#Olivier will be too but mochijun is still withholding that story until someone dies Im betting on it.

[izartn]

@naehja your comment is brilliant too. Also OP observation bc theres a really interesting character arc that's been building for Roland out of all this.

1. Meeting Olivier as a kid, becoming friends despite the enormous social differences. Apparently Roland was a street kid? (we know he has siblings, for whom he's likely the main provider) - > Becoming a chasseur, for money maybe, but also bc I bet that's where Olivier was going too. Along the way Roland is (becomes?) compassionate and very self-assured on what to do, which is save the good people from the vamps.

2. Meeting Astolfo, as an older teenager, early 20? I think he's not yet a paladin? He opperates with Olivier so I bet he's still second, or just about. - > Fail to reach Astolfo, bc A mentality and trauma is just too much and Roland doesn't know how to make him see that he's not unforgivable and people deserve to live even if they've been deceived by vamps. Specially children. (oh do I understand Roland horror. He really couldn't see the way and I don't fault him) - > Develop a sort of savior complex and more unstable behaviour re: those that he can/must save. As seen in Catacombs arc.

3. Meeting Noé and Vanitas part1. - > there he realises there are good Vampires! That Vanitas the human is collaborating with one, that Noé preferred talking to fighting and they're both curing those that were deemed too far gone! They're saving those that seemed beyond saving! Even if they're vamps! They expose Dr. Moreau and with him the corruption that is still inside the church and the chasseur. His world is shocked!!! (just realised that's the same reasoning that caused noé to follow vanitas so intently, wow.)

4. He meets vanitas in Paris and realises how much this other young man hates himself. Meets him and Noé again in Geuvadan and works with them and watches them perform another miracle, plus he has to witness Astolfo having another breakdown. - > ??? I think we still have to see how all this shakes out but I imagine Roland has to be feeling a lot and thinking what all of this means.

Anyways, yeah, I think we're being feed bit by bit Roland character arc, which will be important in the future. So we can see the way events change him. And Astolfo paper in his life plus his meeting of Noé and Vanitas are vital to the story.

about midway through vnc 59 i realized that the version of roland we’ve been seeing in this flashback seems much more stable than the version that first met Vanitas and now i am losing my mind; this whole time i was asking myself what Roland’s impact on Astolfo was when i should’ve been asking about Astolfo’s impact on Roland