coffeeandkhun

[coffeeandkhun]

The latest fast pass chapters have convinced me that Traumerei indeed is beyond cure.

Traumerei's possible Peter Pan syndrome

Lo Po Bia Traumerei is such an interesting villain. It's been foreshadowed since the season 1 that he'll play a big role in the story of TOG. In this post, I'm talking about his name and the possible impact on the story. There will be spoiler from the whole webtoon, just to be warned.

Traumerei has got his name from Kinderszenen, a set of piano movements written by a German composer Robert Scumann in 1830's.

Kinderszenen includes 13 pieces of music - just like there were 13 irregulars climbing the tower before the Arlene & V -incident happened. Kinderszenen means "Scenes from Childhood" and movement no. 7, Träumerei, is one of the most famous pieces by this famous romantic era composer.

Träumerei means either dreams or reverie, but Traumerei WE know is not a day dreamer or an innocent, playful man like his name would suggest. He's a resentful and distrusting tyrant. More than that, he is overly obsessed about being able to control others and is constantly testing their obedience, complaining bitterly about how he's "used to being betrayed", like his own behavior had nothing to do about why this happens.

There is another word Träumerei reminds us, that is trauma, although the etymology is different. Word trauma has it's origin in Ancient Greek, and means a physical wound or damage. Today, when talking about trauma, we usually don't mean a psycical wound however, but a mental one.

To this point, we have learned that Traumerei has nightmares he can't remember - memories that are probably somehow linked to Baam or his parents, because he started to have those nigtmares only after hearing about his existence. He also had a habit of feeding his memories to the monster Leviathan, the very reason why he can't remember.

Leviathan is a biblical sea serpent, a dragon or a devil, and is sometimes associated with the cardinal sin of envy - as is the color green.

“O beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” - William Shakespeare

It could be the memories and/or emotions he fed to Leviathan are related to something he committed in his jealousy, maybe something parellel to what happened between Wang Wang, Nen Neya, Yasratcha and him. In s3 c111, after sending Wang Wang away, he says: "I felt something I haven't felt in a long time... from a mere creature... but I've gotten rid of it, so it's fine now." We don't hear what exactly he felt, so we can only guess, if it was envy or something else.

It's possible that Traumerei used to be different, but there really was a traumatic betrayal that changed him, like he keeps suggesting. Or then he's more like those people in the real world who find it difficult to accept that people around them mature. They feel betrayed and jealous when their friends, who are now married, have children and/or a career, are not ready to have online gaming all-nighthers with them just about any time they want.

In Jungian Psychology, there is an term for an individual, who, just like Peter Pan, refuses to mentally grow up and meet the responsibilites of the adult life - puer aeternus.

“…remains too long in adolescent psychology; that is, all those characteristics that are normal in a youth of seventeen or eighteen are continued into later life, coupled in most cases with too great a dependence on the mother.” - Marie-Louis von Franz

From his own point of view, Traumerei could be just a child bullied by everyone. Just like a cliché teenager, he's also easily bored and prone to mood-swings. We don't know about his mother (he never answers when Nen Neya asks, unfortunately), but we know that he has a somewhat dependant relationship with Jahad, "the Father".

Whatever Traumerei gave away to Leviathan, we can be quite sure that these were not the best and most beautiful memories of his life, but the worst and most traumatic ones. Getting those memories back might change him or destroy him - we don't know yet, but I would guess it's the latter. I personally find it difficult to see his cruelty could somehow be atoned - because unlike Yasratcha, who was dominated by him, he "made" himself and keeps only accusing others. I might be wrong, and we'll see when the story evolves. But even in TOG world of morally gray characters, Traumerei is on his own level of darkness.

#tower of god spoilers #tog spoilers

[coffeeandkhun]

Day 2: Support Women Wrongs

#tower of god #togsapphicweek2024 #ha yura #rachel

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Nice to see some Elaine/Alphine art! This wolf X fox ship hit me so hard during my first read.

#togsapphicweek2024 Day5 Princess

Elaine/Alphine

"You are my princess forever..."

#tog sapphic week 2024 #tower of god #tog elaine #tog alphine

[coffeeandkhun]

yura and rachel in honor of lesbian visibility week :) wishing good visibility for u all out in the sea

[coffeeandkhun]

[coffeeandkhun]

This was a very nice analysis about the latest events (Korean preview).

spoilers for the newest scanlated ToG chapter under the cut

if im understanding the most recent ToG chapter correctly, at the time of the flashback the 10GF and Jahad had already sealed their own memories once? the incident that Gustang is learning about from the book Bam absorbed is, I assume, roughly analogous to the current flashback - although interestingly the current flashback lacks a single focal character; much of the recent chapters centers around Traumerei and Enkidu but a variety of things have happened throughout the recent chapters that aren't known to either of them. these don't seem to be Gustang's memories either.

It's almost more like the collective memories of the major figures from that time were sealed. However, there may be a different explanation. The book is not the only source of 10GF memories in Bam - he also has the Leviathan that Traumerei sealed his memories inside. a lot of people, myself included, have been asking why Bam needed the Leviathan powerup at this point in the story. I think this might be why.

The power of the Leviathan hasn't been particularly well defined, which might be because the powerup is a complete red herring, and the main reason SIU had Bam absorb the Leviathan was to justify the commingling of Traumerei's memories with Gustang's

Gustang went into this in search of his own memories, but he got Traumerei's as well. This might change Gustang's agenda going forward pretty significantly, compared to what it would have been if he just recovered his own memories.

To return to my initial confusion, it seems that the 10GF already had their memories of a particular incident sealed some time before the events we are currently seeing. My interpretation of the timeline is something like this:

10GF and their companions ascend to 134th floor. Something happens here, 10GF choose to seal their memories about it and stop climbing. Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

Various parties dissatisfied with the decision make moves against, or at least in defiance of, Jahad and 10GF.

This dovetails with Enkidu's inferiority complex and Traumerei's incel awakening, leading to some kind of major disaster probably involving the deaths of Traumerei's fiancee and one or more other important figures.

10GF choose to have their memories sealed, imprison Enkidu, and vow to no longer concern themselves with Regulars. Once again, Jahad may or may not also have his memories sealed at this time.

The thing that sticks in my craw abt this timeline a little bit is the emphasis on Enkidu's feelings of inferiority and the way the 10GF and their travel companions already seem to put their connections to each other above their more recent relationships. It doesn't explicitly contradict the prev narrative of the event with Enkidu causing the 10GF to distance themselves from the Regulars but it does seem like there is already a kind of explicit rule the 10GF follow governing their relationship to the Regulars.

Maybe this is the case, and what we are seeing is the sequence of events that led to the rule being changed. If true, this is interesting in itself. It seems to imply that the Great Warriors and their travel companions had some kind of internal code of conduct prior to Jahad declaring himself King of the Tower. If this is true, it could be that all of the anti-Jahad movements we're seeing up to the present from FUG and the "revolution" have their roots in an early schism of this group.

It's been very odd to me how easily the revolution has been able to identify and exploit the internal politics of both the Po Bidau and Lo Po Bia families. I had previously chalked it up to the sort of prognostic ability displayed by Guides, Khel Hellam and others - abilities we can be fairly confident that the Captain/Boss has been utilizing since the time of Genesis.

But if FUG and the revolution are led by old traveling companions of the Great Warriors, we have a decidedly less magical explanation for how effectively they're manipulating everything right now.

#tower of god #tower of god spoilers #tog

[coffeeandkhun]

Funny, but also...

I've always wondered, if this mystery workshop person from S2 Chapter 55 (possibly Macseth but we don't know yet) is actually wearing a priest's robe with a tippet... or is it just me seeing things.

...Be that as it may, they really do share some resemblance.

FASTPASS SPOILERS 2

EDUAN AND HON

Why does Hon look like a priest who just came back from his daily devotional?

#tower of god #tog #tog spoilers

[coffeeandkhun]

from Chapter 2 of “Seduced By The Night” by @resiotcage

[coffeeandkhun]

Viole and Miseng

[coffeeandkhun]

The butterflies! And Viole's hair! How cute is this!

#tower of god #khun aguero agnis #25th bam #bamkhun

[coffeeandkhun]

togtober day 4 — sacrifice

#tower of god #akraptor

[coffeeandkhun]

One of my headcanons about Arlene is that she is/was a very religious person and extremely loyal to the god from the outside. When the other GW:s decided to stop their climbing, she could have felt like they betrayed her/their god.

[TW: infanticide, suicide, mental instability]

I think one of the things that screw me up about Arlene Grace is what Rachel said to Baam about how he's not meant to be a hero, but a monster who will 'devour' everything. I know Rachel lies (as does almost every character in Tower of God, hahaha), however I don't think she's lying about Baam in this case.

Garam specifically told Baam that yes, Arlene was the one who 'brought him to this world', which I personally think refers to the Tower. She also explicitly tells him to never think of her as his mother, which if he is indeed the revived son of Arlene and V, is a very strange thing to say regardless of whatever is inhabiting it because the body that this Outside god (whether it is an artificial soul, or the Outside god themselves) is using is the body of Arlene and V's son.

I'm not defending the murder of a baby here, but I doubt that Zahard's main motivation for killing baby Baam is purely jealousy and rage over Arlene having a child with V. Because the thing is, Zahard let them live after the war. He let them get away, which is a pretty weird thing to do from a political standpoint.

When he finally did pursue them, it was to kill Baam. We don't know how he killed Baam, by that we don't know if there was an altercation between these three people (Arlene and V versus Zahard). But we do know whatever that this confrontation ended up with baby Baam dead and it seems like as soon as he killed Baam, Zahard basically yeeted and left Arlene and V alone. I think Baam's murder was a preventive measure, a 'if I let this kid grow strong and reach his full potential, he might just kill me' sort of situation.

Zahard seems to be a very reactive instead of active sort of ruler, he only really moves until he sees something threatening. He tries to kill Baam when he meets him again on the Hidden Floor, but even that is a pretty half-hearted attempt and he let Baam get away. He also says that he doesn't really understand what Baam is, and it seems like he wants to know what the heck Baam is before he kills him. I think that's obvious from the way he gives Traumerei free reign on what to do with Baam and how he let the other Great Warriors discuss what to do with Baam, and didn't immediately agree with Gustang's suggestion of another round of child murder.

I think everything in Arlene's diary needs to be taken with a pinch of salt, because it's definitely a biased point of view. Arlene strikes me as a pretty stubborn person, I mean she wanted to continue climbing and was willing to go to war with her former friends because they wanted to settle down instead (I do realise that it was probably a lot more complicated than that, but I'm working with the information we currently have). She also founded an organisation dedicated to killing them that still continues to this day. Alongside that, people from FUG consider places sacred because Arlene stayed there which is quite reminiscent to the way the 10 Great Families react to their Family Heads.

The circumstances surrounding V's death were also rather odd. Arlene was said to be mentally unstable by this point, she also tried to commit suicide several times but couldn't because of the immortality contract. Yet V is able to kill himself because 'he didn't make the immortality contract', we don't know enough about this contract to be able to define the limitations but we do know that Irregulars are able to bypass contracts. Coincidentally, Zahard and co are all Irregulars, so them being able to kill each other is a possibility.

Baam has a lot of 'messiah' symbolism attached to his character. Born on the 25th night, which I, like a lot of people think, is an allusion to Christmas. His weapons being the Thorn, like the crown of thorns. Baam being killed and then resurrected. Garam has omitted a crucial part of Arlene's tale, a part which she thinks will make Baam hate her for not telling him in the first place. Rachel is bitter and jealous, that's for sure, but I am inclined to believe her when she says to Baam that he is not meant to be the hero most people think he is. Arlene's intention to kill Zahard is made perfectly clear and Baam acknowledges that. I think Arlene's true end-goal is the very thing that Garam omitted, and it is most likely something heinous. And Baam will most likely be the one to commit the act.

#arlene grace #tower of god

[coffeeandkhun]

My thoughts exactly! Goseng is so underrated.

I find it horrifically offensive that all the other Sweet and Sour team members are SSR’s in New World but Goseng’s just a rare, bottom of the barrel. Like why?!

And before any of y’all say it’s because she hasn’t done anything, Chang is an SSR and that man is the king of not doing shit, so that’s not a reason. Goseng deserves love

#tower of god #tower of god new world #goseng

[coffeeandkhun]

I just got my copy! Those re-draws in the bonus material are super nice, hopefully we'll get more of them in the future!

#tower of god #tog hard covers #manhwa

[coffeeandkhun]

Hockney

#tog hockney #tower of god #I love Hockney and I'm always happy when people draw him!

[coffeeandkhun]

Is KhunBam canon yet?

7/16/2023: No

#but yama and yasratcha are continuing their enemies to lovers arc #iskhunbamcanonyet #khunbam #tower of god

[coffeeandkhun]

#tower of god #rachel #my problematic daughter #and bunnies!