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「琥珀の中の指輪」 (Kohaku no Naka no Yubiwa)
“The Amber Bracelet”
This week’s episode sheds more light on Rit’s past as her resolve to stay with Red is strengthened by reflection on why she retired from adventuring and wouldn’t want to return to her old life no matter how much the guilds beg. The flashback that makes up this episode, however, also gave us more details about elf woman Yarandrala and how Ares broke the news that he banished Red from the party.
RIT-IREMENT
A majority of the episode elaborates on why Rit sees her retirement as a dream she would never want to wake from. While Red is quick to shrug off both the Adventurer’s Guild and the Thieves Guild, it’s great to see that Rit is powerful enough as a character to have her own autonomy with regards to telling both guilds to shove it.
Rit being able to make this decision is impactful in itself because of how much she had to relinquish when she recalls her time in Ruti’s party. Throughout her stay, Ruti micromanages Rit as their party gets further involved in the turmoil around them. Whether it be Ruti asserting herself around Red or Red trying to protect Rit, she felt like she was getting in between Red and the rest of the party whenever she tried to get involved in their battles.
AN ELF’S JOURNEY
The most kindness she received during her stay was when she started bonding with Yarandrala. Even though Rit was quickly jealous of the women that get close to Red, Yarandrala makes it clear that she shuts herself off from relationships with humans because of her long lifespan. She’s had to learn the hard way that humans don’t live as long, so the love she can give will always come back to bite her when a human she loves will end up dying long before her.
Aside from the tragic happenstance of the May/December relationships that can happen between a 30-year-old man and a centuries-old elf, Yarandrala is an interesting character because of how well she can see through Rit. Because she notices Rit’s insecurities about her abilities and her role in Red’s life, she takes it upon herself to coach Rit on how to overcome her feelings, especially when she gets mad and distracted.
It’s also amusing to see how much she rubbed off on Rit. Rit’s past self had been more guarded and defensive, so it’s funny to see how she acts around Red in relation to how Yarandrala approached Rit with her bubbly personality in the past.
BACK AT IT AGAIN AT KRISPY KREME
Recently, the show’s brighter moments have come from how karma really wants to beat the living daylights out of Ares for kicking Red out of the party. This episode is definitely no exception as it focuses on the moment when Ares broke the news to Ruti that Red would leave the party.
Ares’ poor job at BSing the group might have been shown before when he was punched in the face, but no reactions have been as instantly satisfying as when Ruti caught wind of Red’s absence being his fault. Instantly, her rage kicked into high gear and he punched a hole through his chest, killing him for a short enough amount of time that she could revive him. It’s yet another signifier that Ruti is very unhinged for being the world’s savior.
But it’s also a cathartic way of seeing how it was only the beginning for Ares to realize the extent of his mistake. In his ego, he thought he could carry the team and hire mediocre contractors to take over from Red as he used to.
But even back then, Ares was contrasted heavily from Red. Because everyone could lean on Red as a jack-of-all-trades, Ares overcompensated for the lack of resourcefulness by making Red insecure about his abilities, hiring contractors to fill in for work Red would normally do, and questioning Red’s devotion to Sparkle Motion. Whether Ares comes to realize that his pettiness came at the cost of the morale and capabilities of Ruti’s party or if he’ll continue trying his damndest to prove he’s better than Red will be determined by if he can finally let his ego go.
For as much as I dislike Ares in general, the way Ruti treated him tells me all too clearly that something is wrong with her. Is it all her blessing’s fault, or is there something else to it as well? Either way, she just can’t function as well without her brother being in her life, and how that may or may not affect the slow life Red and Rit have now should be interesting.
When you have a super spell that keeps your true personality in a prison and forced to do things you don’t want, you probably go mad.
The fact that she kills the wizard shows that she’ll kill everyone if her brother is not within her sight.
Ruti’s personality sticks out like a sore thumb, no thanks to her hero blessing.
Rit’s scene paints a very grimm image about the Blessings. Hers is so strong that her emotons basically are all dead. “A Hero can’t be swayed by emotions” , I say that because when she learns that Ares did something to her brother for a brief instant her rage overpowers her blessing, we can even see how for a moment she would’ve left him there to die but the blessing comes crashing down again and she even says sorry because “a hero can’t hurt her friends”.
Red’s sister situation is quite depressing, she can’t even sleep! Because “a hero has no need for sleep” or maybe her resistance to debuffs and status effects is so high that even natural “sleep” status is resisted by her blessing… Man, no wonder Red did everything to help her whe he still could. Imagine you seeing your sister like that for years, she probably wasn’t like that from birth, just after the blessing manifested.
This show has a surprising depth to it, and I’m liking it a lot!
Seems like the reason Ares is like that is he has feelings for Ruti and views her brother as in the way of that. (probably true with her implied brocon tendancies). Doesn’t make him any more sympathetic, but makes sense at least. (If he just wanted glory or recognition, getting rid of the humble dude who is the glue makes little sense)
Still makes no sense that Red didn’t leave a message for his comrades’, unless Ares destroyed it.
Interesting contrast between Ruti and Rit. They both want to stay by Red. Rit is strong enough to tell the guilds to buzz off. Unlike Rit, Ruti can’t just leave her responsibilities since she is a literal army of one(she pretty much soloed part of an army here).
Hard to say if her stoic act is her natural personality, a result of her repressing her natural personality to match the role given her by her blessing or a part of the blessing itself. I lean toward 2. It’s epic when she snaps either way.
As seen in this episode the “HERO” blessing heavily suppress emotions. This is because confusion is considered a negative status effect in a battle. In a similar vein all negative status in a battle is suppressed by the blessing 24/7. This means the hero cannot sleep either. The presence of “Red” her brother weakens the sleep immunity effect enough that she can only sleep naturally with him by her side.
Ares has a extremely strong blessing while “Red” has a much weaker one. Due to the circumstance in which Ares is raised he believes that blessing determines everything about that person. So he sees anyone with a blessing weaker than his as an inferior person.
Ares was born into a noble family that has lose it’s noble title and Are’s father pins the hope and future of the family in Ares. Ares plans to marry the hero and help her to save the world as the means to achieve that goal. Anyone besides the hero and himself in the party will cause the glory of saving the world to be shared with others. And that is not good for his plan.
“Red” has the weakest blessing in the party “The Guide” which only give him a +30 to his initial level of 1. This cause “Red” to have a fixed level of 31. There is no other effect to this blessing. The rest of the hero’s party members has strong and specialized blessing. So “Red” is simply the easiest target for Ares.
Didn’t really consider Yarandrala rubbing of Rit. Now that you mentioned it, certainly looks like it. Perhaps one of the reasons she decided not to participate in the succession of her kingdom too
Looking at Ruti, this “Blessing” seems more like a “Curse”.