User blog:GreekTelepath/Nemesis Sudou: Character Themes and Analysis

Okay, first I'll start with her name. A nemesis is a hated foe - someone you despise or loath. Nemesis opposes the inhabitants of Evil's Theater, keeping the Vessel of Wrath for herself, and is therefore their "nemesis" in a way.

In Greek mythology, Nemesis is the goddess of retribution. She's not really the goddess of anger, per se - her job is just to make sure that no one os always happy or always sad. She balances things out, and personally, I think Nemesis Sudou is like this too. In Master of the Hellish Yard, it's clear that Nemesis wishes to destroy the Sins, saying it's her "mission".

Now, let's look at Master of the Hellish Yard a little more closely. Basically, Nemesis sings how the Hellish yard looks like, but there's a twist at the end that the hell she's talking about is Evillious. Also, she regards herself as the hell's master, AKA the Master of Evillious. Why? Because, remember, she's the dictator of Elphegort, which is a military superpower at the time.

Moving on, the song also talks of "Punishment" a mysterious and powerful weapon. It's obvious it's an atomic bomb with Irregular inside, actually. This is really telling of the theme of Evillious Chronicles as a whole - as the centuries go by, magic becomes more and more irrelevant. There's the fall of Magic Kingdom Levianta in EC 013, and by the time of the Toragay Serial Killings in EC 609, people have already figured out how to deal with the Sins - the townspeople of Toragay hid out in the Blankenheim mansion's basement to escape the airborn Gift, while Puerrick Rogze discovered the cure for Gula. Elluka, our protagonist, even says herself how humans are learning to survive through their own wisdom, and thinks about the possibility of "retiring" as a mage.

Mind you, when Nemesis bombs Evil's Theater in EC 999, it's not the end... At least yet. The Nemesis poem as well as the Muzzle album talks of Sickle borrowing Michaela's power and intervening - but only AFTER Held's Forest has been devastated by the blast. Why did Sickle allow Nemesis to invent Punishment? Simple, because Nemesis happened to be serving his own interest! He knew Nemesis was going to bomb Evil's Theater, and so he let her go through with it. Now with the Sins seemingly gone, Sickle has to stop Nemesis from razing Evillious with the bomb, and he intends to "break" his own rules and temporarily borrow Michaela's power.

How's Sickle going to do that, you ask? Easy - wait for Michaela's tree to die. The Muzzle album makes it clear that Held's Forest was turned to ash by the bomb, likely killing the New Millennium Tree. Remember in Gloom of Held, when Held said that if Irina burned his earthly body, he'd be able to temporarily use his godly power on her? But Held's already passed on to the Second Period, so that can't be the case. When Michaela's tree does die, Sickle plans to do something, we just don't know yet.

Take into account that Heavenly Yard makes it clear that Sickle is planning something, something he refuses to tell even the prudent and logical Held! But wait, where does Irregular fit in here? Irregular is said to be "imprisoned" in the Master of the Court's stomach cavity, atoning for his sins and waiting to be reborn, but I'll get to that later.

Recall the imagery in Re_birthday: a black box with a giant spring on top, where you can't see or hear anything. That must be MADDENING, and you really wonder how Irregular's will wasn't broken in there. The black box has many parallels to Purgatory in Christianity - basically, after you die, you get some extra time to be purified; if your living relatives pray for you, you'll be taken out of purgatory and go to heaven. If Rin "prayed" for Allen in the form of her wish in a bottle, that must be the impetus for Irregular's freedom from the black box!

However, I'd like to bring up that End of a Moonlit Night shows some disturbing parallels between Nemesis and Irregular. Nemesis is locked inside a dark house while voices taunt her... Similar to what happened to Irregular! It makes sense that the Masters of the Hellish and Heavenly Yards both go through this purgatory of sorts. However, while Irregular's purgatory prepared him for being reborn as the Master of the Heavenly Yard, something in Nemesis snapped when she was a kid. The song lyrics say she forgot all emotions other than Wrath, and if that's not preparation for her being a Master of the Hellish Yard, I don't know what is.

Nemesis, as the Master of the Hellish Yard, openly opposes the Capriccio Force, as made clear in Heartbeat Clocktower (the green gear falling off to the side as the others come together) as well as Capriccio Farce. Ma says that the Golden Key is probably in Nemesis' hands, and it is, something made very clear. The Golden Key is the key to a firing device for Punishment, called the Black Box.

Remember in Heavenly Yard, when it's stated that the black box can only be opened by a golden key? We didn't know that Sickle wasn't being literal, that he was talking about the Golden Key being the activator of the Black Box firing device!!!! Goddamnit mothy, stop being so fucking good at foreshadowing.

Anyway, back to Sickle. Sickle prepared the world to have four "Ends" - each one corresponding to each of the four Masters, hence the series End of the Four. I think it can also be called The Four Last Things, but I like Ends of the Four because it not only alludes to the death of the Masters, it also shows their intentions, or "ends".

Now, the Golden Key is also a big player in this whole apocalypse scenario. As stated in the trivia, it is based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale, "The Golden Key", which is at the last of the tales and ends in a cliffhanger - just like the Wrath arc. Mothy straight-out says Held's Forest was obliterated by the blast, along with Evil's Theater. The Master of the Hellish Yard has a bomb capable of destroying countries, and obviously everyone is fucking screwed.

Satan, otherwise known as the Demon of Wrath, is seen as the Devil. He is the prince of Hell, and likewise Nemesis is the Master of the Hellish Yard. Now, let's make a distinction between Grave and Hellish regarding their themes of death. MotG has themes of undead, revelry, and never ending parties, as seen in her character song. Meanwhile, Nemesis has themes of revenge, mass destruction, and death to all.

What really makes Nemesis a good and unique character is that she thinks what she's doing actually benefits everyone. As opposed to Margarita, who pretended that she was concerned with her fellow townspeople but really wanted to destroy everything from the start. Meanwhile, Master of the Hellish Yard shows how Nemesis sees the destruction of the Sins to be her duty or mission.

When Held tasked Elluka to collect the Vessels of Sin in EC 015, there's no doubt the plan was for Elluka to give them to him once she collected all of them and kill his earthly body, allowing Held to use his godly power to destroy the seemingly-indestructible Sin Vessels. However, when Held was about to pass away, he planned to have his successor, Michaela, take up his role as Destroyer of the Sins - that was what he planned all along. However, keep in mind that Elluka never succeeded in collecting all seven of the Sin Vessels. Nemesis doesn't need Held to destroy the Sins - hell, she has an effing bomb to do that. She's taking