#ch206

[abybweisse]

Ch206, Spoilers part 3

Part 1.

Part 2.

Here's the worst part....

Brace yourself.

Doll goes in for an attack on Mabel, but Snake rushes to Mabel, too.... (Aside: I hate Susan now, if I didn't quite hate her before, because she looks so eager here for Doll to harm these kids.)

Snake's memories of Doll begin to shatter....

...as Snake gets a big gash to his neck.

The cut is so deep that blood is spilling out of his mouth. This is probably a fatal wound for him, since there's most likely no one there who can give him emergency care. There's no Ada here. 😞

Idk what Snake says, but Doll is truly horrified by what she has just done.

Damn. I was worried Snake might not make it.

And it reminds me of that scene I mentioned before, back in volume 11. The cover art for ch204 suggests Snake might be sacrificed in some way (the symbolism of the snake on his head/hat), and the Roman numeral XI in Finny's hair could be a reference to this scene in volume 11. That's when Sebastian cuts the head off a fish while saying to Baldo that he would do away with any Phantomhive servant who turned against their master. Snake's gash is so deep that it parallels what happens to that fish.

So sad. 😭

[uwusayssnake]

Chapter 206

[funtomfactory]

[every-sanji]

Oh no! Tune in next week to find out if Alabasta will be blown to bits on every-sanji

[opbackgrounds]

“This kingdom is nothing to you. You’re doing this on someone else’s behalf. Why would you sacrifice you very live? What’s a friend or two? Abandon them and spare yourself all the trouble! Don’t be a fool!”

“Like I said before, you just don’t get it. Vivi keeps telling people not to sacrifice their own lives, but is always willing to put her own life in danger for other people. If we don’t help her, she’ll get killed. You people will kill her.”

“I don’t get you. All you have to do is walk away and--”

 “I don’t want Vivi to die! Because she’s my friend! As long as she keeps fighting to save her kingdom, so will we!”  

“Even at the cost of your own lives?”

“If we die, we die.”

Waaay back at the beginning of the arc I mentioned that The Power of Friendship is one of the big themes of the Baroque Works saga (along with trust and betrayal, as those things are intertwined). This is probably the closest thing we get to a thesis statement for the Alabasta arc. and it’s intertwined with the theme of living without regret, albeit indirectly. Luffy (and by extension the Straw Hat Pirates) are okay with dying for the sake of their friend, but they’re not okay with living with the regret of not helping her, even if it’s the safest option. 

And Crocodile is just...baffled. On a fundamental level he cannot understand this sort of attachment to another person. And what’s fun is because comics are a visual medium, Oda is able to sandwich this speech between two scenes of the rest of the crew using teamwork and The Power of Friendship to help Vivi scale the clock tower in order to (albeit temporarily) stop the threat from coming to fruition.   

[yisusandres]

[abybweisse]

Ch206 (p4), My family would never

After Theo asks what the teachers think of their honed aptitudes, Doll finds it funny...

...and says they are imitations that can never surpass the real thing/originals. She's aiming for Mabel, and we see reactions from Finny, Oliver, Susan -- I officially hate her now -- and Snake. Snake looks like he might rush to Mabel's aide.

As he moves to help Mabel, Snake is thinking about his circus family, and how he can't believe they would really kidnap kids and harm them (or put them in harm's way).

I've rearranged these next two panels, just so you can see them in the original layout. Doll strikes out with the broken glass, but instead of hitting Mabel, the blow lands on the left side of Snake's neck.

This gash must be very deep, because it's spurting blood out, not just oozing. Also, blood quickly starts to spill out of his mouth, suggesting not only has the carotid probably been cut, but so has his windpipe and/or esophagus. He still seems to be in disbelief that she would lash out against a child like that, but he can barely get the words out.

When Doll realizes what she's done, she freaks out in a panic, because he's the one person there she would never wish to harm.

But would she do anything necessary to try to save him? Is there anyone there who has the skills to help him at all? If the top students and Finny could band together and combine their knowledge and skills to help him, would Doll agree to a truce to let them? Would she force Susan and other staff to stand down and stay out of the way... or even help? Too many questions here... and I think it'll be too late for Snake by the time anyone can figure out what to do.

We haven't seen a reaper in this assignment, that we know of. But this doesn't mean Snake will live. There could have been one there the whole time, but they stayed in hiding, unlike Ronald at the sanatorium, etc. Sometimes the reaper organization gets alerts of unexpected deaths, too... when they happen, right? It would be nice to get a shinigami pass, but I can't expect it to happen for him.

Since I'm now expecting Snake to die from this wound, we might get some backstory for him, either as memories before he dies, or as cinematic records when a reaper shows up. Since we know how he joined the Phantomhive household, we might just get earlier memories, like more details from before/when he joined the circus.

Take note that not once this chapter has Snake spoken for his snakes; it's all been for himself. I should think that his flashbacks or memories would be speaking for himself, or perhaps for himself and the snakes.

Poor Snake. 😞 😢

[abybweisse]

Ch206 (p2), Did you... kill Jumbo?

We get a reminder of how ch205 ends,

...then Snake asks Finny if it's true he killed Jumbo. Time for Finny to explain why.

Simply put, Jumbo and the others were sneaking into the manor to kill their master, the queen's watchdog.

Of course, Finny and the others didn't really kill everyone in the circus, just the kidnappers in the first string.

He probably doesn't know the details, particularly what happened at Kelvin's manor, but he knows they kidnapped children, and he might have been given some very basic information about those children's fates. That they "suffered horribly".

When Snake asks Doll if it's true, she can't deny it, so she just doesn't speak.

He had already been told about the kidnappings by our earl, but I guess he wasn't going to believe it until it was confirmed, and Doll's silence confirms it. Now he also knows his own master had his found family killed, because they were kidnapping kids.

Then Finny and Doll argue for Snake to choose between them, claiming the other is the enemy.

More soon....