#finally posting some drafts

Not the paradise he had expected.

So I've had too much time to think about what happened to Gloreth after they drove Nimona away. And I can't help superimposing ideas from "Claymore" by Norihiro Yagi, since I love that manga. In "Claymore", there's an idea where even after the shape-shifting monsters have been killed, in the aftermath, the villagers will often either exile or kill the remaining members of the family, of the person who the monster was disguised as. Even after they've seen the monster hunted and killed by the Claymore warrior they hired, the villages stay paranoid. Until eventually, they suspect anyone associated with the monster, as also being monsters, including the victims who managed to survive close contact with the monster. It's like people just don't know how to handle their paranoia, without a target to take it out on, so they start targeting anyone even loosely associated to the monster, in lieu of the monster.

So I imagine that Gloreth's family would have had to double-down on Gloreth being a "monster hunter" who "bravely faced down a monster", when confronted by the village's accusations of "bringing the monster/calamity to the village", "being in cahoots with the monster", "maybe also being monsters themselves", etc. Doubling-down would have been the only way for Gloreth's family to survive, and fend off persecution from the rest of their village.

I imagine after the village started to buy the posturing from Gloreth's family, for being "noble defenders against monsters", other families who wanted the same prestige, could have pressured Gloreth's family into this idea of establishing noble families. They'd want in on the prestige and perks of being "noble defenders against monsters" too. If Gloreth's family didn't support other families' image of also being "noble monster hunters", then those other families could have threatened to reignite old paranoia about Gloreth being the one who brought the calamity/monster to the village and possibly being a monster herself.

In the end, it wouldn't matter if Gloreth regretted driving away Nimona and wanted to fix her mistake. If she didn't uphold her family's image as "monster hunters", then her village would have turned on her, being paranoid of her, in the place of the now-absent "monster" Nimona. If Gloreth didn't maintain the image of "noble defenders", then all the other families who wanted the high status of "nobility", would have spearheaded persecution of Gloreth's family, by reminding everyone of their paranoia of Gloreth herself being a monster or cursed. Maybe Gloreth carried that regret of being unable to take back her mistake and change anything, all the way into her old age, or to her grave.

Those are my headcanons anyway.

.................................................

I LOVE how Ambrosius's voice in his first scene with Ballister INSTANTLY turns to this completely gentle and soft tone, when he stops joking and starts trying to encourage Ballister. There are some outtakes from the Netflix YouTube channel's behind the scenes featurettes, of Eugene Lee Yang giving much more energetic takes of those encouragement lines, like he's still coming off the energy of his joking lines. So I really love that the directors had him do such drastically softer versions of those lines, then just splice those into the conversation, without worrying about it being "jarring" when juxtaposed against the high energy, joking lines that Ambrosius was just previously giving. Because that instantaneous gentleness, is what I think really grabbed my emotions and made me invested into their relationship. …That and the animation in the head lean…and the hand holding. That was some instantly-invested animation. ;u;

I know it was especially painful for Ballister to have been betrayed by Ambrosius, because Ballister thought that Ambrosius really knew him, but recently, I've been wondering, why didn't Ambrosius know about Ballister's tower hideout? He would have gone there immediately, when Ballister disappeared, if he knew about the location. (Unless he thought Bal died at the Glorodome.) Because Bal had all that equipment there, as if he had set it up a while ago. If it was his workshop, his personal place away from The Institute, why wouldn't he have ever taken Ambrosius there, if they were so close? The idea that Ballister would be intentionally keeping things from Ambrosius, even during a time when he thought they both knew everything about each other, is kind of sad. Was Ballister unable to let down some of his emotional guards, enough to trust even his closest romantic partner with his special place? …Or am I overthinking this, and he gathered all that equipment and found the tower after he was on the run? Or did some non-nobility friend of his, set the place up for him after he was on the run? Or did they just help supply him with the equipment after he found the place abandoned, after he went missing?

................................................................