There’s a poem I once learned about in Year 5 and it has stuck with me ever since. When I think back to it, something about it has always felt so Jerza-coded to me.
It’s called ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes.
To reiterate what the poem’s story basically is:
The Highwayman (a kind of fugitive/outlaw) is deeply in love with Bess, the innkeeper’s daughter. He visits her secretly at night, and they share a passionate, forbidden bond.
But he’s being hunted. And when soldiers arrive to trap him, they use Bess as bait. They tie her up and place a gun to her chest, planning to shoot if he comes back.
In a moment of pure, agonising sacrifice, Bess takes her own life to warn him away, firing the gun and giving her life so he might escape.
He hears the gunshot and rides off, but when he learns what happened to her, he returns in a rage and is gunned down too.
It’s incredibly tragic, but it’s also a haunting portrayal of love, devotion, and the cost of loyalty.
I’ve always thought it to be Jerza-coded, but now that I’m older I finally can tell why and it’s actually unreal.
• Jellal as the highwayman — the fugitive, the romanticised outlaw, constantly running from his past but still deeply in love. His reverence for Bess mirrors how Jellal holds Erza in this unreachable, sacred light—her strength, her hair, her presence. He’s burdened by his crimes and stays away for her sake, but the love never dies.
• Erza as Bess — the loyal one, the one who always defends him, even when he’s at his worst. Erza is no stranger to sacrifice—she would die for him, and in many ways already has, emotionally and symbolically.
Like Bess, she never stopped believing in him.
• Simon as Tim the Ostler — the bitter, jealous figure who gives Jellal up, either out of possessiveness or spite.
It’s such a clean fit it’s kind of scary.
Aside from the characters involved and their dynamic, even the language of the poem feels Jerza-coded.
That ache, that yearning across danger and time, the way both characters orbit each other while tragedy looms…
It just feels like them in the most beautifully harrowing way.
I’ll quote some stanzas from the poem and show you what I’m seeing.
“The Man Who Keeps Leaving” – Jellal as the Highwayman:
This paints the image of a romanticised outlaw—elegant, refined, dangerous.
That’s Jellal through and through: a fugitive, yet noble, a man who moves through the night carrying both beauty and destruction.
He’s always been portrayed with this almost tragic elegance, especially in contrast to his guilt and past.
This moment feels so Jellal-coded I’m actually losing my mind—the reverence, the worshipful tone, the intensity of his love for her.
That image of him burying his face in her hair before leaving into danger… It’s such a Jellal thing.
Always leaving. Always carrying that love with him.
Just imagine it was sweet scarlet waves in the starlight, and then this moment literally becomes them.
“The Silent Martyr” – Erza as Bess:
That moment of utter sacrifice, not for glory, not for credit, but for him.
Erza’s always been willing to suffer quietly for those she loves. Even when she’s the one left behind, she protects without hesitation. She would absolutely give everything for Jellal, even if it broke her.
And it’s a canonical event.
That stanza is Erza in Tartaros. She’s literally being tortured—stripped of her strength, her magic, her dignity—but when Kyouka gives her the choice to live and give Jellal up, or endure more pain and protect him, she doesn’t even flinch.
She refused to betray him.
She would rather suffer. She would rather die. Not out of blind loyalty—but because her love for Jellal is that deep, that absolute.
Just like Bess, her body becomes the final line of defense. Not as Titania, not as the warrior—but as the woman who loves him. A woman in agony who would rather shatter than let him suffer again.
Erza in Tartaros is not fighting as Titania.
She is suffering as Bess.
That’s the quiet, brutal beauty of it.
Erza will always protect Jellal—even when he doesn’t ask her to. Even when he pushes her away. Even when it costs her everything.
Her devotion is not loud. It is not for show.
Her love for him doesn’t need to be loud.
It’s a noose pulled tight, and never released.
“The Betrayer in the Shadows” – Simon as Tim the Ostler:
Simon being consumed by jealousy and betrayal makes him a near-perfect stand-in for Tim.
While Tim is silent and eerie, his actions are devastating, just like Simon’s betrayal of Erza.
It comes not from justice, but from spite and possessiveness. His inability to truly love her as she is results in her suffering.
(In the poem, Tim, maddened by jealousy, is actually the one who tells on the lovers to the king’s men, ultimately leading to the pain and death of the woman he claimed to love.)
The Fall of the Highwayman - Jellal’s suppressed rage:
That’s Jellal when he realises what she’s done for him. (Or if he was allowed to know.)
He’s always so composed, so measured, so tightly wound by guilt—but Erza is his weakness, his light. And when that light gets hurt, or worse, when it’s extinguished because of him…
This is him after Tartaros. This is him remembering the Tower of Heaven. This is the part of him that still believes Erza bleeds for his sins. And when that grief takes hold—
—he becomes reckless. Furious. No longer the calm strategist, no longer the repentant sinner.
Just a man in love, in pain, riding straight into hell.
Jellal doesn’t let himself explode often. But when he does—when the guilt and grief boil over—it’s always for her.
He would ride through death itself for her.
And he wouldn’t care if it killed him.
By this point in the poem, everything around him is red. His spurs, his coat—the world itself bleeds. That’s not just vivid imagery. That’s rage, grief, and the aftermath of love turned violent by loss.
For Jellal, that moment after Erza suffers—or if she were ever truly gone—it would be the same.
The world would turn red.
Because of her. In her absence.
Stained in what it stole.
Not just literally, but emotionally.
He’s not the kind of man who cries or screams when he loses something. He burns. He rides straight into destruction, like it’s all he deserves. And suddenly, all that guilt he’s carried becomes weaponised by pain.
This stanza feels like Jellal at his limit—no longer holding back, no longer punishing himself in silence. Just grief, love, and fury wrapped in blood and velvet, riding into death with nothing left to lose.
What’s the point of surviving?
And that’s exactly what leads to his end.
Just like Bess, the Highwayman meets his end.
A poetic end and a painful one—all in the name of love. Because just like the highwayman, Jellal was always riding toward a death he thought he deserved.
And in his mind, the only thing worth dying for,
The Haunting Ending – Jerza’s Eternity:
Even in death, their love persists.
They meet again and again, echoing through time.
It’s just so Jerza—they may be apart, may suffer, but that tether between them never truly snaps. It lingers. And in every encounter, it rides again.
Even in the haunting return of the highwayman’s spirit, Bess is there, tending to her hair, weaving a red love-knot through it. It’s not just a romantic image. It’s a ritual. A symbol. A memory preserved in something small, something intimate.
Erza, who holds her hair dear even when the world is falling apart. Not out of vanity but remembrance.
Who hides her softness in strength, but never stops carrying him with her.
In the poem, that red thread—the “love-knot”—isn’t just an aesthetic. It’s what binds the lovers. And for Jerza—it’s her hair.
Their binding scarlet thread.
It’s her way of cherishing, of holding him close without ever needing to say a word. Her return of devotion.
And just like Bess and the highwayman, their story never really ends.
It just waits in the moonlight.
Tied in red, and braided into memory.
I know it’s not a perfect 1:1, but emotionally, spiritually, and thematically… it’s them.
And maybe that’s why this poem has stuck with me for so long.
Does anyone else feel like this poem is painfully Jerza-coded, or am I just spiraling too hard?
Also, are there any books or poems that remind you of Jerza? Or just Jellal or Erza individually? I’d love to hear other lit parallels if anyone has any!
If anyone’s curious, there’s a really haunting animated video of The Highwayman that stuck with me since school.
It captures the mood so well!
The video is devastatingly beautiful on its own, but with Jerza in mind it really hits differently.❤️🩹
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, And the highwayman came riding— Riding—riding— The highwayman came riding, up to th
Here’s the link to the full poem for anyone who wants to experience the raw eloquence and emotions first hand.
Thank you to all who have read this post.
I don’t know if all this was analysis or a cry for help but either way… may it fuel your Jerza brain rot as much as it did mine. 🥀
