he gaslit casey, his own best friend, into believing that he was the criminal mastermind.
she learned the truth via memory storming and fully blamed herself / her competence for his downfall and his suicidal ideation.
she apologized to him, but he never corrected her on it, enforcing her belief that she was indeed at fault despite knowing fully well that it's not the case.
their brief "reconciliation" and his "forgiveness" towards her mean nothing because despite her efforts to fix their relationship, ludger's suicidal ideation remains throughout the story, and in the end, he even acted upon it. during his absence, casey very likely still has to live on for three years with the belief that she was the one who was responsible for the death of her best friend.
ludger never bothered to fight for his good ending, yet he gets everything.
casey fought with her life for his good ending, and for that, she lost everything, including her only companion.
i think casey is way too smart for ludger, actually. every time they met before the big revelation, luddy does be "oh thanks the gods she is yet suspicious of me" but meanwhile casey is like "this mf keeps reminding me of james moriarty but i have no proofs so for now he's on thin fuckin ice."
Very little is said about the love that La Muerte has for Manolo, which makes me think that it should not go unnoticed.
As a child, I loved to think she was his second mother, and in a way, she was. Even though she was from afar and even though she was there for a bet, she was always there to support him, she gave him her blessing, she took care of him and watched him from afar like a mother does with her children.
God, even in the novelization of the film, where Manolo faces millions of bulls in his bet with Xibalba, there was a paragraph where they describe how La Muerte was terrified and worried about him.
She never lost hope in her boy, and that can be seen. And the worst of all is that Manolo didn't know.
He never knew he already had a mother figure who loved him and cared for him. From afar, but still she was there.
Look at her, she looks so proud of him. 🥹❤️
I know they are not mother and son canonically (Carmen is a wonderful mother), but I would have liked there to be more interaction between them.