#mizi analysis

[suicidalmackerel]

new mizi comic is an insight to her character. she isn’t manipulative nor is she evil. she just believes for her to be able to live, she needs to be loved by others.

“I want to live a little longer. So please keep loving me.”

The tragedy of Alien Stage isn’t the deaths, slavery, or the apocalypse. It is the fact that even though humans were raised completely different from how they should have been, at the end of the day, they all wanted to live. They wanted to love because they wanted to live.

In their minds the reactions we deem to certain emotions are connected to other things. Crying is a humane response to sadness, it can be seen as unsightly but here her crying because of her pain is seen as “adorable”.

“I just felt like I’d be at peace being in a place where I’m not the one being crushed but a place where I could crush someone.”

“Crush” in Mizi’s definition means protecting but also suffocating. Her “provider” got crushed in front of her, most likely whilst trying to protect her or by the Segyeins.

Her finding Sua “adorable” is directly linked to how her owner found her “adorable” while she was being “crushed”. She associates certain emotions with certain experiences, which are inherently different experiences from what a normal human would associate it with.

It is so important to remember that the Alien Stage characters are slaves, that they are in a different planet after Earth got razed and invaded by aliens. Their societal rules and responses are fundamentally different from ours. I believe trying to analyze their pasts and psychologies with customary, run-of-the-mill thoughts is doing them injustice.

[cherriko-art]

Notice how during this monologue, clips from Weige are shown. This scene is doubly painful when we consider Mizi's words.

Even in freedom, we (humans) are still lonely and miserable, bc we're responsible for our own pain.

Which is true, bc obv alnst is a fictional show and we the viewers are the "free humans", and we are miserable.

Even in freedom, in some alternate universe as shown in Weige, the alnst cast could've been just as miserable, in just as much pain. To be human is to experience pain. No matter the time, place, or settings, humans will still exploit one another, cause each other pain, suffer, and cry.

This of course is a very annilihistic point of view. And we must also understand that Mizi is a very unreliable narrator experiencing survivor's guilt. Her guilt and mourning over Sua's death, her role as a passive bystander, the rage and sorrow for all the young lives lost to the stage, all shaped Mizi to become the bitter and broken person she is now.

A Mizi who has lost all hope, a Mizi who wants to be free from the pain but refusing to be saved, a Mizi who wants to raze everything down.

Mizi the witch.

[electronicheartstudent-worl-blog]

I saw a post on twitter saying that during a fan meet they asked Vivinos what Mizi's will to live the 7 years post Karma was. Vivinos apparently said to wait and see. I hope Mizi's past gets explored more because I love that pink woman.

With everything that happened, I'm guessing that early on Mizi approached Sua because she was the biggest threat to her and thus winning her affection would guarantee her living. In Fragile God Fading Fast, Mizi adores and worships Sua, given her history of using love as a survival tactict out of trauma and self preservation it's possible that Mizi's remarks towards Sua is partially out of reverence that Sua could 'crush' her. But Sua, being the way she is, would not do that. And at that point Mizi would have already known that Sua was practicing her death every night.

In a way, Sua was a biggest threat defanged. I believe this was Mizi's initial plan. Maybe Sua even knew, or maybe she had told Sua this directly. Knowing Sua, her fear of death, and her fear of not being enough, she might have seen this as a way out for her own empty and pain ridden life: To Mizi's eyes she was perfect, strong, in control of her own fate and Mizi's. And given Sua's backstory, her being loved, adored, and being seen as both 'enough' and 'strong' and also having all of her have a goal of 'saving' Mizi, may all have led her to her decision of sacrificing herself.

I think that Mizi didn't expect to personally adore Sua so much. Given how erratic love has been for her I think she was genuinely sideblinded by her affections for Sua. And in the end, during the pre-round argument where Sua covered Mizi's mouth I think that Mizi realized she would rather have Sua with her than survive alone. Sua however had been resolved in her life story. She will die here, and Mizi knows that this has been what she had signed up for at the very beginning.

Mizi probably wanted the love the aliens had for her. They were amused and she can receive Shine's love without necessarily 'loving' her back. Instead Mizi got the love she had for her guardian. She was loved, and she loved back. And her loved one's death led her to have a twisted view on love in the first place. And now the grove cuts deeper because of a second time it happened.

Mizi may not want to put trust in the rebellion and pursue a nobel goal because she would not be able to handle loving and living for more people and seeing them die, worse, kill each other. She is 'looking for a childlike love' like the one a guardian would have to a child, one that she had but lost in a sudden, cruel way by seeing them die right in front of her.

[starladoesart]

Parallels between Mizi and Sua with Sumire Akane

Mizi and Sumire

Both Mizi and Sumire grew up in environments where their chance at life was skeptical. Sumire was raised as a sacrifice for her village. Mizi grew up in a world where humanity was viewed as disposable pets by aliens. She witnessed her mother killed in front of her at a young age, and after that, even though she was raised well by her alien parents, always had that feeling of being crushed.

Both Mizi and Sumire desired love and developed close codependent relationships with another from a young age. Sumire with Hakubo, an oni assigned with raising her until she were to be sacrificed, and the only one in her village who would talk with her. Mizi with Sua, a girl who she met when entering Anakt garden.

Both their lovers were outsiders and those easily controlled by others, Hakubo an oni who never felt emotion and did whatever anyone asked him, Sua, a girl broken her surroundings and fear of death instilled in her by her sister who emotionally closed herself off to most for fear of being hurt, avoidant of conflict, leading to her avoiding expressing her pain and who would do as she was ordered.

I think the most notable shared factor between both girls, though, are how they use their relationships with others as a means of control in their lives. Sumire discusses how the reason she takes care of wounded animals is because she likes the feeling of having their life in her hands. For a girl who's known her entore life she will be thrown away for the sake of others, she relishes having the same control over others lives as others have over hers. As well, she longs to have control over those who love her lives after death. She wants them to suffer through grief, to go to hell over her, all so that she won't be forgotten. Mizi, who always felt controlled and crushed before she came to Anakt, also desires control. She joins Alien Stage, knowing the deadly risks, in order to be the one in control. She befriends Sua initially because she adores her frailty, viewing her as no threat. With Sua, she isn't the one being crushed, rather, just like Sumire with her dear critters, Sua is the one under control. Neither Sumire or Mizi actually desire to harm them, rather they relish in the fact that they could if they so wished, just like how Sumire's fellow villagers and the aliens around Mizi can.

Hell, both girls have an intimate scene with their lover where they still think about this. When Hakubo is...um...eating Sumire in order for her to be destroyed by her owns terms, he discusses how he wished he could have been a human and 'gone to hell' for her as she wished, to wish Sumire amusedly replies that he's 'adorable' and that he is in his own personal hell, the hell she longed for him to be in over her. Mizi likewise, in an intimate moment with Sua, calls her 'So adorable' as she is someone she can 'crush', just like how her alien parents, who she felt 'crushed' by, called her. Sumire and Mizi adore their lovers to the point of codependency, they're a scrap of comfort in their scary lives, yet at the same time someone weaker that them who let themself be controlled.

And yet Sumire also has parallels with Sua too.

Both girls grew up in an environment where they had a constant fear of death. Sumire a sacrifice and Sua raised to take part in alien stage, a singing competition in which the loser is killed. Sua had the idea that she was weak and would likely be killed instilled in her by her older sister.

Both were viewed merely as an asset to their family, rather than a person. Sumire was sent away to be raised by Hakubo and was only viewed as a sacrifice by her family. Sua's alien mother Nigeh viewed her primarily as an asset through her singing and looks to benefit her.

Both developed codependent relationships with the one person who they loved from a young agebecause of this. Sumire is rejected by her family and implied to be isolated by the rest of her village, thus becomes attached to Hakubo who is assigned with caring for her. Sua was is implied to have been rejected by some of her 'sisters' for being the 'favourite child' of her alien mother and got her confidence in herself damaged by her older sister as previously mentioned when she was little. This makes her sensitive and withdrawn for fear of getting hurt by others, resulting in her peers nicknaming her an 'ice princess'. Still, Mizi with her sweetness is able to break through her walls, and thus she becomes her main person.

Both girls know they are going to die inevitably, yet longs to be remembered after death. Sumire tells Hakubo that she wants someone to grieve over her, so much that it drives them insane. Sua in her subsong Heart implies in the lines 'Hurt, thats where I wanna fit...Heart, that's where I wanna settle down for good' that she wants to be remembered by Mizi through her love for her after she sacrifices herself, even if it hurts her. Sumire knows she can't escape being made a pawn to be killed in order to stop the village from being overrun by monsters and Sua accepted the fact that she needs to sacrifice herself for Mizi on stage to save her. Despite this, they can't help wishing they'll be remembered through others grief. After all, for two people intentionally raised to be slaughtered, there's no meaning in their life. Yet if somebody misses them, that means there was a point to their existence right?

Finally once Sumire is sacrificed and Sua sacrifices herself for Mizi, grief drives their lovers bloody nuts. Hakubo slaughters most of the village and Mizi destroys the stage, in order to kill her enemies and herself, fueled by the thought that love is only exploitative. Both feel that they should have done something to stop their lovers' death, should've 'taken their hand' when they had the chance. And because they failed to do so, are now left in their own self-inflicted hell. Both Sumire and Sua had similar effects on those around them who they left behind.

In conclusion, Mizi and Sumire complement in each other as being people who desire agency in their lives, to be on top, even if it comes through the hypothetical exploitation of others, while Sua and Sumire and people who long for purpose in an ostensibly meaningless existence.