Glens, Children of Misfortune and the Baskervilles
[When I say Glens, I am referring all Glens- past and present: Levi, Oswald, Gil and Leo. Hella lot of lore is here that I wanna write about ;-; so I might divide this into different posts let's see. Also fair warning: I might criticize Oswald's actions-past and present- a bit, since I love looking at characters from an unbiased pov. Also, maybe some characters' past actions in order to point to their character development so that too.]
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]
1] Glen, Jury and the knowledge of the Abyss
Starting off with this panel, although it is passed off for gags, I realized something very important here (and got me to love Leo even more lol droopy eyed jerk yeah!!) (Retrace 103:)
Only after reading Retrace 93 onwards and actually visiting the Sablier from hundred years ago do we get the real, undistorted lore of why Children of Misfortune exist, what exactly is Glen, where the Juries come to play into this whole scheme and so on. But before I elaborate on the above panel, let's go back to go back to these ill-fated panels—the literal start of everything going wrong—Oswald casting Lacie into the Abyss for her sin of being born as a Child of Misfortune. (Retrace 69)
Two things to remember here:
i.) Oswald can't go against the Glen's orders until after the succession ceremony. He is bound to his master, the then Glen, Levi by the oath on his left hand so the only way to break free of it is by cutting off his hand like Gil did.
ii.) Immediately after the last chain, the fifth one- Jabberwocky is transferred to his body, Oswald becomes the next Glen.
Now, if I think about it, with Jabberwock having been transferred into his body, Oswald had already become Glen when he was saying these words to Lacie. He was Glen when he cast her into the Abyss. He was Glen, the absolute head of the Baskervilles, whose orders can't be disobeyed by any of his people.
Maybe, this doesn't seem much significant. It didn't, to me, while I was reading this chapter,, because I was still under the impression that 'Glen' was a spirit passed down from one host to another as the Will of the Abyss said here to Vincent (Retrace 39)—
If that were the case, then, well, nothing. Oswald's body would have been taken over by 'Glen' at the Succession Ceremony. Nothing of Oswald's soul would remain,, so, it won't be Oswald, but 'Glen' that's casting Lacie into the Abyss— Lacie who is not the younger sister but a sinner bearing the Eyes of Ill-Omen as far as the spirit of Glen is concerned.
But... later, we get the reveal it's quite not the case. (Retrace 91)
It was because the tale would be boring otherwise.
Everything was a story for the Juries who have been collecting and preserving these for centuries. In their stories, worlds exist where humans never walked the earth at all. Or, stories where the world ended within a century of its beginning. Or even, stories where the world ran identical to this one but decisively different. The main point is the Juries decide whether the tale is interesting enough to continue or to be brought to an end so it can be 'shelved in their library'. There comes the significance of Glen. The Juries are present in every story and use a turning point (here, the Abyss and the Glen) to try and bring the tale to a climax. In this case, they were probably pinning their hopes on Oswald.
Anyway, back to the night of the Succession Ceremony. Glen, now we know is just the title given to the head of the Baskervilles who is a potential candidate for generating a main turning point for the Juries, the reason why they keep an eye of them. It's no spirit hosted in Oswald's body or some such but Oswald himself that cast Lacie into the Abyss.
Why I stress this again is because—Oswald could have stopped her execution. Just like that, he could have given the command: 'As the new Glen, I have decided that we are no longer executing Lacie, does anyone have a problem with it?' Yeah. Just like that. Like, who'd dare challenge his decision? The previous Glen? Levi? A guy left with a broken body and no chain? The rest of the Baskervilles? The same people who obey his every order without a question?
No, the only ones who could and would veto his decision are the Juries. Because they know that only a Child of Misfortune has the power to affect their tales in an unpredictable way since this child was birthed directly by the Abyss (Retrace 91)
However, this aside, I want to point out that Levi, who was the Glen at least three generations before Leo, did not know the actual reason for casting a Child of Misfortune back into the Abyss up until this moment. I am honestly appalled.
So, my first point of this section: i.) severe lack of knowledge about the Abyss/little knowledge is dangerous—
—since even the Glen, who is supposed to be the protector of the Abyss, the origin of all Life, does not know the exact reasons for why things happen as they do; they simply take things for granted. Levi does speculate that the chains are what hold up the world from being swallowed up by the Abyss. Although proven wrong in Retrace 91/92, ig there is some truth to his speculations after all—Jack, believing his words, goes about cancelling the chains and succeeds in sinking Sablier into the Abyss before Oswald and Alice manage to stop him.
The reason for this practice of taking things for granted is my second point. ii.): Every Glen was raised as a valet to the previous Glen.
The Glens are valets before they become the next head; they are practically raised to be good servants, not good leaders. They don't even think of questioning anything their master/Jury tells them.
Truth be told, they are probably programmed from a young age to be subservient to their Master, to kill all of their Master's enemies etc. etc., by either brainwashing, intensive training or torture. See here, Retrace 38:
Think of only your master. Serve only your master.
In fact, as early as Retrace 13, Break questions this extreme devotion of Gilbert's, bordering on obsession.... and wonders if it is not abnormal (although he, as well as Gilbert, think his loyalty is for Oz):
Since Gil had lost all his memories of his past, there was no way for them to know that he had been brainwashed into absolute obedience and this was not natural. (more on this in part 2)
Plus, we don't know what else they have been conditioned to accept as the indisputable truth.
As I said earlier, Oswald was already Glen at the point. Why did he not deliberate if he really wanted to cast Lacie into the Abyss? He had become the sole absolute command there; he had all the powers of the Abyss. Why did he not question the whole point of it? Why did he not even make an attempt to save Lacie?
Well, this is the reason. The Glens were never meant to be someone strong enough to decisively change the story. The Juries needed someone to make wrong decisions so that the 'tale' can be brought to an end. They were waiting for the Glens to mess up. And it was passed down from Glen to Glen, and taken for granted that if they were to become the next head, they had to take in five chains and cast their red-eyed sibling into the Abyss.
In fact, what Levi says about the Children of the Ill-Omen born with the to-be Glen isn't the truth either, just some hearsay (Retrace 69)—
Because you're supposed to properly dispose of what you have created.
I don't think any of this is necessarily true. Because Kevin Legnard (Break), a Child of Misfortune, lived in an age around 10+ years since the Tragedy of Sablier. He served in the Sinclair family since a young age where, yes, a massive tragedy did occur, but it was only in his adulthood and due to political complications, more or less. So really, I wonder if the whole story of Children of Misfortune —the only threat to the Juries—attracting "misfortune" is not one cooked up by the Juries themselves, then accepted as such by generations of Glen? And even spread to the locals because both Lacie and Vince were bullied for their red eyes. Perhaps, so that such children, even if they might not become Baskervilles, will be tortured and eventually killed/take their own lives, and the tales of the Juries will not be interrupted.
This is why the first panel of Leo ordering Levi is so important to me. It's about the choice of your free will (which Oswald never had, he simply went with whatever was asked of him,, more on this in part 3). Leo started to actively fight for what he felt was right and even commands the previous Glen to obey his orders because "I am the current Glen! When I tell you to do something, you shut up and do it, you droopy eyed jerk!"
Oswald could have done this at the Succession Ceremony. I am pretty sure Levi would be more amused than angry at the rebellion against the status quo.
Because, even here, amused by Leo's words, Levi spurs into action only after this exchange: (Retrace 103)
Finally, it's Leo who puts an end to the ostracism of the Children of Ill-Omen—
—and discussed the problem of the Core of the Abyss learning and knowing what it is like to be lonely instead of merely looking upon her as something dangerous and to be untouched by anyone including the Glens.
I don't think he could have brought about such a major change without facing some kind of major uproar from the Juries, yes? In spite of that, Leo (with the rest of the Baskervilles) decided to stand by what he thought was the right thing to do and not condemn his first true follower, Vincent, for no reason but for being born with a red eye.
Glen, Children of Misfortune, Juries and the Baskervilles
[When I say Glen, I am referring all Glens- past and present: Levi, Oswald, Gil and Leo. Hella lot of lore is here that I wanna write about ;-; so I might divide this into different posts let's see. Also fair warning: I might criticize Oswald's actions-past and present- a bit, since I love looking at characters from an unbiased pov. Also, maybe some characters' past actions in order to point to their character development so that too.]
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]
3] Oswald and his sin of passivity
Coming back to Oswald—just like Gil and Leo, Oswald too had to choose between being a big brother or being the Glen and he chooses the latter. (honestly, he had the choice of being both as I said in Part 1, I will elaborate here)
And, he decides to become the Glen and casts Lacie into the Abyss.
Well, if he has chosen a side, he should stick to it, right? Just like in Leo’s case, no matter how painful your choice is, you should stick to it, right? He should put all of himself into his duties as Glen, right?
But he doesn’t.
See, this scene is played off for giggles— (Retrace 69)
—however, it is very telling of something: Oswald doesn’t even know who the rest of his people are. He wonders if Charlotte arrived after he became Glen,, but seeing how she raised her voice at him before realizing who it was, she must hold a senior position among the Baskervilles. True she arrived after he became Glen (mainly because she didn’t know Jack at the time); even in that case, does it mean the new Glen is not getting acquainted with the people that walk into the Baskerville estate?
Yeah. Because Oswald never moved on from the day of Lacie’s execution. He continued to exist “passively” and waited for time to pass. After Alice arrived at the Baskerville estate, he added one duty to his otherwise empty schedule: to bring up food for her. Otherwise, most of the time, during the past memories, whether they be Jack’s or actual, Oswald is simply… sleeping. Closing his eyes to his mistakes he doesn’t want to relive or regret. If he sleeps, he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his actions or his duties as Glen that he never wanted from the beginning.
You might think he was more “active” when he returned and took over Leo’s body,, actually no…. (Retrace 94)
This is what he says to Vincent. How exactly did his “stop thinking, do nothing,” attitude help him? Jack took advantage of it to the max, yeah. Now, here, Vincent, who has been self-destructive all throughout this story, gains a spark of desire to live, because of Break (again!); he saves him from the consequence of his own “inaction” (when he surrendered to Glen and would have got killed at his hands) and scolded him to stop looking into the past for salvation.
Those words coming from someone he least expected (see here: how antagonist Vince has always been to Break for no reason) “wrap around him like a coil”;—in other words, Vince had subconsciously been seeking to hear “it’s okay to live” from someone. Even though those words came from someone as unlikely as Break, his mind immediately grasped onto it, shaking to the core what he had imagined was a sincerely firm decision on his behalf.
I don’t even know... what I want anymore. But... there was no deceit in the vow I took then.
Vincent is in a sensitive situation here, a sort of make-or-break. He doesn't know what he wants because what he thought he wanted all along was not what he really wanted. His mind is in complete turmoil; that's why he keeps asking others (Leo, Oswald etc.) what he should do. Break already gave his answer and confirmed what he had been scared of all along—that he did want to live on and... be forgiven for his past sins. Whereas Oswald... continues to cling onto his passivity. Do nothing, stop thinking, go to sleep.
.
In fact, once Jack took charge of Alice (Retrace 70):
—I believe, Oswald dropped visiting Alice as well. Perhaps, she reminded him too much of Lacie (and so, his mistakes) or he so unconditionally trusted Jack to watch over Lacie's child or what,, but see, the only memories Alice has of Oswald are from pre-Jack-re-appearance period. That'd also explain why Oswald was so utterly caught off-guard and didn't suspect any foul play from Jack till the very eve of the Tragedy of Sablier.
Had Oswald been regularly talking to Alice, he'd have known the Core of the Abyss could visit their world through the shared body too and had he realized how dangerous it is to let an outsider (a human) deal with the Core, he would have curbed Jack's visits to Alice.
He had been neglecting his duties as the Glen after he picked the choice to become Glen.
As I said, it's this exact passivity that helped Jack to take full advantage of his cracks and his weakness. Because Jack was the only person who remembered Lacie, Oswald wanted to continue being his “friend”. For him, Jack was the sole anchor for him to cling onto a lost past. Once again, in Break’s words, Oswald was trying to “look for a future in his past,” and it'll never work. Once you have decided on a course of action, you gotta pick up your pieces and move on, not stay stuck in the past of your mistakes and regrets.
Also, about Jack and Oswald. Jack was never his friend, to begin with. Jack came over to see Lacie and befriended Oswald in the process. Later, on his return after Lacie’s death, he was there, already with all plans of backstabbing him. Oswald, who could see through people so well that he compared Jack to water on their very first meeting, decided to close his eyes to Jack's intentions and hoped that if he does nothing, everything will return to normal.
Unfortunately, life doesn't go that way. Remember Lottie's words: It's impossible to keep living without hurting anybody? Yeah. It works the other way round too; if you stay still and do nothing, others will hurt you to keep living.
.
The sad thing here is that Oswald was so desperately trying to befriend Jack while he had actual good and loyal people around him, whom he ignored (just like he ignored his duties of Glen) for the sake of Jack (to continue sharing memories of Lacie who didn't exist anywhere because of his own fault.)
Charlotte of course (I have written an entire post about her here) and Fang and the other Baskervilles who could have been loyal and caring retainers to him
but also..... the then Duke Nightray. (Retrace 73)
See? This guy warned Oswald to not invite Jack and Miranda to their residence anymore. He was looking out for Oswald; he had the right hunch about Jack and if only Oswald had listened to him and not invited Jack on the day of Gil's ceremony?
But, Oswald is so desperate to cling on to his past, to Lacie, to Jack and of all the good memories they shared (and which will never return because the magic was gone with Lacie) that he values the words of a young, impressionable, gullible child over an experienced well-wisher.
In the end, his passivity not only caused the Tragedy of Sablier, but also tarnished the reputation of the Baskervilles as well as the Nightray Dukedom while the families of those who he considered 'friends' moved way up in the world.
Glen, Children of Misfortune, Juries and the Baskervilles
[When I say Glen, I am referring all Glens- past and present: Levi, Oswald, Gil and Leo. hella lot of lore is here that I wanna write about ;-; so I might divide this into different posts let’s see. Also fair warning: I might criticize Oswald’s actions-past and present- a bit, since I love looking at characters from an unbiased pov. Also, maybe some characters’ past actions in order to point to their character development so that too.]
[ Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 ]
2] Choosing a side
I remember treating Oswald as a victim of circumstances while reading the Past Arc/Jack’s Intention Arc and blaming only Jack and Levi for everything that went down,,, but now that I consider on the whole, I have to confess Oswald was also responsible for a major part in the Tragedy. His sin is… (as the catchphrase of this series goes lol) His sin is his passivity. But before Oswald, I want to talk about his successors, Gil and Leo first.
As the story goes, each one of the Glens have faced a point where they must choose a side.
For Gil, it was between Oz and Oswald, whether he wanted to continue as Oswald’s valet (to return to his past) or as Oz’s valet (to live in the present). In fact, this clash between his two sides of loyalty, one drilled into him (Retrace 38) and the other nurtured in him in a healthy manner, already came to a head in the Sablier Arc (Retrace 40).
In the beginning of the same arc, he tried to kill Alice because she was trying to “kill” his “master” and with great difficulty did he stop himself before he ended up doing something drastic. Break, though, thankfully and perhaps due to the power of his Eye of Misfortune, sees through Gil, spots the overlapping thoughts clouding his judgment and goads him into a fight.
“I am the one who seeks to use Oz Vessalius. I am doing harm to your master. Now then, will you try your hand at killing me as well?”
And… Gil actually almost goes ahead with it! He is so overwhelmed by the thoughts the Jury had fed into his mind that he can’t distinguish between friends and foes; all he could think is he had to “kill his master’s enemies.”, no free will of action in him at all. Break snaps him out of him and…. says something so significant I didn’t even realize at the time:
Is the one you need really Oz Vessalius?
(…)
Isn’t it time you got over being such a spoiled child?
[The “hand” here is his left hand which signifies Gil’s oath to his old Master, Raven and consequently, his past.]
Isn’t it time you got over being such a spoiled child… (Retrace 87)
Or else, you really will end up hurting what’s precious to you by your own hand. (Retrace 69)
(His left hand. Oswald uses his left hand to cast Lacie into the Abyss. I just…. *screams*)
Like I explained in Part 1, if Gil was continued to be raised in the Baskerville household, when he comes of age and becomes the next Glen, in spite of feeling massively guilty, he’d end up casting Vincent into the Abyss because that’s the rule, because he won’t think for himself if that’s indeed what he wanted, because he'd still be obedient to the previous Glen and Jury even after becoming the most powerful head of the household. That’s just how the Glens are.
However, this changed in Retrace 78, when Gil goes up against Oswald and the Baskervilles for Oz.
Gil quite literally cuts off his left arm to NOT “hurt what’s precious to him by his own hand"—he cuts off his connection to his past and his old master and refuses to side with him anymore. He stops being an obedient valet and stands up for Oz, as a friend, of his own accord because that’s what he really wants. He even freely calls him Oz, something he’d been struggling all along as he’d been raised to address his master as such.
His entire character development stemmed from Oz’s positive influence on him. From the beginning, Oz didn’t want a valet or a servant, but a friend by his side. He wanted Gil to be his equal. He always asked Gil to call him by his name and not address him as Master.
[And, ofc, a special mention to Break who had been continually warning him against his obsessive loyalty and pushing him to think for himself.
(He advises him here in Retrace 40; yes, but also he's been doing that since long ago, even before Oz resurfaced from the Abyss (Retrace 13.)):
Believe whatever you want.
Regardless of what people say, I—
Let me give you a piece of advice. A loyalty that holds fast will become a blade and will someday pierce those you hold dear.
And, Gil, the edgy rebellious teenager that he was at the time, doesn't understand Break at all lol]
Well, all of this contributes to Gil switching sides to save Oz from getting executed and not blindly following Glen on, or rather, in spite of regaining all his misplaced memories. He decides to cut off his left hand, erase the binding oath and make another, this time, legal contract with Raven—and this is so important—all of his own volition.
That ends his passivity and lack of free will. (And Break, like a proud dad, “has stopped fretting about him.” LOL)
.
For Leo, it was this point (Retrace 63):
Yes, chances are that Elliot won’t have believed what Leo said since neither he nor any of the kids at Fianna's house remembers any of the incidents involving Humpty-Dumpty or its contract thanks to its nature of memory deletion/alteration. Still, the fact that Leo didn’t tell him the truth about what had been done to him (Leo feeding him the chain’s blood and unwittingly making him an illegal contractor) or about Isla Yura (Selfishness is a recurring theme in the story; I wanna go into that later but here too—) could be taken as Leo’s “selfishness” to keep his friend alive in spite of him getting fatally injured. Even that aside, it was really his “inaction at the time of crisis” that eventually led Elliot to suffer from an even more painful death.
Yet, he blames the Intention of the Abyss for his actions.
(At this point of the story, Leo is still “an immature brat”; on a side note: remember Break who realized it was his own fault, and not the Intention’s, for forcing her to change the past and bringing a more horrifying fate on the Sinclair family? Yeah, Break is one of the most mature characters in the story and having regretted and learnt from his mistakes, he tries to pass on his experience to the kids so that they won’t repeat his mistakes.)
Before long, Leo does get over being “a spoiled child” and realizes that he had to accept his mistakes and take responsibility before things went from bad to worse. In Retrace 99, he faces the dilemma of choosing a side: stay a bystander and let Oswald go on to his end or stand up and act for what he wants.
And then, for what might be the most selfless reasons of all, Leo decides to not change the past.
Just like Oz-Gil—Leo, who always tried to dig into the world of books because his own real world was unbearable for him, was pulled out of it by Elliot by wanting to be his friend and not his master. Elliot didn’t want an obedient, servile yes-man but a friend who could stand by him yet scold him for his mistakes. “It’s the duty of a valet to correct his master’s actions.”
And so, for Elliot and for the sake of those memories where they met albeit for a short while, those memories being so precious to him that he doesn’t want them to be erased with the alteration of the past, he finally decides to stop being a bystander and confronts Oswald.
[Special shoutout to Break!— because once again it were his last words that helped influence his decision:
…That you’ll never find your future in the past… try as you might to reach back into it!!
Break just keeps tossing around good advice for everyone, even people whom he was not even addressing. Those words were meant for Vince, not Leo; yet Leo too benefits from them agfhsjhahaha]
I know Levi calls his reason “selfish” as well (considering he chooses this for fulfilling a personal desire) but to me, it’s not so. Had he stayed quiet and “passive”, and let Oswald change the past for his split second of thought process—"If I were not Glen, Elliot won’t have to die"—that'd be pretty selfish of him.
And, with that, Leo chooses a side he wants to fight for, no matter how painful his choice is and ends his “passivity”.
.
On the other hand, in Break's and Rufus Barma's words, Oswald never stopped being "a spoiled child" and over and over, keeps "hurting what's precious to him by his own hand". Even after his return to the world in Leo's body, his immediate decision is to kill Lacie to "set things right." Again.
Plus, Oswald did not have such a friend who cared about him unconditionally and wanted to be on equal footing.
Or, well, he did but he cast her into the Abyss and that’s where everything started to go wrong for him....
@longagoitwastuesday hi, just thought I should share this with you! It appears Jack did take White Alice to his home. So, the visit to Lacie's grave was not a manipulated memory as I was wondering. (Retrace 73)
Like, the Tower in the Baskerville grounds don't have all those curtains and such intricate interior architecture? It's just mostly a stone prison, more or less.
