(The aftermath of Zia’s dad’s death)
This is actually one of my favourite scenes from the entire show, and I’ve always wanted to talk about it in detail, so here we are :)
I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels this way. It’s one of the rare, emotional and character driven scenes of the show. A lot of important information is revealed about a lot of the characters, which makes it a perfect clip to analyze. But this also means it’s going to be super ultra long, since I’m gonna talk about 5 characters at once.
I will proceed chronologically, starting from when Papacamayo dies until the end of the scene.
Immediately after Papacamayo dies, Esteban, Tao, Mendoza, Pedro and Sancho quietly leave the room. They understand that they’re intruders in this tense, emotional moment. Zia and Maïna are left to grieve their father.
Pedro and Sancho come to see Mendoza and voice their concerns about Papacamayo dying before revealing information about the golden city’s treasure.
Before Mendoza even responds, he does something very interesting.
As you can see in this clip, he takes a long time to reply, as if he didn’t expect the question or he didn’t know how to answer it.
He closes his eyes and the way it’s animated is very interesting to me. When he shuts his eyes, the lines that are created seem to move a lot, as if he’s holding back tears. Then, when he opens his eyes, he looks up, which is something people do to keep tears from falling.
It’s very hard to believe Mendoza would (or could) ever cry, since it’s never happened before, so this my explanation would make a lot of sense. He never cries cause he tries really hard not to.
He finally answers the sailors, telling them that the city’s treasure is not important to them, since all they care about is gold.
So in this way, he’s repressing his emotions both physically (with the tear thing I described) and also by literally saying that he only cares about money. Which is a wild thing to say after you just witnessed a man die.
Also, even Pedro and Sancho are surprised, as you can see by their reactions:
But they quickly get over it, obviously. I think they model their own thoughts, feelings, etc, after Mendoza’s. That’s why, whenever they’re unsure about something, they ask him for his opinion first.
After that clip, Mendoza walks away and starts calculating the position of the city of gold based on the stars. He stops when he notices Esteban and Tao quietly sitting at the edge of the river.
He asks Esteban (and only Esteban, for some reason) what he’s doing there. To any normal person, the answer is obvious. He’s upset and wants some space to feel his sadness. Is Mendoza just that clueless or is he only pretending to be?
Then this exchange happens:
Esteban: I might ask you the same question; what are you doing?
Tao: I’ll bet he’s finding out exactly where the gates of the cities of gold are according to the stars
Esteban sounds a bit angry and annoyed. Tao’s got a sort of sardonic tone to his line as well. They’re both really fed up with Mendoza’s behaviour. I think they always were, but they never said so out loud. They’ve been tolerating it for so long but now they’ve reached the limit.
Even though Tao basically answered Esteban’s question for Mendoza, he decides to comment it with: “there’s no law against that”
Look at his face man 😭 this isn’t a laughing matter.
I think it’s really interesting that, from all the things he could’ve said, he decided to make a joke, because:
1) Esteban is already angry at him. You don’t really make jokes when someone is upset about your behaviour. Either Mendoza is actually clueless or he’s pretending to be. Maybe he’s trying to lighten the mood? But idk it’s a weird way to do it.
2) A man just died. Not only is this not the time to be looking for the city, but it’s also not the time to joke about what you’re doing is no big deal. Bro, read the room.
This line could also be a poor attempt at rationalization, which is a defence mechanism that involves explaining an unacceptable behavior or feeling in a rational or logical manner, avoiding the true reasons for the behaviour.
Esteban answers with: “How could you do such things? Don’t you mind about Zias sadness?”
When he says that, the camera (well I know its an anime, not live action) cuts to Mendoza, and his face goes from smiling to:
whatever emotion this is supposed to convey. I’m pointing this particular image out because it’s only visible to us, the audience. So it’s worth noting.
I find it interesting that he actually seems upset by what Esteban said.
1) is it guilt? He just said something insensitive and Esteban calls him out for it. An analogy I have for this is when you pull a prank on your friend and they go “wtf? You think that’s funny?” And interiorly you go “yeah okay that wasn’t the best move I admit” and you feel uncomfortable for the rest of the day, because “why did I do/say that”
2) or is he upset that Esteban is angry at him? But why should the kid’s words affect him so much? Mendoza has made it clear that he doesn’t care about the children (or anyone else). But we know that that’s just not true. Esteban being angry at him makes Mendoza realize that, although he loves the kids, they don't love him back, or at least, they don’t have a positive opinion about him, because of his insensitivity.
Enough about Mendoza though. I wanna talk about Esteban in this scene as well.
He says: “how can you do such things?” As I said before, he’s lowkey fed up with Mendoza’s behaviour (and who wouldn’t be?). And I think he’s been keeping his annoyed feelings inside of him for a long time, because he says “such things”, where “things” is plural. This is not the first time where Mendoza has been shown to not care about other people. Esteban has always noticed this, but only just decided to say it out loud, because, well, it gets to a point!
For Esteban, it’s simple. Mendoza not showing that he cares about Zia is clear proof that he just doesn’t care at all. He finds it insane that Mendoza does not have any sympathy for her, although he tries to help him find some, since he says: “She just found her father, and he-“ (he gets cut off but we can guess the rest of that sentence).
After that, we get the iconic line:
Mendoza: I’m sorry Esteban, but death no longer upsets me.
After feeling emotions for like, 2 seconds, he decides he’s had enough and puts the emotional walls back up again.
Esteban has “accused” him of being insensitive, and instead of trying to prove him wrong, Mendoza agrees with him, saying “yes, you’re right, I don’t care”. The “I’m sorry” (or in French, “pardonne moi” which means “forgive me”) seems like he’s aware that he’s done something wrong/bad, but he justifies it, saying that this is the type of person he is. This only helps to reinforce the opinion the kids have about him.
But… why does he say that?
1) Does he want Esteban to think he’s heartless? We know the relationship Mendoza has with the kids is transactional. He protects them and they bring him to the cities of gold. Beyond that, he has no reason to care about them, or feel anything for them other than indifference. So there’s no point in trying to make the kids believe he cares about them. There shouldn’t be anything deeper than that. It creates more distance between them, distance that Mendoza wants/needs because anything else would interfere with his goal (being rich).
2) he might also just be telling the complete truth. We know he’s a sailor, we know he’s been on the Magellan expedition (for example). Many people died on that trip (as do sailors on many marine journeys). He’s certainly seen many people die, which has desensitized him to death. That would make sense, because he says “death no longer upsets me”. This implies that he used to get upset over death, but doesn’t anymore, probably due to some events that we have no knowledge of.
But no matter what Mendoza might say, we know he’s not uncaring or unfeeling. I think that line could be an example of reaction formation, which is a defence mechanism that reduces anxiety by taking up the opposite feeling, impulse, or behaviour. Mendoza saying “death no longer upsets me” might be his way to convince himself that he doesn’t care about the events that have transpired that night, when in reality, he does.
I also wanna point out Howard Ryshpan’s (Mendoza’s voice actor) line delivery in this scene. Mendoza’s voice in this scene is really flat, but in a special way. He sounds like someone trying to sound emotionless. It makes it so much more obvious how hard he’s trying to push back his real feelings!
Whatever nuances implied by this line are completely lost by Esteban. Even more upset at his attitude, he says:
Esteban: you really have a heart of stone.
This is a very simple sentence but I wanna focus on a specific word: “really”
“Really” can mean 2 things here:
1) Esteban used to think that, maybe, Mendoza was a little bit of a good person, but now, he’s learned that he was wrong. This could work because, despite Zia insisting that Mendoza was a wicked man, Esteban would sometimes speak in his favour and try to bring up instances of Mendoza being kind and heroic.
2) Or, the “really” can mean “very”, like “you're VERY heartless”, more than just plain regular heartless (is that even possible?).
How do we know which one is the right meaning? I guess it would depend on the intonation of voice, but that differs depending on actor. So I’m not gonna choose one or the other.
I know this is long, but we’re getting near the end! The last line is spoken by Tao:
Tao: I think you’re wrong, he is really very sad too. Yes, I understand. That’s just how I was after the death of my father. I started to build those houses up in the trees straight away. I just couldn’t stop, I had to keep busy. To survive.
What tao says here is very interesting because he seems to be the first and only person to really, truly understand Mendoza in a way that eludes Esteban (and even zia).
Both Mendoza and Tao deal with grief in similar ways; they have similar coping mechanisms. What Tao described here is sublimation, which allows us to act out unacceptable impulses by converting these behaviors into a more acceptable form, something more productive.
Instead of feeling sad over his father’s death, Tao channels that energy into something productive (building houses). Instead of feeling sad over Zia’s dad’s death, Mendoza uses that energy into something more productive (looking for the cities).
Okay, i don’t know if looking for the cities of gold instead of talking about your feelings is actually productive or healthy.
But the point here is to busy yourself into something else, so that you don’t lose your mind in grief, as Tao says, “to survive”. It can be helpful if done well. But it can also result in you pushing your feelings aside, which is obviously not healthy.
I think it’s interesting that Tao and Mendoza have this very deep link and similar coping mechanisms!
What Tao said really strikes Esteban. Before today, he used to think that: if you’re sad, you cry. If you’re sad for someone else, you cry for/with them.
But now he realizes it’s not that simple. People can feel one way and act another way.
He’s been sequestered in the monastery for so long (his whole life) and I think it’s only now that he’s being opened to how strange and complex human beings are. The world isn’t just black and white. People are not just what they seem on the surface.
That’s why he turns to look at Mendoza, who has since walked away and distanced himself from everyone else. He’s no longer calculating locations, and is silent, similarly to Esteban and Tao at the very beginning of this scene. It’s almost like he wants to check if what Tao was saying was true.
He then turns to look at Pedro and Sancho, who are also sitting very sadly. Just like Mendoza, they originally pretended to care about money (when they asked about the treasure in the city right after papacamayo died). But now, they look pretty depressed. Turns out they’re not as unfeeling and greedy as we were led to believe.
The scene lingers on Esteban’s face, with his eyes widening, as if he’s discovered an important secret of the universe.
Finally, the music playing in the background really sells the scene. It’s calm, melancholic, but also climaxes at important moments, like at Mendoza’s iconic line and Esteban’s understanding of his older friends’ behaviour.
And of course it’s just so beautiful!
