Fic: My Own Hands Imprison Me

[veleda_k]

Title: My Own Hands Imprison Me
Fandom: Count Cain/Godchild
Characters: Jezebel and Cassian
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 565
Summary: Cassian wants to save Jezebel. Jezebel has opinions on that.
A/N: Written for comment_fic, for the prompt "The power of love and friendship and rainbows and shit isn’t going to change this. It's not a fucking band-aid and '

Comments

[000_hester_000]

I agree completely with this view on Jezebel-- although he is my favorite character by far. ...But I think that what makes his innocent/childlike aspects interesting is how they're counterbalanced bu his severely fucked-up personality.

[veleda_k]

Jezebel's a really interesting character, which is one of the reasons that I'm so frustrated when writers whitewash him. He's definitely very wounded and vulnerable, but also, you know, evil.

Ultimately, I think that Jezebel's biggest problem is that he's weak. He's too weak to fight his father, or even imagine a life without him. He's too weak to assign blame where it belongs, instead choosing to blame Cain for what is in no way Cain's fault. (Alexis is a bastard. Cain is not responsible for this.) He's too weak to even try to be a good person.

That's why I love Cain so much. He's incredibly strong, not just in fighting Alexis, but in that despite knowing nothing but pain and abuse for the majority of his life, he still tries to do what's right. (Okay, sure, he mainly does that by murdering people horribly, but at least he's doing it to avenge the wronged, rather than because he's an emotionally stunted misanthrope.)

[000_hester_000]

Jezebel's a really interesting character, which is one of the reasons that I'm so frustrated when writers whitewash him.

I get frustrated when writers including Kaori Yuki herself, imo, whitewash all the characters in this series. Except for a few people like Merryweather and Uncle Neil, there are no nice people here.

Also, yes @ Jezebel being weak-- both in the obvious and spiritual senses of the word. --Which I guess is probably also part of his childish nature. I mean, by no means should 'childish' be taken to mean 'nice.' Little kids are kinda amoral, aren't they?

Idk about Cain though... he's one of the ones where I feel like both fans and the author treat him like he's a lot better person than he really is. (I guess it always came across to me like he solves crimes in order to make himself feel better, not out of any actual consideration for the victims' wishes-- like, he wants to kill people, but unlike Jezebel he's sane enough to do so in a more socially acceptable manner.)

[veleda_k]

Oh, Cain is a nasty piece of work, no doubt about it. He's selfish, petty, vindictive, arrogant, cruel, and he lashes out at the people who care for him the most. He's definitely morally grey

[000_hester_000]

No, I agree that Cain's being the way he is makes perfect sense for him-- and also that he does the best he can to reconcile himself with the things that happened in his past. (And anyway, it's not really like he himself ever claims to be a hero-- which is definitely one respect in which he is superior to Jezebel. Sometimes, especially when he talks about animals, I get the impression that Jezzie has himself completely convinced that nothing he does is actually wrong, and that anyone who thinks it is is just a blind, egotistical hyoooooman

[veleda_k]

And anyway, it's not really like he himself ever claims to be a heroYeah, Cain seems to be very aware of just who he is. "I find a sense of peace from having the power of life and death within my hands," from "Solomon Grundy's Sunday", and "I can sympathize with the feelings one has when smitten with the power of drugs," from "The Little Crooked House." And I agree that Jezebel doesn't see what he does as wrong. Not acceptable by society's standards, yes, but what does he care what humans think

[000_hester_000]

Hm, I guess mostly my problem with the way Riff in particular acts is that I can't help but feel like he doesn't really do much about the things that Cain does... which I think would be understandable in a lot of cases, especially since Riff's only a servant after all, but Cain seems too young to me to be given that much freedom to fuck his life up.

As for Merryweather: I agree that it would be silly to expect her to be very critical of Cain's actions. (And, you know, I'm really glad that she isn't because there are way too many bizarrely moral children in fiction already, and it's absolutely ridiculous.) But I wish that in the little snippet we see of older!her and Oscar there was more of an indication that she had matured emotionally. Instead to me she seemed like sort of a weepy Shoujo Good Girl type, which annoyed me because it just felt like she lost her original spirit.

I ignore that particular plot point. Fingers in my ears, going "Lalalala! I can't hear you!"Oh. Dear God. I don't even know what to say about that plot

[veleda_k]

Riff is far from perfect, and his biggest flaw is how he follows Cain (nearly) unquestioningly. Occasionally, he'll try to reign Cain in, but when Cain resists, Riff folds. Riff's devotion is absolute, and not all of the effects are positive.

Of course, then I wonder what would be better for Cain. Should Riff be firmer and give Cain a sense of limits and boundaries? Or is Cain so starved for love and affection that Riff's completely unconditional acceptance is actually for the best? I'm honestly not sure. On the one hands, Cain is not a well individual. On the other, he's been so long rejected and condemned just for existing that he reacts very badly to any sort of judgment, no matter how reasonable. (See his interactions with Neil.) He doesn't only get angry, he becomes very hurt. I wonder if Riff trying to exert any sort of control, even a healthy amount, might make Cain feel even more alone. This is all just conjecture, of course. Either way, the conclusion we can draw is that Cain is very, very messed up

[000_hester_000]

Merry fic like that would be awesome. ...Actually, any Merry fic where she's not just being an accessory to Cain would be awesome. But anyway. On the one hand I feel like the spunky little girl type character is overdone, but in Merry's case the spunk isn't obnoxious. Actually, she kinda reminds me of what Cain would have been if he weren't so traumatized, since he certainly is very spirited.

Way to send message that women deserve to be treated badly by men.

It really depresses me how much of that there is in things written by and for women.... I've come to the conclusion that series that are supposed to specifically aimed at women are for some reason more sexist than those aimed at everybody. It's weird. And shoujo manga especially... blehh. Like, bad boys in shoujo are always really cool and awesome, but bad girls are just evil.Jezebel seems like someone who's full of lots of antithical beliefs and doesn't even try to make sense of them anymore. (I mean, if it's wrong for humans to lord it over animals, then logically it

[veleda_k]

Like, bad boys in shoujo are always really cool and awesome, but bad girls are just evil.

Oh yes. And Kaori Yuki's is especially bad there. I have an impassioned rant about Kaori Yuki and her "women are evil" problem.

I find Jezebel really interesting for just that reason. His worldview is very patchwork, and he's one of the crazier characters in a manga full of crazy people. It's an accomplishment.

And, yes, friend away! I'm desperate for more friends in this fandom, and so far I have not been very successful at luring people in.

[000_hester_000]

Please, rant away. That annoys me with her too. Like, I don't read very much shoujo, and I think that that element is present in lots of series, but in Count Cain it's completely off the radar. Thus my particular hatred for that final revelation about Augusta.

Yes, I think that Jezebel's contradictory nature is part of what makes him so fascinating. (As well as the fact that early on in the series, I think the reader sees him more from Cain's perspective, but as time goes on, we get more of Cassian's view of him... so even though he himself doesn't change very much over the course of the series, how the reader is going to perceive him changes pretty drastically.)

And tsk tsk. If only you had been working on your shoujo sexy villain skillz, you would be able to lure people in much more easily.

[veleda_k]

A lot of shoujo has evil women, but Kaori Yuki a) takes it to an extreme, and b) uses it to continually excuse men of any wrongdoing. It's there in Boys Next Door (The serial killer murders people because his mommy was bad), it's there in Godchild, as discussed, it there in Fairy Cube, (The man never did the evil thing! It was a wicked woman!) and it's in Ludwig Kakumei to a point where it's even worse than it is in Godchild. It's not as bad in Angel Sanctuary, (actually, Angel Sanctuary is much more woman positive than most of her other work, not that it doesn't have its issues) but time and time again women are wicked seducers, and men are helpless to resist them. From a meta standpoint, it brings to mind the story of Adam and Eve, which is oddly appropriate given Yuki's fondness for Biblical stories. Not that that makes it any more pleasant to read

[000_hester_000]

I've never read any of her other stuff, but after hearing that, I'm sort of glad I haven't. Well, I started Fairy Cube, but it just didn't interest me.... What's Ludwig Kakumei about, anyway? ...Although it being more obnoxiously sexist doesn't sound all that promising.

Jezebel grew on me a lot, although I suppose that it doesn't hurt that I don't mind liking characters I could never respect as human beings. I guess I always sort of liked that very fragile quality he has to him, along with the juxtaposition of that and the fact that he's actually quite vicious. It's intriguing.

[veleda_k]

Sorry for the slightly late reply!

Ludwig Kakumei is Grimms' Fairy tales as told by Kaori Yuki. It is as cracktastic and crazy as you'd imagine, perhaps more so. It does take the sexism to new extremes, though one of the female character, Dorothea, is the best thing about it. I liked it, but I've built up tolerance levels to Kaori Yuki's sexism. Exclaiming "Oh Kaori Yuki no" out loud helps. (Inspired by OH JOHN RINGO NO)

It's weird. I don't need to like characters as people to enjoy them (I like several villains), but Jezebel frustrates me. Interestingly enough, I think the fragility that draws you too him is what repels me. I like emotionally resilient characters.

Of course, no one who adores Michaela (as I do) gets to get on anyone's case about liking Jezebel.

[veleda_k]

it only sounds like you're showing an abused child look, that child is better because they were strong and stood up to their masterLooking at what I wrote, yeah there's some uncomfortable subtext there. What I should have made more clear is that when talking about fictional characters those are the reasons I prefer Cain. It may make sense that Jezebel is weak the way he is, it may not be his fault, but that doesn't change the fact that it makes me find his character less interesting. To quote Dylan Thomas, I like characters who "do not go gentle into that good night," who "rage, rage against the dying of the light." That doesn't make Jezebel an objectively less interesting character, nor does it make him automatically inferior to Cain. It does, however, mean that I'm going to find him less interesting as a character