#v good meta
We meet him as a very shouty zombie and it’s nothing like what we might have expected from the earlier mentions – or especially the novels where we meet him before. The prologue is set as he prepares to marry Euphrosynia.
He’s been carrying on a correspondence with her, which leads him to believe that she’ll come willingly. He was drawn both to her looks and to her intelligence before knowing who she was. Despite what the opera imposes, there’s no sense of destiny here – he doesn’t think of her as his destined bride in any sense. He just likes her.
He’s very annoyed with the Muses, who’ve been getting more obscure and allusive since the actual fighting ended, but relieved when they do talk to him directly. He also says that he would have taken care even without their warning – he is going to be bedding a Heterodyne!
He doesn’t like fighting, is surprised to find himself nervous before a treaty when he usually only feels that way before battle and is more in his element with diplomacy. He’s turning over the relative benefits of keeping everyone distracted by fashion vs taking half an hour to unbutton his pants – for the sake of peace, he concludes, he’ll wear the damn pants.
…And then we get him furiously melting his way through everything.
Of course, he’s corrupted, but the Jägers seem more familiar with this side of him. Dimo’s memory of “smasher and slasher” is hardly less terrifying. Not liking to fight doesn’t seem to mean he wasn’t good at it. He does say, in the prologue, that the point of war is to make it so unpleasant the enemy wants to stop. Brutality is a way of achieving that.
He takes Prende with him, too, which surprised me. He sees her as having been holding him prisoner, but when she begs he does take her. The Muses annoyed him, but he doesn’t treat Prende like an object – he’s hurt by her betrayal and accepts her plea.
Also, the explanation that Klaus’ overlay is him but not all of him makes me wonder about Andronicus. Especially if his consciousness is in the crown as I theorised before, there’s a possibility it’s only a partial copy of the bits a Heterodyne most wanted to preserve.
Also known as: Kids are kind of being brainwashed into being heroes, let’s look into that.
Dedicated to @deafmic for getting me back into this bullshit and inspiring me to finish something I had started noting out about two years ago. By now, I’m sure much of this has been said over time by various people, and it makes me happy to know that there are others out there who like to look deep into the background culture and settings of their favorite manga!
I apologize in advance if you notice an idea of yours here; I haven’t been active in the fandom in two-ish-years, so I may be restating some things you guys already have. I consider this rambling analysis to be free to use and abuse by anyone, no credit necessary! I only get a little bit of time on the weekends to really be on my PC, so if you send me an ask or reply to this, it may take me some time to reply back!
Anywho, onto this mess I’ve made. It’s not very tidy and is more a collection of thoughts than a properly detailed analysis, but I ain’t got all day. Again, this is messy but I don’t really have the energy to make it nice and neat.
Looking for something in specific? You might wanna ctrl+f around these titles, because this is very long and rambling.
Part I: The Beginning of Quirks and their Effect on Society
Part II: What Makes a Villain
Part III: M O N E Y and F A M E
Part IV: Brainwashed
Part V: Ignoring Those Who Need Help
Part VI: Cycle/ConclusionTHIS IS SOMETHING EVERYONE SHOULD READ
honestly every word of this that you wrote is fucking perfect. you perfectly explain where villains come from and why they exist and why this societyexists and why it’s content with constant violence and training kids like this. thank you so much for writing this.
and you’re right–overhaul was correct about one thing. hero society is a disease, and it just keeps getting worse.
