Part 4: Mambo Of Monsters
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| I took this capture for Part 2's labyrinth talk, but see? The theme was right there all along. |
Noble Red are certainly the biggest example of the theme of monsters popping up, but I want to save that for a little later. That being said, we do have to focus on their scheme to implant the god-power into Miku. It's a scheme we know succeeds, since I told you about it a second ago, but they also kidnapped Elfnein as you'll recall. The reason for that's simple. We're in the ruins of the Chateau de Tiffauges, Carol's world-ending tuning fork fortress. Elfnein is also technically in Carol's body, as of the complicated and weird alchemical transfer at the end of Symphogear GX. Knowing that, Noble Red want her to activate some shit in the Chateau so their god-power transfer experiment will succeed. Their power generator down here is filled with no less than discarded and ruined Autoscorer bodies. This will become important in just a second.
Millaarc tries her stained glass eyes to brainwash Elfnein into doing it, the thing turns on, but then all hell breaks loose. The god-power goes out of control, and Noble Red venting it so they don't blow up creates one of those invulnerable god-monsters for our girls outside to beat up. With that all done, Noble Red decides that Elfnein is expendable and gets ready to kill her... but what happens then is absolutely wild.
Dear readers, I will not lie to you. When I saw this, when I comprehended what was happening, I promptly lost my goddamned mind. Full on WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUCK screaming. The latter half of episode 7 is a full on celebration of Symphogear GX, as it's not just Pharah who has returned. All four of Carol's Autoscorer generals from that season come back here, their shells having been tossed into the generator. Noble Red planned to use all the memories they stole over that season as power, but now they're back! How did they revive? Well, we'll get to that in a moment, but here are the Autoscorers' last stands. They're only here for a short while, but they sacrifice themselves to try and get Elfnein out of the Chateau. Since they're ruined Autoscorers, even the comparatively weak Noble Red are able to beat the hell out of them. It's sad, but it's arguably a better end for them than the ones they got in GX. You might even say that the Autoscorers were once monsters, but have now face turned to some redemption in their last moments. I'm okay with them pulling a "Yesterday's Enterprise" here, but Elfnein doesn't get away. Whatever shall she do? Oh, just this.
So yeah. Carol is back. The method of Carol's return is some technobabble involving fragments of her memory coming together as a defense mechanism from the whole stained glass eyes thing. That's not important. What's important is that Carol's back, she's pissed, and she's ready to kick Noble Red's asses to the curb as the murderer of miracles. Her song also mentions monsters, for the record, so we're on point. That's actually all the Carol I want to mention right now. Her return couldn't be ignored as it ties in to the finale, and it has some tenuous ties to the theme of monsterism. You know who else has that? Everyone's favorite nationalist old bastard who sacrifices his countrymen for his schemes, Fudo Kazanari. Let's go back and poke at that for just a bit.
I don't have to tell you Fudo's entire plan and ideology is, by definition, monsterish. That much should be obvious, but it's the way Fudo himself sees monsterism that perks one up for this running theme. The main point this becomes evident is during that last desperate duel between him and Tsubasa. I said we'd touch on it, and now here we are. The battle hits a sort of resolution for Tsubasa's wondering about protection: she realizes we don't protect people because they are weak, but because people are worth protecting. In response to all this, Fudo goes full symphogearvillain.png here. Songs can't save the world, friendship's for losers, et cetera et cetera. Of course, then he drops this:
Yes, you have Fudo's deluded "we're not so different, you and I", bullshit, but it's framed in terms of everything he believes in. So Fudo doesn't care about becoming a monster, so long as it means his precious Japan is protected. No regrets for all he's done, no remorse, full on walking backwards into hell for his nationalist beliefs. The monsterism came out right at the end there, after all the talk of protection faded away. Tsubasa, for her part, doesn't get to become a monster by killing Fudo. Genjuro stops her, Fudo's arrested, and he gets locked up and the key's thrown away. Great. Some other very bad things happen in this episode, namely to Noble Red... so let's sort them out next.
Noble Red are the strongest proponents of the running theme of monsterism in the show. All three were failed alchemical experiments of the Illuminati, but the reason they're considered "failures" is because they're monsterish. Remember, Adam Weishaupt was big into purity and all that. Noble Red are nowhere near that ideal, and thus they are monsters. On another level, they literally are monsters; all three are representations of famous monsters from European fiction. Millaarc, if you really haven't pegged it by now, is an anagram of Carmilla; one of the famous examples of vampire fiction which predates Dracula by about a quarter-century. Vanessa Diodati, the leader, is more machine than human thanks to the botched alchemical experiments. She's Frankenstein's monster and her last name even harkens to Villa Diodati, where Mary Shelley famously found the idea seed for what would become Frankenstein. (Doctor Who once again taught me something, not bad.) At first I thought Elza Bete, with her ears and mechanical tails, was just a generic werewolf. Bete, of course, is French for beast. According to my 5 seconds of looking stuff up, she's a reference to the Beast of Gévaudan. Neat.
The point is, our girls are up against three classic European horror monsters running amok. Noble Red, for all their faults, only have one goal. It's shockingly similar to Saint Germain's goal, but with more personal stakes. Like Saint Germain, they want god power... but rather than change the world for the better or worse, all they want is to become human again. It's their one driving goal, and it makes them some of the most sympathetic antagonists to date on the show. This sympathy will lead to tragedy. During all that bullshit with Fudo and Tsubasa, talking of protection and monsters... Fudo still has a living god wearing Miku as a suit strapped into statis in his manor. Noble Red, weakened from Fudo's betrayal with poisoned blood, decide to go in and steal the god power for themselves. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
Oh. Okay. So the dark goddess just kills them, then. Death would have been kinder. Noble Red get the shittiest damn hand dealt to them here. Shem-Ha only kills them on reflex, but she's generous enough to bring them back to life. As 100% monsters. This is actually the exact opposite of what they wanted. Now they can't ever be human again. Naturally the trio are distraught at this, but with nothing else to do and their dreams shattered, the three become servants of the dark goddess. We'll get into the final moments of Noble Red, but we have to talk about the ultimate monster. We put it off for like 1500 words, but we really have to talk about Shem-Ha. The dark one. Oh, God. Buckle up.
Shem-Ha calls herself a goddess, and we may as well roll with it. In technicality she's the lingering spirit of an ancient Custodian with divine delusions of grandeur, but she has the almighty power to back her bullshit up. It would be bad enough if this were a dark goddess just wearing Miku as a suit, but Shem-Ha has a far worse plan. She is, in many respects, the ultimate monster. Shem-Ha Is, if you will. I'm still dancing around it. Maybe if I just come out and say it, the true horror of what she represents will be clear. Shem-Ha's goal is simple. She, the ultimate monster, wants to morph all of humanity into monsters in her image. The way she intends to do this is A) absolutely bonkers and B) a terrifying late-show reveal which changes everything we thought we knew, forever. Okay. Let's paragraph break and try, in some limited fashion, to make this lore dump we get concise. Ready?
This has the effect of retroactively making every villain scheme bar Carol's (who just wanted to unmake the world and had no aspirations of blowing up the moon) a horrible idea that would have brought about monstrous apocalypse. Okay, it's kind of funny to imagine Dr. Ver's horror if he won and watched as all became Shem-Ha. Because Dr. Ver fucking sucks. It gets worse, though. Here and there, throughout the series, we keep hearing a weird noise during Noble Red's god power experiments. Tampering with it via hacking to clean it up produces, of all things, Maria's Apple song. You know, the tune which united all of humanity during the Frontier incident way back in the second season? The thing at the time I called a beautiful shining moment of utopic unity? Yeah, uhh. That was Shem-Ha. The seal broke, just for a moment, and the universal unity actually woke Shem-Ha up. Dear God. The dark goddess knows no bounds. The foundation of our utopic ideal, the idea of mutual understanding... all the dark whims of a monster wanting to make us all in her own image. This is the real truth of the Curse of Balal. We, the human race, are cursed.
There's more than one way to deal with a curse, though. Look at the Ignite Module, where the girls took their fears and insecurities and used them to power up. There's a way out of this. Take my hand. We'll confront the curse head-on, flip a coin... and end the Symphogear saga, once and for all. Deep breaths, everyone. Like our hand-holding savior says... it's fine. Everything is just fine.
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