This post discusses Ryoshu's interactions with Lei Heng in canto 9 and offers a reading of the scene as a way of exploring themes of sexual violence and misogyny.
Some housekeeping before we begin.
Discussions of this kind of content can be activating. What I find useful is to remind myself that - while I often 'psychologise' the characters I analyse - they are not real people. Lei Heng is not a real person. Rien is not a real person. Ryoshu is not a real person. They have not caused actual harm, they are not in danger of causing actual harm to others.
"Ryoshu" cannot be meaningfully hurt because she is made, primarily, of words; she is inviolate in the way you and I are not.
Now, some context.
Sometimes I find it useful to approach Limbus Company as I would approach a text produced under a censor. Under a censor, there are some things you are not allowed to say directly and unambiguously. A famous example you might be aware of are the plays of Shakespeare: there's a reason that the action of Hamlet, say, takes place in a country that is far enough away to excuse any direct comparison to how we do things here in England. However, there is a readership that understands, actually, that there is a way of reading 'England' back into text of Hamlet. Man, things sure are fucked up over in the state of Denmark, huh?
Another example. I am old enough to remember the most dogshit ragebait made around episode 63 of Steven Universe (Cry for Help). Cry for Help is an exploration of a consent violation between two characters (Pearl and Garnet) and the aftermath of that violation. It is constructed in such a way that you can read into it an exploration of a violation of sexual consent....but it is ambiguous! And subtle! And it is not what is literally happening at the diegetic level! Anyway, this ragebait drew a 1:1 equivalence with fusion and rape, confidently stated that Pearl had raped Garnet, and you can fucking IMAGINE where it went from there. You are on tumblr: I'm willing to bet you have encountered at least ONE bad faith critique during your stay.
I think that canto 9 has a lot to say about traditional gender roles, about motherhood and fatherhood, masculinity, femininity, gendered violence, and misogyny. I see the encodings there very strongly, and I find it meaningful to make readings of the text that bring out those encodings. Not only is saying 'hey I read this part of canto 9 as a meaningful commentary on SA' not the same as saying 'SA literally occurs in canto 9', I will go one further: when using this lens of analysis, it doesn't fucking matter what happens in the diegesis. It is agnostic to what occurs in the diegesis. Saying you have to have literal depictions of sexual violence in a text for it to be able to speak meaningfully about sexual violence is fucking absurd to me.
Alright, the Lei Heng scene, then.
When we first encounter Lei Heng, in Canto 8, we see Ryoshu completely lose her fucking shit for maybe the first time in Limbus Company. Not only is she 'furious and anxious', she starts dissociating after Lei Heng leaves, and tells Dante that she needs to vent this shitty feeling.
However, not even slicing Hong Lu perfectly in two is enough to calm her down. She continues to behave in a very disregulated way, lighting a cigarette and fixatedly thinking about Lei Heng, even as the gang are threatened by the combined might of Jia Mu's Heishou.
Immediately, Lei Heng is presented as someone who totally throws Ryoshu for a loop. I believe that one of the intended effects of this presentation is to make us curious - who the fuck is this guy that could make RYOSHU lose her cool? He taunts her about her past, saying that he's not here to teach her a lesson like back when, namedrops her 'baby', and goads her to 'unsheathe her sword'. Then he fucks off, like she's nothing.
Later, in the fight with him, we see Ryoshu's Mutilated Memory passive for the first time, representing the fact that she REALLY has to kill this guy, Steven.
I wanna be very clear. Lei Heng in Canto 8 is alreay kind of a scumbag. he is a CHARMING scumbag, but he's a scumbag. The way he treats Zilu is misogynistic and gross.
"That gets me in the mood"; "I want you". Sure, it turns out what he wants it to CUT her, but this, to me, isn't even subtext. It's sexual harassment. His nickname for her is honey bunny.
And to this, what does Ryoshu say?
Shithead. You haven't changed.
Lei Heng is a grown-ass adult man. Ryoshu is a teenager. Her parents leave her alone with him in a room, unsupervised, so that he can teach her sword techniques as one of her private tutors.
Lei Heng tricks Ryoshu into unsheathing her sword, the Relic Arayashiki. She does not know that the sword will cut her memories when she does this, because her parents haven't taught her how it works. This makes her naive, and vulnerable to exploitation. In this case, Ryoshu is vulnerable to being exploited for Lei Heng's personal amusement (or as Ryoshu puts it, his "cheap curiosity".)
Unsheathing Arayashiki severs Ryoshu's most precious memories. It is an act of intimate violation.
In the aftermath of swinging the sword for Lei Heng, Ryoshu regresses to a self-state from when she was much younger, re-living the moment she discovered Saru impaled with the Spiral and dying in her hands.
Up until meeting Lei Heng, Ryoshu has been portrayed as perhaps the most teflon motherfucker on our whole damn bus. NOTHING fazes her. Blood, guts, evil abominations, death, whatever.
Seeing Ryoshu crying and panicking and regressing to being a little kid unable to cope with her pet puppy dying is perhaps one of the least subtle depictions of someone having a trauma response in Limbus Company, the game where having a trauma response is a core gameplay mechanic.
When Rien interrogates Lei Heng, it is made VERY clear to us that he knew exactly what would happen. "You could have come up with a better excuse than I don't know". The language, too, is evocative of a sexual transgression - "I just wanted to get a peek".
Lei Heng has absolutely ZERO remorse for what he's done, instead trying to use the brain damage he inflicted on Ryoshu to trick her into unsheathing the sword a SECOND time:
In short, I read Lei Heng is someone who finds gratification in using his power to coerce a naive teenager into doing something unspeakably awful - something she would not have done if she understood the full implications beforehand. This exploitation is facilitated and enabled by the abuse and neglect of her family. Her father, Rien, DOES NOT STEP IN TO STOP LEI HENG, nor does he kill him afterwards.
So, I'm asking you. Do you think it is unreasonable, given what I have laid out, to say that this scene can speak meaningfully to the topic of sexual violence, without directly depicting it? Because that is what I am arguing.
Now. Reading Lei Heng's scene with the same energy as that of a sexual violation, Ryoshu's reactions to him in Canto 8 make, I think, a lot more sense. Reading back his lines in Canto 8 also underlines how fucking monstrous it is for him to say what he does to her, knowing what he knows:
To me, this is the gloating of a loser clinging to his power, with the energy of some creep tormenting you about that one time he molested you at your parent's house. Don't you wana get your tits out one more time, for old times sake, sugarplum? Wasn't it funny? You didn't know HWHAT you were doing back then, haha!!!
Yeah, no, I wouldn't let this man near my children either.
[If you made it this far, thank you for sticking with a heavier post. I wanted to get this one off my brain so I could focus on something perhaps a little lighter. I'd ask if you could please keep kindness to yourself and others in mind when commenting on this one. Take care - DM]
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