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Still Waters » Dive Deep » The Muse

This is what started the idea for this site, when Tasuki read this and asked if I'd considered doing a Filia shrine based off essays like this. This is the original rant which was posted to my LiveJournal, my JournalFen, Hated_Character, and HatedSlayers.

In spite of the fact that Filia is my favorite character, Filia bashing doesn't piss me off to the level that Amelia-bashing does, mainly because I'll readily acknowledge the fact when TRY begins, she is without a doubt a little immature child who thinks she has all the answers and doesn't need to ask any questions. I won't call her spoiled though. If anything, from what I can tell of the religious structure at the temple, and what I know personally of religious institutions like that, I would bet the farm on her upbringing being seeped in abuse. Penance for wrongdoings in that kind of environment are too often accompanied by physical suffering. She's got a very submissive nature - I can't be sure if she's a born true sub, or if she was molded into one, but I'm willing to bet she was actually born as a true submissive because while she later shows she does have inner strength and a backbone, she still retains the subby traits that just grabbed my attention. Submissive does not mean doormat.

I think part of what hampers her progress with fans is that it's not common in any series for a character to undergo such an extreme transformation over the course of one season, especially with half-hour episodes in what was originally a comedy (it still is, but it's a much darker comedy; they should have gone with black humor instead of the wonderland scenes IMHO; things like the wonderland scenes don't fit in with the darkness of the rest of the season, they come across as trying too hard to interject humor. In a darker setting, black, or "graveyard", humor comes across much better and is funnier. The gravedigger scene in Hamlet is a great example of this.) I've seen it done elsewhere before, so I'm a bit used to seeing a fast paced involvement and a huge metamorphosis of a character in a short span of time. I was a Babylon:5 addict, what do you expect? ^_^

She's holier-than-thou and insufferable in the beginning, I won't deny this. To be quite honest, I wasn't too impressed with her either, even though my fiance kept telling me I would love this character. (True, she didn't make me stabby the way Millerna in Escaflowne did, but that was a different type of snobbery.) Episode, I believe it was the fifth one, when Filia really interacts with Xellos for the first time, that episode underscores very heavily just how so very young she is, how immature, and how extraordinarily naive she is. She has no real comprehension of who and what Xellos really is, a fact that shocks even him. Actually, I'd wager he's also shocked because he's likely wondering the same thing I was: Just what were the Elders thinking, sending someone that inexperienced and naive out into the world on such an important, critical, life-or-death mission?

Remember when Saichuro froze the gang in place to take the Sword of Light from Gourry? That's when Filia's backbone starts appearing. No, you never saw it before. That was just her thinking she was in the right. Now she's faced with a critical moral choice -- defy the Elders or go along? Something's not kosher here.

And the fact she so readily starts to believe what Valgaav said, the fact she was determined to travel on with Lina and find out the truth for herself rather than listen to the Elders is another clue that something may have been off about that place. You aren't going to be so accepting to such a horrible truth about your family, your people, everyone you've ever known and loved, your entire world...unless the seeds of doubt and wariness are already planted in your heart.

I'd like to point out that bit again. Filia's admitted lack of experience taking a human form suggests that she's either never left the temple, or likely never has very much or by herself before. That holier-than-thou attitude she had? She was maintaining her belief and faith in the only home she had, the only home she knew. Do you really think she had any real knowledge about how to run a household, how to do even the simplest of things like make soap or candles, or how to balance a budget and live on a limited income in a time period when starting from scratch was an enormous task; most things -- equipment and land and knowledge -- were passed down from family to family, and shared among themselves. The Goldens were her family (it's actually been brought up that Saichuro might be her father; information was posted on a Japanese fan site, along with little-known, but also known to be correct, information on the Mazoku hierarchy. She even says herself in Ep. 14 to Valgaav that her father's the High Priest.) and all she'd ever known. She trusted them, she loved them...or perhaps she had just convinced herself she did because where else could she possibly go?

Holding up your entire life and being willing to pick it all apart -- everything you know and everything you are -- takes a great deal of courage and fortitude. Yes, there were times she seemed to resist the truth, kept asking for confirmation even when it should have been obvious, but who wouldn't? Who wouldn't, in her shoes, still cling to a little ray of hope that maybe, just maybe, things aren't really as bad as they seem, that this is just a misunderstanding, a bad dream, that everything's going to be okay somehow? When confronted face to face with the full intensity of that very proof she sought, it broke her. Remember that look on her face in the Ancient's temple, hearing their words after seeing the bones and spears? And then she pulled herself back together and accepted it. Could you, in her shoes, do that? How much strength and courage do you think that had to take?

Why was she chosen for this mission? Because she was thought to be too inexperienced and naive to know the right questions to ask? Because she was thought to be too submissive to stand up for her principles if she found out the truth? Because she was expendable? All of the above? Saichuro's words and actions at the Ancient's temple indicate they likely knew a great deal more about the prophesy than she was told. He told Xellos that Filia was expendable, although not in so many words. He admitted that they committed genocide to stay in power, even if his words were twisted to slant to his point of view.

How do you think that felt? Put yourself there, being held hostage by your family's enemy, and hearing from the lips of someone you followed, someone you looked up to, perhaps even your own parent, say in so many words that you're expendable, that you're not as important as keeping what happened there concealed, keeping Galvayra out of anyone else's hands? No, his motives weren't admirable -- it was a "if we can't get to it, no one shall" thing. He was too ready to give up the Sword of Light, after all, but they all went in to attack when they got close to Galvayra.

You've just been cast aside and dismissed as being of little importance, perhaps by your own father.

Fast forward to the end. She left the temple, and by the end of TRY, everyone who could have answered any questions that might have arisen in the aftermath are dead. There's no one left for her to turn to, to go to, to even look to and ask "Why? I obeyed you, I followed you, I served you, and you lied to me. You used me. You betrayed me. WHY?" No closure. All she can do is go on.

Remember how immature she was not all that long ago? She's just a girl. If she were human, she'd likely have been in her late teens. Now she's lost everything. Everything she knew, everything she was, everything in her life. Perhaps L-sama brought Val's egg to her to give her a purpose to work toward. Lesser circumstances than hers have destroyed people, after all. She has the strength, but can she keep it up long enough to reach the end of the tunnel? If she has something to work toward, a purpose, a goal, then perhaps.

And she had so much guilt. In a game I'm playing in, a teenage Val remarked to Xellos that Filia hoards guilt the way other Dragons hoard gold. She took the burden of her entire race's crimes onto her own shoulders, even though she personally was innocent. She wouldn't be one to let this reborn Val down, even if it killed her. She'd feel she owes him all she is, and all she can give. You saw it in TRY, when she's trying to plead with him to stop the chain of events he'd set into motion. She didn't want to kill him, and she'd felt that she'd failed somewhere.

And what about the other Dragons? (i.e., the ones at Dragon's Peak) Do you really think she'd want to go to them? Think about it. Your world's been turned inside out. The ones you thought stood for all that was holy and good in the world turned out to be murderers and liars. So many lies twisted one upon the other that you can't even tell where they end and the truth begins. What's more, you believed them for so long. And ironically, the most you learned about truth came from humans and even a Mazoku! Could you really trust another Dragon, especially as sheltered as you'd been? How do you know they won't lie either? How do you know they won't try to kill Val when your back is turned?

The very end of TRY shows a happy ending for her, but do you really think it was as easy as that? "And they all lived happily ever after..." Let's look at this realistically.

She likely had a hefty traveling budget to begin with, but how much do you think was left by the end? How much money do you think Jillas and Gravos had? Where did they stay? How did they get food? More to the matter, how did they get the money to buy that place and start a business? All that takes money. Those are just the obvious expenses.

Imagine if you will what being in Filia's shoes is like. You're not quite fully an adult, just a teenager, and you've never questioned the answers given to anything in your life. Black is black and white is white. You're assured of who you are, what you are, and your place in the world. You have very little questions, and many, many answers. Then you find out everything's a lie. Your family? You've discovered you're expendable to them. All the beliefs and values they've instilled in you? Lies. So many lies all tangled up within one another, how can you possibly begin to tell where the truth begins, if there's any truth at all? And to top it off, every last one of them dies before you can even ask them why, let alone get any sense of closure.

You've never really had to worry about anything before. Where would your clothes come from? What about soap? A roof over your head and food on the table? You've never had to worry about your basic needs, and you have only a vague idea of what goes into running a household. And now, abruptly, you find yourself alone and forced to find out, not just for yourself but for a child you've adopted, someone orphaned by the deeds and lies of your family.

You know nothing of raising a child, and your purse is a bit light. You have a couple friends to help out, but it's still difficult. You know your first objective is to try to get enough money to buy a place to live; inns are expensive, after all, and once you have a stationary place, you can try to sell some crafts you know you can make. Even if you get a windfall and get a decent deal on a house that's mostly furnished when an old widow moves out to live with her son's family, you're still not out of the woods.

It costs money to set up a shop. Food costs money. Your dress has become a bit worn from all the traveling, and so have your boots. Can you afford new clothes? Do you even know how to sew your own? You can't exactly go into JoAnn's Fabrics and pick up a pattern in those days, and store-bought clothes are rather pricey. No. Your boots, you'll have to figure out a way to make do, repair the soles if necessary. You find a trunk of old, out of style dresses in the cellar, but none of them fit. You get practical and piece dresses together, trying to find things that don't clash too much, and try to make them look somewhat presentable.

Food. Where do you get your butter? Your milk? Your eggs and your meat and your bread? Where are your vegetables? You'll have to start a garden; until then, it's spending money at the market. You could probably afford a few hens for eggs, since feeding them wouldn't be too pricey and good hens are productive, but a cow and a pig? Forget it. You're still trying to figure out how to put food in the bellies of three people and a growing baby; you don't need to worry about the cost of grain and hay. So for the time being it's more expensive than it's worth to buy the livestock. You keep buying your milk and meat at the market. Do you know how to make butter? What about soap? You don't have a pig to slaughter in the fall, so you don't have the fat you need to boil in with lye to make soap. You'll have to buy it. Firewood's another big chore, since you don't have a wagon to haul it back into town. Candles - do you have the supplies and the knowledge to make them? You'll have to buy them if you don't, and oil for the lamps. Just one expense after another that you never really thought about before. And you still have to get that shop up and running. What about when winter comes? Do you know how to prepare food and can it? Do you even have the equipment for it? Can you afford it? Can you afford to NOT afford it come winter?

Now let's look at the child - do you know how to raise a child? Do you have any good role models in your life to emulate? Do you know what normal interaction in a family should be like? There were so many lies, how do you know if you're doing it right, or if you're becoming like them? And what of the child? Will he hate you when he finds out the truth of who he is, and what you are? And you're lonely. There's no one you can really talk to, it seems, and you're proud. You don't want people to know about all the darkness you keep locked in a deep little place in your heart, the fears, the doubts, the anger. You used to have all answers and no questions. Now you have no answers and nothing but questions, and no one to really ask.

She went from being an arrogant little brat to someone who had to learn the hard way the truth about her family, who she is, and how to survive on her own. There's a Garth Brooks song that keeps standing out in my mind as being very appropriate for Filia at this point in time. So fitting in fact that one of these days, soon's I can team up with Unoriginality for the task, I'm going to make an AVM of it.

She sits among the pieces
Of broken glass and photographs.
Reluctantly releases
The last of what was her past.
It struck without a warning
Or did she just ignore the signs
Of those dark clouds forming
Behind her silver lines?

The door, it slammed like thunder,
And the tears, they fell like rain.
And the warnings from her family
Whirl like a hurricane.
She's drowning in emotion,
And she cannot reach the shore.
She is alive,
But will she survive the storm?

A broken jewel box dancer
Lies in pieces down the hall.
She's finding out that the answers
Don't change nothing at all.
It's time that she stopped searching
For who's to blame or what went wrong.
The only thing that's certain is
He's gone, she's got to move on.

The door, it slammed like thunder,
And the tears, they fell like rain.
And the warnings from her family
Whirl like a hurricane.
She's drowning in emotion,
And she cannot reach the shore.
She is alive,
But will she survive the storm?

Some days just roll on by
Without a gray cloud in the sky.
She keeps telling herself
"I can make it on my own."
And her friends,
They've all gone back to their lives,
Thinking she will be all right
As she races through the night to make it home.

The door, it slammed like thunder,
And the tears, they fell like rain.
And the warnings from her family
Whirl like a hurricane.
She's drowning in emotion,
And she cannot reach the shore.
She is alive,
But will she survive the storm?

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