#I imagine Kabru to be taking the notes in the first drawing

[lambylala]

An elf that Kabru abducts asks to help Mithrun after he fainted from mana sickness (healers have specific outfits in dungeon meshi which is- so smart! So Kabru knew she could help). She's trying herself at becoming a herbalist ever since the dungeon's been around, for the better and the worse. Healing potions, antidotes, obscure plant trivia, everything! Some poisonous plants have healing properties if used sparsely, though not everyone seems to agree with her.

[fandomflux33]

Yeah…. :(

It’s important to note that it’s not hopeless, just that most of the Dungeon Meshi crew haven’t known Laios that long.

Senshi met him a week ago, Marcille, a couple months ago (she’s the newest member of the Touden party and still blames Laios for taking Falin from her), and Chilchuck operates purely in a professional capacity, and so doesn’t seem open to either sharing or being given personal information from his coworkers.

I like to imagine that Falin’s Doppelgänger of Laios has always been near-indistinguishable, and that about a year after the adventure Marcille’s and Kabru’s Doppelgängers of Laios are near-perfect too. Senshi and Chilchuck’s I believe would get much more accurate, but still have little foibles reflecting racial and age differences in perspective (I.e. Laios looks tall/young to them).

Laios has habits that on first impression are different to the rest of the party -his openness, his interest in monsters, his bluntness- , so when they remember Laios, it’s his unfamiliar aspects that stick out to them, and those are reflected in his Doppelgängers. I think once they get a sense of Laios’ normalcy, patterns, and emotional expressions, the unfamiliarity will fade away and leave a more accurate, loving image of Laios.

I love how all of the Laios Doppelgängers being obviously wrong implies that the most accurate Doppelgängers of the others come from Laios’ memory, like you said. Despite this implication, the others instantly think they’re doomed when Laios is put in charge of distinguishing the real members, further proving their unfair and inaccurate depictions of him when he picks them all out correctly.

Interestingly, when we look at the mistakes in the final showdown Doppelgängers:

-Chilchuck’s fake asking for help

-Marcille’s fake being sullen and lazer-focused on finding Falin

-And Senshi being super handsome

Laios actually sees his friends in a MORE POSITIVE way than they actually are. He sees Chilchuck as being more open to interaction with the party, Marcille as being serious about his sister (Laios and Marcille’s relationship has been largely centered around Falin and defense of Falin), and Senshi as being chiseled!

He uses monster knowledge to distinguish between them because he can deny or confirm monster facts with 99% accuracy, whereas it would be more difficult to confirm/deny the personal biases in his own memory. Laios assumes, like any field expert, that the layman either knows more about his field than a layman actually would, or that the party is annoyingly oblivious and uninterested in his field (which the party has expressed). He recognizes this and must ask himself internally: “from what I know of my friends, what knowledge about monsters would they actually hold onto based on THEIR interests?” Senshi would hold onto ecosystem knowledge, having been reliant on the dungeon for so long; Chilchuck would retain lockpick-related monster knowledge, and Marcille would retain nothing because she learns very slowly from experience compared to other people.

AND HE’S 100% FUCKING RIGHT.

It’s ridiculously impressive, that when faced with the depictions of his friends from his own memory, and his friends irl, Laios able to spot the inaccuracies. The autistic traits the others assumed would make him oblivious to social situations actually kinda cause the Opposite! Because Laios is constantly trying to figure his friends out, assuming his own error in social situations, and adjusting his mask and habits to them, he has to be MORE aware of details.

The fandom portrays Laios as this dumb himbo, because he can be silly and oblivious sometimes when he gets lost on a tangent, but Laios is genuinely brilliant, and well educated for the time period. He can navigate, read, draw, do math, make battle strategies, and do sword fighting along with all his biology knowledge. He picks up magic in a week! He throws out inaccurate knowledge about monsters and actively seeks/tests new hypotheses. Laios is a great character and protagonist because he’s always learning- about people, himself, and the dungeon.

His textual fault, from the very beginning, is not that he doesn’t see details or that he’s dumb, but that he can get lost in thought and forget what’s going on in front of him (a la party dying to dragon while he strategizes). Still, he thinks deeply about and cares for his party!

(Spoilers below)

When Laios becomes king, it’s not what he wants to do, and it’s a personal sacrifice for him, but goddamnit does he shine when he finally gets the consideration he deserves. I have no doubts in the end that Laios will be a wise and fair king.

Tl;dr

His autistic ass IS listening, but few people are listening back. Give this man all the best friends he deserves 👏👏👏

idk if anyone else felt this way, but in the Shapeshifter ep of Dungeon Meshi, it's treated like a joke that all the copies of Laios are super obviously not him, but isn't it kind of fucked up that Laios's closest companions don't seem to view him as... whole?

None of his companions had an accurate view of him as a person! One of the copies was a stupid, drooling mess! And on top of this, they all believed that because Laios struggles with social cues he wouldn't be observant to them as people. They just... fundamentally don't understand him.

I think the really accurate copies of the rest of the party was drawn from Laios's mind. His powers of observation and analytics are his strength, but that's not the same as being good with social cues.

Anyway. It made me really sad. I know his party cares about him, but it's so isolating to know your friends don't know you.