uhm i dont think many people are gonna see this but still gonna clarify that IM GONNA TALK ABOUT LOTS OF SPOILERS FOR WITCH HAT ATELIER!?! RIGHT NOW!!!!
grggr kinda using this post as a way too keep all my olruggio backstory stuff in one place! since his past is like sprinkled in throughout multiple chapters its kinda hard to remember where everything is. anyway i also just like talking about him. so thats also what this post is being used for.
its kinda hard to try and fit all of these panels into a cohesive order. so this might be a bit of a??? sporadic ramble. ANYWAY FIRST OFF!! its established in multiple instances that olly is the star of his home town (ghodrey). its said that hes not an apprentice to anyone and yet witches from the great hall still travel down to his town just to see his work!
AND ALSO (very important) they start taking him out on field work tasks when hes very little! one of these tasks has him going over to a town called Noz.
also side note but in both of the panels i showed previously theres a figure either behind him or next to him. they wear similar clothes so although its not outwardly confimed i think its pretty safe to say thats one of his parents?? seems like they were pretty close and maybe they even went on field work together...? i mean it would make sense if his parent when with him right??? and mayyybbee something bad happened to this parent during their field work to Noz???
i say this because upon learning about what happens at Noz (aka the blizzard that isolated everyone and then the beast attack that occured after words) we see olly being consoled by the people of ghodrey. nobody in any of these panels is wearing the same pitch black coat that the figure that weve seen standing next to little olly was wearing. however we never see him mourning this specific person so this is all just speculation!!
(also complete side note but utowin and olly have a very interesting relationship that i might talk about another time!)
okay so from these panels we can understand alot of what happened to olruggio! there was a blizzard and there were beasts and he tried to save people but he couldnt do it all. and we also may assume that he lost a parent during this tragedy. HOWEVER!! i think there is another assumption to be made about what happened at Noz!
during the silver eve arc we see Olly fighting off the massive leech attacking everyone! and its during this that we see him falter
after residents of Ezrest yell at him to "kill it" in refrence to the leech he immedietly finds himself unable to draw. he freezes up drops his pen and has to be save by utowin and easthies. its also during this scene that we see parallels(?) to utowin and ollruggios interaction (or lack thereof) after the incident at Noz. anyway this is all the say that hes responding to a reminder of his trauma. SO IF WE TAKE THAT INTO ACCOUNT then maybe, at Noz, he was told to kill the beasts attacking the town. and if we look at this panel from one of the most recent chapters
he may have done just that! and its clearly something that still sticks with him to this day! no matter how many times he tries to shove it down or brush it off!
HIS GUILT IS INSANE IM GONNA BLOW UP!!!!!!
anyway this was long and unnecessary but i like talking so idc. this is all the stuff ive collected for right now that explain his past! i mean there were a few more panels that i couldve included but they were all just kinda repeating these same points! gonna use this is backround for when i talk about Olly's guilt and savior complex at another time! probably soon because i cant shut up about him for more then 10 minutes.