#togspoilers
The Snake Man and Laura’s first met scene is paralleled to Bellerir and Khun’s first met.
And we know that scene of The Snake Man and Laura is about The Snake Man met Laura and fell in love at first sight with her.
The Snake Man and Laura’s scene started with the Snake Man met Laura, then he saw her face and fell in love with her. And if we read the chapter where Bellerir and Khun met from the bottom to the top, we will see that these panels of both scene are formed similar to each other and from there we might understand what is really SIU’s intention and what Bellerir really felt at that moment he saw Khun.
The scene started with the Snake Man wanted to see Laura’s face, so he moved closer to see her. If we read the Bellerir’s scene from the bottom to the top, we will see that Bellerir did the same thing like the Snake Man. He called someone to lower the platform so he could see Khun’s face more clearly. The texts (and context) from the Snake Man’s scene are matched perfectly with the Bellerir’s scene.
Then we see both the panels of them looking up/down to Laura and Khun:
The angle of both scenes are similar, the only difference is that Laura is in a higher position even though she is not as strong and powerful as the Snake Man, it showed that she is the one who will take control in their relationship. Otherwise Khun, who is more weaker than Bellerir, and is in the lower position than him. It shows us the gap between them and tells us who will have more powers in their recent relationship. But We can see that because the Snake Man has fallen in love with Laura, she then has more power in their relationship than him, so this can be a foreshadowing that Khun will be the one who has more affection on Bellerir in their relationship later on. Then in the next panels, we see the Snake Man and Laura’s faces, which are similar to Bellerir and Khun’s scene, we see Khun and Bellerir’s faces up close:
Laura is beautiful and Khun looked confused but that does not matter, what matters is if we match the next panel, we will see how The Snake Man really felt when he saw Laura and it would possibly be the same to how Bellerir really felt at that moment he saw Khun:
Do you see that? Bellerir’s face? The text? The first time i saw his expression I was shocked. It wasn’t only because the “mew” thing but that I couldn’t believe SIU would do it that clear. The “mew” scene wasn’t just implied the sexual tension (which heavily showed us all in the season 3 theme), it was also implied a romantic subtext in it which was decided to be hide under the sexual thing by SIU to make Bellerir’s character felt “sick”. From what i get after seeing this parallel, the real hiding subtext is that Bellerir made that face isn’t because of Khun’s mew, he made that face because he saw Khun’s face and fall in love at first sight with him. And if we ignore the sexual tesion of whatever is that, Bellerir is just a nerd who wants to be like his father but doesn’t really know what to do. I think Gustang is just the same. I read somewhere that SIU said Gustang got into women and cigar just to show Blossom that he was fine without her (which he is not). It’s just their acts to hide their true feeling after all. And lastly, after that we saw both the Snake Man and Bellerir made up their mind, the Snake Man chose to help Laura protect her child, Bellerir chose to get Khun out of that prison (to another one, poor Khun):
Do i need to say something more? These panels are just formed the exact same way. It’s not even subtle anymore. If i flip one of them? Here we go:
They looks just the same. I don’t have anything more to say because it is pretty clear here. I wonder it will be easier to make people think some characters are sick/obsessed with someone than make people think that they are just in love?
Finally, I did this analysis is just because i want to write about some romantic subtexts in TOG - which always have been there in the story and show my admiration for SIU, who made those wonderful parallels and gave this story so much effort and love!Thank you for reading my Ted Talk!
















