#aidentxt

so when moreau asks for one of his eyes, he doesn't even flinch. because he's a nameless child again who has to endure whatever moreau wants to inflict upon him in order to keep misha and other potential victims safe

but then noé intervenes because this is clearly insanely fucked up and revolting and no person should ever be abused like that, and vanitas looks genuinely confused as to why he would do that. i mean, he has to comply in order to get information, right? he has to do what moreau wants in order to protect everyone, right?

and i feel like when roland expresses his disgust too, and everyone starts attacking moreau, that was the last drop that was needed to make vanitas snap out of that trauma response, which leads to this amazing panel

speechless vanichan

anyway this is the gayest shit i've ever seen

then it dawned on me. what if vanitas reminds him of astolfo in a way? we as readers noticing their parallels is a given since we're being presented with all the information the story currently holds, but even noé – a character in the story – sees their similarities, so surely roland must have noticed them too, at the very least subconsciously.

yes, vanitas turned out differently to astolfo, aren't we all glad etc., but roland is right in the sense that vanitas is a volatile being, although, at least in my opinion, not quite as much as roland is making him out to be.

i think his past with astolfo exaggerates his emotional response to vanitas. i can't imagine him not carrying a crushing sense of guilt for not having been able to save astolfo – he tried but failed, resulting in casualties. the way he looks at astolfo with a stern yet pained expression tells me he not only hates how he turned out, he feels directly responsible.