#retrace xcix

[fivekrystalpetals]

Glen, Children of Misfortune, Juries and the Baskervilles

[When I say Glen, I am referring all Glens- past and present: Levi, Oswald, Gil and Leo. hella lot of lore is here that I wanna write about ;-; so I might divide this into different posts let’s see. Also fair warning: I might criticize Oswald’s actions-past and present- a bit, since I love looking at characters from an unbiased pov. Also, maybe some characters’ past actions in order to point to their character development so that too.]

[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

2] Choosing a side

I remember treating Oswald as a victim of circumstances while reading the Past Arc/Jack’s Intention Arc and blaming only Jack and Levi for everything that went down,,, but now that I consider on the whole, I have to confess Oswald was also responsible for a major part in the Tragedy. His sin is… (as the catchphrase of this series goes lol) His sin is his passivity. But before Oswald, I want to talk about his successors, Gil and Leo first.

As the story goes, each one of the Glens have faced a point where they must choose a side.

For Gil, it was between Oz and Oswald, whether he wanted to continue as Oswald’s valet (to return to his past) or as Oz’s valet (to live in the present). In fact, this clash between his two sides of loyalty, one drilled into him (Retrace 38) and the other nurtured in him in a healthy manner, already came to a head in the Sablier Arc (Retrace 40).

In the beginning of the same arc, he tried to kill Alice because she was trying to “kill” his “master” and with great difficulty did he stop himself before he ended up doing something drastic. Break, though, thankfully and perhaps due to the power of his Eye of Misfortune, sees through Gil, spots the overlapping thoughts clouding his judgment and goads him into a fight.

“I am the one who seeks to use Oz Vessalius. I am doing harm to your master. Now then, will you try your hand at killing me as well?”

And… Gil actually almost goes ahead with it! He is so overwhelmed by the thoughts the Jury had fed into his mind that he can’t distinguish between friends and foes; all he could think is he had to “kill his master’s enemies.”, no free will of action in him at all. Break snaps him out of him and…. says something so significant I didn’t even realize at the time:

Is the one you need really Oz Vessalius? (…) Isn’t it time you got over being such a spoiled child?

[The “hand” here is his left hand which signifies Gil’s oath to his old Master, Raven and consequently, his past.]

Isn’t it time you got over being such a spoiled child… (Retrace 87)

Or else, you really will end up hurting what’s precious to you by your own hand. (Retrace 69)

(His left hand. Oswald uses his left hand to cast Lacie into the Abyss. I just…. *screams*)

Like I explained in Part 1, if Gil was continued to be raised in the Baskerville household, when he comes of age and becomes the next Glen, in spite of feeling massively guilty, he’d end up casting Vincent into the Abyss because that’s the rule, because he won’t think for himself if that’s indeed what he wanted, because he'd still be obedient to the previous Glen and Jury even after becoming the most powerful head of the household. That’s just how the Glens are.

However, this changed in Retrace 78, when Gil goes up against Oswald and the Baskervilles for Oz.

Gil quite literally cuts off his left arm to NOT “hurt what’s precious to him by his own hand"—he cuts off his connection to his past and his old master and refuses to side with him anymore. He stops being an obedient valet and stands up for Oz, as a friend, of his own accord because that’s what he really wants. He even freely calls him Oz, something he’d been struggling all along as he’d been raised to address his master as such.

His entire character development stemmed from Oz’s positive influence on him. From the beginning, Oz didn’t want a valet or a servant, but a friend by his side. He wanted Gil to be his equal. He always asked Gil to call him by his name and not address him as Master.

[And, ofc, a special mention to Break who had been continually warning him against his obsessive loyalty and pushing him to think for himself.

(He advises him here in Retrace 40; yes, but also he's been doing that since long ago, even before Oz resurfaced from the Abyss (Retrace 13.)):

Believe whatever you want. Regardless of what people say, I— Let me give you a piece of advice. A loyalty that holds fast will become a blade and will someday pierce those you hold dear.

And, Gil, the edgy rebellious teenager that he was at the time, doesn't understand Break at all lol]

Well, all of this contributes to Gil switching sides to save Oz from getting executed and not blindly following Glen on, or rather, in spite of regaining all his misplaced memories. He decides to cut off his left hand, erase the binding oath and make another, this time, legal contract with Raven—and this is so important—all of his own volition.

That ends his passivity and lack of free will. (And Break, like a proud dad, “has stopped fretting about him.” LOL)

.

For Leo, it was this point (Retrace 63):

Yes, chances are that Elliot won’t have believed what Leo said since neither he nor any of the kids at Fianna's house remembers any of the incidents involving Humpty-Dumpty or its contract thanks to its nature of memory deletion/alteration. Still, the fact that Leo didn’t tell him the truth about what had been done to him (Leo feeding him the chain’s blood and unwittingly making him an illegal contractor) or about Isla Yura (Selfishness is a recurring theme in the story; I wanna go into that later but here too—) could be taken as Leo’s “selfishness” to keep his friend alive in spite of him getting fatally injured. Even that aside, it was really his “inaction at the time of crisis” that eventually led Elliot to suffer from an even more painful death.

Yet, he blames the Intention of the Abyss for his actions.

(At this point of the story, Leo is still “an immature brat”; on a side note: remember Break who realized it was his own fault, and not the Intention’s, for forcing her to change the past and bringing a more horrifying fate on the Sinclair family? Yeah, Break is one of the most mature characters in the story and having regretted and learnt from his mistakes, he tries to pass on his experience to the kids so that they won’t repeat his mistakes.)

Before long, Leo does get over being “a spoiled child” and realizes that he had to accept his mistakes and take responsibility before things went from bad to worse. In Retrace 99, he faces the dilemma of choosing a side: stay a bystander and let Oswald go on to his end or stand up and act for what he wants.

And then, for what might be the most selfless reasons of all, Leo decides to not change the past.

Just like Oz-Gil—Leo, who always tried to dig into the world of books because his own real world was unbearable for him, was pulled out of it by Elliot by wanting to be his friend and not his master. Elliot didn’t want an obedient, servile yes-man but a friend who could stand by him yet scold him for his mistakes. “It’s the duty of a valet to correct his master’s actions.”

And so, for Elliot and for the sake of those memories where they met albeit for a short while, those memories being so precious to him that he doesn’t want them to be erased with the alteration of the past, he finally decides to stop being a bystander and confronts Oswald.

[Special shoutout to Break!— because once again it were his last words that helped influence his decision:

…That you’ll never find your future in the past… try as you might to reach back into it!!

Break just keeps tossing around good advice for everyone, even people whom he was not even addressing. Those words were meant for Vince, not Leo; yet Leo too benefits from them agfhsjhahaha]

I know Levi calls his reason “selfish” as well (considering he chooses this for fulfilling a personal desire) but to me, it’s not so. Had he stayed quiet and “passive”, and let Oswald change the past for his split second of thought process—"If I were not Glen, Elliot won’t have to die"—that'd be pretty selfish of him.

And, with that, Leo chooses a side he wants to fight for, no matter how painful his choice is and ends his “passivity”.

.

On the other hand, in Break's and Rufus Barma's words, Oswald never stopped being "a spoiled child" and over and over, keeps "hurting what's precious to him by his own hand". Even after his return to the world in Leo's body, his immediate decision is to kill Lacie to "set things right." Again.

Plus, Oswald did not have such a friend who cared about him unconditionally and wanted to be on equal footing.

Or, well, he did but he cast her into the Abyss and that’s where everything started to go wrong for him.... 

[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]

[existingtm]

(Retrace XCIX: "Shade")

MochiJun was insane for this (in a good way)

Imagine loving someone so much, that given the opportunity to change the past so that they would never have died, you refused, because it would erase the precious story of your life together, and who they were as a person.

Like—damn—I never cease to be awed by this writing.

[vicariousvivaciousvixen]

‘There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate.’-T.S. Eliot

[grelleswife]

Complicated question but do you think that Jack truly cared about Gil and Vince and rescued them out of a genuine desire to give them a loving home rather than to use them as tools? Of course, the Baskervilles aren’t an ideal family, but under Oswald’s rule, they were nicer and kinder, and Oswald himself was like a father to Gil, giving him piggyback rides and patiently listening to his troubles when he couldn’t sleep.

A complicated question about a complicated character. In his way, I think that Jack cared for the boys...up to a point. They did have their share of wholesome moments together, and I’d like to believe that affection wasn’t entirely feigned. However, Jack’s monologue here during his confrontation with Glen in Retrace XCIX: Shade is quite telling.

“Funny, don’t you think? I deceived others—and myself—for so long, I eventually lost sight of my real self. Oswald, you are a dear friend to me. Gilbert and Vincent are my cute little friends whom I wish to protect. But I no longer remember if these feelings are sincere...or if I’m faking them. All I know is that I had no qualms about using Vincent to open the gate, or about slashing Gilbert.”

That’s part of the tragedy of Jack’s character, I think; becoming so enmeshed in lies that even his own soul was lost to deceit.

Jack’s true master passion was his obsession with Lacie. All other relationships paled before it, including his friendship with the little boys.

[xcixthesphinx]

While some people do amazing sketches I do this! At least they look like dragons, don't they? :/ I'm not sure how to continue it, so I'll do something else :)

[archiviiste]

"You see, I don’t really know who I am anymore." -Retrace XCIX: Shade

[hollyshipsweirdthings]

Not sure if my heart is still beating after that. He said that. He finally said that. 

[oroborochi]

How am i supposed to function like a normal human being after Retrace XCIX????

[fivekrystalpetals]

This is such a minor detail but I love it all the same!

After Baskervilles allied with Oz and co., in the Past, it was Doug who was carrying around Ada!!

ahgjjsg she seems so tiny on his arm! the guy is huge i know he carried Break like a bundle of logs yes but he is carrying her like a tiny toddler lol

annd what's with Vincent's girls being carried around like a sack of potatoes anyway?

handle with careeeeand thud....!

[fivekrystalpetals]

oooh, you are right! I am sorry I just saw that room very different from Alice's usual stone-built room and jumped to the conclusion that Jack must have taken her to his home haha; (but i do have very shaky evidence he did take her to his home at the end of this reblog hfjdk)

and in Retrace 31 too, Jack chats with the Intention in a similar looking room and openly states he is on Baskerville grounds so haha, yeah:

in any case, it appears this room(hall?) similar to the one in Retrace 73 where Jack is chatting with the Intention might be the actual room at the top of the tower while the other stone-built rooms are on lower floors?

because no matter how i see it, I can't imagine how one part of the room is built in a rudimentary stone structure and the other part is built with intricate architecture.

This, the room where Jack finds one of Oz's body disintegrating when he tries to store Lacie's memories, it has a bookshelf, among other things. I feel like it's also doubles as a nursery for Alice for her to study during some time of the day. perhaps, she brings her toys there too?

okay, so rereading Retrace 99, I have a general idea of the stone tower:

Here is the entrance:

next, the stairs to the top:

More stairs:

so, one of these rooms do have a relatively ornate door:

and then we come to the room where Black Alice was waiting for Jack in Retrace 74/ Core of the Abyss in Retrace 99 (as you say, both these scenes are the same.)

this room is at the top of the tower (cuz Oz shouts to Gil to leave him and go after Alice to the top.)

yes, yes this is the exact room where Jack was talking to White Alice in Retrace 73. Thanks for correcting me!

these, again from Retrace 99.

I am here trying to reconfigure my assumption of the structure of that tower bc I thought it had nothing but one stone room at the top lol. but it appears there are floors and other rooms too. Maybe, those draped windows are just for pretence, and you can't actually open them, so Lacie and Alice come down to the stone rooms on the lower floors? Ok, i am looking too much into this, so I will stop lol.

I am still confused over the graves btw. I like your theory that Jack built a separate grave for Lacie in the Vessalius gardens, and that he took Alice to Lacie's grave situated in Baskerville grounds.

so that Alice might not have been taken to Vessalius gardens ever.

even then this scene? (Retrace 8)

and then Oscar says this scenery did exist in the Vessalius Mansion a hundred years ago? (Retrace 13)

I don't know. this is why I was leaning toward the Manipulated Memories Theory since it was Jack who appeared in this memory and warned them about the Intention. I am not sure if this scene ever happened, if he ever took Alice to his place? ok, but on the whole, this scene is a bit iffy to me anyway, because even if Oz and B-Rabbit!Alice can see this memory (bc of their connection to Jack and Alice), I doubt Gil would be able to see it? He has connections to the Tragedy, Glen and Jack, yes, but not in a physical sense.

In Retrace 31, Jack does hint toward sneaking out of Baskerville grounds without Glen's permission.

And later, White Alice repeats this to Vincent:

but her memories are already gone at this point so I don't know if her going over to the Vessalius Gardens is something that already happened or yet to happen.

Finally, in Retrace 37:

Isn't the statue of the Angel(?) the same as that in Vessalius Grounds? I feel like it's the same grave.

On the whole, my conclusion is that only one grave for Lacie has been shown to us throughout the series and it's under the tree in Vessalius Grounds and that somehow, sometime, one day, Jack did manage to smuggle White Alice out of the tower.

buuut i haven't checked all chapters thoroughly or anything ahfgsj, this is just from what i remember and checking those chapters alone. so feel free to reblog and correct me if you find anything! I don't mind at all; in fact, I would rest better if all my confusions are resolved lol

@longagoitwastuesday hi, just thought I should share this with you! It appears Jack did take White Alice to his home. So, the visit to Lacie's grave was not a manipulated memory as I was wondering. (Retrace 73)

Like, the Tower in the Baskerville grounds don't have all those curtains and such intricate interior architecture? It's just mostly a stone prison, more or less.

[fivekrystalpetals]

PH MASTERLIST

(aka I wrote a lot of stuff about this series now trying to put all of it in one place so I find Things when I search for it)

CHAPTERS

retrace i | retrace ii | retrace iii | retrace iv | retrace v | retrace vi | retrace vii | retrace viii | retrace ix | retrace x | retrace xi | retrace xii | retrace xiii | retrace xiv | retrace xv | retrace xvi | retrace xvii | retrace xviii | retrace xix | retrace xx | retrace xxi | retrace xxii | retrace xxiii | retrace xxiv | retrace xxv | retrace xxvi | retrace xxvii | retrace xxviii | retrace xxix | retrace xxx | retrace xxxi | retrace xxxii | retrace xxxiii | retrace xxxiv | retrace xxxv | retrace xxxvi | retrace xxxvii | retrace xxxviii | retrace xxxix | retrace xl | retrace xli | retrace xlii | retrace xliii | retrace xliv | retrace xlv | retrace xlvi | retrace xlvii | retrace xlviii | retrace xlix | retrace l | retrace li | retrace lii | retrace liii | retrace liv | retrace lv | retrace lvi | retrace lvii | retrace lviii | retrace lix | retrace lx | retrace lxi | retrace lxii | retrace lxiii | retrace lxiv | retrace lxv | retrace lxvi | retrace lxvii | retrace lxviii | retrace lxix | retrace lxx | retrace lxxi | retrace lxxii | retrace lxxiii | retrace lxxiv | retrace lxxv | retrace lxxvi | retrace lxxvii | retrace lxxviii | retrace lxxix | retrace lxxx | retrace lxxxi | retrace lxxxii | retrace lxxxiii | retrace lxxxiv | retrace lxxxv | retrace lxxxvi | retrace lxxxvii | retrace lxxxviii | retrace lxxxix | retrace xc | retrace xci | retrace xcii | retrace xciii | retrace xciv | retrace xcv | retrace xcvi | retrace xcvii | retrace xcviii | retrace xcix | retrace c | retrace ci | retrace cii | retrace ciii | retrace civ

some Serious posts: may-reads-ph | some Fun Posts: ph musings

MY ANALYSIS POSTS

1.] Lottie | (add: re: real reason why Lottie changed sides in the last arc)

2.] Noise | (add)

3.] Alice(s)

4.] Lacie

5.] Glen, Children of Misfortune, Juries and the Baskervilles | (Part 1 : Glen, Jury and Knowledge of Abyss) | (Part 2 : Choosing a side) | (Part 3 : Oswald and his sin of passivity) | (Part 4 : Oswald and Lacie)

6.] Core of the Abyss and "her" Children of "Misfortune"

[xcixthesphinx]

I lost five years of files but I found this .ai file in a pen drive so it's something, right? When I get illustrator back I'll open it and check how much I have done, maybe I saved it when I had it almost finished, hopefully but not likely, I had had the worst luck ever in the last couple of months -.- Yeah this may look completed but the actual design is a full body of both, it had some awesome clouds that I'm almost sure got lost -.- and they cost a lot to do :(

[xcixthesphinx]

This, we'll not THIS, but this drawing was the very first I posted here, some time later I digitalized it, and now I'm sort of dying inside 'cause my computer won't start and there's a huge risk of me losing ALL my files and so much stuff, I'm freaking out I will be seriously depressed if I can't get my files back, XCIX doesn't care, she's all "pff, you'll just have to draw me again, stop complaining" but I'm really scared about losing 4 years of data, I hate my life right now, I hate technology and I hate how much it means to me, and I have a test tomorrow, I don't want to take it, I just want to hug my computer and cry :(

[hollyshipsweirdthings]

Fianlly catching up to Pandora Hearts. I'm not sure if I'm ready for the feels, but I'm just too curious to care.