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ratlesshonret · 5 months

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Song Analysis - Children of the City

Part 0 - My Ramblings, or Whatever

Hello everyone, my name is Honret, and today I am going to be doing the long-awaited Children of the City analysis that I have been teasing for far too long.

Of course, this isn't my first rodeo with song analysis. I've analyzed quite a lot of mili songs on r/mili, over on Reddit. So why am I doing this on tumblr? Partially for reach/exposure (r/mili is tiny,) and partially because I'm liking using Reddit less and less every day.

If people like this post, I might do more, or even repost my old analysis pieces on r/mili over here so they can be archived in a neater way.

Anyway, let us get on to the actual song. This analysis will contain spoilers for Library of Ruina.

Part 1 - Analysis of the Lyrics

This song is arguably rather short in terms of number of lyrics for a mili song, so let's get right into it.

Also, to get this out of the way immediately, this is a Character Song for Yan Vismok from Library of Ruina. If you're reading this, you probably already know that, but if not then it is very important information to know.

Sleep for a total of eight-hundred hours per day And drink a liter of milk Warm-up before you go play

Immediately, this beginning part seems to be almost satirizing the nature of the Prescripts. Obviously, sleeping for 800 hours in a day isn't possible, and drinking an entire liter of milk is uncomfortable for most, but they feel like things a Prescript would order someone to do. After all, they frequently demand impossible and seemingly random actions from the recipient.

Only eat or write Or pull the trigger with your right hand Only thing that's left Is to work on following commands

This next section seems to be referencing the suppression of left-handed people in the past, and relating that to the oppressive nature of the Prescripts. They order you to do uncomfortable things you might not be skilled at, just like a left-handed person may have been ordered to eat or write with their right hand.

The second half ties it back into the main theme by making it about following commands. The people who follow the Prescripts are, in a way, constantly being commanded to do things, with the fear of death if they don't follow. In that way, they're constantly being trained to unquestioningly obey a higher power, just as left-handed people were made to obey the command to be right-handed.

(This part also makes me headcanon Yan as a leftie)

By the time you realize You'll be restrained to a desk And with your dreams on the floor, you comply Eyes chained to the test Find a groom or bride, bonus if brunette In ninety hours, spill their insides Paint your room picturesque

This section is long, so like the last part, I'll split it into two halves.

The first part seems to broadly reference life in The City itself. By the time you've realized you're being trained to follow random commands, you're already figuratively tied to a desk, your only option to comply further with the commands due to having already given up so much.

Yan himself seems to have given up a lot to the Prescripts. Its heavily implied he's killed loved ones, and done other horrible things just for the Prescripts, with his only reward being to become the Messenger who delivers Prescripts to others just like him.

With his dreams figuratively on the floor due to the Prescripts, all he can do is comply.

The next lines seem to continue to drive in the ludicrous nature of the Prescripts. Finding someone to marry within ninety hours is a tall order, especially if you're encouraged to focus on just brunettes. And of course, the typically-violent nature of the Prescripts is also brought up, with the next command in this sequence being to kill the very person you just married. Its also a massive tonal shift in the song.

Now it's time for another vendetta Going through the shelves, picking out my pre-written persona Children of the city sees only the neon stars Reflected upon the murky gutter sky Don't ask me why I desperately wish to be included in The City's night

The first line here might be referencing how Yan has picked up a lot of vendettas in his time delivering the Prescripts. Or at the very least, he feels like people hate him for delivering their Prescripts, just as he hates the Prescripts themselves. After that, the part about a pre-written persona seems to imply that Yan is never being his true self. All he can do to avoid the pain of what the Prescripts demand is to pretend to be someone else, a persona.

This next part is likely a metaphor, and one that I've still had trouble parsing. It could be implying that the "children of the city," which is likely those who work under the Index, or more broadly those who follow what The City desires, only see the bright neon stars, and not the dark murky gutters they're reflected in.

Finally, Yan says that he wishes to be included in The City's night, but he doesn't know why. This, to me, says that he has a secret desire to follow what The City wants of him, so that he may finally be included, rather than feel the same exclusion he's felt his entire life as a Messenger of the Index.

In four-hundred thousand meters, turn right

A nice little metaphor, comparing the Prescripts to a car's GPS system.

Pick up a knife and stab a familiar warm body Learned to fight before I knew love or bitterness of coffee Snippy scissors cut down the strings, I set myself free Only to figure out everything I chose was by proxy

The beginning of the second half of the song here seems to be implying that Yan has definitely killed people close to him before, almost definitely because the Prescripts ordered it. Furthermore, he has been doing this from a young age, as it was "before I knew love or coffee," which very much seems to be telling me he was young.

The next part of the song seems to focus on the events that led Yan to Distort. He forged Prescripts to cut himself free and establish his own free will, but everything he chose was "by proxy," as the real Prescripts told people to follow Yan's fake Prescripts. His betrayal was forseen and intended all along, and his will was never his own.

As we suckled upon the nine-millimeter pacifier Swallowing the fact that other than to expand, we had no purpose As my ever-burning will to stay afloat backfires I now know I must be comfortable Being who I considered worthless

I think the part at the start of this verse seems to be implying that suicide is a common thing among people in the Index. After all, when your will isn't your own for long enough, you may consider doing something drastic to get it back, or even just to rebel, such as committing suicide. There's also probably people who have been ordered to kill themselves by the Prescripts.

The next part is more about Yan in particular. His desire to stay afloat backfired, in the sense that the very act of clinging to his free will made it hurt him even more when he realized that his actions were all just controlled by the Prescripts, and by extension, The City. So in the end, the very people who he considered worthless, those who just follow orders like sheep without caring where they're from, are in fact just the same as him, even if he didn't realize.

Follow the city's ribbon To a heart nobody seems to listen It takes my heart being broken and broken again (Broken and broken again) To know that I am the reason why (The reason why) The sufferings never end

Yet again, let's take this from the top.

The first lines are probably referring to Yan finding the "God of The City" responsible for producing the Prescripts. After all, he was following a Prescript that led him straight there, and its a place that almost nobody else knows about.

The rest of this verse seems to be Yan talking about the pain he's felt delivering Prescripts. After all, he seems to blame himself for all the pain caused by people following the Prescripts he delivers as a Messenger, which is probably why he says that its partially his fault that the suffering in The City doesn't end.

It could also be referring to his own suffering. His internal struggle for free will, to prove that his actions are his own. Every time its disproven, his heart gets broken again. But in saying his will is his own, he's also saying that him delivering Prescripts that hurt people is his own decision.

This probably ties into why he's so willing to follow the voice telling him to Distort. Once he finally has confirmation that his will is just the will of the City, that its all determined by the Prescripts from the start, he can finally remove all the blame and pain that he's been pushing onto himself and just mindlessly follow the Prescripts.

The only part of this chorus that is different from the first chorus is the final line. It seems to be saying that Yan wants The City to notice him, that he wants it to see his actions. Maybe he feels the The City noticing him would make all of his struggling worth it, or that it'd give his life some meaning.

Do not go home until you finish reading the value of e 2.71 8281 8284 5904 5235 3602 8747 1352 6624 9775 7247 0936 9995 9574 9669 6762

This part is referencing Euler's Number, which is an irrational number, meaning it never ends. The value of this number can never be read in its entirety.

He's never going home.

Part 2 - Summary

Children of the City seems to describe Yan's thoughts and struggles in his life, as he's followed the Prescripts to both his own detriment and the detriment of those around him.

Yan wants his own free will, wants his actions and destiny to be his own. But at the same time, this desire is constantly at odds with Yan's desire to not be at fault for all the pain and suffering he feels like he's caused as a Messenger of the Index, delivering the same painful Prescripts to people that he's been following his entire life.

In short, Yan is in pain. And when he finally gets confirmation that he has no will of his own, that its all the work of the random generations of The City, he finally Distorts into a form that mindlessly follows the Prescripts, feeling no guilt or pain over anything he does.

Part 3 - More of My Ramblings

I hope this analysis makes sense, and that I'm not just hallucinating these meanings to these lines. Yan is one of my favorite new characters in LoR, and I wanted to do him justice by analyzing his Character Song to prove that I am the true Yan Scholar.

If you do have feedback, I'd love to hear it. I want to fully understand this song, and by extension, Yan Vismok himself.

#library of ruina #project mili #mili #children of the city #yan vismok

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