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sorcerersandskillusers · 6 hours

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Fyodor and the Devil: Analysis of Fyodor's motives and role in the narrative

Asagiri has stated that he based Fyodor not on Dostoyevsky the author but on a specific scene from one of his books The Brothers Karamazov where Ivan Karamazov confronts “the devil” in his room.

(It's a really good book, you should read it if you have time. Also. fun fact, Fyodor and the devil wear the same hat, “His soft fluffy white hat was out of keeping with the season.”)

Having read the book and gone over this scene, I realized that this could be used to find out a lot more about Fyodor as a character than we see in the story, including a potential glimpse at his real motivations.

A bit of context for the scene. Ivan Kramazov is a clever but deeply trouble man who has struggling with the concept of God and rationalising him with the cruelty of humanity, at one point while very sick, Ivan starts seeing a man in his room who claims to be “the devil”. Their conversation is a fascinating look at morality and why evil exists in the world, and if you look at it closely it reveals a lot about the role of a “villain” in a story.

This line from “the devil” is really interesting to me, and seems to explain a lot about Fyodor’s character, as well as align perfectly with how Asagiri has described Fyodor in interviews:

Before time was, by some decree which I could never make out, I

was predestined 'to deny' and yet I am genuinely good-hearted and not at all inclined to negation.

'No, you must go and deny, without denial there's no criticism and what would a journal be without a column of criticism?'

Without criticism it would be nothing but one 'hosannah.' But nothing but hosannah is not enough for life, the hosannah must be tried in the crucible of doubt and so on, in the same style. But I don't meddle in that, I didn't create it, I am not answerable for it. Well, they've chosen their scapegoat, they've made me write the column of criticism and so life was made possible.

Basically the devil is saying that he was created because without evil then good means nothing, if everything was perfect then nothing would happen or change, life couldn’t exist, so he was forced to be that evil even though he never wanted to be.

This is so similar to how Fyodor is described in the BSD exposition 2020:

Fyodor is the antagonist, he is the villain of the story, that is the role he plays. This explains why he chooses to commit so many atrocities in the name of “following God's plan”. It even connects to his line in The Dead Apple, and his ability name. He is both crime and punishment, as “crime” or sin originates with the devil, but it's also the devil who punishes sinners.

(I mean the title of the episode he is introduced in is literally “My Ill Deeds Are the Work of God” by committing evil acts he is fulfilling God's purpose for him.)

And if Fyodor is really based on “the devil” it's very likely he also either does or used to wish for release from this role that was assigned to him, but he knows that he cannot stray from his path or the story will cease to exist. My evidence for Fyodor wanting to be free of his mission is just one interaction, when he kills Karma.

Look at Fyodor's expression here, this is the only time in the entire series where we see him look truly sad. This isn't an act, there is no one there for him to trick, he simply says a quiet prayer for the life of a boy who's only purpose was to suffer and die.

This next part of “the devils” speech actually seems to fit very well for Dazai, it's interesting since he is the narrative foil to Fyodor and clearly is a very similar character.

We understand that comedy; I, for instance, simply ask for annihilation. No, live, I am told, for there'd be nothing without you.

If everything in the universe were sensible, nothing would happen. There would be no events without you, and there must be events. So against the grain I serve to produce events and do what's irrational because I am commanded to.

For all their indisputable intelligence,men take this farce as something serious, and that is their tragedy. They suffer, of course... but then they live, they live a real life, not a fantastic one, for suffering is life. Without suffering what would be the pleasure of it? It would be transformed into an endless church service; it would be holy, but tedious. But what about me? I suffer, but still, I don't live. I am x in an indeterminate equation. I am a sort of phantom in life who has lost all beginning and end, and who has even forgotten his own name.

This ties perfectly into Dazai and Fyodor’s debate on the nature of God in the sky casino arc.

Dazai here points out that it's not perfection and harmony that make the world move, it's the irrational, it's the foolishness and stupidity of humans who charges into life making a million mistakes but always finding ways to fight on through it. Here Dazai and Fyodor represent the conflicting sides of “the devil” with Fyodor embodying his mission to drive the world and Dazai embodying his secret love for, and wish to join, humanity.

“I love men genuinely, I've been greatly calumniated! Here when I stay withyou from time to time, my life gains a kind of reality and that's what I like most of all. Yousee, like you, I suffer from the fantastic and so I love the realism of earth. Here, with you, everything is circumscribed, here all is formulated and geometrical, while we have nothing but indeterminate equations! I wander about here dreaming. I like dreaming. Besides, on earth I become superstitious. Please don't laugh, that's just what I like, to become superstitious. I adopt all your habits here: I've grown fond of going to the public baths, would you believe it?

And I go and steam myself with merchants and priests. What I dream of is becoming incarnate once for all and irrevocably in the form of some merchant's wife weighing eighteen stone, and of believing all she believes. My ideal is to go to church and offer a candle in simple-hearted faith, upon my word it is. Then there would be an end to my sufferings.”

“"Why not, if I sometimes put on fleshly form? I put on fleshly form and I take the consequences. Satan sum et nihil humanum a me alienum puto."*

* I am Satan, and deem nothing human alien to me.”

This piece from the devil feels like it could be a description of Dazai’s character, his wish above all else to find happiness and love as a human despite believing he is a demon. Both Dazai and Fyodor have strong ties to the Devil, both of them are often described as demonic or inhuman, with emphasis placed on the darkness of their souls and the isolation they feel due to their minds.

But the difference between them is how they dealt with it, Fyodor chose to embrace it and fully commit to his role in the story as the ultimate evil for the greater good, but Dazai has always shown a fasciation with humans and has spent his life trying to connect to them and find meaning in his existence.

Finally, let's look at what we can learn about Fyodor’s motivation. Fyodor is the villain, he is the final obstacle the protagonist has to overcome, he is the driving force behind so much of Atsushi’s life and the reason so much of the series has played out at all. He sent Shibusawa to torture Atsushi as a child, he was an informant to the guild who put the bounty on Atsushi making the mafia turn on him, he was involved in the guild invasion, and obviously he was the master mind behind cannibalism and Decay of Angles.

If he is aware of his position as the antagonist, then he also is probably aware Atsushi is the protagonist, he knew he was the “envy of all ability users” after all, so he knows Atsushi has some significance to the world as a whole.

Atsushi is also the “guide to the book” which is seemingly Fyodor’s end goal, so even though Fyodor doesn’t seem to be focused on Atsushi, he has been indirectly influencing his whole journey up to this point. This also explains why Fyodor is only moving actively now, because the protagonist has appeared and his role as the villain can finally be fulfilled and he, like “the devil” can finally get the “annihilation” he asked for. Hence, Fyodor’s true goal is to erase himself from the narrative.

There is actually quite a lot of evidence for this. The obvious part is that Fyodor wants to rid the world of ability users while he himself is an ability user, he cannot exist in his perfect world.

Then there’s the fact that in the Dead Apple, Fyodor calls himself “crime” if Fyodor is “crime” or “sin” then a world free of sin would not contain him at all

Even when Fyodor talks about sin, he says how humans are easily manipulated into killing each other, while he constantly manipulates characters into killing each other, he is the cause of the sin he fights.

A really strong bit of evidence is this interview with Asagiri and Harukawa

Not only does Asagiri reiterate Fyodors role as the person who moves the story, Harukawa specifically mentions that Fyodor might be trying to create a world without ability users because he thought it was a “bad thing to do” aka the action a villain would take that would lead to a hero stopping them.

“Dos-san is the biggest villain in the story so far, but I have continued to draw him with spaced out eyes that are neither righteous nor evil for a long time. The only time I drew his eyes completely white was when he said he would create a world without skill users. It was because, in reality, we would decide what is evil or not by our own scales, but I wasn't sure if he himself was doing it because he thought that was a bad thing to do.”

This also connects to how Fyodor was able to understand Gogol when no one else could, Gogol is chooses to fight against the way the world is to prove to himself that he truly is free. Fyodor, who is bound to play a part in a narrative, would understand that feeling and that longing to be truly free.

To be clear, I don’t think that Fyodor is really a good person whose just been trapped in an awful position against his will, we see many times that Fyodor revels in his cruelty and enjoys killing and torturing others. Its the same with “the devil” in the book, although he hates the job he was given, he tells Ivan stories of the people he’s corrupted and seems very proud of himself for it.

My personal interpretation is that the sadistic zelot personality Fyodor displays is a mixture of a mask and a coping mechanism, kind of similar to Yosano developing a sadistic side to help her deal with the guilt of half killing people in order to heal them. I think it makes sense that after centuries of cruelty and manipulation a person would become detached and stop really caring about the lives he destroys.

This analysis is partially unfinshed but I wanted to post it now and see what other people think of it.

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unicornpopcorn14 · 1 day

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Wild thought, but I don't think skk's relationship was ever truly substantial until corruption got into the mix.

I don't think they even spent that much time working together prior to the events SB.

Yes, they were still a powerful duo. They still maintained their relationship with bickering and teasing. But it was all a little shallow, never something deeper going on.

Which made way for so much misunderstanding and miscommunication to occur between them. They couldn't read each other well- Dazai didn't always predict Chuuya's wild actions, and Chuuya never saw Dazai past the manipulative demeanor/playful facade, so he never truly trusted his words on things.

That can also be proven by Chuuya's dynamic with the Flags, his doubt and anger and mistrust. While you can chalk his behavior to what happened between him and the sheep, a part of me is confident that his surface-relationship with Dazai played a part in that as well.

Dazai and Mori were Chuuya's first impression of what the mafia world is, so anyone in the mafia should be like them, correct? That is what he was sure it was like: constant demeaning and manipulation, nothing genuine or real. So the flags' actions were always fake in his eyes, till the day they showed him a photo and he realized... Maybe they weren't.

But that deters us from the main point.

Skk's dynamic continued to be that of shallowness, which I imagine made way for many serious arguments between them when they were 15 for how differently they viewed things. They never really sat down, never had a moment of peace to just... talk or dwell or communicate. Never even bothered knowing the other past what they already know. Chuuya was simply Dazai's dumb and loud dog. Dazai was simply a suicidal freak and a bastard to Chuuya.

Until SB's events happened...

Specifically, this scene:

Clearly, this was the first time Dazai has shown that he cares about Chuuya without any filters or connotation. This was the first time Chuuya has seen Dazai being directly genuine with him.

And as mentioned, this was the first time Dazai was ever completely serious with Chuuya.

All because of Corruption.

And it would remain a trend from then on. Dazai's tone would always shift at the mention of using Arahabaki, of Chuuya's free will, of turning to Corruption as a last resort (see: corruption analysis).

These moments were raw. These moments were real.

And Chuuya would witness those moments that disprove his initial thoughts of Dazai simply being a heartless, soulless and twisted person. With confusion the first few times, then comprehension so deep it shifts his worldviews entirely.

Corruption forced soukoku to work along for more missions, forced them to see each other at their worst, lowest instances. Forced Dazai to witness Chuuya's quiet moments, forced Chuuya to experience qualities of care Dazai only reserves for special, special people...

Forced them to intensely understand one another, whether they liked it or not.

And ever so slowly, the trust that was built was something no one can ever shatter, no matter how many years of separation urged them to...

"What's with you, asking something like that?"

It's that moment. The moment sokouku's relationship became something so, so much more...

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cvntkisser · 4 hours

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okay, i understand that fukuchis ability allows him to make any weapon he wields a hundred times more powerful. but how the hell does that allow a sword to just liquify someone???? swords do not have the ability to liquify stuff. asagiri, did you fail math??? did you even take it??? because zero multipled by a hundred is still zero. so explain where a sword gained the power to LIQUIFY someone.

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noose-lion · 2 months

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Dazai gets floor time and Chuuya gets ceiling time. We call that balance.

#bsd #my stuff #screaming into the void #and the void screams back #bungou stray dogs #bungou gay dogs #soukoku #bsd dazai #dazai osamu #bsd chuuya #chuuya nakahara #bsd headcanon #bsd crack #bsd analysis #jester thinks

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thedarkdisgrace · 2 months

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Isn’t it interesting the two people closest to Chuuya when he joined the mafia cover opposite eyes?

Edit: I’m gonna post an short kind of analysis on this soon.

Edit 2: posted the analysis

#chuuya nakahara #dazai osamu #soukoku #bsd #bungou stray dogs #bsd analysis #skk #chuuya x dazai #chuuya #dazai #ozaki kouyou #bsd kouyou

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etrevil · 1 month

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Verlaine. Verlaine. I get it that your husband just died in the 15!manga, beautifully, and that your basement is so comfy but. Verlaine. There's a triple singularity. Verlaine. Verlaine. Fyodor's rocking everybody's shit. Your lil bro's stressed too. VERLAINE SKK IS STUCK IN FRANCE. VERLAINE WHAT MORE OF A STORM DO YOU WANT???

#manifesting verlaine #also worried about adam because while i do want him to be here. if he kills fyodor. won't that affect mary wollstonecraft??#his creator i mean #cause in a way he's like the vampires???#bsd analysis #but not really hahha #bsd shitpost #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bsd manga #bsd chapter 114.5 #paul verlaine #bsd verlaine #bsd fyodor #bsd dazai #bsd chuuya #bsd adam

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originalaccountname · 6 months

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I officially went insane last night and I need to break my silence once more on the subject,

Dear skk fic writers who sustain me and who I love so dearly,

The top of Chuuya's head arrives at about mouth level to Dazai. That means Chuuya's face aligns with Dazai's collarbones. On average, the arm reaches the crotch at ~wrist-level (get up and check or pull up a picture), so here we can see Dazai's crotch reaches the top of Chuuya's hipbone, while Chuuya's reaches the top of Dazai's thigh.

And because I'm thorough I brought other examples, just in case this was somehow a fluke or their height vary:

There are slight variations (also perspective and such) but it's pretty consistant. Their height difference is 21cm, it's slightly less than a head's worth, so it all tracks.

This is a great reference for their (oh so beloved) height difference for everyone, but you know why I'm saying this. You understand why I tracked their hip/crotch height. If this concerns you, you know. You can still make it work. You just need to be slightly more creative. There are easy answers. I believe in you.

#i'm saying this with love and respect in my heart i love and appreciate you mwah 💖#thank you for coming to my ted talk #bsd #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs #skk #soukoku #i'm not gonna tag their characters in this this is silly #bsd analysis #apparently i talk sometimes

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justcallmesakira · 1 month

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I love how the bsd fandom was celebrating chuuyas birthday being happy, joyful, a bit of angsty JUST yesterday and then fyodor just comes to ruin the party like that one auntie that no one of the family likes.

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chrxnicdaydream · 2 months

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hc that Dazai made a point of calling Chuuya small when they met because Dazai was used to being the small one.

like, finally there was someone shorter than him. because let’s be real, Dazai was barely taller than Chuuya in Fifteen.

i think people forget how small Dazai was too— not just in height, but also in weight. He was underweight in Dark Era, but in Fifteen & even at present he's barely within the healthy weight range for his height. he was constantly described as a twig in Fifteen, and almost every time he's introduced in the light novels he's called lanky, slender, etc.

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definetelynotavampire · 3 months

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no wonder fyodor likes classical music so much, mf was there when they released it TT

#he listens to medival pop song covers and feels nostalgic #things that are younger than fyodor apparently: toilet paper #bsd 113 #bsd #fyodor #bsd113 #bsd fyodor #bsd analysis #bungou stray dogs

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frenchonionsoop · 9 months

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Just because I've seen a few people complaining about Dazai "knowing exactly what was gonna happen from the start" I just want to point something out

Dazai didn't know what was going to happen, he had 0 control over the situation, all he did was trust in Ranpo and the ADA.

The point of it all, or at least how I've interpreted it, is portraying just how much he's grown to admire and love the agency. His faith in his "allies" gave him enough confidence to let them handle it, funnily enough Dazai had barely any hand in the planning of it at all!

He put together what each person was scheming by watching the events play out, and don't forget he had Ango communicating with him all the while.

I have no issue with anybody upset over this, I just thought I'd put my take out there. I think the subtlety of Dazai's growth sometimes causes it to go unnoticed, his redemption plays out in small moments like this, hidden beneath much bigger actions.

#bsd #bsd spoilers #bsd analysis #bsd anime spoilers #bsd dazai #bungou stray dogs #dazai osamu

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sorcerersandskillusers · 4 months

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I want to talk about one of the most terrifying and interesting bsd characters who almost no fan remembers.

This character nearly tore down the ADA without ever getting involved herself, yet the entire fandom has ignored her because of her terrible anime adaptation.

Who am I talking about?

Nobuko Sasaki

If you haven't read Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam, then you probably don't even know who this character is, in the anime she is watered down to the lovesick girlfriend of an actual villain, and you probably dismissed her immediately. But in the light novel, we get to see how dangerous and cunning she really is, to the point she nearly gets the better of Dazai and almost causes the ADA to be shut down. (Fukuzawa says he would have closed the agency if they hadn't caught her)

In terms of intelligence I'd put her on the same level as Mori, just slightly below the super human genius characters i.e. Dazai, Fyodor and Ranpo

The Azure Apostle

For those who don't remember, Sasaki was the Azure Apostle, a mysterious figure who challenged the agency with several horrifying cases, which would all lead to mass casualties if the agency failed to stop them. These were; uncovering an underground organ smuggling operation (which the agency failed to stop and which massively hurt their reputation) stopping a bombing of Yokohama port which could have killed hundreds of people, and preventing a commercial aeroplane from crashing into the city (this was not included in the anime)

Each of the people, who committed these crimes, had no Idea they were being manipulated and thought it was their own idea the whole time. There was no evidence that anyone else had been involved at all, and the agency had no way to connect her to any of the crimes. And she even makes the genius move of framing Dazai, the mysterious new member with suspicious knowledge of the underworld and a hidden past, as the true culprit.

In fact, she only made one mistake, challenging Dazai. If Dazai had been basically anyone else, they would have been cornered and arrested, but since Dazai's mind works on a level even master strategists can't imagine, he was able to turn the tables on her.

But even after Dazai sees through her plans, the ADA still has to act exactly the way she wants them too and stop the plane crash. Even when they know they're being manipulated, they still have to do exactly what she wanted.

Finally, after Dazai and Kunikida confront her and get her to admit to being behind all those crimes, even then they are powerless to stop her.

Even after being involved with so many massive crimes, Sasaki herself hadn't done anything illegal, so within the law the ADA is completely powerless to stop her.

They can't arrest her, and if they try then the agency will be put in even more danger as will many innocent lives. She has completely trapped the ADA, and even Dazai in a choice to follow the law and let her go or take justice into their own hands and prove they will stoop as low as she did.

In the end, there she has them in a perfect deadlock, let her continue her mission, or kill her themselves. Both are bad outcomes for the ADA.

In the end, Dazai has her killed by using a third party (Rokuzo) to shoot her, so the agency can't be blamed for her murder, though this ends her plans it deeply scars Kunikida and shakes his resolve in his ideals.

The trauma from this event still haunts Kunikida to this day, we see that when he is affected by Q's curse, Sasaki is who he sees.

So thats the Azure Apostle, a terrifying master mind who nearly brought down the Armed Detective Agency, but now lets look at the other side of this character.

Nobuko Sasaki Herself

We know several things about Sasaki as a character and her history from the light novel. That she was a brilliant criminal psychologist and was internationally recognised despite being so young

,that she was the ex-lover of the Azure King and the real mastermind behind his plans, and that she had very little motivation of her own.

That's not meant to be an insult to the character, she says herself that she never really had much direction in life, even with her incredible intelligence she never really had anything she wanted to achieve.

But the Azure King was the opposite, he had powerful drive and strong ideals, he wanted to punish criminals who couldn't be touched by the law and when he failed to change the law as a bureaucrat, she offered him an alternative.

A very important thing here is that neither of them were manipulating or forcing the other into this path, as far as we see they genuinely loved each other, each providing something the other couldn't, Sasaki her mind and the Azure King his drive.

When the Azure king died, Sasaki had no path of her own to follow, so she simply kept following his, even though she doesn't seem to have really cared about his cause.

All of this creates a very unique character, you can't say she was driven by revenge, because she wasn't really driven at all. It's more like she was running on momentum, she had chosen a path to follow and could not stop even though there was nothing pushing her down it any more.

She's a perfect antithesis of Kunikida and was the best possible villain a light novel about him could have had.

A man who brings his ideals into reality with his own hands against a woman who uses others to enforce ideals that were never hers to begin with.

Anyway, I made this because Sasaki is criminally underrated in this fandom, If you haven't read "Dazai Osamu's Entrance Exam" I highly recommend it, I've only put a tiny fraction of the amazing story here.

#bsd #bungou stray dogs #bungo stray dogs #bungou stray dogs dazai #dazai #dazai osamu #bsd analysis #doppo kunikida #bsd kunikida #kunikida doppo #bungou stray dogs kunikida #dazai osamu's entrance exam #bsd entrance exam #bsd light novel #dazai's entrance exam #bsd character analysis #bsd characters #Nobuko Sasaki #bsd sasaki

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