#ch164

Finally, we come to the last notion of duality between Erza and Wendy for this arc. 

Both of them have lost the person that meant the most to them, not by any fault of their own, but simply because it was where they were meant to go. It was for their own good, but that wouldn’t change how much it hurts. 

While Wendy cries loud and visceral, begging for everyone to not go--- Erza had painful, heartwrenching silence before willingly surrendering Jellal to the council. And Wendy cries loud, wailing, sobbing, in the presence of all her friends; while Erza did so alone in a corner, silently, where no one could see. 

Even their clothes continue to remain parallels, with Wendy having the most patterned clothing of the group while Erza stays in cloth with almost no patterns at all. Erza has sleeves and shawls and accessories, Wendy has only the bare minimum of a comfortable one-piece.

Both of their hairs are sleek, straight, and left down. That frame of Erza being behind Wendy almost seems as if Erza is approaching a younger version of herself.

And while they’re both deeply hurting, they’re both kneeling down, weak and broken-- Erza smiles, so Wendy can, too.

Essentially, both of them were ‘abandoned’ by their Jellals to this foreign, unknown place, and they latched onto the first person they saw. 

To Wendy, this is Erza losing Grandpa Rob. To both Roubaul and Rob, this little girl was the light of happiness in their lonely, forsaken lives, and they did everything they could to give them love. But Rob was withered without magic despite being alive, while Roubaul was full of too much magic while only his soul remained. 

In its own way, this is Wendy’s moment of realising that she has been living in ‘false freedom’ this whole time, false reality. It’s kind of like the butterfly-- it was all too good to be true. 

Except, for Wendy, she genuinely needed to wake up from this ‘dream’ and go back to the world of real humans. But Erza needed to stop longing for the dream (her old Jellal) and go home to Fairy Tail. 

And Erza sees all of this. That’s why, in this moment, she is the only one not looking at Roubaul when he speaks. She already knows what’s going to happen, and what needs to be done. 

Historically speaking, many rulers we would consider “great” have been absolute bastards, but Oda does an interesting thing here by making it clear that it’s Vivi’s soft heart that enables her to make those hard choices. 

Her love for her people is what led her to infiltrating Baroque Works. 

Her love for her people is what made her willing to blow up the palace in order to stop a war. 

Her love for her people is what made her help stay and rebuild instead of running off as a pirate. 

It’s not too obvious in ch153 what corset Mey-Rin is wearing, but ch154 gives a much clearer view of it, and it looks — not identical — but very similar to the one Nina brought in ch164.

Ch154 vs ch164:

It might not be the exact same one, since it’s been a couple years since she joined the Phantomhive household, and she might have at least a couple now, but I can guarantee it’s a “specially made” Hopkins corset.

I’m not sure the corset Ran-Mao wore to Heathfield Manor is also a Hopkins creation, though, since Nina hasn’t been seen (that we know of) since she made stage outfits for the S4 and clothes for the lords of the stars, etc... and I don’t think anyone went back to Phantomhive Manor to grab an extra. Even Sebastian might avoid the place because of Undertaker. Maybe they got their hands on an extra Hopkins corset; who knows. Too bad Ran-Mao is probably not still wearing any corset, now that she’s been captured and kept knocked out/giving blood. Not even a Hopkins corset will help you... if you don’t have it on.

They specifically mention that the guild survive financially on the cloth industry, so I wish Wendy continued wearing them, instead of transitioning into modern fits. Even if she didn’t wear them fully, she could incorporate the patterns into modern styles for her idol work, or maybe continue wearing some accessories, sashes, or wristbands, just in remembrance. 

Anyways I am so miffed they didn’t wear these for long. They look so good. Sherry and Lucy are breathtaking in it. 

But I do want to point out too, that their clothes are still opposites of each other. Lyon and Gray stripped off their differences to become metaphorically aligned during the Racer fight, but Lucy and Sherry are still opposites on the fashion spectrum.

The white and black ratios on their clothing are flipped, white socks to black socks, white top to black top. (Talking about manga colouring.) Sherry has a top that covers her cleavage fully front leaving space around the sides, while Lucy has a bikini top that covers the sides to leave the front exposed. Their dress lengths are opposite, and Lucy has paw prints while Sherry has the moon. Sherry has loose feather-sleeves, while Lucy’s are wrapped to the shape of her arms. Sherry wears her hair as it was, but Lucy puts it in unusual, almost too fancy braids, complete with ornaments. 

It’s really cool, because they switched dressing styles, compared to the start of the arc. Now, Lucy is the one wearing the long elegant, slightly impractical dress with unnecessarily styled hair, and Sherry is wearing the miniskirt and comfortable top, and keeping the rest of herself as usual. They switched! To symbolize their newfound understanding of each other! That’s so cute!

Honestly, I like this wonderful utilisation of our laws of magic. It’s so strong, it remains in the wake of intensive, overwhelming emotions. For Roubaul, it was guilt. The very same guilt Jellal expressed in flames of gold.

I love this, because it gives us a proper, inbuilt justification for Mavis’ existence before we meet her on Tenrou. 

I wonder, was it ‘love’, for Mavis? Or was it also guilt?

Suddenly, I’m finding parallels between Roubaul and Zeref.

But while Roubaul found, and gave a family to Wendy with all the love he had in his soul, Zeref’s love only caused despair, and he never approached the world, because he was never given that one miraculous chance to make amends. 

“Until the day when someone with power could destroy the evil for me, I remained a powerless ghost.”

Roubaul stayed powerless unwillingly.

Zeref remained powerless, enduringly. 

For four hundred years, both of them. To atone for their crimes. And ironically, Roubaul was only able to get this done because Wendy was in the guild, which gave him a reason to participate and draw attention to the problem. It’s debatable this all only worked because Brain knew about Wendy.