Some unformed Maiden Rose thoughts
Because I am still working through some of my Family Business thoughts. I've already had to change my concept around for the reconciliation sex and it's discombobulated me so I'm writing MR instead - which is also discombobulating me.
This is all rather spoilery for MR, obviously.
A pivotal moment, returned to over and over again, is the first meeting between Klaus and Taki when Klaus is maybe fifteen and Taki maybe nine. Taki wants some flowers and he asks Klaus to lift him so that he can reach them. Each time we return to this scene, the setting is the same, but the dialogue is subtly different, and this of course is no doubt partly because I've read at least four different translator's takes between the tankobons and the scanlations. Sometimes Taki directly asks Klaus to be his knight. Sometimes it's a more general 'will you be mine'. Part of the purpose of this repetition is to underscore Klaus's baffled rage that Taki has apparently later rejected him, and the very bad choices he makes because of that.
Nearly all the manga, especially the main plotline, is from Klaus' pov - we see his internal life far more than we ever do Taki's. So one could argue that this is Klaus's memory reinterpreting what he remembers each time through the filter of his growing understanding of the the culture of Taki's country. The repetition is likely also a device of the mangaka to emphasise the element of destiny that's pervasive throughout the story.
And then I got discombobulated at several levels, because how the heck does Klaus understand what Taki is saying? As a member of court who is likely being trained to have diplomatic responsibilities, even baby!Taki may have learned a little of various western languages. As an adolescent travelling on a diplomatic junket, Klaus may have had a crash course in the eastern country's language. Whose language are they employing here? We know that it's more than Klaus simply obeying the gesture language of a charismatic child because at his worst moment he throws it back in Taki's face that Taki has wanted Klaus with him from the first.
Obviously Taki has to have learned the 'Saxon' language when he goes to Luckenwalde. It's made a minor plot point that Klaus has picked up a lot of Taki's language early in the manga, when he comments to a shop keeper that the young cadets obviously don't know just how much he understands when they're talking about him.
We know that Klaus has never forgotten that moment in the garden, and it's clear that Taki hasn't either. Shortly before his deportation, which is possibly the first full sexual contact between them, Klaus explicitly comments that he realises that Taki was the boy in the garden, and Taki hushes him. At what point does Taki realise that Klaus was the foreign boy he met, because I'm prepared to bet that it was well before Klaus comments on it. (It's hard to say if that was their first sexual contact because I get the impression that Klaus kinks really hard on the idea that he's the only person Taki's had any sort of sexual activity with, even if he doesn't quite understand why Taki is so inexperienced at first. Klaus is too busy singing hallelujahs of 'mine, all mine' poor needy, mistaken bastard that he is.)
MR is so densely written that it's entirely possible that even with a reread that I've missed a crucial clue. *sigh* I should read it again. What suffering....
This entry was originally posted at https://mab-browne.dreamwidth.org/370794.html. Comments are welcome there too. :-)
This is all rather spoilery for MR, obviously.
A pivotal moment, returned to over and over again, is the first meeting between Klaus and Taki when Klaus is maybe fifteen and Taki maybe nine. Taki wants some flowers and he asks Klaus to lift him so that he can reach them. Each time we return to this scene, the setting is the same, but the dialogue is subtly different, and this of course is no doubt partly because I've read at least four different translator's takes between the tankobons and the scanlations. Sometimes Taki directly asks Klaus to be his knight. Sometimes it's a more general 'will you be mine'. Part of the purpose of this repetition is to underscore Klaus's baffled rage that Taki has apparently later rejected him, and the very bad choices he makes because of that.
Nearly all the manga, especially the main plotline, is from Klaus' pov - we see his internal life far more than we ever do Taki's. So one could argue that this is Klaus's memory reinterpreting what he remembers each time through the filter of his growing understanding of the the culture of Taki's country. The repetition is likely also a device of the mangaka to emphasise the element of destiny that's pervasive throughout the story.
And then I got discombobulated at several levels, because how the heck does Klaus understand what Taki is saying? As a member of court who is likely being trained to have diplomatic responsibilities, even baby!Taki may have learned a little of various western languages. As an adolescent travelling on a diplomatic junket, Klaus may have had a crash course in the eastern country's language. Whose language are they employing here? We know that it's more than Klaus simply obeying the gesture language of a charismatic child because at his worst moment he throws it back in Taki's face that Taki has wanted Klaus with him from the first.
Obviously Taki has to have learned the 'Saxon' language when he goes to Luckenwalde. It's made a minor plot point that Klaus has picked up a lot of Taki's language early in the manga, when he comments to a shop keeper that the young cadets obviously don't know just how much he understands when they're talking about him.
We know that Klaus has never forgotten that moment in the garden, and it's clear that Taki hasn't either. Shortly before his deportation, which is possibly the first full sexual contact between them, Klaus explicitly comments that he realises that Taki was the boy in the garden, and Taki hushes him. At what point does Taki realise that Klaus was the foreign boy he met, because I'm prepared to bet that it was well before Klaus comments on it. (It's hard to say if that was their first sexual contact because I get the impression that Klaus kinks really hard on the idea that he's the only person Taki's had any sort of sexual activity with, even if he doesn't quite understand why Taki is so inexperienced at first. Klaus is too busy singing hallelujahs of 'mine, all mine' poor needy, mistaken bastard that he is.)
MR is so densely written that it's entirely possible that even with a reread that I've missed a crucial clue. *sigh* I should read it again. What suffering....
This entry was originally posted at https://mab-browne.dreamwidth.org/370794.html. Comments are welcome there too. :-)