Guide My Way (Red Like Roses Part III) Is A Perfect Continuation Of The Red Like Roses Songs! Red Like

Guide My Way (Red like Roses part III) is a perfect continuation of the Red like Roses songs! Red like Roses I was musically all about Ruby, but lyrically it's not about her all. It's her connection yo her mother, and then to each of her teammates. Red like Roses part II is a literal dialogue between Ruby and Summer about the abandonment issuess and pressures and ideals a child si forced to burden after losing a parent. But Guide My Way is Ruby affirming her worth as her own person. She can still admire Summer but the true honoring of her isn't being her copy or her echo, it's being her own burning rose.

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.

I don't know if you know Record of Ragnarok but I think that Leonidas and Geirölul are what Ichigo and Zangetsu would have been if they had had a good relationship from the beginning without the lies and the prejudices of everyone around them (considering the violent nature that Ichigo has always had, it wouldn't have been unreasonable):

Zangetsu would get angry with anyone who despised him or Ichigo just as happened with Geirölul.

Zangetsu would call Ichigo with nicknames as a sign of affection and trust while he shows concern for him like Geirölul does with Leonidas when she calls him Leo.

Ichigo and Zangetsu would crush their enemies together with enthusiasm, just as Leonidas and Geirölul do in their fight against Apollo.

AFO and the quirk counselor offer their "help" in making Himiko and Yuuga be what the Hero Society says is normal and they even smile and dress alike. AFO really represents the worst of the Hero Society and Japanese society in general.

Thinking about Toga and Aoyama similarities

Thinking about the wording of these panels

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.

The Spot's Seek for Respect and Revenge

Contrary to what many people think, Spot is an interesting character but, as happens in the movie, he is underestimated by everyone, so I decided to write this post to analyse this character.

His arc is a perfect mix of a comic relief character who seeks everyone's respect and a character who puts his revenge above all else to the point of hurting himself and others.

DUDE, WHERE'S MY RESPECT?

Let's be honest, everyone looks down on Spot and when I say everyone I mean EVERYONE because not only is he treated by Miles as just another villain in the crowd, Miguel ignores the potential threat that Spot is to the multiverse and dedicated himself to chasing Miles for the entire half of the movie but even we the audience underestimated him by dismissing him as comic relief but Spot is tired of everyone underestimating him and he proved to be a real threat he took both all the characters and the entire audience by surprise.

This desire to be respected is quite reminiscent of characters like Inosuke Hashibira, King from The Owl House, and even Ken from the Barbie 2023 movie: characters who are considered comic relief by everyone but are frustrated that no one respects them or takes their feelings seriously and decide to take actions to make everyone respect them. These characters are tragic and have serious self-esteem issues but the narrative presents them to us as comic relief to make us, the audience, let our guard down.

Inosuke is seen as comic relief by bragging about how strong he is and doing weird things but is later revealed to be a boy who is deep down afraid of being a child whose parents abandoned him because they didn't love him only for it to be revealed that he is a boy whose mother allows herself to be killed by Douma to save him.

King is treated by everyone as if he were a living stuffed animal and the character clings to being a demon king when in reality he is a child who, like Inosuke, was abandoned and hidden by his father to save him from the titan trappers and the archivists.

Ken acts obsessively towards Barbie and acts quite funny because he was programmed to be her boyfriend and is treated like an accessory so his sense of identity is low to say nothing and he doesn't know anything else.

Spot also gets this treatment: he's introduced to us as a villain who tries to steal an ATM but doesn't know how to use his powers and even tries to convince the store seller that he's doing nothing wrong by taking the ATM and the store seller hits him and the way he introduces himself to Miles as he has loaves spilling out of one of his holes, calls him villain of the week and even his fight with Miles is basically Miles dodging him smoothly while chatting with his dad on the phone and even we the audience dismiss that his motivation to revenge on Miles is because he threw a bagel in his face when actually it's much more than that and the bagel thing is just the tip of the iceberg. At this point Spot is comic relief for both the characters and us.

But these characters seek respect and take actions that make them respected by others:

Inosuke proves to be a pretty good demon slayer to the point that he and Kanao with Shinobu's previous intervention manage to defeat Douma, King discovers his origins and his powers and is a key part of saving the Boiling Islands.

But just as respect is achieved through positive actions, the desperate search for respect makes others seek it through negative actions to the point of being threats to their world, just as it happened to Ken and is happening to Spot:

Ken sneaks into Barbie's car and together they go to the real world and Ken feels respected in the real world and after he discovers that the world is run by the patriarchy, he decides to bring it to Barbieland and turns it into Kendom, making the Barbies be the accessories of the Kens.

Spot learns to domain his powers and after merging with the collider from Mumbattan, becomes a threat to the multiverse.

Ken and the Spot go from being jokes at to being threats to their respective worlds. They prefer to be seen as villains than to be mocked by everyone because having power makes them important people and their very low self-esteem is raised.

It's okay to want to be respected, but when you seek respect through negative actions, you end up doing even more damage to yourself and those around you.

What happens to Spot is a reversal of Ken's character arc, so much so that I would dare to say that the Spot is the villainous and dark version of Ken:

Spot and Ken have the same funny personality but hide resentment and low self-esteem, they both discover something new and use it to gain everyone's respect, and Ken and Spot are obsessed with the attention of Miles and Barbie because they feel their existence is tied up in that but while Barbie, after she with the help of Gloria, Sasha, Allan and all the resistance make everything return to normal but giving the Kens the opportunity to have equality with the Barbies, Barbie becomes sincere with Ken and apologizes for not taking his feelings seriously and encourages him to discover himself, showing him that he is enough and Ken decides to follow his advice but when Miles tries to convince Spot that he no longer considers it a joke, he doesn't listen and merges with the collider.

The reason this works with Ken but not with Spot is due to two reasons:

Barbie knows it's not entirely her fault with regard to Ken's programming but acknowledges that she hurt his feelings, apologizes for it and even makes him see that he can be more than the role of being her boyfriend. While Miles knows it's not entirely his fault for the collider situation (it's Kingpin's fault for wanting to use it in the first place) and tells Spot that no one sees it as a joke, he doesn't acknowledge that he previously hurt Spot's feelings neither does Spot make him see that he can be something else than just his nemesis or that he can even be a hero with his powers which makes Spot even more attached to his role as Miles's nemesis.

Ken, despite being a doll, has a human appearance and has connections to others in Barbieland that aren't just Barbie. Spot, despite being human, does not have a human appearance nor does he have connections to anyone else, so he clings to his rivalry with Miles as the only "connections" he has.

Basically the entire arc of these characters can be summarized up in the chat beetwen Silco, Vander and Jinx from Arcane:

Vander: "You'll get people killed. For what? Pride?" Silco: "For respect."

Silco to Jinx: "It's okay. We'll show them. We will show them all."

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD

Speaking of Silco, Spot's obsession with getting revenge on Miles reminds me of Guts, Silco and Neo in the sense that they seek revenge because all of them lost everything they had and also because the only thing that makes sense of their lives is to take revenge on those who took everything from them and to make things worse none of them respect Spot, Guts Silco and Neo and even look down on them which makes Spot, Guts Silco and Neo have more reasons to get revenge but Guts, Silco and Neo differ from Spot for the following reasons:

Guts still has loved ones who love him despite how tough he can be.

Silco has a bond with Jinx that despite being flawed is also a bond he developed because he related to Jinx's pain and said bond humanizes him and makes him think of something other than revenge.

Neo has the opportunity to choose her new physical form and she has the opportunity to rediscover herself to start again.

But Spot? he has absolutely none of these things. Spot doesn't have loved ones to care for him like Guts, he doesn't have a bond with someone he can relate to or humanize like Silco, and he has no chance to change his form or start again like Neo, even worse, Spot doesn't even have a human appearance like Guts, Silco and Neo do. That's why when Miles tries to stop Spot from merging with the collider he doesn't listen to him and it's because revenge is the only thing that gives meaning to his life and Spot doesn't want to lose something again as he lost everything else.

Spot lost absolutely everything: he is no longer human, his coworkers make fun of him and he lost his job, his family does not want to see him because they see him as a monster, he cannot reverse his current physical state and I doubt anyone would want to give him a job or that a person wants to date someone who looks like Spot so having a life, a job, a normal appearance and even a romantic relationship with someone is impossible for him so he clings to the only thing he has is his anger and revenge towards Miles to the point that he wants Miles to lose everything, making the only thing he has is his rivalry and thus making Miles feel just as lonely and miserable as him.