#the way in which bayo origins has confirmed so much about jeanne is actually nuts

[mothknight42]

TELL US MORE ABT THE BYJN TRAGEDY POST PLEASE

ASK AND YE SHALL RECEIVE ! ! !

I really like the "This story is a tragedy because it didn't have to end this way." vs "This story is a tragedy because it was always going to end this way." because I think is encapsulates Bayonetta and Jeanne as people in this series so fucking well.

Putting this rant below the cut, because it is long and includes spoilers for Bayonetta Origins. Yippie! Let's go.

Bayonetta spends most of the series actively defying fate and seeking her own path. She fights her way through every obstacle in order to save herself and the people she loves. When Jeanne is dragged to Inferno, the fate that awaits ALL witches when they die, Bayonetta says "Actually, no. Not yet." Now with the context of Bayonetta Origins, this feels especially significant, because it is a huge deal that little Cereza watches Morgana get dragged to Inferno without flinching. And yet, despite knowing how the world works, Bayonetta refuses to admit defeat and fights to the bitter end.....which means when she *does* fail, she blames herself. The tragedy for her is her own weakness. In Bayonetta 2 we see her tell Loki that Jeanne shouldn't have thrown her life away for someone like Bayonetta. Jeanne's death weighs on her, not just because it is a tragedy to lose someone you love, but because Bayonetta is convinced that it didn't have to go that way and sheis to blame (and thus does everything in her power to fix it). We see this again throughout Bayonetta 3 - while a lot of her characterization is ummmm not stellar in my opinion (lol), you can still see how this impacts her. The moment where she is confronted with having to kill Egyptian!Jeanne stands out, because she doesn't want to. There HAS to be another way! These worlds all keep ending in death, but it shouldn't be like that, there HAS to be something she can do, so she hesitates (only for another version of her to kill Jeanne, because she can't She can't accept that fate.) In France, Singularity takes over French!Bayo and then taunts our Bayonetta by asking "well what can you do for her now?" Essentially, "how will you defy fate this time?" And what does Bayonetta do? Fight and watch that version of herself die as well, helpless to stop it. Bayonetta carries the weight of every tragedy on her shoulders because she blames HERSELF for each failure. If she had been stronger, faster, better, it could have been avoided (or so she tells herself).

Jeanne, on the other hand knows that their story is a tragedy and accepts her role in it without flinching. In Bayonetta 1 she allows herself to almost be killed by the missile strike, and then again in space, because fighting the inevitable doesn't matter - as long as she does what she can to protect Cereza, she will have done enough before she dies. In Bayonetta 2 she easily sacrifices her life for Cereza, and then chastises her for coming to rescue her in Inferno - in part because it was horribly reckless, but also because Jeanne had accepted her fate, her death. We see this at its most extreme with Jeanne's Tale in Bayonetta Origins (which is one of my favorite things in the entire series oh my god I could talk about THAT alone for hours and what it tells us about Jeanne as a character). Singularity SHOWS Jeanne her death, her FATE, and says "if you walk away and abandon Cereza, you can save yourself." And Jeanne doesn't even flinch. She doesn't attempt to bargain. She boldly accepts her death, her fate. Sure, one day she will be killed. But she'll also save Cereza in the process, here and now, and maybe later too. It is a tragedy because Jeanne knows it is unavoidable. It will always end in her death. And that is okay.

The fact that Jeanne tells Cheshire NOT to tell Cereza about the vision they saw of Jeanne's own death highlights this divide between them perfectly. Jeanne accepts that they are in a tragedy, and is ready to play her part to protect Cereza in it, knowing she will die in the process. But she also knows that Cereza would NEVER accept that, and would do something reckless and foolish to try and defy that fate, to attempt to save Jeanne, no matter the risk.

In every version of this story, they don't make it. By their very nature as witches, they are doomed by the narrative, one day to be dragged to Inferno for all eternity.

But whereas in Bayonetta's eyes the tragedy is that it didn't have to be this way if only she were strong enough to forge a new path.....in Jeanne's eyes, the tragedy is it will always end this way, regardless of how hard Bayonetta fights for them both.

Bayonetta as a series plays with this idea of fate and destiny in really interesting ways, and looking at that through the lens of Bayonetta's and Jeanne's relationship is especially telling I think.