♡ angel from above ♡

so it's come to my attention that Athy is much more of an unreliable narrator than she's lets on, it took me a few re-reads to notice, just because it's incredibly subtle and only applies to her younger days with Claude specifically

When Athy coughed up blood and was bedridden, she thinks that her dad is being heartless and forcing her back to sleep but that's not true because

its not that shes being noisy but before lucas pops up, this is all he knows to do to alleviate her pain. he doesn't want to her to be in pain and not because she was actually being noisy.

claude putting her to sleep was his way of caring for athy.

but athy doesn't know that, i guess she's in too much pain to listen to this conversation. but when we follow her perspective and her inner thoughts on things, we actually end up believing her narrative, and this builds up that claude is uncaring and cold

here's another early example;

again, we follow athy thoughts and she thinks that Claude thinks that he was referring that her being a fairy is nonsense

which makes claude seem cold and unloving again

which is suprise suprise actually untrue, if you look back a little earlier during the class the madam talks about something else,

he was actually referring to this, her putting athy down because of diana's commoner bloodline and athy not being a "pure-bred" aristocrat

you can see the panel where he thinks about it for a while, and Athy's little slip-up (because she doesn't like bringing diana up in front of claude due to her fear of abandonment) and she hesitates to actually say that the madam meant that she looks like her mom and not some fairy

claude knew, and he is shown to be well aware of the nature of nobles and how people think (which makes sense because it is canon that he is very intelligent).

he knew what was actually said to athy, and he's actually telling her to not care about the nonsense about what they say about her mom and implying she is not pure enough. he was trying to reassure her and made her feel better after she heard something terrible about herself and her mom

funnily enough, he doesn't deny that athy looks like a fairy when you realise what he was actually referring to

so, throughout most of her childhood claude actually showed love and affection in his own way, but it was never really acknowledged by athy, she has always misinterpreted it and missed the signs of it because she was scared that he was going to kill her eventually and didn't want to get attached

i think im going to write about how much claude is misunderstood in this fandom and break down his character tmr... anyways this is going to be where I write bl and my literature notebook :>

anyways claude is a really tragic and broken character and wmmap is literally about how athy and claude heal each other's trauma by bonding together as family which I don't think is talked about at all

Claude was 100% annoyed by the fact that Athy was being compared to a fairy, because there is another scene where Felix compares Athy to a fairy and Claude tells him to shut up. Throughout Athy's early childhood he has always silenced Felix and send him away when he pointed out Athy and Diana's similarities.

Felix *compares Athy to a fairy*. Claude: "You are talking a lot of nonsense today."

Athy *talks about how her teacher compared her to a fairy*. Claude:"Madame Pompideur is known for saying nonsense."

Is it really that surprising he could make an educated guess? Claude grew up in similar shoes as Athy

If you didn't know Claude's mother was a commoner as well (I think this might be something mentioned in the novel, but it is stated on the wmmap wiki, since the spoon follows the novel in the first season I personally believe it to be canon)

I don't think it was far-fetched that he knew what would be brought up because his own mother was also of commoner blood, because it wasn't kindly looked upon on.

He probably heard similar things when his mother was brought up in a conversation, about his commoner mother. Most likely worse than Athy heard, because he didn't have any social status when growing up.

I don't mean that he knew exactly what was said, but rather, he had a rough idea because he'd been in the same shoes before

"The possibility that Claude found her whimpers annoying."

Does this look like a man that would find his own child whimpering annoying?

Clearly, he was very distressed about her fainting. He wanted the best for her and to help her recover.

Claude is a character, not the audience. bro has no idea he was going to kill Athy originally, holding him against that hearing "go to sleep" as her last words before she slept seems like an overkill to me

(if we are going as far as to apply modern laws onto a webtoon about why Claude didn't ask for consent, you know he is her parent he can consent, right? because according to modern law Athy is not 18 at the time, therefore she cannot consent?)

and about the whole praise thing, Claude does personally praise Athy quite a few times. On top of my head at the debaunte and when she figures out how to use float magic. Just because he doesn't praise her verbally doesn't mean he doesn't support and show his love and care in different ways

I agree that parents shouldn't be criticizing when people praise their kid if it affects their self-esteem, but that ultimately boils down if affects the child.

i personally see that Claude was just bantering with Felix, and since Athy has never been truly discouraged or shown that she felt uncomfortable with it.

Like sure, Athy's inner monologue shows us that she thinks he's a jerk for saying that, but does it diminish her confidence or make her doubt herself in doing it again? Not really, she's always shown that she was pretty confident when it comes to her appearance. I've always just understood that as their dynamic

also yes, he does also watch her almost drown, but does save her. he was struggling about letting her die or live.

which is essentially his mistaken thoughts about diana choosing her over him, which is a big part of his trauma, and letting her live because he was finally able to separate his own trauma and athy and seeing athy for the child that she is

like i don't deny that it was a terrible thing to do, but he does grow and learns because he does remove those plants later, and saves athy twice in the exact same situation without thinking

Claude does redeem himself later in the story; he acknowledges his mistakes and failures and grows from them.

Claude isn't as simple as just an abusive and neglectful father who then turned into a caring but cold father later. He was literally wrestling his own trauma throughout the whole story in an unhealthy way.

I do think that its unfair if you base his character off his actions early chapters instead of wmmap as a whole.

i just find it difficult to criticize anyone for their actions when they're clearly mentally struggling, not to say they shouldn't be held accountable. but the things you do in a bad headspace don't define you as a whole person.