God Look At Gieve In This Panel

God look at Gieve in this panel

Every single one of them : *sincerely kneel before the queen, faster than the speed of light*

Gieve : ............

*finally kneels down to not stand out among them*

He doesn't give two fucks about royalty. Also, he finds the queen cheap, for she deducted a sum from his measly prize money :'D

Guess who's finally getting back to the reread thing... and so close to my final exams, no less! 😭

Pyromaniac Alfarīd confirmed!

Fucking hell this really was a trap huh, even going as far as commanding it outright.

I love the soldiers 🥹 Arslan had really won their hearts!

I mean, who wouldn't love the little bird though, he's the best.

This sparks so much joy!!! Look at Alfarīd especially!! And Jaswant!

They were there with him at the start, and they'll be with him until the very end.

Excuse me while I go cry.

Elam is a big ol softie and it says a lot about the friendship between him and Arslan that Arslan is so... how do I put it, it's almost like Arslan respects Elam and looks to him for advice and everything? And Elam being so bossy towards Arslan (even if he is a big softie) despite their disparity in status is so... Gah, I don't have the words for it, I just like it!

“He speaks Parsian!”

Well, yes, he's Parsian, what else would he speak, lol.

The Zott treating Arslan like some bizarre alien creature was funny, ngl.

They're right and they should say it, and they should include priests in this equation.

I know a bunch of us have discussed about the corruption before, I just don't have enough energy to track down the post at the moment...

perfect lover 🌟

I was thinking the same thing and I absolutely love Gieve for that.

Hieve looks so boring like and it seems that he only kneels before her because everyone else is kneeling and I don’t think that he respected the queen.

I think Gieve is the kind of character who only kneels infront of someone he deeply respects because in the past he kneels in front of Arslan. So I don’t think that royality means a lot for him but the fact that he kneels in front of Arslan is as much respect that you can get from Gieve.

God look at Gieve in this panel

Every single one of them : *sincerely kneel before the queen, faster than the speed of light*

Gieve : ............

*finally kneels down to not stand out among them*

He doesn't give two fucks about royalty. Also, he finds the queen cheap, for she deducted a sum from his measly prize money :'D

Arslan Senki Chapter 124: Arslan's Half

So @innerchorus did a commentary post about Hilmes' half here and so I'm here to deliver on Arslan's half!

Right off the bat we see Arslan kneeling, this is supposed to be a reunion between a mother and her son who got wrongfully exiled, I don't have the exact time frame but it wasn't exactly a short period, y'know? And yet there's this... distance between them, with no attempt on either side to close it. A son. Kneeling in front of his mother. As though he were a subject and not her child.

It's not so vast as the distance between Arslan and Andragoras in an earlier scene:

But it's still distance. It's still detached. And here's what I had to say about it back then:

“Look at how empty the panel looks. The distance between what's supposed to be father and son. A reunion after like what, half a year? More? Either Andragoras explicitly did not allow Arslan to approach any closer or Arslan felt like he couldn't (due to perhaps years of conditioning), whichever it is it doesn't paint a good picture of their relationship.”

Something like this doesn't come suddenly. It must be a conditioned response— Arslan has learnt that he will not be able to approach his parents as their child. How terrible is that?

Tahamenay says in this scene, “I barely recognize you.” and it's... it has a double meaning. To me. When has she ever recognized Arslan? When has she ever seen him?

Never, is the answer.

And here comes Arslan's internal monologue. I wager it's not the first time he's had these kinds of thoughts. It must've been recurring, haunting, always looming at the back of his mind. He must've known something was wrong. He must've realized. Children know more than society tends to give them credit for— they know they know when they're being neglected even as they might deny it because it's too big a truth to swallow.

It's the hidden, hurt part of his psyche, the child nestled inside, the part he's learnt to hide because who could possibly understand?

And he seamlessly wears a smile and makes small talk. Even as the questions, the hurt, the “why, why, why?”s boil and bubble in his throat.

He buries it and keeps on a brave and friendly face, as he must always have all his life.

And here comes the bombshell. The absolute lack of compassion in Tahamenay's eyes, the bluntness in her delivery as though she didn't find it worth the effort to even soften it for him, for Arslan, for a child a child a child.

And it hurts. He's known suspected for a long time. How could he not, how could he not? The questions have been piling up all his life.

And it still hurts.

This makes me so sad.

If Hilmes' revelation was like him being hurled off the top of a tower suddenly, Arslan's revelation was like being trapped in a slowly deteriorating building.

Brick by brick, beam by beam, nail by nail, it's been falling. It's been falling for a long time. This was a long time coming.

Thankfully the fall isn't as high as the tower, doesn't break as many bones, because he's been falling bit by bit instead of all in one go. Thankfully he's not alone, he has companions he can confide in. Companions who he know will not discard him for anything in the world, not even for his lack of royal blood.

And there, he will find solace and resolve.

Godspeed, my boy. I can't wait to see you show us how much you've grown.

The Heroic Legend of Arslan Vol.20