Headcanon Time! Do you believe Demande truly thought he loved Serenity or did he fully acknowledge that he only wanted to possess her?
First, I think it’s important to understand what Demande’s perception of love is. He was raised for a function, not necessarily to lead a flourishing emotional life. Of course he became a mature, stable adult because of his relationship with Saphir, but he doesn’t understand many other kinds of personal connections. He knows what it’s like to be a brother, and he knows how to communicate with his people at large, but intimacy is strange to him because it serves no purpose, especially when the state of Nemesis is so bleak and in need of care.
So approaching Serenity is already different for him, because she’s the queen of the city he’s trying to take over. The fact that he saw anything that struck a chord with him in her is kind of miracle enough - it’s only because of that difference in nature that he believes what he needs is to dominate her, to own her and reduce her to less than the sum of his parts as a means to act on his feelings, which are...muddy, really. Once he reorganized his thoughts and chose to defy Wiseman, he was still rather taken with her, so his earlier behavior towards her wasn’t as shallow or petty as it seemed. Hell, his obsession with her only took a turn when she fought back against him during the initial invasion of Crystal Tokyo; he saw her as a goddess, but he notes that she looked at him like he was “subhuman”. Personally, I think his forceful approach is a way to take out some pent-up aggression about his station in life, and he does it by targeting a beautiful, powerful woman he’s attracted to who was (rightfully) disgusted by his actions.
But with that being said, his emotional ties to her are, I think, related to something Demande can’t understand unless he acts on it. He’s never had a meaningful relationship with a woman: Esmeralde and the Ayakashi Sisters were all subordinates and nothing more, his mother was likely absent for most of his life, and even he probably knows how nasty it would be to go after Black Lady, who still has the emotional maturity of a five year old. I think he thought he really loved Serenity/Sailor Moon, but it was only pure attraction that he didn’t know how to handle -
- she was his first, after all.
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