Kyou Kara Maou 47

[cerusee]

Character development for Gwendal--a flashback episode detailing his conflicted relationship with Dan Hiri, Cheri's swashbuckling, human husband, and Conrad's father. Basically, Gwendal hated Dan Hiri, and Dan Hiri got some weird validation out of being hated by his stepson that he didn't get out of his loving wife and hanging out with his biological son.

Bonuses include cameos of cute little kid Conrad, and a somewhat older teenage-ish Conrad who had already developed that extremely calm, gentle manner that I so adore in him.

Interestingly, while Cheri expresses some unhappiness with Dan Hiri up and leaving her, her essential complaint is that he aged faster than her, and died an old man while she remained young. ;_; Poor Cheri; she loves weirdly, but sincerely. Conrad appears to be somewhat more at peace with the human and human/Mazoku halfblood thing, at least when he explains it to Wolfram. I would love an episode that fleshed that out a little, though--Conrad is very much the sort of person who keeps his discontents in the silence of his heart, so you don't pick up on them easily.

All that said, I'm reminded of that episode when Conrad was in prison, and Cheri came to visit him, and they were so at ease with each other, even though Conrad was supposed to have committed treason. Cheri didn't seem to doubt him, or worry about it, and they talked about Dan Hiri--then after Cheri left, Conrad escaped from prison, like he'd just been sticking around because he felt like having a chat with his mother. I've always gotten this vibe off of Conrad and Cheri that they're in on a joke that no one else is, and that's why they shrug off things that everybody else is spazzing about. When Gwendal is grinding his teeth and Wolfram is throwing a hissy fit, Cheri and Conrad sit around making deadpan comments and exchanging slight smiles. ^0^ Something about the experience of loving Dan Hiri taught them both what was important in life. Each of them is, in their own ways, almost completely unshakeable. Which is, again, why I love them both so.

>_> An episode that's all about Gwendal, and I still end up yammering on about Conrad. Hah.

Comments

[wildelamassu.livejournal.com]

Interestingly, while Cheri expresses some unhappiness with Dan Hiri up and leaving her, her essential complaint is that he aged faster than her, and died an old man while she remained young.

...I agree with you about Cheri, and it's an interesting question: do you think she loved him in spite of his limited time with her, or because of it? One gets the feeling that she obtained a certain experience from him re: life (and death) that the other Mazoku don't seem to have--even the oldest of them know no more than children when it comes to mortality, given the ages they live to. Conrad might be able to relate to that via not only his father, but also the half-Mazoku only battle where he lost all his men.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

Can I weasel out and say that it could be both? We know so little! All I get from her scenes with him is that she was very much in love with him, and that she was happy when he was with her. I also see a sad but graceful resignation to his absence when he left her, even though she continued to love him, and even though one might think she'd want to cling to him as long as possible, knowing that he would die much, much sooner than her. I can't tell she able to let him go because she was thinking on Mazoku time ("we have forever, so separation now is bearable"), or because she valued his happiness above her own.

It's safer to assume Conrad's early acceptance of mortality, both Dan Hiri's and his own (not that that stopped him from reacting very badly when Julia died--was that because romantic love is different, because she died unnaturally, or because she was pure-blooded Mazoku? She, uh, was regular Mazoku, right? It's been awhile). I'm sure Conrad could tell his father was near death, and if Cheri hadn't anticipated it before, she surely saw it when he came back the last time, but at the end of the episode, Cheri is the one weeping for Dan Hiri's mortality, while Conrad peacefully explains his own to Wolfram. And I imagine that would only have been reinforced in battle. How bitter it must have been, for the halfbloods, being asked to sacrifice their lives for the immortals, when they had many fewer years to begin with!

>_> Whoa, I'm being all poetic-like. Someone should slap me upside the head with a trout and remind me that KKM is crack.