i just know you're cooking up something crazy with the jericho stuff
maybe i will talk about it. i just haven't been too in-depth about my theories because being potentially catastrophically incorrect about this would be SOOOOO embarrassing LOL but i'll put my foot in the ring here. i wanted to wait until i caught up with the new episodes to see how the anime adapted the scenes but i'm bored, so.
the idea that's been floating in my brain almost since those chapters dropped is that she's under some kind of mind-manipulation. we do know arthur has that capability, he's been using it to control the people he makes work for him.
since the main villain is literally "chaos", choosing to use her as a tool in such a traumatic and destructive way like this would just make a lot of sense. and could serve a lot of purposes for arthur. theory is a bit long so it's going under the readmore.
i'm currently under the belief that he warped her mind this way for one (or all) of these possible reasons.
to generally just cause chaos. it's implied that jericho and lancelot were investigating the chaos knights and this would be an insane way to get back at her/mess with her life for it.
to push lancelot away from guinevere. he may be aware that lancelot and guinevere's fates are connected to each other. he wants guinevere for her power, he can't let an opposing force connect with her.
arthur may believe that fighting this lancelot guy is crucial to his own destiny and goals in some way? so he did something to cause him to hate him. he acts quite smug about this when they first meet officially. it seems like he's asking a question he knows the answer to. more-or-less indirectly saying, "yeah. i did something to piss you off."
arthur didn't know that lancelot was one of the four knights, but he recognized his name and had a strong reaction to it. he's also seen his face before, but didn't connect that significant name to this boy. maybe it's because jericho's future vision of lancelot is explicitly really, really feminine (interesting choice, nakaba...) he looks nothing like lancelot, basically.
you could say he's just aware of him because of jericho, but this response comes across like the name has importance to him, and not just simply him recognizing lancelot as jericho's former student. hearing "lancelot" nearly stopped arthur in his tracks. this is before arthur officially abducted guinevere, too.
i'm under the belief that arthur was clued into the fact that guinevere has been searching for lancelot-- she's been doing this for years, investigating at random trying to find him by her own words. if arthur has been tailing her, there's no doubt that he'd have heard lancelot's name come up.
okay please stick with me i have to do a brief analysis on her introduction with guila in order to elaborate on my point here.
something else that i believe supports this is the fact that during guila and jericho's introduction together in the sequel, guila's mini-arc with gowther was brought up for the first time since chapter 168 of the original manga. ie: when she was brainwashed to love gowther for his own selfish experiments/motivations.
throughout the series, guila and jericho tend to parallel each other a lot. even when they're separated, their arcs often coincided. in the end of the original manga, it concluded with their epilogue being "together." their introductory scene in the sequel put heavy focus on the fact that they parallel each other. the way they couldn't land any hits on each other because they know each other's bodies and movements so well.
despite jericho being full villain mode, she still didn't want to hurt guila. there was a softness here. she refused to harm her unless guila did first, she gave her many chances to leave so it didn't have to come to that. jericho is lancelot's teacher, older sister, and supposedly in love with him. but her introduction is all about her fated connections with guila and the care she has for her, even when she has to face her as an enemy.
if jericho's relationship with lancelot was truly meant to be genuine, i feel like nakaba would've introduced jericho in the sequel by fighting lancelot instead, and not guila. but he doesn't. we have this multi-chapter fight with heavy emphasis on her relationship to guila and the way they always find each other again after falling apart.
two sisters-in-arms, fire and ice, forever linked together. her fight with guila is actually a direct callback to her introduction with fighting ban in the prison, too. which is um... an interesting comparison to make, all context considered.
the title of this chapter refers to the sudden reveal that guila managed to master some kind of body horror ability with the latent demon power she has in her. but in my opinion, it refers to both of them. so how has jericho "transformed" in such a way that can be directly compared to guila's shape-shifting?
and despite the significance behind the plot-twist with jericho and lancelot, the databook that released doesn't reflect this at all. jericho's main quote here is when she's speaking to guila. the japanese text is the line she's saying in the panel i'm adding alongside it. the line nakaba chose to represent 4kota-jericho is her telling guila that she'll be forced to kill her if guila isn't backing down. nothing to do with lancelot at all.
(guila's quote on her databook page is when she tells jericho that she has a duty to uphold as a holy knight, so she can't back down. they're directly speaking to each other. just to further emphasize this.)
meanwhile, the panel about loving lancelot is a tiny blurb. not even her personality description mentions it. it's just kind of a side detail. ultimately, she's still being centered around her dynamic with guila, like she always has been. i think this detail is fascinating and important.
anyways, jericho also had a really sudden shift in personality the moment lancelot entered the scene and touched her, like it triggered something. i'm really curious to see how the anime handled her voice-work at this moment.
circling back to the gowther situation being randomly brought up. the fact that jericho was being more like her old self (although a bit villainous, like her arc one personality) with guila and then having a sudden personality change when lancelot engages with her, reminds me a lot of this.
(edit: i'm dying, i forgot the punchline of this scene was that jericho became disturbed since she knows guila has no men in her life besides her little brother and couldn't think of anyone she'd be referring to. more emphasis on how jericho is very much not for predatory behavior.)
in the original series, jericho's presence seemed to have temporarily disrupted gowther's brainwashing, only for guila to suddenly have this insane shift in demeanor the moment gowther appeared again and she was forced to question her memories. this is also the first time the audience is clued into the fact something is deeply wrong here. it's so similar that it's difficult to ignore.
this panel in particular when guila first brings up lancelot reminds me of guila's reaction when jericho questioned her about how she managed to survive unscathed. like their true memories were getting mixed up after suddenly having to question reality.
kudos to my friend ren for this next observation: guila and jericho have also strongly paralleled hendrickson and dreyfus respectively as early as the original manga. guila suddenly having demon powers is a reminder of that. if you recall, an aspect of hendrickson and dreyfus' dynamic is the fact dreyfus ended up being a corrupted figure in power because he was having his mind tampered with in an extremely similar way.
so not only is jericho's current situation possibly reflecting what happened to guila before, it may also be further connected to dreyfus.
in regards to what i mean by the "shift" in personality: before lancelot directly makes contact with her, she's still in her smug-battle state.
the chapter where this reveal drops is called "a burning, freezing heart" which still draws more connection to her dynamic with guila than lancelot. the title is very much a reminder of their relationship-- especially after that huge focus in the battle where jericho froze guila's fire-- and not really necessarily about lancelot at all.
despite lancelot showing up-- this boy she supposedly loves-- her focus here is on guila more than anything else initially. her dialogue here in japanese is less "no hard feelings [from me]" and more her asking guila, "please don't hate me for this." but once he engages with her to save guila's life... something shifts.
there's even this notable focus on her gasping at the contact. all attention on her delicate relationship with her friend and partner shatters in an instant.
nakaba also visualizes this by having lancelot touch where the brand arthur left on her body is. and now all of a sudden, her demeanor became wildly different. it feels unnatural.
especially with the entirety of jericho's character in mind. she's exceptionally good with kids, acts as an older sister to both zeal and lancelot. one of the films also dedicates a scene to how good she is with children, when she's on patrol with guila and they encounter some kids playing in the street. she's an honorable knight with a strong moral code.
the two-parter movies also back this idea up, in my opinion. they take place about a year before the sequel manga begins. jericho is still watching over lancelot from a distance and behaving like her usual self.
nakaba could've used this point in the movie to set-up the whole "secret admirer weirdo" thing, but instead it's just her being the cool level-headed sisterly master that she was to him. sometime between then and now, she was taken in by arthur as a chaos knight and began to act a lot differently.
the one-shot has a moment that i feel serves as a red-herring for this plot point. out of context, you'd think it supports the idea that her words to lancelot are 100% legit and serious. in-context, it's not inherently weird and even elaine says so herself after the fact. she's literally just doting on him. lancelot only initially interpreted it as weird because he was just told the same thing by someone who had ill-intent with him. i think this scene exists to create doubt.
not to mention the fact that if jericho had been harboring these feelings for the three years they were spirited away, lancelot would know. he's a fairy, he can read hearts. he does it a lot, almost constantly using it so he's clued into everything around him. lancelot was doing it in that scene i just posted, too. he would've known. but he had no reason to suspect this was supposedly happening.
because it... probably wasn't! this is likely a new development manufactured by arthur for some villainous motivation, to create tragedy and conflict. this is not jericho's first run-in with being dragged into a cult and manipulated to behave in ways that go against her moral codes. she's a professional at this point.
the reason jericho up and left lancelot (if the version she tells turns out to be a fabrication) remains a mystery. i think it's possible it had something to do with his well-being. especially if she was looking into arthur, and we know arthur was aware this mysterious lancelot guy is a detriment to his goals with guinevere. i think it's possible she also could've made a deal of some kind but things got out of hand and she became a pawn, kind of like what happened to her in the first series.
if i'm wrong i'm going to be so embarrassed that i jump into traffic.
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