okay hold on shut up everyone shut up i have something to say
so it should be no news that i think the ending is bullshit. i think it's cheap as fuck that the solution to the resolution of fate is that lloyd came back in a different body and therefore the world had no problem with him coming back despite being previously hellbent on not allowing him to remain in it because of his status as a protagonist. like. i think that makes little to no sense and i think it's stupid. what do you mean fate is faceblind. that's the same fucking guy it's been trying to kill for almost five years now just because he now looks korean doesn't change that he's the one that disrupted the flow of the plot so hard he turned into an unauthorized main character. i think it's cheap and stupid and not that good of an explanation.
HOWEVER
i was just thinking about how it kinda sucked that the way the ending is structured means that javier was never really freed from the narrative. like yes his tragic fate changed and he's no longer beholden to the original plot of tkobai but he's still very much the protagonist. lloyd dying didn't free him from that role, it just meant that javier was now the only main character in the world and so fate was no longer gunning for him or his loved ones. but then i went and reread the way the jewel of truth described what would happen once one of them died and let the other as the sole protagonist.
[Once one of you disappears, the world will finally choose the remaining person as the rightful protagonist and perceive there to be no more error to fix. That is only when the incomplete reset plan to carry put the restoration of destiny will come to a halt and the story will develop around the existing hero.] -Ch 328: You or Me (3)
that last bit. the story will develop around the existing hero. once one of them disappeared fate would give up with the original story and just make a new one around the one protagonist that remained. which by the end of tged is javier.
javier. javier whose main priority at some point shifted towards keeping lloyd safe. whose main goal became keeping lloyd alive at almost any cost. this javier:
There was no more sign of life from the mischievous smile on the face of his lord. The young master he had sworn to serve breathed his last as his head dropped. He had died. "... No way." This wasn't supposed to happen. Javier was in disbelief. He refused to believe what he saw. This was not the ending he had desired. -Ch 398: Last Resort (3)
I never, ever thought once about life without Master Lloyd, not even right now. -Ch 400: Farewell (2)
this javier is the one the story is meant to develop around now that he's the only protagonist in the world. this javier is the one the plot is meant to be built around.
do you understand where i'm getting at
i think that it was javier's status as protagonist that allowed lloyd to come back without getting backlash from fate anymore. i think javier's resolve to keep lloyd safe, to have a life at his side, was what allowed destiny to accept lloyd back into a world that had rejected him before. i think that when the story tried to develop around javier "i never thought of a life without lloyd" asrahan it couldn't do it in a way that didn't include lloyd in it and so lloyd was allowed to come back without fate retaliating against him.
javier was the one that accidentally brought lloyd into his world, he was the one that purposefully brought him back to it and he was the one that unconsciously allowed him to remain in it. he's literally the reason that lloyd is there at all in any capacity.
do you get what i'm saying. i feel like i'm going crazy.
