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[Kaybs]

Finished the manga not long back, and it's stuck in my mind a bit. Fantastic existential work, and the last chapter is moving as hell.

 

Something that kind of got to me was the position of the four main Residents: the Kings of Clubs, Spades, and Diamonds and the Queen of Hearts. All of them have a certain kind of love, caring, and honor about them, and yet they all chose to stay in the Borderlands and in the end are "unworthy" of leaving. For Spades and Hearts, we can explain it away with their rather twisted ideologies, and with Diamonds, we can say it's because he didn't yet come to understand his own conviction, but Clubs makes absolutely no sense under these schema. He was full and pure in his ideology and his love, and made sure with each of his games that the winning move was for everyone to come together and survive. If anyone in the entire manga deserved to survive the games, it was him. And yet, he died. So what's going on? What could be going on?

 

So, what I think is going on here is that the main Residents were really just trying, whether they knew it or not, to not just train up their replacements but people who could surpass them and do what they never could. The most obvious example, here, is with Chishiya and the King of Diamonds. The King of Diamonds wanted to know the value of a human life, to be able to use his intellect to save people, but couldn't figure it out for himself until Chishiya gave him the option to value the life of another directly, on his own terms. So Chishiya, in his own way, discovered how to save someone through his intelligence and created a new resolution for himself. The King of Spades was doing more or less the same thing with Agni, who fought and won for the sake of others and who decided on another path for his strength than the blessing-of-death that the old mercenary settled on. The King of Clubs is more difficult, but the best thing to keep in mind is that he wasn't really just one person, but actually the bond between all the members of that band. As such, the replacement was Beach and the larger community of the Borderlands which ended up being formed, which didn't just have a small, tight-knit group of people but which included everyone in its number. And finally, the Queen of Hearts was a psychologist, and in the last chapter, Arisu talks about his own desire to become one. What better symmetry than that?

 

I just think it's cool that the manga has so much to say about the characters that show up in it and about what people need to live good lives. It's wild and thrilling, but also has some serious depth. It gets a full, enthusiastic ♥ from me.

 

How do other people feel? I thought the Residents were fascinating, and I'm sure there was a ton more about them that I didn't notice, not to mention the detail going into all the other characters.

[BottomlessBag]

Kyuuma ultimately chose to indulge himself in this world of death games because he found people to be most honest and open when confronted with death. Given his status as the most social of the top Citizens, and his comments about how he takes games serious and how he wants to peel back the vanities and facades people have; I find it most likely that his reason for staying was because he found a sick fascination with the inner workings of people, not unlike MIra. He finds that Death brings out the true faces of people.

 

Keep in mind that the game he did design featured one of the biggest Dick moves in the series. A goal that was at the start, but a lot of incentives and misdirection to push people forward. And while I do think that it was bizarre that nobody noticed that "Goal = 0km" was a big hint to investigate the starting area, it's not unreasonable to assume that people would thing "Tunnel = gauntlet" as per the original explanation and push forward.

 

In Chapter 52 "Citizens of the Borderlands" he states that he's fine living anywhere so much like his archetype, he's a transient type of person. He also restates for the reader the idea that people facing death makes them shine brighter. "NO LIFE, NO DIE!". If Diamonds questioned the value of life, Hearts fascinated with humanity, Spades wished to end the suffering of others, than Clubs was about getting people to shine brightest.

Spoiler

 

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I do want to draw attention to two games from the first stage though since we're on the topic of citizens. This is part fact and speculation so bear with me. We know that Kyuuma designed the 4 of Clubs game and Mira designed the 10 of Hearts. I would speculate that Shiirabi created the Seven of Spades (Heiya's game) and Kuzuryuu created the six of Diamonds.

Looking at each of these games we can see the philosophy of the creator at work. We already know that Kyuuma want's the group to work together and Mira likes to prod people's motivations and thought processes to get them to break down but the other two?

 

Six of Diamonds (Game: Blackjack)

• Only one survivor allowed, same as beauty contest
• Game pits individuals in a setting where mutual collusion is discouraged because of the first point
• Game is centered around being able to read your opponents and use their thought processes against them
• Rules are essentially "fair" with the only unfair aspect brought in by the players.
  • Remember that because Kuzuryuu lets rules determine how he goes about things , Blackjack rules are essentially unbiased and all players are treated as "equal" in the face of probability.
• Players have the chance to mete out "justice" if an infraction of the rules occurs

Probably the biggest tell that Kuzuryuu designed this game is the first two points. His own Next Stage game also mirrors the Six of Diamonds because only one person can live (although the Jack of Diamonds also has this motif). Even Shiirabi's game gave the players a fighting chance to have as many survive as possible. The presence of a gun however is interesting. It gives each player the chance to remove a problem element, basically they can act as judge if the agreement of "no cheating" is broken. Basically the player can choose who to eliminate regardless of who got caught cheating. We see this play out. And since this game was made while Kuzuryuu was under his own disillusionment, it makes sense that he would pick a style of game where ultimately no life is better than the other in the eyes of the rules since he himself can't find a way to reconcile "All people are equal" in the aftermath of his employment for the corporation.

 

Seven of Spades (Game: Boiling Death)

• This one is less complicated to explain. Shiirabi wants to end the suffering of the players. In his own game he does so by employing his mercenary training and hunting down players with weapons and GPS.
• In Boiling Death the players aren't really given a chance to fight for themselves despite the initial group consisting of martial artists and some pretty hardy people
• They are lured to the center and the geyser is designed to kill as many people as possible quickly and without mercy.
  • This is another Dick move game and probably the least  survivable game
  • Heiya only survived the initial blast through sheer luck she was in the right place
    • Similar to how the wind saved Dou Dou during the King of Spades game.

What do you think? Anyone reading this agree with these ideas?