Quote:
Originally Posted by WyrdMonger
Out of curiosity, what became of Stiyl and Kaori in this volume?
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Stiyl went to R&C's headquarters to find everyone there brutally killed. Kanzaki got pulled out of the sand offscreen, definitely could have been handled better there.
I agree we need to dig deep into Anna's motives and goals here. Everything about her so far has been kept vague. We know she's whimsical but that can't be the standalone trait of an overarching villain, it just loses appeal if the reader cannot identify or sympathize with her. Aleister is the perfect example, he set out wanting to prevent more tragedies but down the road twists more into vengeance, it all started because his daughter died a mysterious death, that's a very convincing motivation.
So far we know Anna's tired of leading/teaching other people, believing them to be not worth her time. She's basically a spoiled kid (but she can walk the talk), Kamachi even emphasize this multiple times in the text and in the afterword. She wants to be pampered, to be subservient to someone stronger than her but it's been repeatedly stated that's just not possible, not even magic gods catch her interest. Considering the age group of most of the current Index audience, I don't think a simple spoiled kid is something they can easily identify with, compared to Aleister losing his family or even Coronzon faithfully attempting to fulfill her duties. So far she's more doing things to temporarily stave off her boredom but that's going to run out of steam fast. The reader has to find her ultimate goal to be worth all that she's done.
In this volume, one thing I found interesting was that Touma was simultaneously attempting to deduct whether Melzabeth is a good person and what Anna's motivations are. He ultimately reached the conclusion that Melzabeth IS a good person (and he was right), and that Anna had no one to rely on. Ultimately Anna did not appear in LA at all, and we never got to the bottom of her intentions with Melzabeth in LA as everything was from Touma and Othinus's POV. Basically I want Touma's assessment of her to be wrong even if just slightly.
The last scene with Anna had me interested because it seems to be the first time she didn't go all high and mighty in the presence of others. While she did reprimand Arcadia a bit for her bantering, ultimately they seem to be on better terms than what Anna had with Aiwass, that's for sure. I really want to see a different side to Anna than just talking down on people and/or defeating them without breaking a sweat. In GT 2 Anna did get riled up, but again due to her whimsical nature I can't say for certain if this is also part of her act to lose so she gets put next to Accelerator.