Lewin and Osceola: Chapter 148 recap and notes
Man did this one hit me in the feels.
We get the back story between Lewin and Osceola and it's intense, sad and full of love.
Osceola is ready to martyr himself to save the person he cares most about; Lightning.
Lightning is like a son to him.
In the beginning of this chapter we find Osceola, laying on the ground and near death after battling Amon. Lightning is shouting into his headset, urgently begging him to answer. Osceola is musing on the last vestiges of consciousness that Lightning seems really upset and "he lost his cool." And it's true Lightning is always cool, calm and collected, he's like Mephisto. But in this case, Osceola is very special to Lightning, he's the man that raised him and is like a father. Regardless of Lightning's normal lack of empathy, his deep love of Osceola is blatantly showing through.
Osceola has a flashback of his life. We see that he has spiritual Indigenous roots, and his family taught him about death. Death wasn't an ending to be feared, but a transition. And a person's death should have some sort of meaning, at least that's what Osceola surmised. He went out into the world trying to find what life truly meant, in order to better understand the purpose of this death. When he met his wife and had a child he thought he understood. He would provide and protect his family. Love and family were the key, the things worth fighting for. That love was worth dying for.
Sadly, his child was killed in a terrible accident. Osceola couldn't stop it, and couldn't protect his child. This caused the breakup of his marriage and Osceola lost everything he valued, his family and his self-worth.
Osceola's life parallels Shura. Both exorcists turn to alcohol after the death of a loved one. When Shiro died, Shura was completely lost. Shiro was closest thing to family Shura ever had. Without Shiro she also could not fulfill her promise to Hachiro and was left in limbo.
Osceola, also couldn't be spiritually fulfilled and have a meaningful death. He had no-one to protect, no family to fight for.
Luckily both Shura and Osceola were able to find a life worth living. Shura became a parent/mentor to Yukio and Rin. And Osceola was given the task of mentoring Lewin Light.
Lewin had a terrible childhood, and seemed destitute, drawing parallels to Yuri Egin. It's possible he was raised under the supervision of former exorcists like Yuri. Yuri's caretakers were homeless people, and perhaps Lightning's were heretics.
Yuri, however, fared slightly better than Lightning. She had a much more loving family and learned empathy and love. These lessons followed her throughout her life. Sadly Lightning was chained in his basement because he caretakers didn't know how to deal with his powers and inquisitive mind.
Yuri lost her caretakers when her demon temptaint (Satan) got jealous and killed them.
But what about Lightning. It almost seems as if he killed his caretakers himself, after suffering intense abuse.
Lewin's story more aligns with Satan. The kid acts like a demon, he has the same crazy instinct to learn everything, impossible power and a lack of empathy.
And we all know what happened to Satan. Satan is mistreated and turns into a supervillain that can't be reasoned with and wants to kill all of humanity and scorch Assiah to ashes.
In order for a demon to exist in Assiah and be content, he must care about humanity and learn to coexist with them. Nurturing demons is really, really important. They do have feelings, they just don't wear them on their sleeves like humans. Loving a demon does have an impact, even if it doesn't seem that way.
Osceola is given the difficult assignment of caring for Lewin. He's a fish out of water, like Shiro was for Rin. (Don't think Mephisto isn't watching this experiment carefully!!)
Lewin states that he isn't possessed by a demon. And I believe him. I think this kid is a reincarnated version of Azazel. When Azazel no longer wanted to live in Assiah, maybe he retired his ego and passed on his heart to Lewin?
Osceola teaches the little demon kid what it means to be human. And I think a lot of it sticks. Lewin is clearly on the side of Assiah.
When we snap back to the future, we see Lewin and we don't even get a chance to read his emotion, but whatever it is, it's serious enough to scare the shit out of Bon. Lewin knows his father is ready to die, and will that cause the demon finally emerge out of Lewin? Will Lewin be the next person displaced? Will he become lost too?
Is Lightning's grip on human affection and love enough to help him weather the emotional storm that is coming? Will fighting for Assiah be enough to give him meaning?
Osceola's death will be a test.
Now we wait to see if Lewin passes that test.
Will the new Azazel be a Mephisto? Or will he be a Lucfer/Satan?
Do we have any concerns about Lightning?
Does he just tell humans what he wants them to hear?
Or does he really have feelings?
He lied about this his family... after telling the truth.
His words can be contradictions...
He also said he wanted to be a hero, loved humans and the world. He said he wasn't into revenge and liked Assiah the way it was. He didn't have a secret ambition.
What if that was a lie?
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Never thought I’d see the day cooking would be used as a power up for exorcism and to further character development :D
Can I also say it’s just so sweet that Osceola’s knowledge (who’s been a strong but secondary character until fairly recently, i love him and his design so much tho) resonates with Rin on such a personal level?
After all, cooking is the one thing Shiro thought hard about and decided that Rin would study at home with him...
because Rin needed an efficient way to learn how to control his strength.
Now we reached a point in the story when Rin admits to “having defeated his demon side” and controlling his flame, talking to Yukio about his doubts, and Sensei parallels it in the same chapter with...
...Rin actively learning about the field of talismanic cooking.
Also, I love how, little by little, Sensei highlights how Rin’s objectives have changed throughout the story, because of what he learnt about himself and about the dual world (made of Assiah and Gehenna) that they live in. In shonen series, the hero(es) often have one or several immovable goal(s) to achieve but Rin’s have steadily evolved. He initially wanted to kick Satan’s butt for Shiro’s death, but now...
...he realizes there’s just too much he doesn’t understand to be sure of what he can actually do.
EDIT: To elaborate, this was foreshadowed way back, during the Kyoto arc, that without understanding of both sides Rin would never become a bridge between Assiah and Gehenna...
...and once more in the Aomori arc...
...but it’s good that he started mentioning these doubts to people around him.
After all, in that alternate future that Mephy saw, Rin became the “demon king”, leader of the demon army, meaning that Rin’s hesitation is worth expanding on, or he’ll choose one side and fight against the other before long and I don’t think this is the answer Kato-sensei is going for. Yukio (with whom he discussed in this chapter) has just always been on the more careful side of things (also he’s like 16 years old) compared to, say, Shura...
...who understands that Rin’s situation has no precedent and that, at some point, Rin has to follow his instinct (still vouching that he’ll have to travel to Gehenna to gain more understanding of the situation but hey, I could be wrong).
Additionally, Rin also once said, early in the story, that he wanted to become Paladin, because that’s the title Shiro held before dying (and maybe also out of animosity towards Arthur), but reading this chapter, I found myself relieved thinking that Rin’s true calling might finally be upon us. :)) To say nothing of the fact that Paladins are previous Section 13′s Baal clones who are chained to the Order, I think the Paladin title (a very specific position at the top of the Order’s hierarchy) would suit Yukio or Bon more than Rin.
Great chapter!! :D
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