#bsd 75

This question has been haunting me from quite some time; now thanks to @vampireonastick ‘s amazing saga of Mastermind!Ango (annnd since this saga has given me major trust issues about every character in the series lol XD) I finally formed enough coherent thoughts to put this in words. Of course, I might be looking too much into it but this was fun to brainstorm :)

To start with, from almost the first chapter of the series, the spotlight has always been on Atsushi or more correctly, the tiger within him. In the Introductory arc, Akutagawa, Higuchi and Kyouka were introduced and we did have glimpses into the abuse and upbringing that made them into the people we know today but don’t forget that the underlying skein was the huge bounty on Atsushi and the mystery of who could be behind it. Even the deal Dazai made with Chuuya in the underground interrogation cellar was based on this—

Right?

Well, eventually the bounty method failed and we cut to the ‘rich sods’ behind this lol (why this was cut from the anime idk)

The next Arc was the Guild Arc—the motive hasn’t changed yet. The Guild members attacked Yokohama with the intention of incinerating the city and kidnapped Atsushi once again. And, Fitzgerald says to Atsushi: (who is the prophesy ability user I wonder? The origin of all this trouble)

Is what this guy says but Fyodor doesn’t seem to mind lol

In the end, the Moby Dick plan failed too. And then, our hurricane of chaos steps onto the main stage and takes the story in a thousand different directions.

Okay but before that, we have the Dead Apple Arc which... also majorly features a brutal experiment on little Atsushi. How Fyodor knew about the tiger before it even fully manifested within the boy is beyond me—maybe he gets it from the prophecy ability user, maybe he gets daily hot news from his partner-in-crime, his ability Crime and Punishment or whatever but my point is that Atsushi was continuously targeted for three consecutive arcs.

And then, boom, a 360 deg turn after Dostoyevsky started his full-scale operations. Taking both the Cannibalism Arc and Decay of Angels Arc as stage 1 and stage 2 of the same plan— (yes I added this coz look how cute these three are in this chart!)

—I have to point out that not even once has the spotlight been on Atsushi like in the previous arcs. Yes, he is still the protagonist and yes, we still see the story from his point of view,,, but where is the constant attempt and abduction on him? He has been completely pushed to one side in favor of razing down Yokohama itself with no concern for the ‘tiger-beetle’’s safety. Why?

At first, I wondered whether Fyodor simply exaggerated Atsushi's importance to Shibusawa and Fitzgerald so they would attack Yokohama. Which... might still be the case ofc, because I can’t trust anything that comes out of the guy’s mouth. Every word is a well-crafted lie lol

But I think the correct answer lies in the yet truthfully unanswered question: why exactly was Sigma left in the Casino after his one use to locate the Page from Taneda?

The question Dazai rightly put forth to the guy on three different occasions and for which he continually used the first rule of a conjurer—Misdirection.

(The rest is just hc and speculation on my part and might be right or not but will def go long lol so I will put under the cut—)

He is my precious baybee and I’m scared.

So I was totally wrong in my earlier theory that Fyodor messed with his brain literally, but he pretty clearly did figuratively, so whatever, Fyodor’s still as follows:

Sigma was instead created by the book. He is a foil for Tachihara, Atsushi, and Akutagawa in that he was desperately searching for a purpose. In particular, he’s closest in foiling with Atsushi, in that he wanted a family. (Chapter 75 translations & images taken from the translation provided by @akai-koutei!)

But he’s also incredibly close in foiling with Akutagawa: he knows he joined with a murderer, but he doesn’t care, because it gives him what he needs to keep living. He craves human connection and love despite being abused from the moment he was created--the first humans he met sold him into human trafficking.

We’re getting super anthropological in here now: what does it mean to be a person? Does it matter how you are created?

I’d say I doubt it, but we’ll see. BSD’s getting very, very meta with this: Sigma is literally an original character created from a book, but he walks among people, so what’s the difference between him and other people? He seems to have free will to an extent. He has desires and fears. So where exactly is the line between fiction and reality? Isn’t it blurred? (I love that BSD is actually exploring this concept in a meta way.)

Sigma is the ultimate stranger, as Fyodor notes--but he’s also the ultimate human. Sigma’s “how did I get there? What do I do?” scene mirrors chapter 1 of BSD, in which Atsushi is stranded and in desperate need of help, and the ADA finds him. Human traffickers found Sigma. The Hunting Dogs found Tachihara. The Port Mafia found Akutagawa. 

At a point in every character’s life, they’ve been forced to question why they live, often with other people insisting they shouldn’t exist (the story is literally asking  whether or not Sigma should exist). It’s also always tied in themes of belonging and human connection into these questions it asks, as it is done in Sigma’s arc too. He’s no different from other humans we’ve seen--in fact, his experience is the same.

So, is everyone a stranger in this world? Is no one a stranger? It’s especially interesting Fyodor comments as much to Dazai, who feels very... well, not human, despite the fact that he is very human.

As in, Fyodor wrote Sigma out of the Book?? 

There is no way this is possible because Fyodor has not yet got his hands on the Book, right? He has been searching for the Book for the past ten years, through various plots (most of which failed, the ongoing one is the Decay of Angels plan)

It’d too much to believe he got his hands on the Book three years ago, created Sigma just because and lost the Book again instead of focusing on his own goal of ‘eliminating the ability users’ with the help of the Book when the chance came his way.

Meaning, Fyodor absolutely didn’t create Sigma! 

Sigma is the creation/experiment of someone else (most probably someone from the government or whoever is aware of the location of the Book or maybe the one who created the Book)

Of course, the Sky Casino was created from the stolen Page of the Book as per the DoA plans. 

But again, not created by Fyodor iirc. As in, he isn’t the one to write it down on the Page. (Mishima Yukio, maybe?)

The Casino was created eight days prior to the Sky Casino Incident and Fyodor was arrested one month+ prior and moved to Mersault. He might have given the instructions from the prison but he couldn’t have written it by his hand.