Shirahama's choice that out of any of the characters of the Knights Moralis (and even of anyone else) to have their memory erased is a canonically gay character who is in a queer relationship, is very interesting one to me, considering how it is dealt with by the Knights Moralis. That is, we see that after Galga's memory is erased, the system would simply exile him from witch society; completely removing him from his past life rather than rehabilitating him to it (and instead, to an outside life). And more specifically, we see that Atwert, his partner, has no legal agency to care for or advocate for him, because as is directly pointed out, he's not 'family' to Galga:
Atwert and Galga end up using the loophole of master and apprentice to stop Galga from being removed from witch society... but the fact that Atwert is actively removed from the tent against his will where Galga is being healed, the fact that he has no agency to help Galga due to not being defined as 'family' (presumably blood relations, or a married couple) and most condemning, the fact that they are a queer couple, strongly is reminiscent to me of the AIDs crisis and how queer relationships have been, and still are depending on where you live, invalid legally. And in being invalid legally, you get situations in which sometimes their partners are unable to visit them in the hospital, in which blood family are given legal rights to make decisions over the care of those within hospitals when people couldn't advocate for themselves anymore, over the money and belongings of those who passed away, over funerary arrangements rather than their partners; family who often unfortunately did not recognize or accept the person's queerness nor their partner. And essentially the exact same thing is occurring here, with Atwert and Galga, with Atwert being unable to care for, or make decisions for Galga, due to the regulations considering their relationship invalid. At this point we don't know really anything much about marriage within WHA, and we don't know if same-sex marriage is legal; it seems like in the brief scenes we get that no one is disgusted by Galga and Atwert being partners, so it seems like homophobia (at large) may not be nessicarily a issue, but then that doesn't mean that same-sex marriage is legal. Even then, maybe it's only an issue because they aren't married... but then why not have a het couple? Why is the only canonically queer couple-and newly introduced or explored characters-within the manga, the couple that experiences this?
We know Shirahama within the manga is very deliberate in what she shows, in highlighting the issues within the system, and I think this is another instance. After all, making Galga a gay man with a partner and having erased his memory, she displays both the irony of a Knights Moralis having their own tools used against them, pointing out the flaws within the system they enforce by showing what it does to the person and people that care for them; while also pointing out other systemic injustices within WHA (and within our own society) of the limits on who is legally recognized as 'family' and to have power of attorney, which is emphasized by a queer relationship due to the ongoing and historical issues queers (including non-monogamous or qpr relationships) have experienced in this matter. All in all, I think this was a very deliberate choice Shirahama made, in that the only (so far) canonically queer couple was to experience these issues... and interestingly, a choice that shows she is knowledgeable on queer issues. As a result I'm curious on how much more we'll get regarding this topic, and queerness in general within WHA as a result... although I doubt this will be particularly picked up too much as there are many themes.
Also, in a bit of an aside, it also displays how entrenched, and how much power, master-apprenticeship's are given, to the point it is considered as legally valid as a 'familial' relationship... in fact master-apprenticeship's are constantly alluded to as replacing familial parent-child relationships power dynamics within the manga but thats a separate post...
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