Discussion?! Senpai + alchemy

[aeth]

Mitsuru, Akihiko, and Shinjiro: Rubedo, Albedo and Negredo. Do you think the writers had this in mind when creating the characters? Do you think it fits them?

The thought that started this: I was disappointed there is so little Mitsuru fanart, and while looking through Pixiv I noticed that the three's color schemes are based around red, white and

Comments

[paperclipchains]

An interesting thought! Though purely coincidence, in my opinion. While their hair colour and such matches, their personalities don't and I can't see any real alchemical significance or ordered procession in amongst them - heck, they don't even correspond to the Xenosaga characters!

That said, it would make an interesting fic concept.

[aeth]

I think it fits Shinji more than Akihiko or Mitsuru, and I agree with it being coincidental! But, as I said, IT'S REALLY SUPER DUPER INTERESTING to think about hahaha ;o; ...for me at least

[relmneiko]

I... never noticed the hair colour thing, to be honest. I'm a bad Xenosaga fan, clearly.

I can see nigredo, definitely - and the line on albedo I pulled from wikipedia... It is a phase where insight into shadow projections are realized, and inflated ego and unneeded conceptualizations are removed from the psyche.

Akihiko's pretty arrogant, especially before Shinji's death (imo, we could argue this), and you could see his focus on getting stronger as an 'unneeded conceptualization'... anyway, part of his resolution was letting go of a lot of that stuff. So, I could see him as albedo.

(but what does insight into shadow projections mean...)

I can't say anything for rubedo, though. Then again, I find Mitsuru a difficult character to grasp in general.

[paperclipchains]

I don't know about the psychological application, but in alchemical terms, black, white and red were basically the steps you took on the way to making the philosopher's stone. Rubedo, then, is success - philosopher's gold has been produced, everything has been synthesized, and you get transcendence through perfect alchemical balance. Mitsuru has a long way to go before she reaches this.

[kaysper]

Well, I don't know if I can get completely behind there not being a lot of fanart of Mitsuru. A little digging finds at least some images.

(Don't know if you've already seen all those or not, but I couldn't help but go a little link-happy.) Not that I'd object to MOAR fanart of her, of course. But Mitsuru does at least have more fanart then, say, Argilla from DDS. *shakes a fist at the internet.*

On the other hand, yeah, you're not the only one that noticed they all seem to borrow from each other, color wise! It always entertained me that all of Akihiko's casual wear has some red on it, somewhere. I'm not familiar with alchemy, but I'd be interested in seeing if that ties into each character's tarot affinity.