So, @rag-gw2 and I had a conversation about how to potentially fix Logan Thackeray as a character in our respective canons.
First off, give this man some fucking personality, yeet his cop coded shit and queen simping out of here. Queen Jennah don't want you, boy! Move on! *Slaps him with my commander to start things off*
Second, give him some hobbies. So, he's into history and spends a good amount of his free time reading books. (Don't expect him to read Snargle Goldclaw's works, though).
Third, Trauma. The man lost his big brother to Branded Ogres and Hyenas, and he's just...fine?! Yeah, no. We're changing that. Home boy now has trauma surrounding Kralkatorrik, and it amps up to 11 in LWS4. He has nightmares about Dylan's death, and also trauma from his experience in the blighting pod as well.
If anyone has any suggestions on how further to fix this man, let me know!
Not that this will ever get written because I already have two fix fics in progress and an OC-driven original bleach story to write, but here are the biggest changes I’d make to Fairy Tail in a fix fic:
Zero is brainwashing Jellal instead of Ultear, we established that.
Jellal can come back, but he’s permanently disabled and suffers spasms and miniature heart attacks every so often due to raw Ethernano infusing into his body royally fucking it and his internal systems up. His magic set has to become more balanced instead of raw power-oriented.
Jellal faces down Zero, and weakens him so that Dragon Force Natsu can beat him while Jellal takes out the lacrima.
Instead of gaining Laxus’ lightning at the last moment, what actually becomes Natsu’s second-tier power-up is Zancrow’s flames. Inhaling them and forcing his body to utilize them permanently “infected” Natsu with cursed fire. The fact that Natsu was able to eat them at all was an effect left over from Ethernano fucking up his body’s internal systems.
Laxus beats Hades.
After Tenrou resurfaces, but before he leaves, he meets with Gajeel and settles some bullshit with him about hurting and protecting Fairy Tail, and gives Gajeel his magic.
So we all got that? Black fire Natsu, Iron Lightning Gajeel
And these are the power-ups they use to defend themselves from Sting and Rogue’s Dragon Forces.
Sting also has healing powers.
Natsu & Gajeel vs. Sting & Rogue goes on for so long that it’s a draw, but Sting and Rogue still get punished for it.
Sting wins Sabertooth the Grand Magic Games.
In the Spriggan war, Sting and Gray meet up with Natsu to cure his demon seed/dragon seed problem (the dragon seed was rendered defunct by Igneel but reawoken and infected by Zancrow’s cursed magic; the demon seed is just what it is.) Gray cures the godslaying flames infecting Natsu’s dragon seed with his Ice Devil Slaying magic, and Sting exorcises the demon seed with his holy magic and then they have a threesome.
This overall leaves Natsu with a lot less power, but at least now his body isn’t warping and changing out of control.
You know what would’ve been a decent--no, amazing--alternative to Ultear being revealed as the one behind Jellal’s brainwashing instead of Zeref? Brain.
Because unlike Ultear, Brain was not a villain who was going to be redeemed and he did not have a tragic backstory cushion to fall on. He is up there with Hades and Mard Geer when it comes to villainy, and literally has an even more evil personality that wants to blow up the world hiding inside him. Brain was already behind Ultear’s own path down to darkness, so I have no trouble at all believing that he’d happily run a slave tower full of children.
In fact, it would also fix a lot of problems with that slave tower and the Oracion Seis themselves. We know Brain was looking for kids who would grow up to be suitably strong wizards to use as keys for his Six Prayers body link spell to seal Zero with. A while ago, I made a post specifically detailing how badly Jellal fit into the Nirvana Arc. Putting Brain behind the brainwashing of Jellal fixes the following problems:
Why the slave tower was being run. While initially being used by Zeref cultists to resurrect him, I repeat, we know Brain was looking through the children in that tower to find keys for the body link spell. When Ultear gives the reasons behind the brainwashing, we’re given a vague and undefined “yeah we found a key to revive zeref by doing this” thing that very unsatisfactorily explains why she would waste an entire 10 years running a slave tower for no discernable reason and renting out a chunk of her magic to Jellal. Brain’s explanation is much more clear-cut and really, it’s all he needs.
The immensely bipolar and insane actions of Jellal while possessed; sometimes he’s cool and calculating and likes playing with his opponents, like Brain, and sometimes he’s a laughing lunatic who will blow up his hard-earned Tower of Heaven just to kill Natsu and Erza, like Zero. Let’s say that Brain was possessing Jellal in order to seal away Zero in another person while he was still looking for keys to do it properly. The calculating, chilling Jellal is Jellal when Brain is in control, and the insane Jellal is Jellal when Zero is in control.
Why Jellal didn’t blow up Brain when Brain tutored him in Destruction Circles. In-story, Destruction Circles are only used one time, which is for Jellal to blow up Nirvana and then himself, which both fail. They’re also hastily given an explanation in why Brain can undo them: because he’s the one who invented them and personally instructed Jellal in their use. However, this takes a different, retroactive turn when Ultear is revealed as the one in control. We know Brain spent weeks torturing her as a child, creating part of her tragic backstory. You would think that an Ultear-controlled Jellal would immediately recognize Brain and blow him to kingdome come in rage. With Brain being the one in control, this problem is not present.
How Brain knew where to find Jellal. Why, exactly, does Brain need Jellal to find Nirvana? Answer: he doesn’t. How, exactly, did Brain know where to find Jellal’s assumed-atomized body? Answer: he shouldn’t. With the current story, this just comes off as Mashima determinedly jamming Jellal back into the story at literally the worst time with no logical explanations whatsoever. However, if Brain is the one possessing Jellal, it obviously makes sense that Brain would know where to look to find Jellal’s body.
Jellal’s amnesia. In-story, this is a very poorly-used and convenient device to absolve Jellal of his wrongdoings by wiping his mental slate clean and reverting him to Good Pure Jellal. It’s got a lot of holes in it that are never explained, such as how Jellal can still use magic that isn’t his, how Jellal can use magic he learned while possessed, and Jellal very conveniently hearing a “voice” in his head that told him "I must find Nirvana”. This becomes better explained with Brain in control: Brain is still actively possessing him in the Nirvana arc.
Why Cobra couldn’t hear Jellal’s thoughts at first. In the same instance as the amnesia coming into play, Cobra is for some reason unable to hear Jellal’s thoughts in order to (badly) preserve the tension. This doesn’t really make sense, because memories and active thoughts aren’t the same thing. However, we can deduce that Cobra couldn’t hear Brain’s thoughts either, because as detailed here, he was shocked when Brain stabbed him in the back and took it pretty damn hard. If Brain knew how to hide his thoughts from Cobra, it makes sense he’d know how to also hide Jellal’s thoughts from him, too.
The Oracion Seis being willing to work with Jellal. In canon, the Seis have no clue that Jellal was possessed and only know him as a monstrous lunatic that terrorized their childhoods. Which is why it makes no sense that, when Brain brings them Jellal in a coffin, they seem pleased at the idea of his resurrection and willing to work with him--they should hate him and want Jellal to stay dead to the point of mutiny. If Brain is the one controlling Jellal, then it makes sense that they’d be okay with this--they’re in on the brainwashing plot. It would also make it a decent catharsis when Jellal later pulverizes them in the Tartaros arc and gets confronted with the Zero illusion, instead of Jellal being a horrible tyrant beating down and enslaving the people whose childhoods he ruined to the point of post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t really like that one, since I prefer the Oracion Seis as the anti-villains they are, instead of complete monsters like Brain. So instead, you could also have Jellal walk up to Brain’s corpse and be relieved that he’s dead, stating that he owes Cobra and the Seis, explaining that Brain was the one behind his possession and wants to work with them, or something along those lines.
The source of Jellal’s brainwashing feels genuine, and not just there to give him an out by turning another character into a scapegoat. I’ve already said before that I heavily suspect why Ultear was made the one behind Jellal’s brainwashing last-minute: because fans weren’t on Jellal’s side yet and still didn’t like him, so Mashima turned the blame onto another villain so Jellal could be redeemed--much like he turned Acnologia into the new overarching villain when he decided he wanted Zeref to be a tragic, redeemable villain. However, he should have been more careful with it. He decided in that same arc that he wanted to redeem Ultear Milkovich, and so we have Ultear, with her suitably tragic backstory, being the one behind another character’s entire set of crimes despite being on the heroes’ side now. That slave tower was run for 10 years and many atrocities were committed that stripped hundreds of innocent children of not only their bodily health, but their mental health, and people died. In doing this, Mashima is breaking a basic rule of drama, as established by Aristotle: do not show a bad man (villain) coming to a good end. What I’m saying is that by stacking Jellal’s crimes onto Ultear’s already heavy ones, her sins become completely unforgivable and she looks like a monster, no matter how sad her story is. This would be okay if Ultear were Brain, a remorseless villain who has been shown willing to brainwash, torture, and manipulate people as he pleases and who is a complete monster as is already established. But Ultear became a redeemed villain. The Tower of Heaven is a crime worthy of death--death by execution, not death by self-sacrifice or suicide. This would make it, again, amazing catharsis when Cobra kills Brain--he was the one behind not only Jellal’s suffering, but the Seis’ as well, and he then gets exactly what he deserves. Mashima should have turned the blame onto a villain that wasn’t going to be redeemed so he wouldn’t have to deal with this atonement bullshit, and Brain was there, but instead he chose Ultear.
It also accomplishes this much for Brain himself instead of Jellal:
It connects him to the overarching plot better. When it comes to Brain’s relevance to the story, all he’s really there to do is be a villain for the Nirvana arc; he isn’t present in the Neo-Oracion Seis for obvious reasons, and is promptly killed when he gets free from prison by the dude he backstabbed. Even the responsibility for Ultear’s childhood torture is anime-only (although I accept it as canon for this exact reason). Putting him in charge of Jellal’s brainwashing connects him to the Tower of Heaven arc, in turn connecting him personally to Jellal, Erza, the Tower of Heaven gang, and everyone else that involved. It also adds another layer to the relationship between him and the rest of the Seis: they were terrorized by Jellal until he saved them, taking them them out of the tower and teaching them their magic. In reality, he’s directly responsible for that horrible experience.
It gives him more of a connection to Nirvana. Nirvana is, essentially, a brainwashing magic. It forcibly switches the alignments, personalities, and allegiances of anyone it affects, and is probably pretty fucking powerful since we can deduce that its original intended target was Acnologia. Brain is called Brain because of his vast intelligence collection, research, and surveillance abilities, but adding brainwashing to his arsenal would give him even more reason to pursue Nirvana: he likes control and he’s already started figuring out how to achieve it.
jxwelry replied to your post “The fact that Jellal has only four named spells and only three bases...”
hello fairytail-whathesays please write up spell ideas for jelly the fool
I can always count on you. Just from what I know about space and a short search about stars and shit, I came up with these:
No clear order but??? Ideas man, Ideas.
Jupiter Cannon: Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and the name for the Roman equivalent to Zeus, king of the skies. Okay so after the Phantom Lord arc (where the “Jupiter Cannon” is first featured) comes a Celestial Spirit arc, and then the Tower of Heaven arc where Jellal uses Heavenly Body magic and I just??? I heard the name of his magic and I thought for sure he was going to pull out a spell called “Jupiter Cannon” and....no, he used the other spell that nearly destroyed the town, Abyss Break, which has nothing at all to do with Heavenly Bodies. This is a giant missed opportunity. Jellal is supposed to be a Wizard Saint, right? So what if he invented a monstrously powerful spell that was later marketed as a mechanical weapon of mass destruction?
Mercury: Mercury is the Roman name for the Greek God of swiftness and Mercury the Planet was called that because it goes around the Sun much faster than Earth (due to being the closest, it takes only 88 Earth days). Why the spell that drastically increases Jellal’s speed was named “Meteor” instead baffles me. But this should be the name of his speed magic or maybe an upgrade to said speed magic.
Mars/Venus: Venus, despite being only the second-closest planet to the Sun, is known for being the hottest due to its atmosphere, and was named for the Roman goddess of love and beauty. Mars is the planet on the other side of earth and is very very red, and was named for the Roman god of war. What I’m getting at here is a fire-element spell based on one of these two planets, which would then be one of the components of Jellal’s Abyss Break.
Uranus: Named for the Titan of the sky that married Gaia/Mother Earth. Uranus is a blue-green planet known for rotating sideways and for packing high winds. This could be a wind-element spell based on the planet and would be one of the components of Jellal’s Abyss Break.
Neptune: Named for the Roman god of the seas, very very blue, and known for being very watery and stormy. This could be a water-element spell based on the planet and would be one of the components of Jellal’s Abyss Break.
Pluto: Last planet in the Solar System (I swear if anyone comments saying there are only eight planets and Pluto isn’t one of them I will launch you to the moon) and known for being very small, very gray, and very very very fucking cold due to how far it is from the Sun. Would be an ice-element spell.
Moon: The closest heavenly body there is, and known for having a surface littered with craters and cracks from repeated impact by objects from space. This could be a high-impact earth-element spell that hits hard enough to leave actual craters in the ground, and would be one of the components of Jellal’s Abyss Break.
Morning Star: Dude, it’s the fucking Sun. The one we see every day and the one most connected to Heaven in religion. It’s the star assigned to Uriel, and more notably, Michael and his twin brother Lucifer/Satan/The Goddamn Devil. Our own Sun is a yellow dwarf that pumps hundreds of thousands of degrees of heat out into space and generates enormous amounts of energy. If you really want to impress me with Jellal, show me Jellal throwing a giant fucking ball of golden fire that looks like the Sun at people.
Antares: One of the largest stars, and the brightest star in the constellation Scorpio. When I first heard Jellal’s Altairis spell, I misheard him and thought he was saying Antares. Anyway, Antares is a very large star, a red giant said to be big enough that it’s surface would reach Mars’ orbit if it were placed where the Sun is. Want to impress me with Jellal? Show him throwing an even bigger ball of fucking fire at people. Red Giants are actually not as hot as the smaller ones, hence the color, and are in the last stages of a star’s life.
Bellatrix: This is a very special and rare type of star, it’s a blue giant. The color range of heat in stars from coolest to hottest (and the range from largest to smallest) goes red, orange, yellow, white, blue--blue stars are usually tiny dwarfs. Bellatrix, however, is massive, several times the Sun’s mass and radius. Also called the Amazon star due to Bellatrix meaning “female warrior”. Now show me Jellal throwing this at people. Not only is it a big giant ball of fucking fire, the name’s meaning combined with its color (blue = Jellal, “female warrior” = Erza) would make for fridge thick enough to cut with a knife.
Algol: I found this while reading about Bellatrix; it should be in Jellal’s arsenal for its title alone (It’s called the “Demon Star”). This is probably because it’s actually three stars all orbiting each other. Also called the “Satan’s Head” or “Devil’s Head” star. If Jellal’s Grand Chariot’s gimmick is about the number seven, I see no reason why this one’s gimmick can’t be the number 3. I don’t even care what it does, but if I were researching space for a space-based magic, I’d immediately write this down.
Gravity Magic: Why does Jellal not have gravity magic? Gravity is a big deal in astronomy. And as shown by Bluenote and Kagura, gravity magic can seriously fuck up your opponents. This should be part of Jellal’s roster. I suppose it is, with the “Altairis” spell, but I’m not sure why that was called Altairis to begin with--Wikipedia doesn’t even have a page on it.
This is not all there is to space or celestial objects but holy shit I want to press a big giant “Missed Opportunity” stamp onto Jellal’s forehead.
I have seen your post on Zeref. What do you think should have been done with him for his character to be at the least DECENT?
Hooooly shit. Let’s enter that hurricane and try to find the eye.
1. Stop trying to weave together every single plotline into Zeref.
The big, overarching villain does not necessarily need to be connected to every single story in the series. And when they are, it takes an exceptionally skilled writer to pull it off, and Mashima is frankly a good ways under par. Untangling this mess is the first step towards finding a place from which we can launch an actual character. To that end, I suggest cutting out:
Irene Belserion’s backstory, obviously.
Anna Heartfilia and the Eclipse Gate. That one falls apart rather easily. The dragonslayers did not need to come from 400 years in the past.
Zeref’s story with Mavis. There is far too much interweaving between Fairy Tail and Zeref and it’s basically driving this shitty Alvarez arc.
If you absolutely must keep Natsu being Zeref’s brother, then do so, but that plot point is so overused it’s fast approaching cliche levels. There really should be other ways to tie the central characters into Zeref if they have to be.
2. Explain Ankhseram.
Ankhseram is an actual, divine god of life and death that was awake and willing to curse two teenage individuals over messing with life and death in ways that would end up causing more mass death. In present day Fairy Tail, there has not been a single hint of any divine presence at all beyond Chronos, who in himself is just sort of there to give DiMaria an unfair power. In case anyone is confused at why Ankhseram is important:
It literally caused every single important event in the goddamn manga with its actions.
And yet, it has received no fleshing out or explanations beyond those backstory actions. It is literally just a very important chunk of backstory with no substance. We do not know who exactly Ankhseram is, why he felt it important to curse Zeref and later Mavis over his transgression and her own much smaller one, why it has not been seen or heard from since, what its laws and rules surrounding death are, or how it feels about the events that have unfolded as a consequence of its curses. Ankhseram is literally “a mean god came and cursed Zeref one day so that’s why he’s bad” and that’s it.
3. Do better when it comes to “snapping” Zeref.
People have heard me mention that what Mashima wanted when creating Zeref is the story of a good person who just suffers way too much trauma and tragedy before that one last thing happens to completely break them and turn them into a monster that can’t be saved. I have also mentioned that he failed, badly. And that’s because the catalyst for Zeref “snapping” was Grimoire Heart’s war with Fairy Tail on Tenrou Island. I should mention that Zeref gaining control of his death powers goes hand in hand with his loss of care for humanity at large–one can’t happen without the other. I should also remind everyone of the terrible, traumatizing, and tragic displays of human violence and aggression that have happened during Zeref’s 400+ lifetime, including recent ones like: the cultists of the Tower of Heaven running an immense slave labor project using kidnapped and abused children, the many millions of people across the many towns Grimoire Heart slaughtered without mercy looking for ‘keys’, the Edolas Anima project run by a mad king that would’ve ripped away everyone in Earthland and murdered them……and yet, what tips him from his life of willful seclusion and love for humanity into nihilistic omnicidal insanity, is…..a war with Fairy Tail that Grimoire Heart started and subsequently lost, badly, wherein no one died except people who died at Zeref’s hand. This is not exactly a believable catalyst for me. I have trouble, considering the depth and scale of this manga, believing that this is what turns a good man into a psychopath. Do better.
4. Stop mixing “kind” and “murderous”.
I will state right here and now that we are supposed to perceive pre-Tenrou Zeref as good. Flawed, maybe, but good. After all, he fell in love with Purity Sue Mavis, and taught her and the other Fairy Tail founders their magic. And he participated in a project to dethrone a homicidal dragon king. All of his horrific experiments started with him just trying to revive his slain brother. That meanie Ankhseram is to blame! All those demons that have hurt and threatened countless people are “misunderstandings”–they were for the purpose of suicide, not killing anyone else! And he banded together 730+ guilds both light and dark to overthrow a tyrannical monarch!
Yeah, there’s a bit too many problems with this. For someone who hadn’t seemed to have had his “snap” yet, Zeref pre-Tenrou is surprisingly uncaring about loss of life that comes as a direct result of his actions. That stuff I mentioned in point three about possible catalysts for Zeref to snap over human violence? A lot of that is blood on his hands. The Tower of Heaven was started in his name, to bring him out of his supposed sleep. So were the mass killings committed by Grimoire Heart. In addition, the demons that he created are either vicious killing machines (Lullaby, Deliora) or are incredibly hostile to human life (Tartaros), an idea that was apparently programmed into them. For someone whose decision to slaughter the entirety of humanity down to the last child was born as a result of one final anger with humanity’s senseless violence against itself, Zeref has still done more harm to humanity than it has ever done to itself, by far, and is either too selfish or too hateful of humanity to begin with to acknowledge it.
This really just comes with a problem I’ve pointed out before, which is that Mashima has no sense of delicacy or subtlety when writing antagonists even if they’re supposed to be anti-villains or tragic villains. “The Black Wizard Zeref” being a misunderstanding kind of plays off how many people were torn apart by Zeref as though he didn’t very much earn that name.
5. Cut his love story with Mavis.
This was just so unnecessary, not to mention a monumental dip into the pedophile-pandering jar. Even if you had to maintain Zeref’s connection with Fairy Tail (you really didn’t), a love story was not the way to go. It has now started its entire own arc, and a very poorly done one at that. You know how I would’ve won the war with Alvarez? Walked up to Acnologia with Mavis’ crystal in hand, said “hey, eat this” or otherwise told him to fling it into the sea, or in some other manner had it delivered permanently from Zeref’s grasp. The fact of the matter is that Mavis should have remained dead, because her being alive has been a tool used for Zeref’s character and not to its greatest effect.
6. Explain what exactly is necessary to kill Zeref.
Another one of those things that was never really explained about Ankhseram (that really should have been) is the immortality he cursed Zeref with. The most we’ve been able to guess is that it’s sufficient power, as E.N.D. is described as being the most powerful of Zeref’s demons and thus able to kill him. So, uhh….? Have Acnologia do the job? It’s canonically greater than Zeref’s equal, easily so. Or, I dunno, wait a few years and Laxus or Gildarts will get to that level, I’m sure [shot]. Oh, but Zeref wants to destroy Acnologia! (Strange thing, as setting Acnologia on a rampage would be the easiest route to wiping out humanity, which is Zeref’s main goal). That’s what he wants Fairy Heart for: to destroy Acnologia. But couldn’t he also use a power source that great for his suicide?
If all he needs to die is power, than what exactly is stopping him? If it’s not power, than what is it? We’re getting kind of close to the end of the manga here, and why exactly E.N.D. should be the one to kill Zeref instead of anyone else hasn’t exactly been explained.
Have her key really be broken, and she really does disappear for a year (which is like four days in the spirit world but what the fuck ever), and she really does come back in the Alvarez arc. However, while she looks identical and sounds identical, it is a completely different Aquarius.
Not a case of memory loss/amnesia/just doesn’t recognize anyone, absolutely no chance of her “returning to normal”, she is literally a new Aquarius bearing the same shape and voice. Scorpio is miserable because the image of the love of his life is right next to him, but he’s a stranger to her. Lucy is awestruck and it looks like a miracle has brought her friend back, but she’s shot down. Could lead to some interesting development for her and her spirits. You can even keep the god-awful Brandish connection by just having her cowed by long-forgotten fear if you have to.
I want to say Erza’s not quite as bad as Natsu….but she’s still pretty bad. Again, MAJOR SALT WARNING applies.
There are some people that seem to think that being a serious, capable woman who can fight better than some of the men in the story shields Erza from Mary Sue accusations. Those people are wrong.
1. COMPLETELY REHASH ESTABLISHED POWER.
In Erza’s case, this was already expounded on in another post in detail (see the link). She should have started with a few armors and weapons and we should’ve been told exactly what they did, and then built up a collection over the story, instead of starting off as a master swordsman with hundreds of armors capable of sword-spamming anyone to death.
Erza’s power starts off at a clear level above Natsu’s, but as the story goes on, they both start using the same Mary Sue traits and become unclear powerhouses, and Erza, who started off a serious, closed-off woman, starts to absorb some of Natsu’s tics, like tiresome friendship speeches or (in which case she’s even more infamous for it than Natsu) winning completely unwinnable battles with one strike with no explanation whatsoever. Which leads us into the second bullet point.
2. STOP PUTTING DOWN OTHERS TO POWER UP ERZA.
Erza has a habit of being put into the same situations as others, but standing strong while they fail. This is a means of de-powering others to make Erza look strong, and I’m tired of it.
One example is Azuma. Before Erza duels him (and the disaster writing that follows), Mirajane is Azuma’s chosen duel. In order to force Mirajane to fight, he threatens the life of her sister. In order to force Erza to fight, he threatens everyone else’s already endangered lives. Both of these characters are of extremely high power and capability, roughly equally so, and have been put into similar situations. Yet, Mirajane fails while Erza succeeds. It doesn’t help that Mirajane’s sacrifice to save her sister is a lot more moving to me than Erza giving a bullshit speech that’s overall very irrelevant.
Another example is with the anime-only battle with Cobra when the Neo-Oracion Seis come onto the scene. Erza’s chosen teammates were Max Alors (the sand dude that keeps getting a broom in his ass) and Evergreen. I really don’t want to talk about Evergreen; she’s been played up as weak too many times and I’ve discussed that post after post. Max however, warrants discussion: after this arc, when the GMG arc is just starting, Max and Natsu battle. Max, who a background character who has had seven years to power-up, very nearly defeats Natsu, who’s been asleep for seven years. Not that Natsu was any more effective against Cobra, but Erza was also asleep for those seven years, and so was Evergreen. So we have three very powerful characters, but only one is even able to hold her ground–Erza. Which will lead us into point four a little later.
And then outside of arc villains, there’s also how she keeps beating up Natsu and Gray when they get into fights. I don’t mind someone breaking those two idiots up, but this is done to show how strong Erza is–even after Natsu and Gray have come miles and miles and so many miles ahead from where they started. One of these days I’d like to see reality set in and see her get shitkicked for trying to forcibly play mediator.
3. SEPARATE HER FROM JELLAL FERNANDES.
I don’t really care what people think of the Jerza ship or how much they love it and refuse to see reason. The fact remains that Erza seemingly revolves around Jellal the moment he’s even slightly relevant and even when he isn’t.
When Jellal shows back up [ gags ] with amnesia [ vomits ] and no memory of what he’s done so he’s all Pure and Good again [ dry-heaving now ], Erza demands that instead of committing suicide, he must live to atone for his crimes. I’ve mentioned before how this particular part of Jellal’s character arc is where Mashima messed up, but let’s examine what it means for Erza. Typically, I support this view–a remorseful former villain who’s committed an atrocity should sometimes not be allowed to take the easy way out and off themselves–they have a debt to repay to people. However, you have to take into account the scale of the atrocity and the dangerous power of the villain. Erza knows firsthand just how utterly, monstrously powerful Jellal is and has seen the damage he is capable of causing, and he literally just unsealed Nirvana while she watched, leading to the rest of the arc and all the trouble it causes. You do not let a person that dangerous, no matter the situation, live. You have to kill them before they have a chance to cause more damage. And given what Erza goes on to say and do for the rest of the arc (”I KNOW YOU HAVE GOODNESS INSIDE YOU, JELLAL!”), I have a feeling this in particular was selfishly motivated.
There’s the GMG arc with the dragons. Erza, who should really know better by now, is fighting the dragonlings with an already-battered body and a broken leg against repeated pleas otherwise by her comrades. Erza, who has an Adamantine Armor (although this was admittedly cut in two by Kagura) and a dozen other effective armors that, you know, are armor, which typically is designed to protect you, instead goes nakama pants and sarashi. As a result, she nearly dies and has to be saved by Jellal Fernandes, because her own idiocy landed her in lethal hot water.
Again, we bring up Azuma. So much is good with Azuma, but so much fucks up around him, damn. When Erza survives Azuma’s first Terra Clamare [ fuck that noise ], she gets back up, because she hears Jellal’s voice. Jellal. Who is in a prison cell hundreds of miles away. Jellal, who is not even remotely relevant to this scene or even this entire arc. Jellal, when there are people dying right now depending on her. Tell me that doesn’t look like a bad combo of mary sue and character satellite. And then when she survives Azuma’s second Terra Clamare [ FUCK YOU ERZA YOU LITTLE– ] she mistakes Natsu’s voice [ crying and banging my fist on the desk ] for Jellal’s. WILL YOU WAKE UP?! JELLAL HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS SCENE! REMOVE YOUR HEAD FROM HIS ASS!!! Erza looks terrible for this, thinking of her star-crossed love when there are other far more important matters to attend to.
This little ditty with Azuma leads us into point four.
4. DON’T PUT HER IN BATTLES SHE CAN’T WIN AND THEN HAVE HER WIN ANYWAY.
A lot of people think the trend of Erza winning against insurmountable foes with no explanation or a poorly-done one started with Azuma. It didn’t, but we’ll get to him in a sec.
It actually starts with Midnight. Now, as stated before, I actually like Erza’s duel with Midnight because it’s actually fairly strategy-based and Erza wins through intelligent use of her powers, allowing her to circumvent Midnight’s overwhelming abilities. Unfortunately, that doesn’t last. As we know from the Tower of Heaven arc and the battle with Evergreen, Erza has a false eye which allows her some level of immunity to eye-based or visual magic. The problem here is that Midnight’s illusions have nothing at all to do with the eyes, and are not visual in nature at all. Midnight is simply bending light, and the eyes are picking up the results. Erza’s false eye shouldn’t just be able to un-bend the light Midnight is manipulating for her and only her. This really didn’t have to happen–Erza had sort of already won that fight, until Mashima decided to use the whole “at midnight my powers are at their strongest” and put him down further.
Moving on to Azuma. The fact of the matter is that there is simply no believable way that Erza (or most anyone on that island) could’ve won the fight with Azuma fair and square, and let me tell you why: Azuma is in control of all magic on the island. All of it. Remember that enormous magic power permeating the very air that people could feel on Tenrou before they even got to the island? He controls that. Azuma also drained every single Fairy Tail guild member sans Erza of their magic power. Including Natsu, including Gray, including Mirajane, including Makarov, including Gildarts. All of that monstrous magic power, combined with the already immense, insurmountable power of Tenrou itself, goes into the Terra Clamare attack. In having Erza survive even one of those attacks (much less two!) you are telling me not only that Erza is stronger than all of those people combined, you’re telling me that she puts all of those people combined to shame. Erza should be dead a hundred times over from that one attack. Dead. Caput. Corpse. Maybe not even a corpse. But no, not only does she survive that one, she survives a second one. These, after the already brutal beatings Azuma himself has put her through. But really, it’s what comes after the second one that makes me want to demolish this manga: Erza, somehow, in a completely unexplained way, wrests control of the magic power being used against her and uses it to completely KO Azuma (who wasn’t anywhere near defeat, it was not a close battle) in one hit. There is not even an attempt to explain this beyond “uhh, the souls of Erza’s friends helped her or something…”. What’s sad is that I can think of an explanation to fill it in, maybe not a perfect one, but still. Wasn’t Mavis on the island? If she was strong enough to convert their bonds into magic energy to power a Fairy Sphere capable of holding back Acnologia, I can believe that she’d be able to wrest possession of Tenrou’s power from Azuma and give it to Erza. Alas, this is not how it happened.
Moving on to Kyoka. This one’s quite infamous on its own: having been bound and tortured for a long time with all five of her senses stripped away and an exponentially heightened sense of pain, Erza suddenly one-hit-KO’s Kyoka with a punch and gives a friendship speech. In-story, Happy gives us this excuse: “It’s because she’s Erza”. Translation: Mashima wanted another naked lady torture porn scene to whack off to, and didn’t care about how Erza would get out of it when he was done, and gave a giant middle finger to logic because he can’t plan for shit. Translation: fuck logic, fuck reality, I’m Erza Scarlet. What’s especially odd with this one is that there was a readily-made excuse already established that could’ve gotten Erza out of this, and yet it’s ignored. Erza’s false eye that won her the Midnight fight? It’s darkened just like the other one. And since Kyoka’s magic/curse/whateverthefuck does deal directly with vision, it stands to reason that Erza’s false eye wouldn’t be susceptible to it. Erza should’ve been punching Kyoka out before the torture scene even started [ get your hand out of your pants, Mashima, I mean it ], and she certainly shouldn’t have one-hit-KO’d Kyoka after hours of torture with no explanation despite one being readily available.
For someone whose skillset as previously mentioned revolves around versatility, Erza’s wins tend to come from sheer power and lack of logic being played out. Your character should be put in battles suited to their skillset if you want them to win them.
5. SHOW SOME REALISTIC MENTAL DEGRADATION
Okay, so, how many times has Erza been horrifically tortured in this series? How many times has she been shown disastrous revelations? There’s been posts going around that Erza’s complete nonreaction Irene’s woobie story followed by her dumping Erza like trash is rather nonsensical and annoying and that Wendy basically reacted for her. In this case, I’ll defend her–Erza grew up without a mom and never really had one throughout the series–I wouldn’t give a shit about Irene’s sob story either; but, it’d still have some sort of effect on me. I know that Erza’s portrayal of being able to always get back up and be bright and be friendshippy is supposed to be a good thing, but it breaks my suspension of disbelief. Erza has shown none of the signs of a shit ton of mental trauma she ought to have. The last time I remember Erza’s mental damages being brought up is when she sheds her armor to duel Ikaruga all the way back in the Tower of Heaven arc. Contrast this against Mirajane’s and Elfman’s traumas, which get brought up like every other fuckin’ week.
It would be nice if Erza would just….take a load off. Rest. Admit that she’s weary and doesn’t want to keep fighting once in a while. It would make her a more real person, because real people, heroes included, get tired and break down and get overwhelmed sometimes.
I’m sure there are other things that need to be addressed, but I’m all salted out right now and this is as far as I can take it.
