I've Been Thinking About What Would Have Happened If Luz Had Been Found First By Belos Before Eda And

I've been thinking about what would have happened if Luz had been found first by Belos before Eda and I couldn't help but remember Sonia and Griffith from Berserk.

Luz and Sonia were born with a condition that made them different from other normal people which makes them both think and see things differently from others (Luz has ADHD since birth and Sonia is a birth medium) to the point that they felt they didn't fit in anywhere and that neither did their parents nor did anyone understand them or take what they said seriously:

Luz felt her mother Camila does not understand her because of her strangeness and her way of seeing things due to her ADHD and that the only person who supported her tastes in fantasy, her father Manny who gave her the Good Witch Azura books as a way to support her tastes, is no longer there. It is implied that her classmates bullied her for her love for fantasy and for her ADHD and it is even implied that Luz confessed to someone but that person rejected her for being weird and corny.

Sonia lost her parents due to the Kushan invasion but that gives to understand with some dialogues that she has with Schierke and Irvine, Sonia felt lonely to the point that it can be interpreted that she thought that her parents didn't understand her and saw her as a freak and from the way in which we were introduced to Sonia where other women dismiss her visions as the product of madness from seeing their parents burned to death, it is implied that because of her powers as a medium the other people in her home village believed that she was insane.

This is even seen by the fact that they both feel more comfortable being and talking with monsters or strange beings (Luz with Eda, King and hexsquad and Sonia with Griffith, Irvine, Schierke and the new Band of the Hawk in general) than with normal people:

Sonia is always agressive towards Mule and Charlotte and the human soldiers as if she was hurt in the past by other normal humans so she always has distrust towards other humans and would rather hurt them than let them hurt her first.

Luz was terrified that Vee would talk to other humans and even gave her advice on how to run away from them to avoid being humiliated, as if Luz herself had bad experiences with other humans and would rather run away from other humans than be hurt by them.

Luz and Sonia had to take the conditions with which they were born as something that makes them special as if they were the chosen one as a defense mechanism to face their loneliness and their fear of being seen as freaks and being rejected because of that, and they can even become stubborn and hurtful with others.

Luz and Sonia know what it's like to be alone that they even become friends with two witches (Willow and Schierke) who share similar problems to them:

Willow is a witch who is not good with abominations which causes other classmates to bully her just as it happened to Luz in the Human Realm.

Schierke is a witch that have magic powers what cause her to have conflicts with humans because of it just as it happened to Sonia with the other inhabitants of her home village.

Luz and Sonia were naive and had a great feeling of loneliness to the point that they cling to the first people who treat them well or with respect (Eda and Griffith) because they don't downplay or demonize them as girls with delusions of grandeur or as insane girls but they accept them for who they are, take them and their feelings seriously, and give them a place of belonging.

Luz and Sonia have a strong desire to be understood by others that leads them to believe that they understand those that they accepted them due to the fact that they are special and/or weird like them.

However, the key difference is that Eda doesn't respect Luz at the beginning but when Luz is in danger she doesn't hesitate to go to help her but the most important thing is that Eda teaches her that she cannot wait for others to give her value through a special destiny of chosen one but that she has to give her value to herself.

Eda: "Look, kid, everyone wants to believe they're "chosen". But if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting. And that's why you need to choose yourself".

Furthermore, when Luz hurts others to fulfill her fantasies of being the chosen one, as happened with Willow and Amity, both of them call out Luz for hurting them, to which Luz listens and recognizes that she was wrong to project her fantasies on Amity and Willow and begin to understand them better and treat them and their feelings with respect.

But Sonia doesn't have an Eda nor does she have a Willow or an Amity, she instead has Griffith who instead of giving her the firm but caring reality check that Eda does with Luz or call her out and make her see that her projection as the chosen one is hurting others and that she has to learn to understand them and treat them with respect like Willow and Amity told Luz, Griffith really plays into and encourages her main character syndrome and makes her believe that she totally does have a destiny, this is fate, Hawk of the Light himself brought her to him at this time, so on and so forth.

And I'm pretty sure Belos would do to Luz what Griffith did to Sonia if he had the chance. I'm sure he'd love that opportunity, and he could easily play into her chosen one ideas and main character syndrome: Luz would be an honored guest of the Emperor, Belos would give her a nice suite of rooms in the castle, fed regular meals - no finicky experimenting with what cuisine makes her sick, here, the Emperor is well aware of the dietary needs of humans and his larders are stocked with all manner of things she can consume, she has access to his libraries, to all of the information she could ever want and the best tutors on magic, Belos would let Luz learn to use glyphs, he would manipulate her by telling her about the Savage Ages and how dangerous wild magic is and how he brought order to the witchkind. He'd want to form a very close and personal relationship with Luz and for her to trust him completely and for that he would allow her to do things that he would not allow anyone else like have her attending him in his workshop, spending time with him in his personal office, taking dinner with him in his chambers, listening to his stories, he would tell her that he is a human like her.

Luz and Sonia are unshakably happy, caring and naive girls who feel alone because they don't fit in anywhere and nobody wants to understand them. Luz found people who teach her that she cannot run away from reality to feel that they take her seriously because she would be more isolated but those same people understand her and love her for whom she is and they show it to her but Sonia doesn't have the same luck and she is with a monster that despite showing that he enjoys her company is also using her. It's quite scary to think that if Belos had found Luz first than Eda, Luz's situation would be the same as Sonia's and even Luz could behave in the same aggressive way as Sonia.

Jaune Arc: The Knight in Rusty Armor

Have you ever read the book the Knight in Rusty Armor? It is a book that I highly recommend because its story is about how self-discovery, self-acceptance, self-reflection and love are important to live happily with ourselves and with others. The protagonist is a knight who put his duty as a knight before his family to the point that he remains attached to his armor and at the request of his wife he sets out on a trip to remove his rusty armor and he travels to a forest and three castles where he learns to accept his mistakes, accept his fears but not let them dominate them and self-discover himself and in the end he manages to free himself from the rusty armor.

As I watched Jaune and with today's episode I couldn't help noticing similarities and/or allusions to the Knight in Rusty Armor because Jaune, like the knight in the story, is trapped in his rusty armor (and who knows if he is even trapped in a role like the inhabitants of Ever After) so it may be that for Jaune to return to normal and shed his rusty armor (both physical and mental armor) he has to accept his actions and mistakes in order to self-discover and accept himself and love and to be loved not for his role as a knight but for who he is as a person, just as the Knight in Rusty Armor did.

Business partners

money lover

Hold on just a moment

So we have these images revealed recently, yeah? With Luz’s staff having what I can only describe as “nebula on a stick”, yeah?

And there’s two images of it in that form in the forest outside of what I can assume is the Collector’s room. That might mean these scenes aren’t that far apart chronologically or the palisman “hatching” process takes a while once it actually starts to hatch, but…

What if Luz carving her palisman so she can “let it decide what it wants to be” resulted in her palisman being a shapeshifter, with this orb being the base (or initial) form? The ultimate symbol of unapologetically being whatever, whoever, your deepest heart says you are. It’d be the ultimate thesis statement of this series, even more so than “us freaks have to stick together”

Plus, there is just ALL of the evidence that Luz’s palisman is gonna be a snake, if not a winged snake, and… a shapeshifting snake that has a bond with Luz and her family? A shapeshifting snake that arguably has winglike appendages—maybe ears, for example?

Can’t say we’ve never seen that before.

Something quite curious and that goes very unnoticed is the fact that Kikimora manipulated Boscha because in some way she is reflected in her but by doing that, Kikimora makes Boscha become more toxic, she is hurting Boscha, and therefore, she is hurting the younger version of herself.

It's no coincidence that Kikimora manipulates Boscha because in a certain sense Kikimora IS Boscha: both are terrified that others see them vulnerable and they end up mistreating others as a way to hide their vulnerability so as not to be hurt by anyone and both also have the tendency to idealize to the extreme a person they love, admire or respect (Belos for Kikimora and Amity for Boscha) but they get angry with them for not fitting in with the idealized versions they had and even when they see them again before getting angry with them for not being what they thought, Kikimora and Boscha ask Belos and Amity to give them a chance to prove themselves. The difference is that Boscha realizes her flaws and tries to improve as a person while Kikimora becomes more toxic to the point that she hurts others without realizing that she is hurting herself and isolating herself from any positive relationship with others.

Kikimora is what Boscha would have been if she didn't realize her tendency to hide her vulnerability through mistreatment of others and her tendency to idealize others are quite toxic to herself and others.

Between Magic and Mirrors

Would you believe me if I told you that this character

is like this

and this?

While I watched Neo in RWBY, I couldn't help but notice the similarities she has to Umineko's Beatrice and Bleach's Sosuke Aizen and I'll explain all of these in more detail here:

NEOPOLITAN AND BEATRICE - IMAGINATION, MAGIC AND ESCAPISM

Beatrice is a character of Umineko who is known to be the Golden Witch but her true identity is Sayo Yasuda, Kinzo's illegitimate daughter born by incest who after Natsuhi accidentally pushed the servant who was holding Sayo causing Sayo to lose her private parts, being saved by Genji and Kumasawa who raise her in secret to avoid another incestuous episode by Kinzo. This caused Sayo to have insecurities about herself and her own gender and to make matters worse the other maids start to pester her for her clumsiness in her work as a maid and her only friend was Kumasawa with whom she develops a love for mystery stories and magic in general. Sayo was unhappy and always alone so she started creating imaginary friends to make up for her loneliness and because of her love for magic she created Proto Beatrice (later know as Gaap) to explain her own clumsiness and later creates Shannon persona, the perfect servant girl. Sayo's imagination becomes her refuge but also her prison because it gave relief to her loneliness and made her feel good about herself but in turn this isolated her from others. Later she meets Battler and for the first time she doesn't feel lonely for long but due to her loneliness she trusts Battler too much to the point that she takes seriously Battler's promise that he would come back for her but when he doesn't come back which makes Sayo feel betrayed but to make matters worse she discovers her true identity as Kinzo's illegitimate daughter, she goes mad, takes Beatrice persona as her own and think that she's a real witch.

Later Sayo causes Rokenjima incident as a way to get revenge on the family that hurt her and especially Battler for leaving her alone but in turn she feels bad for everything she has done and chooses to commit suicide by drowning in the sea.

In the meta world Beatrice plays the killing games with Battler so that he knows that the reason for the Rokenjima incident is so that he would remember the promise he made to her when she was Sayo.

Do you know who more was born in a rich and toxic family that hurt her for her disability, used her imagination as a form of freedom and escapism and ended up loving a man just so that when that man disappears she goes mad and seeks revenge as a result?

Beatrice and Neo are adults who act like children so they lash out at others but they don't take responsibility for their actions nor do they realize how their actions hurt others, they only care about their own pain. This is even seen when Sayo and Trivia create their imaginary friends (Gaap or Proto Beatrice and Pink Neopolitan) not only to feel accompanied but also to blame them for their mistakes.

Beatrice's actions led to the terrible situation that Eva was forced to live in as the sole survivor of her family and having to deal with the media accusation that she killed everyone on the island when in fact Eva was suffering for the loss of her husband Hideyoshi and her son George and the rejection of Ange and Ange herself had to endure being bullied at school for being the daughter of Rudolf and Kyrie, alleged murderers of Rokenjima, and also in her desire for her parents to return, rejected Eva believing that her parents and brother would come back for her. Battler was also hurt by Beatrice's actions because by trying to follow her and stay with her in her death, he survives but doesn't remember anything and is found by Ikuko Hachiyo who he marries and is tormented by memories that come to him through nightmares. Neo for her part wants revenge against Cinder but she is manipulated for her to help her and unload her anger against Ruby which makes Neo help Cinder to destroy an entire kingdom without mentioning that her actions are indirectly helping Salem to destroy the world because Salem's plan is to make the world a chaotic place so that when the Brother Gods are summoned they will destroy the world as a result of the chaos that exists.

Another thing that both have in common is their powers and how both are based on the manipulation of reality through imagination to some extent. Beatrice is a witch whose powers basically consist of making what she imagines come true, forcing reality to make what she believes to be real be real because Sayo, her true identity, dealt with loneliness through her imagination. The above can be seen from the fact that she didn't ask to revive Sakutaro because she believed that Rosa denied it but Angel revives him simply because she believed that Sakutaro was alive by having a spare stuffed animal.

Neo's semblance allows her to manifest whatever she imagines into reality in illusions made of glass that everyone can see.

Both powers force reality to operate under the rules of Beatrice and Neo and even said powers are enhanced in places linked to the imagination (the Golden Land is a kingdom created by Beatrice where everything she thinks comes true and Neo is in Ever After, a magical place where it reflects the psyche of the characters and therefore also reflects the imagination). Beatrice's golden magic and Neo's semblance are perfect powers for a lonely and imaginative child and for deadly assassins, imagination is a double-edged sword because although Beatrice and Neo deal with their loneliness with their imagination (they create imaginary friends) and it gives them the freedom they feel they don't have with their original identities (Beatrice - Sayo Yasuda, Neopolitan - Trivia Vanille) in turn they get stuck in their own heads who just can't accept reality and instead look for reality to be as they want or believe it should be.

Beatrice and Neo are witches, Beatrice, as I said before, is the Golden Witch and Neopolitan is based on Trivia, the Roman goddess of witchcraft and there is something interesting about the concept of a witch in Umineko which is that a person becomes a witch by feeling rejection of their reality but they puts aside their humanity and their ties to other people and this also applies in RWBY: Sayo couldn't stand her life as a human and took the identity of Beatrice to feel free and take revenge and in the end she ends up in the Golden Land and in RWBY while team RWBY looks to get out of Ever After and Jaune can't get out until he gets help, Neo seems rather comfortable in Ever After and may even want to stay there.

Beatrice dies in real life not accepting the blame for her actions and ends up alone in the Golden Land until the end of Umineko where Battler finally reunites with her and Neo is running the risk of ending up just like Beatrice: ending up as a lonely witch in an imaginary world.

NEOPOLITAN AND SOSUKE AIZEN - LIVING MIRRORS

If there is something we know about Neo, it is how she is essentially a living mirror, not only because she creates illusions made of glass that everyone can see, but also because she is a mirror for the characters, especially for Ruby, but they know that another character curiously share these same traits with Neo?

Sosuke Aizen is a character from Bleach and one of the main antagonists of the manga. Not only does he share some physical similarities with Neo, but his powers are illusions visible to all who have seen his Shikai's activation and something curious is that Neo's and Aizen's illusions are made of glass.

Glass is an element that in fiction represents fragility, which gives us clues that Aizen and Neo's senses of identity are as fragile as glass itself: Aizen's identity is fragile because it is only based on what he can do (his intellect and his powers) to the point that he feels that morality does not apply to him, he feels that only he can change and rule the Soul Society and Ichigo even speculates that the reason Aizen wanted to conquer Soul Society was because of his desire for an equal, that his extreme power and intelligence only served to isolate him from the moment he was born (this can be seen in his effort to strengthen Ichigo as well as his respect for Kisuke Urahara stems from seeing them as equals) and Neo feels oppressed by her own family for not accepting her because of her disability and she unconsciously feels that no one is going to accept her and takes refuge in her idealized identity (Neopolitan) where she is powerful and free to do what she wants without being nobody oppresses her but she defines herself only by her bond with Roman (after their relationship goes from transactional to something genuine, Roman is the only one who respects her and wants her) and her life as a criminal that gives her freedom makes her dependent on Roman and unable to form bonds with others. Aizen and Neo were born with physical and/or mental conditions (Aizen - high intellect and enormous spiritual pressure and Neo - muteness and her semblance) that made them feel different from others, which caused their actions and their identity to be based on said conditions to the point that their powers they serve to reflect that sense of self that both have of themselves: sharp but fragile.

Aizen and Neo not only have a glass motif because of their fragile sense of self but also because they are mirrors that reflect the characters.

Aizen is a reflects that reflects Kisuke, Toshiro, Starrk and even Ichigo himself:

Aizen reflects Kisuke because they are both renowned geniuses for their great intellect and even looking to create something new just because they could just because Kisuke has moral boundaries that he dares not cross and Aizen just doesn't care about morals.

Aizen reflects Toshiro in the sense that they were both born prodigies having extremely enormous power and were ostracized because of it but Toshiro didn't let their power define him as a person but saw it as a part of himself and he managed to bond with the others while Aizen saw his power and intellect as his complete identity, which made him unable to have a bond with anyone.

Aizen reflects Starrk because they are both extremely powerful beings but this distanced them from each other because the others were weaker than them, making both wish they were weak in order to bond with others or meet people who were as strong as them or mlre. Starrk created Lilinette and found people (including Aizen himself) for him to be with without being overwhelmed by his power, relieving his loneliness while Aizen is unable to bond with anyone because he finds no one he considers an equal or that they are powerful enough that they are able to withstand his own power.

Aizen reflects Ichigo because they are both extremely powerful but both just want to be normal, the difference is that Ichigo knows that this is his wish, he expresses it openly and in the end lives a normal life with his family while Aizen does not recognize or realize it of that desire and seeks to be superior to others.

Neo is also a mirror that reflects other characters, in her case, Team RWBY and Jaune:

Neo reflects Ruby in that they both deal incorrectly with the loss of a loved one, refuse to examine themselves so they can't face said loss, and dress like said loved ones (Ruby wears clothing resembling the ones her mother Summer wore and Neo wears Roman's hat and gray cloth) to feel close to them and/or to feel that they are still alive in some way. Ruby suppresses everything she feels and decides to move on and Neo gets carried away by her emotions to the point that she doesn't care if she and others get hurt.

Neo reflects Weiss in the sense that they both grew up in a rich but toxic family and wanted to be free but Weiss grows as a person because she had the support of Winter and then she has the positive support of RWBY which allows when Weiss goes down in Ever After After losing her father and her home, she doesn't lash out at anyone but rather seeks to leave the place while Neo has no personal growth because she did not know anyone, she loses her parents who oppressed her and Roman is left, who does love her but his support it's not positive and when she loses him Neo gets angry and lashes out at others and doesn't seem to be concerned about staying in Ever After.

Neo reflects Blake because they were both born with conditions that make them different from the others (Blake is a Faunos and Neo is mute) and they were strongly discriminated for it and they both get together with a man (Adam and Roman) who lead them astray but they stay with them for accepting them only Adam becomes more and more violent and Blake leaves him to have a better life and manages to have healthy relationships with other people while Neo stays with Roman and she doesn't form bonds with other people and Roman, unlike Adam with Blake, he truly respects and loves Neo but being a criminal he led her down that same path and when Neo loses him she has no one else.

Neo reflects Yang in the sense that they are both proud of who they are and violently attack all those who hurt their loved ones and don't think about the consequences of their actions. The difference is that Yang learns that she shouldn't live and show only her idealized self but must accept that her vulnerability is a part of her identity and that she shouldn't reject it and she also learns that violence is not the answer to everything but has to to think things through before doing them and pay attention to the big picture while Neo clings to her idealized identity but puts aside his share of Trivia (her vulnerability) and Neo in her eagerness to lash out without thinking doesn't think about her actions which makes her easy for Cinder to manipulate neither does she think that what happened to Roman was partly his own fault and partly just a circunstance that could have happened at any time nor does she think about the bigger picture and how their actions affect that big picture.

Neo reflects Jaune in the sense that they were both seeking revenge for the death of a loved one (Pyrrha and Roman) at the hands of Cinder (only Roman didn't die directly for Cinder but he die by agreeing to do her plan) because they have no idea how to deal with the pain of losing a loved one and in turn cling to an idealized identity that gives them a sense of purpose (Jaune as a knight and Neo in his current Neopolitan identity). Jaune tries to take revenge on Cinder but everything goes wrong until he discovers his semblance and saves Weiss and puts aside his revenge, later in Atlas he learns to improve his defense and embraces his identity as a knight until he is forced to kill Penny because she asks him and from what we has seen, Jaune will have to examine himself, accept Penny's death and also accept the fact that he hurt her in order to reconcile with himself and find a new purpose and grow as a person while that Neo tries to take revenge on Cinder but she manipulates her into helping her and attack Ruby, and later betrays her and Neo instead of examining herself and her purpose that has her current identity, she simply chooses to stay with her current purpose which is to continue attacking Ruby and probably against Cinder, doesn't accept Roman's death and she doesn't care if she or others get hurt because of her which makes Neo have no personal growth.

The fact that Aizen and Neo reflect the characters is so true that they can even literally become reflections of the characters as if they were mirrors. They reflect what the characters hide from themselves or what they can become if they give in to their flaws and even Aizen and Neo use their powers to confuse their enemies and turn them against themselves.

Like I said earlier, Neo, Beatrice and Aizen have powers that influence reality to make it whatever they want but they don't get what they really want. Basically their powers make them writers but they are writers who don't know write a story that they like, being writers of their own tragedy: Sayo ends everything and just wants to die, Aizen wants company but never realizes his wish and ends Sealed in the Muken and Neo can't accept Roman's death and lashes out at everything and everyone, leading to a bad ending for Beatrice and Aizen and Neo runs the risk of ending up having a bad ending like Beatrice and Aizen.