Nikolai Talks Non-stop, But Fydor Is Into It (?)

Nikolai talks non-stop, but Fydor is into it (?)

Fyodor: Impressive. Sometimes, I can't read your thoughts at all.

Nikolai: That's because I don't think before I speak! >:D

Fyodor: That makes sense. I can't pick up on what's not there.

Nikolai: Yes! Speaking on impulse is the only way I can silence my brain. Anyway, about your plan…

Fyodor: (I'll let him talk. Maybe, it'll help him quite down his internal monologue)

Fyolai & self-care

Fyodor: Will you help me with my skin care routine?

Nikolai: No problem. What's your routine, girly?

Fyodor: Dying young. On a cross, preferably. Keeps me from aging, and I don't have to shop at Sephora for skin lotion.

Nikolai: Sounds delightfully horrible. When can we start? I'll grab some nails and wine.

Fyodor: I'm ready when you are. By the way, when we finish, you'll also be erased from your body, but not completely. Some of "you" will be fused with "me" for eternity. You will no longer be you and I won't have to be me. We'll be changed completely and never come back from it. You don't mind?

Nikolai: Never. That's sounds amazing! I always knew you were my true friend. You know my needs like no one else!

Wow, thank you for your wonderful response!

I secretly hoped that you would go in depth about Gogol's path and the way it paralleled Nikolai's. And you did! I really appreciate you digging out all of these details about Gogol's inner turmoil. It kinda adds a lot to Nikolai as a character. Especially, the desire to fix internal pain with external solution that's so radical it leaves nothing behind.

Thank you for supplying me with such a delicious treat of information I can ponder over while waiting in limbo for the next time Nikolai appears!

Will he be able to break free from the rolle of a "plot-moving-device"? Let's roll the dice 🎲

Hello, Kizo! you've also mentioned some of the interesting aspects of Gogol's personality I haven't thought about before. Like his pessimism. He is so constantly and desperately wants to seem excited, amused, thrilled, that he's managed to fool me. But it makes sense. "The only salvation from emotions is mine or smn else's death". He is quite pessimistic, just like Dost. And he's a perfectionist. He wants an absolute perfect freedom and nothing in between. Why is he like this, maybe trauma?

Thanks for the interesting asks!

It's neat to me that Nikolai manages to fool you. What I love especially there is that, like you said, while putting on that act he's so energetic, vivacious, and drawn very enthusiastic and animated. But when he breaks character, there's a stillness to him. His shrill tone softens into a meditative tenor; his grand gesticulations withdraw into intimate gestures; his stretched mouth and squinted eyes relax into the visage of a quiet, thoughtful, introspective young man. Harukawa expresses all of this beautifully with their drawings, and I just love it so much. The glimpses we see of the Nikolai under his mask are what made me fall in love with him in the first place--it's what makes his character for me.

One thing I really love expressed in characters like Nikolai is the 'sad clown paradox', which I think fits him pretty well. It's the playful jester character who's internally cynical. Nikolai creates a persona of a spontaneous, silly, horrifically brutal psychopath, but the scant few glimpses we get of him, we see a thoughtful and caring person, so much more and so much opposite just under the surface. I absolutely adore that duality.

I'm not gonna talk about potential backstories for Nikolai; I feel like speculation there is kinda pointless for me, since it could be literally anything. But, I can talk about Gogol's influence on him a bit.

Regarding this:

"The only salvation from emotions is mine or smn else's death". He is quite pessimistic, just like Dost. And he's a perfectionist. He wants an absolute perfect freedom and nothing in between. Why is he like this, maybe trauma?

I see a lot of Gogol's influence here. I'm not sure how much you know about Gogol as a person, so sorry if this is reiterative, but it's important context (and please take my cliffs notes version with a teaspoon of salt; I'm by no means a Gogol scholar). Gogol, at the end of his life--though probably during too--was very concerned with the purity of his soul. Why isn't something I can really comment on, but it seems to have culminated in him going to a radical priest, who advised him to undertake an extreme fast (meant for monks, I believe). Gogol then burned his manuscript for the second part of 'Dead Souls', and starved himself to death over the course of about twelve days (whether or not he meant to die isn't agreed-upon as far as I can tell, but that he died as a result of this fast is). All to reach a purity of soul he felt he didn't have, and couldn't get without drastic actions.

I genuinely have no idea if this story inspired Nikolai's, but I wouldn't be surprised if it did. There are a lot of parallels, and if you replace Gogol's 'religious purity' with Nikolai's 'freedom', you get a similar tragedy. Both seem based on the belief "my mortal/inherent failures/limitations are holding me back from what I need". And rather than go inwards and seek clarity through introspection, both externalise their problems and try to "fix" themselves via grand--and painful--proofs of their "faith/conviction".

There's also the parallel with Gogol's priest and Fyodor, though I'm not sure how much it tracks. Fyodor does seem to have some influence on Nikolai, but it sounds like Nikolai was already on his path when they met... that's all backstory stuff though, so who knows.

Then there's still the missing piece of 'why', with Nikolai. Why does he feel he needs to free himself from his emotions? Gogol's motive makes sense several ways: fear of Hell, self-hatred, a deep, spiraling depression. It's understandable, it's human, it's relatable. But Nikolai's freedom?

That Asagiri chose 'freedom from emotions' to be Nikolai's pursuit isn't something I've ever managed to understand. I just don't get it. I can't connect it to anything. You hear about people wanting to be numb, sure, but Nikolai's wants seem more about being capable of doing anything, or proving that he can... And he said (paraphrasing) "in spite of happiness I choose free will," so at the very least Nikolai thinks he's capable of happiness, and it's just not as important to him as his "freedom."

Yeah, idk. There's definitely something interesting there, though, that Nikolai's Ability gives him the freedom to do pretty much whatever (as Atsushi said in Sunday Tragedy), but he's so wrapped up in his own mind that he either can't see the freedom he has, or physical freedom is ultimately meaningless to him--which would make him seeking freedom through external actions an interesting failure to understand himself.

Then again, I don't know how honest Nikolai's being with himself, honestly. His whole "freedom" thing is an ever-moving goalpost. First it was torture people to death and kill himself. Then it was kill his best friend. Then it got so convoluted I won't even try to summarise it. And now he just seems lost. Giving Asagiri the benefit of the doubt and assuming this is intentional characterisation (and not just giving him plot-convenient reasons to take certain actions), Nikolai seems at best very confused (and trying to appear like he very much isn't). And, well, I'm confused too.

So yeah, all that's very interesting. Not sure how much of it was intended. Hard to tell with a character that gets like one scene every two years. And hard to tell where he'll go, considering how rarely BSD characters stay true to who they were past their debut.

Regarding the pessimism thing: ironically, I'd say Fyodor's pessimism is more optimistic in nature than Nikolai's. Because Fyodor believes in a world that can change. Fyodor believes he can make the world a better place, and is doing everything he can to achieve that. Nikolai, however, in his best case scenario, proves that it's technically true that complete freedom exists. But his world is still comprised of people in cages. It's cynical and oppressive, and his grandest hopes don't come close to changing anything for the better. I think that fits mostly very well with some differences I've observed between Dostoyevsky and Gogol.

The issue I feel I always hit upon with Nikolai is the six months he spent as a secretary.

If he'd joined the DOA suddenly and, within a few weeks to two or three months, decided to kill himself like this and went through with it, that'd be one thing. But he spent at least six months before Sunday Tragedy as Tonan's secretary, doing God-knows what, which is a real sticking point for me.

I mean, really think about it. Nikolai's whole plan seems unhinged, and somewhat mirrors Gogol's death. But Gogol's death was sudden, with almost no time between talking to the priest and taking up his fast. There wasn't time for deliberation or second-guessing.

Nikolai's part in the DOA's plan, though, gave him more than plenty of time to think it through. He had so many nights after coming home from work. He had so many opportunities to leave. Over six months. It completely changes the context of his death. It's impossible for it to have been impulsive, or spur-of-the-moment. It was methodical, intentional, decisively decided upon.

And that's... really bad for me rn. Because it says something very fundamental about his character, that he was able and willing to spend six months as a Japanese secretary to a high-ranking official, and to stick to that plan the entire time (I'm ignoring Nikolai's whole wanting to kill Fyodor thing until I see evidence that it actually furthers his character).

No matter how I look at it, deciding to die in that way had to be an impulsive action, just as Gogol's death was, and yet according to the manga, it couldn't have been an impulsive action, at least not for so long. At first, sure, it could've been impulsive, but Nikolai had more than enough time to think about it and change his mind (and I believe he'd be able to back out regardless of what the DOA wanted, he's resourceful enough).

The only other explanation would be that Fyodor somehow manipulated Nikolai into wanting to the whole time, which... I guess could be said. But that sort of explanation just undermines the entirety of Nikolai's motivation imo.

So, that leaves me between a rock and a hard place. Because I don't want to change Nikolai's character so fundamentally by altering canon, but I also can't explain to myself how he could've gone through with this whole thing, if not on impulse.

The only reason I can think to explain why Nikolai would be a secretary is because Akaky Akakievich was a secretary. And, just like Akaky Akakievich, he dies after appealing to a superior and without his overcoat ("Save me, sir!" and, if you look at the panels where he's in the chainsaw chair, his cape is conspicuously missing). But making that parallel isn't enough justification for why my interpretation of Nikolai would do this. Even if he didn't want to stay behind in Russia while Fyodor went off to Japan to become a terrorist, I don't see why joining in said terrorism would be anything more than one of his frequent flights of fancy.

I'm not ignoring the fact that he wants to be free. I know that's why he does everything. It's the fact that this particular way of going about freedom is absolutely batshit insane and he had enough time as a secretary to reflect and realise that.

It's also just really difficult for me to make that freedom compelling... Gogol wanted to purify himself, and, presumably, that priest he spoke to at least suggested that an extreme fast would help. His morbid fear of death, hypochondria, religious extremism--all of these character traits help contribute to the relatability of his actions, paint a picture as to how he possibly could've ended up there. And we can feel the humanity in his actions. There's something innately human about fear of death and striving for purity.

But Nikolai's freedom... Try as I might, I can't find an angle that finds its roots in humanity. I try to relate him to Kirillov, but Kirillov looks ascance and tells me that their motivations aren't alike at all, which is certainly true. I try to relate him to Gogol, but my issues are mentioned above. In sheer desperation I try to relate him to Akaky Akakievich, but there's nothing there for it. I've even tried Nastasya Fillipovna, and while she was helpful in other ways, nothing could be found for his freedom.

As I understood it, Kirillov's whole thing was "If God doesn't exist, then I must be God, because my existence is the only one I can prove, so I must be God and not remember>death will free my soul and I'll become God again", and since he was going to die anyway, he figured he might as well accept and give his death to Verkhovensky. But it also seemed to me sometimes that he just wanted to die, and was coming up with excuses. Either way, even that sentiment of "if my existence is the only one I can prove, then am I God" is fairly relatable, I think, even if Kirillov as a whole isn't much.

But Nikolai's freedom... He feels that society is a cage, and wants to escape it. Which... sure, it makes sense, especially for an extreme and eccentric personality like him. That he can't ever truly seem to break free of his societal conditioning is relatable. But somehow, torturing eight people to death and sawing himself in half because he's upset that he can't overcome his conditioning somehow isn't all that relatable.

I feel like Gogol's death was, in its own way, a perfect literary conclusion to Gogol life (though very early and I dearly wish he'd lived far longer). It was foreshadowed and fit his personality completely, and as a story is deeply fascinating and moving.

But Nikolai's death... it was sudden and shocking, a bit intriguing, and that's about it. It certainly didn't relate to any deeply human struggles. People do kill themselves often because of societal rules and conditioning (and people's poor reactions to them when they don't fit those rules), but they don't typically methodically plan out violent acts of terrorism. And I don't find domestic terrorists who commit acts of extreme violence to be particularly relatable. Or redeemable.

I want to make it work so badly, but I fear I never will. My Nikolai might be able to do it if it was spur-of-the-moment, with no time to reflect, but as a secretary... Well, actually, it's even worse than that. Not only does he have time to reflect, but living as a secretary again when he hated it so much the first time would also give him insight into how his life was as an actor... Idk, it's just a mess.

WHAT THE ACTUALLL FUCK GAMERS

why is fukuchi a fidget spinner?? ALSO I SWEAR TO GOD IF KUNIKIDA DIES I'M DROPPING THIS SHIT

I HOPE YOU'RE HAVING FUN ASAGIRI

Just think about it. What if the one who kills Fyodor is an insect.

WHAT. IF. FYODOR. GETS. TAKING OUT… BY AN INFECTED MOSQUITO 🦟? (they transfer many diseases)

MOSQUITO FYODOR.

He goes Zzz for the crimes you did. You can't hide from him. No one's safe anymore. A true menace to the world.