Rethinking the "validity" of TWST’s overblots
Introduction
Why are some overblots considered “less valid” by the fandom, and what assumptions are behind those judgments? Since the early chapters of TWST, fans have debated whether certain overblots were “valid.” In fact, according to this X post, there was a poll on the most and least valid overblots. While characters like Riddle or Jamil often receive widespread sympathy, Leona and Vil are frequently criticized for having “unreasonable” motivations. But what does it actually mean for an overblot to be “valid?”
I don't think this is because some characters suffered more. Instead, I think the background behind some overblots are clearly explained, while others ask the player to interpret motivations that aren't stated as explicitly. Not every overblot is equally easy to understand, but that doesn't make some more or less valid.
When a story explains a character's emotional logic explicitly, most players arrive at a similar interpretation. When that emotional logic is implied rather than explained, players are more likely to fill in the gaps with their own assumptions.
In this blog, I’ve divided the overblots into two categories:
Explicit emotional narratives: The game clearly explains the connection between upbringing, worldview, and overblot (Riddle, Jamil, Malleus).
Implicit emotional narratives: The game gives you pieces—dialogue, symbolism, recurring behaviors—but expects the player to connect them (Leona, Vil, Azul).
This isn't a ranking of complexity or writing quality. Every overblot contains multiple layers, but some communicate their central conflict more explicitly than others. (Idia sits in the middle ground)
What fans usually mean by “valid”
Before I delve into the overblots, I’d like to explore what fans often mean by how they are “valid.”
Trauma tends to receive more sympathy than jealousy. Structural discrimination gets more sympathy than personal insecurity. Long-term suffering feels “earned.” A single incident feels “petty.”
Based on the discourse, I think the overblots that wear their emotions on their sleeves are considered as more “valid.” The ones often considered as “invalid” reveal themselves piece by piece.
Explicit emotional narratives
The overblots below contain stories that are easier to grasp.
🌹Riddle
The trigger of the overblot was the Heartslabyul students' repeated rule-breaking. Each time Riddle collared the students, his stress and blot accumulated.
The underlying issue is his mother’s strict upbringing and his belief that rules create order. In Riddle’s flashback, it was explicitly shown that his mother connected rules with safety.
Nearly every player understands Riddle's breaking point even on a first playthrough.
🐍Jamil
The trigger of the overblot was years of serving Kalim. Jamil explicitly states his stress from his servitude before his overblot.
The underlying issue is the lack of freedom and suppressed resentment due to his servitude. This was clearly shown in his flashbacks with how he had to suppress his abilities to never overshadow Kalim and the surrounding adults saying he’d “understand” why he has to do so.
Again, the game directly tells us this.
🐉Malleus
The trigger is losing Lilia, the person he loves. He explicitly says that he would give the endless dreams as his gift because he wouldn’t lose Lilia.
The underlying issue is his fear of abandonment and loneliness. His flashbacks show how he was feared by those around him and how that led to his loneliness since his youth.
Players don't have to infer much because the story repeatedly emphasizes isolation.
The middle ground
💀Idia
Idia sits somewhere between these categories.
His grief is obvious. His tone is sad when he talks about human Ortho.
But understanding why he blames himself requires thinking about survivor's guilt and how he's spent years avoiding the world. He never explicitly states the link between losing Ortho and how he spent a long time in isolation. It’s implied in how he created humanoid Ortho and his social anxiety.
Implicit emotional narratives
These are the overblots that encourage deeper reading in order to understand them.
🦁Leona
The surface reading is that he’s jealous because he’s the second prince.
But underneath that are questions about inherited identity, learned helplessness, expectations, and what happens when someone believes that no amount of effort can overcome the role society has assigned them. His resentment isn't born overnight—it's the accumulation of years spent believing his future was decided before he had any agency.
His dialogue right before his overblot (Book 2, Chapter 26) stood out to me.
The dialogue itself often signals that there's something deeper, but it doesn't necessarily spell out what that deeper issue is. The player has to ask what his disappointment and pain are, or what he implied when he said how anyone could possibly understand. That's why some people stop at “he's jealous,” while others read it as a crisis of identity and learned helplessness.
🐙Azul
The surface reading is that Azul is a bullied kid that wants power.
What can be interpreted deeper is his transactional worldview, fear of vulnerability, self-worth becoming dependent on competence and contracts, and belief that if he stops being useful, people won't value him. There's a lot beneath “bullied as a child.”
His overblot isn't framed around one emotionally revealing line. His characterization is spread across Book 3, like constantly referencing contracts, wanting to obtain everyone’s strength, and hiding his octopus form. Rather than confessing his insecurities outright, Azul consistently expresses them through contracts, negotiations, and the pursuit of power. The player has to infer that these behaviors stem from a fear of becoming powerless and vulnerable again.
👑Vil
The surface reading is that he was jealous of Neige.
On a deeper level, there's the entertainment industry, where Vil has spent years being cast as the villain despite his relentless effort. There's his perfectionism, which leads him to believe that any flaw is unacceptable. And there's the symbolic role of Neige, who represents effortless success; he represents the idea that natural charm can trump over years of disciplined work.
His dialogue about him unable to forgive himself after his attempt to poison Neige (Book 5, Chapter 62) is one of the biggest clues that Vil's overblot isn't just about jealousy.
If the issue were simply “I wanted to beat Neige,” that line wouldn't carry as much weight. Instead, it reveals a contradiction: Vil spent his entire life pursuing beauty, not just physical beauty, but elegance, dignity, discipline, professionalism. Then, in one moment, he becomes the very thing he despises. His breakdown isn't only that he lost. It's also the fact that he betrayed the ideals he’s lived by. That adds another emotional layer.
Why fandom sympathizes differently
People often sympathize with stories they understand immediately. Interpretive stories leave room for assumptions.
Fans may fill in those gaps differently. For example, maybe Leona is just lazy. Maybe Azul just likes manipulating people. And maybe Vil is just jealous. These aren't necessarily wrong observations. They're just incomplete because they stop at the catalyst of the overblots.
On the other hand, some fans may mistake difficulty of interpretation for weakness of writing. Readers naturally sympathize with stories they immediately understand. If a story requires more interpretation, some people stop at the surface-level explanation.
Conclusion
After revisiting each overblot, I don't think “validity” depends on how dramatic a character's suffering is. Instead, I think it often depends on how easily we can understand their emotional logic. Some overblots hand us that logic directly, while others ask us to uncover it ourselves.
Perhaps asking whether an overblot is “valid” isn't the most interesting question. A more interesting question might be why certain overblots feel immediately understandable while others divide the fandom. Is it because of the writing itself? Our own experiences? Or the way we interpret each character's motivations?
I didn’t read into the deeper levels of some of the overblots immediately. When I first read Vil's overblot, I understood it as jealousy toward Neige. It wasn't until I revisited the chapter that I started noticing how much of his breakdown stemmed from perfectionism, industry expectations, and the pressure he placed on himself.
Feel free to share your opinions about the overblots in the comments! Which overblot did you sympathize with immediately, and which one took longer to understand? Has your opinion on any overblot changed over time? If so, what changed it? The comments don’t have to answer these questions. Please share your thoughts!
i was going to put this in the tags but realized it’d be too unwieldy there oops
it’s interesting to me that ppl find Azul’s motivations hard to understand, but that’s prob just bc i do/did share many of the same insecurities so he made a lot of sense to me instantly lmao
it started with the bullying, but it’s not just about the bullying. the bullying prompted Azul to develop a series of unhealthy core beliefs about himself:
- who he “truly” is, is a “useless octotwerp” and this will never truly change no matter what he does, it’s just something inherently wrong with him
- therefore, he needs to compensate for this by developing a cooler facade that’s more palatable to others in order to be loved, accepted, praised, etc
- he doesn’t have what it takes to form that facade himself (see pt 1), so he has to steal from others
- if he ever loses this facade, people will see him as his “true” self and he will lose all the respect, friendship, etc he gained with said facade and will be bullied and unsafe again — he says part of this openly right before OB when he’s flipping out over losing his contracts, “i’ll just be an octotwerp again!” or something like that
by ch 3, he has spent /years/ stuck in this erroneous worldview and building his contracts
his OB progresses in two stages:
- when Leona destroys his contracts, i.e. destroying what Azul thinks makes himself valuable and attractive to others, Azul starts going on a rampage stealing people’s magic left and right
- then the twins return and express disdain/disgust at his behavior. Octatrio fandom largely reads this as Azul feeling rejected/abandoned by the twins, his closest friends, which is a secret fear he had all along, and this abandonment bc he apparently wasn’t good enough triggers his OB proper
tbh, i’m actually surprised he’s so calm after OB’ing after losing years of hard work and having the vulnerable sides of himself he’s tried so hard to hide being exposed to a bunch of his classmates lol
after his OB, it’s also revealed that Azul is blind to how he’s grown as a person over the years and how he has plenty of “cool” traits himself, without his contracts, so he doesn’t truly need his contracts to gain what he’s looking for anyway (i think this is pointed out somewhat by Yuu). additionally, he’s also blind to the possibility that people could well just like his “true” self all along (something Floyd alludes to a number of times but Azul seemingly ignores/brushes off).
anyway! i love Azul. he has problems. sorry for the essay
