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autumnmobile12 · 9 months

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D. Gray Man: Morality vs Victory (and Survival)

D. Gray Man has a unique situation as far as conflict goes. The enemy is an army of millions of demon machines that are commanded by a race of humans that are virtually immortal from the perspective of ordinary people...and they can only be harmed/killed by a weapon that is so selective that only a handful of people in the world can use it. This isn’t a situation where anyone can just enlist and train to become an exorcist nor can the Black Order simply conscript new soldiers; this is a world where the chosen few and only the chosen few are physically capable of fighting the enemy.

This is the reality. This is the shit hand humanity in this world was dealt. So from from the perspective of ordinary folk who have no power against this fate other that to rely on the exorcists, many of whom are children, it's easy to see how and why they got desperate.

The other thing to consider is this isn't a normal war. The Black Order isn't the aggressor and the Earl and Noah Clan's ultimate aim is complete and total annihilation of humanity. So there is no hope of a ceasefire. There is no treaty the Order can sign, no way to negotiate, no way to appease the enemy. The only outcome that can happen is the destruction of one or the other.

In the grand scheme of things, the Order has nothing to lose. Lo Fwa recognizes the barbarity of the Third Exorcist Program and says what a ‘good person’ would say, “This is not how I want to win.” That is a noble thing to say, but for the above reasons, the unspoken (and even spoken) outlook of the Order's leaders seems to be, “Do we win or do we die?”

In spite of his photography 'hobby' and unhealthy obsession with Lenalee (cause that part of this character is really fucking creepy when you look past the fact it's supposed to be a joke,) Bak is actually one of the better leaders as far as morality goes.

When the Third Exorcist Program was unveiled, Bak was the only one verbally against it. He's the only one to called out Epstain for her part in the project.

Taking his background into account, this is understandable. His parents both martyred themselves in order to shut down the Second Exorcist Program and to hopefully prevent any similar experiments from taking place in the future. On top of that, when the scandal of what Lab 6 was doing got out, he probably took the brunt of the backlash in his parents' place.

Adding to this, when the Level 3 attacked the Asian Branch, his primary goal was keeping Allen safe. He acknowledged he couldn't fight and refused to throw him into the ring with a 'figure it out' mentality. So Fou took Allen's place. Even at the cost of her life, neither she nor Bak were willing to sacrifice a child. (He was even willing to risk blackmail with the aforementioned photos.)

We've already seen that Komui's the one who put an end to the human experimentation and he actively advocates on behalf of his sister and the other exorcists. He's also the odd one out as far as the other leaders of the Order go as he's the only one who doesn't have a generational obligation to be there, as both Lenalee and himself came from outside the Order and are the only surviving members of their family. Which in an organization where nepotism seems to be the commonality, that makes his position in the Order pretty impressive. He's the Alexander Hamilton of the Order.

During the attack on headquarters, Komui mobilizes the remaining exorcists to repel the akuma and made the practical decision to destroy the Egg in order to prevent the Earl from reclaiming it. But with the Level 4's appearance and the unknown status of their fighters, he chose to retreat. Like Bak during the Asian Branch crisis, he chooses not to endanger the lives of the exorcists who couldn't fight.

However, during the Third Exorcists arc, this standpoint of his starts to waver. Like Bak, it is to Komui's credit he didn't know about the Third Exorcist Program, but there is still the undeniable fact that he did not oppose the project when it came to light. He's uncomfortable about it, for sure. You can see he is not at all okay with any of this.

But he still says nothing.

The likely consolation in his mind is the Thirds were willing volunteers for the project and are honored to sacrifice themselves if need be, but this is still undeniably a slippery slope that can blow up in their faces. Which it does, resulting in the loss of the Thirds and four exorcists.

A silence of Komui's that speaks louder, though, is the treatment of Allen during his last days at the Order. Komui was in a bad spot here. On the one hand, he still views himself as an advocate for the exorcists. On the other, one wrong word and he might be the next one they lock up. So rather than speak out, he stays quiet in order to protect the others, which effectively means abandoning Allen. He doesn't even seem to be advocating for the Science Division's efforts to help.

There's already conflict between him and Lenalee over this. She's shown arguing with him in Night 204. We don't know what about, but given the context of the chapter, this probably isn't a petty sibling disagreement. Furthermore, where the current chapters stand, she and Marie are refusing to give him any information about Kanda and Johnny's whereabouts. This goes to show that while he does have good intentions, he no longer claims the same level of trust he used to, and that is likely killing everyone on the inside.

There is a distinct divide between 'Komui is Lenalee's brother' and 'Komui is Lenalee's commanding officer.' All the way back in the Fallen One arc, he is rather withdrawn in his instructions for her to recover Suman's Innocence and telling her point blank that he is beyond saving. There is also the post-Barcelona funeral where he strictly adheres to the Order's policy of cremating their dead and refusing to allow the finders to contact the families. Later on, he is even telling himself he can't afford to be sentimental even though we can clearly see how much the losses have affected him.

After the disaster of the Second Exorcist Program, Bak and Epstain both swore they would never be a part of any experiment like that again. They lost their parents, Epstain owes her life to the Changs for shielding her from Alma's rampage, and they were left picking up the pieces of the disaster. It was her testimony to Central that put an end to the program.

So why does she go and dredge up all that bad blood to create the Thirds?

Bak, Komui, and Epstain all definitely went through a period of recovering mentally from the attack on headquarters, the appearance of a heretofore unheard of Level 4 akuma, and had to contemplate what this would mean for their organization going forward. It's not entire clear exactly when Komui became the branch chief, but he was 23 when he and Lenalee reunited, so it was around that time. (Lenalee would have been eight when word of the Second Program got out, so he definitely would have heard about it.)

So these three made their promises when they were in their early 20s at the most. In Bak and Epstain's case, they were handed responsibilities that should have remained with their parents for a few more years. Komui was still a teenager when his parents died.

They weren't children, but they were barely adults. In the face of tragedy, they all said, "No. We can be better than this," and they upheld those ideals admirably.

However, after nine years, hundreds of casualties, and catastrophic loss of life later, the Level 4's attack called back everything into question. It's the brutal reminder of their situation and of the three, Epstain is left questioning the stance she took a decade earlier. In short, the appearance of the Level 4 and the prospect of near annihilation scared her.

It definitely scared Komui and Bak, too, but as stated above, only one of them verbally opposed the Third Program. And even Bak gave in eventually.

Fear fueled desperation and desperation blurs where the line should not be crossed, and all three of them are now grappling with the idea of surviving and hanging on to their morality.

And unfortunately, there are the members of the cast that say, “Victory no matter the cost.”

Which brings us to this guy.

Leverrier is definitely in the category of 'Characters you hated more than the villain' and his character design definitely didn't help things. From his first appearance in the series, he's callous and cold-hearted towards the exorcists, regarding them as less than people and more weapons and property of the Church. During the Level 4's attack, when Komui gave the order to retreat, Leverrier disagreed and said they should stand their ground in spite of the fact they had a one in a million chance of winning the battle.

However appalling as this decision was, though...it still worked. Sheer, dumb luck that it was, but we still have to acknowledge that Leverrier's decision and Lenalee's resolve were the main catalysts that, for better or worse, led to the discovery of the Crystal Innocence.

Unlike Komui, Bak, and Epstain, we don't have much in the way of backstory for Leverrier's character. There is definitely an element of family pride behind his motives. That is apparent by the vague storyline of the 'daughter that was offered up as a saint' as well as his rant to Link in Night 213 about using Allen and the 14th to win the war and that it's his victory, not Central's.

But there are two moments for this character that I think are telling. One is Link's statement in Night 247. "I have someone whom I wish to save...someone who lives his life restrained and filled with nothing but hatred." Link is pretty biased, so it's hard to gauge exactly what is genuine loyalty vs blind brainwashing, but the point is Link still has some reason to stand in his employer's corner. However, the other key moment is the very brief flashback we get in Night 150 where Leverrier, as a child, is calling out Hevlaska for her part in the human sacrifices, telling her she is murdering her own people.

This is a really odd stance for an otherwise harsh character, which does maybe indicate there was a time where even Leverrier thought the extreme actions of the Order were wrong? If this is true, what happened? If he used to be like the others and did once regard the exorcists as people instead of weapons, why the change?

There's a bittersweetness to the events of Lab 6 and the perpetrators of the Second Exorcist Program.

What's important to keep in mind is that even though Alma and Yuu were lab experiments, the scientists didn't treat them that way at all. They didn't keep them locked up in cages, the pair had free range of the lab as we can see them wandering all over the place unsupervised. The scientists gave them gifts. Alma knew what winter was despite having never been outside, so that means someone had to have told him about snow. When they had to 'dispose of' Yu, Tui and Epstain are openly weeping, and even Sahlins looks affected.

It's not a stretch to say the scientists loved those two, and so the entire lab did not hesitate to say, "No more." They put an end to the project and martyred themselves.

I think there also was an element of fear in this decision. Tui and Edgar Chang also probably had a line they thought they would never cross, and then they did. Once you commit something you previously thought was unthinkable, the question then becomes, "Where is the line now? How far are we going to go?"

Were they afraid of what they could become?

Finally, we come to the last character we're going to examine:

On his deathbed, Zhu Mei Chang confesses he is the one who began the human experimentation, that he was 'proud and cruel' and sought only the glory of his clan as he trampled on the lives of hundreds. This was an unexpected point of development for a character who's first appearance was a joke. When he first shows up, he's humbly chopping cabbage in the kitchens completely oblivious to Fou yelling directly at him through a megaphone. This introduction is hardly indicative of a heartless man who possibly tortured and killed many innocent people to have the 'honor of winning the war.' So the humor of him working as a lowly cook in the kitchens takes on a quality of possibly him trying to repent for everything he'd done.

So I'd like to acknowledge the age gap again:

Komui, Bak, and Epstain are still young adults. In their early twenties, they drew a line and stayed firmly behind it. Now they are 29-30 years old and they are toeing the line they themselves drew. That's a nine year difference. Nine years of hardship and a hopeless war that's been going on for a century already. As the audience, we have the benefit of assuming this war is going to end within their lifetime; they don't have that luxury. If nine years, and the prospect of carrying on through this the rest of their lives, did that to them, what did twenty or more years do to Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier. Tui and Edgar were 39 and 43 years old respectively when they were killed, so their sacrifice may also have been viewed as an escape from a lifetime of warfare.

Allen and company have lost Suman, Daisya, the other Barcelona casualties, Tapp, countless members of the Science Division, General Yeegar, and many others through the course of one year.

With that kind of odds, it's tragically understandable how characters like Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier may have ended up where they did. I don't like the idea that a character is inherently evil. D. Gray Man is a series full of many characters who are complex and nuanced, so writing off some of them as 'just cruel for no reason' is kinda out of place. Especially when the main villains are just as detailed. With the way things are going for Komui, Bak, and Epstain, I do genuinely wonder if Zhu Mei Chang and Leverrier once drew their own line of morality (as the Night 150 flashback may imply) and then decades of losses led them both to ask, "Survive as sinners or die as saints?"

Personally, I think every last one of the characters listed above who are still alive are headed for a Thanos-esque, "What did it cost? Everything..." tragedy.

Further tragedy has the potential to push even Komui, Bak, and Epstain, further down an ever darkening path. D. Gray Man is not a normal war. Whether they fight for vengeance or pride or to protect those who are left or they feel winning the war no matter the cost is owed to the countless people who have already died, it's still victory or death in the most literal sense for the Order.

That said, for the characters who have already gone too far and crossed the line, there's no redemption nor should there be redemption.

Castlevania Dracula says it best:

There comes a point where even the most determined of soldiers have to ask, "Does the victory justify the atrocities?" and "If this is what it takes to win the war, then maybe we deserve extinction."

Honestly, I really hope Leverrier's character arc ends with him getting yeeted out a window like it's a Prague regime change.

So where's it all going for the younger generation of the Order?

While they don't have the audience's benefit of knowing the war could end within their lifetime and there is in fact a light at the end of the tunnel, they do have the hindsight of knowing what the Order has done, all the mistakes that have led them to this point. Similar to Komui and the other branch heads, they doubly have the stance, "Our predecessors fucked up. In spite of the odds, we can be better. We can break this chain of generational trauma and win the war without the abhorrent methods."

Wanting to be destroyers that save people.

Hanging on to hope.

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