Asa's Big Break
Heavy spoilers for Daemons of the Shadow Realm/Yomi no Tsugai, up to most recent chapter at time of writing, Chapter 51. We just got a few very interesting tidbits of information, and I want to discuss them in the context of my previous writing about the themes of the series.
(also, the anime of this series starts next week, on the 4th. I already saw the first episode, and it's really great. If you haven't been reading the series, you should watch it! And not read this post because it's full of spoilers)
We've all been so desperate for some Asa development, and it seems like our wishes are finally coming true. This new arc makes her a proper co-protagonist for the first time, and I couldn't be happier about it. But it's also bringing out a very sinister side of her character we haven't really seen before, and I couldn't be happier about that either.
The readers of this story have, up to this point, been left mostly in the dark about the actual powers of Break and Seal. We've seen a few examples of their use - broken barriers and contracts, sealed lifespans - but not really a lot that explains why these unfortunate teens are worth starting a war over. Why everyone around them thinks that they can take over the world if they want it. Sure, Asa can decapitate people with her bare hands from 20 paces, but there are lots of ways to decapitate people. Hell, Gabby does the same thing in the first chapter. That's not a power that can take over the world.
And yet, oddly enough, that's the only use-case that Break explicitly tells Asa about.
What other uses, Break? Care to clue us in?
Well, evidently the Kagemoris knew of a couple of others - breaking barriers and breaking contracts - but that's basically been the extent of Asa's skillset so far. Unlike Yuru, she's not really a natural combatant, she has no training, and she's only had the power for about a year when the series begins.
That's all we've seen her do with Break since then, up to the most recent chapter. But something very important happened to Asa a few chapters ago, and I think that's the key to this whole thing.
Asa had the perfect opportunity, means, and motive to kill Ivan Yosano, but she didn't. She couldn't. Murder is just not something that comes naturally to her. She tries to talk tough, but Gabby has been right all along - this isn't her job. If she's going to weild Break, she needs a different way to do it. So she came up with one.
I think we're supposed to read Asa's use of Break in the most recent chapter as more than a little bit sinister. It's obviously a lot less violent than her previous uses of Break (since the previous ones were either the complete severing of contracts or the complete severing of heads) but it's not a nice thing to do to people, and very against the ethos of the series. We're left on that image of Gabriel's shocked, blank, expression to show that this is a violation. Gabriel is as much Asa's friend as Gabby is, and Asa just completely overwrote their will.
And of course, as the great sage Bunbun has told us before,
Now, let me talk about murder for a second. It'll all come back around later.
Fullmetal Alchemist took a pretty standard shonen manga/anime line on killing people: that killing people is basically the worst thing you can do. Neither Ed nor Al ever directly kill someone, and Ed prevents Winry from doing so. The other protagonist characters talk about killing as a permanent stain on their conscience, even when they were only doing that killing either under orders or duress. What could possibly equal the value of a human soul, et cetera.
That point is one of the starkest points of contrast between FMA and YnT. YnT is not - broadly speaking - anti-killing. Both of our protagonists have killed multiple people before (though Asa tries to avoid it) and neither of them seems terribly torn up about it. Yuru is quite blasé about the whole thing. Gabby has killed untold scores of people - including people Asa knew - and neither Asa nor the narrative seems exceptionally concerned about that fact. Killing people is sufficiently normal for everyone in this story that each faction needs to employ a dedicated cleaner to get rid of the corpses. The story actually pays more attention to the cleaners and their role than it does to the ethics of killing. Burying bodies correctly has a lot of moral weight, but making those bodies doesn't have much.
None of this is a flaw in the story, mind. It's clearly that way by design. As I've discussed before, the fundamental themes of the two series are very different. In FMA, killing someone is the worst thing you can do to them. In YnT, that's not true.
In YnT, the worst thing you can do to someone is use them.
In that previous post, I actually missed one of the clearest statements of that theme, which is in Break's speech when meeting Asa. After explaining Asa's two options (accept Break and its powers, or die), Break says:
Death is an option of comparable severity to being used. Maybe even a better one. Mercy is not always the kindest choice, when the alternative is objectification.
Now, back to Asa.
Asa clearly does not agree with the main theme of this series. And that's fascinating.
Though Asa has killed before, she now refuses to do so. Gabby confirmed that she didn't kill anyone in Higashi village, and she couldn't kill Ivan despite clearly desiring to do so. In his current state, Ivan probably does think that death would have been the better option! There was never any chance Asa would kill her way out of the Kagemori manor, but what she did to Gabriel and the guards is still clearly supposed to read as wrong. By refusing to talk to them like people, Asa is also refusing to treat them like people. She's treating them like obstacles to overcome.
Instead, Asa has decided to overwrite the wills of humans and daemons alike. And I don't think we're supposed to think that's a good thing. Her use of it in Chapter 51 isn't too objectionable on its own - just a temporary pause in a couple of orders - but it is evocative. She really can manipulate the wills of everyone around her. And we don't know how far that power could go, and what she thinks the limits of its use reasonably are.
Yuru has a pretty strong moral core - he's willing to kill, of course, but only if he senses killing intent from a person. Otherwise, he's willing to be direct and hear everyone out. Yuru is posessed of an impressive courage of convictions, honed from many years of semi-independent living, and that means he's able to stand up to a lot of moral pressure. He's direct, he's confrontational, and he's willing to do what he wants even when other people disagree. Not so Asa! Asa has no idea where her moral center is. She's never had the freedom to develop one. Now she does. And a terrifying amount of power to go along with it. The decision she seems to have come to is that killing is wrong but depriving someone of their freedom (either directly, like Ivan, or indirectly, like Gabriel and the guards) is ok. And the narrative does not agree with her! The narrative is pretty clear that depriving a person of their autonomy is just about the worst thing you can do to them. And in the case of Gabriel and the guards, she basically just did it to get out of an awkward conversation. That's not a very good reason!
Break didn't tell her she could do this. She figured it out on her own. The girl who has been a prisoner her whole life has turned jailer. The girl who never had the opportunity to decide what she wanted to do now robs others of that decision. It's very juicy.
Am I saying that Asa might end up the villain of this piece? No. But I think there's a dark path ahead of her, and I'll be curious to see where it leads. What happens when she and Yuru have a serious disagreement for the first time? How far will she go if Yuru's safety is on the line?
