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terajkPart 2 of an ongoing series. Part 1 is here.
(Contains: discussion of obsessive-compulsive disorder, lots of pictures, and spoilers GALORE, including a huge one in chapter 70-something of the manga that doesn't appear in the anime at all but became essential to my argument, as I am me.)
While Asura is the most dangerous madness god in Soul Eater, he's not the only one. The Grim Reaper himself, protector of humans and undeniable force of good, is one of the Great Old Ones (no, really) "whose existence drives men to madness." As Asura is the Madness of Fear, Shinigami-sama is the Madness of Order, according to the Index of the Book of Eibon (no, really.) As such, he's one of "the absolute existences which maintain order."
The other is Shinigami-sama's teenage son...or however old a "teenage" god of death would be. Still, Junior personifies the Madness of Order a little differently than his father.
Internet, meet the OCD Goth Cowboy Jesus Future Overlord/for Great Justice:
Named for his father, Death the Kid is not your typical eldritch abomination. He keeps a rocket-powered skateboard in his body and goes to school with humans instead of watching them in secret. Friends call him "Kid"; he invites them to parties at his mansion and doesn't eat them. (Remember that party for Crona? Kid threw it. There he told Crona to "join our circle at your own pace," and also apologized for his loudmouth friends.) He also has an obsession with symmetry:
[My favorite thing about this picture is how Soul, Maka and their cat Blair are lined up at the bottom. They look like theyaren't as well-trained as the ladies in the cowboy hats want in on this posing action, but aren't sure if they're doing it right.]
A panic-filled, depression-laden obsession with symmetry:
The trigger for this crisis was someone referring to the three white lines in Kid's hair, which throw his own body's symmetry off. He eventually calms down enough to check in with his father, who tells him apropos of nothing that the white lines are cute. (Dammit, Dad!)
If everything is not perfectly symmetrical at all times, Kid panics, falls into depressions (literally; he spends a lot of time lying on the ground, as above) or spits up blood and passes out. His favorite number is 8, "because of its perfect symmetry." When someone refers to his "parent's seven lights"--which in this context means,"So you're the son of the supreme god in the universe. We're still kicking your ass"--Kid gets really upset because 7 is not symmetrical at all and begs the guy to say 8...while crying and on his hands and knees.
Unlike most meisters, Kid weilds two weapons: twin pistols. (As a shinigami he doesn't need to train them himself, but he'd like to create his weapons to his own specifications, thank you very muchDad.) Doing so requires three souls to be in harmony, is impressive as hell to pull off...and if he has only one of them he gets so anxious he can’t use it. When his friend Maka was injured; he organized all the medication bottles in her room symmetrically so she didn't have to worry about it. ("Only you would worry about that," she said.)
For Kid, panic, crying, begging in wiggly text, cognitive Blue Screens of Death and wanting to die are significant parts of being a madness god. But although Kid is his own mental illness in physical form, it's just a part of him. As such, his disability interacts with his superpowers without causing them. Kid's need to do everything symmetrically extends to asskicking, and his beatdowns are especially beautiful. But rather than being "a gift and a curse," his symmetry obsession just is. It blends into his superpowers now and then, since both are just parts of who he is, but doesn't lead to them in a simplistic way.
What superpowers, you ask? As a shinigami, Kid's body rejects all natural poisons (that's why he can't dye the white lines out of his hair--he's tried), and he can go places that are too dangerous for humans. His dad trusts him with missions he wouldn’t give to other meisters of Kid’s rank. He’s an excellent strategic fighter, and his friends respect him--even if some of them show it by breaking cones off the school building to "ask" him for a duel. (My favorite of his superpowers is Lying About Shinigami Biology So Nobody Asks About the Magical Doodad in Your Back Pocket.) Oh, and did I mention he shoots his pistols upside-down? With his pinkies?
Nevertheless, the series touches on things about disability-as-experience that run deeper than a simple superpower--what Harriet McBryde Johnson calls "those pleasures that are peculiarly our own, that are so bound up with our disabilities that we wouldn’t experience them, or wouldn’t experience them the same way, without our disabilities." Symmetry gives Kid a lot of joy. He considers it his art and often waxes poetic about the "true beauty" of symmetrical things. He even took time out to admire the way the sun and clouds were arranged in the sky once. (Okay, he was fighting Crona and let zir get away, but still.) This joy isn't useful to other people--the other characters don't even understand it--but it's special to Kid. It doesn't negate the anxieties and suicidal depressions, but it's also a significant part of being a madness god.
When things are sufficiently in order, Kid's the most level-headed of all his friends and prone to deadpan snarkery. When two of Kid's classmates decided to break up their bromance in the middle of their fight with him, amidst all the hugging and crying Kid asked, "Can I shoot them now?" In his quest to bring balance to the universe--which is what a shinigami is supposed to do, even if Kid's mental illness affects the form it takes now and then--he always stands up for what he thinks is right. While he definitely respects his dad, he’ll challenge him if he thinks the old man’s doing something wrong. Why does Kid even attend Shibusen? Because Shinigami-sama sent some kids on what Junior felt was a suicide mission and wouldn’t let him rescue them, as it was “for students only.” So Kid demanded to be enrolled right then LIKE A BOSS.
Kid's able to do so many awesome things in part because even gods need support systems:
(Kid with his pistols, Liz and Patty. It bothers him that they're not identical in human form, but only a little.)
(Everyone breaks a pyramid now and then!)
Those ladies in the cowboy hats--Liz and Patty Thompson--are Kid's guns in human form. They admire his soul, trust his judgement...and reassure him that he's not useless garbage, remind him to focus on specific things when he's anxious (butterflies! the number 8!) and once, helped him leave a room full of poorly-arranged bombs by growling at him to haul ass. He still exploited the Rule of Cool with EXPLOSIONS while screaming and bawling his eyes out. (Seriously, it was awesome--as awesome as the time when Ranma 1/2's Ryoga Hibiki, who has no sense of direction whatever, won a three-legged race by busting through the goal from the opposite direction and asking where he was.) Kid returns the favor by doing everything from offering to help them study to saving their lives.
Still, while these partnerships are deep, they're not perfect. Patty responds to Kid's panics by laughing--more because she's a ditz than out of malice--while Liz gets annoyed, sometimes to the point of telling him to just die already. His disability is used for laughs, especially early on when you don't know anybody that well. In particular, I was bothered by how Saving the Kids from their Special Lesson of Doom plays out. Terrified she's going to die, Maka falls to her hands and knees. Cut to Kid in the same pose, wanting to die because he might not have folded the end of his toilet paper into a triangle. While this isn't the last time Kid's disability threatens a fight/rescue mission, the juxtaposition between his crisis and Maka's comes off like: "Look at this serious problem over here! Isn't this other one silly?"
But even when Kid's disability is handled the most problematically, it's always clear that while it's just annoying for other people, it can be a serious problem for him. There are occasional missions he doesn't get to go on because he loses all his spoons. And in a moment of realism that I wasn't expecting in a shounen series about witches and vampires, Kid once spent almost an hour trying to write his name on his exam and my heart broke (contains screaming and spitting up blood):
But pitying him? Yeah, no. Do you want to feel sorry for a DEATH GOD?:
For all these acts of badass, one of my favorite times Kid saved somebody is when he and his classmate Black Star went looking for the Holy Sword Excalibur. (Yes, that one.) Excalibur is the greatest weapon in the universe, and its meisters are destined for victory and glory. It's also a supernaturally obnoxious bastard, enraging everyone it meets. King Arthur was a hero because he could tolerate the damned thing enough to wield it.
Black Star is more susceptible to Excalibur's effects than Kid is. While Kid is stoic through all the rambling stories, interruptions ("FOOL!") and cane-pokings-in-the-face, Black Star gets more and more agitated. Kid tries to talk him down--while actually being calm throughout, something not even Liz and Patty can do. I love that Kid's not always the one having emotional overloads and that he tries to help someone else through his. See?
(This awesomeness was framed by Black Star carrying Kid piggyback in and out of that cave, so Kid wouldn't get his pants wet. That somehow makes this even more awesome.)
Black Star and Kid have a rivalry because Black Star wants to surpass God and Kid is one. Nonetheless, Kid is the only one who never laughs at Black Star's dream--something he respects Kid for a lot. Why didn't Kid laugh? Possibly because most people refused to compete with him at all, as he is the son of God. Although Black Star challenges Kid's symmetry obsession just by existing (who am I kidding? Black Star challenges everyone just by existing) he's less annoyed with it than most of the other characters are. When Kid has a Face Heel Turn and decides to achieve "the ultimate symmetry" (i.e. nothingness, i.e. proper Other God behavior, i.e. OH FUCK NO), Black Star tells him that, while he doesn't mind all the symmetry business, this nothingness crap has to stop. (It does.)
I don't know how to finish this, so have some more pictures of Kid being awesome:
(That purple blob is his skateboard. He's sucking it into his hand.)
Because not even disabled gods are perfect (thank goodness) here's him being a dick:
(His human shield/hostage is a villain, but still.)
And being awesome while being a dick:
(He did this--while Patty is trying like hell not to fall--for no reason other than "it would be an insult to this desert" not to do a trick on this hill. Then he does it AGAIN, because dick.)
Next time: the residentProfessor Snape mad scientist and the only disabled weapon so far.
(Contains: discussion of obsessive-compulsive disorder, lots of pictures, and spoilers GALORE, including a huge one in chapter 70-something of the manga that doesn't appear in the anime at all but became essential to my argument, as I am me.)
While Asura is the most dangerous madness god in Soul Eater, he's not the only one. The Grim Reaper himself, protector of humans and undeniable force of good, is one of the Great Old Ones (no, really) "whose existence drives men to madness." As Asura is the Madness of Fear, Shinigami-sama is the Madness of Order, according to the Index of the Book of Eibon (no, really.) As such, he's one of "the absolute existences which maintain order."
The other is Shinigami-sama's teenage son...or however old a "teenage" god of death would be. Still, Junior personifies the Madness of Order a little differently than his father.
Internet, meet the OCD Goth Cowboy Jesus Future Overlord/for Great Justice:
Named for his father, Death the Kid is not your typical eldritch abomination. He keeps a rocket-powered skateboard in his body and goes to school with humans instead of watching them in secret. Friends call him "Kid"; he invites them to parties at his mansion and doesn't eat them. (Remember that party for Crona? Kid threw it. There he told Crona to "join our circle at your own pace," and also apologized for his loudmouth friends.) He also has an obsession with symmetry:
[My favorite thing about this picture is how Soul, Maka and their cat Blair are lined up at the bottom. They look like they
A panic-filled, depression-laden obsession with symmetry:
The trigger for this crisis was someone referring to the three white lines in Kid's hair, which throw his own body's symmetry off. He eventually calms down enough to check in with his father, who tells him apropos of nothing that the white lines are cute. (Dammit, Dad!)
If everything is not perfectly symmetrical at all times, Kid panics, falls into depressions (literally; he spends a lot of time lying on the ground, as above) or spits up blood and passes out. His favorite number is 8, "because of its perfect symmetry." When someone refers to his "parent's seven lights"--which in this context means,"So you're the son of the supreme god in the universe. We're still kicking your ass"--Kid gets really upset because 7 is not symmetrical at all and begs the guy to say 8...while crying and on his hands and knees.
Unlike most meisters, Kid weilds two weapons: twin pistols. (As a shinigami he doesn't need to train them himself, but he'd like to create his weapons to his own specifications, thank you very much
For Kid, panic, crying, begging in wiggly text, cognitive Blue Screens of Death and wanting to die are significant parts of being a madness god. But although Kid is his own mental illness in physical form, it's just a part of him. As such, his disability interacts with his superpowers without causing them. Kid's need to do everything symmetrically extends to asskicking, and his beatdowns are especially beautiful. But rather than being "a gift and a curse," his symmetry obsession just is. It blends into his superpowers now and then, since both are just parts of who he is, but doesn't lead to them in a simplistic way.
What superpowers, you ask? As a shinigami, Kid's body rejects all natural poisons (that's why he can't dye the white lines out of his hair--he's tried), and he can go places that are too dangerous for humans. His dad trusts him with missions he wouldn’t give to other meisters of Kid’s rank. He’s an excellent strategic fighter, and his friends respect him--even if some of them show it by breaking cones off the school building to "ask" him for a duel. (My favorite of his superpowers is Lying About Shinigami Biology So Nobody Asks About the Magical Doodad in Your Back Pocket.) Oh, and did I mention he shoots his pistols upside-down? With his pinkies?
Nevertheless, the series touches on things about disability-as-experience that run deeper than a simple superpower--what Harriet McBryde Johnson calls "those pleasures that are peculiarly our own, that are so bound up with our disabilities that we wouldn’t experience them, or wouldn’t experience them the same way, without our disabilities." Symmetry gives Kid a lot of joy. He considers it his art and often waxes poetic about the "true beauty" of symmetrical things. He even took time out to admire the way the sun and clouds were arranged in the sky once. (Okay, he was fighting Crona and let zir get away, but still.) This joy isn't useful to other people--the other characters don't even understand it--but it's special to Kid. It doesn't negate the anxieties and suicidal depressions, but it's also a significant part of being a madness god.
When things are sufficiently in order, Kid's the most level-headed of all his friends and prone to deadpan snarkery. When two of Kid's classmates decided to break up their bromance in the middle of their fight with him, amidst all the hugging and crying Kid asked, "Can I shoot them now?" In his quest to bring balance to the universe--which is what a shinigami is supposed to do, even if Kid's mental illness affects the form it takes now and then--he always stands up for what he thinks is right. While he definitely respects his dad, he’ll challenge him if he thinks the old man’s doing something wrong. Why does Kid even attend Shibusen? Because Shinigami-sama sent some kids on what Junior felt was a suicide mission and wouldn’t let him rescue them, as it was “for students only.” So Kid demanded to be enrolled right then LIKE A BOSS.
Kid's able to do so many awesome things in part because even gods need support systems:
(Kid with his pistols, Liz and Patty. It bothers him that they're not identical in human form, but only a little.)
(Everyone breaks a pyramid now and then!)
Those ladies in the cowboy hats--Liz and Patty Thompson--are Kid's guns in human form. They admire his soul, trust his judgement...and reassure him that he's not useless garbage, remind him to focus on specific things when he's anxious (butterflies! the number 8!) and once, helped him leave a room full of poorly-arranged bombs by growling at him to haul ass. He still exploited the Rule of Cool with EXPLOSIONS while screaming and bawling his eyes out. (Seriously, it was awesome--as awesome as the time when Ranma 1/2's Ryoga Hibiki, who has no sense of direction whatever, won a three-legged race by busting through the goal from the opposite direction and asking where he was.) Kid returns the favor by doing everything from offering to help them study to saving their lives.
Still, while these partnerships are deep, they're not perfect. Patty responds to Kid's panics by laughing--more because she's a ditz than out of malice--while Liz gets annoyed, sometimes to the point of telling him to just die already. His disability is used for laughs, especially early on when you don't know anybody that well. In particular, I was bothered by how Saving the Kids from their Special Lesson of Doom plays out. Terrified she's going to die, Maka falls to her hands and knees. Cut to Kid in the same pose, wanting to die because he might not have folded the end of his toilet paper into a triangle. While this isn't the last time Kid's disability threatens a fight/rescue mission, the juxtaposition between his crisis and Maka's comes off like: "Look at this serious problem over here! Isn't this other one silly?"
But even when Kid's disability is handled the most problematically, it's always clear that while it's just annoying for other people, it can be a serious problem for him. There are occasional missions he doesn't get to go on because he loses all his spoons. And in a moment of realism that I wasn't expecting in a shounen series about witches and vampires, Kid once spent almost an hour trying to write his name on his exam and my heart broke (contains screaming and spitting up blood):
But pitying him? Yeah, no. Do you want to feel sorry for a DEATH GOD?:
For all these acts of badass, one of my favorite times Kid saved somebody is when he and his classmate Black Star went looking for the Holy Sword Excalibur. (Yes, that one.) Excalibur is the greatest weapon in the universe, and its meisters are destined for victory and glory. It's also a supernaturally obnoxious bastard, enraging everyone it meets. King Arthur was a hero because he could tolerate the damned thing enough to wield it.
Black Star is more susceptible to Excalibur's effects than Kid is. While Kid is stoic through all the rambling stories, interruptions ("FOOL!") and cane-pokings-in-the-face, Black Star gets more and more agitated. Kid tries to talk him down--while actually being calm throughout, something not even Liz and Patty can do. I love that Kid's not always the one having emotional overloads and that he tries to help someone else through his. See?
(This awesomeness was framed by Black Star carrying Kid piggyback in and out of that cave, so Kid wouldn't get his pants wet. That somehow makes this even more awesome.)
Black Star and Kid have a rivalry because Black Star wants to surpass God and Kid is one. Nonetheless, Kid is the only one who never laughs at Black Star's dream--something he respects Kid for a lot. Why didn't Kid laugh? Possibly because most people refused to compete with him at all, as he is the son of God. Although Black Star challenges Kid's symmetry obsession just by existing (who am I kidding? Black Star challenges everyone just by existing) he's less annoyed with it than most of the other characters are. When Kid has a Face Heel Turn and decides to achieve "the ultimate symmetry" (i.e. nothingness, i.e. proper Other God behavior, i.e. OH FUCK NO), Black Star tells him that, while he doesn't mind all the symmetry business, this nothingness crap has to stop. (It does.)
I don't know how to finish this, so have some more pictures of Kid being awesome:
(That purple blob is his skateboard. He's sucking it into his hand.)
Because not even disabled gods are perfect (thank goodness) here's him being a dick:
(His human shield/hostage is a villain, but still.)
And being awesome while being a dick:
(He did this--while Patty is trying like hell not to fall--for no reason other than "it would be an insult to this desert" not to do a trick on this hill. Then he does it AGAIN, because dick.)
Next time: the resident
