「零落スティグマ」 (Sutiguma (Reiraku))
“Stigma (Downfall)”

One of my complaints from last week was that they weren’t hammering home just how hated Bell was. Well, I eat my words. Looks like they wanted to completely focus on Asterius and Wiene last episode, and shifted the aftermath of his actions to this episode.

The Most Hated Man in Orario

Unsurprisingly, with the primary perpetrators dead and Ikelos exiled, Bell becomes a lightning rod for all that hate and resentment – since from the public eye, his reckless actions endangered lives and destroyed parts of the town. As viewers, we know better. We’ve seen Bell’s reasons and motivations for doing all of this. But as far as the public is concerned, he foolishly insisted on his course of actions to seek out glory.

To them, his attempt to chase clout brought about reprehensible harm and ruin. To us, he sacrificed his reputation to do what he believed was right – saving the lives of Xenos. It sucks that no one else can see it. Not that they can be blamed. They can’t appreciate what he did for two reasons – they don’t know the whole truth and the standard of their times don’t allow them to view Xenos as deserving of rights or protections.

At present, he’s misunderstood. That said, many historical figures were reviled in their time. Yet eventually, history began to treat them more kindly. One day in the future, in a world where Xenos harmonically co-exist with humans, the truth will come out through their oral traditions. Seeing how reluctant they were to involve Bell again (especially as a decoy), and very hopeful that they could repay him one day, it’s clear just how deeply they appreciate and love him. I’m sure that Bell’s actions will be acknowledged as heroic within Orarian society, even if it doesn’t happen within this lifetime. Also, reminder that Hestia is bestia because she tried to deflect the hatred away from Bell to herself.

A Game of Chess

Although the Xenos were able to escape mostly unharmed, they’re not out of the woods and remain stuck between a rock and a hard place. They need to return to the dungeon, their natural habitat and their only safe haven. However, powerful Familias safeguard areas near their hiding place and have secured perimeters around established dungeon entrances.

Now that the Loki Familia are systematically combing through the ruins of Daedalus Street, Bell and the Xenos are on a timer. To make matters worse, for all the strategizing and plotting that Ouranos and Fels attempt to come up with using centuries of wisdom, unbeknown to them, Finn demonstrates why he’s commander of the Loki familia by seeing through it all – his fearsome intuition alerting him to the fact that Bell is going to serve as a decoy to draw away attention. Confrontation had already been inevitable. But now, it’s clear that there will be no plain sailing to a clean resolution.

Fortunately, there are actually quite a lot of X factor variable that come in the form of third parties. In addition to the Hermes Familia offering their assistance, Ryuu has agreed to join the fray on the condition that Hermes trades her information about Evilus. And Hephaistos hosts a meeting with Takemizuchi and Miach – where they discuss potential plans to help out the Xenos. Who knows. Maybe the biggest surprise of them all will be that Loki has been in on this plan too, and will sneakily encumber her own Familia for reasons pertaining to amusement. That’s my personal prediction for the curveball development.

Concluding Thoughts

We seamlessly transition from emotional rollercoaster to a tense game of chess with no room for mistakes, as Bell fights against time to prevent genocide. The stakes in Danmachi are arguably the highest they’ve been. Can the Hestia Familia and Xenos overcome this insane tribulation? Only time can tell. It won’t be easy. That’s certain. But this setup has all the makings of a true epic and I’m excited to see what kind of conclusion we’re headed towards.

Anyway, that’s about everything I wanted to discuss. As always, thanks for reading this post and see you all next week!

9 Comments

  1. The upcoming episodes are why I’m irked that the adaptation of Sword Oratoria wasn’t all that good, since the Sword Oratoria books end up really fleshing out a lot more of what is happening in the DanMachi universe. It would have been great if we had gotten a second season of Sword Oratoria done right, and ended up syncing seasons so that the interlocking stories were in the same season.

    1. True, this part of the story in Oratoria was one of my favorite parts in the series and really helps Bell, Ais, multiple other characters grow. That we might never get a decent adaptation of the other sides of this event is depressing.

      Spike
  2. I’m a bit conflicted.

    While I’m eager to get back into the action, the montage towards the end of the episode screams skipped content. Hopefully, there’s nothing too important that got glossed over.

    It’s nice to see Wiene has grown. Still, I can’t help but feel her words are foreshadowing something. Specifically, the talk about repaying debts. Maybe Fels has something else hidden under her sleeve.

    Also, Asfi needs a vacation. Girl looking haggard as hell while she was making her sales pitch to Ryu. Hermes really working her to the bone. Actually, now that I type that out, it makes me wonder if it’s Hermes that has something up his sleeve– a wildcard just waiting to be thrown onto the table.

    I still don’t quite get _why_ Ouranos / the Hestia Familia can’t just bring Loki into the fold. Sure, Finn has his ambition, but he can’t go against the will of his goddess, right? At the least, it’ll shake up the Loki Familia. They clearly had no problems bringing in Hephaistos, Miach, and Takemikazuchi. Unless Loki is some crazy goddess demanding monster blood, anyways.

    Beedle

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