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sailemo · 23 hours ago

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Alina Gray analysis

Well then, Alina Gray sure is a piece of work. The problematic fav of the MagiReco fandom, fondly referred to as psycho artist or JoJo reference. But Alina is more than a reference and more than just a psycho. In fact, is she even a psycho? In that case, psycho meaning either psychotic or psychopath (or I guess here psycho as in crazy murderous bitch). So let’s have a meaningful analysis of this character and undercover what might be a tragic tale of objectification.

We are introduced to Alina in the game in chapter 5 and in the anime in episode 9. In both media she arrives to stop the protagonists from destroying Ai, an uwasa. In the game, Madoka and Homura (Moemura) were there but not in the anime version. In the game, in her first appearance Alina appeared at first as serious, cold and irritable, before she revealed her mad and sadistic antics. In the anime, she showed up laughing maniacally, acting all eccentric and borderline insane, even strangling herself. It seems that the anime went overboard with the Alina acting crazy part. Not that I disliked it, but given that the game is the original source, I’ll keep this analysis mainly game-only.

We should start by the beginning, which is Alina’s backstory as shown in her magical girl story. It’s implied that Alina’s fascination with life and death in her art started when her grandparents and dog died when she was a child. Given that this event was what drove Alina’s art, I’d say their death must have left a pretty big impact on her (especially since she was 8 years old and might not have been fully able to grasp the concept of death). Alina mentioned how her parents often got mad at her for spending too much time painting, which led her to make her wish to have a space when she can be alone and nobody can disturb her there. Alina was treated as an artist genius from a young age and gathered a lot of attention and big expectations and ended up having no privacy and being used for her talents by people around her, including her parents and teachers. Alina wasn’t valued as a person but only for her art and adults didn’t respect her privacy or free-will as they often shared personal information about her to the public or submit her arts without her authorization.

Despite being a famous artist, Alina shows no interest in popularity, admiration or love from people and simply wants to create more art. She doesn’t seem to enjoy attention or even the company of others and prefer to be left alone. No ones seem interested in how she feels, only in her art and how they can use it for their own benefit (like her teacher who submitted her art against her will and tried to force her to participate in other contests for the sake of the school’s reputation), and when she refuses she’s been called selfish. The only person who genuinely cares for Alina as a person is her kouhai Karin, but I’ll get back to their relationship later.

Her magical girl story shows Alina as someone pretty antisocial with mood swings and impulsivity issues where she can snap and result in material destruction. She seems relatively unhappy with her life and on the verge of depression. The breaking point was when she refused an award for a contest she didn’t agree to participate in in the first place, she received a letter from one of the judges: “It seems you are capable of creating a work that is so beautiful and arcane that viewers will think about it until their deaths. However, your work, which has no external theme, is a powerful drug that might drive people insane. That’s why I want to tell you this. If you don’t want to change the world, stop creating. You are only fifteen years old; if you haven’t realized this, your brilliance will probably run out.”

I just want to mention first that the English translation doesn’t mention she’s 15 years old at that time (she’s 16 in the main story). At first, this letter may seem insignificant and harmless, until you realize how fucked up it is for an adult to say that to a teen. This judge said that Alina’s art is hollow and hurt people and that if she doesn’t intend to change the world with it, she should stop creating, and that her light will burn out. It basically implied that Alina creating art for herself is wrong and harmful and that if she isn’t creating for others, then her art is just worthless and so is her life. Again, implying Alina is a selfish person who is basically useless because she doesn’t want to meet people’s expectations and shaming her for that. Can we talk about how inappropriate, irresponsible and cruel it is for an adult to say that to a child? To crush their passion and treat its worth only by how others appreciate it? And the fact Alina was already feeling depressive before sure didn’t help.

Some people might think Alina is selfish, but let me tell you this: Alina doesn’t owe the world anything. Her art is hers and only hers, yet people kept trying to appropriate her art for their own goal, with no concern for how Alina felt, her desires, and basically treated her as a tool and used her. Now remembers, Alina started to show interest in art at 8 and in her magical story she was 15, meaning she went through 7 years of being used, guilt-tripped, having her privacy violated and having no free-will over her own creations. No wonder why she’s tired of people and just wants to be left alone, and is overall hostile to others.

After she received this letter, Alina became full of doubt and questioned the meaning of her art and life as well as her own worth, and came to the conclusion that just like her art, she’s worthless and is basically a poison and toxic to everyone. After leaving on a vacation to find some inspiration and a meaning to her art, in vain, Alina then decided that she would be better off ending all her art, as well as herself. She went on a rampage to destroy all her art before planning to commit suicide by jumping from a rooftop. She wanted her death to be her final work, concluding her art of life and death, so people can witness her last moment before her light fade away (she put a camera to record her suicide). A last desperate attempt to give some meaning to her life through death.

Kyubey did try to convince her to make a wish, twice, and the second time, Alina agreed, and wished for a space where she cannot be bothered by others. But she had no intent to play her role as a magical girl, she just wanted to add her wish in her life so it can be lost as well in her death.

Of course, as a magical girl, Alina survived the fall and encountered a witch, and, amazed by its beauty, found what the theme of her art was, what she wanted to convert to the world: Alina’s Beauty. She found a reason to live through that and a meaning to her art. She wants people to witness what she considers to be beautiful. And this is how she started to breed witches together and create even more powerful witches (again, let’s talk about that later). Interesting thing, Alina’s doppel is highly based on virus and poison that can drive people insane, which is a clear reference to her thinking her art is poison that drive people insane because of the judge.

So, what I got from her backstory is a subtle tragedy. Alina was basically objectified in a way since she’s a child, used for her talent and treated as a mere tool. Almost no one has any consideration for her feelings, desires and privacy and is, yeah, treated more like an object than a human, and put an insane amount of pressure by all the expectation and guilt-tripping people kept putting on her shoulders. Alina ended up with a disturbed sense of her own identity and what was the purpose of her life, splitting tendencies (incapacity how seeing both positive and negative, lack of nuance), impulsivity and recklessness, unstable and chaotic relationships, self-damaging behaviors, detachment from reality, as well as depression, anger and rage.

I might have sounded really precise here, right? Well, those descriptors I used for Alina are almost all the criteria for a specific disorder: Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

Yep, I’m basically saying that I think Alina might suffer from BPD. At first I thought she might be bipolar because of her mood swing between depression and almost manic behaviors, but bipolarity is mainly genetic and the mood switch is usually not that fast, unlike BPD. BPD is also a personality disorder, it’s not genetic and is caused by the environment, which makes more sense for Alina.

People with BPD also tend to be extremely sensitive to any form of criticism and alternating between idealization and devalorization and emotionally unstable and erratic. That sounds pretty much like what happened to Alina in her magical girl story if you think about it. BPD can also lead to psychotic episodes in more serious cases.

Now, I wouldn’t say that Alina perfectly fit the diagnosis or that it was the creator’s intention, but I feel like she’s a pretty good example of someone who suffers from untreated BPD and to me, it helps me understand the character on a more psychological basis and empathize with her.

There’s also more input on Alina’s psyche in the Holy Alina magical girl story. Again, after one critic that might look trivial from Karin (implying that Alina’s work isn’t art but breeding), Alina became overwhelmed with doubt regarding her art and extremely moody. Having her art compared to breeding and raising a pet deeply upset Alina, who’s forced to admit it’s true. She is indeed breeding witches, and she came to doubt that it’s real art.

Alina feels conflicted feelings. She’s mad that her art may not be art, but at the same time, feels excited at the idea of breeding witches, which only frustrated her even more. Surprisigly, it’s Karin who managed to make her feel better by making her read her favorite manga, bing worried that Alina might attempt suicide again. Alina understood through the manga that even if the plot is redundant, there’s a recurring theme that draws people to it. As a thanks, Alina bought a strawberry milk to Karin (while she usually stole it from her whenever she’s disappointed by her). Alina knows her art is more than just breeding and that she just need to find the core of her theme beyond life and death.

Alina decides to seek advice from her fellow Magius, Touka and Nemu. Nemu did notice how irritable Alina was these days. They make Alina realize that people tend to share a collective unconsciousness, like different civilizations worshipping the sun even though they had no contact with one another. So Alina needs to find something all humanity shares collectively, something she also shares with them. Touka suggested destruction: a death drive, a self-destructive urge. So the core of Alina’s art would be a craving towards death. After reading more about it, Alina became obsessed with the idea of self-destruction and, unable to fully grasp it, threw a tantrum and destroyed her atelier and aggressively asked Touka and Nemu for more explanation. Both explain how humans is one of the only species who kill one another even if it’s unnecessary, especially through wars. Mifuyu then arrives and complained that by destroying stuff, Alina is damaging the environment. This comment brought Touka and Nemu to find the perfect example of humans’ self-destruction: them destroying the environment. Not only are humans killing one another, they are also destroying their own planet.

Alina concluded that humans unconsciously crave death and destruction, leading them to their own destruction. She thinks this is why everyone is so fascinated by her art, because humans do seek their own death. Alina decides that she’ll indeed change the world with her art and that the core of her theme is “changing the world for the good of humanity”. Even if it sounds good, there’s something sinister behind this. For her, the “good of humanity” is granting what she thinks humans want: Their own destruction.

This is how she decided to become Holy Alina by wearing an Uwasa supposed to grant people their desires. And this is how Alina came to the conclusion she has to cause destruction, for the “sake” of humanity.

We might think that Alina’s actions actually came from a misguided good intention, but let’s not forget Alina is far from being a good person. She enjoys making people suffer and causing misery all around her, she doesn’t show any empathy for others and is remorseless. She’s sadistic, cruel and callous. And that lead to another diagnosis:

Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD).

In case you don’t know, ASPD is often referred to as sociopathy or psychopathy, even if both are technically incorrect, but let’s not dwell on that. Alina does exhibit a lot of antisocial behaviors, even before she became a magical girl, such as: Failure to obey laws and norms by engaging in behavior which results in criminal arrest, or would warrant criminal arrest, impulsive behaviors, irritability and aggression, disregard for her own safety and irresponsibility. She laters shows a blatant lack of remorse for her actions and a lack of empathy. The only traits she doesn’t seem to have is lying, deceiving and manipulating for her own profit or amusement. Alina is someone who is brutally honest and has no issue with speaking her mind and herself said that she doesn’t lie. I don’t recall any incident where Alina lies, but she can be deceiving and manipulative, like when she purposefully misled Madoka and Homura about Mami’s fate to hurt them, making it look like Mami met a gruesome death simply to make them suffer. But, ASPD can only be diagnosed when you’re 18 and alas, Alina is 16. But, there exists a precursor to ASPD for kids and teens, which is required to be diagnosed with ASPD: Conduct Disorder.

Alina almost fit the textbook criteria of conduct disorder. She’s a bully, aggressive, cruel towards others (and potentially animals), vandalism, deceptiveness and serious rules violation. And most of those were even before she became a magical girl. She often mistreats Karin and shows no respect for authority, she’s cruel towards others and I feel like it’s implied that Alina might have killed animals (and there’s also her reaction to Kyubey, who she thought was an animal and ended up kicking) and causes a lot of vandalism. Those were rather mild thoughts before she became a magical girl, where she’s downright dangerous and craving destruction.

BPD and ASPD both belong to the same cluster of personality disorder, cluster b, and are often comorbid. ASPD is often referred to as sociopathy, and given her borderline behaviors, Alina is pretty low-functioning. She’s impulsive, erratic and doesn’t bother to hide her true nature.

So, am I saying Alina is an irredeemable evil person who only seeks death and destruction? Yes, but no. There’s more to her. I won’t deny Alina’s cruelty and sadism and lack of concern for others well-being. After all, she doesn’t shy away from tormenting people, torture and attempted murder. But Alina isn’t born that way, she was driven to become a monster by the people around her. Alina wasn’t allowed to be a human, her feelings, desires and freedom were always disregarded, everything that makes someone human. Instead, she was treated like an object, an an object doesn’t have feelings and only serves a purpose. And the big tragedy in that is that Alina herself ended up objectifying herself. She decided to accomplish what she thinks humanity wants by causing destruction, but she’s also projecting her own self-destruction craving unto humanity as a whole. In the end, she tried to become the tool who will change the world for the good of humanity.

Being treated like an object made Alina unable to relate to others or understand their feelings, treating others just like she was treated: as objects. Alina seems to care for Mifuyu, but not as a person. Alina only values Mifuyu for her body, which she considers to be a work of art. Let’s not forget that magical girls’ true bodies are their soul gems and their human’s body is pretty much an empty shell, so Alina only caring for Mifuyu’s human body and not her as a person does show that she views Mifuyu as an object, not a person.

She also doesn’t understand humans’ bonds. When she proposed to spare their lives in exchange for Felicia (who she was angry at for destroying her witch), she didn’t understand why Tsuruno was so upset. Tsuruno even said “people aren’t objects!” which confused Alina even more. For Alina, everyone, including herself, are objects, and she herself can’t understand why others value people’s lives.

There’s also the way she’s treating witches. At first she seems to care about the witches she raised, considering like like pets and art and throwing a tantrum when Felicia destroyed one of them. But later in the story she shows no remorse to sacrifice the witches she raised, which shows that Alina doesn’t actually care for them, but given that they are hers, she can’t bear people other than her destroying them (or destroying them against her will). Alina did say that only an artist can destroy their own art. Given that she views the witches she raised and breed as her art, she doesn’t actually view them as actual pets but again, as objects. Alina’s objectification extend to witches too.

In one of the Christmas Events where she turned into Holy Alina, she ended up causing a lot of good actions while trying to do bad actions, which made people love her. But it didn’t please Alina at all. She doesn’t care about being loved or hated, she doesn’t care about what people think of her, good or bad actions. At some point, she noticed someone about to blow off a bomb and didn’t care nor show any interest in stopping him until she realized the bomb could damage Mifuyu’s body (again, she wasn’t worried for Mifuyu’s well-being, just her body). Alina seems to not feel shame for her behaviors, neither find it rewarding to be loved and praised.

Another thing regarding Mifuyu. At some point, the Magius (so Alina too) decided to sacrifice Mifuyu and feed her soul gem to Eve. I found it strange that Alina seemed to agree, until I realized something: A magical true body is their soul gem and they only need to feed that to Eve. There’s no need to feed Eve with their empty shell of an organic body. So I came to the conclusion that Alina didn’t mind sacrificing Mifuyu’s soul gem as long as she can keep her body. It just shows how much Alina doesn’t care about Mifuyu as a person and only valued her as a piece of art. An object. (And God knows what she would have done with her corpse).

Well, I’m not making a case about Alina not being an unredeemable piece of shit huh? Well, I decided to keep the best for the end: Her relationship with Karin.

It’s undeniable that Karin holds a special place in Alina’s heart (or whatever Alina has instead of a heart). Alina is cruel and mean towards Karin, true, but unlike other people, Alina never hurts Karin for her own pleasure or by sadism. Most of the time, she ended up mistreating Karin out of anger, mostly when she deemed that Karin made her lose her time or disappointed her, or when Karin is being dishonest with herself and doesn’t improve. Alina insults her and belittles her, as well as stealing her strawberry milk, not with the intention of hurting her, but as a form of punishment. Like a parent disciplining their child. But Alina does sincerely want Karin to improve and the fact that she takes the time to teach her, spend time with her and even rewards her proves that, in a way, Alina does care about Karin. In a really shitty and abusive way. But I don’t recall any instances where Alina physically harm Karin or show to enjoy hurting her. Still shitty and abusive, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like Alina is being abusive towards Karin because she’s unconsciously repeating how her parents may have treated her as a child. We know her parents often got angry at her and perhaps they acted in a way that is similar to how Alina treats Karin. The cycle of abuse sure is a tragic thing.

But why Karin? Well, I got a couple of theories. First, Karin is the only one who seems to care about Alina as a person and not an object. Karin greatly values Alina and is concerned about her feelings, something Alina isn’t used to, being only values for her talents. Karin often notices Alina’s change of mood and shows rejoice whenever Alina is in a good mood. She also worries greatly about Alina when she’s in a bad mood and even fear that she might try to commit suicide again. Karin is also someone who respects art and thrives to improve even if she seems to lack the talent. But she is still optimistic and never gives up, and she knows why she’s doing art. She wants to make people happy with her stories. Almost the opposite of Alina, who’s rather pessimistic, she oftens despaired regarding her art, she has the talent but lacks substance and doesn’t exactly know why she does art. Alina even admitted that Karin might be a bigger genius than her because of her passion, which Alina feels like she lacks, feeling empty inside. Even if Karin has expectations towards Alina, it doesn’t seem to put pressure on Alina, as Karin shows interest in how to make her own art and not Alina’s art itself. In a way, perhaps Alina can relate to Karin in a certain way, with her desire to make art, as well as being envious of how Karin can just be carefree about her art and be able to enjoy it without having people trying to use her. Perhaps this is why Alina is able to care about her, because in a way, she can relate to Karin. Still, Alina is abusive towards Karin and her intention doesn’t change how poorly she treats Karin.

Funny thing, Alina herself doesn’t seem to know exactly why she makes art, and ends up needing others’ opinions to figure it out. She ended up deducing that her core theme is self-destruction because of Touka and Nemu, which seems to make sense with Alina’s fascination with life and death. People focus on the death aspect, but Karin thinks that Alina’s works are actually full of life. Perhaps Karin is the one who’s right, maybe Alina’s actual core is more towards life, but given how twisted Alina became, she doesn’t even realize it herself. Maybe Karin is the only one who can see the good Alina might have deep down inside of her, or may even bring the good inside of her. Who knows, Karin might be the key for Alina potential redemption.

Also, it may not look like it, but I think Alina is constantly hurting inside, due to depression, but she’s so disconnected from her own feelings that she doesn’t realize it and unconsciously hurts others because she’s hurting. Alina is full of unhealthy coping. Her own fascination for life and death started by the death of her grandparents and dog when she was a kid, and might actually have traumatized her and her way to cope is her art. That would explain why Alina herself is uncertain about her theme, because often, understanding our own trauma can be quite hard, or even realize that we experience trauma in the first place. Perhaps death traumatized Alina and her art is her way to understand death better and accept it as a part of life itself. Maybe she actually wants to value life by understand death, because without death, life loses its core value.

So, did I answer the question? Is Alina a psycho crazy jojo villain? Yes, but no. Alina isn’t a psychopath and not downright psychotic either (even though she might experience psychotic episodes). Crazy? Well, I do think she suffers from personality disorders, but it doesn’t make her insane. A sociopath? Maaaybbeee. But to be honest, I mainly think Alina is someone broken who is the result of her environment, someone constantly hurting inside with deep self-destructive urges. The objectification made her feel disconnected from her feelings and humanity and turned her into a monster. But it doesn’t excuse her villainous actions, it only made them understandable and Alina more sympathetic.

Well that was longer than I expected. Let me know what you think and thanks for reading!

#found the holy text of alina analysis #alina gray #alina grey #analysis

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