I love this interaction so much because there are so many layers to it, especially when you look back at it after learning Volo’s true nature.
First of all, since Volo shows a lot of signs of being a total sociopath, it’s pretty clear to me that he doesn’t care about Ingo at all. He isn’t asking about Ingo’s memory loss or expressing hope that he gets his memory back out of any sort of compassion for Ingo; he’s only asking about it because he hopes Ingo can tell him what’s on the other side of the rift. Volo is only interested in Ingo as a potential source of information about the rift and, by extension, Arceus. Ingo’s suffering doesn’t matter to Volo in the slightest.
Volo’s suggestion that the space-time rift might be responsible for what happened to Ingo comes across as especially scummy in light of the reveal that Volo’s pact with Giratina is what caused the rift to open in the first place. Whether true or not, Volo theorizes that he may be responsible for Ingo’s plight, and that possibility doesn’t bother him at all. He believes his pact with Giratina may have completely ruined this man’s life, and he hasn’t lost a wink of sleep over it.
On Ingo’s side, his line, “I can’t remember my own home, nor my family, if I had any…” is particularly heartwrenching. The reason Ingo’s situation has struck a chord with so many fans is because we know exactly what he lost. In Gen V, Ingo and his brother were always presented as a pair, both in the games and in various adaptations. Now, Ingo doesn’t even remember that Emmet exists. Everything that he loved, everything that defined who he was, is gone, without explanation.
And there’s a very real chance that it’s all because of the man who has the audacity to smile at him and say, “Well, I do hope your memories return, Warden Ingo.”
tangentwithtanner
areudirty
andulkaphoto
titsay
turnnoffyourmind
snowghoul
kianamaiart
