Now that it's the start of a new year, I figure I may as well talk about something I said I would back when I first finished Lingering Echoes: the parallels between Ebenholz and Gertrude. Spoilers for the story of the event under the cut.
Both Ebenholz and Gertrude are from noble lines that lost their power and standing due to the defeat of the Witch King; Gertrude's family as followers of the Witch King, and Ebenholz as the bloodline of the Witch King himself. While they came to have different outlooks on their noble lineage, it still led them both to look at the world from a place of privilege.
Gertrude desperately clung to her privilege as a noble the way her father did, going as far as to assassinate her own brother to preserve the little power her family had left. Ebenholz came to despise his Noble position as Graf Urtica, but he undoubtedly still benefited highly from it. As much as he hated being called "coddled" - understandably so since he was essentially locked up raised with the intent of turning him into a useless figurehead - a gilded cage, while a cage, is also still gilded. His indignation at Czerny's criticism, his shock at Kreide's living conditions, and his not-uncommon use of his noble status to get his way all speak to his pampered life, as much as he hates the idea.
The greatest connection between the two of them however, and the point that inspired me to write this, is they both ultimately desire the same thing: Freedom, and more specifically, Freedom from the Witch King's legacy.
Ebenholz was experimented on as a child to become the Witch King's host, and then made into a figurehead with his title of Graf Urtica. He desperately wishes to be free of both the voice of the Witch King within him and his title of Graf Urtica, so much so that he was willing to go along with Gertrude's plan to extract his Voice of the Mundane, at least at first. Gertrude may have arguably been even more trapped by her nobility than Ebenholz; raised in a family that taught her to cling to whatever power she could, she saw no option but to bow to the loyalists of the Witch King because without the power and standing only they could grant her she would essentially have nothing. So she let them control her and played as their puppet until she couldn't take it any longer, until she gave up and decided she would have her revenge and freedom both. Her plan was essentially to lash out at the Loyalists; it wouldn't have destroyed the true masterminds - she admitted she didn't even know who they were - but it would kill the ones monitoring her, destroy the last of the Witch King's bloodline, and finally granted her the freedom she wanted through death. If she could have that, what does it matter to her if a handful of nobody Infected die? Her plan came from a place of callous privilege and suffering equally.
I believe that if the events of Lingering Echoes hadn't happened, if Ebenholz hadn't met Kreide and Czerny, he may have ended up like Gertrude: A bitter, arrogant, callous and lonely noble, blinded by their own privilege and suffering to the rest of humanity. When Gertrude made his proposal to him, he was so desperate he was willing to go along even though he knew it seemed shady, and although he did become morally opposed to it when he realized that the Resonance between him and Kreide's Voices was hurting the Infected, a large portion of his thoughts was on the possibility of him being implicated. I'm not even entirely sure if he would've said no outright to the idea of killing Kreide if him and Kreide hadn't bonded together throughout the story.
But that is where the crucial difference is: throughout the story, Ebenholz bonded with Kreide, came to learn how the poor and the Infected live and of their own plights and struggles, and was humbled by Czerny's lessons. Through all of this, he grew as a person, and came to realize he didn't have to be alone, that he didn't have to suffer alone, and that despite the tribulations he'd faced in life it didn't mean his life was defined by his suffering. While Gertrude's story was essentially about her giving up, Ebenholz was about him realizing there are things in his life worth carrying on for.
That's what I love about this event, and about Arknights. Just because a story ends in tragedy, doesn't invalidate the hope and joy and bonds that were made. We can still grow from it. We can still move forward.
titsay
kianamaiart
jacobvanloon
jbbartram-illu
baratheonpilled
2087
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
germansingergirl
