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Trauma (The Misfits)

Believe it or not, the trauma I’m discussing is not from the training arc, but I’m sure some Underworld therapists will be making money off that in the future. Luckily for the Misfits (and unluckily for fans desperate for any information, anything at all, a single crumb), only four of them get targeted and of those four, only three of them are forced to deal with actual trauma. However, the two non-Iruma cases are rich in character insight, so it’s worth the time to look at them in-depth.

In order to tackle trauma, the character Orobas (not pictured) is introduced. He’s someone who’s envious of the Misfit class, and therefore the perfect target for outside forces to manipulate. His bloodline magic also makes him the perfect candidate to take on the class almost singlehandedly. For various reasons, every misfit ended up in a class for outcasts of the demon world, and that’s not a position you’d typically find yourself in unless you were dealing with something, so trauma was a good weak point to attack. It’s essentially a narrative tool that easily provides an in-universe explanation for why certain traumas are being addressed when needed without coming across and clunky.

For someone who was sadly missing (kidnapped) during the training arc, quite a bit is revealed about Jazz during the Harvest Festival. During Walter Park, we learned that Jazz’s family values skill above all else, to the point where the weaker party is in the wrong no matter the circumstances, which is how his older brother is able to get away with being a living nightmare. In that arc, a lot of what was shown was how Jazz was treated, while this arc highlights the effects that treatment has. Their dynamic could be taken as simple sibling rivalry, but his first expression upon seeing the illusion of his brother speaks volumes, and there’s no getting around the description of Orobas’ ability specifying “greatest fears” paired with images of Jazz dealing with his brother. But just this alone doesn’t truly deepen Jazz’s character. No, it’s what finally gets him to react. He’s able to keep himself relatively calm under the onslaught of his brother’s antics, but as soon as he’s called inferior, he snaps. This harkens back to his family’s focus on skill, confirming the suspicions that Jazz doesn’t have a lot of value in his family, as it’s clearly something of a trigger for him. There’s also the implications of “version of me” to consider. Jazz doesn’t want to be thought of as lesser, but he also doesn’t want to be like his family. He’s shown to be a caregiver, acting as the older brother figure to the rest of the Misfit class out of his desire to be different from his brother. As a reminder, these are all illusions of Jazz’s fears, so that specific word choice comes from his own feelings, indicating a fear of not just being inferior, but also anything like his family.

Clara’s trauma was established early on during her introduction when the only way she could interact with others is if she gave them whatever they wanted in exchange, as if her company is only worth what can be gotten out of it. Since Iruma and Asmodeus are her first friends, it stands to reason that she’s gone her whole life prior to meeting them not forming close bonds with anyone outside her family, so it’s understandable that she’d fear losing that connection. While not much new information is given, this scene does help establish that trauma can be eased by friends and family, but not erased entirely.