#im rly tired and dying from cat allergies but i wanted to answer

[queenofnohr]

Sometimes i think of the fact that ryoma technically comitted suicide and marx was technically killed fighting fighting kamui, even though marx's actions were far more suicidal than ryoma's. What do you make of that?

Well, I mean. Both essentially committed suicide

Idk how explicit it is in the english version because real talk I don’t fuck with that anymore

But in Chapter 26 of the Japanese, him ordering Lazaward and Pieri to stay behind is pretty clearly implying that his intention is to die. They even point out how the way he tells them to stay behind and praises them for their service seems like a goodbye/the end etc. (which you can read here) 

So even though Marx is “killed” he went into the fight pretty much intending to die, either literally or metaphorically (which I talk about a little bit at the end of this). I’ll cover the metaphorical death first because I feel like that’s what people don’t understand the most, but it’s important not to think of Marx as “getting killed” but committing, essentially, suicide by cop.

Basically, Marx duels you as a way to both your and his resolve, and to see if you have absolutely any hope of beating Garon, because Garon is real fucking strong and if you can’t beat Marx, there’s no way in hell you could possibly pull out a win against Garon.

The reason he’s testing his own resolve is because, on the entirety of the Hoshido route, the Nohr family fucking loses it. Elise is the only one who is able to “stay herself�� and even then she escapes underground and pretends not to be herself - away from her duties, away from the royal family, away from “Elise, littlest princess of Nohr”. And that’s....... kind of a big deal. Because all of the other sibling, because of their seniority, because of their violent and even abusive pasts, fling themselves 100% into their roles as princes/princesses and protectors of Nohr. This is the cause for Camilla’s downright mania in Chapter 13, where she fools herself long enough into the fantasy of being able to bring Kamui back and live a happy life with them together again without consequence to be able to be earnest - but that’s immediately broken by both the Hoshido siblings getting defensive against her and also because of Ganz’s arrival. It’s the reason Leon goes on his shpeil on how he’s always hated you, how he wants to kill you - only to break down crying at the end of the chapter, because he can’t. Because he loves you. Because you’re still family. Even if there was sibling resentment/jealousy - that’s all it was. Not outright hatred or malice, but he tells himself as much, he beats it into his own head, all so he can become Leon, Second Prince of Nohr, cold-blooded gravity master who will murder you in cold blood.

Marx is the same way. The only difference in him and Camilla + Leon is that his sense of duty is stronger and, as Crown Prince, the line ends with him - he is heir to the throne, he was raised with the throne in mind all his life, and so the luxury of not being able to go through with killing you is not something he has. So this duel is as much a test of resolve for him as it is for Kamui - perhaps even more-so.

No matter how the duel ends, Marx wins. Either he is able to kill off Marx, the eldest brother of the Nohrian siblings, and live cold and hard as the unforgiving Crown Prince of Nohr, or he legitimately dies and Kamui is able to go on to fight Garon and hopefully win (but either way he’s finally free of his hellish life)

As for legitimately committing suicide by Kamui - it’s pretty clear in JPN that after he accidentally struck down Elise that he wanted nothing more than to die. Being “Crown Prince” didn’t matter to him anymore. He went into the duel leaving the outcome in the hands of fate, perfectly fine with dying even though he might have had the soldiers to steamroll your party, so long as it was earned. But when faced with legitimately killing one of his younger siblings - he just...... can’t live with himself anymore (it’s unclear on whether or not he would’ve been able to live with himself through the actuality of killing Kamui but I digress). It’s alluded to in the text that he didn’t use his full strength after Elise died -  from that point it can be assumed that it wasn’t a duel he was mentally prepared to go either way - this was 100%, no doubt about it, a suicide.

Ryouma, however....... His death is indeed a suicide, but I don’t think he was suicidal at all. Rather, his death was a kind of shield - as though he was taking a bullet for Kamui. Why?

Because Kamui spares Ryouma and Ryouma is able to be convinced that Hinoka and Sakura are still alive. Because Garon and Macbeth know Ryouma isn’t truly dead, Kamui is then subject to be killed by them as a traitor. To Ryouma, as an elder brother, it’s simple - to protect Kamui, he forfeits his own life instead. It isn’t a matter of whether he wants to die or not, it’s a matter of whether he will allow Kamui to die or not. So, to protect them, he makes a show of killing himself, proclaiming himself a samurai who will not die by his enemy’s hands.

Which, knowing what seppuku is, is a reasonable course of action for him to take in Garon and Macbeth’s eyes. His last actions weren’t those of despair or even necessarily defiance - they were the actions of someone with hope in Kamui (and the future), and committing seppuku was simply the only way to protect them.

tl;dr - Marx is absolutely suicidal and even if he wasn’t killed by his own hands, he went into that final battle with every intention of dying. Ryouma isn’t at all suicidal, but committing seppuku to protect both his younger sibling and thus the future of Hoshido is something he resolved himself to do.