Character Developments and Parallels in Chapter 103 (1): Twilight and his performance
[Manga Spoilers alert]
As everybody knows, Ch.103 is the real 100th chapter since Ch.3 is the first chapter in which the Forgers became a family. There are a lot of callbacks between these two chapters. What do the callbacks tell us about character developments? What has changed?
Ch.3 shows us how Twilight really operates as a spy - he observes as Twilight and performs as Loid. He is both the spectator and the spectacle. Being a good spy, for Twilight, means the two roles align perfectly with each other.
While it is true that the three constantly acted as an audience in ch.3 (in an opera house, an art museum, or a political rally), what Twilight really wants to show off is their identifications of being a part of these audiences. The audience is then also the performer. Being an audience in Ch.3 is a preparation for being a performer in Ch.4.
In Ch.3, the major conflict is that he is a spy, a cool liar and a good actor, while Yor and Anya are not. When Loid gets anxious about the family's performance, Yor decides to take Loid and Anya to the park.
They retreat to a place where they could take a step back, shed their roles as performers and observe the crowd as spectators. She shows Twilight the place which "reminds her to get back to work" for the sake of the people while staying away from the crowd, She reminds him what his work is really about.
This happens again in Ch.103.
But the thing is, ch.103 is not really about work. Rather, Yor reminds Twilight of something opposite of work. She reminds him that it's totally fine to let go and not think about work.
As opposed to ch.3, which is about work.
Ch.3 is set in crowded places. Twilight doesn't want to stand out but he needs the crowds. As a spy, he needs the affirmation from others that his pretend family is convincing. He gets what he wants in chapter 3 by getting the affirmation he needs from a random person he saves.
The fact is throughout the whole story he has been stressing the importance of playing a convincing part in front of the others (ch.29, 47, 67).
Before Ch.75, we see a clear pattern in Twilight's performance as Loid, namely "for the mission", an excuse that allows Twilight to align his two roles (spy vs father/husband) with each other. Ch.75 is a watershed. There is a crowd, and for the first time, Twilight refuses to perform for the crowd. Or us. He refuses to give us his thoughts about his observations. Instead, he starts to offer excuses to his colleagues. He did it again in ch.86.
And after that, again, in ch.87, we see a tired and wounded Twilight hiding in his bedroom, refusing to perform for us. The fact is, he no longer even uses the "for the mission" as an excuse for himself. He no longer talks to us, the readers, hiding the answers even from his thoughts. He starts to find his own faults in his performances - Loid should act according to Twilight's will, but what if Twilight's wrong?
Ch.94 is interesting in a way that for the first time, it's not about aligning the two roles, Twilight and Loid. He's still "performing" as Loid but he's not thinking about the mission at all. He's not trying to be a spy.
What makes ch.103 very special is the absence of the crowds. Becky appeared for a moment and left quickly. Endo deliberately created a private sphere in a public space. There was no audience to perform to, so there was no need to perform. There seemed to be a mission - to find and observe Belle, but they were not actively looking for Belle. They were not trying to get Stella starts out of Belle. Different from what he did in ch.94, he's not using any of his skillset. He listened to Yor, sat and waited.
He no longer feels the need to perform in front of Yor. Echoing ch.86 in which Yor tells him he doesn't need to "be so perfect", as a response to Yor's suggestion about Belle, he just tells her about his "fault/weakness": "Waiting idly isn't what I'm great at either."
If his self-reflection in ch.14 and 35 could be interpreted as his attempt to fix something, he really didn't need to share this piece of info in ch.103 at all. He is a very private person. He doesn't talk about himself, not even to Franky. But it seems that he likes talking to Yor. He opens up to her.
He knows he doesn't need to perform in front of Yor, and that allows Twilight to make an attempt to relax.
The massive walls of texts (the ones while he thinks) disappeared as he tried "to not think for a while, to not worry for a while, to just relax and let go". Endo chose to draw a space that is empty of crowds and buildings. For a moment, it was just the four of them enjoying themselves.
For a moment, he's not Twilight [as a spy] or Loid [as a husband/father]. He's just [redacted].
He relaxed. And for the first time, he didn't faint (or die). This is the biggest character development of Twilight, really.
And therefore, this is the perfect 100th chapter.
