#ch: jack vessalius

[bskervilles]

[starswake--archived]

i’m still in love with the fact that jack basically serves as the starting point for oz -- the way both of them keep lying and dwindling their feelings down to nothing to keep themselves protected and alive in a way. because then you can actually compare oz’s growth from the way he used to be to jack, and can even see the clashing of what oz could have turned out to be had it not been for other people intervening 

[cloudmountainjuror]

Retracing Pandora Hearts, ch. 6 & 7

Below were my thoughts and observations as I reread chapters 6 and 7 - beware of SPOILERS for the entire manga!

Chapter 6:

Fun question: On the first page of this chapter, is Zwei speaking with the Duldum inside her body (in which case, it clearly isn’t Echo yet), or with Duldee the chain? Or, even better, is she speaking with someone - a Pandora agent, probably - that she’s possessed with a Duldum? The third option is scarily likely, considering we never anywhere else in the manga see Noise talking out loud with either Echo or Duldee; it’s always inside her head.

For how briefly the flower girl plotline was around, I actually quite like the closure it receives in the first bit of this chapter. Especially Oz asking Gil, with that emotionless look on his face, “What kind of past was a little girl like her trying to change so desperately, I wonder…?” followed by Gil’s somber expression. It’s a terrifying yet sadly realistic thought.

Foreshadowing: Gil gets an unknowing flashback to the tragedy of Sablier when Jack cut him down (during Oz’s flashback to when he first met Gil), and cries that Oz “mustn’t protect someone like [him], because it’s [his] duty to protect [his] master!”

Oh boy, it’s time for us to talk about the biggest (and maybe only major) inconsistency in the series: the name of Zwei’s chain. At the end of the manga it is specified quite clearly to be Duldee, but here? Here it’s referred to exclusively as Duldum. And while in canon Zwei could maybe get away with referring to her chain as Duldum, since Duldum is the dominant name of the beings her chain creates, it’s still quite a stretch, and a pretty blatant mistake on the writer’s part. This suggests to me that Mochizuki hadn’t truly worked out the details of how Zwei’s chain operated until later in the story, and had to later retcon the name to make it all work as intended.

I have a complaint about the presentation of Gil’s confrontation with Zwei as well. Gil has two guns, one in each hand, both clearly loaded. He fires one shot at Zwei, which misses. Reloads the gun. Then Zwei begins to talk, and says the following as we start to get outside shots of Oz: “Aaah, I get it. You’re still upset about what I did that day! You still can’t forgive me for using your body to hurt your young master at his coming-of-age ceremony, can you!!?” Only after all of that is said (with pauses inserted in between, mind you, due to the manga pages’ layouts) do we get another glimpse at what’s going on inside with Zwei and Gil. And not only are they both still in nearly the exact same spots and positions as when we last saw them, we also have zero indication that Gil has tried shooting her again with either of the two friggin’ guns he has out (not to mention that Zwei is mere meters away from him). Are we really expected to believe that in all that time Zwei has been monologuing, Gil has just been moving in place, doing nothing, not attacking this person he’s held a grudge against for ten years, when he’s just commented on how eagerly he’s been awaiting this moment to take vengeance upon her? It’s just really weird and illogical.

At the end of the chapter we get the reveal that Oz has been in the Abyss for ten years, and that Raven is Gil. It really is a clever twist, aided by the fact that Oz immediately notes how Break, Sharon, and Zwei all haven’t aged, assuring the reader that this discrepancy is something they should be noticing and will be addressed in the coming future. _

Chapter 7:

I really, really wish that it had been left more ambiguous whether or not Oz truly wanted Gil to shoot him in the moment the gun was to his head. The chapter makes it very clear afterwards that it was just Oz playing it smart (that much is confirmed by Oz’s smirk after Gil turns his gun on Zwei, and by his explanation to Gil), but it would have been so much more compelling if it had been at all implied that maybe, just maybe, Oz had been a tiny bit sincere in his death request, given that, in his mind, he had been responsible for turning Gil into an oathbreaker.

Foreshadowing: The panel shown below has to be foreshadowing for something, but I’ve thought about it and I cannot for the life of me tell what it’s supposed to be referencing. The clothing doesn’t match any character I can recognize. The best I can guess is that it’s a vague, not-very-well-implemented reference to Sablier. Beyond that, I’m clueless.

Continuity error: In the first picture, Gil’s arm is perfectly fine, but in the second, it’s heavily damaged. Both screencaps are from after Gil tears off Duldee’s strings:

Zwei uses a lot of performance-based language in her dialogue here (“it’s time for the curtain to fall on this scene” ; “I haven’t the slightest interest in a script that’s gone awry” ; “look forward to the next act, Oz Vessalius”), which I don’t remember her using again in the future very much at all. Maybe she just felt extra flamboyant that day?

You know, the moment where Gil re-pledges himself to Oz is touching. But, as touching as it is, something about it rang hollow to me as I watched it happen… I realized it was Oz. At this moment, I looked back on how he’d been reacting to things this entire chapter, and he suddenly began to feel a little too… perfect. I know that things not fazing Oz is a key element of his character. But, in this chapter, it isn’t made clear enough that it’s supposed to be a flaw in his personality – no, instead it comes off as a full-on strength. Which, in this context, makes him feel dull. I remember this bothering me when I first read the series too – it’s actually a big reason Oz was my least favorite character from here up through volume 6 or so (after which, of course, he became significantly better). Right here, he started to feel ever-so-slightly bland. And the unfortunate thing is, I think this could have been completely avoided if only that darn gun scene had been more ambiguous in regards to Oz’s sincerity. What a missed opportunity that was.

[bskervilles]

[bskervilles]