thinking about all the “small” art that’s ever existed. songs that were only ever sung in one village. stories written by children that got lost in the shuffle. personal paintings that didn’t survive the test of time. how they affected the lives of just a few, but still existed, still mattered to someone.
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I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.
Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.
Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.
Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.
I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.
He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).
First, we get this:
Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.
They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.
It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.
We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.
What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?
He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.
In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.
Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!
...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.
Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.
And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.
I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.
And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.
Meals are the privilege of the living.
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One of my biggest nitpicks in fiction concerns the feeding of babies. Mothers dying during/shortly after childbirth or the baby being separated form the mother shortly after birth is pretty common in fiction. It is/was also common enough in real life, which is why I think a lot of writers/readers don't think too hard about this. however. Historically, the only reason the vast majority of babies survived being separated from their mother was because there was at least one other woman around to breastfeed them. Before modern formula, yes, people did use other substitutes, but they were rarely, if ever, nutritionally sufficient.
Newborns can't eat adult food. They can't really survive on animal milk. If your story takes place in a world before/without formula, a baby separated from its mother is going to either be nursed by someone else, or starve.
It doesn't have to be a huge plot point, but idk at least don't explicitly describe the situation as excluding the possibility of a wetnurse. "The father or the great grandmother or the neighbor man or the older sibling took and raised the baby completely alone in a cave for a year." Nope. That baby is dead I'm sorry. "The baby was kidnapped shortly after birth by a wizard and hidden away in a secret tower" um quick question was the wizard lactating? "The mother refused to see or touch her child after birth so the baby was left to the care of the ailing grandfather" the grandfather who made the necessary arrangements with women in the neighborhood, right? right? OR THAT GREAT OFFENDER "A newborn baby was left on the doorstep and they brought it in and took care of it no issues" What Are You Going to Feed That Baby. Hello?
Like. It's not impossible, but arrangements are going to have to be made. There are some logistics.
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-Recording begins-
Spider-Man: Hi folks! I’d like to give a PSA to my usual villains, and anyone else with ideas for the next two months.
Spider-Man: *holds up a brick sized lump of metal* See this? It’s titanium!
Spider-Man: *starts flattening it out and shaping it*
Spider-Man: See, we all know that I’m crazy strong, but I never wanna really hurt anybody right? Right. While that hasn’t changed, something very important does right around this time of year.
Spider-Man: *pulls off a glove and pulls a chunk into a long stem with his nails carving lines for added texture*
Spider-Man: See, this is what we like to call exam season. Anybody who knows anything about college can tell you that it drives people up the wall, and I already climb mine when I’m antsy.
Spider-Man: *starts winding the thin sheet around the stem, delicately crimping petals in place*
Spider-Man: I do wanna be clear that this isn’t a threat, okay? I’m still not interested in crossing the line, which brings me to my point.
Spider-Man: *throws the titanium rose at the brick wall behind him, stem first, and embeds it all the way through*
Spider-Man: /That/ was restrained because I could focus enough to have full control. If I’m extremely tired or otherwise distracted, there’s just as much risk of me slipping up as someone operating heavy machinery. I’m probably not going to remember what sleep is for two whole months, so remember!
Spider-Man: *pulls out a brick and snaps it like a cookie*
Peter fucking Parker: Don’t.
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This... this is a whole different kind of psychic damage here. When nightmares got Marcille, we get to knew that her's biggest fear is outliving her friends. This isn't even canon probably, but look at this. This isn't a "I don't want my friends to die" kind of dream. This is a "I'm terrified of loosing my daughters, of something killing them, and being incapable of stopping it" kind of dream. It's so simple yet it explains perfectly the whole of chilchucks character. He loves, he cares, deeply. But he, or doesn't acknowledges, or doesn't know what to do with that knowledge.
Besides that. Someone had to wake him up after this. Imagine the devastation in this man after he wakes up. He just saw his three little babys murdered corpses (or maybe he saw them die, wich isn't better). He would possibly not talk about it, and that would worry the hell out of the party, because we'll, they see him all down and only one of them knows what he saw. Imagine being the one to pull him from that nightmare. Seeing this man, usually so composed, fuking staring with tears and terror in his eyes to the composes of what you can only assume are his daughters. It would be heartwrenching.
Idk, I love this man so much...
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