#daltian clan

[dunmeshistash]

Hii, sorry if you posted about it already but i couldnt find it under the falin tag and google is not helping at all. Do you have that short about Marcille and Falin going to see the play about that book Marci loves? 👉👈

I hadn't posted it yet no! Here it is along with another Daltian Clan bonus

Dungeon Meshi - Daltian Clan

[fumifooms]

I think Kui intended for Kuro's Touden party counterpart to be Toshiro, not Izutsumi as is commonly fanonized. Dia being the counterpart to Namari implies that Kabru's party are stunt doubles to the pre-dragon Toudens, not the new party comp, which shakes out Kuro = Shuro pretty easily. The Kabru/Kuro and Laios/Toshiro relationships invert pretty neatly too. Thoughts?

I do agree, but I think there’s stuff to be said about Kuro-Izu too. I think it’ll be fun eventually for me to try every way in which every party member parallels another in some way, but just casually spitballing for a bit here… With Kuro the first thing I notice when comparing to Toshiro is armor. The shape of the chestplate is pretty common, but the whole of it feels reminiscent, the silhouette, the pants... Also the way all three of them are similarly stanced up hah. Behavior wise, being quiet and stoic and devoted is a Toshiro thing. Kuro’s quite well spoken when in his native tongue and seems generally coolheaded, observant as well. He’s defensive and ferociously protective but otherwise very passive, friendly and gentle. He doesn’t seem to particularly care about morals, he bases what course of action he takes on Mick’s wants and needs.

Kuro is only there for Mickbell, up to a point Toshiro is mostly there for Falin (He did let himself get dragged in before he fell for her, and he’s searching for ways to prove he’s worthy to his father in the dungeons so). Quiet devoted guardian thing. Out of the three, Kuro is the only one without formal fighting training (assumedly), but he’s more of a warrior than a rogue I’d say.

Something else we can look at is their names. Kuro means black in japanese, in meta japanese is the original language of the work and is the "common" that the characters speak. Considering the backstory extra about him having lived in a cage, unable to speak common, I think Mick named him that. This does parallel more to Izutsumi, since she has a history of being given a name (Asebi) but then choosing her own for herself. Toshiro’s by comparison, but you could draw a parallel about the nickname Shuro, butchering his name. There’s a language barrier/culture clash theme for them two in particular. In any case, japanese is something they all share because of this. Kuro-shuro is also pretty close. If you want to dig at more into their name I recommend this paper, Izutsumi’s is particularly interesting.

Do they similarly struggle with identity? Eh. Compared to Izutsumi’s arc being about accepting her beastly half and herself as she is… Kuro is alienated from wider society by being a kobold yes but his character is more centered on unhealthy devotion which is closer to Toshiro 1) running himself ragged to save Falin and 2) being trapped in his noble role and duty to his household. ALTHOUGH you can argue that that’s the point, that Kuro and Izutsumi took that shared experience of being caged and kept as property and reacted in diametrically opposed ways to it: Izutsumi decided she never wants to rely on or get attached to anyone ever, meanwhile Kuro decided he just had to find the right person to follow unconditionally. Izutsumi has an arc but she ends it still being independent and she grew closer to the group in general, not just latching onto one person, so again I feel like this is more Shuro. But then the Laios-Kabru parties shadow doubles tend to both parallel and contrast a lot, so who knows what angle is more intended. It’s possible parallels to both are intentional, but then again parallels just tend to happen when you have a developed story.

Izu-Kuro wise the biggest thing is definitely their shared experience of poverty and slavery, and really yeah it’s less being poor and more being taken and treated as less than human & property. Being Servants. Having lived or grown up with the harsh bare minimum. They’re both barefoot. Cat & dog, black & white, etc etc. And then like we went into, obedience vs rebellion- obedience which is pretty Toshiro. So it’s truly a matter of well ok and now what do we do with these threads.

This can actually be a throughline: Characters from the Kabru party tend to contrast against their Laios party counterpart in weirdly specific symmetrical ways. Namari is more alike Dia than Senshi. Toshiro is alike Kuro whereas Izutsumi heavily contrasts against him. Holm is alike Falin. If we go by "the Kabru counterpart is alike the old Laios party member and dissimilar to the new one" I think that’s a fun angle. Dia’s the more ambiguous I think, I should make an analysis on her she’s so interesting…

Also, this scene is a direct parallel, and of course Toshiro isn’t around but Izu here is the Kuro to Chilchuck’s Mickbell.

And while we’re on the topics of Toshio and parallels, there are so many between Toshiro and the black haired half-elf Forva from Daltian Clan btw omg… Aka Marcille’s favorite character. Aka there’s so much we could dig into here. It’s interesting because general Hareus the character she simps for looks exactly like Mithrun and it 1000% has to be intentional, but it’s not like Marcille thinks of that when she sees him, so much like the Laios party-Kabru party parallels what it adds to the story is meta instead of in-world… And in this way it’s interesting to think of possible Daltian-rest of the cast parallels as well. Uriel the protagonist looks like Milsiril somewhat, she’s a bumpkin found to actually be from a noble house and becomes the protagonist at the heart of the romance political drama plot… A play on Milsiril being a recluse? Because if we go from Mithrun-Hareus parallels then to me the point of the parallels at all is to either joke about or do commentary on fiction vs reality, idealized vs real. Mithrun being part of the military like General Hagreus and having lost an eye like him but it’s not glamorous, it’s not chivalrous, Mithrun is not a figure to be idolized but one to look at and realise that ah, the elven military is a flawed system pushing people into unhealthy mindsets and death. So like with Toshiro-Forva… Similar case of "don’t meet your heroes"? Lonely doomed love hinorbound noble sad you can’t make this shit up……

[saccharineomens]

i threw together a silly little drawing for marcille's birthday.

may she get all the hunky bishes she desires!

[dungeon-meshi-tournament]

Masterpost

[room-surprise]

Love your research paper inspired me to look into the Daltian Clan names and wow I found some interesting stuff (if I am right and not reaching). I have to ask if you are also looking at their names as well as actual characters from the story?

Yes! They will be in one of the elven chapters. Their names are pretty interesting and give us a lot of clues about what the plot of Daltian Clan might contain, so I can't wait to share that chapter with the fandom.

If you found the same stuff as I did, I'm sure you know exactly what I mean!

My main tip on the Daltian Clan characters is to not be too precise about how you spell their names, because Kui's never given us English spellings for them, so they could be wildly different than what Yen Press and fan translators have given us.... but still be pronounced exactly the same by a Japanese person.

Thank you so much for enjoying my research paper!!! I'm excited to get another chapter out, hopefully soon...

[blood-starved-beast]

To be fair, I feel like anything written by elves for elves would be perceived as overtly long and long-winded schlock for short lived races especially. Since elves live so long, their perception of time is different (especially if the elves have say, lived at least a century). So on the contrary, a normal sized book or series rather would feel like it's too short or not enough.

That wouldn't account for writing quality though, but it's something to think about.

somebody suggested in the notes of this comic that Kabru reads the novels Marcille is obsessed with to learn how to talk to her too, and I propose to you an alternative: Kabru has already read the Daltian Clan novels. And he fucking hated them. He thinks they're melodramatic schlock more concerned with shock value and keeping the paychecks rolling in than telling a cohesive story.

He was pretty into the first few since he started reading in the throes of puberty, but by volume ten he'd gotten frustrated at the lack of progress and started to notice flaws in the writing. He only finished the whole thing out of spite so people (mostly elves) would stop saying to him "how can you criticize it when you haven't even read all of it?"

When he learns Marcille is a fan he already knows her well enough to be like "of course you do, you're Marcille, you love melodramatic schlock," and tries to brush it off as something he read casually. It's only when someone points out that they take a solid four or five years to get through even for a fast reader, and that would have been almost a quarter of Kabru's life at this point, that Marcille realizes he can't have spent that much time on something and not have strong feelings about it.

Luckily by this time having catty arguments about things that don't matter is their Best Friend Love Language so it's just something else to bond over.

[twyrrinren]

Marcille canonically has a blorbo

(do you think she recommended these books to Falin because she wanted her to understand her struggles better)

[ask-mithrun]

Favorite book?

This is a little shameful to admit, but I've always been into this novel called Daltian clan! It's a relatively new series... it came out 10 years ago, but its still one i highly enjoy despite it only having 1 volume. Its about a lone, shelterd elf who gets her gets a calling to fufill her familys legacy.

Oh, the drama—! The intriege, and romance... they are what truly got me invested...! I could just tell it had potential!

Though, considering im in the future—perhaps i can get up to date on the newest chapters... how fun!

Perhaps—i could update you on my endevors through that...?

I would love to meet someone who enjoys this just as much as i do!

It's hard to find people who enjoyed the series... which is understandable considering the countless controversies regarding its half elf lead. Concerns that i also agreed with, to be honest.

Hm...i wonder how much the community has changed...

Ah! My apologies —! I didn't mean to go on a tangent like that. I must have gotten carried away!

[chilpilled]

idk if ive said it on here before but i think it would be very funny if marcille was a bit of a fujo. there was a tragic forbidden gay love story between two background characters in book 11 of the daltian clan and it rocked her lesbian preteen self to the core (shes been trying to get falin to read it to gauge her reaction for years but falin keeps falling asleep on page 10). so when she finds out chilaios are kind of sort of a thing her visceral disgust is overwhelmed by the fujo synapses in her brain that have long gone dormant all activating at once. shes like whoah theyre just like rosebush the elf prince and bellybutton the king of thieves….a forbidden tender love story. and she gets so emotional about it she needs to lie down. and then eventually she accidentally overhears them having sex and it sounds like two cats fighting so shes immediately and abruptly deeply disillusioned. and this is how himejoshi marcille rises from the ashes

[dunmeshistash]

Hello Cyan, love your blog! Do you have more info about The Daltian Clan? We know there are book source, live adaptation, nightmares(Shen) soap opera, and THAT succubus. Is there more?

Thank!

I think those are all? They also have a section on the adventurer's bible glossary if that counts.

[fumifooms]

Is there an archive for all of your analysis? I want to read them in order 🙇‍♀️

I was gonna say yes and link you to the in-built tumblr blog archive with my tag ‘analysis’ but then I remembered I tag inconsistently. Oops! So here is a huh, attempt. Chronological order is less important imo than topic but for what it’s worth these go from oldest on the left to newest on the right. Gonna pin this. This got too much for Tumblr to handle so unfortunately I have to split between reblogs.

This is all for Dunmeshi because I haven’t done nearly as many analyses for anything else. Divided by post type and topic but I do repeats when relevant. My older ones tend to be less polished so uh apologies for that, I’ll put my most important or favorite ones in bold. Looking back there are a lot of posts I’d like to either streamline or remake to be more complete... Many of this contain spoilers so for that be careful and refer to individual posts’ tags.

Masterposts: laimar crumbs (discontinued) - marchil crumbs - Chilchuck’s family - beastkin tattoos - Nakamoto household

Compilations: Marcille’s smile to Laios - Izu dad Chilchuck - Laios bragging faces - Teasing Marcille gone wrong - Chilchuck drunk/drinking - Chilchuck being crass - Chilchuck hugs (incomplete) - Kaka - Hien & Benichidori - Marcille & Chilchuck worsties (incomplete) - Chilchuck old man posture (incomplete) - Chilchuck's type 🤨 (incomplete) - Chilchuck wristwatch - Helki - Marcille and Chilchuck parenting Izutsumi

LAIOS: Succubus scene analysis - Laios-Shuro fight analysis - Izu-Laios relationship analysis - autism & the nonhuman - Laios' nightmare aka autistic existential horror - Laios and chimeras

MARCILLE: Mothers & mom friend Marcille - Chil & Marcille contrasts & parallels - love languages - Marcille and separation - Marcille's view of Chilchuck - Marcille and romance - Marcille and being a burden

CHILCHUCK: Chil’s sense of humor - Chil & Marcille contrasts & parallels - love languages - Chilchuck is underweight - Chilchuck’s family masterpost - Chil’s wife’s appearance - Chilchuck character analysis speedrun - Ask: Chil & wife and change - Ask: Chilchuck, good husband? - Chilchuck’s succubus - the importance of law - getting hired & job description - Chil's buckle shirt & wardrobe - Chilchuck, family & alcoholism - Chilchuck & guilt - Chilchuck and drinking: when and how

IZUTSUMI: Mothers & mom friend Marcille - Izu-Laios relationship analysis - Nakamoto household masterpost - Izu & alcohol

FALIN: fairy’s child parallels - short Falin analysis - Falin who cares too much and too little - Thistle & Falin - Trans Falin - more & shorter Thistle & Falin

THISTLE: clown costume & belonging (+ read tags) - Homegrown (web weaving) - Thistle & Delgal and death - Yaad & Thistle - Thistle & Falin - more & shorter Thistle & Falin

TOSHIRO: Nakamoto household masterpost - Toshiro likes bugs + Falin relevance - Toshiro’s succubus - Trans Toshiro (and Falin) - parallels to Kuro and Forva

Other characters: Lycion’s dysmorphia + follow-up on his past addiction - Kaka compilation - Chil’s daughters & party brotps - Nakamoto household masterpost (every related character including Toshiro's family members) - Hien’s younger sister - unnamed buzzcut gold-stripper - Dandan - a Hien reading - Yaad & Thistle - Chil's daughters and marriage - Helki - unnamed canary with eye tattoo) - Kuro parallels

Gen: Reactions to the dark magic resurrection

Marcille & Chilchuck: marchil crumbs - contrasts & parallels (not ship) - Taking care of each other sick - Marcille & Chil’s daughters - their love languages (ship but analytical focus) - pre-canon dynamic (not ship) - astrology (ship & short) - Chilchuck's type 🤨 - waxing poetic (good summary) - marchil from Marcille's end - Marcille and romance - marchil & stability - Marchil braids - Red dress crumb evaluation

[cuntstable]

do you people think that marcille got her lips frozen stuck to the falin popsicle like at least once. hi

[dungeon-meshi-tournament]

For favorite things: Kabru's flustered face from ch. 76 and The Daltian Clan :)

Sure, I'll add them to the list!

[sananaryon]

Sequel this, Canaries that, I only want one Dungeon Meshi spinoff

RYOKO KUI! GIVE ME THE DALTIAN CLAN LIGHT NOVELS AND MY LIFE IS YOURS

[loriache]

Butch up that Elf: my Marcille manifesto

TBQH, this came into being because the Falin "dragoness" fanart rewired my brain completely. It's sillytimes, but we're going to make a serious argument: trying out being a little butch would Fix Her.

1. Marcille Gender Discomfort

Now, Marcille LOVES feminity. She loves playing dressup, she loves elaborate gowns, she spends her free time going to the spa - the absolute last thing I want is to deny that. However, there's also a definite vibe that this isn't just a preference. Specifically, the way that she pushes Falin towards femininity suggests that she isn't comfortable with gender nonconformity in the people around her.

If this was something she was 100% confident about ("I'm doing this for myself and nobody else!") surely what other people do wouldn't be a big deal? Of course, you can read this as a little bit of solipsism; "what works for me must work for you too! I think this is so cute and would suit you - wouldn't you agree?"

But for the sake of this argument, all I'm trying to suggest is that gender nonconformity (and probably sexual nonconformity... well, frankly, any kind of sexuality at all) is unlikely to be something that's on Marcille's "radar". She hasn't tried out other ways of presenting and decided she doesn't like them. I do think she'd be a very flamboyant butch - "ouji lolita" vibes, you know? It's a whole new set of wardrobe options she could play dress-up in, even.

After the story ends, she starts dressing like her mother in all black, which makes sense - her mother was also a court magician, so she's probably emulating her in order to project confidence and authority. But I can't say I think she should stick with this. Break away and be your own person, Marcille! Try a fancy waistcoat and frilled jacket!

2. Haircut

This is another potential hard sell, I'm sure. The people she loves doing her hair is a cute symbol of their care for her, and her hair is key to her magic - so there's plenty of reason for her to keep it long. But like... think practically. Having someone do your hair every morning, for the whole of her long life, while it gets messier over the day (because she can't remember to keep it neat)... That's got to be such a pain. My hair gets messy when I put a hoodie on. And I have short hair.

It would require her to go through a change of mind, and probably a little more growth in how secure she feels in her relationships, but - the hairdo's a symbol. The more important thing is the relationships themselves. Eventually I think there might be something liberating about cutting it off, even if she might eventually decide to grow it out again.

The lion, her trauma, took something away from her which was really important to her. The people around her are able to make that easier, and make up for it, and soften that loss, but... Mithrun isn't the person he was before, you know? He's a new person. The relationship he has with his brother is new, and I don't know if it's one that the person he was before could have had. If Falin hadn't died, they wouldn't have gone on that wonderful adventure! They wouldn't have met Senshi or saved Izutsumi and Laios and Marcille wouldn't have gotten so close. So I think it's totally congruent with the themes of the story that the burning away of this part of Marcille's self might eventually create the potential for new growth in a new direction, not clinging onto the parts that are gone.

This also isn't totally out of the norm for elven mages - both Otta and Flamela have short hair. Otta is canonically butch, and potentially Flamela reads that way to elves too, but the point is it clearly is possible to be an accomplished mage without long hair.

3. Desiring (to be) a chivalrous prince

Marcille's succubus is clearly General Halleus from her favourite book series, the Daltian Clan. The fact that this is her ideal man.... it certainly plays into readings of her as Not Straight. But at least, this conveys the way her conception of sex and romance is strongly idealised, dissociated from the bodily and from physical desire.

There are many ways to interpret that, including thinking about what types of desire this fixation is obstructing because she is not comfortable with it, but I am going to focus here on what this desire does signify. She likes the trappings of courtly romance, and is clearly comfortable putting herself in the role of the princess, being taken away on a white horse by a noble (but tormented; eyepatch has "death" on it lmao) prince. (Though I think he's actually the token male lead who isn't royalty; he's a General. There's always one in Romfan, lmao. IYKYK)

A kiss on the hand - this is so chaste, I think it's clear it's more about desire to play a role in a dynamic than it is about desire in a physical sense. There is undoubtedly a big part of Marcille that wants to be a beloved and chased-after princess, but I think it isn't at all impossible that she'd also enjoy being the powerful, cool, and chivalrous "prince" to someone (a pretty girl, perhaps) who needs her protection.

This is a little silly, because it's clearly just aping the shoujo artstyle that articulates basically the same idea as her succubus, that Marcille is attached to highly abstracted and idealised romantic (and Romantic) tropes and ideas. But the imaginary "successful" Marcille from chapter 4 looks quite similar to her succubus. (Another thing I noticed is that in the fantasy she has sharp ears... like full elves have. Despite what she says, I think the cultural messaging that this trait is "attractive" and hers are inferior got to her at least a bit. 😥)

Also, the way that she treats Falin, scolding her indulgently, trying to look after her and wanting to be looked up to and respected by her... that aligns more with the "masculine" role in the trope that her succubus is referencing. "What are we going to do with you...?" I can imagine her saying this to Falin, word for word. Whereas, if anyone real started talking down to her, even affectionately, I don't think she'd like it, given the negative way she reacts when people don't respect her or her skills. Especially after canon, given the way the Winged Lion was treating her.

Her attitude to Falin is partially down to her reluctance to acknowledge Falin as an adult, who is independent and can grow beyond her and leave her behind. But I think even as they move on from that unhealthy dynamic, Marcille is still going to get pleasure from feeling capable, reliable, able to look after and protect Falin. She'd like to pull the chair out for her in a restaurant on a date, you know?

4. Conclusion

Even after the growth she goes through during the story, there are parts of Marcille's character that are very much obstructed. Romance, sexuality, and gender, feel like one of those to me. The way that her discomfort with the messy origins of food betrayed a deeper, more significant discomfort with the cycles of life and death.

Much in the same way, I'd argue that the simplified, idealistic, and safely fantastical way that she views romance, as well as her very "safe" gender presentation and tendency to push it onto others as well, suggest an underlying discomfort in her own gender and sexuality. The character growth she goes through leaves her in a place where it may be possible to safely re-evaluate her relationship with Falin, as well as her choice of clothing and hairstyle, both things that go through a change at the end of the manga. Neither, I think, reach a sustainable stopping point that we see - there will be a point when it's more servants doing her hair than friends, just out of practicality, because they're all going to be so, so busy. The black clothing to copy her mum is cute, but once she gets some more self-confidence in her own skills as a court magician, I think she'll move on from it. And... who knows what direction her relationship with Falin will develop, over the years? I'm rooting for them, anyway.

In all those cases, I think moving outside of the things she's done before, into something really different from the things that are "safe" and expected, will be the most rewarding path for her. Like in the dungeon, things that she would initially reject were actually able to sustain her and broaden her tastes. She loves dressing up, looking after people, and "princely romance". So I say: Butch Marcille! It'll be good for her!!

[yarrayora]

i know the popular interpretation is "marcille is horny for falin and doesn't know how to handle it" and "falin is oblivious marcille is horny about her" and you're right

but may i add "falin might be oblivious to marcille's feelings but she's not oblivious to sex so she initiates first because that's what lovers do, right???"

listen. hear me out. an island that attracts many type of people due to its lucrative dungeon business, a place that have a character straight up labeled "the island's shadow lord", definitely have a thriving red light districts

how else are those adventurers going to drown their sorrows over their incomes by spending more of said incomes on booze and prostitutes?

it wouldn't be weird for the touden siblings to be staying somewhere unscrupulous when they just started making their living off of the dungeon. i can see falin helping with their incomes by treating the workers at the red light district. she offers her services for cheap, at first because she didn't know the market price for healing, later because she empathizes with the workers struggling for money.

she's immensely popular with the sex workers there. both because her healing doesn't hurt, and because she lacks the usual condescending holier-than-thou sneer people have when they think they're above the red light district (not even frequent customers are exempt from this attitude)

they end up always alerting falin everytime laios about to get scammed or mugged again but most importantly they talk about their sex life with falin. "don't listen to that whole 'of course girls know how to please other girls better' bullshit. falin, if you ever end up having to eat a girl out here's what you gotta do--"

meanwhile marcille gets all of her sex knowledge from the daltian clan, in which the steamiest thing it has is a fade to black scene that leaves everything to the reader's imagination

first base is holding hand, second base is kissing, third base is falin bluntly asking marcille if she wants to get her pussy eaten