What an ending! Not just in content, I’ll get to that, but in visual conception. The scene of Edward sitting at an off-white baby grand in the middle of a green garden with workers in the background was already great by itself. The snippet was fantastic. It had some wonderful colours and an absolutely bonkers composition but then, the actual playing was some brilliant directing.
I remembered instantly thinking that his hand movements were really well animated and then I noticed. And all the while as the soot is creeping up and out, only the sound of the music can be heard until it literally bleeds into the closing credits which seem to be episode-specific. I really love the Shadows House ED. I downloaded the song. But I love shows with changing contextual EDs even more!
I’m not sure how to go about this episode. Let’s see, my first note is this. I don’t “like” Ricky but he’s a great character. I find that weak or cowardly characters usually bring a lot to a story and aren’t always that easy to write. Ricky is a great example. The balance isn’t perfect but his presence tends to draw out all the other characters’ personalities by contrast and I think the show would suffer if he wasn’t there.
The second note I took is: boy, Shirley is frightening. Not Shirley herself but the image we saw of her. For some reason, the fact that she was sown to the chair really freaked me out. And it sort of implies that she sat there and let people sew her to a chair. I wonder how John would have reacted if they tried it on him.
Now I’m going to jump around a little bit first, Lou told us about the fact that soot acts differently depending on the shadow it comes from. I don’t know what it means but it’s a cool little bit of worldbuilding. What intrigued me though was that Shirley emits almost no soot at all. Later in the episode Rum finally broke down and admitted that she and Shirley have almost no connection and that Shirley didn’t even name her. She plainly says that she can’t tell what Shirley is feeling at all.
And I’m thinking, could Shirley be autistic? Or maybe have some condition that makes it difficult for her to express emotional states in an easy-to-read way and recognize those of others?
These are supposed to be short posts so let’s not beat around the bush. Whaaa, Edward’s a shadow? It explains how self-assured he is and I was wondering why he seemed to have so much authority. Maybe all those spectator shadows can also essentially turn into “dolls” in the same way, that’s why we didn’t see their faces with them.
My first instinct is that doll and shadow essentially fuse. Two become one sort of thing. But then I thought about the veiled dolls and the narratives instance on reminding us of their existence. So maybe they don’t fuse entirely, the shadows just take their faces. Hence the need for a veil, so we don’t have a bunch of faceless dolls lumbering about. Ultimately every doll’s fate is to become veiled. I wonder if all the shadows know that?
Look at me talking as if my crazy theories are fact. But there’s a lot of evidence to support it, or something similar. And if the shadows know this… well it explains why it soo important for dolls to take care of their face but I would be a bit disappointed in Kate and confused by John… It changes all the emotional impact of the shadow-doll relationships completely!
Good theory about the veiled dolls!
I had to remind myself what my theory was. And yeah, that was a cool theory!
Theory makes sense to me. The watching shadows don’t have their faces with them, and I’ve always wondered why. It would make sense to me that way. One thing though: considering the theory, can the face grow up with a shadow? I mean the debutants are all clearly younger than the others, and Edward’s face is grown up.
I’m totally into this show.
I’m not sure. We have seen younger shadows that have had their debut and are still separate and quite different like Mia. Maybe it’s a slow gradual thing. Or there’s a second adulthood ceremony…
“I don’t “like” Ricky”
It’s okay, give it some time XD
Pretty much all of your questions here would be answered in this season (as we don’t know if this anime will get a second one) and several of them in the next episode.
And one more thing – did you catch that Allie and Jer adressed to Edward as “Ed” AND “Edward” time to time?
I did not. I didn’t pay attention to it but now that you mentioned it I’m going to keep an ear out!!!!