Why Is Jellal The Only One Not Allowed To Be A Character?
Honestly I’ve ruminated over this more than I expected to over the past few weeks, and I’ve tried to stay neutral, but I keep arriving at the same conclusion—
I don’t know why, but now every time I actually try to think on Crime Sorcière and Jellal’s involvement, I seriously am not happy with the ambiguity of the narrative’s stance on what he did and did not do at the Tower.
Because everything that follows after just feels outright overkill if he personally had no hand in any of it and was truly just a ‘vessel’.
Because you’re telling me the child who got mind-broken and manipulated at his lowest point; who then lost the entirety of his youth being a vessel and pawn for someone else’s obsession; who was then left for dead after he became redundant; who was then arrested on sight when found with amnesia for crimes he did not know but then is revealed it wasn’t him; and then is taken away to never be seen again—is then broken out by one of the direct perpetrators of his ruin and basically it’s like, “Let’s atone and hunt down Zeref.”
I’m sorry, I need to pause.
Zeref—the one he hated at his most vulnerable and raw moment in his life?
Zeref—the one whose name his life was ruined over?
Zeref—the one in whose name he was abused?
Zeref—the one he has years and years of trauma tied to because he was supposedly acting in his name—but never actually was?
God, I hate being so pointed, but I feel like this is the only way I can get across my concern about him.
Because I just can’t stop questioning now:
Why should he need to atone or be made responsible for this journey as if it was always his personal choice?
This is what I mean by the story not being clear about where he stands. Because if he truly was the all ‘sinless’ sinner that the narrative tries to push every now and then—then him carrying the burden of his perpetrator’s redemption is absurdly unbalanced.
Sure, Ultear wants to repent and she feels guilt, but if Jellal truly had no hand at all in what happened in the Tower or the madness he succumbed to, why is he then being a vehicle for her guilt?
Why is the victim being used as part of the mechanism of the perpetrator’s redemption?
It’s another chain on him, another misplaced weight he has to shoulder alone. Because sure, she gets fulfilment, but what the hell is his role in this if he truly had no blame?
I’m sorry, I just can’t anymore.
In order for Crime Sorcière to make sense and Jellal’s involvement to make sense, he has to be accountable to a sufficient degree alongside those he’s with, because otherwise he’s not just misplaced—he’s the most mistreated person in the entire group and no one seems to challenge that.
Because I’m sure no other character would be willing to go through persecution or humiliation or have a literal death sentence hanging over their head just for the sake of keeping peace or trying to forgive and understand the other side.
Controversial, but I don’t like how Jellal’s humility and altruism are praised more than they are seen as erosive to himself. It’s kind, it’s forgiving—but to what extent can it be maintained, and what effect does it have on him?
So he’s meant to throw his life away because of the consequences of other people’s emotions?
And then on top of that be made to feel responsible for it?
That’s grossly unfair, and if that is the case then the narrative never stopped being cruel to him, it only stopped highlighting the imbalance.
Crime Sorcière is beautiful in theory, but if each person involved does not hold similar weight, then something so transformative—becomes void.
Because what the hell is being atoned for or redeemed if not truly by yourself?
If Jellal was truly just a victim and vessel, then Crime Sorcière ceases to be a redemption story and becomes a story of a victim continuing to pay for other people’s sins.
Redemption is a personal change. It’s a reckoning. Something that can only happen when in the wrong.
And I know I circle this point a lot, but truly Jellal has to be accountable for the Tower of Heaven to make sense. Not just as a vessel. Not for the story to push it onto someone else’s doing.
Not just a passenger in someone else’s.
Otherwise it doesn’t make sense, and I just can’t see it otherwise.
It also makes Ultear’s proximity to Jellal incredibly uncomfortable for me. Sure, she means well, but she genuinely has no right to try and make amends through him at his cost.
Though he was broken out of prison, that was yet another decision made outside of his autonomy, another path he was pulled onto that would weigh on him most despite not being his choice.
Because whilst Ultear was a co-conspirator, who is it the Council seemed to remember most as a criminal?
Who was the face of betrayal?
Who immediately invoked disdain?
And who would the prison break weigh on most?
She assisted, but it’s him they want.
Him the outrage is towards.
And sure she feels guilty for all she has done—
But guilt does not absolve consequence.
And such consequence feels beyond measure to pay for a man who literally lost everything.
At the hands of many abusers; she was one of them.
But it’s abuse no matter how you see it.
The name is severe, but so is what she done to him.
And it’s not the kind that could simply be forgotten or worked through. Rather, it has become so entangled in his being that it’s now his meaning of life.
It just feels too heavy to process if he truly is just a victim, and yet this man who is so intent on justice ends up committing the biggest injustice to himself.
That’s why I just can’t stay neutral on the matter anymore.
But the discrepancy is glaring.
The loss is exponentially worse on one side than the others, and I can’t look away from that.
I know I’ve said a lot, but I guess what I am trying to say is:
The story wants both “Jellal was responsible but not really” and “Jellal must seek redemption,” when those ideas are not just contradictory—they are irreconcilable.
And for a story that puts so much responsibility on his atonement, it’s absurd that it doesn’t even seem sure of his place in it before demanding it from him.
I know I’m passionate about this, but truly just please try and put any other character in this frame and see how uncomfortable it is.
It’s not that I solely care whether he was responsible or not. It’s that if he wasn’t, then the suffering, punishment, and redemption narrative surrounding him become profoundly unfair.
I just can’t understand why this level of injustice and misery seems reserved for him alone.
And if it’s all for the sake of making the story work, then why is he the only one not allowed to be a character?
Or is that all he’s meant to be?
A sponge for the misery the narrative has no place for, but still needs somewhere to land?
That’s why I can’t wholeheartedly praise him for this ‘nobility’ when it comes at the price of his detriment.
And this is why I can’t be okay with the narrative being ambiguous about his actions. To make sense of all the cruelty that follows in his life, he had to have been cruel himself at some point.
Otherwise it just doesn’t work.
It’s just been bothering me quite a bit.
Has anyone else ever felt this way about Jellal’s arc? Or did this post open up a different way of looking at it?
