#sitori

Listen, there’s not a lot I don’t absolutely adore about this series. I love the protagonists (yes, all of them, though I have my preferences), I love the supporting cast maybe even more, I love the relationships, the power structure, the worldbuilding, I love that it doesn’t condone to the classic manga arcs structure but rather the story is dramatically and gradually evolving at any given moment, I love the comedy, I’m OBSESSED with the ending, the anime adaptation, though infinitely inferior to the manga, is still solid on its own, the musicals are absolute MASTERPIECES... And then we get to the gray morality of so many characters.

Now, normally, this is a plus for me no matter the other context. Recently, portraying actual gray morality characters without excusing their actions or acting like their more problematic excesses didn’t happen became awfully scarce. I won’t be talking about what I think is to blame for that but Makai ouji did this perfectly. Maybe too perfectly in fact, to the point where some characters I just can’t like or enjoy, and some give me mixed feelings even now, years after the series wrapped up.

The most obvious, I think, it is in the case of Baalberith. He has a TON of bad traits. He’s racist, abusive, cold, calculating, and doesn’t care who he has to sacrifice to get what he wants. A lot of his early appearances were just down-right terrible. His treatment of Sitri is incredibly messed up especially, and remember that time he arranged a whole swarm of demons to go after a highschooler? Yeah, that was a thing.

Then came a twist. Up till pillar 86, we thought it was Baalberith who caused Sitri’s fall in the first place – after all, everything hinted to it, especially Sitri’s own flashbacks and nightmares all the way back in pillar 22.

So it was pretty reasonable that most of us despised this guy as he was shown to be nothing but plain terrible. Besides calling Sitri a doll (or a puppet in some places) and making Sitri call him uncle, it was revealed that he was also choosing Sitri’s clothes for him, emotionally manipulated him because of his desire to return home to Heaven, physically abused/assaulted him numerous times, dismissed his concerns, and more. Just take this scene (also from pillar 22) for example and take into account the implications it carries, especially when compared to Gilles talking about violating Jeanne at a later point.

And there was even an instance later on, in pillar 67, where Baalberith forced a kiss upon Sitri without making any big deal out of it. This kiss also made its way to the anime (though way earlier on in the timeline) and was made seem even more casual then, as if this sort of thing was normal between the two.

(And you can also see Baalberith talking to Sitri about his “value” and “use”, so there’s that.)

Then came the afformentioned pillar 86. And for quite a few people, this was a moment where for whatever reasons, they went and forgot all that Baalberith did to Sitri in the canon timeline that actually happened. The fact that Sitri’s memories were changed was mentioned before (pillar 73) but we didn’t get to know exactly how much of a change they underwent. Fast forward to pillar 86 and finally, after over a year of waiting, we get the truth behind Sitri’s fall from heaven. And lo and behold, it was not Baalberith who caused the fall, it was Gabriel, Sitri’s mother, whom he loves above all else. And what more, Baalberith even protected Sitri from falling and saved his life.

Certainly, that was a big twist. And it shook the fandom a great deal. However, this didn’t mean anything of the things Baalberith did to Sitri were suddenly erased. They met again during their fight that started in pillar 89 and as you can see below, Baalberith was far from taking it seriously. Clearly, he does not see Sitri as an opponent on his level, and even mocks him with references to his broken upbringing.

But all of this lead to what must be one of what I personally see as the most beautifully drawn pages of the entire series. However...

This is a beautiful scene from an objective, story-telling perspective. It’s a good closure for Baalberith who paid for his crimes against Sitri by sacrificing himself to save Sitri at the last moment, yet it also carries a hint of consistency. Just because he eventually did care about Sitri does not mean this relationship was alright. Even when dying, Baalberith still calls Sitri his doll, and still tries to dictate what he can or can’t be doing and who can or can’t have him. For me, this scene was the best possible ending for Baalberith and Sitri because it hinted at a sort of redemption while not ignoring the dark parts of what happened between them. And it connected incredibly well to the other pieces of information we picked up about Baalberith over the course of the series.

First off, many people guessed very early on that Baalberith and Sitri might actually be more closely related than an uncle and nephew. Especially pillar 67 then gave us more reasons than any before to think about exactly what kind of relationship was between the two.

First there are the rumors that Sitri might not be related to Baalberith at all.

Next Baalberith himself talks about it being impossible for a demon to leave a child.

In pillar 70, we then get a confirmation that Baalberith knew Sitri’s mother quite well, they had a fight in the past, and she was even the one to slash at his face. But not only they fought, Baalberith seemed very interested in her back then already.

And when Sitri was kidnapped by heaven, Baalberith’s first reaction was blaming Gabriel for it. And the way he words it really leaves little to imagination.

By then, most of the fandom has made the connection that Baalberith is, in fact, Sitri’s biological father rather than being his uncle or a completely unrelated demon who just decided to save a child. Of course, this only makes their relationship even more of a trainwreck than it already was.

However, the strangest part came when a certain official fanbook was released, one that had all sorts of trivia about many demons as well as numerous side stories unrelated to the main plot. One such story was dedicated to Baalberith and his trivia connected to it listed his wish as “Having many children.” The story then was mostly a fluff drabble about Baalberith being accidentally summoned up by a few children at a daycare (what kinda daycare lets children summon demons?) and it was accompanied by a very wholesome illustration.

So that was... strange to say the least. Why take a character like Baalberith and suddenly give him a heartwarming wish for a family as well as this wholesome page? It hit me way later why is it that his relationship with Sitri even became so corrupted in the first place. As a disclaimer, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I do not understand how some people in the fandom seem to only have seen this fanbook and never read the original manga series, or why they act like all the horrible thing between Baalberith and Sitri never happened. Portraying Baalberith as a wholesome individual is not my intention, nor do I think it’s in any way canon-compliant. This fanbook was probably mainly just to show that nobody is 100% evil in the Makai ouji universe (except maybe Lucifer but he only showed up later) and everyone has some sort of hope or wish for a better future or better life. Unlike most other demons who got their wishes listed, Baalberith’s is not played off for laughs and it’s not a light-hearted comedic relief. His wish tells us about his inner being hidden under the layers of demonic corruption, loneliness, and having to uphold a certain position.

Now to my realization. Baalberith is canonically good with children. But there’s still no way around what he did to Sitri. The most probable reason for that would be Sitri’s physical appearance. Sitri, as we’ve seen in pillar 78, is incredibly similar to his mother, to the point where even Raphael (her “brother” if you will) who knew her personally mistakes the two at first glance.

When I read this chapter, and then another thing that Baalberith said during his fight with Sitri (”In that state, you look exactly the same”) it made me think that perhaps, Baalberith could’ve seen Gabriel in Sitri the entire time. As we know from Isaac’s undercover Section, Sitri is one of the few demons who can switch their gender not only illusionary but also physically. And while the origin of anyone’s power was never revealed, in Sitri’s case, it was directly linked to Baalberith. In a way, it is possible that Baalberith was using Sitri to cope with his loneliness after falling from heaven, and thus forever losing Gabriel, while at the same time he was also protecting him from outer harm as his child.

Needless to say, that’s a twisted and terrible way to do anything, especially regarding a child. We’ve seen Sitri struggle with his own identity and his sense of self since the early chapters. We saw what joy it brought him to crossdress and cosplay at William’s school because he was finally free to wear – and do – whatever he wanted. We saw how his expression soured or darkened whenever he had to leave for hell. We saw how important both Solomon and William were to him explicitly because they were treating him like someone who deserved genuine love for who he was himself.

Baalberith was not capable of loving Sitri for himself, he was not even able to distinquish between him and his mother, but it was because he himself was similarly tortured and twisted by their surroundings and circumstances. He did care for Sitri deeply but not in the correct way, and he died to give Sitri the freedom he himself so desperately tried to shield him from. Baalberith’s sacrifice was a very fitting ending for him because unlike Gilles, unlike Dantalion, unlike many other characters, Baalberith’s only way to any sort of happiness was to let go of his past and let go of Sitri. And that, in turn, was also the only way Sitri could reach his own happiness.

Baalberith is not the only morally gray character in Makai ouji. And he’s not even my personal favorite. But he is the best one who started out “black” and then turned “gray”, at least in my opinion. Unlike with some of the main cast, his sins didn’t exactly go forgiven, nor forgotten. And unlike with some of the other “gray” characters, he did get a genuinely satisfying conclusion to his arc, one that allowed him to grow enough to not be despised, or at least not that much.