“Maturity” is a buzzword that gets thrown around, but people would be hard pressed to give it a clear definition. How do you define maturity? It’s the state of being mature, says one dictionary, proving its uselessness. Maturity is being an adult, but Cirrus insisting that “he is an adult so you can’t make him do anything” is ironically a big sign of immaturity.

Being mature is a list of behaviours, such as:

Managing your own emotions

Recognizing other people’s emotions

Taking responsibility for your actions

Establishing your boundaries and respecting other’s

Being able to apologise

Being able to handle failure, rejection, or being wrong

Being open-minded

Maturity is not only a virtue, but also a skill. It’s one that is expected out of adults and even older teens, but no one is perfect, no one is mature at all times. Being mature is hard work, being responsible is difficult, admitting you were wrong can seem impossible, but it’s still something everyone needs to strive to in order to live in society. It becomes a problem if the moments of immaturity outweigh the moments of maturity. It becomes an even bigger problem when you give someone like that power.

The thing about power is that you can ignore your responsibilities if you have enough (sorry Uncle Ben), and Stratoversian society is built on power.

Let’s take a look at Cirrus, as he is the prime example of an immature Stratoversian

Cirrus’ immaturity

Our first impression of Cirrus is that of a stuck-up jerk who belittles people for something as trivial as wearing shoes. Our second impression of Cirrus is that of a man-child giving himself a headache after throwing the aforementioned tantrum. It is not a brilliant introduction, he is made to be unlikeable, so unlikeable that even the one character he interacts with is glad to see him gone.

From the get-go, he demonstrates that

1. He is not able to manage his emotions and even hurts himself with how he expresses them

2. He does not recognize he was wrong for getting angry or apologises, instead he “ignores” her “disgrace” for a moment

3. He does not respect the president’s order to stay out of Gloomverse, showing that he does not care for the consequences of his actions and does not take responsibility for them

4. He is very close minded of anything outside of Stratoversian norms

And that’s just from his first appearance! Without even mentioning his catastrophic rapport to Nim!

In his second appearance, Purple aptly remarks that Cirrus “act like a five year old”, and he is right.

Cirrus insists on coming with Nim to Wallis’ show, claiming interest in the culture. He promised to behave, but forced Nim in a position where she had to accept his demand or risk having him show up without being supervised. Fast-forward to the time of the show, and all of his previous claims fall through. He is still belittling the culture and Nim needs to remind him of the very real consequences for Her in order to get him to settle down. The show starts, Seaweed shows up, and Cirrus gets a teenager crush, and proves once again what little handle he has on his emotions. Cakegirl arrives, and Cirrus does his good action of the day by saving Harold from a fall to the death.

When the world conference rolls around, Cirrus spent three weeks in jail, and it did not teach him anything. He finally crosses the line with Nim and gets an overdue call out on his behaviour. She establishes some very clear boundaries here. She’s tired of babysitting him! Unfortunately, this does not stick, because Cirrus follows her back to the ruins. He literally has no valid reason for doing this. What’s more, we have yet to hear a single apology from this guy.

Then, the Beach Episode comes. Cirrus does not miss the opportunity to show off his wonderful temper. But we get a little more this time, we get a crack. For the first time, he manages to keep a straight face as he recites a law of Stratoverse. This happens once again in A Day on the Town when cirrus talks about his fathers’ ranch. You can tell it’s a sore topic because he remains emotionless.  After all his exuberant display of outrage, this is the one topic where he doesn’t allow himself to feel anything.

And we will unpack that later!

Indigo as a parallel

Indigo doesn’t get revealed as Stratoversian right away. He’s a working DJ, he’s the president’s personal hitman, he’s a delusional playboy… He is a lot of things, depending on what he needs! Overall, Indigo is selfish. He does not care what others are going through, or the consequences of his actions on them as long as he comes out unscathed.

Contrarily to Cirrus, Indigo has his emotions in check. He does not care about what other people do if it doesn’t affect him, while Cirrus gets introduced by yelling at Nim for touching the ground. Indigo is smiling most times and even if he is an “open book”, his emotions are not the burden of others. That is, unless you press a sensitive point, like his sense of self. On the other hand, Cirrus’ temper is something everyone else has to deal with and tip toe around. The only time when he can keep it together is when it’s something he’s sensitive about.

Where Cirrus shuts down, Indigo flares up, and so they make for interesting parallels.

Indigo’s immaturity is different from Cirrus, because they had different lives, but the root of the problem is once again Stratoverse. Thanks to Indigo, we got context for Stratoversian childhood and expectations. And it’s pretty terrible.

Let’s talk about it!

Cirrus’ childhood

Stratoverse has some kind of incentive to make every citizen gain weather magic. The reason why is still a mystery and worthy of plenty of theories, but it is not today’s focus.

Indigo explains pretty well how this happens. Children are separated from their families, given to caretakers and taught about the weather cycle. Nim mentions that she got “floated” a lot as a kid, so it’s not a full no-contact situation - at least not for everyone - but it’s still rather isolating. Indigo tells us that he “wanted to live in the sky with [his] parents”, and so did most other kids.

Cirrus is an exception though, because his fathers live on the mainland in a ranch. They do not have magic and they can’t live in the cloud city. There’s no one waiting for Cirrus in the clouds. When other children finally regroup with their family upon getting magic, Cirrus would be leaving his behind forever. As he loves to remind people, it’s shameful to touch the ground. He still holds them dear in his heart, as shown when he punched the president for badmouthing magicless people, or when he almost cracked after Rylie’s question. Nevertheless, it still got ingrained in him that he should be ashamed of his origins, from how meek he was when talking about his dads’ ranch. Stratoversian propaganda is very effective if it can convince a country kid that a leaf is actually disgusting and touching the ground a disgrace.

Cirrus is powerful, he probably got magic early on. Let’s say 12 years old. From that age on, he grew up with no parents, no guardians, no caretakers. It’s during teenage years that people learn to be mature, to manage their emotions, to handle conflict and to respect others. They can either learn it in school, from teachers or peers, or from their family. Cirrus had neither. He can’t go to his family and he doesn’t have any friends if his attachment to Nim is anything to go by.

Speaking of, let’s focus on Nim and Cirrus for a little bit now.

Cirrus’ attachment to Nim

Cirrus and Nim are both grown adult, and they’re both royalties. They’re not siblings however, and don’t know much about each other. For all due purposes, they are colleagues. Cirrus seems to have some years of anteriority over Nim, but other than that they’re equals. They have no need to interact, and Nim would even prefer if they didn’t. Despite that, Cirrus clings to her with force. We know from Virga that the trip back and forth to Gloomverse takes a full day. Cirrus come visit her multiple times, and his first visit (that we know of) lasted less than an hour. He clearly doesn’t approve of what Nim is doing, but that doesn’t stop him from checking up on her.

Why?

Because he is a fucking desperate for a human connection, except he has no clue how to go about it, so he clings to the only proper relationship he has in his life: his royal colleague!

He can’t turn to Virga because she’s already proven herself to be unsafe by punching him and making fun of his ideas, and he can’t be around the king because everyone expects him to dethrone (and kill) him, so Nim is the only one he has left. She’s also polite and nice enough to tolerate him, and he takes it as the greenlight to be even more clingy. He’s unconsciously forcing her to mom him, and she has to be responsible for the two of them.

Nim is stuck trying to appease him and maintain a cordial relationship because her own situation is unprecedented and precarious, and there’s a high chance he could jeopardize her passports and permits if she actually spoke her mind! At the world conference, she finally speak up because she literally has nothing to lose. She spent three weeks in jail because of her association with Cirrus, and her passports and permits to study have been thrown out the window. So when he belittles her and her interests, she snaps, because she can.

Their relationship is not a balanced one, but it’s progressively becoming better. Now that nothing is at stakes, she can be honest and actually tell him off, which she does!

Royal Responsibilities

You may have already read a few pieces about it (like this rant), but the prince and princess titles doesn’t seem to come with a lot of responsibilities. It seems that only the king and queen can make any meaningful decisions, and the prince and princess’ role is to support those decisions.

Cirrus is interested in making life better for the magicless. He has family at stake even. Yet he is shown running away from any responsibilities he might have in Stratoverse to follow Nim, and aggravating the tense relationship between Gloomverse and Stratoverse by punching the president. It’s not really his fault though, because that’s the way Stratoverse’s society is built: the most powerful have the most power, and the ones with power can do what they want because they’re powerful. You don’t agree with a political decision? Duke it out with the politician. Someone made a mistake? Punch them to teach them a lesson. That’s what he learned, that’s what he does.

And what he does is selfish and immature, because that’s what the system thrives on. People are encouraged to remain immature, to act on instinct, to punch the people they don’t like, to be selfish and not think of others. The system relies on Stratoversian being too busy fighting to survive, too selfish and immature to give a damn what others are going through. It keeps people from organizing and rebelling. It keeps the system going.

Summary

This went in a different direction than what I thought it would. Here’s a summary:

Stratoversians, especially Cirrus, have been regularly characterised by their immaturity – especially when it comes to handling their emotions. They resort to show of force, they establish dominance with their magic, their bodies, their voice. Even Indigo resort to it when pushed to the brink. The way children are raised in Stratoverse often leads to immature adults because of a lack of appropriate education and doing the equivalent of giving a teenager a gun. Stratoverse culture is one of power, where rationality is dismissed in favour of strength. This keep people from trying to change the system: the people in power benefits from it, and if someone were to try and change things, a punch in the face will put a stop to it.

Finally, the nurse opened the door to her room. Number XI. He beckoned her closer, saying something about everything being in order, and that she was stable. Truth be told, once that door had opened, Electra hadn’t been paying attention anymore. She desperately wanted to see Nubula again, and erase the image of her nightmare, of the last time she had seen her. Bloodied, burnt, hurt.

She was already making her way to the bedside, when the nurse grabbed her. Were it not for Nubula’s sake, she would have fried him for daring to touch her. Instead, she glared daggers at him.

“Ma’am, it’s your first time seeing the patient right? Well there are some rules for the benefit of the patient.”

She nodded. The faster the better. Nubula was waiting for her.

“After the surgery, we confirmed that she was in a comatose state. As such, you—”

“WHAT”

The nurse sighed. “Quieter please. This is a hospital.”

Electra felt like she was sinking in darkness.

“Surgery….? Coma….?”

“Oh, I guess you didn’t know. Her leg was amputated under the knee. It was unsalvageable, the explosion destroyed most of the bones. And considering her concussion, a simple coma is the least of her problems. With a bit of luck, her cognitive skills are still intact.”

Electra was drowning. The darkness had gone up to her head. She felt numb.

The nurse took her silence as the sign to continue with rules and instructions. She barely listened. She was elsewhere, neck deep in the darkest of waters.

The water was tumultuous. Every time a wave crashed on her face, every time she swallowed some water, she could feel her tears overflowing. She wiped her tears away, and realised that there was a bed in front of her. She was sitting in a room. She stared at her hand. It was wet with her tears, and darkened by her mascara. The ocean felt further away now. She was back where she was needed. Where Nubula was.

She was sleeping. Her beautiful light brown hair was like a halo around her head. Was this the first time that Electra saw her without her clouds….? She couldn’t remember. It felt wrong. Her own hair was out. It was customary in health centers, out of respect for the magically and physically injured. Still, she had hoped the situation had been different. That it had been a sign of trust and intimacy, rather than a sign of pain.

If she. When she wakes up, maybe they can pretend that this never happened, and continue where they left off. It was a sweet thought, but there was no pretending it never happened. The asymmetric bumps made by her legs were a reminder of what had been lost, and how much more losses were to come. Her rank….

A bright fire lit up inside her. A newly found goal. She was useless to her like this, crying at her bedside. But maybe she could make sure that everything will be in perfect order when she wakes up. She will search every law book until she finds how to put the cheating marquise behind bars, and Nubula in her place.