#spider bud ryoshu got me thinking a lot recently cause i just know ryoshus canto is going to kill me when it comes out

[crownlandssun]

posting this to tumblr too but i am having legitimately so many fucking thoughts about fourth match flame and the scorched girl abno and how it relates to each sinner who has a fmf ego. strap in babes

spoilers for canto 4 of limbus company, as well as content warnings for violence as per project moon games!! stay safe :)

scorched girl specifically carries a theme of loss and abandonment, just as an overarching note for this post.

ryoshu is based off of hell screen, which follows a painter named yoshihide making a folding screen that depicts hell. the lord commissioning him has a really weird thing with yoshihide’s daughter and is actively throughout the story trying to make her his mistress, to which yoshihide refuses. yoshihide has this thing throughout the story where he can only paint things he’s seen, and for his references for the inhabitants of hell on the screen, he begins violently torturing his servants for these references. near the end of the story, yoshihide asks the lord commissioning him to burn a beautiful young woman to death in a grand carriage as reference for the final part of the screen. the young woman who burns alive, however, is yoshihide’s daughter. with the screen finished, yoshihide finds out what happened to his daughter, and hangs himself, to which the story ends.

so ryoshu, with her views of violence as art pretty clearly equate to yoshihide requiring these references for the screen. and with ryoshu’s new egos, spider bud is equated with themes of motherhood and the violent protection of the spider’s young. those, i don’t think there’s anything that requires in depth analysis at the moment.

ryoshu’s other two egos are both based off of fire. and scorched girl/fourth match flame for ryoshu specifically because now she has symbolism as both yoshihide AND yoshihide’s daughter.

next, rodya. and i will never forgive limbus fans for ignoring rodya’s canto as much as they do, but that’s beside the point. all of rodya’s egos down to her base ego focus pretty heavily on the freezing/hardening of the heart in order for her and others to survive, as well as how yurodivy was changing before she left. her line upon using the ego is “if even fervent flames can thaw the heart”, which keeps both rodya’s themes of “greater good” that are prevalent throughout both her canto, crime and punishment, AND the scorched girl’s themes of loss and abandonment. in particular, both the loss of rodion’s innocence and ideals for the world that she wanted to make a reality and the way she also embraces the flame in this new life, where she once again, if even for a moment, seems to have a way for her hope to burn and live again.

all of rodya’s egos so far are themed around this idea of hardening the heart. the scorched girl abno and therefore the egos as a product of her revolves around abandonment and specifically letting go. this tracks with all of the egos, but it varies from sinner to sinner, which for me only supports the theory that that their base egos are representative of both their backstories and their mental states.

finally, and my personal favorite, yi sang’s. yi sang’s stands out to me so much because it makes so much sense if you think in limbus’ context as well as the context of the narrator in the wings.

when yi sang’s fmf is used, his line is “i burn what i wish to burn”. and his stands out the most to me.

yi sang in limbus has, up to this point (pre-company) has allowed the current to pull him along and leave him with his metaphorical broken wings to where the point his colleagues/friends are taking advantage of him, similarly to the narrator in the wings and how he simply ruminates on his life throughout the story. but his line being THAT specifically holds such a candle to me (pun intended) because yi sang’s is so consciously centered around what he wants and the choice is finally gets to make; the loss of his shackles.

it’s just. it’s so important to me. ryoshu’s represents loss of yoshihide and his daughter, who both die at the end of hell screen. rodya’s represents the loss of innocence and the hardening of the heart in order to survive. and yi sang’s represents him finally having a choice. it’s so so important to me.