So I know I wrote that I’ll be going to take a more in-depth look at the chapter cover last week, but I’m a bit lazy so sorry about that. Anyways, this week’s chapter was pretty great:
We look at things from Peter’s perspective and get a bit of his childhood, including his role model, James Ratri. We finally get to see James’ eyes! And despite my dislike for Peter, he was still pretty cute as a kid. My only question is why did James take over as the leader and not their father? Hmm…
Things quickly take a dark turn as James discovers the fault of his ancestor Julius that started the existence of cattle children, and we can see the stark contrast between James’ and Peter’s ideologies. I think Peter couldn’t see the flaw in Julius’ plan since he was too young or he looked up to Julius as well. James then put all his efforts in giving the children clues and bases for them to safely survive as a way to fix what Julius did wrong. When the two of them clash, Peter orders that James be captured and killed.
It was quite unsettling to see Peter being so ruthless already at such a young age, and I couldn’t help wonder how he became that way. However, he breaks down in tears when he heard his brother’s last words, “I’m sorry.” I thought it was a bit unclear as to what James was sorry for, but it sounded like “I’m sorry I pushed the burden onto you” or “I’m sorry I was selfish.” There’s another sorry a few pages later as well.
And quick little thing that the creators added in was pictures of young Lucas and Yuugo! Along with other deceased escapees of Glory Bell.
Another sorry I mentioned was here when Peter reflects on his whole life and destiny and thinks of James. Maybe his ‘sorry’ was also him apologizing for not being able to free Peter in the end. It was really heartbreaking to read for me. And when he came to his own conclusion, he gives a sad smile, which is completely opposite to the horrifying face last week. I like this Peter much better.
Then he tells Emma about the reality of humanity on the other side and calls it a mirror of the demon world. This is quite philosophical and if I was good at analyzing, I would write something about it. But for now, I’ll just point out that his line “you kids win” was very similar to Krone. And also “code solid”? What does that mean?
Just when I thought that Emma had changed him with her talk-no-jitsu, he pulls this. I did not see that one coming and was very surprised. Peter, realizing that his whole life was basically a curse and that he had been trapped into this destiny, saw this as the only option and slit his throat to end his life. Farewell Peter, you’ve served your role for this arc.
I have no idea where the story will go now that another villain is gone, but I was quite satisfied with how he went. Peter didn’t feel completely redeemed as a character as Krone did, but I was still able to sympathize with him so I’d say that was pretty good.
I CANT I CANNOT TSGXFHV I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR JAMES AND PETER’S STORY FOR ALMOST A YEAR NOW!!! I love them so much! Look at how adorable their relationship was. It makes me so sad 😭.. Peter really loved and looked up to his brother. How can you hate him after this chapter?
Y'know what? At this rate Emma might become a prophet.
She's brave, she has tenacity like no others, she can be a bit naive but she's optimistic, she'll stick with her dream until the end. No matter what others say about her, she will prove them otherwise. She's extremely forgiving, she melts anybody's heart, including her enemies. Her optimistic behavior infects others, the children love her dearly. Even when she feel down, she has friends and families who got her back.
But Peter Ratri is right. Humans are nasty. No matter how good she is, she has absolutely NO idea what awaits her on the human side. Depending on the promise with Asdfghjkl, humans over there might not welcome them at all. Especially if they come in horde, with thousands of people suddenly emerging out of nowhere. Except if they get a completely deserted place, all for themselves, as a part of the promise. Which I think... 50/50 chance, who knows what the author is thinking.
If they ended up in a place where they need to fight other humans, without a real place to belong, well...
Emma might ended up becoming a prophet for her people. The first human who was able to forge a promise with God after 1,000 years. The person who would continue to fight to find a new homeland, until she meets her end.
I love how Peter decided to add “handsome” in the qualities that his older brother had. Kinda sweet and funny lol. It’s crazy that even within the Ratri family, there was secrets documents and brainwashing of morals around. Incredible but not suprised lol. Also was that a younger Andrew in the BG of page 3?
Shout out to my boy James. He was able to help so much within the little time he had in his life. A real one.
DANG SHIRAI (and english translator as well!)
TPN out here giving these 10/10 quotes!!
An amazing line from Peter. Very him but! also! Very important!
It really shows us that, yeah being in the human world to avoid being eaten is end goal, but... it really isn’t that different there?! There are evil humans in real life. No doubt.
The kids are trying to reach for freedom in human world, but when they get there, all of the problems are not gone!
I just love this acknowledgement because it clearly shows us, the reader, and the kids, that the human world isn’t really entirely a utopia and an automatic Happy Ending™️
All because “They are a mirror of humanity.”
There was some A+ Emma Art and I’m Living. Also can’t help that the parallels are stronger.
If this is how Peter goes out, dang man. That was raw, man. In front of kids too...
That’s really gonna upset Emma, yikes....
ALSO WHO IN THE NAME OF MR.SCRIBBLES, IS ‘UNCLE’???! CODE SOLID???
What kind of person do you think James might have been outside of his whole role... Like a more human side from him? I just love him way too much and you are one of the only blogs that talk about him nowadays!
Oh man you should hit up @officersnickers that's her guy when it comes to the adult characters in this series.
I like keeping with the Norman parallels and see him as someone who had no trouble engaging and speaking with people due to years of PR training but was still fairly introverted and reserved, which was either enforced by his upbringing or serendipitously suited for it.
As the 35th heir to the Ratri clan a lot fell on his shoulders, making him view the majority of his relationships outside of it as transactional even from a young age. "Don't be unkind, but never forget who you are" was a sentiment that probably always lurked in the back of his mind and colored a lot of his interactions. In this semi-emotional isolation I think he would indulge in escapism and latch on to the romanticization of heroic escapades in fiction as well as the history he knew of Julius.
All of this contributes to him having a rigid sense of morality attuned to his social standing that he fully throws himself behind, to the point that Peter respected him more than either of their parents or any other figure in either world because of it:
(Chapter 173: "[James] was kind, smart, handsome, sincere and refined.")
It's also why he reacts so viscerally to finding out the truth about Julius and the promise (and not to the events in 2020 preceding WWIII, although they may have planted some seeds even if he was shielded from the worst effects).
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 7 - Series Timeline)
(Chapter 179)
The Ratris are shown to still have enormous prestige even after the world was overhauled in the wake of this war. James threw away a life of wealth and comfort as part of his atonement, and while he wasn't willing to break the promise himself, he was willing to stand behind the cattle children if they did.
(Chapter 72)
We don't know if there were already pockets of resistance among the scientists and other Ratri associates, but regardless, James is able to use his intelligence, charisma, and networking to not only suss out people open to his cause, but convince them the head of the entire clan was genuinely trying to dismantle the world order that led to him having his wealth and prestige and that this wasn't just a ploy to snuff out traitors.
Under this united front, that voice in the back of his mind is silenced, and while still somewhat isolated given the role he had to play between the two worlds, he's able to find some of the most authentic, fulfilling relationships in the last years of his life, in keeping with the theme of finding true freedom in dismantling or breaking away from oppressive systems. (Again going back to me being a JamesSmee shipper but one of these is with Smee lol, even if it's bittersweet with the way it ends).
But through all of this, he loved Peter dearly. After spending so many years as an only child, having a younger brother whom he could drop some of his walls around and dote on was the greatest gift his parents could give him.
(Chapter 173)
And that love would be his undoing.
(Chapter 73 | Chapter 173)
Peter was always a loose end as the one who witnessed James' revelatory breakdown that he'd never be willing to tie up. It's unclear how long he kept what he saw a secret from everyone not sympathetic to James' crusade, but it was at least a few years given how young he looks during the flashbacks we're privy to and that he's 15 when James is murdered. All of that time, if he ever gave any hints of wavering from what he told James about agreeing with him, James elected to ignore them, and I don't know if that's more tragic than him being completely blindsided by his brother's betrayal.
(Chapter 173)
But it's very telling that even knowing who ordered his death and everything else in play, his final thoughts were spent thinking of his brother and apologizing for being unable to save him.
A few headcanons:
☆ I think James' romanticism is part of the reason he never had children in any capacity.
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 6 Q&A)
I don't think he was being pressured to start a family given he was still young and everything he had going on even before WWIII broke out, but with all the pretenses in his life I think he was holding out for at least this sort of relationship and commitment to be founded on authentic feelings that he could find refuge in as opposed to it being a box he ticked off to keep up appearances.
☆ We don't know how involved James was with Smee beyond that Smee was a Minerva supporter, the one who killed James on Peter's orders, and the one who took up the reins from James' afterword, but I like to ship them because of the James Hook-Smee connection from the original Peter Pan and then have the tragedy of Smee being tasked with killing James (for some reason). Another parallel with Norman but similar to how Ray is the only one allowed to see Norman's prideful and impish side at Grace Field, Smee's at first the only one who sees the cocky and impish side of James.
☆ Based on the chapter 173 cover art, l think he read to Peter a lot, be it bedtime stories or them being research buddies in the library of their estates.
I mentioned that I think he gravitated toward grand heroic escapades and probably favored ones dealing with ancestral duties to sort of explain how he subconsciously reinforced his own beliefs about the farm system being predicated on ancestral sin all cattle children inherited even 1000 years out from the original promise. I talk about this here too, but it's interesting to speculate on whether James still held onto this belief or if it made him reform his worldview entirely that maybe all people are entitled to certain inalienable rights regardless of their birth.
☆ He strikes me as someone who would enjoy parlor tricks. Initially he taught himself this to impress his parents, who weren't thrilled with it but they never dissuaded him from the hobby, and eventually even they had to admit how deft he was in his execution and timing during a few dinner parties when they were trying to ease relationships between themselves and other party-goers they wanted to remain on good terms with.
Peter also absolutely loved these as a child, and I like how it would play into him reflecting on James' creation of William Minerva as an adult. How his slights of hand evolved into such an elaborate deceit that threatened Peter's entire identity and lead to him losing one of his most foundational connections. How it made him question whether he ever truly understood his brother at all and if that was better than having known him once and him becoming unrecognizable.
☆ I omitted Mike from my general trajectory of how James' childhood went because I like playing around with how antagonistic he is toward the cattle children and I tie that up with who between James and Peter is his favored nephew, but if it's James, I think they bonded over alcohol (keeping the burdens of the gatekeeper side of things and the human world side of things within the family, James setting up contingency plans for cattle children who made it to the human through Mike without directly revealing his plans, etc.) to partially explain how James developed a high tolerance that he used to his advantage.
(Chapter 179 | Mystic Code Book Chapter 6 Q&A | Yakuneba Community 8th Anniversary Q&A with Shirai and Demizu)
Hi! Do you think the farms - particularly GF - had any photo ID of the kids? When Ray takes a picture of Norman and Emma, they both say it’s their first time seeing a camera so it seems unlikely but the intro pages of the manga show the kids with a photo and other official identifiers.
Hiya! 👋
If you wanted to, you could finagle a scenario where Grace Field incorporates photographs of the kids into management's records fairly easily, whether the kids are aware of it like in the live action movie canon or not.
But we're not shown any photographs of the kids when Isabella presents Krone with the children's files in the anime or the manga, nor when Krone combs through what's presumably a dossier she brought from headquarters to confirm the veracity of Ray's bait note.
This adds on to the tragedy of the cattle children being hidden away in this gilded cage from the rest of humanity, thousands lost to history over the centuries, as well as another minute layer of separation for the older ones where they don't readily have access to pictures of themselves when they were younger, how they weren't afforded the chance to preserve those bits of their personal histories while their peers in the human world do such things without a second thought. I've also mused about whether the only photographs they had of Isabella, their birth mothers, and their older sisters were ones taken at headquarters upon becoming a sister candidate here.
How surreal it is to see her like that, grappling with memories of the complicated woman they knew—the good and the bad—and the young girl staring back at them who resolutely held her head up high to prove she had what it took to survive in a demon's world, knowing all the unspoken pain behind her eyes.
As for the other premium farms, the mystic code book confirms they had greater access to technology.
(Mystic Code Book Chapter 3 Q&A; Goodwill Ridge isn't specified, but I'm assuming this is more so due to Shirai forgetting this farm exists most of the time and this extends to them too)
And at some point before they left, all the Glory Bell escapees had their pictures taken because Peter marks off which escapees they knew for sure were dead in this chapter 173 flashback panel.
