The two women who should have the most to say to Lisa are reduced to supporting roles for a man to speak directly that they are not interested in addressing her points. In the ideal world this ought to be intentional but with the current level of writing I'm not even sure anymore.
New chapter Lisa is being too sympathetic again so they'll have her kill a character (Marco) to emphasize that she's crazy and she needs to go down. And since every character from the conservative faction of the church is getting an entire chapter dedicated to their development, at this rate Nicholas is going to show up to fight Satan and have his redemption by saving Joshua or something.
I don’t know what I was expecting from this chapter, but I wasn’t expecting Marco backstory LOLL. Mother Rosa mention… please come back…. We also now have a better approximation of Marco’s age, since he’s clearly still a child but older than 12 when Josh was 12.
Lisa seems to be actively in the process of dying for more power. “We have no interest in arguing with you” and the focus on methods I find interesting. In previous arcs and and specifically recently with Charlotte, the idea of violence as a tool to get to the negotiating table has been brought up. However, here we can see that even now there is no negotiating going on. Interestingly, there is also no focus on what methods they do think she should use. There’s a complete disinterest in engaging with her on any level. They neither agree nor disagree with her ideas, and while they disagree with the extent of her violence, there’s no expression of what outlet they do think should occur for her expression of ideas. Barbara and Leah both have been shown to understand gender based oppression, and oppose it, but they’ve also been uninvolved in enacting any sort of systemic change. If violence is a no go, or at least this extent of violence, what is the appropriate level of violence or alternative methods that they hold should be used? Again, none of the cast outside of Lisa has expressed what they specifically think an ideal world should look like, and what the appropriate methods for accomplishing that are. Whether that’s a weakness of the story or a purposeful critique, I’m not sure yet.
I had thought that there had been a direct reference to the Hammer of Witches, but hadn’t screenshotted it and forgot it was Marco! It’s kind of incredibly fitting. The Hammer of Witches, or Malleus Maleficarum is one of the most influential texts on witchcraft in Europe. It was written by Heinrich Kramer, a Dominican Priest, who was misogynistic to a degree that was notable even in the 15th century when he was alive. Like, he was so misogynistic that other theologians were condemning him in his time, including a bishop. One of the Popes did like his work though. He deeply disliked women, and the Malleus Maleficarum is one of the works most influential to tying ideas of witchcraft to women, and specifically women’s sexuality. Ideas of women have shifted over time, and in this specific time period misogynistic constructions of women held them to be excessively sexual and insatiable, and also more easily susceptible to sin as they were held to be less capable of reasoning then men. Heinrich Kramer did not disagree, and the Malleus Maleficarum is a deeply misogynistic text that is obsessive about women’s sexuality in much of the same manner that Marco talks about Imuri. That it’s the weapon he uses against Lisa is immensely charged, whether on purpose or otherwise.
The Japanese word he uses for aspiration also translates to longing, but it is a different word than the word used for longing in the chapter title. Idk enough about Japanese to make any commentary about that, but if anyone who does has any thoughts I’d be interested in hearing them.
Chapter ends with Lisa offering up her uterus, her reproductive organ, which also feels incredibly charged on a gender level. She’s been tied to ideas of pregnancy (c section headless woman, the story of the curse of Eve, swallowing the fetuses, her status as a lesbian in a time period and society that valued her primarily in her availability to men including in the range of reproductive labor). Really wondering where that’s going to go.
I think a lot about how both Dante and Leah lost the entirety of their adult safety nets in the same event when Beelzebub killed Leah’s entire family and Mother Rosa, the one adult who seemed to have actually left a positive impression on Dante.
So like, I've gotten into mtefil again and when I first read it, I was like 'Leah's history with Beelzebub kinda feels like she was groomed' but I suppressed that. But now that I'm reading with a clearer head, it doesn't just 'feel like' she was groomed; she was groomed. His end goal wasn't something sexual, but the way he acts like he's someone she can trust when she's lonely and distances her from her parents? The way he uses false kindness and her naivety to get her to do what he wants? How he calls her "pretty girl"? How he claims that everything that happened was her fault? How he drops her and forgets about her after he's had his fill meanwhile she's the one who has to deal with the consequences of his actions? Leah was groomed.
Psychologically-speaking, I actually would understand Lisa spamming Beelzebub out of her contracts. Satan got her into this mess, he's the one who plotted her assault, the other Baba Yaga souls probably have similar stories.
Asmodeus perpetuates Lust. She may not prefer the overt sexualization side of lust, but she still exists in it. She has no problem with rape, which is likely a trigger button for Lisa (a personal one, not so much that Lisa wouldn't tolerate it for her plans, she was clearly aiming for it to happen during Hell on Earth) and whatever contracted power she offers most likely would play to this carnal lust that I could see Lisa having some apprehensions towards wielding.
Beelzebub is... well, he's pretty dining table themed. He fries people, he flies, he skewers them. Certainly gory, but nothing I could see Lisa having a personal skin-crawl moment for (except maybe burning, but Lisa didn't seem that bothered at the stake anyhow).
If anything he's the only contract where Lisa was really using the demons back, if they used her, like she said they would. He got his refresh during her plans, she took a fragment from him and kicked him out of eastern Europe for whatever reason. She's the traumatizer in that relationship, the one where she's closest to an equal.
Not really comforting so much as just on better grounds than the others.
It's just very funny that Lisa's options for contracts are rapist, rape-planner, and cannibal groomer, and it's far and away the cannibal groomer that she may be the least personally turned off from.
Lisa used Beelzebub so much Leah said she looks like her, #WhatDoesAsmodeusEvenDo.
(No but seriously, you think the Asmodeus contract will come into play at all?)
Even with all the Beelzebub spamming we still don't get why and how Lisa cursed him to not enter eastern Europe or the history between them, don't have any meaningful interaction with Leah for her village and the Barbara convo is disappointing to say the least. Compared to all other plot points Asmodeus is pretty behind the list, so with how fast and underutilized everything is I doubt it would.
Personally, Imuri cursing Lisa like this is distasteful. Yes yes Lisa killed Joshua and all but the fact that we don't get any of Imuri's internal distress or conflict about her remorse towards Lisa and their recently reconciled friendship is what make this disturbing. If this is intentional then fine, it's entirely in character for Imuri to focus solely on her idea of one and only love above all else, which is what she also does later the same chapter with the massacre, and like how she casually threw away her friendship with LeahBarb the moment their stances on Joshua stop aligning. Imuri has a tendency to make one thing her entire identity, a lot of her self-worth is tied to being the femme fatale so she needs to make something equally grand to eclipse it. Her dismissive attitude can be read as her totally immerse in her new role as Joshua's lover to ignore her surrounding and escape from her guilt (Imuri has quite the experiences in this field, meanwhile Joshua tried to make being Imuri's boyfriend his new identity to replace his church's personal attack dog status and faced heavy reality check). But if it's not then again, damn this arc's writing is really depending on how self-aware it is and how much all of this is intentional.
On that note Imuri with the wish for a love to change her entire being got it and remains relatively static, while Lisa who says what need to change is the world has changed her complete essence to the point of being reborn. Imuri's a demon after all, and the demon lords have demonstrated that demons are almost completely incapable of change. Even Belphegor who gets the closest to it shows that he's still a misogynist.
tangentwithtanner
vaporwave
titsay
romaincrisis
blakekathryn
stormborns
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
