#in my defense tho someone I loved deeply tried to murder me several times SO I think it's pretty damn understandable to feel this way

[baldurs-gate-official]

All that trauma and bullshit and he still has the capacity to trust and have a healing journey?? To love? I think a lot of people don't fully grasp just how difficult that is

[lightshielded]

spoilers and very VERY long, so below cut. 

tl;dr - jarv is a character going through a lot of emotional turmoil caused by the lose of trust in close friends, lose of his family to the very magic they were working to promote ( suggesting to him it was the wrong idea to promote it ), having little healthy support network, and around him is a game of politics where those older and more experienced on the council are influencing him heavily in his altered state of mind. however, he is still a character who cares for his people, wanting to protect his people from future catastrophes cause by magic but also knowing they aren’t all bad so is also shown tentatively reaching out to foreign advisers of allied nations which have advised his father in the past on the subject of magic and is trying to do his best despite being king far younger than anyone should and thrown into the position in a truly horrific way.

important - all is subject to change as we are provided more info, this is just a pouring out of my first impressions and my attempt to understand and rationalise everything under the current state and info provided. also important to note, this includes mentions of suicidal tendencies, depression, ptsd and other like matters. please read with caution.

so as you may know ( or don’t and do not care about spoilers ) our dear prince, or rather king now, has had a very bad day. like he was almost made to eat a rat, and marvel didn’t want to draw him in his actual armour and did in the ceremonial / ig armour instead so i got big cucked out of my hopes and dreams, he got hit with a morg ult when trying to gank mid lane . . . oh and the mid laner killed his dad. what a wonderful day for our dear prince, i mean king.

so a couple things that are unrelated to what i am about to talk about but things that are true in my mind. riot removed jarv’s capture and torture by noxus just so they could have sy/las say he has no idea what he has experienced. just saying. 8 years of basically the exact same lore only to have one of his key points removed at the addition of the character? who then mocks him for it? just saying it’s true. tho i personally still go by that he was capture on my own blog and all, but i have cracked riot’s code.

also like where was shy? i think jarv kinda mentions her but like she is his bodyguard. that’s her whole thing. where is she? i get she tries to lay low but she is meant to be on jarv’s personal guard, but she wasn’t there. now i have a short theory on this. for those who don’t know, shyv is genetically a dragon, her real magic is the fire rune inside her. but otherwise she is a dragon that some how fucked up and became a human ( prior to sy/las it was caused by magic so the magic is technically making her human not a human becoming a dragon and after sy/las the shitty lore we don’t like is that it is the weather ). 

so my theory is, since her dragon - ness isn’t magic but is like genetics, she would just eat him and he actually can’t use it against her so they had to remove her. some how. cause plot. and jarv is mopey that she isn’t around, for a reason they wont say :///// that or riot doesn’t care about her or forgot she existed :)))))))

so the actual things i wanted to talk about, jarv’s very harsh language and actions in the comic and short story. they seem so violent from what we know of the prince of the past. and while that might be true i would like to point out a couple things about jarv as a whole before we begin:

jarv was never brought up to fear or dislike mages - ( though would have heard stories i imagine ) which is evident in his father’s own opinions and his lore. this makes his point of view here seem obscure, he seems to hate very strongly despite not doing so before. this is true, but i believe i can provide some enlightenment on this. something similar to this has happened in his lore before. his first conflict with noxus he was introduced the harshest realities of war, it is the innocents that die first. in both new canon lores ( prior and post syl/as changes ) it is stated there were only a handful of survivors out of dozens of towns. it is said what he saw deeply affected him. the carnage there so deeply troubled him and he could not forget the faces of the dead. the atrocities he witnessed were far greater than he had anticipated and it left him very shaken and unable to correctly reason. this caused him to ignore all rational plotting and sense, pushing away all his advisers’ ideas, wanting nothing more the avenge those who died. and this ends badly for him. like jarv really, really loves his people and would do anything to keep them safe. in fact, it is known from other stories jarv doesn’t ask of his soldiers to do anything dangerous he himself isn’t doing. if they must face the risk of death he will do so too. and he has earned himself a lot of respect for that. so we know, jarv is deeply affected by his people’s deaths and is not unknown to react mindlessly out of rage when they are hurt, and thinking the ‘villain’ need to be punished.

our now king is younger than you all probably think - if you take demacia’s lore and the dates / ages we are given, he is quite young. low 20s with a max of about 25 but even that is generous. it is noted he doesn’t know what to do, his mood fluctuating like rising and falling flames, his lore says he needs to be ready but not that he is. this is not to say he is incompetent or emotional because of he age, but with age comes experience that he has not had the chance to garner yet. he is not ready yet in his own opinion and i would agree as well.

jarv loves his family, a lot - and his only family was his father and xin. i think it is important to note, jarv has a lot of love for his family for they are the only people that really see him as a person. his closest friend even had to be reminded to call him by name. so to lose the closest people to you hurts man. his dad just died. okay.

jarv’s part in turmoil - there is actually a story which occurs after the time frame of the lu/x comic ( unless they are going to say the events of the last volume cover a full month? ) which has some interesting links and i’ll summarise all that with my conclusions at the end.

so. onto the main part. why has our fair king turned from someone who sees ‘ the true strength of the Demacian people—standing together as one in defense of their homeland, no matter their differences or misgivings. ’ to ‘ Mages? . . . We should have executed them all. ’ it is shocking. even xin is shocked by how much he has seemingly flipped noting, ‘ Indeed, he knew the prince had always been troubled by Demacia’s treatment of its mages. But that was before. ’ note, xin is saying he was troubled once and these anti - magic outbursts are new. though, i will like to point out, i don’t think the outbursts in the short story or the comic are particularly anti - magic as they are anti - syl/as and anti - murderous rebellion. so from now on, i am going to work through the sections of the comic and then the short story and kind of evaluate jarv’s thoughts and feelings and what i think is happening with him. wow, i hope you like your posts long. ( oh, and i recommend turning the pages along with me since i will not be posting pictures unless it is very important to save on length )

so to begin, we first see jarv at a meeting with a mage - seeker, some council members and his father, reacting to what happened several hours ago. honestly here he is as normal, he is thinking first and foremost for the people and with a very strategical focus to his thoughts. he is trying to both reassure his own father while working to capture the murderers. truly nothing remarkable other than him being a little taken aback by his father chiding him. i can talk a long time how jarv was brought up with very zealot ideas despite the king’s best intentions but that is not for now.

next page is mostly focused on the riots outside but does show jarv’s priorities. protect my father, fight for my people. heck this is even brought up in his ( now very outdated ) voice lines ‘ for my father, the king. ’ ‘ protect the faithful. ’ also cue me getting excited they would show jarv’s actual combat armour since they have the guards all in that good shit but nah they didn’t and i am big sad. i get they set all the demacian champs to their in game stuff ( and for jarv that’s the for show / ceremonial armour ) rather than their lore stuff for accessibility but still i am sad.

and now we get to the fun stuff. wow look at jarv straight beating the shit out of people. legit knocking several people down, making someone into a kebab. the come at me stance. that face he makes when sy/las calls him princeling. so many people call him that in lore. is it even a unique insult at this point? get new material you chain gremlin you.

in the next page we do see him angry tho, at first he is controlled and stoic with his speak, not too many emotions showing on his face. but it is when he puts a threat on his father do we see his brows furrow and leave him quite angry in the last panel of this page. tho, while obvious mad at the threat on the king he is actually keeping his cool. rational thought based on what he knows of the magic syl/as has. but he is a bit ticked off. ( OH ALSO THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART DON’T @ ME BUT JARV IS TALLER THAN SY/LAS WHILE BENDING DOWN AND IN A FIGHTING STANCE AND SY/LAS IS UPRIGHT BY LIKE AN INCH. HE IS PROBABLY SEVERAL INCHES TALLER UPRIGHT. I STAN THIS TALL MAN. )

so the next page is very interesting, we see syl/as talk of ancient and powerful struggles then conjure fire from the pillars. so as far as i am aware this is meant to be a reference to our favourite angels but i am trying to work out when this would have been. i thought they fought in a small town which was all but destroyed and not in the capital city. it is possible that the petricite keystones were at the town and those keystones moved to where the capital would be considering their reverence of kay/le and stuff but idk. super cool tho! it might be explained in the future, or not but i think what i have there is the most rational ( or maybe they mean like various conflicts involving them but not them against each other ??). anyway, we also see jarv getting madder obvious from the last page and then the language he uses, gone from the neutral ‘ mage ‘ to negative terms such as ‘ thugs ’. so the fire heavily wounds or kills the guards and jarv jumps head long into the flames.

the next page continues with their fight which is frankly brutal but they really skimped on detail here. it is shown that jarv cut syl/as in the chest and stuff but 1) no blood and 2) it is no where to be seen later in the comic which is unfortunate. would have been cool. other things which is cool, jarv pinwheeling kay/le’s fire away. i love the dumb ways jarv is shown to use his lance in various media, just spectacular. but yeah, syl/as going for blows in calling him ignorant about the heritage he loves. cause we know how much our man loves demacia. but i think he is trying to goad him. like i said before, jarv wears his heart on his sleeve a lot. he is an emotional man, but emotions can make you sloppy.

so on the next page, we see morg’s magic and again i love this touch but who really knows how it is there. so jarv is taken down by that which is interesting because it affected him a lot more than kay/le’s? i have theories about the magics and how they affect people based on their judgements but again that’s for discussion for another post. so with the guards taken down and then their prince, syl/as finds himself victorious.

so skipping through gar/en’s bit, we next see jarv tied up and being walked ahead of some of the mages. notably he isn’t wearing his crown helm. but also, he is very calm. jarv doesn’t really fear his own death much, he has faced dying before and to him it is simply a risk a soldier faces. so he is rather calm on the walk while syl/as threatens him. though, likely also subdued by the magic from before. but he is also talking a lot of sense, this does end badly, really sy/las doesn’t get what he wants out of this venture, not really. sylas however thinks this funny and mocks him about eating rats ( which honestly i question what he actually ate because 1) idk about you but i didn’t see rats in these panels of his cell and 2) he looks very fit and healthy for a man who eats rats. personally i think they feed the prisoners but since their magic is being sapped constantly by the petricite that they likely get hungrier faster, like they are constantly exercising, and so he ate rats. but also again, lets be real, they removed jarv being tortured so he couldn’t reply ‘ well no, but i survived being tortured by noxus. i have eaten much worse. ’ ( also syl/as uses incorrect style of address here which is either an accident or an interesting hint to the next page - majesty is for kings, highness for princes ) anyway, he drags the prone jarv to the door and...

surprise. the king is already dead by the time they get there. now jarv is obviously shocked and horrified and sy/las is too but i think that is because someone is stealing his thunder and hello his plans aren’t going to plan. this is when things start going down hill for jarv’s mental state. before he was mad but controlled, jarv’s expression on this page are wild eyed. and very much lacking of any confidence he had prior. for once, the prince looks as young as he actually is, rather than acting a stoic faced prince.

now the next page is actually the one i think the artists drew the best for jarv. i really love his eyes in the first panel. jarv’s hunched posture, the looking over his shoulder and upwards, got to say i love the composition. also i didn’t mention it yet but jarv and syl/as’hair almost look the same and idk if that is intentional but i like the idea that it might have been cause it makes our fair prince look very rugged and references his position as a prisoner. anyway. but just jarv’s silence in the last panel, before he was confident and speaking and now his words are trailing off and he has nothing to say. he lost his family and the idea of mages being monsters comes to his mind here. ( also note, while i have cut this out of the image, when syl/as is asking about who killed the king the mages say it wasn’t them but possibly another mage that came with them. this is probably true since it is anarchy at the moment but also there is no blood so unlikely to have been caused by a weapon and poison doesn’t make sense since the guards were dead too. )

but that isn’t the end of it, that is for sure. syl/as lost the king to his own anarchy so he needs a new star of his show. and so jarv continues to have a bad time. he is dragged from his grieving and through the citadel ( and past some really fucked up and burnt bodies wow trying to give jarv flash backs are you? ) and here jarv is starting to have doubts about his father and his own views. ‘ my father was wrong about your kind. he thought he could make peace with you. and you murdered him. ’ jarv puts the barrier between his people and mages at this point, condemning any thought which would have allowed this as wrong. now syl/as then insists that the king could have changed this at any time but we also know the council of demacia is quite powerful itself and the king leaves it to a more democratic style of coming to decisions together and actually regrets letting them have so much power. and jarv is marched outside to be made an example of and executed.

passing over ‘lu/x being a bad ass part one’, we return to jarv being cuffed to this really fancy chair. i like it, but also how extra can you be sy/las. anyway, as this page goes on we can really see the prince’s loss of confidence and despairing states. he starts strong when syl/as claims he has been complacent on things ( finally confirmation that he hasn’t cause riot wont tell me anything !!!! ) and he denies that neither he or his father have, and syl/as knows nothing about either of them. but his words trail off, he is stuttering through his words, head bowed, skin clammy. 

what he is talking about is 1) his backstory where he fought noxian invaders of demacia’s outer borders and allied lands, 2) meeting with exiles and we know in demacia their exiles tend to be mages as magic use is given imprisonment or exile - this quite happily aligns with my own head canons that he meets with them to help provide safe passage and resources similar to j3 to the noxians in his and xin’s story - 3) now we can assume he is talking about the same person from before in the earlier comic but he is really dodging around a name. i’m inclined to think shyv right now based on the ‘not so different’ so implying similar but not mage but magical creature. but really we don’t know. though that’s cute. but syl/as simply laughs this off, deeming any effort they have made and mocking his relationship. anyway, jarv just looks really sad and upset man.

and so the next page goes on and sy/las is calling for the crowds opinion on if he should be executed. some ( likely the rebels ) say yes and some ( likely town folk ) say no and beg for someone to save him. syl/as of course listens to his own people only and takes execute as the option, and starts firing up the mages on that. some call for him to be bled ( oh i see this is where they wanted to put the noxian blood letting torture. they got rid of it to be put here i see. ) and another to behead him. and up until the end, jarv simply seems like he is simply given in, accepted his death. eyes closed and almost willing it over. he has already had to deal with one drawn out (near) death before, he doesn’t particularly want another. he only seems perturbed when syl/as tries to force him to eat a rat before he dies. again he is wide eyed, and very disgusted by the prospect. 

he is already in a state where his father has been murdered, he has been pulled away from him and forced to march past the magic warped remains of his people both soldiers, councillors and innocents, his death is being made into a sceptical and now he is also being humiliated. also important to note is that he is alone in all of this, his uncle is nowhere to be found, his father is dead, when forced into an arranged marriage with someone he considered a trusted friend he was given no answer but abandonment, and his two friends are no where to be seen. that mixed with the people he loves so dearly gathered to watch him die and some even calling for his death. he is hurting really badly, and if he didn’t want to be sick at the sight of burnt bodies he now wants to be sick at the thought of eating a live rat. 

and now we have ‘lu/x being bad ass part two’ and ga/ren rushes in to save them both. the comic doesn’t say and what exactly happens next is likely a flash back at the start of the next comic as i believe the next comic occurs after the short story, as it was released now and not then. but i imagine two things occur in jarv’s mind during this event of him being saved ( which he know he is ). 1) gar/en is right. he can always trust ga/ren. we know his friend is vocal in his dislike of magic and belief in the laws in place, so jarv after these events probably takes to leaning on this view point as it comes from on of the only people he has left and feels safe with him after all he has gone through. 

2) can lu/x really be trusted? jarv isn’t blind nor deaf. he heard syl/as and lux talk about them used to being friends, and that he used her to kill people. he doesn’t know about her magic i don’t think, but could clue it out from that maybe, and it is unsure if he knows her involvement with syl/as but he now knows she wouldn’t even deny the proposed arranged marriage to his face and she was apparently friends at one point with the one who lead to his father’s death. this cuts him a bit. ( also i see again, the trying to insert jarv lore into here? with gar/en saving him? interesting but not nearly as emotion jerking as gar/en finding his armour blood soaked and empty next to an executioners post with the pin signifying them as the closest shit in each other’s lives in the bloody mud c’: )

now, we do not know much until the events of the aftermath short story. this story, told through xin’s point of view, is honestly very depressing and provides a lot more focus on jarv’s collapsing mental state. while in the comic he is hurt and distressed, struggling with the idea of his own views on the matter and then the significant pain cause to him by magic and the possible danger it could cause his people, aftermath shows us a prince who has been stewing on it for the night. occurring the day after, it is told to us he does not look like he has slept and his emotions are raw at the surface. i suggest reading the full story but i will only be talking about jarv’s mentions in this.

so our encounter with jarv in this short story occurs with xin finding him at the training fields. he is described as already breathing with exertion and drenched with sweat, a suggestion that he has been doing this for some time now, and his emotions wild and clear. he is also attacking wildly at the dummy, very much venting but also showing us he isn’t poised or in control of himself. yet when he speaks, calling xin uncle, it seems uncertain. i surely read it with a tired and tentative voice in mind. yet, after a pause, his emotions re-flare and he becomes angry again (something which happens several times over the course of the short story). he speaks coldly, harsh, trying to find someone to take the blame for the events, shifting rapidly from seeing xin as family to seeing him as a simple bodyguard ( something from the previous flash backs show the later of being untrue, and that xin is extremely close to jarv ). i also see this as him struggling with his own thoughts and passions, a war of heart and mind - xin being family vs xin being his father’s bodyguard, in extension we have seen mages murdered my father vs not all mages are guilty, i hate them vs i hate them all.

the prince then decides the best way to interrogate xin is by also trying to vent his frustrations with sparing. in jarv’s short story ‘ ebony, ivory, jasper ‘ we see him as a very level headed tactician which is controlled and ultimately able to see the right plays and choices in things where others can not. this is not that jarv. he is literally striking first, thoughts and questions later. xin mentions he is also not taking his strikes lightly, that he is swinging hard enough to break bone, something one wouldn’t do unarmoured or with someone you care about. he is pacing like a stressed animal, gripping his weapon like it is only lifeline, and forcing xin to fight him like it is his only reprise. another point made which shows jarv’s very altered state of mind is how xin also notes his form is sloppy, jarv is a good fighter, one of the kingdoms best, yet he observes there to be ‘ little finesse to the strikes ’ and that ‘ at any other time he would have berated the prince for his poor form—he was thinking only of attack, and leaving himself open for ripostes and counter-strikes ’. now since we know xin trained him and considers this poor form for him, it is likely jarv is definitely not of these traits normally, something further confirmed when he notes these are something he wouldn’t do now or take advantage because he sees them as caused by his justified anger.

skipping past the first flash back, jarv continues to press xin and eventually just tosses his weapon away when he doesn’t get an answer he wants. the frustration and anger is palpable. the prince isn’t the kind of person to discard something so carelessly, to be so disrespectful as to throw something of his to the ground. jarv has been raised to have the ideas of honour and respect and personal value and virtue as being very important, and the disrespect of tossing one of his weapons, staring at it while someone else picks it up, isn’t something jarv in his stable mind would do. yet he does such and grabs his lance - a sharp and deadly weapon in comparison to his blunted sword - and xin protests using them because jarv is unarmoured. now i have not heard anyone cover this exact fact but i want to talk about it for a bit, xin is armoured but jarv is not. jarv is attacking and not caring about his defence. and now he is making xin fight him with their actual sharpened weapons while only xin is armoured. either of these weapons could kill him, even his own by his own hand if he isn’t careful as noted by xin. and just, he doesn’t care if he gets hurt.

i think this exemplifies one fact about jarv, the first fact i mentioned above. he experiences a great amounts of survivor guilt in the time he failed his troops as a youth and now he sees himself as failing his people and his father by not saving them. he couldn’t even beat syl/as. and now he has to live with that fact, and very alone with it now. he is both trying to find someone else to blame to share in his own self torment or at least have someone either take him out of his misery or give him a punishment that jarv thinks is fitting for his failure. and i think perhaps, while not explicitly noted, xin acknowledges it ‘ “You are not armored,” . . .   “I don’t care,” . . . Reluctantly, his heart heavy, he retrieved his spear and moved back out into the open area in the center of the hall. ’ after all, it was xin in jarv’s earliest lore which remarked on the prince’s altered mental state as one of the people that knew him best, i would say that perhaps this is our new lore equivalent. and perhaps bring another down with him. ( jarv has always had a slight discard for his own life - see his quotes and his colour story - but this is quite excessive. the others can be seen as brave, this is different )

one more flash back later, they are fighting and we know jarv is not holding back. none of the fighting right now is casual, he is serious and very angry. this is contrasted with memories of xin with jarv and how jarv once idolised heros and here he is wielding the weapon in a very non-hero-like way. and yet drakebane itself moves in conjunction with his own actions like a perfect extension of his body. we are told that drakebane ( as obvious by its name ) was forged by the great weapon smith orlon, the same who made pop/py’s hammer, in order to combat a powerful frostdrake named maelstrom and her brood. perhaps digging into it too much, but i do see in essence that while the sword was not working for him yet his lance remains faithful is by his conviction in its original purpose. this lance was created to slay great beings of magic, to kill dragons, for the great kings of demacia to wield against the mages of the runewars. and this fits the mindset this king currently has.

another flashback passed we come back to a xin who is facing a new set of concerns, before he was worried about fighting the prince with dangerous weapons while jarv are unarmoured and now he is concerned that maybe the prince getting horribly wounded is not the only issue. here we see another drastic flip in jarv, he would never hurt someone he cared about, he is especially known to put himself in harms way before anyone else. and yet. he cut xin and xin is reasonably concerned but also unafraid. while it is only explicitly stated that xin thinks there is balance in dying here but it surely seems jarv also has this opinion. they both seem to think death is what they deserve. yet ( as angry as jarv is ) he doesn’t to want kill xin as much as xin wishes not to harm him. he stops as the blade ghosts xin’s skin, begging xin for answers but upon receiving it ( if not by xin’s confession but by his own reasoning ) he just deflates. he works out xin was sent away and so he is left as the only one at fault for ‘failing’. xin was fulfilling his duty, while he failed in his.

instead, jarv is just remains tired, tired and grieving and alone. through the next two flashbacks and jarv’s reaction to them we learn the late king was a stubborn man about what he believed in and that he often put his work ahead of himself and his family despite his love for his son. and just as quickly did jarv sober did his temper re-flare, upon hearing about the rebellion again he declares that they should have killed all the mage prisoners instead of imprisoning them. xin is shocked by this for he remarks that once jarv used to be concerned with the treatment of mages in demacia like his father but acknowledges that this was before what they did to him and that his anger in the moment is justified. but he still reminds him that his father wouldn’t agree with that, as he wouldn’t have once agreed with that. here it is key to see one of the great hurts in him right now is he feels both a failure and he feels betrayed, he snaps back ‘ and they killed him. ’ the lightshields had been working towards making things better for mages and in jarv’s angry thoughts and he feels betrayed by the ones they were working to help, he feels as if his good nature was taken advantage of and hurt by those he cared about. ( also note, canonically, execution is a murderer’s punishment. killing another is punishable by death and this is shown in some stories. )

just as quickly as this outburst begins does it end however, his fire dies and he sheds any mask of princely facade and anger, revealing he is simply lost, scared, sad and confused again. he grips feebly to support, and weeps. likely not the first time given his earlier description, but likely the first true time where he might realise the full emotion and weight of the situation. and he tries to hold strongly to it, he doesn’t have confidence or stability so he is all but begging xin to be it for him. when he is told that xin sees his life as forfeit, jarv grips at strings to keep xin with him. while desperate it is still very controlled though, controlled and thought out. begging wouldn’t work, but xin’s sense of duty would. and once xin starts to relent, he asks formally, appealing to the formal requirements. and once that digs at him, he appeals to the side that is his uncle, for he needs him as much as his kingdom. strategic in all things but it also shows his reliance on xin emotionally in this point. i strongly believe, if xin denied him he would crumple and things would be a lot worse. even if xin thinks he looks more composed after his breakdown.

and the short story ends with xin accompanying jarv to a council meeting. xin remarks at how controlled jarv is compared to his outburst, likely due to two things: 1) he had his outburst and is now not bottling up his emotions as much and is able to control himself better, and 2) jarv is required to look regal. xin notes that demacia needs a strong leader right now and jarv likely knows that just as well ( which will play a part in his next actions ) and so is portraying himself in such a way regardless of how his emotions might still be. i think this is shown well when he asks to see the note xin was to deliver, the contents of which anger him. it is a reminder of his older self, of his old ambitions and everything that he lost. and so he wrings its neck like he has to his old self and what he wishes to do to those that caused this. this shocks and disturbs xin and he is concerned. it is also important to note that the mageseekers are trained to combat magic so keeping them with greater powers, he increases arrests while the note wished to limit them, is advantageous to his wants.

after this point lu/x 5 will fill but we don’t know much of it so we shall skip over it for now. lastly, we have turmoil, a short story i really suggest reading which takes place one month after these events. as not much is relevant other than a few details and the laws of stone i will summarise. in turmoil, it follows a group of demacian soldiers as they are sent to escort a foreign dignitary to the capital, a mage from arbormark called arjen. the soldiers are uneasy with this and some wish that they could be out hunting the rebellions in the woods instead. two mageseekers accompany them as is now required by the laws. as they escort the mage they run into trouble. fearing the villages of the town wish to hurt the mage they are escorting, the soldiers form a tight perimeter and try to escape through a passage and a building. however, it is revealed the mob is not mad about the mage but one of the mageseekers with them. this mageseeker, under the new laws of stone was made to remove a young girl who he had been working with prior, he laments he didn’t want to remove her for she was innocent and he wouldn’t have required to prior but the laws have changed to become stricter and so all mages are considered guilty. the mother of the young mage tries to kill him but she is talked down but the crossbow still fires in a shot which would have killed one of the more vocal mage hating soldiers but arjen carefully uses his magic to deflect the bullet with only that soldier and the main character noticing. the mage hating soldier is conflicted and says nothing, implied to be having a turn of heart. the mother tells the mob to disperse and the envoy continues to the capital.

now from this we learn a couple things: 1) is is now illegal to BE a mage. prior to sy/las it was only illegal to USE magic and so benign mages were actually educated on how to control themselves at times and we treated more of a sickness at other. but now you’re life is a crime. 2) some of the mageseekers themselves are uncomfortable with this. while mageseekers have often been portrayed as horrific people, it is shown in this story as being more a magic focused police service which holds some corruption in higher ranks but also employs people who simply want demacia kept safe and don’t agree that magic is bad but rather bad mages are bad people. 3) that demacia has a lot of allies due to their defence of realms beyond their boarders and also that they understand demacia’s place and don’t condemn them for it. they understand the position of demacia based on its history. 4) these allies are sending who they think will help advise the new king of demacia best including mages and jarv is NOT denying them entry, which shows a willingness to listen which is a step beyond his much more aggressive stance one month earlier. 5) the punishment for being a mage is exile or imprisonment. currently the prisons in demacia are overloaded and there are prison camps in the outskirts. also exile is seen as one of the worst punishments in demacia. and 6) the rebellion is being hunted by the demacian army.

so, after all this, what can be conclude? it is obvious jarv is GREATLY affected by the barrage of death around him. his pre-existing survivor’s guilt is further exasperated by the failure to protect his father and those he swore to and he feels greatly betrayed by many people in his life ( lu/x for claiming to be a friend of the one who killed all these people, the mages he was trying to help striking when he is most vulnerable ). he is greatly alone with losing many friends and family and others being seemingly absent from the events, giving him only those with views which would increase his own anti-mage sentiment if he listens to them. he is lost in his grief and his depression and his anger, his empathetic nature stretched to its breaking point and he has no respite. in the end, jarv is doing what he thinks will protect his people, note he likely does not think mages among his people anymore, and will do anything for their safety. but he is also trying to be reasonable by reaching out to his allied nations as a new king and accepting the advise of mages on these topics. he isn’t murderous, but he is hurt and alone and his actions in his hurt are making him more alone. it’s a vicious cycle demacia has always been in, and now our dear newly crowned king has fallen into it.

a little extra: i do think there is a bit of jarv’s lore MISSING given the situation with shyv. i hope this will shed light on what he was doing and how that also affected him before this happened. i also hope they eventually show us jarv being redeemed for this is FAR from the jarv that the bio shows us on his page and i think that is his true self. just, if i can recall, someone i know once said at your lowest you become your opposite and i think this is true here.

[lotusdiscussthis]

@yunevii 

I read your tags and I was afraid to respond to it considering you didn’t show it on the reblog. By putting your comments on the tags, I could’ve easily overlooked it, so I didn’t know if you really wanted to talk about it or not. In the end, I’ve decided to link you to give you my reply anyway. I hope you don’t mind.

I don’t blame you for not agreeing. After all, my perception of Saihara can be hard to believe when I haven’t given enough explanations as to what made me look at Saihara in such a negative way. It’s mainly due to having to reanalyze the story in a different perspective after discovering things that paints the supposedly innocent detective in a different light. But I’ll try to explain my thoughts the best that I can...

“kokichi often makes conversations go in frustrating circles because of his lies...

True, talking to Ouma also gave me headaches when I first played. Though sometimes the best way to determine someone’s nature is to not always rely on their words, but through their actions. It’s easy to say things like “I’m really evil” and act like the bad guy, but if your actions contradict with that behavior, that would naturally raise questions.

Let’s take Ouma’s evil speech after Gonta died. He said he enjoys their suffering, yet in the previous chapter, he urged Himiko to express her grief properly. How is it that he would go that far for someone he barely even knows, only to suddenly make a big show about he loves their suffering later on? Or when Ouma looked like he faked being injured only for Saihara to notice him wobbling as he walked and failed to notice how he was blanking out while talking to him? Or how about when Ouma was screaming “WE want to live, so don’t get in our way!” mid-trial while arguing with Kaito? We’ve just forgotten that part when Ouma later explains, “Oh yeah, me and Gonta were totally planning on getting you all killed so you wouldn’t have to face the horrible despair of the outside world!” None of this makes any sense. 

How is it that Saihara would overlook these major redflags that would contradict the fact that Ouma was a heartless person? If I can notice this myself, how is it that the protagonist, the Ultimate Detective, can’t??? (Also, reading between the lines is kinda what detectives do, so this is no excuse)

“i think more than anything saihara wanted to feel like kokichi was on his side-...” 

I will be frank, you shouldn’t expect people to do anything for you so simply. That was pretty much what I was trying convey in my original post. To think that somebody on the opposing side as you is automatically suspicious, not good, or wrong is just incredibly flawed reasoning. Especially since the reason why Ouma wasn’t on Saihara’s side in the first place was because he was mostly siding with Kaito the whole time. And Kaito, a man of instinct/belief/blind optimism, mostly showed hostility towards almost everything Ouma says and does. Ouma clearly knew the gravity of the situation and yet, he gets treated like the pariah because almost nobody wants to listen to what he has to say.

Ouma tried several times in the beginning to speak logically about their circumstances, yet practically everyone would automatically think he’s trying to start up pointless trouble. Like when Ouma said if Gonta were to continue being gullible, he was going to get killed. The reason why we saw Ouma as the bad guy in that moment was because everyone around him started to get all defensive and called him insensitive for saying such things after Kaede and Rantaro died. Which isn’t rational. THEY ARE IN A DEATH GAME. Whether Ouma had said anything or not wouldn’t have changed that fact. 

Out of everyone, Ouma has proven to have put in the most effort into showing his trustworthiness by spitting out the facts and warning them all to be careful, but it was everyone else (besides Miu and Gonta) that had rejected his help in the end.

On the one hand, Saihara hadn’t really done anything to earn Ouma’s support and friendship since meeting him. Even if Saihara was truly expecting what you had claimed, it doesn’t change the fact that it’s selfish for him to think that way. He doesn’t owe Saihara anything.

On the other hand, Ouma also did say at one point he was on everyone else’s side. And in the 5th trial, he had put everything on the line for his final plan to work and put an end to the killing game. Knowing that, does it still sound like he was not on his friends’ side? Even if you’ve figured it out, Saihara somehow couldn’t bring himself to comprehend this fact.

“...but talking to him always feels like a battle just to get the truth out” 

If the ‘truth’ you are referring to is about knowing Ouma’s true intentions and plans, then there’s a good reason for that. Ouma did mention in the beginning that carelessly opening up to people would be dangerous. And no, I don’t think he was speaking as Mr. Paranoia as much as the fandom loves to see him as. I think he said that because Monokuma would most likely be listening in on their conversations and that one of their friends is most likely the ringleader. (Just like how Kyoko was cautious of talking to Makoto out in the open in DR1) And turns out he was correct. So if he explained that much in the beginning, shouldn’t that give the listener (Saihara) a better idea as to why he shouldn’t be too outright with his intentions? There’s only so much you can do without getting careless within a killing game. 

“also by the time saihara says that he’ll never get kokichi to change kokichi had proven to be not just hard to talk to but pretty heartless and villainous as well” 

I would like for you to recall how Ouma first introduced himself... Now this is something I’ve always found curious, but never really dove into too deeply in case the story were to prove me otherwise at some point. But now that it’s been a year since I first played, I just have to ask those who think that Ouma has a single sadistic or villainous bone in his body.....

What kind of antagonist would out themselves as a liar in the beginning? In a killing game, no less?

We all know that he’s an incredibly clever boy who knows how to play mind games and put on an act that would befit the situation. So if he was truly serious about winning the game and was willing to coldly disregard the lives of others, wouldn’t it make more sense to not reveal that problematic aspect of himself? Wouldn’t it give him a better advantage to NOT play the flaming jerkwad role and piss everyone off to the point of wanting to kill you? Much like how Komaeda played innocent until Hajime and Chiaki cornered him into admitting that he set up the murder plan and then showed his crazy side. Ouma could’ve played himself up just like that as well, but no. Instead he kept claiming he’s nothing more than a liar.

Admitting to a bunch of (supposed) strangers that he’s a liar just makes no sense at all. Although, to disregard his intentions as just him being crazy or just him screwing around would be oversimplifying things. Even Nagito had an understandable method to his madness... 

“though he hadnt done anything drastic he does fuck up the trials and says (lies) about how much fun the killing game is”

When you say “fuck up the trials”, you mean when he took Ryoma’s motive video or saying that he killed Angie? I had to ask to make sure because just simply saying “he screwed up the trials” is not a clear enough explanation. Anyway, we never actually knew the real reason as to why Ouma stole the motive vid. We were made to think he did it for kicks, but in the end, he explained on Ryoma’s behalf that his motive video was empty when nobody knew what could’ve made him lose his will to live. I guess he also speculated that Maki was Ryoma’s killer and wanted to steal it before she got a hold of it. After all, she was the original holder of his video and nobody knew about her and Ryoma’s encounter besides Ouma, so nobody would’ve questioned her as to why she had his video. And I think Ouma was waiting for an opportune moment to shove the evidence in her face if things went differently. (I’m just guessing here tho.) But I do believe Ouma has reasons for why he does what he does, instead of simply doing it for jokes.

On the matter of him claiming that he killed Angie, he said so himself that he was trying to lure out the culprit by pretending to be the killer. He said if he played the killer, the actual blackened would likely push the blame onto him. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s more of a valid reason to do it than simply screwing around.

It’s rather funny to me how the fandom talks about how Ouma screws up the trials, but what about Tenko, Himiko and Maki??? 

Tenko kept others from questioning Himiko for the sake of the investigation, Himiko would sooner let everyone die for the sake of keeping her magic a secret, and Maki stupidly kept quiet and put the trial on hold so nobody would figure out her talent. And yet, Saihara would sooner side with them and lie for their sake in the middle of the trial even though he had just about as little relations with them as he did with Ouma. Why????

“its really hard for saihara to feel like he’s on his side despite how much he does want to work with him”

I’m sorry to say, but Saihara had that opportunity to work with Ouma when the boy himself made the offer in the VW. Without considering it or even questioning him, Saihara just ignored him and logged out. Saihara clearly had no intention of working beside him.

“i do kinda agree that he didnt really ask that many questions but kokichis answers really had proven to always be super vague or just a lie” 

Which vague answers are you talking about exactly? I wouldn’t know how to answer that myself because that’s not specific enough. Give me an example?

“the point is i really dont believe saihara is an arrogant person.”

I’m afraid that the screencaps I’ve shown in the original post aren’t the only proof I have to show that he’s an arrogant person. I wanted to mention them in a different post, but I’ll give you a few other brief examples.

He has insinuated that Ouma is stupid despite the fact that we’re talking about the same dude that has pretty much been doing more detective work than the actual detective did. Not to mention that Saihara’s the one that believed Ouma was the mastermind and screwed up the first case majorly.

After the 5th Closing Argument, Saihara claimed his detective’s intuition was flawless even though it was clearly just conjecture in the end. He had practically no proof to back up what he had laid out for them. He may have gotten Kaito to exit out of the exisal but only because he had to lie. That doesn’t prove that was what actually transpired. Only Kaito knows about what had happened between him and Ouma, and seeing how Kaito was following the script he was given, we wouldn’t know the extent of it.

This one really peeves me. Because he thinks he knows better, he thinks he gets to shut down someone else’s emotions because he thinks they’re lying when he couldn’t possibly have gotten the chance to know one thing about him. Whether you think someone is insincere or not, it’s not your place to disregard their feelings like that. 

There’s also the fact that Kirumi got unexpectedly personal and called out on the fact that Saihara doesn’t even listen to others in the 2nd trial. It was weird how she could make these accusations at all like she knows something...

And despite the fact that Tsumugi claimed it was Kaede’s twin as the possible suspect, Saihara would sooner disregard the piece of evidence because he trusted his intuition moreso than looking into possible facts. Same can be said in the first trial too, where he trusted his intuition to pin Kaede as the culprit despite the fact that she WASN’T...

I’ll just stop it here...

“i dont think its right to compare gundam and kokichi” 

Well, I don’t see how it’s wrong either, honestly... Considering how the game itself gave me a lot to work with to show how much these two said characters contrast with one another. I actually made something before that would showcase a lot of comparisons between Ouma and Gundham. So if you wish, you can look for yourself and see what I mean... (Link to Self-Sacrificing Duos post) And a friend of mine actually analyzed a scene between the two when they had a moment in TDP and the game even subtly hinted about them being similar! (Link to Gundham and Ouma TDP moment post)

It’s kinda hard not to compare when there are a number of things you can compare within this franchise, not just Gundham and Ouma. They are all by the same creator after all and he loves to re-utilize his own tropes.

“wow i should not have written all this in the tags its so long sorry i make it sound like i dont like kokichi when i really do. he’s a great character just really hard to get along with. i hope this made any sense lol”

It’s no problem. I just hope that what I’ve explained made sense ^^; I apologize if I come across as harsh or anything like that, but I couldn’t find myself expressing certain points any better than I did... 

Hopefully, this gives you at least a better understanding of where I’m coming from.