#fix the whole void thing I've got going on where my motivation should be | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

pricechecktranslations · 4 years

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It's been confirmed Adam and Eve are siblings, and I was wondering what you meant by their relationship having thematic and symbolic reasons if it was incestual. On another note, how many more chapters are there in the new OSS novel? Does it include the Levianta Catastrophe event? I've also never heard of Catherine before and I haven't seen any info about her in the wiki, or I might've missed it. I'm also curious about how Meta acts in the "Eve" part. I've been assuming that she speaks formally.

There are three chapters, an epilogue, and the afterword/glossary to still go over (the last two chapters are pretty short though). The last Project Ma and the catastrophe are going to be covered in the second novel, Punishment.

This is coming from the glossary, but Catherine DOES technically show up previous to this, sort of. But it was as an unnamed backstory character. One could also speculate that she might be behind some of the ocean related nonsense in Evillious (like the whole wish in a bottle legend), given that she is part of the ocean after losing her whale body.

Meta doesn't have any particularly noteworthy speaking patterns that I could pick out (not formal, no--I would say more "women's casual"). She does use rude words, though (like calling the scientists eggheads).

As for Adam and Eve, that I'm going to put under a cut (I wrote a lot--I don't mean it to sound like I'm writing a massive defense for the development, more just that it requires a bit of explanation. I have also been rolling it around in my head since Clockwork Lullaby pretty much hinted things were going to be the case here).

Primarily, given that they are twins (I'm not sure why they aren't irregulars but we also don't know how Maria got pregnant so I'll just brush that aside as them not actually being irregulars), they sort of pervert the twin relationships that are prominent in the series. In particular I compare them to Allen and Riliane (mothy himself compares Adam to Allen by quoting his "I'll even become evil" line). Allen and Riliane were also separated at a young age, and at least one of them has no memory of the other being their sibling. Allen is willing to go to extreme lengths, even to the point of causing people he loves suffering--but he does this for Riliane rather than himself. Each decisive action he takes is a selfless one, even if they are not good deeds. And their relationship while alive culminates in him giving his life so that Riliane can become a better person. Riliane then proceeds to become the kind of person who will reciprocate Allen's actions, going out on her own to find him rather than just waiting as she had been. Ultimately, it is their relationship with each other (and I feel I have to emphasize that it is purely familial in nature) that redeems the world, showing them that both of them are able to do good while still maintaining their bond.

Adam and Eve as twins have a similar degree of separation, but their relationship is poisoned at the root. Not only is it twisted by the perversion of what should be familial love into romantic, but Adam is entirely selfish in his behavior--he seeks not to help his sister, but to help himself. Every action he takes is to fill the void he feels, and as a result Eve becomes a WORSE person, not a better one. Even after that, their life together is phrased as atonement rather than a happy ending. This extends into their relationship after death too--they are constantly separated from each other, but also desperately seeking each other out. And their desire to be reunited, unlike Allen and Riliane's, is to the detriment of everyone else around them. I mean--we see how each of them are after death, albeit less so with Adam. Not good people.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel--their story arc ends with them being reborn as proper twins after all, rather than strangers who find each other. But it is in this form that they enact the Court Ending, a world that does not move forward, does not pass go, and does not collect $200.

There's also the fact that the relationship is meant to be seen as toxic and destructive to both of them. Adam's machinations destroyed Eve (even if Venom wasn't involved he still took her when she was at her most vulnerable and manipulated her into loving him, being dependent on him, and then filling her head with dreams of being queen and having a happy family, despite the massive risk to herself that being Ma entailed). Eve's destruction destroyed Adam. I think there are a lot of people who wanted to see their love as redemptive--but they are the "purgatory" ending twins for a reason. I think their relationship is best as a trainwreck that you want not to happen but can't stop. It's a story of mistakes that you regret but keep making over and over again (Adam even says in Eve's vision that they can't fix the world, they can only repeat it).

And then, of course, there's plenty of mythological cases of incest. Adam and Eve in Genesis, for example, where Eve is literally made from Adam's rib. Plenty of Egyptian myths also feature incest (though none specific spring to mind at the moment). And of course, their half of the book is framed like a tragedy, a genre to which incest is no stranger. Being unable to fight fate, making poor decisions out of hubris, dramatic irony all over the place (even outside of them falling in love despite being siblings, there's also Adam guilt-stricken over using Venom when it had no effect on Eve at all). Their story is, at least symbolically, the origin of all evil in EC. It is the very relationship itself that's the problem, not just what Adam did (well--technically the "original sin" is, specifically, Eve stealing Hansel and Gretel, but still).

Ah, perhaps my thoughts on the matter will change as I read the rest of the novel, but this whole rambling wall of text is basically just my way of dealing with it. I was really hoping mothy was going to go in a different direction but the way that I tend to process Evillious requires me to come up with some way for it to be meaningful, even if I can't know his exact motives for the reveal. Maybe he just wants people to stop shipping KaiMiku.

#i kind of headcanon that even with all the trappings of marriage #their relationship stays largely platonic #the novel portrays it as more about companionship than romance imo #humanpapershredder

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