Hey Aby! In anticipation of the 205 chapter, I decided to go back and re-read Mey-Rin's and Bard's for clues of what may happen next to Snake and Finny. I noticed something interesting with both arcs - they both seem to hint at what their ultimate fates will be. While Bard's arc is all about meeting with wife and son while in a coma and he practically promises to return to them, Mey-Rin is an unwitting witness to a sex act, in an uncharacteristically graphic scene for Yana. Do you think that death is ultimately on the cards for Bard and (I guess) a marriage for Mey-Rin? Or is it all contained to their arcs themselves and does not mean anything beyond completing a mission?
⚠️ long post ⚠️
Assignments as foreshadowing?
I think that if Mey-Rin gets married, it would not be foreshadowed by her seeing sex acts through a keyhole.
She joined Qīng Bāng at a very young age and worked as a sniper, but she saw a lot going on around her. Well, as much as she could see without glasses. There were drugs, alcohol, and probably prostitution in and around the opium den, as well as throughout Limehouse district. One of her early assignments as an assassin was to shoot this guy at a hotel or perhaps in his own huge manor, right? He was a rival gang leader, and she shoots him while he's naked with some unnamed woman. He might have even been right in the middle of having sex when she shoots him. She's witnessed a lot in her young life.... Getting married to anyone would be despite the things she has seen and done. Reminds me of how Katniss finally settles down and has kids in The Hunger Games, even though she's been thoroughly traumatized by her experiences. So far, at least, Mey-Rin seems to have kept her mind pretty well intact. I hope she can continue to do so.
I think we can safely say she has somehow managed to remain a virgin up to this point, too. Otherwise, Georg von Siemens' inappropriate actions towards her wouldn't have been enough to make her question whether she was still worthy of marriage. Going by "Rin" and dressing as a boy until she joins the Phantomhive household might have been partly to protect her virtue. Good thing Haku was apparently only interested in her sniper abilities.
In Baldo's case, the interaction with Joanna and his son might be an indication he will have to break whatever promises he's made to them. At least for now. I mean, his claim he can now properly cook fried eggs is an exaggeration "Sebastian" calls out even before Baldo can fully return to the living realm.
I put Seb in quotations because I'm not sure whether Sebastian has infiltrated Baldo's coma or if he's just a nagging figment of his imagination.
Then again, maybe he will soon join them. We still don't have confirmation that he and the others safely made it out of Athena Sanatorium, thanks to a cliffhanger and moving on to the next assignment, with Finny and Snake. Next time we see Baldo et alia, they might be trying to take leave of the place... when Polaris freaking shows up, mad as all hell. Even if Ronald and William stick around and actually enter the fray (since it's another bizarre doll to take down), I don't see it ending too well. Baldo does seem to have this uncanny ability to survive, though, even if everyone else around him doesn't....
Either way, I highly doubt he will ever make it to Shanghai with the others, even if the others do. And if he stays in England and somehow still survives to the end of the series, this is most likely a false promise, as well:
Mostly because he's just that terrible in the kitchen.
I still somewhat hope Mey-Rin and Baldo end up together, despite their age difference. At least she is an adult already. Also, it was a very common practice in Victorian England for older men to marry much younger women, especially if those men were widowers. Much like Katniss again, perhaps Mey-Rin would only pair well with a man who has experienced much of the same trauma. Likewise, Baldo might now have trouble settling down with some completely innocent sort of woman. Katniss and Peeta go through the deadly and maddening games together. Baldo's been altered by war and losing his wife and son. Mey-Rin has been altered by her years as an assassin for a drug dealer and gang. Mey-Rin and Baldo have both been enlisted as servants for our earl, chosen because of their abilities and previous training; now they volunteer as pawns in this deadly game of chess against their young master's brother. Perhaps their bond will be strengthened by all this... if they live to see the end of it.
The main thing the first two assignments have in common, besides their basic instructions, is that Mey-Rin and Baldo each flashback to the events directly leading up to being offered positions as our earl's servants. Mey-Rin's flashback is triggered by Jane offering her the opportunity to switch sides. Her flashback shows us why her loyalty stays with our earl and Sebastian -- with the Phantomhive household.
Baldo's is triggered by Ada admitting her guilt as a survivor during warfare; Baldo feels much the same.
And he also develops loyalty towards our earl, Sebastian, and the other servants. Just like Jane ends up aiding the infiltrators, so does Ada.
As I'm typing this up, I realize "hunger games" describes both Mey-Rin's and Baldo's lives before: Mey-Rin is once fooled into biting a boot and is regularly given moldy bread to eat... while Baldo's battlefield starvation tempts him to cannibalize his fallen comrades. Sebastian barely arrives in the nick of time to stop him from eating the arm of Terry, or whoever that poor dead dude was, if it wasn't Terry. Sebastian shows up with a picnic basket filled with afternoon tea items and possibly more. The first thing our earl does to extend any kindness to Mey-Rin is provide her with the first hot, freshly prepared meal she's had in ages, perhaps as far back as she can remember.
Back to their assignments; they are paired with people who are in our earl's network but are not his servants. But Finny and Snake (and his snakes) are both Phantomhive servants, so do we get a major flashback from Finny, from Snake, from both, or from neither one? So far, Finny is having single-panel flashbacks and even briefly stating things he recalls to Snake and the top students. The orphanage reminds Finny of the research facility in some ways, and that could segue him into a major flashback. Since Doll is there, she could trigger Snake into one. However, before the assignments, they were the two we already knew the most backstory for, and we might never learn all that much more about either one. To deal with both characters, we might just continue to get tiny snippets here and there.
But Mey-Rin has a choice to make -- choose Jane's offer or remain loyal to our earl. She remains loyal, and Jane even helps her and Ran-Mao break up the blood collection operations there before parting ways. Mey-Rin and Ran-Mao just need to get to our earl and make their report.
Baldo still has a choice to make -- stay in England and return to our earl... or go with Lau and the others to China. Like I said before, he might never get to China, even if he tries. I do expect him to ultimately end up staying behind, possibly loaded down with fresh feelings of survivor's guilt. If Ada is still around when we get back to them, she might also decide to stay back and help Baldo take down the Aurora Society.
With Finny and Snake, I don't think Finny's loyalty could ever come into doubt. His choice might come down to whether he has to fight Snake. But I don't think Finny will see much, if any, choice in the matter if it comes to that.
Snake is probably about to hear Doll's full tale about the circus members' fates. Then his choice (and the choices of his individual snakes) is to either help Doll get revenge... or attempt to destroy her and shut down the orphanage. Snake is the last to join our earl's household, so he could end up the first to leave it (I don't think Tanaka has truly left). There's also the possibility that one of his snakes, like Emily, chooses Doll and must be eliminated.
There is foreshadowing in each assignment, but most of that pertains to what ends up happening in each assignment. I don't know what long-term foreshadowing there is in the assignments, other than perhaps some things not directly related to them... like:
The chance of Jane popping up again later because she hinted that she might
The shapes of souls and "aptitudes" hinting about soul transplants
If Layla ends up being Heathfield's daughter
If Layla/Al ends up being some experiment of Undertaker's regarding soul transplants
What I do see is each servant's loyalty being put to the test, and they must make quick, fateful decisions. Whatever choices they make during their assignments, they will ultimately affect the outcome of the story. Each assignment definitely has long-reaching consequences; they are not little bubbles of existence.
I hope I answered your question thoroughly. I stayed up too late working on this -- but not finishing it -- and have been half asleep all day.
“Welcome home” is a phrase that, until this point, has been time and again associated with love, belonging, and comforting safety.
I love that this "Welcome Home" contrasts Lisanna's at the end of the arc. They are both unexpected (this is an unexpected welcome, Lisamna is an unexpected arrival.) This one throws the exceeds into a despair that's been foreshadowed since the start of the arc (Extalia then proceeds to tell them lies about their fake mission); but Lisanna's welcome home promises long-awaited return after years of lying, (to finally go back to her true home and comfort).
While Happy's parents fought tooth and nail to refuse sending Happy down to Earth only to fail, Edolas Mira and Elfman bit back their tears and let her go even though they loved Lisanna as much as they did their own sister.
Anyways.
Mashima takes that "Welcome Home" symbol and tips it over its head here to turn it into despair.
I wish Mashima took more dark turns like this. Take something we treasure beyond anything and just destroy it in front of our eyes so we can find a way to fix it, instead of pretending to take some things away only to give it back later with little consequence.
