A little under two months ago, I made a post where, in the tags, I said I wanted to make a post cataloguing and analyzing all of the abuse tactics Monstrox uses on Jestro in the series.
Whilst doing that for the entire series at once would be way too big of a post, I've got a better idea: doing one post for two episodes of the show at a time. That way, I'm not trying to shove four seasons of information into one post.
Keeping that in mind:
Season One. Episodes one and two. The Book Of Monsters, part one and part two.
Part one:
Immediately, as soon as Jestro picks him up, Monstrox starts pulling on his insecurities.
"You wanna have everybody laugh at you? You wanna be a joke? Aren't you tired of everyone laughing at you? How many more times do you wanna be the laughingstock of the whole kingdom?"
This isn't random. Monstrox knows that he needs some kind of leverage to get Jestro to comply. What better way than to tug where it hurts?
When Jestro starts thinking about the way people laughed at him earlier in the episode, Monstrox bites him. Immediately afterward, he's buttering him up:
"I can make you somebody! A real bad boy, a guy who's respected. I can make you the most feared guy in all of the kingdom. That's gotta be better than spinning plates, right?"
Monstrox tells him to grab magic books and a magic staff, and Jestro complies because he's been offered a way out of the humiliation he's constantly going through. Clay walks in and Monstrox tells Jestro to conjure a monster. Jestro doesn't want to.
"Bu-bu-but it's Clay. He's, like, my friend."
Monstrox is having none of this.
"Nobody's your friend but me, joke-boy! Remember that!"
He's isolating him. If Jestro has no other friends, he'll have no way out. No support system to run to when things get bad and he regrets going with Monstrox. This is an incredibly common abuse tactic- making sure your victim is completely trapped. He repeats the command for Jestro to summon monsters. Jestro is clearly nervous, but he does it- he summons the monster.
And he regrets it.
"Oh. What have I done?"
Monstrox starts telling him about how he's good at something, at being bad, but Jestro doesn't look happy in the slightest.
A minute or so later, Monstrox tells Jestro he wants him to make more monsters. Jestro complies, smiling this time. It's not far fetched to assume that corruption is starting to set in here. When Jestro runs away from Monstrox at the end of season 2, Merlok mentions checking him for any evil magical influence. All Monstrox had to do was get him to summon just one monster- and now he has him hooked. This can probably be compared to, like, drugs or something. Monstrox intentionally got him to use the dark magic so that he wouldn't be able to look back.
When Merlok appears, Jestro starts looking nervous again. He's definitely having second thoughts, but it's too late to turn back. Merlot performs the spell that blows him and the monsters away.
Now, for part two:
They're walking in the woods and Jestro is carrying Monstrox on his back. Jestro complains and Monstrox calls him delicate. It's only once Jestro calls him fat that he tells Jestro about the Bookkeeper.
....so what was stopping him from telling him that before? They probably would've traveled a lot faster and a lot farther. The answer? Monstrox wanted to exert power over Jestro. He wanted to make Jestro do something painful.
Then, he insults Jestro by calling him a simpleton. He re explains how to summon monsters, slowly, condescendingly. He's treating Jestro like shit, but you know what? He's getting away with it. He knows that Jestro has nobody else anymore. He knows that nobody is coming to save Jestro from him. He has successfully isolated him.
Jestro asks if anybody is going to carry him, and Monstrox threatens to leave if he doesn't stop complaining. Like I said, Jestro has nobody else anymore, so this is a pretty loaded threat- if he does actually leave, then Jestro will be all alone with nobody to go to. Of course, Monstrox can't do anything without Jestro to wave the staff, but does Jestro know that? No. He doesn't.
When Jestro concedes, Monstrox is very happy about it. He's successfully leveraged Jestro's lack of a support system against him.
Monstrox tells him the plan to get the evil books, and mentions that the more books they get, the more evil they'll be. Jestro asks, "the more evil I'll be, right?" and Monstrox gives him a noncommittal response. He, of course, doesn't actually care about Jestro- he just wants his powers back.
They set off into the woods.
When the episode cuts back to them, Jestro is practicing his evil faces and Monstrox calls him annoying. He tells him that he needs to be ready to call forth monsters and Jestro does another face at him. In the driest, most sarcastic tone ever, he mocks him and tells him that he makes him want to cry for his mommy. Jestro doesn't really pick up on the insult and comments on how Jestro the Evil is a name he likes the sound of.
Not much else happens here aside from that- so let's move on to the next scenes with them.
Jestro picks up the Book of Evil and is immediately fully corrupted. Monstrox orders him to feed him, and so he throws the book into his mouth.
The next scene.
Jestro summons Burnzie and Sparkks and they say they're ready to serve him. Jestro, whose brain is probably super scrambled from the Book of Evil, starts listing off what I assume is his usual order for a tuna sandwich. Monstrox cuts him off and they set off towards Knightonia.
Next scene.
They're approaching the gates and Jestro expresses that he's nervous. Monstrox tells him that this is his chance to get back at the people who laughed at him. Once again, he's digging at Jestro's insecurities to get him to comply.
Jestro has what looks to be a vivid memory/hallucination that he's being laughed at again, complete with visuals. This reminder seems to get him more willing to do (?) baddie stuff (?) again, and upon seeing that he's no longer hesitant, Monstrox says that it's time to attack the castle. Monstrox already knows he can weaponize Jestro's insecurities to get him to cooperate, and that's exactly what he did.
Jestro is distressed that the knights are getting hurt by the attack, and Monstrox proclaims that they're nothing.
Jestro says that Clay was always good to him, and Monstrox does not like this.
"Don't go soft on me. He still let people laugh and laugh. They all laughed at you."
Monstrox is once again isolating Jestro. He's trying to keep him far, far away from the people who might be able to help him. Any second thoughts Jestro might have are being shut down before they can take hold.
Scene change again, Monstrox says he told Jestro they'd be no match for him and his monsters. Jestro says he is good at something- he's good at being bad. These are the same words that Monstrox first said to him after he summoned that first monster. When he was having second thoughts.
After Merlok sends out that first Nexo Power and the Lava Monsters are getting defeated, Monstrox and Jestro retreat. Afterwards, Monstrox reassures Jestro that nobody's good at being bad right away.
And this is the part of the post where I get into the fact that Monstrox has to be projecting onto Jestro.
He's pushing him into doing what he wants. He's coercing him into taking his negative emotions about being treated the way he is to an insane extreme. In the Book of Monstrox, Monstrox mentions that he was exploring dark magic that seemed so much more powerful than the stuff that could benefit mankind, but in the illustration? He's showing it to the council. He's showing it to Merlok. I'm willing to bet that Monstrox felt lesser compared to the other wizards, so he took the actions he did in an attempt to feel more powerful. To feel like he was good at something.
To be good at being bad.
This doesn't excuse anything, of course, but it does explain a lot of Monstrox's behavior towards Jestro. It explains how Monstrox can be so horrible and manipulative one moment, and then in the next, reassure him calmly that he's just got a long way to go before he'll be good at it.
Of course, considering how Monstrox fully plans on using him as a vessel once all the books have been collected, this isn't really genuine. It's another manipulation. Still, though. The way he says it tells me that there is a part of him that does believe in solving your problems by hurting the people around you.
And, hey, isn't that what he's doing? Solving his problems by hurting Jestro?
That concludes this post. At some point, I'll make a post for episodes three and four.
