To keep riffing on my Riche thoughts for a moment, it seems significant to me that the first time we see her really step into the action in some way other than asking for help, her contribution is via acting. And specifically acting in the arc themed around the idea of "the self" and "personality" (in addition to social structures) as performances.
This is a somewhat. conspicuous character trait to establish at this particular point in time.
Shifting over to pure speculation, if I'm right about something Bad happening to Dante during this arc (which I realize is a really big if), I'm fascinated by the prospect of what might happen with Riche afterwards. If things do go that way, there's no way Johann's going to carry on business as usual in the aftermath, which means that poor Riche will suddenly be the only one left from our original dhampir trio.
If something like that does happen, I'd love to see Riche step into a more plot-relevant and leaderly role. The younger dham kids (assuming Mochijun doesn't go on another orphan-killing spree) are going to need her to step up and continue what she, Dante, and Johann have already been doing for them. They'll need a leader and protector and someone to interface with dangerous outsiders like Machina for them. And Vanitas will also need a new primary information broker. Who better to fill those roles?
And going back to the whole "Riche's apparently a decent actor" bit, given how thus far she's one of the only characters that doesn't put on any sort of affectation or cling to any denial to hide her "true self," it makes me wonder what that latent theatrical competence might be put toward in the future. She hasn't been using her ability to act for much up until now, so why draw her into the spotlight and establish that skill? To me, the obvious answer is that it's establishing something that will become key for Riche later.
If she does have to step in and start to fill Dante's bigger shoes, the ability to act and put on the type of protective mask that she's never needed before would do her a lot of good.
Now that we've gotten four of them, I think I have a much better understanding of what Mochijun is cooking with this door series. It's all about emotional honestyāhow each character interfaces with their interior self and how they do or do not share that self with the outside world.
Even the flower petals drifting in front of the door echo the petals she throws whenever she makes a grand entrance in peak de Sade form. They're the embodiment of the artifice that has thus far been blocking her honest self-expression from both herself and the outside world.
Dante's illustration is much more straightforward than Dominique's. He stands square toward the readers, looking on sternly in front of a sealed door, because he is an utterly closed book. Much of what he projects to the outside world is a construction intended to bolster his customer service and protect him from the public's hatred of dhams. He also refuses to trust or open himself up to vulnerability with anyone who isn't a dhampir, even though his bond with Vanitas runs deep enough to make that stance feel like brazen denial.
And even among the other dhampirs he's close to, he's something of a hero figure and an unofficial leader. He's not one to willingly reveal the softer, less self-assured parts of himself to them. His gruff exterior (which breaks into outright anger and hostility when provoked) is a protective shield that guards the vulnerable parts of himself that he keeps sealed away.
Ogier's illustration features him gesturing the viewer toward a wide open door with a smile on his face, welcoming them in. This captures the attitude he projects to the outside worldāOgier of Sphene is a cavalier open book with no internal conflict to hide. However, there is no "true self" behind the open door that Ogier draws attention toward. There is just another door, and another door, and likely another door after that were the illustration to continue. The "honest face" that Ogier presents is substanceless; it's artifice all the way down.
Ogier believes that there is no such thing as a "true" self. Everyone has a role to play, a mask to wear, and all that matters is how well they play it. As far as he's willing to acknowledge, there is nothing more to him than his mask, his performance, which is why there is nothing but more doors beyond his door.
Of all the characters featured so far, Riche seems to be the most genuinely open, and we see a real open door in her illustration as a reflection of that fact. There's no reason so far to believe that her "true self" is anything other than the face that she shows the world.
That said, Riche's "true self" is somewhat shy, awkward, and easily frightened, and Dante and Johann go out of their way to keep her from harm's way (which has the side effect of often keeping her out of the plot). That means that, though she's entirely herself, Riche hasn't had much chance thus far to actually act as herself. She's all internal with little impact on the world to show for it, and this current arc marks the first time where we see her coming out of her shell and placing herself on the stage where all the big action is happening. That's why we see her peeking out from behind the closed side of her doorāher honest self isn't locked away, but it's also just now starting to step out into the wider world.
It's also worth noting that her bat, a signifier of her status as Machina's dham, is the one thing fully in front of Riche's doors. Riche may not attempt to hide her true and vulnerable self from outsiders, but nonetheless, outsiders will always read her as a dhampir before they recognize her as an individual person.
It also doesn't escape me that all of this riffing on identity and personality as performance vs vulnerable emotional honesty is happening in a series where
The main character has the power to see others' memories, arguably giving him the power to see someone's "true self" more comprehensively than anyone else ever could, should he choose to explore to their depths
The main antagonist has the power to completely rewrite people's selves without their consent
and I'm eager to see if/when we'll be connecting back to either of these larger ideas.
I was reading back through 66 to check something for another post, and I don't think I flagged this when the chapter came out, so let me state for the record that I did not miss this Johann blush š„°. Dante pours water on himself and makes his big dramatic sexy determination face, and we get matching blush panels from Johann and from miss Canon Dantecrush. I know what you are, Johann.
Hello anon! You sent me this ask in 2021 and I left it to languish in my askbox for the next 5 years bc I was somewhat unsure about this theory and never got around to double-checking the practical details I was uncertain about.
Anyway,
Yeah.
Here's my post about how I think Dante might die soon. For unrelated reasons.
So Astolfo's last name is Granatum, which means pomegranate.
It's just occurred to me for the first time that, beyond pomegranates' general VnC-appropriate status as the Death Symbolism Fruit, you can actually map the pomegranate seeds' famous role in the Persephone myth onto Astolfo's story pretty well.
In the story of Hades and Persephone, eating a few pomegranate seeds in the underworld is what traps Persephone in that underworld for half the year. And while Astolfo is not a Persephone-coded character, and his overall narrative doesn't map onto the Hades and Persephone myth, the idea of being trapped in an underworld rings true for him.
Given that precedent, I don't think it's a stretch to say that on a symbolic level, Astolfo has been trapped in a kind of hellish afterlife since he survived the attack on his family. He's like a vengeful spirit: existing as a shell of himself cut off from the growth and change that real living should grant. He's been deprived of real life since the moment that Charles manipulated him into weaponizing his hatred against vampires as his sole reason to live.
That manipulation into desperate cruelty, that offer of violence to redirect and distract Astolfo from his deeper self-hatred, is the act of Astolfo being fed his pomegranate seeds. Propaganda and rhetoric fill the role of literal seeds, and Astolfo swallows what he's given because he's desperate for something to hang onto in his misery. It's food as a metaphor for ruinous indoctrinationādrinking the Kool-Aid. Thus he eats the (symbolic) pomegranate seeds, and he is trapped indefinitely in the underworld that is chasseur-hood. He even starts to live underground.
In the lineart version of Astolfo's feature cover, we see pomegranate seeds which fall and become spatters of blood, which in turn fall onto a pile of vampires' skulls. The desperate, hateful rhetoric that Astolfo swallows becomes violence, which becomes dead vampires. The internalized ideas which trap him in the "underworld" of emotional undeath also ensure his place in the cycle of vampire-human violence.
[screenshotting my previous tags for others' benefit bc they're relevant to your response]
@aguacerotropical That's a really interesting point!
I think I've posted before about applying a lot of those same ideas to Jeanne, since so much of her arc revolves around desire, repression, and learning to let herself want things. To borrow your words, she has to be given permission to feel pleasure by an antagonistic force in her life: Vanitas.
So Astolfo's last name is Granatum, which means pomegranate.
It's just occurred to me for the first time that, beyond pomegranates' general VnC-appropriate status as the Death Symbolism Fruit, you can actually map the pomegranate seeds' famous role in the Persephone myth onto Astolfo's story pretty well.
In the story of Hades and Persephone, eating a few pomegranate seeds in the underworld is what traps Persephone in that underworld for half the year. And while Astolfo is not a Persephone-coded character, and his overall narrative doesn't map onto the Hades and Persephone myth, the idea of being trapped in an underworld rings true for him.
Given that precedent, I don't think it's a stretch to say that on a symbolic level, Astolfo has been trapped in a kind of hellish afterlife since he survived the attack on his family. He's like a vengeful spirit: existing as a shell of himself cut off from the growth and change that real living should grant. He's been deprived of real life since the moment that Charles manipulated him into weaponizing his hatred against vampires as his sole reason to live.
That manipulation into desperate cruelty, that offer of violence to redirect and distract Astolfo from his deeper self-hatred, is the act of Astolfo being fed his pomegranate seeds. Propaganda and rhetoric fill the role of literal seeds, and Astolfo swallows what he's given because he's desperate for something to hang onto in his misery. It's food as a metaphor for ruinous indoctrinationādrinking the Kool-Aid. Thus he eats the (symbolic) pomegranate seeds, and he is trapped indefinitely in the underworld that is chasseur-hood. He even starts to live underground.
In the lineart version of Astolfo's feature cover, we see pomegranate seeds which fall and become spatters of blood, which in turn fall onto a pile of vampires' skulls. The desperate, hateful rhetoric that Astolfo swallows becomes violence, which becomes dead vampires. The internalized ideas which trap him in the "underworld" of emotional undeath also ensure his place in the cycle of vampire-human violence.
The thing about Mikhail Vanitasnocarte is that he's a really useful and interesting and compelling character and also every time I think about him for too long I feel a little bit nauseous.
