Overanalyzing Spy x Family - Manga Volume 3 cover
The cover of the third volume features Yor in her black assassin dress, sitting on the chair called La Chaise (designed by Charles and Ray Eames) and holding her blood-stained stiletto.
Similar to Anya’s cover, there are no objects hidden under the chair, only a few blood droplets. It’s obviously a point to her violent job, just like how we see Twilight holding a gun with empty bullet casings under his chair.
What I find interesting is that the blood isn’t hidden at all. She’s not hiding the stiletto nor the blood, and she’s even comfortable holding it there, looking at the camera, like she’s chilling with you after an assassination. That looks to me like a reference to how, despite the fact that she kills people, she’s still kind about it and also tries to make their deaths as quick and painless as possible.
Like, when you’re facing her, she won’t hide what she’s there to do. She’s like hi I’ve got a job to do please don’t resist, if you would be so kind :)
Also, obviously Yor is hiding the fact that she’s an assassin… but not because she’s ashamed of it. It’s only because she knows it’s against the law. Yor mentions how her boss, the Shopkeeper, has instilled in her the idea that through her work she’s keeping the country safe, and so she actually takes pride in what she’s doing.
She only hides because she has to, not because she wants to. So I feel that’s why the blood is in front of and on the chair, instead of hidden behind it.
About the lack of other objects: Twilight’s cover has more spy gadgets under his chair. The covers for Yuri and even Franky also have equipment that is adjacent to their jobs.
But Yor only needs her weapons to kill, and the blood is an unavoidable repercussion of it.
And so, actually taking it all into account… Yor’s perception of the world has been greatly influenced by the job she was lured into from a very young and very vulnerable age. She sees herself as one of the country’s appointed executioners, frequently thinks about solving her problems with murder before remembering that she can’t hurt innocent people, and is prepared to lay down her life to complete her job. For the Thorn Princess, her value is in killing people to make the world a better place.
And that speaks for how insecure Yor is in her everyday life.
She can’t speak about how she kills dangerous people, so her self-worth is tied to what she does outside of her assassin job… which is not very much, considering how much her assassinations have overtaken her life.
She has to keep herself fit and strong, and remain a skilled fighter with perfect perception of any possible danger around her. All that not only takes a big amount of time and devotion (thus stealing away time she could use for interests and hobbies), it’s also not something very valued in the world she lives in.
At some point she says that she understands why Loid wouldn’t want a woman like her, whose best quality is her strength and fighting skills, and combined with the general misogyny of the world it’s easy to understand that physical strength is not something that women get praised for, so… she reaches a very low point of self-confidence.
And so, she seems to take pride in what she does as an assassin. It’s the only place where her innate but also very practiced skills are appreciated.
And so she looks at the camera with a content smile, like yeah I just killed someone, how have you been?
Similar to Twilight’s presentation in his cover, I feel that this is only about Yor’s assassin side. She’s in the respective appearance, and there are no intimate objects around her, as we’ll see with later covers. This is the Thorn Princess – not Yor in full.
And bringing it back to how this job has consumed her, the lack of objects could point out her lack of focus on herself. Twilight doesn’t have personal objects because he’s rejected having an identity for his job; Yor doesn’t because she wasn’t given the space to. We see a bit from her original apartment and it’s quite plain – no interior decorating, only what’s necessary to get by.
And look, I am myself someone with a complete lack of interior decorating skills or even interest in it. But I am a real person. My curtains are blue because I like blue, there’s no narrative around it. Fictional characters can be built upon their choices in appearance or decorating or a lack thereof – they don’t exist in a vacuum. Twilight isn’t supposed to have an identity, but he decorates the house as Loid Forger – even by picking colourful toys and decorations for Anya’s room.
So, the lack of interior decorating on Yor’s apartment… tells me quite a lot about how empty her life was, until she met the Forgers. She even says at some point that her only attachment she had was to Yuri. But at the point we meet her at, Yuri has been living on his own for at least one year – and that would be enough to make Yor feel detached and lonely.
Camilla even comments on how she used to have a blank, robotic look on her face. But that changed once she started living with the Forgers, and she started feeling appreciated. Loid gives her good faith in why she took that “questionable work”, shows pride in her fighting skills, vouches for her, defends her feelings, and listens to her advice. Anya feels safe around her and proud of her strength, immediately accepts her as her mother, and wants to take her example.
But also – and that is very important – they don’t begrudge her for her horrible cooking. They don’t idolize her over it (like Yuri does) they’re not demanding her to be good at it (like society does) and they don’t punish her mistakes (like the Shopkeeper would).
All in all, the Forgers are a safe environment for her. It’s one where she feels safe to be herself, both in achievements and in mistakes.
So it makes sense why, through living in a misogynistic society and working a horribly demanding job, she didn’t really have a lot of time for herself. She just had to fit in and not catch too much attention; and there’s a small detail that Endo mentions, that in her City Hall job she’s just good enough to not get yelled at; she obviously finds no passion in it, and wouldn’t even need it financially considering what she makes as an assassin, so I’m guessing she took it as a cover. And through 1. her loneliness, 2. her lack of focus on herself and what she wants, and 3. the world’s criticisms that seem to burden her down… yeah, she would lose some spark in her look.
Now I’ve gotten into this whole tangent because while it’s sad, that the first focus we get on her is a minimal cover, I think I can be hopeful that if she ever appears on another cover, we might get to see more of Yor, and there will be objects around her chair that reflect who she really is.
As for the chair, the white colour contrasts nicely with the red of the blood and her dress, but as we see the blood is also on the chair. While Yor is meticulous in cleaning after her kills, it’s obvious that this work has had a deep effect on her. So the chair isn’t spotless either.
As for the shape of it, it’s interesting how this chair looks easy to lounge on. You can relax on it, and there’s lots of space to stretch, and even have someone sit close to you. Contrast again to Twilight’s restricted seating, but also to Anya’s open couch. She’s more relaxed than Twilight, but not as relaxed as Anya.
The inside cover shows Twilight despairing over Anya’s failing grades, with Anya attempting to comfort him.
Since this has no connection to Yor herself (aside from maybe the antithesis to us knowing that to Yor it doesn't matter what grades Anya gets at school as long as Anya enjoys her time there) I assume it’s a reference to chapter 16, from that same volume.
Volume 4 cover analysis coming soon…
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