man, I feel really bad for the ward of the city of staffs
look at how she reacts when nina offers to let her out. she instantly goes from taunting them before she kills them to crying the biggest wettest ghibli tears
up until now, all her speech bubbles have been spiky, and almost every single one of them has broken the borders of the comic, but when she says "I'm not allowed to ask", it's all contained within the panel, and her "yes" is small, rounded, and wavering.
in this moment, she finally has hope, after upwards of a century suck in an empty room by herself, unable to even ask for help
finally, freedom is within her grasp. she sees the sky for perhaps the first time
and then just when her hand is about to breach the prison she was made for
something bigger and stronger than her -- one of the only things in the world that she is powerless to stop -- snatches that hope away from her
and then there's the caption under the page where she dies:
Written in very very small letters on a piece of stone, and then buried;
i love the citizens that come to visit me. i love the power of my body. i love the quickness of my mind. i love the energy that crackles with a thought. i love the faint smell of spring that reaches me. i love the cool chill of winter. i love living. i love the world.
why make me capable of love? i don't want these feelings. i ache with them, because i have too much love for the little around me. love is a needle in my heart, and with every beat it lances deeper.
the only way to survive is to feed my love into my anger. to tear it up and hope it does not return. and then perhaps when all that is left is rage, i can let it burn, and consume itself-
and maybe i will feel nothing. and maybe that will be better.
I just- I fuckin' love this story, man. one of the things I appreciate about it (and harry's other comics) is that there are no characters who are just faceless enemies for the protagonists to mow down. their lives and deaths matter. they all want to live, and they all fight for it
it's the same with the opening scene in angel's orchard
without the context of demon's mirror, the bird demon that gerda is hunting is framed as the more sympathetic of the two (tbh it's still more sympathetic with context)
it's this fluffy feathery thing who's tearfully fleeing for its life
meanwhile gerda is this menacing figure looming in the distance with this crazed look on her face
like look at this and tell me which of these characters is the good guy
anyway I'm getting off track, but the point is that it's really good