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Des probably shows Pirandellian character traits: fun analysis (SPOILER AZRAN LEGACY)

First of all, I'm just a student who studied Italian literature as a subject at school, so please take all of this with a grain of salt and feel free to add your considerations. (And I hope that my teacher doesn't have Tumblr because it would be very embarrassing.) Also, maybe there are some regional differences, for reference I'll use the italian version of the game.

We all know that Descole is a broken husk of a man; Desmond Sycamore is dead; stuff like that. But I want to share with you guys a personal point of view about his character while using what I studied and STILL STUDYING for final exams ("maturità")

In order to understand what I am going to say, I need to explain a bit of his theories, which are also used in his novels, especially what we call "la teoria delle maschere."

Before talking about it, we need to essentially explain the concepts of life and form:

Life is a continuous change, a stream, and form is the structure where people try to contain life in order to make it more understandable by putting or letting people put a mask on ourselves (for example, a name, a role, etc.) that covers our true selves, our identity, which, just like life, changes and isn't coherent.

But since life is a continuous change, people are destined to face the fact that their identity isn't something stable. Usually it's a peculiar event or some random stuff, and they have different reactions to it. One of them is trying to escape from the form.

An example of this in Pirandello's books is Mattia Pascal, a man with a miserable life who decided to change his identity in order to escape from it, taking advantage of the fact that everyone he knows believes that he died, but in the end he realised that in his new form he couldn't be free, and he couldn't even go back to the old one since everything changed.

Now you may be wondering: What does that have to do with Descole?

His character is mainly centred on the theme of identity, just like Hershel Layton (but he accepts it) and the whole Azran Legacy game, but I wanted to focus on how he was written and especially how his life revolves around this, personally more than Hersh, and how his reaction is different.

Okay, basically the point is that his life is characterised by huge changes, and escapes from the form as a reaction to the event, which lead him to be stuck in an another form.

FIRST FORM: Hershel Bronev

For Pirandello, our first form is the name that our parents gave us. In the case of the Bronev Brothers, they broke pretty easily, and in Des' case, he gave up his name and his form in order to let his baby brother be adopted by the Laytons. This led Theo with a new form that wasn't his and Hershel "not being him" anymore.

SECOND FORM: Desmond Sycamore.

We don't know much about the period after the adoption of his brother. The only information that we have is that he was probably adopted by a family (the Sycamores), and he presumedly met Raymond at this point in the timeline. 

Desmond Sycamore is the name of his new form, perhaps even given to him by his adoptive parents. He acknowledges his past but presumebly tries to move on, in fact by getting married and creating his own family. But the event of the death of his family is going to change him even more. Killing off this form.

THIRD FORM: Jean Descole.

Now we start with the interesting stuff.

After the death of his wife and his daughter, Descole claimed that Desmond had died, and he, a broken husk of a man, substituted him.

On a more superficial perspective, the reason behind this change of personality could be grief, but to be honest, it doesn't explain why he thinks badly of his past self.

Sure, survivor guilt exists, but I don't think that it's the reason behind it.

I tried to reflect on it a bit more, and one of the explanations that I could give was that, actually, he could feel responsible for anything that happened to his family.

Maybe he wasn't present at the time that the tragedy had happened, maybe he found them already dead. Because of his incapability of defending them, he developed hatred and rage, so as a reaction, he created a new form. One that wasn't a fool and was the exact contrary of who he was and also with the objective to escape from the sense of guilt by separating his present self by the past one.

AZRAN LEGACY: Trying to go back.

Since Des needed help in order to solve the mystery of the azrans and what their legacy was, he presented himself as his past form: Desmond sycamore.

But the truth is that he can't really come back to be him. Just like Mattia Pascal, he changed mentally. He's a different man from before.

We can see that especially during his interactions with Bronev in the Nest, when his rage almost explodes just like Descole's.

But at the same time, it is clear that this whole travel with the layton crew changed him.

Maybe there isn't much evidence, but I personally think that he started to get emotionally close to them, and we can see that with the fact that he saved Luke from the laser.

At the end of Azran Legacy, he can't go back to be Descole anymore because of this and it's unfortunate how Level-5 didn't focus on this thing (just like the other relationships between the characters.)

EXTRAS: Aurora and Des confrontation.

[Image translation: "Now my wife and daughter are gone, and with them, that fool Sycamore."]

In the extras, we have this interesting interaction between Des and Aurora, where basically they talk about Descole.

After Des said that he isn't Desmond anymore, Aurora rebuts him, explaining how he was still capable of loving and hoping for the future, and that he can't really escape from his past, from his memories.

She calls Descole a character, a mask that he used to cope with his pain, and after Des tried to say that "Desmond is gone," Aurora remarks how technically still exists through his actions.

This is evidence of how Des identity changed again and how, as I explained before, even Descole isn't the same as before.

The extras concluded with Descole with a hidden desire to follow Aurora's reflection about resisting and basically moving on. Not forgetting his past.

Conclusion: Who is the true des?

Now there's a discussion in the fandom about who des really is, mainly divided in Desmond or Descole.

While descole is CLEARLY formed after a huge trauma, we also need to consider that Desmond isn't a "true form" either. This is also evidenced in the game.

At least in the italian dialogue, des talks how when he was still in Desmond form, he hoped that he could have lived a normal life with his family (and in the next lines said that he hoped that he would forget about revenge).

But neither Hershel Bronev is his true identity either now. That belongs to his brother now.

So? Who's the true form?

The scared child that hoped for a better life for his brother?

The man that couldn't save his family?

Or the husk blinded by revenge?

Maybe it's all of them, maybe it's no one. After all, we learned that the people's identities aren't stuck. They evolve, and they are complex and contradictory sometimes.

Personally, I don't think there's a true truth. We can just analyse and express our personal thoughts about it, we aren't this character, and there are a lot of points of view on this story, so there's anything concrete, just his events and his narrative of it.

#this is a great analysis #thank you for writing this! #my take on why descole is hostile towards sycamore is because sycamore made the choice to decline joining #and it was that choice that got his family killed #jean descole

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This Is Not What Happened

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Somebody on Twitter asked that Emmy be drawn in Rika fit so uhhh

#ohh she looks great #emmy altava #art

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I have no words for this.

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prima ❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️

she lookse like hershel. i drew hershel in the outfit Aww so cutes + the sketch because it was on the same page i guess

#aww #Cute #I love your painting style #Art

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I forgot the 'decipher Descole's handwriting puzzle' was a thing (Puzzle 009, Last specter). Got to be honest, this isn't what I'd call 'bad handwriting'

#jean descole

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the correct way to hold a child

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the correct way to hold a child

#luke triton #hershel layton

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Had too many comments for the tags so putting it here.

My immediate thought is that both of them are two extremes which he veers between depending upon the situation. Sycamore is his 'respectable' face -- it's an extreme in the sense that he's putting on a politeness that wouldn't be there if he wasn't trying to keep up an image. Then Descole is... well, Descole.

Consider the Ch5 scene with Bronev, but mentally replace Sycamore with Descole. The way he reacts would be totally natural for both of them.

It's a little harder to find an example of the reverse, but Ch6, when Layton and Descole are left at the entrance to the sanctuary, you could similarly replace him with Sycamore and he wouldn't appear very ooc. The glaring difference here would be the way in which he refers to other people, plus the fact he has dropped some of that politeness.

So my answer is: Both are his true personality. That is to say, he doesn't have two distinct personalities. It is one coherent personality that gets pushed to extremes depending upon the situation.

#I hope that makes sense #I didn't think it through for very long so I don't know how sure I am in this analysis #does make me want to go through all of his scenes and see how it holds up

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i thikn its funny that in phantom deity they say descole's smile looks similar to layton's because No it doesn't

anyway. gave him the Snile

#Ok but the edited descole doesnt even look unnatural #Hes just :)

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azran legacy au where literally everything is the same except desmond never changed his name so now there are two hershels running around. nothing changes except every once in a while someone goes 'woah what a coincidence' and hershel layton goes 'yes, quite' and hershel sycamore looks into the camera like he's on the office

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If Hershel pictures it correctly, he can almost see him. He can remember the hands, he can remember his mother and father and being led from that door. He remembers playing ball by himself in the hallway, feeling a bit guilty for playing ball in the house but satisfied with the knowledge that no one is there to scold him for it.

But there’s one thing he can never see. He remembers the hands, he recalls the sweater vest and the bow tie and the cadence, but whenever he tries to recall how his brother looked, all that remained is static.

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(BEHUH??? AU - me & @snekatiemainy )

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COME ON LUKE! THEY NEED OUR HELP!

An animation I made for my Animate class.

Look at them running, they are so cute✨️❤️✨️❤️✨️