHI

So, Kagurabachi is my favorite manga in shonen jump right now, but my enjoyment of it comes from a different place than most people's. While I liked the first chapter, the manga did not really click for me until chapter 17 when Chihiro was forced to recognize that his enemy had interpreted the actions of his dead father entirely differently, and he was fighting with a conviction too, even if Chihiro did not agree with that conviction.

Since then, Chihiro has slowly been changing his outlook on the world from a simple avenger to acknowledging the complexity of the world around him and this is the most interesting aspect to me - Chihiro and his changing beliefs over the course of the story.

I have been waiting in anticipation for Chihiro's reaction to learning the truth about the war, and the genocide one of the sworsman carried out with his father's weapon. We see his reaction this chapter and I was a little bit surprised to say the least.

Chihiro states that it's wrong to kill all five of the sword-bearers in order to disarm the nukes essentially, remove the potential for anyone else to cause another disaster and wipe out hundreds of thousands of more people. This seems inconsistent with something that has been Chihiro's belief since chapter one, his entire mission is to take his father's swords back in order to make sure they never end up in the wrong hands and can't be used to hurt innocent people.

I had to ask my friend @kaibutsushidousha for Chihiro's reasoning here, but thankfully Comun is really smart and has good taste:

I feel like Chihiro is extremely influentiable. He has a lot of moral opinions inside his head, but can only use one at a time. And the one he holds changes easily depending on the most recent thing people tell him. What he's currently holding is how much he relates to Iori, so he's in it to prevent Iori from losing a father like he did Only once that's resolved that he can start thinking about his other moral opinions that conflict with this one.

When I read that I returned to the question of: what are Chihiro's morals? I finally realized the answer that Chihiro is practicing what we call moral relativism. If we dig in a little deeper we can see some of the ethics and morality that Kagurabachi is exploring in the story as a whole.

LETS TALK ABOUT ETHNICS

Moral philosophy is defined by the oxford dictionary as "sign up to pay a $9.99 subscription in order to read the rest of this article."

Moral philosophy is the study of morals. What people do, how should they act, what principles should guide their lives. Which started out all the way back with Plato who argued for the "form of the Good." Plato was theorizing on where higher-minded ideas like "justice" comes from and his conclusion is that these ideas exist as "Forms", perfect, eternal, and changeless concept existing outside of space and time.

Plato asserts that goodness is a force outside of us, that pushes us to strive towards things like justice. His argument essentially that good is inherent, that people possess the spirit of good inside of them and that drives them to seek out good.

This is what you would refer to as moral absolutes. That morals exist outside of us and they are absolute rules we should follow. "Goodness" isn't just an idea, it's a force which compels us to do good.

Rules like "Don't kill people" are absolute. They don't exist because someone wrote down in a law that it was bad to kill people, but because the moral principle of "don't kill people" is universal and should be followed by everyone.

The question is if these moral principles are absolutes then where do they come from? Plato put forward the idea of an objective moral order linked to a transcendent reality, while Aristotle believed that morality came from objectivity and human nature.

Under Christian doctrine morals are also absolute and there is an idea of good which we all strive for, but the reason those morals are absolute is because they are given to us by god. "Don't kill people" becomes "Thou must not Kill."

The opposite of moral absolutism that morals exist as a set of rigid principles that exist outside of us, is moral relativism. Moral relativists assert that there are not "objective" morals, usually following two basic principles.

1.  Moral judgments are true or false and actions are right or wrong only relative to some particular standpoint (usually the moral framework of a specific community). 2.  No standpoint can be proved objectively superior to any other. [SOURCE].

If I say "killing people is wrong no matter what the situation because human life has inherent value", I'm arguing for moral absolutism. If you rebuttal with "Chihiro was killing human traffickers, who if they had lived would have created more victims" that is an argument for moral relativism.

To dive deeper into moral relativism though, let's explore one of the biggest critics of moral philosophy.

In Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to the Philosophy of the Future, Nietzsche rejected the works of all of the moral philosophers that had come before him, especially to Plato who argued for that "form of goodness." He took a special offense to the idea that good and evil and in the first place. Nietzsche suggested the modern man and the modern philosopher needed to reject good and morality entirely.

"Let us not be ungrateful toward it, althought it must certainly be admitted that the worst, most drawn-out, and most dangerous of errors hitherto has been a dogmatist error- namely, Plato's invention of the Pure Spirit and the Good as such. But now that it has been overcome, when Europe, rid of this nightmare, can again breathe freely and at least enjoy a healthier sleep - we, whose duty is wakefulness itself, are the heirs of all strength which the struggle against this error has fostered. turning the truth on its head and denying perspectivism itself, the fundamental condition of life, to speak of the Spirit and the Good as Plato of spoke.

Nietzsche's took particular umbrage with the idea that good is fundamental and innate. That these are not concepts just made up, but they just exist... somewhere.

"Here we need to learn to think differently, as we have learned to think differently about heredity and "innateness."

In Nietzsche's viewpoint humans aren't rational creatures striving towards some objective good, but rather they are extremely subjective, and all of them fallible to their own personal biases. People aren't driven by the spirit of good, they are driven by emotions and instincts, and their own personal values.

"Conversely, in the philosopher there is absolutely nothing impersonal; and expecially his morality furnishes a decided and decisive testimony as to who he is - that is to say, in what order the innermost drives of his nature relate to others.'

One of these most important drives is what Nietzsche labeled "the drive to power", but it could also be translated as the "drive to agency".

"A living being seeks above all else to discharge its strength - life itself is will to power - self-preservation is only one of the indirect and most frequent results thereof."

A lot of the material covered in this book is a criticism of christian doctrine, which puts forth that we must follow these absolute morals because they are imposed on us by god. Nietzsche pointed out and rightly so that for a large chunk of european history, a peasant class has been ruled over tightly by an aristotcratic class, one that is supported by the church.

His explanation for why the peasants never rebelled against the aristocrats and why this structure remained in place is that christianity wishing to keep the lower class complacent began espousing morals about "turning the other cheek" and "the meek should inherit the earth". Suffering under the boot heel of the rich and not fighting back became a moral virtue. In Nietzsche's mind the church has hoodwinked the general population into believing that instead of rising to power they should remain powerless and suffering in this lifetime, for the reward of happiness in some theoretical afterlife.

"From the beginning, Christian faith is a sacrifice: sacrifice of all freedom, all pride, all self-confidence of spirit; at the same time it is enslavement, self-mockery, and self-mutilation."

I'm not going to go into religious philosophy, but I do think these are important questions to ask. Why does the church tell us we shouldn't envy our neighbor? Why does the church tell us we should not desire for more than we have?

You could apply this very easily to the modern day. Several christians say that trans people are immoral, because god says there are only two genders and these two genders are absolutes there is no wiggle room. Not only is being transgender immoral, but also they have the right to create laws regulating what people do to their own bodies. Governments have to make laws violating people's personal autonomy like this for the greater good? But, for who's greater good is this?

Nietzsche's describes the origin of christian morals as master and slave morality herren- und sklavenmoral. Master and Slave morality has some negative connotations so let's try to explain this using memes instead.

[Source]

Nietzsche's assertion was that the chads of the world don't listen to the church and the people in power telling them that suffering is righteous, that they should fast, and stay impoverished. That they should not make a morality of suffering like it is some kind of virtue.

"It cannot be helped: we must mercilessly call to account and bring justice he sentiments of surrender, the sacrifice for one's neighbor, and all self-renunciation-morality ... There is far too much magic and molasses in these sentiments "for others" and "not for myself" for us to not have to be doubly distrustful...

The chads of the world are out there employing chad morality. They are goated enough to invent their own morals, to think for themselves, and assert their own power. Not only is the nietzschian viewpoint that morality is relative, but also that a free thinker must create their own morals.

Which is where we finally tie this back into the manga, is Chihiro as a character following Nietzschian principles? Is he employing Chad morality to become a truly goated individual?

Has he taken the steps beyond good and evil?

Well, to start with you would have to ask what Chihiro's morals are which is a hard question to answer because they are not consistent. Early on he states that the swords are to: defeat evil and protect the weak. He definitely believes that evil exists.

However, he doesn't view them as absolutes. He admits himself that murder his horrible, that killing people makes him a monster and therefore evil, but he also believes that this evil is killing others can be done to commit good.

There's a pretty obvious contradiction in Chihiro's ideals. He is simultaenously both a killer, but also a hero protecting others. He maintains that same paradoxical view of his father and the other sword-bearers, they are responsible for the deaths of countless people but they are still: "heroes." Chihiro may be going to hell for everyone he has killed, but there's still a nobility to what he is doing.

The idea of going to hell and being punished for his evil means he knows on some level murder is horrible and he'll eventually face punishment for it, but he is going to do it anyway even if he goes to hell?

Is there a paradox to this statement? How can one be a hero and a murderer at the same time? For Nietzsche there isn't. Nietzsche would argue that following christianity's ideas of meekness and turning the other cheek you can never be a hero, and the only way to be a hero is to transgress.

That the only people truly capable of being heroic are not those who passively turn the other cheek, but those who have the strength to to fight back and assert themselves.

"A man who seeks to achieve goathood, looks upon every one whom he encounters on his way either as a means of advance or a delay and hindrance - or as a temporary resting-place. His characteristic, lofty kindness to his fellow-men is only possible once he has reached the height from which he rules."

So, let's touch briefly upon Chihiro's choices again. Chihiro's father is murdered and he is left alive with a scar, and all the blades his father made to end the war are stolen by criminals except for one. Chihiro could have gone into witness protection like Iori and lived a normal life. You could see that in one of two ways, Chihiro is deciding to be above revenge and trying not to continue the cycle of harm. Or you could see it as Chihiro passively accepting all of the harm that's done to him, shutting up and taking it instead of choosing to fight back against the evil done to him.

Chihiro has a second choice which is assert his will-to-power, and evolve into Chadhiro someone who has the power to fight for what he believes is moral.

A man who says: "I like that, I take it as my own. nd will guard and protect it from everyone", a man who can conduct a case, carry out a resolution, remain true to an idea, keep hold of a woman, punish and overthrow insolence, a man who has his indignation and his sword, and to whom the weak, the suffering, the oppressed and even the animals willingly submit and naturally belong; in short, a man who is a master by nature- when such a man has sympathy well! That sympathy has value.

Because Chihiro embraced Chad morality and became the Chadhiro, he gained the power and strength to help people, people who would not have been helped if he did not decide to become an avenger.

So you may ask in the first chapter what does it matter that Chihiro did not quibble over slaughtering human traffickers in the first chapter? He was using his power to do what he thought was right, killing criminals in order to prevent them from selling any more human beings in the future.

Then I would ask: Who gets to decide whether they deserve to live or die?

The Nietzschian response is Chihiro does. Chihiro decides his own morals for himself, and has the power to assert them over others. In fact if he didn't, he would be completely ineffectual. If Chihiro passively turned the other cheek and forgave his enemies, then he would not have the power to help anyone.

Is there something wrong with this? As we see in the story, Chihiro is very principled, he hates unnecessary killing, he has sympathy for people like Hakuri and Iori and won't sacrifice them for the greater good.

He's even capable of putting aside his revenge if it means saving people like Hakuri and Iori. If all morality is relative, then isn't Chihiro just doing what everyone does, deciding for himself in the moment what is moral and what is not?

Even in opposing Samura's decision to disarm the nukes that could potentially blow up the country at some point in the future Chihiro is raising an interesting point, is it fair that an orphan like Iori has to lose her father because of a danger he might represent? Is it alright to trample over an orphaned little girl and take her father away?

If Chihiro has the power to protect the people he wants to protect, to punish the people he sees doing evil and harming innocents, then what is wrong with him asserting this power even if it means killing people?

Is the option to choose to passively suffer somehow more noble?

"It has the same effect on them as Epicurean philosophy on the sufferers of higher order by refreshing, refining and effectively using suffering and finally even sanctifying and justifying it. There is perhaps nothing so admirable in Christianity and Budhism as the art of teaching even the lowest to elevate themselves by a piety to a higher, illusory order of things and thereby keep themselves satisfied with the actual world in which they live in great hardship - but precisely this hardship is necessary!"

Well alright, it seems like we've got this figured out. Chihiro is someone we can trust, because he creates his own morals and he has freed himself from the biases society's morals. We can trust he will do good, because he has the strength to always think for himself and follow his own morals and he doesn't submit to anyone else. Chihiro would never submit to anyone else's morals, and he would especially never join a shady government organization that was totally cool with doing nothing when humans were being sold on an auction block in the auction arc.

Oh, wait hang on a second.

DR. STRANGELOVE: OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB

The flaw with moral relativism is that it is at best incoherent and vague. Let's take the nietzschian argument, if there are special people in this world who have the right to transgress over other people in order to achieve great things, like the way Chihiro has murdered so many in order to achieve his revenge then how do you distinguish that type of special person from a normal person.

"They begin executing other people?" "If it's necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is very witty." "Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those extraordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse the natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn't they adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn't they wear something, be branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to 'eliminate obstacles' as you so happily expressed..." Crime and Punishment

This quotation is taken from Crime and Punishment where the main character Raskolnikov is discussing with a detective his theory that certain people have the inherent right to remove obstacles out of their way in order to achieve greatness. The detective's counter argument is the obvious: Well, what makes them so great exactly?

Well, from Nietzsche's perspective there are in our society members descended from an ancient Aryan race... wait, what?

"Was Nietzsche Woke?" Philosophytube

Nietzsche died in 1900, but fascists loved using his ideas as justification for their actions, especially Hitler and Mussolini. Does that make Nietzsche specifically responsible for it, well not really because he's dead.

Instead of discussing whether Nietzsche's ideas are inherently fascist which I think is a boring discussion, I am going to touch why fascists find these concepts of moral relativism and nietzsche's rejection of morality so applicable to their won ideas and the answer is that it's vague. If your entire belief system is just "everything is relative" then you're not really operating under any kind of consistent rules.

Trying to string together a consistent ideology from Nietzsche's writings is hard because so many of its writings contradict itself, that his message becomes very vague. Trying to describe what moral relativists believe is like trying to describe post-modernism or porn to other people, I don't know how to describe it but I know it when I see it.

I talked about how earlier that if you reject the notion that "Thou must not kill", then Chihiro has every right to assert his power over the human traffickers and kill them in order to punish them. Yet, if as Nietzsche argues that the "drive to power" exists within everyone then what about the human traffickers? Don't they have the same "drive to power" and right to assert their power over other people, in this case by kidnapping humans and selling them in order to make money? If there are no objective morals, then slavery isn't objectively evil either. Neither Chihiro or the Human Traffickers are good or evil, they are just both asserting their power. Then Chihiro isn't the moral victor, he's just STRONGER than them.

"All morals are relative" is in itself, paradoxically, a moral absolute. As much as Nietzsche challenges us confront our own biases and challenge what society taught us to think for ourselves, there's also no such thing as an unbiased person. If you read Nietzsche's work, a lot of what he says is also parroting pretty common attitudes of Jewish people at the time in germany.

Chihiro is definitely not unbiased either, he is extremely biased by his hero worship towards his father. So far we have seen him completely sidestep the greatest moral dilemna of this entire manga.

When Oppenheimer was released, a lot of Japanese people protested the movie, especially the decision to focus on the man who made the bomb instead of the over 200,000 victims that the bomb created.

The swords are nukes. They are explicitly nukes. They were dropped on an island nation and wiped out the entirety of the population in order to end a war. Nothing short of godzilla crawling out of the water to attack Chihiro could make them more obviously a metaphor for nukes. 200,000 is around the estimated number of dead at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The enemy had surrendered, a peace treaty was signed to preserve the civilians of the island, and then one of the five swordsmen decided that was not good enough and killed 200,000 people in an instant.

Who's fault was this?

Well, one obvious one is the guy who made the nukes in the first place. If that weapon had never been placed in the hand of the fifth swordsmen, then he never would have had the means to kill an island full of 200,000 people.

The justification that the Kamunabi give is that they needed the magical swords in order to fight off the invaders, and if they didn't have those swords the number of casualties would be much higher.

I am an American and this is the exact same justification I have heard over and over again for Nagasaki and Hiroshima. "Well, the japanese never surrender so way more people would have died in a land invasion if we didn't drop the bombs."

The underlying point though is that if you decide who gets to do what based upon who has the power to do it, then that very quickly slides into fascism. Why did the last swordsman decide that he had the right to kill 200,000 people because someone gave him the power to. He used his power to do what he believed was right even if it means stepping on other people, and eliminate his enemy.

Is Chihiro killing criminals the same thing as killing an entire island's worth of people? Not necessarily, but in principle Chihiro is killing people because he believes he has the right for himself to decide who lives and who dies, and the way he asserts that right is by power.

Am I being reactionary by saying that Chihiro's philosophy that he is entitled to revenge resembles fascist ideology and can spiral out of control into fascist ideology? Well, maybe - but objectively right now Chihiro is working for a government that committed a genocide against a nation of 200,000 people that they had signed a peace treaty with and then covered up the fact that they committed that genocide in the first place.

It's also very easy to fall right down that slippery slope. Fascism is very appealing to people who are feel they have been injured or victimized by something, and want the power to take vengeance against that vague something.

Chihiro would not kill civilians right now, he draws the line very clearly and will even give his life to protect civilians but it is also true that Chihiro is not unbiased and his morals are very bendy.

As I said above, Chihiro says he that he will do anything to protect innocent people, but if that's the case then shouldn't he be in support of killing Samura and disarming the nukes even if it means all the swordwielders have to die?

He is making a personal judgement that Iori is more important than the potential deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people, not based off of any ethical principle but because his dad died and he relates to Iori and she also loved her father.

Chihiro's morals are not consistent and well-thought out, and that is dangerous because Chihiro doesn't really submit to anyone's authority other than his own and he definitely does not follow due process. We as the reader have to trust Chihiro's judgements that he is a moral person, but Chihiro is biased.

Chihiro is currently working for the government organization that decided to cover up their mistake in killing an island full of people, use the heroes as propaganda and brand the island dwellers as inhuman savages, and then not disarm the nukes.

Why didn't they disarm the nukes? Is it because the government thought it was unfair to kill the four other heroes for the actions of one of the swordwielders and that they didn't deserve to be punished for rewarding their country? Or is it because of the much more likely reason that they didn't want to give up the magical swords that could completely wipe out an enemy army if they ever needed to use them for self-defense again?

For example, if the Kamunabi had done the opposite then what then? What if the Kamunabi had arrested Chihiro's father in front of his son, dragged him into court, gave him a fair trial and then decided to hang him for his crimes against humanity in his decision to build the bomb I mean the swords.

If that had happened would Chihiro have accepted the decision, or would we be reading an entirely different manga where Chihiro was fighting against the government in order to avenge his father?

That's a hard question to answer, because Chihiro's morals are so vague and easy to influence. Hopefully Chihiro will figure it out for himself over the course of the story, because as badass as Chihiro saying that he'll choose to face god and walk backwards into hell in order to get his revenge I think it would be much better if he found some other reason to live for revenge by the end of the story.

[linkspooky]

YOU 🫵 THE PERSON READING THIS

Do you like visual novels? tactics rpg gameplay? multiple endings? danganronpa? zero excape?

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[linkspooky]

Two Halves

The art for the DR0 Month announcement, just without the text.

[linkspooky]

Smoke break.

[linkspooky]

she was probably the worst middle schooler ever

ft. matsuda who was also the worst version of himself

[linkspooky]

I'm about 1/5th of the way through the first route of Hundred Line Academy, and my favorite character is the protagonist so far. Why yes I am a basic bitch, thank you for asking.

[linkspooky]

have you read candide by voltaire and does it bear any resemblance to the little prince

I have not read it, sorry.

[linkspooky]

Mind if I ask you a Dostoevsky question? I was wondering why Alyosha never talks to Smerdyakov. Other characters look down on Pavel because he's a servant or they're put off by his ~bad vibes~ but Alyosha usually helps people even if they're unpleasant or lower class iirc, so it seems unusual that he just ignores him. The one significant interaction they have (that I can think of) is when Alyosha spies on him and Marya, which I always took to be Alyosha being interested about Pavel's personal life/surprised to see him talking (relatively) normally with a friend.

Also, if Alyosha had been able to help/get through to Smerdyakov, it might've averted the whole tragedy, but do you think he'd be able to? It's hard to dislike Alyosha, but Pavel's a pretty dedicated hater.

Also also, thanks for your analyses, here and in general! I'd been meaning to get into Dostoyevsky for a while, but your posts were the push I needed to start reading!

Ah I'm so happy to hear this! I'm glad you're liking him.

So basically, I think the fact that Alyosha didn't reach out to Pavel is the precise point of the story. It's his flaw that even Alyosha, a compassionate and Christlike figure, is still human and subject to the tendency in human nature to go along with society rather than stand against it. Of course, in many ways Alyosha does stand against it... but not in this, and as a result of him ignoring his blood brother, the children suffer.

None of the brothers treat Pavel as a brother. He is, but their father acknowledges him just enough to give him the patronymic and house him but not enough to give him his name. Instead Pavel got an insult as a surname and serves his father who raped his mother, and the servant who raises him beat him.

Mitya, Ivan, and Alyosha have two different mothers among them too, so Dostoyevsky is emphasizing that this is not a blood thing. The brothers weren't really raised together either, so it's not a shared experience thing. So then, why aren't they accepting of Pavel?

The only real answer is that they adhered to social norms of the day regarding Pavel, and the result is that he treats them like they've treated him.

Mitya doesn’t really acknowledge Pavel at all, treating him exactly like their father treats him. He acts like Pavel doesn't count, so Pavel frames Mitya as if his life doesn't count.

Ivan comes to closet of all the brothers to acknowledging Pavel, but he really just uses Pavel as a receptacle for his ideals without any consideration of Pavel as a person much less a brother—so Pavel uses those ideals to justify his murder. 

But, Ivan does ask the pointed question: what of the children? Of course, the irony is that Ivan can ask about the neglected and abused children in theoretical debates with Alyosha, but he neglects to actually put any theory into action. Like. Ivan. Your brother. He's an abused child. Right there. Listening to you.

Alyosha doesn't interact with Pavel much at all, but neither does he treat him like a brother.

His mentor, Father Zosima, even comments that suicides (how Pavel died) should be the most pitied:

But woe to those who have slain themselves on earth, woe to the suicides! I believe that there can be none more miserable than they. They tell us that it is a sin to pray for them and outwardly the Church, as it were, renounces them, but in my secret heart I believe that we may pray even for them. Love can never be an offence to Christ. For such as those I have prayed inwardly all my life, I confess it, fathers and teachers, and even now I pray for them every day.

Zosima's lament is not just that people take their own lives--it's specifically that the Church casts them out. It's tragedy creating tragedy. And because Alyosha didn’t reach out to Pavel while he lived, he loses almost his entire family because of it. His father's murdered. Mitya's in prison. Ivan's consumed by guilt and "brain fever."

So is it fair to say that Alyosha created his own tragedy? Well, that seems a bit harsh. Yet at the same time, it is a theme in the novel that we are all responsible for each other. So it's fair to say that the tragedies are a natural consequences, but that's not saying he deserves it. In fact it's tragic because he doesn't.

Yet, there's hope. The tragedy and Alyosha's realization of it is why, thematically, the ending of the entire novel takes place at a child's funeral.

Keep in mind, the child who died, Ilyusha, was not a perfect child--in fact, he was noted to be spiteful and attacked other kids and even Alyosha. He was a victim of bullying and a rough family situation, and had a terminal illness (tuberculosis)--all of which Pavel also endures (except his is epilepsy). So basically, we're supposed to see Ilyusha as an earlier version of Pavel (and again, Pavel actually encourages Ilyusha in the novel to be cruel to animals, which he does).

Yet at the very least? Ilusha was loved by his family. Pavel didn't even have that. Ilyusha is also noted to be capable of intense kindness. Could that have been Pavel, if someone had tried to reach him?

At Ilyusha's funeral, Alyosha says the following:

Let us make a compact here, at Ilyusha’s stone, that we will never forget Ilyusha and one another. And whatever happens to us later in life, if we don’t meet for twenty years afterwards, let us always remember how we buried the poor boy at whom we once threw stones, do you remember, by the bridge? and afterwards we all grew so fond of him. He was a fine boy, a kind‐hearted, brave boy, he felt for his father’s honor and resented the cruel insult to him and stood up for him. And so in the first place, we will remember him, boys, all our lives. And even if we are occupied with most important things, if we attain to honor or fall into great misfortune—still let us remember how good it was once here, when we were all together, united by a good and kind feeling which made us, for the time we were loving that poor boy, better perhaps than we are. 

So what of Pavel? What of the children? Reach out to them. Even the ones who appear spiteful and cruel. Especially the ones who are unloved, because love is, as Alyosha himself says in the same speech at Ilyusha's funeral, even if it's just a memory:

If a man carries many such memories with him into life, he is safe to the end of his days, and if one has only one good memory left in one’s heart, even that may sometime be the means of saving us.

Maybe Alyosha reaching out would have prevented the tragedy. Maybe it wouldn't have. But you have to try for there to be hope of salvation.

[linkspooky]

Unpopular Opinion: People Frequently Completely Miss What’s Terrifying About Azula as An Antagonist

Azula can be mean, Azula can be cruel, Azula can be manipulative, Azula can be self-interested, Azula can make mean and biting comments.  But’s she’s far from the only antagonist who can be all of those things, who does all of those things. Zuko can be all of those things, Mai can be all of those things, Ty Lee can be all of those things, Zhao can be all of those things, Ozai can be all of those things, Long Feng can be all of those things. Many of the minor antagonists we encounter can be all of those things.

What makes Azula unique, what makes her so terrifying as an antagonist, is her utter dedication and loyalty to the Fire Nation and her father, her willingness to kill and die for them, the fact she’ll do anything to fulfill her duty and accomplish her mission, no matter the cost to herself or others. At her worst, she’ll burn away everything and everyone, no matter how much she loves them, not for herself or her ambition, but for her duty and responsibility to an awful cause. This is what makes Azula unique among ATLA antagonists, and what makes her uniquely terrifying.

“My life I give to my country. With my hands I fight for Fire Lord Ozai and our forefathers before him. With my mind I seek ways to better my country. And with my feet may our March of Civilization continue.” -This is a terrifying oath, and Azula is the one who attempts to personify it.

[linkspooky]

Speaking of children's card games, I've binged the entire first season of Cardfight Vanguard and absolutely loved it. For some reason, it's the card game animes that have themes of empathy and understanding overcoming might makes right philosophy, and never giving up on bad victims even when they make mistakes and take the wrong path.

Cardfight Vanguard starts with capturing the feeling of going to your local game store and making friends and bonding over a shared hobby. This is very personal to me, because I've made a lot of friends lately by putting myself out there at game stores and finding people who enjoy my trading card game obsessions as much as I do.

Of course, like all cardgames animes they immediately up the stakes introduce saving the world with card games plotlines. I like how ridiculous these anime get so no complaints from me here. It is funny though to see how Cardfight Vanguard quickly goes from a show about making friends at a card shop, to introducing a character who's basically Ryo Marufuji complete with shocking himself to enjoy the card game, and psychic powers that let characters cheat.

One strength I will say about CV is that it is a lot more subtle that Yu-Gi-Oh, you do have characters with tragic backstories like Misaki, Kai, Ren, and Kourin. However, it doesn't go to quite the melodramatic extremes that Yu-Gi-Oh does it's still grounded in a bit of realism. I actually think they realism is the strongest suit, like yes the trading cards are still magic, but their entire society doesn't run on a trading card game and it captures why people enjoy TCGs and connect with people through shared enjoyment of a hobby a lot better than Yu-Gi-Oh!

I really enjoy the protagonist and the main rival, the villain from the first season is a bad victim who's treated with care and is redeemed by season two. Aichi has a strong arc about the power of friendship and gaining confidence through the friends he makes with his hobby, and he's generally very forgiving even to his enemy and empathizes with a lot of people's loneliness and sees the best in people which I love in a protagonist. I heard he turns evil multiple times in the later seasons so looking forward to that. The cast is overall really strong, and the female characters are much better than Yu-Gi-Oh!

Anyway, looking forward to watching the later seasons, I heard it gets a bit more ridiculous but once again I watch card game animes for the melodrama they're like soap operas to me.

[linkspooky]

Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Analysis: Ryo vs Yubel

Time for more Duel analysis, a series where I overanalyze two characters standing around playing a children's card game. This is the first of a three part series where I cover what I refer to as the "Yubel Gauntlet", the four successive duels against Yubel at the end of season three. We're going to start with Ryo vs Yubel, while this duel may not be as revealing to Yubel's character as the later duels there are a lot of interesting parallels at play between these two characters if you dig a little deeper - MORE UNDER THE CUT.

In Yu-Gi-Oh duels are meant to be a clash of the two participants ideals. In the best duels we learn more about the characters participating from lots of factors, deck composition, play strategies and the dialogue in between turns. Duels in general are a pretty major focus of Yu-Gi-Oh! taking up a lot of screentime so of course writers have to use them as a vehicles for character and theme. There's a lot more thought put into duel-writing then meets the eye.

Ryo vs. Yubel is meant to be the ending to Hell Kaiser's tragic character arc, so there is a lot more focus on Ryo then Yubel. The most revealing duel about Yubel's character comes in the duel right after against Amon which I'm going to cover in the next post. That being said, there is a lot of interesting foiling going on in the duel itself. Foiling is drawing a comparison between characters to highlight aspects of a certain character, a subtle method of characterization to inform us of a character without directly telling the audience.

We're going to cover the foiling first before we get into the duel itself. Starting with a major foiling point between Ryo and Yubel, neither of them are really focused on their opponent. They're both instead focused on Judai, Yubel wants to execute Ryo to send a message to Judai and Ryo wants to duel the person in Johan's body because Johan reminds him of Judai the person he had his last significant duel before his mental breakdown.

RYO VS. JUDAI: THE KAISER AND SUPREME KING

There are a lot of immediate connections to be drawn between Judai and Ryo. Ryo gives Judai his first defeat, Sho puts both of them on a pedestal, and Ryo is probably Judai's second most important rival (the fandom has been arguing for 20 years whether Manjoume or Ryo counts as Judai's main rival so I'm not going to touch this). The most significant common factor between these two characters in season three however, is that Ryo's season two mental breakdown is an explicit parallel and foreshadowing for Judai's breakdown in season 3.

Judai and Ryo both go through what the fandom commonly refers to as "gifted kid arcs" (which is appropriate because GX is set at a boarding school and one of the biggest themes is the challenges faced when growing up). During season one Ryo is what is considered to be the top dog at Duel Academy. He's well respected by the student body, was told from a young age at the cyber dojo that he was going places, and widely considers himself and his dueling style to be "perfect".

Besides a tense relationship with his brother, he doesn't really have any flaws. The first hint that there's something deeper going on under the surface comes in the graduation duel against Judai. First in Ryo's irritation that Judai is imitating him and trying to duel a perfect duel instead of dueling by instinct like he usually does, and then in his speech to Judai at the end of the duel.

Judai: You really are great, Kaiser! You're perfect. Ryo: But at the same time this happens to be my limit. In a way, perfection keeps you from chasing your limits. Ryo: Yuki Judai, within you lies infinite potential.

This introduces Kaiser's main character flaw, his own obsession with perfectionism. While Kaiser laments the fact that chasing perfectionism is limiting in the end because once you achieve perfection there's nowhere else to go - he still genuinely considers himself to be perfect.

It is true that part of the cause of his breakdown is the intense pressure from around him including the adults puts Ryo under by putting him on this pedestal and expecting perfection from him had a really negative effect on Ryo's mental health. However, it is also true that Ryo let everyone's praise go to his head and developed quite the ego. This shows in his relationship with Sho which we're going to go into more in depth later. A conversation on my Yu-Gi-Oh discord was particularly revealing of one aspect of their relationship. Ryo has a hard time understanding Sho, because he has ridiculously high standards for Sho. Instead of accepting Sho for the person that he is, he tries to mold Sho into being more like him.

This is shown in one of the early flashbacks in regards to their relationship, Ryo gives Sho power bond his signature card, and then insists that Sho is not worthy of using it. Which is an incident that sabotaged Sho's confidence for a long time and made him feel unworthy of using the card (even Judai who is very happy-go-lucky and forgiving in season one got angry for Sho's sake over this). It seems like a lot of Ryo's actions in season one are done with the motivation of toughening him up, in essence making Sho more like him. He doesn't really recognize Sho's strength, that even though Sho has low self-esteem and loses a lot he also picks himself right back up and keeps trying.

This key difference is the cause of Ryo's tragic downfall in season two. Ryo is a prodigy for whom dueling has always come easy, he's never had to struggle the way Sho has, so he doesn't know how to handle losing. In a very relatable arc Ryo goes from being a big fish in a small pond and genuinely believing because he was succesful in high school he's going to be succesful in the real world, to shattering in his first real loss in the pro-leagues and realizing that in the adult world he's no one special.

The fatal flaw that leads to his downfall being that unlike Sho, Ryo's not used to losing, so he doesn't have the ability to pick himself back up again. To use a metaphor from real life, it's like when people who are gifted students in high school never learn how to study because the material comes easy to them who then crash and burn in their first year of college. They're not used to struggling with the material, and they don't know what to do when something doesn't automatically come natural to them. One of the greatest piece of advice I've ever received is that when learning a new skill like writing or drawing, you've got to start out by making bad art. Ryo can't make bad art, he doesn't know how to struggle.

He crashes and burns after losing once, and his losing streak and complete loss of confidence drives him to be desperate enough to duel in an underground arena.

Manager: The truth comes out - these dire situations fuel your losses. Manager: Tell me, you've get to consider that you might win I take it? Manager: Without seizing victory you cannot win, isn't that what dueling is about at it's core? Manager: If so, you have to win at any cost. Ryo: I have to duel my way. Manager: Then, you're welcome to lose.

Ryo then decides to double down on his own obsession with winning when his back is against the wall.

Ryo: I'm fed up. Ryo: I...I don't want to lose. Ryo: I don't care how... but I want to win and defeat you. Ryo: I've lied since that duel with Edo. Ryo: I duel by respecting my opponent, I thought winning or losing wouldn't matter if I did that. Ryo: But I was wrong. Ryo: I do crave it - I thirst for victory and I have to to steal victory from your hands - I will.

This is a direct parallel to the source of Judai's downfall which leads him to the Supreme king in Season 3. Judai becomes obsessed with winning no matter what the circumstances, only to win in his duel against Brron and still fail to rescue a single one of his friends. In the face of his loss Judai doesn't learn from his mistake. Even after receiving a lecture from both Sho and Austin he still refuses to admit what he did wrong.

Judai: I did what I should've done. Judai: And yet, just about everyone was taken away from me! Judai: Damn it! Damn it! What is it that I did wrong! Judai: The super fusion card. Haou: Yuki Judai. In order to defeat evil, one must become evil. In the world with the law of the jungle at work one must rule with power.

Judai and Ryo both develop an obsession with power so they'll never lose again. Judai develops the supreme king persona, while Kaiser develops the Hell Kaiser persona. Both have two duels against friends who just want to return them to their normal selves. Both are also fully in control when they fall into darkness, Judai is the supreme king and the supreme king is Judai, Ryo tells Fubuki that he wasn't possessed by a dark power he chose to pursue victory above all else.

They both become self-destructive in the aftermath of their mental breakdowns, in season three Ryo is looking for a final duel to die, and Judai becomes suicidal until the possibility of saving Johan is dangled in front of his face. Most importantly of all the cause of their downfall is the same in both cases, their own fragile ego. Neither of them can admit when they are wrong. Judai receives constant criticism before the duel with Brron and refuses to change his ways.

Judai: All this time, I've run on instinct, never second guessing myself. Judai: If I just tsand still now, I'm sure I won't be able to start running again. And I won't be able to get to Johan.

What worked for Judai in his first two years of school stops working in his third year, when his friends grow up a little bit but he's stayed the same person and he's introduced to more complicated situations.

The same can be said for Ryo, glorifying his high school days instead of growing up which is why he finds himself unable to survive in the adult world. Even going into the duel against Yubel, Ryo is just trying to recreate his final duel against Judai believing that he peaked in that moment instead of realizing that there's still room for him to grow and change.

RYO vs. YUBEL

While the parallels between Ryo and Yubel aren't as strong as his parallels to Judai, they're still there if you take a deeper look. As I said in the beginning, instead of facing each other both Ryo and Yubel are looking at Judai this duel. Both of them have an obsession with Judai, Ryo considers his duel against Judai to be his last great duel and is desperate to feel the same way he did in the graduation duel while Yubel's obsession with Judai has spanned two lifetimes and their ultimate goal is to reunite with Judai and to return their relationship to what it was before they were shot into space.

They're both also using this duel to teach a lesson to Judai, Ryo wants Judai to regain his confidence and not be afraid to duel anymore, and Yubel wants to make another one of Judai's friends suffer right in front of him to inflict pain on him.

Ryo: The blinding excitement I had back then... Ryo: I've only gotten that from Judai and Johan. The duel we had is far from over Johan. It doesn't matter who you are right now. If you have Johan's face and Johan's strength you're going to battle me. Yubel: All right... allow me to give you my love as well. I'll show you to Judai as you squirm and agony. Yubel: Sadness... anguish.. pain. Those are the expressions of love I've been taught by Judai.

Yubel and Ryo are both living in the past. Yubel wants to return to their past relationship with Judai, and Ryo is obsessed with his glory days when he was top dog at the academy thinking he peaked in high school (which is ridiculous because he's like nineteen at this point.)

Ryo: Even without a future, I have to live this moment for everything that it's worth. Isn't that right, professor? Cronos: I-it is, but...without a future?

The reason that both of them are stuck in the past is the painful trauma they've both endured. Ryo is put in an underground cage match where he is forced to wear electrodes and receives painful shocks every time he loses lifepoints, and told that he won't be let out of the cage unless he wins. Yubel is shot into space and endures years of torture from the light of destruction.

They were also both alone and without a support network when they were traumatized, Ryo was abandoned by all of his sponsors and far away from his friends at duel academy, in a dark cage where no one could help him. Yubel was in space and Judai eventually stopped hearing their cries for help because of the psychiatric treatments his parents put him through.

After their trauma Ryo and Yubel also develop highly masochistic tendecies. Ryo keeps dueling in the underground arenas and wearing the electrodes even after his first cage match. Yubel repeatedly insists they enjoy the pain that Judai inflicts on them, derives borderline sexual enjoyment from it, and their entire duel strategy involves negating damage done to their monsters and inflicting it on their opponents.

Yubel: I cannot be destroyed by battle. Yubel: After all, to me, attacks only show love. Yubel: Go on, attack me, Yubel: My suffering is your suffering, Judai! Yubel: Share it with me... Nightmare pain. Right now, we feel the same pain wrapped in a blanket of love.

These mascohistic tendencies and self-harming behavior were developed as unhealthy coping mechanisms. Self-harm can be a way of reclaiming your agency. If you're hurting yourself then you're in control of it, especially if you were victimized in a situation where you had no control or agency. Yubel insists the pain causes them pleasure, Ryo insists they enjoy the shocks the electrodes give them.

Ryo: This shock, piercing the skin and flesh... Ryo: It taught me that a duel is a duel in every sense of the word with one winner and loser. Ryo: Will you still be able to prattle on about your respectful duel until the end.

Unsurprisingly inflicting pain on themselves over and over again does little to improve their mental health and only makes them spiral worse. Yet they cling to their delusions that they're the ones in control, that they want this actually.

Ryo: Fubuki I am not lost in darkness. I am not it's prisoner. Fubuki: You mean... you haven't lost yourself in darkness. Ryo: The darkness that the light cannot reach. The things it's power can bring you. I merely wanted to learn what they are. Fubuki: Why would you want that. Ryo: To attain victory. EPISODE 89 Judai: If you hated my treatment of you so much, you could have focused your revenge on me. Yubel: Hatred? Revenge? What are you talking about. Yubel: I told you this is something I have worked very hard for, in the hopes it would make you happy. Judai: Make me happy? But all my friends were hurt, suffered and disappeared. Yubel: But is that not the nature of love? I wanted to hurt you demonstrate the depths of my love. Judai: Yubel is there nothing I can say to make you understand? EPISODE 153

Ryo and Yubel are both what you would consider bad victims who go on to repeat the cycle of abuse, and inflict the same pain they endured on others.

Enduring torture leads them to snap and pull a total 180 on their personality. Big surprise, torture is not good for your mental health. Notably they both flip from being a protector to their loved one, to harming the person they once protected.

While Sho and Ryo's relationship is complicated, Ryo in season one was willing to sacrifice his life to Camula in order to protect Sho. While in season two, he forces Sho to wear his electrodes and endure painful shock after painful shock until he passes out. Yubel once sacrificed their entire body to be Judai's protector, but in season three Yubel does everything they can to inflict pain on Judai, and engineers Judai's downfall to bring Judai down to their level.

Ryo mocks and belittles Sho who is only trying to save him the entire duel, and again shocks him half to death, then when Sho is passed out from the pain walks off and doesn't even bother to check if he's alright.

Ryo: I am the winner here. Let the loser depart! Sho: I respect you... Brother, back then... And even now.

Yubel is well... Yubel.

Yet, even though they're both bad victims who refuse to admit they're in a self-destructive spiral and all they're accomplishing is hurting themselves and others, the narrative is sympathetic and shows there is hope for both of them.

CYBER ART VERSUS CRYSTAL BEASTS

Oh right, we're supposed to be talking about the duel. Let's start with deck analysis, because the cards a duelist chooses and their battle strategy is always telling of their character.

To begin with, Ryo and Yubel employ the same basic strategy in their primary decks: get their boss monster on the field and then do anything they can to keep it on the field.

Aside from that the two of them could not be any more different. Ryo has one strategy, get Cyberdragon on the field with power bond, go for the one turn kill, and if that doesn't work play a card to negate damage or negate the damage of power bond. If Cyberdark gets taken off the field they have multiple strategies to get the components out of the graveyard and fuse it again - and if that still doesn't work fusion summon chimeratech fortress dragon in attack mode by fusing all of the cyber dragons in their graveyard.

Yubel's dueling strategy is the complete opposite. Ryo always goes for the one turn kill, Yubel summons zero attack monsters, negates any damage done to them, and then drags out the duel while chipping away at their opponents lifepoints. Ryo's strategy is offense is the defense, Yubel on the other hand believes defense is the best defense.

Once again when it comes to deck composition Ryo's deck has one strategy, get beat stick on the field, and swing for the one turn kill. Yubel on the other hand runs four decks in total, Exodia, Advanced Crystal Beasts, Sacred Beasts and Yubel. Ryo switches to Cyberdarks in season two but fails to master them resulting in the deck shocking him until his heart fails, and then just switches back to Cyber Dragon. Ryo's dueling style is symbolic of his greatest weakness: his belief in his own perfection leading to his own inflexibility and belief he can't grow. While Yubel's dueling style plays into their greatest strength, their endurance and determination.

Yubel burns up on re-entry to the atmosphere? Manipulate Cobra and Martin to harvest duel energy until they can reconstitute their body. Have their body destroyed a second time by Johan's sacrifice? Take over Johan's body, lure Judai into the dark world to rescue Johan. The duel with Ryo makes them suffer severe damage? Yubel already planned for that and manipulated Amon to appear at the ideal time so they could feast on the darkness of his heart. Take advanced darkness and dark rainbow dragon off the field? Yubel was planning for that and plays last trick and a card that ends the duel in a draw and accomplish their goal of yoinking super polymerization. Destroy Yubel's boss monster - Yubel has an effect that if it's destroyed by anything other than their own effect it just summons an even more powerful Yubel.

Yubel is also highly adaptable. In the duel with Amon they eliminate his path to exodia twice, and find a way to recover when their boss monster armityle is knocked off the field.

It is this adaptability that gives Yubel the edge over Ryo the entire duel. Ryo has one strategy and that is beef up their beatstick and go for the one turn kill, and Yubel's damage negation is the perfect counter to that.

Ryo immediately falls for Yubel's trap, underestimating Yubel due to their low attack point monsters and then swinging right into the damage negation.

Ryo: You mock me by putting out such a small monster. Yubel: As the duel proceeds you'll understand. Ryo: What? Crystal beasts are special monsters that are hard to remove from the field, but they have one weakness. The low attack points of the individual monsters. THe advanced dark combo to compensate. But.... a man with no future knows no feature.

Ryo employs the same strategy over and over again, summoning a strong monster, attacking into Yubel in spite of the damage negation. All he accomplishes is making it easier for Yubel to get rainbow darkness dragon on the field.

After which Ryo switches strategies to try to remove Yubel's methods of damage negation one by one and getting good old Chimeratech onto the field, and then blindly swinging for game while Yubel still has backrow.

At which point Ryo is only left with one strategy, doubling Cyber End Dragon's attack with power bond to beat over Rainbow darkness dragon. While this moment is considered an iconic moment, it's also symbolic of Ryo's complete lack of growth - he ends the duel the exact same way as his duel with Judai, quardupling his Cyber dragon's attack - except this time all he accomplishes is blowing himself up.

His duel with Yubel is perfect example of his hubris. Ryo focused on same strategies as he did in season 1, which caused Cyberdarks to lash out on him and give him heart attacks, each one more violent than the last. That epic moment where Cyber End Dragon is standing with 16000 ATK should be seen in a negative light. Two years apart and Ryo still ends up with the very same monster in the field with the nearly identical attack points, (SOURCE).

Ryo was never going to win that duel with Yubel however, because before Ryo even entered the duel they were resigned to lose - either by sacrificing themselves to purge Yubel from Johan or losing after dueling their best duel to inspire Judai. Either way he had zero expectation of getting out of their alive.

Which is the ultimate difference between Yubel and Ryo, Yubel wants to be saved, and Ryo turns away everyone's efforts to help him. Even though the two of them are in opposite circumstances, Ryo is surrounded by a support network who reach out to help him again and again and he chooses not to take their hands. While the person responsible for Yubel's trauma makes half-hearted pleas for them to stop, and ultimately in their final duel decides to put them down like a mad dog until the last possible minute.

Which leads to Judai's funniest quote ever.

Judai: Yubel, while you were enveloped in the breath of light becoming stained by evil, and alone burning with your need for revenge I was forging many allies. Judai: And they all taught me that real love is something so big and deep it contains the whole universe. The love in which you believe is just a self-satisfied assumption. Yubel: Assumption? Yubel: What's wrong with the assumption I made? Had I not convinced myself I was loved, then there would have been no way to bear all that hardship. And yet, they all stole your love away from me. Yubel: Hahaha, I see sob stories do not work on Supreme king Judai.

Damn Judai, why didn't you make friends while you were trapped in a satellite in space for ten years straight? Sounds like a skill issue to me.

Ryo has three consecutive duels where Samejima, Fubuki and Sho all plead with him to go back to his usual self. Sho again, agrees to wear the electrodes just to try to understand the pain his brother went through and bring him back from the edge.

Sho: I don't understand you anymore, brother. The way you are now, there's no way I can respect you. Ryo: I feel the same way. In a match there's no room for feelings like respect. All I want is victory. Yes, all I respect anything it's victory. Ryo: if I can win, I'll become ugly, even tainted. I don't care what anyone says about me! Sho: All I wanted was to bring you back to the way you were...

Even in season three, Cronos tells Ryo there's still hope for him to keep on living, and Sho begs his brother in tears not to kill himself in the duel against Yubel. Tellingly, the only one who cheers him on during that duel is Judai, who is similarly suicidal.

Which is why Yubel wins the duel, Ryo refuses any help and while Yubel clings to their idea that love is pain, ultimately what they want from Judai is empathy and understanding.

Yubel: When you forgot me I suffered. It's hot, it hurts, I'm in pain. Why? You know how much I love you. Why did you do this to me? Yubel: In that moment I realzied. That was how you showed love. Because you loved me, you hurt me and made me suffer. Because you see, the entire time I suffered I never once forgot about you. Yubel: I was so happy when you solved the mystery I laid out for you. That's why I decided I would fill all twelve dimensions with my love for you. Then, surely you would understand my love. Yubel: That was why I tried to fill all those around you, and the world with anguish and sorrow. And it appears I did the right thing. After all, you are here with me right now.

Ultimately, there is nothing Sho could have done for Ryo, short of knocking him unconscious and dragging him away from the duel with Yubel.

Judai gives advice to Sho who's struggling with the changes in his brother, that even if you don't approve of what someone you love is doing, you can still stay by their side and watch over them.

Sho: Bro what would you do? f the person you cared about the most was tainted by evil. And you couldn't bring him back. Judai: You just have to watch him. No matter how much he's changed, you still care about him right. So you'll have to watch him forever and ever. Sho: But then. Judai: Yeah, you might not help them at all... But, you can't just do nothing. That's why, if it were me, I'd watch him until the very end even if he didn't like it. That's the proof that I care about him.

This is the advice the convinces Sho to never give up on Judai even after he becomes the Supreme King, and Judai following his own advice is what leads him to ultimately save Yubel by fusing their souls together to watch over them for the rest of their lives. Even Sho sticks with his brother and forgives him over and over again, which leads to Ryo's salvation as well and eventually repairs their relationship.

Anyway, that's the end of this duel look forward to my next post where Yubel delivers one of the most iconic roasts of all time to Amon.

[linkspooky]

their ao3 tag is so dryy this is me fueling the writers