#i have a wonderful image in my head of elves based off of deer

[daily-smol-silm]

Day #69 - Radiant

Slightly cottagecore glorfy blep be upon thee!

[uozlulu]

Black Clover 238 reaction and spoilers

I saw some preview images a few days ago and so let’s all hop aboard the pain train together.

Current threat level: Slyph isn’t flirting, she’s giving tactical orders while taking a protective position in front of Yuno

It’s hard to discern if Vangeance is dead from being strung up or just incapacitated. However, I’m pretty sure Klaus and Letoile are going to die. The magic bones have pierced probably Letoile’s lungs and Klaus’ stomach and intestines while their squad’s healers are either absent or too injured/dying/dead to help. If reinforcements arrive and they don’t die, they’re likely to end up like All Might and have greatly reduced organ function, which I’m not sure this medieval themed world can handle well enough to give them full lives.

Zenon has what looks like horns from two different devils and one wing, which suggests that he’s possibly borrowed multiple devils’ powers, which makes me curious how the Spade mages obtained such power. Did they eat it? Was portions of a devil’s carcass placed into their bodies? It seems like a different kind of possession from Asta’s symbiotic relationship with his devil.

I’m really looking forward to listening to how Shimazaki acts this out in the anime while also not sure I’m looking forward to watching some of these plot points in motion when we get there.

I think it’s a bit weird that the person who comes to the Golden Dawn’s headquarters first is Ralph, but his reaction to the whole thing answers a few of the questions I have rolling around in my head here.

Some post- 238 thoughts:

The flow of events of the last few chapters raise a lot of suspicion, and it makes me curious how much the Dark Triad knows. It wouldn’t surprise me if Dante is Yuno’s uncle given that historically those creating these types of successful coups are adjacent to the throne. If this is true, it might also explain why Ralph has survived successfully for the last almost seventeen years since Ralph can lead the Dark Triad to the heir (Yuno) that could possibly undo all the power they’ve gained. It wouldn’t surprise me if Ralph was able to get to Clover Kingdom the same day the Spade mages attack the Golden Dawn so the Spade mages could either ferret out the prince indirectly. It seems like Zenon was unaware someone on Yuno’s level would be with the Golden Dawn as well, which makes me think while the Dark Triad might be aware that the prince was taken to Clover Kingdom, they don’t know he’s Yuno. I was also suspicious of Ralph’s intent given the timing of all of this, but I think Ralph is genuine given his reaction to arriving at the destroyed base. I just am having trouble believing that Ralph finally able to get to Yuno just before the raid is coincidental.

Another thing I’m curious about is how did the Spade mages get to the Golden Dawn base? Yuno seemed to instinctively sense something was off when he left Hage, so why haven’t other Magic Knights also sensed a problem? Although maybe being a four leaf allows Yuno heightened mana awareness or perhaps it was just logic driving him more than the ability to sense demonic mana. It’s also possible considering almost all of the Golden Dawn became possessed by elves and played key direct roles during the possession that the Clover Kingdom let this happen. Damnatio was willing to kill Asta as a gesture but was unable to do so, which to some might have made it look as though the devils’ influence was never properly dealt with. However, it does seem a bit extreme to allow an entire Magic Knight squad to be nearly wiped out, although it does ensure that something like the elf possession cannot happen again, which might be the real goal since Damnatio does have the kingdom’s best interests in mind. That said, if someone or more than one someone did kind of allow Spade to do this, did they know what Spade was after? Or do they not care and wanted to be able to have a more direct war with Spade rather than do what the Clover and Heart joint mission group is doing? I mean on one hand it seems stupid because they would need the Golden Dawn caliber of mages to go after Spade, but on the other hand I think we can’t really rule out that maybe this was allowed to happen.

Now, for the potential deaths. I feel dueling extremes over them. Like on one hand, no not my babies. I mean I love these characters. I have strong affinity towards them. Vangeance is relatable with his back story and poor choices, Yuno reminds me of my brother, Klaus is a gift, etc…etc…Also what about Langris? Where is he in all this? What if he wasn’t at the base and he’s going to get blamed for this? It’s a lot to take in. On another hand, if Vangeance, Kalus, Letoile, etc…etc.. die, then that’s something we don’t seem to see in shounen that often, and if Yuno dies, then that’s just a straight up game changer for Jump. We’ve not really seen a Jump series do that, just kill off the main rival/brother/etc…figure and then not bring them back from the dead. I know some people have been arguing that because it comes immediately with the prince reveal that to kill Yuno would be bad writing, but I’m not sure it technically would be. The prince reveal gets Yuno out of the headquarters as the raid begins, it shows that Spade has a hope but they don’t have a face for that hope, it also might hint at there being bigger problems in Clover Kingdom than just Spade invading one of their squad’s bases. It’d all come down to how Yuno’s death could serve the narrative and also serve Asta’s character journey. I know I’ve been wondering since part two started if part of where the story is heading is not necessarily giving up but learning to adjust and keep going. I mean Asta’s never give up crush is on a nun so we know logically he’s going to have to give up on that and change focus but still likely achieve a romance with another character. Maybe Yuno dying is going to cause Asta to readjust and refocus his goals. We know Asta is politically minded and is definitely focused on becoming Wizard King, but I think a lot of that goal was wrapped up in Yuno still being there, still experiencing it, and with Yuno gone, some of that dream will have to change. I think also an indication of this was when Asta said point blank that he rejected the judicial system during his trial. Maybe to gain power like a Wizard King, Asta will have to reject a lot of that dream and mold it into something new but similar.

Another factor here is that Black Clover has a tendency to set us up for tropes and then bend them. For example, Julius and Orsi both almost died but managed not to, though typically in these types of stories the mentor and the father die. We’ve also got Noelle the princess whose power is directly linked to her desire to protect rather than be protected. We’ve got Charmy the wolf in sheep’s clothing who just wants to eat, eat, eat rather than be some nefarious mustache twirling bad guy. So I definitely wouldn’t put it past Tabata to kill Yuno since it’s expected that Yuno would live because the rival almost always lives or comes back from the dead. Yet, we also can’t rule out that there’s also a tendency for a character to be completely physically defeated. Fuegoleón lost his arm and went into a coma, Finral was near death and went into a coma but came back, Julius died and came back, so we can’t rule out that Yuno might survive and grow from this experience. That said, I think if Yuno does survive then it’s unlikely that Vangeance, Klaus, and Letoile will. We’re going to lose some faves most likely and it’s going to hurt.

Another thing that I keep coming back to is Asta. Like whether Yuno dies or not, Asta and everyone working on the joint task force will likely have to stay put especially now that Spade attacked Clover directly. I want to see Asta have to deal with this in that way, all these people died and he’s got to stay put. He’s got to process it away from the funerals and so forth. He’s got to find a way to deal with it and move forward. Again, it’s a bit of a dual feeling because I love Asta so much so it’s the writer in me going “Yeah, give me the angst,” and the fan in me going “;o; poor Astaaaa and everybody.”

Also I’m curious what will happen with Mimosa? Her squad is decimated and their captain possible dead. Does she join an existing squad? Are there enough people left in the Golden Dawn that someone would just get appointed captain of it and change the name as per typical succession like how the Gray Deer became the Azure Deer? I also want to see how she’s going to process this too, because that’s a lot of loss especially if she was close to a lot of her squad and thought of them as a kind of family potentially.

And finally, the anthropologist side of me is really curious about Clover Kingdom funerals and I’m going to be a bit bummed if we don’t get to find out what those are like considering at least unnamed characters are indeed dead.

All that said, I’m not sure if I’d say I’m rooting for any one theory (or any of them for that matter) to be true or not, and whether we get into the heavy and horrible or not, I’ll keep reading because either way it’ll be interesting. Do I want these characters to die? No, but I’m not going to sneeze at the potential character development and plot points that could come from such things.