Anonymous Fwend · 3mo
Hey, so I noticed something while re-watching bsd. It's about Elise and I think, her environment also plays a part in her appearance and personality.
During the war she's empty and that's actually quiet useful; to have someone who will not tire physically, mentally or emotionally is great during such dire times. In the mafia she's feels like a distraction for Mori and he also seems very happy around her. In beast she's older and feels mature and likely helps Mori run the orphanage. What do you think?
(i’m so sorry for the slow response) yeah i think environment plays a role!! i think overall, elise’s appearance and mannerisms reflect how mori “needs” or (in the case of current elise) “wants” her to be. to me it starts as an internal projection outward, but i do think environment HAS to play a role in this, so i do agree with you that environment matters! personally, i think the reason why elise is so empty of personality during the great war is it reflects how mori saw abilities as “weapons” of war (thinking about his “immortal regiment”). it makes me wonder what elise was like before the great war. was she a friend to him? a sibling? was she ever a mother to him as a child? idk i think these are interesting concepts that i’d love to see explored.
as for mafia era elise, i am pretty certain elise is intended to be a “copy” of young yosano. there is an art that harukawa drew of elise where her shadow is young yosano, which imo confirms this. it’s soooo interesting, when did he start doing this? i don’t think we see elise’s personality in any flashback chapters with fukuzawa, and i cannot remember offhand if she appears in stormbringer or 15 (i don’t remember her in either one but i could be forgetting a small reference, certainly if she appears in either of these novels it’s offhand mentions). when did she manifest young yosano’s personality? was it after he “lost” yosano to fukuzawa? i have so many questions!!
i have even MORE questions about beast elise, bc i agree that environment seems to be influencing her appearance here but also why not make her one of the “children”? i feel like the overall implication from beast and tdipud is that the beast world is mostly the same as the root universe, just different where dazai manipulated it to be, so i feel like what we are seeing here is a mori that is no longer fixated on yosano, which is extremely fascinating to me bc what changed? is it a loss of power due to dazai booting him from the mafia? is it all because of possible guilt over failing dazai, which he has been forced to face in beast after leaving the mafia? it’s sewww interesting and i think about it a lot.
