analysisn3rd

[analysisn3rd]

'Too Sweet' by Hozier and how I relate it to Good Omens

I think that this song can be seen as both Aziraphale talking about Crowley and Crowley talking about Aziraphale (which is what most people think), and I’m going to expand on that.

Aziraphale about Crowley:

“You’re too sweet for me”

Aziraphale thinks that Crowley is “too sweet” to him because he thinks that he doesn’t deserve the way that Crowley treats him; he doesn’t deserve Crowley’s kindness, Crowley’s care and love. This is because he’s been taught to think that he’s only worthy, that he’s only loved, if he were “good” or helpful because of Heaven, and its unrealistic standards for Aziraphale, and because of the unimaginable amount of guilt that he carries around. He feels so bad for so many things that have happened, so many things that he hasn’t been able to stop, and although he knows that, logically, he couldn’t have done anything, it doesn’t stop him from feeling bad. The narrator/singer thinks that their partner is “too sweet” and “too good” for them, meaning that they don’t deserve the narrator/singer, and they don’t want to be with them, which is opposite to Aziraphale’s case. He wants to be with Crowley, and he truly loves him, though he shows it in odd ways, but he doesn’t think that he’s deserving, that he’s worthy, of such love, of such care, of such kindness because of the aforementioned reasons.

“I take my whiskey neat, my coffee black and my bed at three”

This means that the singer/narrator indulges in life’s little delights without changing them, having them as bitter as they are (like the coffee). This doesn’t necessarily apply to Aziraphale in the literal manner, but he does definitely indulge in Earthly things that Heaven views as a waste of time or dirty like books, food and theatre.

Crowley about Aziraphale:

“I take my whiskey neat, my coffee black and my bed at three” Unlike Aziraphale, this sentence’s meaning is very literal in Crowley’s case. He does like indulging, but the only indulgences that we’ve seen him take part in are alcoholics, especially wine, bitter coffee (six shots of espresso) and sleep.

“You’re too sweet for me” He thinks that Aziraphale is “too sweet” because he’s genuinely kind to Crowley, something that he’s not quite used to, and because he’s an Angel; he represents all that’s good, while Crowley’s a Demon, and, as much as he hates it, they’re on opposite sides. Crowley’s considered a “lowly creature”, though I don’t think that he thinks this of himself, but he definitely thinks that Aziraphale thinks in this manner because of him wanting Crowley to come back to Heaven and wanting him to be an Angel again (that was for a different reason, in my opinion, but that’s another day). He thinks that he’d be more lovable if he were an Angel, so Aziraphale, the Angel that he is, is “too good” for him. That’s quite similar to how the narrator/singer sees their partner as “too sweet” and “too good” for them. The partner wants a more healthy lifestyle (“You keep telling me to live right”, which can also be seen as Aziraphale telling Crowley about returning to Heaven and becoming an Angel again, because, in his eyes, it’s the “right” thing to do) for both of them, which is the singer appreciates, but disagrees with.

An additional point:

“You know you're bright as the morning As soft as the rain Pretty as a vine As sweet as a grape” 

I think that that’s one of the ways in which Aziraphale would describe Crowley, and it’s also how Aziraphale would be described by Crowley. 

Overall, I think that this song fits Aziraphale and Crowley rather well, much like most Hozier’s songs do. I hope that I did them, and the song, justice because they’re very lovely.

#analysis #writing #gomens #good omens #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #crowley #a z fell #good omens analysis #hozier #too sweet #unheard hozier #aziracrow #ineffable husbands

[analysisn3rd]

Aziraphale's and Crowley's Morality: A Comparison

(This is essentially slight elaboration on the morality section for both of them and how they're different and similar at the same time. I hope that this isn't as poorly written as I think it is)

Aziraphale and Crowley are both morally equal. They're both morally grey, morally neutral, not exactly "good" nor "bad" but a bit more on the good side 

However, Aziraphale would be, technically, considered worse. It's because he doesn't care that much about people, at least not enough to do anything about their situation, and he's very nitpicky and fussy with everything, including those who he can empathise with. Because of this, he's judgy and a bit of a "bastard" (but just enough to be worth liking, of course). That doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like or want to do good; he does, a lot actually, but there are many things that hold him back from doing so in certain circumstances. Also, despite all of this, he's scared of not being a good person, which is partially due to how he views Heaven and goodness. Although they symbolise goodness and all that’s holy, Angels aren’t actually that good; they only care about carrying out God’s commands, and not what they entail, which leads to them doing horrible things (like how they wanted to kill Job’s children), so it feels a bit unfair to say that he’s “bad”.

On the other hand, Crowley would be considered better. He is incredibly empathetic. He can understand people, especially the typically misunderstood, quite well because he's been in similar experiences (because he fell because of simply asking questions and nothing more, so he’s able to understand and empathise with the typically misunderstood), yet he's unable to help them because of his job. The last time that he did help was with Elspeth and Wee Morag, where he got into serious trouble, serious enough that he'd ask Aziraphale for holy water, literal demon poison. There was also an instance before that, with Job and his children, but Aziraphale managed to help him get away with that. Despite all of this, Crowley doesn't care about Hell; he is scared, that's undeniable, but he has definitely stopped caring, especially not after facing Satan and defeating him by stopping time because Aziraphale threatened to never talk to him again.

All of this, amongst other reasons, is why they are absolutely perfect for one another. They balance each other out and make up for what the other lacks; they are two halves of one whole. 

Also, isn't it funny how the Angel did, indeed, turn out to be doing the "wrong thing" and the Demon to be doing the "right" one?

#i think that this is not my best work and im sorry for that/gen #analysis #writing #character analysis #gomens #good omens #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #crowley #a z fell #anthony crowley

[analysisn3rd]

Crowley

Morality

Crowley is neither good nor bad. I’d say that he’s morally neutral, while leaning a bit on the “good” side, despite being a Demon, a creature that’s supposed to be “bad” and evil. This means that he’d be in the same place as Aziraphale, in the light grey region. This is for a multitude of reasons, which I will shortly explain.

Although Crowley loves denying it, he’s a relatively good character, which is why he’s placed where he is. This is because he helps people a lot, and he genuinely cares about them, like Job and his family, especially his children, Elspeth, and, most importantly and most prominently of all, Aziraphale, where this was shown in how he was almost always aggressive, whether that be passively or actively, towards Gabriel/Jim while he was in the bookshop, by saving Aziraphale constantly, by treating Aziraphale to dinners in places like the Ritz, by how he always entertains Aziraphale in his hobbies and interests, like magic, and encourages them despite not liking them, by how miserable and utterly dejected he was when he thought that Aziraphale has been discorporated when the bookshop was on fire and when Aziraphale left for Heaven.

He’s also quite empathetic, especially with those who have gone through situations that others seem to constantly misunderstand, whose situations make them seem like they’re the “bad person” when they’re just trying to do their best and get by, like Elspeth, because he can understand their situation quite well. He Fell for simply asking questions, he didn’t mean to Fall, he didn’t mean to hang out with the wrong sort of crowd, so he knows what it’s like to be treated so terribly, so cruelly, so horribly for something that really doesn’t deserve this type of treatment, for something that wasn’t exactly anyone’s fault and was just a huge misunderstanding. 

Even though he’s aware that what he’s doing is typically thought of as “good”, he doesn’t like to be thought of as “good”. This is because he associates goodness with Heaven, and, from what I can see, he feels very bitterly about Heaven. This is because he doesn’t like their system. They reject anyone who deviates from their very strict image of goodness, their image of an Angel, a weapon of righteousness and nothing else, which is why, as we know so far at least, he Fell; he was just asking questions, he was questioning their work methods, things that they don’t want to happen. They just want people who work with the system, not people who question it and defy it. Another reason why he would feel sour about Heaven is how they treated Aziraphale; cruelly, harshly, constantly aggressive, either actively (like when Crowley was in Aziraphale’s body and Gabriel told him to “shut his stupid mouth and die”) or passively (which happens a lot in the show, especially bits of season 2). He doesn’t want to be associated with a place that treats anyone, any being, like that, and if that means being a “bad guy”, then so be it.

Another reason why he isn’t particularly good (aside from how I believe that there can be no such things as fully good beings of any sort) is that he likes to irritate people. It’s mostly to do with his job, so it’s not something that he particularly enjoys, but it’s still something that he does quite a lot, and it does have its effects. However, he doesn’t particularly care about this, and often takes credit for human’s, rather creative and rather terrible, work.

Overall, Crowley is a morally neutral character who can also be called “good”, despite disliking that.

Personality

Crowley has a very distinct and characteristic personality; he’s quite interesting.

Alongside from his kindness and his empathy, which were discussed in the previous section, Crowley is an extrovert. It’s something that may not make much sense about him at first, but, when one thinks a little about his curiosity further, the pieces start to fall into place. He’s always liked to catch up with the times, to know all of the trends of the world as of this moment, he’s always found it interesting, so it’s only logical if he were to talk to the humans to get to know more about it. 

Despite it being the reason why he lost it all, why he Fell, he still holds curiosity in a high place, and he is quite the curious character. He likes to question things a lot, and understand why and how they are the way that they are. He encourages humans to embrace it, to have a thirst for knowledge (which is quite interesting, because what provides most knowledge is books) because he understands this; he understands what it’s like to want to know something so badly, and what it’s like to be ever so fascinated by something. An example of his encouraging curiosity is when he answered Gabriel/Jim’s questions about gravity. Despite his hatred towards Gabriel/Jim, he didn’t let that interfere with wanting to teach him more about the universe, because he loves it when people are curious, when they want to know more, and when they’re passionate about what they like.

Speaking of passion, Crowley possesses a lot of passion towards his interests, like music, especially Queen, space and plants, and he knows a lot about them. He’s also quite careful with the things that he cares about a lot, like his Bentley, which never got a scratch in the 90 years that he’s had it, despite Crowley being impulsive. 

Alongside being impulsive, Crowley’s a bit more open about his feelings and emotions. He definitely “wears his heart on his sleeve” and he isn’t afraid to tell people, or show them, what he really thinks and feels about them. An example of this is how he was literally smoking when he was angry in the beginning of season 2. This is mainly because he doesn’t really see the point in hiding them; he’s not ashamed nor afraid of them by any means. However, despite being able to express them well, he’s not good at communicating them (much like Aziraphale, really, but that’s for different reasons).

He’s quite an intelligent character, which is something inherent within him and gained from his experiences on Earth, and it shows in how elaborate his plans to save Aziraphale are, and how he always has a plan ready, which means that he’s able to think of them quite quickly. He’s also remarkably creative, which is something that Demons typically lack, and imaginative as well, which, hand in hand with his optimism, has helped him when the Bentley was on fire.

Crowley is an optimist. It’s one of the most fascinating aspects of his character, for me personally. He always tries to look at the better side of things and he tries to hope for the best while taking advantage of his situation. He knows that things could be worse, and he’s gone through the, arguably, worst thing that has happened to him before, Falling, so how bad can this be compared to it? Nothing, in his opinion, could be worse than Falling. Nothing could be worse than losing absolutely everything that he ever had. Nothing could be worse than the consequences of asking questions, than the consequences of curiosity. Nothing. So, if he already went through that, why couldn’t he go through this? 

And when the worst has happened, the universe took care of him. That’s another reason for his optimism; he always believes that the universe will, somehow, some way, take care of him, and look after him. He will turn out alright, well as alright as he could be really, after all. 

Examples of his optimism is when he believed that Aziraphale would choose to run away with him. It worked for their bosses, and they turned out to be fine, so why wouldn’t it work for them? Why wouldn’t his love confession go wrong? He already lost everything before, once, it’d be too cruel for him to lose it all twice, wouldn’t it?

Insecurities and fears

Crowley doesn’t seem like a character who would have fears nor insecurities. This is because he constantly hides himself behind a rough exterior; showing only his thoughts and feelings about anything and everything except for what he finds scary. Considering how Hell is with their Demons, it makes sense for him to be that way. It’s a defence mechanism of sorts, and he does this when he pretends to not care as well, which is something that he’s done often, like when the Bentley was on fire and when Hastur and Ligur came to his apartment. He does this because he believes that if people start thinking that he truly doesn’t care, that he’s truly not afraid, then maybe he really isn’t.

He finds it difficult to trust others, which is something that Nina, a complete outsider to his existence, was able to tell from a few interactions, so it’s rather evident about him. This is because he doesn’t see the point in trusting when he knows that, eventually, this trust will be broken. It happened before, with Heaven. He believed that he was going to stay as an Angel; he did nothing wrong after all, and he trusted that Heaven would only allow the good ones to stay, then they broke that trust. He ended up Falling. Due to this, he has a hard time trusting others because what is the guarantee that they won’t break it? What is the guarantee that things won’t go wrong? He knows that he will be fine afterward somehow, someway, because, after all, he is an optimist, but he doesn’t want to go through this in the first place. He doesn’t want to lay his vulnerabilities out in the open for them to be taken advantage of again, for him to lose it all again.

Something that he probably beat himself over was his Fall. He saw it as a failure, something that should’ve never happened, and he keeps blaming himself for it relentlessly, as seen in season 1 when he was reminiscing about how he helped build some of the galaxies. It’s something that he deeply regrets and it was only quite recently, I would say towards the end of the first season, that he realised that it was never quite his fault. The system was simply built that way.

Despite feeling this way, I don’t think that Crowley has ever feared failure, because he knew that there could be nothing worse than Hell, and they don’t really care about their Demons much. They’re the opposite of Heaven; disordered, chaotic, crowded, dirty and another one of the aspects that this is evident is how they deal with their beings. As long as they’re doing something mildly bad, they’re fine. He cannot disappoint when there are no expectations to begin with, so what is there to fear?

His most prominent fear, one that we’ve seen multiple times within the series, especially within season 2 is losing Aziraphale. It’s quite simple, really. He’s Crowley’s best friend, his only friend. Someone who has always been there with him, no matter what. Someone who he was always able to talk to. Someone who he went to dinners, shows, everywhere, really, with. A dear companion for 6000 years. He simply wouldn’t know what to do if he lost Aziraphale. He means too much to him to stand to lose, and this was very clearly shown at the end of season 2.

Differences between the book and the show

There aren’t many differences between the character in the book and in the show; the major difference, really, was how panicky and nervous he was. In the book, he was significantly more nervous than in the show, despite having the same idea to get rid of the Antichrist, even though he did disagree with how Aziraphale wanted to go about it, because he knew that Hell wasn’t going to react nicely to any of it. He still went forth with it because Earth, and everything on it that he had experienced and loved, was too much to give up. He cared about it, and loved it, enough to know that he will never cause this to happen, even if it goes against the Ineffable Plan.

Conclusion

Crowley is an incredible character, and he’s so cool; I would even go as far to say that he’s the definition of a cool character. I’ve always liked him, honestly, but this analysis made me like him even more. He’s such a multi-faceted and, really, human character; they both are. I’m, much like with my Aziraphale analysis, horrified that I might’ve made a mistake, which is the reason, in part, why I’m posting this a month after the Aziraphale one.

I see him and Aziraphale as two parts of a whole, so the parallels between their personalities is so interesting to dissect and write about. It was kind of difficult from refraining to mention at certain points what the other is like and how they’re different and how they’re similar, because it would be a bit confusing then, I think. They’re so brilliant. They’re definitely some of my favourite characters of all time; Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett wrote them beautifully.

I hope that my analysis, for both of them, but currently for Crowley, did them any justice.

#analysis #writing #character analysis #gomens #good omens #anthony j crowley #crowley #good omens character analysis #good omens analysis

[analysisn3rd]

Aziraphale

Morality

Despite being an Angel, Aziraphale is not wholly good. I don’t think it’s possible for an Angel to even be entirely good, considering what they’re typically like. Aziraphale, much like Crowley, would be in the light grey area of the morality scale, and I shall explain why.

Aziraphale is a good being. This is a simple and known fact that cannot be debated. However, as I previously stated, it is impossible for any being to be entirely good, or entirely bad, and this presents in Aziraphale in a rather mild way, which I will explain.

One of the reasons why Aziraphale’s a good character is because of his never-ending kindness, which shows up many times during the show and within the book, like when he helped Anathema after he and Crowley crashed into her, when he told Maggie that it’s alright that she didn’t pay her rent, helping Gabriel, and many other instances. One of the reasons why he’s so kind, a reason that I consider the most prevalent is that he genuinely cares about people and about the world, and he genuinely wants to help. It makes him feel good when he helps people; he loves it. That’s not only because he knows that it’s a good thing and that he’s succeeding at his job, but it’s also because he’s able to understand people’s situations really well, as he’s hyper-empathetic, so he’s able to realise just how much he’s been able to do, and how much he’s been able to help.

As I briefly mentioned, Aziraphale has a lot of empathy. He’s able to understand people’s situations very well and this compels him to do good. He cannot just sit there and watch people suffer while knowing what their pain is like. This has been evident several times, throughout the show especially, with Adam and Eve, with Job, and with Adam Young, among many others. Even though he’s hyper-empathetic, his empathy is slightly selective at times, where it’s evident that he’s able to understand this person’s situation and that he’s able to “feel for them” or “put himself in their shoes” sometimes, because he’s been in similar situations or he has seen similar situations before, and some other times he absolutely cannot. This has resulted in him acting horribly and treating people in ways that they do not deserve.

Another reason that factors into his being good is his naivety. Despite being quite intelligent, Aziraphale is horribly naive. This is something that I will expand on in the following section, but it’s due to this that he thinks that everyone wants the best for everyone else; that everyone genuinely wants to do good to one another. It’s what he lives by, essentially.

In spite of all the traits I mentioned above, Aziraphale isn’t entirely good. He’s a bit of a bastard sometimes, like Crowley said, and he can be quite rude and he doesn’t really like people (or any beings really) and interacting with them all that much. He’s also a bit selfish, where he likes to indulge in the things that he likes, such as good books, good plays and good food, while ignoring or not paying much mind to others and how their lives are like. 

To put it simply, Aziraphale is a good character, but he’s a bit of a bastard sometimes and that means that he’s not completely good.

Personality

I find Aziraphale’s personality to be quite remarkable and distinct; I don’t think that there’s a character quite like him, or even similar to him.

One of the things that I see as the most characteristic about him is his idealism. Aziraphale is an idealist, and it shows quite clearly in how he talks about Heaven to Crowley. He always says that they’re the “good guys”, he’s talking about how they do good things and help people, but what he’s talking about isn’t actually Heaven, it’s what Heaven would ideally be like. It’s what he wants Heaven to be like, not what it really is, and he knows that, but he likes to pretend like it’s not actually what it’s like. This is part of the reason why he accepted the Metatron’s offer. He saw it as a chance to make Heaven into what he thinks it should be, a place that’s ruled by kindness and wanting to help others, not power-hungry, cruel people that don’t care at all about others. He wants to make things right, he wants to turn Heaven into what he thinks it should be, but the issue is, and what he’s currently unable to realise, is that this is how Heaven was meant to be. 

Another memorable thing about him is his naivety. Despite being so incredibly intelligent that it’s one of the first noticed things about him, Aziraphale is quite naive and acts rather stupidly at times. This isn’t because of his lack of experience or something of the like; it’s because he’s too wrapped up in his ideals to see what reality is like, where this shows evidently in how he thinks of Heaven and of Angels. He thinks that all they care about is helping people, doing good and thwarting wiles, when, in reality, it’s very different from that. Gabriel even said it, Aziraphale, and Angels in general, are supposed to be “lean, mean fighting machine”s and not kind nor soft, which is what Aziraphale thinks that Angels should be.  It’s also quite clear that they don’t care about kindness or anything of the like because of how they treat Aziraphale himself. They show very clearly and very evidently that they don’t like him; they want him to see that they think that he’s nothing more than a naive idiot and a poor excuse of an Angel. They don’t even bother to be fakely-polite with him, because they don’t care about being kind. They don’t care about respect. They don’t care about others to begin with. All that they care about is power, and winning the Great War. Due to his naivety, he thinks that everyone wants to do everyone good at heart. He probably has a hard time wrapping his mind around the idea that people can, and will, deliberately harm one another. He also always sees the good in people, preferring to overlook the bad, where this is evidently seen with Heaven (though his relationship with Heaven, especially, is far more complicated than that). 

One of the things that’s noticed first about Aziraphale is his intelligence, as mentioned in the book. This is because he’s very experienced and he knows a lot about the world, as he’s seen a lot of it, and read a lot about it of course, and it’s also because it’s just naturally how he is. I think that it shows up a lot in his overthinking, which is usually a result of him thinking too deeply about things and that’s a trait associated with intelligence. Another characteristic that’s linked with intelligence that he has is being attentive to detail, where this is shown in how he’s always able to remember the minor details about events, like the Job minisode, and in how detailed his drawing of Gabriel/Jim was.

He’s also quite curious, and he loves to learn about new things, but only when they’re to do with his interests, which is why it seems a lot more subtle compared to Crowley’s. He does, however, have a thirst for knowledge, and it’s one of the reasons why he likes to read. Due to his curiosity, he asks a lot of questions when it comes to practically anything, as he wants to know and understand more, but he doesn’t do that with orders coming from Heaven because he’s seen what that would result in when Crowley Fell, he knows that they’ll react poorly and that he, too, will Fall if he did that, and because he fears his higher-ups. 

As mentioned before, he’s incredibly kind and empathetic, and, usually, characters with the same traits would be extroverted and bubbly. However, Aziraphale isn’t. He’s quite introverted, and it has, at some point, gotten in the way of his doing good deeds simply because he didn’t want to interact with people. He probably finds it tiresome and pointless because he doesn’t really enjoy people’s company for longer than a few minutes, with the exception of Crowley. 

One of the most remarkable things about him is that he’s quite fussy. He’s very specific and particular about the things that he likes and dislikes, where he finds modern music weird and insists on calling it “bebop”, usually drinks tea or hot chocolate only and absolutely adores crepes and sushi. He’s very passionate about his interests and the things that he likes, such as books, humans and classical music, where he knows a lot about them. He also despises change, which is shown in how he refuses to change his style and his way of talking despite the world changing around him.

One of his more negative personality traits is how he’s too nice to people. This is due to his naivety, and how he thinks that everyone, deep inside, is good one way or another. He doesn’t see any reason to be less than nice to people, and his niceness, on its own, is a bit excessive to begin with, where this causes him to end up in awful situations, like one of the cut scenes and most of his dealings with Heaven, where Crowley has to rescue him (or he chooses to let Crowley rescue him because he probably has a plan). As a result of this, he probably has a hard time setting boundaries with people, because he’s afraid of being too mean or rude to them by asking for anything.

Another negative trait of his is that he bottles up his emotions and thoughts a lot, especially those regarding Crowley. This is mainly because he’s scared and ashamed of them; he shouldn’t be thinking this way, and he developed this mindset because he’s afraid of Falling, of failure essentially, so he doesn’t want Heaven to find out anything about what he’s truly like. This results in him pushing Crowley away a lot, although he really doesn’t want to. 

Insecurities and fears

I would say that Aziraphale is evidently a nervous and worrisome character; he basically frets about everything that happens in the show, but the fears I’m going to list are the most prominent ones.

His most obvious fear is losing Crowley. To put it simply, Crowley means a lot to him and he really meant it when he said that he needed Crowley. Crowley’s the only person who’s always been around Aziraphale, humans die, but Crowley, whom he always understood (to a degree really but that’s a discussion for another time) and who always understood him, has always been there. Crowley, who he shared countless experiences with. Crowley, his best (and probably only) friend. He wouldn’t be able to handle it if he lost Crowley, which is why he’s so afraid of that. He wouldn’t be able to stand it.

He’s afraid of failure and of disappointment. I think it’s rather evident in how he would always deny his and Crowley’s friendship just to please Heaven because he doesn’t want to disappoint his higher-ups, as he’s scared of Falling, which he would definitely consider a failure. He does, however, already know that he’s somewhat considered a disappointment to Heaven, and he even thought that he was going to Fall in the Job mini-sode because he’s so scared of it that it’s all that he can think about. He knows that Heaven is strict, he knows that he’s already a disappointment and he’s slowly inching towards failure, and he feels so terrible about that because he doesn’t want them to think of him in that light. He doesn’t want to Fall. He doesn’t want to fail. He wants their approval and their praise, which is so hard to get, and that shows how he’s insecure; his self-esteem is inherently tied with how useful or how good he is, both in general and to Heaven. This appears a lot within the series, but the most prominent example is in Eden, when he told Crawly that he was worried that he wasn’t doing the good thing. It’s something that’s so seemingly simple, because he’s an Angel of course he’d be doing the good thing, yet it means a lot to him because if he’s not good, then he’s nothing. What is he, if not an Angel? And what is an Angel, if not good? (Because he wants Heaven’s approval, he accepted the Metatron’s offer. He saw it as a chance to right the wrongs within Heaven’s system, and as a chance to prove himself to be worthy to God and all the other Angels, who always undermined him.)

Differences between the book and the show

I wasn’t going to make a section for this, initially, because I didn’t think that the differences were that grand, and, in a way, they really aren’t. They’re just minor character changes, but they make everything else incredibly different, especially when it comes to Aziraphale. Everything that I’ve written before can be applied to the book character as well, and the differences are the following:

The book character isn’t naive at all. He’s very experienced, he knows what humans are like and he knows that beings, whether they’re human or not, can be malicious and they could purposefully want to harm others, and he uses this experience that he has, which makes him seem a lot wiser and smarter than the show character. 

He isn’t hyper-empathetic, he’s far more selective with who he gives his empathy to, and he’s not as kind. He doesn’t really care about others, aside from Crowley, as long as they’re not directly bothering him.

He’s a lot less insecure, and nervous, because he’s a lot more confident, where this confidence is the reason for the majority of the differences mentioned above. The show character can become like the book character, but it will take him a while to reach that point; the show character is far too scared of Heaven and what they’d say about him, unlike the book character, who knows that he’s powerful and doesn’t care in the slightest about Heaven.

Conclusion

I love Aziraphale. He is certainly my favourite character out of all of the wonderful characters within the show/book. I see myself a lot within him; he’s so much like me, it’s kind of hard to wrap one’s mind around. Because of all of these reasons, I was so scared while writing this analysis because I did not want to get anything wrong; it simply wouldn’t do. Hopefully, I did him justice because he’s truly a wonderful character. I really admire how he’s written and how he’s so complicated and human, really. I just love everything about him honestly.

#analysis #writing #character analysis #good omens #gomens #aziraphale #aziraphale fell #a z fell #GO #good omens character analysis #good omens analysis

[analysisn3rd]

Somethin' Stupid by Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra and how I relate it to Good Omens

When I first listened to this song, I couldn’t help but think that it matches the whole story-line of season two of Good Omens so well. I couldn’t stop listening to it on repeat, and I’ve been listening to it on repeat in my head for a few days now; it just fits the season so well, and it’s even more obvious now that I’ve finished it, so I’m going to talk about that in detail.

I know I stand in line until you think you have the time to spend an evening with me

And if we go someplace to dance, I know that there's a chance you won't be leaving with me

Then afterwards we drop into a quiet little place and have a drink or two

Here the singer talks about how their relationship with their partner is lovely, but it’s kind of strained, and they’re worried that, if the opportunity arises, their partner will leave them. However, their anxieties dissipate when they go drinking, and it’s all alright again.

This part matches up with the majority of the season, with how it was all like before the last episode. It was quiet, gentle and romantic (well, at least it was more so than season one); we got to see more of Aziraphale and Crowley through history, we got to see more of their past together and of their relationship with one another and how it developed, but there were undertones of things going wrong. It all started little by little, with things seemingly improving as we go on, but then descending downwards again.

And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like, "I love you"

Everything was going alright with the singer and their partner, the mood was right, they were both happy, so happy that the singer told their partner that they love them, and that ruined it all.

It was much like that in the last episode, at the very end. What Crowley was trying to hard to say, and what Aziraphale said in a way that Crowley didn’t quite understand, in those moments of clear misunderstanding, what ruined it all was a simple “I love you”. 

Crowley told Aziraphale that they should just leave Heaven and Hell to themselves, much like Gabriel and Beelzebub did, and they should go and be with one another. A group of the two of them. They could be just them, no Angels, no Demons. He wanted to do this because he loves Aziraphale so much, and they couldn’t spend any more time dancing around that fact, like they always evidently have. That was his “I love you”.

Aziraphale, on the other hand, told Crowley that he could go back to Heaven with him, where everything will be alright again, and they could rule the world together. He wants to fix Heaven for Crowley, he wants to right their wrong in causing Crowley to Fall. He wants, he needs Crowley to be there with him because he loves him so much. That was his “I love you”.

It was their confessions of love, their incredibly misunderstood confessions of love, that ruined the whole night. There were no nightingales. 

I can see it in your eyes, that you despise the same old lies you heard the night before

And though it's just a line to you, for me it's true, and never seemed so right before

I’m not quite sure what the singer might be referring to here, honestly. Perhaps they were lying about something to their partner, maybe saying that they don’t love them or something of the sort, and they wanted to right their wrong by saying those words. I don’t know.

However, how I see it for the show, I think that the “same old lies” that are “despised” by the singer’s partner could be applied to how Aziraphale would always push Crowley away by telling him that “they’re not even friends”, that he “never liked him”, that Crowley “goes too fast for him”, and many other examples. He knows that these are all lies and Crowley does as well, and they both hate that they had to do this, which is why their respective “I love you”s mean so much to them. They each thought that their “I love you”s were going to fix everything because being finally together officially means the world to both of them.

I practise every day to find some clever lines to say to make the meaning come true

But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late, and I'm alone with you

The time is right, your perfume fills my head, the stars get red, and, oh, the night's so blue

The singer wants their partner to realise how much they’re loved and they try and try and try to find the words to convey that because it’s so important to them to show their partner how much they love them. They want to make it all right. They want to get the mood right. They want to get everything right. They want the picture-perfect moment where they make their important declaration of love, something out of the movies.

These lines remind me of Crowley, when Aziraphale was out with the Metatron, after Nina and Maggie told him that he needed to tell Aziraphale about how he felt. He wanted to get it all right and he wanted to truly show Aziraphale that he really loves him because it’s true and it’s so, so important to Crowley. He wants to get this right and he can’t risk messing it up.

And then I go and spoil it all by saying somethin' stupid like, "I love you"

Everything was going so well for the singer; the mood was right, them and their partner were happy. It was all going so right, and they just messed it all up by saying those three simple words. 

Like I said previously, Aziraphale’s and Crowley’s respective “I love you”s ruined it all. It ruined the romantic ambiance that the show had. They were both miserable by the end of the season, all because of a simple “I love you”.

I think that I might be thinking a lot about this, and I’m not sure that I’m making much sense, but I couldn’t help but write down the similarities. It just fits with the season finale so well because they really did spoil it all by saying “I love you” and that’s simply painful. Good Omens is one of my current obsessions and I will find a way to link everything to it/hj. I really hope that I didn’t somehow make any mistakes in this because it means a lot to me and I’d be incredibly upset if I somehow messed it up.

#analysis #song analysis #frank sinatra #sinatra #nancy sinatra #good omens #gomens #aziraphale #aziracrow #azicrow #crowley #anthony j crowley #writing

[analysisn3rd]

Egashira Mika

Personality

I think that Mika has an interesting personality, especially because there’s so much that she hides of herself. I think it’s interesting how a lot of the Skip and Loafer characters hide their true personality because the way in which they do that is so incredibly different.

 One of her most remarkable characteristics is how smart and observant she is. I don’t mean this in the typical academic intelligence, although she is smart in that aspect as well; what I mean is that she’s quite good at reading people, which means that she’s attentive to detail and that she’s observant. She’s able to use the information that she reads off of people to see whether they like her or not and to get a read on their character as well.  Because she’s able to read people well, due to her being smart and observant, she’s brutally honest with people because she knows what they’re truly like.

Although she started learning about makeup and fashion as a way to better fit in, I think that she’s genuinely passionate about it, which makes this passion of hers a major part of her personality. She knows so much about it that she’s sort of considered the ‘expert’ within her friends. She also really enjoys sharing the information that she has and talking about fashion and beauty products with Yuzuki and Nao, which is what led me to make my conclusion about it being a real passion of hers because this shows that she genuinely likes it.

I would say that the most important thing to her is to make herself likeable, which is why I consider it a form of people pleasing; it has caused her to change so much of herself and to push herself to do things that she didn’t like just for the sake of fitting in better with others and making them like her. She knows exactly what people expect of her and she changed herself a lot, to the point that it’s difficult to see what she’s  genuinely like. She hides herself behind this ‘mean pretty girl’ personality because she knows that, if she were to be herself, she would get bullied and picked at mercilessly. She saw how people treated her when she acted like how they expected her to, they were better to her, more friendly. This caused her to see her mean and rude attitude as a way to defend or protect herself from being bullied.  

Despite acting really rude and unpleasant towards Mitsumi and only being fakely nice to her to get what she wants, she’s genuinely a kind person, especially to those she cares about. I would say that this is because she’s in a better place now, where she can be herself fully without being shamed for being weird, which allows her to show her friends how much she really loves them. 

One of her more negative traits is how she’s very evidently jealous, mostly of Mitsumi but sometimes of Yuzuki as well. She’s jealous of Mitsumi because she doesn’t seem to care even though people think that she’s a weirdo or an airhead. She’s jealous of how smart and hardworking Mitsumi is. She’s jealous of how Mitsumi isn’t like her, where she isn’t ashamed to be herself, unlike Mika. She’s also jealous of Yuzuki’s natural beauty. I think that, now, she’s trying to decrease those feelings of jealousy because she genuinely loves and cares about both Mitsumi and Yuzuki.

Another negative trait of hers is that she probably has some form of self-esteem issues, where she sees herself as ‘lesser than’ or ‘worse than’ others. This is probably, along with the reason that they have what she has always wanted so effortlessly and she tries hard to get it but doesn’t, why she feels so incredibly jealous of Mitsumi and Yuzuki. She thinks this way because she knows that she’s faked or hidden a lot of her personality, a lot to the point that I’d say that there are parts of herself that she probably wouldn’t recognise. She also feels this way because she’s so focused on how her friends are so much better than her that she loses sight of how she’s not that different from them.

Overall, Mika is an incredibly interesting person who’s quite complex because of how much she hides of herself, making her harder to read.

Insecurities and fears

Mika’s fears make a lot of sense regarding her past experiences with people and her personality.

She’s scared of being left alone and being abandoned. She knows what being alone is like, and she’s been alone before with no friends. That was what made her realise that, if she wanted to be liked by these people, she should change herself to what they want from her. This is why, amongst other reasons, she’s jealous of Mitsumi acting like herself, acting weird, and not caring about how she sticks out from everyone. 

She’s also afraid of being unloved. This is because she experienced what that feels like and it’s the only thing that she really wants, to be loved and admired (and maybe feared slightly) by friends and a boyfriend. That’s why she changed herself so much. That’s why she acted terribly to Mitsumi and Yuzuki initially. She just wanted to be loved, and the girls understood that, each in their own way, and accepted her for who she really is, and not the image that she presents of herself for people to like her because it’s what people expect of her.

Conclusion

I feel like I didn’t make much sense. Mika’s an incredibly complicated character and, because of that, I doubt that I was right about what I said about her. I honestly didn’t like her at first because of how she treated Mitsumi. I know why she did it, but Mitsumi is so much like me, so seeing someone treating a character so much like me so poorly didn’t sit right with me at all. I now feel bad for her, honestly. She’s gone through so much that she didn’t deserve, but I’m glad that she’s changed for the better. I hope that I wasn’t entirely wrong about her because I honestly love her a lot now. She represents the feelings of teenage girls very well, I think, and it’s so incredible that a character like her exists.

#analysis #character analysis #writing #skip to loafer #skip and loafer #mika egashira #egashira mika #mika #egashira

[analysisn3rd]

Shima Sousuke

Personality

I find Shima’s personality to be incredibly interesting, which is mainly because he hides himself behind masks, which makes his character a bit difficult to understand at times, and I find that interesting.

One of the most notable traits about him is that he’s quiet. He doesn’t really talk much to others and it’s usually other people who start the conversation with him. 

Much like what Mitsumi thinks of him, Shima’s a kind person. I find this to be quite clear because, even though she treated him terribly and blamed him for something that he hadn’t done, he’s still friends (somewhat) with Ririka and he still genuinely cares about her. Another example of his kindness was how he was concerned about Mitsumi when they first met, despite not knowing her at all and despite her being a complete stranger to him.

Shima is someone who people-pleases a lot, where this manifests in many different ways within his interactions with others. He tells people exactly what they want to hear from him, as to not repeat his mistake and upset people, even if it would mean that he would be lying to them. He also forces himself into situations, like the first year class play and dates, that he finds uncomfortable, just to make people happy. I think that the initial reason for him developing those tendencies was of how his mother made him believe that he hurt her when he refused to act anymore; something that she regrets doing now. This has led him to think that he should do what’s asked of him, even if it makes him uncomfortable and even if he doesn’t want to do it because, if he doesn’t do it, that means that he’s selfish. 

He’s also an introvert and he doesn’t like people all that much. Alongside that, he doesn’t really know how to properly interact with others. He wants to tell people what he truly thinks of them without hiding his personality behind a mask of people-pleasing and forced smiles, but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know how to talk to people normally without fearing that he’s going to hurt, like he believes he did with Ririka, where she blames him for something that he hadn’t done, and he accepts the blame because he still cares about her and because of him feeling that he needs to make her happy with their friendship, or embarrass, like he believes he did with his mother, where she called him an embarrassing child, those that he talks to and befriends. Him wanting to not hurt, embarrass or upset those he befriends has led him to seeming distant, which is something that Mukai and Shima’s younger brother have felt, and unapproachable. However, this is also due to Shima hiding his personality.

I mentioned this previously, but Shima hides his personality, and I can’t seem to understand why. Perhaps he fears being considered weird for how he really is. Perhaps he thinks that, if he hides his personality, people will like him more. 

He doesn’t understand his emotions that well, and I think that it takes him a while in order to identify how he’s feeling, which we’ve seen in regards to how he feels about Mitsumi. He also bottles up his emotions a lot, especially negative ones, and I would say that he probably feels shame around showing his emotions.

Overall, Shima’s an incredibly interesting character, who I found a bit hard to read at times.

Insecurities and fears

I think that Shima’s fears make a lot of sense in regards to his personality, and I find that they’re all connected with one another, which I’ll elaborate about shortly.

He’s terribly afraid of hurting his loved ones. I consider this another reason for why he’s a people-pleaser and why he tells people what they want to hear from him. He doesn’t want to hurt them because he knows that, if he does, he will lose those he loves, and, although it’s not talked about much in the series, he has probably experienced loss, through his parents’ separation, before and doesn’t want to experience it again.He holds his close relationships in a special place, even if he tries to hide that, which makes him afraid of hurting those he loves and, thus, losing them.

Because he’s so afraid of losing those he loves, he’s afraid of disappointing his loved ones. He knows that, if he were to disappoint them, they’d no longer think highly of him and they would eventually leave him or he’d somehow lose the close connection that he had with them, like he did with his mother. This is probably why he continued to act; he didn’t want to disappoint his mother and he wanted to make her proud of him.

Conclusion

Shima is a character that I relate to partially, especially the people-pleaser part, yet I think that we’re so alike yet so different. I think this is because the reasons for our similarities are very different. I mentioned this before, but I had a hard time understanding him at times, and I think that that’s because of how complex he is; he’s incredibly well written. It’s something that makes him quite human, which I really appreciate. He’s quite like the people I know, where I can read their character and understand their mannerisms to a degree, but there are still some parts of their personality and character that are a complete mystery to me. I truly hope that I did him justice within this character analysis since he’s one of my favourite characters within this series.

#analysis #character analysis #writing #skip to loafer #skip and loafer #shima #shima sousuke #sousuke shima #sousuke

[analysisn3rd]

Mitsumi Iwakura

Personality

I would say that Mitsumi’s personality is quite simple, even though I have a lot to say about it. 

One of the most remarkable traits of her personality is her passion and her determination. There are many things, that I suppose could be called dreams or ambitions of hers, that she’s quite passionate about, like becoming the Student Council President and solving her hometown’s issues, and she’s more than willing to work towards achieving her aspirations. She channels the passion that she has towards those dreams into determination and will-power, which, along with her hard-working tendencies, allow her to achieve those ambitions of hers. How passionate she is about her dreams usually seems to come off as “too much” to some characters, like Shima at the start, but her friends find it inspiring, and Shima comes to find it that way too eventually.

She’s incredibly smart, and I think that this is something that’s quite clear, given how we see that she’s doing quite well in her school work. I would say that she got to this degree of intelligence through her hard work. She takes her studies so seriously that Fumi even jokes that the only thing that Mitsumi’s good at is studying, and, sometimes, she takes them more seriously than she takes her own well-being. I would also say that this is because she’s genuinely fascinated by the information that she’s learning. This is shown in a flashback scene in the manga, where a younger Mitsumi is telling  younger Fumi that she read one of their textbooks in one day, and when Fumi exclaimed, Mitsumi explained that she found it interesting and fascinating to read. Alongside being intelligent, I would say that she’s also a bit of a nerd.

She’s one of the friendliest characters in the anime and manga. This shows through the number of unexpected friendships that she made, like how she befriended Ujiie and Makoto. This is because she’s quite extroverted, and she finds it enjoyable to talk to other people, hear what they have to say and understand their perspectives. This is quite beneficial to her, as the President of the Student Council, but I think that she does this because she genuinely cares about others.

She has a lot of empathy towards others, and she can quite easily place herself in other people’s shoes and imagine what their lives might be like to a degree that’s higher than most people’s. This has helped her befriend people who would’ve otherwise been her ‘enemies’, like Ujiie and Mika. She was able to understand why they were treating her that way and she told them that she understood their situations, which made them feel better and treat her better.

She has slight people-pleasing tendencies, where she’d take too much work that she wouldn’t be able to handle just because she couldn’t say “no” to others. She knew that people expect something from her, and she doesn’t want to disappoint them, so she feels compelled to agree and help out even if all it would do is drain her. I believe that she has worked on that to a degree because the only example I can recall is when she helped out with the class play even though she had other stuff to do for the Student Council.

She’s an incredibly loving person and she loves so deeply that it’s simply beautiful. I would say that her love language would be gift-giving, considering how she always makes sure to get souvenirs an gifts for her family and friends. I think that it makes sense for her to be so loving because she grew up surrounded by so much love, which is something that’s commented on by a lot of characters.

Despite being an extrovert and despite being incredibly friendly, Mitsumi isn’t that good at social situations. She tends to miss social cues and she sometimes does or says things that would be considered socially inappropriate, which makes her seem like a weirdo to people. This could be because all of the characters that she’s interacted with in highschool so far are from Tokyo, while she’s from the country side, but I believe that this is just how she is, because she behaves in a similar way with Fumi.

She also always assumes that people have good intentions, which makes her quite naive. It had also led her to awkward interactions with many people, where she’d believe that they're telling her something to help her, but, in reality, they were making fun of her. An example of this is how everyone seemed to pick up on how Mika was using her to get closer to Shima at the beginning of the story, but she wasn’t able to realise that until someone pointed it out for her. This, along with her missing social cues and acting inappropriately in some social situations, make people see her as stupid and as an airhead.

She’s a bit bad at figuring out how abstract emotions, which feel different to each person who experiences them, like romantic love, is supposed to feel like. This is why she didn’t realise that she likes Shima in a romantic manner until later on in the series. 

She doesn’t quite see the point in lying, even if it’s to keep someone happy, and she’s quite blunt and honest when it comes to talking to other people. She’s very genuine in everything that she says.

She has an incredibly strong sense of justice, and she doesn’t let people who broke the rules get away with that. Unlike Mika, who will attack the person who did the injustice, Mitsumi will protect the person who was prejudiced against and defend them. This is probably because she, herself, has faced some form of prejudice before, which happens within the series where girls have made fun of how nerdy she is, like that scene where she was upset that Shima hadn’t defended her. 

Overall, I just think that Mitsumi’s an incredibly interesting character despite having a simple-to-understand personality, which consists of many interesting facets.

Insecurities and fears

Although Mitsumi seems like the type of person who wouldn’t have any fears or insecurities, I think it’s quite the opposite. They’re few, yes, but they’re still prevalent and I wanted to delve a little deeper into them.

One thing that she almost definitely fears is failure. This is because she has planned her entire life with a great deal of detail, which means that, to her, failure would simply be unacceptable. She thinks this way not because she has been punished for her failures before, no, but because she thinks that she should help her hometown and its people as a way of giving back. She’s also afraid that, if she fails, she would disappoint her loved ones because she hadn’t achieved the great things that they wished for her.

An interesting fear that she has is that she’s scared that her loved ones don’t realise just how much she loves them. She’s afraid that what she’s doing isn’t enough, and that she should be doing more, but she doesn’t know what more should she do. This is why, when Maharu was upset at her for buying her the wallet, she was quite sad about it. All she wanted was to let her little sister know that she’s loved by her, and she did that through a gift that she thought would be meaningful, but when Maharu said that Mitsumi didn’t know her tastes anymore and that she didn’t want the wallet, Mitsumi couldn’t help but feel miserable. I would say that she also fears being distant from those she loves because she’s scared that, if she does become distant, they’ll leave her, and she doesn’t want that to ever happen because she knows that it’ll be painful, even though she’s never experienced, as far as we know, the pain of loss.

Conclusion

Mitsumi is one of my favourite characters in this series if not my favourite. I relate to her a lot; I see myself a lot in her. I didn’t think that I’d have so much to say about her honestly, but I’m glad that I did because there’s a lot to her seemingly simple character. She’s really well written and I’m interested in seeing how she’ll develop in the future.

#analysis #character analysis #writing #skip to loafer #skip and loafer #iwakura mitsumi #mitsumi #mitsumi iwakura

[analysisn3rd]

Erik (Phantom)

Morality

Erik’s morality is quite interesting yet obvious. I shall explain why I see it in this manner, but after placing him on my scale. He would be in the grey section, not near the dark but not near the light. This section is commonly associated with amoral characters and those who do know what morality is but don’t work with a moral code. 

Technically speaking, Erik is amoral. This is because he has no clue what morality even is, which is something that’s stated in the book. He’s always seen cruelty and people using others to get to what they want, and, since no one told him that these types of actions are frowned upon, he does them as well. Even though the reason why he did all of his terrible actions is just to feel loved and appreciated much like everybody else, that doesn’t excuse his actions in any way. However, he didn’t know that what he was doing is “wrong”. He was never taught the difference between “good” and “bad”. The first thing that he was ever met with was, actually, cruelty and evil.

Although he isn’t aware of the concept of “right” and “wrong”, there were some things that he did which would be considered “good”, like how he was kind to Madame Giry and Meg Giry and treated them with respect, even though he did that in order for them to help him.

In conclusion, Erik’s morality doesn’t exist, and, as a result, he doesn’t realise that his actions are “wrong”. However, not all of his actions were terrible.

Personality and insecurities

Erik’s personality is quite interesting and very simple. All of the characteristics and traits which can be associated with him are quite obvious within the novel, and I shall explain why he acts in the way that he does. 

He’s obviously quite creative, because he’s able to compose his own music and because he’s able to build brilliant, yet horrific, architecture within the Opera cellars. His creativity also shows that he’s quote smart as he’s able to understand architecture and is able to make so many trap doors that he’s called “trap door lover”. He’s also intelligent because no ordinary person would’ve formulated a complex plan as he did to get what he wanted.

This is very obvious about him, but he’s evidently an appreciator of the arts.  He’s able to see the beauty in music, musicals and plays. He adores music; it’s undoubtedly one of his passions, and I would even go as far as to say that it’s a form of escapism to him.

He’s obviously an introvert; he would much rather be alone than be with someone else. This is because, over time, he’s learned to fear people just as much as they fear him due to his appearance. They always cause him harm one way or another, and very few of them have actually done anything to help him. He also has no clue how to socialise normally, which causes him to be unable to communicate with anyone to begin with.

A characteristic that I find to be very apparent in him is loving forever. What I mean by that is that when anyone ever does anything kind to him, he will forever remember them and love them. People are mostly atrocious to him, so, as a result, he cherishes the memories of those who were anything but. The perfect example is Christine. She showed him what he wanted; love and kindness, so he wanted her to forever stay with him because he will forever love her for doing that to him.

Because he was brought up in inhumane ways, he doesn’t know or understand much about his own emotions. The only exception for this are extreme emotions, like intense love, which no one could help but recognise. The environment where he grew up in also taught him that he shouldn’t show emotion because, if he were to do that, it would make it easier for people to take advantage of him and use him for whatever they want. As a result of this, not only are the only feelings that he truly knows are sadness and loneliness, but he also isn’t able to realise that the Daroga is his friend. He doesn’t understand what are feelings of friendship, because they are usually not extreme. However, despite this being the case, Erik is quite comfortable around the Daroga as he was vulnerable, crying about Christine, in front of him at the end of the book. 

Erik has two very obvious insecurities. He hides a lot about himself, which makes it difficult to determine what he might be afraid of, but there are two fears which make the most sense for him to have.

He undoubtedly fears abandonment. He has experienced abandonment for his entire life. All of his life, he was alone, hated and feared due to something that he couldn’t control, where the first time that he experienced friendship, and wasn’t even aware that he was experiencing it, was when he was a young adult with the Daroga, which resulted in him fearing being left alone forever, which is why he would’ve done anything so that Christine would marry him. 

He also definitely fears vulnerability. I touched upon this in a paragraph above, but he’s fully aware that letting his guard down means that people could easily use him and take advantage of him. Besides, there’s no one to protect him for the most part. This is also why he most likely has trust issues.

Conclusion

Erik’s an incredibly interesting character, even if I feel like all of the details about his character and morality. I don’t know whether I like or hate him; my feelings regarding him are very much mixed because he did a lot of terrible actions, but he also was faced with a lot of inhumanity for the majority, if not all of, his life, so that type of behaviour would make sense. I hope that I did him justice either way, and I would’ve truly loved if there were more details about his childhood and adult life before moving to the Opera cellars. 

#phantom of the opera #poto #erik #phantom #classics #classic literature #classics analysis #phantom of the opera book #character analysis #phantom of the opera character analysis #analysis #writing

[analysisn3rd]

Hercule Poirot

Morality

Poirot’s morality is interesting, to say the least. I had expected to have him in a certain position on my scale, but I think that I have found a more suitable place. He’s placed at the light grey section, near to the white, but not quite there. This is because he’s not a” good” person, but he’s not a “bad” person, and, most importantly of all, he’s not an immoral person.

The reason why he’s not considered a “bad” person is because of the reason why he solves mysteries. It’s not only for amusement, where solving cases gives him a thrill and excitement due to their difficulty and how challenging they could be, but it’s also for justice. Most importantly, it’s for helping people. This was something that he mentioned in “Death in the Clouds”, where he said that justice is a good word to describe his motive for being a detective. He then explained that the reason why he does his job is to help the innocent. He cares about people deeply, and he wants to help them because he realises that he’s more privileged than some people, which makes him feel that he needs to help those little weak innocent ones, who are not as fortunate as he is. The reason why he thinks this was is because he’s religious, and that’s why he’s not an immoral man. He knows “right” and “wrong”, and he tries to do the “right” as much as possible within his cases, where he tries to clear people’s names and help them reach better things in life.

Despite being a religious man with an extremely strong moral code, he’s not a fully “good” person. That’s simply impossible, because it’s unrealistic even for a character. It’s also because he sometimes refuses to help others out of vanity. He knows his position as a detective, and he wouldn’t take simple cases, even if it meant helping someone, because it simply doesn’t interest him. This results in him harming people, even if it’s done in an indirect manner. Alongside that, he boasts about his abilities, which may be something that’s understandable since he isn’t lying, but it’s something that’s considered “bad”.

Overall, he is a “good” person, as he truly wants to help people, but his pride and prestige sometimes get in the way, which results in him not taking cases, even if they’d help people.

Personality and insecurities

Poirot is a remarkable and memorable character, although he is not as popular as some other detectives are. His personality factors into why he’s so unforgettable. 

He’s, obviously, incredibly smart and observant. He prides himself deeply on his observation skills and ability to catch criminals. His method of reasoning, the way that he solves his cases, is undoubtedly induction, which, I find, is quite the common method of reasoning when it comes to fictional detectives. The reason why it’s induction is because he likes to gather all of his evidence before coming to a conclusion. He likes to know all that there is to know related to the case, even if it may seem irrelevant to someone else, and, through all of these little details, he reaches a conclusion about the identity of the criminal. 

A unique characteristic of his is that he’s very particular about things. Because of his observational skills, he’s able to notice most details, even tiny hidden ones, which is extremely helpful in his field of work. However, because he’s able to notice the tiniest of differences, he’s able to spot if there’s something that he deems imperfect within the way that someone is dressing or within his food, which makes him a bit irritating to deal with.

A trait that would, at a first glance, seem out-of-character for Poirot is being caring. He is quite caring, however, and he could be rather fatherly as well. He could tell when people are in vulnerable positions and he knows that they need all the help that they could get, even if they don’t necessarily express that. Their situations and their position him feel compelled to help them, which is what results in his father-like behaviour at times. This characteristic links with his morality. 

Although he’s technically an introvert, he’s very sociable and friendly. He’s always willing to engage in polite small talk with people, even if they’re not necessarily connected to his cases. He understands that humans are very complex beings; he, of all people, would be able to comprehend that the characters of people consist of many aspects, which is why he’s always polite and respectful to everyone as long as they do the same for him.

He’s known to be very prideful and very vain. He’s a character whom I’d call a peacock. He knows that he’s better than everyone in an aspect; he’s fully aware that he’s smarter than most people that he has met, and, because he knows it’s a fact, he thinks that it’s not a problem if he lets the world know, which is why he isn’t considered likeable to some people.

At a faraway glance, Hercule Poirot has no fears. What could he fear, after all? I was able to only identify one fear for him, and I think that there might be more that I could discover once I read more about his character.

He is afraid of failure. It’s very simple why he would, actually. If he were to fail, he helped no one. If he were to fail, justice isn’t served. If he were to fail, he shouldn’t have his title, which he worked hard to get. This is because, simply, he’s a perfectionist, and he wouldn’t settle for anything less than what he deems as perfect, and that extends to his own work as well. If it’s not perfect, then it should not exist. This is why he adamantly refuses to share his thoughts before reaching a final conclusion, and it’s also why he tries to gather as much information as possible before forming a conclusion. Because what if they are wrong? That means that the great Hercule Poirot has been less than perfect, and that simply cannot be.

Conclusion

Poirot is a very interesting character. There are a lot of layers to him and he’s slowly becoming one of my favourite detectives. I hope that I did him justice within this analysis, because I haven’t read many of Christie’s Poirot works. I watched the 1989 series, where David Suchet was Poirot (and I really admire his work. It’s simply brilliant). Because of this, I feel like there are some details that I could’ve gotten inaccurately or that I entirely missed. I truly hope that I portrayed his character properly within this analysis.

#poirot #hercule poirot #agatha christie's poirot #poirot series #character analysis #analysis #agatha christie #writing #poirot character analysis

[analysisn3rd]

Dorian Gray

Morality

Dorian has one of the most changing, and interesting, moralities I’ve ever encountered. Throughout the book, I would say that there are three distinct changes of morality that he goes through. I will identify and explain them in detail, but first I will place them on the scale. The first portion of the book, he is in the pale section, a bit far from the middle grey part. During the second portion, he is in the grey section, leaning towards the dark region, and the final portion, he is in the same pale part as the first part.

The first portion is at the very beginning of the book. It’s when Dorian was just introduced to Lord Henry and was still getting to know him. He was exactly what he seemed then; boyish, innocent and “good”. He always had a moral code, and he always knew what is “good” and what is “bad”. During that time, he was acting along his moral code, because why else would he not? He’s seen a horrible person act immorally in the form of his grandfather, and he hated that man, so he decided to act as “good” as possible. However, he got tempted by Lord Henry’s ideas, and he started to contemplate the way he’d been living, and what his life could be like if he were to do what Lord Henry said. During this time, he got to know Sybil Vane and proposed to marry her. After he snapped at her, his morality caused him to feel terrible about what he did, which motivated him to amend things with her and stop talking to Lord Henry.

In the blink of an eye, the following morning, after a few mere moments of grief, his morality changed. He started to genuinely believe what Lord Henry told him; fascinated by the possibilities of life in the manner that was told to him. That’s when his morality changed, becoming darker, towards the grey section. The change was like how he described it to Basil; “I suffered immensely. Then it passed away.” He continued to have this same morality for the majority of the book, where he was fully aware of “right” and “wrong” but choosing not to act by them. After all, nothing happened to him when he defied them. He was still the same youthful, beautiful man that everyone was charmed by, and he will always be. Beauty, to him, is much more important than being good, which is something that Lord Henry had remarked in the book.

One of his many a-moral actions was killing Basil Hallward. This was an action that he thought was necessary, but he clearly didn’t realise the impact that it would have on him. At first, he was unaffected by his action, moving on normally in his life. Then it struck him. When the realisation of his action hit him, he fainted. Even though he would endlessly deny it, the murder of someone who he considered a dear friend has haunted him. That was, the way I see it, the reason why his morality changed back. This was the catalyst for wanting to be “good”. He wanted to better himself, to become a better man. The only reason for this, which Dorian denied to himself and others constantly, is Hallward’s murder. 

After all of his other heinous actions, he never felt a shred of guilt. He even found it amusing to see the painting change and become worse and worse as time goes on, and he thought that the same would happen with Basil’s murder. He was mistaken. The reason for why he felt guilt is unclear, but I think that the only reasonable explanation is that he, at least partially, loved Hallward. It was also his first murder, and it’s said that the first murder is the only one that actually impacts the murderer; it’s the only one that they fully regret, and I would say that the same goes for Dorian.

Overall, Dorian is someone who’s fully aware of the moral code, and of how his actions will be thought of. Yet, for most of the book, he chose to disregard it, as he wanted to indulge in beauty and the glorious life granted to him by it.

Personality and insecurities

Dorian has an incredibly interesting personality, and it’s what makes him such a remarkable character in literature.

Something that’s very obvious about Dorian is that he’s charming, and well-liked. He has an air of charisma that attracts people to him; they’re fascinated by him. This is mentioned in the book where it’s said that “There was something about Dorian that charmed everybody. It was a pleasure to even see him.” This is most likely due to his appearance and innocent act. Anybody would be drawn to a person who’s beautiful. People naturally gravitate towards what they like, and what they find interesting. Dorian simply happens to be both of those things.

A trait that I would use to describe Dorian is passionate. He’s very enthusiastic about the things that interest him, which is something that’s both natural and fitting for his personality. He’s inherently a person who loves to get absorbed wholly and fully by all that’s mesmerising. He’s so knowledgeable about all his interests and that doesn’t come without a lot of love and eagerness for the subject. An example of this is the book that he was given by Lord Henry, and how many times he read it and fell deeply in love with it. Another is how he learns everything he could about all that interests him.

Something I didn’t initially think to associate with Dorian is intelligence, which was very wrong of me to do. He’s evidently observant, although it’s not as impressive as a detective’s observation skills. This is clear as he observes people, watches their behaviour, to identify how he would act towards them; how he would show them that he’s “good” and innocent. He also has a little of a manipulative strand within him, where he uses his observation skills and intelligence to figure out how to blackmail people correctly and get them what he wants them to do, much like what he did with Alan Campbell. Due to his intelligence, he’s able to make people believe that he’s innocent, despite doing horrible actions. He may not be a genius, but he’s smart enough to protect himself and his reputation.

Dorian is a character with many insecurities and fears. There are three that I shall be discussing here in depth.

He’s terrified of losing his youth. This is because if he didn’t have it, no one would want him, which is something that Lord Henry said. He would be undesirable without his beauty, which is why it’s all that matters to him. This caused him to do anything and everything to preserve it, because he doesn’t want to be abandoned and alone, like he was when he was a child. He wants to be wanted, and he knows that, if it weren’t for his beauty, no one would want to know or befriend him.

I would consider him a prime example of the phrase “You become what you fear”. He feared his grandfather when he was younger, and, for the majority of the book, he became him. The biggest proof of this is the painting, as it was described to look like his grandfather quite a lot. The last thing he wanted to become is a cruel, hideous old man, and he indeed became that, even if people couldn’t see it. The painting concealed his reality, but it didn’t mean that it was any less true. Initially, he was horrified by this, so he rejected it and denied it. He’s not like that man. However, later on in the book, he began to celebrate it. The thing that stopped him from doing so was the worst thing that he had done; killing Basil Hallward. As I’ve mentioned before, it was the murder’s impact that caused him to become a better man. This was not only because of his horrible guilt, but also because of his realisation of who he had become; he had truly become his grandfather.

This was something that both Lord Henry and Basil Hallward knew was possible. Lord Henry was fascinated by it; knowing that Dorian is inherently someone who would agree with his ideologies and philosophies, and would always live by them, which is something that he could never dare test himself. He couldn’t do it, he’d lose everything he’s ever had, but Dorian could. Dorian will always be seen as innocent, due to his beauty and ability to conceal his crimes. Dorian had privileges that Lord Henry didn’t. Hallward, on the other hand, feared this. This is why he didn’t want Dorian to ever meet Lord Henry. He always wanted his innocent, boyish, handsome friend. He loved that friend dearly. He didn’t want his friend to be ruined by himself.

The last fear I’ll mention is how Dorian is afraid of people pointing out his actions. This ties into his aforementioned fear of abandonment. This is because if people were to find out about his true actions, they would despise him, and he would lose all his status. He would become a nobody, when all he wants to do is become a somebody.

Conclusion

Dorian is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever read about. He’s very changeable, and there are a lot of layers to him. He’s incredibly amusing to read about, much like all of Wilde’s characters in the book. I simply hope that I did him justice within my analysis.

#the picture of dorian gray #dorian gray #dorian #oscar wilde #dorian gray analysis #the picture of dorian gray analysis #analysis #classics #classic literature #classics analysis #writing

[analysisn3rd]

Can you do a character analysis about L Lawliet (from death note)?

I actually want to! I have been planning to ever since I started writing down my analysis. However, I don't exactly have the time to rewatch or reread Death Note currently so it will, unfortunately, have to wait, and for that, I am sorry.

[analysisn3rd]

John Watson

Morality

John Watson’s morality is quite interesting, although it’s quite simple, because it’s much more than it initially seems. There’s a lot of depth and detail into it. Before I get into that, I will place him on my scale, where he’d be in a region that’s slightly lighter than Holmes.

The reason for this is because he knows “right” and “wrong”. He’s fully aware of them, even. However, unlike Holmes, he tries to work with them most of the time because, for most of his life, they’re all he’s known and lived by, and because they allow him to help people, which is something that’s incredibly important to him. Furthermore, he finds that morals usually align with what he thinks and what he desires. They make sense for him, so he sticks by them, for the most part. He’s a terribly loyal and caring person, which makes him a relatively “better” person. However, there have been times, when the situations called for it, where he broke the law and the moral code for things that are considered “wrong” or illegal. This occurred in quite a handful of the cases that he’d gone on with Holmes.

More often that not, people tend to highlight the fact that Watson’s, integrally, a “good” person without mentioning the fact that he would willingly break his moral code if it meant helping Holmes or someone else. He’s so incredibly loyal that he’d be more than ready to defy his morals as long as it meant helping someone, especially those he cares about.

All in all, Watson’s a relatively “good” man who’s also compliant to violate his morals if it was for a cause he deemed worthy, which was, mostly, helping Holmes.

Personality and insecurities

John Watson is many things, and he’s such a remarkable and memorable character due to his unique personality traits.

One of the most characteristic traits of his is his kindness. He genuinely cares about others’ well-being, even if he might not know them well or at all, which is something that makes sense considering the fact that he’s a doctor. It’s something that’s always noticeable about him; that he cares about others so often. It’s most likely due to the fact that he knows that people are always concealing their pain; he’s done the same thing before, and he knows how impactful it would be when someone would try to show others that someone cares, even if they might not know one another.

Another trait of his, which I remarked on slightly when discussing his morality was his loyalty. Watson’s an unbelievably loyal person, especially to Holmes. This is because he was granted what he desired by Holmes, and he sees that it’s only suitable if he repays Holmes by always being there whenever he’s required. Not only does this make him feel valuable and wanted, which ties into an insecurity of his, but it’s also the only thing that he thinks he could do to show Holmes how grateful he is.

Although he may not be as smart as Holmes, Watson’s still brighter than the average person. This is shown in a couple of cases, where he was able to catch up with little to no explanation from Holmes. Not to mention that he’s incredibly creative, which is quite evident from all of the cases that he’s written about. Moreover, he’s incredibly emotionally intelligent, which is the reason he’s able to understand some people better than Holmes can. Holmes might be able to understand their situation by deducing things about them, but it’s Watson who’s able to understand their emotional turmoil and comfort them. The clients, all of them, go to Holmes to get help with their issues. The logical parts of their cases are solved by Holmes. The emotional parts, however, are done by Watson. He consoles them, comforts them and ensures them that Holmes will solve their issues. This is why Watson’s character is so important, and why Holmes and Watson as work partners are a brilliant match.

John Watson’s insecurities are quite peculiar and they’re very subtle. He’s evidently ashamed of them, but, if one knows where to look, they’d seem quite evident.

One of his most remarkable fears is that he’s afraid that he might not be useful enough. He’s fully aware that he’s “less than” Holmes, and although this type of feeling is usually stirred by jealousy, this is not the case in the slightest. He simply feels like he has to always prove himself to be useful, because he believes that, if he doesn’t show how helpful he could be, he would be replaced. This is due to how he was brought up and how people used to treat him before he met Holmes. He was taught to relate his self-worth with his capability to help others. The way he was taught made him think that if he wasn’t helpful enough, there was no use for him. This is something that shows subtly throughout a few cases, where Watson would leave, because he thinks that he shouldn’t interfere when he wasn’t needed, but Holmes would insist otherwise. Holmes, almost definitely, recognises this fear, and he tries to show Watson that he’s mistaken in his own way.

A fear that developed later on, after the Final Problem, is Watson’s fear of losing Holmes forever. He’s entirely aware that Holmes could easily get injured one way or another during a case because he’s careless about his own well-being, but Watson cannot afford to lose someone he cares about so deeply once more. He’s lived through it once and he never wants to again. It was due to Holmes’ disappearance that Watson realised just how deeply and how much he cares about Holmes, which made him feel even more pained because now this brilliant man he’d once knew was gone. He doesn’t want to lose Holmes again.

Conclusion

John Watson is such an interesting and lovable character. Without him, the stories of Holmes’ adventures wouldn’t exist in the way that they’re known. Without him, Holmes wouldn’t have his perfect pair for a work partner. Without him, the stories that everyone knows, and loves would be something else entirely. This is why the duo that is Holmes and Watson are always iconic regardless of the adaptation. They complement each other so nicely and their relationship is incredibly interesting to decipher, because it could be read in so many different ways, which is because they’re simply two men who deeply care about one another but show it in entirely different manners.

This aside, Watson is such an incredible and relatable character. His complexities and the little details of his character is what makes him so special. He’s so human, when Holmes is more machine-like. I simply hope that I did him justice much like I hope I did Holmes. They are both characters that mean so much to me, for myriads of reasons, and I truly hope that I portrayed them accurately.

#john watson #watson #acd watson #acd john watson #acd john #acd holmes #Sherlock Holmes #john watson analysis #watson analysis #acd #analysis #character analysis

[analysisn3rd]

Sherlock Holmes (ACD)

Morality

Holmes’ morality is definitely one that I find to be quite interesting due to how unique it is. I shall expand on what makes it so unique and what makes it what it is after placing him on the scale. He would be placed on the lighter region that’s near to the middle, grey, section.

Although the grey region is usually for amoral characters or those who have no idea what a moral code is, Holmes is fully aware of what’s “right” and what’s “wrong”. He knows what would be considered as “good” and “bad”, and he simply doesn’t work with that system. He has something similar to his own moral code, which doesn’t align with both the law and the generally agreed-upon moral code. An example of this is in the Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, where he watches Milverton die without doing a thing to stop it. This action would be deemed as “wrong”, despite Milverton being a terrible person, as it’s illegal. However, this didn’t stop him from doing what he did because, to him, it’s the correct thing to do.

Even though he’s technically not a “good” person, he’s not a “bad” person either. This is because not only does he care about serving justice to people, but he also genuinely wants to help his clients. To him, solving mysteries is not only thrilling, exhilarating and exciting, but also a way to assist others in ways that might not be available to them otherwise. Sometimes, his clients would’ve asked for Scotland Yard’s help but they wouldn’t have reached anything. Other times, they cannot afford to share their affairs with Scotland Yard, so they turn to Holmes instead.

In conclusion, Holmes is a morally neutral person, whose “good” qualities are equal to his “bad” ones. In spite of that, he’s found on the lighter side because he genuinely wants to be of help to others.

Personality and insecurities

Holmes’ personality is one that’s so eccentric and unique that it’s still loved and admired for decades after the publication of the last story that features him. This is due to many traits that he possesses and his insecurities.

The thing that’s most obvious about him is his intelligence. He’s incredibly smart and he could be even considered a genius, and all of the stories written about him are proof of that. Something that ties into his intelligence is his method of reasoning, which is most definitely induction. Induction is the method of reasoning where information is gathered and, based off of that information, a conclusion is drawn to determine what the truth is. The reason why this is his method of reasoning is as he gathers all the evidence, which is relevant, that he possibly could before determining what had actually happened. In many of the stories, he’s asked about his opinion on the truth, before coming to the final conclusion, and more often than not he says that he needs to gather all the evidence before determining what the truth might be.

He’s incredibly passionate about all that interests him. I find this to be very evident in many of the short stories, in particular, where he always exhibits enthusiasm and keenness to the things he finds interesting, such as his experiments, the topics that he monologues about to Watson, or the conclusions he comes to during his cases. He’s often described with a certain sparkle in his eye, which is evidence of this great passion that he possesses.

Although he might not seem it, he’s a very caring and kind person. The best example of this is how he shows Watson that he cares for him. It’s unorthodox and almost unnoticeable, which is what causes him to be viewed as a bizarre person and machine-like, but there are various examples of how he cares. The most remarkable one is when he told Watson that he “needs his Boswell” during the Scandal in Bohemia. 

The reason why he’s so often compared to a machine is because he opts to use logic instead of sentiment and human emotions, which could be due to his upbringing. He was taught that he should be ashamed of his emotions. He was taught that his emotions are a weakness.

Even though it might seem that Holmes is a man without fears, that’s very much untrue. He simply knows how to conceal them better than others, most likely due to his previous experiences.

One of those fears is not being able to help others. He notices how much his work actually affects people. How much he changes people’s lives. Because of this, he ties a part of his self-worth with his ability to help others. This is most likely why he would be considered to have a fear of failure, which stemmed from the aforementioned point as well as the fact that he’s afraid that, if he didn’t live up to Watson’s expectations, he would leave Holmes.

Another fear of his, that’s quite prominent and one that I mentioned briefly, is losing or hurting Watson, and those he cares about. This fear of his always existed in the back of his mind, but it developed further after the Adventure of the Empty House, where he saw just how much his absence has affected Watson and hurt him. He regretted what he had done because he thinks that no one, especially no one as kind, helpful and patient as Watson, should go through such a thing. Furthermore, he gets considerably upset whenever Watson isn’t with him, such as the scene I had previously mentioned in the Scandal in Bohemia as well. Watson is someone who truly matters to him, someone who he wholeheartedly loves. He’s a dear friend and companion of Holmes, and Holmes doesn’t want to lose him.

Overall, he’s simply a very eccentric and memorable character due to his very characteristic traits, and his relatable insecurities.

Conclusion

Although I’ve already written an analysis on Yuukoku No Moriarty’s Sherlock, I feel like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s version is entirely different. They’re two sides of the same coin, I’d say, and I like them both a lot. However, I don’t think that there’s a detective who’s as widely known and widely loved as the original Sherlock Holmes. In many ways, he’s very relatable and he’s simply an incredibly admirable and enjoyable character to read about. 

I don’t think, in any way, that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character writing is great, because he doesn’t pay that much attention to the details that he mentions in his stories, but this could prove to show that Watson’s not exactly a reliable narrator. However, Sherlock Holmes has been one of my favourite characters for years now, and he’s the favourite of many more. I simply hope that my analysis has done him justice.

#Sherlock Holmes #Sherlock #arthur conan doyle #acd #acd sherlock #acd sherlock holmes #acd holmes #character analysis #analysis #sherlock analysis #writing

[analysisn3rd]

Heinrich Lunge

Morality

Lunge’s morality is nothing short of interesting, and I shall delve into the reasons why it’s so intriguing. However, I will put him on the scale first. He would be placed in the lighter grey area, and I will explain why it’s like that.

Despite his placement on the scale, he has a very strong sense of morality, of “right” and “wrong”, and of justice. This makes him a brilliant detective, even if he isn’t as smart as he is. This could be due to the fact that he’s seen injustice occur to many of those he knows, and he believed that this isn’t “right”; it’s not fair that this happens. It shouldn’t happen. It would only be “right” or fair if this was gotten rid of, and the method which he chooses to get rid of injustices is none other than the law. He’s never had an issue with the law; he doesn’t see any flaws in it, unlike other characters from the series.

He might also have this brilliant sense of morality because of the world in which he grew up in. It’s unclear how old he might be, but it’s quite possible that he was raised during, if not shortly after, World War 2 considering the fact that he’s a grandfather. In that world, children would be strictly taught, with numerous realistic examples, of what “right” and “wrong” are. They would also be taught that the law would be the one to bring their rights back. The law, and those who work by the law, are the ones who would serve justice and punish the guilty.

Although he has a strong sense of justice, he isn’t that “good” of a person. This is because he adamantly refuses to accept that he might be mistaken in his judgement of others at times. This causes him to have a very rigid sense of morality, where only “good” and “bad” exist. It was due to this that he believed that Tenma was guilty, because, to him, there is simply no way that he’s wrong.

In general, he’s a very righteous man with a brilliant sense of morals as well as justice, as he would never give either of those up for anything.

Personality and insecurities

All of the personality traits that he possesses allows him to be the remarkable and accomplished detective that he is. One of those traits is his detachment to emotions. He usually seems emotionless, and he does this to be able to work more efficiently, which is due to the fact that he believes that his work is the most important thing he could possibly do. Although this might be seen as selfish, it’s anything but. He simply wants to carry out justice to its best. He wants nothing but to punish the guilty.

Another striking characteristic of his is his intelligence. There are myriads of examples that could be given to show just how brilliant he is. Something that ties into his intelligence, and what makes him such an outstanding police detective, is his method of reasoning. He uses the deduction method, which is when he draws conclusions based off of a point in which he initially decided on. The best example of this is all the cases where Tenma was involved. He came to the conclusion that Tenma is guilty because that was the initial point that he reached. He found evidence that supported his claim, which made him certain that Tenma must be punished, for he’s guilty. He also ruled out any evidence, such as Johan’s probable existence, that didn’t align with his point, because it wasn’t certain, and he wouldn’t want to risk being mistaken.

Lunge has two very memorable traits when he solves a case. First is his typing method, which he does as it enables him to be able to recall details about cases. The other is taking on the personality of the killer. He tries to become them, to be able to find out what made them commit the crime, why did they do what they did, and, most importantly, where would they be hiding. When he attempted to do it with Johan, he was unable to reach anything, which aided him even more in coming to the realisation that Tenma is, in fact, guilty and that Johan is nothing but a mere fictional character.

Although he’s a very dedicated and hard-working man, he often ends up overworking himself or being too harsh on himself. The reason this happens is because he prioritises justice, thus his job, above all else. It’s the most important and valuable thing he could do in his lifetime; everything else is either uninteresting or simply pointless. This is obviously terrible for both his health and his personal relationships, which is shown in the show with his family. This also happens because he believes that he must be faultless, which ties into one of his fears that I will expand on shortly, resulting in him over-working himself. However, this habit of his starts to ease up slightly towards the end of the series, as he starts to prioritise talking to his daughter.

From a faraway glance, it seems like Lunge has absolutely no fears nor insecurities. How could one have fears if they’ve eliminated their emotions and feelings entirely, which is exactly what he’d done.

In spite of that, Lunge has one very remarkable fear, a fear of failure. This, as mentioned above, is most likely the reason why he’s so hard on himself. He believes that making a mistake is absolutely inexcusable and unacceptable. It should never happen. If he ever were mistaken, he wouldn’t be fair. He wouldn’t be serving justice and punishing those who deserve it. He would be harming the innocent, which is the exact opposite of what he wants. This is also part of the reason why he couldn’t accept the fact that Tenma’s innocent. That would mean that he made a mistake, and that’s simply improbable.

Conclusion

I will not deny the fact that I did not like Lunge for the majority of the series. I, quite simply, couldn’t understand why he didn’t believe Tenma, who was shown multiple times to be unable to commit such crimes. However, nearing the ending of the series, I started to find him admirable because he aided Tenma and realised that he was mistaken. I still did not understand why he did all that he did though; I only reached to my current level of understanding when I started thinking more about his character. 

Much like all of Urasawa-san’s characters, he’s not only incredibly well written but also so human and realistic. Something else that I like about him is that he’s a lot like the traditional detectives from the “Golden Age” of mysteries, which is quite interesting because there are barely any modern detectives who are like that. He genuinely cares about justice and so he’s a brilliant detective; he’s more than just a deduction machine, unlike some modern detectives.

#heinrich lunge #lunge #Monster #monster anime #lunge monster #Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER #character analysis #analysis #writing #heinrich lunge monster

[analysisn3rd]

Similarities between Victor Frankenstein and characters from other media

This is sort of a new form of analysis that I want to start doing; comparing fictional characters to one another and discussing the similarities between them. It’s something that I generally enjoy doing, much like analysis, and I find joy in explaining why I compare the characters. As you could tell from the title, in this post, I shall be discussing characters that I would consider alike to Victor Frankenstein. There’s no particular reason why I chose this character specifically aside from the fact that I’ve finished Frankenstein recently and found that Victor is similar to many characters I know. I’m very well aware that people might not prefer this compared to my other analysis, but I really want to write this.

Julian Morrow from The Secret History

A theory that I have seen circulating around the internet about Julian is that he set up the bacchanal and everything that happened in the book. He intended for the characters to think that way; he wanted to see what would they do. Would they actually go forth with the idea? How would they react to their actions? Would they be horrified? What would happen?

It made him incredibly curious, and he wanted to explore this idea of his, so he instilled the idea within their minds in a subtle way. However, when he saw that his idea worked out; that the Greek class carried out the bacchanal and everything that was caused due to it, he was horrified. He never knew the extent of his thoughts. He never knew that they’d turn out to be this harmful. He never knew that they’d actually do it. It all horrified him, and he had no idea how to fix it all, so, out of his terror, he ran away. He didn’t know what else to do, and he couldn’t stand his own actions further; he didn’t want to think about them, so he escaped everything by running away.

This is very similar to what Victor Frankenstein did. Once he realised the extent of his creation and how horrifying the monster could be, he ran away. He never realised that his dreams would become a reality, and such a terrifying one too.  He never realised that he could go beyond the powers that he imagined himself to have. That was his downfall, in a very indirect manner. He realised just how brilliant he is, the great and frightening possibilities due to his actions and thoughts, and it horrified him.

Franz Bonaparte from Naoki Urasawa’s Monster

Another character whom I found painfully similar to Victor Frankenstein was Monster’s Franz Bonaparte. His experiment was a complex psychological one, not a mere idea that he wanted to see executed unlike Julian’s social experiment. He wanted to create two “perfect” humans, where he taught them to think, act and exist in a certain manner. Despite being well-versed in psychology, he was stupidly unaware of how it would affect the children until later on, after he’d already done his damage. He didn’t recognise the trauma, the pain and misery, would cause his plan to, basically, backfire. Once that realisation hit him, he ran away. He hid himself in Ruhenheim, disappearing from the world, and waited, afraid, for his demise to come. He knew that Johan or Nina would kill him; he was fully aware that what he’d done was atrocious, and that they’d never forgive him for it. However, he only acknowledged that later in his life, leaving nothing behind other than regret for what he’s done.

This is quite similar to what Frankenstein did. Once he realised the monstrosity that he’s created, he got scared and fled. Like I mentioned earlier, he had no clue that it would turn out this way, and only registered how harmful his actions were when it was too late. Although Bonaparte and Frankenstein are eerily similar, Frankenstein did not wait for his actions, his monster, to come and kill him. This shows that he had experienced some form of guilt and that he genuinely cared about others’ lives and how he affected them, which is something that Bonaparte didn’t have. Bonaparte felt guilt, sure, but it was nothing like the gut-wrenching remorse that Frankenstein felt. It was this atrocious feeling, after all, that drove him to stop the monster. He didn’t want to see people getting hurt. 

Conclusion

Overall, I find it rather interesting how these characters, who are, on a surface level, nothing alike could be so much like one another. I am not sure if Bonaparte and Julian were intended to be written similar to Frankenstein, but I’m doubtful of the fact. Regardless of whether this was intentional or not, I found it quite intriguing to connect those seemingly unrelated characters to one another. 

#the secret history #donna tartt #dark academia #Monster #Naoki Urasawa's MONSTER #monster anime #franz bonaparta #bonaparta #julian morrow #tsh #analysis #writing

[analysisn3rd]

Henry Winter

Morality

Out of all of the characters in this book, Henry’s the one with the most interesting morality. I shall expand on why and explain more about his morality, but I will put him on my scale beforehand. Without a shadow of a doubt, he is in the grey area, and I shall explain the reasons why shortly.

Unlike some people who are put in this region, he’s very well aware of “right” and “wrong”. He knows the distinct difference, and, thus, he knows what he should and shouldn’t do. However, he’s never been one to care much about morality and he knows that he can easily get away with doing actions that would be considered “bad” or even a crime. The reason for this is quite simple; he’s a rich white man who also happens to be quite intelligent. If he hadn’t planned what he wanted to execute well, he would easily pay someone to shut them up or pay someone to cover for him and create an alibi. However, Henry’s smarter than that. He’s more meticulous than that. If he wanted to execute something of that kind, which is something that he had actually done, he would plan it to the finest details and he could potentially frame others by manipulating them into helping him in order to get out of legal issues.

Before committing the murder, he was terrified of this fact. He knew that he’s able to do horrific things. He knew that it wouldn’t be difficult to get away, and that’s why he was horrified by shooting the animal in the woods at the start of the book. He knew that he’s better than everyone else, and he knew that if he had gone too far, he wouldn’t be able to go back, and that is exactly what had happened.

Although some might think that the reason that he was planning his and his friends’ departure after the accident that occurred due to the bacchanal was due to guilt, it was not. He simply feared that he might be found out. It wasn’t something that he planned. It wasn’t something that he worked out every possible solution for, like Bunny’s murder. It was unexpected, and rather difficult to hide, so he’d simply feared being found out because it’s something that he couldn’t afford to do.

 In general, he believes that he is above morals. He’s fully aware of his own capabilities, and he acknowledges that, once he goes too far, he might never return to what he once was. However, that doesn’t exactly deter him, at least not like it used to at the start of the book, because he realised his extent of not caring about the concept that is morality. It used to frighten him because he had no idea what would happen if he didn’t stop himself, yet he lost control, completely by accident. What occurred due to the bacchanal took place, and, through that experience, he found that, if he planned it well, he can easily get away with a crime, and that it would not affect him as much as he imagined because, at the end of the day, morals do not matter to him.

Personality and insecurities

Henry has an incredibly interesting personality, which I would like to discuss in depth; there are many remarkable traits of his that I find rather overlooked.

A trait that’s rather evident about him is his brilliance. It’s conveyed crystal clear throughout the book that Henry is a person who would be called a mastermind. His intelligence shows a lot throughout the book. Furthermore, he’s compared multiple times to both Sherlock and Mycroft Holmes, who are both considered geniuses and of remarkable intelligence. This shows just the level that Richard, and most people who’ve read the book, finds his intelligence to be at.

Alongside that, he’s a master at manipulation. Due to his observation and deduction skills, he knows how people think and he can slightly read people, much like a detective would. However, unlike detectives and more like “evil” masterminds, he uses this at times to know people’s potential weak points, which gives him the upper hand, and allows him to do whatever he pleases. Although it might not always work, it has worked on Richard quite a few times throughout the book.

Although this seems rather out of character for him, he’s remarkably passionate about his interests, namely languages and classics. He only displays this immense interest to those he feels comfortable around, which is something that’s quite understandable about him. The reason why it seems so unlike him is because he’s usually described as serious and cold, yet when he’s discussing the things that he loves, he’s entirely different. However, this is natural for anyone, as knowing so much information about certain topics doesn’t come without a form or another of intrigue.

Another trait that might seem uncharacteristic for him is how he’s deeply caring for those he loves. It’s usually unexpected, yet he’s shown it multiple times throughout the book. One of the most significant moments was when Camilla got the glass shard stuck in her foot. What he showed was genuine concern and care for her, because she’s simply someone who he loves deeply. Another is how he took Richard to live with him during the winter. In spite of this almost definitely being planned so that Richard would trust him more and carry out his plans, I’m inclined to think that a part, though a small one, of the reason why he’d done that was because he cared about Richard.

Henry is not someone who would be considered insecure. He’s very confident in how he presents himself while not caring about how people see him. Besides, he knows how to read people, and that makes him slightly capable of hiding his own fears so that he would seem unreadable and mysterious to others.

In spite of this, I was capable of naming one major fear of his; seeing those he cares about in a terrible condition, regardless what this condition might be. It’s something that causes him deep unsettlement because he knows that what’s being done to his loved ones is something that shouldn’t be taking place. It’s something that’s morally “bad”, and this is the only circumstance where he cares about morality. He doesn’t care whether or not what’s happening is “good” or “bad” as long as it’s not taking place to someone he considers important. The greatest example of his actions due to this is when he killed Bunny. Amongst other reasons, he killed Bunny because of what he was doing to Francis. He didn’t want that done to someone he cares about so deeply, even if what he’d do is rash. He simply doesn’t want to see them suffer; it causes him pain.

Conclusion

I think it’s rather evident that I like Henry. I usually dislike characters like him, not because they’re morally grey, but because I cannot agree with their motives. I often find their motives to be bland or simply things that I wouldn’t sympathise with. I might understand their situation, but I still wouldn’t like or excuse them because of their motives. I do not, in any way, excuse Henry for what he did, despite agreeing with him. My opinions on Bunny and how I honestly did not mind him dying in the slightest, I found Henry to be deeply relatable despite being, essentially, a murderer. I am very well aware of how horrible this sounds, yet I relate to him in aspects unrelated to his murder. 

I really like how Tartt writes her characters. They’re imperfect and human, with their flaws being a bit more highlighted as they are romanticised by Richard. Most importantly, I admire how Henry was written.

#the secret history #donna tartt #tsh #henry winter #dark academia #character analysis #the secret history character analysis #analysis #writing