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How to fight your doom (Pt.2)

Episode 8 I think this and the next one episode are most important for development of Devil’s and Girl’s relationships. The story is filled with fateful accidents as well as interesting parallels and some of them we can see in this episode too. It’s funny that at the beginning of the story Girl IS in love with God of War and he IS in love with her. You may think: if their feelings are mutual, what can go wrong? But God of War is too afraid to go against his brother (although he is more powerful than all of the fairies together, as we can see in ep. 26) and too fixated on his duty to get this mutual love. He lies to his brother that he doesn’t like and even despises Girl. And Devil shows this scene to her. I love that it happens by accident: Devil sincerely doesn’t know about GoW’s affection, so he doesn’t have any intention to disrupt their relationships, he just forces her to face the truth (and he also believes it’s true), but it will matter to romantic feelings of hers for GoW later. At the same time it parallels with the future situation when Devil himself tells the same lie to her face and it breaks hers as well as his life. A lie destroys any relationships.

Devil starts to feel something other than Girl’s emotions and I love how he tries to find some rational explanations why it happens. If Devil’s heart hurts when he sees Girl as GoW’s bride, it’s because of Girl’s physical state. Not because Devil cares. No way! If he is angry when Girl praises GoW, it’s because of wicked effects of the curse. Not because Devil is jealous, no. And Dragon boy watches it all with the poker face: «Master, when are you going to force her to fix Destiny Book? Not today? She needs to sleep? Hmmm… OK».

Then there comes this ICONIC scene:

Girl tries to refrain from tears and Devil says that she shouldn’t pretend to be strong in front of him because he knows how she feels. He knows it, obviously, thanks to the curse, but Girl doesn’t know about it, so she thinks he is very empathic. Knowing how another feels is very intimate thing, only our nearest and dearest ones can say how do we feel just by looking at us and only in front of them we can be ourselves and don’t have to hide our weaknesses and pain. Devil doesn’t get even medium level of emotional intelligence by now but he is a VERY good learner, so he does some very empathetic and important for their relationships things: when she asks him, if he looks down on her like others do, he squats. He SQUATS to be on the SAME LEVEL with her! He is ben zuo, the higher God of Demons, he doesn’t need to do it at all, but he does.

And then he wipes her tears. This movement is raw and quite not gentle but, as we will see later, he even doesn’t know how to smile and how to show his affection to his relatives. Tears wiping is a big deal for him. And again: he doesn’t have to but he does.

And after that we can see EVEN MORE ICONIC SCENE:

Girl knows that he is a criminal who has broken free from the Fairy Prison and is a demon from the enemy tribe. But she has no prejudice against «enemy» tribe. Devil has done to her mostly good deeds (let’s put aside that attempt to strangle her at their «first date»). She is very compassionate and doesn’t want him to die because of other’s prejudice, so she grabs him and hides him beneath the Arbiter Hall, in the sea.

Devil is almighty and doesn’t need to be saved, so maybe in this moment he thinks that she tries to save her precious GoW from his Hellfire. When she is out of breath and slowly falls to the bottom of the sea, we can see another parallel, which shows us Devil’s changes.

Devil high above looks like in his battle against Fairy Realm 30 thousand years ago: we can see only his silhouette, he is very afar and out of reach, indifferent to lives and deaths of those who beneath him. I find this scene a little bit funny because we all know: he can’t be indifferent to Girl’s life anyway, he is cursed and if she suffocated so did he. So Mighty Demon God sighs and comes down to breathe life into Girl.

What I love in this story the most – we can think about «point of no return» when their affection starts, but, exactly like it goes in the real life, we can`t find the certain moment. Forging affection is a process, not a flash that pierced one’s heart right away. So, even forced to save her life, he is truly embarrassed when they are at the Arbiter Hall again, he touches his lips trying to understand his current emotions and the Spring starts in his Sea of Heart with the first tiny green leaf of feelings. He is quite affected. But his affection is fragile and ghostly by now.

And then this BEAUTIFUL scene comes:

"Little flower demon?!"

He wakes up. Somewhere. He was unconscious. He was knocked out by little, harmless and suspiciously nervous Girl. And he wakes up. He wasn’t poisoned to death. He wasn’t imprisoned. Everyone in this world wants him dead, he was short-sighted and could be already dead but he is still here. And Girl says that she knows he is enemy of her tribe, she knows how risky it is to send him away now, but she CARES about his safety, well-being, warmth and food and wants him to go back to the Demon Realm so no one could kill him.

Later, when he comes back, he learns that this 10% of soul recuperation couldn`t be proceeded not because of Girl`s unrequited love for GoW but because she really was worried about him.

This realization is very important for him as we can see later in this story. In his life Devil always was an enemy to be hated or a weapon to be relied on. But even almighty evil lords are just human beings deep in their hearts. If you are strong it doesn’t mean you don’t need to be cared, supported and loved. So this situation pushes him to rethink his life and his father’s teachings about affections. And in this scene he also learns how to show his attachment: later in Human Realm he will give to Girl food on the go as she in this boat scene does.

Btw there are plenty of stories when people fall in love with nice attitude towards them (and GoW is one of them), and I find it much healthier than to fall in love at first sight or with someone’s appearance. So, although Devil’s Tree of Seven Emotions will bloom far later, I think in this episode him falling in love with Girl starts to be inevitable.

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