Mori in the BSD Manga and Light Novels prides himself in always finding the optimal solution, in pushing his own feelings aside to accomplish the optimal goal for any given situation.
He is a man of logic and carefully wielded cruelty.
We see countless examples of the way he handles things and in the end achieves the best possible solution to his problems.
Killing the old Boss and having Dazai as his witness
Dazai pointing out that he himself is a possible danger to the initial plan
Chuuya remaining a loyal part of the Port Mafia
Getting the Skilled Buisness Permit
There were all instances where we saw Mori put aside his own emotions and morality to achieve a greater goal. He wielded cruelty, facts and logic as weapons to achieve the in his mind most logical and optimal solution.
But Mori is human. And Humans can not completely disregard and turn off their emotions, no matter how hard they try.
Mori himself says that he has no regrets during the Guild Arc.
But does this like the face of a man void of regrets?
In this instance Dazai is choosing the words that will invoke the feeling of Regret in Mori to push him towards choosing a truce with the ADA.
Dazai is aware that Mori has regrets.
His inclusion in any conversations Dazai and Mori have regarding the old Boss tells us, as the reader, that Hirotsu knows the full picture.
He isn't just aware that Mori killed the old Boss like other people, but also of Mori's goal from that act.
Hirotsu even goes as far as to tell Mori that Dazai understands why Mori did what he did, implies that Dazai would also understand other actions Mori takes to reach the optimal solution.
But this also shows us something different.
After Mori killed the old PM Boss Dazai became a constant reminder of why he did what he did. It was inevitable that Dazai would forever remind Mori of the act itself and the initial reasoning behind it, since Dazai was present and Dazai helped him plan it.
Once Dazai left the Mafia Hirotsu transformed into a reminder of it all. In some way Kouyou is also a reminder of what he did and why he did it.
They were there during the reign of the old Boss.
But how does Mori remember the regrets of another part of his past? How does he remind himself of a time where he miscalculated, where he should have taken the emotions of the people he regarded as tools into account?
How is Mori reminded of the mistakes and regrets of the Great War, of Yosano?
Elise is Mori's ability, Vita Sexualis. A humanoid puppet to control as he wishes.
But also to shape as he wishes.
During the Great War Elise is nothing more than a robotic being wearing a human skin, void of emotions, thoughts and autonomy.
Mori has always made Elise take the form of a younger girl.
While it is speculated in the fandom that this could be linked to his Lolicon, I believe otherwise.
Elise is for one inspired by the Novel The Dancing Girl from the real life author. But since she is Mori's ability in BSD she will be influenced by his subconcious.
Elise shows us that Mori, even in his twenties, wanted an apprentice. He wanted to impart his knowledge on someone else but until he found Yosano he did not have someone to do this with.
(Im Beast Elise takes the form of a women. Mori already has children to take care of and bestow his knowledge upton, he doesn't need her to fill thie role. But he does need another caretaker, so that is what Elise becomes)
Yosano herself says in the Manga that she respected Mori as a doctor.
Choosing a young and mallable girl as his apprentice did make her easier to manipulate, to create an army that can not die. But young people are also sponges for knowledge.
And here we come to his regret.
Mori does regret how he handled the situation with Yosano.
He liked that strong willed and opinionated young girl he drafted, and he broke her.
We do not see much of Elise until Dark Era, so we can not tell how long it took for Elise to display Yosanos personality after Yosano was redcued by Fukuzawa and Ranpo.
In this official Art we see Yosanos shadow in Elise, a clear indication of teh fact that Mori's impression of Yosano was bleeding into Elise. But we also see her still wearing pigtails.
Her hair and general clothing tells us that this is between loosing Yosano and Dark Era.
With time, Elise will resemble Yosano more.
(The bow resembles the butterfly hairpin of Yosano.)
In this scene Mori tries to convince Elise to try on a new dress.
She refuses and clearly displays Yosano's personality in thsi interaction. From the way Mori handles it this isn't knew.
Their dynamic had already shifted into something more like Yosano and Mori instead of the Ability and Mori.
But her hair is different from the last picture.
Elise now has open and wavy hair. Does this remind you of someone?
(For a boy Dazai has always worn his hair longer than traditional seen as boyish, which in turn let's his ends curl and wave more noticable)
But why would Elise take on appearance markers of Dazai?
Because there is something Mori regrets.
He only openly mentiones it in Beast but since Beast is a mirror of Canon, that shows us how different choices will change the same people, we can assume this are also the feelings of Canon!Mori.
Mori regrets not being able to really help Dazai.
And his regret will only get deeper as he makes another choice for an optimal solution.
Driving Dazai away and getting Oda killed fulfilled many positives for Mori, what he reached was the optimal solution.
He just had to lose his right hand man.
This is not the behavior of a man not regretting driving away the boy he cared about for 4 years to this point.
To this day Mori leaves Dazai's spot as executive open. He invited Dazai back into the Mafia.
And when we see Elise after Dark Era she has changed once again.
But this time it is not her appearance that changed, it is her attitude.
Elise displays a very much Dazai-like attitude when talking to Mori.
Where Yosano - and until the end of Dark Era Elise - were strong in their oppinion but polite and steadfast in their refusal, Dazai was bargaining.
Dazai more often than not wanted something in exchange for doing something he deemed unpleasant/bothersome/boring.
During the recent timeline Elise also does this.
She doesn't just refuse things, she makes deals.
And she doesn't lie during negotiations, just like Dazai.
In the end Elise changes to be more like the people Mori feels a form of regret over. Elise is a constant reminder of his Regrets and Mistakes.
To support this, here are Asagiris words about Mori from the BSD Exhibition:
“He who fell out of the optimal solution”
Mori Ougai’s belief as the boss is described in the novel “Dark Era” and “Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen”. That is “The boss stands on top of the organization, and at the same time, be the slave of all.” For the sake of the organization, the boss must always take the “logical optimal solution.” That is the duty of the boss.
There is an unspoken additional point to it. “Therefore, no matter how much your heart aches, you have to ignore your personal feelings.” We can catch a glimpse of that in this scene. [the ADA-PM alliance meeting]
Mori’s expressions after “Burnt it.” and “Like what you did to your predecessor”, gave us a glimpse of his true feelings that were made sacrifices for the sake of the “logical optimal solution”.
[Translation by @popopretty here on Tumblr]
A true optimal solution would leave Mori with no regrets.
But whenever Elise changes and reminds him of regrets he feels, it is also a reminder of the time he did not truly reach an optimal solution.
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