#sxf analysis

Loid is spiraling hard as he slowly comes to the realization that he’s developing feelings for Yor.

Also… behold the contrast between these two scenes, 17 chapters apart.

They’re far more comfortable holding hands now. And that’s not even touching on the fact that the panels from Ch. 119 are done to put on a show, to act like a married couple is “supposed to” interact with each other, versus the panels from Ch. 136 being a societally shared understanding as to how a married couple interacts with each other.

I have… a couple of other thoughts, but Tumblr has an image limit. Not that anything has ever actually stopped me from being unhinged on main.

A sign of it is dreaming about the past that was forgotten. I know this is a storytelling tool, but this is actually how it happens irl too. It means your subconscious is ready to process what was suppressed.

This happens when the body feels safe enough to begin healing.

So why now?…

Because of Yor and Anya. In this case, they’re next to him after he wakes up from a nightmare, symbolically and literally creating a sense of safety, a safe space. He feels safe with them in “Loid’s house.” Even if he doesn’t realize it, his body does.

This is also why he collapses when he returns home and sees Yor.

And Anya gives him comfort with a headpat (physical affection) when he wakes up from the nightmare. Real comfort, telling him that he has nothing to be afraid of. He’s safe.

His heart, his home, his safe space, held by two people.

I think one of the most fascinating aspects of Spy x Family is that despite being a shonen, where the cast in this genre usually features teenagers with some adults here and there due to being aimed at a teenage demographic, the franchise’s main characters and supporting cast is comprised of nearly every age group EXCEPT teenagers. You have the adults (eg. Loid, Yor, Franky, Fiona, etc), toddlers (eg. Anya, Damian, Becky, etc), and senior citizens (Henry and Martha).

A recurring theme in this arc is Yor's desire to "play the role" well, after McMahon said this:

The above scene is from Chapter 128 when Yor is remembering their conversation. But in Chapter 118 what we as the audience see him say is this:

This made me wonder what exactly Yor believes "the role" to be. It seems clear to me what McMahon means: if she wants to keep her double life, she has to continue deceiving her husband just like he has deceived his wife Maureen all these decades. And she has to be fully committed to the deception instead of wavering out of guilt and causing her husband to grow suspicious.

But is that what Yor understands? That it's about swallowing her own guilt and maintaining a lie without regret? What exactly is she thinking in this scene:

And why is she so adamant about doing a good job of it that she agrees to be Bumblina?

From the beginning of the story, Yor has been concerned about not being "normal" and falling short of society's expectations. And especially Loid and Anya's expectations, so much that she feared Loid would divorce her as soon as someone like Fiona showed up.

And what Loid has done throughout all that is to repeatedly assure her of her place in the family. He doesn't tell her she is "normal." He does better than that.

"That's why I want you to be exactly who you are."

That's the greatest reassurance Yor could receive. (Of course, unbeknownst to her, Twilight just disguised himself as an SSS agent to interrogate her, so he is probably feeling a lot of guilt as he sees Yor so insecure afterward.)

Just like in real life, insecurities don't go away after one affirming statement from someone we care about. We need to hear it many times and experience reinforcing events in our daily lives in order to really internalize a new belief. Loid continues to provide that.

The ancillary text there is important! The full "Yor Forger" package.

Unfortunately she was drunk and didn't remember everything he said the next day, maybe only the "You're strong, Yor" line. But that's still important!

Then there's the chapter after she meets Melinda for the first time and asks Loid if she can hang out with the Lady Patriots. Twilight puts aside the mission for a moment and provides genuinely good advice for Yor's sake.

I think Yor has internalized some of these affirmations. She's more joyful and at peace than she was before she joined the Forgers, like in Chapter 119 when she and Loid visit the park and she realizes this:

It's sad though that just as she has begun feeling secure and fulfilled, she realizes she's fallen in love with Loid and takes a new burden upon herself. She thinks she doesn't deserve for Loid to return her feelings, and that she wouldn't be good for him anyway.

"I'm not a good girl."

And now the role she thinks she has to play is truly an impossible one.

She has to hide that she's an assassin. She has to hide that she's in love with Loid. She has to continue on as the happy, caring platonic wife and mother of the Forger family as if it's enough for her. She has to keep this act up for years, at least until Anya graduates.

This is a hellish role. It's torture. And she thinks she can get better at it by practicing on a TV sitcom.

In actuality this is what Twilight has mastered. Playing endless roles where he denies his true self and desires until he has forgotten they exist. It's the only way to survive like that. It's not a fate he would wish on Yor. To him, she's the innocent civilian he roped into his mission and he must protect.

She falls first.....

He falls later....

He realizes it first.... and he realizes it himself, because he's the man of logic. After such an illogical decission, of course he analyzes it and come to the conclusion.

But he has to put his logic first, so he closes the door towards the warm things that has been calling to him, albeit reluctantly tiredly

She realizes it later, after so many pushes from the people around her.... but she actually admits it out loud, albeit only to her daughter.

And despite keeping it to herself, she accepts those warm that has been calling her.

Like ofcourse objectively he knows the difference between romantic love and platonic but also Yuri at times is still mentally at the childhood phase of I love my mom and I’m going to marry her because I love her so much and that’s apparently what you do when you love someone.

Because honestly if he really was weirdly romantically in love with Yor I don’t think Anya would bother him so much but like hes just as jealous of Anya as he is of Loid which would just not be the case if he actually knew how to differentiate between all the different kinds of love. If he really was romantically attracted to yor I think he’d make a bit of a bigger show to show how “fatherly” he could be (even tho she’s technically Loid’s child)

Yuri just really loves his sister like when little kids have feelings that are too big for them to understand or to explain or do anything other than experience them at full intensity. There is no one else hes allowed himself to share his life with in anyway. He has no real friends no parents or parental figures and he has no partner he literally only has his sister she’s his entire life.

And yor was kind of like that too in the beginning; wrapped up in Yuri. everything she did was to ensure Yuri didn’t worry it wasnt as intense as Yuri’s cause Yor’s not as single minded but like look at them in the last chapter Yor actually sets and enforces strict boundaries on Yuri and how he can talk about her family when just a couple chapters ago she let him talk smack about her fake marriage and fake husband in her living room and everything was an act to prove to yuri it wasnt “real” not really. But now Yor has grown she has let other people into her life it’s bigger and it’s settled in away that Yuri can’t push back against. And just like she’s always done as his big sister she is teaching him, modeling for him how to open up his life, how they can expand to include other people in this little world of theirs and they will still have space for each other that they’ll still have love for each other.

And yuri’s first instinct is to make their world small again to make it safe take them back to when it was just them so he can protect himself protect the space he occupies in Yor’s life. until he realizes that’s not making the world safe hes just sealing them in an airtight jar. And then he lets go as much as he can anyway even tho it’s just a few centimeters. He calms down and he goes home and I think the fact that he didn’t just stay home eating food that reminded him of his childhood of Yor instead he accepts the invitation, it’s why Chloe and his first commander are so important he letting his world expand just a little bit. That he gets the little sheets Yor wanted to get for Anya. It’s proof it’s all proof that Yuri’s growing up. Hes learning to let the life in.

*This is part of an ongoing post series. If you missed the Introduction/Part 1, click here*

———-

When Twilight gets home, exhausted and battered, expecting to fight yet another fight with Yor's gripes…he's instead greeted by her radiant smile.

One can imagine the relief he must have felt seeing this instead of the scowl that he had last seen on her face. He's so relieved (and perhaps a bit smitten) that his knees give way under him. Of course, his unrelenting suspicious mind tries to tell him to stay alert, as Yor's smile could be a front for the gripes underneath. But once he finds out that she doesn't actually have gripes with him, he's free of that last load of stress and is finally able to fully relax, causing him to collapse (similar to the very first chapter when he collapsed after Anya passed the Eden entrance exam). After he realizes how utterly exhausted he is, he can't help but ask Yor to help out with his share of the housework.

Her reply is what really makes everything sink in for him: despite all his attempts to be a flawless husband (not to mention spy), she doesn't want him to be that way. She's happy when she can be useful to him and thinks it's bad if he pushes himself to be perfect all the time. Since Yor is so akin to taking care of others, she's happiest when she can help lighten his burden so he doesn't have to shoulder it all on his own.

I think this whole scene was more effectively done in the manga, mostly because of the lack of backgrounds that Endo chose to incorporate in certain panels. Especially for the panel where Loid first sees Yor upon opening the door, and later when she tells him that he doesn't have to be perfect all the time.

The lack of backgrounds in these panels really emphasizes what the characters are focused on; in the former, seeing Yor greet him with a smile is such a relief to Loid that he doesn't see anything else but that, and for the latter, not having a background shows how focused they are on each other...that there's nothing in the world but them in that moment.

And yet, as grateful as Twilight is to hear Yor say these things, being perfect all the time is exactly what he has to bein order to survive as a spy. The fact that he had to ask someone for help with simple housework, plus someone telling him that he doesn't have to be perfect, made him recall the feeling he had when he looked into Wheeler's eyes: that he lives in a world where you have to be perfect in order to survive, and having any kind of weakness will get you killed.

While Twilight continues to be clueless about both Yor and Fiona's feelings for him, this event marks a big turning point for him – acknowledgement of his own feelings. He realizes that refusing to kill Yuri in the sewers purely because he cares about Yor's happiness, shows that he's compromised as a spy. Even though there's been small examples of him choosing to act on his feelings versus what's best for the mission, such as when he punched Swan during the Eden interview, this is the first time where such action could literally mean life or death for him.

It's also important to note that when Twilight speaks to Yor in his head during this scene, his speech in the Japanese version is more casual than ever before. He uses the casual male pronoun "ore" and the colloquial phrase "demo ne." Even though it's only in his mind, he's never addressed her this way before, which further reinforces how comfortable he's become around her.

Twilight's newfound realization about his weakness is further revealed when Yuri unceremoniously pulls up his sleeve, trying to find the bullet wound on his arm. Luckily Yuri didn't have time to dwell on it as Yor, being considerate of how exhausted Loid was, pushes Yuri away, even after noticing he was injured. She didn't even invite him to stay and have tea with them. It's unusual for Yor to get annoyed with someone like this, especially Yuri, which goes to show how much she cares about doing what's best for Loid (and I'm sure she didn't like being interrupted when they were having such a sweet moment together!)

In the shower, Loid muses about how lucky he was that he covered up the bullet wound as he didn't anticipate Yuri being so astute about their encounter. But this only reinforces the painful truth he had just realized about this "weakness" he has to overcome. After getting yet another wave of panic after smelling something burning, only to realize that Yor had accidentally burned his shirts when using the iron, it's no wonder Twilight takes a much-needed day off the next day!

Being the conscientious, thoughtful person that she is, Yor not only gets up early to make breakfast the next morning (which somehow caused her to get more bruised than Twilight), but she does everything to ensure that Loid can spend the whole day resting in his room.

As she spends a peaceful day with Anya and Bond, we see yet again what a great mother she is and how happy she is being with the Forgers. She lovingly watches Anya draw pictures of her trip to the zoo, makes sure she cleans up her backpack, immediately brushes Bond's fur when it gets wet, when brushes Anya's hair at her unexpected request. Yor also makes the observation that Bond's fur looks shinier than when they first got him, proving once again how emotionally in tune to she is to those around her.

The last interaction we saw between Yor and Bond wasn't a favorable one, as it was the first time Bond became fearful of her cooking and thought she would get mad if he refused to eat it, to the point of running away from home to find Loid. So it's nice to see that he's gotten over that and enjoys being with her (he's only scared of her cooking!) I can't help but think that when she says to Bond "you're the best just the way you are" that she's also referring to Loid, since she had told him something similar the day before: that she prefers him as he is and that he doesn't have to try so hard to be perfect.

To be continued in Part 35 (when season 4 releases!)