i think one of the boldest and best moves wolf 359 makes in its character development is that, in terms of the major defining events that led him to where he is, eiffel doesn't have a tragic backstory so much as he is responsible for the tragic backstory of someone else.
(the archetype of the everyman protagonist who copes with past trauma via humor does in many ways describe eiffel, but like with every character in wolf, it's the complexity of their circumstances that make them feel like real people with believable inner worlds. they don't subvert the archetypes they represent, exactly; they're just people, complex and contradictory, who ultimately can't be constrained by the expectations or defined lines of the narratives imposed on them.)
eiffel believes this is an intrinsic part of who he is, that he was "just those mistakes"; he externalizes his desire for redemption and that manifests as lenience towards people who lack his fundamental desire for growth. and in failing to recognize his own ability for growth, he presents himself as a doomed character archetype more than a person; he sidelines himself as an observer within his own story. his guilt and self-hatred allow him to in some way abdicate responsibility, to see his failings as inevitable, and it's only accepting his own complexity and capacity to be more, the human quality he recognizes so fervently in others, that frees him from those self-imposed conceptions.
(once my friend kit said that eiffel ādefines the tone and the moral compass of wolf 359 so strongly that if you put him into any other series he would turn it into wolf 359 tooā and i think about that a lot.)
doug eiffel is wolf 359, in all it believes, and despite his perception of himself as the weakest link, he is so interwoven with both the crew of the hephaestus and the themes of the show that he is inseparable from either. he doesn't always embody the show's values or its morals - in fact, he frequently fails to live up to them as much as he'd like - but he is the one who advocates for them. "it's not just about surviving; it's about being able to live with ourselves after we get off this tin can."
it's a show about communication; he is an intermediary, a vessel for communication - sometimes literally, and he's also just a guy who is still trying to learn how to communicate better himself. what eiffel represents is a flawed, contradictory, unpredictable, irrepressible humanity, singular, and so desperately in need of connection. the show's love of humanity is truer for that. he has genuinely done wrong, in ways he may not ever be forgiven for. he has very real flaws, some of which persist through the entire show, even as he's consciously trying to do better. and he is very much human, and very much loved.
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