Murolo's Funky Clubhouse

Eri - adult - they/it A blog dedicated to PHF, its characters and themes, and other fun stuff. I have a LOT of opinions, feel free to ask <33

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This will be a very low-effort, first draft post, but I've been browsing through phf fanart, and i feel the need to address this trend I've seen with Sheila which I think could be worth pointing out.

There's this Feral Child interpretation of her going around where she's really unhinged in an aggressive manner and it's especially striking next to Fugo who has to "Deal With Her", and i don't think people realize that not only is this not rly accurate to phf (Sheila is shown to be quite cool-headed and VERY competent and composed as a fighter outside of that very non-standard situation at the end), but that it undermines her competence as a female character.

She's seen as a child by some fans, yet she's only one year younger than Fugo and has more battle and mafia experience than he does, yet next to him ppl treat her like the child and Fugo - who is also a child, also autistic and traumatized, and basically an equal to sheila in MANY regards he's not allowed to be bc ppl are insanely pretentious about Intelligence but i digress - gets treated as the Normal One, who needs to suffer her WeirdnessTM and recklessness (a friendly reminder that this man has twice as many Suicidal Runs as sheila, and he doesn't even need a soul-crushing epiphany followed by a breakdown to go through with them, he just doesn't think things through at ALL sometimes).

Same with people calling Sheila cute. While I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that, it feels a bit odd and degrading if it's done just with her, especially when, AGAIN, there's not that much of a difference between her and Fugo in this regard, both have incredibly endearing moments and r equally awkward in their interactions with one another, so either start calling Fugo cute as well or stop highlighting how WeirdTM and QuirkyTM and CuteTM sheila is. it comes off as deliberate. even if it's subconscious

[phffuntimes]

Nothing will ever change my mind on the fact that the “Her anger is my anger,” line should've been about fear. Not only does it make more thematic sense for both Fugo and Sheila as characters, but I generally don't believe anger is much of a defining trait for either of them, and I'm actually sick of it in Fugo's case. He’s nowhere NEAR as angry or as IntelligentTM as ppl make him out to be, so can we PLEASE look beyond what we’re told about this character and focus on what we’re shown??

[phffuntimes]

I think Sheila’s one track mind is one of her most interesting traits because it's a coping mechanism we see in her even before she gets processed by the mafia and it's no less potent then.

Her decision to find and hunt down the killer of her sister at the age of ten is simply insane and insanely childish (naive). It's such an extreme reaction, in fact, that it makes me believe there's more behind it – I'm thinking refusal to actively grieve, a FEAR of grief and facing emotions. Sheila would much rather focus her mind elsewhere and DO something that feels productive to the situation at hand (avenging her sister) than sit back and digest what happened.

I have my own lore regarding Sheila's time in Passione pre-phf but basically I think the mafia life distracted her from her revenge somewhat. Not in the sense of her finding it fulfilling but rather her barely surviving and fighting to survive being a young girl in a male dominated field where she's even further taught to suppress her emotions and be more a tool than a person. And that distraction over time would feed into guilt, bc she hasn't carried out her revenge and she hasn't rly grieved her sister either, which means she hasn't done anything that shows how much she loved Clara, and I think the guilt was also partially what lead her to worship Giorno (“i couldn't do this simple thing for my beloved sister, and the best way to atone is to follow the one who did”). Hence why I think she could learn to deal with this from Mista, Fugo and Giorno, who most likely make annual visits to their comrades’ graves and this “properly” honor the dead, even though it cannot be easy, esp in Fugo's case who let his friends down when he last saw them.

I think maybe the moment she realized she couldn't follow Giorno anymore bc there are and WILL be ppl who she believes to be more right than him was also further enhanced by the fact that it's sort of a betrayal to Clara too – bc she couldn't do the simple thing of carrying out the revenge she set out to do, and NOW she can't even thoughtlessly follow the guy who graciously did it for her, except it gets complicated bc there are now TWO guys and one of them is someone she does NOT want to follow and— you get the picture; a complete clash of interests and beliefs. That moment not only shattered her worldviews but also reopened a wound that has never healed, the wound that mattered to her THE MOST in life, which was doing right by her sister and the fact she's only failed on that front. 

I opened this post by highlighting Sheila’s nearly obsessive dedication to certain causes, but it VERY much goes hand in hand with her own brand of CowardiceTM – her fear of facing complex emotions, fear of uncertainty and instability, of the grayness of the world… Instead of mourning the loss of her sister, she runs from it, redirecting her unprocessed emotions to revenge. When she's faced with the nothingness and lack of direction upon finding out Illuso has already been killed by Giorno, she runs from that by swearing loyalty to him. When she finds out she cannot rely on the rules and principles she built to have SOMETHING for herself, she plans an escape - either by killing Volpe and leaving Passione or not making it out alive of that encounter.

[phffuntimes]

I reread a portion of PHF for another post I’m making and realized smth interesting… When Sheila kicks Fugo out of the car, the conversation they have prior, and then when she floors it to hit Volpe, it sounds like… she actually plans to RUN AWAY. As in, thinks she’ll most likely win (Volpe doesn't power up until the very last second and looks very nonthreatening), and will then get to flee for good, which would honestly fit with her tendency to run away from what haunts her than face it head on [stay tuned for my upcoming post about her (not) dealing with grief].

Evidence 1 and 2:

To me, this reads as her giving up on her role in Passione – resigning on her following Giorno and scramming. I haven’t gotten to evidence 2 yet where the point is that she believes she actually CAN take care of Volpe, but going off of that, this sounds like her basically doing Fugo a solid. “You stay here and do what I no longer can (follow Giorno), and I’ll take care of this thing for you so you don’t have to risk your life.” But it’s also a selfish thing on her part – bc by doing this solid for Fugo, she ensured he wouldn’t intervene with her plan, nor her subsequent escape bc she has him pegged as a coward who WOULD accept that offer if it meant ensuring his own safety, which she later learns isn’t all that true.

Evidence 3 and 4:

I’ve seen takes (and even subscribed to it at some point myself) that Sheila purposefully threw herself in danger here for ReasonsTM, but she doesn’t sound all that careless here, nor worried – she’s still trying to be strategic about this, not reckless, like she DOES want to survive, and her “refusing to believe any of this had happened” makes me think she genuinely did not expect Volpe to win this and not this EASILY at that. It’s like she expected to just run him over and then speed off, away from all this to God knows where.

What I adore about this reading is that it gives a more concise direction to Sheila’s arc, while also giving her more narrative power as a character. Something I absolutely loathe about the Volpe fight is how once Sheila rams into him, she loses all agency and gets subjected to what genuinely feels like torture porn with how unnecessarily brutal it is and she doesn’t get to say anything, doesn’t get to fight back, and is only used to lure Fugo in which. doesn’t even make much sense in-universe bc Fugo and Sheila r basically strangers and Volpe considers Fugo as someone incapable of making friends and a coward or whatever so using Sheila to get him to come doesnt sound like that good of an idea… it’s all really unnecessary and gross. 

If you consider her throwing Fugo out and solo-ing Volpe to give herself the option to disappear afterwards bc she underestimated him, then what Volpe does to her, although still unnecessary in its extent, serves as a narrative consequence to a mistake she CONSCIOUSLY made, and Fugo coming to save her feels less like a prince in shining armor moment and more as her being granted another chance, on top of being yet another proof that she was WRONG in her beliefs somewhere.

Fugo coming back to save her is incomprehensible to her bc it shows her assessment of his character was wrong and so is her view on people and interpersonal relationships by proxy, and I’d like to think that THAT is what gets her to stay post-phf, since she survived and her worldviews have changed but now there’s something new ahead of her that could help her grow and change.

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My dear Sheila E...

Sheila E has been done insanely dirty in phf in SO many ways (stripping her off her agency as a character during the final fight and using her just to MotivateTM Fugo is misogynistic writing 101), but I’m the most sad by the fact we get to the climax of her arc and then don’t get to see the aftermath.

She starts off as someone who’s so lost on what to do with her life after her sole goal has been taken away and fulfilled by someone else and she’s spent about a third of her life stuck in about the most traumatic, dehumanizing environment possible, that she rationalizes it in her brain that following the person who managed to fulfill her life mission (Giorno) for her is a sound decision (I think it’s in big part due to her guilt over how she handled the loss of her sister but perhaps i'll make a separate post on that in the future). She finds it easier to logically pick a respectable person to follow and then mindlessly follow them to the T than to constantly drown in uncertainty and the distrust she harbors deep in her heart. I think her latching onto Giorno so much was in part personal (him avenging her sister) but also reasonable (her seeing him as someone with noble, right goals whom she won’t regret committing to). It all makes sense in her head.

Now comes the part where I have to talk about Fugo, since I believe he’s THE most crucial person involved in her development. There are two layers to this: 1. him being involved in killing Illuso, 2. him as a person.

I’ll address the latter first to illustrate my point better: I think in Sheila’s eyes, dangerous stand aside, Fugo is the epitome of harmless. One of the most unimpressive people she’s ever met, and also quite possibly the first person in a while that has NO authority or upper hand over her, plus being around the same age, even further highlighting how he has nothing on her. (I could go on and on about these two and how this is an AMAZING basis for a friendship, but I’ll save that for some other time as well).

Now back to how this relates to him killing Illuso… Well, by Sheila’s rules, it would make sense to surrender herself to Fugo as well, since she did that to Giorno who arguably did less work in the ACTUAL killing. But… that’s stupid. Fugo is undeserving of that. What’s more important, she realizes he was the one who killed Illuso very shortly after realizing her loyalty to Giorno is crumbling, because she’s confronted with the fact she may have chosen the wrong person to follow, extended to this strategy being invalid to live by. And she doesn’t know how else to live – her worldviews she stuck to so strictly are shattered and both her and Fugo are fucked in terms of the mission, without any plan.

I think her confronting him in the car and confessing to what’s going on with her is her form of admitting that there may have been a connection (i do NOT mean this in a romantic sense, i mean it as Sheila being INSANELY lonely throughout the years and Fugo being the first person her age who somewhat fit the criteria of a Safe enough person to perhaps befriend, all of that being subconscious on her part, of course) and her kicking him out being a gift of sorts, because she’s about to recklessly try to ram into Volpe and see what happens. She doesn’t care she might die at that moment, so LOST about everything with no light to guide her that it just doesn’t matter. Might as well try to take this guy out with zero regard for her own safety.

And Fugo coming to save her in turn must’ve solidified the sense of comradery and even further disturb her beliefs on ppl. After this point she’s at the BIGGEST crossroads of her life, because there’s many doors open for her learning how to LiveTM and get better, but we don’t get to see any of that. It’s a great shame.

[phffuntimes]

Something i never understood is how ppl promote phf as a pro-fugio work. Like genuinely, they interact in a single scene, Giorno’s more of an ominous entity in the book than a person (which i have OPINIONS about) and Fugo at the end of the book is literally broken as a person and brought to his knees BY Giorno’s decisions and manipulation. That final scene was literally the most chilling ending the book could’ve had. The „I’m yours. Our Giogio,“ line is objectively devastating in context, bc Fugo at that point has nothing, no life direction, nothing to chase after, probably fears for his life in that restaurant while Giorno is monologuing about chickens, and is in an incredibly vulnerable position overall, and him literally GIVING HIMSELF IN to Giorno’s offer – to the offer of someone he BARELY knows but has a lot of reason to fear – feels like a beginning to something miserable, so… romance where? xdd