Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV

Episode 20

After weeks leading up to it, the moment is here: the death of Astrea Familia. It's brutal, as expected, but also shockingly brief. It may feel that way because original novel author Fujino Ōmori tends to over-write, but it's also the sheer speed at which the Juggernaut takes people out. It's the worst of monsters because it moves so fast and causes so much destruction that it leaves no time to react. Most of Astrea Familia is gone before Ryu can even process it, leaving Alise with few choices regarding how to proceed. Kaguya has lost an arm. Lyla has been blinded. Alise herself has been run through. Even if Ryu wasn't the last ranged fighter standing, she'd be the only one with half a chance of surviving to make it back to civilization.

That's not how Ryu sees it, and I don't think we could expect her to. Her entire Familia has been killed before her eyes, some quickly, some horribly slowly. Even if Alise hadn't said that she wanted Ryu to live, it would be easy to see how the elf would take all of the pain and horror into herself, coming to believe that she ought to have died too and that she's somehow to blame for those final three deaths. When they tell her to “live enough” for everyone, they're being cruel: Ryu will already carry a burden from this fight. Asking her to live for everyone else is just heaping more weight on a soul that can barely continue forward as it is. We all carry our dead with us, but Alise inadvertently ensured that Ryu's would be especially heavy.

Ryu's survivor's guilt is how that weight manifests. When she decides that “justice” will be to kill everyone involved in Evilus and Rudra Familia, she's saying that only blood will balance the scales, even though it won't bring anyone back. She's also denying herself an opportunity to grieve, which is part of what brought her to the point she's at now. She doesn't have to think about what happened if she's always killing or hoping someone will kill her. Even when she begins helping Bell and the Hestia Familia, she's not thinking about “help;” she's simply continuing the fight she started, cleaning up the remnants of her Familia's murderers. Alise didn't say, “avenge us,” but that's the band-aid Ryu slapped over her gaping wound. And now, in the deep levels, she finally sees the opportunity to lay down her self-imposed burden.

It's interesting how this story plays with the definition of “hero.” We haven't seen Hermes this season, but his drive to procure the “right” kind of hero has been behind many of his actions, and he wants to cast Bell in that role. Finn, meanwhile, seems to fit the title neatly, but few people are willing to see him in that light, or at least in the Classical view of what a hero is “supposed” to be. When Bell tells Ryu that to him, she is a hero, she's taken aback, but he's also not wrong: Ryu has been there from day one to help Hestia Familia out of tight spots and that's what a hero is to him. If he's doing the same for Ryu now, he's emulating what she did for him. To Bell, a hero combines all of the best traits of those who've helped him along the way, and that's who he's striving to be. And much to some people's chagrin, in Bell's mind, a hero doesn't leave anyone behind to die.

No one good definition exists, but Bell's definition resonates with Ryu. In their mutual saving in the Coliseum, Ryu finally finds a little closure, and as she cradles Bell in the water, we can see her more at peace. It was cruel what Alise said to her before she died. But it also looks like Ryu may be reaching a place of peace with herself where she can understand why Alise said it.

Rating:

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV is currently streaming on HIDIVE.