Gaemnomut
Well worn.
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- Sep 14, 2016
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Ok, so this is my interpretation, and a comic such as this offers less material to analyse than a book for example, so some of this is based on conjecture since what we get to see/read is sometimes limited. I hope it makes sense to you.
Anyway, text is somewhat long and rambly so I spoilered it.
Imo there are 2 overlapping themes. One concerning SD and one focused on WC. They are almost the same, both kinda dealing with oppressive systems, but his is kinda looking down from the top, and hers is kinda looking up from below.
SD's theme is that even well meaning tyranny is still tyranny.
He cares for his empire and protects it from harm, but at the same time it is nothing but his empire. All the laws are his laws, all the glory of the empire ultimately points to and is because of him, and all his citizens only have as much agency as he lets them have. He is benevolent when it suits him (lifting the stone and sending his workers home) but not always. We do not know why or how it happened, but there was a massacre that he is made responsible for, so maybe he does not suffer disobedience lightly, like many a parent.
There is little indication that he allows his subjects/sons much say in how the empire is run, and in essence it seems like he sees them as nothing but children which he must drag kicking and screaming to where they need to go. Even his title, paternum – father, hints at this. An easy mistake to make when you're probably older than all your many sons combined, but still a mistake if you want your empire to be more than just an extension of yourself.
I said as much in an earlier post, if he would allow his citizens more agency in shaping their own fate and the fate of the empire, then he might not be its sole provider. If he would teach instead of simply rule he might have found a worthy heir already. He laments the fact that he is a tyrant, but seems unwilling to change anything.
It is hard, really hard, to hand over the reigns over something you built to somebody else. There can be great pride in the burden of responsibility, pride in one's work, the pride of being needed, being irreplaceable. So he keeps everything as it is, a rigid system, in which all his people are born, live, and die in peace and prosperity as long as nobody challenges him.
I find it very understandable that he is as he is, but if he wants his empire to grow into something more than he could make it, to grow beyond himself, then that is what he must do. Announcing WC as victor in their duel seems like a good first step.
In summary: Supressing change and growth out of fear, outdated law/tradition, and/or to cling to power is bad, even when you think you are doing the people beneath you a favour. If you want them to grow and prosper, eventually you will have to let them determine their own fate.
WC's theme is adjacent to that and I feel like I'm not really the right person to explain it given that I don't have much experience with what this is an allegory for, but basically, as I see it, White chain has lived all her life as a servant to a system of laws that was designed to last eternal. Thus, those laws (and the angels themselves) are unchanging, and even though the world around them is crumbling the angels cling to them even though by now they might be doing more harm than good. She says it herself: "a system that crushes the young and the foolish for fear of change".
She herself wants to change. She suffers because she wants and denies herself to live according to those rules/traditions. So, when she sees SD obliterating all those who dare stand against him, just like she fought all those that she found were breaking the law even though there are parts of that law she disagrees with, she decided to embrace her desire for change and stand against him. White chain also fought with herself, struggling between her iron discipline to adhere to what she had been taught and giving into her WANT to be herself. SD isn't the system that kept her down, but he is/embodies/represents a system that kept people down, and she chose to fight that, despite a literal god basically saying to just give up, accept the status quo, be quiet, or die. She died (kinda), but because she stood up and fought, was reborn as truly herself.
This is also how I think she managed to get her new body. In the scene where Zoss speaks to Alisson in Mottom's palace, and she first uses the BLADE OF WANT he tells her: "By names she cuts the world as she pleases, and cuts herself into greater forms still."
WC wanted change so much she fought on against certain death, and in doing so cut herself into a greater shape, free from her former shackles. It's a bit of a stretch, but it fits.
So, if you find yourself in a system that forces you to repress who you are to keep the status quo it's better to stand up and fight and be yourself rather than to be meek and quiet in the hope of being tolerated/left alone.
Those at least were the main themes that resonated for me due to my life experiences. Others might get a different message from it.
SD's theme is that even well meaning tyranny is still tyranny.
He cares for his empire and protects it from harm, but at the same time it is nothing but his empire. All the laws are his laws, all the glory of the empire ultimately points to and is because of him, and all his citizens only have as much agency as he lets them have. He is benevolent when it suits him (lifting the stone and sending his workers home) but not always. We do not know why or how it happened, but there was a massacre that he is made responsible for, so maybe he does not suffer disobedience lightly, like many a parent.
There is little indication that he allows his subjects/sons much say in how the empire is run, and in essence it seems like he sees them as nothing but children which he must drag kicking and screaming to where they need to go. Even his title, paternum – father, hints at this. An easy mistake to make when you're probably older than all your many sons combined, but still a mistake if you want your empire to be more than just an extension of yourself.
I said as much in an earlier post, if he would allow his citizens more agency in shaping their own fate and the fate of the empire, then he might not be its sole provider. If he would teach instead of simply rule he might have found a worthy heir already. He laments the fact that he is a tyrant, but seems unwilling to change anything.
It is hard, really hard, to hand over the reigns over something you built to somebody else. There can be great pride in the burden of responsibility, pride in one's work, the pride of being needed, being irreplaceable. So he keeps everything as it is, a rigid system, in which all his people are born, live, and die in peace and prosperity as long as nobody challenges him.
I find it very understandable that he is as he is, but if he wants his empire to grow into something more than he could make it, to grow beyond himself, then that is what he must do. Announcing WC as victor in their duel seems like a good first step.
In summary: Supressing change and growth out of fear, outdated law/tradition, and/or to cling to power is bad, even when you think you are doing the people beneath you a favour. If you want them to grow and prosper, eventually you will have to let them determine their own fate.
WC's theme is adjacent to that and I feel like I'm not really the right person to explain it given that I don't have much experience with what this is an allegory for, but basically, as I see it, White chain has lived all her life as a servant to a system of laws that was designed to last eternal. Thus, those laws (and the angels themselves) are unchanging, and even though the world around them is crumbling the angels cling to them even though by now they might be doing more harm than good. She says it herself: "a system that crushes the young and the foolish for fear of change".
She herself wants to change. She suffers because she wants and denies herself to live according to those rules/traditions. So, when she sees SD obliterating all those who dare stand against him, just like she fought all those that she found were breaking the law even though there are parts of that law she disagrees with, she decided to embrace her desire for change and stand against him. White chain also fought with herself, struggling between her iron discipline to adhere to what she had been taught and giving into her WANT to be herself. SD isn't the system that kept her down, but he is/embodies/represents a system that kept people down, and she chose to fight that, despite a literal god basically saying to just give up, accept the status quo, be quiet, or die. She died (kinda), but because she stood up and fought, was reborn as truly herself.
This is also how I think she managed to get her new body. In the scene where Zoss speaks to Alisson in Mottom's palace, and she first uses the BLADE OF WANT he tells her: "By names she cuts the world as she pleases, and cuts herself into greater forms still."
WC wanted change so much she fought on against certain death, and in doing so cut herself into a greater shape, free from her former shackles. It's a bit of a stretch, but it fits.
So, if you find yourself in a system that forces you to repress who you are to keep the status quo it's better to stand up and fight and be yourself rather than to be meek and quiet in the hope of being tolerated/left alone.
Those at least were the main themes that resonated for me due to my life experiences. Others might get a different message from it.
