During The Scene In Watching And Dreaming Where Belos Begs Luz To Help Him I Couldn't Help But Remember

During the scene in Watching and Dreaming where Belos begs Luz to help him I couldn't help but remember the scene in King's Tide where Belos tries to petrify Luz as an act of mercy only for Luz to beg him to let her live and he agrees. That happens because she called him by his name and also because she is a human like him, and this from the point of view of Belos is like solidarity between humans.

That is why when he pleads with Luz by reminding him that they are both human, it is because Belos expects Luz to help him in an act of solidarity between humans due to the fact that he is human like her just as he did with her in King's Tide.

Gutsca and Emercury: Love, Self-Discovery and Healing

If there is something that I like and it caught my attention about Emerald and Mercury, it's that they are what I call the "shonen and younger" version of Guts and Casca because their personalities, circumstances and relationship are very similar and incredibly both couples are destined to achieve happiness through healing.

CASCA AND EMERALD - SEARCH OF LOVE AND AGENCY

If there is something that Emerald shares with Casca, apart from the fact that they are both dark-haired, it is the fact that both have been looking for love but at the same time society mistreats them to the point that both have hardened as a defense mechanism. The reason they are looked down upon so much by their societies is because Emerald and Casca are people who grew up poor.

Casca lived with her parents in a town that was constantly besieged by war and food shortages to the point that Casca's father sold her to a nobleman to feed fewer people in the home. Emerald grew up in poverty and if we go by the song I'm the One, she was abandoned and having no one's support she had to resort to robbery to survive only to find out one day while she was stealing and she was persecuted for that.

Both girls no longer have anywhere to run and are resigned to their fates until someone appears and offers to save them.

Griffith appears and saves Casca from being abused by the nobleman but he gives her his sword and tells Casca to defend herself which she does and Casca herself asks Griffith to accompany him as a mercenary and he accepts. Emerald is found by Cinder and she offers to support her and avoid being caught, to which Emerald responds with gratitude. Casca and Emerald feel indebted to Griffith and Cinder for giving them a place of belonging, but due to their personal traumas and mistreatment by society, they feel they have to constantly prove themselves to earn Griffith and Cinder's approval. to the point that externally they are harsh with others, for example when Guts and Mercury are recruited, Emerald and Casca disagree and reluctantly accept them but in a series of events in their search for love Casca and Emerald improve their relationship with them and ironically they get with Guts and Mercury what they have always wanted to get through Griffith and Cinder: to be loved by someone unconditionally.

It's Guts and Mercury that make her realize that they need to drop their dependency on Griffith and Cinder and have their own agency and they do it because they love and value them so much that when physically superior characters like Wyald and Tyrian threaten both women, Guts and Mercury do not hesitate to defend Casca and Emerald immediately. Guts respects Casca and values her fighting and leadership skills and Mercury shows concern for Emerald and they even joke between them.

Both women have a moment of closeness where they share their past with Guts and Mercury but while that happens both men tell Casca and Emerald what they need to hear:

Casca feels like she has to be strong all the time to not be looked down on for being a woman and now more, but at the same time she feels so insecure about herself for not fitting into feminine standards that when Guts sees her battle scars she is ashamed for this but Guts assures her that she is beautiful as she is and when they try to have sex Guts attacks her by remembering his past.

Emerald feels like she owes Cinder for supporting her and teaching her things and after Mercury tells Emerald that Cinder doesn't care about any of them, Emerald gets mad and tries to hit Mercury but he tells her the past about her while trying to attack her.

Curiously, both moments happen after an event where both women get so desperate about the disappearance of Griffith and Cinder that they almost die but Guts and Mercury save them. Griffith is imprisoned and the Hawks are hunted down by the king's orders and Casca, being Griffith's second in command, becomes the new leader of the band and is so tired that she tries to kill herself but is stopped by Guts and during the battle of Haven when Emerald sees that Cinder didn't come back, she gets desperate to the point that she uses her semblance to such a dangerous level that she ends up fainting because of it and Mercury tries to convince her to run away with him and Hazel but after she faints, Mercury along with Hazel they flee but do not leave Emerald behind.

And the most curious thing is that the scenes of closeness between Gutsca and Emercury happens when Griffith and Cinder are not there and what makes them have that moment of closeness that how both couples feel with respect to Griffith and Cinder but due to the environment in which Gutsca and Emercury find themselves both scenarios play out differently. Guts and Casca, being in a healthy environment, manage to reaffirm their feelings for each other and even set out to rescue Griffith, but Emerald and Mercury fail to reaffirm their feelings due to the dangerous environment in which they are and because they feel threatened by Tyrian and Salem and it doesn't even occur to them to go looking for Cinder for fear of retaliation Salem might take against them.

Another thing that Emerald and Casca share is their lack of agency and how they link love with being useful to others. Both are strong but everything they do is for someone else:

Casca wants to be with Griffith but since she knows that he will go with Princess Charlotte, Casca settles for being his sword.

Emerald does everything Cinder tells her to the point that she claims not to care about Salem but goes through with the plan just for Cinder's sake.

The desire to be useful to others that Casca and Emerald have come from the facts that they were abandoned in the past and that they both do not fit into the standards of their societies: Casca is a female mercenary, something very rare in society in the one who lives and Emerald is a poor girl who resorts to stealing to survive, so they must constantly prove their worth because deep down they are afraid that they will be abandoned again.

Something curious is that both have a connection with a minor who are catalysts for both women to face their abusers. Emerald along with Hazel and JJR save Oscar and free him so Casca could be important for the release of Moonlight Boy. However, after saving the minor, both lose the point and do not face their abusers, Emerald flees with Oscar and his team but ignores Cinder, the same could happen with Casca but she doesn't confront Griffith.

Thematically, the narrative of both stories shows with this that Casca and Emerald do not face their abusers because they should not confront their abusers alone and that they will only confront them with Guts and Mercury by their side since both men were also abused by Griffith and Cinder (and later,in Emercury's case, by Salem and Tyrian).

Later in the story, Casca and Emerald get trapped in places they don't want to be together with their abusers.

As I said before, Griffith takes Casca to Falconia and Emerald stays in Monstra with Cinder and Salem. However, once Hazel learns the truth about Salem helping Emerald and Oscar escape and she joins the latter's team and escapes with them, the story hints that Emerald must reunite with Mercury and make him face his pain, confront Tyrian together and then both go to confront Cinder and finally help stop Salem. Similarly, Casca tries to escape from Falconia and fails but the story hints that Casca might have possible allies to help her escape so she can reunite with Guts to make Guts deal with his trauma properly so that they both ultimately confront Griffith.

GUTS AND MERCURY - ABUSE AND HEALING

Guts and Mercury show us as mocking people who are not afraid of anything and do bad things without caring what happens to others and even gloat over their cruelty but the more we are shown about them it is revealed that that attitude is just a facade to hide their pain for their traumas, their lack of self-esteem and avoid being hurt. They even dress in dark clothes in an attempt to emphasize the facade they are desperately trying to maintain.

Both were raised by a violent father figure and sought his approval but were betrayed by said figures:

Guts was desperate for Gambino's approval but he sells him out to Donovan who abuses Guts and then Gambino tries to kill him because he blames him for the death of his wife Shisu and Guts ends up killing him in self defense and is forced to flee.

Marcus Black was also a mercenary and just like Gambino he raised Mercury to be a mercenary and was quite violent with him to the point that he took his semblance from him and promised him that if he became stronger he would return it to him but he never did and Mercury ended up killing Marcus.

Although Guts and Mercury killed their respective abusive father figures, the truth is that psychologically they are still trapped with them since Guts and Mercury are still mercenaries because it is the only thing they are good at and they have never learned to do anything other than have such low self-esteem that they have nothing to hope for other than surviving one more day, all of the above is even seen in the fact that when they have free time, Guts and Mercury don't enjoy doing other things but just spend their free time training their combat skills. Both are so caught up in their father figures that when they both do something, the first thing they do is remember Gambino and Marcus.

Guts: "Where am I going? I still don’t have the answer to that, Gambino."

Mercury: "My dad always said... if you need to know a city, ask the rats."

Later, both are recruited by Griffith and Cinder who are interested in Guts and Mercury because of their combat capabilities. Griffith takes an interest in Guts after seeing him fight Bazuso and his lack of care for himself and Cinder wanted to recruit Marcus but seeing that Mercury was the only one there she recruits him hoping he will be good at fighting like Marcus was before he died.

The truth is that, as I mentioned earlier, Guts and Mercury's own lack of self-esteem is so great that they both do not realize that their actions emotionally affect those around them because both Guts and Mercury see themselves as disposable and replaceable, this can be seen when Guts and Mercury leave Griffith and Cinder in search of self-motivation and to be seen as their equals:

Guts wants to be worthy of being Griffith's friend and believes he must either get his own motivation or dream.

Mercury believes it is impossible to be Cinder's equal but obeys her and Salem sensing that it is his purpose.

All above causes Griffith and Cinder to be angry and sad (in Cinder's case) and despair (in Griffith's). Griffith becomes so visibly desperate that even he ends up having sex with Princess Charlotte to feel like he has control over something.

Cinder looks angry and then visibly sad when Mercury notifies her that he no longer works for her because Salem told him promoted to an official member of her Inner Circle. 

Or when both in that same decision end up having to leave Casca and Emerald behind.

But what they both don't realize is that they have always had their motivation in front of their eyes the whole time and it isn't until later that they realize about that:

Speaking of Casca and Emerald, both women function as the heart of Guts and Mercury as they are the only ones with whom they have shared their past traumas. Before Guts and Casca have sex after the waterfall kiss scene, she shares her trauma with Guts and after their first attempt at sex fails because Guts remembers his childhood trauma, Casca understands and doesn't judge him for it and Guts listened to her.

During their stay at Salem Castle, Emerald first asks Mercury why he joined Cinder and he tells her that he did it because it made sense to him as a mercenary to which Emerald shares his past of her with Cinder to Mercury along the way. He assures her that Cinder doesn't care about either of them, which angers Emerald and starts a fight in which Mercury tells Emerald about his past de ella only for Tyrian to appear and scenes much later Emerald looks for Mercury to apologize with him but he doesn't listen to her because he is visibly scared to see how Salem creates grimm.

The thing here is that Guts's departure occurs before that and Mercury's departure occurs after which makes both scenarios have the opposite effect: with Guts and Casca it works because long after Guts's departure they are in a healthy environment where they are free to express themselves without fear of others hurting them, with Emerald and Mercury it fails because the environment they are both in is toxic and they have people who use that vulnerability to harm them as happens in that same scene with Tyrian or as Salem constantly scares them and two seasons later Mercury separates from Emerald fearing what Salem might do if he doesn't obey her. Even Tyrian acts as the opposite of Judeau since both characters appear after this scene, they encourage both couples to leave and are honest about it.

Judeau: "You should take Casca with you this time."

Tyrian: "Do what makes you happy, children... please? I'm begging you..."

But while Judeau appeared a lot after the Guts and Casca scene and he told them that because he wants them to Guts and Casca (whom he had romantic feelings for) are happy, Tyrian shows up right away and he told them that with the intention of them leaving so he can kill them.

Later, Mercury's departure to Vacuo occurs and it can be compared to Guts' departure when he left Casca in Godo's cave after the Eclipse, since both departures symbolize how Mercury and Guts are fleeing from a truth that they do not want to face for fear of the pain. Emerald tells Mercury what Salem is really up to but Mercury refuses to even believe her and when Tyrian confirms the truth, Mercury simply resigns himself and goes with Tyrian to Vacuo and Guts prefers to seek revenge against Griffith so he doesn't have to face the pain of losing the Hawks and the pain of how Casca was left after the Eclipse.

It's not until Godo makes Guts realize that what he had to do was stay with Casca, cry to get it off his chest and process his grief like Rickert did but instead he chose the easy path of violence that the only thing It did was worsen his trauma to such an extent that the Beast of Darkness was born as a result.

Basically Guts chose to run away from the pain instead of facing it (which ironically made him the same as Griffith) and because of it his trauma worsened to the point that he attacks Casca and she fears him for it but thanks to Guts remembering the words of Godo, he realizes his mistake and decides to find a cure for Casca and learns to trust others and accept their help, which causes him to embark on a self-healing journey but has a relapse after Casca's kidnapping by which plunges into darkness again but later Guts will realize that it is more important to get back to Casca and that he should not go on a killing spree like he did during his time as the Black Swordsman and in turn, Guts will have He has to face his traumas, accept the emotional help that others give him and the reality that he is hurt by the loss of the Hawks from which he flees through violence.

Mercury, like Guts, has always been running from pain by choosing to be violent and hide his pain by making himself and others believe that he is the tough and strong type to the point that he chooses to serve Salem at the cost of leaving. back to Emerald but in the Vacuo arc, Mercury, like Guts, will realize that he needs to return to Emerald, accept that it is okay to trust others and that he must face the reality about Salem and his own past traumas.

Gutsca and Emercury are relationships where both are hurt but are learning to heal, to raise their self esteem through the reciprocal love and feedback they have when they are in a healthy environment and both relationships are meant to heal with healthy support systems for continue healing until they are complete individuals and achieve happiness and in turn that healing love will be key to saving their respective worlds.

With everything that has been revealed to us about AFO, it seems that he is the fusion of Guts and Griffith.

AFO and Guts

They are tall, muscular and have short curly hair.

They were born to a dead mother.

They have a strong sense of survival and they are willing to do anything to survive even impossible things.

They are quite aggressive, especially towards those who harm the people they love.

They are also aggressive towards their loved ones but they care about them.

Because of their upbringing (or lack thereof) they see violence as normal.

They are considered demon children or beings of bad luck.

They both want to be loved but can't show it.

AFO and Griffith

They have white hair.

They both cling to a dream they had since childhood.

They both have a very distorted perception of love, being quite controlling and possessive of their loved ones.

They are willing to do whatever it takes to achieve their dream.

They are manipulative and charismatic but sometimes they are childish.

They have a large number of followers and they consider them their saviors.

They are obsessed with people who they believe betrayed or abandoned them.

They recruited children to help them achieve their dream.

They are demon lords (Griffith's case he is literally one).

Did anyone else think Apollo vs Leonidas was like watching pre-heresy Fulgrim vs Sevika?

Pre-heresy Fulgrim and Apollo

- They're handsome.

- They're obsessed with being perfect.

- They want to inspire others to be the best version of themselves.

- They value the arts, music, poetry, and both physical and inner beauty.

- They worked hard and become respected by their "paternal figures" (Big E/Zeus).

Sevika and Leonidas

- They have the same physical build, similar clothes and the same hairstyle.

- They detest a privileged person or group (Piltover/Apollo) because they believe they were the ones who caused the misfortunes their people have gone through (Zaun/Sparta) and seek revenge as a result.

- They are both smokers.

- They both use weapons that can change shape.

It's quite curious how Guts and Casca's arcs are opposites, which makes them complementary.

Guts is so active that he never rests, this is seen by the fact of how little Guts cares about himself or when he decides to leave the Band of the Hawk to find his own dream to be an equal to Griffith and how he decided to go on a revenge rampage instead of staying with Casca which caused the Beast of Darkness to be born as a result, and Casca is passive because she has always prioritized the dreams of others above her own plus she is in a constant fight to recover and maintain her agency that is constantly taken away from her.

Guts has to learn to be passive in the sense that he must learn that he should not do everything alone and that he has the right to rest, to be vulnerable by venting his sadness in a healthy way and enjoy the simple things in life and Casca has to be more active in the sense that she must have her own aspiration and must recover her agency.

It's Guts who encourages Casca that she can be more than Griffith's swords and values her for who she is and it's Casca who encourages Guts to relax, to be vulnerable and that he can do and enjoy other things than just fighting.

I don't know about you but with chapter 407 I feel like AFO is like Eren Jaeger and Cinder Fall: a traumatized person who has had a series of horrible things happen to him who prefers to be seen as a monster because that gives him control over his own life than admitting that he is a victim who never had control of anything that happened to him in his life.