#yami thoughts

As grim as Jellal’s tragedy had been, something that resonates about it is that in some sense it is realistic. Not everyone gets justice as they are owed. Not every story gets a clean ending or comfortable resolution. 

Look at the real world, how many actual terrible criminals go unpunished because they have the law on their side or the police/influence on their payroll. And look at how many innocent people suffer and continue to suffer because someone else has the power to let that happen and no one can/will step in.

As sad as it is, corruption is real and prevalent. Utterly evil and heinous people get away with doing the most unimaginable crimes, some never even being found out until after it’s too late or even never at all. All whilst the names of victims are just added to obituaries, the happenings are told but that’s just it. No real justice is being done usually, someone just tells the story yet, the horror retold yet it doesn’t make up for all the pain and torment the innocent have undergone.

You’re probably wondering as I mention this rhetoric, how does this relate to Fairy Tail or Jellal?

Let’s think back to the Tower Of Heaven/Zeref and remember what it truly was. Though it was a slave camp that was isolated from society, what was done in order to conduct and maintain it? People were abducted all over Earthland; adults and children, their villages razed to the ground, mass murder and looting most likely conducted alongside and then of course the horrors of the tower.

Of course the Tower and it’s purpose remained a secret for a long time, yet even so, it didn’t leave a non-existing trail about it’s creation. People were missing by the masses all over and villages were going up in smoke—something that would have alerted those who weren’t captured. And when it would become clear that children were amongst the masses, innocent vulnerable children, the situation would become something that would alarm anyone.

In regard to adults people may think they have gone on their own accord, but children? That raises suspicion. And given how eccentric and theatrical the garbs of the TOH slavers were, it’s unlikely they operated in subtlety. Rather they seemed proud in their sin—in their cause—only ever really hiding because their mission required it.

But of course, that makes you think that those who caught wind of these happenings or may have even been related to someone who was caught in the midst of them, what were they doing? You wouldn’t expect people to be mum about the disappearance of people, adults, children, or the destruction of villages.

You’d imagine they sought for help. 

And yes realistically they probably went to their authorities, pleading for search parties and what not. Maybe seeking out guild workers to help find the missing people (I believe this was the case of how Rob eventually ended up in the tower, correct me if I am wrong-), or whatever they could in order to find some lead or conclusion to this looming mystery/tension.

Of course maybe search parties were sent out and they were fruitless. Maybe those sent from guilds also ended up being prisoners like Rob or maybe worse. Maybe the bare minimum was done just so people would stop hounding etc. 

Regardless of the actions taken (or not) the worry wouldn’t just disappear due to a lack of evidence or leads. Those emotions would carry on, maybe in hope that something would come up eventually. Maybe in grief in believing nothing could be done. Maybe even in anger, for why isn’t this being stopped?

Even if the tower was hidden, the repercussions caused were not.

So that makes you wonder, what must the affect have been when the atrocities of the tower were finally revealed.

What must the reaction have been to that?

Shock of course.

Horror.

Grief.

Mourning.

Guilt.

For the victims of the tower. For the children that never grew up. For the names that were forgotten until they were amongst many others. For not doing enough to keep this from happening.

But then after that?

Anger.

Distrust.

Paranoia.

Cynicism.

But towards who? 

Yes towards those who did the deed (ie. the slavers). Yes even Zeref (As the cult was in his name). And of course anyone else involved in running this atrocity. But then another party also falls under scrutiny when the public outrages.

The authority.

Those who were begged. Those who were hounded. Those who sat comfortably on their high thrones. They are the next in line for the public reaction. Because why didn’t they do more for the victims? If there was more protection in place then none of this would have happened.

‘If only they had just listened!’

But then—eventually—in the spiral of grief, questions may mutate into to doubts.

‘Why was this allowed to go on for so long?’

‘Was anything really done to help, or was it just to shut up those asking?’

‘Who’s to say they weren’t in on it too?’

‘Do they understand our fear and grief or are they pretending?’

Etc.

Etc.

There’s a domino effect.

The tower was a colossal atrocity, a failure of protection by the multitudes and for that—the outrage would also be equivalent. The questions and doubts would grow and discourse would heighten until something would answer the emotional output seeking understanding.

So now that begs the question, where does Jellal come into all of this?

Of course we know that Jellal infiltrated the council by the alias Siegrain whilst he was reigning at the tower. And with all the commotion he stirred up whilst trying to activate the R-system, the name that is always mentioned in relation to the tower is his.

Not the slavers who enslaved him as a child and killed his mother and many others beforehand. Not Ultear who took advantage of his mental state at his most weakest and most vulnerable moment. Not even Zeref who the tower was constructed in commemoration of.

It’s Jellal.

Jellal Fernandes.

His name and face have become synonymous with the cardinal betrayal, as can be seen with the intense fear, distrust and loathing people have/had towards him. The disgust and outrage spans from cast members (eg. Erza) , to side characters (e.g Miliana, Sho, Wally, Kagura) to even the unnamed.

Irrelevant of what actually happened, the fact is he could have never accomplished this sin alone.

Yet it is his alone to bear.

As intelligent and ambitious Jellal was (or Ultear possessing him?), he was not the sole manipulator of all the events that allowed the tower to remain in construction. Yet he did play into the manipulation of systems that would give him the results he sought. Exploiting weaknesses, personal agendas, maybe governmental secrets and failures that all made his movements that much more sure.

It wasn’t just arrogance.

It was calculation.

It was failures on fronts that he could take advantage of.

Yet of course, those who he was surrounded by will definitely not even try to admit their own shortcomings. I’m not talking about Ultear here, but the council that entrusted him. The government that allowed him way. They won’t hold up their hands and be like ‘we should have done better’. 

‘We should have vetted him more thoroughly.’

‘We shouldn’t have been as easily swayed.’

No, because why would they want to point a loaded finger towards themselves?

So of course they make the one who is the face of the failure, burden the brunt of the consequences and destruction.

One man instead of a ministry.

And thus Jellal is made a scapegoat.

A place for all the fingers to finally be able to point the blame at and be the target of all the intense, unbridled animosity. A name to be cited when talking about the tragedies for the many years to come and to ‘recognise’ who allowed it to happen. A face is given for rage to be directed to whilst others are concealed and saved from scrutiny and backlash.

The minor details all become a haze now since one is being pushed center stage.

The one that seems to make everything in the picture complete.

And the importance of it is being pressed on and on.

Through the media, through word of mouth, through government action.

Every other name involved and every other possibility is forgotten because Jellal is the one remembered.

Jellal is the one upheld.

Of course though, going away from the council’s clear cowardice, now I want to go into Jellal’s perspective of this.

About him being a savior and the burden he holds (or even chose to hold) and why it may be more than just symbolic like I initially believed.

I have stated before how I have wished Jellal would allow himself to let himself feel the extent of injustice he has suffered and mourn his life. Don’t get me wrong I do wish for that still—But now I have wondered if his role of being a scapegoat isn’t just something that was delegated to him, but something he intentionally carries in the bigger scheme of things.

Now you may wonder, why would anyone willingly want to become public enemy number one, to the point that people want him dead on sight? What would anyone possibly want from that? He’d have to be mad to willingly take the role of the most wanted man on Earthland.

What is to be achieved by putting a bounty like this on his head?

Yet—what if this is Jellal’s sacrifice in order to protect something greater than himself?

We’ve already gone over the public outrage and how the anger and grief would boil over if left unchecked, but let’s stew on the consequences of that.

In trying to exact justice, if all those involved in the tower were named and shamed for public disapproval, what would happen?

Of course we’ve already seen what happened to Jellal; He was equated with filth, hunted for his blood, people wanted to murder him on sight (and probably so much more that the story hasn’t shown).

By him alone we saw how Kagura, whose brother was killed by his hand—made it her sole responsibility to exact revenge on the man who killed her brother. She trained rigorously, fuelled by hatred and grief with the belief she would one day spill the blood of her brother’s murderer.

This was her idea of justice for Simon.

This was the extent her unresolved feelings drove her to try and strike balance between what happened.

This isn’t even including all the atrocities which were tied to Jellal’s name.

And Kagura’s reaction isn’t out of proportion either. It’s human. It’s realistic. Anyone who lost a loved one, they would be trembling to make justice on their name.

This is just one person with grievances towards about what happened.

One person who didn’t just remain to sharp stares and spiteful words, but instead took action since others hadn’t.

Grief and rage driving her.

Inherent things.

Human things.

Just one person.

Yet if we bring more names into the mix?

And if we bring in more perpetrators?

Or even bystanders?

Witnesses?

Then this reaction amplifies.

The hatred, the animosity, the violence increases by folds. More targets for pain means more outlets, even if in the name of ‘justice’. And even ‘justice’ can become blind when driven by strong emotions such as rage and grief. In a moment of vindication, further sin can be committed and in most cases it is (e.g. relatives to the criminals are targeted and attacked, harassment by association, ostracisation etc).

By then it’s not just Kagura out for blood but more and more emboldened by that same blood thirsty mourning spirit, changing the course of order and peace all in the name of vindication.

The inevitable result.

And this is even before the authorities are named.

If those in charge of the country—of people’s safekeeping— were to be outed as behind the failure of the public…and on such a large grotesque scale…what follows?

Anarchy.

People begin to fear their governors. There’s a irreparable collapse of trust in the system. Order as it is seen becomes fragmented and chaos ensues. And the effect goes on and on. The threats, the rage, the violence all ripples outwards.

It’s not contained to one person anymore.

Not to one face.

But multiple.

And more than that, the faces of those who were trusted by millions upon millions.

Imagine the havoc that would ensue if all that unchecked and unjust hatred wasn’t just pinned on Jellal, but was spread out? Rightfully so, but then what happens? It’s no longer just a shoot on sight command or just ill gossip and a death wish about that man with a tattoo. The problem becomes much more grave than this.

We already saw what hatred and loss from the tower did to members in the cast. Oraçion Seis—they willingly chose corruption as recompense to the ill hand fate gave them and look how far they went in their evil because someone had gave them purpose to.

Yet the picture is bigger than even that.

It’s not just matter of vengeful wizards who want to do wrong to the world because they were wronged.

But the scope of the problem encompasses more, making anyone a potential victim. Because the government/council can affect anyone one of them, and that proximity then causes a natural fear when trust has been shattered.

That then begs the question that will eventually land in people’s minds, who’s to say it wouldn’t happen again?

Atrocities alike to the tower?

The abductions?

The mass murder?

The mass failure?

The betrayal?

With all this taken into account, I think Jellal is entirely aware of this. He sat on the council, he knows how authority operates and the trust it holds over millions. He knows the effect that power has on the innocent and blissfully ignorant—both from being a direct perpetrator and a bystander.

So perhaps, in order to avoid the possibility of anarchy and further loss, Jellal allows his name to be the sole target of grief and hatred. Because in the bigger picture, that is a greater win for everyone. Order remains intact. The outrage, while intense, is contained and manageable—rather than spreading into a chaos no one could control.

Jellal knows firsthand what can ensue if the mind gets clouded by hatred and darkness, and instead of allowing the problem to emerge on an uncontrollable scale, he does the unthinkable. He puts his head on the chopping block, so the blood stops running anymore than it has to.

He sacrifices his peace—for the peace and safety of others.

And this is not out of character for him at all.

From young we saw Jellal has always been incredibly altruistic and sacrificing; he would throw himself in harm’s way so others wouldn’t suffer. In the Nirvana arc he was willing to literally die if it meant stopping the impending consequences of Nirvana. He went against Acnologia alone to buy time for the others, knowing well that he could have become gravely injured or worse. Even regarding the new information about Jellal’s past, after the loss of his father, he was willing to pursue the life needed in order to protect his mother.

This behavior is what defines him.

And the core principle translates in this instance as well.

Jellal would readily sacrifice his world so others can live in and preserve theirs.

Of course, this isn’t to erase the very real harm caused during his villain era or to romanticise it. The Tower left scars, and nothing can undo that. But because of how the story has panned out, it’s been making me think—perhaps Mashima’s choice was never about making him “innocent.” Maybe it was about showing how one man became the vessel for a nation’s grief.

If that is the case, Jellal’s tragedy, then, is not a neat redemption arc—rather it is much harder and more nuanced as it is dealing with the fallout of national scapegoating, systemic cowardice, and the unbearable weight of carrying pain that was never his alone. 

Of course it could be the fact that even if Jellal wasn’t accountable, Jellal shoulders the blame as penance for all the collateral damage caused as a result of his reign. But this new perspective really makes Jellal’s weight feel so much more than just tragedy upon tragedy.

Though since in the previous conversation I touched on Jerza, I would like to return to them here too. Through this new lens, even Jerza changes shape. Erza’s forgiveness stops looking like blind leniency and emotional labour, and instead becomes recognition—that she sees the man who not only suffered as a victim, but who chose to bear the grief of thousands so the world would not collapse under it’s own outrage.

However on the flip side, it may be the case that Jellal may never truly reveal what he chose to inherit in order to keep Erza from talking him out of it, or burdening her with that grief. That could be a reason why maybe they never have those conversations of who did what, because uncovering it would bring up more than just them. Maybe Jellal intentionally keeps it under the wraps in hope to mitigate further fallout.

That’s a whole other conversation to unfold later on.

Either way—whatever the case is, it shows how the bond between Jellal and Erza isn’t just about love or loss.

But about the shared understanding of carrying burdens no one else could or should.

They are both protectors of the world in their own right.

I used to think Jellal’s constant mention of his ‘sin’ was excessive at points since I couldn’t understand the thought process of wanting to own something you never truly consciously did. On this immense scale. Especially when he didn’t have the answers to pursue such actions.

I thought it was self flagellation, even performance at points.

Because that was the role the world had gave him.

Whilst the truth may hold shades of that, I don’t think now Jellal’s situation is something he has helplessly resided in.

Atleast not fully.

Because maybe it’s not just passive acceptance from his side, but a concious burden. Every time he cites the sins in his name, he secures a narrative no one can question or change and thus the fear of colossal fallout is quelled.

Tragic yes.

No one would bear such upon their name.

Not even the named heroes.

But he does.

That’s maybe why he doesn’t try to push/spread the blame. That’s maybe why he doesn’t allow himself his anger. That’s maybe why he doesn’t fight the hate or injustice or grief.

Because doing so would only lead to more.

I don’t know any other character who has consistently sacrificed to the extent Jellal has,

And for that I have nothing but respect for him.

Even after all this reflection, there’s no knowing if he is truly innocent or not. But maybe that was never the point of the story. Maybe it was about the due price that had to be paid for and who would be willing to pay it.

Even if they had no need to do so.

This new lens I am seeing Jellal with changed a lot for me. He may not actually be a man suffering aimlessly in a circle. But something harder, sadder and much more beautiful:

A man who chose to suffer so the world could keep standing.

I wonder if this is what Mashima was trying to portray with the narrative direction.

If this is the case, then honestly it’s beautiful.

Rare, subtle and beautiful.

And it just shows how exemplary of a person Jellal truly is.

Despite everything about him that had to die—the protector inside him never did.

Building on the earlier discussion of how victimhood framing traps Jellal, this section asks: what if that was the story’s final answer? What if he was never meant to be accountable? And what does that make Jerza’s story become?

As discussed throughout, without agency, Jellal’s guilt loops without resolution. But if we accept this as intentional framing, we face a larger issue: the story keeps demanding atonement while refusing to define sin,

Playing devil’s advocate here, if we accept the idea that Jellal had no agency in his actions at all—that everything he did was purely the result of possession, manipulation, and external forces and nothing of his own accord—then the entire framework of his atonement collapses.

I can’t stress this point enough: 

You simply cannot SEEK redemption for a SIN that was NEVER yours.

You CANNOT be forgiven for something you NEVER consciously did.

And yet, the narrative keeps showing us different.

It keeps asking for Jellal to repent.

It keeps showing Erza forgiving.

But for what?

Without Accountability, Jerza Becomes Mutual Victimhood, Not Reconciliation

If Jellal is framed as a complete victim, Jerza stops being a story about forgiveness and healing. It instead becomes a story of two people hurt by the world, comforting each other through the shared tragedy.

That is not inherently a bad story.

But it’s not the story we were told.

The canon built its emotional beats on the idea of guilt, atonement and redemption. Yet it refuses to define the sin. If Jellal bears no blame, what exactly is being forgiven? What is being repaired?

This is the question that keeps spinning in my head.

The Emotional Tension Evaporates 

Without accountability, there’s no real conflict between them:

No reckoning of choices.

No risk of confrontation.

No evolution of their bond.

Their dynamic becomes a long pause—static, unresolved. Just like I expressed before, without something to atone for—Jellal’s guilt becomes a hollow loop. Without something to confront, Erza’s forgiveness becomes performative.

Why We Cared…Loses Meaning 

What draws people to Jerza isn’t just the tragedy—it’s the hope of reconciliation, of confronting past pain and growing from it.

But if Jellal is simply a passive sufferer, and Erza is simply a forgiving saint, what is there left to explore?

There’s no conflict.

There’s no growth.

Just an endless cycle of guilt and grace that never evolves.

The Emotional Climax Becomes Empty 

If Jellal did nothing wrong, why does it take so long to resolve their tension?

Why the hesitation?

Why the silence?

Why the shame?

You cannot build an emotional climax around a wound you refuse to define. The result is a relationship that feels haunted by a phantom pain — present, but never acknowledged.

Erza’s Role: Forgiveness Without Closure 

Erza’s care for Jellal is unquestionable. She is his anchor, his moral guide after everything became lost to him. But caring for someone doesn’t mean shielding them from emotional growth.

By never demanding Jellal to face his actions, Erza’s forgiveness becomes her only narrative function. She’s not allowed to express anger, to process her hurt, or to ask the hard questions.

This isn’t a flaw in Erza as a person — it’s a limitation placed on her by the narrative.

She’s positioned as the saviour 

But she’s denied the space to be a survivor 

Her pain is used to validate Jellals guilt, not heal her own wounds.

The result is emotional labor without catharsis.

Strength without agency.

The Narrative Risks Corrupting Her

If we go with the timeline of canon events between Jellal and Erza, we find out that Erza has been told multiple times by others pertaining to Jellal that ‘he was not in control’ of what happened in the TOH.

Azuma tells her during their fight. Ultear too. 

So by now she knows that Jellal is not at fault for what happened. Before the Nirvana arc, she didn’t and her anger was justified. But now the narrative has changed that, and you would assume that her view on Jellal would change too.

But instead the story keeps making her insist on Jellal’s atonement and repentance.

Why?

Why is she demanding repentance from a man who has been declared innocent? Why is she forgiving a person who was not in control of the harm done towards her? Why did it take so long to reconcile with him? Why didn’t her anger direct outwards to those actually at fault? Like Ultear? 

See, all of this brings up contradictions.

It makes no sense for Erza to be forgiving Jellal and or urging him to repent when she herself has been told his name is cleared of it. Why is it she is telling him to seek repentance instead of giving him the missing piece for his logic?

That he is a victim too.

The reason I say Erza should tell him is because he’s the one looking at her for direction, yet she knowingly is telling him to repent, enforcing the idea he did sin and continuing the perpetual loop, but she knows what has truly happened. Like Ultear can tell him, but Erza is the one who’s judgement clearly means the most and guides him and he takes her word like law.

And whether she means to or not, what Erza is doing to Jellal by withholding this narrative for him is inherently cruel. To let him believe a lie for convenience rather than explaining the way things really were.

But of course, I am not villainising Erza for this. In fact I can understand where the avoidance of this conversation could come from. Because maybe she doesn’t want to open up that trauma again. She wants to close it off cleanly because revisiting it could mean facing other things she might not be ready for. 

And rather than her forgiveness being for Jellal, maybe it could be a form of closure for herself?

In the sense that even if he wasn’t in control, since he is the most resonant and reappearing figure in all of this, she has a place to point blame. A sound board basically. And telling him she forgives him, maybe that's her way of making amends of the past.

But as human as this mechanism is, it’s not only damaging to Erza, but deeply damaging to Jellal.

As he will be living convinced of a lie that shapes his own identity and beliefs, all for the convenience and comfort of another. For the sake of not having the difficult conversations, Jellal’s self worth is trapped in an unjust self-loathing spiral.

And this is just painful for the both of them.

The Emotional Stagnation Hurts Both of Them

So to summarise, when Jellal’s accountability is avoided in the story, both characters are robbed of meaningful and necessary growth.

Jellal remains trapped in guilt that he’s never allowed to own or resolve.

Erza remains trapped in forgiveness that’s never allowed to fully mean anything and possibly exists only to put a balm over the surface of haunting wounds.

They are both stuck in emotional purgatory; circling the same unresolved tension because the narrative refuses to let them confront the truth.

Then this is not a story of healing.

It’s a story of suppression.

✦•

So… What Story Are We Telling?

If we truly believe Jellal is not accountable, then the canon needs to stop asking him to repent.

Because you cannot atone for what you didn’t do.

You can’t be redeemed if you were never condemned.

If Jellal was just a man of misfortune, then his arc should have focused on healing from victimhood:

With compassion, not punishment 

With clarity, not confusion.

Erza’s role would shift too:

No longer as the forgiver 

But the witness.

Someone who shares his pain, rather than carrying the emotional labor of absolution.

That would be a different story. A valid one.

But it’s not the story we were given.

Instead, canon keeps demanding atonement whilst denying sin. It keeps demanding forgiveness whilst denying harm. And for that, this contradiction sits at the heart of Jerza — unresolved and unspoken.

✦•

The Fork in the Road 

The truth is simple:

If Jellal is not accountable, then we need to stop pretending forgiveness is the answer 

If Erza’s pain is real, then we need to give it a place to land.

If Jerza is meant to be a story of love overcoming the past, then that past has to be named.

Otherwise we’re not watching a redemption arc.

We’re watching two characters orbiting around a love they could have, but aren’t allowed to earn it.

Part 8 explored a difficult but necessary question: What if Jellal was never meant to be accountable? Not as a flaw, but as an intentional framing choice.

However before I get onto truly closing this section, there’s something more I would like to highlight, something I've noticed in regards to Jellal’s character despite his reality.

✦✦✦✧✦✦✦

Unforgiven By Design: The Inverse Cost of Compassion 

I’ll admit this one of the more personally resonant points in my whole meta, and I hold my hands up to if anything I say goes out of line and you can call me out on it, but still—I feel this must be said.

As the story stands, there is a clear effort to say Jellal is a victim of what happened to him (even if it does change this depending on the plot), but us as an audience are meant to at least believe ‘Jellal is innocent.’ and that he is a good guy.

But the thing is, even though the story went all this way to avoid his name from being slandered, it happened anyway. Narratively people may accept the fact Jellal was a victim, but emotionally? That’s not the case.

And this is an occurrence both in-verse and in fandom.

Let me go into what I mean.

Jellal is considered technically ‘redeemed’— he turned himself in, gave up power, never made excuses for what he did or even expressed anger for how he was treated (despite being probably the most valid out of all the villains). Yet emotionally, in both canon and fandom, he’s treated as if his redemption doesn’t matter/or like it didn’t happen in the first place.

His guilt becomes a punchline. His remorse is dismissed as excessive. His pain is mocked rather than mourned.

And it doesn’t make sense. 

Someone who has had their entire life destroyed beyond measure and is bearing the consequences every time he is on screen, why is he being humiliated like this or treated so disrespectfully?

And let’s be clear here: this sort of behavior isn’t just critique, but humiliation masked as humour.

Calling him a loser?

Laughing at his breakdowns?

Celebrating his failures with joy rather than critical thought?

That’s not emotional engagement. That’s bullying.

The hypocrisy becomes obvious when compared to how other characters are treated. 

Gray for example, has trauma rooted in loss and self-destruction. His overuse of Iced Shell may be teased, but his pain is handled with empathy. His suicidal moments are mourned, not memed.

But for Jellal?

He is mocked for being suicidal and was canonically struck for it.

Laughed at for the intensity of his devotion to Erza.

Reduced to a shell of a man just to preserve Erza’s pedestal.

His trauma — which is just as severe, just as valid, just as rooted in abuse— is treated like a joke.

And for the life of me I can’t understand why.

We can cry and hurt for characters like Lucy, Erza, Natsu, Gray for their pain. Even other villains like Zeref, Ultear, Irene, August etc. But Jellal? He is barely extended the same sentiment. 

It doesn’t make sense.

This discrepancy exposes a deeper fandom psychology: selective empathy. It’s not about what the character went through—it’s about how their pain makes us feel. Gray’s grief is familiar and digestible. Jellal’s guilt is uncomfortable and unresolved. 

So instead of facing it, the fandom simplifies him, flattens him, and mocks him.

There are terms that gets thrown about in regard to Jellal and his intense guilt/self loathing. 

(I won’t name them because the point of this message isn’t to name and shame but to reflect) 

They get thrown around and whilst it may be a joke in nature, the use of it seems reductive to his repentance and disrespecting of it.

Especially when these terms are the thing mainly used to describe his intense relationship with guilt, rather than to understand it, but to lowkey pigeonhole it or even ridicule it in some cases.

The joke doesn’t even fit here for Jellal in my opinion.

What more do you want from a redemption arc if not guilt?? Isn’t the fact someone feels bad about what they did the defining point of redemptions in Fairy Tail?

Jellal gave up his freedom, something he was intensely attached to from young. He sought no praise for it. He held himself accountable even when the narrative refused to let him heal. 

If remorse is the requirement for empathy, he fulfilled it over and over.

So then why is he still the target?

Because vulnerability without protection becomes easy to exploit.

The story doesn’t protect Jellal emotionally— so neither does the fandom.

If people truly saw him as a victim, they wouldn’t celebrate his suffering. They wouldn’t mock him for the very guilt and brokenness that, if showing in another character, would be treated as sacred.

To understand where I'm coming from: let me flip the lens.

Imagine if people laughed at Erza’s past as a slave or for losing her eye? Or mocked Lucy for crying over her controlling father when he died? Or ridiculed Wendy for begging to be stronger enough?

Or just to make it less female leaning. What if people mocked Natsu for looking for Igneel for years upon years? Or Gray for his survivors' guilt?  

There wouldn’t just be backlash.

There would be full on outrage.

So then why is it acceptable for Jellal, a man who lost his life and had it broken irreparably?

The answer is uncomfortable: because his suffering makes people uneasy. 

His story lacks resolution, and instead of confronting that narrative failure, people displace the discomfort onto him. They mock him because it’s easier than reconciling with what he represents— a character failed by both writing and reception.

This is why drawing the line between critique and cruelty matters.

Saying “Jellal frustrates me, I wish he did more” is valid.

Saying “He’s pathetic, a coward, does nothing for the story or for others, he’s dead weight and deserves to suffer” is not.

That is not discourse anymore. 

That’s degradation.

And let’s not pretend that kind of ridicule reflects any care. If you mock a character’s most vulnerable moments and call it love, that isn’t respect—it’s convenience.

Doesn’t matter if it was a one off or if it was multiple times, the impulse itself inherently cruel in nature. 

And the more it happens, the clearer it becomes: this isn't about Jellal anymore. It's about our own discomfort, our own need for someone to carry the weight of unresolved emotion. 

And cruelty, when repeated, starts to reflect more on the one inflicting it than the character enduring it.

If anyone wants to act like I'm reaching or thinking too deep into it.

Let me ask you this: imagine you were the one being talked about the way that Jellal is?

That you’re pathetic. A coward. A good for nothing. Does nothing for anyone etc.

Is that still a joke?

Put yourself in those shoes and tell me if that is not inherently cruel and even abusive in nature. 

And before anyone says “he’s just a character”, then why are there people hating him so hard then?

Exactly.

Though i’ll be honest, I don’t know if this treatment exists because the story didn’t commit to what it had set out for him, or that hate and cruelty just needs a place to land and he is the most convenient for it. 

Jellal being treated the way he is despite the story’s attempts to absolve his name, makes me wonder if the story was clear with him would he have been saved the degradation and given some respect, or was he always just going to be the victim of petty words and venom because it’s easy?

I guess we’ll never know.

As of now Jellal Fernandes exists in a paradox. He is spared narratively, but condemned emotionally. The arc suggests forgiveness, but the execution denies him healing or mercy. He is ‘forgiven’ on paper, but never embraced as human—in-verse or largely in fandom.

When we laugh at his pain while mourning others’, we have to ask ourselves:

Is this really about the character? Or is it about our discomfort with characters who are messy, remorseful, and emotionally unresolved? Or is it just anger at what’s unresolved that needs a place to land? Or just plain cruelty?

I’m not saying I’ve never laughed at a character unfairly. But when I look at Jellal and the unrelenting degradation and humiliation he receives just for existing, I see someone who deserves better — not just from the story, but from all of us.

If we say we care about redemption, we must extend compassion to those who seek it.

If we say we care about characters, we must stop turning their suffering into spectacle.

Otherwise, what we’re protecting isn’t the story—it’s our own comfort at the expense of someone else’s pain.

✦•

All of this—the mockery, the flattening, the selective empathy—stems from a deeper failure: the story never gives Jellal the emotional framework to truly exist. 

He’s not allowed to grow, only to grieve. And Erza? She’s not allowed to struggle, only to forgive. Together, their pain becomes background noise for a love that’s never fully allowed to live. They are both caught in roles written for audience comfort, not character truth.

Which brings us back to the heart of this critique—not just about guilt or redemption, but about what happens when characters are reduced to symbols.

When love becomes metaphor, and healing becomes performance.

When characters like Jellal and Erza stop being people, and start being projections.

That’s where we go onto Part 9 of this critique.

We saw how stripping him of agency turns Jerza into a story of mutual victimhood, not reconciliation.

It robs their relationship of emotional tension, makes their conflict feel hollow, and denies both characters the closure their arcs were built to deliver.

Without accountability, forgiveness becomes performative.

Love becomes a bandage, not a bridge.

Their bond stagnates — suspended in symbolism, never allowed to grow.

This isn’t a critique of Jellal or Erza as characters.

It’s a critique of a narrative that refuses to let them live beyond their assigned roles.

Which brings us to the heart of the matter:

✦ ━━━━━━━━ ❖✶⌖✶❖ ━━━━━━━━ ✦

Part 9: Erza and Jellal Deserve Better Than Symbolism

“Jerza deserves to be more than an idea — they deserve the space to feel real, flawed, and fully alive.”

Earlier, we looked at what Jerza’s emotional arc could have been. But now we’ll explore why it wasn’t — why all the points dregged up in argument never were considered and for what reason.

Because the heart of the issue runs much deeper: Symbolism.

They were never treated as people. They became ideas — symbols of forgiveness and redemption — at the expense of their humanity.

In this next section, we’ll explore how symbolism — whilst powerful — flattened their humanity, and limited both characters rather than elevated them. 

We’ll also reinforce the core argument of how giving them back their agency would have made Jerza not weaker, but stronger.

✦•

In canon, Jerza has been elevated into symbols:

Jellal as the fallen man seeking atonement.

Erza as the unwavering forgiver.

Together, a symbol of hope, redemption and grace.

But in the process, their humanity was flattened.

If we go back to the root of it, Jerza was never about “light and darkness.” 

It was about two broken people—survivors of shared trauma—trying to navigate the aftermath of what was done to them and what they did to each other. Yet, the story chose aesthetics over depth, reducing them to roles rather than people.

But in doing so, they became a performance of love and healing, instead of being participants in it.

Forgiveness Without Accountability Hollowed Their Bond

True forgiveness is not a gift given because someone is pitiful or tragic.                                                

It’s a choice made in response to remorse, responsibility, and change.

In Jerza’s case, forgiveness should have been about Erza choosing to forgive Jellal because he took ownership of his actions—not because she is the “perfect” partner who exists to redeem him. Without that foundation, as stated before, her forgiveness becomes emotional labor, not emotional  resolution.

And this doesn’t just diminish their arcs individually.

It also robs the audience of the emotional payoff we’re led to expect.

Jellal’s atonement feels shallow.

Erza’s growth is overshadowed by her role as “the forgiver.”

Their relationship becomes static, suspended in symbolism, never earning the depth it could have reached.

Fandom & Narrative Pressures: The Feedback Loop of Idealisation 

As explored in previous sections, some of this dynamic is born from fandom itself.

Jellal’s status as a tragic figure—damaged but redeemable—makes it emotionally easier for fans to frame him as a pure victim. The cleaner the tragedy, the easier it is to love him without discomfort. But of course, that same impulse erases his complexity.

When a character is only allowed to be saved, never challenged, their arc stagnates.

The writers, whether consciously or not, respond to these pressures.

Instead of confronting Jellal’s responsibility, they double down on guilt-as-redemption.

Instead of giving Erza space to process her own pain, they keep her in the role of moral compass.

What could have been a raw, painful and beautiful story of mutual healing, becomes a cycle of emotional avoidance.

The desire to protect beloved characters from moral complexity ends up diminishing them.

The Opportunity They Deserve 

Jerza could have been a love story that embraced the messiness of trauma, responsibility, and growth.

The set up was all there.

Imagine:

Jellal, acknowledging not just that he was manipulated, but that he made choices within that manipulation.

Erza, confronting the pain of loving someone who hurt her, not as a weakness, but as her right to feel and express.

Both of them allowed to speak the unsaid, to break free from their symbolic roles and meet as equals—not savior and sinner, but as two wounded people choosing to rebuild.

That is the Jerza that could have been.

A relationship grounded in honesty, not performance.

A story where love doesn’t erase the past, but helps carry it with clarity and consent.

Breaking Free from Symbolism: A New Paradigm 

This isn’t about tearing down Jerza.

It’s about liberating it.

“They deserve to be more than symbols of redemption and forgiveness. They deserve to be people.”

They deserve to be people who:

Hurt. 

Heal. 

Make mistakes. 

Take responsibility.

Forgive with clarity.

Grow with intention.

Jerza was poised to be that kind of story. But it was never given the narrative space to happen.

And that’s the tragedy in all of it—not Jellal’s fall, not Erza’s suffering—but the refusal to let them live beyond the roles assigned to them.

Why This Critique Matters

This isn’t an attack on fans who love Jerza.

It’s a call to imagine more for them.

“No one needs to be perfect. But they do need to be honest. And that includes the narrative itself.”

Jerza can still be beautiful. But not as a frozen image of guilt and grace.

They deserve a story that allows them to breathe—to hurt each other, to face it, to heal—not because it’s easy, but because it’s what they need to truly set foot on the road to recovery.

In giving them accountability, we give them freedom.

Freedom to grow.

Freedom to choose each other fully, not out of penance or obligation, but with open eyes.

Freedom to love beyond guilt, beyond symbolism, into something human.

They were turned into ideals: symbols of forgiveness and redemption. But Jerza was never meant to be untouchable. They were meant to be human. To stumble, to clash, to grow.

By letting them be people—not ideas—we give them the story they always deserved.

✦ ━━━━━━━━ ❖✶✎✶❖ ━━━━━━━━ ✦

Part 10: Closing Thoughts & Call to Discussion 

“This isn’t a call to destroy Jerza — it’s a call to set it free. To let it be messy, real, and earned.”

As I have said before, this post isn’t meant to tear Jerza down. It’s meant to hold space for what it could have been — and what it still could be, if we’re willing to look beyond idealisation and into emotional honesty.

Love doesn’t have to be perfect to be powerful.                                           But it does have to be truthful.

Jerza deserves a chance at that reality.                                                           One where both Jellal and Erza are allowed to be flawed, hurt and human. Where they can grow — not just individually, but together — by facing the past, not erasing it.

TLDR;

Since there has been so much that has been covered in depth throughout the course of this post, I'll end it here with a brief recap of the main points and a short summary of the most vital takeaways from the post to reflect on.

Main Points of ‘Why Accountability is the Missing Piece between Jerza’ summarised:

Jellal’s “Redemption” Lacks Weight

His “sins” are never clearly defined.

He’s stuck in guilt loops without ever processing why he’s guilty.

Atonement without ownership = hollow narrative.

Victimhood Replaces Accountability

Framing Jellal as only a victim flattens his arc.

Redemption isn’t about being pitiful—it’s about owning your past and growing from it.

Erza’s Emotional Agency is Undermined

She forgives, but never gets space to process her hurt.

Her strength becomes silent endurance, not active healing.

Without Jellal’s accountability, her forgiveness feels performative.

Jerza’s Dynamic Stagnates Without Truth

Their relationship becomes symbolic: guilt & grace on loop.

No real conversations. No reckoning. No mutual healing.

Love can’t fix what’s never confronted.

Accountability Would Strengthen Jerza, Not Destroy It

Owning his actions would give Jellal agency.

It would let Erza express her pain fully.

Their bond could evolve from shared trauma to genuine, earned connection.

Fandom & Narrative Both Avoid Complexity

Simplifying Jerza protects the fantasy but weakens the story.

Accountability isn’t punishment—it’s depth.

They don’t need to be “perfect.” They need to be human.

And now going on to what I hope are the vital takeaways::

1. Letting Them Be People, Not Symbols

At its heart, Jerza was never just about aesthetics.

It was about survival. Pain. Regret.

Two people shaped by shared trauma, trying to figure out what remains between them.

But the narrative elevated them into untouchable symbols:

Jellal, the tragic man to be forgiven.

Erza, the saintly woman whose love redeems.

In doing so, it stripped away their emotional truth.

To truly honour their bond, they need to be allowed to step down from the pedestal.

To sin. To break. To rebuild.

To choose each other with clear eyes, not as ideas, but as people.

2. Accountability Doesn’t Weaken Jerza — It Sets It Free

Accountability isn’t punishment.

It’s clarity.

Letting Jellal be accountable wouldn’t erase his humanity — it would restore it. 

It would give Erza’s forgiveness weight.

It would give their relationship depth.

Let him sin, then grow.

Let her break, then heal.

Let them speak the unsaid.

Let them step out of this emotional purgatory.

A love story where both can stand, not because their pain was ignored, but because it was faced — that would be the most powerful version of Jerza we’ve never seen.

3. This Isn’t About Blame — It’s About Potential

This isn’t a judgment of the fans who love Jerza.

It’s a critique of how the story chose to simplify what could have been so much richer.

Jellal isn’t less lovable because he’s flawed.

Erza isn’t weaker for expressing her pain.

Their love isn’t diminished by complexity.

In fact, it’s through that complexity that their relationship could truly resonate.

Jerza’s potential was always there.

The tragedy isn’t that they were broken.

It’s that the story never lets them heal properly.

4. Invitation to Reflect & Discuss

This isn’t the “final word” by any means.

It’s an invitation. 

To extend the conversation.

How do you think Jellal’s accountability could have shaped Jerza’s journey 

What would Erza’s arc have looked like if she’d been given space to confront her pain?

How could their reconciliation have been made more meaningful, and more human?

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Let’s talk about what this ship could be — not to discard it, but to imagine it free from the limits that held it back.

Final Thought

The arguments made throughout the post were extensive and I apologise at points if I repeated myself at times when expanding on things or it just seemed like I was harping on. But I hope by the end of it some of the points do open new conversations and new perspectives on Jellal, Erza and Jerza as a whole and we begin to see things beyond binary lenses.

So thank you to each and every person who has taken the time to read all this, before I close off I will say my last pieces to really hone in the heart of this post.

Accountability isn’t about punishment—it’s about reclamation. 

For Jellal, it means reclaiming agency over his story, no longer defined solely by victimhood.

For Erza, it means reclaiming her right to confront, to feel, to heal on her own terms.

Only through this shared act of ownership, can their bond move beyond symbolism into something fully human.

That’s why I say: 

“Let Jellal be accountable. Not because he’s evil. Not to punish him. But because it’s the only way for them both to finally say the unsaid. To break the silence. To step out of this emotional purgatory.”

“They deserve a love built on truth — not silence.”

And so do we, as those who love them.

⟡ Thank you for taking your time to read this ⟡

-Yami ᢉ𐭩

✦ ━━━━━━━━ ✦⌬⧨✧⌖✎✦ ━━━━━━━━ ✦

✦ End of Series Return to Masterpost ←

or

So far we have explored the repercussions that affect both Jellal and Erza all due to the fact the narrative refuses to assign clear accountability for what happened. And now we will be discussing the very issues that prop up from the role that the narrative gave Jellal in trying to ‘bypass’ the need for accountability for his arc.

To begin with understanding why Jellal’s arc feels so fragmented in the first place, we need to examine the role of victimhood — how it’s framed, how it’s weaponised, and how it ultimately limits his character.

Let me first be clear with something.

It’s not inherently wrong to portray Jellal as a victim. He was manipulated. He was used. Infact I wish that story would give importance to this more than his guilt. But that being said, though the problem isn’t with him being portrayed as a victim, it becomes one when victimhood becomes the final answer. 

Rather than the starting point for deeper exploration of his agency and choices, the story positions victimhood as if it’s the final destination of his journey.

This is deeply damaging to his character and psyche.

The narrative’s reluctance to move beyond “he was a victim” traps Jellal in a static role — one where his actions are excused, his guilt loops endlessly, and his growth is stalled. More importantly, it strips him of complexity. He becomes less of  a man grappling with what he’s done, and more of a passive figure overshadowed by his circumstances.

This isn’t about denying his suffering. It’s about acknowledging that victimhood and accountability can — and must — coexist for meaningful redemption.

In this section we’ll explore how the story’s framing of Jellal as a perpetual victim not only undermines his own arc, but weakens the themes of redemption, agency and healing that Jerza was meant to represent.

Victimhood Undermines Emotional Tension 

In the current narrative, Jellal is positioned in limbo: villain by action, victim by narrative. This unresolved paradox erases friction, making his redemption less about growth and more about passive suffering.

But like we have already gone over in Part 1 — redemption is not passive. 

It is a conscious, and present choice.

When Jellal’s actions are framed as entirely beyond his control, the heart of his redemption arc is hollowed out. Because of this there is no real conflict. No internal fight. No space for growth either.

One character — Erza — is left narrating the pain, while the other — Jellal — quietly accepts guilt he’s never required to truly own. His remorse becomes externalised, disconnected from his personal evolution. 

The guilt is there—overwhelmingly so.

But the growth is stagnant.

For Erza, this framing creates an emotional purgatory.

She is never given the opportunity to confront the full weight of his betrayal.

The story avoids the hard conversations  — the ones about trust, hurt, accountability — replacing them with symbolic scenes and motifs, that whilst beautiful and moving in the moment — robs their dynamic of true emotional tension.

I want to clarify that I’m not saying Jerza’s symbolic scenes and motifs are meaningless, no. They are held in the heart of many and are absolutely complimentary and beautiful to the ship. 

However, they shouldn’t be the only things their relationship is defined by.

Jerza needs the hard conversations too.

Without these necessary confrontations, neither of them are allowed to evolve.

The relationship then just circles the same unresolved wounds, never moving forward, because the narrative itself refuses to face them.

Some might argue that conflict and tension aren’t necessary or are flaws in relational dynamics. But without conflict, how are we meant to know our heart is still in it? When push comes to shove, who is still holding on?

Conflict and tension aren’t flaws to avoid—they’re the engines of character growth both in reality, and in narration. But by erasing Jellal’s agency, the story sacrifices meaningful tension for safety.

But this tension is precisely what Jerza needed: a space where pain, choice and consequence collide to create growth. 

Without it, their dynamic becomes ornamental, not alive.

Victimhood may have explained why Jellal fell.

But it should never have been used as a shield to prevent his rise.

Because redemption is not built on victimhood alone. 

But it’s built on what comes after.

Jellal’s arc had the potential to be a powerful story of reclaiming agency — of someone who was once manipulated, standing up and saying: “I made choices. I hurt people. And I will own that.”

That is where redemption finds its emotional power. Not in erasing his victimhood, but in showing how he rises from it.

By refusing to take him past that starting point, the story traps Jellal in a passive role. What is a significant part of understanding and humanising his character, now becomes a plot device—a permanent status as a shield against deeper accountability. Instead of a foundation of growth, it becomes a narrative ceiling that he is never allowed to break through.

And because of this his growth stalls, his psyche is fractured and his dynamic with Erza stalls too. What could have been a profound exploration of trauma, agency, and healing becomes a cycle of safe, surface-level redemption.

And this is just 1 of the reasons why the perpetual victim role hurts not just Jellal, but Jerza too. (I go more into how this hurts Jerza later on in this section and also in the next designated part to come.)

Just 1 of the reasons why conversation shouldn’t have ended with victimhood for him, it should have begun with it.

But let’s go deeper shall we?

Trapped in Perpetual Victimhood 

By denying Jellal meaningful accountability, the story locks him into a cycle of endless guilt without direction. His emotional arc revolves around what was done to him — not what he did to others. Not in the way it should give him clarity. 

This framing keeps him reactive, not proactive. He mourns his fall but never truly interrogates it.

A compelling redemption requires more than guilt. 

It requires internal reckoning.

Jellal needs to actively confront his past, understand the factors that led to his descent, and — most importantly — make the conscious choice to change. Without this core, this agency, his redemption falls hollow. His guilt loops, but there is no pivot. 

No transformation.

As long as the story clings to his victimhood, Jellal’s character remains stagnant.

And because of that, his relationship with Erza suffers alongside.

She becomes trapped in the repetitive dynamic — as said before: always the emotional savior, always the giver — while Jellal remains suspended in self-loathing, never truly meeting her as an equal.

So not only is he trapped in the perpetual self loathing spiral, but Jerza is also trapped in a perpetual emotional imbalance until this is resolved.

But it’s not just with him and her and what they have— it also becomes a problem with what he has with others too.

Namely Oración Seis.

The Oración Seis Example: Narrative Hypocrisy

I have already touched on this point in my previous post, and a bit here but now I’ll go deep into this narrative flaw.

One of the clearest contradictions in Jellal’s arc is his recruitment of the Oracion Seis. 

Which is wild because if the story insists on framing him as a mere pawn — a victim manipulated into villainy without true agency — then why does he believe he holds the right to guide other villains toward redemption?

Under the current lens, this feels hollow.

At worst, hypocritical.

A man who was “never at fault” preaching accountability to others who made their own choices?

It doesn’t add up.

And honestly, it does feel like a slap on the face by some holier than thou rhetoric.

But this is a common theme with Fairy Tail and general shounen, which is a whole other conversation I won’t start now.

But in regards to Jellal, the problem doesn’t lie with the intention. 

It lies with the narrative’s refusal to fully explore his agency.

Had his fall been portrayed with genuine ownership — had the story allowed him to consciously make terrible choices, even under the weight of trauma — his recruitment of Oracion Seis would shift from hypocrisy to poetic growth.

It wouldn’t be a man on a pedestal preaching down to others.

It would be a man walking the same path.

Guiding them through something he knows firsthand.

Being one who understands—intimately—how far someone can fall.

One who knows the brutal, humiliating climb of choosing to rise again.

I know I sound like a broken record harping on about accountability, but like LOOK at how much is broken in the narrative without it? 

Accountability is what would give his actions weight. Without it, his arc collapses under it’s own contradictions — trying to teach lessons he’s never been allowed to learn himself.

And that isn’t the end of what is narratively broken, it goes much much deeper than that. 

And the next point explains this  just on the basis of what his redemption is being defined by.

Redemption is NOT About Innocence or Victimhood

The idea that Jellal’s redemption is a representation of innocence and victimhood is a problematic stance in itself, because redemption isn’t about being innocent nor excused for bad actions—it’s about acknowledging flaws and changing. In Jellal’s case, if his redemption is only framed as a victim’s journey, it undermines the message of personal responsibility and growth that comes with redemption.

It’s about actively changing through self-awareness and acceptance of past actions—not just waiting for the love of others or time to heal the wounds of trauma.

The narrative of not just Jellal’s arc but Jerza as well could have been so much stronger if it showed Jellal actively and knowingly working on his redemption, instead of having it hinge on Erza’s forgiveness alone. His relationship with her is important, but his personal healing and growth needs to come first because this would then flourish in all the other areas of his life.

For that to happen, that means he would have had to truly own his mistakes to earn that forgiveness, rather than having it handed to him because he’s a victim or suffocating in guilt.

For all the plot and emotional inconsistencies created due to the resistance in allowing Jellal to truly own the narrative, I want to next go into why the current narrative choice not only hurts his character and his present, but also what is to come too.

Erasing Accountability Doesn’t Protect Him—It Sabotages His Future

When the story refuses to commit to Jellal’s responsibility—by framing him solely as a victim of manipulation without any real reckoning—it doesn’t just muddle the past, it actively undermines every arc that follows.

Why?

Because the weight of Jellal’s choices is what gives future moments their impact. His guilt, his restraint, his decisions not to act, his emotional repression, his leadership—these all only matter if he’s reckoning with things he truly did. If not then they all become gestures without substance.

Because if those sins aren’t his, then what is he healing from? What is he trying to prevent? What is he resisting?

What’s the actual cost of redemption, if the fall was never real in the first place?

Letting Jellal own his actions would make his growth earned. It would give him a foundation for him to rise from, instead of floating in vague guilt. Critical scenes—like his confrontation with the Magic Council, his dynamic with Crime Sorcière, his distance from Fairy Tail, even his hesitation around Erza—would hit harder if we knew the emotional stakes were grounded in real responsibility, and not just a performance in pain.

Without that foundation, these moments fall flat. He’s just sad. He’s just guilty. But we’re never actually sure why. Because the story is so secretive about what is going on in Jellal, that leads us as the audience having to fill in the gap with our own assumptions rather than the story defining a clear mental process. 

But a good character dynamic shouldn’t be solely built on interpretation from others, especially not when they had been defined clearly enough before. Interpretation should be a consideration, not the consolidation.

Because of this ambiguity in these moments, when characters spiral without clear reason, it becomes less powerful and more performative. In trying to “protect” Jellal from being the bad guy, the story actually robs him of the emotional richness that comes from choosing to change.

-

A lot of this section has been focusing on the repercussions of the narrative making Jellal only a victim—how this not only taints his character potential, but possibly everything surrounding him.

Before we go onto the next part I briefly mentioned, I want to quickly go into the damage done when Jerza itself is reinforcing the cycle.

“A Beautiful Prison” : How Jerza is Reinforcing The Cycle 

Because Jellal is written as someone who committed horrific acts under manipulation and not full agency, he exists in a limbo space. Like I said before: treated like a villain, but narratively framed as a victim. And instead of that contradiction being explored in a meaningful way, it’s smoothed over with romantic language—like forgiveness, redemption and love.

But here’s the problem (and personally it’s one of the biggest confusions and inconsistencies for the narrative and Jerza as a whole) : You cannot seek forgiveness for sins you were not responsible for. 

Trying to do so creates an emotional black hole, which we see is the case with Jellal—he keeps vying for closure that doesn’t exist, because the premise is flawed.

He is incessantly chasing punishment, guilt and self-loathing not only for something he doesn’t understand, but for something he never consciously chose.

That is not healing.

That is torment.

And Erza—whether she means to or not—reinforces it.

“You’re atoning and I forgive you.”

That’s what she tells him. And that’s exactly what locks him in. She never once tells him he didn’t need to be forgiven in the first place. Of course at first she didn’t know he was being controlled, but what about after? It’s never “you weren’t at fault.” or even “you were a victim too”, but instead validating his guilt.

And in doing so she confirms his internal narrative of sin whilst calling it love.

This is going to sound harsh but her doing this is not compassion—it is emotional purgatory. 

And objectively it is inadvertently cruel.

Given the current narrative, what Jellal needed wasn’t forgiveness—it was clarity. A chance to understand his trauma. To say “I was manipulated, and I’m not evil—but I still carry the weight of what happened.”

He needed healing, not punishment. But the story gave him neither. Instead it gave him someone he loves, offering him grace for a crime he didn’t fully commit.

And not just Erza but all spheres of his life reiterate the same rhetoric, ‘to be grateful for the grace he’s receiving’, but never to actually question if that is what he actually needs or not.

That’s why the narrative feels so painful for some of us. Because Jellal isn’t healing—he’s stuck in a loop. And Erza, instead of breaking it, unintentionally cements it by never challenging the terms of his guilt.

It makes their dynamic feel less like mutual growth, and more like a beautiful prison.

But of course even this choice isn’t lossless because look at how the narrative affects them in ripples.

Jellal is stuck between never ceasing, never defined guilt, punishment and penance. Whilst Erza's emotions: her heartbreak, hesitation, healing, all become stifled and her forgiveness loses weight because Jellal is ‘not’ responsible for what she’s forgiving him for.

The whole dynamic becomes foggy and everyone loses out.

✦•

Ending Part 3, we have explored what the cost of avoiding accountability entails—not just for Jellal but also everything around him. Everytime his agency has been erased, the story has sacrificed tension for safety, but in doing so has created multiple emotional/plot and characteral holes with everything related to Jellal.

Of course there is another side of the argument, that what if victimhood framing wasn’t a narrative oversight, but an intentional choice, which I will be going into in Part 8:’ What If Jellal’s wasn’t accountable’, where I will be exploring the consequences of that choice and what the story becomes if this was all the original plan.

But for now, since we have explored how the narrative mishandled Jellal victimhood and we delved into Jerza last, we move forward to examine how this directly impacts Jerza as a relationship.

In Part 4, we’ll be looking at different angles: the emotional, thematic and relational consequences of this avoidance—and how Jerza's potential as a story of mutual healing is compromised when accountability is left off the table.

✦ ━━━━━━━━ ❖ ⨂ ❖ ━━━━━━━━ ✦

Part 4: The Lack Of Accountability Hurts Jerza More Than Helping It 

“You can’t build love on silence. And Jerza, as it stands, is two people haunted by things they never said.”

“Jerza’s love isn’t the problem. The story’s refusal to let them confront it is.”

Jerza is a relationship built on shared wounds. Trauma, love and regret form the foundation of their bond. But for a relationship carrying that much emotional weight, it demands an equal measure of emotional honesty to truly resonate.

Without accountability, that honesty never comes.

When Jellal’s actions are left unaddressed, and Erza is denied the space to process her pain, their dynamic becomes imbalanced. What could have been a story of mutual healing and growth becomes stuck— a relationship where one side carries the emotional labour, while the other remains trapped in guilt.

I would like to clarify though: this isn’t a question of whether Jerza’s love is real or not.

But it’s a question of whether the narrative allows that love to be fully realised — with clarity, agency and growth on both sides.

In this section, we’ll explore the different ways this avoidance hurts their dynamic: from emotional stagnation, to the illusion of resolution, to why their “romantic payoff” feels more symbolic than earned.

Because even the strongest and most timeless bonds need space to heal.

And without that space, love struggles to evolve.

A Relationship Built on Silence, Not Growth

One of the biggest narrative flaws in Jerza is how it rarely engages in real vulnerability. Meaning, their emotional connection often feels more symbolic rather than lived — a bond rooted in memory, in what they were, rather than what they are.

Instead of growing together, they orbit around unresolved pain.

Like we’ve established before — Erza forgives, Jellal feels guilty.

But neither of them truly confronts the heart of what happened.

It has been said in the previous parts, but I'll reiterate again given the build up for this section.

When Jellal isn’t allowed to take responsibility for the harm he caused, it leaves Erza in a suspended emotional state — always forgiving, never processing. 

This tension remains beneath the surface, untouched, leaving their dynamic and growth stagnant.

Ironically, many fans fear that holding Jellal accountable would somehow make Jerza “toxic”,  but the truth could not be more contrary. It’s the lack of accountability that is creating the imbalance, not the recognition of it.

Refusing to address the emotional wounds between them does not protect their relationship — rather it keeps it from evolving, and buries down the reality until it mutates into something away from the truth: ignorance and delusion that will only hurt both of them in the end.

Growth is the only thing that would stop this inevitability.

But growth is not born from silence.

It’s born from understanding and communication.

It is born from truth.

Something that is being kept from Jerza in favour of them looking whole rather than feeling whole.

Forgiveness ≠ Healing  / The Illusion of Resolution

Another fundamental issue in Jerza’s dynamic is the way forgiveness is mistaken for healing. 

Erza can — and does — forgive Jellal. But here’s the thing, forgiveness, on it’s own, is not a substitute for growth.

If Jellal never fully understands the weight of what he did, her forgiveness becomes hollow. It floats above unresolved hurt, disconnected from genuine resolution.

Also in regards to forgiveness, it only resonates when there’s a definite harm to forgive. Which in Jellal/Jerza’s case, this is not defined for them. And because of this missing explanation, Jerza becomes a relationship of emotional fog — gestures of love floating above wounds left unnamed and untold. 

Without accountability, they’re not reconciling, instead they are pretending the fracture was never real.

And doing this holds them both back in ways I cannot emphasise enough.

If Jerza is meant to represent healing, healing requires self-awareness.

It demands that both parties confront the harm clearly, understand it and choose to grow beyond it.

But this conversation hasn’t even been a choice for Jerza. Not really. So how can we expect healing and growth to truly happen?

Without Jellal’s accountability, neither he nor Erza move forward.

Erza is left endlessly offering grace.

And Jellal remains trapped in guilt that he doesn’t know how to resolve.

Gestures of forgiveness may soothe the surface and smooth the narrative outwardly.

But without accountability, it never reaches the root. 

Also one more thing I want to mention about the problem of forgiveness being used to bypass the emotional weight for Jerza’s history. By making Erza the automatic forgiver without her ever confronting her own hurt, she is reduced to a shortcut —an escapism — a convenient device to ‘resolve’ Jellal’s arc without the narrative engaging in the emotional work required.

Because it’s Erza, kind and beloved, we think this is a testament of her strength and character. But when you begin to tally up on how much Erza suffers for this and what she loses out on in her own emotional arc, it reads less as grace and more as a narrative bypass that undermines her emotional reality.

And for Erza, someone who has gone through so much pain already, she deserved this closure at least.

But it’s not being given to her in favour of keeping the story and their love neat and having it from explaining it’s complexity, rather than giving her own emotions clarity.

The “Romantic” Resolution Feels Forced 

Now I am going to be a bit heavy with my words and directness here, but it’s because I want to give clarity to the perspective.

All these narrative choices that have been made, in some way, were done with the belief Jerza would benefit from it. That they would look cleaner, that Erza or Jellal would be saved from the scrutiny of loving each other despite their complex and tangled pasts. 

Yet despite all this being done, something feels incomplete.

Forced.

As of now where the story stands, Jellal tells Erza in 100YQ he can love people freely now (i.e her)

— as if this statement alone completes his redemption. As if this was the arriving point.

But how did he get there?

The narrative takes him from suicidal despair and intense self-flagellation to offering affection, without showing the reckoning, growth or honest conversations that should bridge that gap. His inner journey is skipped, left to be almost entirely interpreted whilst Erza’s emotional needs are sidelined.

The story ‘tries’ to define what Jellal is sorry for based off our own understanding of him and his arc/descent but never give a clear answer of it. And to add to that, Jellal never defined what he is sorry for either. 

We are told he is grieving for killing Simon, but then the story says he was never in control.

Jellal says he remembers everything he did, yet the story is telling us it wasn’t him.

He acts like he was the sole perpetrator or had a conscious part in his villainy, but the story agrees or denies that whenever convenient.

It’s always changing, it’s never clear.

And because of this, not just him but Erza also never gets the space to express her own feelings.

Her own needs.

The tension between them is being said to be resolved by a hug and a promise — but no clarity. 

No actual resolution of all the emotional weight and battles they both have been carrying for years.

This isn’t catharsis.

It’s a shortcut.

The moment was designed to feel like healing, but instead feels hollowed out by the absence of emotional work. The story leans on their history and audience anticipation to create the illusion of closure, without actually earning it.

That’s something I want to make clear:

The problem here isn't that Jerza is finding peace.

It’s that the narrative is skipping the very process that would make the peace believable.

They deserve peace. Completely and truthfully.

But that is why the current narrative is being such a disservice to them.

Instead of giving them something concrete and real, it builds their bond up on illusion. 

Inference.

Their bond isn’t really theirs anymore but what others and the world around them dictate it to be.

And because of this, both Jellal and Erza’s emotional journeys are overlooked.

Beyond Jellal’s guilt, nothing is meaningfully explored.

The impact of his actions? Erza’s internal conflict? Their shared trauma?

All left untouched.

And when that emotional groundwork is missing, their “romantic resolution” feels less like a culmination — and more like a box being ticked.

We’ll be revisiting the larger trope of ‘Love as a Cure-All’ later in Part 7: The Dangers of “Love Fixes Everything”. 

But for now, this is all about how it’s hurting Jerza.

Love Without Agency Is Not Love at All…

This is when my words will get a bit cutting again, and I apologise for the discomfort that may follow because of them.

Most (if not all) the narrative direction has been done in the name of love. But, because of how the narrative has straddled the truth, emotional growth and understanding between them, it risks mutating the very base into something else.

A debt.

Why? 

When accountability is removed from the equation, Jellal’s love for Erza — as true as it has been — risks becoming little more than apology. 

And Erza’s love, in turn, becomes a mission to save him — rather than a shared emotional journey.

What started as genuine affection and selflessly, turns into an expected condition (i.e. debt) when guilt and emotional responsibility is the driving force and not truth and clarity. Love becomes a labor, not that it stops being true, but the surrounding reality overtakes and begins to define it over what it was born from.

But the thing with Jerza, love rooted in guilt and obligation was not what made them resonate.

Their bond has always had the potential to be about choice — two people choosing to face their pain and choosing to heal together.

Letting Jellal take ownership of his actions would not just give back his agency, but Erza’s too.

They would no longer be clinging to each other out of shared tragedy.

They would be choosing each other — fully, consciously, with the weight of their past acknowledged and addressed.

Because let’s be real—

If Jellal did nothing wrong, what is Erza even forgiving?

If there is no real fracture, then there’s nothing to rebuild from.

And that makes their entire history —their entire journey — feel hollow.

To love truly and truthfully, it requires agency.

Not convenience, not erasure.

Spotlighting Erza’s Pain Doesn’t Fix It 

We’ve spoken about the flaws highlighted in Jerza’s dynamic and both Jellal and Erza’s respective emotional arcs caused by the lack of clarity between them. And of course the question comes up, how would this all be fixed?

There was an argument I came across, that the way to fix this would be to spotlight Erza’s pain more: to give her more screen time, more emotional breakdowns, more space to grieve openly and dramatic moments to somehow “balance” the dynamic. More of her perspective  — as if this alone somehow would make Jellal’s redemption, and Jerza as a whole, feel more complete.

But pain alone does not equal depth.

I agree that Erza’s emotional journey is incomplete and sidelined, but injecting her pain into the narrative does not fix anything nor the core problem.

I will explain why.

I went over this point a bit at the end of Part 2, but here I'll really get into it.

If Jellal still lacks a defined sin, if he is never allowed to take true ownership or gain clarity over his actions, then spotlighting Erza’s suffering does nothing to address the root issue.

Her pain then becomes martyrdom, not growth.

A spectacle rather than a step towards healing.

Because what exactly is Jellal meant to respond to?

If he doesn’t understand what he’s apologising for, how can he meet Erza’s pain with anything other than vague guilt?

There’s no reckoning. No resolution. Just two characters circling the same wound  — one expressing it, the other drowning in undefined remorse.

His redemption stays symbolic.

Her hurt stays unresolved.

And here’s the uncomfortable truth:

What are more dramatic scenes going to accomplish if the one who hurt her isn’t even being allowed to understand he played a part in it? How can Erza’s pain have a place in his doing if the narrative itself exempts his name from it?

All it does is push him further into a guilt spiral  — without direction, without agency.

Her emotions are put on display, glorified in their pain, whilst his remain a narrative mystery.

This isn’t creating balance.

It’s just avoidance, repackaged as emotional weight.

This is why I say this:

They don’t need theatre.

They need clarity.

They need a conversation.

Anything else would just add to the noise already existing between them.

✦✦✦ ⨂ ✦✦✦

As we reach the end of this section, the message I am trying to hone in on is that Jerza’s emotional imbalance isn’t really romantic — it’s unresolved.

Without accountability between them, their love becomes a cycle of guilt and silence, not a foundation for healing or growth. And the result is a relationship that looks meaningful on the surface, but lacks the emotional groundwork to sustain it.

True love requires honesty.

Without it, Jellal can’t grow.

Erza can’t heal.

And their bond remains a fragile illusion of what it could have been.

They do not need forgiveness without truth.

They need accountability, agency and a chance to speak.

Having now explored the rooted damage that the lack of accountability causes, we will be shifting focus — to what could have been. Part 5 will be detailing the ‘Missed Opportunity’ the narrative passed over: how Jerza’s dynamic, Jellal’s redemption and Erza’s healing could have grown organically through the simple, necessary act and inclusion of accountability.

Though before we move on, it’s worth addressing a potential counterpoint:  

If the story is so broken by the lack of accountability, wouldn’t it make more sense to rewrite it entirely — to make it cleaner, less problematic, or less messy?

And in some ways, that’s exactly what the story does — both in-universe and in how it’s often received.

For example:

Rewriting Jellal’s past to make him less culpable (e.g., “he wasn’t in control,” “he didn’t choose any of it,” etc.)  

Softening or omitting the darker parts of their history, so the relationship becomes easier to romanticize 

Avoiding accountability altogether by reframing the narrative to skip over emotional consequences  

We see these approaches especially in the story after the Tower of Heaven arc — and, frankly, in fandom discourse as well.  

This is where I believe the shift begins to fracture the narrative’s logic — introducing emotional disruption, character dilution, and thematic undermining. The cracks begin to show, not just in plot but in emotional continuity, leading to the extreme polarity we now see around the ship and its characters.

These narrative shortcuts that are bulletpointed above may have made the story more palatable, but in doing so,  they strip away the very foundation that gave Jerza its emotional weight in the first place.

And that’s what brings us to the next subsection.

Jerza Requires A Continuity, Not A Reset 

“Jerza’s emotional journey doesn’t need to be rewritten. It needs to be continued—with honesty, not amnesia.”

“They are not broken, they are miswritten.”

Emotional continuity matters 

Changing the story might avoid the current problem, but then it loses the essence of what Jerza was built on and what Jellal and Erza have carried. 

Another bypass in a way. 

But in the case that Jellal is given clear accountability, then everything Erza feels and has felt — her anger, betrayal, protectiveness, hesitation, trauma— makes sense. Those emotions have a direct cause. Their relationship has a real rupture that can be repaired and explored, not replaced by a vague “reset” where everyone is relearning who they are.

This is not bias.

This is narrative integrity.

Starting from zero is narratively weaker 

When a story tries to force healing by ‘wiping the slate clean’ (i.e in Jellal’s case “he wasn’t in control, it wasn’t his fault”), it erases the emotional stakes that were already in place. It also creates a weird dissonance here—Erza remembers everything, feels everything, and yet the story tries to absolve Jellal completely, which undercuts the emotional payoff.

If he is accountable, then their emotional journey continues organically from where it left off. You’re not saying “start over.” You’re saying: let them move forward from what actually happened, not from a rewritten version of it.

It allows trust to be rebuilt through earned steps 

Not through “forgive and forget,” but through confrontation, growth, and emotional honesty. That is what makes reconciliation meaningful. That is how maturity is shown within relationships and how it should be portrayed.

Sentiments like “forgive and forget” only resonate when closure has truly been reached internally and understandably, otherwise it impacts like avoidance.

It might sound like a biased take on everything I've been saying, but really this whole post is a call for stronger writing, stronger character work. And a more emotionally satisfying arc.

All things that accountability solves.

✦•

Rather than rewriting the story from the ground up to smooth out these kinks or trying to sanitise or reset them, adding this truth allows their past to be heard, their future to continue and their emotions to remain valid. The eventual connection would be built on earned understanding not forced absolution.

Letting them work through their past— no matter how messy, twisted and hurtful it was — will not weaken their bond. 

But avoiding it will make that inevitable.

It’s the hard conversations that will truly heal both of them, and give them the closure they deserve despite how bitter they can be. Sweet words and gestures can only absorb within when the core is healed, otherwise they just float on the surface, accepted in the moment, rejected in mind. 

With all that being said, now we go into Part 5.  

The missed opportunity.

✦ Continue on to Part III: (End of Section I) → The Lost Arc – What Could Have Been