Dgm Spoilers - Blog Posts

who are you now

Sometimes I think about Allen’s habit of making terrible horrible deals with the devil, not asking any of the terms… but also they always come at very vulnerable times.

the first time, he’s dying and all of his comrades have been wiped out. The second, the only person in the world he loves and who loved him has just died (and he’s like 10, max). The third time, he’s just found out that his whole life’s a lie and he’s probably a construct—though to be fair, he was kind of given the terms on that one.

but I guess that is sometimes a characteristic of deals with the devil is that they come when desperate

I might make a more in depth post about this later, but there’s something about Allen and Mana’s ways of grieving that stick out to me. They’re so similar, but I think there’s one key difference:

Mana forgets, Allen doesn’t.

When confronted with guilt over hurting a loved one (regardless of circumstances) and the grief of losing them, Mana couldn’t stand to look at himself to the point he literally changed his own face. He spent years searching for the very brother he killed. He hated himself so much he became someone else (Adam). It wasn’t it his fault (Adam’s), it was his fault (Mana’s)

Allen is similar, but ends up swinging in the opposite direction. When he’s at his lowest, he couldn’t cope with it either, becoming catatonic (is that the right word?). After he comes out of that state, it’s because he needs to keep a promise that he (Allen) made to Mana. And like Mana he’s acting like a different person! But he’s still Allen and he carries the guilt of turning Mana into an Akuma directly. He can’t change his face. Everything about his appearance is a constant reminder. It was his fault, and he’s going to spend everyday atoning for it.

I enjoy this so very much because I’ve already been making jokes that Allen is somehow his own father in such a convoluted way.

Like his adoptive father is Mana, whose brother is Nea. Nea is possessing Allen, thus inhabiting the same body and making it not only his, but also his uncles body; you might think this is where it ends. But Mana and Nea are two halves of the same individual. So Allen is possessed by half of his adoptive father’s soul. Thus he is his own father.

If I integrate this new, fresh theory, I can now joke that Allen is both his own biological and adoptive father.

If past!Allen and past!Lavi got orbed to make Allen, does that make them Allen's biological parents? Since Bookman is past!Lavi's father, does that make him Allen's grandfather?

with the knowledge that innocence is an parasitic entity that basically eats misery, I want someone to know that I think of Crowned Clown refusing to let Allen be killed/die or be separated as a kid throwing a tantrum because someone took away their candy.

like Apocryphos is desperately trying to get this piece of candy away because “it’s not good for you!” and Crowned Crown is kicking screaming crying about losing this food.

I love Link and Allen (the parallels between their relationships with their father figures are great too!), but I have to say, I was kinda with Kanda in the whole “don’t take him with you, he’s going to betray you.” Like, I understand Link’s reasons and I’m not mad at him.

but at the same time, when Allen agreed wholeheartedly to take Link along, I was just thinking “girl stand up”

gotta be infuriating to be one of the people involved in the plotting/secrets of the Holy War in dgm.

you picked random guy one to be the Guy Who Dies (he even agreed!) and he’s just… so hard to kill. Everything that you’ve done to kill him has backfired and he’s harder to kill now.

your choice to use him as your memory vessel extended his life temporarily. that other guy’s attempt at killing for this decision failed miserably, now he has a weapon and is years younger. the weapon is no longer responding to commands and won’t kill him. yet another person tries to kill him, but because he’s a kid now, he feels bad and spares him. you feel bad when you try to kill him, even after he’s grown up a bit—he’s just so nice!

when he tries to die on his own, he’s super durable.

now you’re just waiting him out, but he’s making everything so difficult. you think you’re getting somewhere, and then he comes back, clinging to life and sanity by the skin of his teeth.

he’s dying at a rapid, unstoppable rate and he’s unkillable.

allen is better than me because if that many people apologized or expressed remorse for trying to kill me and/or fucking me over royally and then continued to try to kill me/fuck me over, I would have a body count. I’d be swinging. all the time.

I haven’t read the alma karma arc recently, so I could be entirely off base, but does anyone else think that the second exorcist experiments might have been trying to recreate what happened with past!allen? like I don’t remember if there was a given reason/inspiration beyond “need more soldiers, why not revive old ones,” but the basics seem rather similar to me.

a person is revived after being killed (or as good as) in the body of a child with no concrete memory of who they were before (or so I assume in allen's case but that could have happened later).

injuries are unnaturally healed by using the helix of life—in the second exorcists’ case by taking it from their future/lifespan and for allen using someone else’s life.

I think the timeline might match up, too. I don’t know exactly how old allen starts out as, but we do know that present!lavi is older by like 3 years. I think allen looked between 5-8 (terrible at estimating…), so if we go short, that’s ~8 years for the final result to be revealed to apocryphos. And kanda’s been alive for 9 years chronologically, which would put allen’s age at like 6-7. That seems like adequate time to get weird fantasy sci-fi experiments up and running.

and with the way apocryphos was looking at that light cocoon allen was in, I wouldn’t be surprised if he took some inspiration, one way or another.

allen: what’s with all this “chosen one” bullshit? Chosen by who? Why me??

allen, upon regaining his memories:

allen: son of a bitch

can’t imagine how Allen’s conversation with the Bookman clan is going to go upon waking up. They’re pissed at him because they couldn’t find past!lavi’s body. Past!lavi didn’t leave a body because he basically absorbed it into past!allen’s.

Imagine having to explain that. How do possibly explain that.

dgm manga spoilers

this is entirely a crackpot theory as I haven’t reread all of dgm in ages, so I’m likely missing a lot of relevant information, but:

is the reason for the earl making akuma to prevent new accommodators? Like, if I’m interpreting past!lavi’s words correctly, innocence feeds off of/attaches itself to people of particular suffering and tragedy, right? And mana won’t let himself grieve/cry because it will attract the earl (I think) and Allen is the same. So is the earl intentionally going after people who experience great suffering and just… nipping them in the bud? if the innocence is hostile, or even just keeping in mind the Noah clan’s hatred of it, then preventing it from getting stronger from feeding or gaining the ability of fight would be a smart move.

I’m not sure why specifically going after people in deep grief is a qualifier outside narrative themes, but it would make some sense to me, especially if the Noah’s past world was destroyed due to something relating to the innocence.